College classes, day one

I finally started classes today. My roommate and I have been getting along more, as we slowly get used to each other. What can I say, we're guys, we don't just go hug and start talking about everything we can think of right off the bat. It'll come in time though.

Today I had to set up a stand for a pro-life group that I am the webmaster of at a student involvement fair. I was the only board member of the club that could make it there during the setup time, so I got drafted/I volunteered. However, what I failed to remember was how soon my first class, elementary French, started after the involvement fair began. My replacement came, and after getting him some much needed info from our website, I checked my schedule and realized I was already about 15 minutes late for my French class. Oops.

Luckily, I apologized to the teacher after class, and she was okay with that lateness because I had a good excuse. However, I am more afraid of taking French now. The teacher plans on speaking in French for most of the class. I have ZERO French experience. She seems very nice though, so I'm still hoping for the best.

Second class, mythology, was good. It's non-Western (i.e. no Greek or Roman) and it's a large lecture class, with 100+ people. However, I managed to participate a fair amount because really, everyone has thoughts, they're just too afraid to say them. Heck, we got asked what we thought someone who had seen God would say what He looked like, and someone suggested "Like Willie Nelson." You know that kid will get a good participation grade.

That's all the classes I had so far, but tomorrow will be much bigger. I have intermediate programming, French again, Social Psychology, and Creative Writing. The programming language is C++, which I never was too good with, so it kind of looks like I'm learning two languages this semester, haha. I'm worried about creative writing though. The syllabus says we'll probably have to write about what scares us, and, well, I'm scared to do that.

How Am I Myself? #1

Well, I said it was going to be positive, so I guess I'll just focus on a good aspect of me.

I was laying on a couch, thinking about what to write, when I brushed up against a fluffy pink blanket draped over the top of the couch. It's a really comfy blanket, so I pulled it down and felt like falling asleep there, and wondered why I couldn't feel like this when I wanted to go to bed. Most times when I go to bed, my blanket (not the pink one) feels uncomfortable, and I have to fight with it and my pillow to get into a good sleeping spot.

Waking up is another story. I don't know about anyone else, but for all the trouble I have getting comfortable at night, I feel absolutely perfect in the morning. Everything just feels right, and I just want to lay there and bask in that feeling. I really think that should be the other way around, I should want to leave when I need to wake up, and want to stay when I need to sleep.

I feel comfortable in weird places. Another place I feel so comfortable in is when I'm just wearing long pants, no shirt or socks, and I'm about to start working out. It makes me feel like a cowboy, or a kung fu master, depending on the type of fabric the pants are made out of.

One place I don't feel comfortable is with people. I don't feel like I'm a good conversationalist. I worry that my small talk is overly boring and annoying to people. If I ever do get past all of that and I actually start talking on a deeper level with people, then all of the big alarms go off. My stomach starts to turn and my hands and my whole body start to shake and it's a struggle to keep myself calm. Even with people that I love, trust, and respect, the same thing happens. I just don't deal with it well at all, even though I love the feeling of talking to people on a deep level. I can't speak my real mind because I'm always afraid of what other people will think of me, and whether my friends will like me less because of the way I really am, not just the masks I put up so I can pretend to be pretty normal.

This is why I find it highly ironic that one of the things people like most about me, the real me, is that I'm easy to talk to. They say that I set people at ease. People feel like it's easier to be themselves around me.

I went on a religious retreat last semester. That was scary. Three days of faith sharing and heart-to-heart discussion is one of my worst nightmares, and one of my greatest dreams. However, I faced my fears, I opened up, and I let the real me shine out. One of my friends, one of the group leaders, she wrote me a letter at the end of the retreat. In part of it, she was telling me some of the things she admired most about me. One of those things was that the way I act, the things I say, they make me easy to connect to. She told me that without people like me, the other retreatants might have never opened up. That makes me so happy, because I know exactly how it feels to not be able to open up to others.

How am I myself?

I am truly myself when I help make others feel like they can be themselves, their true selves, as well.

And that's the whole truth.

The Irony Does Not Escape Me

So at mass today, during the part about the forgiveness of sins (which I just found out is called "the penitential act"), the priest, instead of saying "let us call to mind the times that we have sinned," he added "let us call to mind the times that we have sinned, and let us especially remember to forgive those that have sinned against us." It was something like that. Believe me, with what I talked about in my post last night, the irony was not lost on me.

Oh, and last night, I actually ended up looking at blogs until 4:00, then taking a shower and going to bed. Nothing too scary happened, except when I went to turn off the last light down in the basement, I heard what sounded like shaky voices yelling from far away. As I walked back upstairs, the only thing I was thinking was "Oh please God, don't let me die, please let nothing happen."

I am definitely still alive, and I actually had a ridiculously long and awesome dream about a zombie apocalypse.

It's late and I'm scared

Right now it just recently turned 3:00 in the morning, and I am pretty freaked out right now. I started reading a scary book today, and I didn't exactly behave in the best manner tonight, not at all. So what with it being this bad hour and all of that, I'm a little scared. My house also makes funny noises at night, and half the time it sounds like people talking or walking around when I'm in the kitchen or the bathroom or some other place where I could be easily snuck up on.

I said an Our Father and some other prayers, but the Our Father says "forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us." I thought of someone that I still haven't fully forgiven for something, and it made me think that I had to forgive him before I could be forgiven. But the only reason I wanted to forgive him just then was because I was so scared for myself. I don't think that can count as a real pardon.

So now I'm going to take a shower and try to get to sleep in a decent amount of time. I have to wake up for mass tomorrow, and I've got some sins to be thinking of during that forgiveness of sins part and after I get communion, so I really shouldn't be falling asleep in mass.