I have not posted on here since Valentine's Day, almost a month and a half ago.  I feel then, that it is time to do the inevitable.  I am officially retiring my xanga.

I hardly write here anymore and it's not for lack of material to write about.  I'm in college, and it seems like sometihng new is happening all the time and a new oppurtunity is revealing itself everyday.  There's plenty to write about.  But it seems that there are very few other people reading it.  And there are few other people writing as well, so there's not much to read. 

Honestly, once I graduated I knew that it would only be a matter of time before everyone's xangas went by the wayside.  But I continued to update, mainly to keep those of you back at home informed on how things were going, in case you were interested.  But slowly, I have fallen away from updating here. 

I will not completely delete my xanga.  I'll leave it up here, mainly for myself.  Maybe I'll change my mind and something will happen that I feel will have to be written.  But really, I've looked back on this thing a couple of times and it's been pretty interesting to read.  I started writing on this towards the beginning of my senior year.  It's hard to believe how fast time has gone since then.  As I write this, I sit in my dorm room at Eastern Kentucky, merely a month and a half from successfully completing my first year in college.  It's incredible.  And in what has seemed like such a short span of time, so much has happened to me and so much has changed.  To look back every now and then would definitely be interesting. 

So, for those of you that still pop by and read this, I hope you've enjoyed it, found it interesting, or thought, "Hey, that guy's got a point," somewhere along the lines.  But I feel that I have moved on from this and I must now officially retire it.  So I guess that's it.  Xanga, consider yourself retired.

Suddenly I am as busy as I have ever been.  What I thought was going to be a nice easy schedule has turned into one that is extremely hard to work around after I got talked into joining the concert band.  Tack a chemistry lab onto it, and on Monday-Thursday I'm not done with classes until around 4:15 at the earliest.  And that's just Wednesday.  Although, it makes my Fridays, when I'm done at 10:00 am, that much more enjoyable.

Add to that the fact that a couple of my classes involve some long term projects and you have a very busy Eric.  Suddenly, I'm finding myself at the library every night, researching and doing homework.  Two nights ago, I was at the library from around 11:20 to 12:30 searching for a government document from a congressional hearing and then reading some passages for English class.  Last night, I headed over at 10 to start some work.  I came back to the room to finish it and was up until about 1:30.  Part of me hates it, is burned out, and desperately needs a break.  But most of me is proud.  Last semester I managed a 4.0 GPA.  Cool, except I don't feel like I really earned it.  Last semester was easy.  This semester, I'm going to earn whatever I get.  This is the hardest I've ever worked on academics by far and I'm proud of myself. 

Oh and I'm trying to get a job on campus now, which will of course further complicate my schedule.  Oh well.  Time to go to chemistry.

An amazing oppurtunity may be staring me right in the face and I plan on grabbing on and taking the ride.

After handing them $25 I am officially a member of AFST, the service organization on campus that consists mostly of fire and safety engineering majors.  I even joined the intramural basketball team.  We had our first game tonight.  We got our butts handed to us, but I shot a 3-pointer, hustled my butt off and had fun.  We'll get better I think.

Anyhow, the possibly amazing oppurtunity.  At the meeting Monday, only my second one, a speaker came from the Estill County Division of Forestry.  Their fire season is coming up and they're looking for people to help out for minimum wage.  By help out, I mean fight forest fires.  Normally, the training they provide takes up an entire week, but since we're all college students, none of us can do that.  We have classes.  The guy said if enough interest was generated, they could find a way to get around that little fact.  Well there was plenty of interest.  And since fighting a wildland fire is completely different from fighting a municipal fire, prior experience doesn't matter.  We're all starting from scratch here.  I'm definitely interested.  And by interested, I mean that I really want to do this. 

When I raised my hand and put my name down on the e-mail list, I realized for the first time what I could be getting into here.  Fire fighting of any kind is not the safest job in the world and it hit me for the first time on Monday.  A small part of me said, "Don't do this, you're not ready."  I quickly told that part of myself to shut the heck up.  I was born ready.  This is what I'm supposed to do with my life.  I know it.  And I'm not afraid.  Nervous, yes, afraid, no. 

I called my mom immediately after the meeting.  I felt like this was the kind of thing I should be sharing with her.  I had a feeling that she would be averse to the idea of it.  If she was, she hid it well.  Her only advice was to not let oppurtunities to slip away.

So bring it on.  This is one oppurtunity that will not get away.  It's time to step up and see if I'm really cut out for this job.  But readiness is not a question.  Like I said, I was born ready.

Currently Listening Let Love In By The Goo Goo Dolls see related

So I'm not normally one to talk about spiritual stuff on here.  Heck, I've never been one to talk about it at all, in spite of the fact that I grew up Christian and have always believed in God and in Jesus Christ as our savior, etc.  But I had an experience Sunday that pretty much blew me away and I feel needs to be shared.

On Sunday nights up in Lexington, there's a church called Southland that holds a service that they call 608.  They call it this, well, because it starts at 6:08 in the evening.  I think there might be some other significance to that which I hope to discover soon.  Southland is one of those "super" churches.  When you walk in, it's like stepping into an airport concourse.  608 is a huge thing, with hundreds, possibly thousands of people going.  There's an incredible band playing that could possibly be putting out their own records.  It's a huge production.  A lot of people in CRU, the Christian organization that I've gotten involved in, head to this thing.  I have not been one of them. 

I found out that there was going to be a guy there talking about something that is relevant to me (I'd rather not say online here, but if you ask me privately I'd be happy to share with you) and decided that I needed to quit puting it off and check this thing out.  So I managed to find somebody that was driving up and got a ride.

I was almost instantly blown away when I walked into the room they were doing this in.  It was huge.  There was a lot of floor seating and then there was stadium seating behind it.  The band was rocking out on a big stage with all kinds of professional lighting affects.  There were four big screens, two on each side of the stage.  My jaw dropped.  Everybody was singing, I joined in, it was pretty cool.  Then came the speaker.

His message was something that I know I was meant to hear.  It was right on and exactly what I needed.  Things were put into perspective and the idea of sin suddenly clicked in my head.  The idea that God has a plan for us and sin is what gets in the way.  But at the same time, no matter what you do He will always love you and will be there to guide you when you need it.  It just sort of clicked in my head.  After he was finished speaking, he said a prayer.  I sat there with my head bowed, clinging onto every word until he finished and the band came in.  I wish I knew the song I played, but it was perfect for the moment.  I sat there reflecting on my life so far and the things I've done and the person I am and I suddenly felt a passion for God that I had never felt before in my life.  And it was possibly the greatest feeling I have ever experienced.

I know many of you who read this may think it's strange to see me going on about my faith and religion but since college started, it's become a much bigger part of my life.  While I never lost faith, I lost touch with God throughout high school.  I've slowly been coming back to Him since college started and after Sunday...well, let's just say I'm as excited as I've ever been about God and about what He has in store for me. 

Wow, yesterday may have been the wildest Friday I've had.  No, I did not get hammered. 

First of all, I only had one class from 9:05-9:55.  So that was cool.  At 3:30, I played a dodgeball with CRU.  Not your standard 6 on 6 dodgeball either.  No we're talking somewhere around 15 a side.  It was sweet.  After playing dodgeball for at least an hour and a half, a few of us stuck around the gym to play some basketball.  I'm not as good at basketball as I used to be.  In fact, I'm pretty terrible at it now.  But it was fun. 

Then for the cool part.  I was invited by my friend Mackey to go salsa dancing.  Yeah, salsa dancing.  It was cool.  Heck, it was awesome.  We went to the Bluegrass Dance Center here in Richmond where every Friday night, for $5, they teach a type of dance at 8 and then have a dance for anybody that wants to show up and they play all sorts of music.  So not only did I learn salsa dancing, I also learned merengue, waltz, polka/do-si-do (apparently it's the same thing), and the steps for tango.  I met a couple more people and pretty much had a blast.  Afterwards, we went over to somebody's house and watched Seven.  That's a wild movie.  Yeah...college is sweet.