American Weekend

(2002's Punch-Drunk Love; song)

Think about how this semester has gone for you. If you were asked to describe it in a few words, what would you describe it as? (Forever and always "This Boy is Exhausted" by the Wrens.) Would you look back on how your schedule was the schedule from hell or how you met many new people, forged new friendships, saw your two most important relationships become deeper and stronger, and overall felt like you had improved on your fall semester in many a way?

That's how I'm choosing to look back on the toughest semester of my life. Combining 19 hours of classes with working part-time, doing ministry work, and trying to cobble together something vaguely resembling a social life while juggling many other things I like to do was never going to work altogether, and it wasn't long before I felt like I was being forced to drop something.

My social presence went away first. While it wasn't very tragic because I'm an introvert and there are some days where other people are a major annoyance, it was still unfortunate, because I do like seeing people that I don't see every day. Writing letters is one of my best forms of communication, but it isn't very realistic to be doing that during the school year. (Also, Facebook messaging is, but I was embarrassed to admit it let's forget I ever wrote this run-on sentence.)

As the semester ran on, I saw my commitments dwindling and my stress level increasing. I failed to set up consistent discipleship times with the people I lead Bible study with this semester and I've felt terrible about it for months. I went weeks without speaking to some of my best friends. I knew that it would end, but I felt wrapped up in the greater mystery of finals week and what impact it would have on my grades. It was impossible to remove myself from my academic work.

While it has indeed been great for my productivity and efficiency levels (they've never been higher), I've had a lot of trouble in rejoicing in the Lord at times this semester. It has indeed been hard, but I took some time this morning to think about things that Jesus has blessed me with this semester, and as always, it was way more than I could remember or ever imagine.

He gave me opportunities to meet new people that I consider really wonderful people over the last couple of months. He's blessed me with the ability to play basketball (decently!) for most weekdays over the last few weeks. I have been given the opportunity to work with Sacred Heart's summer camp after a previous opportunity fell through, which I attribute to Him, as always.

It's been a wild and weird semester, and I want to thank anyone reading this for taking the journey with me, either through text or in person. Thanks to everyone for the most memorable four months of my life, and I hope I'm still here to get to do it all over again in August. I'll have consistent updates throughout the summer, and hopefully my life is still occasionally entertaining enough to write about it.

• I don't have some sort of phenomenal opening sentence, because it's hard for me to jump around a really fun fact for very long: I saw Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band perform on Saturday. It was one of the greatest three-hour experiences that I'll ever have in life and I would gladly do it all over again, especially outdoors in a city I've completely come around on in the last year in Atlanta. I'll go more in-depth on the show on my other blog soon, but just know that it was pretty freaking incredible.
• Because the rate of good new releases in the music world has slowed down this year (barring a better/more notable back half of the year, this is shaping up to be two straight "meh" musical years with a couple great albums and nothing more. Come through for me, Swans!), this month's playlist is made up entirely of songs that are from 2010 or earlier (the last great year in music). A lot of it is older stuff that I listened to a lot in high school and recently revisited/wanted to make sure they were known by more people I associate with. Here is your May playlist.
• I've finally decided what I would like to write on/"appreciate" for my other site, In Appreciation Of. It's a sort of revisionist history in terms of looking back on recent years and determining what the real best releases were from those years after I've had substantial time to revisit albums I had distinct first opinions on. Unfortunately, it's finals time and I have six exams, so this will take a while to do. Expect something to be posted within two weeks. I'm forcing myself to leave room for error. This is really embarrassing.
• I haven't had time to watch very many films from 2014, but I feel safe in saying that Under the Skin is your winner so far. I'm only recommending this to people that I know are fine with films that require deep thought. If not, stay away. If so, hurry up and see it.
• This is a work in progress, but I'll throw it at you anyway. There's but a week left in finals and summer is on the horizon. Here's a playlist to celebrate with some of my favorite summer-tinged recordings.
• I have six exams over the next week. If you need to get in touch with me, I likely won't be responding in a manner as efficient as I would like, so this is my apology.

That illiterate light is with us every night,

Will

Lights Out

(1984's Paris, Texas; song here)

(this post includes a long feature on twenty albums that have shaped my life in some way; that list can be found after the page break)

If there has been one discovery I've made during this learning experience of a semester, it's that there's only so many things in life you can truly enjoy. It's important to stop, take time to enjoy those things, and realize that you're in a pretty lucky position to be able to enjoy what you love just by being alive in that very moment on this planet.

To the surprise of exactly no one ever, I was playing basketball yesterday (Wednesday) afternoon. If you know me at all, you know that basketball is perhaps my favorite activity in this world other than eating, and it's something I enjoy with a deep and fierce passion. It's an outlet for me to work off frustration and then realize that I'm still having fun playing a sport I love.

After finishing up by making a few last shots, I took time to sit down on the back of my car and look out at what surrounded me. The place that I play at is in the middle of Fort Sanders, surrounded by concrete hospitals and deteriorating houses that haven't been renovated in decades. It's not the most beautiful place for a person to enjoy the sights, but sometimes you have to adjust your settings to get the highest amount of happiness out of it.

As I sat down, I started thinking about how utterly insane it was that God was allowing me to do more than a few things Wednesday afternoon. Despite how flawed I am, God loves me (and you!) enough to give me the ability to breathe, to run, to shoot, to see, to love, to feel, and to do so many things in life that I completely don't deserve to do. After blowing my own mind for a minute, I realized again that the best thing I can do in life is bring glory to someone who gives me the opportunity every day to do an incredible range of things despite doing nothing on my own end to deserve these abilities. God is pretty great, you guys.

Be Good

(2013's Her; song here)


(side note: I was asked to write something this week, so here it is. I'll have something better up soon.)

This week, I was advised twice by two different people at UT for two different focuses of my studies. One was from a Secondary Education adviser, telling me what steps to take and how to get to the point where I can achieve my aspirations of being a middle/high school English teacher. The other: my English adviser, who did two nice things in telling me to keep pushing forward and by clicking a button to make me eligible to register for classes.

Nothing about the previous paragraph is notable, except for the fact that advising seems to have parallels with other important stretches of life: I come into places expecting/hoping to get in and out quickly, but end up asking every question that could possibly come to mind at that moment to ensure that I'm covered. I've been seeing that occur lately in life with my walk with Christ, my living situation, and much more.

Recently, I had to figure out where I was living for my senior year of college. Very rarely was the idea of finding somewhere to live a stressful situation for me, because I've typically had an idea of where I wanted to live and who I wanted to be with. However, I woke up on Monday without a home for my final undergraduate year and without much positivity or hope for the situation.

On Sunday night, I learned that I'd have to find alternate plans for next year. I would like to say that I'm at the stage of life where I can deal with things like this pretty rationally, but from time to time it doesn't work that way. I frantically tried to get in touch with everyone I knew that didn't already have a steady living situation. For the first time in a long time, I felt truly lost as to what to do.

"Let go and let God" is a saying I've heard many times in my life about anxieties/worries and your relationship with the Lord, but I had never really experienced it until now. For a long time, I had a position of being willing to let him control some things, but I was never able to truly reconcile the idea of giving up my control of my own life. Efficiency is an extremely important thing to me and when I was unable to find an immediate answer to my problem, I had to let go and understand that God had control of what was happening to me.

The situation resolved itself on Monday night, but God showed me in a really powerful way what happens when he's in control of my life. When I finally accepted about midway through Monday that God was going to put me wherever he saw fit, I felt much more relaxed and much less nervous about senior year. I went to the park. I played basketball. (I also played the best basketball of my life, maybe. Tennessee's Doug McDermott. Or at least Steven Pearl.) I felt happier than I had felt in months. Cool things happen when you stop forcing yourself to control and let someone who knows more than you take care of it.

• My CRU playlists haven't been in high demand lately; however, lucky you, I'm dropping TWO NEW ONES today. One is a playlist for April, the other the ten best songs of 2014 (so far, in ascending order).
• Continuing on music, here is the official List of Recommended 2014 Albums (So Far):
• The War on Drugs, Lost in the Dream
• Sun Kil Moon, Benji
• Real Estate, Atlas
• Cloud Nothings, Here and Nowhere Else
• St. Vincent, St. Vincent
• Frankie Cosmos, Zentropy
• Future Islands, Singles
• Review of NCAA Tournament predictions made on this blog: Michigan to Elite 8 (yes), Tennessee to Round of 32 (underestimation! Then again, I didn't expect a game against Mercer), and Florida to win the title (still in play; likely winner).
• We're at the point of the year where the weather is fantastic for a couple weeks and then it becomes hotter than the hottest of hot chicken, so if you like basketball and friends, let me know if you would like to play at THE Fort Sanders Educational Development Center anytime soon.
• Public Shaming Weight Update: since deciding to limit the amount of soft drinks I partake in on March 5 (I'm down to one per week), I've dropped five pounds to 165, which is halfway to my goal of 160. This bullet serves no purpose other than reminding myself to finish the job/win the game/etc.
• In Appreciation Of... will be starting next week. It's been a rough time with creativity/scheduling recently, so the project should get off the ground soon enough. It'll be in full bloom after early May.
• Current project: I did a 20 at 20 for individual songs earlier this year. I'll be unveiling the 20 for 20: Album Edition with the next blog I post on here.
• Currently reading: Baja Oklahoma, by Dan Jenkins.

Where the sun doesn't come down,

Will