Am I the only one who is not watching the game right now?

Why, yes. Yes I am. My entire family (sans my brother who is working on his homework) is sitting in the other room watching the World Series. I think the Rangers are winning, but I'm not sure. Anyhow, I figured since I had a minute, I would update a bit. 

I'm sort of on an Owl City streak; I guess it would be more appropriate to say I'm on a Deer In The Headlights streak. :) 

Anyways, today was the first really cold day of the fall! I woke up and it was cold, rainy, and overcast which is my favorite weather in the whole world. So I put on a sweater and my favorite boots and I enjoyed walking around on campus with the wind blowing crisp and cold. And it only rained when I was inside. :) After my first class, I saw my dad's jazz lab band play in the student center. They were really good. I always forget how much I love jazz until I hear it live. I don't really like listening to it on CD (unless it's Jamie Cullum or Kurt Elling) but watching live jazz is an experience. I love it. 

Tomorrow I have a tutoring session for the GSP test. The Grammar, Spelling, Punctuation Test is a prerequisite to entering the Journalism program at UNT. In order to pass the test, you have to score 14 out of 20 questions (70%) on all three sections. I wasn't nervous at first, because I don't typically have issues with spelling, grammar, or punctuation (I bet you go back and reread this post to check for errors. Its okay, there you found one!) but when I took the practice tests I scored around a 60% on the grammar and punctuation parts. This test really gets down to the nitty gritty rules of the English language, so I'm a little concerned right now. Everyone keeps telling me I shouldn't be nervous, and I know I shouldn't be. I'm just a very poor test taker. I rarely make As on tests, and it is not for lack of preparedness. I don't know if it's actual test anxiety or if I just psyche myself out. Whatever the reason, I don't do well under testing conditions. So I'm just hoping to get in there and kill this test so I can register for my classes. 

Work is going well. I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but I really love my new job at Justice. I love the atmosphere. It's very chilled out, but at the same time we do a lot of sales competitions and, for some reason, that sort of thing is really fun to me. I love doing customer service. I know that sounds really hokey, but I like helping these little girls that come in find outfits and birthday presents and their moms good deals. At the beginning of the summer, when I'd first started looking for jobs, I had pretty much accepted the fact that I'd get stuck in fast food or something because of my lack of experience. My grandfather worked in retail for 20 some odd years, and retail was kind of my ideal when I started applying places. The fact that I landed my first job at a retail store is completely amazing to me and I'm very thankful. I love my coworkers, they're all amazing. 

Writing is also going very well. I think I said in one of my recent posts how I decided to cease working on The Lion to work on another project, but I didn't really say why. So here's a long rant about my writing: 

I have been writing fiction since I was ten years old, so that means I've been writing for eight years give or take a few months. I only finished an actual story this past August and it wasn't very good. After struggling through plots and characters and settings and all that jazz, I've come to the conclusion that I've been writing the wrong genre for at least a few years. I tried to make my style mimic that of my favorite authors and that doesn't work for a myriad of reasons. I was limiting myself creatively by trying to fit my style into a neat and tidy box, which made my characters flat and the plots meaningless. I wasn't writing from my heart and while that is a corny statement, it was detrimental to every word I wrote. Another that was was wrong with the way I was writing was that I didn't really have a purpose in a particular story. I suppose, for most writers, the goal is to write something great that readers will enjoy. That is an awesome goal, one that I'd like to fulfull someday. But that cannot be my ultimate goal in this process of writing a story or I will fail. I belong to Jesus Christ and the purpose of my life is to further the Gospel and bring glory to the Creator. That purpose bleeds over into every aspect of my life: work, school, friends, career, everything. If my purpose isn't to glorify the King, then I have no purpose and my life is meaningless. So whatever I write has got to point the readers to the first Author who loves them and wants them for Himself... 

And that is what I am endeavoring to do with this new project. I've been putting together this plot for a while, and I've only written bits and pieces. It's tiring, but I take great satisfaction in what little bit I can get done for it because it is all for a purpose greater than myself. Please pray that I would continue to persevere in this idea and that God would bring creative ideas to my head and that I would not loose my focus and get discouraged. He is good all the time, and I know whatever happens, happens for a reason. 

Sorry for being such an inconsistent blogger. Things have been crazy busy with school and whatnot. I will do my best to update more. Thanks for reading!

M 

PS: I don't know why the letters are highlighted black. I didn't do it, and I can't figure out how to turn it off. Sorry :P