Friday, November 20, 2009

So Much Stuff

Okay, I'll just come right out and say that I'm going to drop some videos on ya'll today. I don't even know if they'll show up as links, but I urge you to look them up, because they are just amazing.

Today was a fairly interesting day. I had to wake up at 9:45 this morning, which is about 2 hours earlier than I normally would on a Thursday. I went to convo at 10 and then came back and sat on my love seat for like an hour and a half. I'd estimate that about 70% of my life in the last week has been spent on my love seat. By myself. Just to clarify, I don't mean that to sound pathetic, I really welcome it. Anyway, today I got on Twitter and saw that my older brother Jeremiah had said that he held his breath for 4 minutes and 1 second. My first reaction was, "That dirty liar! He seriously thinks he can throw out a ridiculous claim like that and just expect his Twitter audience to be ignorant enough to accept it." That wasn't really my reaction, I just say that to make the point that I was skeptical. I then saw that he had actually just finished going through a rigorous training regiment designed by the famous magician David Blaine. I decided to put it to the test.

So here I am, sitting by myself on my love seat at 11 AM, just breathing. Breathing really deeply and exhaling over counts of 10. Then exhaling quickly and inhaling in sharp bursts. I mean I was sooo close to passing out. I was so lightheaded, just sitting there. No one would have found me, I would have just layed there unconscious for a while and then woken up, still on my love seat. Anyway, I didn't end up passing out, and to my amazement I ended up holding my breath for a staggering (if I may) 3 minutes and 36 seconds. I realize that I got spanked by my brother, but there was still an enormous victory. You see, the longest the Great Houdini (ever heard of him?) ever held his breath was 3 minutes and 30 seconds... so, yeah. I beat Houdini. And Jer beat Houdini by half a minute. Nice try Houdini, but I'm afraid your little party tricks aren't gonna cut it here in the 21st century.

For those of you that don't know, I've been sporting a pair of fake glasses a lot lately. It's a little tricky because in a sense I feel that I am misrepresenting myself or lying to everyone I see (probably true). It's also a little impractical because I have a pretty hard time seeing when I wear them because they're a little blurry and I lose a little bit of peripheral vision. That said, there's something I love about wearing those things. It's like a brand new perspective, watching everything through those little rectangles. Sometimes it helps me focus on people or class because I don't get as distracted by what I see out of the corner of my eye. For some reason watching life through those frames has just been really cool. This section is really random and probably not exciting, but it's been an interesting little aspect of my life lately.

Tonight there was a rave party for the Sophomore class. It was sooo fun even though not many people came. It was a little ridiculous though. So we're all in there dancing and I look over to the edge of the crowd and there are these three guys standing there: a tiny black guy, a tall black guy, and an Asian. They obviously don't go to Samford and they're just watching everyone dance with really stern looks on their faces. After about a minute of watching them just stand there it clicked in my head that these guys were obviously some type of dance troupe. It was the only way that this strangely diverse yet cliche trio would be randomly hanging out at this event. I immediately told the girls I was with, "Hey, watch these three guys, I think they might be professional dancers." Literally 3 seconds after I say this the three of them start strutting over to the middle where everyone's dancing and they get everyone to form a circle. I'm just standing there like, "Wow, I cannot believe I called that. There is no one better at observing things than me. I'm a prophet." And I mean these guys just went ape. I have never seen anyone dance like this in person before. It was seriously exactly like watching a youtube video. One of them would do their thing while the other two stood there and tried to look hard and then they would switch off and everyone in the circle would constantly cheer. It was so fascinating. I tried to talk to a couple of them afterwards but they were really weird. Big surprise.

Anyway, I don't know what time it will say I posted this, but it's definitely 3:15 AM right now. It's time for me to post the videos. Again, I strongly encourage you to watch them, they're not long.

My friend Laufy showed me yet another incredible video. It's this dude from Asbury falling down. HA:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mzlPIiUf2c

My favorite band of the semester, Fleet Foxes. You only have to listen to the first song. One of the most beautiful harmonies I think I've ever heard:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNC7uWT_OH4

I think those are actually the only two for now. Both amazing. This ended up extremely long, my b.

God is so gracious.

-Joshua

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Interesting

There's a "Cardboard Campout" on the quad right now. They're putting it on to raise awareness about homelessness in Birmingham and people are supposed to build shelters out of cardboard to sleep on. The group with the best cardboard shelter wins a $25 dollar giftcard. I feel like there's something funny there, I'll let you decide.

I actually just came back to the room from there cause my feet are freezing cold. I was wearing my Chuck Taylor's that have "Wambles" embroidered on them. **Important note: don't go for the thin, trendy shoes when doing a homeless awareness campout when it's really cold.

I'm putting on more socks so I can go back, so I'm afraid this blog's gonna have to be cut short. More coming soon, I promise. Don't become discouraged, this blog is about to hit an upswing, I feel it.

-Joshua

Monday, November 16, 2009

I'm back - Give it to Him!

Man oh man. How ridiculous is your life when you don't have time to sit with your laptop and spill your heart to the cyber-world? Pretty ridiculous. Wanna know what I've been up to? Well I'll tell you - it's none of your BUSINESS. Haha, just kidding, that was a quote from my new favorite show, "Community". You should watch it.

When life gets really busy I start to get confused. It never makes sense to me because I can tell someone, "I'm just soooo busy" and then have no idea why. I mean last week was pretty crazy but I don't really have anything to show for it. I love the saying "going through the motions" because I always picture an uncoordinated adult doing some ridiculous choreography and looking miserable the whole time because they feel they have to do it. Story of our lives sometimes, right?

Now, I'm not a deep or wise person, but sometimes other people bring me to a place where wisdom is dangled in front of my face. A group of us just finished reading through The Prodigal God by Timothy Keller and this quote has (surprisingly) been floating around in my head the last few days:

"What makes you faithful or generous is not just a redoubled effort to follow moral rules. Rather, all change comes from deepening your understanding of the salvation of Christ and living out the changes that understanding creates in your heart."

I don't really have any smart add-on to that quote, but it makes me think about how often I watch the disciplined go-getters of the world achieve all sorts of great things and wonder how I'll manage to do anything of great importance. The backward and sweet reality is that God calls us to seek a deeper understanding of His Grace and live in a state of humble thanksgiving that transforms. I think that's something I can almost do. God help my unbelief.

**This marks the end of my serious post**

Last night I needed cash to go watch my friend Drew's band play. Since I use a Kentucky bank it's always a decision between paying the ATM service fee or buying something random at Wal-Mart and getting cash back. This time I chose to run in and buy some blank CD's which I kind of needed. I went to the self-checkout and realized that there was an employee standing literally 3 feet away, right next to me just watching. This made me nervous. I was having a hard time scanning. I must have looked so confused because the angry older lady began growling, "Use the other SCANNER!" in a very mean, "You're-an-idiot" kind of voice. I tried to get cash back and was in a hurry to get away from mean lady so I accidentally typed in $100 instead of $10. I panicked and immediately pressed cancel, so it just finished the check out without giving me any money. So here I am, standing next to Ms. I-Have-The-Temper-Of-A-Smokey-Mountain-Grizzly, just trying to decide what to do. I had to get that cash. So I looked at the checkout for a minute, then began to back up an look around at all the cheap crap by the check out, still right next to Grizzly Bear. I tried to act as though I needed this stuff and almost bought a Tide to go pen, but it was just too expensive. I finally found a thing of chapstick for 97 cents, took it over to the same checkout and proceeded to purchase the chapstick with my debit card, this time pressing the preset $20 cashback button so there would be no complications.

Take that Grizzly - I got my money, and a surprise thing of chapstick!

I'm sorry for how long that story was. Here's the latest word mix-up by my friend Marissa:

"How long does your paper have to be Marissa?"
"I think 900 pages."
"Wow, that's a lot of pages."

I'm almost finished with my first song recorded at Samford. I'll post the link when it's done.

-Joshua

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Weird Dreams

Because I'm an RA I have a sheet of paper on my door where people write down maintenance issues. Today I had the following maintenance request:

"My penis got stuck in a bottle. -Darryl Gregory"

I hate that I've had to use the word "penis" multiple times in the last few posts, but this is my life.

Last night I had what must have been a 6 hour dream (I slept for about 10 hours) about being married. The first half was about my wedding and my struggles to entertain the crowd of about a thousand that attended. Overall this was fairly pleasant aside from me trying feebly to play acoustic guitar for 1,000 guests. Needless to say I never really played it because when I dream my motor skills are about as good as a 6 year old with oven mitts for hands.

Now the dream took a turn for the worst after the wedding. *This is not a dumb metaphor for the life of a married couple where they are happy at the wedding and then, "Good GOLLY! Being married is not a walk in the park! What happened to the romance?". I mean the rest of the dream consisted of me living at home with my new spouse who turned out to be a MAN! WHAT THE H?? Why? Why would I have a dream where I am married to a dude? It was definitely a woman for the wedding portion of the dream. Can you imagine how much of a letdown that would be? It was pretty awkward overall, but the only funny part was that me and my mystery husband both seemed pretty confused about why we were married like, "Why did we get married? This was a terrible idea, we're both straight." It was also pretty funny because we got along pretty well. Yes. Me and my husband were good friends, but it just wasn't like that. Okay, I have to stop, this is getting increasingly uncomfortable. I can't even explain how relieved I was when I woke up.

Here are some recent quotes from my friend Marissa:

"All the trees are falling from the trees... it makes me sad."

"Hey Marissa, how's that catfish?"
"It's pretty good, it could use some more catfish."

Simple word mix-ups are my favorite.

Unless something hilarious happens, tomorrow will probably be a serious post, so you may want to skip.

-Joshua


Monday, November 9, 2009

Monday - Good idea mankind. Not.

I'd like to start by apologizing for my last post. Apparently no one could see the pictures. A real shame, I can assure you they were pretty hilarious.

I am now going to list all the things that I love about Mondays:
-----
That was easy. Mondays are dumb.

This morning I registered for classes for next semester. No story there.

Tonight when I finished working in the Vail office I was standing in the lobby when I saw this Freshman girl down the hall about 60 feet away. I sort of know her and knew it was going to be awkward, so I immediately looked down at my phone when I saw her. She was about to walk out the door but instead she stopped, paused, and then started yelling at me down the hall, "Johnny! Johnny!". I wasn't sure what was going on - she was looking right at me, so I started looking around for someone named Johnny. Again she yelled, "Johnny! Is that you?!". I smiled and said "No!". She started laughing and walking toward me (awkward) to make sure I wasn't Johnny. I sort of took off my hat thinking maybe that would help prove that I wasn't Johnny. Then she suddenly turned around and walked out the door. It was so awkward/awesome. I think I was even more confused because I figured the name Johnny could easily be mixed up with the name Josh, and I still think she may have recognized me and just got the name wrong.

This morning the tile floors on our hall were soaking wet for some reason. I left my room at about 8:15 AM and didn't have time to mess with it so I was mentally like "Hope no one slips on that". When I got back to my room in the afternoon there was a note on my door that said "I was walking down the hall and I freakin SLIPPED and fell in water. FIX IT!!! (please)". Apparently a kid on my hall named Corey was the lucky guy.

My face is literally just burning and itching all the time courtesy of No-shave-ember. The pain is pretty excruciating. Me and Tyler realized this is the first time in our lives where we have actually considered chopping our own heads off. We do understand that this could cause other complications though.

I'm too itchy to try being clever at this point, but I'll end by saying that one of my guys just read me a 5 page facebook wall fight he and his friends had with a guy from their high school. He literally printed this thing off, and it was HILARIOUS. Just a great example of the clever trash talking that can occur through social networking tools such as facebook.

I'm going to go rub lotion under my chin.

-Joshua


Sunday, November 8, 2009

My Friend's Beautiful Faces

I wanted to do something a little bit different for my blog today, so I typed some of my friends' names into Google images to see what would show up. I realize that being a part of my blog is pretty desirable, so please don't be sad if you're not on here. I'm saving a lot of people so I can have this be an ongoing part of my blog. Enjoy!

Tyler Casey:

tylerandGGranpa2003.jpg


Pretty sure he's the grandpa...


Matt Wambles:

0,,10430~4464187,00.jpg


Apparently he's a professional soccer player with a bottle of champagne or something.



Tyler Clardy:

Clardy1.jpg


Haha, after he got married he put on a few pounds and grew a mullet. Lucky Mrs. Clardy.



Audrey Leder:

leder1.jpg


Nice suit Audrey.



Emily Walker:

emily_walker.jpg


Pretty accurate.



Dwight Castle:

fat-bastard.jpg


Woa Dwight. I mean you've really let yourself go. Too much monkey bread?


Haha, I think that's a good stopping point. This was extremely enjoyable.


Lots of stuff going on this week. The stress is almost palpable. What a word, "palpable". To palpate. I learned that word on a field trip in 7th grade when some science man told us that we should "palpate" our breasts and testicles regularly to check for cancer. I'm sorry to get all graphic all of a sudden, but that's just the reality of my life. Homeschool field trips were just a different breed.

Anyway, have a great night and don't forget to palpate yourself.


-Joshua

Friday, November 6, 2009

I will trade you a pack of gum if you make me quit coughing.

So, I'm not really going to write right now cause I feel like crap. But I got to hang out with Jer and Sarah and they took care of me and gave me tea and cookies so that was amazing. And I got to briefly hang out Aud, Emily and Dave and they are some seriously cool cats. That was neat. I'm going to try writing a good one tomorrow. Until then, here's a video I made with my friend Kristen like a month ago:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEUcqWYwajo

It was so fun to make and it was such a pretty day... good times.
Now time to drift into a sickly, cough-syrupy slumber. Mmmmm.
Night.

-Joshua

Thursday, November 5, 2009

CPR Training and Career Planning

I just finished CPR training. We had a group exam that involved pretending that there was some kind of disaster and then blowing air into mannequins with scary white heads and tiny blue torsos. It was kind of weird. My group had a very hard time passing the exam. CPR is pretty confusing and having taken the course I'm pretty confident that I will never try it on a real person. And if I do, that person is screwed unless they have a large black circle on their chest indicating where to give compressions.
I went to the Career Development Center yesterday and a lady talked to me about jobs and majors for a long time. It was pretty good, but as we were talking I realized that the things I valued most in a career were "freedom" and "leisure time". Ha, yeah that'll get me a job. Anybody want to pay me to have little to no responsibility and nap a lot? Perfect.
My friend Marissa majors in Family Studies and learns useful skills like breastfeeding. Haha, I'm just kidding. I hope she reads this.

Right now I'd say that this blog is my best shot at earning an income. I might start charging 25 cents to access a post. Let's say I have 5 posts a week and 10 readers. That's a solid $12.50 per week. And yes, I used my phone to calculate that, so we will cross out banking or any career involving numbers greater than 10.
I need multiple streams of income, so in addition to blogging I think I'm going to become an apprentice to my mom. She teaches childbirth classes, and I think that's a business that just NEEDS more 19 year old men. She's taught quite a few classes in our own home so I already have some key ideas:
1. Purchase a baby doll for the wife to play with to keep her excited about her future child.
2. Make a large poster board with pictures of fetuses.
3. Breath in strange patterns using the words "he" and "who".
4. Have the couple watch a VHS tape that the husband will find disgusting.

I would say my future is looking brighter every day!

But seriously, my mom is an amazing teacher.

-Joshua


Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Nothing to write

I've nothing to write
Such a serious plight
Spent the evening with you
You're a beautiful sight

The things that we do
A tangled untruth
We forget all our luster
Then tarnish our youth

A brain to fluster
A heart to muster
A sentence unsaid
And a soul lackluster

The night has fled
You should slap me in the head
I'm a terrible poet
I'm going to bed

-Joshua


Monday, November 2, 2009

Maddie's Birthday Bash

My friend Maddie turned 21 today, which means she is 21 times cooler than a baby. Because you increase in coolness yearly. And babies' section of the brain that controls coolness just isn't very well developed. It hit me earlier how old I feel, having a friend who can buy booze and all. Crazy.

Anyway, it has been a few days since I've been able to write on here, so it feels good to be back on track! As you know, we hit up the peanut festival in Dothan, Alabama this weekend. It was a really great weekend. I didn't really meet any of my goals:
1. They did have an extremely large, fake peanut, so we got a picture with it. Wasn't able to steal it.
2. Turns out there were only two kinds of peanuts there: raw and boiled. Both were pretty good.
3. Nobody really knew the line from Princess Bride. Ummm what kind of immature bed-wetters haven't seen that movie?

We spent halloween touring Dothan and handing out candy to greedy, cavity seeking youngsters. My 20 year old friend thought it was socially acceptable for her to go trick-or-treating so we walked around the neighborhood with her as she attempted to blend in. She's 20. But she had a very nice surgeon costume, so that was cool. She ended the evening with a wardrobe malfunction that involved her scrubs falling down right as we opened the door for all the little trick-or-treaters to see. So hilarious, I wish I had it on video. That would be embarrassing. Oh yeah, and she's 20.

Me and my friend Tyler saw Mute Math in concert tonight. Front row. We touched the lead singer's hand and got to play this weird electronic instrument he passed out into the crowd. Makes me want to tour with a band. They melted my face and now it's dripping on my laptop. Ew.

I don't know if you care, but this particular package of Tropical Trail Mix™ has been extremely heavy on the banana chips. I'm like, "Okay, I get it, it's a banana that's crunchy, you made you're point with the first 13 I ate in like 4 handfulls. Let's get on to some dried pineapple and papaya." This is my life.

Okay, let's talk about relationships (dating). 3 words: recipe for disaster. *Note to the parents - I haven't been secretly dating anyone. But seriously, as someone who has had very little success in this department, let me make a proposal: Everybody tape a list of people they would like to date to the back of their shirts and just walk around like that. That way when you're walking to class or in line at the caf and you see your name on the back of some cutie's shirt you can just be like, "Hey, that's perfect, you're on my list too! We should date each other." See how easy that was? That way you don't have to worry about rejection, just inclusion onto a list. I know I don't exactly sound like a romantic, but do you really want me to have to work up the courage to put myself out there, get rejected and then spend the following months nursing my ego so I can repeat the process? Mmmm, do you think you could individually pluck all my leg hairs out while you're at it? No thanks, I'll keep my leg hairs and remain single. Unless you put my name on your shirt.

Just kidding, I'll probably ask someone out soon.

-Joshua