Paying Attention.

One thing that I'm worried about with this whole YWAM thing is the lecture phase.  Yes, it's called the LECTURE phase.  What an awful name...when I hear the word "lecture" it's not exactly music to my ears.  I picture my dad explaining why I have to mow the lawn an exact certain way or something like that.  I mean I know these lectures are a different kind of lecture, not a "you did something wrong, blah blah blah" kinda thing, and are supposed to be interesting, but just for the sake of my brain can't they call it a Talk phase?  Teaching Me Stuff phase?  Speakers Come And Speak phase?  Something that doesn't make my ears flinch?

On the website it says "You can expect 40 plus hours weekly of challenging, life-changing classes from world-renowned speakers."  I'm exited about life-changing.  I'm exited about the challenging part.  World renowned sounds pretty cool too.  But 40 plus hours?  We get weekends off, so that's like seven, eight, nine hours a day of listening to speakers.  I have nothing against speakers or learning stuff, but I have ADD.  It's not going away and it means that I've always sucked at sitting there listening to people, especially for long periods of time.  It doesn't even matter if it's interesting.  They could be talking about wild monkeys, sky-diving, pickles, jazz, or whatever would make me exited, and my mind would still wander.  So I need prayer please for me to be able to listen that long.  I hope I get at least half of it!

One thing however that I have gotten really good at over the years is acting like I'm listening.  Throughout my life, while listening to sermons, teachers, or anything that has to do with cleaning the kitchen, I've gotten real good at finding ways to stay awake.  Now before I get in trouble with my pastors, parents, or teachers who might read this, I just have to say I really do try to listen to you!  Many times, especially if it's something relevant or interesting, I really do listen and take stuff to heart and learn from it.  Just not all the time.  So for your entertainment, (or maybe help, if you have the same problem I do and need ideas,) I've compiled a list of things I do to keep me entertained when I just really want to close my eyes and doze off.

• Find a word or phrase the speaker is saying a lot (like parallel angle, humbleness, responsibility, etc.), and replace it with a different word. (Like banana, toilet flusher, yo mama's face, etc.)  You'll hear in your head some really entertaining stuff.  Stuff like "Now if we divide the x component with yo mama's face," or "We need to be like Jesus and really show others love and bananas in whatever we do."  One good thing about this is that you actually do hear and pay attention to a lot of what the speaker is saying.  The bad thing is that you might find yourself cracking up when it's not socially acceptable to do so.  Not that I of course ever do that myself.  ;-)
• Look at the speaker (or anyone in the class for that matter, just make sure it's someone in front of you so you look like you're paying attention) and imagine you're taking him or her on some TV show and you get to give them a full, head-to-toe make over.  Think of how you'd do their hair, make-up, what outfit you'd pick out, whatever.  Really think of every single last detail.
• If the speaker is especially animated with their hands, just imagine if they were holding a magic wand instead of their dry erase marker, and watch as everywhere they point imaginary rainbow dust shoots all over the room and makes stuff explode.  If the speaker is animated but not pointing at stuff or holding anything pointy (like a pen), picture instead them holding a small animal, maybe a cat.  As they wave their hands around in the air, just imagine that poor cranky cat flying furiously from side-to-side, hissing and spitting at the speaker holding them.
• Try to picture what the speaker looked like is a kid, if they're old, and if they're young, try to picture what they'd look like with a bunch of wrinkles.
• Try to picture what the speaker would look like if they were the opposite gender.
• Take everything the speaker says and repeat it in your head in a funny accent.  Make the voice funny too.
• Look at everybody in the room and pretend every one of them is a fraternal twin.  Try to pair up who would be who's twin judging by who looks similar.
• Whatever you do, don't listen to your iPod or text.  It's just rude.  The speaker, even if they are terribly boring, probably tried really hard to prepare their lesson or lecture to make it interesting and helpful.  So even if they epic failed on the interesting or helpful thing, realize that they have feelings and can really get discouraged if they see people blatantly ignoring them.  If you get bored and do any of these ideas to entertain yourself, do it secretly so the speaker won't know you'd rather be somewhere else.