Crazy person says what?

Vespertine · 11-08-2007, 02:46 AM

I've decided to start a journal since free time would be a good way to describe my life at the moment.

Hopefully in this journal I can sort of figure my thoughts out, I tend to be able to organise how I'm thinking better when I say it, or in this case write it, in a place where people more than myself can see it.

Today was a pretty normal day, which is probably something I've had too many of lately but I'm sure there are worse days than just "normal" days. Tomorrow I have to get up at a decent time to go to Spanish class but since I'm in everyones favorite sleeping routine and sleeping from about 2 or 3am until any given time the next morning, it could be difficult. I've never really been a morning person, even though when I actually get up early I feel good, 10 seconds or so it takes to get out of a comfortable bed and make your way to the shower are to be avoided at all costs before about 9am in the morning. Not that I'm a lazy person, although I can be, I think most people agree its not a nice feeling.

For the story I'm about to write I need to sort of write about my life a little bit. I'm currently living in Mexico as an exchange "student". I am currently not studying anything so the student part for me has become the least important part of my life. I am supposed to be attending school but didn't see much benifit to it and so I managed to get myself a nice little deal. I was in a high school where I had to go from 7am until about 1pm but didn't like it much and there wasn't much of an opportunity for making good friends so for the first 6 months that I was enrolled in this school I went all of 20 days, most of which I only went until about 10am and spent most of the time chatting to my friends back home or chatting to people in the school. Since Mexico has a shocking education system I never had to hand in work (except one time when I didnt know Spanish I managed to complete something and recieved an 8 out of 10 which would be like a B+) and I probably only wrote about 100 words in the 20 days I actually went. Anyway I spent most of the time travelling around Mexico or at the beach. So after summer holidays I managed to get into an arts school which I figured I would find more interesting and be with people who were interested in more than getting wasted and smoking pot. My class schedule there is awesome, I go 2 days a week 4pm until 6pm and one day 4pm until 5pm. The classes are interesting too, I'm studying very basic music theory which allowed me to make heaps of friends since I'd already done 6 years of music theory in high school and I could help people out. Also I'm taking Introduction to Arts and Comprehension of Liturature classes which are interesting too.

Anyway I hope I didn't loose you with all that.

The point is, I was coming out of classes today and I heard music that sounded familure. I kept walking and all of a sudden realised it was music by a group called Hillsong. Hillsong the most well-known church in Australia and almost every church in the country uses their music in their services and I've been hearing their music in church, listening to it and playing it in church all my life so it was really suprising. Anyway, I went back and asked the dude what he was listening to and it was an old guy and just said it was music about God and that he was transcribing it or something for a student to play in their church. I was suprised for two reasons, firstly that Hillsong was being sung in Spanish, and secondly that there was a church here that I hadn't been to playing Hillsong. I've been here about 10 months now and found a church early on that was mainly for american tourists here for the winter and I was pretty sure it was the only christian church in the city, everyone told me so. I was hardly ever able to go because I was always travelling or had things to do and when I wanted to go I had to get up and take the bus and it was a bit of a hassle. The result being that I've spent most of my time here without attending a church which has made it some of the most difficult and at times some of the richest time, spiritually, that I've had in my whole life.

That didn't really turn out to being a story but it allowed me to explain some of the stuff thats going on in my life at the moment. Maybe some of it doesn't make much sense but I'll have a read through tomorrow or something and check it out....its really late. Anyway thats all I've got for now.

Thanks alot to anyone who takes the time to read this.

FTS · 11-08-2007, 04:38 AM

What?

That was quite an interesting read. Sounds like life is quite crazy for you at the moment.

Vespertine · 11-08-2007, 10:18 AM

Hey thanks for reading. Yeah crazy is how I often describe it. I was thinking though, in many ways it is going to be a time I look back on as being a really amazing part of my life. I'll have you know I woke up myself up this morning at about 6am and couldn't get back to sleep so I went for a run. I couldn't believe it, I mean, who wakes up by themselves after only 3 hours of sleep. I checked my phone and I got a message at about 4.30am so maybe it kind of inturrupted my sleep pattern without waking me up...who knows.

One thing to note is that in Mexico no matter what time it is or where you are there are always people everywhere. I couldn't believe the number of people at the beach this morning at 6.30am. You would expect some people but it was seriously crowded.

Must go, I will update later in the day.

Vespertine · 11-08-2007, 10:57 PM

Today seemed to go on forever. I already explained how I woke up early after so little sleep then I went running, read the entire book of Ecclesiastes and went to spanish class. After that I walked 3 miles home in the mid-day heat and started listening to a sermon. For the last 8 months or so I've been listening to Sermons from Mars Hill Church in Seattle preached by Mark Driscoll. Its fantastic for me especially since I'm not attending a church and I'm really find he can communitcate the bible in a way I can understand well. After this I spent a few hours around the house before I went for another run, I like routine and I usually run every afternoon and even though I ran in the morning and walked in the day I ran about 7km or so which I guess is around 4 miles.

After that I was pretty tired so I came home and watched TV for a while (scrubs re-run, seinfeld and House) before eating and feeling very tired. I'm really looking foward to the next episode of Scrubs becoming available to all of us who dont live in the states which should be tomorrow sometime. I've become adicted lately and am following the last season religiously. Its on NBC at 9.30pm Thursdays I think its EST.

Now I'm about to call home so thats all I'll write for now. I have heaps of ideas about my bible study today both in Ecclesiastes and the Sermon I listened to. I'm going through a 1st Corinthians series and I'm up to 1st Corinthians 11 which has some of the most controversial topics in the bible.

Vespertine · 11-09-2007, 02:38 PM

When you get up really late do you still have breakfast or do you just wait for lunch? The dilema is that if you eat breakfast your lunch will be severly compromised and you may well find yourself cursing breakfast because your not hungry but if you dont eat you'll be starving throughout the day so its a fairly big decision to make. If your reading this and your a girl and your thinking, "is that seriously all guys think about?" the answer is yes. Food is fantastic and its very important your day is set out so that your not missing out or compromising your eating times in any way.

Unfortunatly the new Scrubs episode hasn't shown up so I'm still hanging in suspense. I'm really looking foward to seeing how this season works out. The most interesting thing will be how things work out between JD and Elliot after the first 2 episodes were dedicated to them breaking up from fairly seriously relationships. Anyway dont wanna go into that, I posted a big thing in the Scrubs forum in the Movies/TV thread a while back just to prove that I'm a complete freak.

I had something interesting to write about but I'm forgotten. I just reaslied that after 2 and a half years on these forums I have posted a whole 300 times. Impressive hey?

**Ordinary Sarah** · 11-09-2007, 04:46 PM

I am returning the blog post.

I understand what you mean about blogging... it is nice to know that you are heard when you say something. Closure, I guess. Let's you know you aren't really crazy, right?

So you are going to school in Mexico, then? 300 posts is pretty awesome.

Vespertine · 11-09-2007, 10:46 PM

Hey thanks for the reply. Yeah I know what you mean. I think I wrote in my first entry on this thing that writing down my thoughts and stuff where other people can see if and your kind of vulnerable to your own thoughts in a way, for me it kind of helps me order my thoughts better. Perhaps that doesn't make sense which would suck cause it would totally void my point.

Anyway, yeah I'm suposed to be going to school here or something but I really just have to go 2 or 3 days a week and hang out with guys who play music, its pretty awesome.

I probably should have posted this in your blog...sorry, I'll make something else up.

Vespertine · 11-09-2007, 11:11 PM

I also want to add that just recently I have started to notice that seriously every time I go out I see at least 1 or 2 people being pulled over for traffic infractions. It doesnt matter if I'm walking to a shop, going for a run, somewhere in the car...someones always getting busted for being a bad driver. I guess in Mexico its not such a big deal because as long as you have 5 or 10 dollars in your pocket your home free. What amazes me is that here the accepted standard of driving is waaay lower than what I'm used to at home. Its fine to stop in the middle of a busy road to talk to someone on the sidewalk, drive with a beer in your hand as you drive, have 20 people in the back of your truck, pulling in front of people without indicating ect ect and what amazes me is that they would have to be doing things worse than this to be pulled over by the transit police.

Point of all this is that I would be very scared to drive here.

natedawg5280 · 11-09-2007, 11:28 PM

Hey, thanks for stopping by my blog.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vespertine

When you get up really late do you still have breakfast or do you just wait for lunch? The dilema is that if you eat breakfast your lunch will be severly compromised and you may well find yourself cursing breakfast because your not hungry but if you dont eat you'll be starving throughout the day so its a fairly big decision to make. If your reading this and your a girl and your thinking, "is that seriously all guys think about?" the answer is yes. Food is fantastic and its very important your day is set out so that your not missing out or compromising your eating times in any way.

I must say you should still have breakfast. It makes days thirty-thousand times better. Three meals always beats two meals. However, I'm lazy far too often and only eat the lunch and dinner.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vesp

I also want to add that just recently I have started to notice that seriously every time I go out I see at least 1 or 2 people being pulled over for traffic infractions. It doesnt matter if I'm walking to a shop, going for a run, somewhere in the car...someones always getting busted for being a bad driver. I guess in Mexico its not such a big deal because as long as you have 5 or 10 dollars in your pocket your home free. What amazes me is that here the accepted standard of driving is waaay lower than what I'm used to at home. Its fine to stop in the middle of a busy road to talk to someone on the sidewalk, drive with a beer in your hand as you drive, have 20 people in the back of your truck, pulling in front of people without indicating ect ect and what amazes me is that they would have to be doing things worse than this to be pulled over by the transit police.

Wow. If they're allowed to do that I can't imagine what they get pulled over for.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vesp

Anyway, yeah I'm suposed to be going to school here or something but I really just have to go 2 or 3 days a week and hang out with guys who play music, its pretty awesome.

Life sounds pretty wild for you but simple at the same time. It sounds pretty neat.
I imagine you can speak Spanish? I hate Spanish. I suck at it.

Vespertine · 11-09-2007, 11:50 PM

Hey thanks for reading, really appriciate it.

Quote:

I must say you should still have breakfast. It makes days thirty-thousand times better. Three meals always beats two meals. However, I'm lazy far too often and only eat the lunch and dinner.

I know what you mean, alot of the time I'm a freak when it comes to healthy eating and living but sometimes you cant resist a good sleep in. The thing is when its like 12.30pm its kind of not breakfast time anymore.

Quote:

Wow. If they're allowed to do that I can't imagine what they get pulled over for.

Haha its pretty insane hey. I think usually its speeding "in excess" but still your only a small bribe away from being on your way again in a few minutes. People run red lights and stuff and they dont get away for that.

Quote:

Life sounds pretty wild for you but simple at the same time. It sounds pretty neat.
I imagine you can speak Spanish? I hate Spanish. I suck at it.

Yeah it is wild sometimes and at the same time I enjoy it being simple. It gives me time to do things I've always wanted to do and never had the time. Yeah I learnt Spanish after I got here, I didnt speak a word when I arrived but I can speak fluently now. I'd be really happy to help you out if you wanted...

Vespertine · 11-12-2007, 11:34 PM

Just finished a fantastic weekend. As I mentioned earlier I'm an exchange student here and this weekend a bunch of students came down from another city to spend the weekend here at the beach. On Saturday we took a ferry and went out in front of the city and past some of the islands that are around here, it was really fun and really beautiful. After that we went to an island to eat lunch and spend the afternoon swimming and playing soccer on the beach ect.

The next day we had to get up early, which was difficult after being out late the night before, and participated in a rotary event where we did a massive bike ride. I'm no quite sure what it was for but we went down the main street with a police escort feeling incredibly important and so I dont think we really needed a reason. After that we climbed up to the lighthouse which is the highest natural lighthouse in the world so you can imagine it was a pretty fair climb. A few friends and I took a smaller track which looked like a shortcut but got lost and ended up climbing over boulders and cliffs then going matrix style through a giant cactus almost like slow motion break dancing so as not to be torn to pieces by it. Finally we arrived and it was a fantastic view. After this we went to breakfast then went and spent the afternoon at the beach again.

Had a fantastic time meeting new people and doing heaps of stuff outdoors. I love it.

Today was back to normal, after only sleeping 3 hours Saturday night I slept a straight 13 last night and got up about 12. Then I went to school in the afternoon but didnt go to class just sat outside playing guitar with a friend. After that I came home and went running like normal and am now hoping I'll be able to sleep at a decent hour after sleeping so much today.

I forgot to include a funny story which explains why I only slept 3 hours Saturday night...when I got home with a friend at about 1.30am there was a really loud party across the road, that is pretty normal BUT this time they had a horse! I couldn't understand it. It was just like a normal street and normal house and the party was sort of set up downstairs with tables and chairs and then just standing around was a horse. They had live music and everything and as I was lying in bed not sleeping I looked out a few times to see a guy on the horse kind of like dancing or something, it was so bizzarre but so so funny. I was told later that in fact there were 3 horses, as if one wasnt enough. What gain is there in having a horse (or 3) at your party, answer me that?

Also I have finally found a christian friend here. An exchange student from the states, I only met her this weekend because I had been travelling at the time of orrientation when everyone met everyone else. Anyway its a real answer to prayer and I'm happy to have someone who I can talk about the kind of things you want to talk about with christians and just not feel so alone. Christian friends are vital, its something I came to realise pretty quickly this year when I went from having many of them to none. Also she found a church which is part of the complex where she lives and so I will hopefully be able to go there for the last 8 weeks or so I have here.

Very thankful for that.

Now its time to perhaps listen to some more teaching on 1st Corinthians, I'm about 8 sermons away from finishing a 36 week sermon series. Even though I havent had a church to go to on a regular basis I have listened to several years worth of sermons.

Its almost time to start counting down the days until I go home, I'm excited about that.

**bread man** · 11-14-2007, 09:04 PM

Hey man, I didn't realize you'd started this.

Quote:

Point of all this is that I would be very scared to drive here.

It sounds like the way people drive in Thailand. The weird thing is that there are way less accidents than you'd expect. I think part of it is just that people are generally nicer there (unless you try on jeans at their shop and then don't buy them), there's pretty much no such thing as road rage.

Anyway, I'm preaching at for 5-10 minutes or something so I need to go work on what I'm going to say. Hope you're ok and I'll talk to you soon.

PS Explosions in the Sky and Wilco tours for next year were announced today! Yay!

Vespertine · 11-14-2007, 09:52 PM

Yeah it seems like there are less accidents here too, I dont really get it maybe its just because everyones so used to being really alert, which seems like it would be difficult if your under the influence but hey it seems to work. Lol at making people in Asian countries angry when you dont buy stuff. I think I was really close to getting beat up when I was in Bali when I was 15 or whenever it was.

Let me know what your preaching on. Everythings good man, talk soon.

PS YES and YES

Vespertine · 11-15-2007, 04:51 PM

I really just wanted to write today to have a bit of a rant. The thing is I cant help but feel overwhelmingly and completely bored. Its stupid but really frustrating and seems to affect every part of my life. The whole thing has sort of got me into this pattern of thinking that just makes me lazy and so even though the obvious soloution to boredom is to do something I just cant feel like I want to do anything anyway. I think the main problem is that Im not studying something at the moment and I'm not part of a church so I honestly feel like my life is going no where. Even though I've spent this year learning a new language, getting used to a different culture and making new friends from all over the world I cant help but feel like I'm not achieving anything and that I'm just wasting my time. I guess because the time is so long and I have some of the best times of my life but in between its just like nothingness. Then I think maybe my expectations for enjoying myself have gone up because at home I cant really ever remember feeling like this when I was in school and had friends and had things to do and plan for ect. Now its just like the main decision I make in a day is what time to get up tomorrow. I've tried heaps of things that I know should have rewards like excercising and doing more bible study but honestly it just makes it worse. I now see those things as being boring which is really tragic. Thats what I mean about it having effects on everything in my life. Now its like I cant be bothered reading my bible or studying when its the thing I know more than anything that I really want to be doing but theres just this huge barrier. I think I'm exactly where satan wants me in that I'm just being and doing nothing and I know it but theres nothing I can do about it. Sometimes I think, "ahh if only I could just go home and be in my old life again doing things and feeling comfortable in a normal country ect ect then I would be fine" the thing is when I actually think about it, that wouldn't solve anything. Its just making me really upset and angry that I want to be doing things but its almost like I cant and if I force myself to do it it just makes it worse.

What could God be teaching me through this time? I just cant figure it out and it just kills me to feel so helpless.

Has anyone gone through this or can offer any kind of advice...?

Vespertine · 11-15-2007, 05:11 PM

I think I'm just too impatient and need to settle down and appriciate the things I am doing knowing that later in life I'll be happy I did them. For some reason you remember the few good memories and not the boring or average ones which is good but it doesnt make the hard times any easier.