sincerely

all of the words i'd use to describe today would be synonyms to "awesome."

and the sunday school class i lead is now officially called The Fellowship.

life is good.

that's all.

injury report

subject: jarrod

status: good

ankle: healing.  better than it's been in a week.

   expect full recovery if he can make it through friday without a reinjury.

new injury: thumb is slightly purple and doesn't bend at full normal(for jarrod) capacity. texting performance down 40%.

   jarrod, don't be stupid while playing soccer next time.

end of file.

words

i say a lot and a little.

too much and nothing at all.

it just depends on the day.

i already thought out lines.  words to say how tonight i felt like a child, so much so that i almost cried like one, but my hands aren't so small anymore, they're not so little when holding my dad's hand.

i don't need to write all the things i thought of writing though.

just that what i did was hard.

and what i have to do yet is harder.

but i have to do it.  and i know it.

and so i will.

please God, give me vision to see the truth and the courage to stand beside it.

"good God, can you still get us home?"

fine kelley

http://pap3rtig3r.tumblr.com

it's there.  time will reveal the usage it gets. i'll try.

silent sea of storms

i don't want to tell you because i don't want you to feel sad on my behalf.

being hurt physically is one thing.

you can have surgery.

you can get a cast.

you can be in a wheelchair or have crutches.

or you can limp.

and people see that and they know.

and they can sign your cast.

or send you cards.

or ask you how you're healing.

it's obvious that something is broken.

or hurting.

but it's different with feelings.

with your mind.

your insides.

not everyone can see it.

they don't know something is wrong.

they don't know to ask how you're doing.

(really ask how you're doing).

there's no sign that the pain is gone.

or you're better now.

or that you were hurt in the first place.

there's no bandage for your heart.

and i need to decide how i'm going to deal with this.

God, it's not over yet.  You can still fix this.

Please fix this.

at work they just thought i was tired today.

and i am.

ugh

i am afraid of starting my capstone final project.

i'm trying to start it right now.

well, right now i'm avoiding trying to start it.

it just seems so big and suddenly i feel like i know nothing.

i just want to play guitar.

practice guitar.

write music.

learn violin (taught by anna phoebe of course)

that's what i really want.

if this stuff i'm going to school for isn't also a hobby for me, it makes  it a lot harder to do.

ah well.  i better go get to work.  start drawing some stick figures.

i lessthanthree soccer

listening to: La Dispute - Damaged Goods

"So we escape to our mistakes for the wait patiently for us.

Oh, how they always wait for me."

i wish i wasn't injured so i could play soccer better.

i do enjoy it so.

while sitting on the bench watching the game after mine, i had a funny conversation with west's friend steph.  among other things, she informed me that she would marry me if she was my age.  i have to laugh at most of the things she says, and i've barely talked with the girl.

my brother got hurt pretty bad in the game i was watching him play.  ankle again.  darn ankles, they don't make them like they used to i guess.

whelp, tonight was good.

i think i'm in for a rough ride.

fun though.

thanks la dispute, for random lines that fit.

:)

so what

oh those?  just tickets to see the beatles tribute band, Rain.

do i even like the beatles?

well, i might, but i can't say so yet. because i'm not sure.

but i'll probably have a pretty good idea after the concert.

today work handed me a piece of paper that said "yes"

which means i can go on the HH spring break trip, and i'm very happy about that.  looking forward to it for suuuure.

but this probably means i won't be able to go to GDC in cali this year, which means i won't get to see my bros from indiana.  sad panda.

hey, if anybody out there listens to the Free Beer and Hot Wings show on WGRD, you should know that a guy i play soccer with, his name is Nate, is working at grd and he's in charge of the Best Of free beer/hotwings today and tomorrow.  i heard him being harassed on the show wednesday and i didn't even realize it was him.  cool.

also, this girl i work with was a junior olympian in figure skating.  that's nuts!  i've known her for a while now and never knew that.  she got 3rd place in pairs.  not bad.  (she's a little bitter about it though)  and she's been playing hockey for a while, up until she moved to michigan from oregon.  i'm going to have to have her come out for hockey this summer.  i dunno how good she is, but it would be real cool to have her show up and see her dominate.  we'll see.

i'm visiting flint next week.  i think chicago needs to be the next place i visit. i like my chicago friends. and miss them already.

and watch this video because it's funny.  beckon the weight.  lift with the thyroids.

lost

it's not tumbld, but you can steal it from here and tumbl it on your own if you'd like.

nice handwriting btw.

sharpe on plastic cup is a tough medium to work with.

---------------

my head is in the clouds

but it's ok

because i'm tall and so my feet are still on the ground

it's my stomach that's the problem

stuck in the middle

feeling sick and pulled both ways

the gut doesn't know which way to go

maybe doing handstands makes it better.

this has nothing to do with that^

i am quite happy, thank you much.

watched most of the Lost season premier with a bunch of swell chums at E4 tonight.  they're a cool crowd.

even though the total number of Lost episodes i've seen is less than a full season, i still enjoy the show.  it's very interesting.  if i watched the whole thing i think i'd like it even more.  but i just started watching Reboot, so no deal.

in other news, i forgot if there were other things i wanted to write about.

so it's bedtime.

night.

again? really?

when it rains, it pours.

why can't this ever be simple for me?

triangles and squares, causing a ruckus, maxing out my problems.

well, i think i'll go a different direction this time.

the similarities are funny though.

first things first.

first come, first served? ahaha, i shouldn't put it that way.

you might think i'm crazy.

you might be right.

cryptic is fun.

dreams

i had a series of dreams last night, much like i predicted to happen a few nights ago.  i knew my brain needed it.

i don't know if i would have remembered them as well if i hadn't have been woken up in the 7am hour, so that was good i guess.

a couple scenes i remember well.

working at a different costco:

i think this kind of stems from a new guy at work.  he's the brother of courtney, a girl i used to work with, and israel, a manager who is really cool.  actually, now that joe is gone, israel is my new favorite manager.  he likes thrice.  anyway, the brother's name is aaron and he is from texas.  at least i think it's texas... maybe arizona or new mexico... it's down there somwhere.  he worked at costco down there for like 9 years, and he works in the department i want to go to and he knows like everything about that stuff.  him transferring here may have put me out of the chance at a spot in the department, but i'm ok with it because he's cool.

ok so in my dream, i was working at a different costco with him, but this costco was not a warehouse, it was in a fancy department store. lower ceilings, smooth tile, glitzy trim and all things eye catching.  it was ridiculous.  i didn't spend much time there (who can measure time in a dream anyway?) but it's definitely worth noting, to me at least.

next scene:

i was standing in a hallway with my grandfather. i don't have a name for him like other people do for their grandparents, he's just grandpa. i guess it's pronounced "grampa" though, to be accurate. my g-pa isn't doing that well health-wise these days. he has... i dunno if i remember, alzheimers maybe? (though it could have been, that definitely was not a joke.  if you even caught it). him and i were never really close, i dunno why.  we've been fishing together and  spent time together, but i don't recall having long talks or anything like that. regrettable. but here i was standing in this hallway and my grampa was standing in the hallway and i just gave him a big, long hug and was crying, like i was saying goodbye.

side note: if that day ever comes, it must be a sad, sad day when parents or grandparents stop getting hugs from their kids like they used to. when i was little i used to do "powerhugs" with my dad.  he would sit down on his knees and i would run at him from across the room and jump into a hug that would knock him over and we would both tumble onto the ground laughing. i wonder when the last time i did that was, and if my dad had any idea it would be the last...  being a parent must contain such depths of joy and sadness.  being God with us as children must be much the same way.

next scene:

i was sitting in an unfamiliar room with a large tv in it. my dad was there and my brother arif. we were watching tv.  that's about it.

next scene:

this part felt like it's a repeat dream, one i've had before. it came because i finished all of Avatar last night before falling asleep.  when i finish a series, wether video or book, i almost always feel like i'm leaving behind friends.  like i spent time with these characters and i got to know them and now i'm saying goodbye.  it's always kind of a bittersweet thing.  maybe i'm strange.

but anyway, somehow i was in space, and i was falling towards the sun. as you can imagine, this was a bad situation. a solar flare(those strings of fire that look like tentacles coming off the sun) shot out near me, and i got this idea.  i manipulated the fire of the flare to shoot back and wrap around the sun, then come back in front to make a long, fiery string of flames point towards earth.  then i turned the flare into ice (i'm so cool, right?) and started ice surfing on this long strand of frozen fire.  using the sun's gravity, i surfed towards the sun first, curved around behind it and then rocketed forward, back towards the earth.  it was a rough ride, but i ice surfed all the way back to my home planet.  it might be hard to picture if you weren't there in my dream, but basically it was flippin' sweet.

that's all the dream parts i can remember.

i really didn't intend to write this much, but i felt like background info was necessary/helpful for some things.

now onto homework for the rest of my day at home.  peace.

double hawk

get the title reference. 

you know whats more fun than being awkward?

being acutely aware of how awkward you are.

i usually just lol at myself later.

boy do i run my mouth a lot more than i used to.  i blame ylnt.  the things they say are so entertaining because they just seem to keep talking and funny things come out, often awkward.  so i just keep talking and sometimes funny things come out, but it's often, you guessed it, awkward.  good thing i'm not such the nervous kid i used to be.

i think the guitar i want to eventually buy got a lot harder to find while i wasn't looking.  i know it always said "limited supply" but i didn't really think about when it would run out.

/sigh

i have been liking this song a lot lately.  this is a smaller version of it than their "official" one and i like it better.  i'm trying to learn to play it and sing it at the same time and i'm ever so faintly toying with the idea of "performing" somewhere, maybe gvsu's twloha concert next month?  i don't know, it was just a tiny, miniscule thought in my head.  i'd need a girl to sing with me too, at least for that song, because it sounds so much better that way.

whatev.

cold outside

tonight was lovely.

you know, sometimes i think about how i know i could be happy even if i didn't choose to eat rice cakes forever.  i could live with that decision. i don't think it would be that hard. it's not that important in the scope of things.

but if it doesn't have to be that way, then i'm all for that too.

i am certainly up late.  time for sleeping.

spinning

i feel like my mind has been a train wreck for a while now.

i'm really scatterbrained.

there are way too many things competing for my attention.

too much to do.  or at least think about doing.  or just think about.

i try to do too much at once.  when i'm on the computer i will honestly open like 5+ tabs and go back in forth through all of them, not completely finishing any of them in one look, jumping around.  i'll be writing an email and in the middle i'll go on facebook or suddenly look up a video and then come back to the email but then stop again and write on somebody's wall and then read a blog and then when i finish with all the distractions i remember that i was writing an email so i finish that.  and in all of that i will have forgotten to do at least 3 things that i meant to do and were more important than the distractions. oy.

i feel like i'm going to have dreams tonight.

i usually have dreams when i know my brain has been working too hard.

drained.  unmotivated.  whatever the opposite of "driven" is.

that's how i feel at the moment.

it was really nice at work today for the 3 hours or so i worked in a different department where i was mostly by myself and it was quiet and relaxing and i was doing something that made me feel like i was accomplishing things and not just waiting for the next customer to show up.  i might transfer to that department.

i don't feel like i get time to relax my brain.

whenever i try, i just get sleepy and then i sleep a little and then just want more sleep.

i think maybe the key to a lot of this is getting enough sleep at night.

i'm going to make it my goal to get some more sleep, at least for a week or so, and see what happens.

yeah.  sleep.  let's be friends.

because it's hard to do anything when you just feel half dead.

i don't do that good a job of taking care of myself.

i wanted to post a video but all of them seem to have embedding disabled so i will just link it.

good message in the song.  some "bad" words.  whatever, you're grown up i'm sure.

InnerPartySystem - Don't Stop

and btw, i've done like 7 different things throughout the course of writing this.

it doesn't stop.

aw man...

i went out to my car last night to go to my soccer game, and i noticed something was amiss with the looks of the driver's side part of the vehicle.  it turns out what was amiss(ing) was the side mirror.  i found it in 2 pieces a good 10 feet or more in front of my car.  the glass was gone and i couldn't find it anywhere.

my car was parked on the street (the only place i can park it) and in front of my house.  i'm thinking it was either a snowplow's doing, or some jerk that doesn't know how to drive properly (of which there are many, many on the roads).

this is annoying.  it would be less annoying though if somehow my mirror being torn off would not have affected my door.  it doesn't look at all like anything but the mirror was hit, but now my driver side door won't open from the outside.  locked or unlocked, it will not open.  i can get out that door, but not in once it's shut.  this means i'll be using the passenger door to get into my car.  this means that this is even more annoying because i park on the street all the time, and on the passenger side of the street there are large piles of snow.  bullocks.

it is much harder to merge onto the highway without that mirror to help.

it is very cold outside before 8am.  probably after too.

i get to bring music in to my music listening class on tuesday, for everybody to listen to.  i'm having a hard time deciding what to bring.  the teacher says it has to be someting that we think will stand the test of time, something that we'll like years from now, 20 or 30.

i really don't think i'll bring in Thrice.  i feel like i want to bring in something more obscure or different than thrice.  they're my favorite band and all, but i feel like i want something that is more unique.

right now i'm thinking of La Dispute or Judgement Day.

considering Portugal. The Man too.

a substantially shrunken music collection makes this a little more difficult, but i'll do.

exciting.

a long time ago

feeling great, though my ankle hurts a bit more after soccer and i pulled a muscle slightly.

but great.  we won.

here's something to think about:

the Earth's rotation is slowing down.  This is why we add a Leap Second as necessary.  In the last 36 years, we've added 24 leap seconds to our clocks/time.  we can't predict when exactly we'll need to add leap seconds because the Earth's rotation doesn't slow at a fixed rate, it's variable.  but if the Earth has been slowing down, then it must have been spinning faster before right?  and if the Earth has always been slowing down, how fast might it have been spinning if the Earth is billions of years old?

so let's say that maybe we add just one leap second every 3 years, which is less than it seems we do add, and then suggest that the earth is 1 billion years old.  doing some math:

1,000,000,000 / 3 = ~333,333,333.3 (number of leap seconds of change)

333,333,333.3/60 (minutes of change) /60 (hours of change) /24 (days of change) =  ~3858 days.

3858 days worth of change in time, which means change in speed of the Earth's rotation.  i don't know the math for figuring out how much faster the Earth would be spinning, but it seems like it would be quite a lot.  amirite?

so if the earth is billions of years old, it probably would have been spinning wicked fast.

i guess this is all considering that the Earth has been slowing down at about the same rate, the wikipedia page said that it's a slighty variable rate.

just something to think about.  something that you'd wonder "how did that work out if the Earth is really that old?"

"i have a theory about that"

oh lulz.

full

life is beautiful.

i'm feeling full of feeling.

going to spill sometime i'm sure.

there is much to be happy about.

much to be thankful for.

so much is beautiful.

i am so tired, but i feel so good.

i could stay up and do things and read things and sometimes i wonder how i find time to sleep when there's so much i could do.

"more to be seen than can ever be seen, more to do than could ever be done"

haha, exactly.

i smile at myself when i look in the mirror sometimes, and i like it and i'm happy.

just happy.

my new favorite verb is trolling.  thank you rich.

i'll come to chicago as soon as i can.

interenet was down but came back.

i could have been happy just going to sleep too.

senseless.  senseless joy.

not bad

i just now checked to see what my grades were last semester.

A, A, A, A, B+

the b+ was in my 3D drawing class.

not bad, i'd say.

i am trying to do too much and i think i'm going to lose my mind soon.

i think half the problem is that i'm also trying to sleep too little.

case in point about trying to do too much: i should have been getting ready to leave for work at least 5 minutes ago.

darn you, easily distracted brain.

cool

today was really, really great.

woke up at 7am (boo)

went to class.  looks to be enjoyable.  the teacher loves western stuff.

home.  leave to go sledding with chicago friends.

had a blast.

i love just laying in the snow.  the snow makes everything quieter, more peaceful, and i love it.  i love when it's snowing outside and it's absolutely silent.  no wind, no cars; just me crunching along through the scenery. fantastic.

back to rich's to watch jurassic park, the second one.

had to say bye to everybody.

home.  get soccer stuff.

go play soccer game #1.  score 2 goals, let 0 in.  win

adam came to watch, then bethany and nick came.

wait around.  soccer game #2 and rich came also.

we lost, but i played hard and it was good.  i'm sore though.

i am so tired.

i think i am insane.

goodnight.

soccer with the stars

i just played soccer against some guys i respect very much.

the singer/guitarist and bassist from Victor! Fix the Sun.

also, the singer from Ivan(r.i.p.)

wow.  that's crazy to me.  i like both those bands, have seen them play live.  want to do what they've done.  and i beat them in soccer.  scored on the Ivan singer twice.  3 times, but the ref called one back.

it was a lot of fun.

also:

if i get sick anytime in the next 3 days, i am blaming it completely and totally on bethany grace rademacher because she kicked snow all over me while i was still in my shorts.  and snow as all in my shoes on account of her.

girls are so cruel.

musical cleansing

listening to: a lot less songs....

today i followed Nick's lead.

i did what i had been thinking about but probably would not have gone through if it weren't for my roommate suddenly doing it first.

i deleted all of the music on my computer that i did not pay for.

(well, i still need to check on a couple albums that i'm not sure if i really do own or not)

over 1000 tracks gone, some of them were favorites.

but actually i found that a lot of stuff i will not miss.  there was a lot that i don't listen to much at all, and too many songs that i don't even like.  but i think that this will actually help me to appreciate more the musc that i really do like.  and i do want to support the bands that i like by buying their material.  i want to be in a band someday, and i'd appreciate every kid who would do this same sort of thing.

i think it goes without saying (but i'll say it) that I won't be downloading any more music that isn't downloaded legally.  Portugal. the Man encourages downloading though... even of their own stuff.... i wonder what to do with their music then.

but anyway, i'm happy with my decision.  i still have to go through and clean out an external drive and my Zune, but i'm well on the way to being legal in my music listening.  i really, really, really love music and listening to cool bands that I haven't heard before, and i feel like going legal is going to stifle that a bit, but i can live with it.  as i was deleting stuff i made a list of what music i am going to need to look into buying because i'll be missing it too much.  things like Justice and The Devil Wears Prada and Dub Trio.

that being said, i've thought about gift music.  music given to me by friends.  here's the principles i'm going to go by:

1. I will not accept music files.

2. I will accept burned CDs from somebody if it's in the form of a mixtape.  a collection of songs that they think i'll like.  i will not be able to accept plain 'ol copies of an album.

3. I will not put any of the tracks from these burned CDs onto my computer/mp3 player, just leave them on a CD and play it that way.

4. No ripping of anything that I don't own.

i think that's about it.

i need to get a CD player in my car now.  for sure.

or at least put in a radio with a working tape deck.

i'm going to want to find a good service for downloading (and paying for) individual songs.  i hear that amazon has got a pretty good thing going, dunno if they do individual tracks or not.  i don't even want to hear a word about itunes.

i love music and i want to do good by it.

let's do this the right way, yeah?

yeah.

(that all being said, if anybody out there owns real copies of any of the following band's albums and you don't want the CD anymore, talk to me.  maybe i can buy it from you at like a used cost? :)  

-The Devil Wears Prada

-Justice

-Miyavi

-Ratatat

-Silverstein

-Anberlin

-Drop Dead, Gorgeous

-Dub Trio

- La Dispute (i think i don't own Vancouver)

-Muse

-Portugal. The Man

-Protest the Hero

-Russian Circles

-The Human Abstract

-The White Stripes

-Daft Punk

-Every Time I Die

-Regina Spektor

)

un-quality

Jammin' at Mah House from Jarrod Pyper on Vimeo.

this was very poorly made and we knew it.

but it was fun.

and ridiculous.

wait until the part where we found the filter to make things on fire.

yeah.

time goes by

listening to: Muse - Supermassive Black Hole

i think i'm not as nice as i used to be, and that's troubling.

i think i just don't care as much.

let's not become calloused, ok?

i got a scarf today.  thanks Lindsey! i'm wearing it as i'm writing this.

what makes someody intelligent?

what makes you think somebody is intelligent?

i've wondered for a while.

if you think i'm intelligent, why is that?

is intelligence using big words? knowing a lot of facts? saying insightful things?

i know there's a difference between IQ and EQ and all that, but i'm wondering what gives the impression of intelligence in a person.  i suppose this wondering comes from a desire to seem intelligent to others.  kinda dumb. i try too hard to mold people's opinions of me for them. that's a whole other thought line though, one i don't wish to explore at this moment.

the problem with being

smart

wise

insightful

congnizant

is that you know better.

when you mess things up, you knew better than to do something like that, there is no excuse.

i'm not saying that i am those adjectives, but i am smart enough to know better a lot of times, and some days i wish i just didn't know better.

caution to the wind?

time for sleep.

just for lulz

It amused me at least from Jarrod Pyper on Vimeo.

thanks Bill. you let me be amuse myself more.

tragedy

2 major tragedies in life:

1. Being forced out of a warm bed into a cold room (or world (that's deep)), especially when you're still really tired.

2. Opening the curtain after a hot shower and being assaulted by chill air.  I should be able to press charges against that kind of attack.

phrase

shaky words, spoken steady

shaky words, spoken steady

that's what i'm made of.
if you think it's confidence,
i've got you fooled.
cocky? it's feigned.
if i spoke uncaringly, i'm sorry.

when i can't think my words slowly,
i speak them faster,
and watch them run into the walls,
stumbling into each other,
struggling when i pick them up,
until i have the grace to let them lie.

despite the fragile words,
i can manage to talk them through,
making them seem strong,
sailing smoothly with the crew.

i shouldn't have tried to rhyme that.
but i like the phrase shaky words, spoken steady.

beacause it means something to me, not to you.

maybe to you, but that's no reason for me to like it.

-----------------------

soccer game tonight was super fun.

i scored a goal.

my sister scored a goal (so proud!)

i love my family.

and really, when i'm barefoot i just feel so much more ninja.  i just want to be more acrobatic.

that's it.

check it

check out http://neweachweek.blogspot.com/

it's a journal of sorts that some friends and i are using to keep track of our new years goal of doing at least 1 new thing a week for the whole year.

if you go there you can read about me driving a completely random, larger than me, african american, drunk guy home for $10.

it's good to be alive.

new year, dead ahead.

alright, lets do this.   leeerroooooooooy!!!!!......

and i leave you with a video that rich and adam and i lolled at very, very much: