~ °Café de Terrasse° ~

~ vendredi, juin 03, 2005 ~

I haven't seen a movie in a cinema theatre since July of last year... I broke my record tonight and saw Star Wars Episode III... It feels soo weird knowing the whole Star Wars storyline now... like another part of my life is complete in some way... very weird.
This Summer, I'm totally going to work on my leadership development skills. I'm definitely going to need it for my Social Justice Coordinator position next year, as well as my future life goals. It's important. I need to start thinking as a leader while maintaining a servant attitude at the same time. The balance is right.
I might be a different person from what I was in high school... some things I miss, other things I don't. I've gotten more social since coming to college and I've developed a courage and taste for the will to meet new people. Now it's a matter of moving closer to the people I meet. Whereas in the past I found it very difficult for me to share a few feelings with people, I've opened up a little bit more.. and even though there are still some things I probably won't feel comfortable telling anybody, I think I'm still better off now than in the past. Only problem is that I miss observing people. When I wasn't very social, I used to be able to easily withdraw unnoticed so that I can observe people and understand what people are like from an different inner perspective (and I admit, to some point, rightly-wrongly judge them), but lately, it's been pretty hard. I think everything is coming at me pretty fast. One minute I'm minding my own business in the privacy of my head, and the next, I'm being appointed leader and called to reach out to people all around. It feels like quite a transformation. But every so often, it really helps to retreat back to my past because it places a lot of things into a whole new perspective. The sabbatical really allowed me to commune with the self that I missed and I hope to have more opportunities like it. But I also need to mind the evolution of my life and the direction I am headed. I seek the right BALANCE in this case.
Libra @ heart.

~Benjamin 6/03/2005 11:59:00 PM

wow. type one little thing on your blog and it becomes the talk of the town. hehe... nah, jk. As much as I wished, it wouldn't happen unless I wrote something totally scandalous... like how I don't like Lawrence. He's always tryin to be somebody.
Hey, I'm kidding about that, by the way! Lawrence is a pretty solid guy. He's pretty too. haha, it's really cool workin with him and let me tell you... we couldn't have picked a better head honcho.
Anyway, I'm stalling. I totally forgot what I was gonna blog about. It'll come back to me later... eh, i'll just publish this since i typed it all already anyway.

~Benjamin 6/01/2005 11:46:00 PM

Goodness, i totally forgot what it was like to have a "crush"... haven't had one in a looong time. But wow, maybe it's all coming back to me now, aye? College crushes. sigh*
So anyway, hehe..... hahaha... dang.
Umm...

Sabbatical went quite well! Maybe it wasn't long enough but what the hey, i'll have plenty of time to Sabbaticallate when I'm dead. yikes!
So I'm on staff for Newman. I've got quite a few opinions on that but I'd rather talk about them then type about them.. let me just say that I'm not gonna be as over-easily influenced or swayed by people, nor am I going to hold back anymore on my input into certain aspects of how things are being run... I gather that some people have this view of me as being totally passive and unresponsible and I see that through certain individuals' words and actions. It's not totally their fault, maybe I haven't had a very impressive recent track record with school motivation but when it comes to things that I love... when it comes to my Christian duty, when it comes to serving God, I open myself up as a channel of His peace... an instrument of His will. In the eyes of the Lord, leadership is service. I shall lead in service.
Anyway... what else..
Hey, so has anybody seen Jamie Fred? MIA! What about Famma K? Has anybody spoken with her? Sameea? Is Venessa Laurel still alive? How about miss Lisa Fansaca? I wonder if Leah is hiding something from everybody. And I wonder what is going on in Aubree's mind lately. Izzy's gotten wayy popular in the past few weeks, hasn't she? Poor Rowena... she needs hugs, I think. So does Msgr. Coffey. Wait, Fr. Cassidy has retired? Hold up a minute... Steve is gonna be @ UCD for a loong time. Oh no! what is Mary-Catherine gonna do after graduation!? Catherine is cool. So is Liz. They rock. Alison is sick... I'd bring her some chicken soup but the weather is too hot for that. I need to speak with a certain other Allison.. more like a Sonya Allison if you ask me.. she's too far... so is Canada. I hope Arnell is safe from his trip to Seattle. Ken and I need to go to Mass in other cities over the Summer. I wonder what Ingrid is up to these days. There's a snake in my boot! Kyle and Andie sittin' in a tree... eating drumstick ice creams for $2 something.. why does that sound odd for some reason? We do need to catch up.. as much as I need to catch up with Emil... and Bishop... and Vivian. Life is simple. I remember Andrea DeC.. seems like such a long time ago tho. High school. College. Bed, Bath, and Beyond. What does it all mean!?!?!?
I miss Carly. sigh* If she were here right now, I'd give her a dirt pie and clover stems. But memory is a paradise and memory is a prison. here here.

~Benjamin 5/31/2005 09:14:00 PM

Day 2 of Sabbatical has come to an end... and everything was wonderful. This morning, I went to Sacramento's Westminster Presbyterian Church for Mass. Sound odd? I thought so too.. but you see, Sacramento's Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament is undergoing renovation on the central dome so until that's completed in Fall 2005, morning Masses are being held at Westminster, which is a beautiful church in itself. So I went to Westminster for Jazz Mass... which was awesommmmeeeee!!! I''ve never heard mass in a jazz medium before! Sacramento is having the annual Jazz Jubilee so the churches around the city participate in bringing the jazz medium into their services. So under the direction of liturgist Jackson Schoos (who remembered me from Newman), the choir of Holy Rosary Parish in Woodland combined with the Cathedral choir, sang Gospel-style music and oh my soul was lifted for an hour! The cantor, Dr. ValLimar Jansen was magnificent! Oh man, and they really didn't hold off on the best! Father John Boll, pastor of Holy Rosary Parish celebrated Mass and his homily was sooo wonderful... He is probably one of my favourite homilyists ever... him and Fr. Francis Cassidy at Immaculate Conception Church in Monrovia. They really know insight.
Anyway, after Mass, I walked around downtown Sacramento and spent a few hours in Old Town, Sac. And don't worry, I didn't almost get mugged this time! Since it was Jazz Jubilee, there were several jazzists in the streets playin blues, bluegrass, country-jazz, club jazz, mainstream, singing a cappella, gospel and soul. It was a pretty coolio dealio.
So after my great Sacramento adventure, I went home, did homework (which i absolutely could not escape) for an hour, then went to Mishka's Café. I ordered an apricot iced tea and sat outside on the terrace during the cool Spring evening. There, I read a bit of a NOVEL (yes, that's right Sonya, a NOVEL), and wrote a letter to a friend who is being ordered around in boot camp at Lackland AirForce Base right now. Poor girl. Whatever, in a few months, she'll be wearing blue!

So today was indeed, a wonderful day. About that novel, it's called "The Debt to Pleasure," by John Lanchester. I really like the cover... it has culinary recipes in it and a storyline that I don't quite understand yet but online reviews say that it all falls into place later on in the book. Mary-Catherine got it for me at the UCD Bookstore Sale. Goodness, I hope she doesn't expect me to write a book report. oh my.

~Benjamin 5/29/2005 11:59:00 PM