Spending, Carlos' sermon, and a little Ramble

I have to tell you all something. I like spending money.... When I have it! And sometimes I get myself in a little trouble. I'm not in trouble! But I have been making good money and have gone shopping way to much! I bought three new pairs of shoes, a pair of jeans, a couple shirts, some khakis, a dress shirt, and a couple pair of shorts. I need to stop! and I am because I have to pay my 1st months rent and deposit in august. AND I need to buy a couch and a TV stand. Thank God I still have two or three paychecks are coming!

Tonight I listened to Carlos' (www.ragamuffinsoul.com) sermon last Sunday. One of the questions he asked the congregation was, what do you find most important in your life? I think it is a hard question to answer. For me, that is like asking who is your best friend? or If you could eat one thing for the rest of your life, what would it be? Those are freaken hard questions for me! I mean I could do the 'oh so good christian' thing and say God, but to answer it honestly, right now, would God be the most important think in my life? I don't know. I don't like being the good christian, I want to be a little More edgy then good! haha... To answer the question with no thought I would have probably blurted out community... Just because it has been something I have been reflecting on lately. Why would I answer community? Because I think it is something that all of us need in order to live, connect, and grow. I miss my community! I miss my small group! I miss CBU!

I think God has really been affirming my crrier choice lately. I don't think I have ever REALLY not liked my job, except for now. It's not that I don't like working for my Dad, I think it is because I have this mentality that 'I am better then (fill in the job at the time)'... Is it OK to feel that way? I don't necessarily feel that I am better then people at my dads work... That's a lie... Sometimes I do... I think I am just ready to move on! And I partly think that God is teaching my that I am not bigger, better, or more educated then His plan, His time of learning, or His Healing... Reality Check!

Please pray for Lindsay Lohan, she needs Broken-in!!! Peace!

Things I miss

I have one more week of work and then I am out of here. I have enjoyed my time with my parents, but I am very excited to get on with my own life. But I wanted to dwell on the things I have missed while in Brawley...

Not in any particular order...

- A structured diet
- My own space (I have been living out of my suit cases for the last... Well counting Malaysia... 6 weeks!)
- Structure and Discipline in life as a whole!
- Community (church, friends, etc.)
- My work out (Mt. Roubidoux..sp?)
- Chipotle!
- Trader Joe's
- Cooler Weather!
- Clean air... haha J/K!
- Accountability and being mentored (not that it stopped when I moved, but I just don't get to have it face to face)... I feel lost, discouraged, and frusterated without it!

While I have been in the utermost southern region of California I have grown to enjoy some things and one of them is my twin brother. Not that I didn't ever enjoy him, it's just we hardly ever see eachother... He is interning in a church in San Diego. If you want to see two brothers that can crack each other up over stupid things (that sometime no one understands) and the next minute be making fun of each other till someone gets mad, then back to cracking up with each other.. Then spend a little time with us one on one. He is one of few people that can make me cry with laughter...

There are many more things, but I'm forgetting them! I'm tired! I'm out! Peace!

A little ditty about my life

But before I start I want talk about Riverside. I enjoy living in Riverside, infact I really like it. I know that there are many beautiful places to live, but Riverside has a small part of my heart. I know many people from other areas rip on Riverside for being dirty, ghetto, and filled with Bro's (all those probably true), but I like it! It is probably because I have spent five years of my life in the Riverside area and because it beats the hell out of Brawley! haha!

Last weekend I had the opportunity to be in Riverside. I can not tell you it was better then the past weekends in San Diego with my brother, but it was still nice and a pleasant stay! I got to hang out with apt. 31 and go shopping in Costa Mesa with Justin! I went to Chappy's going away party and met a new family from my church, the carters. Well I knew of them from the blogging world, but I finally got to meet them in person! On sunday I went to church and listened to to really good message by Joe Dallas and enjoyed panera with my mentor, David (By the way I still don't have your link... That comment thing didn't work).

Oh and the biggest part of this past weekend..... You guys are excited, aren't you?....Drum Roll please........ I finalized apartment stuff! Yep Mr. Matt Cobb and I will be residing in apartment 106 in Casa de Jerardo. Please come and visit when we move in! our Apt. is right by one of the pools! Oh we won't be moving in till august 11th, so I will be homeless when I move back up to Riverside from August 1st-3rd. I leave the 3rd for a retreat and return the 10th (Hopefully. My parents will actually be moving my stuff up on the 11th, which is my Mom's birthday! Isn't my mom a trooper? Well she wasn't very happy at first, but then my dad and I booked her (and my dad) a room at the missions inn, she was in a better mood once she found out where she was staying. Oh the gifts don't end there. I bought her a little something that I can not tell you about till someone else knows about it, but I will let you all know what else I got her soon.

Well I'm still working for my dad and my farmers tan is getting really bad! I am starting to get a glove tan too! It's kind of sick! I spent today triming 50 of the 100 trees he has on the property and dumping all the trash cans into the dumpster. Fun stuff, I know, be jealous! I'll finish the other 50 trees when the dumpster is emptied. Hopefully UP (union pacific) will bring in more rail cars to I can go back to my usual job. Roxi comes home tomorrow! That is all I have for you today! Peace!

Sorry for the delay!

Ok so no pictures yet. I have them ready to go... But I can't hook up to the internet at my parents house... I don't know why... But I will try my hardest to have some up this weekend...

What have I been up to you may ask? Well... I moved from Riverside to Brawley for the month of july... I have finally found a way not to spend any money at all... Move to my parents house... I have been here two weeks and have maybe spent oh... $50? Now this is not counting the trips I have taken to San Diego to visit my brother (he is interning at a church there). Did I mention I am working? Yep! I'm working for my Dad... It's ok... I can't complain because I am making a substantial (sp?) amount of money and not really spending any... The work in manual labor and it is outside.. In Brawley... Where at 6:00 tonight and still 112... What will I buy in the future you might ask... Well probably a deposit and first months rent, maybe a new pair of jeans (nordstroms here I come!), and possibly a LCD flat screen for my new apartment. I have given much thought to the last one and have done some research.

This weekend (tomorrow afternoon actually) I will be heading up (Kind of weird to think that something actually exists past southern California) to Riverside to get away. I have a Broken In Leadership meeting for church (oh how I miss my church) and I'm going to be hanging out at Hostel 31... I may crash a going away party... Well I'm assuming Kim just forgot to add me to the e-vite, but I'm coming anyways! haha! Don't worry Mo, I will come with a gift fitting for a person who will be traveling across the country...

This morning I registered for classes... I can't believe by May of next year I will be done with Grad school. After graduating I think I will have everyone call me Master Kyle... Any Thoughts? I was chatting with my cousin and she thinks that we should act snobby and only talk to eachother at Thanksgiving, She is a speech theropist(sp?).. I told it would get a little boring... When I registered for classes it gives me a brief overview at the end of how much each semester is costing... I think I'm going to be poor for the rest of my life! Especially if I am going back for my PhD. Oh man... More loans!!! PTL!!!

Alright I'm out... I need to shower and pack! Peace!

I'm Back!

I'm back from Malaysia... I'm tired and a little hungry... I am looking for people to keep me up till 8 or 9! So call me!

Week Three

Sorry for not updating in awhile. I have been a little busy and with out Internet. This weekend we went up to the mountains. It was nice and cool there! I took many pictures this weekend (267 to be exact) but have recently found out that there is something wrong with my memory card in my camera and it started doing weird things to the last oh 100 or so pictures. So I have taken about 500 pictures and have only been able to keep about 200 to 250… and so of the ones I really liked were messed up… I guess that means I will have to come back some other time to take pictures! I have learned my lesson… buying a 4G Sony memory card off of e-bay for $45 isn’t the best idea.

By Saturday afternoon (Friday night California time) I will be boarding a plane and heading back home. I have really enjoyed my time here in Southeast Asia. It was something I totally was and wasn’t expecting. I know it was going to be humid… But not this humid. I expected my room to have AC and it did not. I didn’t expect to come in contact with so many countries. I wasn’t expecting for my views of different countries to be radically changed by people and the discussions I have had with people of those countries. I wasn’t expecting my beliefs and values to be challenged. I was expecting to see our creator work in every teammates life, but I wasn’t expecting our maker to radically change each and every teammate!

This experience has been all but easy! It’s been freaken hard, but I wouldn’t change it for anything! One of the hardest things has been explaining my Masters degree… They don’t understand how or why I switched from a business background to an education background. And then when they ask me if I want to teach and I say not necessarily, they then ask me why I am getting my degree in education. I then have to explain to them what I degree entails. After I am done with that then they want to ask me about the education system in the United States. Anybody know how to explain the higher education system in about 10 to 15 mins? I don’t… I usually just explain the California higher education system (as if it is the easiest one to explain). And after I am done explaining the education system I have to explain why private schools are so expensive… I’m glad my Masters degree prepared me to be the team expert in the US education system. I had one student who does not speak English very well at all ask me what was the difference between CBU and Harvard. I wanted to laugh in his face, but I didn’t… I tried to explain the best way possible.

Alright, I got to get going. I have to do some one on one debriefs… talk to you later. Peace!

Update 2- Week 2!

Side note:
I started this project of blogging close to 3:30 pm here (12:30 AM your time!) and here it is close to 7PM (I went back to the class room because I left my charger to my lap top there. I ended up staying there till 6PM and came up to the library)… I have waited for blogger to send me to my post page for about an hour!!!!! You should be more then happy that I blog!


I want to start out and apologize for my grammar! Talking to the students here has shorten my vocabulary and has caused to speak (and sometimes think) in broken English sometimes…

If you want to hear more about my trip go to www.xanga.com/nilai. The people we are working with have posted some updates about us… And if you want some other updates go to www.calbaptist.edu/isp. Find Southeast Asia A… I think….

So I just found out that I had frog legs for dinner last night. Umm, wasn’t aware of it till I checked the xanga web site. They were really boney and I ended up spitting bones out of my mouth for like 10 mins. Mmm, I’m glad I didn’t rip into that like all the girls did! Haha! Suckers!

Things are going very well here. I do have pictures downloaded on to my computer, but it will take forever to get them on my blog… The Internet is very slow. The students are doing a great job with teaching and interacting with the students. I think I have finally got into the swing of things and have discovered my role (as a leader) on the team. I am learning a lot about tough love and how I really need to show it to some of our team and others I need to be a little more loving when it comes to confrontation. Today I am really tired, So I am having alone time right now in the library, checking e-mails and what not. I don’t know how long the Internet is going to work today (it has been off and on for several days) So I am going reply to some of my e-mails on my blog.

Oh! Its still hot here if anyone wanted to know! I am sweating in place that I thought couldn’t produce sweat… Like my knee caps… who sweats from there knee caps? I do!

Mom and Dad,
Thanks for writing back to tell me you got my e-mail… Wait you didn’t! I love you anyways! Mom don’t worry I don’t think I am going to bring you any more crap from different countries. I think I am over buying souvenirs. If you are bummed I’ll give you a picture that I took and frame it!

David and Beth,
I’m still waiting for pics of Delaney (sp?)!

Megan McDeez,
I didn’t understand your comment on facebook about my ear hurting? So I got a text on my Southeast Asian Phone (Mom and Dad if you read this… It’s not my sprint! We have different cell phone’s here) and the guy who text me texts just like you! With DA and all the misspelled words! It made me laugh!

Roxi,
Sorry I couldn’t reply to your myspace… Thanks for the comment!! I’m glad that you had a great time in Florida! We will have to meet up and talk when you and I both return!

Update 1

You guys are so lucky I am updating… After sending three e-mails I have almost given up on doing anything else. Let me tell you, Lancermail (CBU’s e-mail) sucks overseas! It took me forever! I finally gave up and started using gmail.

Well we are here! We are all doing well and ready to start teaching tomorrow. Today We decorated our classroom and the team started preparing to teach. They had lessons already planned so they are just had to brush up a bit. On our first whole day here we went “in to town” (Not KL, but a small town) and had Pizza Hut for lunch, everyone was very surprised that is tasted like it did in the states! The girls found out how to use a squatty potty! They tell me it was quite comedic!

It is freaking hot here.. Well not hot like I’m used to… It’s Humid. I thank God that all the building have air conditioning… Did I say all, I meant most. My room has no air conditioning, but I am only in there at night, so it is not that bad. It is really green all around us. The college we are at is basically surrounded by luscious (like that describing word?) Jungle.

Tonight we are all going to have a BBQ with the family we are working with at a church and the Christian club here on campus. Word on the streets is that they have a nice big house. I will take pictures and hopefully post them. Alright, I’m out! I’ll try to post pictures later. Peace!

Gone for now!

Passport - Check
Luggage - Check (almost done packing)
Tickets - Check
Money - Check

Tomorrow night I will be off to Southeast Asia! I'll try to blog when I can! Peace!

This weekend

This weekend was pretty darn busy and it's my last full weekend until I leave for southeast asia. Saturday I had the opportunity to celebrate a birthday with firends. It was Roxi's birthday and it was so much fun. Here is a picture of Roxi and I.



I then spent the rest of my weekend at home. I saw pirates 3... I thought it was good... Long.. but good! I got to spend time with my bro and the rest of the family. On Monday we had a family BBQ and it was good. It was a very peacful and restful time at home. Here is a couple of pics of my favorite (and only) niece..





Isn't she cute? She does her own posses!

I'm Lost, Your Lost, We're all LOST!

So Lost... Was AMAZING last night! I don't know what to do with myself... What will I do with my Wednesday nights now? Well I only have one more Wednesday night till I head to Southeast Asia, but still.... The season is over!

So besides Lost another thing happened last night... We had two earthquakes! I actually like earthquakes... The shaking and how you can hear the quake coming... It's great!

I'm looking for a place to live (Preferably in Riverside)... Anyone got any ideas? I need a place to crash late July/Beginning of August... Anybody know of anyone that has a room/guest house/ travel trailer (I've done it before...) to rent that is relatively cheap? Considering I get paid almost nothing...

Before I head to the Parents house...

I'm going back to my stomping grounds to see mom on mom's day... Isn't that every day???? enough said....

So for the past... 2 days I have spent my evenings at the happiest place on earth, but I have learned something... When Kyle is hungry it is not the happiest place on earth... If you didn't know a different personality leashes out when my stomach is not satisfied with the proper nerishment it needs... And I start looking something like this at Disneyland... I don't think the picture does any glory to the attitude I portraied...




I get this from my father... He is very grouchy when he is hungry...

Another thing I leaned is when I am a parent I WILL NOT drag my kids to disneyland from opening to closing... Unless I want to hear noises screech out of them and tears flow like water... Kids just can't take 12-16 hours of going and waiting hours to ride one ride and then rushing to the next ride to wait in line while someone else gets fast passes to another ride...

Maybe it's just me...

So sometimes I feel like I am being judged on my future employment decisions... I mean I guess people don't understand that I need a GA position in order to fulfill assistantship hours for my Grad program... I think some people think that I am not doing anything except working a low paying job and applying for another one to "Waste Time" or "Hold off till I can figure what I want to be when I 'grow up'"... But I don't think they understand... Oh well... So NO I'm not wasting time or trying to figure out what I want to do... In fact the GA possition is euipping me for my profession... And it isn't JUST a job...

I feel like I haven't shared about my life in a while. I am finishing up my first assistantship and in the process of mulling over some other opportunities that have come my way... So life is a little full of decissions and stress of what is going to be the 'next step'... I'm going to Southeast Asia for the month of june, which should be an a-maz-ing experience!!! I'm so excited about going!!! Now I need to worry about moving out of my apt. and finding a place to live for the month of july.. I should probably find a job too... But maybe not... I have a place to store my stuff and most of my bills are paid for.. I guess I could wonder for the month... If I have the funds to do that... If any of you know of a job thatt will house me a pay a little cash, let me know! or just pay for housing and meals... That would be cool... alright, so that is what's going on... I'm out.. Peace!

Pray for me... I mean US!!!

This is my ISP Southeast Asia ESL team.. They are all great!!! We leave in a little over a month... We all have very different personalities, but some how we all get along... God definitely has a personality! Please pray for us as we spend this month a part and head out for three weeks.

I'm lame!

I know I'm lame.. I haven't blogged since the 11th.. Well I don't really know who reads this.. So maybe I'm not lame...

Here is the Readers Digest version of my past couple of weeks...
Work..
School...

Done.

Yep, I lead a pretty boring life... Well not really.. I get to hang out with students and attend student events as a job... And I get paid for it! So I have a pretty Amazing Job!!!!
So this past couple of weeks I have gone to Disneyland, The wild Animal Park (That may have been before the 11th), Wicked, and presented at the Christian College Leadership Conference at APU (all for free). I was also a judge for Battle of the Bands and assisted with Campus Days. Needless to say, I am a little tired!

Ok.. I don't know where I was going with this blog... I will blog more later! I promise! And those of you who have messaged me or e-mailed me and I haven't replied.. I'm sorry!

Forgiveness and Horses... A two-part blog

This morning I was reading a book that I started about six months ago and still haven't managed to finish it... It's a good a book, but with all the reading for my classes, I cannot find time to read for leisure. Now that I have a week off of classes (No, not spring break, Grad Students don't have spring break), I can do some fun reading. The part of the book I read today was about confession and forgiveness... It seems to be a theme in my life... Forgiveness... Which it should be a theme, it seems like a bigger theme in my life then most... Probably because I grasp the concept of forgiveness of others... I can't seem to forgive myself. But the chapter didn't talk about that.. It was about confessing to a friend and that friend proclaiming forgiveness upon your life. Kind of like a priestly proclamation. Not that I am catholic, but it seems like they have something going on there with confession (The part about confessing there sins to one another.. Not the Hail Mary’s and stuff like that).

Well this is what got my attention today, an excerpt from Bonhoeffer, "Who can give us the certainty that, in the confession and the forgiveness of our sins, we are not dealing with ourselves but the living God? God gives us this certainty through our brother... The assurance of forgiveness becomes fully certain to me only when it is spoken by a brother in the name of God. Mutual, brotherly confession is given to us by God in order that we may be sure of divine forgiveness."

Part two!

Tomorrow I am going to corona to train and ride horses... I'm really excited. I am helping out a lady from my church and I am kind of nervous. I haven't been on a horse in about oh... thirteen years... I love animals and have wanted to ride horses for sometime! I hope I remember how to..It's been a long time. I'll let you all know how it goes... I better get out my boots from my time of being in FFA (Future Farmers of America)... Yep, I was in FFA... ha-ha!

The What ifs and stories!

So I just read a friends blog and it inspiried me to write... right at this moment... Actually it wasn't just one friends blog, but a couple. I was talking to a friend today, she is graduating (like many of my friends) and she (they) have a bad case of the what if's... I don't know how to explain it other then the questioning of what is going to happen when one is closing a chapter in their life and starting a new chapter... An exciting and stressful time of life... The easy answer would be (to most of them), "Don't worry God is in control"... But really, who wants to heat that answer? I didn't... Not that it's a bad answer... It's just a sunday school, kind of staing the obvious, answer... All I am saying is, Yeah life is stressful right now, but don't worry this time will pass! I'm sorry that was kind of off... I'm now going to start typing what I really wanted to talk about!

'If you could go back in time what would you change? A time in your life? a decision? an experience? anything?' I really don't like these questions.. Because what comes out of my mouth without thinking is "YES"... But after thinking about it, I want to say "No"... My experiences, decisions, and life development make me who I am now, the good and the bad... No one in the world has a story like mine.. I mean we may all have a commonality with each other, but no one experienced what I experienced! Yes I have a twin brother and we may look alike, but we are really nothing alike! If my right of experiences and decisions were taken away from me or I was able to change something, I think it would trigger another decision which would make me different from what I am now. My story is MY STORY! The good and the bad, the struggles and the healing! I wouldn't change it for the world... Why? Because I believe God gave all of us a story to share with one another and the world... I just wish I had the boldness to share my story with others!

And people say I'm not compassionate? phiishh!

I have no compassion

Ok, so if you know me you may know that it kind of takes me a lot of effort to have compassion... I'm sorry, it's one of my down falls... But I feel like I need to share this... Back ground behind the story... At my work there is a couple that sits on one chair and makes out all the time! These two people are not small AT ALL! We have to tell them all the time to stop! Oh and the girl is out of dress code a lot too!

Well The girl comes into the Game Room crying... I knew because I could hear here all the way from my office. Her boyfriend takes her aside and they start talking.. Well I guess when she was eatting lunch with some firends in the caf the girl told one of her friends that she didn't need Pizza because it would make her fat... Well I guess one of her friends called her out and told her she shouldn't worry about it because she is already fat! This is where the uncompassionate bastard comes out... I had to leave my office and go to the workroom so they wouldn't hear me laugh... I know I'm bad!! But sometimes the truth hurts! HAHA!

Sorry!

Sorry!

I'm sorry I haven't posted in a while.. I will get to it soon... I have finals this week, so hopefully I can find time to blog.

I feel like a diversity slut

It's 12am and I'm still awake... We had an interesting time in diversity class. I will refrain from talking about it too much because I would like to respect my class in our discussions, we need to have a safe place and the only way to keep it safe is to keep it confidential.

But I will discuss my title... I do feel like a diversity slut... it's because of a side comment a person stated in class today, which is why I think discussions in our class shouldn't leave our class! But anyways!

So after class some friends in my cohort and I have been debriefing our class at starbucks... It has been a really good time to discuss our thoughts on diversity, the church, and the christian university. I wish we could tape it and send it to our professor just so she would know that what we talk about in class in taking shape outside of class.

So I'm coming to the relization that the areas of life I am passionate about are very different from everyone else's... I'm tired... I'm out! Peace!