Call me crazy?

It's been a few months since I've written. It's for several reasons. I've felt kind of shut off from the world lately and I was in my own dark hole. But now I'm definitely feeling more pepped up...the packers is part of it :P
But I've had an idea I've floated around in the last few years but kept on the shelf because I really don't know how the heck I could do it. It's definitely a "risky" and "controversial" idea that would probably strike many people as unpopular and ignorant or whatever.
Trying to find a job back when I was 16, and even now for people my age, was freakin impossible! And I thought about how much harder it must be for ex-felons to find a job, much less a decent job since many have families to care for. And I always told myself if I was somehow a manager of somewhere I'd give the felons a fair chance in getting their life straight. Who knows if they had an epiphany or life changing decision to go straight and do good and live a solid life! Sadly this does not happen. My pops said back in his old job working for the LC health department that his bosses would look through resume and without even reading what the felony was or how long ago it was they'd throw out the application. How unfair is that?!?!
How much does the Bible constantly tell us, we are NOT good, we are NOT better than each other, we are ALL sinners one way or another and in that we are equal. We all make mistakes, sure some are worse, but nonetheless we are all in the same boat. Should I look down on someone who got caught stealing or robbed a gas station in his rebellious years even though I've made some bad mistakes? Maybe not as bad as robbing a store or whatever, but I've made some mistakes that made God sad all the same. If someone keeps on making those decisions that ruin their lives and those around them, then they should deal with the consequences but if someone who is 24 made a mistake got charged, he shouldn't be wiped away of a honest future to provide for his daughter or son when he's still so young and has his whole life ahead of him.
I have absolutely NO idea how I could do this, but I think it'd be so cool if a business got started that hired felons and kept them straight, kind of like work for me doing construction and stay outta trouble. A real normal job, an honest living, that only hires felons, sounds CRAZY right?
I don't know...I think it could make such a huge difference. Imagine if they come to Christ because of that job!
I mean, there are so many people, especially in the inner cities, who feel like they HAVE to keep doing those bad things just to get by, cause no one will give them a chance. We see it in the movies all the time right? A bad school, a good teacher comes in, talks to the kids, kids say who cares about us? Why would anyone help us? This is real life, that actually happens, and it's more than that one lucky school that got their story published.
I really feel like they should at least get a fair shakedown, a fair job interview like everyone else. Think about it again, if they're applying for that job, doesn't that already say something about how they might wanna do right in this life?
And like I said, I don't know how I could do this, like a foundation thing, start a business with a friend, talk to a state or local Representative about working with felons and businesses and doing some sort of program, who knows! But should I dare to dream? Should I try to help out people who's made mistakes like we all have? Or maybe you reading this will be in this position of where you have a chance to hire someone, and you'll now think, maybe you should give them a fair chance after all instead of throwing that application away.
I love helping people, I LOVE raising awareness for my neighbor's grandkids who have sanfilippo and helping them out as much as I possibly can. I love sponsoring a kid in Ethiopia and helping out his family. And I hope to do mission work opportunities in my lifetime. But I think this is one more thing that deserves at least a little bit of attention because I think it could truly make the world a little bit of a better place to life, to give people the opportunities to turn their life around or on the straight track. I feel like this is a risky thing to be saying in so many ways...but this is what I think...

Casino

So i got a flat tire yesterday on the way to school when i had a HUGE speech to do and that was the deadline to do it. I was already stressed enough as it was. Of course what happens? I get a flat when i was about halfway to school. Perfect. So I pull in the gas station to replace the tire and get going to school. And then of course the bolts are stripped and only one of the bolts were ok so i couldn't get the nuts on except for one which is NOT ok to drive on. So i call my dad to pick up some new nuts cause i thought it was maybe the nuts that were stripped. It was only when he got there to help me out that we found out it was the bolts. so after forcing on the nuts which is not really good to do but it was either that or have it towed. So i missed my speech but thankfully my teacher called me during class and after being all funny and making the class laugh about it, believe me when i wasn't on the phone i was letting out strings of words that would even make eminem flinch. Yeah not so happy.
Afterwards i was kinda disappointed in my lack of poise. After a while i calmed down sure but i wished i had some poise and stayed chill about the whole situation. Not get so frustrated i sounded like i was in the movie Casino (for those of you who don't know they have 400 odd F words haha). One of the big things i've been working on in the last year or so was my tendency to get frustrated pretty easily. Yeah i definitely failed here.
I guess you learn from it right? I mean it all worked out, i get a chance to still give my speech and definitely pass and my car is alright save for some major shock problems. I shoulda stayed calm. Life goes on

AND

In relation to the blog before this one, a couple years ago I decided to get closer with my family out west. I lived in arizona for a couple months but it wasn't working out for me there personally but I am so glad I became close with my family there plus some new friends! Though the ones in arizona aren't my first cousins...or even second cousins for that matter hah...I still love them. And I talk a lot more with my actually first cousins and I'm way too excited to see them this summer for the first time since I was a baby, except for the one who came to my house to visit in 7th grade. And another one of my cousins is serving in Iraq and I'm proud to call him my cousin. So plain and simple I love my family. I can't wait to see what happens in the coming years. And i'm still working on the ones back bast :) (this is for you Kristie!)
So to Kassandra, Michaela, Alexus, Dar, Chris, Andrea (you're part of the family when you are married to Chris!), Heather, Jennifer, Nico, Jessica, Sheri, Jonathan, Ginger, Travis, Vickie i love you all.

Reconnected

So here's a slight summary, if you wanna hear more ask me.
Growing up, especially when I hit middle school, I was...embarrassed by my hearing problem. I hated it, I didn't like myself for it. It was stupid. I've always felt awkward since I'm in between deaf and hearing (technical term is hard of hearing i think) and I couldn't totally relate to either side. but after going to a mainstream school (since people didn't see the point of me going to a deaf school) since 4th grade naturally I tried relating to the hearing people more. And eventually I basically severed all ties with deaf people. It wasn't so much as avoiding them as it was simply just not keeping in contact with them anymore (though I was only close with 2 of them since i left the deaf school). Then a couple years ago on myspace and facebook I reconnected with those two friends but left it at that. A couple other deaf kids added me too but I didn't know them from school but they knew the two guys I knew and i never really talked much with them.
Then this past year I finally accepted who I am, I didn't hate myself so much anymore (big props to God for that one), and I've been so much happier now for it. Then early in the summer I decided to look for my old friends on facebook (myspace sucks haha). I remembered everyone's first name but not their last...so it was pretty hard haha. Over the summer I saw sean for the first time since 3rd grade when he was with my lifelong friend keith. So he added me of course. But i couldn't find anyone else which sucked. I looked for about 3 or 4 other friends I had at that school. No luck.
But in 2 days i have found 4 of them! Yeah I'm pretty stoked :) two of them I knew pretty well and one of those two was one of my closest friends when I was little. And I'm very excited to be friends again and hopefully get to know each other again.
And I'm even more excited to get back to learning sign language, I lost a lot of it but I'm confident it'll come back. Especially since apparently a lot of my friends are learning it too! haha

People are crazy

Ok let's get the record straight, i do not "love" my job at walmart, and I simply look at it as a stepping stone in my life, not a career area for me. However, since they pay me I will work hard to earn what they pay me. And since I'm stuck there from 20-40 hours a week it obviously affects my life.
First off, I wish people would think...when you get food from frozen sections and decide you don't want it anymore, put it back...because when you drop it off anywhere else, we have to throw it away, and that's a waste of money. And since we have to throw it away over time we have to raise prices to make up for loss. Consider we find maybe 5 frozen stuff a night in random places, plus 7 days a week, and then eventually 365 days a year, that's a ton of stuff thrown away. That adds up, I want cheap food like anyone else but wasting food isn't helping any.
Also it really really really really peeves me when people think they can just put stuff wherever they want to. we have to fix it, it's a waste of our time, and waste of our time is waste of money for Walmart (again look at above about waste of money). It's really honestly not that hard to put stuff back where it goes, and if you REALLLLLY don't wanna go ALLLLL the way back to where it goes...just bring it up to the cashier and say you don't want it...since you're gonna be at the register anyways.
My biggest peeve is the tons of stolen stuff (you'd be surprised how much air fresheners get stolen) I find taken out of the boxes/packages. This goes back to the frozen food...we have to make up for loss of profit by raising prices which we have to over time...if there were absolutely no theft the prices would be so much more cheaper, trust me it makes a difference. I want cheap stuff just like anyone else...stealing isn't helping. It's just going to make stuff more expensive, and then the more expensive it is then the more people will steal so it's a horrible cycle. I mean come'on just shell out the 2 dollars it is for the dumb make up or 4 dollars for the medicine and air fresheners.
Again...walmart is a stepping stone in my life...but doesn't mean it doesn't annoy the crap out of me when people do stuff like this. Especially stealing...it makes no sense. This is my walmart rant...good thing I waited a few days to type this up or it would have been much more angrier haha.

songs

you will not read :) I've written a few in the past few weeks but at least one of them will NEVER see the light of day and just thought I'd let ya know :)

Abenezer!

So I've written before about how i decided to take up a challenge and sponsor a kid who lives in Ethiopia despite the fear of financial burden or if I could make a difference in his family's life. After getting the brochure and official "he is yours to help" papers, i wrote my first letter to Abenezer, it was a while ago. So I can't quite remember what I wrote about, but I remember it was basically about how excited I was to get to know him and hopefully help his family and him grow in Christ.

After the entire month of October passed, I heard nothing about him. No "he got your letter" or "he's doing great" or even a letter back from him himself. I got pretty sad, not gonna lie, I thought man, am I not gonna get to know this kid? I even checked my bank account to see if they've even taken the money I agreed to pay per month and they had. But...keep in mind I'm pretty impatient a lot of times and it's not my best virtue.

I got a letter from Abenezer a few days ago after a long night at work which had been stressful and seeing that I had finally gotten a letter had brighten my morning so much more. The letter is pretty simple, favorite color-red (just like me!) favorite sport-football (or soccer as we call it hah) etc etc. And he asked me what is the local church i worship in and to pray for his success at school and for his family (and you're welcome to help me pray for him :)) and the amazing thing here is he wrote he wants to be a medical doctor. That's pretty awesome in my opinion. I just hope I can do whatever I can to help him reach that goal!

All in all I'm pretty stoked i finally heard from him and writing him back. I hope and pray that God uses me to keep supporting him and help him in his relationship with Christ as well as he helping me in my relationship with Christ. And hopefully one day I'll get to meet him.