Saturday, October 26, 2013

Interstate 8


Song reference. Up next/soon: a case study on Bruce Springsteen, featuring lots of words about a 64 year old man and his music.

 I have a lot of material from the last month to cover and no one reads these introductions, so here's a lot of bullet points with something occasionally italicized.
  • Fall Retreat with CRU was yet again a wonderful time. As always, the people of CRU poured into me and made me feel at home for another year. I love this ministry and all of the people in it. This year I was given the opportunity to be a discussion group co-leader and it was pretty amazing. I met some great new friends through it and I'm incredibly encouraged by the amount of love and willingness to discuss and interact this freshmen group has. If any of you are reading this (dear Lord please tell me someone reads this otherwise what am I doing), you're great.
  • Along with this, the Lord has blessed me with an absolutely incredible Bible study in Clement Hall. All of the guys there are awesome and have taught me more than I've taught them. I grow more and more thankful every single day that I have the opportunity to serve here.
  • Important events update: I finished the Bruceathon on October 18th after 13 days of nothing but Springsteen. 17 albums in 13 days was more than a bit of a chore, to say the least. Bruce has some absolutely epic stuff (Born to Run, Darkness on the Edge of Town, Nebraska) and some things that really shouldn't have happened (everything from 1987 to 1995). I'll be covering all of this in a post devoted to the Boss soon. (It's because I wasn't allowed to write my term paper over it so I've got to talk about it to someone wait no one's going to read that whoops)
  • The Official List of 2013 Movies That Will Liked (as of October 26th, to be updated next month) (ASCENDING ORDER):
    • Short Term 12 (10/10)
    • Gravity (9.4/10)
    • Fruitvale Station (9.1/10)
    • Mud (9/10)
    • The World's End (8.9/10)
    • The Place Beyond the Pines (8.5/10)
    • Upstream Color (8.4/10)
    • The Conjuring (8.2/10)
    • The Kings of Summer (8.2/10)
    • Despicable Me 2 (8/10)
    • This Is the End (7.7/10)
    • Monsters University (7.5/10)
    • Captain Phillips (7.4/10)
    • Rush (7.2/10)
    • Star Trek Into Darkness (7/10)
  • Movies that will likely earn a place on the above list after I have the chance to watch them in late October/November: Before Midnight, Prisoners, Blue Jasmine, 12 Years a Slave, Nebraska, and Dallas Buyers Club. (Yes I understand I care too much about movies leave me alone)
  • Important moment in American history: Matthew McConaughey (sorry, I promise I'm almost done) has a little preview for Dallas Buyers Club running at the two Regal Cinemas locations I went to this week. He starts his preview to the preview with "hey, McConaughey here" and ends with "just keep livin'." There are so many questions presented because of this. Can I end every conversation with "just keep livin'?" What does that even mean? Does it have a deeper meaning to it than the one I've made up for it? Does Matt McConaughey start every phone conversation with "McConaughey here?" Can I do that too?
  • The October/November Playlist for Other Awkward White People:
  • MIXTAPE UPDATE (mupdate?): By the end of 2013. First single, titled "Michelle Obama" and written by Young Jay Thugga, can be found HERE. Eventually we'll probably just rename the first mixtape "Sorry For the Delay."
  • Something I've realized this semester that I'm very passionate about is analyzing and diving into wealth and racial inequality in America and how it affects our school system. As a hopeful future middle/high school English teacher, it's very hard for me to read articles like this from The Atlantic, which shows how your school district and others compare to state, national, and international levels of subject proficiency. It's absolutely heartbreaking reading about how proficiency levels in reading and math in many areas of America (especially inner-city districts) are declining and how kids in these districts are given a much lower and less likely opportunity at success than their more affluent neighbors. I think we can at least begin to attribute this to the gigantic wealth gap in the United States (the top 1% in America takes home 25% of the wealth; the bottom 80% take 15%). As someone who was able to see racial and wealth inequality in unbelievable ways in Detroit for part of this past summer, I feel more inspired each and every day to play a part in trying to help turn this around. I feel like the Lord has given me the opportunity to serve somewhere (wherever that may be) through teaching and I pray that wherever He sends me it's an area in need of help and care.
  • This week at the Clement study, we diverted from going through Ephesians for a couple minutes to analyze Galatians 2:19-21. This is one of my favorite passages in the Bible and it's three verses that I want to continue to apply to and understand in my life daily. I love this.
  • Unfortunately, the world's greatest baseball team did not make the World Series this year. However, the Tigers provided the world with two of the best GIFs this season. (Next year.)
  • Tennessee gets to (and wins) a bowl this year.
  • Unfortunately, it's 1:30 AM at the time I'm typing this and I had to wake up almost 20 hours ago, so writing is an extreme struggle right now. I'll cover these VERY important topics soon: Big Sean's merits, or lack thereof; the official list of the 100% worst things ever; Jim Leyland and Grandfather Bob's similarities; more, potentially.
  • Last but not least, no one is allowed to complain about how "cold" it is until the temperature drops below freezing at any point. 50-60 has never been and never will be cold; please don't do this to me.
I haven't slept in a really long time,

William Edward Warren I
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