REEEAALLLY?

So I know I was going to leave today. Was packed packed, I was stoked, I was ready to do some digging and good hard work setting up camps in the hot Idaho sun.  

I woke up this morning with pink eye and an ear infection. 

I was angry to say the least.

So after my mother said, "You're not going today.  I'm making you stay home" and forced me to get a doctor's appointment, I called my boss and the interns and decided on taking the bus tomorrow to the same place, skipping out on all the hard work that I genuinely wanted to do.  

After enduring three hours of intense discomfort, and if you've ever had an ear infection you know what I mean, I made an exception to my no-aspirin or antibiotic rule, followed the doctor's orders, and here I am, after watching two movies and helping load additional stuff at the church.  I'm doing ok, although not being able to hear out of my left ear is a bit annoying, there's no pain, so I'm not complaining.

Until now.

Because due to whatever reasons, any music I hear is out of tune. 

Which means that I can't listen to it. And I'm about to go two weeks without anything with decent sound quality. 

I feel like I should be learning something...

5/6

This last week, I was having trouble with my truck.  I know. Big shocker.  Actually, that's  what was wrong with it, or at least related.  My truck, which I'll admit is normally somewhat gutless, was having trouble doing things like maintaining speeds above 50 mph and going up hills.  In my six cylinder engine, one of the spark plugs was fouled beyond anything, which meant that one of the cylinders wasn't firing. So, my truck had about 5/6 (although likely less) of the power it normally has.  

My body is there right now.

I am an achey sick, and have been for about three days.  STINK. I leave for rafting tomorrow, and unless something amazing happens, I will be sick when we leave.  I am still able to function, thankfully, but it's still no fun. So I'm overdosing on vitamin C, sucking on cough drops, chugging water and orange juice, and drinking this weird immune-system boosting tea.  Pretty much anything herbal.  I have a feeling that Tylenol would help, but that's false healing, at least to me.  So I'm not going there.

I leave for raft camps tomorrow, so this will be my last post before I take off. I'm going to go crazy without any news updates, especially with what's going on in Zimbabwe now.  So while I have nothing awesome to write about, I can say that Robert Mugabe is a crook.

One other thing.  I wrote about wanting to be a revolutionary.  While everything in me wants to act now, I have to wait for God's timing on when to act.  I have no idea when that'll be. I guess that's what faith is.  

I'm Not Sure What This Will Look Like...So Bear WIth Me

There are two huge reasons that I joined on to Glenwood Community Church's team of Youth Interns this summer.

One, adventure. To push myself, stay out of Vancouver as much as possible, and to keep busy. Because when I'm by myself, I think too much.

Two, I love Jesus, and as a result, I love growing spiritually. It hurts sometimes, but when you see an aspect of your life change that you don't like, it's awesome.

Oh. Can't forget about people. I really love people. And I'm relying on my extraverted-ness to help my through it.

So anyway. With regards to spiritual growth, I may as well start with a desire I've recently been given, mainly within the last few months of Spring Quarter.

As I sat in room 116 of Bond Hall Monday's, Wednesdays and Fridays from 10-11:30 AM for my Soviet History class, I began to realize my intense interest in folks like Lenin, Trotskii, Stalin and revolution in general. Unlike Marx, who merely spoke of the revolution and predicted it's coming, Lenin and others actively sought the days that it would come to pass and worked to instigate it. They saw a system that was headed by a dictator at a complete disconnect with the rest of society. French was the main language among the Russian elite, not Russian, because everyone involved in the government was required to speak it for communication with foreign diplomats and such. The rich got richer, while the poor suffered the most from famine and disease. While much of Western Europe was industrialized and continued to develop, Russia was 80% agrarian, with hardly any industry of which to speak except the railroads between St Petersburg and Moscow. To add to all of this, the Tsarist government was engaged in a World War taking millions of Russian lives.

And yet while Lenin, Trotskii, and Stalin actively sought revolution, they were not it's makers, but those who picked up the pieces when it was drawing to a close.

The real instigators of the revolution were mothers who could not feed their children. Crowds of people that had had enough stormed the streets of St Petersburg as the policemen refused an order by their commanding officer to shoot.

The point of this story is not what Russia became in the years proceeding the revolutions of 1917, but how it came about. Russian citizens, many of them 18-25, as well as older "revolutionaries," were so riled up by the injustice of the system and society itself that they took action. Not content with mere political theory and sitting on the sidelines as observers, they wanted to be revolutionaries.

I want to be a revolutionary.

I must say that while I am sick of the government, the rich getting richer while the poor get poorer, I am not thinking on that level. I may scream when I read the news, I may go off on a Bush-bashing tangent, I may talk about tearing down the system, but I'm not to that point yet. I recognize that I have neither the means nor the know-how to accomplish such a feat.

So perhaps I want the mindset of a revolutionary. I want genuine, unrelenting courage. I want my cause to take precedence over my earthly desires because while they don't last, the effects I have on this world will, at past my lifetime. I almost want people to be scared of my passion at moments.

And I genuinely want change.

And I'm serious.

My problem is that I don't know what I want to change, nor do I know what I want to change it to. But I know that I need an outlet for this desire, because the mindset is somewhat there, but the courage isn't and if I don't let it out, it's going to explode.

So maybe I need courage...

I just broke V3

I have just returned from spending my evening in the climbing gym. I found myself able to do V2s without trying very hard, and I got a few V3s down, which is very exciting for me.  Yeah...I'm tired though, so I don't know how long I'll be typing before I collapse and my head hits the keyboard, resulting in a constant stream of non-sensical letters.

I have been getting used to being an intern at Glenwood Community Church.  For those who don't know, I'm spending my summer organizing and leading raft camps on the Salmon River in Idaho. Side note: yes I said Snake before; I was just kidding.  Anyway,  I have learned a lot about ministry, myself, and others in these last few days.  I have been on a learning edge for almost the entire time, and it makes my head hurt a little bit.  It's pretty sweet to be working at a place where EVERYONE loves Jesus, and it reflects in their attitudes and interactions with others.  Sure, we'll likely have our conflicts, but we all know there're ways to solve them without being divisive and cruel, which how I'm USED to watching people solve conflicts.  Good grief, I'd better enjoy this while it lasts, because it won't last past this summer.

Otherwise, I'm staying REALLY busy, and I'm thankful for it.  It's getting easier to keep my feet on the ground the more people I reconnect with down here.  And I haven't seen a sunset in a few days...

That helps too, because Bellingham sunsets are amazing, and every time I see one here, I think of what it looks like up there.

I leave in less than a week for training/ Young Adult and High School camps.  I wish it would come sooner, because while I love my friends and family, this town is driving me nuts. 

I Start Work Tomorrow

Tomorrow, I begin my job at Glenwood Community Church as an intern. As far as I understand it, I will be helping organize and participating in the yearly rafting trips that the church provides for the young adult and youth groups.  I'm pretty excited, honestly, because I am thinking about Bellingham way too much.  Every day at sunset, the memories and thoughts just flood back to me, and I miss it a lot.  Anyway, I hope that having something productive to do with my days will ease up on all my thinking.  

I think a lot.  One of these days I am just going to let loose on someone with all of my ridiculous ideas and things that I think about. I feel sorry for whoever is there when I do let loose.  I will apologize in advance.  

Here's one: Who am I?

No.

Really. 

Because different people see different aspects of me, and each person sees me differently.  And throughout it all, I think "Be yourself." I sit silent in moments that I want to speak up and unleash a slew of words on someone who says something's "retarded." Or I want to stand up for myself and quit taking all the junk to which I have become numb. 

But to stand up for hurt and unpresent or to stand up for myself isn't "myself." People don't expect that from me. 

Like my massive "word vomit," there will soon come a time when the Brandon that doesn't talk is going to speak up.  And it's going to be really awkward for everyone there, because they will never have heard me actually speak my thoughts , and they won't be used to the words coming out of their mouths being questioned. 

Call me whatever you want to. Politically correct. "Liberal." "Hippy." 

You can blame it on my friends back north, you can blame it on Western Washington University. You can blame it on ResLife and "diversity" training.

But I am sick and tired of living passively in a system that I so desperately wish to change. And it starts with standing up for others and myself. 

SO I really like Switchfoot

One world, one desperation
One hope, and one salvation
-Switchfoot, Ammunition

Love is a movement,
Love is a revolution
- Love is the Movement

The shadow proves the sunshin

Awesome lyrics that I sang really loud driving down the freeway to Vancouver. It's sunny here, which is good. I'm currently "unpacking," which really just means that I'm currently killing time because I don't want to unpack. It is GREAT to have an amp, pedals, and my own room though.

I also need to make back-up copies of all my music for when this computer dies, which is hopefully later rather than sooner. I don't want to have to buy another one.

Ok.

Distractions.

Time to go.