(No) Unconscious, but Awake

I have been thinking, thinking an awful lot. Well, it's not an awful lot. It's been good stuff, not awful. So, I have been thinking a good bit. There, that's more positive.

I'm in Ocean City right now for the Delaware-Maryland Synod Assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. I have been participating in this event for the past two or three years. I think three. I really like all of the discussion that goes on. I'm not sure how many people are present, but there might be around four hundred, or maybe more. There are ballots on different topics, resolutions on various subjects. There can be amendments to the constitution or adjustments to the agenda. There are microphones set up (two for "in favor of" and two for "against") in the aisles between the rows of seating.

The particular resolution to be voted on dealt with youth/young adults attending the Assembly. It called for an additional voting member to participate in going to the Assembly. There was a motion made to take the resolution back to be reviewed by the committee. Then, the discussion started. There were people in favor of it being reviewed but against the resolution itself, people against the committee but for the resolution, and every other possibility. It's a good thing the air was blasting in the room, because discussion got heated very quickly. At least twenty people got up to speak their opinion into the microphone. Discussion on whether or not it should go back to committee lasted for about fifteen minutes. It was cut off by a "call to question" motion, which calls for a vote to decide whether debate should keep going or not. The results were to stop debate.

Then, there was debate on the actual resolution itself. People against it, were mostly reluctant to go against it because youth/young adult participation is almost nonexistent. I would say the average age in the room was around 50. The Bishop had informed us earlier that there were just thirty five people under thirty five. They had all those who were under that age stand up to be recognized. It felt great. Anyway, the people who were against the resolution were all older people. The people in favor of it were mostly younger, but there were a few older ones as well. Throughout another fifteen to twenty minutes there was heated debate on the resolution. That's the part that I enjoy. Older people were questioning where the young people were. I was right there. I almost got up to speak, but another "call to question" was called. I was a little disappointed at myself for not speaking, but it was fine. The debate was halted and the vote on the resolution itself now occurred. Fortunately, it passed by a margin. It wasn't a great margin, but it did win. I was happy with that.

On a lighter note, we walked on the boardwalk on Wednesday. Our hotel is located at the very end of the boardwalk, just one street away from the final twenty seventh street. The whole boardwalk is two and a half miles long. We walked all the way up and all the way back. That is a total of five miles walked. On the way up, I wanted to stop at The Kite Loft. I didn't really find anything that I wanted, but I found a cool sled kite with a jolly roger on it. It was seven dollars, so I got it. (Thank you, mom.) We walked the rest of the way up, then just a little past all the way up, we stopped to fly the kite. It was a perfect day for kites, nice and windy. As soon as I let the kite go with a little bit of line, it took off. I stood there and let the line go for a while, not all the way out, but a good length of it. Feelings of child-like emotion rushed through me and I felt very light, as light as the kite.

Later on the way back, we stopped for some food. We saw a sign for fried Oreos. I was skeptical at the idea of this, but my mom persuaded me to try them. The first bite was incredible, and it got better as it went on. They were so delicious. I love Oreos anyway, so why not deep fry them? To be honest, if I had a deep fryer, I would be putting all kinds of food in there. It's probably for the better that I don't own one, for health's sake.

As you might be able to tell, I am typing this. I'm really here. I'm going to start blogging again, and of course I will continue with poems and songs and writing in general. Yesterday, I'm not sure if I was tired or what, but I felt like I was unconscious. However, I was awake. It is the strangest feeling I have ever experienced, but it was a good one. I was just floating there. That's where the latter part of the title comes in. The "No" part, obviously, is an answer to my last post.

I suppose I should end this post now. I'm sitting on the side of the room, semi-listening to the people on stage talk. Thank you and have a great day.

Is it the End?

Good day, everyone:

I am writing this letter to inform you that I may or may not be posting anymore. I have been using my observations to write poems and songs (songs still with no guitar) lately. I consider what I have written to be somewhat successful and hope to publish a collection of poems, songs, etc. sometime in my life, once I have written an amount worthy for a book. I would like to thank all those who have supported me with this endeavor and to those who will keep supporting me.

Sincerely,

Marc

White "T"

"T" being tea, that is. I just drank some white tea, which is supposed to be one of the best for you. It is disputed whether it is better than green tea or not. I am unsure, but what I drink is quite delicious.

Right now, I should be getting caught up on the Web Design class I am taking online. It has been a learning experience. Basically, you learn HTML, and how to apply it and make a web page. I really have learned a lot. It is a non-credit course, so there's no hassle and no need to turn in any work. There are nine or ten out of twelve lessons available and I believe I am almost done the seventh. There are five chapters in a lesson. Typically, after a lesson is completed, there is an assignment (which builds on previous lessons; this gets annoying because of the repetition) and a quiz (these are usually easy). Neither the assignments nor the quizzes are required. They are optional;all that you must do is take the final exam. That is the only way to get a certificate of completion. However, as you can tell, I am not currently doing that.

Oh yeah, thank you to those who donated to the Laptop Fund. I got a very nice Dell Inspiron 1525. I love it. It is so much easier to use (and more fun, may I add) than the desktop computer. Sometimes the Internet craps out on that, but on the laptop, the wireless never fails. OK, I got it for Christmas from my father.

This was the best Christmas I have ever had. Not only did I get a laptop, but also a drum set. I don't know which is better. I think they are both so amazing! I have wanted a drum set for, I don't know how long. As you may know, I play in my youth group band, Chosen. Now, I can actually practice, which for sure does not hurt. Not that I am anywhere near bad at drums, but definitely far from perfect. Like I said in a previous post, I am learning to play bass, too. Once again, it's just the memorization aspect of it all. We should jam some time!

Let's talk books. For the first time since I was very young, I am reading. It is rather scary. I have read The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini for school, which was a very good book. A lot of my peers did not find it appealing, but I thought it was great. Then, for an outside reading project, I read Saint by Ted Dekker which, admittedly, I was reading before the assignment was given. That was a little interesting, not as good as I thought it was going to be, being a bit anticlimactic, but the message was what was important. What's scarier is that I am reading purely for pleasure, not having been assigned anything. The scariest is my choice of books- A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess. I had heard of it before, not knowing what it was. I knew it had to be somewhat strange, for Heath Ledger used it to develop his Joker character. I was intrigued by that and one day while at the mall, I went into a Borders to spend the $6.40 I had left on a gift card. I expected to walk out with Khaled Hosseini's other novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns, but somehow walked out with A Clockwork Orange. I recommend finding more out about it. It has not ceased to amaze me yet and I don't think it will. I was also browsing George Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm. Maybe I am just attracted to curious, and possibly bizarre, books.

So, there is an update on everything. (Pretty much everything, anyway.) I hope everyone had a great Christmas and New Year's and wish you a good one for 2009.

The New Stuff

So, here are the two things that I have written. Refer to last post for more information. (Again, you should read The Silent at least a couple of times.)


The Silent
Do you hear the silence?
It's screaming it's so loud.
Deafening silence, screaming silencing silence.
Screaming silent silencing silence at the silenced silent, who beg for silence instead of screaming.
They are the silent screamers who scream for silence and when they get it,
they will be screaming.


(This is the song that I wrote, but I can't play guitar or piano...or trumpet for that matter. Refer to last post.)


Watch Out
Gonna march right in there
Gonna get what I want- Yeah!
Better not get in my way, now
You better watch out for me

You think I'm a pushover?
Well you won't see me comin'
Better get out of my way, now
You better watch out for me

Hey look out now!

So maybe I'm a pushover...
The reason you don't see me coming
is that I'm not really there, am I?
Please watch out for me...


First stanza- Starts off fast and really big. Possibilities include a full orchestra.
Second stanza- Still large.
"Hey!"- Starts the long musical interlude. Could have a few solos of various instruments. Dies down at the end to only strings.
Last stanza- Not robust, very quiet; defeated.


There they are. I finally put stuff up. Please tell me what you think.

Thank you

This is my own original, creative work.

I've Got Some New Stuff For YOU!

How has everyone been? I know it has been a little bit, but that's alright. I have been writing some stuff. I wrote a poem. I think it's pretty thought provoking. Maybe I over-use words, but it puts more emphasis on it. I also wrote a song and it makes me wish I could play guitar and/or piano. Or even trumpet. Speaking of these instruments, I want to learn how to actually play guitar and bass. I have a bass. It's like, a starter bass, but it's nice- all black, cool shape. I used to be into it a lot more. I have a lot of printed out tabs that I have collected over time. And semi-recently, I printed a note/chord chart type of thing. It's all memorization. If you memorize all the chords, in theory, you should be able to play them. I guess that's the hard part though, memorizing a lot of chords and remembering where your fingers go on the frets.

So I will put up the songs here in a separate post, and on my Myspace- http://www.myspace.com/the_maddest_of_the_doggs
You have to be my friend to see my stuff there, so... yeah.

Anyway, my college classes are done. I just have to take a final for the computer one. They were pretty good. My other class, Career and Life Planning, actually helped me decide what I want to do in life, or at least major in. I am split between Criminal Justice and Creative Writing. Now I am down to two, at least. Before, I had no idea.

I applied for a job at Best Buy for "Loss Prevention." I thought that sounded awesome. I would love to work at Best Buy. I have not heard anything, but hopefully I do. I go to Best Buy a lot. My friends and I, if we get bored when we are out, ask each other "Do you want to go to Best Buy?" So we always go. We'll play games that they have set up- Wii, Rockband, Guitar Hero- whatever is there. We'll look at cameras and games, too. It's a really good time. I just love being there. Possibly the inner electronics geek inside me. I think we all have some of that, or maybe it's just with everything that we think looks cool.

So, the song and poem should be up soon. They're handwritten, so I have to type them.

Boo That Man

This was a bulletin I posted on Myspace:

(stupid oprah)

i hope that when obama "spreads the wealth", they take all her money away.
don't even give it to anyone, just take it away.
she thinks 52% is an overwhelming majority of how people feel about who they wanted.
There is a big split.
There wouldn't be such a big split if people actually payed attention to who the guy is and what he is for... Who is he? Exactly! No one knows!!!!!
You people who think that all our problems are just gonna get washed away...just wait. It might seem all fine for a little while, but just when it seems like it's working- BAM!!!- it's all gonna crumble and fall apart.
Wait.


I wasn't in the mood for writing all proper and such, so, sorry.

November 4

Tomorrow is election day, here in the U.S. I am pretty excited about it, even though I can not vote yet. I wish I could, because I would be campaigning like crazy for...

McCain '08!!!!!!!!!!

There's who I would vote for if I was 18, just a mere four months and ten days away from tomorrow. It would be cool if they would let younger people vote. I suppose the age for "maturity" is 18 and the lawmakers want to let the "kids" be "kid's" for as long as possible. This may be a good thing, as there are some very immature and ignorant (remember ignorant is "not knowing") young people out there; I am sure most of them attend my school, however. Just a harmless bashing there, but I really do think that most of my peers do not care. If they don't care now, I hope they do by the time they need to, or my generation is in trouble. Perhaps they're just waiting to care when they really need to.

"Waiting to Care" would be an awesome band name, especially if it was a punk band with young people, (who couldn't vote) of course. They'd be like "We're Waiting to Care and we're just living life one day at a time. We really want to spread that feeling around to you guys. We're just like you; we don't want to get old and have all those responsibilities. That stuff's for adults. And right now, we're just Waiting to Care!" With that final shout, the lights would beam up and a song would begin. You would probably hear about them getting in some trouble and being hospitalized for injuries- or drug problems. One member would most likely die (the cause could be a number of things.) Then a fellow member would some out and say "I'm just glad that he didn't have to grow up and get old and bothered by all the stuff that's going on in this world." That would be taken "the wrong way" and the family of the deceased would get angry at the member who said it. A huge brawl of words (between families) and fists (between members) would erupt and the band would come to an end. Not a lot would be heard until much later. About twenty years down the road, they would suddenly come out of nowhere and start working together again, with another close friend filling in for the dead. Their "re-debut" album would release on the 20 year anniversary of their lost friend. After that, they would do some other stuff and it would be all good.

Wow, I just kinda took that and ran with it. Ran really fast. Sprinted, but it was an endurance sprint. That's possible, right?

Anyway!!!


VOTE McCain for President '08!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Good Night!