Brigham

It is reported that President Brigham Young once said that he who takes offense when no offense was intended is a fool, and he who takes offense when offense was intended is usually a fool.

being alone

"I remember when I used to think I liked being alone, but lately being alone is just.... lonely." I felt that way today, and I posted such on my facebook status. I hope people won't take it as a sob story or anything, because I think it's more of a shift in state of mind. Right now I feel lonely, something I've felt fairly often this past week, and especially this weekend. It was finals, people were busy studying and taking tests, others were headed home as soon as possible, my roommate and best friend recently acquired a girl friend (and spend all his time with her, not me), other people had family gatherings and the like, but the bottom line for me was, I didn't. I studied a little, hung out with some friends from time to time, but I also did a lot of nothing. Countless hours playing Star Wars Battlefront:2 and significantly less hours taking tests created many times where I was alone.

Being alone is great, you can think clearly, you can relax. I love just listening to background noises, especially out in nature, the whisper of the wind, rustle of leaves, and enjoying having nothing around. In high school I also used to love watching everything around me. Just sitting quietly on a bench, listening to my friends talk to each other, so despite being with them I was often alone in my own world.

This weekend I'm housesitting at my aunts house while they're in CA for the holiday break. I was somewhat anxious to leave my friends in Provo and head down here so I left our little game night early and got here around 9:30. I started doing my wash and watched some ESPN... then I realized how lonely I was.

I love being with people, in some ways I've noticed it's like a drug to me. When I'm with lots of people talking and having a good time I get excited, I talk a lot, I get way into things and become overly dramatic about a lot of random stuff. Mostly I just smile a lot and laugh, laughing and smiling until my cheeks and stomach hurt. I have a few select people that I really love being with, and I LOVE to be really mean to them. I know sounds crazy, but that's what I do, I make ridiculously sarcastic and mean comments to all of my closest friends, which other people laugh or are shocked at, but those involved know how much I actually love them.

For the past while I've been feeling more and more distant from my friends, even when we're together I often feel alone... kind of like I'm going back to high school and I'm just observing them. I feel there are a number of very intertwined reasons for this, but I'm not going to discuss that now. For now it is late, and I am going to sleep in this big, dark, empty house.

Silence Resolves Nothing

I realized that this is somewhat of a dramatic blog, probably unnecessarily so. But I write when I'm emotional, and lame drama gets my blood pumping, sorry. I have a lot that I want to write right now, but I feel constrained 1) complaining never helped anything 2) I think that I need to maintain a higher level of fidelity in my relationships. Always venting to a computer helps your interpersonal skills zero, so I guess I'll have to force myself to talk to real people.

Lately I feel that my life has been a little too full of this melodrama that's been consuming me, but I am realizing that it is be cause I keep talking to other people, not involved, asking advice, getting opinions, formulating ideas and plans, but it doesn't help. The drama is still there. Hence the title of this post, "Silence resolves nothing" and as long as I don't talk to those actually involved with the situation then it will never change... *sigh* I'll have to suck it up and get on that now.

I actually just had a chance to talk with this person, but I didn't, and now I'm regretting it, but not sure if I really am.... oh gosh I'm weird. I'm actually considering not posting this, but then why would I have a blog to type, but not to post? I think not. :-D I'ma gonna sleep and work on this tomorrow now.

two princesses

One, two, princes kneel before you
(thats what I said, now)
Princes, princes who adore you
(just go ahead, now)

Have you ever had a choice to make, a choice between to good things, trying to accurately pick the 'best.' Choice A seems logical, convenient, and increasingly acceptable day by day. Choice B seems a little more difficult to attain, something that will force me to go out of my way and will probably take quite some time. It seems obvious, no? Go with choice A, the path of least resistance, right? However... I've had a nagging feeling that I really should choose B, a thought that's been in the back of my mind since..... February? It's kind of hard to ignore, but it's almost harder to follow it!!

My final reasoning is that I cannot every be satisfied with anything until I have done B, whether it works out or not. Assuming that A is in fact the 'best' answer I can only prove that by first choosing B. B must be carried through, hopefully I have the courage to do it.

thanks for reading <3

These feelings I'm feeling

Since beginning my last post I have struggled with defining how I feel about people I know not of my faith. I have given it much thought, and explored my feelings deeply. I have several friends who are not 'mormon,' and I took into account experiences with all of them that allowed me to develop my ideas here. I will try to be very generic in this analysis, but hopefully you can all still understand what I'm trying to say.

First of all, I do not think that this is a feeling that is possessed solely by me, I think this same feeling is experienced by people all over the world, any one person with a good friend, with said friend making decisions contrary to what said person thinks is "right." People are often afraid to offend their friend, such offense rising from one person trying to 'force' the other to do certain things. I say 'force' because they usually don't mean it that way, but are afraid of having their intentions come off that way. People are afraid to ruin their good relationship, a fear driven by not know what their friends reaction might be. So is it fear?

Despite any fear, such a person would continue to have a desire to talk to their friend about religion or making 'better' decisions. This desire (I think) is driven partialy by guilt. They feel guilty that by saying/doing nothing they aren't fulfilling their belief or duty to their religion and thence they feel guilty toward their religion/belief for such betrayal. A second reason for their desire could be because of their sincere belief in this religion, not so much guilt for not sharing, but a robotic programmatic response ('zombie' like you might say) that zealots of certain religions obtain through complete devotion to their religion.

Another (related) reason for their desire could be out of genuine concern/love for their friend. For me, there are a few things in this world that I love above everything else, and I love them because they fill me with joy and make this life worth living. First is the gospel of Jesus Christ (and ever family, friend, truth thing pertaining thereunto). Second is skiing. Finally is Apple computers (awesome technology in general). For me, the joy that I get from these three is enough to cause me to want to share these things with my best friend. When I love someone I want to share with them my greatest joys so they too can be joyful. I am please to report that my current direct link converts (those I've converted, not converts of converts) to skiing number around six, and to Apple around five :-) (Having spent two years doing nothing but 'converting' people to the gospel, my number there significantly higher). The point being that wanting to share joy is a valid reason for having a desire to share religion with your friends.

It goes on in an eternal balance your desire to share counter balanced with your fear of their unknown reaction. And I think for myself the only way to resolve this dilemma comes in the form of a question: Would I still be friends with them if I knew that in the end they would never join the church? Regardless of the fact that we cannot predict the future, lets assume we can, and say that the future says that friend will never share the same beliefs or live the same standards as said person, are you still friends with them?

For one friend of mine, she was never a member of my church, she never shared standards, though she was an overall 'good person'. I do not fear offending her because our relationship was never based in the church. Another friend I made in Washington was in my ward there. Since our parting he has left the church, and I have little desire to see him again, simply because our original connection no longer exists. Finally the friend who sparked this train of thoughts, though our original connection was through the church, or friendship developed over a long period of time and transcended, religion, age, or sexual preference.... Some friends really are forever.

If you read all of that, I'm impressed, if you feel like you just wasted ten minutes of your life please let me know and I'll do my best to get it back to you ;-)

just don't know

Sometimes I get really frustrated with catch 22 type situations, sometimes though I enjoy the futility, weird I know.

I was not as impressed with BYU's offense as the general fandom of Provo. They only scored 21 points in the first quarter because the defense prepackaged and gift wrapped each touchdown for them. But it is a pretty good consolation for me that our defense is that good.

I have been having trouble with α, β, and γ. No, that's not a, b and y, it's alpha, beta, and gamma, and not I haven't really been having trouble with the Greek alphabet, but rather people who I have chosen to label symbolically rather than with their true names. Needless to say, they have been causing me a lot of stress and worry, and the worst part is I really can't do much to fix it.

I passed my physics test last week, I forgot to take my math test.

I need to find a story written by George Durrant, and it's not anywhere on LDS.org nor to be found in a google search. Sad day.

I haven't written in my blogg for a long time, but I really wanted to write something... yay for life.

tmi

I recently created a note on Facebook. It was one of those chain notes, answer the questions, tag some people and see the comments flow in. I chose to do this on a whim, quickly starting as I read a friend's who had tagged me. I choose 15 people based on what came to mind first which ended up being those who I had been in contact with in the past 24 hours (perhaps even in order from the most amount of time to the least). Then I proceed to answer questions, and as fate would have it, a majority of the more prying questions fell on people that there was actually information to pry about. I however maintained a steady policy of honesty, to the point of being blunt and possibly offensive at some points, revealing somethings that perhaps should have remained hidden.

I found it an interesting release for myself, despite being myself uncomfortable with some of the answers I gave, and fearful of what they may say to me after reading this note. I suppose I put a lot of trust in the tendency of people to assume that someone is kidding when they give cutting remarks, and while most who read this note will likely see my humor throughout, they will also notice that the comments are truthful. I'm not sure just what I think about the whole idea of exposing your heart and soul to anyone at BYU that is inclined to read my note. It creates an interesting feeling, and again, despite putting all truth that I could muster, even embellishing on many items to create an interesting read, I think many people will not consider at as serious or important as it was to me. That is a good thing in the end, I do believe.

I think many bloggs are the same way, the writing puts down random peices of their soul, often being very truthful and deeply minded as they write. While readers may skim over the piece, think it's interesting, maybe even eave a comment, but rarely, if ever, will they feel the full meaning that the writer felt (unless on the rare occasion the reader was some one also directly involved in the event blogged about). Writing allows a person to take thier time to put down their true thoughts and intentions. "Writing maketh an exact man," so says an inscription at the Library of Congress, and I believe it to be true.

Perfect

I realize that perfection isn't really possible, and supposing it was actually possible it would still be infinitly hard to determine whether an even or day was 'perfect' since there are so many variables involved and so many different ways to judge something as perfect. As far as perfect days go, one mans party is another's prison, but for me, today was great. So great in fact I'm quite tempted to call it perfect (assuming that nothing horrible happens tonight) and heck, even this whole weekend is shaping up to be pretty freaking rockin'.

So let me explain. I was with my family at ranch in the middle of Duchesne County, I woke up around 6:30 this morning, I love early mornings, I'm a morning person, good moment. I stayed in bed 'til nearly seven then did a whole bunch of cleaning around the house putting chairs and tables away because we had to check out that morning. However after 45 min. or so of cleaning and getting ready to go I said good-bye to my few relatives awake at that time and took off. GoogleMaps says this drive is 2h45m however I made it in just over two hours. Only about an hour into my drive my gas light comes on. I know that means I should have about two gallons of gas left, meaning I should be able to go about 40 miles. So I resolve to stop as soon as I see a gas station. Not long afterwards I see a sign saying Heber is 48 miles away... hmm. I quickly lost hope in finding a gas station before Heber as the terrain I was crossing was quite deserted so I just kept hoping. Then came the glorious moment of reaching a sign saying "Summit 8020" meaning it was all down hill from there. I had gone about 38 miles at the point, but figured I could make it to Heber. 15 miles later I did, victory #1.

I got into Provo and had plenty of time to prepare for our ward activity. An activity that I wasn't sure how it was going to turn out. We filled up about 400 waterballoons and had purchased a large tarp for sliding on. I also go 15 extra large pizzas, and a couple of gallons of water. After a bunch of preparation I went to play frisbee. I LOVE FRISBEE!!! We had a good game, my team lost, but it was super fun and a bunch of my favorite frisbee friends came to play. Then the activity started, we ate pizza to our hearts content, then played a quick, silly game of capture the flag with waterballoons, a game of my own invention that ended up in a mass waterballoon fight to the enjoyment of all. With our remaining water balloons we played some WB-volleyball with towels. By this time some of our frisbee friends that weren't in our ward had come to join us, which made the whole activity SO MUCH FUN!! Maybe it was just be since I knew the guys, but I really loved it that topped of the activity for me.

Finally we had a huge slip'n slide down the grass hill which extended down across the dry creek bed, probably about 60 feet long! At first I was content with helping out, holding the corners down, manning the hose, giving suggestions, timing crazy racers etc. but eventually my comrades convinced me to get myself wet and slide down. It was awesome! Once getting over the initial strangeness of sliding down water sprayed plastic on your stomach it became one of the greatest activities I've ever done! Now that I had my feet wet, I went all in, and kept sliding over and over, on my back on my front, as a train, in a race and had the time of my life. We ended play a little sand volleyball, cleaned up and left.

I then proceeded to turn on music really loud in my apartment, showering, relaxing, and playing THPS 1 =] what a day!!

So other than my great elation and happiness over the day, I began to develop some interesting philosophical ideas about myself, including why today was such a great day. For those only interested in adventurous deeds, stop reading here.

This week I have been very busy with my few classes, catching back up on reading, as well as seeing Harry Potter 6 at midnight, and attending my family reunion as often as I could fit into my schedule to do so. For this cause I spent little or no time with my friends (a few of which were out of town themselves) and I felt separated from them, like I was missing out on a lot... or I was at least missing them. The sense of loss and longing only added to the exuberant joy when I saw them again today, which upon analyzing I found silly since I had only been gone for one day! I began to realize though why I love my friends so much, and that is because of their individual personalities that I know so well. I have some strange, some normal friends, some strange on the outside, others on the inside, and some while seeming strange at the first impression, turn out to be quite normal, while others that seem so normal are found to be very strange upon further investigation.

For what ever reason, my joy in being with them seems to stem from my enjoyment in predicting their behavior, corresponding to their strangeness or lack thereof. I'm not verbally saying "oh she's gonna do/say this next" but in my mind there are fewer and fewer surprises, and I love it. I think being with people that don't surprise you makes life more comfortable, you worry less, and I find it easier to be myself and enjoy myself when this is the case.

Bottom line, I like to analyze people and I think I'm pretty good at it. I also love my friends, and it happens to be time for me to go meet them again, gn&gl.

Wisdom teeth and water polo

Most of us have seen or heard Brian Regan warning us to not ever tell a "two-wisdom tooth story" because we will always be one upped (or rather two upped ;-) by someone with a four wisdom tooth story (If you don't know what I'm talking about watch this:
Brian Regan on Wisdom Teeth

But you know, the people I really feel bad for aren't those with only a two wisdom tooth story, but those with only a cavity story. I mean really, how far can you get with the story, "This one time I went to the dentist-" right there you're dead, someone's going to jump in, "Oh that ain't nothing! This one time I was going to the oral surgeon..." and go on to tell his much more interesting, not-just-a-dentist story.

Moreover, I think this is somewhat of a metaphor for personality types. I know people that are simply 'just-the-dentists' people, and every story they tell isn't actually that cool, so at a dinner party they begin to tell a story, but everyone already knows that it's going to suck, so to save time they jump in over them with a different story, the person soon realizes they're not being listened to and usually quiets down. Of course I feel to bad for them that I just have to look at them and raise my eyebrows to pretend that I am waiting for them to continue, when really I am listening to the much more interesting story being told by the guy next to me. Can you imagine, "this one time we went rafting on Salem Pond-"
"Yeah, well I took a whitewater trip down the snake river!"
"I won a candy bar at a raffle-"
"This one time at a raffle, I won a car!"
"I saw some guys playing water polo-"
"I used to be on the water polo team, that's why I don't have a left ear!!"
"I once had to eat this gross soup my Asian roommate made-"
"I ate human blood!" ;-)

Some people just aren't cut out to tell stories, and I'm not dogging on those with cool-er stories. By all means tell your cool stories, they're worth hearing. My plea is to those without cool stories, do yourself and others a favor, by not looking quite so pitiful and left out and learning to enjoy listening. You know what they say:

... like the ocean needs the waves.

I've been pondering on the phrase, "all drains lead to the ocean." I believe this is a Disney take on the world-wide saying that 'all roads lead to Rome' although I don't know if that's really where it came from, that's what is certainly sounds like. Anyhow, it's an interesting thought though, and the more I use it the more meaning I see in it. This originally comes from Finding Nemo where the fish in the dentist's tank are trying to escape back to the ocean and try to get into any drain in the office, believing that it will lead them back to the ocean. In the end this is true, and Nemo is able to escape by going down the spit collector drain and later finding himself in Sydney Harbor. I thought it was a clever line and like it quite a bit.

I started to use this phrase on a weekly basis while I was serving as an office elder durring my mission. We would often have errands to run around the city and we wouldn't know how to get where we were going. My companions would sometimes get worried, but I told them over and over again that all drains lead to the ocean, and all roads lead to EDSA. Epifanio Delos Santos Avenue is a large (4-6 lanes in either direction) highway that entirly encompasses most of Metro Manila, if you drive long enough in any direction you will eventually end up back there. So they began to understand that whether not I knew where exactly I was going, we couldn't get too lost because we could always get back to the main roads which would lead us home.

Since being home I've realized that more and more of my life is centered around that idea. For instance, I've driven around Provo quite a bit, but I always get 'lost' around south campus. I just don't have the locations of different landmarks memorized so when I go in that area I just remember that all drains lead to the ocean, and I keep driving, right turn, left turn, right turn, left turn... until I finally drive by the place I'm looking for and it's all good (ok, honestly I don't just drive aimlessly, but you get the idea). Recently I've begun to understand it as a very gospel oriented subject. I may not know all the twists and turns, but I know that eventual out come. All we have to do is, "just keep swimming" and we'll get to where we need to be. Isn't that so true? We don't know which road we'll take, how I'll get there, but I'm headed in the general direction of the Celestial Kingdom and I expect I'll get there someday. Obviously not all roads lead there, but there is a general direction of paths that head there, and I like to think I'm on one of them.

It breaks down into everyday things too like temple marriage. I don't know who I'm going to marry, I don't know when or where, but I just keep swimming, right? Dating different people, finding what I like... it'll lead to the ocean someday, right? Or college, sure I don't know what my grades are right now, but I'm doing my best to head in the direction of graduation... I guess it can be kind of a lackadaisical view on life, but that's me :D It's an odd feeling sometimes when you're swimming and swimming and you don't see or feel the ocean yet. It takes faith and hope, and charity so that you stay happy on they trail.

No coherence

So I really want to write today, but I don't have any specific thing to write about. I guess a lot is happening and there's a million things I want to say, but couldn't have time for half of them to be said. Last night I talked on the phone with an old friend for nearly three hours... which I guess in comparison to some isn't that long, but for me it was a pretty long phone conversation. The weather lately has been so cold it's strange, this morning I scraped ice off my car. I drove to campus this morning, I never drive. I've been eating candy all day, I've only had oatmeal and a burrito other than skittles, starburst, and smarties. I played Wii for four hours today, most of that just happened between Chris and I, we rocked some super-smash butt. I did two CE 203 practice tests today, but I still feel inadequate for the test tomorrow. My day tomorrow is going to be so busy. I love this last weekend, we didn't do anything. We played Starcraft for many many hours (including 'till 3am saturday). I went to an awesome freezing cold football game. I got a free beanie and wore my free shirt. I love the BYU Cougars.., and Max Hall. I didn't really enjoy church. I did like our sunday-school lesson though. I didn't ride my bike all weekend. I saw a movie last thursday, I loved it! I nearly fell asleep in class today. I actually started sweating during dance class (go cha-cha!). I didn't finish today's crossword puzzle. I am slightly tired. We didn't have FHE tonight :( I have homework to do. ...

The German Roller Coaster Ride

Okay, first off, if anyone can name the movie from whence I stole this title, I love you (hint: I replaced 'Hawaiian' for 'German')

So I decided I need a blog, but I'm to lazy to actually start one since I don't currently have a personal computer and I know that if I were to start it now, I'd probably stop being up dated within a couple of weeks, if not days. But I do like the opportunity to sit here and write nonsense about life, with or without the hope that anyone may or may not read this.... (captain ambiguity strikes again!)

So as far as this roller coaster goes, it was more like bungee jumping, or actually, better yet, paddle ball. you know when you have the rubber ball on the elastic string and you bounce it off the paddle.... I've had a couple of days the felt like that. First it was absolutely amazing and wonderful, then it was crappy, then it was totally awesome, then I had this really great plan that started falling apart, and as I pieced it back together and started to be happy with the piecing... it was destroyed again. Upon trying to reassemble, it was reconstructed quite differently, but turned out quite nice. Of course during the execution of the plan there were some ups and down, ending on a really deep low, an insanely ridiculous high, and then me laughing, by myself, at nothing in particular, just laughing, for at least a minute, then I nearly cried. As I wandered from my car (which was parked at the furthest end of the parking lot, away from my apartment) I wondered and prayed and could've cried, but I gave up on thinking and went to sleep.

The next day started pretty flat, but later turned up and down like crazy again. First being stressfully strained to a worrisome cringe, then exuberantly exploding with joy. Shortly thereafter that leveled off again, dropped out the bottom and floated back up to goodness land. My feelings of happiness then took about five hours to slowly, slowly wear down till I was quite depressed, and yet again surprised that I could have so many feelings. In the end some chocolate milk and a phone call to one of the most amazing people I know saved me enough to live on.

So this may perhaps be the most random and meaningless note ever written, and that's probably true. But it feels good to write.

All this roller coaster goodness is now quite beyond me now... It's like when you're at Knots Berry Farm ridding the Boomerang. It's a wicked crazy twisting ride that takes like ten seconds... then as you come to rest, you go through it all again backwards, which of course prepares you quite well to spill your guts. Assuming you're still alive, you walk away feeling better and better every second. You look back and say, heck, I'd do that again! forgetting the intense nausea that nearly killed you. And as they say, whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger. That's why we can look back and be glad it happened.

So to end, I'll offer another 'mikes heart' to anyone who can get this quote "...drops us like a new born giraffe...' (*descending whistling sound, ending in a lip/tounge pftpthppttsphphpstb*). (for those of you who know the movie "Hook," that's where the sound comes from (bangarang Rufio) but the quote is something else) :D