At the Mall

Out in a Blaze of Glory

Don't you hate that feeling in life that you can never end something right? Not good at goodbyes. Can't effectively end a speech. Awkward at finishing conversations. The list goes on and on.

I hate that feeling especially. This time I can say I finished something right. But I have to give all credit to God because there's no way I could have actually gotten a 4.0 GPA during my hardest semester in college thus far and then successfully completed Case Studies in my own strength. (Case Studies was a one-week course in the Internal Audit program that goes from 7 am to 5 pm everyday, then you go home and prepare 2 presentations to give the next day. My amounts of sleep per night were 2, 4.5, 5, 3, and 4 that week, with a couple brief naps.)

It feels good. Now I'm enjoying some good time with Amanda, family, wedding registries, a DC comic book my friend John Collins bought me ages ago, and later this week...the beach! NYC in less than 2 weeks...

Emotional Drought

It seems my blogging life has become almost nonexistent. It's not that I've stopped living. (That's for sure.) Nor have I stopped pondering. Nor have I lost my love for writing. I don't know why I've stopped. It's a mixture of things. As this has been a semester filled with hard work, my conteplative life has suffered some, or at least the expression thereof. Blogging isn't as therapeutic as it used to be. It used to be a mixture of euphoria and catharsis. Frankly, I've been going through a phase of not really feeling like my thoughts have the weight I've always attached to them. I feel like most of my life I've attached too much significance to individual events, ideas, and people in my life. I don't want to say I've become pessimistic. I'll call it practicality for the moment.

I have successfully avoided taking 2 finals: Marketing and Operations Management, the latter of which I had a "B" in all semester. My friend, James, would tell me all semester to "just have faith" and keep working hard, and for some reason I clung to what he said and eventually did pull it up to an "A." Now that I have only 3 finals next week, 2 of which (Internal Audit and Accounting Information Systems) will be beastily hard, the pressure feels even greater to get straight "A's," something I haven't done since Fall semester 2005. It's kind of like the 3 elements of the fraud triangle: rationalization, opportunity, and pressure. If these 3 things are present, there is a high likelihood fraud will occur in an organization. It seems like that applies to my drive for "A's" as well. I rationalize that I am capable of good grades as there used to be a time when straight A's was my m.o. I see the opportunity because I have only 3 finals to focus on. I am pressured by the fact that I want to at least graduate (at a bare minmum) with a 3.70 GPA, to graduate cum lade, with honor.

I have decided to do my honors undergraduate thesis in accounting next year. My freshman year I took 12 hours worth of interdisciplinary honors courses in western and medieval civilization. My sophomore year I took 6 hours of honors chemistry and 3 hours of honors sociology. My junior year I have taken 9 hours of honors option accounting courses. I have achieved Upper Division Honors, so why cop out now and not do the final senior project? Yay, honors college. Don't ask me what I'm doing it on yet. All I know is that Dr. K.C. Rakow has agreed to be my thesis director.

Accounting Information Systems has been the best course I have taken in the business college, other than the introductory accounting course. We have learned things such as: the accounting cycle and all the personnel/documents/entities/sequence of steps in the revenue/expenditure/human resource/other cycles; internal controls; flowcharting; Microsoft Excel; Microsoft Access; Microsoft Great Plains Dynamics; and white-collar fraud. Dr. Hayes is the best accounting professor I have had at LSU.

David Wilkerson's Times Square Church Pulpit Series tri-weekly newsletter has often been my spiritual lifeline this semester. I can't wait to go to his church this summer at his church in NYC.

I have been to 2 really good rock shows this semester. My beloved Anberlin at the main stage House of Blues in March and new-found Chevelle at LSU's Groovin' on the Grounds a couple weeks ago. I am in love with their This Type of Thinking Could Do Us In, notably "Get Some" and "Panic Prone."

I have read The Four Loves, The Magician's Nephew, The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, and The Horse and His Boy by C.S. Lewis this semester.

After finals next week, I am taking a one-week course in giving internal audit presentations. Then I have 2 weeks to hang with out with family and Amanda, before I go to work for Deloitte in NYC. I am living at Columbia University's apartment-style dorm near Central Park. I will be back August 4th, a week before I get married to the love of my life. I cannot say how much she means to me; she is the best thing to have ever happened to me. A girl who will not just agree to pray with me, but will ask, "So when is our next Bible study? I've been looking forward to it." A girl whose beauty and eager happiness outshine the sun. A girl who encourages me when I'm weak and rebukes me when I am out-of-line. A girl whose forehead I want to kiss just as much as her lips.

I watched Spiderman 3 and LOVED it. I don't even like Kirsten Dunst and Tobey Maguire, but the Peter Parker / MJ romance with all of its conflict just gives me emotional euphoria. I love and revel in it.

I love taking pictures of the LSU campus and Baton Rouge nightlife. I love it.

I shaved my head a couple weeks ago.

My spiritual status recently has felt sterile. I feel like I haven't given birth to anything wonderful in myself or those around me. I've gone through a state this semester of seeing things in myself and others I don't like and, in general, feeling like humans are lost causes, a point which the Scriptures seem to somewhat affirm and somewhat negate. Whatever happens, I find myself when I pray uttering my sadness and longing, but then saying, "You know that I love you Jesus." I'm not so sure that I'm reassuring Him with that, but I know that He's reassuring me.

It isn't over. It's only begun. I know that God has saved me and Amanda for such a time as this. He has called us to serve Him. I'm in some sort of waiting room. It's an emotional drought. Status: Bored, Half-content, and Down-on-my-face Humbly Appreciative. Purgatory does exist. And I'm there right now.