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| sometime last year, i was doing a series on the book of matthew. on saturday evenings, we were going through the sermon on the mount, Jesus' parables and all sorts of stuff. one week, we're discussing Jesus' encounter with a centurion. the centurion displays faith that impresses Jesus and Jesus heals his servant. one of my kids (a high school student), raises their hand and with uncertainty and hesitation asks, "isnt a centurion... like... a.... mmm.. half... man.... and... um.. half... horse?" silent moment. somehow i keep a straight face. "no thats a centaur". i takes several minutes to restore order as the rest of my kids are dying of laughter. i have to explain that a centaur is the mythical beast of classical greek legends, and the centaur is just a roman military officer. in case youre a visual person: centurion. real. centaur. not real.  
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| one of my students graduated a couple of weeks ago. quite an eventful day. first it was outdoors in the sweltering heat. im floridian right, no problem, right? no one has outdoor graudations in florida though. and its hot and humid, and everyone is standing outside in the sun... so i suppose everyone was wishing that it would cool down. and so it rains. drip. drop. drip drip. woooosh. a hurricane level downpour drenches every graduate, parent, sibling and friend for the next 15 minutes. people are scattering and screaming and laughing and running to the nearest shelter. and that was at the beginning. then the actual graudation ceremony starts. it was the single longest experience of my entire life. i have been to many graduations... i once went to 4 or something in one day, i have been to two of my own exceedingly boring graduations. this was more painful, and longer. there were approximately 12 students speeches, 4 faculty speeches, and 3 songs. the valedictorian, salutatorian, class president, vice president, treasurer, national honor society president, perfect attendance girl, teachers pet, star quarterback, head cheerleader... everyone gets a speech. ok i made the last 3 up, but i stopped paying attention to who was giving speeches after the first 6. who needs this many speeches? ugh. but the greatest part was meeting some of my youth student's extended family. he has two cousins, older, married cousins... in their thirties. when i meet them, they ask, "what year are you?". "third year". "oh so youre a junior". *pause* *looong pause* wait, my school doesnt have juniors. they must think im in college. nope. they thought i was in high school. they thought i was his friend. ahhhhh, i love it. later that night, one of my sunday school teachers joined us for dinner after the graduation and they thought he was in high school too. but at least he just graduated from college. this one is for eugy, b/c she works for xanga. | | |
| when i was four years old, i was out with my mom and we went to mcdonald's. im not sure what we were doing, or why my brothers werent there. in fact, i have trouble of bringing to mind one other instance of my childhood when i can remember being with my mom or dad and *not* my brothers. in any event, we went to mcdonald's. and since i was a wee little tike, i had with me a stuffed animal. a bear. he was the only one i had, and he was vanilla colored. halfway home from mcdonald's i realize that ive forgotten him. my mom rushes me back to mcdonald's, but its too late. hes gone. i was pretty young, so im pretty sure i cried.
why do i bring this up? well i just signed up for a facebook and for password security they had one of those security questions. this one was, "what was the name of your first stuffed animal?". and i think on this story, but i can not, despite my best effort, remember the name of that bear. how sad. i think my mom tried to buy me replacement stuffed animals, but none of them left any lasting impression on me. what was his name?
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| i 100% promise that i really did just have this conversation on AIM:
distopik (10:31:37 PM): yoo randomkoreanguy (10:33:45 PM): hello distopik (10:32:04 PM): what u doin randomkoreanguy (10:33:59 PM): email randomkoreanguy (10:34:01 PM): who is this? distopik (10:32:23 PM): eugene dude randomkoreanguy (10:34:19 PM): eugene who? distopik (10:32:35 PM): wtf distopik (10:32:38 PM): ur cousin randomkoreanguy (10:35:05 PM): oh right my cousin eugene. you still owe me like 5000$ you ass distopik (10:33:42 PM): ? randomkoreanguy (10:36:39 PM): wait are you the cousin eugene in utah? or the cousin eugene in milan? distopik (10:35:59 PM): uh i think i have the wrong SN randomkoreanguy (10:37:57 PM): probably distopik (10:36:11 PM): ha distopik (10:36:12 PM): sorry randomkoreanguy (10:39:04 PM): hope you find your cousin
i have no idea who this dude is, or how he got my screenname. and i definitely dont have a cousin named eugene. i actually thought it was jnewbury trying to pull a prank on me again. as far as updates go, this one is pretty unexciting.
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| last week, our youth group received two new members... jamie and brian. they are siblings and jamie is 13, while brian is 12. so i was making some small talk with them, and after a little while, i made a point of whispering to them (that really loud fake whisper that homer simpson does) that our kids are not very friendly to new people, they dont really make an effort to talk to them, or include them. after some more talking and joking around, jamie (bless her heart)... stops and says, 'wait... are you one of us?'
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after a quiet moment, my answer was... 'im your youth pastor'... but inside my head i was thinking, 'YEEEAAAH'. thats right. one of my youth kids mistook me for 'one of them'. hahahaha. the last thing i heard her say to one of my HS seniors was, 'wow but he looks so young'.
bless her heart.
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