I'm still alive

Wow. So, it's been awhile. Just about everyone else responded to the roll call except me. So let me get that out of the way so that I can't be accused of "ventur[ing] into namby pamby lameward land" as Dave put it.

Name: Chris Martin

What's good:

• Marriage is awesome. Best decision ever. I love spending time with Lexie and it's been getting even better every day.
• I've made a pretty big life decision over the last few months. This could probably go under "good" and "hard". I think most y'all know that Lexie and I had been talking about maybe interning on a farm or trying to get into that lifestyle. Well, as I thought about it more I thought that even though I could probably be good at it, I don't know that it actually plays to any of my natural strengths. So I started trying to think about what I should do with my life. After talking about it with Lexie and a couple other people, I decided to look into advertising, copywriting specifically. Copywriters are the idea guys behind advertising. I have a Christian friend who's a copywriter so I talked to him about it and he said he thought I'd be good at it. So I applied to two advertising grad schools. One is at VCU in Richmond and it's the top program and my top choice, but the acceptance rate is only 15% so it's kind of a stretch. The other is in Atlanta and it's called Creative Circus. It's probably the third best program and it's where my friend went to school. I should hear back from them by the end of March and then we'll have some decisions to make.

What's bad:

• Not too much is "bad". Mainly just hard, so we'll move on.

What's hard:

• The decision about ad school is really hard. On the one hand, the creative side of it is really appealing to me. Even just working on the applications has been a blast. For one application I had to write an editorial, a short story, list my five creative inspirations, my favorite music and lit, the most courageous thing I've ever done, have a 10-minute talk with a stranger, and create 10 ads. It was tough but really fulfilling to have that creative outlet. On the other hand, it's advertising. I have a pretty huge problem with consumerism and it's hard to tell if going into advertising is something I can do with a clean conscience. To that end, I've been reading some Wendell Berry and plan to talk to my pastor (who used to work for Redeemer in NYC and so has some experience with Christians in advertising). I could really use prayer for discernment. I want to be moving in some sort of direction and not just going from unfulfilling job to unfulfilling job. But I really don't want to have another false start like I did at seminary.

Create: Today I'm going to take apart, sand down, paint, and reassemble a child's wooden table and chair that Lexie found on the side of the road. We're going to give it to our niece as a gift.

Before I end this post, I need to tell all of you that I miss you. It's been too long since we've hung out. I'm not sure when I'll be in Conway next. It would be great if we could plan something for this summer. Maybe camping. Who knows. I'll be quitting my job at the end of June assuming I get accepted to one of these schools and decide to go.

Let's at least kick around some ideas.