Kwaktography

1. Finish college on time with no complications
2. Find a great internship where I work under the head photog who teaches me everything they know and takes me on like a personal apprentice
3. Go check out well known wedding photography workshops/classes
4. Meet some awesome girl at one of these workshops or classes
5. Become an associate photog for the company I intern at
6. Start up my own personal wedding photo company
7. End up marrying the girl I met, and working together as a pair for the company I (or we) set up
8. Make just enough money to pay off bills and such, and still afford things I want (But not enough to be some rich snob. I’d like to work for the things I buy)
9. Live a healthy long life doing the job I love with the person I love, buying the things I love, taking care of some lovely children, and yearning for a lovely God.

…but at the moment how my future looks:
1. BARELY finishing college, possibly have to take a class during summer
2. Have nowhere to start, with the current internship not having even called me or contacting me once in several months
3. Too expensive to afford going to good workshops personally, and parents don’t want to spend that kind of money for just 2-3 days or learning stuff (IMO I feel like they think it’s useless)
4. Probably won’t happen in a million years seeing most people who go to workshops are older or old
5. Still gotta find a job
6. Definitely ain’t happening until I get to the skill level I want to be at (Ex: Linandjirsablog.com)
7. I’ll stop here.

Where and when will my future start? It’s so bland, boring, unproductive, and just so stagnant right now I don’t even know WHERE to start. I trust God, but can’t help but think time to time what my future looks like. 

Yup it’s official: I am now a complete homebody.

I’m just tired of socializing now. As much as I love it and my friends, it’s like I don’t even want to try now. I’ve fallen into a beautiful blend of laziness, self-fun, and antisocialism. I could stay in my room all day everyday with an occasional hang out for some fresh air. 

I’ve gotten tired of thinking about things to do and talk about. I’ve become tired of always worrying about not being able to be myself (many instances have proven that I cannot; kind of sad to think about actually). And most especially, I’ve become tired of the ratio of listening:talking. With my personality and the type of friend I am, I do a LOT more listening than talking, with some who don’t even seem to realize that (ex: I listen to whatever they talk about, yet when I speak it’s like wind passing through their ears, and so end up not wanting to talk).

And so, I realized how much I LOVE being alone. I can be me. The real me. I can sing as off-key as I would like and still enjoy singing. I can look in the mirror and find myself beautiful without worrying about others poking fun of me. I can wear the same thing every day and be comfortable. It’s just me, so whatever I do I’m always “included”, never feeling left out a bit. And since I know me the best, I can even encourage myself like nobody else can.

I used to wonder why homebodies were always home, but I guess now I’m starting to understand the wonders of being one!

Why do I not have the confidence I have when I’m alone in my room? I think of past scenarios or situations and just for fun act it out in my head or even verbally…and if I were to play it in that way, these situations could have turned out SO much better. *Gurgle* WHY! 

Why didn’t I tell up that guy who never let me and my friend into the VIP room even though we were the main photographers? Why didn’t/don’t I confront my friends when I had/have a problem with them? Why didn’t I tell that idiot teacher how much of a douche he was to his face instead of retreating to a half-assed “angry” email? Etc.

I see my sister (complete opposite of me) who isn’t at all afraid to let her opinions known, and where does that get her? To so many places. She accomplishes even the smallest things like complaining to a restaurant manager about something small and getting leeway to our check out time at the hotel. Who KNOWS where I could be right now in life if I had that kind of confidence instead of taking everything in and storing it inside. Hell for SURE I’d be a better photographer and could even be making some money right now with some side gigs. Yet, I’m here wasting my life away crying like a baby (metaphorically) about useless things. I honestly really need to grow a pair. 

It pains and angers me every time without fail to see how much confidence I lack. This hinders me from achieving greatness and showing who I really am inside, yet can’t let out in public. Such frustrations. My insides feel like I’m in a cage with no doors. LET ME OUT ANDREW DAMIT!

As I finished my QT tonight, I decided to go back to all my older entries and read everything that I have written so far. And it’s how crazy it’s been 2 years since I’ve been in this dry season.

Starting from the beginning of this week I decided to finally pick myself back up and try and transition back into a man on FIRE for God. With a bit of searching, I was presented with a very great analogy of a tree and the different seasons. I believe the stage I’m in right now is “winter”. Although it really sucks to be here spiritually, the person who posted this very much encouraged me. They said this: 

“During winter, a tree rests, puts down slightly deeper roots to support the anticipated growth of the coming year, and concentrates its strength on standing against the hostile conditions of the season.

Anything that bears fruit, including trees, is at its most vulnerable during fruit producing season. This is another related truth, because sometimes Christians have the idea they should be doing what ever seems to be ‘fruit bearing’ 24/7 in their lives and it simply would not be natural!
…
You get a good view during winter, of things as they really are. That is, you can get your bearings here. This is useful to acknowledge in prayer, thanksgiving, and praise, even if you only see a sparse grey desert around you.”

In reading this, I found out a lot about myself and my spiritual life. I realized that my 2 years of this dry season wasn’t something negative. That, if anything, it has been, is, and probably will be the greatest thing that has happened in my spiritual life. If I haven’t hit the lowest of the low, how will I know that I TRULY love and trust God and His plan? 

As of now, I guess I’m just in need of growing my roots deeper in order to bear much fruit without forgetting where it all came from. It’s time for more prayer and more reading of the Word. Spring time is just around the corner!

So there has been a new topic bothering me these days. The issue of boys vs girls or just people vs people in general. Not in the sense of competition, but more along the lines of conflicts. 

One thing I can NEVER emphasize enough is this: Boys will always be boys. Girls will always be girls. And people will always be people. They are not deities, they are not gods, they will always have flaws, and they will always screw up. People, as nice, as perfect, as wonderful as they may seem, are NOT perfect. He’s not perfect, she’s not perfect, I’m not perfect, and you are most likely not perfect either. 

So many conflicts seem to occur because of the fact that people expect others to be better than they really are. If they mess up even a little, they can get tagged as a “liar”, a “hypocrite”, a “disloyal person”, etc. Yet we do little to look at our own mess ups, and get hurt when people call us these names. We are so easy to accuse, yet get so defensive once our own pride and feelings are on the line. 

So please, PLEASE just step into someone’s shoes before creating conflict. Try to understand where THEY are coming from. And I don’t mean how YOU would react if YOU were them. We have to push any of our own ideas aside and look and think with the other person’s brain. What could the possibilities be for them to think like this? What might cause a person to react or act the way they do? I’m not saying to never disagree with one another, because everyone has their own beliefs. What I’m saying is UNDERSTAND one another.

I can guarantee you that once you can TRULY grasp this idea, it can be so much easier to talk things out (assuming both parties are trying on their own part to comprehend each other). And if the other party isn’t? I can also guarantee you that your own level of patience will grow by the tenfold.

“Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.” - Steve Jobs

Lately I’ve been really fascinated by eyes. As a photographer I find sight one of my most prized possessions and the biggest blessing in my life. Without them I honestly don’t know what I would do with myself. I am always looking around and seeing the beauty in things, and if I have my camera I try my best to capture it. 

I just read a story of a girl who has been told that she has about one year left to see. She won’t be able to see the world, “won’t be able to see [her] own reflection…[her] friends…be able to drive…” I can’t even begin imagining myself in such a situation. 

Everyday I am reminded of the smallest things I take for granted and hope and pray everyone else realizes what they have is something another would die for. Thank God for everything you’ve got every day and every second of your lives.

So this year, as a 21 year old, I thought to myself, “I’ve got to step up my game.” Every other year it’s always been just a “Happy Mother’s Day!” over the phone, or a handmade card. But this year, I wanted to change it up a bit.

Now my mom always tells me, “If you call me or send me something small It’s more than enough!” Of course, her calling me a week or 2 in advance every year telling me “some important day is coming up” doesn’t ever reassure me of that statement! This year my dad AND grandmother went out of state, my sister lives in Texas, and I live in Davis. Possibly making this the loneliest Mother’s Day she probably would have ever had, especially hearing her friends and my Aunts talking about how their kids are coming and they’re all celebrating and such. 

I decided that this would be the perfect year to use a “surprise” on her. I pull up to my driveway as quietly as possible, and call her only to find that she went out for a while (later finding out, it was because she felt so lonely). I get the call back, so I rush back over and tell her that she should check the mail because “I delivered something.” As she talks to me on the phone I hear the door open and her walk down the steps and boom, SNEAK ATTACK: “”SURPRISE!!!!!!” If I could gather every surprise birthday and every scare I have ever witnessed, it would not have matched up to her reaction. I presented her the flowers and she was still in genuine shock (because we were talking about how I was “hanging out with my friends” just a few hours earlier). 

Past all this, I also saw the happiest mother I’ve seen in a while. She hugged me as hard as she could and thanked me so genuinely. I realized then that us kids have a tendency to be so fearful of our parents when, really, all they do is love us so much inside. The whole ride down I was scared my mom would scold me and that my dad would get pissed that I drove. But in the end, neither were angry, but super glad I was at home. The 7 hour drive, unexpectedly temporarily replacing my Rx-8 for my gmoms car for a few weeks (a whole diff story), and losing a weekend of studying was definitely well worth it.