I, dont want to bother with a name for this

I guess something cool happened sometime in history that makes this day kind of cool. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. That verse, John 15:13 amazes me, because I still marvel that Jesus would call me his friend. I know we are supposed to be like Jesus, but I cannot imagine being friends with someone who did that much wrong to me. I guess that is why there is no greater love.

You know those people that you see around, at the club or just social situations, and you think, "Oh crap, I hope they don't come and talk to me because I know I will not be able to get out of that conversation forever. They just talk and talk and talk and all I want to do is mind my business and lift." Okay that was pretty tailored to the club, but the point is, I think I was put into the world to cancel out at least one of those people. Possibly two. I am not much of a conversation starter and especially recently, if I start a conversation, it ends horribly. Not offensive at all, just freaking awkward. I get to that point where I am like "This conversation is not going in a good direction," so I end up cutting it off and just counting my losses of looking awkward instead of looking flat out dumb. I really hope this phase proves short because it is doing wonders for my social confidence. Oh well, I'm sure it'll work out fine.
In other news, I played at the auction yesterday. Some wonderful worship music, even though I screwed up like a million times on my guitar parts, I feel like it went okay. The all boys worship team. I got to sing Come All You Weary, which I will be playing at the all music chapel on Wednesday. So I guess it was like a practice run.
I am in one of those creative moods where I want to write and play guitar, but my sg needs restrung and I really dont want to set up my gear just to move it again Tuesday.
27 pts 13 rebounds 15 assists. Vintage Chris Paul. I wonder if I can buy that game because I have a strong desire to watch domination. Chris has moved into a tie for number 3 top player(if anyone remembers my top 10 player list) and would have number 3 claimed if not for b-roy putting the team on his back yesterday. I can't move him down in good conscience after a game like that.
I got this free video series from PGC of three instructional videos, so they are being sent to me every few days. I took about 3/4 page of notes on the first video about leadership and hustle, so that was an awesome reminder for my workouts, which have been solid recently. So I am excited for the other vids, and if you want to get these vids I can email you the link to sign up for them.
That is all for tonight

Future-y Stuff and of course, bball

I am basically exhausted. I will not lie. I'm sore, am dreading writing a paper for Bible, and will probably not go to chapel tomorrow in order to finish said paper and go work out. I don't have an intense desire to watch Santa Claus recite the entire book of Revelation...actually with his booming voice I would say Father Christmas is a more accurate nickname.
In other news, I am pretty much officially enrolled in George Fox, so that is pretty cool. I signed up for their Summer Orientation thing where I sign up for classes and stuff, and my deposit is already there since I had to "save my spot" for housing in like December. So that is cool.
I saw something at the club the other day that made me pretty happy. Actually I have seen it twice now. There is an apparently middle school kid that shoots around at the club a few times a week(which is impressive for middle school), and he is pretty good for a middle schooler. He is probably 6', has a good shot(a little odd but that is expected from a middle schooler), and moves well when he plays. Well, last few times I have seen him, he has brought, wait for it, two basketballs! I haven't seen him do ballhandling with them, but he shows up by himself, right when I am about to leave. I feel so cool to have someone copying me though. If he works on two ball dribbling and keeps improving, that kid is going to be a legit baller.
I am getting restless on the basketball court. My knee feels so good almost all the time, it just makes me want to play. I think this should be my last bit of talking myself up for the night, but I have gained 16 of the 21 lbs I wanted to gain by basketball season. I wanted to be 170 so I didnt get pushed around on the court, so now it is looking like I will beat that easily.
Does everyone feel the same way as I do? Like something big is bound to happen to you, you just have no idea what or when? Like, I don't know if everyone feels that, and then just ends up sort of disappointed 50 years down the road, or if I am just different like that. I think everyone feels like that, it's constantly in movies and stuff where people end up randomly having something happen to them, but is it just a fantasy for people or do they always feel that something like that might just happen whether they want it or not. I get hesitant saying I will do anything down the road, if someone told me in ten years that I would be in a band, an optometrist, a physical therapist, a basketball coach, heck I don't even know what else, I couldn't disregard any of that. Obviously I would say Optometrist is most likely, but really, who knows? Who would have called my life to this point, so who could call it in the next 18 years? Im guessing everyone thinks and feels like that, but it kind of bothers me sometimes, you know, that there is only one certainty in my life.(God, if you couldn't figure that out)
Well, thats all I got

Movie Reviews and some Bball

It has been quite the exciting week. No, not really, but I did manage to stay busy.
Chris Paul is the best point guard in the NBA and showed it in his 33 pts and 14 assists to beat the lakers. And dont give me this Derrick Rose is MVP so he is the best pg. He is not. Chris Paul got robbed of MVP by Kobe a few years ago. Chris averaged 21 and 11 that year and they just gave MVP to Kobe because he is Kobe. Terrible.
If I didnt tell you already at school, I got new bball shoes today, they will be here in a week or so, but they are pretty sick. I feel weird for getting excited about getting new shoes but whatever I needed a replacement for the Hyperdunks I am not going to wear. These shoes are actually supposed to hold up...
So I watched the movie Avatar for the first time. The one with the smurfs. It sucks. I can't believe it is the highest grossing movie ever. It made it one my least favorite five movies of all time.(The other 4 are Somewhere In Time, the original Italian Job, Ghost Rider, and Eragon. Dragon Wars got bumped by Italian Job simply because Dragon Wars knew it was bad.) I was waiting for Luke Skywalker for half of the movie and for the rest of the movie I thought I would start hearing Phil Collins music start playing, "I want to know! Can you show me?!" Just flat out bad.
Another movie review for you now, I watched a few this week. Voyage of the Dawn Treader really wasn't that bad of a movie, but really Fox? At this point, what audience do you lose by following the plot line of the books. They ruined Dufflepuds(the one footed dwarfs), the book of spells, Eustace being a dragon, the island of darkness, and the star lady. Dufflepuds made themselves invisible because they were so ugly. Lucy did not want to look like Susan, she wanted to know what her friends were saying about her, which taught a valuable life lessons that I still remember. Eustace being a dragon was not "extraordinary things happen to extraordinary people." It was a symbol that whatever you fill your heart with you will become. In Eustace case it was greed for the treasure, so he turned into a dragon. The island of darkness was simply passed by, which I realize now probably was meant to tell people to just avoid darkness aka sin when it presents itself. Lastly, the star lady was supposed to be freaking hot and Caspian ended up marrying her. She was supposedly hot, but looked like she was an angel from a 60s movie all lit up and stuff. I feel like she was just part star in the book too, but my memory isnt great. I want them to follow the book so I can learn life lessons instead of just having a movie with tons of weird random elements that don't make sense. People who hadn't read the book probably walked out thinking Lewis was a stoner or something.
Well, New Vintage moved to Sunday nights officially, so I guess that makes my exit from Intersect simpler. Heck, a couple of kids accepted Christ last night so that was awesome.
I am unhappy with GFU's bball coach because he doesn't feel the need to email me back, so I am done bothering him. I will just make him pay attention to me next year when I make my walk on attempt. I am not bothered by his seeming to not think much of me. He has never seen me play and I have had two torn ACLs, I don't expect a lot. What bothers me is the lack of common courtesy. Like Seriously, you represent a Christian college, I feel like you should at least not be rude. Is that too much to ask? Apparently.
In other basketball news, I feel like I am improving pretty well. I am working on developing a Chris Paul style floater, while remembering what PGC taught me to hunt the paint, and then remembering that I am actually good at ballhandling so my head should be up the whole time looking for passes. We will see how this goes when I get healthy and playing competition, but I feel like I should be a better team player for it and not just know as a shooter. Though, of course, I am fine with being know as a shooter also haha.
I feel like I didn't say anything really moving today, well more meaningful than my usual little tidbit about what I have learned recently. So if you feel like you would like a bit of spiritual lesson learning, Andrew Schwab wrote a blog today about loving your neighbor at http://www.andrewschwab.com/blog/. Thats all folks

Faith to Move Mountains

Dang it Katie Ellis. I saw you posted a blog, and was going to go to bed, and then I was like "I've got to get my blog on." Yes in those words. So what if I think in jive(Airplane reference)? You got a problem with that?!
It has been a few too many days since I have posted. I put my 17"s on my BMW, and they look hot. I don't need to file for taxes for some reason. The GFU Bball coach is very hard to email, and has made me quite frustrated in the past week or so, but everything seems to be working out. By working out I mean I can attempt to walk on, so basically what I have been planning on the whole time. Spring break was successful in that it was pretty fun, and I didnt get anything productive done haha. Well, that is my catch up.
So, this faith subject. Interesting. I did not expect the "second level" of faith that Lewis talked about to be trusting in God fully with your life. Realizing the bankruptcy of your life, how no matter how much we try to follow virtues and stuff, we can never give God anything that He doesn't have. I mean, from God come all good things, so we really can't "give" him anything. Inevitably, we will fail to follow him perfectly, and we need to try hard to attain perfection, but we need to reach the point where we just give it to Him because we can't do it on our own.
That whole paragraph just sounds so silly to me, like of course that is true, we all know the church speak, but really, do we do it? I will be completely honest and open, it's hard for me to do this, because I have this constant sense of confidence or pride where I feel like "Yeah, me, I can REALLY be used by God. I am a stud." Now obviously it isn't totally like that, that would be called a dramatization, but I don't think I am alone in feeling like that sometimes. It is so awful, and selfish, and when I stop and look, I am a terrible person. And I am not saying that like I'm depressed or anything, it's just the truth. The idea that he would ever choose to use a terrible person like me is mind blowing. Ridiculous. Yet I know he has a work set out for me to accomplish, I just have to keep looking.
I will now switch gears to the first type of faith, which I was expecting. You have basic knowledge and trust to develop faith where you know something is true because you have evidence to back it up. But where it becomes a virtue, according to Lewis, is when you tell your emotions and moods, "where they get off." So with faith in this sense, take religion, I have decided from evidence(both physical and spiritual) that Christianity is true. But there are plenty of times when my emotions change, and maybe I don't want to obey Christianity for a bit, pretend it's not true. I mean, heck, partying would be a lot of fun, but that's where I tell my emotions to get off and follow what I know is true, not what I feel like doing. I hope that makes sense. Basically what I am saying is know what you believe, why you believe it, and when your mood changes and it isnt so easy stick to it.
Now I am not saying if evidence is raised to prove you wrong, stick blindly to what you believe. That is not faith, that is just stupidity. By all means, show your side and why you are right, ask other people that are smart, then maybe you need to change what you believe. I am convinced that you cannot prove to me that Christianity is wrong, but you might be able to convince me that Kobe is better than Jerry West was. Think about it.

Bittersweet

So trip to Portland was a success. Me and my boys had a good time, didnt get lost, got to chill for a while. It was nice to be on our own, just the three of us without any parents and such, but it honestly didnt feel that different for me. I guess I have gone to state a few times, and I am usually on my own, so it wasnt weird to not have parents. Also, i don't act much differently around my parents and friends so it didnt seem like a big deal to me.
The Warriors won. I am a blazers fan, but I kept getting crap about wearing my Steph Curry jersey shirt, so I was fine with seeing the Warriors win and Steph ball up some kids. And before you call me a traitor, Blazers made it into the playoffs anyway and the Warriors beat the Lakers the next day. So it is all good.
I did realize something on this trip. I have fallen out of love with just straight screaming. It is just kind of boring. I like when screaming is the climax, and The Devil Wears Prada is still fine, but I don't like flat screaming the whole time. I can handle it, but it is not my favorite for sure.
I am pretty excited to keep reading Mere Christianity, since C.S. Lewis is talking about faith now. So I am foreseeing a piece in this blog about that pretty soon, but not quite yet because I am not through the chapters yet.
I am getting frustrated playing basketball. I think it is a combination of being a bit sick, being tired from being a bit sick, and my leg workout a few days ago followed up by long periods of time in the car and stadium seats. My legs are just not cooperating on my jump shot. Yesterday they would hardly bend they were so sore, and then today I could not keep my base solid to save my life. It makes me angry when I know what to do to shoot right but I just can't do it. I have to jump to the left, which makes me compensate with my arms, which makes my shot streaky or just off. This situation is not fun but I know making mistakes and correcting them makes me better, so I must be getting way better right now...
My sister Yohana was in town this week for spring break, so that was pretty cool. I enjoy talking with her about random stuff, and it is nice to have another young athlete around to go running or whatever, even though we didnt get chance to do that this week. That's my little shout out to Yohana.
I am going to miss my bros when we go off to college. It is getting all official now with everyone committing to schools. Spu will have a solid group it looks like, but bryan is going to Carroll, I am going to Fox(still havent done anything more with commitment stuff, but yeah,uh huh, you know what it is). It is going to be interesting for sure, making new friends, trying to stay in touch with old ones. I am not regretting it, I am not freaking, I don't foresee shedding a tear over it, it will just be interesting to head off our own separate directions to pursue our goals. Bittersweet would be the way to describe it I suppose.

Thinking about thoughts

Man I could make some good money if I got paid for basketball and or music. I am looking for a job, so I guess I will start hunting this week, probably first stopping by optometrist offices and then movie onto to normal teenage jobs. Except I refuse to work at a fast food restaurant. It just is not going to happen. Coffee? sure, but I will under no circumstances be flipping burgers.
On another note, I was flipping through some songs I had written, and wrote this really sweet riff for a song I havent seen in a while. It kind of reminds me of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, or a Rage Against the Machine riff, but I will not even pretend that I can make a song like them. But I am pretty excited about developing that more, even though I think that was enough for tonight on that song.
I wonder if I will be able to look back in ten years or even five years and be even remotely proud of the songs that I have written. I know I still have a few songs from a few years ago. Terrible. So terrible. I guess you get better with practice but man oh man I can't believe I wrote some of those lines. Oh well that is in the past and I hope I am done with that crap and not just deceiving myself into thinking my newer stuff is any better.
So I went to the club today and filmed my shot. My form looks fine, same as usual except I think I will have more range when my legs are strong, thanks to weightlifting. The one thing I am doing wrong(besides obviously not bending my legs enough, which is common for recovery), is that I am jumping to the side a bit when I shoot. Again, I think this has to do with leg strength since I am jumping slightly to the left. So I will just focus on it and it should get better over time.
Tuesday I am going to Portland with my boys for Blazers vs Warriors. You could say I am pretty excited. Steph Curry is kind of cool...I guess... he definitely didnt make my top ten list last year, and definitely wasn't number 1...
So Seth, the high school leader, spoke at Bethel's main service this week, and I thought it was pretty darn good. It was about being satisfied simple in Jesus. One thing that he said though, that I am sort of thinking about, is that you know your idols by where your mind goes when you have time to think. I mean, that makes sense to me, and it something I have been trying to change for a while. Because I think about basketball a lot, but if you are a regular reader you know that my current conquest is to set God first in basketball and worship him while I play. I guess I just have a hard time seeing how your thoughts can go to Jesus whenever you have spare time. I think that your beliefs in Jesus should impact every decision that you make, and I often stop myself when I find myself thinking of personal idols, and remember that's not important. But I never sit there thinking, "yeah, God is cool, yeah." You know what I mean? I suppose I think about his grace a good bit, and I remember Bible verses some, but I don't see how I would increase that in a useful way. I don't think "Yeah, God is cool, yeah" is a very useful thought. It is important to know for sure, and it is a good reminder, and we were made to worship Him, but I feel like at a certain point it is best to learn more about Him and His awesomeness than sit there is simple spiritual truths that you learned in first grade. Ugh, I don't know where I am going with this anymore, oh well. Maybe you can agree with me in this confusing paragraph, maybe you think I am dumb for thinking like this, but I will never "sit down content with anything less than perfection."

Ups and Downs

I have had kind of an up and down week I suppose, but it seems to be turning out pretty well. I have accepted a few financial things from Fox, I don't think that makes acceptance official yet, but it is getting close. I am ready to decline some schools, so they can stop bothering me. I think I will start with the negatives so I can end on some positive notes.
Like yesterday and the day before, I was feeling kind of discouraged about basketball. My shot from deep was just not coming back as quickly as I would like. This wouldnt be a big deal, but last time I was cleared for jump shots, I felt like I was so good at shooting immediately. That was probably just because I had changed my form so it actually was way better than it had been. But now I am used to being a good shooter so it is kind of odd for me to find struggles. I have never felt like a better ballhandler than shooter, but that is literally how I felt. I guess that shows my ballhandling has improved drastically though, so that is good.
The other thing is that I emailed the coach at George Fox, and he emailed back saying he didnt remember who I was. I don't blame him, because we had like a five to ten minute conversation and two prior emails, but it was discouraging following not feeling great at basketball when I recieved this email. Well, I emailed him agan and he hasn't responded, so I will ponder what to make my next move. Maybe I will just send him my resume again to refresh his memory. Oh well, it doesn't really matter because even if I dont visit in April, I will show up and try out anyway and I think I can make a good impression. That is, of course, Lord willing. I hate saying that I will do this and that now.
Okay so that was the bad stuff. Stupid I know, but whatever, it happens. Today was much better for basketball because I figured out what I was doing in my shot and then managed to feel really good from 3 land. Like really good. Like pro range easily. And I may have found a venue to sharpen my game skills against good competition before I go off to college.
So I mentioned in my blog that I was singing In Exile for chapel. And I did. But Nathan showed up that morning and could hardly talk, so I lead instead of him. I was a bit worried since we didnt have slides and it was all spur of the moment for me leading, but I was not that nervous before I got on stage. Then when I was giving this verse to lead into In Exile, I was literally shaking. I do not remember the last time I shook in front of people. It is not a common thing for me. I went to set down my Bible and my hand looked like I was a 90 year old or something. However I calmed down once I started singing, and actually really enjoyed it. So I am marking off one of my New Years Resolutions of getting more comfortable singing in front of people. What was also cool was that from what I have heard people really enjoyed it, so that gives me more confidence, but really, as the Classic Crime said, "I dont sing for you, cause if I did, I would have been done long ago." Even though I have only sung a few times for people hahaha. However, I do not plan on leading a lot now. Maybe I will do it again, but I prefer Nathan singing, because he has a better voice than me, and I feel like he likes me of the songs we play than I do.
So once more talking about Incubus. Brandon Boyd has a sweet voice, but there is a live version of Pardon Me on the CD I got, and he doesnt sound totally perfect in it, which makes me feel better when I don't sound perfect trying to sing that song. I just wanted to say that.
I watched this movie tonight, called It's Kind of a Funny Story. It is legit. Actually it is sort of sad since everyone has some sort of emotional or mental problem, since the movie takes place in a psych ward. But really, it's pretty funny. Zach Galifinakas is allowed to be so random the whole movie and murks a ton. Basically, the movie title is about right. It is serious but funny along the way. I guess it almost reminded me of Stranger Than Fiction in a weird way.