waking up

My clothes are still gone, but eh… I’m content in other things.

Get this:

I come back from class at 11 AM. I am about to go out to Costco for some super cheap and good lunch, and buying random crap for the house that I’m probably not gonna get paid back for, and a few things for myself too. So, I figure, why not leave after I start a load of laundry? Ah, BRILLIANT EFFICIENT USAGE OF TIME… two birds with one stone, almost! So, I go to the laundry room with my arms full of clothing (I didn’t have an available laundry basket). The washers are in use. DOH!

So I leave my laundry on the table they use for folding clothes, or people waiting, or whatever it’s for. And I will come back to it later, because who in their right mind would take my clothes?

I come back from a nice trip to Costco, and I make three trips up to my apartment… and LO AND BEHOLD–

MY CLOTHES ARE GONE!

I am leaving a note, cuz that is just straight up ridicurous. Pray that the person will have a soul and return my clothes.

Edit: someone took half my clothes and dried my dirty clothes with their boyfriend’s. The other more expensive half of clothes are still at large.

This week has been filled with lots of things… but I got on top of ‘em like butter on bread :D. If you told me I would be able to keep a schedule like this I would have laughed at you, but due to the mercies of God, I have seen that it IS POSSIBLE! Amazing…

Now, for a time that was long overdue, I will take a complete sabbath from everything responsible and devote my time to playing guitar and maybe writing something new. It would be the first time in a couple of months that I haven’t done anything officially related to my responsibilities with music, so I know it will be a cherished time. Have a great day, whoever is reading this… Today is a glorious and beautiful day, as every day is.

So this morning I witnessed something cool. I went to morning prayer, which is always awesome just as long as you aren’t too tired, then I got McDonald’s breakfast, cuz it’s always so dang good. Then I caught an early bus to class, and wound up a half hour early. Then I see this old guy in a suit walk down to the stage where the professor teaches from. I realize that it’s the same guy I saw ever since my freshman year here at UCLA, who was always in the dorms sleeping on a couch, eating, or walking around aimlessly. And when he is around, sometimes this huge body builder dude is with him, because that’s his driver. He has a driver!

So I found out that this guy is immensely important in the Ethnomusicology world, and his name is Robert Stevenson. It immediately made sense to me why I also saw him sleeping in the Ethnomusicology library on a table with about 20-30 books sprawled out all over his workspace. And the same guy is coming into my classroom…

I watch him come up to the piano, and move the seat.

“He’s gonna play?” I think to myself. And he does. OH MY, he plays the most beautiful renditions of three Debussy pieces… and it’s just for the heck of it, because there’s basically just me and three other poeple int he big conert hall/classroom at the time. I don’t know which pieces they were, but I know Debussy’s style, and it was just breathtaking. I was gonna do my devotional, but I couldn’t, because I was just held in awe. He even improvised on them, and added intricacies that I knew weren’t written in. And this guy just looks, on the outside, like a fumbling old crazy guy.

Then he stops, and waits for class to start. He sees a TA come in and starts speaking with her, and his speech is so distinguished. Totally unexpected. He actually sounds a lot like James Coburn, the old guy in “Maverick” with Mel Gibson and the voice of Henry J. Watermoose III in Monsters Inc. But he actually taught today. And I was taught by a guy who studied under Igor Stravinsky. Man that’s too cool… UCLA is crazy.

I HAVE CHANGED COMPLETELY!!!!!! since the start of this Stewardship thing this week. Since I have been monitoring my day to the minute and to the cent, it has completely changed my outlook on the way I control my life. I was on the side where I enjoy life and wait till stuff needs to get done to do it, rather than jump on it. This side of people gets overwhelmed by life when too many things come by surprise. Others, who are always on top of everything, get upset with others not living up to their schedule and become over-controlling. I HAVE COMPLETELY SWITCHED OVER is what I’m saying.

Since I started this, I have noticed already that I have given people less time to talk to me if we just see each other in the halls, been a bit annoyed with people taking a more leisurely time to get ready (EVEN THOUGH THAT WAS ME), and labeling others lazy and slow when they weren’t up to par with my schedule. I even find myself now eating, blogging, and IMing all at the same time. So, along with this side of people’s strengths (being on time and having a consciously task-oriented day), I have experienced all of the weaknesses as well. Funny how I could change sides so quickly!

I even forced myself to buying milk tea because I was convinced I was being too hard on myself. This is so weird. How to achieve the balance? That’s the question for everything in my life these days. How much I invest in people, in my work, in my play… wow. It is all supposed to glorify God too, and that is something I must never leave out. But one thing is for sure: I will never say again that I can’t achieve a better balance, because obviously, I have utterly tipped the scaled the other way. Interesting, no?

So, this week I am writing out a detailed report of what I do with my time and money. And so it began this morning with an allusion to missions:

So I started my morning off at 7:20 AM, and with my alarm I don’t immediately wake up, but I continue dreaming. And guess what, somehow Cecil is in my dream. And the last thing I remember in my dream is hearing Cecil shout at me, “Get up! Turn off your alarm!” Now the only person there at the time (Robert had gone out) was Eddie, and I know it wasn’t Eddie’s voice I heard. So I just think it’s comical, because then today started out just like a Navajo day. Cecil was very gentle on the mission, though… sometimes to wake me up all he would have to do is stand over me and whisper. And I get this big confused and pained look on my face, according to my friends whenever I wake up against my will. The funny thing is, that the week up until the mission, we were told to fast TV, movies, and “secular” music. I’m doing that this week too! How interesting. Too bad all my music classes make me listen to pagan stuff.

Looking at my time spent for today, I already notice that taking the bus to and from school saps nearly an hour from my daily life. And you can’t do much on the bus, either, because in the mornings I never get a seat on the bus until it’s almost arriving at my destination. I prayed to myself, but I wanted to fall asleep every time I closed my eyes.

AND WE HAD THE CRAZIEST DAY in opera today. We compared the Castrati of the Venetian opera (males castrated in childhood to preserve the pure boy voice up through adulthood for a chance at super stardom in the opera world) to Gospel singer Claude Jeter, Earth, Wind, & Fire’s Phillip Bailey, gay disco singer Sylvester, Prince, Steven Tyler of Aerosmith, Judas Priest’s Robert Halford, Clause Nomen, and two of Kirk Franklin’s male gospel choir soloists, all using Counter-Tenor technique, which is just falsetto. We also gave slight mention to R. Kelly and Boyz II Men. Basically, we spent the entire class listening to awesome music with lyrics ranging from love to loving. Good times…

Today was nice and chill. I got to spend the day with Moe, and just eat lots of food and do little things. What a great break from stuff. I feel good :).

It’s been a while. I got on a bus yesterday, and there was this homophobic African American guy in the back exclaiming how much he hated sissies and stuff, cussing the entire time. It was bad, and the driver told him to stop cussing or else he would call the police. He called the police. The police came on the bus at the veteran turn-off, and then asked him to get off the bus. And get this: THE GUY ACTUALLY STARTED TO DEFEND HIS RIGHT TO FREE SPEECH, and then LIED, saying, “I’m not botherin’ nobody” and saying how strange it was that he was the only one being pulled off the bus (even though the bus driver was black, too).

There are people who admit their fault, and people who don’t.

Big Group is tonight… it’s interesting how worship has been going. Preparing yesterday, I decided to scrap the whole theme I was working with late last week, because it just wasn’t working. Tonight, I think, God’s asking me to be more inviting. I try to be too deep sometimes, and it works fine for me and maybe a few others, but that’s not why I’m here. I’m supposed to call everyone to worship. I’m still learning lots, and that’s a good thing. If I ever stop learning, then that’s the one day I lose my dependency on Him… and then I don’t belong up there.

Gogo Holy Spirit power. It has been a crazy week and will continue to be for a while.

I got up early this morning… it was still dark. I roll out of bed in the kind of pain as if I had too long a day already, yet it was kind of worse because I was sleeping so peacefully… I brush my teeth and get into the shower to sort of wake myself up, but that doesn’t really work on me unless it’s cold. I get dressed for the day, and prepare to do my quiet times after I look at the clock one more time.

“WHAT?! It’s 5:30 AM!!!!” I exclaimed mentally. The look on my face was one of confusion. I had set my alarm one hour too early. But I was up. So I made the best of it.

I had a nice glass of milk… combatting the acid kicking in from the late-night dinner at BJ’s with Moe. And so, I begin doing my quiet time. Pretty soon, before it’s even 6:15 AM, I go to my guitar. And what came forth from that was a pure, sweet, and gentle time of praise… partly because each time is new to me, but largely due to the fact that it was the firstfruit of my day, and thus, ever so free of the toils of common human experience, mine being a student. The day was started off right… and I had a silent peace for the rest of the morning. I love that kind of peace, because I am a person who finds myself talking too much, and often about myself. I was in my own world, where although I was physically weary, I was mentally calm, and spiritually at rest.

And now, three discussion sections later, I am back off to bed :). The day is far from over. Thanks for starting my day off right, God.