This is what happens when you take a nap from 7:30 PM - 9:30 PM and then work from 11:00 PM - 2:30 AM and then don't feel like sleeping:

Rotation and lift

I saw you by the fire and I could tell you were deep

Water and shift

I asked you your name and we had things in common

Love from the Divine

And there was evening, and there was morning, the 6th line

Creation, fall

I showed you my heart and you decided it wasn't for you

Redemption for all

I fell in love again, let there be light

On a less feminine note, I've been playing some disc golf with the number one amateur disc golfer in the state of Kentucky. Yeah, you read that right. Shout out to my boy Jay! May your discs always fly straight.

I was thinking today about how people always talk about being afraid of heights. I've always kind of been confused about it because sometimes I think I'm afraid of heights and other times they don't bother me. For example, I went skydiving a couple years ago and that was awesome. Then today I was standing on like a 4 ft. ladder and almost passed out. But I think I made a huge realization: I'm not afraid of heights, I'm afraid of FALLING. Duh. So obvious, yet so profound. I had never thought of it. Of course I'm not scared of heights, heights are awesome. I'm only scared when I'm up there standin on something slippery or wobbley! Let me give you a little more perspective.

Scenarios:

Standing on a cliff, leaning on a built-in rail = Not scared

Standing on a cliff, being chased by hyenas and there's butter on my feet = Peeing myself

Flying in a plane = Not scared

Flying on the outside of a plane = Scared

In other words, the likelihood of me falling is directly proportional to the amount of fear I experience. I hope we've all learned something here.

I'm putting in a lot of hours at the TIKI ZONE this week so everyone should come out and get a hot dog, ring pop, pretzel, sour straws, flavor ice, icee freeze, minute maid freeze, pretzel, cheetos, fritos, doritos, cool ranch doritos, lays, slim jims, hamburger, cheeseburger, corndog, nachos and cheese, vanilla soft serve, klondike bar, pizza, gatorade, water, and pepsi products. Yes, that is the whole Tiki menu. You're welcome.

-Joshua

P.S. Wambles, add about 20 ™s to that list. Too much effort.

Yaybies

I have 2 things to say to open up this blog post:

1. I already feel like I'm forcing it, so if this post is no good, I apologize in advance.

2. UK just became the first University ever to draft 5 players in the first round of the NBA draft. Unbelievable. Best program ever.

Right now there's a commercial on TV for the hair growing product called Bosley. I hope it really works, but all I can say is there HAS to be a better name out there than Bosley. That is an extremely unpleasant sounding word. No one likes saying Bosley. I guess ultimately all hair growing companies got nailed when the name Miracle Grow™ was taken for fertilizer.

Today at TIKI ZONE this little Indian kid kept coming up and ordering Slim Jims™. Pretty routine, really, but it was hilarious because the kid was like 9 years old and he kept ordering with a fake Indian accent. It was crazy because he was pretty dark skinned so it was definitely possible that he had an accent, but he was there with his red-haired friend who kept laughing whenever he talked... so if it wasn't fake, then he needs to pick out some new friends.

I'm so tired.. way too tired to try and be clever, so let's try this again tomorrow, mkay?

-Joshua

P.S. Sat here for 8 minutes trying to think of a clever PS... nothin. Tomorrow's gonna be AWESOME!!

Reggie Miller's lookin' good..

I really love it when it storms. Today it started storming suddenly in the middle of the day and me and Jer (brother) ran outside and started throwing frisbee and trying to catch leaves. Both of these things were pretty impossible with the crazy wind, and I mainly got hit in the face with leaves, but it was just so great. I kind of wish it would storm or rain for a little while every day and then get nice again.

Dreams are so ridiculous. I had this dream last night that my friend Tyler Casey was playing guitar at our church (which he actually does), but during the songs when he wasn't playing he would do these ridiculous dance moves to fill in the time. So he was up on the screens at church like shimmy-ing with his shoulders and rocking his hips in the middle of worship. Kind of hilarious, but so awkward for dream-Josh because I thought my friend had lost his marbles.

SIDE NOTE: I've never really thought about it, but "lost his marbles" always means that someone went insane or did something idiotic. That's so dumb. It is not hard to lose marbles. They're little hard, clear balls. They roll everywhere and they are slippery. It's insane people who actually make the effort to KEEP their marbles. A more appropriate phrase would be "lost his leg hairs". You're an idiot if you lose your leg hairs.

Dreams. Is there anything more weird than the naked dreams? A few of us were talking about this the other day... why is it that in those dreams you get all the way to the most public places (for me it's always a cookout) and THEN realize you're rockin the nude?? For some reason you got ready to leave (naked), got in the car (naked), drove to the party (still pretty naked), got OUT OF THE CAR. NAKED. YOU'RE NOT WEARING CLOTHES. YOU'RE WALKING AROUND SOCIALIZING WITH PEOPLE AND YOU'RE IN THE FREAKING NUDE. And for some reason it just doesn't hit you until it's too late. And then you try to play it off like there's nothing weird about hanging out naked at a cookout. And then you finally wake up - thank goodness - and realize how dumb the dream version of you was to get into that kind of situation.

Speaking of naked, I've been doing this 100 push-up work out program lately. It's pretty tough. I'm really weak. The Greek olympians worked out naked. I don't though.

It's a good thing milk isn't alcoholic, because I drink a lot of it. And so does my whole family. We go through like 2 gallons a week, at least. Can you imagine if that was 2 gallons of alcohol?? This household would be CRAZYYY! One bowl of the cereal for each of us in the morning and it's just game over. I would have a really hard time alphabetizing things all day, but I would definitely be better at making jokes at the nurses.

I'm pretty tired and I have some more (clothed) push-ups to do, so I'm going to call it a night.

If you're reading this, I probably love you. Unless you have red hair and own a pair of Space Jam edition Air Jordans™.

-Joshua

Carrie Underwood VS. Lady GaGa

Well hello world, here we are again.

Welcome to my blog. I don't know how you got here, but consider yourself lucky because this is a very special place. Haha gosh, I already don't know what I'm talking about. I think it's because I'm not on my normal love seat. For those of you who have read this in the past you know that this is a DISASTER. Basically like taping Superman onto a couch made of kryptonite. That's how crippled I am by not sitting on my love seat. Krypled. DANG has someone already thought of that? That's ingenious. Maybe that's the whole origin of the word kryptonite. Oh well, krypled.

This summer has been pretty great so far. I have 3 little baby part-time jobs that are all kind of funny. I'll go ahead and lay them out for you:

Job #1 - TIKI Zone

Position: Assistant to the TIKI Main Man (<- Yes, real title)

Description: Wrapping endless hotdogs, selling ring pops to kids, listening to awkward comments about soccer moms, and just being generally embarrassed. Also trying to hide my partial colorblindness when kids ask for orange or purple popsicles.

Job #2 - Pulmonary Associates

Position: Paper Cut Receiver/Youngster Nurses Mess With

Description: Filing things until letters and words no longer have meaning, finding appropriate ways to respond to nurses' teasing. Doing things over and over again. It never stops.

Job #3 - Bluegrass Beat (by far the most fun)

Position: DJ Roadie/Beat Dropper in Training

Description: Helping set things up, going through the buffet line multiple times, watching the singles get tipsy and dance.

I hope everyone enjoyed that. I think that was the easiest way to quickly fill you all in on my summer. It really has been fun for the most part.

Some of the conversations I get to hear at these jobs are so amazing. I would love to tell them all, but out of respect for my co-workers I'll only share three:

"I feel like freaking Sh*t. My a** is killing me. I need to sit on a donut."

- "Aw crap, we just gave that girl a frozen hot dog."

- "It's cool, I think she ordered the hot dogsicle."

"That's why I like Carrie, she's classy, not like Lady GaGa, wearin' all that filthy matrix stuff."

Those really might not even be funny you peeps, but when I hear these things I just feel like they have to be repeated so I can remember them.

I've been spending a lot of time in our new studio room in the basement which is so amazing (good work parents). If you want to hear my music you should go here!

I really like this quote I saw today: "The deeper the water, the less noise it makes."

Chew on that.

If I had to bathe in something that wasn't water, it would probably be either Jell-O™ or apple cider. I know that sounds awful, but give that some thought - what wouldn't be gross to bathe in? All you smarty pants people are probably like "Liquid soap, DUH!" and do you know what I have to say to that? That would be unpleasant. And it would sting your eyes a lot. Plus, I would use soap once I was in the Jell-O™ or apple cider so lets just go ahead and take soap products out of the list of options. Oh what's that you say? You want something that's not sticky to bathe in?? GREAT IDEA! Now name something that's not water that won't be sticky. Butter or Vaseline? Yeah, good call. Have fun with your gross slippery butter bath while I smell like either Wild Watermelon™ or fresh apples.

Welp, that was weird.

-Joshua

Goodbye Teens!

First off, I realize that it has been too long since my last post for anyone to care about this blog. However at the stroke of midnight I'm turning 20, and since this is a really large (boring) milestone in my life I thought I should write something. So far the biggest change I can think of about age 20 is that I will have to be a little more embarrassed about my childish behavior. I kind of hate that I haven't accomplished anything huge or impressive in my teenage years... but I DID score 36 points a basketball game once. So yeah. I got that.

Ha but seriously, I'm pretty excited about my birthday! But there has to be something more interesting to fill you in on. Basically, my sister Sarah is being a nurse in Congo and is truly awesome, hilarious and adventurous, so you should probably just go ahead and read her blog: http://sdsizemore.wordpress.com

April has been a little bit of a blur, but a really beautiful blur full of exciting new things and people and places... I think in my 21st year I would like to learn to be thankful in every circumstance and really count my blessings. I think the more I do that the more I realize how much God takes care of us out of his own goodness. I find myself worrying a lot about things that God has been providing for me since I was like a fetus. It's so ridiculous and kind of sad. But isn't He teaching us new things every day?? I think that's what excites me the most sometimes. He really does want us to grow and will draw near to us if we seek Him.

Completely changing gears, I've been talking some serious trash to my friend Tyler lately. We play a lot of HORSE together (it's a basketball game, don't worry about it couch-dwellers). We've probably played about 40 games in the last month or so.. anyone want to take a stab at how many times he's beaten me? I won't give it away publicly, but it's more than 0 and less than 2. I hope nobody thinks I'm being mean here, it's just that he likes the motivation and trash talking is highly motivating. He said he was going to practice left-handed shots so he could beat me and I told him I'm the best left-handed shooter ever. I think it made him mad, but he will learn to use that anger as fuel.

A serious travesty occurred when Robby Stone alerted/accused me of the fact that I have never mentioned him in a blog post. While I find this hard to believe, I am way to lazy to look through all my posts, so I am just going to take his word for it and admit my folly. Robby - you are amazing and a true stud. Probably one of the 5 or so most influential people on my life. And you're soon to be a movie star and famous soccer player, so that's exciting. I hope you don't turn into a prawn.

I know nobody likes reading long posts, so I'm going to go ahead and wrap this sucker up. Keep it real everyone. I'd like to thank my mom and dad for putting up with my teenage years... okay bye everyone!!!!!

-Joshua

Come Pick Me Up

Well here we are again!!

Holy dang, it has been so long since I have done this. I feel like a diver who hasn't tried a triple twist flip spin swan dive in a while.. just awkward. I don't even know, analogy attempt number one has obviously failed. All I know is that I'm still on my same plaid love seat, and that is a good thing. If I had to use one word to describe myself right now it would be sexy. I mean that's always the word I would use, but right this second overwhelmed would also work because I haven't blogged in like a year and I'm not sure where to start.

How about here: Dudes-A-Plenty won SWEEPSTAKES!!!! Yeahyuhh. If you don't know what sweepstakes is, then get off of my blog. Seriously, you shouldn't even be reading this sentence, you should be long gone. Keep going, you disgust me. Just kidding. Sweepstakes is the award given for the Samford competition called Step Sing. And we won, and it was amazing. I'm not feeling like giving a lot of details, so I might just be really vague. Lots of neat things happened, some people were happy, others were sad, and in the end, we did what we had to do. So fun.

Since then I have spent most of my time throwing up and coughing, it's been really great. Thanks to my boy Matt Wambles for bringing me Jell-O. I wouldn't have made it without that, no lie. Seriously, isn't Jell-O great? I mean it doesn't make ANY sense at all. Don't tell me it's made out of cow bones or whatever, I really don't give a crap. All I know is that it is sweet delicious food that jiggles. It JIGGLES! Seriously? Can you imagine if people in the Bible times had been able to try that stuff? I mean Moses could have just eaten some Jell-O in front of Pharaoh and been like "Look at me eatin' this stuff. Let my people GO!" And he would've been like "Okay! Just get that jiggly goodness out of here, I can't even understand what that is."

Anyway. That got confusing. I feel like I should do some shout outs. Dwight, Tyler, Tyler, Audrey, Mom, Dad, Deet, Sus, Jer. I'm kind of scared that no one will even read this now since it's been so long. I feel like a stranger in my own home. My home is this blog. And I'm not a stranger, I'm the owner. I'm the landlord and you owe me rent. Pay me or I'll hit you with this fly swatter. Smack.

I think maybe I'm a little more tired than I thought when I started this. My thoughts are not very coherent. I'm really happy to be back to the blog though. There is so much going on in life right now. There are so many decisions I have to make, it's getting ridiculous. I want to make a huge wheel to spin and call it the Wheel of Josh. That's a bad idea and a terrible name. But it might be fun. Let me know if you want to help me build it.

I'm trying to be more thankful. God has blessed me so much. When I really think about it I feel pretty sad about how self centered and selfish I often am. I'm just really blessed and have been given a lot of great opportunities. If you see me, feel free to remind me.

I really wanted to put something funny here. I seriously have nothing. Such a disappointment. But I'm still shaking off the rust, so cut me some slack. No? Fine Mr. BigPants. Why don't you try writing my blog... it's hard being this average.

-Joshua

Come On Eileen!

A little while back my sister Susannah showed me an 80's song called Come On Eileen by Dexy's Midnight Runners. For some reason this week it has just exploded in my world and I've listened to it so much. It's kind of a ridiculous song and the lyrics are a little/very sketchy, but musically I think it's completely ingenious. It's the kind of song that can lift my spirits within like 10 seconds, it's just such a happy song.

Anyway, I survived the first week of classes. It wasn't too bad. My Spanish teacher is, once again, from Spain and talks faster than Seabiscuit (runs). Terrible example. But the other day she kept saying "Buenos días Josh!!!" which means "Good job Josh!!! You're my favorite student." Just kidding, it means "Wake up dummy! Why are you so confused all the time? I didn't come all the way to America for this crap." The worst part was when she told me, in Spanish, that by the end of the year I would find it much easier to understand what she says. For some reason I thought she was saying that I needed to work harder to improve so I was like "Como se dice BRING IT ON!?!?" right back to her. I meant this to be a playful way of accepting her academic challenge. Apparently she was just trying to encourage me. Oh man. Telling this story makes me sad. Kind of hilarious.

Dudes-A-Plenty is in full swing. So fun. Sweepstakes.

Today I found this quote that I had written on a friend's wall like over a year ago, I thought it was funny: "Once upon a time there was a boy with a pet cat named Lillian. One day Lillian got sick and died. Turns out she had feline AIDS. Turns out the boy was me."

I think it's crazy when I read stuff I don't remember writing. I'm usually just like "Who was I?" It's so confusing. Apparently I was pretty funny whenever I wrote the Lillian comment. Lillian was a great cat, she was just a little promiscuous. I won't even go into the story of her kittens, I will seriously start crying. That was a tough week. It was like the show Survivor except there was only one tribe and all the contestants were kittens. Yep, eyes are starting to water.

Now my palms always sweat. I know it's gross, but it's just my body. But seriously, right now it's on another level. My palms have turned into sprinklers. I know nobody wants to hear this, but I just thought I'd be straight with you, the reader (Tyler, Mom, Sisters). It's also important to note that if I've ever lost a game of ping pong, it is strictly because of my sweaty palms and not because, for example, some red head dude who thinks he's awesome beat me outright. But even if any of that had happened, it wouldn't matter cause I would have already beaten the dude like 3 or 27 times. I would also have bigger muscles.

Well I think I'm about out of stuff to say. Here's a cheesy line I found from when I was like 15. Definitely remember feeling this way about songwriting. It's just never as good as you thought it was at first.

I'll write it down for now but later I will hate it

Just like when I sang for you and told you that I made it

You never reassured me so I threw the song away

It's just like how you watch me when I sing to you today

I'd show it to you now but I know you'd probably hate it

Kind of how I'll look at you and tell you that I've made it

Talked to Mary Grace on facebook. Score!

Also curly is the new red.

-Joshua

Stress

Classes started, I don't wanna talk about it.

Haha, actually I had 2 JMC classes that were really cool. It was nice to have a little bit of reassurance on the major choice. Umm but that was after one day and we haven't done anything yet, so... we'll see how it goes. Also, theatre people are hilarious. Just so dramatic during regular speech. I think I'm going to drop theatre appreciation and be crazy dramatic about it. Like this:

Welp, I was going to do a dialogue of me angrily leaving the class but it was just terrible. Seriously you should be glad I didn't do it, it was so not funny.

I'll be honest, blogging was not on the agenda tonight. I was about to go to bed and got a sudden burst of energy. Oh sweet, perfect. A burst of energy at midnight. That's helpful. How about some energy IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FREAKING DAY. Seriously, Tyler's beginning to think that I have some kind of medical condition that makes me tired all the time. Sorry mom and dad, "You're just growing" is no longer an acceptable diagnosis. (Mom - feel free to send vitamins. The gummy bear kind would be AMAZING! You're the best. With or without healthy gummy bears.) I seriously thought a coffee pot in my room would solve the problem. Naive. And now using the word "naive" has prompted me to listen to the song "Naive" by the Kooks. Youtube it! One time I played this song in my car and a girl in the backseat texted me and asked if we could date because she liked the song. We didn't. Still felt cool.

I'm not going to write about Haiti. It's way beyond my comprehension to the point that I'm afraid me delving into it would probably be offensive. 200,000 people killed and 1.5 million homeless. Staggering (hurricane Katrina's death toll was around 1,850). Just want to learn to pray continually. So much going on and so much to be done. We sure need Jesus.

I'm going to write a less stressful blog soon. Promise.

-Joshua

AHEM!

Yeah yeah yeah, I'm back, big deal, wanna fight about it?? Let's get this show on the road!

Life is HAPPENING! Can't just be sitting around on love seats all the time, that's so childish. So pathetic. That's what I'm doing right now, but at some point you just have to grow up. I mean I don't plan on growing up, but YOU definitely have to. Go! Grow up! Do something with your life. Nope, finish reading my blog first. It's important. Just kidding.

Seriously though, there is so much going on. I don't even want to get into the amount of home/family sickness that's about to go down. Sisters going off and being crazy awesome. Parents being in another state and working so hard. Separated from the family but always cradled by the Father and loved by the Savior. Christianity comes with some difficulties and sometimes confusions, but some truths are just sweet. Like the yogurt mountain I had today except multiplied by a number so big that it isn't real (original tart, vanilla, blueberry, strawberry and a plethora of toppings).

Fortunately I am still near my brother and sister-in-law, whose love seat I am currently blogging on and am about to be sleeping on. They're so cool. Hope they read this so they see the shout out and are like "YAYYYY!!" .. because they both shout "yay" a lot. Nope. But they might when they see this.

ANYWAY maybe I'm a little scatterbrained. It's just that it's the beginning of a new semester and every time that happens I start feeling like it's a new beginning and a chance to reinvent myself and make life awesome. I don't necessarily think this is true, but it's my instinct. I guess the summary word is "excitement" mixed with a little bit of "nerves" and at the moment a slight amount of "heartburn". So much craziness. I hope all the other kids like me. They might not (because I don't wear croakies).

On the plus side, I finally figured our my major: Hot Girls, with a minor in cool shenanigans. Haha, nah I'm just playing. Those aren't even real majors. Actually I declared Journalism and Mass Communications. Yes, I know nobody reads newspapers. Yes, a lot of journalists are not good people. No, I don't really like to read. Now that we're through with the inevitable rebuttal, I'm actually kind of excited about it. I was hoping that choosing a major would put an end to annoying conversations about how not bright my future looks. Welp, guess not. Turns out people don't want you to declare a major, they want you to declare pre-med, pre-pharmacy, or pre-law. Oh well. Goodbye soapbox.

Okay, 3 minutes till this computer is dead for the night. I love you beautiful blog readers. Don't fear, joshuasizemore.blogspot is back on its feet. How's that for some wind in your sails.

-Joshua

Winter Break

If there's one thing I know about winter break it's that there is a lot of time to sit around. I think the only rule is that you can't do anything productive. I've sat around a lot already and haven't managed anything productive at all. I mean blogging is the most productive thing I do and that hasn't happend, so... what a disaster.

Anyway, I had to delete my post about working at a bread store because I decided it was too harsh and probably included too many details about people and places and I didn't want to offend. But we will just say it was an experience. In case you were wondering, bread must be cooled to 88º or less before you bag it, Virginia rolls are extremely time consuming to bag, bread racks are heavy and dangerous, and most importantly if you drop a loaf of bread on the floor it's okay to pick it up and package it as long as your manager isn't looking... this is all I have to say on the matter.

Working nights was pretty fascinating because not only did I have to constantly wrestle with some delirium, but I also became accustomed to seeing a part of the day that I rarely ever see: morning. I can definitely count on two hands the number of times that I've seen the sunrise (maybe three hands). This was definitely the highlight of the job. There is something crazy about being awake when the sun comes up. Especially since I had already been up for several hours so I didn't feel the typical grogginess of an early morning. The last day I worked I got to go watch the sunrise in a neighborhood by my house and the sky was just exploding. It was so sick, I think God just made a cherry bomb of sunbeams and clouds, lit the fuse and threw it at the atmosphere over Kentucky. Now that I'm back to sleeping in it's kind of sad. I miss the early morning, it's like a friend that you get really close to in short period and then you realize that you have to wake up way too early to spend time with them so you just say goodbye indefinitely. Haha. My analogies need some work right now, but hey I'm shaking off the blog-rust. That word sounded grossss.

I really like the holidays. This Christmas season has been a beautiful time with the family, I've loved it. I love how for some reason during Christmas we begin eating lots of things out of large tins. Christmas is like the only time when people give each other tins full of chocolate and nuts and popcorn. I think it's kind of hilarious.

Anyways, I think you're beginning to see why my blog has been on a bit of a vacation and that is because NOTHING IS HAPPENING. If I have any wit at all, it's pretty much entirely based on stuff that happens, so when nothing happens, I just don't anything funny to say, sooooo.

Peace and love.

-Joshua

End

I can't believe it's the end of the semester. You know what else I can't believe? The dudes across from me turned off their fridge and left all their food inside. This includes a container of yogurt, some tortillas, half and half, a plastic cup of milk and more... so excited about cleaning it up. On top of that, they left a full thing of garbage. Can I pose a legitimate question? Who. In the WORLD fills up a garbage can without first putting a GARBAGE BAG inside it? So ridiculous. Anyway, I'm finally finished with finals and so relieved. We had a big RA Christmas party tonight which was really nice. Just getting ready to head home and slice some bread.

I don't think I really have any stories at the moment, I think I just wanted to vent about all the crap I'm having to clean up. I will definitely write some when I get home and get to gather my thoughts a little.

I'm gonna go give Bethany some apple butter. APPLE BUTTER!!!

-Joshua

Exam Week

Here I am again. I feel like every time I start a blog post I am stepping out in faith just hoping that something interesting will come out. I'd say that my biggest blog fear is that I will write something completely boring and lame. Maybe my life should be a little more outrageous. If I were Tiger Woods right now my blog would be SO outrageous. This is what my blog would have looked like recently if I were Tiger Woods:

... Okay I was really going to do this, I even started writing as Tiger but then I realized that his situation is pretty sad and it wasn't as funny as I had hoped. So much for outrageous.

I've noticed lately that my people skills have taken a major hit. I'm generally a fairly awkward person but lately I've been much worse during introductions and basic conversations. Instead of seeking out a real solution to this problem, I'm going to pretend that I'm an expert on communications and present some tips for better people skills:

How to Win Friends, Influence People, and be straight up Sexy

by Josh Sizemore

Chapter 1 - Realizing You're a Loser

Have you ever wanted everyone to like you AND be physically attracted to you? Probably, unless you're some kind of weirdo. Only one problem - you're a pathetic little loser. That really stinks. Well lucky for you I'm already awesome. "But how does your greatness benefit me?" you ask. I knew you'd say that, that's the kind of question losers always ask. I hate it. Well anyway, I'll tell you: I've achieved so much success in my life that all I have left to do is give back to all the pathetic people. I know your little brain is getting tired, so I'll go on and give you some advice that will increase your likability ten fold:

1. When meeting someone for the first time, it is crucial to make good eye contact. The best way to gain a person's trust is to get them to stare at your pupils. The human pupil possesses a certain sincerity that says, "Hey, he has little black circles on his eyeballs too, we share a common bond." I've made this acronym to help you remember to seek out people's pupils:

P upils

I nitiate

S pecial

S incerity

2. Always speak louder than the person you are being introduced to. This will convince the person that you are way more confident than them and ensure that they know you're in control. You will never gain a person's respect unless you cause them a little bit of eardrum pain. Here is a little exercise I often like to do: when you are being introduced to someone, pretend that you are listening to music through headphones. If done properly, this will ensure that you're voice comes out at least 5 times louder than a normal person's speaking voice. These unexpected fits of shouting will immediately make your new acquaintance uncomfortable and confused, rendering you the boss of this new relationship.

... Having just read that I would say that your personal worth has skyrocketed from "complete nothing" to "piece of gum I just stepped on in the parking lot". You are well on your way.

Yeah. I'll be honest with you, I have no idea what just happened. I had no intentions of writing a self-help book in this blog. Or anywhere, ever. I should probably apologize, there was some mean stuff in there. But if you remember my earlier paragraph, this book was me giving advice to myself. I'm so confused. I gotta take an exam in the morning. Goodnight world.

-Joshua

The General Specific

Welp, after a long blog vacation I'm back on my love seat listening to the rain and pondering my inevitable mediocrity. You can already tell this is going to be a good post.

Truth is, I'm not really in a funny mood, and I'm listening to David Gray which isn't helping. I'm going to have to use some personal anecdote to get me back on track. For those of you (and me) who don't know what "anecdote" means, I just Urban Dictionary'd it. It wasn't really interesting.

I shaved today for the first time in over a month. I'll be honest with you, it was pretty gross. I realize that my beard/crazyfacehair was patchy, but it was really long. I kind of don't like thinking about it, but at the same time I have a strange sense of pride about it. How weird is that? "That's RIGHT! I'm the sorta guy that if I don't shave for a while hair begins growing on my upper lip and chin. Don't you wish you were like me, little pre-pubescent guy??" Because we all know that guys who can grow facial hair are the most manly. I think it's hilarious some of the mindsets our society subconsciously promotes.

Some changes in life are pretty good, but there's one that I really struggle with these days and that is the fact that I suck at basketball. In high school I was pretty decent and it was like the one thing that I put a lot of effort in to. Somehow I have reverted back to about a 6th grade skill level. Today me and a couple guys played 3 on 3 against a guy that weighed 300 lbs., a guy that weighed 180 and should have weighed 150, and a guy with sideburns the size and shape of hockey sticks. We freakin lost. And my teammates weren't even bad. I missed so many shots. Even though it was probably the least important game I've ever played in, it still put me in a really bad mood for a couple hours.

I don't think I've mentioned this before. I know this guy at school and every time I talk to him I immediately get confused. Every single time I say "What's up man?" he says "Doin pretty good." It's so hilarious. Seriously, 100% of the time, every time I've ever talked to him. One time I said "You have a good weekend?" and he said "You too." I mean, what am I supposed to do with that? I think he does it on purpose. It certainly ensures that we never get past one sentence each. Every time he says it my brain just freezes and I don't know what to do. I really want to ask him about it but I'm not sure how to pose the question. Here's how I picture the conversation playing out in my head:

Me: "Hey man."

Him: "Not too much."

Me: "Ummm, ok. Hey I was just wondering why it is that every time I ask what's up you say

'doin pretty good'?

Him: "Doin pretty good."

Me: "Hm. Are you being serious, or..."

Him: "You too."

Me: "Alright. Well I'm completely disoriented now so I guess I'll talk to you later."

This is obviously an exaggeration. Pretty sure.

Some people are just so funny. There's this one older girl who always tells me how hott I am and how she would marry me if I was older and all this stuff. She's pretty out of control in general and I realize the humor in it, but at the same time she gives it just enough sincerity so that it's really encouraging to me. I really like her. One time I had this random inspiration that I should secretly be a super hero named "The Encourager". All I would do is just walk around and be really encouraging to everyone and try to brighten up their day. It sounds a little ridiculous right now, but I remember thinking it was pretty profound at the time. I'm embarrassed at how often I fall short of this. I think encouragement is one of most tangible ways we can affect people, yet I find that I have a selfish/competitive edge that continually keeps me from attesting to people's great qualities. I hate to think that pride is more important to me than making another person feel good.

See this is what happens when I don't blog for a while. I come back with a 20 page smoothie of random. I'll try to be more consistent.

Oh yeah, I meant to mention that I spent a couple hours today with my friend Lauren recording auto-tune raps about glaciers for our Geography class. My academic and professional careers are increasingly bleak.

Speaking of encouragement, thanks so much to those of you that read my little blog. So many people have said stuff to me about it and it always makes me happy. You guys are neat.

-Joshua

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

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

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

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 - 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

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:

Pretty sure he's the grandpa...

Matt Wambles:

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

Tyler Clardy:

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

Audrey Leder:

Nice suit Audrey.

Emily Walker:

Pretty accurate.

Dwight Castle:

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