by all accounts, today was positioned to be a good day

i woke up without enough sleep. grounds for a bad day. but i strangely wasn’t tired. i was groggy, but a shower nixed that quick…

(it’s wild, the difference between tiredness and grogginess. how grogginess makes you feel like you can’t start your day at all, but leaves within hours, whereas being tired sits like a heavy load on your shoulders all day. it’s not severe, but it doesn’t leave. at all. but that’s another post and aside entirely)

… and i was off to my day. two classes in the morning, back to back. nothing a cup of great coffee (shoutout to port city java, who added that factor) and a bottle of cold water couldn’t take care of. class went well. got a higher score on a pop quiz than i expected (given my admittedly low expectations, but i was lost in taking the quiz). stayed on pace with everything today. it was good. rolled into lunch… university dining shined today (again, in light of their “usual”, not in the realm of all food. one more aside). came back to my room, knocked out a writing assignment for sociology. that’s probably where my buttons started being pushed. i hate any sort of reading where the author uses their “informative” writing to push their beliefs. as soon as they start “subtly” implying that a concept or fact is “bad” i lose interest. of course, i had about 20 pages of someone named Domhoff’s opinionated drivel to sift through. it was an informative piece, just wrapped in an annoyingly implicative tone. but no matter, finished the reading and the written response to it, and ventured off to sociology. it’s amazing how much seemingly off task discussion relates straight back to the main point. i’m starting to enjoy the class. it’s open ended and free for discussion, without the feeling that you can even discuss “correctly” which makes it very welcoming. class was good. left class, mediocre dining hall dinner (par for the course) and it was off to basketball. but not before some passing discussion of current events with a friend. the kind of friend that irks me endlessly. the kind of friend who has to be right. the kind of friend who will spew off any lie to prove their chosen point, and counter your statements with “that’s not true” and the kind of person who will “disprove” what you have to say with artificial counterpoints. needless to say, no fun. i can’t ever understand why someone decides to do so, other than some manner of a napoleon complex, or an insatiable appetite for praise as “the smart guy” or “he knows something about everything” or whatever the case is. either way, it drives me berserk, and i have yet to comprehend how to deal with it. other than venting on the internet. and letting myself calm down. and trying to learn not to push the argument, but rather, to walk away from the situation. i need to give myself discipline in that.

beyond that, it was an NCSU basketball game, which was fun, but got me plenty riled up… i didn’t have an emotion associated with it, just energy after the game. that led nicely into another discussion/argument that emulated the earlier one. and plenty of people playing plenty of jokes on me. same story as before. so i removed myself from the situation, and knocked out some homework to unwind. here’s hoping i have the discipline to remove myself more often. to leave, knock things off the todo list, and calm down with some soothing music, like the antlers (tonight’s choice)

this post was somewhat dual purposed. one was to rant. i just finished ranting. more of a word-vomit than a rant, but i got the frustration off my chest. i put it into words, and that’s all well and dandy now. the second is to get all introspective with myself now, and then spill that all over the internet and listen for the laughter. or to spur conversation. or to have someone go “hm, that happens with me too” or whatever the case may be. here comes that fun stuff

i’ve always been somewhat reactionary. when i say that, i mean that i’m not the type to sit by and let something happen without consequence. i’ve always been the one to get the last word in a conversation, just to make sure i’ve responded to anything and everything the other person has to say. i’ve been quick to thank people for help, and quick to offer help in whatever way i can if presented with an applicable situation—surely not as often as i could, or as i should, but i make the effort for it

this particular character trait isn’t just a positive though. i’m quick tempered. i’m quick to count what someone has done for me, which shows my self-centeredness. i’m quick to hold a grudge, to stew over the most minute thing that was said or done to me, for far too long. to let minor annoyances with something or someone swim through my head until they become huge issues. this has been on my heart as of late. in Exodus, God himself is described as “…slow to anger, abounding in love…” and this simple passage, for me, says a lot. the first is the contrast shown here. it is interpreted to me as “[not quick] to anger, [but rather] abounding in love…” the message here is simple: an abundance of love and a slowness to anger are pretty well interconnected. living like God and being a more loving person will cause someone to be slow to anger. the flipside of this is that a quickness to anger is a clear symptom of a lack of an abundance of love, or a lack of love. these are traits of God, and therefore, should be goals of man. i struggle daily with my quickness to anger, with my readiness for emotion and my flesh to overtake my drive to live like God. i hope that anyone reading this will pray for me in this, as i continue to struggle with it and strive through it. and take heart. take heart with me that i can improve this, as “i can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me” (phil 4:13, a rather cliche verse, but an also oft-applicable verse, especially in these types of situations)