Gloom and Doom Wednesday

The IHop is quiet at 6:30am on this Wednesday morning. I woke up early so I could get a jump-start on traffic. I figure if I arrived close to the school early I could grab some breakfast and relax. When I started moving around my room I looked outside and saw rain pouring down the side of the building. Of all the places I travel to it rains in Dallas. Knowing the rain would add time to my drive I quickly got ready. I packed up my bags and checked out of the hotel before grabbing a cup of coffee for the road. Although the pouring rain was a factor it only took me half the time as it did yesterday. So now I have two hours to relax here at the international house of pancakes.

It looks to be a long day today. I figure I’m going to do six presentations and leave by 4pm this afternoon. It’s the same school as yesterday so I’m sure I’ll have some of the same repeat watchers which means I’ll probably not be able to play the game. The game is a Jeopardy type interactive game we play with the students. It actually wakes them up and sometimes I hear some moans and groans before we play but they really get into it. After school I drive 40 minutes southwest to Arlington in rush hour traffic.

It actually rained hard the last time I was here in Texas last July. My co-worker Matt and I started out from San Antonio to Dallas to Houston to represent Full Sail at the Warp Tour. It seemed like every time we started driving the car somewhere it started to rain. Today, it’s supposed to rain all day but clear up for tomorrow. Better today than Friday when I fly out of here.

I’m at the Lake Highland High School right now, sitting in the library waiting for my teacher to arrive. I’m soaked from the rain. Of course as soon as I pulled into the school the rain turned into a downpour. If it were up to me, I would equip all my rental cars with umbrellas as a privilege. Charge 20 bucks if the umbrella comes up missing from the car upon return. Perhaps I’m still a moderate traveler. If I were a well-seasoned traveler I would be more prepared and have a small umbrella for these situations. I’ll look into that. As well as getting new luggage that’s not ripping at the seams, yep all my stuff is falling a part.

Any who, I should go check on that teacher.

I’m sitting in the faculty lounge having a cup of coffee. It’s 10:30am. I’ve already had one presentation. It was kind of sketchy though. I started hooking up the projector and for some reason the projector was not working. Everything else worked fine. I had plugged into the teacher’s projector yesterday so I didn’t know that there could have been a problem with my projector. So I insisted we go to the library and check one out because there’s really nothing I could have done to make it as entertaining with out pictures. I really hope that I can get access to projectors the next couple of days in the classroom or this trip is going to be a nightmare.

I need to know if someone is actually keeping score on this trip. Not to be completely negative, but let’s just look at the facts. Car Rental, Pouring Down Rain, Broken Projector and Traffic, Wrong Addresses versus Good School, Nice Hotel and Meeting New People. It’s a 5-3 in favor of bad trip. Hey, I’ve been keeping a positive attitude so far and laughed off the bad so I’m allowed to vent. To put it in even more perspective, I haven’t had any of this bad, not even in Boston ever happen to me. I hate to say it, but Dallas I do not like you right now!! Almost everything that could go wrong on a trip has so far occurred. I’m not going to discuss the other stuff that could happen so I’m going to just leave that up to God.

I better head back. I’ll do two in a row, and then I’ll have another break then two more. I so wish I could post this right now actually no, I so wish I could curl up in my hotel room in a little ball and watch HBO all day long. Yes, that’s what I wish I could do.

The day is now over and I’m close to dreamland. Now please let me summarize because I have so many thoughts in my head. The bottom line is this trip has not been a good trip. Bad things have happen that have made my time here difficult. Sure nothing I can’t handle but it does make it stressful. Compared to other trips it’s been worst. Now is it Dallas? I don’t know. Yes we make the best out of situations and we try to learn from the trials and tribulations that happen in our lives. To what end? There’s no end to life’s trials, we always find ourselves in other bad situation or well, another trial. So taking a pessimistic standpoint on this would be why even try to be optimistic? What more lessons do I really need to learn? I am aware of my own mortality, I am aware of the world around me. I have been through bad days. So when is the lesson learned? Now I’m not taking back what I said yesterday because I strongly believe in what I said. But as an example I am trying to be friends with Dallas. Yes, I know this is a metaphor and we can discuss what the true meaning of what Dallas represents. Since I’ve already put out the negative vibes that Dallas sucks then of course it’s not going to be a great trip. Why then meet these nice people or sleep well at night? I think what I’m saying is when do you stop trying to be optimistic and finally realize the bad is just bad and you cannot change it. It’s like an abused wife thinking her husband is going to change or shrugging it off saying its just life. Now the real question is, and I’m only asking these questions because it’s ‘me” time because that’s what I’m suppose to do, right? You would feel sorry for that abused wife and try to help her. But what if she doesn’t what to be helped and you give up? Saying if she just wants to live in misery than that’s her life.

All right, so this is complete rambling but do you understand what I’m writing? There has to come a point where you stop being optimistic and just say this is bad. I feel a lot like that in my life. In Florida, there is a lot more bad than good. In Los Angeles there was a lot more bad than good. So obviously it’s me, right? Well yes. It’s like why am I still single? The excuse is the right one hasn’t come along yet. Why am I having a hard time wherever I live? I’ve prayed for years to God to keep me on path. So am I on the path that God wants me to be on? Am I so off the path that I can’t see the path God wants me to be on? If my entire life is to be devoted to movies why am I not making them? Am I supposed to be doing something else and if so why have I not found that path? Like I wrote on Monday, if a whole bunch of bad things led me to meeting those gentlemen was a good thing, right? Well why does bad things have to lead me to that sweet cherry? Enough is enough. Should I thank every stressful bad thing that happens to me and be so overjoyed when one good thing happens to me, do I? I am blessed I know that. I have so many blessings so please don’t get me wrong and think that I am ungrateful because I do count my blessing and thank God for them.
Perhaps my wanting is my sin. I want my mom and dad to meet my future wife and perhaps their grandchild. I want to be finically satisfied; I want to have more good things happen to me than bad. If wanting that is a sin, then I’m sorry mom and dad, you will never see me happy. Those are the questions spiraling through this limbo called “me” time. I just don’t want to be asking these same question ten years from now. These are just my questions that I need to find my own answers to because obviously I’m doing way to many things wrong. All those things that I have listed above as wants, I have tasted but they quickly went away. So what do I really want?

I’m sorry Dallas, you have a great big heart, but we just don’t get along. Sorry.