Video killed the radio star.

Hah, you thought I was gone, didn't you?

Well, stay tuned, because I've got some interesting things cooking up for the next few days. I would have posted them earlier, but I haven't had the time to put them on paper, I've been so busy.

Just as a warning, these are mostly gonna be ramblings of the more philosophical sort, so if you're not into that kind of stuff...well, hopefully I can make it interesting.

Remember, stay tuned.

YO, BEN I'M REALLY HAPPY FOR YOU AND IMMA LET YOU FINISH, BUT BENJAMMIN FUNKYFRESH HAD ONE OF THE BEST BLOGS OF ALL TIME

After three platinum records, a Grammy nomination for best recorded hip hop song ("Touch It (Bey Bey) feat. Touldja Boy Sellout") and his own top selling clothing line (Napes), Benjammin' Funkyfresh decided to do the one thing that would set him as unprecedented among most other rappers (and being white too? Oh my!) : He would star in his own movie. Being his own movie, it was only fitting for him to write the title track, an autobiographical ditty:

Look, if you have, one shock, one big epiphany
That believes you could be anything you ever wanted
With extra pepperoni, would you bask in it? Or just mull and sit?

..

No, he decided to scratch that. What he did decide on is work on recording a new single, because the album is 'so last year.'

Listen up, because I'm about to have some fun
You'll find out the mouth that has the dopest tongue
It's the same one, that's spitting over the track
All the enemy MC's find a target on their back
Don't react, it's true I'm the whitest that you've seen
Shake it up, it's the stuff from a bottle of whipped cream
But the dream, is still the beat pounding in your ear drums
And the lyrical miracles that dub me as fearsome
You hear son? I'm not the one that grew up on the backstreets
But if you check it I wreck up more truth than a fact sheet
A black sheep? Probably not in the slightest
But the echoes of my word throws may be giving you nightmares
You might scare, a toddler with an active imagination
But think fast, you been outclassed by a high school education
The abrasions, are leaving you dumbstruck and speechless
But look, it's the hook that will even stump your teachers

*amazing chorus*

As you can see, it's still a work in progress.

Here are some words from the hip hop prodigy himself:

YO CHECK IT ITS THE NEW SINGLE I HOPE YOU LIKE IT BECAUSE THE PROCEEDS ARE FUNDING MY SECOND HUMMER AND A NEW BEACH HOUSE BTW DID YOU GUYS CATCH THE AWARDS CEREMONY LAST NIGHT??!! SHAKIRA SHOULD HAVE SO WON MY DAWGS!! I WONDER WHAT THATS ALL ABOUT WELL I HAVE TO GO GOOD LUCK READING THIS HOPELESS PROSE BECAUSE I'M A RAP STAR AND CAN'T TYPE FOR CRAP THANK YOU VERY MUCH

- Benjammin' Funkyfresh

Friday night's alright for writing. (Part Trois)

Sorry this took a little bit to get out, but I figure I'd leave a little time for the last three ones to process.

Day 2: I get up, take a cold shower, and get anything I need for the day before taking a car down the resort that we were supposed to be at.

I should probably mention that it was freezing last night, as I wasn't exactly aware of how cold the air-con was turned down when I turned it on, and couldn't change it because my room buddy was sleeping right under it. Needless to say (why do people say this when we say what we're gonna say anyway..?) we all shivered that night, and I ended up sleeping in my hoodie.

We have an optional early morning worship (7:30..*.*) before eating a relatively pleasant breakfast and heading to the morning sessions.

This morning session was focused on the second chapter of Jonah (the second session, so..) and the theme word of peace. All the speaking aside, we also found out what teams we were all on and what games we would be competing in.

After that, we ate lunch before heading to the games.

Our team was the subtly named Ginger Vitis, and we took our gum infected mouths down to the swimming pool to play a good ol' fashioned game of tube wars. For those of you not in the know, tube wars is when you all get into inner-tubes and proceed to smash and bang the other team, trying to flip them over.

I preferred to stay out of the water, and come up with cheesy cheers instead. You know, we will rot you?

After this game we headed over to the field to play kajabe can-can, otherwise known as garbage can tag. If you've never played, each person holds onto a small strip of rope and forms a circle, with one or more garbage cans in the center. The objective is to get your opponent to knock into the garbage can and/or let go of the rope.

This was the only game that I ended up playing, but I didn't mind. I got out in the first ten seconds because my chest was being ripped into by the relatively big guy on my left and the OMGHE'SFRIGGINHUGE guy on my right. I didn't mind not playing the games because rather than encouraging teamwork and getting your mind off the heavy stuff, it seemed more of a distraction to what I was actually here for: Fellowship and community with both man and God. The other reason I didn't like the games was for the fact that because I wasn't playing, I felt obligated to scream my heart out, which I did. I'm not sure it's still quite yet back to normal.

After those displays of physical masculinity (we lost both) we had some free time to hang out before dinner and the evening session, as well as an optional seminar. Since I've already somewhat described both, let me just skip to the interesting stuff.

After dinner Hume Lake held a massive kajabe can-can tournament. I didn't participate in that either, but one of my best friends ended up winning for the guys. I just mulled around and maybe possibly dressed up like little red riding hood (no, I'm not going to explain). We took the van back to our cabins, ahd our guy-time devotions and went to bed. Which was awesome about my cabin because while everybody else was getting wasted by drinking Red Bull and staying up late, we remained relatively subdued. Friendly, but subdued.

Day 3: Repeat of day 2, get up, take a cold shower, get in van for other resort, have early morning worship, and then eat breakfast before heading off to the morning sessions.

This morning to give Chris a break from speaking, they decided to do things a little differently by having several mandatory seminars that you could choose from which to go to and spend your morning. I found it incredibly difficult to choose, but I ended up going to a seminar taught by a different Chris entitled 'Why do I love sin more than God?' I wasn't quite sure what to expect, but it was a rewarding experience. The purpose of the seminar was not to convict you to turn from your sin, as so many of those experiences is all that they accomplish, but the seminar was about loving God completely and totally, even more than your own life, your family, and everything going around you. This Chris also had a personal and powerful testimony to share, but I don't think I will labor to type it out.

After the morning seminars we had lunch (wasn't it just breakfast..?) and more games. I didn't play them, so I won't bother explaining, but they both involve balls. *cough* spheres, Ben, didn't you get the memo? So, yeah. I screamed my heart and lungs out, again.

After the games we had more free time and maybe one or two optional seminars. I sort of hung around the worship one, but after about five minutes with the bass player and me mastering the most complex thing she played in worship, I figured I wasn't going to learn a whole lot. But after that I had an interview, but I can't really divulge what it was about or for at this moment. Not because it's sensitive information but because I want to keep it a surprise.

We had a short(er) evening session before they divided the group in boys and girls and took us to separate rooms where we received the purity talk, by far my least favorite experience in this camp, and any other situation. It didn't make it any better that the speaker was fairly awkward about it, and beat around the bush, and basically amounted to 'don't have sex, kids!' Sure. I don't mean to be crude, but maybe this very mantra would have prevented us from having this talk from you anyway. <.<

After that it was the usual hang out before heading to the other cabin to have devotions and go to bed. In my personal opinion, the discussion we had in the devotions after the 'talk' was far more rewarding and helpful than anything that man could have said. *sigh* Oh, well.

Day 4: I woke up, finally figured out the hot water on my shower, packed all my stuff up, and heading to the other resort.

We had breakfast, and then one final short morning wrap-it-up session before having to drag all our bags out to the road and get our ride home. It turned out that our ride thought the camp ended at one, but it reality, it ended at eleven. So we got to spend some awesome extra time with the leaders there, and it made for a really good end to an excellent couple of days.

Thanks for reading, I'm out.

Ben

The third time is the charm, except if you're the president. [Part Deux]

Hm, the past few days, here we go:

Well the setup is this: Around the general area of Fresno, California, exists a place called Hume Lake. A very integral part of this is Hume Lake Christian Camps, which hosts thousands of kids every summer, and has an event going each week of the year. One of the things that HLCC does is travel all over the world, doing international camps for missionary kids. Every two years, Hume Lake comes to Chiang Mai to host one.

I had been two years ago, so none of this was new, but the experience proved to be quite worth it.

Day 1: The usual camp necessities: Registration, finding people you know, etc. Due to the sheer amount of people that showed up (over three hundred, which is fairly impressive), the resort did not have enough room for the amount of people that were coming. I was among the unfortunate few assigned to room at a different resort about five minutes down the road. The worst part? All of the other guys that were also assigned were from one of the international school, and I didn't really know any of them. I had requested a person as a roommate, but instead had to sleep next to two people I had never met before.

I say all this not to complain, but to describe what happened, because in actuality it turned out to be alright. My roommates didn't turn out to be too strange, and one in particular was very friendly and open to me. It was still uncomfortable, but not unlivable.

Day one really kicks off with the first night session in which we get introduced to our speaker for the camp. It was the same speaker as last time, but I didn't mind. The speaker, Chris Simning, has such an impacting testimony and speaking style that it becomes quite difficult to take notes because you're so wrapped up in his words. Chris isn't one of those people who took drugs, had sex, and caved his soul out before coming to Christ to fill it back up again. In fact, he's been a Christian most of his life. But his whole life literally changed overnight in the eighth grade when he got out of bed, his head fell forward, and he couldn't lift it up again. He was subsequently diagnosed with a rare muscle disease, and it's stayed with him since then. His limbs are twisted, and he can't speak normally, and this lends to his testimony: Not the fact that Christ is amazing and healed him, but that as a person he's had some extremely rough times, but Christ has helped him through that. He still suffers through insecurities and the confines of his condition, but strangely enough, that just makes him seem more normal, only his problems are more easily seen than other people's might be.

Another thing that makes Hume Lake what it is, is the theme. While always silly, it masquerades as a Bible lesson teaching tool underneath. This year the theme was Mulletia, the story about a town whose hairstyle was killing them, and a government agent is sent to save them. It also doubles as the story for Jonah, which Chris greatly expounded on.

After the first night, we had some free time before we had to haul out and go to bed, and there were optional activities: dodgeball and open mic night. I, being the person that I am, immediately opted for the latter. And while there were some cringe-inducing acts (I felt an incredible amount of pity for this poor girl whom someone lied to her when they told her that she could sing, and she went up on stage twice) it remained pretty enjoyable. After some self-coercion I actually ended up participating. Twice. The first time I played and sang a worship song with some other girls that are in our youth band, but the second time it was me, all by my lonesome, playing a song that I wrote. It was definitely a new experience, and I got some incredible encouragement out of that, so despite my shaking legs, I think it was a win situation.

Thus concludes the first day of camp, and this blog. I was going to describe it all in one, but then I realized exactly how huge it would be, so there will indeed be a part trois.

"Holy two blog posts in a day, Batman!" said Robert Frost. [Part Un]

In my last blog, I threw out (as in wrote it out, not got rid of) the old adage, 'write what you know.' That's exactly the purpose of this blog, but I'm almost afraid to admit that the effort is pointless. This was supposed to help me to get motivated to write more, but it hasn't, really. The months of spaces between posts can vouch for that. It was supposed to maybe give a slightly different perspective of life, from a missionary kid who hasn't spent a whole lot of time in his home country. But while Thailand as a country is very much different from the United States, me as a person isn't all that different from somebody you might find there.

I'd even go as far to say that this blog could really be written by anybody with hopefully more than half a brain, and the thought depresses me. And another in a long stream of depressing thoughts, lets face it, the readership demographic for a seventeen year old who writes about himself are pretty darn slim. About three, in fact. For all those rejoicing, this doesn't mean that I'm going to stop posting. To quote a favorite movie of mine, 'Never give up, never surrender!' My only solution is to keep on keeping on until ramblings are capable of scratching the surface of mediocrity and fulfilling my original intentions.

But back to the original subject line, writing what I know is really all I can do. It's why my first novel idea had to be based around me, and why I keep signing in here, and maybe why I can come across as so egocentric sometimes.

That's another thing that's been blowing my mind lately: Why are people so wrapped up inside their own skin that it wraps around their face, over their eyes, and it shoves their eyeballs back into the empty space where a brain is supposed to be? As another well known adage goes, when you point your finger at someone, there are always three fingers pointing back at you. In this case, there's only one pointing back because I'm doing it on purpose. I am in no away immune to these attacks of selfishness, but after spending extended amounts of time with unfamiliar people I think I'd rather keep them unfamiliar. They can't comprehend that there are billions of people out there that each have lives that are worth keeping, and they'll never comprehend that because they are too busy tending their own.

Off on a major tangent here, but that's just something that has really struck me over the past few days. Which I will describe in much more detail in part two. And yes, the blog title is keeping in line with pretentiousness, but I only think I strive to it just because I like using that word.

On a bright note, I think I feel some lyrics stirring.

I am Jack's pretentious blog post.

Hello, old friends. How nice of me to drop by. Yes. It's been over two friggin' months. A lot has happened over those two months, but I don't think I'll bother you with the details. I don't suppose it would be all that exciting to someone who wasn't me. On the bright side, I'm a year older, and hopefully a year wiser. A year wiser for setting up new creative endeavors, to puncture the door open to a whole world of possibilities. Of course, that's just my wishful thinking.

It's hard to describe, but it almost feels like these couple of months have produced even more growth than you would expect for a regular person. But then again, I'd prefer not to consider myself regular. I've crossed the transition of being sixteen and nearly older, but still the usual vitriolic sixteen year old, to being the seventeen year old who doesn't quite know it yet, to being the seventeen year old who feels older, and in turn, acts older.

If that just sounds like a swaddle of prideful mumbo jumbo, you're probably right, but I usually try to write what I know. Regardless, I just..feel different.

Thoughts, anyone?