Strangely content

strange when contentment finds you. at Panera, on the internet, cup of tea. there it is, that combo would not do it alone but there it is none the less. i sure dont know what the magic ingredient is. sure has been a stressful week, maybe just a break from that is enough. plus being surrounded by people is nice, even if I dont know any of them. this is one of those times when you feel invisible, you know in a large crowd or just a croweded place where everyone there is absorbed into their own conversations and concerns. sometimes it annoying but right now for some reason its nice. anyway enough of this, i want to be productive while im here. some things need to be accomplished this weekend and God knows I didnt hardly do anything yesterday except get stinking drunk. well maybe not stinking, at least i didnt smell it.

So many battles to fight. When you start to see, when the matrix starts to open up before you...Its hard to decide where to point my focus at. I am seeing so much injustice in the world around me. I have a tendency to just go numb to it, at least when immediatly confronted. Its not that I think i cant do anything about it, the right person at the right time has changed the world. but i almost think, why bother? Jesus said it, you will always have the poor among you. does it make me a better person because i feel bad about walking past a man begging for change instead of mocking them in my mind. i think not, more likely the opposite. i betray the small compassion in me that would like me to act by not acting on it. but that is just one small example.

all kinds of people are run over by "the system." something i had not begun to understand until recently. i can understand why many people never see and never want to. it is easier by far to just see the trees and never consider that they are part of an imensely complicated and contradictory forest. the trees are so tall just by themselves. but my eyes have been opened a bit and i dont know that i want to see and keep going. right now im listening to "What a wonderful world," how ironic.

this rant is inspired by an experience i had while transporting a 12 year old yesterday. we were going from one group home to another, about a 2 hour ride. he is one of my favorite kids on my load right now and is very conversational. he said somehting about terrorists and we started talking about iraq. i found myself trying to explain world poverty and cultural imperialism and why people hate the US. i found myself wondering how revolutionary i could be with a 12 year old. we are told we cannot evangelize religion but politics is a little different.

After the run

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Originally uploaded by ajdele.

My sister (Amy) and her friend Coleen who just ran the Chicago Marathon (in reverse order)

Solo Sunday

Another solo sunday. I dont really know what do with the church I've been going to. Its kinda not friendly. I dont really care to expound upon or try to develope a theory as to why. Meeting new people has never been my strong suit either so I cant say I blame them. I guess I was hoping for a little more welcome. Today I sat up on the balchony because I got there late. Standard service ensued. Afterwards everyone around me dissappeared, as if in a puff of smoke. I can take it, I think, I have had to become a big boy recently. I am still vexed.

It has come to my attention that some may get the impression from this blog that I am a little ..... vexed with my situation and some things that I run into. I guess you have to understand what gets written here is written because I have no one to tell it to. At times i have to get stuff out of my head, hoping that it will take up residence on the internet instead of continuing to rattle around in my mind. I have no one to hear these things and take them on so I have to force them upon the internet and anyone foolish enough to read here. Maybe someday when my heart is briming with joy and happiness ill do a post about puppies or some shit.

craziest week in a while

this has been my craziest week in a while. had to move a child and deal with a runaway amidst all the end of the month stuff which means making all my contacts. things had been relatively quiet lately. i had been getting kinda lazy. i think i work better in crisis mode sometimes. with my caseload lower it I am supposed to be able to provide better services to families. my day is just as full of things to do they are just non-emergency things instead of the constant flashing red lights. well we'll see. i am amazed that the one year mark has come and gone so quickly. i feel as if i just got the job. Right now I am still enjoying the novelty of haveing a job for more than a year. all of my previous jobs have been temporary/seasonal. and before that i was in high school. i think the longest i have worked at one place was at Super K Mart back in the day. i want to say i was there for four years, i guess that would be all through high school. it could not have been that long. who knows, it was a while. i still feel like im only pretending to be a big boy and a professional. someday someone will discover that i have not really grown up or something.

so get this, i have signed a year lease at my new place. i think at the end of that year it will be time to get out and try something else. so far possibilities range from photography school to trying to start an outward bound base in GA and a few in between. i am excited about the idea of an OB base but I have no idea where to start. i think it is something that DJJ and DFCS in GA can utilize. after working for the state for a year i know that we have no shortage of troubled youth. i would love to do if off the original US model and mix at-risk population with standard pop. the idea is not that the good kids would rub off on the bad kids, but that they would both become better people because of the experience. there is so much depth and richness to be experienced in the OB experience.

the problem with that particular path is that i dont even know where to begin. where does money come from? where would it be based? what rivers might we run? who would staff the trips? and then there is navigating GA ORS. God only knows and it is only by His hand that anything takes place. I have to believe this or I am really screwed.