My new vacation dilemma.

My screenwriting teacher is offering a screenwriting retreat in Hawaii in January. My mom wants me to come and visit in January. I could go to the screenwriting retreat and then go and see my mom.

A friend of mine invited to go with her on a one week cruise to Mexico in March. I've never been on a cruise before, and I'm curious to know what they're like. I could use a holiday in Mexico, and it would be fun to lay in the sun for a week.

I can do one of these trips but not both. My friends tells me the Mexican cruise would only cost about $500, plus airfare to LA. The Hawaii trip with airfare and expenses for the retreat will probably run $500-$1000, and I'd be taking 10 days of vacation.

Part of me just wants to stay home and save money. The economy is so bad right, and who knows when it will get better. I should stay home, and save as much as possible and pay off my credit card debts. If I'm vigilant, I will be completely debt free by the end of next year. Debt free that is, except for my car. I have had credit card debt for the last 12 years, and once you start down that road it's hard to get off of it. I get close to paying it all off, then I just add more to it. I'm just sick of the cycle. I'm committed to getting it all paid off, and then never getting back into it. I'll still use my credit cards, but I'm determined to not let it get out of control anymore and pile up again. With all the churn about my job and the economy, getting rid of a stressor like debt will lighten my anxiety level.

I can always go to Hawaii another year, as well as go on a cruise later. I have three months to decide. I told my screenwriting teacher and my friend, that if I'm still gainfully employed at the end of the year, I'll consider a vacation. In the old days, I would thrown caution to the wind and gone to Hawaii and go on a mexican cruise. But that's how my debts piled up, and I'm not willing to do that anymore.

I finished the 60 beat structure for my revised screenplay last night. I don't know why I'm even doing this. Thinking cinematically is so difficult for me. I can't help but feel I'm writing the next Lifetime TV movie of the week. My old acting teacher told me that my script was so TV like. Grrrrrr!!!

The only good thing right now about entering the screenwriting contest is I'll be done with it. That's what my screenwriting teacher said. When you send it out, you can consider the screenplay complete and finished and you're free to move on to your next project.

My screenwriting teacher told me it takes a writer three scripts to learn the craft of screenwriting. If your of college age, you have to write 10 scripts before you figure it out all out. This is only my first script. If folk wisdom holds true, this script is just a teaching vehicle and nothing more. Why oh why would my screenwriting teacher tell me that I should start entering contests? Shouldn't I wait till I'm on my fourth script, so I have a chance at least to compete? Why would you submit your first screenplay to a contest?

None of this makes any sense to me, and the only reason I'm doing this is just so I move on to my next project.

I do like my new beat structure. It's much tighter than my first screenplay, but I don't know. Would anyone pay movie to see this? I would fork over $9 to see this movie, but I'm the author, I have to see it.

My top ten Star Trek Selector results. I have no idea what this means though.

#1 Seven of Nine
#2 Commander Chakotay
#3 Neelix
#4 The EMH (doctor from voyager)
#5 Admiral James T. Kirk
#6 Admiral Spock
#7 Chancellor Martok
#8 Chief of Security Odo
#9 Admiral Montgomery Scott (Scotty)
#10 Commander William Riker

My amatuer exegesis on Matthew 9:27-31.

The Healing of the Two Blind Men (Matthew 9:27-31)

Theological Discoveries – Discoveries made about God and what God is about in the passage.

1. In the gospel of Matthew, Jesus’ healing ministries happened after The Sermon on the Mount. “The Messiah of the Word (the sermon) reveals himself as also the Messiah of the Deeds (the miracles)”. (The Gospel of Matthew by F.W. Beare, Harper & Row, 1981).

Jesus revealed himself as messiah in the Sermon on the Mount, and then followed up by revealing himself as a healer in performing miracles. God’s words are followed by actions.

2. When the two blind men acknowledged Jesus as “the son of David”, they acknowledged his lineage to David, and therefore to Abraham. “The promises made in ages past through the prophets have now been fulfilled in the person of Jesus, the long awaited ‘Messiah’, who is the born ‘son of David.”

Jesus is proof that God kept his promise to Abraham to send a “Messiah”.

3. In this healing, Jesus was fulfilling the prophecies of a Messiah who heals the blind in the Old Testament; Isaiah 29:18, Isaiah 35:5, Isaiah 42:7.

Jesus’ healing abilities fulfills the prophecies made in Isaiah about the “Messiah”.

4. In The Life of Jesus by Marcello Craveri (Grove Press, 1967), Craveri writes that “The most common diseases … were then (as they are still) those of the eyes caused by the dust and glaring sunlight”. Craveri also notes that “For all such diseases … the Hebrew people had a superstitious explanation: each one was really a kind of “uncleanness” incurred through the infraction of some ritual law. The idea of illness was therefore closely linked to punishment. Even death, according to Holy Scriptures, was an extreme consequence of sin. …Cure, therefore, was held to be possible only if God granted his pardon and remitted the penalty, and it was to be sought only through special rites of purification and through offerings to the Temple”.

Jesus’ healing of the two blind men was radical for the time. The blind men did not go through rites of purification, nor did they make offerings to the temple. The two blind men were healed because 1) they asked and 2) they believed in Jesus. Since blindness was considered a consequence of sin, Jesus’ healing says that through belief in him, the sins of these blind men were cleansed. And then later with the resurrection, Jesus again demonstrated that the extreme punishment of sin, death, can be conquered through belief in him, and belief in him alone.

5. The two blind men believed in Jesus and had faith in him, though they had not seen his earlier miracles. The two blind men’s faith was based solely on what they heard about Jesus through other people.

This passage is in contrast to what happened in John 20 with the disciple Thomas. “Jesus said to him (Thomas), ‘Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.’” (John 20:29)

Faith is essential to be a follower of Christ.

Central Thought

Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham to save his faithful people.

Application

Faith in Jesus Christ will open your eyes to a whole new world and a whole new way of seeing.