Reboot: Starting Fresh

I think it's time for a re-introduction.

Hi there. Nice to meet you. No really, the pleasure is all mine. My name is Chris and, as I'm sure you've guessed, this is my blog. My blog that, for numerous reasons, I have mostly abandoned. Until now. Rather than writing a post which is half apology and half whining about why I couldn't be bothered to keep blogging (which is an embarrassing number of the last 5 years of posts) I figured I should just start fresh. Let's put the last 7 or so years and 593 posts in the past and actually get back to writing.

So, back to that re-introduction. To the right you will notice the question "Who is Chris?" paired with my relatively snarky answer. If you ever forget who I am I would refer you there. In the meantime read this.

Kurt Vonnegut, my writing hero, says that in writing always "Start as close to the end as possible." So I will start as close to the end of this story as I conceivably can. Today. If I could start by telling you about tomorrow, or the real end of my story, the end end, I surely would. But I don't know the end so I can't tell it.

Today is August 21st, 2013. The sky over Portland is utterly clear. From my office window I face South towards Mt. Washington, which lies somewhere in the area where the blue turns into a vague off-white on the horizon. On my desk next to me lie four stacks of Sunday School material and a clipboard with a boardgames inventory on it. I'm a Youth Director as of just over a month ago. It is no exaggeration when I say this is my dream job. Youth Director is a vague job title to most people, even Christians, but it simply means I'm a youth pastor without any aspirations to becoming a fullfledged pastor.

It's easy to understand why I love my job when you break it down into it's core parts.

It's like we like each other or something equally gross

Things I love:
God, my faith, and The Salvation Army
Working with other people who love the above
Working and hanging out with children and youth
Playing games
Storytelling and teaching
Efficiency and organization

Things that are a part of "work":
See above list

Suffice it to say that I am very happy at this point in my life.

Work isn't the only part of my life. I'd be remiss if I were to leave out my wife. In introducing myself I must also mention her since she's sure to be mentioned in my writing a fair amount. My wife's name is Jenny and we were married June 9th, 2012, shortly after graduating together from Houghton College. She's a pretty cool person. She sells stuff on Etsy. I spend most of my time with her and our cat, Sneaky.

So, I mentioned we graduated from Houghton together. We also met there. I guess I should be pretty grateful to Houghton for that. Jenny majored in Intercultural Studies while I doubled in Writing and Psychology. I majored in writing intentionally. Psychology happened by accident when I realized just how few academic credits it took to complete a Writing major.

That brings me to the next point of introduction. I am a self-proclaimed writer. I don't know what people define as being a "writer" these days. Anybody can sit down and pound out some narcissistic blog post (just look at me!) but I think the term implies you're actually good at it. Or make money that way. Or something. So I guess to be fair I'm an "aspiring writer." Due to the low volume and quality of writing I actually produce I often think I'm more of a transpiring writer.

"Wow, you're awfully down on your writing!" you say, "But look at this blog post! This is the best thing I've ever read in my entire life!" Well, it's nice of you to say that. I'm sure it's true. At this point my view of college is that it gave me a wife and a wrecked sense of self-esteem regarding my writing and not much else. I don't have a lot of confidence in my writing at the moment, but I'll get there.

Anyway, I've saved a final piece of introduction for last because it's the least interesting bit. I love video games. I love them so much it hurts sometimes. Hurts my wallet mostly. This morning I woke up and saw that Origin had put Mass Effect 3 on sale. I've been waiting months hoping it would go on sale. So excited. To return to my point, I love video games. I play them a lot. If you also like video games we should play them together. I particularly want someone to play Planetside 2 with. Get in touch with me.

I think it's about time to wrap up this post. Just to jump off that last paragraph, here's a non-sequitur: let's be friends. I've been lamenting the fact that I have very few friends in the Portland area who I really spend time with. If you want to play video games: get in touch. If you want to go get bubble tea: get in touch. If you want to hang out: you get it.

Thanks for reading.

Edit: I'm also mostly inactive on Twitter! Check it out @KuriJaVaba