2 posts from January 2009

I got the privilege on Monday to hang out with an awesome girl, but in addition to that, I got the privilege to reminisce and look back at my life and see how much I have changed, or matured, over the past three years. When I went to college, I was a young'un. I was 17 years old, fresh out of high school, still believing everything my parents had taught me. That first year was an interesting year. I was on my own. Granted, Freed controlled a lot more of my life that what most colleges do, but at the same time, the freedom was a new experience to me. I dated some girls. I didn't know what I wanted, much less know who I was. Monday, I was able to look back and see how much I have grown. To be honest, it made me really happy to see how far I have come. When I got to Freed, I had been a Christian less than 2 years. I didn't have my own beliefs yet; I was definitely still a "babe" in Christ. I wasn't a leader at all. I couldn't be the boyfriend that the girls I dated needed/wanted because I was still so immature that I was like in high school. Over the next two years though, it all changed. I had some amazing friends, I met so many amazing people. I had some awesome classes and participated in some awesome activities. To be the leader that I am today (humbly, of course), it makes me so proud of myself. Spiritually, I would say I am 500x better of a Christian than I was when I got to Freed. By no means am I anywhere near perfect, but I feel that now I can be a man of God and be that person in a relationship, as well as in the church setting with peers and Christians and general. I am teaching the college-age class at church on Wednesday nights (Leviticus). I am so excited about that. I love life. I know I pretty much tooted my own horn a little bit in this post, but sometimes it is good to have pride in what you have done and accomplished. Am I content of where I am now in my life? Not at all, but that is human nature, to want to improve. There are people in my life now, opportunites in the future, and a God who has an awesome plan for me and my future, and that is what I am excited about.

So I tried to keep all of my "scroogeness" in this holiday season, which I think that I did a good job considering. From about a week after I got home after finals and stuff, I have been ready for the holidays to be over and me getting back into the swing of things. My year didn't really end on it the way that I planned or the way that I would have liked for it to have ended, but sometimes you dont have control over situations. After spending 9 months with an awesome girl, she decided to break up with me for personal reasons, which made me upset. I think a lot of why I am glad the holidays are over is that now I can look at the calendar and not have to think about what I would be doing or where I would be had we not broken up, so I guess that is the main reason why I am glad that its the New Year. Despite not ending the year on such great a moment as that, I have become closer to some of my good friends that have helped me through this situation and have had a number of opportunities that I am very much looking forward to in the coming year. I started a little less than a month ago blogging for this Atlanta sports website, more specifically about the Atlanta Hawks. I encourage you to go check it out, leave me comments on there or send me an email giving me any pointers or whatnot, because I am always trying to improve as a writer and blogger. Besides that, I will be finishing my graduate classes by the end of June, and then I am going to be looking for an internship so that I can finish my Masters and then get a job in the real world! This past year has been a transition year, which I expect that this coming year will be as well, but I have learned a lot about myself, the real world, and hopefully have become more of a man, spiritually, physically, and emotionally. I hope that this upcoming year is full of fun and hopefully I will make many memories while continuing to work for the prize.

On a completely different note, I encourage you to go and see Gran Turino, starring Clint Eastwood. I got to see a sneak preview of it and minus the language (which is the only "bad" thing about it), it was an excellent movie. It is definitely in my top 5 of all time. It comes out January 9th, so check that out if you can.