No more low marks in Calculus. :lol: Last night I sat down and did the homework and taught myself chain rule. I finished my homework on the bus after that. Now I'm just going to go in and finish the homework that I need to make up - I have time since for today and tomorrow in Calculus we're watching an old movie on how a tough teacher change the lives on inner city kids somehow. I'm in the Book of Mark in my Bible Studies this week. And now this quarter I have weight-training and it's one of those easy classes. It provides a lot of free time when we're not doing anything, too. I know, if I could I would change it to a harder academic class, but this physical fitness credit is required for my graduation. Just the one credit. After that, even if I drop out of high school in the middle of the year, I'd still have enough credits to graduate. Not to say that I wont try or anything, I'm going to keep it up. I need to fine-tune my skills to prepare for college. Even THAT! If I don't get that show on the road soon, the outlook of that wont look so well. So I better get going. No time to stop. I'm going to pray to God to send down some extra strength and determination to get these hefty jobs done. I was talking to Joe today at weight training and he suggested that I listen to Miles Davis, a Jazz musician. So I am. It's helping me stay awake to study. Something that keeps me awake!
There's a new guy at work. He just appeared one day. He was as I was when I first began to work there - clueless and making many mistakes. I overheard some of my co-workers talking about him. They were telling me that I "may have met my match." They said he was a preacher! He preached at his Church and he has saved many individuals at his school. I couldn't even sense that he was a man of God when I first passed him by, it was weird. It is false what they said. He's no match for me because this isn't a competition or anything - it's like a race with no finish line, as long as you have the strength to run you have won and there's no point to beating anyone because neither they nor you can win and the design of the race was made that way by the manager of the race, the Almighty. So he and I are both sponsored by God. Does that make us competition or rivals of any kind? No! That makes closer still. Obviously, he was put there for a reason. They all are. There are no mistakes and no mishaps in life - there is only synchronicity. God placed that guy here for some reason and obviously I can learn something from him! I don't know my own strength - I have such strong faith in God that I don't know its limits and I'm still learning. If this man has helped save people's souls in the name of my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, then I want to know how he does it! Even I haven't done such a thing yet, and I've been hoping to. My troubles with Nidya. I was trying to get her to come to my side. To be where I am on the path that leads to Salvation, but I failed in even that! If I can learn from this man how he has been doing this, then maybe I can touch people's lives - which is what I've wanted to do ever since God gave me this unimaginable feeling inside. I've wanted to share it with other people. I was helping him with his mistakes yesterday and I did some running for him when I was free from customers because it was his first day on register. I was hoping that we would have concurrent break time so that I could have a chance to talk to him, but it didn't happen. But today, I was leaving and I was in the break-room. I put my cup of lemonade-fruit-punch in my locker so that I could pick it up next week and took out my Calculus and Bible to go home. Arturo was giving one of the girls from box a topless lap dance and Jose walked in and missed it. I told him what had happened and he had a shocked expression on his face as he clocked in. Then I said..."Better not let Jose see - he's a man of God like me" I clocked out and he asked me if I was leaving and I told him yes. I followed him out and down the hall and he was looking at me and he asked me if I went to Church. I sort of shyed away from the question and then he said, "You're not a man of God!" He thought I was just joking around, I suppose it's because I always have a smile on my face and had a wider smile when I made that previous comment. So he couldn't sense that I was a servant of the Lord either. So I replied and said, "I may not go to Church, but I read my Bible every day," and showed him the Holy Bible that I was carrying as proof. Immediately he shook my hand! He's just like me! Truly! I've always truly believed that God created each and every one of us in uniquely in his own image and that he loves us all equally because we are all like him! This man was like me! A man of God and a man of God's words. And what impressed me was that he wasn't boastful and he didn't mention that he was a preacher or another man of God or anything, I suppose he knew that I knew, but he humbles himself as I humble myself. If this man is here and he's steered even one person's life in the right direction, then there is hope! I can do it, too! As soon as I get back to school tomorrow, I wont look at those people as unrighteous people! I will see them as the sick. God can cure what ails these people through me, his servant. The Jesus in me could be like the doctor to these people. For Jesus says: "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.' For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners." Matthew 9:12-13 This is the verse that assured me that my choice of future career was in spiritual balance - Jesus was like a doctor to the unrighteous and he healed his people and performed miracles. In order to live my life in the path that Jesus made, I must also do these things. This is so ironic because I am in the medical magnet program at school! It is these moments that make you double your faith! When you read God's words with understanding and seek out in your life to understand the meaning behind these words! It is truly amazing.
I get home on Friday at around 2:30-3. I do homework or eat or sleep until I must get ready for work at 5 and then leave with a parent at 5:30. Then I arrive at about 6 and start working. I work until around 8 or 8:30 and take a half hour break. Then, at midnight, if I don't have to mop I usually go home. I'm pooed and I sleep all night, after getting home at about 1:30. This is unusual because I can stay awake for days without feeling tired during the weekdays. I suppose being tired from work is different. So I sleep until at least 8 the next day. Then I usually either work 10:45AM-6PM with a half hour break or 1PM-midnight with 2 to 3 half hour breaks. Then on Sunday, if I don't have the day off, then I work 10:45AM-6PM. I usually don't have it off. Since I have to work around not having my own personal transportation readily accessible, besides having sometimes-willing parents, I must take the city bus. I have to leave an hour before I'm supposed to start and take 2 city buses up there and make a stop at the central compound, costing me $1.25. Today I went to get a student discount card, which cost me $2.50 but I believe it was a wise investment. I also have to get ready for work, which takes a half hour or so. I have to wake up earlier for that also.During the weekday, I have a few activities to tend to. Tuesdays and Thursdays are drama rehearsals for our play, "The Diviners." They last from 2 to 4, but I don't get home until 5:30 or so because I take 2 city buses home. Wednesday nights is Kung Fu class. 6PM-7PM and since I don't have a car to get home and bumb a ride from Andy or Erik, I usually don't get home until around 9-11. Club meetings are during lunch at school: HOSA (I can't remember when), French Honor Society (I can't remember when), English Honor Society (Mondays), Academic Team (Tuesdays), Mu Alpha Theta tutoring (Wednesdays), Mu Alpha Theta (Thursdays), and Mu Alpha Theta tutoring on every other day that I have free (Friday, cancelled meetings, etc...). I study the Holy Bible at least an hour a day. I have at least 6 hours of homework because I take advanced classes that are 80-120 minutes long. Things that I still need to do: --Follow up with my driving instruction. --Search for and apply to good colleges!!! --Apply to 10 scholarships a week somehow. --The stupid SAT again and then the ACTs. --Planning for my future from this point on.
I can't let this part of my life slip. A good, solid foundation for my future is critical. Where does my business and the fantasy novel I'm trying to write fall into all of this?!
There's this person where I work. She's a spanish-speaking girl from Puerto Rico that is a senior in high school. I suppose she started liking me because when I began working there I showed her sympathy. I saw the glum expression on her face and, of course, wanted her to be happy. From then until now, I've learned a lot from her. First, it started out with hugs. I hugged her here, I hugged her there. Then, another co-worker named Chris saw us hugging and wanted me to go out with her. I told him no. He persisted. Then her hugging turned into deep-hugging and holding hands. She was drawing more emotion from it. Nidya, to me, isn't attractive. I can't find her that way. But, there's the beauty of the mind, the body, and then the soul. Spiritually, Nidya is innocent. She wants what people that haven't found God yet once. To feel that the empty place in her is filled. She is self-conscious about her every look. She thinks she is fat and ugly. So she thinks that having a boyfriend would solve these problems. That somehow he would make her feel happy. A boyfriend, as I have learned now, is more like a father. He hugs, he loves, he tells her that she's pretty, then he buys her things and takes her places. They're together, but it's not the same way friends would behave. I thought that it may be the same, but it's not. I only wanted to be friends with Nidya even since the beginning. One day her hugs and her attempts to flurt with me doubled in strength. I suppose I must have given her extra attention one day that she felt that she wasn't getting from anywhere else and decided in her mind that I was to be that source of attention. I really just wanted to be her friend. So then, eventually, our co-workers presumed that we were dating. It would make her upset because she had to continually tell them that we were not and I wouldn't let her lie because I didn't want her to sin (I can't sin anymore and I get extremely guilty if I attempt to do it) and I didn't want to go ahead and date her and say that we were dating because then it would seem like I were lying before when I said that we weren't. I told her not to care what they thought because their opinions are within their heads and it shouldn't concern her. I went into deeper explanation on how their opinions don't matter. So then she continued to flirt with me and she wanted me to go to her Homecoming. I wasn't even going to go to mine! No, not because I can't dance or because I can't dress for the occasion or anything, though those do attribute to it; It is because of the people there. And I'll explain later in a next blog. So everyday, covertly, we'd hold hands and we'd hug. She really loves it when I hold her. I've learned how to give some really warm hugs. I wrap my arms around her and I hold her close and she really likes that. It really does make her happy. And, from what she's told me, she isn't very happy. So I suppose I've hugged her one too many times because it's grown on her. She's always holding my hand when I'm around and getting me to let her rest her head on my shoulder. I brushed it off as petty friendly affection, but it meant more to her than that. And more to me than I had realized.
One day at work I was put on a register that was far from the others. I was 2 or 3 registers apart from the cluster of people that was on registers. So my co-worker, T-t, came to me on a slow period and asked me if it was lonely standing over there by myself, in a joking manner. I told her no, I am never lonely. I've always had God here by me and he's been there since the birth of me. I didn't tell her this, but God will be there until the death of me, too. And even beyond death. And that's a wonderful feeling. God has been and will always be here for me and this is why I don't feel lonely at all anymore. This is why I don't yearn for the comfort of having a woman. This is why I have no inner void and feel no emptiness. Because of God's love.
When teased, Nidya accidentally blurted out that I was her boyfriend. I confronted her on the matter and she told me that she was only kidding. One day when I was leaving her after work she hugged me and told me that she loved me. I brushed it off as a simple sign of care between two friends and walked off. I then, later, began to think of it in a serious light. That I could break her heart because I didn't feel the same way for her as she did for me. That I would have to hurt someone.
Well, tonight, we were in the breakroom. I stayed late because I volunteered to mop. I was just released and I went up to the breakroom and found her there waiting for me. It was sort of noisy and one of the managers, Robert, walked in and out. So I went to my locker to get my Calculus book that I was supposed to be studying from (it defeats the entire purpose of bringing it to work if I don't use it properly) and she sat down on the bench and asked me to sit next to her. I knew what was next. More flirting. But I didn't want it to continue. I wanted to end it. I wanted her to know that I couldn't do it anymore. I held her hands. I sat close to her. I looked her in her eyes. I was joking around. She wanted me to attend her Homecoming with her. I told her no. She wanted me to think about it. That's when she moved closer to me. I could sense her emotions. I don't know what happened, but I moved closer too. I don't know what was going on in my mind at the time. So then, we were about a centimeter away and I was trying to convince her. The conversation, with its sparks of high emotion, is deteriorating in my mind, but I'll try to remember what I said... "Are you happy?" I said. "Yes," she replied with a smile. "Why are you happy?" I asked. "It feels good!" "Why does it feel good?" I can't remember her reply to that one. "No... my love is weak. Do you know who's love is stronger than mine?" I asked. She seemed to know the answer right off the bat, and told me God's love. I told her that she was correct. Then I said something like... "You know, I have to go soon but as soon as I leave here, these feelings will go away. Don't you see that this is only temporary?" "Are you going to kiss me?" she said with a laugh. "Kiss you?" I said pulling away, "What does kissing mean?" Then she said a few things and we ended up face to face again. Then I said, "As soon as I leave here, you wont feel this way anymore. But it doesn't have to feel this way! I feel this way all the time and you can, too!" "Oh yeah?" she said. "Yes. And I want you to feel what I feel. This God-given happiness I feel inside. It will always be with you if you have God's love. My love is weak and only temporary. But God's love...it lasts forever and it will always be with you. Will you have that for me?" "Yeah," she said with a deep smile. Now the depth of her smile was pushing against me cheeks. I suppose she could feel my breath on her lips, because the warmth must have made her want to kiss me even more... "Why aren't you looking me in the eyes?" I asked her. "I can't see your eyes when we're so close!" she said. So I looked her in the eyes and I suppose I caught a feeling, or something... :roll: Yeah. I kissed her, okay... My first one. I did it horribly at first, then better the second time. ------- I was kissing her today. Again. I finally got her to realize. I sat her down and I kissed her for about 20 minutes while explaining how I don't feel the same way she does when we kiss. That to me it was just kissing. The act of kissing, which has no meaning to me. I convinced her, after a series of questions, that I didn't feel the same way for her as she did for me and that I was only doing it to make her happy. She was starting to believe me, but I had to go home. She could feel that what I was doing to her was empty and that there was no emotion behind it. She thought I was holding back and asked me if anything were wrong. But that was the thing! They were empty. I love her the way a friend loves a friend. As a sister. Nothing more. And it's just plain weird to go around kissing siblings. I need to get that into her head somehow.
