I was in this circular room with a couple of partners. We had to solve these ppuzzles in order to defeat those who wanted to destroy us. Our time was running out, but it seemed like we we were going to succeed.
Break
I was outside in the yard and I could see this giant ray gun with three prongs was turning, aiming at our place. One of the people in charge of the ray gun came over and was gleefully talking about knitting a pale green cashmere sweater. I told her she needed to stop the ray gun before it killed me partners and I as well as destroying our structure. She dismissed it as an unimportant detail and went back to talking about her sweater. I became enraged and began pushing her around--trying to get her to pay attention. I didn't push her hard enough to hurt her, but hard enough that she couldn't keep her focus on the sweater.

I have or perhaps had a friend who became my best friend this year. He is more than 30 years older than me. He is also so overweight that he can barely walk. His weight also interferes with his breathing, so he cannot skip hours of being on an oxygen concentrator machine while he sleeps. He was always worried that I would not like him because of his weight or his age or his strong opinions.

He's wrong though, none of that mattered much. What matters to me is not making commitments that you cannot keep. He would suggest that we eat lunch or dinner together and then cancel. He did not do this just once, but again and again and again. I even planned and paid for most of a trip that was designed just to cheer him up. He decided not to come at the last minute and sent along just his boyfriend instead.

I understand that sometimes he reneges on his commitments because of his health. If he's turning blue then there's no way he can be there. Sometimes he breaks his commitments because he is feeling depressed. In the end it does not matter why someone is unreliable, simply that they are unreliable.

Yesterday, he exploded at me. I told him that I was considering being apartment mates with a friend of ours who was losing his apartment mate at the end of this month. He was so angry he could barely speak. He actually hung up on me a couple of times.

Apparently, the few times that we had discussed living together next year to him represented a firm plan. How was I supposed to know that this was the one plan that he would stick to? In fact, the main difference here seems to be that I am the one who is not sticking with a commitment. I am the one letting him down.

Him letting me down is supposed to be fine, but the first time I let him down by not seeing the importance of this possible future it's too much. He even suggests that he might leave town never to return and, for all I know, he has. We did not have a place to live and he had not even begun searching, but this was a firm plan in his mind.

Meanwhile, I am living with an annoying apartment mate whose horrid table manners I experience without the benefit of fellowship that actually eating together provides. Also, this guy really can't take a hint because he literally and not just figuratively cannot see your nonverbal signals. I don't want to hate my apartment mate and I am getting pretty close.

A real opportunity for me to live with a different apartment mate comes up and I want to share my joy with my best friend. I tell my best friend and he is hurt and shocked. He suggests that I am interested in this possible apartment mate because of his youth and beauty. He also reminds me in a, sort of, woe is me waythat he is old and fat suggesting that this must be why I have decided to stab him in the back. I find myself flabbergasted.

When did we make a firm commitment and how was I supposed to differentiate between this commitment and all of those he reneged on? He complains that I should know he has no time to look for a place because he is in an intensive. He also complains that he has a lease that lasts throughout the summer that he has to pay. He complains about his depressed, needy and unreliable boyfriend. He complains about his crush who is straight or at least too far in the closet to be a real prospect. He complains about people whom I love, saying that he hates how they are always dealing with their personal issues

Now what am I supposed to do? This fit of pique by my best friend makes my previous desire to live with him go away. On top of that he now says that he is taking himself out of the running saying that he would not want to unduly influence my decision. In some ways I am back where I started before I knew that my considerations of living in an apartment with someone were such a heated topic. I am still considering whether or not to move, but I feel shell shocked.

What if Hell is not for bad people and heaven not only for good people? Perhaps people are in heaven when they make decisions that satisfy themselves. People who are happy with doing evil are in heaven. People who are happy with doing good are in heaven. It is only those of us who worry who are in hell.

Hell is for suicides not because of some afterluife, but because hell is where those who consider suicide reside. This hell is a world that suicides just want to go away. Suicides have given up on paradise and are hoping only for nothingness. Hell is the state where you want more than anything for the whole world to go away, disappear, but no amount of willing it makes it so.

My housemate was telling me about how the people in the South just wanted freedom to live their lives in their own way. He said that the Confederacy was just like the colonies before the American Revolution. He was telling me how armies from the North, note not the United States or federal government, committed atrocities in the South during the Civil War. I would not be surprised by the existence of some atrocities on both sides. People do not fight fair in war today and these days people seem to get upset when our side kills civilians, not just when the enemy kills our civilians.

The overall message was clear. He brought up the Civil War as an example of acts similar to the Crusades. He was thinking of the North attacking the South and raping its women. Somehow this seems an odd connection. Just how much neo-Confederate propaganda has he eaten over the years?

An acquaintance asked me to go to a dance at the college. The party was sort of slow going at first. One of the hosts went next door to hang out with a friend and left the party in the lurch. A bunch of people went outside to smoke. Later I realized there was a whole group hanging out on the back porch that had been there for hours before entering the house. That seems totally whack.

Standing around decorating went to a little bit of decorating before so many the one host left and many people went out to smoke. A few of us watched like 15 minutes of Mythbusters. I eventually got frustrated with no one playing the dance music our host had on her PowerBook. There was even this guy who plugged in his pseudo-iPod from Creative and was only playing classical music. I knew it was time to intervene. I looked at songs on his machine and did not find what I was looking for.

I looked on the PowerBook and found a mix that our host that left and her sister had made. That finally got people dancing, even people who had been hanging out on the back porch.

I know it's stupid, but i totally felt crushed when this cute girl came up to me and wanted to know what year I was and how old I was. She saw that I was out of place. II know that I am older than all of them, but hey I would not have even heard of this dance if it weren't for a person who belongs to the same student group that I do, the student group that put on this party, inviting me. The girl who was up in my face had been to many fewer group events than I.

Still, despite all of that. I know I am older than them and if she called me on whether I should be there and me friends from the group weren't around I'm not sure how it would go down. The worst part is that if she weren't attractive I don't think that I would have cared so much what she thought.

Maybe I should just be in my apartment sleeping but partying is a lot more fun. It was around 12:50 am when I left, so I had been around for almost 3 hours. I hardly left without staying a while. Whatever...

I met a woman named Samantha on Friday. We were both on a group trip to a nearby amusement park. She served as my navigator and dj on the ride over while I drove. We hung out at the amusement park and got along really well. We totally lcicked like old friends. Some people make you feel like you're constantly tripping over yourself. Samantha made me feel like everything I had to say was just right. I felt less awkward than I have felt in years, maybe ever.

Sometime between dropping everyone off Friday night/Saturday morning and Sunday night I realized that I had developed a crush on her and absolutely had to see her again. I finally got to see her this evening. I first tried this afternoon, but she was in choir.

She is kind and friendly and caring. She let me decide whether I was comfortable enough to hang out with her floormates or not. She got me a napkin when I needed it and she told me where I had left bits of fried chicken breading behind to wipe off with the napkin.

Samantha showed me her photo albums when we got back to her room after sharing chicken with her floormates. It turns out that she has four younger brothers. That makes me think that the whole taking care of me thing may mostly be a big sister thing and mean less about how mcuh she likes me.

We hung out for a total of like an hour and a half. She had to go tutor this Japanese student. When she hugged me goodbye it was defintiely a side-hug rather than a full on frontal hug. Did I do something to offend her? How did she feel about my deviantart stuff? Did I favorite things that made her uncomfortable? How weird do you have to get to make someone who loves the Saw movies and the Suicide Club uneasy? Are we at the same place we started tonight?

Well, I feel better after seeing her even if I had hoped for more. I trying to control how much my crush affects my behavior towards her. She is totally cool and I don't want to mess this up by coming on too strong if she is uninterested in me romantically.

I had an interview for a job at Sears. The interview was positive in the sense that they liked me, but not so good since I amnot available when they need people. I may get a call from them around the holidays.

We just had a Menard's open up locally and they're hiring. I put in an application there and they will be doing interviews over the next couple of weeks.

I had an interview to be a song leader for campus ministries. That could be fun, but will only pay me $250 a semester at best. The people involved in Earlham's campus ministries are all great people, though their program is nothing like Hope College's chapel.

I have filled out a student loan request, but I cannot turn it in until I have a copy of my tax return. I faxed a request to the regional IRS office, but a normal response time is 2 weeks and I have less than 7 days.

I am afraid of being responsible. I am afraid of taking care of myself. I have been trying to repress that fear, but it has still come out only when I am unaware of it there is no way that I can control it. I sabotage myself without knowing why. I keep myself from getting a job because I do not want to be independent. It's too scary. It's too frightening.

Now I have taken the leap and I'm falling. I did not request a lon for this year since I will not have to pay tuition. However, I still need to eat and pay rent and pay fees. I have not managed to get myself together enough to find a job, but I have taken away the safety measures. I have brought myself to theworst of all possible worlds where I both do not have a job and do not have a loan.

My money is running out fast. Neither a job nor a loan will bring me money as fast as I need it. I have laid a trap for myself and theway out is far from clear.

My apartmentmate is set to arrive tomorrow before 6 pm. All anyone seems to tell me is that he is visually impaired. I have heard it at least ten different ways now. I heard the most detail from the director of student development, but even she only talked about his eyes.

Frankly, I'm not interested. I want to hear about his personality. I want to know whether he likes science fiction. I want to know whether he is neat or messy. What are his politics? Will he talk with me? Will we argue? Will he be quiet all the time? Where will he stand theologically and will he want to talk about it? The things I want to know no one has told me, so I await his arrival.

I am only going to be here with him for a little more than a day before I head off to Burning Man. He'll spend most of his first week in the apartment and around campus alone. Hopefully this will foster independence, but not wreck our apartmentmate relationship.

Members from DC Talk were flabbergasted when they recently learned that God called humans "very good" and even had created humanity in God's own image. "Yeah, we 're so sure humanism was a bad thing," says Kevin Max.
Toby McKeehan asks "How were we supposed to know that humanism could mean caring for other people? It's not like this stuff is all written down somewhere.
Fellow band member Michael Tait was unavailable for comment.

My love I call out
to you.
May the wind
carry you to me
and speed you
on your way.
I need you
now. I want you.
My precious love my
soul cries out for
you. Where are you
and when will you be here?

Oh distant mystery
Oh slippery fantasy
I beg you to come to me

Michael Lerner puts forth the suggestion that the reason that many are so intensely against aborting pregnancies is that they see the fetus as "A symbol of an idealized, innocent being, actually the little child within us, who is not adequately loved and accepted in our daily experience" (Left Hand of God 186). He further puts forth that those who wish to abort the fetus are seen as playing the role of any and all people who stood in the way of one's hopes and dreams. In short, doctors who perform abortions and even the women who have abortions are seen as guilty for every bit of cynicism, pessimism and caution about the dangers of the world and its lack of fairness.

Lerner also contrasts unbroken garment of life philosophy where killing people by execution or during the course of war is seen as wrong with the views of many antiabortion activists who are fine with no social services for those who have been born, militarism and collateral damage, and the death penalty.

If Lerner is correct then there is a huge untapped reserve of energy that people want to use to make the world a better more fair place, but are placing it all on the abortion fight so that they will not have to face their fears of an inability to improve the world in general.

My landlord told me that he would come by with furniture this morning. As an old man he has a different sense of time than I do. I would not have been surprised if he showed up at 8 am today. Instead, it's almost noon and he still hasn't come by. He may not even come until Tuesday when he's next in town.

I was up with the sun today. OK, so I slept in another 3 hours after that till around 9. Even though he didn't show, being awake in the morning feels great.

I have come to realize that I am still living for other people. The problem is that as the identity of those people becomes less and less clear I have less and less direction in my life. It's great to want to help someone, but that is hardly a clear set of goals for life. I really need a better reason to live.

How can I get back in touch with some desire and purpose for my life without just placing yet another in a long string of people as the new center for my life?

Back in junior year when I was committed, they were wrong. I would never out and out kill myself. That would just make me feel too guilty. Instead, here I am keeping myself alive because I do not want to upset anyone or make any waves. This is ridiculous. Of course, I am not going to take this opporunity to off myself, but something has got to change.

How do I find meaning and purpose in life? I certainly didn't learn back in high school. College was a requirement from my parents and the college I chose had a lot to do with their wants. Now, here I am without anyone telling me what to do and I still don't know.

I dreamt that I was back in classes. The school building was three or four stories high and had lots of small rooms with no doors on the sides. The building was poorly lit to the point of barely being able to see in some places.

I had a class with James Cone and a group of other professors. The students kept getting split into groups and being sent off on their own. We had class outside on the grass. I had to rush to keep up with everyone and in the process I left my backpack, coat, and shoes behind.

During a break in class, I went to go back and get my shoes. I began searching, but I could not find my own shoes. I found plenty of other peoples' shoes and even shoes that looked similar to mine, but I could not find my own.

I found it hard to concentrate and began to fall asleep off and on during my search. The search was taking much longer than I had expected and I realized that I had become obsessed and was no longer able to keep track of time.

I saw people coming into the building coming from class and I realized that I had missed all of the rest of class.