DaBomb

I did alright in school this semester, which is a relief since it dominated a lot of my time.

Stacey graduated, and I agreed to help her move up to NY when the time came. We would be driving up seeing as she had a bunch of junk she wanted to take to put in her apartment. She graduated on a Friday and they told her that her seminary classes would be starting on the following Monday, so we had to drive straight through the weekend. It ended up being a pretty drive though. From Dallas we drove through Arkansas (nothing new there), Tennessee, Virginia, West Verginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and into NY. We drove back a different route through Pennsylvania to Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas and then Texas. Seven of these states, I had never been to before. We traveled on a multitude of Interstates including I-45, I-20, I-30, I-40, I-87, I-90, I-81, I-271, I-71 and I-65. I only decided to tell you them all because I’m proud of myself for remembering them all.

We stayed at my Grandma’s house for the week we were there. It was enjoyable, and I got a lot of sleeping done. Grandma can talk a lot, so there were a few times I needed to just be away from her. I survived though and I’m really glad I got to see her.

I’m going to give one though. I know I always rag on the rest of y’all when you don’t post for awhile, but here I’ve gone and done the same thing. I now know what it means to be busy. I just wanted to say it will probably be another few weeks before I find time to get back on here, but I have not forgotten.

I still have this week of class, next week with finals, and then I’m driving up to New York with Mom and Stacey to move Stacey in there for her next phase of life.

Yesterday, was my birthday and it was good.

It was pretty scary at the time, but now that it has been medically explained, it’s just funny. Therefore you can laugh.

On Saturday my throat started hurting. This was a sign to me that a cold was coming on. I didn’t think too much of it except frustration because I hate being sick. I took some pain relievers and they worked for the specified time on the bottle but I forgot to take more. No biggie.

Sunday, it was a little worse and the pain relievers did not seem to be working. I still was not too worried. Again, I was frustrated. This time because I had to deal with good amounts of pain whenever I swallowed (which I now realize is a lot). I drove back to school and the trip went down without a hitch.

When I got back to school I ate dinner with Cara, and she got me two cups of coffee because heat always soothes my soar throats. This time though the heat only made swallowing less painful, but the pain was just as strong seconds later. I thought I was going to be dealing with a monster cold. I have never felt swollen lymph nodes, so I asked Cara and she said mine were swollen on my left side.

That night around 12:30, I decided I needed to shave. I always shave my facial area first and then the neck. First with the grain, and then against the grain. I had no issues with the face. The neck was a different story though. When I shaved over the swollen lymph node my vision got real blurry and I had to put my hands down on the sink to support me and take some deep breaths. I thought I was going to vomit, so I decided I needed to finish shaving quickly and then try to lay down to calm my stomach. I finished my down strokes with the grain, and I went back to do the upstrokes real quick…

I heard Landon say, “Are you okay, Ian?” My eyes popped open and I thought I had been asleep, until I realized I was on the ground and the last thing I remembered was standing at the sink. I said to Landon, “I don’t know.” and when he asked what happened I said the same thing. I had blacked out.

My glasses were askew, making me look like someone you shouldn’t take directions from. When I stood up my desk was a hot mess. Landon said the first thing he heard was me hitting everything on my desk, and he thought I was mad or something and taking my anger out by making a mess. When he looked back though to verify he could not see me. I was pale as junk too. Landon went into our suitemate’s room to tell him that I blacked out and ask what we should do. Ryan’s response was, “Okay, goodnight.” The next day he thought Landon coming into his room was a dream.

I went to the school doctor the next day. I have tonsillitis. Dr. Kluck said my body was drained from driving all day while being sick so that when the pain from shaving over the swollen lymph node hit my blood pressure dropped and so did I. When I went to Wal Mart to get my prescription I got to ride on one of those electric scooter carts because I didn’t feel strong enough to walk around. I’m better now though.

Ian-EE!

I apologize. Especially to those I always harp on about posting more. I now understand what it means to be too busy to post.

Pastor Jorge emailed me today. He informed me that Nina, the lady who hosted me while I was in Honduras, died about 10 days ago. I don’t know how specifically, but Pastor Jorge said it had something to do with her liver and her problems with sugar which I take to be her diabetes. She was a very funny and loving lady. She referred to me as her “hijo mejor” or ‘best son’ as a joke, but I know she loved me as a son. She loved Jesus, so I know she is in heaven right now. I’m not good at being sad and crying, so I want to share a couple funny memories I have of her.

One day I had just finished playing futbol with the kids, but they were still going strong. I was sitting on the Pastor Jorge’s porch with Nina and Pastor Jorge’s sister-in-law, waiting to walk back to Nina’s house. Pastor Jorge lives just over the fence from the church, so we could see the kids playing soccer in the front yard of the church. One of the kids kicked a rogue ball, and it flew over the fence and hit Pastor Jorge’s truck with a loud bang. It scared Nina and she scream, “P***!” (a Spanish curse word, for those who don’t understand the asterisks).  As soon as it escaped her mouth, she looked at me, and asked, “Sabe que la significa?” Do you know what that means? When I said I did she smiled real sheepishly and laughed at me.

One Sunday night I was sitting in my bed watching television, and Nina was out back messing with the laundry machine. I heard a serious of loud bangs, from out back but I was preoccupied with the television and I didn’t think much of it. About ten minutes later, Nina busted up in my room smiling real big and I asked “Que paso?” What happened? She laughed real loud and said “Hubo ladrones veniendo atras de la casa y yo disparo mi pistola al cielo para asustarles!” There were theives (this word doesn’t sound silly in Spanish) coming up the backside of the house and I shot my gun in the air to scare them! I said “oh, dang.” in English and she laughed and made fun of me for being scared. It’s definitely one of my more favorite moments with her.

I know none of y’all know her, but I am definitely grateful for the love she bestowed upon me and I hope that you all enjoyed the stories about her and I hope you will pray for her friends and family.

I was riding on a bus with two (unidentifiable) girls and Kelsey Grammar. Kelsey Grammar was a werewolf. He was telling us we needed to go out the emergency exit, because it was an emergency that we get away from him. The two girls got out, but then he changed into his wolf form, so I heroically slammed the door shut with me still inside. Kelsey (we were on a first name basis) started to come after me, so I crawled past him under the seats. He followed me under the seats, and got stuck, but I was also trapped in a corner. I decided I’d wait it out. Then Kelsey turned into my brother, Chris; and there was also a way for me to get out of the corner I was trapped in. I crawled out from under the seats and ran to sit in seat 1, because that was always the safe seat when I was in elementary. Chris followed me and started screaming at me to tell him the song that I was singing about him. I started to sing Lucky by Brittany Spears. He kept telling me to sing the real one, and stop lying. I couldn’t stop singing though. I feared he would haul off and hit me, but for some reason he never did. He just got real mad, and after I had sung the whole song he told me, again, to sing the real one. I told him that was the real one. Then my two unknown female friends had shown up again, and were sitting across the aisle from us confirming that Lucky really was the song that I was singing about my brother.

It was pretty wild. I guess I know now that if I ever sing Lucky to my brother he’ll turn into a Kelsey Grammar werewolf and get really mad.

In celebration of this wonderful time of the year, the cafeteria here at Ouachita is having various themed dinners all month. There are some themed nights sprinkled throughout the month that seem to fit the theme, but I quickly realized that a lot of them don’t really have anything to do with Black History Month. Here are the various celebratory food selections.

February 4th- Creole Day

February 8th-14th – Jell-o week

February 11th- Carribean Dinner Buffet

February 13th – Tortellini day

February 20th- Cherry Pie day

February 23rd- Banana Bread Day

February 24th- Fat Tuesday Cajun buffet

February 25th- Lent Begins- Ash Wednesday

February 28th- Chili Day

I’ve had to come up with various themes before, and done some that were a stretch. Somone missed the mark completely though. Jell-o week?!

Maybe I’m crazy, but it bothers me that people campaigned real hard to get the “is” removed from the Facebook Status, and no one even cares to make their status a complete sentence. Facebook even threw us a bone and left the is there as a default. If you’re homework is currently the verb you are partaking in, is it really that hard to make your sentence complete with the present progressive word? “Robert is DOING homework.” Because Robert will never be homework, so his status should not read that he is homework.

(Robert is a fictitious character)

I don’t do serious posts all that often because I feel like my serious thoughts are very much the same as the rest of y’all, except I can’t put them in words as well. I think this thought is privy to a select minority though.

My dad is not a Christian. I don’t count him hopeless just because with God, you never know. Even with the prayer though, I think he’s too stubborn to believe something he can’t understand (which sounds silly because Bill Roberts pointed out Sunday that if we understood God, then he’d be just like us). I love my dad, and this post is nothing against him. It’s just something that has been on my mind.

I don’t know if rietchous envy exists, but if not then I guess I’m admitting sin. I envy those of you who have Christian fathers that follow God in how they raise you. I feel like I would be encouraged more to read my Bible (which I know can be a struggle for anyone, but I feel the extra encouragment couldn’t hurt), and he would share his thoughts on what he’s learning everyday with me.

There’s two men who I think do this wonderfully: Bill Roberts and Fred Sabins.

Fred Sabins, is Logan Lowenstein’s stepdad. In most ways though, he is Logan’s real father. He has loved Logan and done everything he can to keep Logan on the right path. Logan is hard-headed sometimes, and he knows it, so I know it cannot have been easy for Fred to give Logan that tough love. He has done it though and I think he’s done it pretty well. They do different Bible studies together all the time and even in the few times I get to see Fred these days, I feel like he always shares very Godly knowledge with me.

Bill Roberts, is Andrew, Molly, Bethan and Blake Roberts father, and as long as I have known him, I could tell he is a very Godly man who hopes extends as much love as he can to his four kids. I know Andrew holds him in high regard to the rest of the world and I can respect that since you find so many people these days who claim to hate their fathers (I’m sure Molly and Bethany do too, Andrew is just more vocal about it). Bill was a fellow team leader with me at All You Can Eat. There was one day I remember particularly well, when right before worship was going to start, a song (i don’t remember the name of) was playing that Molly and Bethany wanted to dance too. They were running around and dancing, and Bill was right there with him. As silly as he may have looked or felt during that time, I knew he was doing it because he loved his daughters unconditionally. It is one of my favorite memories.

Most people might say I’m crazy for wanting two daughters, since I guess they’re harder to raise or cause more worry for fathers, but it’s always been my dream family to have a wife and two daughters. That day at camp, just made my desire to have two daughters even stronger.

I hope that with whatever children I have, I can be as good a father as Bill and Fred have been to their kids, and love them with as much love as Bill and Fred give to their kids.

I’m back at school now.

Patton (he was supposed to be my suitemate) ended up randomly getting into some NASCAR Technician school with a full scholarship, so a college degree would be useless so he dropped out. Sad day. Ryan (my only suitie now) rearranged his room, and it’s a pretty sweet setup now. I kinda hope he doesn’t get a replacement because it just wouldn’t be the same, and I’d hate to lose that sweet setup he has.

Last night I got a director from the registrar’s office saying I have to take Intro to Liberal Arts this semester because it’s required in the first two semesters a student is at Ouachita. It’s supposed to be really easy, but terribly boring. I was going to put it off till this next fall because I had a pretty good schedule mapped out for this semester. I was pretty let down by the news, but willing to accept it. I looked up what I needed and I went to Final Registration this morning prepared to add the class. When I walked up to my Dean and he saw my name, he told me to hold on a minute while he went to talk to someone. Then he came back and said that they were going to wave the class for me since I’m in my fourth semester of college already. Great news. I could have hugged him, but I didn’t.

Then I came back to the room and Landon was finally here. He’s a pretty tidy person, so he was complaining about all my stuff and how he had thought most of it was DA’s. I turned to him mostly joking (because I think I have a lot of stuff too) and said, “just because you were here first doesn’t mean we’re doing everything your way.” He seemed to back down right after that, which was surprising since I was mostly joking but good that he realized he can’t Hitler me around.

Then I saw The Unborn. It was alright.

I realized tonight when I was walking through the bathroom that Landon has the cutest plunger. If I get the chance I’ll take a picture and add it in.