The List

There are so many thoughts swimming through my head right now. I suppose school will do that to me. I really need to vent some things. First of all, I like lists. They are helpful to me. Not because I use them to keep organized ... but I seem to enjoy writing things down, whether there is a reason or not, it's thereputic.

1. I'm in a language/linguistics class. It's pretty interesting, but it's making me notice things in myself that I don't like. I don't like how my language changes in different situations. I don't like how my diction is elevated when I'm in class. I don't like how it's so sarcastic when I talk to people I care about. I don't like how it is sheepish and reserved when I meet new people. Am I being who I am, am I all of these things?
2. I'm tired of hearing about the machine. Fight the "machine". Rage against the "machine". That's just how the "machine" works. What? Are we degraded to an object with no empathy, no capability for real growth -- just upgrade and decay? Or are we just in a machine that we have no control over? How do we fight it? Are we supposed to fight it? Is it even there? Or did we just invent it in order to have something to talk about?
3. Why am I housesitting in order to earn money in order to live in a house that I'm unable to live in because I'm housesitting?
4. I am so overwhelmed. Not with homework. Not with the cost of education. I'm overwhelmed by the culture of it all. I don't want to be one of the people who walk around this campus dead faced and engrossed in my iPod. I don't want to be accepted into the intellectually elite at the cost of really knowing and loving people ... I don't want to have the best ideas. I don't want to get full credit for participation because I said what I know the professor wanted to hear and appeased the textbook authors by developing the thoughts that they were steering me to develop. How do I escape this?
5. I don't remember what it was like before. I don't recall what I was thinking three and a half years ago when I encountered all of this for the first time. I wish I could remember, maybe then I wouldn't feel so crazy. I don't think I skimmed over these emotions and thoughts, but at the same time, wouldn't I know it if I had? I guess I didn't necessarily expect to face these things again .... but perhaps I'm facing it again so that I can think differently about it this time. Maybe it can be new and true.
6. I think what it's all coming down to is the renewal of the mind. Our minds are going to get cluttered with propaganda, events, feelings, opinions ... but the Lord wants to take it all and sift and process it into something pure and real. Something we can adhere to and embrace, rather than turn away in disgust. "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect. For through grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgement, as God has alotted to each a measure of faith." (Romans 12:2-3)
7. Lists are so helpful to me.