Review

I know, a picture of a picture. It's weird, and I'm sorry. Yes, that is me, albeit roughly 25 years ago. This picture is on a fridge magnet that was in my grandmother's house until it was sold earlier this year, and on my fridge since then.

Anyway, while walking home from jumping through some hoops for this fall, I got to thinking about this picture, and my life since this picture.

The kid in this picture had his head impaled on a tent pole, went off to public school and made everything look easy, came in 2nd in the Math Olympiad in 4th grade, and won it in the 5th grade (yes, that is what it sounds like--a math competition that was school-wide, complete with a little plastic trophy). He skipped 6th grade, went to classes at both his middle school and Central Academy--which had classes for the ends of the spectrum, but not the middle--got picked on by the other nerds, met a boy named Pete, and got kicked out of Central due to laziness.

He utterly rejected God, went to high school, picking fights with groups of older kids, skated through classes, and met up with Pete again. He graduated from high school on his 17th birthday, ecstatic that he wouldn't have to go to that building again. A short time later, Pete gave him a Bible, even though he still rejected God.

He took a year off before starting at Iowa State. He made many poor decisions, and spent 5 years wasting time and money by not trying, eventually flunking out. However, the 5th year was the most important. That was the year he accepted Christ. After flunking out, he spent a year in Ames, and heard about an opportunity. He moved to Iowa City, went to community college for a year, then applied to (and got accepted to) the University of Iowa, where he'll start in the fall--assuming he jumps through all the necessary hoops (only a couple left).

Kalk

So, I just got to thinking about the name I post under on the site. "Kalk". Most of you know that it's the first half of my last name. Others know that it is one of the only nicknames I got in high school that I actually tolerated, and even liked. Here's the full story.

In high school, I was a loser. Those that have seen the picture from my first ISUCard--or remember me from when I first became a Christ-follower know what I looked like. Fat, long hair, glasses, poor hygiene, quiet, nerdy....I was the complete package. I had a couple friends--one of whom was working on showing me Christ's love, and eventually gave me my first Bible--but no one really was allowed too close to me. So it was a real shock when one guy started calling me "cool". He wasn't one of the people I considered friends, so it was even stranger. It was he that gave me the nickname "Kalk".

So, very soon I started using that every time I needed a username for something. I used it in most of my email addresses. I also used it during my hardcore gamer days in all my character names, and my name on the guild's message board. (I just took a trip back and looked at it, and I still rank #6 on the list of most posts, and my last one was July 5, 2007--though the last post, other than some new person saying "hi", was in 2008) So yeah, I took the name given from someone who said I was cool, and used it in nerdy places. That'll teach you for calling me cool.

Basements

Today started out normally. I woke up, showered, dressed, and then proceeded to hang out in my apartment. As I was making plans to head out for a walk--about an hour before I planned to leave--I got a text. It asked if I was ready. I thought for a second, then remembered that we were signing the lease today.

We got to the office, read over the lease, and signed it. We're going to be living on a road called "Bittersweet Court". Why anybody would name a street that, I don't know. We'll have a small lake in between us and Fareway, so groceries will be easy to obtain. We'll also be within walking distance (though, as I've mentioned before, walking distance for me can be a long distance) of a few other Veritas-ers, so hanging out won't be hard.

The place itself is a nice 3-bedroom townhouse, with a view of the lake. I claimed the basement, because we were told that the basements are a little more difficult to heat than the rest of the place, and I like the cold.

Anyway, I'm excited about the new place, even though I don't know who the third roommate will be--we're still working on getting a third guy signed up, but there are a couple of guys in line.

I is a Hawkeye

Well, it finally happened. I got the acceptance letter from the University of Iowa today. That is to say, it was delivered today...to my "home address"...in Des Moines...rather than my "residing address" in Iowa City, so my dad had to call and tell me that it had arrived. Naturally, I changed my address before doing much else. Shortly after accepting the acceptance the internet in our apartment exploded with joy. And by "exploded with joy", I mean it stopped working for about 5 minutes. So even the internet doesn't like my becoming a Hawkeye. Well, there are still some hoops they want me to jump through before I can be in classes and such, but at least the wait is over.

In side news, the first Iowa City Summer Salt is in a little over an hour, so I'm excited for that. And our first Veritas at the Marriott was a smashing success (read Mark's blog for a summary--I think most of you read his anyway). We need to get faster at setup, but when you consider that we only had about 4 people that knew what they were doing, we did quite well. For those of you not here, or that didn't notice, we had a new system for this past week. Hopefully, we'll get as good with this setup as we did with the old.

Nightmares

I had a nightmare last night. I'm not sure if the subject matter is sad or hilarious. In short, I had a nightmare about tech stuff.

To elaborate, I dreamt that I had to run lyrics, and everything was going wrong. Apparently, there had been no time for practice, judging by some of the problems. There was a new song that I didn't know, all the slides for the songs were mixed together instead of being separated into each individual song, and none of the slides were formatted the same--leading to a problem where the lyrics didn't actually get projected, and the band forgot the words in the middle of the song.

I woke up from that, and remembered that I was running lights, so it was going to be okay....and then we actually got there. The person scheduled for lyrics had forgotten and gone to Ames for the weekend, so I switched to lyrics and another person took lights. At that point, I yelled to my roommate that it was coming true--having already told him about the nightmare before we left the apartment. He just laughed, and a few other people wondered what I meant.

Well, there was a new song that I didn't know, but that and me running lyrics was all that came true from the dream.

Side note: I think God likes the tech team. When we got to the hotel, it was somewhat bright out, and only a little foggy. After practice started, it began to rain--hard. There was even a point where everyone went out to move their cars because of the chance of large hail. By the time church was over, the rain had stopped, so we missed the storm.

Pella!

Well, my cousin is graduating from high school on Saturday....or maybe Friday, I'm not 100% sure. So, I'll be leaving Iowa City at around noon on Friday. In case you missed the post title, he's graduating from Pella. I'll probably get back to the apartment late Saturday afternoon/early Saturday evening. Then I'm on lights the next morning. So my dad will probably be at church on Sunday--unless he has to work that day.

On an unrelated note, I have a pair of shorts now. This is the first pair of shorts I've gotten since I started high school--in 1999. I won't wear them in Iowa City until Sunday at the earliest, because I have to wash clothes before I wear them--otherwise, I get really itchy. Stupid sensitive skin. I also have to use those "free" detergents--the ones with no perfumes or dyes--and I'm afraid to try different bath soap. For other reasons, I can't change shampoo brands (last time I did, I had a sneezing fit every time I took a shower) or be around people wearing lots of perfume/cologne (I'll get headaches that make caffeine withdrawal look mild). Stupid weak, sickly earthly body. Anyway, I got the shorts because I plan to be taking long walks on a regular basis. I've taken 2 2-hour walks in the last week, and it gets a little warm in full jeans.

And now it's all dark in the apartment. Maybe I should react to the growing darkness before it gets to the point where I can't see all the way down the hall to the bedrooms. Maybe I should also put an end to this post and do something about the dark.

Tornadoes

As I mentioned at the end of the last post, there was a tornado warning here. I didn't leave my apartment. I may have even spent the whole time in my recliner. That got me to thinking about when I was a little kid, and how every time there was a tornado warning, the family would go down to the basement, into the little room on the uphill side--the one that had about a three-foot thick wall against the outside and the main load-bearing wall for the house, which was about a foot thick itself, on the other side--hunker down with the little black-and-white TV (complete with the clicking channel knobs--they're hard to describe if you don't remember them, so here's a picture of a TV with them), and wait for the all-clear.

----If you want to skip a rant about that old TV, go to the next line like this----

Speaking of that TV, at one point my dad made a "remote" for that one. He cut out a notch in the end of a 2x4 so we could change the channel without having to get closer than about 4 feet--which was about the distance between the chairs and the TV in that little room. After that TV broke down, that "remote" became an extra security door stop so people couldn't just break in the front door--which each of my parents did at separate times when they locked themselves out of the house.

----Here resumes the main post----

Going to the basement ended about the time I got to middle school. Then we'd stay upstairs, and wait for it to get relatively close--which it never did.

Then in college, the common reaction to a tornado warning became "Let's go out and see if we can see it!" "And if we can't, we can at least play catch/football/ultimate frisbee/tag/etc. in the rain!"

Then I got "old" and my reaction returned to simply staying where I was and watching out the window.

It's weird. I've written two posts today, and both started out as some sort of safety topic, and went off in strange directions.

Seat Belts

So, I tend to play online flash games. Lately, I keep seeing an ad about wearing seat belts. Here's the website that it links to, which appears to be only the ad. It seems to me that the message behind this is "if I don't wear my seat belt, the lame monster won't eat me." I feel this isn't what I should be getting out of this commercial.

Anyway, I also managed to be above 3.0 GPA for the second semester. Go community college!

Also, apparently, there's a tornado somewhat near here. I'm not really sure where I should go for shelter.....I guess the hallway downstairs is where it would be.

Matthew 14:31

I just got back from a little half hour walk. To save you the trouble of checking the time or weather at the moment of this post, it's a quarter to midnight, and it's raining. Why would I take a walk this late at night? Because I am like Peter.

This stems from the living situation for next year. I was going to be in a four-bedroom, then after only one guy being on the lease for about a month, I asked him about it, and he said that he had gotten other people for the other spots. Then the other three of us found a fourth and were looking for a different four-person place. Those proved difficult to find, so the idea was to split into pairs. Well, as I mentioned in my last post, I looked at an apartment on Tuesday. Sadly, I neglected to mention to my future roommate that I had an application until tonight. He responded by saying that a friend was moving here, and he wanted to find a place with that friend.

Of course, I reacted like any rational human being. I immediately thought that I was a horrible human being that no one wanted to live with. I restrained the urge to scream and/or throw things around the room, partially because my current roommate was home. So I pounded my fists against the back of my head, and stewed in rage for a little bit. Then I went for a walk.

When I was as far away from my place as I was going to get, I got a text. It was from the guy who (I thought) was bailing on me. We're going to work on getting a three-bedroom starting tomorrow.

As for now, I'm drenched and reminded of the story of Peter trying to walk on water:
And Peter answered him, "Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water." He said, "Come." So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came to Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink he cried out, "Lord, save me." Jesus immediately reached out his hand and took hold of him, saying to him, "O you of little faith, why did you doubt?" --Matthew 14:28-31 ESV
He didn't have enough faith that Jesus would see him through, and tonight, neither did I. But instead of giving in to fear, I gave in to anger.

So yeah, long story short, apartment hunting is not fun. And I tend to overreact to things. And now I'm sleepy.