about a burning fire...

9.30.03 Wow, it's been a few days. I have been so busy. I haven't written a real post since like Wenesday night. It's now Tuesday. I don't remember what I did last week until Friday though, so, here it goes...Friday night the Paul Coleman Trio came here to IWU. I didn't really feel like going for some reason so I stayed in my room and watched my favorite movie: The Ring. Then afterwards Jon, Alli, Amy, Aaron and I went to Ivanhoes but we got there at 11:01 and found out it closes at 11:00. So that didn't work out. We ended up driving around Taylor, I'd never seen it before. Then we stopped by Wal-Mart and picked up a few things. Jon and I got some duct tape, more X-mas lights, and I got a plastic pirate cutlass...I think I'm going to be Captain Jack Sparrow for Halloween. Either him or a vampire. Anyway, at Wal-Mart Allie bought Pippy Longstocking the movie. I hadn't seen Pippy since I was a very small child. Her, Aaron, Beth and I watched most of it at Reed when we got back to the wu. Saturday I got up around 12:30PM, had lunch, and basically relaxed the whole day. It was soooo nice. Played some Bond with the boys for a while (also Jon just got Mariocart and Smash Brothers, we played some of that too, fun stuff). Saturday night I went with Alli, Aaron, and some girls to the Marion mall. We went to this awesome poster store! They had soooo many cool posters for movies. They are the HUGE ones like theaters have. It was awesome. Unfortunatly though, the Indiana Jones one was $40.00. Needless to say I didn't buy it. They did have a cool pin though that I bought. It is black and says "Jazz" in white letters. I love it so much! I think it's my favorite thing I've bought here so far. Anyway we also stopped in Claire's and for one moment I dropped my "I'm a guy and this store sucks" front and saw an interesting product by the cash register. It was a chunk of stone/mud in a box with the title: "Discover your own mummy!" It was a toy of an archaeological site! It comes with the block of mud, a chisle, a small hammer, and a brush. Inside the mud is of course the parts of a mummy (I never realized mummys were plastic). Since I had dreamt for years as a child of becoming an archaeologist when I grew up I saw this as my one chance! There were two options: the mummy one I had in my hand, or a skeleton one still on the display. I wanted the skeleton. I snatched it, rounded up $3.50 from my pockets and made the purchase. I cradled it the whole way back to IWU. Then, focused on the mystery that awaited inside this piece of earth, sat on the floor with a newspaper underneath and began my "dig". I chisled away for quite a while but made little progress as far as seeing bones goes this night. Later, a bunch of us met in the student center and went to Applebee's for a late-night snack. It was Jon, Alli, and I then Nathanael and a bunch of his friends too. Afterwards we made our way to a "secret location"...I followed Janae (one of Nathanael's friends). She led us to...a graveyard...at 11:30PM. We stepped out into the ocean of darkness and decided it would be fun to play hide and go seek...my idea :). There were about ten of us so we split into two's and began. It was a lot of fun. I was with Alli and she gets scared easy...so I told her scary stories to comfort her...yeah I'm pretty evil. Anyway, it was fun getting real scared. I love it. Sunday I went with Amy, Alli, Jon, Stephanie, and Aaron to Hanfield Methodist. I liked it a lot. Of the churches I've been to thus far I like it the most. After church we all had lunch together in Baldwin. Sunday afternoon I went with Nathanael and Janae to Janae's house and picked up a couch for Nathanael. It was in a barn storage type room in the backyard. As we carried it walnuts kept falling from the bottom. It was quite funny. There must have been a squirell that had his life's supply of nuts in there. Anyway, we affectionatly named the couch Wally. So, to make a long story short: we now have a couch to sit on while we play Bond!!! Woohoo! We've been sitting in chairs all this time. This is a BIG upgrade. After moving in Wally I made my way over to Reed and finished watching Pippy Longstocking with Alli and Beth. That movie is so weird :). After Pippy we went to Wal-Mart (Jes and Jo came too). Alli bought me a very rad Ninja Turtles flashlight. It is very cool. On the way back to the wu we stopped by the graveyard again. I took some very rad pictures of some old tombstones. I'm gonna put them in black and white and see what they look like. I think they'll be way cool. I can't wait to get them developed! Sunday night I finished my "dig". I excavated all the bones and put the skeleton together. It was so cool! $3.50 well spent. I got to live a dream, to be an archaeologist, even if it was on a miniature scale...with a plastic skeleton :). Monday was the craziest day though! I had a test and a quiz during the day then...Monday night was The Juliana Theory's show in Indy! Jes, Alli, Andrew and I had planned to go for over two weeks now. Mike, Brett and Jon were coming down for it too from Michigan. They actually bought the tickets for everyone and we were to pay them back at the show. Anyway, on the way to the show we kept trying to call Mike on his brother's cell phone but it wasn't even on. It was weird but we just kept driving to the venue hoping they'd turn it on soon. After an hour of calling over and over while driving they finally answered. We found out from Mike that they had been in a wreck in Holland on the way down and weren't going to make it. Everyone was ok, but Jon actually had to go to jail! Something about his brakes not working... Anyway, it was pretty crazy, we were so glad no one was hurt but, now we were twenty minutes from the venue and didn't have tickets to get in when we got there. It was now 6:45PM and we started to realize that all the exits off the highway were closed for construction. We were forced to go passed our exit and took the first one we could find after it. Alli is really good at directions and navigated us back to the general area we were supposed to be in, however the road we needed to take was closed. We ended up driving around for quite a while just trying to get near the venue. We had to eventually stop for directions and all the nice locals in the gas station pitched in to help give us directions haha. They were more than helpful. It was now after 7:00 (the show started at 7:00) and we had a good idea of how to get there. We ended up getting to the venue around 7:30. Fortunately for us it hadn't sold out yet! We were able to get tickets at the door!!! We had already lost hope once we got so lost. We had already been brainstorming other ideas of other things we could do in Indy in the car...but to all our surprise we were able to still get tickets! There were four bands playing that night and we ended up only missing Celebrity (of which none of us knew anyway). We got to see Copeland, Hopesfall and of course The Juliana Theory! Copeland was amazing!!! Jes and I split the price and bought their c.d. Hopesfall was good too. Too hard for my style, but good at what they do. Then of course The Juliana Theory was awesome as usual. After the show Jes asked Brett Deter (the lead singer of The Juliana Theory) for a kiss. He gave her one on the cheek and I got a picture of it. It was cute. After the kiss I told Brett about Mike, Brett, and Jon being in the wreck on the way down to see them. He got a poster and wrote a note to them on it, then gave it to me to give to them. It says: "Mike, Brett, + Jon...Sorry about your crash!!! i hope you are ok!! we missed you!! *Brett* get better soon!" Pretty cool... When I talked to Mike he informed me he's coming down this weekend! I'm excited, he's going to stay with me. It should be fun! I can't wait! Ok, so that is my update. Pretty eventful week. A'ight, I'm out.
When you fall in a bottom-less pit you die of starvation,
-Vin

9.27.03 I bought a pirate cutlas yesterday. It is cool.

9.25.03 Ha, in all my excitement last night I forgot to mention that not only do the Twins have an 11 game winning streak going, they also won the Central Division the other night...minor details.

9.24.03 Eleven games straight!!! The Twins are on freaking fire! Hands down the hottest team in baseball. Wow, this just keeps getting better and better! Next up on the schedual, the worst team in baseball...the Detroit Tigers. Then off to the playoffs to take on the Yankees. Should be quite a match-up. The Twins are winless against the Yanks in the last 13 games against them over the past two seasons. Not a good record to be going in with, but hopefully this series will change all of that. Anyway...the rest of my life....I am doing great! Last night as I was in my room doing homework I heard a noise outside my window. I pulled apart the blinds just enough for my eyes to peer through. As I did I heard a girl scream and saw girls heads darting away from the window. I pulled open the blinds to find a lovely piece of artwork on our window. Alli, Amy and some of there friends made us a big picture full of quotes from teen girl squad (if you don't know what I'm talking about go to www.homestarrunner.com immediatly). They drew a bunch of funny pictures on it and wrote a bunch of quotes about us on it. It was very funny. I'm going to take a picture of it. Anyway, they came back and stood outside our window and we laughed and talked for a while. It was cool. Today was a fun day. After classes and chapel I went to lunch with Jon, Aaron, Alli, Amy and her friends. Then I just hang out this afternoon, did homework, hung out with Jessica for a little while, then went to dinner with the gang (Alli, Jon, Aaron, Amy etc.) At dinner Alli and I made this awesome dessert with a big, homemade waffle on a plate, vanilla icecream on top, with chocolate syrup, butterscotch syrup, nuts, and bananas on top. It was amazing! We split it and were both very full afterwards :). It was sooooo good! Then I came back to the room and Nathaniel gave me a good tip about our Christmas lights. He suggested we just interweave the lights around the beds and stuff. So, I did it and it looks way cool! Plus, they can't fall down now :). Anyway, then (after some more homework) I went over to Amy and Alli's for openhouse. Jon and Aaron were already there. We just hung out and watched videos that Amy made when she was younger. They were quite hilarious. While we were hanging out there a HUGE storm broke out. Around 9:45 Jon and Aaron went back to Hodson and Alli and I decided to go play in the rain. The storm was amazing! The lightning was so bright it would blind you for a moment, the thunder so loud it made car alarms go off in the parking lot, and it rained so hard you were drenched as soon as you stepped outside. Alli and I found the biggest puddle on campus and splashed each other until there wasn't a dry spot left on either us. Just to be sure we laid down in the puddle and "swam" :). Then we made our way over to the fountain jumping in every puddle along the way. We got in the school fountain right in the middle of campus and "swam" in that too. It was sooooo much fun!!! Joni was in the Student Center and thought she saw me so she came out to see if it really was me. She laughed at us as I stood with her in the entrance of the SC dripping everywhere and Alli and I talked to her for a while. Then Alli and I made our way to Hodson, I changed into some dry clothes then walked Alli back to Reed. It was such an amazingly fun time. My clothes are now draped over doors, chairs, air-conditioners etc. all over the room drying haha. Thank God for rain. Thank God for the kid in all of us.
Enjoying the pneumonia,
-Vin

9.23.03 Yes!!! My Twins won again!!! Nine game winning streak thus far!! Man, they are on fire!! Dang, that is so awesome. Ok, in other news...I am doing very well. Saturday night Jon and I went and bought white Christmas lights for our room. We wanted to use them as our only lighting. We were able to get a good deal at Wal-Mart. I also bought us sparkling cider...it was very good, Jon and I drank the whole bottle. Anyway, we brought the lights back and duct-taped them to the ceiling all across the room. It looked so cool with them on! It's a nice coffee-house kind of feeling. Nice, soft lighting. But, they kept coming down in places. So, we kept patching them up. Anyway, after that I watched some more of Ken Burns' Jazz documentary. I'm on disc three now :) still seven left to go. It's good stuff. Sunday morning went with Lisa Smith to her church at Lakeview Wesleyan. I attended their young adult's Sunday school class. There were about five of us. We had discussion over Jesus being the vine and our role as the branches. I did most of the talking. One other girl spoke up a bit too but it was mostly just us talking. I felt bad for the teacher because here he prepared this whole lesson for us to disscuss and no would speak up to discuss. Anyway, after that I went to their service. I had a hard time staying awake though. For some reason I was very tired. I did get to meet some cool people though. I met their young adults pastor who was really cool. We talked about film for a while, it was cool. I also met their High School youth pastor who is actually friends with Steve Deur and is from Holland so that was cool. Sunday night I did more homework then Jon and I did some hilarious prank phone calls. We got Jo and Amy soooo bad. It was hilarious! Jo swore that she would punch us in the face next time she sees us. It was very funny though and deffinatly worth it. I made Jo think Jon went crazy and flipped out because she stole his rubberband the night before...and she totally believed it haha. She thought he actually flipped out and like went so crazy I had to lock him out of the room (and in the background Jon was yelling and pounding on the door for effect :) It was soooooo funny! She totally thought he broke down and went insane. So yeah, she was so mad when she found out it was a joke. Haha, good stuff. Anyway, MondayI awoke to our Christmas lights drooping down to the floor. The tape had come undone in almost every place. We gave up. They won't stay up with duct-tape. We have to find a different way to keep them up there. Anyway, Monday I had classes then went with Alli to the Marion township library in the afternoon. It was fun. Monday night I attended a meeting about community service. I have been wanting to get involved in Marion and help out in whatever way I can because I've felt like God has been challenging me to get more invloved lately. As well as just giving me more of a heart for it. So anyway, at the meeting they had different groups from the city represented. I signed up with The Boys and Girls Club of Marion. I will get to mentor a adolecent boy as a volunteer. I'm so excited about this. All I'm required to do is hang out with him for at least two hours a week. A lot of young boys are growing up (all over, but especially in Marion) without fathers. So it's so cool that I get to be a positive male role model to a younger guy. I'm so excited about it! Hopefully God will work through me and use me to have a good impact on this boy's life. So, that's what's going on with me. Later last night, after the meeting I, of course...as always...went over and played Bond with Nathaniel. Today I had classes this morning then went to lunch with Alli. Now I need to get going to do some more homework. Six more days 'til The Juliana Theory show!!! Alli's coming with us now too. It'll be a lot of fun. Mike was able to get us all tickets. It'll be good to see him.
Save a child, stop homeschooling,
-Kevin

9.20.03 Wow, Jon and I had the best sleep last night. It was sooooo nice. Chase is gone for the weekend and Jon and I put up a blanket over the window with duct tape to block all light from coming in. It was awesome. I slept in 'til 12:15 and Jon 'til about 12:45 but it still felt like night-time. It was so nice to sleep in without any light. Good stuff. Anyway, last night Leslie and Hannah (a few girls I know here) invited me and a bunch of people over to Evans where they cooked us fajitas for dinner. They were quite good. I haven't eaten in Baldwin for about two days now, it is nice. At their dinner I met Leslie's little brother (who is still in High School) who makes short films also. He apparantly had already heard a lot about me from Hannah so he knew I made fims and we talked a while about it. He told me he had brought his tape with him (most of us filmmaking kids have a tape that has all our work on it) and wondered if I'd be interested in seeing it. I always am, so we had a screening over here in my room in Hodson. A few of the people from the dinner came over too. It was fun, we watched his shorts then watched my films too (Alma Madre and The End of the Road). It was fun having a audience for my stuff. We also watched this season of Donkey. Luke (Hannah's brother) had never used any editing software or anything so he was quite impressed with my stuff. I encouraged him to keep making films though. He has definite potential. Watching his films was a lot of fun. It reminded me a lot of the stuff I used to make with Brad. You have to be super creative because you have nothing, no music, no clean cuts, no sound effects, no anything. It forces you to be creative, something that's lost with all this technology. Anyway, it was alot of fun having the "screening". After that I went over to Nathaniel's for a while and played Bond. Then Aaron and Jon got some free tickets to see "Four Feathers" in the Globe Theater from some girls so they gave me one and Nathaniel came with. It was a pretty good movie. I'd never heard anything about it 'til this week. Then Jon and I came back to our room with Nathaniel and watched "What About Bob?" until about 3AM. In other news...my Minnestoa Twins are doing awesome lately!!! They've won 8 games in a row! The only other team in major league baseball that's doing half as well is Toronto who has won 4 games in a row. It's looking like the Twins will win their division! Woohoo!!! I might get to go see them next weekend in Detroit as they kill the Tigers. My dad is thinking about going and I might meet him there. That would be so cool! I haven't got to see them yet this year. Ok, I am off to conquer my homework. Have a good weekend everyone. Thanks for reading/caring.
Sad songs and waltzes aren't selling this year,
-Kevin

9.19.03 Hey, how are you? Great. How are the kids? That's good. How's that rash doing? Oh really? That's too bad. So yeah haha, a little bit about me...I finally beat Nathaniel yesterday at Goldeneye!!! Woohoo! We played yesterday afternoon and after like ninty-seven thousand games over the last few days I finally beat him! It's about freaking time. But yeah, anyway, my grandparents came down last night for granparent's day today at the wu. It was good having them here. They took me out to eat at the Sirloin Stockade (it was so very nice to eat outside of Baldwin). Then we stopped by Wal-Mart and picked up some stuff. Later last night at 10 after my grandparents went to stay at a Hotel in Marion and I went to a cook-out in one of the townhouses with Alli (a girl I met here the other day). It was so much fun. It was in some of Joni's friends' place. Anyway, they had a grill outside where they cooked bratts, hotdogs, hamburgers and stuff...they were really good! They do this every Thursday night I found out, but last night was a oriental kind of theme so inside the house next to the bowls of chips, nuts, cheetos etc. were chopsticks with a sign that read "No hands please. Chopsticks only." It was fun to use those. They also have a foosball table right in their townhouse so I played Alli and some other girl for a while. It was fun. A ton of people showed up to the cook-out! I was thinking like there'd be around 10 but there turned out to be probably around 40. It was a blast. I had fun hanging out with Alli, she's a cool girl. Today was of course Grandparent's Day so my grandparents went with me to chapel and my grandpa went with me to World Lit. It was fun having them here. Later they took me to Steak n' Shake for lunch...yum yum. Now it is Friday evening and I need to get away from my computer and go have fun before the second weekend of homework begins.
It was good catching up with you :),
-Kevin

9.17.03 So the last few days have been pretty much consumed with work. I have had a lot of homework this week. I'm sure it won't get any easier any time soon either. I don't mind though, I'm here to learn and that's what I have been doing. Even outside of class I've been checking out a lot of stuff from the library and just soaking up knowledge. My goal in coming here was to be like a sponge. I even have a little yellow sponge that reminds me of what I am to be. So, yeah...I'm learning a lot. Other than that though I have just been trying to make time to hang out and get to know people. God is all about people and I need to value them more too. Last night I went over to my suitmates' room and we played James Bond: Goldeneye until 3AM. It was a blast. Sadly though, Nathaniel slaughtered Bob and I like 6 games in a row! Oh well, I'll get him tonight. Yesterday I also bought the new MxPx c.d. that just came out yesterday. It is wicked good. I love it! It was worth the 3-year wait. I've been soaking in tons of music lately. Jessica and I swapped c.d.'s yesterday and ripped them on to our computers. I have lots of new good music now so I am very excited about that! For Intro to Human Com we're reading the book Roaring Lambs. This book is amazing. I HIGHLY recommend it. I am passionate about a lot of what the man who wrote it is so it's so good to hear his views and thoughts. I've learned a lot from it as well. The coolest thing though is that it has given me more of a passon for filmmaking. In the book he talks about how Jesus said, "But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." (Acts 1:8 NIV) Bob Briner (the author of Roaring Lambs) goes on to say that "Because we have been absent so long, Hollywood may be the uttermost part of the earth, more foreign in many ways than China, India, or Africa as far as the Gospel is concerned...Christians need to be in Hollywood, working alongside the men and women who are producing the movies that twenty million people see each week. What a mission field!" I get goosebumps just reading that. Think about the potential! This is the harvest. We need workers. Writers, directors, actors, producers, everything. This field has more impact on our culture than anything, I truly believe that. Our culture is progressed by movies and music. That's what sets the trends, impacts people, gets them thinking. Christ realized the impact of stories. He told parables to reach people. The modern-day storytellers are, I believe filmmakers. I don't think anyone would argue this. Stories have impact and movies are America's source for stories. Anyway, I am excited about all of this so I needed to write about it. Thanks for reading. I'm off to kill Nathaniel...you can run but you can't hide buddy!
Bond, James Bond.

9.14.03 It is now 1:30AM and I have class in the morning so it is my intention to make this short...we'll see how that goes. The last couple days have been kind of crazy. I've had lots of homework this weekend. That has occupied a lot of my time. Friday night I went over to Virginia's townhouse. She had a bunch of people over and it was fun getting to know them. We played Taboo, ate pizza and just hung out. It was fun getting to know some of her friends. They are really cool. Then Saturday was spent watching "Hell's Bells: The Dangers of Rock 'n Roll" for a class. It was very interesting. It's made by conservative Christians who believe that Rock is evil. Interesting stuff. Anyway, after watching that and writing a paper about it I did some more homework. Oh yeah, Jon and I got balloon "animals". This weekend was SAC weekend (Student Activities Councel) and they had all these events going on. Anyway this one lady was going around making balloon animals for those that want them. So, Jon got a motorcyle and I got a Dinosaur. She was wicked talented...we have them as decorations in our room now. Anyway, later that night Jon, Jo, Jessica (a girl I'd just met) and I all went to Wal-Mart. It was quite fun. Jessica is a real cool girl. She's into really good music and films which is awesome. We talked a while at Wal-Mart. I ended up buying Radiohead's "The Bends" album...Jessica likes Radiohead too which is super rad...I hadn't met anyone here that likes them 'til then. Anyone that likes Radiohead is very cool. Anyway she's now going with Mike and I (and whoever else is coming) to see The Juliana Theory in Indy in a few weeks. So, that'll be rad. This morning I went to College Wesleyan church. It was really good. I sat with Jo and Jessica then went to lunch with them afterwards. Then Jessica, Jo, and I did homework in the Student Center 'til around dinner. Later on, a bunch of us went over to Kem and watched Rat Race...it was a lot funnier than I thought it would be. Anyway, that was my weekend. Not too shabby. Tomorrow I get to have a Menengitis shot. Woohoo!!! Ok, time to spend some quality time with my blanket and pillow.
Never say die,
-Vin

9.12.03 So, Johnny Cash died this morning at a hospital in Nashville from complications due to his diabetes at the age of 71. It's good to know that he is now in Heaven. Relevant posted a article about him pretty recently about how he is facing death. You can read it

here

In other news I have had a good last couple of days. Last night our wing in Hodson went with a wing from Evans (our sister hall) to Ivanhoe's (a famous, local icecream shop). It was cool because I got to meet some new people as well as get to know some of the guys in Hodson better. The best though was that at Ivanhoe's I ran into an old friend of mine from Indianapolis. When I lived there she was one of the only people I connected with. Anyway, I hadn't seen her in years but last night she was behind me in line! I introduced myself (in case she didn't remember) and said, "Hey are you Erin? I'm..." then she broke in with "Kevin!" She remembered me, and we talked for a while. She's at Taylor going to school. Anyway, that was the coolest thing that happened yesterday. Today was very cool in Old Terstament class. We learned a bit about the very beginning of Genesis with the creation of the universe. Anyway, this summer I dealt a little bit with questiong whethor or not creation took place in six literal days. It's not that I didn't believe this, but I know some Christians who don't believe in a literal six-day creation and C.S. Lewis himself didn't. So anyway, this made me want to learn more about this. So, this summer I read up on it a bit. But today in class Prof. Colter explained some of the Hebrew words used in Genesis. Apparantly the word we translate as "day" is "eon" in Hebrew (the original text). Eon simply means a period of time. It can mean a week, a day, a year etc. The Jews simply used this word as a period of time. So, we say God created the world in six days when actually He created it in six eons (periods). It could be six days, could be six years, could be six centuries...the key is that He did it. He created the universe out of nothing. Could He have done it in six days? Absolutely! He could have done it in an instant if He wanted. Anyway, this is very interesting to me. Also the other day we learned about the phrase "40 days and 40 nights" which to the Jews was a phrase that meant "until it was complete". So, when Noah was in the ark it doesn't necessarily mean it rained for 40 literal days and nights, but that it rained until it was complete. Until God saw it as complete. Anyway, it's so cool to learn about this stuff! It's cool to actually know what these things mean and be able to know why. I have always just taken the Bible and read it as is. But, we lose things in translation. We need to completly understand all of it which means learning about the Jewish culture and learning about what things mean in the original language. So yeah, this is what I've been thinking about/learning lately. I love it. It's very exciting! Anyway, the weekend is upon us and mine is sadly going to be spent doing homework. I have lots of it. I hope your's is more fun than mine will be!
Despite what people say, Jeepers Creepers is a terrible movie,
-Kevin

9.10.03 So, I officially have my first crushee here at college...or should I say crusher...not sure what the correct term is. Anyway, a girl likes me. I just spent the evening talking with a girl I met here at school last week. She called me up and asked me to join her and her friend in the student center just to hang out. I met up with them there and we sat down to talk but after only about ten minutes her friend left claiming she had "homework" to do. "Odd", I thought. "They invite me down and then she has homework to go do?" Anyway, I let it go not thinking much if it. I talked to the remaining girl...we'll call her Katie for a couple hours. It was good, I haven't had a lot of people to really talk to around here. Talking with her was a nice change of pace. Anyway, when I got back to my room my roomate (Jon) informed me that a girl he knew liked me. Anyway, as it turns out, it was the girl I had just spent the last several hours talking with. She had told Jon two nights ago that she liked me and wanted to pursue something with me. Anyway, it was a funny situation because I had just spent several hours with her and had no idea. Needless to say I do not like her in any kind of romantic way and deffinatly am not ready for a relationship right now. It's nice to be liked though. Anyway...so I went to the library last night here at school and went on a spree. I check out all these cool c.d.'s and DVD's they have here. All educational of course, but I am starting to gain more of a thirst for knowledge. My roomate Chase was a little surprised by this today I think as he looked at my computer and asked "What is that?" pointing to the image on my monitor (I was watching one of the DVD's). I replied "It's a molecule." He went on to ask if I had to watch it for a class and I think he was a little surprised that I was watching it for the sake of learning. So yeah, maybe I am a dork but I don't mind. THE RADDEST thing is that Ken Burns made this HUGE documentary on the history of Jazz (one of my favorite styles of music) and it aired on PBS in 2000 for the first time. The whole Jazz thing is is so intriguing to me. Ken Burn's Jazz documentary is over 15 hours long and in 2001 was released on DVD in a 10-disk set. Anyway as I found out our library has it!!! So, I checked out the first disk last night and am so excited to get to see the whole film! When it was on t.v. I only caught about a quarter of it, if even. So, I am sooo stoked about this!!! Anyway, it's freakin' 2:00AM and I have to get up around 7 so I need to call it a night.
Brush your teeth,
-Vin

9.09.03 Last night was amazing. This week we have "Fall Summit" here at IWU which basically is spiritual emphasis week. We generally have chapels Monday, Tuesday, and Friday mornings. This week however we have two chapels everyday, one in the morning and one at night. Anyway, our speaker is incredible. He is the pastor here at College Wesleyan Church and thus far has just been amazing in our chapels. Last night he talked about the holiness of God. It was awesome. I realized even more how much our society brings God down. We try to put Him at our level. Just even little things like saying His name, talking about Him without fear and things like that seem to bring Him down just little by little. Now it has gotten to the point where here in America we don't even have a fear or reverence for God. After the service I felt drawn to, and went out to, our prayer chapel and kneeled on an alter to pray. The chapel (where I have spent a lot of time lately) was more packed than I had ever seen it. Students were flat on their face, kneeling on the ground, barefoot, weeping, praying, before this Holy God. They are on to something, what I am starting to realize too, that God is Holy. God is so far above us that there is no way we could ever dream of reaching Him. In our culture we are brought up, and rightly so, that God is our friend. But even before that God is too huge to ever even come close to being at our level. We often grow up with a buddy image of God, a God who is at our level and because of that we have lost a lot of our fear and reverence for Him. I personally am making an effort to discover this Holy God. To discover more of how big God really is. Discovering God and His holiness in turn brings about admiration and love for Him. Which in turn brings about a desire to follow Him. Too often I get caught up in trying to do the right thing, trying to act the right way. Encountering God in His glory I think will bring about all the rest, bring love for Him, bring love for people, bring a desire to be who He wants me to be and a desire to do His will. So, as of yesterday I am embarking on a voyage of seeing God for what He is. To see Him in His glory and highness. Yesterday also brought with it a great answer to prayer. For about a month I have been praying for a friend of mine whose heart is somewhat cold and hard to God. This person is a Christian but over time has become somewhat hardened by the world. Anyway, I have prayed a lot, and even literally begged God to change this person's heart. As of yesterday I got word from them about (in their own words) "all the amazing things God is doing in my heart." It was in written form so I didn't have a chance to respond but I am so very excited about the change God is doing in this person's life!!! It is such a good reminder to me once again that only God can change a heart. I have many times tried my hardest to make people I care about change their ways and change their heart. But every single time it has failed. When I realized only God can do it and began asking Him to is when real change started to take place.
Praise be to God for all He is and all He does,
-Kevin

9.08.03 SLWC now has a television commercial which is played on MTV (and other teen-affiliated channels) promoting Real and Fusion (the youth programs there). Anyway, the commercial contains a couple clips from Donkey. Which means: something I made (with Brad) is on T.V!!!
I'm outy,
-Vin

9.07.03 Well, I just got back from Spring Lake. I returned home for the weekend to see my "sister" Kendra get married. I call her and her sister my "sisters" because we grew up together, were neighbors and were super close all my childhood. We were just like brother/sisters so they call me their little brother and I call them my sisters. So anyway, after classes Friday I left right away, went straight to the church and made it to the wedding just before it started. It was perfect timing. The wedding was nice, simple and short. I was grateful. Long weddings make me very ansty. After the wedding I had time to stop at home before the reception. It was nice to be home. My room looks a lot different. I guess I had never planned on anything changing but I guess I should get used to it. That is the first of many changes that will take place back home I'm sure. Anyway, then I went to the reception which was really cool. It was above this really nice restaraunt and the food was delicious. I actually got to film the reception which was fun. Originally I was supposed to film the wedding and the reception but since I found out that wouldn't be a possibility because of classes I had to cancel the wedding part. But filming the reception was fun. I forgot how much I liked using a video camera. I had a lot of fun though. I just went around and filmed people leaving a message of congratulations and such for Kendra and Terry. I also filmed the people dancing, the toast given by the best man and just basically everything that happened at the reception. It was fun. I got a lot of really cool shots and stuff which was fun, just being creative and making shots look cool and stuff. It stirred up my desire to do this as a profession even more. I really need camera of my own. Really. One of these days I'll get one. It'd be cool to even make a little bit of money filming weddings and stuff. I could take the footage back to my computer, edit it on my computer (I use Adobe Premier), and burn it on a DVD for people. That might be something that'd be fun to do eventually when I do get a camera. I love being creative and am actually decent at it with video taping. I wish I was in other areas though. I really wish I was a good writer. Michelle's best friend Emily is an amazing writer and I've been reading a lot of her stuff lately. It's so amazing I just sit back after I read her stuff and just think "Why not me?! Why can't I write like that?!" Anyway, the girl is freaking amazing (http://www.geocities.com/fallinginagape/ to read some of her stuff). Anyway, after the wedding I went to Jumpin' Java to do some homework. I ended up seeing a lot of friends there so it took a while until I actually was able to do homework, but I did eventually. When I got home my mom was still up so we sat and talked 'til around 1:30AM. It was good talking to her. We haven't talked that long in...maybe ever. It was very good. Saturday I woke up around noon and got to go out to lunch at Russ' with Kory. Melissa showed up too which was cool. It was a lot of fun hanging out with them again. They are truly crazy, which makes them fun to be around. Later that night I drove out to Grand Rapids with my sister Alyssa and Kim to go see our friends' bands play. They are a emo band called "Tears for Juliet" which is the emoest name I've ever heard of. We got lost for a LONG time on the way there but once we got there had a lot of fun. I got to see a lot of the kids from youth group there. It was cool seeing them. I walked in the room and seriously like four people screamed my name and ran over to tackle me. I felt loved to say the least. I got a kiss on the cheek from Kyle too which was maybe crossing the line. The show was a lot of fun though. TFJ was really good (http://tearsforjuliet.tripod.com/tfj/index.html for more info). After the show I brought the girls back home and then went alone back to Jumpin' Java. I again saw a lot of friends there so talked for a while. Then once again I was able to do some homework. After that I also bought the movies Signs. Great movie. Sunday I got to go to Watermark (click Steve's blog for more info) which was cool 'cause they began their preview services today. Steve Thompson got a tattoo of Watermark's logo on his arm. Crazy. Watermark was fun also because I got to see Mike there and talk to him a while. It was good to see him again. He's probably going to come down here at the end of September and go see The Juliana Theory in Indy with me. I'm very much looking foward to that. After Watermark Alyssa and I went out to Applebees for lunch. It was a good time. Then I came home, did homework, slept, picked up Virginia's toothbrush from Lindsey's house (she forgot it there last time she was up, hopefully she'll think it's funny I brought it back to her, she's not expecting it). After that I made the four and a half hour trip back to school. Got a bit lost but made it here eventually. Now I am off to do yet even more homework...college is work, don't let anyone say otherwise.
Wishing I was a writer,
-Kevin

9.05.03 Today was a pretty cool day. I had a couple classes this morning and we also had the IWU convocation. First we met with our department in which we are majoring under. I met a couple cool people who are majoring along somewhat the same lines I am. Then we went over the the athletic center for a service. I sat with the couple people I just met (Zach and Robin). The service was about an hour which wasn't bad and featured a man who was in the Reagan administration as the speaker. After that I went to lunch, came back to my room, slept a few hours then just hung out until dinner. At dinner I ran into Virginia (a friend I met back home who goes to school here, of whom I've never been really close with). She invited me to sit with her and her friend. So I did. As we sat and ate together I opened up to her a bit on how I haven't really connected real well with anyone yet. Not that I'm concerned, but it is starting to get a bit lonely. I've met a lot of really great people but none that I've really clicked with. Meal times seem to be the most awkward because I have to find someone to sit with. Anyway, she assured me that if I just give it more time I will find a great group of friends here. She said that the first month or so all the freshmen just kind of meander about and don't really settle in with one group of friends right away. This is where I am I guess and it was good to know that it's not as weird as I thought it was. I am not too concerned but like I said it is just kind of awkward sometimes. Anyway, she assured me that if ever again we eat meals at the same time she would love to have me sit with her. This takes so much pressure and stress out of meal times! She is an awesome woman and I am so thankful to know her and have her support and encouragement right now in this transition. It's so nice to be able to talk to someone about all that I am going through. More than just classes are well, my dorm is cool etc. but really getting to how I am doing in the adjustment. It's nice to have her there for me. Anyway, after dinner I went out to Hodson's shaved ice night on our front lawn. It was fun. The snowcones were great. I met up with a couple girls I had met this last week and ended up going back to their dorm to hang out. It was open house night at Evans (their hall) so I got to hang out with them in their room (they're roomates). We played a little guitar and just talked for a long time. One of their friends (Emily) stopped by and I talked to her for a while. She is an artist and I talked her into taking me to her room to see her art. It was great! She is very talented. Anyway, after hanging out in Evans for a few hours I made my way back to Hodson where I spent the rest of the evening working on my blog :)
Later,
-Kevin

This kind of goes along with my last entry. It is a good article by Conrad of www.decapolis.com on the whole secular/Christian music thing. Here ya go:

"The ever burning question in many Christians' hearts is, "Can I listen to secular music?" There is something already wrong with this question. The problem that is inherent in a statement like this is separating music into Sacred and Secular, Spiritual and Non-Spiritual.

I'll start from the beginning literally. Only God existed. He made stuff like heaven, angels, the world and cows. He also created music. God created everything to glorify himself (See the Faith section for more). There is not one thing that was created that did not glorify God. Can God make something that does not glorify himself? No. God did not make a sacred and a secular, everything to God was God's. In God's universe there is no such separation, all is unified as glorifying to God.

So if I wrote a song about cows and sausages, there would be nothing wrong with that. As a Christian I can write songs about algebra and the circulatory system and meeting girls. God created all those things. Why would it be wrong to sing about such things? I am singing about God's wonderful creation, and at the same time using a God created medium music.

So why do so many Christians get so upset about a band of Christians not preaching in their lyrics or from stage? Why do Christians say, "They're just singing about bikes and food, they're not ministering, therefore its not glorifying to God?" When one thinks like this its shows that they don't understand that God created one universe - one universe glorifying to God. In this universe both spiritual and physical things all glorify God. But this other view creates a false dichotomy, a false separation. In this separation comes the view of - God is in the spiritual and not in the non-spiritual (the secular). If its not spiritual then it is non-spiritual, that is secular, and secular is evil. And the only things that are spiritual are things like Jesus, the Bible, evangelism, and discipleship. In the secular there are things like bikes, food, physics and cows. Therefore, in this thinking, you cannot sing about the secular and still glorify God.

But if that were the case then that would mean that if other God created things are "non-spiritual" then they are not glorifying to God, and therefore evil. That would mean a "secular" job like accounting is not glorifying to God and therefore useless or evil. That would mean Adam's God-given task of farming was useless, and Christ's carpentry was useless. Christ has now been reduced to doing things not glorifying to himself.

You see the evil in splitting God's world into a sacred and secular? Believing that non-spiritual is useless leads us into thinking that God does useless things. It leads us to think our jobs are useless to God, and that we must trudge through our jobs just so we can get to Sundays, the only spiritual day and therefore the only useful day. Very destructive thinking.

You do not have to justify music and art and cows and food. God made it, its good, its justified.

But that is not to say that music cannot be used for evil."



Sorry for all these posts on random articles and such lately. These are just subjects close to my heart as of lately and I think these are topics that are very misunderstood in modern Christianity.
Anyway, that is enough.
-Kevin

9.03.03 Rather boring day today...classes, nap, homework: that is about it. I did stumble across a good article though by the lead singer of Jars of Clay. We as Christians know the creator and we have more reason than anyone to use what He's given us: one of those things is art. As I always say Christians tend to stay in their bubble, listen to Christian music, watch Christian t.v. etc. But, we are not called to stay where it's safe. We need to be relevant to culture, being in the world but not of it. Anyway, here is the article:


"My son is two and a half years old, and yesterday he had his first head injury. He was riding a tricycle on blacktop when it slipped out from under him. His little body flung backwards, and he landed on the back of his head, splitting the skin and sending a fountain of warm red blood mingling with his sandy blonde hair.
Since my son was born, I have felt the incredible urge to try to create an environment where he could forego the kinds of things that I had to learn the hard way about through pain and disappointment. If I could only impart to him my wisdom, then he would not have to experience the same kinds of hurt I did as a child.
After the little bruiser learned to walk and run and climb, I caught myself making a mantra out of the words, "Be careful." New fathers gain this incredible sixth sense of being able to immediately see the worst-case scenario of how a child could be hurt in any and every situation. And so, like good fathers do, we set up boundaries and roadblocks, proverbial flashing barricade signs to keep our children away from danger. For many people, this quality seems responsible.
In the Christian community, we have developed another form of this overactive sixth sense. It is the ability to look at a situation and predict how we think it will affect our spiritual lives. It is a sense that we often confuse with conscience. It is a little voice that exposes the feeble vision of God we carry around with us.
The desire to know God, for the Gospel to be made real through life experience and to have a greater vision for the purposes of Christ in our culture have all been undercut by a vision of the Christian life that is not Christ-like at all. Safety has crept into the well-lived life and forced it back from the exhilarating heights and deep valleys that reflect the wild character of God and His unpredictable, redemptive landscape.
The new vision of a Christian life is one void of pain, suffering and tension. It is an existence well entrenched far away from the edge of doubt and questioning, fortressed high above immorality and the sinful nature. To describe this kind of life makes me think less of the Church and more of a padded room with no windows and doors, fit only for sleep or insanity. Is this life God intended?
If it is not, then where did the Church get the wrong idea? How did the Church develop such an unhealthy need for safety? In the absence of real faith, the Church has rallied around another golden calf and has come to believe that safety and comfort are key elements in the Christian life. The effects of this focus are devastating.
In my experience, the attempts to create a world void of real pain and suffering strip away all of the amazing ways joy enters into life. In the last few years, I have been in numerous conversations about joy. One of the greatest was in China. While spending time with a few pastors from the underground church, someone made the statement, "Joy is never spoken of in the Bible apart from suffering." There is never a time where joy is brought up where suffering is not an equal or greater companion. In the modern artistic expressions of faith, there is a missing link. There are too many people trying to tell the Gospel story in such a way that promotes safety over risk.
Last December, I was part of a gathering where Bono asked a small group of Christian musicians a very honest question: "Why do most Christian artists feel like all they can do is be or make commercials for God?" We as artists, lawyers, teachers and students (all under the heading of communicators) will never do more than create commercials for God if we avoid such crucial elements of the Gospel reality. If we remove risk from the story, we open up the potential to leave out a great deal more. If we leave out suffering, we have only Juliet. If we leave out joy, we have only Romeo. If the life we seek is to be anything closely related to a life moved by the Gospel, we must learn to embrace the whole story with all its characters.
One result of this growing want for safety is that too many consumers are now willing to dumb down and accept these kinds of frail, shallow and disposable artistic expressions. I have often asked people why they shop at Christian bookstores. The most common reason is that people want a place where they can go and not wonder if the music and books they are buying are going to be "safe" for listening and reading. In the larger book and music retail stores, the religious book section can have too many philosophies that don't quite line up with the straight and narrow mixed in with truly great Christian books. There is a fear that unassuming Christians might be led astray by some veiled, psuedo-Christian philosophy and have their faith disrupted or damaged. But this line of thinking is a threat to deeper faith, a bigger worldview and ultimately a greater knowledge of the one true God.
Christian radio has also been an exhibition of this need for safety. Many program directors have spoken about their listeners' needs to feel like they don't have to deal with all the sex, filth and bad content on mainstream radio. Every song is screened, picked over and studied, and all content capable of "stirring the soup" or offending people is removed. The listener is safe. And more than safe, the listener is kept safely away from the toxic elements of the Gospel that have the power to create real joy, true peace and deeper faith.
I think again about C.S. Lewis' God-figure, Aslan. "He is good, He is not safe." God will never provoke us to this kind of safety. Christianity is offensive, and the Gospel is relevant in all the places where it intersects with the world, where gunpowder meets the spark. This news is good, but it is not safe."


I believe the man who wrote this is one good example of the few Christians out there who understand that we don't need to make "advertisments for God" but rather should create art, create beauty that by simply being itself gives glory to God (see the entry above this for further explanation). We get so comfortable with our one-tracked minds and "the way things have always been" that we can't step out and see how flawed we've allowed some of our thinking to become. This is slightly off track but still applys: I recently had a conversation with a friend of mine who deals with a certain sin. For the sake of privacy I'll change the sin to something else. It will be in this entry: stealing. This of course is not the actual thing this person deals with, but you get the point. Anyway, we talked a while and as a Christian who "knows what really bad sins are and not so bad sins are" I was quite shocked in finding out about the stealing. I was quickly reminded however that to God sin is sin, period. God does not look through our messed up human eyes and see stealing as worse than say gossiping, but we as Christians often do. God sees sin for what it is: evil that hinders us from being close to Him. I, as a born and raised modern Christian am so easily caught in the trap of viewing certain sins as worse than others. Certainly there are different consequences here on earth for different sins but in the end sin is sin. There is no scale as to which sin is worse. As we talked further I mentioned that as Christians we often look at it like "Well, gossiping and judging is ok for Christians to do but if we step out of those sins and commit "real" sins like say steal something, then we've REALLY sinned." We need to get past these mind-sets of viewing sins on our own human scale. God doesn't see them like that. God sees sin perfectly, as something to be avoided at all costs. Sin is sin and we need to stop treating some sins as worse than others and view sin itself as the issue. We need to open our minds a bit, see the sin in everyone and get real about it. We need to stop thinking that prostitutes, drunkards, and rapists are the "real" sinners and see that they sin just as much as the nice man who lives next door. I certainly have not yet arrived at this thinking yet, but I am striving for it. I need to see sin itself as the issue just as God does. I need to get rid of my scales of sin. It is uncomfortable to change our mindset, but it is the truth. Jesus made the Pharasis uncomfortable but He spoke the truth. The truth is not always easy to swallow but as Christ followers it is all that should matter to us. We need to stop thinking like mere humans and start thinking the way God wants us to. We need to understand the truth. This involves thinking in a way that is not safe, a way that most Christians do not think.
In Him,
-Kevin

9.02.03 Today was my first day of classes. I had American Civ. at 7:50AM...killer. I do not like getting up that early for classes but it was nice being done earlier. Then I had Intro. to Human Com. That class was pretty cool. We had a scavenger hunt as our assignment. Some of the things we had to do were to talk to the president of IWU, speak to over 50 people at once, talk to a person not raised in the U.S. and fun stuff like that. My group actually got done first and won a free pancake breakfast at our professor's house. So that's kind of cool. After classes I saw Joni and got to have lunch with her. She introduced me to a lot of her friends including a guy who is also a Communications major and is going in to film like me. So, hopefully I'll get to know him a bit. Tonight I had Fine Arts too. The class was three-hours long and by the end of it I was almost sprinting out the door. It's a cool class but three hours is far too long to sit. Anyway, then tonight I hung out with my roomate Jon and one of his friends Aaron and our friend Leslie. Then we had a hall meeting. One thing about hall meetings...or guys dorms in general probablly...you see lots of nudity. Guys just rip off their clothes all the time! I saw at least three naked guys just in the presentation of our hall meeting! Crazy. Other than today yesterday was kind of fun. This random girl called me on the phone in our dorm looking for a Steve. I informed her there was no Steve that lived here and we got to talking a bit. Anyway, it led to her asking if I wanted to go with her and her friends to Wal-Mart. So, I did. It was fun. There was like five of us. We went to Staples, a pet store, and Wal-Mart. I bought The Patriot on DVD (one of the only R-rated movies we're allowed to watch). I also kind of got asked on a date to Steak n' Shake by one of the girls. I'm not sure if she is serious though so I'm thinking it's not going to happen which is cool. She was cool though. She has horses and I told her I liked to ride horses so she said next time she goes home she'll take me with her to ride (which I'm sure also will not happen haha). But yeah, it was fun hanging with them. After that I went to the McConn comedy show in the student center. It was quite funny. Well, that about wraps it all up.
Wear hoodies,
-Kevin