My Excuse: I almost died.
as to it's truth or validity, i leave that to better minds than mine to decide.
ON TO INFORMATION!!!

Things that have changed:
-due to the exorborant prices charged by JCom, my now former internet service provider, my beloved compy is now at the office, and i am wireless at home( in the bad, regression way, not the cool, good way). this change occured when it became abundandtly clear that it was worth the sacrifice- it's like $80/month for internet and phone!! so, no phone, no internet. just my trusty, slowly disinitgrating cell phone.]

-i have a new love in my life!! well, it's a love/hate thing. cami gave me the key to his motorcycle before i came here, and i really didn't think about it much, other than to make sure that the key actually fit. when he left japan he left it in the care of some people who did the exact opposite of care. well, not the EXACT opposite- they didn't beat on it, but they sure as crap didn't take care of it. and sitting outside in the rain, snow, sleet, slush, sun, and coffee, it was slowly being broken down to it's constituent parts. until i rode on one of the kids' little 50cc monkey he has. then i remembered how fun they are. then i went home and looked at my bike. then i took it as apart as i knew how (which meant the seat, gas tank, and side panels) and stared at it some more. now, 3 weeks later, it still won't run, but it started on saturday!! it made me happy, but not really excited, since it still won't stay running. but it's something. considering i've sunk almost $300 into it, it had better do something! actually, i'm not allowed to touch it for a week. more on that in a bit...

-i have lost 3 of my high school boy leaders. maybe next time i'll rope them to something...but seriously folks...so the year started off at 5 gals and 5 guys leading the middle school group. now we're down to 2 guys. it was hard for me to really deal with- 2 of them asked to be let off, and one i had to kick off. it didn't help that the one that got kicked off is also the one that i'm closest friends with. if anyone can make a machine that will allow us to understand the mind of the high school male, let me know.

-i can plan!! somehow, i've always managed to avoid planning things. even at college and whatever, i never had to do any of that crap- i'm always just happy to let someone who likes to do it take the reigns. stand aside, becky wannamaker!! this is ryan 2.0! complete with planning upgrade!! there's a retreat coming up for the middle schoolers on saturday, and while i'm having the leaders that are doing the planning for a lot of it, it's been all up to me to do the groundwork and get all basics laid out. sorta fun, mostly not. there's like a bajillion details to these things! who are the people that love this stuff, and what's wrong with them? i just hope nothing goes drastically wrong...like i lose a kid in a snowdrift, or someone tells their parents that we ate yellow snow for fun or something. eewww....

-the weather!! today was the first just really nice day we've had since like september or something. it's not so much been rainy, but really windy all the time. so it's been nice through a window, but outside's been pretty much miserable. today it was just straight up nice. so i put on my speedo and spent some quality time sunbathing in the park. riiight...

-my furniture!! becuase my compy's gone, i really have no reason to be in my living room anymore, especially since it's freezing. and i've taken to heating my bedroom for like 20 minutes before i to go bed. so i thought "why don't i move my living room into my bedroom?" so i did. and by living room, i mean rocking chair. but now i sit in my little bedroom, slowly (but warmly) axphisxiating myself over a good book. i've also taken to sleeping in a sleeping bag. it's got this great fleece liner that i take out and warm up before i get in. it's the best idea ever!! this way no matter how much i roll around i'll never get out from under my covers. and it's WAY warmer than just my bed and blankets. i get a gold star for a good idea.

Things that haven't changed:
-my perpetual singletude. what with it being "loner hater day", i thought i'd add that 1+0=all the time to do whatever i want, and 1+1=BITE ME. i think i've made my position clear. i all reality, though, the "marriage=death" attitude that i had in college really doesn't serve me all that well over here. i wrote something about this in the past, but the whole living alone thing's been really hard. i don't regret it at all, and think that everyone should deal with it at some point- one of the side effects is you really find out a lot about who you are (this will either make you a better person, or incurably bitter). i sorta wish i've learned this lesson well enough to move on to step two, though. that would be the step where you're not living alone in a huge house. or at least not undating. in my youth group talk last night, i was telling the kids about idolatry, and how i was really lonely and how i had idols that i used to try and feel less lonely, and trying to get them to understand the depths of lonliness that i had experienced, and one of the gals was like "yeah, we know what it's like to be lonely too, ryan". i chuckled silently to myself when she said that- i have no doubt that she has very little idea of what it's like (in the rare event that you find this blog, i love you megan!). i also discovered that according to the rules of the mission that i am missionary-ing through, i am not allowed to date anyone for the first year that i'm here. who knew?! who cared?! thinking about it, i'm sure that there's a huge long list of things that i'm not allowed to do. i never thought about it, and i'm determined to stop in the very near future. after all, you can't break a rule you don't know about!

-john mayer's song "daughters". in the 189 times i've listened to it while making this post, it's been the exact same awesome song, every time. the only person that i know enough about to think about when this song is played is deidre. hope that's not awkward.

-my parents. i was thinking about this today, and i think that when children get old, they should be the ones to brag about their parents. that is, if the parents are brag-worthy. and i really think mine are. i got a valentines card from my mom, along with a letter. then they called me today and we talked for like 2 hours! that's a long time for my dad to be ok with "wasting money" (love you dad!). the truth is, my family members are all pretty much my best friends. and we learned that from our parents. and they were stupid sometimes, and we drove eachother to head-exploding-madness sometimes, but if i'm ever a dad, my goal will be to be one like my dad. and if i find someone who ends up being like my mom, i'll consider myself blessed. granted, it took 5 kids to break them in, but now they're 2 of my favorite people. in fact, i dedicate this entry to them. mom, dad- i love you guys. you are awesome. good job being amazing, loving Christian parents. if everyone had parents like you....well...that would be weird. but probably good.

this has turned way longer than is worth reading. now that i have the compy at "work", i'll probably be doing more entries as a means of procrastinating, which is good, i think.