Don't you hate it when....

Don't you hate it when life keeps getting in your way?  I have missed Valentine's Day with my girlfriend, and now it seems like I can never get back to properly celebrate it with her.  It's always some test or paper that has to be done that prevents me from going home for one weekend.

And life does more than that.....it stops your social life alot these days. Our group doesnt meet up anymore too much.  We cant even get a movie night planned out for late at night. Everyone's working or has schoolwork.  Life has it's ups but not today lol. Ah C'est la vie!!

Recap

I know it has been some time since I last posted something on Xanga, but lately I hadnt anything to say.  I don't mention trivial stuff if i dont have to, and much of my life has been going on normally.  Nothing too new has occurred.  But I guess I can always summarize some of the slightly more important events.

• As everyone already knows, I am now the RA of first floor Ratliff.  I honestly think I got the quietest floor in this dorm.  Nothing has happened except the minor problem of tracking down the few people who think they can skip hall meetings without notifying the RA about prior commitments or just to skip for the heck of it.  I still love the traditional: "I didn't know about it" comment.  How can you miss it when the flyers are on every exit/entrance out of the building?  Or are people just too lazy to read?  I guess we will never know, but the problem always remains.  Other than that, life has been easy so far.  Still haven't figured out a non-social event but Im sure that the idea will come to me soon.

• I got the refund on my Nintendo Wii as a Christmas gift.  I only have one controller right now for it, but I have 3 for GameCube games.  So if anyone just wants to give it a shot, I am sure we can utilize the one controller for Wii Sports or do something with three people with whatever GameCube games I have.  The motion detection on it is awesome.  For a cheaper system (concerning what the new systems are priced today), this is a technology that will really catch people's attention.  It is one more step to being immersed in a game that you can control more directly, or as Robin puts it:  "closer to the Matrix."  Anyways, whatever anyone wants to do will be great.  I do want to socialize as much as I am able to.

• Experimental Psychology is everything I was warned about.  This is something that would rank easily with Organic Chemistry if one compared the study time for Organic with the research time with Experimental.  This one class already feels like 3.  It's insane.  With the present time of having two jobs and 17 hours, this is going to be fun, NOT.  Oh well, with recent events, I may only have to deal with one job, as I will mention on the next bullet.  I will still try to make social time though :).

• Movie Gallery has been great until the recent manager change.  This is something that didn't even need the attention of the district manager.  Apparently, Brandon's manager couldnt deal with the stress, especially rude customers (uh, HELLO, welcome to RETAIL!!!! GET OVER IT) and thought that by working at Clinton store she would do much better because Hitesh and I are good workers (this is an assumption for why she moved, but it is probably truth).  All I know is that both Hitesh and I miss our old manager and this new woman couldn't manage even if she had the brainpower to do it.  She sucks and she has poor relational skills.  She makes me look successful socially, and that is saying something.  Anyways, apparently there was a slight miscommunication between Hitesh and me about working last night.  We had agreed to swap Wednesday and Thursday over the weekend, but Hitesh got his schedule late and found out he couldn't work.  He told our new manager about this, and she was ok with it.  THE SAME NIGHT I had said that Hitesh and I swapped Wednesday and Thursday.  Instead of telling me that Hitesh could not work that night due to school, she also said ok.  So there's the problem there....both of us think that Wednesday is covered when it isn't.  I didn't talk with Hitesh until Wednesday at lunch, and after reminding him that we swapped, he said he couldn't do that.  Normally, that would be a concern, but I had a prior commitment to two meetings and RA duty Wednesday night (that is why I asked to switch in the first place).  Anyways, after trying to see if one of the other co-workers could cover, we explained the situation to the new manager and asked if she could just cover it for one night, a small favor to ask.  Every other week would have been set in order.  The basis of my request to her is this:

                1) She AGREED with my old manager to work with me concerning my RA schedule.

                2) I have bailed her butt out at HER old store almost 5 times now.  One night in return, combined with the other reason is not an unwarranted request.

Anyways, she would not do it, she cursed basically at Hitesh while hanging up, and she left me a nasty message saying that if I didnt come in, Hitesh had to, and if he didn't either, then I should not even bother coming to work anymore.  This is where the line is drawn.  I know that she didn't want to help us out, but her message implied that I was planning to screw her regardless and let the store go to crap for the night.  This is a direct attack on my integrity.  I DO NOT SCREW PEOPLE AT WORK.  I help people when I can and I do my job to the best of my abilities.  So I ended up at the last minute switching duties with Robin, going in for most of the night, missing my RA meeting, but fortunately i was able to still do my hall meeting.  So now Hitesh and I are going to talk about what our futures will bring at Movie Gallery.  This whole situation was uncalled for and poorly handled.  I apologize for increasing stress on the new manager possibly, but her reaction to the problem, as valid as the problem was, was pathetic.  How she managed to be a manager for so long I do not know.  All I know is that she has officially pissed off 3/5 of the staff at Movie Gallery with her antics.  The other 2/5 dont know about it yet but they will soon.

In conclusion with this event, I remember the idea that I learned from observation, "when you are a new leader in a business, do not piss off your staff.  They know each other and are more together as a team than they are with the new manager.  Pulling something stupid will get your butt in a sling because your staff will turn against you as a team."  Our new manager already blew that one and she will reap what she sows.

Anyways, that is life at the moment.  Sorry if I vented a little, but I like to keep people up to date with important things, especially people I consider good friends.

Am I missing something here?

I have talked about this issue to a few people many times.  It came up again during some discussions at home, and it still bothers me.  It is the concept of "the more screwed up you are, the more spiritual you are"

My church, though non-denominational, is more charismatic and contemporary than most churches.  We believe in the spiritual gifts, the hand-raising, and so forth that many churches frown upon.  Granted, I have no problem with how people worship or how they pray as long as they are doing it to glorify God and not look good or glorify themselves.

Yet, I have seen the growing trend of the issue mentioned above, especially in my youth group.  I had to stop being involved because of this, apart from a couple other reasons.  I could not stop it, and I couldnt help the youth leader see it.  And I wouldnt support it so I left.

You know that it gets worse when you see a person who is consider massively "spiritual" during the worship time and then try to commit suicide right after because a girl he asked said "no" when asked out to the prom.  Then the next week he calls himself a "spiritual leader" for the group. 

In another instance, you have a girl with alot, and I mean alot, of mental and spiritual baggage (and not the good baggage) who gets prayed for every week to receive help with it all, but she does nothing herself to help alleviate the problems or change her lifestyle to help with it (which is what you are supposed to do, cause God isnt just going to sit there and clean up the mess all the time while you sit on your butt).  It's as if she doesnt want to get better really on the inside.  HOWEVER, she is considered to be one of the most powerful intercessors at the group.

Additionally, both of these people mentioned are considered some of the best advisors when they havent even begun to solve their own internal issues yet.  Get right with God, then help others......not the other way around.

Am I missing something here?  Your spiritual walk with God is greatly affected by how you live your life.  You are not going to get spiritually stronger when you insist on carrying baggage or living in sin all week and then trying to rid yourself of it on Sunday.  I have the correct correlation in my life:  if i find myself living a unrighteous week, I feel myself distancing from God.  And I also stay away from advising people on those issues Im having until I solve them.

True advice comes from someone who has been there before and has found a way to get out of that situation in a healthy manner.  Bad advice comes from one who doesnt deal with the issue, let's it fester, and then try to help others out of it.  All it will do is poison the other person.

I am considered to be completely unfair in my assessment of this situation.  One of the examples I mentioned, thankfully, has not gone to such an extreme since, but I know the person is still tearing himself up inside.  But am I mistaken to say that this issue is bad theology to promote in a church?

Behind Schedule, I Know

Yes I am aware that I told some people that I'd get my new post up and running on Monday, but I do have school too.  And I tend to forget....

So in reference to what I was speaking about last week, I have been thinking about all video games in particular.  Have they moved age groups in the long run?  I have noticed that many more games coming out today either have material (such as pointless violence or excessive nudity) or philosophy/complicated plots backing them up that really only older teenagers can grasp.  I am not seeing games designed much for younger children.  For me personally, I have played games since I was 4.  If what I see now happened then, then I believe that my life would have been different.  I would have not understood what I was seeing on the screen nor the beliefs underlying the plot of the game.

It just seems that the more enhanced games are becoming, the more complicated the plots are becoming.  I do know that children beg their parents to get them games because everyone likes playing once in a while, but if the creators begin making games not designed for younger children, they are going to take out a whole area of business.  Of course, in the long run it could be just me.  I may be just picking the games that are designed for my group and not seeing the whole picture somehow.  But it is always good to hear what other people have to say about the situation.  Knowledge is power--increasing it only makes one a more well-balanced person.

What are your thoughts on it?

Every Blog Has A Beginning

 Well I just got an account and I might as well start off the blog.

Lemme get on with the facts.  The largest is that I am not a man of many words.  You want help, Ill give it....just dont expect a saga of advice.  You want to talk, by all means I love a good conversation.  I may be more open to discussion in real life, but I cant think of alot to say on a blog.  Second, Im quite blunt with people.  Yes, I am aware that it upsets people, but I see no point in beating around the bush about a problem.  You either face it or you dont--simple as that.  Third is that I have good concepts that I think about, but I am not the best with words, so if my blogs come off confusing, offensive, or just plain strange, message me about a particular part and Ill try to explain it better.

But anyways, enough of that, time to begin.  I guess the big thing on my mind was inspired by a game that Robin rented from Movie Gallery--Ace Combat 6: The Belkan War (you can always count on him giving you something to ponder :) ).  Basically, you pilot an aircraft through various missions, but in this edition, you see how war affects people through hearing interviews in CGI.  It's quite realistic too.  The thought that caught my ear was that in order for the world to change (meaning, wars will cease) is that people need to trust each other.  With what we are experiencing today with the conflict in Iraq and such, is trust all we need to bring peace and change, or is it just a start?  It's a shame that the game leaves that thought hanging, but I guess it gets you to think some on it.  The second thing is that the game has characters who believe that a world with no boundaries is the key.  I guess that goes along with the whole "trust" issue, with people not violating other people's property.  Can we ever develop to a point where we can trust each other to do the right thing?  Or are we only capable of harming one another?  Trust is a large leap...you have to go outside your comfort zone in order to extend a hand of friendship many times, especially with harsher people.  But then I think to myself: was it because that humanity couldnt trust that those people became harsh, at least in certain respects?

Anyways, that was what I've been thinking about within the past couple of days.  Maybe I'll have something new to write on it at a later time.  Any thoughts are appreciated on the subject.