Warning about Darkside.

So, I mentioned on facebook that the previous blog would be coming and it has taken some time to edit and make sure the content reflected accurately my thoughts and feelings. Now I use the term "edit" loosely because I am sure there are typos and grammatical errors running rampant through the post but whatever. I caution that the previous post, or the one right below this one, is very sensitive and personal in nature. It is quite long for a blog too.

Darkside...not the same place the Lunatacs of Thundercats lived.

So, this has been weighing heavily on my heart and on my mind the last few weeks. I have decided to spill the beans so to speak. I have asked several people close to me over the last few weeks whether they thought I was an emotional person and the overwhelming majority answered “no.” This might come as no surprise because most guys in this culture are macho and showing emotion is a girly weak thing to do. I don’t think emotion is girly or even weak, yet I hide my emotions because I care too much what other people think about me and I want to fit in. So the big news is I am big sack of emotions. You might be thinking, “Okay so he has emotions big freakin’ deal.” Normally I would say duh, of course I have emotions, I am a human. But earlier in my life (High and Middle school), I would have fits of depression that I would keep to myself. “Hold on, a preteen/teenage boy got depressed…no way,” you might be thinking while rolling your eyes in a very vaudevillian way, but in my depressed moods I would often think of suicide.

My depression would often stem from a sense of low self esteem. I think most people who know me would say that self esteem isn’t something I lack, but under all my swagger, confidence, and arrogance (sometimes) I am really scared and putting on a show. I pretty much felt that anything I do was inadequate and completely common place. There are three ways to know who you are as a person. What you believe you are, what you say you are, and what you do. These don’t have to agree either. The last way is the only true way to know who a person is including yourself. When reflecting on yourself though, your actions can always be dismissed through excuses if you don’t like whom you are. I want to be an unselfish, loving person who is slow to anger, but the truth is that then and now I am selfish and quick to anger. My actions in my mind prove this, yet I say the opposite to others. I used to hate myself for knowing this and would become angrier with myself. I felt that I was a disappointment to others and wanted to rid them of that disappointment. I think we have all come to the conclusion that I never made a successful attempt to kill myself and luckily I never attempted at all. The only reason that kept me from taking action was a belief in God.

Before I truly knew Christ and about his life, I knew about God and believed in His existence, and that taking my own life would be a very erroneous thing to do because it would violate God's commandments. So here I was trapped, I felt by the one belief I could live up too. I hurt from depression. I can’t speak for others, but they say depression hurts and it is true. I felt trapped in that pain and it made me angry. So now I am angry for being trapped in addition to being angry at myself for having these feelings. It was a very vicious cycle for me and I would hurt myself in non lethal ways. I won’t go into details because they aren’t needed, but the physical pain would make the emotional pain less and that was important. Then one morning I would wake up and not feel this for a week or two, then for several days I would feel this pain all over again. I am lucky that it wasn’t prolonged periods of depression and maybe I was just another melodramatic teenager, but the feelings, pain, and memories are very real. I say this because objectively my life is really good.

To further explain my moods, I would be dissatisfied with my life because my actions hurt and disappointed others. This would disappoint me and make me angry with myself. As a teenager I wasn’t the best at controlling my passions with reason, so even though I knew better and wanted better, passion would overrule sense and I would say mean, hurtful things and act selfishly because it brought immediate pleasure. So I was angry and hurt for being a disappointment. I hated feeling angry and would get angrier for feeling that way, but in feeling angry and worthless (for disappointing people) I would come to the conclusion I deserved the emotional pain. I wasn’t worthy of feeling good. My anger wasn't always layered on top of my depression. Anger was usually the last stage of my depressed states, but for a small time they would overlap. The depression felt heavy and constricting. Every part of my body felt heavy and much like a stress ball like it was being pressed towards the center from all directions. To describe it sounds silly, but it felt like my personal existance had been compressed into a lump in my diaphram while my limbs were hollow and lifeless belonging to some one else. Yet my anger is completely different. My anger feels like a swelling. My body seems to swell and all I can see is destruction and annoyance. By destruction, I could only see how I wanted to hurt and display my dominance over what angered me and everything else became an annoyance. Fortunately I wouldn't destroy everything in my way, but sadly because I would waste that destruction on something other then my source of anger. More often then not until I would kneel in the floor angry, depressed, crying, and slamming my fists into the floor. That is where physical pain comes in.

When you are hurting yourself whether it is cutting, self strangulation, etc., the pain stops the emotional constricting and swelling. I would instantly bring me back to my self. The sensation of feeling emotionally normal and the residual tingling as adrenaline rushes through your viens is completely intoxicating. The emotional pain was gone and what does physical pain have on emotional. The pain isn't pleasurable like physical love, but something still euphoric. The closet I have come to that feeling unintentionally was before and after I passed out from giving blood. The drop in blood pressure makes reality hard to grasp and understand and when your reality is pain who would hang onto that?

It all seems so stupid in retrospect now that I am in a better place. Now when I feel depressed it is never for more than an hour or so, but it is usually about the same content. Still seems stupid in retrospect.

Home Sweet Home...at closing!

Most people might know by word of mouth that my wife and I are in the process of purchasing a home. The home is seen here to the right. It is in Ooltewah, TN, and is zoned for great schools (not that we have children(or thinking about having children)). I will post a link to the listing and if you click on the picture in the listing page you will be able to view more photos. Here is the link to the official listing. We did not pay the listing price so don't worry about whether or not you should know how much we spent on the house because you don't...unless we told you in real life. If you have any questions leave a comment here or on Facebook

Updated Car Woes

Earlier today I received a call from the Mechanic working on my car about the problem. Now I am drastically lacking in car knowledge, but the mechanic assured me that the ignition module was broken and that after taxes it was be about $275 to fix. I had placed my car in the shop thinking it was going to be $500 so I was excited that it wasn't going to take a long time.

An hour later the mechanic called back and told me they were wrong about the module. They thankfully didn't do any repairs to my car before the discovered the real problem. About a year ago my car wouldn't start because the sensor that reads the computer chip in the key went on the fritz and they had to reset the sensor. This time the sensor broke and my car needs a new sensor a new key (microchip more than an actual key). The repair bill went from $275 (original quote) to $550. My car will be fixed soon, however, I will be out $550. The money isn't the problem, but what I could have done with that money that upsets me. I could have gotten a second computer to play WoW on so that my wife and I could play at the same time.

O-well, Peace out!

Car Woes!

So I have a 2003 Pontiac Grand Am. The picture displays a black car but mine is a steel gray. Today I drove my wife to church (she teaches the first Sunday School Hour), and then went home to play WoW until it was time for me to go to church. When I went to leave from home the second time to go to church BAM... my car won't start. This is frustrating because I don't want to pay the car repair bill, but the battery is good, the oil is full, and the tank if full. I have no car now and I will have to drive my wife's girly car around if I need to go some where. We can probably afford the car bill after we find out what is wrong with it, but still all that money wasted.

Teaching Interview

So, I think everyone that reads this blog knows about my future aspirations, but in case you don't know I will elaborate (I never mind talking about myself). I have a degree in Mathematics and I am currently going to Grad school for a Masters in Secondary Mathematics Education. I began the process of looking for a teaching position in my hometown, and the first school to call me in for an interview was some what of a dream school. They believe in a liberal arts education and it was a calculus position. I believe in a liberal arts education and the school has a Paideia philosophy. That in a nut shell is Didactic teaching, Intellectual Coaching, and Socratic Seminars.

Now, I believe in all those teaching styles, but intellectual coaching can take a variety of forms, and unfortunately the administrative staff was looking for a teaching style (Project-Based Learning) that I am not fond of. I am not sure I know anyone that enjoys doing projects or really learns something from doing projects. Right now in the education world, project-based learning and other more non-traditional methods of teaching are wanted; however, I am not some one who is big on non-traditional methods. I am very big on the idea of Socratic seminars, and discussion based learning. Now these discussion-based learning methods are typically considered Didactic because they are Teacher led, but I am not opposed to letting students lead discussions and take the class in an academic path they choose.

After all that, it might be obvious that I did not get the job. As far as teaching jobs go it would have been considered cushy and it was some where I wanted to teach, but they wanted a teacher I am not going to be, so I think that in the end it was for the best. I hope the school does well and that the students' benefit from their new teacher, because ultimately it is about student's.

West Virginia

This past weekend my wife and I went up to West Virginia to visit her and my new extended family. We left on a Friday and made a normally 7 hour trip in 6.25 hours. The trip itself lasted longer because we stopped to shop, but the actually driving went really quickly. However, on the way back, it took 8.5 hours because we ran into a road block that sent us on a two hour detour that put us on the interstate 7 miles farther down the road.

The trip over all was fun. I was able to get some reading done and we visited with a turkish exchange student. The sadest part of the whole trip was that I didn't get to play rook with some crazy rules. Normally all the guys, cause women can't play rook (West Virginia saying not mine), get together and play rook for hours in the evenings, but because this was not around holidays everyone had to work and couldn't stay up late.

The greatest thing, and maybe this is silly to enjoy, is that they always have fresh brewed sweet tea in the house when I come up. On my first trip, they(WV family in law) made tons of food (homemade Thanksgiving Dinners) and lots of sweet tea. I made true comments about how good certain side items where and how I loved to drink sweet tea. Now when ever I come up, they always have fresh brewed sweet tea (something they don't normally have) and creamed corn. I had never had homemade cream corn and since then every time I go up they feel the need to make a batch. It is good so I am not complaining but I think it is funny. I appreciate the hospitality and can't wait until Thanksgiving (although I won't be able to play WoW).

Books! and Addictions

So, I think we have established by now that I am a geeky, nerdy dork. I play WoW and I love to read science fiction/fantasy novels. More fantasy than science fiction, but I won't turn my nose up at anything. The thing about fantasy and science fiction books are that they more aften then not come in a series. My favorite two being Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time series and Terry Goodkind's The Sword of Truth series. I have read and enjoyed the Harry Potter series and recently I got started on the Twilight series.

Before I continue, I have this really addictive personality when it comes to books (and other things). I will read a book like five or six times if I really enjoy it, and not in like several years but all with in several weeks of each other. For instance, with the series' mentioned above (excluding Twilight) everytime a new book would be released I would reread the entire series before I read the book. So there are 11 books currently in the Wheel of Time series meaning I have read the first book 11 times or more. With Twilight I have finished my third time through the series today, just three weeks after picking it up for the first time. I read it twice through before my wife read it once through. Now I don't do that for every series I read (Lord of the Rings), but I do with most series.

As of right now, no one reads this blog, but in the happenstance that some one reads this blog, What are your favorite books, and what are your addictions?

Jork and Linabelle are in Kentucky listening to breaking dawn. :)

Why Jork?

Well anyone who has come in to contact with me recently knows that I play WoW (world of warcraft). My main character's name is Jork. Since I was in 8th grade my main email account has been Shepherd57@aol.com. Now I don't really use that email alot because I mostly use my school account email, but it is a long time to have the same email address. When playing video games I usually use the name Shepherd, but when I started playing WoW I wanted a name that was easy to type for other players. I came around to Jork because I thought WoW was a classically dorky thing to do thus making me a dork. Well my name begins with a J so I thought J+Dork=Jork.

So all that to get to my point, "Why Jork?" Well, I am going to be pretty open here and let everyone know my name is James Johnson so why use this alias. In WoW I can speak to other players using a microphone and everyone knows me as Jork. In the short time I have been playing WoW, I have really identified with the name and I think as far as usernames go Jork isn't all that bad. Sadly most usernames and email addresses require you to use more than four characters.

Which brings me to my point, I like the name Jork and that's all there is to say.

How cool is this?

this is a test of moblie blogging.

The above words are something I text messaged from my Cellular device. Of course I had to come in and add a title and some fancy explanation so that "this is a test of moblie blogging" made sense, but all in all I think that is awesome. I am now going to actually read about what I am attempting to do(mobile blogging).

First Blog

This is my first blog. My name is James Johnson and I live in Chattanooga, TN although my wife insists that we live in East Ridge. I will probably use the alias (blown by my name above) Jork seeing as how the site is called "The Misadventures of Jork." I have used social networks such as Myspace and Facebook to blog, but haven't generally kept a blog up because my thoughts tend to bore me so why should I bore those around me? I enjoy playing WoW (World of Warcraft). My father-in-law got me started playing and I inturn got my wife playing. I am currenly working full time (32 hours) in an accounting department while taking night classes for my Masters in Education. My undergrad degree was in Mathematics (everyone's favorite subject). I have applied for a few Math positions but haven't heard anything back of note yet.

I attend Church and met my awesome friends through the Sunday School program. The only friend that I have mantained through grade school and college actually married my wife's twin sister. While I am an only child, I have always though of him as a brother and it is sort of nice having a legal tie (besides WoW) that keeps us together though his education has taken him out of the city.

Hopefully I will write more and frequently, I decided to make this blog out of an impluse so who knows how this goes. I will try and make a weekly blog, but I would hope that enough interesting stuff happens for me to do this daily.