Another time and another place...

So after much time and consideration (and a few hours messing around in Photoshop), I've decided to take my blogging services elsewhere. I know I don't really post very often, but I really enjoy blogging and hope to learn to devote more time to it. If you'd like to join me, please feel free to follow my life and stories with Wordpress at

http://mattehresman.wordpress.com/

Hope to see you there. It's been real, Blogspot.

Chalmers is my BOY!

The last few weeks have been pretty stressful, but ok.

I've been working on this thing called an "Interdisciplinary Degree" for my major here at Sterling, basically allowing me to write my own major. It sounds pretty cool and it really is, but it's also a lot of work and a lot of jumping through stupid hoops.

I only have about a week left of classes, which is insane (and the reasoning behind this change could be a whole blog post in itself, so I'll refrain for now). Although it is really nice to be wrapping up the year already, I'm getting kind of scared about my summer job plans... I've applied for three internships, all of which could be incredible (Focus on the Family in Colorado Springs, TimeWarner in Kansas City or Walden Media in Boston). All of them have major pluses and also pretty major risks involved (considering housing, lack of pay, transportation, etc.). I'm kind of starting to freak. Summer is days away, and I have no idea which state I'll be living in...

I found out a few weeks ago that I will be an RA in the hall I'm living in right now. I really am pretty excited and I'm preettyyy sure I'll be able to do a better job than my current RA, but the list of students who will be living on my hall was just posted the other day and has led me to be a little concerned. I'm sure they're all great guys, but four of them are studly football players who, I'm sure, have no idea that I (who am pretty much the complete opposite of a studly athlete) exist, even though I've been in class with all of them. They're nice guys, but they also come across as the typical I-can-score-a-touchdown-and-you-can't-so-I'll-drink-and-have-girls
-in-my-room-if-I-want type of gentlemen. I'm sure it will be fine, but it was just not the type of vibe I was hoping my hall would give off...

On a positive side though, I'm starting to feel comfortable and grateful for the group of guys that I'm starting to hang out with all the time. Since I've gotten here, I thought it would be pretty much impossible for me to replace the unity and deep levels of friendship I had with my buddies in high school, and I still question if I'll ever find that type of friendship ever again.

However, there are some pretty great guys here too. A bunch of us watched KU last night and absolutely lost it.

And it was awesome.

I got so excited that I may or may not have accidentally chucked a Gatorade bottle against the wall and then unexpectedly broke open, leaving a nice little trail of Red Tiger streaking down the wall in the lobby of the hall that I'm the RA of next year.

But, you know... it's not THAT noticeable.

I have reports and projects due left and right, and most of them are actually somewhat interesting, but it's just so much to get done in a limited time. On top of that, I get to look forward to my fourth (!) and final (!!!!!!!!!!!!) high school prom this weekend with the girl...

Deep sigh.

I'm so tired of high school. I thought I was done with this two years ago. Shoot.

I really like Maroon 5. And Jars of Clay. And Switchfoot.

Just wondering...

Does anyone know the magical age when you get to move away from the Kids' Table? It's obviously not 19...

The river runs through it, Haley's Comet and the Mitchell Report

I was born in Arlington, Texas, but have spent the majority of my life in Wichita, Kansas.

It's funny what living in a small town does to your perspective on the world. Growing up, I just assumed that everyone lived like Cory, Zack, DJ, and all of my other favorite TV personalities did: with weird, but cool families in huge American cities.

I just thought it wasn't possible to live the Suite Life in the Midwest.

Until I moved to Sterling last year, I thought Wichita was absolutely boring. Back in my grade school days, I didn't know much about the party scene, but I knew that you were supposed to be out having fun on Saturday nights, and in my mind Wichita did not provide those opportunities.

Needless to say, my perspective has changed. I have grow to love Wichita, and I'm pretty stoked about the future of downtown. I spent some time down there today, and I think the designs for the new arena are pretty sick.



My brother is on his way to a mission trip in Mexico while I am home on Spring Break (God is good). This has provided some rare, awkward alone time for me with the 'rents (like today downtown). I really love my family, but this:



(psst... that's our complete, happy family)

is just about as rare as this in our world:



(pssst... that's Haley's Comet).

It's kind of strange how the family dynamic changes between parent/child when the child moves away for college. I think the parents feel less of a responsibility to boss me around and I feel less of a responsibility to hate them for it. When you get past all of that, I've been shocked to realize that I actually have a few things in common with them.

My dad e-mails me with new bands that he finds... and I typically even enjoy them.

So, we're heading off to Dallas (the Motherland) on Monday, just me and the 'rents. No doubt it will provide some awkward times, but I'm also hoping for a good time. Exhibit A:

We had talked about the possibility of going to see the Mavericks/Lakers game (I love the Lakers), until we saw the ticket prices.

:-(.

We had talked about the possibility of going to see TobyMac, Matthew West and Jeremy Camp in concert (I love all of them), until we saw the ticket prices.

:-(.

We will be going to the Apple Store, Guitar Center and the Galleria (a nice mall). And I will be able to remind them about all of the money I will be saving them by not attending the aforementioned events.

:-).

For all of you Nephlim fans, I am very reluctant to inform you that our season is over. We suffered a painful loss in the first round of the playoffs (on Autograph Night, which was kind of a downer). But, chin up, sports fans... softball season is just around the river bend. We will be getting new jerseys, and every player will have a special doppelganger of a player mentioned in the Mitchell Report.

I'm proud to represent Chuck Knoblauch.



I'll be sure to keep you posted.

In the meantime, enjoy Spring Break.

Oh yeah, I have a blog...

I work in the admissions department here at Sterling College. Honestly, most of the time I really hate it. It's hard to be enthusiastic and friendly while talking to high school seniors on the phone three hours a week.

I'm about to start a new part of the job though that I'm a little more excited about. I'm actually going to get paid to blog.

And I realized I'm not very good at updating.

So I thought I'd try to do better. I don't know how I did this back in the day on Xanga.

First of all, I'd just like to say that Team Nephilim (see previous post) is currently 4-0 and favored to win the Intermural Basketball Championships. Our campus newspaper wrote an article about us in the current issue. We have over 70 people in our Facebook group. All of our games are broadcast on our campus radio station. We have jerseys. The phenomenon continues to grow.



On a more serious note, our school does a lot of what we call "justice work." We're affiliated with Invisible Children and the International Justice Mission, and I think it's great.

I've taken a few of those little tests that are supposed to tell you what your spiritual gifts are, and justice is often one of my top results. It bugs me when things are unfair. I hate seeing people suffering. But after a week full of special presentations and fund-raisers, I've been thinking...

It seems like our world is pretty hopeless.

We watched these videos of little kids starving and children being forced into sex trafficing and government officials killing thousands of their own people for political gain, and I'm just overwhelmed.

It sounds good and makes us feel special when we say that by chipping in our spare change we can save a sex slave's life, but I know that the problems are bigger than the $10 I have in my wallet that I can surrender.

It almost seems like in order to solve one problem, other things are going to get worse. We're told that we need to be more responsible with our resources and not spend it on extravagant extras, so we shop at Dillons and Wal-Mart and spend $10 instead of $30... but everyone knows that Wal-Mart is from Satan so that can't be right. Clothes and pretty much everything sold in Wal-Mart is made in China or other places that take advantage of unfair labor. The new trend is to buy clothing and food that is "fair trade" and we're supposed to check the labels of our clothes to make sure they're made in fair conditions, but those things cost double of the Wal-Mart stuff and then we have less money to use elsewhere.

We have clubs on campus that have meetings pretty frequently about what we can do to stop this stuff, but if I go to them, I don't have time to do my homework and I'm forced to SparkNote everything and then I feel guilty for not actually doing my homework.

I just don't get it.

I feel like I'm getting to the point in my life where I'm the annoying young adult who is ignorantly on fire for all these causes and genuinely thinks he can make a difference.

It's funny, because Christians always say we should pray about saving the world we're supposed to believe that it really will. I don't think we really believe it though. If we did, we would never stop praying. And if we did, there wouldn't be so many problems.

I just wish changing the world was really as easy as it sounds. And I wish people would be honest instead of saying what sounds good.

At least I have Team Nephilim to keep me going...

Melancholy

Several weeks ago, I was sitting in the cafeteria at lunch. I go to a small college where everyone pretty much knows everyone else, so I was kind of surprised when a girl I had never talked to before came and sat by me at my table.

Honestly, I don't remember exactly how our conversation went, but basically she said that she thought I looked really melancholy all the time.

I had literally never talked to this girl before, and the first thing she says to me is that I look depressed.

This isn't exactly the kind of vibe I'm trying to give out.

I was taken aback at first. I know I'm not necessarily the life of the party, but I like to think that I'm a fun guy. I have a lot of friends and try to enjoy life.

I haven't thought about this too much, but it has kind of been simmering in the back of my head for a while. Why am I not more joyful? What made me look SOOO sad that a pretty girl I don't know from Adam made a point to make this an ice breaker?

I think I know.

I'm really busy.

So busy, I wrote a column in our student newspaper about it.

So busy, I got frustrated tonight that reading a chapter for a Bible study (ironically enough, about being too busy) was taking too long.

I like being productive. I don't just sit around any more; I'm always working on something.

I used to be kind of proud of this. I'm responsible and use my time wisely.

It's starting to make me mad though. I really need to slow down. I'm probably going to have very high blood pressure someday. I better start eating my Honey Nut Cheerios.

I'm making it a point to not worry about stuff and just try to enjoy myself.

It's really hard. There's so much to do. But I think I'm making progress.

Our school offers intramural sports most of the year for students in the evenings once a week. I've done it before, but this year my basketball team is going out of control.

We are Team Nephilim (an obscure Old Testament reference) and we are taking it way too seriously.



We have t-shirts. All of us have a name on the back of our shirt of a mediocre NBA player from the 90s (I'm Vlade Divac). We have three coaches who come to our games in suits and ties. We have 10 cheerleaders. We have a VP of Basketball Operations and a Media Executive. We're going to have a team highlight reel. We're going to throw t-shirts to the crowd during timeouts. We're trying to get our games broadcast on our campus radio station.

For intramural basketball.

It's ridiculous.

I'm having fun.

We spent weeks brainstorming mediocre players we could represent. Our "team staff" keeps getting bigger and the job titles are getting ridiculous.

It's taking a lot of my time.

And it's fun.

I think I'm smiling more.

I've getting to be friends with that girl who confronted me.

I'm taking time to type this.

If you know me, try to remind me not to be so melancholy. In the meantime, I need to get back to work.

New years, shnew years

The end of the year is always a kinda funny time.

For some reason, just because one number on our calender changes, everyone makes all sorts of bold statements.

Everyone wants to lose 50 pounds, become a better husband/daughter/in-law/father, learn a new talent and be overall more happy.

And no one ever does.

Except SubWay Jared.

And I'm convinced he's a phony.

Even though I think it's dumb, there are a bunch of stuff I wish I could change about myself.

I hate to admit this, but I too hope to shed just a few pounds and bulk up a bit.

I want to get better at the guitar.

I want to write a song I'm not ashamed of and perform it at a local coffee shop.

I want to be a better son/brother/boyfriend/human.

I want to live more joyfully.


But, realistically, I'll probably look just about the same this time next year (with possibly more facial stubble and less hair to spike on top unfortunately).

What I really want, more than anything else listed above, I want (actually, NEED) to learn to be content. I'm never going to be as perfect as I wish I could be. And that ticks me off. And that's not healthy.

I'm never going to look like famous actors. I'll never be a famous song writer. There will always be room for improvement in the son/brother/boyfriend/human department. There will always be spells where I feel lonely and down.

And that needs to be ok.

I'm not a beautiful-annoyingly perfect-charismatic-romantic-sarcastically funny-world famous musician.

I am a somewhat average-flawed-annoying-busy-music fan that has big dreams.

And that should be enough.