life of andyman

INTRO

This whole site is an ongoing autobiography. I decided to start an online journal because I enjoy writing and know that my writing reflects who I am, what I value, etc. But, to be honest, the writing style that I prefer tends to be somewhat verbose and complicated. The style is definitely out of place in IMs or e-mails, yet those were the places I was doing almost all of my extra-curricular writing.

But I wanted this to be more than just a day-to-day journal; more than just letting uninterested people know that ‘I went bowling or shopping or out to eat, etc., last night”though I’m not a good enough writer to say that that won’t happen sometimes anyway. So that’s why I thought I’d write about my past in addition to the present. The past is my ‘topics’ and the present is my ‘journal.’

This is an autobiography. It’s the big-picture of my life, going quickly through my childhood, teenaged years, up to the now, and giving a general outline to what I consider the most important events and impacts of my life.

CHILDHOOD

I was born in St. Vincent’s Hospital in Indianapolis, IN. From age 0-12 I lived in Carmel, Indiana with my parents Timothy and Rochelle Brennan, and my two older sisters Amanda and Alyssa. We lived at 739 Hawthorne Drive in a brown and beige house that, while very standard, has, in my memory, a great deal of character. My window had a sticker that faced outdoors, which was to let firemen or rescue workers know that this place housed children. I will never know why, but when I picture standing in the front yard looking at my childhood home, I always remember that sticker.

Honestly, I remember very little about my childhood. But it’s interesting to note that many, many of my dreams take place in my childhood home. In fact, so many dreams take place at my childhood home that I’ve begun to mix up my dreams with my memories’no joke. Some day, I’ve decided, I’m going to go back to my childhood home, walk in some of the places I’ve walked in my dreams, and be totally freaked out. I worry that the event won’t be as dramatic as I would like it to be, which is why I keep putting it off. Also, I fear that the people who live in the house now will have changed it so much that it wouldn’t have the desired effect.

I was largely unpopular and, if you ask me, regretfully immature. One thing people have noted about me is that I tend to look back with disdain or, at least, mild embarrassment at my past. At any given present, say, for instance, right now, I know that in a few years I’ll probably think what I’m doing right now was more or less childish or foolish of me. This doesn’t really bother me, but it sure seems to bother other people. I just see it as a sign that I’m constantly learning/improving.

In preschool I made my first friend: a kid named Jeremy Cochran. We still hang out from time to time to this day. That means we’ve been friends about 17-18 years. Almost 80% of my life, my existence, we’ve been friends.

FAMILY

It will seem like much of this biography deals with time I spent away from home. You might infer that I consider the events of my life the things that happen when I adventure away from my home base’that is, leave that ultimate comfort zone. But I absolutely know that a huge impact on who I am has come from my family.

• My dad has a great logical and clever mind, but is filled with kindness and thinly veiled passion. I also admire and am impacted by his sense of humor, confidence, chivalry, honor, and moral integrity.
• My mom has taught me patience and empathy, but also is very smart and talented, and got me interested in music and teaching. She loves her children like I imagine God must love His.
• When Amanda wants to she can fill a room with joy. She has been known to be very cheerful and emotional. She’s very protective of ones she loves and empathetic.
• I feel I have the most in common with Alyssa. Sometimes I feel like a younger, less worrisome, copy of her I have never seen a better mother to her child (and I mean it). She has the art, grace, and elegance gene that I wish I had, but also frequently rips apart some of my arguments and wows me with her knowledge.

Some of the coolest experiences of my life occurred with my family. There were trips to France, Mexico and the Caribbean, Puerto Rico (perhaps my most beloved place on earth), California, Arizona, Colorado, Texas, Florida’but also to church most every week (which I still, and always will, do), to the apple orchard (one of my other favorite places on earth), to grandma’s house every Christmas and Thanksgiving, and to a beautiful, beloved home on the waters of Morse reservoir. I would absolutely not have been the person I am, had the opportunities I have, or had the security and confidence I do without a family that loves, protects, and cares for me like they do.

TEENAGER

At age 12, my family moved to Noblesville, where I stayed until college. I’m extraordinarily glad of the move, because it happened to coincide with puberty. What I mean is this: puberty made me honestly a completely different person, and moving to a new town meant my new peers didn’t know the old me, or hold me back from becoming the new me. 7th grade I became friends with David Lambert because we both played drums in band, and 8th grade he introduced me to Drew Lazzara (a best friend to this day). I hung out with Drew and around 10th or 11th grade, Drew and I together met another group of friends. They were Casey Starling, Eli Duke, AJ Foster, Clay Beardshear, Dustin Weisenberger, Brandon Troy, and others. Drew and I each instantly connected with them all, and these people were all my best friends throughout high school and even into college.

From 12 until today my beliefs have steadily changed and, hopefully, grown. One of the most drastic changes in my life was the span of time that I realized how flawed my school and my education were. I became very passionate about my dislike of my high school and compulsory schooling in general. I wrote anti-school articles in the school newspaper. I read books about what was wrong with our schools.

Because I didn’t have the courage to drop out, I found other forms of rebellion, with the help of my friends. One time my friends and I realized it was fun to run from the cops, so we planned a night where we purposely called the cops on ourselves so we could have the opportunity to run. One time I tried climbing a huge water tower in North Harbour, only to faint and fall about 20 feet to the ground, somehow unharmed.

Another thing I did was drop all the honors classes I was in. This did, in fact, have a very surprising effect on my life. See, at my high school when you were in honors classes they had summer reading. SUMMER READING. As if it wasn’t bad enough you had to spend 8 months a year, 35 hours a week with those damned bastards, they had to give you work over the summer, too. Anyway, when I dropped the honors classes, I dropped the summer reading.

But I got even more rebellious than that. I thought it would be the ultimate irony’now that I had no summer reading’if I spent the whole summer reading on my own, for my own. I must have read about 5 novels, which was more than they ever assigned us for compulsory summer reading, and which, at that time, was more than I had ever read in that amount of time. Ever since that magical summer, I’ve enjoyed reading and have considered myself a ‘reader.’ Although it is a pretty weak, banal statement, I have a little bit of pride to say that the summer that made me a ‘reader’ was the summer that I didn’t allow school to interfere.

In my antipathy of school, I began to really think about what was wrong with it, to discuss it with my peers, and to read books about what was wrong with it. The result was that I developed a real interest in educational philosophy and theory. Soon I would go to college and go straight to the school of education.

I continued spending almost all of my time with the same friends. My senior year, I had no math, science, or foreign language classes’I had arranged things just so. My favorite class was Jazz Band, which I miss to this day. When I wasn’t playing drums in jazz band (which was often, because there were 6 drummers in that small band, so we each only played about once or twice a day) then I was reading. A couple of the books I read that senior year were Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand and Ishmael by Daniel Quinn, both of which had a profound impact on my life.

I worked at the following jobs in my life:

AGE	JOB AND DESCRIPTION	DURATION	REASON FOR LEAVING
15	Bus-boy at Carrigan Crossing restaurant.	Less than 3 weeks.	Fired. Was told I worked too slowly.
16	Snack-bar cashier and occasional bus-boy at Harbour Trees Golf Course (golf club about 100 feet away from the water tower I tried to climb)	About 6 months	After enjoying the job for months and being one of their best employees, I went on a family vacation. The day after I got back from the vacation, I didn’t know I was scheduled to work. I was fired for not showing up that day. No joke.
17-18	‘Sales Associate’ at Radio Shack in Noblesville. I was one of the commissioned sales guys that always asks you if you want help when you never do. I got bonuses for getting you to buy stuff you didn’t want.	About 10 months	The first job of which I left on my own accord. I left on very good terms just before my final semester of high school. I was sick of being a salesman; I was bored because when I quit there were hardly any customers and so they gave us busy work; I was also probably just lazy and suffering from/enjoying my senioritis.
18 and 21-present	Pizza delivery driver at Domino’s Pizza.	Still working there.	Reason for staying: It’s a great job. I get paid $10-11/hour and most of the time I’m by myself (no boss) in my car listening to my own music or books on tape. And, there’s so many employees at the IU domino’s, I can have as little as 8 hours a week if I want. (I do want.)

COLLEGE

I only applied to one college, Indiana University, and I got in. People would ask me why I chose IU, and I always gave two reasons, neither of which really had anything to do with academics. First, I thought that the bigger the school I went to, the less it would have in common with high school. What I meant by that is that I would largely be responsible for my own success’as opposed to how some small colleges don’t allow girls in the boys dorms, or how every single class has mandatory attendance. This is probably true, and I can definitely understand that decision. But it’s interesting that now that I’m a senior, I sort of wish I had gone to a smaller school. Being at IU doesn’t make it any easier to make new friends’there’s so many people it’s like a small city. You don’t really smile at people as you walk past them in the street and it’s not as common as I might like that I have people in many of my classes. It was pretty glorious in high school when I knew most everyone and most everyone knew me and I could talk to anyone.

The other reason I always gave that I was coming to IU was simply and honestly because my friends all went there. My freshman year I roomed with Drew at Forest Dorm (which I believe to be the worst of all the IU dorms) and just a walk away were Casey, Eli, Peter, Tyler, and Patrick. There are pros and cons to having the same group of best friends for (now) about 7 years.

PROS

• I definitely think it has had a huge effect on my confidence that for 7 years now I’ve had a group of people who have accepted and appreciated me.
• I have had some incredible times with them all, they are all hilarious and we have tons of memories and stories, and even projects (like Victory Brothers [our short films group], Well Fed shows, etc.).
• When one of these friends meets someone and becomes friends with them, they will often introduce them to me, and I will often make a new friend, too.

CONS

• I haven’t needed to make new friends, so in that regard I’ve become somewhat passive. If I meet someone cool and we organically and accidentally become friends, great, but until recently I haven’t really worked for many new friendships.
• Over the years, we have naturally developed different priorities. It’s more and more rare now that I become friends with their new friends, and more and more rare that when I think of something I’d love to do that they would be interested in doing it also. We hardly, if ever, do projects together anymore, though many of us talk as if we do or as if we will.
• Since we’ve now lived together for some 2.5 years, I think we somewhat take each other for granted. This may be why we don’t do stuff explicitly ‘together’ so much anymore. We’re so often together that it’s not special. To evidence this theory, take our friend Clay. We used to be around him as much as we are around each other now, but then he went to college in Georgia. Now, when he comes to visit, it’s always a special occasion and we always go out somewhere together, go on some adventure, it’s great.

My friends and I live in a house called ‘The Manhammer.’ It’s me, Eli, Drew, Tyler, and Joey (who we met at IU) and at times Casey and Kris. Let me explain how we got the name “Manhammer.” Before we moved in, we thought it would be humorous to come up with a name for our house, like how in the 18th and 19th centuries people named their estates (e.g. the house in ‘Jane Eyre’ is called ‘Marsh End’). So then we had the task of coming up with a good name. Several ideas were thrown out and some of them were serious, others were completely ridiculous. Someone suggested a truly awful name for the house, ‘The Manhammer’ (awful because, I hope you notice, its only slightly ambiguous homosexual reference) and we all laughed and laughed because it was so awful/hilarious. But then, we began to jokingly refer to it as the Manhammer more and more frequently until finally it seemed no other name would overpower it.

We are all seniors now. Most of us will be graduating very soon, and the ones that are all are excited to move out to Seattle and start a new direction. But me and Meredith (and probably as a result, Eli) have another semester before we graduate. We will very likely also move out to the west coast. There has been talk of joining the others (only this time, not living in the same house) in Seattle, and also talk of Portland, which seems to me a more introverted, or slightly smaller, version of Seattle. Either way, these friends have had and will continue to have a profound impact on my life.

Many times have I been patronized by arrogant adults and wannabe adults who say things like ‘You’ll grow out of your friends’you’ll all go your separate ways in time” Maybe we will, but I highly doubt we will look back with anything but fondness on our time together and I also doubt there will be a time in any of our lives where we will see each other with awkwardness or a feeling of seeing a stranger.

My freshman year I when I wanted to find a church to go to, I only went to two before I found the one I am still at. It’s called Bloomington First United Church. It has significance in my biography because the music program there was so exceptional, so inspiring that it sort of reeled me in to it’s choir and bell choir. Singing has become a very enjoyable part of my life now.

******

I don’t really know what the future holds. I had much more confidence about my future when I was a freshman than now as a senior. I had more confidence about nearly everything then. The three careers I’m looking at are (a) teaching high school, (b) teaching college, and (c) law school. At the very moment I write this, I’m not particularly enjoying my education classes, so I might be leaning away from teaching. Also, I sometimes think to myself, ‘You’d probably be good at and enjoy teaching OR being a lawyer’that is, they’re interchangeable. SO, since lawyers make, oh, 3-5 times more money, what the heck. Be a lawyer, I guess.’

For various reasons, when I was kid I always imagined things would happen faster. At, say, 18 I thought I would be well on my way to the rest of my life when I was 22:

I thought I would know what I was going to be (after all, I would be a senior) and already be looking for jobs in areas I would want to live.

To be honest, I thought I would either be married or be in a relationship with the person I hoped to marry. My parents had already met at 22, my sister had already married at 22, and I had thought that other people generally began to get married about this time. Since I’m clearly not yet on my own way to being married, this was quite a disappointment to get used to. The problem is that I’m afraid much of my life’where I’ll live, what job I get, how much money I’ll need, and more’all seem in many ways to depend on whom I marry. So I feel like my future is a bit on hold or on autopilot until this happens.

My life so far has been, to sum it all up, wonderful. So wonderful, in fact, that I have always found I must believe in God or else I am unable to explain it. So for all the gifts’family, friends, opportunities, experiences, beauty, health, and love’which this autobiography has mentioned’or which I hold in my heart and know to be true’I am eternally grateful to my God. I’ve always viewed God, for better or for worse, as a mother and father combined, and so it has explained why he so generously provides for my well-being and happiness. I always also try, like I believe to be a good son or daughter, to not take those blessings for granted, to recognize that generosity in my brothers and sisters (you all), and to appreciate and enjoy the home (nature/Earth), existence, and life in which I live. And so, as many of my writings have often ended, so too does this one end: Thank you, God; I love you and thank you.