Let's post some mail

I want to start off by thanking everyone who has commented. It means a lot to me to read those, you have no idea. Bro, the BTinLC quote was perfect to hear. Also, if you are interested you should talk to mom and dad about coming up with them to my commisioning in just 3 weeks. The week after jenny will be in rockford. Brian, I couldn't post on your blog because the service you use no longer works. You'll wanna change what you use for that. I really hope I'll be able to get on the phone soon with both of you. I've only been able to squeeze in a few calls so far. Not to mention those are hard because I'm usually exhausted by the time I have any free time.

So I leave tomorrow for camp. I'll be at camps for approx. the next 4 weeks. Yeah. I want to send you guys mail! And of course recieving mail would be cool too. It's called correspondence and it's way the in thing these days I assure you. So drop me one eh? And post comments containing your mail addresses so I can send you stuff. Immediate family members...I have yours already and you'll be getting mail from me soon. My mail address all year will be:

Jason Gorski, New Vision
c/o Youth Encounter
3490 Lexington Ave. N.
Shoreview, MN 55126

So kick it. I feel like I've done a lot of laughing the past days, but what I find oddest is that everything comes at me so quickly in this environment it is really hard to even think of something to post about. I made a basket from the opposite free throw line today. One of only three guys, I got applause, it was cool...yeah I liked it. I feel like it's high school sometimes here lol. You nastolgic people will enjoy knowing that I told the story about the 2 paddie-wagons being called on us while filming a super-hero adventure. It's one of the first stories I've told about my friends back in Rockford. The two worlds are definitely disjointed, neither really knowing much about the other. It'd be different if my contact with all you Rockfordians were consistent during this time. I think even if I came home right now it would take me a couple days to get re-acclaimated.

I definitely posted some new pictures. We came across a huge super-target on our way to get ice cream the other day and I took a picture of my team standing in the middle of a huge red bullseye drawn on the concrete in front of the store. I also found a water tower that said Blaine and my team was late in returning to training because they wanted to allow me a good picture of it.

Tonight we had group pictures in which we were all supposed to be "dressed up." Of course, I brought a nice dress shirt and tie, but upon inspecing my team members I felt apt to wear a short-sleeved pearl inlay snap shirt that I'd wear any other day. Later in the day we went on our first team outing. It was pretty cool. We went bowling and bumped in to another team that decided to do the same thing. So what did we do? Took a picture of us brawling like out of the West Side Story or the Outsiders. I don't know if I was Sosh or a Greaser? We ate at Chilis and then stopped by Guitar Center. Overall, it went rather well. We still are not entirely comfortable with each other's humors etc. However, I do think it will get there. Despite this confidence in our ability to gel as a team, I also foresee frustrating times ahead. We took personality tests and everyone on our team was different. We had no one that matched personality types and we were the only team that had that result. This should prove to be the source of our strength as well as our challenges as a team. I didn't like the tests that much. I think it may force us in to rigid roles which the team has already decided would be a bad thing. I mean, people can now defend what roles they assume or don't assume by saying "I'm [a such and such] personality."

So you're all wondering what I scored...Well here goes, from memory. I'll give you the number I scored in each category and then explain my overall pairings. We still have yet to recieve information about what our specific combo. of letters means, but eh?

6 - Extraverted
5 - Introverted

8 - Sensory
12 - iNtuitive

16 - Thinking
4 - Feeling

13 - Justifying
7 - Processing

I'm a ENTJ. Extroverts think outloud instead of thinking what they are going to say completely through before offering anything to a conversation (yes), they also supposedly get energized by being around other people (no). Intuitives don't rely on sensual queues to determine what is going on, instead they intuitively know what is going on (yes). Thinking people is obvious. Justifying people seek to justify their actions, they are more interested in the completed product rather than the process itself (yes). The also tend to make lists (yes).

Now this test was definitely right-on about a lot of things. The leader said that NTs (inuitive thinkers) tend to have a lot of anxiouty about certain social situations. They have intuition about how someone is feeling etc. but trust themselves enough to act on it. This is completely true for me. I often sense that someone is upset with me, or trying to tell me something with their body language and yet, I don't trust those feelings enough to act on them. Instead I rely on them to verbally tell me what I already know. Totally true. I was one of only 4 people who were ENTJs out of like 40 people or something. And he said that people of my combination typically invent things, start new businesses, and are good leaders. In the past I think I've definitely gone the leadership route, and my goal is to start a gaming company some day, and I always have those crazy ideas for inventions. So I'm thinking this is probably pretty right on.

Anyway...this whole thing is way way way way too long, but I thought I might give you just a slice of what my days consist of. I also talked to some Aussies the other day about Aussie slang since I'm going over there, that was entertaining.

okay, love you all. I'll probably post again in like 3 weeks or something...we'll see.

love you all.
in Christ,
jason

Cross of Glory Lutheran Church Water

Here's a few key pointers I've learned so far from team seminars.
- Only pick up modestly dressed hitchhikers during the winter anytime after the 60s.
- Guys with wheelbarrows are cool.
- The thief said to jesus on the cross, "Lord remember me when I enter your kindom"
and Jesus answered, "Well I don't have any baptismal water right now so, tough."
- The name of the ancient turtle in the never ending story is morla.
- It's better to be drunk and driving than on a cell phone and driving (score).
- Cheesy analogies work really really well.
(and I have more but I left my binder at training center today...more tomorrow)

But seriously. It's been really awesome guys. My team is great, the people here are great and I've learned a lot from the seminars. I do disagree with some of what is being discussed, but I have actually found that most are open to hearing such disagreements whole-heartedly open-minded. It's not what I expected. And my team seems supremely open-minded. I think it will be a good year.

Goodnight for now.

in Christ,
jason

High on Wi-fi

So today was pretty fun. We did basic ice-breaker type stuff. We played a group 4-square and it was actually really entertaining. The president of YE is kinda a nut though, but eh? Overall everyone is really down to earth and nice. Of course there are all types of Christians here. The ones that annoy the crap out of me are represented, but none are really on my team. My team is actually really awesome. There are 7 of us. Daren (dekalb), Corey (uh...), Paige (pittsburg), Maria (denmark), Sarah, & Natalia. Cool people. I'll get pics of them to you this week.

I did post 3 pics tonight of the place I'm staying and me sitting at the computer. Really entertaining stuff.

The best part of the night was worship. Now I know what your thinking, but hold off. They had a jamacan hip-hop and dance ensemble lead worship. They had a DJ who spun the beats, and MC, and some awesome dancers. They got everyone grooving out and I won a CD for my mad moves. I'll post their name tomorrow. The CD's all the way in the other room.

Well gnight for now everyone.

in Christ,
jason

I feel like a "kid the day before I leave everything I've known for the better part of a year to go play music in the mission field"

So yeah, I leave. Actually to be precise, it is the day of my departure and I'm leaving in 2ticks over just a skosh (see previous post).

I saw Garden State the other day. Excellent movie. It doesn't beat out Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind though. And here's why. I liked it, don't get me wrong, but Garden State was just heavy the entire time. It was one of those movies that is overtly packed with deep stuff. A lot of movies do this poorly. They try to be so meaningful with every bit of dialogue, with every second of every scene, and they fall short. Garden State doesn't fall short. Every scene is meaningful, and every bit of dialogue is sharp and relevant. But this type of format, the format of being overtly, although in Garden State's case superbly, deep at every turn is just a bit numbing at times. Where as, a movie like Eternal Sunshine never feels like it goes overboard with sentiment and it's analysis of human existence, yet it manages in retrospect to go just is far in both regards. That's why it's more important to let characters actions and stories speak for themselves than to give them amazingly deep dialogue. You gotta have both, but too much existential dialogue just numbs me a bit.

Well that's that. My mom is calling me to eat cereal with her. I have to go. And I want to leave you with one of my favorite Kurt Russell quotes:

Kim Kattrall: "See you around Burton"
Kurt Russell: "Never can tell"

in Christ,
jason

ps there are some pictures of my going away party and singing at JMK if you follow the link on the left side of this page.

It's my party, I can rock if I want to

Today's the day. You guys have it on your calenders. You've been counting down the days. My friend Bueford has engineered a countdown clock specifically for the event*. So why shouldn't I rock at it? Well sorry folks, but that's the plan. The plan is to totally rock at this party. I hope you all come with your game faces on, ready to rock as well, cause...like I said...I'll be rocking.

For serious cereal, it will be really cool to see everyone. So I hope to see you there.

Spoonful practiced last night and it sounds good yall. This concert friday could prove to be phenomenal. So I hope you are there as well. Props to Shannon for making the drive up for both my going away party AND my concert. She gets the gold star sticker today, way to go shannon.

So here's a list of things I need to do before I go:
- make out with 3 more random chicks to tie brian riggins (j/k bro, remember you have all the makings of man whore)
- run a covert op to destroy chuckie cheese's ability to serve beer
- steel a bunch of bagels from the garbage of the riverside bagel place and give it to the homeless
- literally barf and chew my meal at beef-a-roo
- come up with an obnoxious way to say ubiqutous (u-bik or u-bik-quee'-shus)
- buy tomorrow's yesterday and promote jade to site manager as well as add their magic cards to my personal collection
- give mark gustafson a record deal (on paper)
- tell everyone that I will miss them a great deal, awww...you didn't see that coming

in Christ,
jason

*ha, wouldn't that be cool. To have a friend named Bueford who was an engineer.

I can't wait more than 3ticks over just a smidge from now for bed

So my sister and I devised a genious chart for explaining to someone how long ago something happened or how long you can wait for something to happen. I figured I pass the findings on to my reading public.

Past
10min ago is a tick
30min ago is a smidge
1hr ago is a skosh ('skOsh)
1hr 30min is a bit
2hrs ago is a while

Future
Same scales as above
(I can wait 10min would be a tick, I can wait 30min would be a smidge, etc...)

Now here's the kicker. The term "just" or "little" can be used to subtract 15min from the time normally allotted for the word in the case of 30min-2hrs and 5min in the case of "tick." Lastly you can use a number before tick at any time to denote a minute. Also, it doesn't have to flow if you don't want it to. "It happened a 2ticks over a little skosh ago" is totally acceptable (47min ago). (Granted "I can wait 2ticks more than just a tick"(7min) doesn't sound the best and this is limited up to 2hrs but eh, any suggestions out there in blogger land? You can't use actual time designations)

Enjoy,
in Christ,
jason

Let's get this going

So this will be my personal blog. It's seems to be chic right now. And I'm all about fancy french words, so I had to make one. There's a lot of pressure though, I mean. My blog's gotta be funny, dramatic, and really speak to the heart. Otherwise who'll read it? Well, I don't think I can pull that off as well as some of my other friends (jade, brian, mike pape), but hey.

I'm in Asheville, NC right now at a Comfort Inn & Suites. I have to admit, I'm shocked at how many of the hotels I've stayed at in the last 1.5 weeks have free broadband internet access. We are living in a glorious age are we not? So, Asheville. Pretty cool and stuff. We are just passing through although my mom really wants to go check out the Biltmore Estate again (the largest privately owned estate in the US). We check it out like every time we've gone down or back from Kiawah (yes, me, jaded, spoiled, etc.).

Anyway, it was a great trip overall. I saw Duke University and University of North Carolina on the way down and they were both extraordinarily beautiful. I met with a guy at Duke who, upon hearing that I wanted to go into Computer Graphics and possibly video game design and/or movie work, basically told me "go to UNC." Which was funny...because we were at Duke. He said that UNC has one of the best Computer Graphics programs in the nation, if not the best. He also mentioned University of Utah (who'd a thunk), and Univeristy of Illinios at Chicago (so aaron, I'm gonna apply there & wouldn't that be sweet).

Kiawah was glorious. I usually don't like the beach thing. I mean seriuosly. I guess I'm crazy for not enjoying sand in all my crevices (pronounced "cra vases"), salt in my eyes, sun burn, sun poisoning, unnecessary sweating, greasy sunblock, 5 showers a day for the previously stated reasons (going and coming from the beach at various times). However, I had a good time because the weather was the mildest its ever been in my memory of Kiawah. And there are pluses. We played golf 3 times (once at the Ocean Course, for those of you who know golf courses...it's redic), my dad and I played paddle ball with the ambition of passing 300 (we could've done it but the last day was crappy weather so no beach...we made it to 175 or so), tennis, and good family time. By good family time I mean, counting the times my dad recycles key jokes for instance. Julie and I counted 5 times that my dad made a joke about me not liking tomatos, 4 times that he joked about the beach not being my favorite thing, and about a dozen or so arnold "the governator" impersonations. If you know my dad, you'll be laughing right now.

Well, I'll try to be funnier and shorter next time so as to keep your attentions.
Like, "Where do you find a dog with no legs? Right where you left it badum. Peace out bitches." (dja like that one?).

in Christ,
jason