Every once in a while, I get the feeling that 90% of my weight gain from weight lifting is in my legs.

I wrote on Lydia's wall for her birthday. It looks like I'm the only one. I don't believe I was the only one. That means her privacy settings block me from seeing what others put on her wall. I never would have noticed if not for her birthday. It seems like a funny, odd thing to do.

"Marta was watching the football game with me when she said "You know most of these sports are based on the idea of one group protecting it's territory from invasion from another group." "Yeah" I said, trying not to laugh. Girls are funny."

Stanford App Question

How would factors such as your background, work and life experiences, special interests, culture, socioeconomic status, race,or ethnicity contribute to the diversity of the entering class, and hence to the experience of your Stanford classmates? Please describe these factors and their relevance.
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I'd consider myself very open minded. As someone who has lived abroad, I have learned how inferior cultures do things.

I have the kind of diversity you appreciate: white. As a corollary, I'm awfully hard to convict.

I will also stand out severely as perhaps the only Christian at your godless institution.

At the Bridge...

Anthony: Dude, you play guitar?

Cory: yes

Anthony: I play piano and I'm looking for someone who plays guitar to play with me at Doernbecher's for kids.

Cory: Well, I'm not that good. Unless you're talking about special needs kids, in which case I can rock the house.

Topic #3

Tonight went as well as I could have hoped. I'm trying something new and going slowly.

Beach and Stuff

Danny and I are in the same boat in a few ways. We kind of feel like we've picked the Bridge dry. There's plenty of fish in the sea, but this pond has been well fished. Also, when you're fishing, you gotta put the little ones back. I want to do a dinner again, but with more advance notice so that I can get an older turnout. I already have a few ideas on who to call, but I'll need time to build rapport. In the meantime, four-way Risk games are pretty awesome.

The beach retreat had some good bro time. We all went to the beach at Pacific City. Sadly, there was no football game. I went up the sand dunes and worked on back flips with a friend. And the leader Alex Salwedezel is pretty awesome. There were only a couple people on this retreat that were at the beach retreat two months ago. People either went off to school or got in a relationship.

There was a talent night again. The crazy thing was that about half of everyone went home early and missed the talent night. I told jokes again. Lately, the Bridge has featured the female equivalent of Dirty Jon, with an extra helping of mental illness. She came on the retreat. She laughed five times harder and longer than everyone else. It kinda killed my flow. And with so few people there, there wasn't the critical mass you need to have enough laughers in the crowd to have definite positive feedback. One of the guys took a video of my performance, but I had him delete it.

I need Ian to finish his letter of recommendation so I can move forward with my Army application.

Jour de Travaille

I did a bit of reorganizing my bookshelves today. Before, if it was a book I hadn't finished, it was simply pulled closer to the edge, but now, the unfinished books are now on their own shelf. There are X Christian books I haven't finished and Y secular books. The problem is when the book turns out to be boring, I have very little motivation to finish it. I ordered 4 books online a couple days ago. It's very exciting.

I rafted down the river with Danny and Jon Sauter and another guy and 4 girls from Solid Rock on Sunday. Since it was Labor Day weekend, there were maybe a thousand people that had the same idea. The weird part about it was that in our group, we all kept our shirts on, except for that other guy. I think it's weird that Christians would define modesty to such a strict level in a crowd of a thousand shirtless guys and barely-there bikinis. We didn't actually ever say anything about it. So the real causes of our farmer's tans might have been modesty, insecurity, or fear of judgementalism. If it were true that "modest is hottest," wouldn't immodesty cause less "stumbling"? Anywho, we went to sushi afterwards. The whole day was a blast.

Today, I have nothing planned except reading and working out. I think I've been experiencing heartburn since Thursday. I wasn't sure what was causing the chest pains so I stopped working out. I think I'll easy my way back into it.

Counting my blessings...

I mentioned earlier that I sometimes make lists. Last week, I was feeling in an above-average mood, so I decided to recount why. Here's what I came up with.

-My feet had been hurting so I finally bought new work shoes. They're comfy.
-Army officer is a great choice. They get nearly double the pay and more leadership training.
-I'm reading through Isaiah right now. It's pretty good.
-Richard Dawkins might be the world's most vocal advocate of atheism these days. It turns out, he was sexually abused by a priest as a boy. No wonder he's an atheist. I don't think he's right about the whole atheism thing.
-I'm taking the Army Physical Fitness test Thursday. My score is currently around 250 out of 300, which is what the recruiter said I should get.
-Every once in a while, I see fruit from counseling.
-I'm having a blast with my Ipod. I'm cycling a lot of music through it.
-I'm almost finished with a book about the science of fine-tuning. Good stuff