Day 10: Becoming a Spectacle

Schedule:

10:30 a.m. Dixon Center Chapel

2:30 p.m. Laundry

10:00 p.m. Group

Today was pretty eventful. I didn't feel completely busy, but I feel like I have done the most I have in a while. 

10:30 a.m.

I went to chapel in the Dixon Center. This is the chapel I mentioned yesterday that had the Ladies of Lee chorus, as opposed to the dancers in Conn. Don't get me wrong the chorus was great. I just would have like to see the dancers. When we got there I recognized two people in the chorus. A girl from my english class who has chosen to not apologize for thirty days. She and I discussed this. We both agreed that we are the type of people who apologize for everything even if we are the ones who shouldn't be apologizing, but should actually be apologized to. I told her that I empathized with her, and I hope that her project is going well. Then I saw Rose. I mentioned her earlier. She was the girl I saw at the pumpkin carving contest. I still don't know who won. Anyways, I feel like she is my own little mini celebrity. I see her and I get butterflies as if I have just come across the president or someone else very famous. She's just so amazing. She has this great spirit, and gets excited about everything so that you want to be as excited about life as she is. She just radiates God's love. I love seeing her around on campus, and every time I do I smile. 

Before my last class of the day, English, I was crossing the street over to Alumni park, a beautiful park with a gazebo and lots of space that people often lounge around on either in hammocks or on the ground. While walking over a loud noise screamed out at me, "Hey you! Come smash this car!" I looked over and all I saw was a speaker. Then I looked closer and spotted the girl standing on the gazebo. About twenty feet in front of her (maybe, I'm terrible at guestimating lengths) was an old beater car with a guy sitting in a chair. Next to him was a sledgehammer and a baseball bat. On the car were spray painted targets and $1. For one dollar you could smash the car with whatever object you chose, of the two. They walked up to me and asked me to do it. I said, yes, but after my class. So I went to class and began to think of how I was going to get a dollar. I got hungry the other night so my bank account went from six dollars to four, and there was no way I was going any lower. Unfortunately, your meal plan here doesn't cover the cost of smashing in cars. Afterwards I continued to think, but I never came up with a solution. I was going to have to bring up the "I can't do anything impossible" rule and call it a day.

2:30 p.m. Laundry

A friend of mine had agreed to let me throw my clothes in the dryer with hers. So I went to her building and washed my clothes in the utility sink. When her clothes were done I squeezed my clothes to get off the excess water and then threw my clothes in with hers. We went to dinner and when we returned the load was finished, but the clothes were not dry. We thought, no big deal, and we put them in the dryer again. Then we came back and they were done, but STILL not dry. We grew frustrated. We decided it was the building's dryers. So we loaded up the clothes in her hamper, and then we left to take them to my building to try the dryers there. But the load was much heavier then we thought. First, I tried to lift it, but failed miserably. Then, she tried to lift it. She was doing pretty fine until we got outside. Then the next walk of the journey seemed like a never ending journey of tripping, dragging, and fumbling over the laundry with everyone watching as we walked by. About halfway there we were stopped by a group of people. One of which was a classmate of my english class. The classmate knew about my project and said, "Hey can you put that basket down?" I looked at her confused, one because I didn't really hear her and two because I didn't understand her. The fumbling over the laundry got me so flustered that I had forgotten I was supposed to say yes to everything. Then I got it after her third time of repeating it. I said, "Yes." And I put the basket down. Then she informed her friends that I could not say no. My friend picked the basket up and they asked me their next command. "Hey, can you help her with that basket." I looked at them, still hard at hearing, and said. "Yup." And I grabbed the other end of the flimsy basket and helped my friend. The group then walked away. It was weird. It was the first time in my project that I had experienced becoming someone else's spectacle. This would then happen again later in the day. 

10:00 p.m. Group

Later in the day was now. I went to group. We discussed many things. Then somehow I revealed to them the project I was doing. They became confused. At first they thought that there was something wrong with me and I physically couldn't say no. Then they realized that I meant I was choosing not to say no. So they then looked at me, and then asked, "So if I were to ask you to eat that cookie you would have to eat it." I responded, "Yes, but please don't." That didn't work, they did it anyway. Don't worry though it didn't make me angry, it was more of a good subject for laughter. I then picked the cookie up, and ate it. And that was that. 

Today I learned the part of this project that makes you a spectacle. Our teacher warned us of this. "Once people find out about your project there are going to try and make you fail.", he said. (or something very close, I'm not very good at remembering exact quotes). He warned us that for vegetarians, people were going to eat meat in front of you, for "yes men" people were going to make us do things, for those not aloud to complain, people were going to annoy them. This was just all bound to happen, and I am glad that it took at least ten days before it did. Talk you soon!

Day 9: Servant Work

Once again, not much happened today. I am really sorry that I keep disappointing you. Lately though my biggest thing is deciding on chapel. At Lee University every student must attend chapel on tuesdays and thursdays. Chapel is where we go in, worship, and then listen to someone speak to us. Some students dread chapel; I look forward to it. This week was convocation week. This is a full week of chapel every night, added on to the regular tuesday/thursday chapel during the day. I usually attend the Conn center, as I have said before. This week, due to the request of others and my inability to refuse, I attended the Dixon center a lot. I enjoyed it due to the worship, but I after discussing it during group last night I realized that I wish I had gone to Conn. There were many benefits to Conn. Live people instead of live feed. One day there were people dancing (something I love), but in the Dixon it was a chorus. Not to say the chorus was bad, but I just really wanted to go to the Conn. I will discuss the choir more tomorrow. And there is just a sense of unity in the Conn center that you don't get in the Dixon center. 

Today I had a lot of what I like to call "be my servant" requests. This title is not to insist that the people requesting from me were trying to make me their servant, it just happens that they ask a favor, and I can't say no. At lunch my friend Victoria asked me to go up with her to get food, so I did. Before I went up my other friend slipped in and asked, "Can you get me a banana?" "Yes." These don't seem too bad until you add up request after request. 

Even with doing little tasks for everyone today wasn't bad. However, I do have to add that if I have to say yes to "Can we listen to this?" ever again I might just explode. My friend insists on playing this one song over and over and over again. She swears it's "the best song in the world". I beg to differ. 

In case you were wondering here is "the best song in the world".

Remember When

Thanks for continuing to stick with me! Talk to you soon!

Day 8: Recieving

My passion for this project seems to dwindle, and it is beginning to frustrate me. I have determined the main reason for this dwindling is I have grown ill. I am hoping that it passes soon so I can get back to a better passion. I feel like I have lost my mind. I keep coming up with great ideas, and then I forget what I was thinking of. 

Today I faced one of the complex parts of myself, how to respond to someone willing to help me. I love to reach out my arms to people and help them, but for some reason I struggle so much to receive the hands stretched out to me. I pray so hard at night that God will provide for me, but I assume that He will do so not involving others. How stupid am I to assume this? Of course He is going to involve others! That's how he works! How am I to ask God to use me, but not receive the people He sends me? It's not that I am not grateful for the help of others. In fact, it is the complete opposite. I am so grateful I don't know how to react. I don't know what to say when thank you is not even close to being enough. To many just receiving a thank you blesses them. But for me I can't seem to accept thank you as an appropriate response. I want the people helping me to know that they are AMAZING, that the help I receive from them is like gold to me. That sounds cheesy, but I mean it with all the honesty that I can muster. 

This time it was my grandparents. I especially struggle with asking for help. This definitely becomes worse of a struggle when the people I need to ask for help are people I admire and look up to. Last year I came to a point where I didn't really eat. This was not because I developed an eating disorder, but rather because when the time came to feed myself my pockets were empty. There was nothing I could eat, and I didn't want to ask for handouts. I felt ashamed. It got to the point where I kept meat and cheese in a cooler in my trunk, along with some bread. This continued until the cooler dumped over and onto my college textbooks. Not a happy day. Eventually my youth pastor and his wife discovered my habits. They confronted me and told me I could come to them anytime. However, though they assured me they had enough, I could not bring myself to eat their food. It was theirs. It belonged to them and their three young children. How am I to feed myself by taking the food of others? Anyways, my grandparents texted me and then asked if there was anything I needed. Well yeah. I need socks, rain boots or at least shoes without holes in them, quarters for laundry, a job, a way to get home at Thanksgiving, and some sort of miracle that allows me to be in Maryland on January 17th so I can see my relative from New Zealand for possibly the one and only chance I get to see him. I called my mom. I had no idea how to answer. I knew what she would say, "Just answer them honestly and tell them what you need." It's a simple task, for most. But for me it's gut wrenching and heart breaking. I don't want my grandparents to think that I only want them for money or material things. They had already blessed me enough by buying me things for my dorm. But I knew I had to do it. I had to say, "YES". So I answered, "I could use some socks, and shoes for the rain." My grandmother answered back, "Poppy will b in md tomorrow tip mon....... he will give ur mom some money for the socks and shoes." At first I laughed because my grandmother uses txt language more than I do. Then this overwhelming joy leapt inside me. I was going to get rain boots and socks!!! And maybe if I got them cheap enough with a few coupons I could put some of them in my account and no longer have less than ten dollars in my account. P.S. if you ever want to hack my bank account, good luck with getting far with that overwhelming six dollars. Now you can see why I desperately need a job. 

This experience has taught me a few things. 

1. Ask for help when needed, God wants to help you. 

2. Don't take for granted what you have.

After this experience I sat down and played some videos games. (Mario Kart on Nintendo 64) I began to think to myself of how blessed I was. These past few years have been financially rough on me. My sophomore year of high school my mom lost her job. She was our main source of income. Last year I was set off into college as a commuter and due to lots of debt and things my Dad was having trouble with I began to try and live off of my own money. I looked for jobs everywhere, but they all either never responded or said the same thing, "You don't have experience." You can't get a job without experience, you can't get experience without a job. It seems like there is no way out. I have the cost of college lurking over me almost everyday. Thousands upon thousands of dollars I have to figure out how to pay off. All of this added up and got me into a spell of self pity. But after my grandparents texted me I took a look around. I have two TV stands. That may mean nothing to you, but to me, it amazes me! My dad told me that the day I move out I can have everything in my room, and that I have paid for. Proudly I can say I paid for all of the furniture in my room. Though towards the end my dad helped me out, but he didn't need to do too much. This was all from my will to earn. When I discovered that I really needed money I prayed to God. Eventually I decided that if no one was going to hire me, I was going to hire myself. A friend of mine and I started our own lawn company. We finally found someone who paid us. We helped him build a fence, cleaned his chicken coop, buried a hose, and many other random things he needed done. I was scolded by many for taking this job. Minimum wage where I live is about $7.50. For this job we were taking $5.00 an hour each. We worked about eight hours a day, sometimes only six. So when I got home to my parents covered in paint and dirt with bubbling blisters on my hand, falling down with exhaustion, and all I had to show them was forty dollars they grew angry. People all around me grew angry. They told me to quit. But I responded saying he was the only man gracious enough to hire me. I am not going to quit. And with that job I was able to pay for a lot of things, all on my own. So now I have TWO TV stands, which just thinking about makes me ecstatic, four gaming systems that I have accumulated over many years, a great movie collection, a laptop, a TV, an ottoman, a guitar (and a few more at home), a bed, a desk, many lights, and a microwave that I got for seven dollars :). I am very proud of all of this. For most these things are at the bottom of their most prized possessions. They don't think twice about these things, but for me I jump for joy. This experience has taught me to never take what I have for granted. 

3. Most of all, to continue to lend a helping hand to those around me

It wasn't an eventful day, but I did get a lot out of it. Talk to you soon!

To anyone reading this blog and enjoying it, I want to encourage you to check out my other blog entitled "You're Killing Me Smalls".

Day 7: Tae Kwon Do

Schedule:

6:00 p.m. Tae Kwon Do
7:00 p.m. Convocation

Things to Do:

-Learn "Tears of Saints" , Where I Belong, and "You Revive Me"

-Operation Christmas Child Boxes
-Apply to CVS
-Write John 3:16 on the stairs outside of the Vest Building (anyone have chalk I could borrow?)
-Play guitar for group

-Gangnam Style Video

Today was not very eventful, again. It rained all day, and my motivation to continue this project dropped massively. All I could look forward to was my Tae Kwon Do lesson later on.

6:00 p.m. Tae Kwon Do

Another student in my english class decided to take on teaching Tae Kwon Do for 30 days. She is going to hold lessons on Mondays and Thursdays. Being as though I am not allowed to say no I attended the lesson. It was great. Growing up I always had an interest in karate. However, I was busy with other sports. Plus I had given into the stereotypical scary sensei, so I was terrified. Emily was far from the stereotypical sensei. She was an incredible instructor. I went in thinking it was just going to be fun, but I came out feeling like I had actually learned something. Now, I am not saying that I could take on a team of bad guys like Jackie Chan, but I do think I could throw a pretty strong kick or punch.

7:30 p.m. Convocation
Then we went straight from Tae Kwon Do to convocation. Convocation is a week long period at Lee University where you attend chapel everyday. So far I have loved it! It's an amazing week, and best of all professors are not supposed to give you "much" homework, tests, or papers. It's like a free week; with Jesus! Today we decided to go to the Dixon center. It was amazing! Well, the worship was! The sermon was actually great, but we were watching the sermon on a screen that was being broadcasted from the Conn Center so some of the words were dropped, and things got awkward. But the worship was INCREDIBLE. I now find myself gravitated more towards the Dixon center than the Conn center. I never thought I would feel that way. 

Like I said it was an uneventful day. I am sorry that these days keep happening, but I hope that you still get as much from it as I do. You don't need to be the busiest man in the world to be the happiest. You don't need to go skydiving to live the day to the fullest. This is what I am learning. Also, if you ever get the chance, especially if it's free, take some Tae Kwon Do lessons! Talk to you soon!

Day 6: Article

Why Being a Yes Man is a NO-NO for Assertiveness

In this article the author describes how becoming a "yes man" can be negative to growth, and general life. The author describes situations where someone needs an opinion, and everyone just responds with a yes, as opposed to their actual opinion. They describe how responses like that get people nowhere. Sure, in an argument people may come out happy, but no one improves. For instance, in a store if all of the employees just go along with the manager, even if they know there is a flaw, then the system will never be fixed. 

This kind of reaction is something I was scared of when I began this project. I was scared that becoming a "Yes Man" would harm me more than help me. I knew going in to this that I was going to lose my assertiveness. I knew that I was going to lose my opinion. However, my main focus with this project is to lose my assertiveness so that I allow more opportunity. I want to not be able to say no to exciting adventures so that I actually go on exciting adventures. I'm hoping that by the end of the project I will get my opinion back, but still be more open to taking exciting adventures and not letting life slip by. It is inevitable that there will be negative side effects, but I am willing to take the chance in order to receive the major positive side effect. 

Day 5

Schedule:

Things to Do:

-Learn "Tears of Saints" , Where I Belong, and "You Revive Me"

-Operation Christmas Child Boxes
-Apply to CVS
-Write John 3:16 on the stairs outside of the Vest Building (anyone have chalk I could borrow?)
-Play guitar for group

-Gangnam Style Video

Today was uneventful. I woke up a little after noon. Then my friend called me and asked if I wanted to hangout. I said, yes. She came down to my room. Our other friend called and asked to hangout out, I said yes. She came to my room. Then we sat around. We watched videos on the internet. We ate food. Then at one point we got around to watching homemade videos that I and a few of our friends from home used to make. Here are a few links to some of the ones we have made. Therapy, Revert, and How to Get Kicked out of Walmart.

Then we went to dinner, and came back to finally watch Grease. During watching Grease I decided that I really wanted a Dr.Pepper to go with my kettle corn (I am so healthy). However, the two machines in our dorm's lobby were not working. I decided I was not going to give up. The machine wouldn't accept bills, but it would accept change. So I went everywhere trying to look for change,  but only found two nickels and a few pennies. Then I realized there were machines in the PCSU. The PSCU is our student union on campus that has our mail boxes, a computer lab, our school store, a Chick fil' a, and a Subway. Everything in one place. I decided it was worth it. So I walked to the PCSU. While walking over I began to think that I had nothing to post about. Nothing eventful happened today. I began to think about whether I had just wasted the day, but when I thought about it I didn't feel like I did. Yes I may not have skydived, or gone to a party, but I did not waste the day. Sometimes we just need days where we lay back and watch home videos. As you may have noticed we even decided that we were going to make another home video. We've decided we're going to try and make our own "Gangnam style" video. For those of you who don't know what "Gangnam Style" is ,take a look. Gangnam Style

So today I may not have done much, but I realized that the day wasn't wasted. I do however hope that I can get to do more exciting things for you guys. Talk to you soon!

Day Four: Another Day of Failure?

Schedule:
7:00 p.m. Oktoberfest
9:00 p.m. Screening of "Taken"

Monday:
6:00 p.m. Tae Kwon Doe Lessons in Rec. Center

Things to Do:

-Learn "Tears of Saints" , Where I Belong, and "You Revive Me"

-Operation Christmas Child Boxes
-Apply to CVS
-Write John 3:16 on the stairs outside of the Vest Building (anyone have chalk I could borrow?)
-Play guitar for group

-Email Danielle Jonas

5:50 p.m. Email Danielle Jonas

Lately, I have been watching "Married to Jonas". It's a reality television show about Kevin Jonas from the Jonas Brothers, and his wife Dani, an average girl from New Jersey. We watched one episode where she becomes upset because she doesn't feel beautiful, and apparently some of Kevin's "fans" had been calling her ugly. Last night I had a dream that I had met Kevin and Danielle. We talked, and I told her that she had no reason to feel that way, she was beautiful. So when I woke up I thought, I wish I could email her, and then I knew I had to. So I looked everywhere but all I could find was her twitter. So I decided to send her a tweet. It felt awkward, and I am still convinced that she is just going to look at it, get creeped out, and think I'm weird. But as I have said before, you never know what affect your words can have on someone. 

7:00 p.m. Oktoberfest

My friends, Rebekah and Victoria went with me to Oktoberfest. We got there, and it was not exciting. Music was playing, there were inflatables, there was cider pong (Christian version of Beer Pong) and cider bong (another Christian version), a pumpkin carving contest with a $250 prize, and food. Maybe it was because I wasn't feeling my best, or maybe I wasn't getting involved enough but the experience was not that enjoyable. We got cotton candy, ate it, got more, ate it. Stood around. Finally I decided to see what was going on in the pumpkin contest. We found my roommate and Rebekah's roommate. The two are friends and hangout often. There is this girl I see around on campus that I am positively fascinated by. Every time I see her she is always happy, and she gets excited about EVERYTHING, but not in an annoying way. For sake of her identity I will call her Rose. Rose was in the pumpkin carving contest. I asked Rebekah's roommate what she doing. She told me that Rose had recently lost 20-some pounds. This was awesome because Rose is pretty heavy set, but still beautiful. Rebekah's roommate told me that she was SO excited, and was trying to win the contest so she could buy herself some new clothes. My face lit up. I wanted her to win so bad! Looking back I wish I would have gone around, and asked the other contestants why they wanted the money. But I was already sold, I wanted Rose to win. 

[If anyone knows who won, please let me know!]

Finally we decided to get some five guy fries. We stood in line and waited for a good ten minutes before the line even began to move. While in line, after almost twenty minutes of waiting, my friend grew sick. So we left to get her back to the dorm to try and get her to feel better. Because of her being sick we also were no longer able to go to Taken.

Schedule:

9:00 p.m. Hang Around in Conference Room

Monday:
6:00 p.m. Tae Kwon Doe Lessons in Rec. Center

Things to Do:

-Learn "Tears of Saints" , Where I Belong, and "You Revive Me"

-Operation Christmas Child Boxes
-Apply to CVS
-Write John 3:16 on the stairs outside of the Vest Building (anyone have chalk I could borrow?)
-Play guitar for group

So instead of "Taken" we decided to go to the conference room and watch Grease. But while Rebekah and I were waiting for Victoria, who was upstairs taking a shower, we found a baseball game with the Orioles playing the Rangers. It was the Orioles's (our home team) first playoff game since 1996. We were ecstatic. So we watched the game, and never got around to the movie. However, during the game we decided to practice for our upcoming Tae Kwon Doe lesson on Monday... and this is what it looked like....

video

I still can't believe I did it but it was fun, and definitely something I would have done when I was younger.

Yes, I could have decided to go to Taken without them, but I decided that "People mean more." Plus, I still wasn't feeling so great so I wanted to stay close to a bathroom. Overall, I failed to complete all of my "yes man" events, but I still had a great day. And though I consider today a failure on behalf of "yes man", I don't consider it an overall failure. Talk to you soon!