A Beautiful Day

Well it's 72 degrees without a single cloud in the sky in Searcy, AR. I'm sitting on the front lawn with Ben Woods, Josh Deitch, and Stephen Posey. It's hard for me to pictue a better day right now. I should be in my algebra classroom with no windows, but I had to take advantage of the day that God has given us. The campus is alive right now with probably 100 people throwing the frisbee, doing homework, reading, napping, just whatever.

I don't even know what to write about right now. I haven't had anything in my mind to write about. Maybe just nothing over-dramatic enough to write about.

School is going pretty good though. I had two quizzes and a test yesterday, and tommorrow I have a Western Civ assignment due. I guess just the normal college stuff. I think I'll come back to this post later in the afternoon, when I have something to write about.

Another edition of random thoughts

Huge load of stress is finally off my back. Today my group did our presentation on the beverage industry in Macroeconomics. I've been stressing for the past week about this. We had a 25-page paper and a 25-minute presentation due on the same day, so I would think it's understandable to be stressed. Plus, I made the whole PowerPoint, and everyone would be seeing that so I was really worried. But I think we did good as a group. Mr. Hebert said that we had really good information and we worked well as a group. Sounds generic, but after I heard his critique of another group, I'd say we did pretty good. So today instead of working on school work, I took a 3.5 hour nap and inadvertantly skipped church and dinner.

During all of this time of working on the presentation, I've able to listen to a lot of music to get in the working. I want to share with you a few of my favorite selections at the current time.

"Landed"-Ben Folds-I love the piano in the song, and the chorus is really catchy. For some reason I can just lock it down and focus when I hear this song.
"Look After You"-The Fray-Good ballad that is constantly stuck in my head. When I first heard this song, I breezed right past it and honestly could care less for it. Now I'm listening to it all the time, or humming "Oh, oh, please, baby, I'll look after you."
The Earth Is Not A Cold, Dead Place-Explosions in the Sky-I love this whole CD. I put it on when I go to bed every night. I have to thank James Arbuckle for introducing me to this unique band. The CD is only 5 tracks long, but the shortest song is 8:17 minutes long. There are no lyrics in the album either, but I think words would cheapen the soothing music that is produced.
"Can't Stop Now"-Keane-Great, upbeat song. When I saw Keane in Nashville, this is the song they opened with. It was a really cool effect they had, with the drums hitting to open up the show with a bang. I think this song would great to start an encore. I can picture everyone at a packed venue chanting "Keane", and having the whole place pitch black. The 3 guys slip back on stage without anyone noticing, then letting the drums hit, and the lights flash back on. And the lyrics "But I can't stop now...can't slow down," sets up the song perfectly.
"The Minstrel's Prayer"-Cartel-Unfortunately, they didn't play this song live when they were here in Searcy. But it's just a great song. I'm trying to put it all together, but I love the chorus. I know I've said that about almost every song, but whenever me or Austin plays this in the room, the whole room sings in unison, it's pretty sweet.
"Don't Slow Down"-Copeland-Before I saw Copeland in concert, I didn't really like this song. But this song was really cool live, and I love the line "You could take everything I have, just don't leave my side."
"The Scientist"-Coldplay-Just about everyone has heard this song, and just about everyone loves it. I've never been a huge fan of this song. I think I was just too impatient with it. It's definetly best listened to with headphones on and turned up, so all you can focus on is the song. Great lyrics, great piano, one of the best songs of the modern era.

I think I'm done with the music review thing. I'm not sure why I did that, I was just feeling the flow.

Ben Woods made a great statement when he said "I think we should call us the 125 Mafia." (referring to the crew that is constantly in Armstrong 125)

...Hodges

Thoughts from Friday to this moment

I really wanted to update on Thursday/Friday, but I couldn't because this website was down. I was going to write a borderline funny post called "It's official: we're hardcore." But I couldn't. So I'll give you a short synopsis of why we're hardcore.

In our last 2 pickup football games 3 people have been sent to the hospital. Last Saturday, Michael had to stay overnight in the hospital with bleeding of the brain from a head-to-head collision. Then we played again on Thursday and on the first play Binkley and Guillo bumped heads, and Binkley ended up with a concussion and his eye swollen shut, while Guillo now has 4 staples in his head. So pretty much we're hardcore because we bump heads a lot in our football games. But we're gonna stop for a while because it's getting a little bit out of hand.

This has been a good trip home. I rode back with Brady, and we talked for most of the 5 and a half hour trek to OKC. He was so excited about seeing his girlfriend, and it was cool because everyone knows how much he cares for her and I'm just glad that he got to see the one that makes him the happiest. Neways, Friday night me and Eric hit up the Bucks and he supplied about 100 new songs from the likes of Rocky Votolato, Jack Johnson, Yellowcard, The Strokes, and We Are Scientists. He's a stud pretty much. Then we went up to Edmond and I played some basketball in borrowed clothes and it was awesome, then we hit up Jennifer's sorority house. Things got crazy. All I know is that I have someone's underwear and I don't know if it's a guys or a girls....not really. Then today I did the usual Wal-Mart run then went to the dinner for prospective Harding students. It was pretty fun. I ended up just chillin' with my boy Austin and his friend Luke or talking with some people that I didn't know very well from Harding. I wouldn't mind doing some more work for the admissions office. I told David Scharff, my admissions counselor, that whenever he needed some people to do some recruiting then I would help. And I just got back from another night at The Townhouse. It was hott as always, and I got to see some of my favorite people.

Thanks for stopping by...

...Hodges

A look ahead for the next week

Well I decided that I will come home this weekend. For the past week I've been debating if I should go home and go to a dinner for prospective Harding students or if I should just spend another weekend in Searcy. I decided that it would be good to do some laundry at home, visit the parents, the friends up in Edmond, and just relax for a little bit.

Well I might have just lied about relaxing for a little bit because I have a huge project due in my Macroeconomics class. I'm in a group of 6 and on Wednesday we have a 20 minute presentation with a 5 minute question and answer session on the industry of beverages. On the same day we also have a 25 page paper due about Coca-Cola. Pretty intense I know considering we haven't even started on it. I'm already starting to get stressed about it. This grade is a huge portion of the whole semester and how I finish out overall on the GPA. So pray for me not to get stressed and pray for me to do well.

Tonight I'm going to try to get some good sleep so I'm heading to bed now at 12:30.

...Hodges

Friends...again

One thing I liked about xanga was that you could see whatever the person blogging was listening so what I will do for my blog is to just put the album art of what I'm listening to. That was just so you don't get too confused.

So my last post was quite a bit of venting but it definetly needed to happen, but I've felt more at ease since I wrote that. Me, my roommate, Ryan and Piccino talked about it for a little while last night, and it was good to just vent to them too and have them understand.

I realized that I've met a lot of people since I've been at Harding, but I haven't grown really close to any one person. This is probably going to be really vague, but hopefully at the end it will all come together. This year I've been more social than I've been in my whole life. In high school, I kind of kept to myself, but I mean I had my friends, but most people didn't really "know" who I was. I'm not saying that I'm well-known or anything here at HU, but i know that a lot more people know me, and I know a lot more people. Maybe what I'm trying to say is that I haven't built many really close relationships. I was already really close to a group of about 7 guys before I came here, and I've grown closer to them no doubt. But it's hard for me to pick out like a best friend here. It's even harder to pick out a girl that I'm best friends with here. I think I've spread my time with friends out over so many people that I haven't been able to spend much "quality" time with any fewer number of persons. This isn't some sob story or a plea for someone to latch on to me and spend every waking second with, it's just an acknowledgment of my current situation. I will say that I want to become closer to all of my friends, I just hope God can put me in the right situations and tell me who to build the right relationships with.

...Hodges

I choose my friends

Warning: this might offend you, but give it a chance.

You don't choose my friends, whoever you are. I choose who I want to hang out. I choose my allegiance. If I want to spend all my time with a certain group of people that's my choice, not yours. I shouldn't have to watch my back, or worry about what you are thinking about the people I'm hanging out with. I shouldn't have to be uncomfortable or awkward with a group of people because of someone else's view on who they think are "cool." From now on, I will hang out with whoever I want, and you won't stop me. You can go ahead and talk about me behind my back. That's cool with me. That is your problem. I will no longer be careful about where I sit at in the caf, who I say "hi" to, who I'm walking around with. I will no longer let someone else or a group of persons determine who my friends are. This is me telling whoever you are to get off my back about jumping to or from a club. All the decisions I make or made are for a reason, and are guided by God, so don't question me or command me to do anything.

...Hodges

Sunday's thoughts

It's taken me over 20 minutes to start writing this post, and I don't even know why. I'll start with a few prayer requests. Pray for me. I need God's hand in my schoolwork right now. I have an Old Testament quiz and a Western Civ test tommorrow. I'm trying, but not hard enough, and I have a goal of making a 4.0 this semester, which is somewhat unrealistic and even if I don't accomplish that, I should still have better grades then last semester. Pray for my new job to be a blessing for me. Above all, pray for God's plan to take place in my life. It's so hard for me to hand things over to God. Pray for me to continue to mature more as a man of God.

Music is a big part of my life. Just listening to it though. If you've ever sat next to me in a worship setting or pretty much heard me sing then you know that it's just not good...at all. But I listen to a lot of music these days, and the music that I listen to effects my thoughts and my overall attitude more than I ever thought. I know it's been said before, but there are so many different situations where music has changed the way I look at things. Here are just some random examples. Whenever I listen to Back to Bedlam by James Blunt my mind goes back to Christmas break, because I listened to it the whole time. It's kind of a cold, but hearthy feeling. I want to say I feel at home when I hear it, but I don't know (sorry I bet that didn't make any sense). Hot Fuss by the Killers takes me back to my trip to Tulsa for the State basketball tournament last year. We listened to it probably 4 times through the whole weekend, and it was just a great trip and it brings back great memories of my friends from Oklahoma.

Another thought about music for me is I've been paying a lot more attention to the lyrics of songs. I'm always down for a great sounding song, but I'm getting into the deeper songs a lot more. I have this neat little widget on my computer that displays the lyrics of the song playing in my iTunes, so whenever I pull up Dashboard I can check out the lyrics, it's just made my musical experience even more enhanced.

That's all for now I guess

...Hodges

My first time

I'm moving on from xanga. This is an attempt to grow up. I was into xanga probably too much in high school, but I still want to publish my thoughts on a regular basis. Facebook gets boring after a while even though it's a unique and excellent way to keep up with all your college friends. If you're catching up with me from xanga, then this will hopefully be your way to keep up with me.

College is great. Change that...Harding is great. I've been able to grow so much here socially, mentally, emotionally and spiritually, probably more than I did all throughout high school. But I'm not gonna do the sentimental update like I've done lately. Yesterday I got a job working at the Carmichael Center, thanks to JonMark and his dad. It's a community gym, and I'll just be sitting around answering phones and doing a little cleaning here and there. I'm not sure exactly when I'll start but it will be good to be back in the workforce, haha, but even better to have some cash flow son!

If you spend the time to read this, leave me something to ponder on. I'll hit you back.


...Hodges