Disclaimer: The following post is in no way intended to be a smack in the face of everyone who is back east digging themselves out of snow and living in temperatures in the 20s and 30s. In fact, I would love to have some snow and be able to bundle up in a coat, gloves and hat or sit by a fireplace drinking hot chocolate. That being said, I can't really complain about this...
This is what my street looked like this afternoon. It was pretty much amazing, and quite possibly the nicest day so far. I think it was about 80 or so when I took this picture. I really don't know why there are so few clouds in the sky all the time. It's days like this when you understand what Randy Newman is talking about.
Today while I was doing my laundry, I walked over to Best Buy and decided to buy Paramore's album, Riot! I figured since I saw the lead singer I should check them out. I guess they're similar to Jimmy Eat World, and its not any music I'd normally check out myself, but after listening to it with Matt's friends in the car on thursday it sounded pretty cool. The band is technically secular, but they're all Christians and their faith is definitely reflected in many of the tracks, in fact, I think their song "My Heart" was sung a few weeks ago at Mosaic.
So anyway, I've been listening to the album today, and its actually really good. I'm a fan. They rock hard, but the writing and music is still pretty tight and smooth and there's a lot to like. Some of the songs, like "Misery Business" and "That's What You Get" are songs I've heard in random places before. So basically I recommend them. You should consider checking it out.
In other news, Adrian and Annie at Mosaic liked my third Big Sunday design the best. I liked the fourth myself, but its cool, because I'll probably just end up using the fourth design as a basis for when I redesign my website in the future. Tonight at the Mayan they had already started printing out the flyers and handing them out. I still have to give them a few more sizes, but its pretty sweet to see my work being used and handed out.
At the Mayan tonight I saw Ben, who I had volunteered with a few weeks ago at the warehouse and he was very excited to see me. I was stoked to see him too, and he was thrilled to hear that I'll be coming back this summer. He was glad to see me involved and volunteering and I told him that I had designed Big Sunday flyers for Mosaic, and Ben opened up his backpack and and asked, "these flyers?" He had stacks of them and told me that my work was already all over Pasadena where he lives. Pretty exciting, eh? I'm going to have to ask Alli to keep an eye out for them.
On flavor of the week duty tonight I met a cool lady coming to the Mayan for the first time. It's awesome how all it takes is one conversation and meeting one person to absolutely make my night and make it all worth it. It's so much fun when people are just willing to open up and share.
Erwin McManus continues to be such an awesome teacher. Soul Cravings continues to be an amazing book. I'm almost finished with it, and it's just so freaking cool. I can't believe I've been lucky enough to learn so much from him.
Tonight at the end of his message about sacrifice, everyone was invited to walk up to the stage and leave your shoes sitting there as a representation of sacrificing yourself and being led by God. Erwin came up with the idea from when God told Moses to take off his shoes when he was on holy ground at the burning bush. Apparently nowhere does it say "Moses put his shoes back on" so it was just a really cool symbolic thing to do to leave your shoes (which are being donated to a homeless mission) and commit to following God, since that was the moment when Moses really began following God's will. It was symbolic of sacrificing all the things that are holding us back and "leaving those things in the shoes." Awesome.
Let's see, the other great thing about today is the fact that with daylight savings, there is now still sunlight at 7 at night. Pretty much this will revolutionize my southern california life. Now its not even a matter of my feeling uncomfortable at night or anything like that, because for better or worse I've become fairly desensitized and don't really worry about being alone at night as long as its not too late.
Just the fact that it will still be light out when I walk out of work now will be so amazing and will make it feel like there is so much more day left. Purely emotionally, it will be such an incredible feeling. Plus, I'm sure I'll be taking the bus to the beach at least a time or two in the next few weeks to see some sunsets. In fact as I walked across the street to Ralphs for some groceries tonight, this was the view of the sunset out toward the beach, looking over Launderland, where I do my laundry:
Pretty cool. I'd expect that the smog probably makes sunsets look a little cooler and more interesting. We'll see.
I made Skyline Chili tonight with one of the cans of it Amanda sent me for my birthday, and with the noodles and cheese and hot sauce and all, I was impressed that I didn't mess it up and it actually tasted like real Skyline. Very delicious. My body will be mad at me for it tomorrow morning.
My second to last work week starts tomorrow. I still have no idea where the time went.
I hope everyone has a great week, and I'll look forward to seeing you soon!
much love,
Alex
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