no. 38

gaby and i went to sunrise service at the pier on easter morning. i through the bikes on the back of the car, picked up gaby at 5:30 am (oh my word!), and went to get coffee. gaby said that her old store should be open, but unfortunately we were wrong. we sat at the speaker of a minute or two until we figured it out and pulled around. as we past the window i saw becky inside making drinks so i yelled at her to open the window. she was on her way to sunrise service too and she was making herself a drink so she said she would make us drinks too. you can't beat free coffee before they're even open.

after coffee was taken care of we headed downtown and somewhere in the neighborhood for free. then we got the bikes down, put on our backpack chairs and the rode off, coffee in hand. when we got to the pier we parked our bikes and the set our chairs up by my dad who was running sound. we then bundled ourselves up in our blankets and pretty much didn't move for the whole service.

the service this year was really awesome. it really is a blessing to live in a place where we can worship outside in the community, all while enjoying the beautiful sunrise at the beach.

after the service gaby and i rode our bike to sugar shack to get breakfast. unfortunately, they were closed so we had to do plan b and go to ruby's. food was still great the gaby and i got a chance to hang out and talk, which with our busy schedules is pretty awesome. then we headed home went to "big church".

no. 37

oh my word... so right now i'm in my arc 150 class which is all about using computer programs to do our projects. first problem: its at 10 am; second problem: i know all of the programs that are being discussed; third problem: i'm not learning anything new, which could be the worst; forth problem: today he is teaching us how to make an online portfolio using a blogging site. this is so lame... i already know how to do this... it's what i'm doing instead of listening to the instructor! what a waste of my morning... i should be sleeping!

no. 36

ok spring break!

so this past spring break i was blessed to go on a trip to santa cruz with cru from not only cal poly, but uc irvine and uc davis too. i had a general idea of what we were doing, but really i had no idea what i was getting myself into.

so i rode up with some friends and to make a long car ride short; 9 hours later we arrived in santa cruz. i did my best to get some sleep the first night, but the air mattress that i was excited about failed all of my expectations. so the first day after breakfast, the staff lead us through some training for sharing that we were doing later in the day. after that wrapped up, we took the bart into downtown san francisco and broke out into our different groups to go sharing. now this is something that i have never really done because i've always had good excuses not to. one being that i have never been prepared to do something like this and two, i'm crazy shy and talking to strangers isn't my thing. but God totally broke down those barriers and i was able to go out and talk to people. i was very fortunate to have a very out going guy in my group that was very good at initiating conversations. after a few hours on the streets we headed back to the church that we were staying at. the night continued on with game and hanging out and then bed time. again i got no sleep.

on the second day we went out sharing at the santa cruz boardwalk. this time i was sharing with a guy that might have been as shy as me and i soon realized that i would have to be the one who started the conversations. but God totally provided me with boldness and again we were able to the share with more people. after t few hours of sharing we started hanging out on the beach and playing football. some people started wondering off looking for downtown, but i somehow ended up in a beach volleyball game. next to basketball it is my worst sport, but i really enjoyed playing and hanging out with everyone for the afternoon. this day conclude with again, no sleep.

i will now take a moment to discuss the showers. so the people who planned the event made a deal with a near by 24 hour fitness to uses their showers for the week. the unnecessary part included taking a plastic fairy wand as a hall pass to use the showers. we looked like little kids trick-or-treating.

on the third day we went sharing on the santa cruz city college campus. this day was a little more difficult because there didn't seem to be a lot of students on campus. the girl that i was sharing with and i were fortunate enough catch a guy just coming out of class. we had a 45 minute discussion about the gospel and his religious background. it was really awesome and ultimately God was glorified. however, the day end early because some school officials did not appreciate our presence on their campus so we were asked to leave. that night, my friend a i bought some ear plugs which helped a lot and i, finally for the first time that trip, got some much needed sleep.

the next day was went to uc santa cruz and because school was not in session, we did a prayer walk around campus, asking specifically for a Christ movement to start on their campus. after that we went back to the church and had a question and answer time with the staff. before i thought i didn't have any questions, but by the time we were finished i had at least 7 questions in my head. i hate it when that happens. after that we had campus connection time in which we separated into schools and had a time of discussion on what had happened on the trip and how we take this back to our own campus. it was really awesome to hear other people's experiences and idea for the future. i felt lead to share my experiences of how God used in spite of my shyness to reach out to other people. i also shared that this aspect of my relationship with God had never focused on or even demanded of me. i defiantly learned a lot from this trip a was able to connect on a deeper level to those around me; not only those from my school, but also new relationships with uci and ucd students.

the following day we packed up the cars and headed out. 4 friends and i decided that we were going to stay up north for one more day so we could enjoy san francisco. so mid afternoon we took the bart in from castro valley and spent an amazing day in the city. we did all the tourist stuff, including watching the bush man for 30 minutes. we then head back to our friend's house and crashed. the woke up late the next day and took our time getting ready to leave and even the drive home was packed my good times and great memories.

no. 35

so the coolest thing happened last quarter at my school. we had a disability awareness week and several events went on all over campus. one of the events was a seminar with key note speaker amy roloff from tlc's: little people, big world. the auditorium was packed with people and when she walked out on stage the crowd went nuts. it was so fun and she is a really awesome speaker. she talked about overcoming adversity and adapting yourself no matter what your disadvantages or environment. obviously she was not there to talk about her faith, but she did make mention of how important her faith is in her life... so cool! it was a blessing to hear her life experiences and it makes me a bigger fan of the show. she is so legit.

no. 34

holy crap, i've missed 3 months worth of stuff! i'll break this down into smaller blogs so zaida doesn't yell at me for writing an essay.

i guess i'll start with a reflection on my winter quarter. well i enjoyed my classes more than first quarter, but i still found myself bored with most assignments. i did however pull off a perfect 4.0 which i was pretty stoked about. time will tell if its a repeater. i did have this one class that was all about using computer programs for architecture and man was that lame! it was at 10am and he talked about all this stuff that i already know. this wasn't even a legit computer graphics class. the only up side was that because it was a computer class i had my laptop, which only results in playing games and talking to friends on facebook that are sitting next to me in class. i was able to connect more with my classmates which is really awesome. talking to other students about our projects in my mind is half the learning process.

no. 33

disneyland

my poor hand

ellie is the cutest dog ever, no contest

Christmas morning

so i'm a slacker and a bad blogger, but i was on vacation and i was extremely distracted by guitar hero. so where to begin.

my first quarter at cal poly went well enough. i got all A's except for one B+ which i'm kind of kicking myself for. i don't know if i could have tried a little harder, but it was ridiculously impossible to write papers in the context that my teacher wanted. whatever. as expected my first arch class was very easy and completely unnecessary. i can for the first time in my life, legitimately say that i learned nothing that i didn't already know. but the quarter wasn't a total loss. i did make friends and i am in love with campus crusade. did i mention the at the cru Christmas party, we had a white elephant gift exchange and i walked away with the third season of the office on dvd... clearly someone does not understand "white elephant" and i'm reaping the benefits.

so i spent most of my break being a bum. i took my last trip to disneyland with hannah, kate and bethany just before my pass expired. i did general pre-Christmas stuff like shopping, wrapping and baking. because my dad had shoulder surgery, i had to go on roof to put the Christmas lights on. i'm not afraid of heights, i'll just afraid of falling from unstable heights. i also had trigger finger surgery on the 11th. it wasn't too painful and it took like 15 minuets. i was left with a gnarly wound and it was most painful when the nurse removed the stitches without thinking twice about being gentle. anyway that's all over and my finger is almost in perfect working order. it is still a little hard to stretch out my hand around large items, but that is normal and i may have difficulty with heavy objects for several months.

so for the most part this Christmas went as expected, except for my sister's dog, jeffie. first off i think he is retarded and i'm not his biggest fan, but i tolerate him. anyway, on Christmas eve night, just before we went to bed, macy tells my mom that jeffie is acting weird and she wants to take him to the vet. we didn't really know what was going on but macy was going crazy so my parent and my sister took him to the all night vet. the vet decided that he did something to his neck that was causing him great pain. the vet kept him overnight and gave him a ton of pain meds. everyone finally came home around 1 am on Christmas morning.

Christmas morning was normal. my dad and i worked on breakfast until my mom told me that i need to go back into my room, so she could bring out "santa presents" which are the special one that don't get wrapped. i think that at 21 it's a little ridiculous, but i humored her anyway. so the big gift was a wii for the whole family complete with guitar hero-world tour so we can play the whole band setup. it is pretty awesome and we haven't stopped playing... my parents are playing it at this very moment; i can hear it through the wall. after the exchanging of presents, we then laid around the house in our pajamas for most of the early afternoon... a tradition that i will continue for the rest of my life. jeffie then came home at 4 in the afternoon and laid on the couch with his tongue hanging out for the rest of the day.

on the 28th i drove to san jose to meet jessica maher for tsunami (state youth conference). jess was in charge of the exhibit hall and came to help out. it was a lot of work, but i still had a good time. we got to stay in the Marriott and all of our food was comped. jess and i were so exhausted everyday. we calculated that we each walked between 13-16 miles, most of which was on hard concrete. our feet were not happy and we felt like old people when we were going to bed and complaining about everything that hurt.

i returned home on new year's eve andafter dinner with my parents, lizzy and kate came over to play guitar hero. on new year's day i watched usc kill penn state. sucks to be from penn state; bad football team and crapo weather. the next day, i took jessica grubb out for her long over due birthday event. we originally planed to take the metro train down to san clemente and get lunch. the metro has the dumbest schedule, so that didn't work out. we instead drove to dana point and got lunch at harbor house, because jess had never been there and that is outrageous. we then went back to my house and played guitar hero. the next day kate, hannah and lizzy came over around 4 and we again played guitar hero. we did take a break to eat dinner, but then quickly returned to the game. when we packed it up at 11, kate commented that our 7 hour playing spree was "disgusting".

now i'm just getting ready to go back to school, which i'm looking forward to. i'm sure i'll eat those words when this week is over.

no. 32

more jessica time. on friday late afternoon, zaida, luke, bethany and i went on i bike ride from zaida's to downtown huntington beach. after cruising on the beach we went to wahoo's for lunch and the then looked through the side walk sales. i found some good stuff, but it is a standing rule in our house that you can't buy anything for yourself after thanksgiving, because i could have been a Christmas present. of course the only people who violate this rule are my parents. i was also a little disappointed that none of the produce or flower stands were out... that was petty lame. after that we rode back to zaida's the through around luke's football in the driveway. it was hard for luke to catch so the football quickly changed into a tennis ball, which was any more catchable for luke. it was fun and i felt like a little kid... when was the last time you just stood in front of your house with your friends and through a ball around?

it was defiantly the day for running into people. while riding there i ran into my friend, sarah, from high school band and softball. while we where shopping, zaida ran into her friend from high school. just as we where leaving downtown, brad shultz saw jess and started screaming from the car he was riding in. while jess rode down the street to see brad, syl smith saw us on the corner and pulled over to talk to us. it was a very busy day to know people.

and i did almost none of my homework over my six day weekend.