Saturday, January 22, 2011

Carpe Diem

The bullets fly around me as I walk calmly through the storm. It is like every part of this deadly barrage is only a swarm of gnats, easily ignored or disposed of. There are many that I see along my way through this firefight that cower in the shadows, protecting themselves. It is not that I see myself as superhuman or bulletproof but instead I see life more fulfilling living it outside the shadows. I extend my hand as if to say, "I'm not afraid to take a stand. Everybody come take my hand. We will walk this road together through the storm, whatever weather, cold or warm. Just let you know that you are not alone." I don't know if it is that they are afraid of the the potential situation or how unafraid I am of it, but nevertheless, they decide to stay within the confines of safety. It is not that they could not step out and see that the true shadows are these bullets, these potential dangers, but it is that they will not. People choose how they will live their lives and when it boils down to it I choose to live a life where my fears do not control me but I control them. No matter how foolish it may be, I choose to have faith in people and that inside everyone is some good. I am sure many people believe in these same ideals but faith is more than just believing. It is doing. It is not that I do not know that people can hurt me. They have. It is that I realize that I only get stronger. And as the pain gets less and less, I just hope that it is because I am being filled with more and more love. Love life and live to love. What is fear when you act with faith? Nothing more than a series of what ifs and maybes. It is just a shadow of a possible reality. Phobias only exist in your head. But like I said already, you choose... Choose your own reality and I hope you will live fully and love fearlessly.

Creativity Project Ideas

I have been trying to think of something to do for my creativity project and I am currently trying to be more creative. In fact, I always was afraid to fail when it comes to public performances and I always wanted to learn how to play the guitar. I figured if it is on my bucket list and this class is calling for creativity, I bought an acoustic guitar this weekend and I am going to try and write lyrics about creativity and my creative experiences associated with our class, probably, since I am still real new to guitar and I only have a couple of weeks to learn a song... I was going to sing to the tune of Adam Sandler's I Wanna Grow Old With You from the Wedding Singer. Not that my song is going to be lovey-dovey but it should be simple to play and I like the movie.


Another alternative is that I always wanted to write a book, so I could write the first couple of chapters and pass in one of them as my project. I could write some poetry or sonnets in iambic pentameter. I want to do something different from what I am doing in my classes, which is a lot of computer stuff... I could make 3-d modelling of something I might invent but if any one has some suggestions, let me know! So do I hear any ideas or suggestions?

Friday, January 21, 2011

Bucket List

I know these lists are somewhat cliche but I don't care because I still think about this kind of stuff so I am making one. I know that it is also one of those things that is probably pretty flexible too so I will try to be specific and in all honesty I may have already accomplished some of these things:
  • Find the love of my life and marry her
  • Have a happy, healthy family
  • Be alive to see my children and their children married in the temple
  • Kiss a beautiful woman at midnight on New Year's Eve
  • Go to Time's Square on New Year's Eve (associated with previously mentioned item)
  • Visit all 50 states in the USA
  • Travel to all seven continents (Antarctica is a maybe... IT'S COLD!)
  • See the seven natural wonders of the world
  • See the seven wonders of the ancient world
  • See the seven wonders of the medieval world
  • Vacation/Honeymoon in Bora Bora
  • Go on a cruise
  • Backpack across Europe
  • Go cliff diving in Hawaii
  • Hike the Appalachian Trail
  • Go rafting down the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon
  • Drive a European sports/luxury car on the Autobahn
  • Play a round of 9 holes at Pebble Beach
  • Play a round of 9 holes at the Old Course at St. Andrews
  • 20Go on an African Safari (even if my only gun happens to be a pea shooter... aka camera)
  • Scuba dive off of the Great Barrier Reef
  • Watch turtles hatch and run to the ocean
  • Take up photography
  • Go bird watching in Costa Rica
  • Swim with sharks
  • Ride an elephant
  • Ride a camel
  • Have a pet hedgehog... I always think of Jan Brett
  • Have a pet dog
  • Go deer hunting
  • Learn how to surf
  • Go skydiving
  • Go hang-gliding
  • Fly a plane
  • Restore a car
  • Build a plane from a kit
  • Own a motorcycle
  • Run in a marathon
  • Participate in a triathlon
  • Make a hole in one
  • Learn to play the guitar
  • Start a private business
  • Work for Disney (even if it is not a permanent job)
  • Write a book
  • Be voluntarily homeless for a week or two (as a social experiment)
  • Discover a new invention
  • Receive the future cure for Type-1 Diabetes
  • Become trilingual (+ sign language)
  • Learn to speak German (1/4 Austrian so it would be nice to speak with the tongue of my heritage)
  • Go backstage at a concert
  • See Muse live in concert
  • Attend a Broadway production (preferably a musical)
  • Get box seats to a Red Sox game
  • Get box seats to a Celtics game
  • Own a small art collection or library
  • Create a private office like my grandfather's, Glenn Collette
  • Learn a new style of dancing with my future wife
  • Learn to meditate
  • Learn to interpret body language
  • Learn to gain a sense of self-mastery (physical and mental)

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Heart Massages

Every once in a while, you get tense and your muscles just seems like they can never relax. You feel the pain every time you stretch and you just wish you could function without it for a while, but
you know that you can't. You wish had a good friend that could just massage away the pain, but the more they try to fix it, the worse it gets. It is tough when you need a heart massage because it is a pain that no one else can really see. They can hear it. They can see you bleed. But just like other muscle pains, you fight through, hoping that if you act like the aching wasn't there, you wouldn't be able to feel it. But in all honesty, that isn't exactly what you want either. How do you heal the holes of a broken heart? How do you ease a pain that is so deep? Pain and heartbreak build strength only if that same muscle not give up entirely. Time is the only cure and killer because if given too much love can die, yet without it the pain can be so great that it consumes. Strengthen me and give me hope that I may not only have the patience but ability to see and be seen the intentions of heart.

Friday, January 14, 2011

Top Ten Music Videos

I honestly can say that if you listen to all of these I think you might see a theme in the music I like but then again, I also have a music player on my website here so... needless to say but pause the player and watch the videos. Not only are they all amazing lyrically, musically, but artistically as well. And yes, I know that there are three videos on here by The Script but they are easily one of my favorite bands and they have another album coming out in under a week. These are not in any particular order but here we go... here is my top ten music videos:





















Other contenders were artists such as Ok Go, 30 Seconds to Mars, and Sara Bareilles. There are millions of songs that I would love to put the videos up here if I could but I have better things to do with my time honestly. The two last videos are good, but the last two videos I was searching for were being difficult. The fact still remains that I did think about trying to hack the html to get the embed codes anyways, but youtube has been so nice in giving those away so far (plus the fact that it wouldn't surprise me that if I did do that, it would be illegal), so here are the links to the other two videos:

Nothing by The Script

Undisclosed Desires by The Muse

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Life is a Series of Small Adventures

Sometimes the first couple steps are the hardest ones that you will ever take, because when "you step into the Road, and if you don't keep your feet, there is no telling where you might be swept off to." The days spent feel like I have been wandering from one thing to the next, but not all those who wander are truly lost. The adventures I have been living are not all with romance
and heartache, but they all do have lessons to be learned within the journey. Still, I wander from friend to friend and class to class, one step at a time. I know I am on a path, but to where, I do not know.

It is fascinating to see how all paths collide. All people are walking along on a path of their own design and sometimes these paths intersect, and some run parallel for a time, but in the end, everyone has their own way. I find that with all these intersections and collisions, each has a purpose. How much you align yourself to others' paths and their direction will affect how much every person you meet will have to either lift you or bring you down. So though we may find joy and happiness when we are with other people, in the end, happiness comes from where we end up. Sometimes I feel like I am unknowingly trying to run in circles, colliding with other people and their paths just because I am looking for happiness. In all reality, I am going nowhere. If I naturally just try to make my way home, I will probably find someone who is going there too. And if we fit, then we might just combine paths and I will find that I am not so worried about going in circles any more.

Though I pause to think and enjoy the journey, I know that when I finally arrive, not only will I know that I have reached my destination but I will know who I am in the end. Life has so many twists and turns and many go through trial and tribulation, but such is life. In the middle, it always is like an uphill journey, but it is best to smile along the way. It is at least better than the alternative. So if I get tripped up along the way, I need to pick myself back up, brush off the dirt and the dust, reassess and realign my direction, and then keep on chugging. Each adventure is a choice. Every moment is a gift. The key to happiness is to stop worrying so much about the collisions in life's journey but the direction in which we are heading. And when it comes to making your story, remember who you are and what you want to become and that you are the author of your own ending. One day, we'll collide.

"Even the best fall down sometimes
Even the wrong words seem to rhyme
Out of the doubt that fills your mind
You finally find you and I collide.
"

Sunday, January 2, 2011

Winter Semester for 2011


It only makes sense to call this the 2011 Winter Semester because the semester doesn't even start until after New Years... which by the way was amazing! I went to a concert New Year's Eve down in Boston, MA and saw Third Eye Blind in concert. They were fantastic! The whole break was really good and definitely needed. Anyways, I am here again trying to figure out what I want to do for this next year. I need to start trying to work my resume list a little better after I finish my scholarship stuff so I can try to get an internship for the summer. But before I start, let's make a list:

1. I think I have definitely been working really hard on my keeping my grades up. The best thing I can do is continue to do that! If I get another 3.82 GPA, well I certainly wouldn't complain at all! So I need to keep my grades up and keep a well-balanced focused in the semester between classes and socializing.

2. I have already started planning some of the fun things I can do in Utah and Idaho for the winter. I would love to get out on some snowmobiles and bomb around a bit in some powder, but honestly, I should be able to go night skiing once or twice, snowshoeing, hit up the hot springs, and have a couple hot cocoa movie nights, maybe some snowmen or something. Either way, the weather has to cooperate with me along with my schedule and my friends.

3. I want to stay on top of my calling at church as a Sunday School teacher and have strong well thought out lessons. It is actually kinda funny. I am still single but for some odd reason, it is a good idea for me to be teaching the class for Marriage and Family Prep in a single adult student ward at college. Isn't there bishopric counselors that could do this? It is fun though. I also want to keep up a regular temple attendance and work on some family names.

4. I want to improve my personal scripture study and my personal prayer. Make it more meaningful and have my own study along with my study for my New Testament class. It will take a lot more planning but I am sure it will be worth it.

5. When I visited doctors and dentists over the Christmas break, I got a bunch of things. I need to be working on my diabetes, my newly whitened teeth, and taking my vitamins and other drugs. So I need to create better habits for my health. Plus, I have a couple of friends that are taking a racquetball class and with all these dating ideas that I have, I should be able to get the exercise that I need.

6. Lastly, I hope that I can find someone that is not only a friend but a friend who is as crazy about me as I am about them. I am praying that I will recognize it, that if it is right for me, that I will go for it, but that I will be smart about it too. I am praying that I will be ready. Ready for not only another relationship, which hopefully will happen naturally, but if I do start a relationship that it might lead to the next step of marriage.

I am hoping that if I am willing to write this, since I am coming to grips that I am not the only one that reads this apparently, that I will commit to it. I want things to happen naturally, but I have to be ready to let them happen. I can't be afraid of the idea but have to accept it. I should welcome the fact that I am adult! I am ready. I am still myself, still a kid, but I can be serious too. No worries. This year is going to be a great year! I am excited! Bring it on, 2011!