I'm glad this isn't a blog that a lot of people read cause it lets me get things out... even if i haven't been doing that too much. If there's anyone I don't want reading this right now, it's my roommate. He's been a great friend to me over the years, but there are those times that I really wonder if I know him like I think I do.

Earlier we were talking and hanging around when I brought up that I'd appreciate if he'd stop smoking in the house. I told him I didn't mind a ton, but that'd I'd rather him not do it. It was about then that I mentioned I didn't want my stuff smelling like smoke and that my girlfriend didn't like it and all (meaning there were other reasons). It was about that time that he said he didn't care what my girlfriend liked.

So it's not that I'm overly sensitive, but that really erked me. So what did I do? I threw a shoe at him. It wasn't something that was meant to be aggressive or disrespectful, but it was just something where I was half jokingly telling him to shut up.

So nothing really came of it, but a few hours later he sends me a facebook message telling me about how close he was to getting in a fight with me. He's talking about how I disrespected him like we're gang members and I didn't give him the respect he demands. It's just ridiculous to me. And beyond that he says how he doesn't give a damn about my girlfriend not liking the smell of smoke. He says she needs to "respect this house," whatever that means. It tells me he wasn't listening and can't remember that he said he'd quit smoking in the house.

I'm not sure why, but he seems to treat me like I'm below him on the chain of command. He seems to think he has to mentor me or something. And suddenly respect is a huge deal. I'm really not sure what's going on, but it's pissing me off that he offends me and then I owe him an apology. I'm not sure where things are going, but I don't like where they're at now and I'm not sure I can deal with them going this direction much longer.

Confession Time

I think way too much. Honestly. It doesn't matter what's going on, but I'll always be thinking about something.

See, the funny thing is that you usually can't get a college aged guy to use his brain long enough to tell you what color blouse that girl he's staring down is wearing. With me that's just the opposite. In fact, I don't think I can look at a girl's blouse for that same amount of time without feeling like I've committed some horrible sin. It's similar with my everyday life too.

I've been recently been reading C.S. Lewis' novel, "The Screwtape Letters" (as described by wikipedia). The story (I guess you could call it that) is centered around two demons named Screwtape and Wormwood and the letters of advice that Screwtape has sent to Wormwood. In the sixth letter, Screwtape tells Wormwood that he needs to make sure that the human he is assigned will regard all of the things he fears as his crosses to bear. Wormwood is to make sure that the human doesn't realize that all these fears are incompatible and couldn't all possibly happen. That's sorta how I often end up. I think so much that I start to worry about tons of things that couldn't all possibly happen and then I just get completely overwhelmed. Sometimes it just gets to the point where I wish I could just turn it all off and stop thinking entirely. That's pretty much where I got to today.

Lately I've been having a series of debates over Youtube and Myspace about religious issues. Content aside, these discussions have had me bewildered over the issues just trying to understand everything that's being put out there. It was right about when I thought I was on top of things that I was confronted by a studied Calvinist. This guy (Robert) started asking me the hard questions and, even though I clearly knew my position, I couldn't think of any way to counter what he was saying. That's about when I started to get overwhelmed. I started to think that maybe I had things wrong, or maybe I didn't understand everything well enough. I decided that I was going to have to put in countless hours of study before I could really understand this stuff and really get to the bottom of everything. I had resigned to the idea that all of this was my cross to bear. That was about when I read my girlfriend's blog from the other day.

Kristin's blog was all about her devotional and how much she worries and doesn't trust God with her situations. Go figure, right? So I figured I'd read my Bible a little and somehow I ended up in Job. I got to reading Job 38 where God first starts addressing Job and verse 4 really jumped out at me. It says, "Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding." That's about when it all seemed to make sense.

I realized that there are things that I'm never meant to understand and I have to learn to accept that (even though I don't want to) as well as countless other things. It seems so easy, but some things are just as simple as taking them at face value and realizing that no matter how much you know about something, your understanding won't always change the world.

Circles 10

Saturday marked the 10th anniversary of Circles, an annual Bboy competition held at James Madison University. Circles is a widely known event, advertised on sites such as bboy.org, and draws dancers from all over the East Coast.

For those of you that don't know, Bboying is what most people know as "break dancing." It's a dance that started in the 70s with the Hip Hop movement.

Well for a second year, my crew, the Peacemakers, decided to compete in Circles. Peacemakers is a Bboy crew centered around ministering people through our dancing. It's an organization that was started in California and has begun to spread through the supervision of current Peacemakers members.

Circles consists of several events: a graffiti expo, an Emcee battle, a Bonnie and Clyde battle, and a 4-on-4 battle. Of the four events, the Bonnie and Clyde battles and the 4-on-4 battles are the main attractions.

A Bonnie and Clyde battle is a competition between two-person crews made up of one girl and one guy. Because there aren't always enough crews that sign up to compete, there are sometimes three-way battles that decide which of the crews is eliminated and which two move on to the next battle.

The 4-on-4 battles are the highlight of Circles. This year, there were 24 crews signed up for the 4-on-4's. In the preliminary round, two crews will battle and the judges will take notes on the crews. After the round, the judges are allowed to pick the 8 best crews to move on to the Top 8.

After the preliminary round, the crews were put into brackets and put through the elimination part of the competition. The judges decide who the winning crew is and that crew advances until it comes down to the Finals.

As with every year, the Circles 10 Finals was nothing to laugh at. The two crews, Dynamic Rockers and Beat Whackz, fought long and hard for eight long rounds. When the judges, Bboy Abstrackt and Bboy Puzzlez, cast their decision it came down to Dynamic Rockers winning by one point.

The competition was a lot of fun to dance in and was definitely an experience worth remembering. I'm whole heartedly looking forward to competing in Circles 11 next year.