I think I've forgotten

what it's like to like someone and be liked by that someone at the same time. Crap.

So it just hit me how much work I (1) didn't do over the Thanksgiving break that I was planning on doing, and (2) how much work that means I have to do this week to make sure I'm on top of things.

It'll feel so good to get it all done though, which is the only motivation I can find to actually get the work done.

Homely

Not in the "ugly" sense.

I didn't set foot outside my house until 6:50pm yesterday. And even then all I did was go to London Manor, about 100 feet away.

Oh the joys of being sick.

On a better note: tonight is the premiere of Harry Potter 7!! I seriously can't wait. We're also getting our piano tuned, finally! AND we're going down to Cedar City to pick up some sweet stuff for the house. Part of me wonders if it's worth it at this point through the semester, but whatever :) It'll be great!

Welp, time to go take my math exam. (Wish me luck! I'll be needing it...)

Gospel Doctrine

I'm thinking maybe it's time I start going to the gospel doctrine classes at church instead of the relationships classes.

In this ward, it seems like every time I go to the relationships class, I just get frustrated with the attitude of the girls and even the teachers.

Every time it's the same thing: guys are the dumbest, least competent doofuses who have no idea what they're doing when it comes to dating and need to go to classes like these so that girls (and the teachers) can rag on them until they get it through their thick skulls.

Apparently we're completely incompetent when it comes to dating etiquette, aren't quick enough to recognize when a girl is interested, and need to brush away the sawdust in our brains long enough to be presentable and likable on a date.

I couldn't tell you how many times the teachers have asked "now guys... is it okay to ask a girl out through a text message, email, or Facebook?" and actually wait for an answer, obnoxiously. It almost makes me even more frustrated that some guys answer the question, sounding as if they're trying to convince everyone that they've "learned their lesson." And it just makes me roll my eyes.

Bologne. I want to feel the spirit and actually learn something in my sunday school classes. And relationships class (at least in this ward) is not where that is going to happen.

Maud Muller

You've probably heard the line Pres. Monson quotes a lot in conference:

"For of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these: 'It might have been!'"

(Ugh, just reading that breaks my heart a little bit. How come it feels like I still have regrets for something not working out even when I did everything I could? Maybe it's not a regret, but just the thought of what might have been.)

Well if you have a couple of minutes you should read the whole poem. It's a great and sad story. And a perfect example of why having no regrets is so amazing.

Epiphany

Here's something that came to me tonight:

Don't expect to be able to judge how romantically interested you are in someone by the time you've spent together platonically.

Maybe you disagree? Let me know your thoughts, cause I'm still thinking through it myself.

I don't even want to know

I usually have this urge to know everything that's going on around me. It's so hard for me to hear other people having a conversation and not butt in and be all "wait, what are you talking about? INCLUDE ME! I WANNA KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING AND WHO YOU'RE TALKING TO AND I WANNA KNOW EVERYTHING THAT YOU'RE DOING AND I DON'T WANT YOU TO ACT LIKE I'M BEING ANNOYING I JUST WANT YOU TO ANSWER ALL OF MY QUESTIONS."


Just kidding I'm not nearly that bad.

Anyway, I just clicked on my mint.com tab on Chrome, but as soon as it opened I closed it because I don't even want to know what the finances are looking like right now. I spent over $500 at Kohl's the other day. Granted, probably about $150 of it was from Kellie and Natalie buying things on my card (not because I'm their sugar daddy (I HATE that term, by the way) but because they needed to buy it on my card to get the 30% off). Also granted that I will be returning most of the stuff I bought for myself. (That's just how I roll when it comes to buying stuff at Kohl's)

I'm in a weird mood lately, where I just want to do nothing. I'm still getting my homework done and everything (and I got a 95% on my 2nd calc test. Booya!) but I kinda just want to go watch movies for a week.

Anyway, I'm going to go to bed. I stay up way too late these days. And I think I'm going to go help some friends set up for a commercial shoot.

P.s. I went back to Kohl's and bought one of the softest, comfiest (wow, that's really how you spell it!) blanket ever! And what's funny is I was about to buy a different blanket that was actually even softer when I realized it was only big enough for 1 person to use at a time. So I bought the one big enough for 2 people :)

Even though I'm not dating anyone.

Oh yeah: how is it possible that we have a house of 7 super-awesome, fun, outgoing, good-looking and smart guys without a single girlfriend to show for it?

Run and [explain] that, homeboy.

Maybe because nice guys finish last? I dunno.

Peeing in the pool

So I had a friend the other day give the analogy that dating within your ward was like peeing in a pool. I didn't agree.

Then I was about to write a blog post about how I didn't agree, until another friend helped me realize just how bad it can be. I guess because I haven't experienced the negative stuff that can happen, I didn't really understand.

Now I'm writing a blog post with the conclusion that "peeing in the pool" is worth the risk, but with the purpose to spark a discussion and see what people think about it. Here are my thoughts (they are not very well formulated, and because I am inexperienced in this matter, they are subject to change. Leave comments letting me know what you think):

I remember having a conversation (I think it was with Ace, but may have been with Matt) about how so many girls (at the time) were saying they didn't want to give a relationship a chance because they were afraid of what would happen if it didn't work out.

We all know that high risk gives high returns, and modest risk gives modest returns. My question (and I guess my argument for why it is worth "peeing in the pool") is: when we are dating, are we looking for high returns or only modest returns?

Obviously we shouldn't only go on dates with people we feel we could marry. We should go on dates with people we think we could have fun with, and with the purpose of seeing if we could date the person more exclusively. Then we continue to date exclusively to see if we could get engaged. And we get engaged as a precursor to actual marriage. The steps are important, and one shouldn't be too focused on the end, but rather focused on the means.

But I've known too many people who dated and married someone in their ward to believe that it isn't worth giving people in your ward a chance simply because of what could happen if it didn't work out.

Sure there is a distinct possibility that one person will break up with the other, and it will cause awkward, crappy situations where you don't want to be around the person/try to avoid them, etc. That's something that comes with high risk.

But I would bet that most people who have had that happen to them have come out better in the end, with more experience and a better understanding of what they want in a spouse. It sucks in the meantime, but is beneficial in the long run.

I've spent way too much of my life avoiding risk. I can tell you from personal experience that modest risk has returned modest rewards. If you know of someone in your ward who you would date if only you knew for sure that it would work out, I say just go for it!


Take the risk. Because what people regret most in the long run is not having taken enough risks in life. 


(Just read the five points the writer of that last blog entry makes. They're worth the time.)

Strengths

So I wrote a few days ago about being real and named a few of my weaknesses.

Now I kind of want to talk about a few of my strengths. This is not meant to boast, but I do think I would be ungrateful to only illustrate my weaknesses and none of the strengths I've been blessed with/been helped to develop over time.

• Although I sometimes complain about it, it can come in very handy to be such a jack of all trades, master of none. I can learn new things very quickly and do them well enough to get by.
• I have gotten so much better since my early days (i.e. middle school) at communicating with people, knowing how to talk to people in the way they liked to be talked to, and talk to them about what they like to talk about. (That was a confusing sentence, sorry!)
• According to some of my best friends, my best quality is that I'm really nice and always there when they need me/they can depend on me.
• I like to think that I am very aware of my surroundings. Physically, yes. Socially, definitely. I feel like I can read people well; predict how they are feeling, what they are thinking about, when something is on their mind, what they like and dislike about themselves, etc.
• I'll sneak in a weakness here. Although sometimes I can tell these things, I don't always act as if I know these things. I'm not sure why. Still trying to figure that one out. So if you have ever thought of me as being dense, or "he just doesn't get it" or something like that, I probably did get it and for whatever reason acted as if I didn't... I don't know...
• I'm still learning a lot, but I feel like I have good advice to give to people. It says something in my patriarchal blessing about this. I'm always trying to refine my opinion about certain things, and I am always learning new things that change my point of view on certain topics.
• I am always careful about hearing both sides of a story before accepting something as truth.
• I'm usually very thorough. This is why I make for a pretty good editor. Although sometimes it means taking forever to do things that shouldn't take very long, and usually means being very indecisive. Whoops, another weakness, sorry!
• I try to be as caring as I can be, even on the little things. (Of course my roommate Tyler is probably the best at this). If I park poorly, I'll correct it (because I hate when people park so close to me I have to crawl in through my passenger door.) I realize when I'm being too loud, try to keep my music down when someone is reading, close doors very carefully to not wake people up. At the same time I don't feel like I'm a straight-up people pleaser who lets people walk over me.

Anyway, I'm done. Maybe some of you can attest to some of the strengths I've been blessed with, and maybe some of you can modify what I've written so it is more accurate.

Oh and P.S. I've been surprised in the past week how many people have told me they read my blog when I had no idea. For those people: thanks for telling me! And leave a comment every now and then!

85 is a good number

85 is a good number. It is the year I was born, AND this makes my 85th blog post. Just thought I would mention the milestone.

Oh, and the housewarming/ 10/10/10 party was fun!

And for only inviting people over the day of the actual housewarming event (minus a few people we told ahead of time) we had a great turnout! The party migrated from floor to floor and room to room, lots of cookies and candy were consumed, the people were friendly, and, of course, the countdown was epic.

Mel and I tackled each other  about 20 times (progressively more aggressively) onto our Love Sac to help her vent some guy frustration, and I admit I have a little bit of a headache now. But it was hilarious.

I reckon 10/10/10 at 10:10:10pm wasn't celebrated so thoroughly as it was here. Good times. (For pictures, check my Facebook Album)

Self... Great day!

Have any of you taken the Econ 110 class from Kearl? If so you probably understand the title of the blog.

Today was a great day! And not necessarily because I got so much stuff done, but because I did so much stuff.

That might not make sense. I wasn't necessarily super productive today, but I did a lot of fun stuff today.

And here's what I just learned on guitar (sorry it's an obnoxious lyrics-filled youtube video, but the sound quality is way better than the actual music video) :

Perfection

This blog post is definitely one of the best I've read in a very long time.


It says things in a way that I had thought about them but never actually said them myself. And now that I've read it I have so many thoughts about it floating around, that I doubt I'll be able to write them all and keep people's attention.


Here is my favorite part of the post:


"The cure [to the "perfection disease"] is so simple.

Be real.

Be bold about your weaknesses and you  will change people's lives. Be honest about who you actually are, and others will begin to be their actual selves around you. Once you cure yourself of the disease, others will come to you, asking if they can just "talk". People are desperate to talk. Some of the most "perfect" people around you will tell you of some of the greatest struggles going on. Some of the most "perfect" people around you will break down in tears as they tell you how difficult life is for them. Turns out some of the most "perfect" people around us are human beings after all, and are dying to talk to another human being about it.

You'll love them for it. And you'll love yourself even more."

So good! There truly are people I know who seem to have everything going for them - good looks, doing well in school or work, ambition, drive, great sense of humor, lots of friends, etc. And this is not to say that they only have these things going for them to keep up an appearance of perfection, but we should all remember that even these people have problems. We are not the only people with problems. We really aren't alone.

A friend of mine told me a couple of weeks ago that we are all a little insecure about ourselves. This isn't news to me, but it can be such a relief to hear someone else say it, especially when it is someone who has so much going for them.

If we treat other people not as if they are perfect, but make sure they know we accept them with all of their imperfections, we can really help cure this "disease of perfection."

On the other hand (although we definitely want to compliment people on their accomplishments) if we treat people as if they can do no wrong, it adds a pressure to them that they don't deserve. We should always be aware when someone might be going through a difficult time, and be ready to just be real with them.

So here's me being real. Hopefully I'm not the only one who sometimes feels this way. Maybe if I put this dirty laundry out there a little bit, you'll realize you're not alone:

• Sometimes I don't feel happy for other people's successes.
• Sometimes I assume, when I see people laughing, that they are laughing at my expense.
• I often don't try new things in front of other people because I'm afraid I won't be as good at it as them.
• Sometimes I question if I really know myself very well at all. And sometimes I wonder why some people even want to be around me.
• Most of the time I overanalyze things.

There are so many more but don't want people to think I'm depressed or anything, because I'm not :-) I love my life, I love my friends, I love my family, I love my major.

But even if you are depressed, I wouldn't judge you for that, because it happens. And you're not alone. And I hope that we're good enough friends for you to know that you can come to me if you need someone to listen.

Why nice guys finish last

I know you all probably have your own opinions on the topic. Here's mine. Of course this will include a lot of generalizations that may or may not apply to the reader, but honestly I don't care :) It also very much applies to everyone, guys and girls alike.

This also stems from things I've heard from a bunch of different sources, so this isn't new stuff by any means. Just a sad truth.

Here's basically what I typed into my phone when this thought came to my mind (again):

Kindness can come off as weakness. Jerk guys are seen as more confident and make a girl feel like she needs to work to make him want her. It's like a challenge. And it is intriguing. Someone who is nice and shows interest is too easy to obtain. There's no challenge. People like what they can't/don't have. So it forces guys to play a game where, even if he is interested in someone, he has to hide it and practically show apathy towards a girl. It's like a hook. When he does finally ask her out, she can feel accomplished, as if she "won him over."

However a guy who is a jerk (DB) never lets a girl get to the point of completely winning him over, but gives her just enough to make her feel like she is making progress. This is why some girls stay with jerks for a long time and overlook the bad things about the relationship (lack of respect, no heightened sense of self-esteem, or even abuse in more serious cases) because they feel like he is changing.

I'm not the only one to think of this

And it's so dumb to me that books like this teach women to play hard-to-get for the exact same reason: people want what they don't/can't have.

The game sucks. Nice guys finish last. The end.

Last nights in NYC

I don't even know where to start. Mostly because I don't really remember everything we did in the past few days. The last 2 days went by as quickly as the first two days went by slowly. Weird.

We crammed in a ton of agency visits, I remember that. Weiden + Kennedy, Droga 5, Grey, Saatchi & Saatchi, and Ogilvy. I also went on... never mind I just realized that was Wednesday night and I already blogged about it. (Man time flies!)

What did we do?? I guess this blog is going to turn out to be slightly more stream of consciousness...

Dangit I left my camera at home so I can't look up the pictures.

Oh! Thursday night was the Facebook Wrap party, which wraps up AdWeek in general. It was legit, with an entrance line and bouncers and everything. There was loud music with a hot beat, but no one was dancing. Enter BYU AdLab students.

We started dancing, and for like 20 minutes we were the only ones dancing, but we could tell some older (as in like mid-late twenties) people were loosening up to the idea. Then came the TV camera which filmed us dancing. Then small groups starts bobbing a little, until about 15 minutes later when we had gotten quite a big group to dance! Booya! Way to be the life of the party.... us...

I have had some great conversations these past two days too. I'm loving good communication! Things are so much better when people can know where you're coming from and what you're thinking. Talking with my sister today was awesome. We had a chance to actually bond basically for the first time.

Oh yeah and I walked approximately 1 million miles today.

K, I'm going back to the loft so I can actually get a full night's sleep tonight. Maybe.

Peace, NYC. It's been jolly.

See y'all back in Provo!

Great Blog Post

I'm not talking about my own. I'm not that self-absorbed.

You should all read this. It's about taking smart risks. I really like #1: Long-term regrets are usually about not taking more risks. I've heard this from more than one person older than me.

Today went by WAY faster than each of the past 2 days. It was still way fun though. I started by going to Central Park right by the Guggenheim and just relaxing for a little while. Then a few people met me there, we hung out, and went to an AdWeek presentation. Then we played around some more until we got to visit mcgarrybowen. They were a way cool agency, and Mr. Bowen himself called to Patsy's Pizza and bought us all dinner. (After tip, it came out to $650!)

Right across the street, as it turned out, was the movie premier for The Social Network. It was a lot smaller than I thought it would be, but that may be because it isn't the most highly anticipated movie. Apparently I missed seeing Justin Timberlake showing up though, which was too bad, but I did get a few pictures of the lead actor Jesse Eisenberg who plays Mark Zuckerberg, and I'm willing to bet that Mark Zuckerberg was there too. So many -bergs in that sentence.

Had a great conversation with another Ad student about Copywriting vs. Planning. (Unbeknownst to most, I've been considering applying for the creative track as a Copywriter, which would put me at BYU for another year... General consensus right now is that I don't want to do it.)

Staten Island Ferry --> Staten Island. Turn around, repeat. (Back to Manhattan, of course.) Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, and re-learning about ANGEL ISLAND. (No one I was with believed me there was an Ellis Island equivalent on the west coast. Cue the "I was right and you were wrong" blog label! :-)

A great walk/sit in Battery park with some great friends, a gentlemanly trip (if I do say so myself) to Wall Street, back to the loft to get the computer to write and turn in a Book of Mormon assignment, and currently at McDonald's at 2am.

Woah it's 2am. Time to go. G'night!

I wish I could post pictures

It'll be worth your time to read this whole post. I know it's long, but push through!

So usually I hate when people go to cool places where I don't get to go and then have tons of fun without me and get to do tons of cool stuff that I don't get to do.

As of about 3pm yesterday I was figuring that this wasn't going to be one of those trips. Then the after-3pm stuff happened.

Sorry, but I'm going to be one of those people for the next couple of days.

Yesterday (pre-3pm), along with everyone from the BYU AdLab, we got to go to a number of lectures and panels. It was pretty neat to get to hear people like Russell Simmons, John Legend, ?estlove, Ricky Carmichael, Spike Lee, and other "big" people like the CEO of Nascar speak to us about marketing, advertising and the changing environment for everything. But we were all so tired, you guys. The plane ride I was on had a very loud group of Vietnamese passengers in the row in front of me. As in my earplugs were all the way in (like, I'm-about-to-lose-them-in-my-ear-forever deep) and their chattering was keeping me awake. I got about 1.5 hours of sleep I think)

Anyway, Jeff scored us all some tickets to the Billboard concert featuring the aforementioned John Legend (playing with The Roots). The first opener was some random gospel choir, so I wasn't expecting to leave my comfortable seat about 150 feet behind the floor in front of the stage. Then I changed my mind and went and joined the AdLab group.

Enter, by complete surprise, Bruno Mars (Here and Here). Well, long story short, that was awesome. I'm definitely going to buy his music now because he is so super good, and I may or may not have a slight man crush on him now...

Today we opted out of attending any of the AdWeek stuff (a decision made slowly, as we were originally planning on attending at least one event today, but then we got so caught up with everything else we eventually chose not to do any of them.) We did, however, visit McCann Worldgroup and Naked Communications, both of which were pretty great.

Then we walked. Forever. Down to Chinatown, WTC Ground Zero, and across the Brooklyn bridge. Then my feet fell off.

Oh yeah and we ran into Joseph Gordon-Levitt on some random small street. He was on the phone with a suitcase. This is a guy who I've watched in movies and TV shows since I was little. (Angels in the Outfield, 3rd Rock from the Sun, 500 Days of Summer, G.I. Joe, and of course Inception.) Weird. We went back to try and get a picture with him, but he was like "Sorry, I've really got to stay on this call. Sorry!" (Or something along those lines.) I got a random picture of him from behind from super far away, but you definitely can't tell it's him. Oh well.

Ok, I'm going to walk back to the loft and get ready for bed. Tomorrow morning is Central Park relaxation morning, before all the craziness of day 3 hits.

Oh yeah, I'm definitely in a McDonald's using the free wifi since we can't get it to work in our loft.

Oh yeah and I think I'm setting myself up for some serious disappointment. Maybe I should be more prudent. But deep inside I feel like I can't give up yet. Because I would seriously regret giving up without a fight. And I already have enough regrets.


Whatever. I can handle disappointment, but I can't take any more regrets. I will be more prudent though.

Ughmath

The title is in opposition of the YouTube channel "Yaymath," which has actually given me a great review of math principles I've forgotten over the years.

Speaking of math, I think that if you let f(x) = (1/x) = number of showers I took today, x being the amount of busyness/fun I had today, then:

lim x->infinity f(x) = 1/x = 0.

In other (real-people) words, I was so super busy/had so much fun today that I definitely never had a chance to take a shower... whoops.

Woke up at 8, studied math until 9:45, took my test from 10-12, regretted some of my answers from 12:15-12:45, picked up Ari to run some prepare-for-NYC errands, etc. from 1-3:20, sold another football ticket/went to the dismal football game from 3:20-6-ish, ate some Dairy Queen, gassed up my car, and went to the Real Salt Lake Soccer game from 7-11-ish.

Some concerns of mine as of late:

• I don't know how things are happening in NYC yet. I don't even know where our place is...
• I feel like I should feel like I have a TON to do to get ready for NYC, but I feel like I just need to pack and then I'll be ready.
• I find myself wanting to listen to Dashboard Confessional. Those of you who really know me know what that means.
• I *really* want to get As in all of my classes this semester but I'm starting to wonder if that's going to happen...

Well I'm going to bed. This should be an interesting week to say the least.

In my head

These songs have been in my head for the past few weeks on a rotating, sporadic schedule. So I thought I would put them in your head too. :-)




Mel in our Dinner Group talked about a guy who was super persistent and because of it they ended up dating, but Justin's actions in this music video seem to border on rape... I guess it worked in the end though, right?

No Regrets

"I would rather regret the things that I have done than the things that I have not." - Lucille Ball

"The only thing you live to regret are the risks you didn't take." - ?

I really wish I could remember who first told me about the concept of making decisions based on a "no regrets" principle.

It is a genius and terrifying idea. I'm going to try it.

Basic idea: make your more important decisions by asking yourself "will I regret it if I don't _______?" If you will, then DO IT! If you won't, then it doesn't matter either way, so you can stop worrying about it.

My life is plagued with bruises created from kicking myself for not doing or saying something I now wish I had, risks I wish I had taken, and rewards I know I sacrificed because I didn't.

I just have to think, "what do I really have to lose? Pride? Self-esteem?" The truth is the only thing I usually have to lose is an opportunity, and I have already lost too many of those.

"Looking back, I have this regret, that too often when I loved, I did not say so." - David Gayson

P.s. just for fun: another way I make decisions between two alternatives is to flip a coin and then gauge how I feel based on the outcome. If I'm disappointed, I know I really wanted the other outcome. Do any of you have other good methods of making decisions?

Maybe I just don't have any thoughts?

Sometimes I go through spurts of blogging when I feel like I can be very analytical and smart about things. Then I don't type anything for a long time. Maybe I just don't have any worthwhile observations in those times?

Well here's a blog entry to break up the break from blogging.

If you haven't watched this family's vlog, you absolutely need to! Shaycarl is soooo funny and such a good guy, and he kinda makes me want to start a family! Today's vlog isn't the best example, although he does make good points. Check out some of his more recent posts too.

I was just reading some of my older blog posts and I like 'em! It's a great way to record the thoughts I've had before because I've totally forgotten about a lot of them. I was smart back then!

I'm going to try to keep these shorter so people will actually read them. So that's all for today!

I'm sorry, but...

1. "Separation of church and state," I believe, is very much NOT the same thing as "separation of religion/religious values and The United States of America." Check your context and stop taking everything so literally, people.

2. Even if "separation of church and state" DID mean a separation of religious values and the U.S., it cannot be used as an argument against Prop 8!;If you want so desperately to separate church and state, how can you argue that a church-instituted ceremony like marriage must necessarily be allowed to those not affiliated with the church? They're separate, remember? Keep church things in the church, right? I guess only when it's convenient? To me it's like saying that it is wrong to only allow baptism to those who believe in the church they are being baptized into. Or only allowing worthy LDS members to enter the temple.

3. Something is seriously wrong when the opinion of one person can overturn the majority opinion of millions of people. This whole overturning decisions thing is also the very reason things happened in my family the way they did, and why people I know are in prison for things they didn't do because a judge somewhere with little experience in the case based a single-blow K.O. decision on unsubstantiated evidence.

Here's a Washington Post opinion article about it

K, it's out of my system now. Time to go boating.

And I was doing so well!

I went a few weeks saying the difficult "no thanks" to most fatty foods and sweets.

I've undone all of that in the past few days. My diet has consisted of pizza, tuna helper, burritos (Del Taco), a few servings of ice cream, and lots of empty carbs.

Once I'm confident my leg is healed enough to go without bandage, I will be back to running. I just need to go to the gym and do cardio there. Otherwise I have too many excuses not to go.

Oh and I got way too much sun today. I'm not terribly burnt, but still.

Maybe I'll post some healing leg pictures soon. I have skin on it again!

123

I set up Google Analytics on my blog to track how many people actually look at this. It's been interesting to see where people access my blog from. (Indonesia, India, and Russia? Really?) Anyway since I set up the analytics site and it is telling me that since then there have been 123 people look at my blog. That's what prompted this post.

I can hardly believe how fast the past 2 1/2 years have gone! I've lived in the same apartment and ward for that long (since I moved back to Provo from Cedar City, which is where my family lived after my mission). It is going to be a hard transition for me to move to a new place, even if I will be living with some great people.

I've never dealt very well with change. I'm not sure when it started, but the first time I remember is when I moved to St. George from the dorms my freshman year. (I had just made so many friends, and I was leaving it all to go to St. George where I knew no one since we had moved there from Wisconsin while I was in school.) Since then, every move has been a difficult one. It was no different on my mission.

Anyway, I didn't really know what to talk about so I said the first thing that came to mind.

I'm going to miss this place.

From a foreign computer

I know many of you reading this may not be fans of Macs, but let me tell you a few things:

• The computer (HP) I'm writing this from seems fairly new and already has an issue with the spacebar. I have to make sure to jam it down so that it actually produces a space.
• Another PC laptop in our apartment is about a year and a half old, and the mouse button doesn't work very well. Actually, it works almost too well, and you have to make sure you're no where near it so you don't actually click stuff you didn't mean to. (It's not a feature of the computer, it's broken.)
• The track pad on this computer is super small. It takes like 3 swipes across it to move the mouse from one side of the screen to the other. I know this is something that can be changed in preferences, so why isn't it??
• I've never even gotten close to getting a virus. I was working on a PC at Leadgenix doing some SEO stuff, and the computer I was on had a quite annoying virus. It was far from the first time I've had to deal with a PC with a virus. 'Nuff said.
• My roommate just told me not to use the volume keys cause it will freeze the computer for like 10 minutes, and that the fan is broken and that the processor might be dying. The computer is 1.5-2 years old.
• The reason I'm writing from a foreign computer is most likely because my video card was faulty. In fact, NVidia, who makes the cards, told Apple they wouldn't be an issue in their computers, and then it was. So the problem most likely isn't a problem with the Apple computer, but with the video card. Apple actually pays for every video card replacement to be done because of this problem, and even reimburse all who already spent their own money to get it fixed.

I think people who hate Macs hate them because they think they're too trendy, or not professional enough, or overpriced. (They are definitely overpriced, I'll concede on that one). Then again maybe I won't concede to that, since I don't have to deal with the aforementioned problems. Ever. That's probably worth the extra money to me.

My frustrations with Macs:

To not be completely one sided, here's what I don't care for:

• You can't NOT put the computer to sleep when you shut it. Silly. (Maybe there's something new, but not that I know of.)
• Very few games. I just want to play Worms Armageddon, Apple! Oh well, I've lived without it so far.

Well that's about it. Not too bad.

Priorities

I had an interesting conversation with my mom a few weeks ago that has stuck with me. She was talking about how people often worry more and spend more time looking for their first job out of college than looking for a spouse.

How do you feel about that? It seems backwards as far as priorities goes, but I can't blame anyone for it being that way since finding a job fills a more immediate need. I just think something isn't right when we stress out more about finding a job that will last for a few years (heck, let's even say it lasts until you retire) and less about finding someone to spend eternity with.

I'm not saying I'm exempt from it either. Cause I'm not stressed about finding a wife. (In case that's what you were thinking.) But I have no idea what I want to do when I'm done with school.

My childhood in videos

Having just talked to my dad for Father's Day, spending time reminiscing about me when I was young, we got to talking about the movies/videos that I always watched when I was just a young'un. I remembered a lot of it, but some of it my dad reminded me of, and I just had to share it with someone.

So, thanks to the miracle that is YouTube, here is a summary of a number of my childhood memories. Oh the memories :-)

George Harrison - I Got my Mind Set on You



MC Hammer - U Can't Touch This

I guess embedding of MC Hammer's "U Can't Touch This" is disabled, so here's the link if you want an awesome blast from the past:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otCpCn0l4Wo

Star Wars - Jabba the Hutt
 
Sorry about the subtitles in this one.





An American Tail - Never Say Never



Babar



Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II - The Arcade Game for Nintendo

Obviously you don't need to watch all of this. Plus the guy playing has no idea what he's doing, I could play circles around him in this game :-) (Boy, if that doesn't make me cool, I don't know what does!)



Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers

Another one with disabled embedding. You won't be disappointed by watching this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0YkXmebAGM


Wow. I had a great childhood! :-)

Why Soccer Sucks

1. They don't review the plays. All this technology we have now, and they won't look to see what really happened. Instead, much of the outcome of the game relies on what the refs think they saw in the mass of players on the field. Here's my point illustrated:





Oh yeah, I forgot you can get called for a hand ball when it hits you in the cheek. That makes sense.

2. Soccer players are the biggest pansies in the world. Here's my point illustrated a few times:





There's tons of other videos like that.

3. How much time is left?? Today in the USA - Slovenia game, it reached the 90 minute mark and the officials added 3 minutes to the game. Then just before the 3 minutes were up, someone got injured (or so they made everyone believe. See #2.) and they played until about 94:25 or so until one of the officials blew the whistle. The announcers didn't even know if that was a whistle that signified the end of the game. What a joke!

4. There's an exciting moment every, what? Ten minutes? Good grief. That's like worse than watching baseball. (Ohh it's a pop fly! It's going to deep center! It's going.... going... oh no wait, it was caught. That's just another out, same as all the other ones.)

Sorry soccer (football) fans, but your sport sucks. The only cool thing about it is that so many people all over the world like it, which creates a vortex of cyclical confusion in my mind.

Cheese is not mold!

I know I already put this on my Facebook, but I just had to put it out there again.

I'm a bit of a mold-phobic. When I see any small amount of mold on anything, I'll just throw the whole thing away. This is most applicable to breads and cheeses.

Then most people are like "Silly Bob, everybody knows cheese is just mold anyway!" At this point I always think, "I should look that up, because I think that's a bunch of bull...logna." (Get it? Like "bologna?")

So today I finally did. And it turns out I'm not silly at all! (At least, not for that reason...) CHEESE IS NOT MOLD! At least not the kinds I ever eat. Here's a quote from eHow.com's article "Is Cheese Really Mold?":

"Cheese is not a type of mold, but mold is used in the cheese-making process for some types of cheese."

So you say, "See?? There it is! 'Mold is used in the cheese-making process for some types of cheese."


And I say, "Here's the rest of the quote: 'Some types of cheese that are made using mold include Roquefort, blue cheese, Gorgonzola, Camembert, Stilton, and Brie.'"

So hah! No one eats those kinds of cheeses anyway! (Except maybe bleu cheese, which they shouldn't be eating anyway because it's gross.)

Furthermore, if there is visible mold on any of those soft cheeses, you need to throw it all away. Only on hard cheeses where mold isn't used in the cheese making process can you safely cut mold away. And even then, it is recommended that you cut at least one inch around the edge of the mold, since mold grows roots into the food.

Now if I ever hear someone tell me that 'cheese is just mold' I will just refer them to my blog.

To wrap it up, here's another quote from the article:

"The misconception that cheese is nothing but mold is false. In fact, mold on cheese can release potentially harmful toxins and is highly undesirable."

The misconception that cheese is nothing but mold is false. In fact, mold on cheese can release potentially harmful toxins and is highly undesirable.

Read more: Is Cheese Really Mold? | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/facts_6371041_cheese-really-mold_.html#ixzz0qxGG9n43

I guess this weekend wasn't for resting

Friday:

Internship meeting from 12-1 as usual. Then I met with my mom in Murray to look at our auto insurance policy. Apparently my credit rating and driving record are so good that by switching our plan to put it under my name reduced our policy's premium from over $1500 every 6 months to $601 every 6 months! Ka-Ching (says my mom)!

I get home just in time to leave for the Hot Springs in Spanish Fork Canyon. What a place! It was super secluded (about a 45 minute hike from the trail head, which was about a 10-15 minute drive from the highway) and extremely scenic! (To see pictures, click here).

Then we went to In-N-Out. The guy who joined our group at the hot springs (who was originally there by himself... yeah...) must have overheard that we were going to In-N-Out and I guess he followed us there. A little bit creepy...

Then of course hot tubbing and swimming, since we apparently didn't get enough of the water.

Saturday:

10am Ultimate game. We weren't at full strength, were missing one of our best players, and had a player with an ankle injury (way to walk back and forth between end zones, Nat! Sorry we couldn't get it to you better...), and we lost. I think losing 6-12 isn't so bad when you are so outnumbered.

Then went to watch the Soccer game. We also lost that. I guess we couldn't expect much being one man down, and when the other team has a bunch of Hispanic players and an African player. (Complimentary racism?)

Ward activity at Rock Canyon park with a water balloon civil war. I wish I had pictures of that. Oh well.

Volleyball at the Riv at night. Fun times.

A couple of episodes of 24. It's sickening that we have only 1 more episode left in season 1 when we started like 10 days ago. It's also awesome.

Well time for bed. I'm still awake because I took a 2-hour nap today, but maybe I can manage a little sleep before tomorrow.

Those who read all the way to the end: leave a comment on what you're thinking about right now.

NorCal Trip

So this is what I think would be about the coolest thing we could ever do. It would be a lot of driving, but totally worth it and relatively cheap for how long the trip is.

• Day 1: Drive from Provo to Coarsegold, CA, about 55 miles south of Yosemite Nat'l Park. Stay at roommate's grandparents house
• Day 2: Yosemite Nat'l Park. Do whatever hikes people want to do, possibly including Half Dome. Drive back to Coarsegold in the evening/night.
• Day 3: Drive to Danville to John's house. Spend the afternoon/evening in San Francisco seeing some sights. (Golden Gate Bridge bike ride, anyone?)
• Day 4: More San Francisco sights. Stay at John's house again.
• Day 5: Drive up to Auburn to Brent's house. Go boating all day on the nearby reservoir. Stay at Brent's house.
• Day 6: Drive home to Provo.

The actual planned travel distance is about 1868 miles if you include about 150 miles of miscellaneous travel. Using conservative numbers, gas would only cost about $50 per person for the whole trip! (30 miles/gallon [my mom's Prius gets between 40 and 45, if we averaged it all with the other cars it would be about 35 miles/gallon] and $3.30/gallon for gas).

I think the trip would be especially fun if we did it over 4th of July weekend, but that's a whole other discussion. Meanwhile, since travel costs are so cheap, we could see a symphony or a play for $20-50. Also, we could keep food costs down by buying our own food to prepare at the houses and having our own sandwiches/snacks for the drive rather than stopping at restaurants. We could probably do this whole trip at a cost of about $150/person or less.

Anyway, I just had to get it out there. I'll be trying to get people interested in the next week or so.

Conversion

Keep in mind that a lot of this story deals with my mom, as she was baptized before I was.

In August of 1999 in Madison, WI my mom and I were in the middle of putting together a new gas grill and eating pizza when there was a knock at the door. I went to answer and there were two men in suits standing at the door who asked for my parents. My mom went to talk to them and invited them in.

--Background Time!--

My mom grew up in a Catholic family and went to 12 years of Catholic school, but she says it never really did much for her. She was interested in religion but felt that something wasn't quite right with everything she had been learning. So when I was young she studied around, and we went to a few different churches. When I was about 7 she started studying with the Jehovah's Witnesses (in Ann Arbor, MI while she was going to grad school). I spent most of the time in the basement playing with their son, Noah. The only thing I remember about him is that he used to make his own board games and they were actually pretty fun) She studied with them for about a year until she finally asked them how they knew that what they were teaching was true. When they talked about how they have the best Bible scholars who understand the Bible better than anyone else, she thanked them for the time she had been studying and sent them on their way. Her interest in learning about religion and her time spent studying with the JW's was a primary reason for her not turning away the two LDS missionaries who showed up at our door in August of 1999 while we were building a grill.

All I remember about the first discussion we received then was that I kept leaving to get more pizza, and that I was surprised to see that the modern-day prophet didn't look all Moses-style but wore a suit and looked like a pretty normal guy.

A couple of months went by as we got to know a good number of missionaries that passed through the area. We invited them to dinner, had Family Home Evening with them, and got pretty attached to some of them. My mom had been thinking about (but not reading much from) the Book of Mormon. She was also going to church on Sundays (I wasn't). The missionaries continued to plead with her to read from and pray about (not just think about) the Book of Mormon. Finally one day in a discussion she asked the missionaries how they knew that everything they talked about was true. (Years later my mom asked me if I remember when she did this, because she was fully expecting for this to be one of the last times we met with them, and was worried that I would think she was being too harsh on them.)

Of course they had a simple answer that my mom wasn't expecting. They had prayed about it and had received and answer that it was true. This is when it finally dawned on her that she could do the same. (Even though the missionaries had been telling her all along.) Even then it took her another few weeks to finally do it, but once she got around to it (in a beautiful rolling-hills part of Wisconsin that served as a leash-free dog park) she received her confirmation.

As a 14 year-old, I thought the missionaries were neat, and I respected what they taught, but didn't really think twice about it in the serious way that it deserved. My mom was baptized in November of 1999, and I had actually started going to church and even early morning seminary by the end of the year. The missionaries started re-teaching the discussions for my benefit, and in February committed me to baptism. I honestly wish I remembered the details of this whole part better, but I do remember being baptized on March 12, 2000 just after turning 15.

Looking back, I realize that my real testimony didn't come until after I was baptized. I remember reading the Book of Mormon with my mom one night in 2 Nephi 9 and just having an overwhelming feeling of peace. I had prayed about the Book of Mormon before, but I guess this was the moment that was right for me to finally receive an answer.

It's been an amazing journey since. I've gotten to be the first in my family to serve a faithful two-year mission. I really can imagine how empty life would seem without knowing the truth of the gospel. I don't bear my testimony often, but I hope that doesn't lead anyone to think that I doubt it. I've had doubts and gone through hard times, many questions, and less-diligent phases, but time and time again I'm reminded of how blessed I am to know the truthfulness of this gospel.

p.s. this is probably my favorite picture from my mission. Taken looking from the island of São Migual, Açores.

I'm not a sugar daddy

Starting tomorrow Kellie "the Bone" and I are going to refrain from eating anything with refined sugars in it for 5 days. I am positive this will turn out to be MUCH harder than I think. Pretty much anything that comes in a box will have sugar added to it, and I won't be able to eat it. I may end up starving tomorrow until I get a chance to go to the store on Monday to buy stuff I can actually eat. Or maybe I'll just eat oatmeal all day.

Just thinking about it makes me realize that I definitely don't eat enough fruits and vegetables. And that makes me think that maybe I'm not as healthy as I thought I was. Or maybe I just say that because I ate half a large pizza today. Yeah that's probably the real reason.

Anyway, I guess it'll be an adventure. It reminds me of when I was in high school and my mom and I decided we were going to eat like vegetarians for one week. The only thing I remember is that I went over to a friend's house and told his family about it (it came up in regular conversation) and I overheard them talking about it to each other and they thought it had something to do with me being Mormon. (I had recently converted.)

Anyway, I'm done writing. Maybe tomorrow I'll blog about my conversion, because I realize I haven't really said much about it on here. Yay!

Somber

Somber: dark or dull in color or tone; gloomy.

I'm in one of those moods today. It's been like one of those constant, "everyone else is doing something either productive or fun, and I'm at home doing nothing productive nor fun." It got better once we had our intramural games in the evening, but seriously once I got back from my internship (I spent most of the time social bookmarking. Oh boy.) I had NOTHING to do.

Strike that, I had stuff I could have done, but decided not to. I wonder if, subconsciously, I just wanted to be able to complain about it later. I like to think of myself as a glass-half-full kind of person, but I guess something I prefer to see the half-empty side of things and fill up the other half with social interactions.

You know how sometimes you like to just be alone? I don't get that feeling very often.

On a few positive notes, I'm almost done with The Magician's Nephew, and we won our Ultimate game, despite being one man down the whole time! We actually started with only 5 players, so they dropped a player to make it slightly more even, but once we scored twice in a row they decided we didn't deserve that luxury. Fortunately someone else came to make it 6 on 7, and we still won 12-7. Booya!

Anyway, did anyone actually read this? Leave a comment if you did :-)

I'm hungry

Here's another exercise in stream of consciousness writing. It can be a good way to get thoughts out of my head and onto a place where I can read them. Unfortunately I can't really go back and change what I wrote because, well, that would completely defeat the purpose. (Except for spelling mistakes, since for whatever reason I temporarily forgot how to spell "purpose")

I had my first tennis match today for the spring intramurals tennis tournament. It went well enough, since I won. I had a few good plays in there, and for the most part my serves were consistent. But it wasn't as glorious a win since the guy I was playing was simply having a bad game. He seemed like he had the technical aspects down well, but just was making a ton of unforced errors. Too bad.

I just watched the Count of Monte Cristo again for the first time in many years. (Saying many years makes me think of a British person from the 1800's. Maybe because I just watched the Count of Monte Cristo...?) What a great movie! I almost can't help but wonder, though, if what Edmund was accomplishing through his revengeful schemes wasn't simply enacting justice. I mean, everything that happened to those he got revenge on was just (I think). So maybe the key difference between spiteful revenge and just revenge is the motivation? Or can there not be such a thing as just revenge? Or maybe, as the movie seemed to be saying, only God can really deal out justice. What patience!

K, I don't want to make this too long since no one will probably want to read it anyway. I'm just tired and hungry and think I'll go to bed so I can be rested for my tennis matches tomorrow. (Er, later today. Ugh.)

Baffling

I still haven't quite grasped the concept that a girl can actually like a guy. I still feel like they just put up with us because they're supposed to. I also haven't quite grasped that a girl can actually pursue a guy, as in show signs of interest. Even when I receive those signs, I just call the girl outgoing and flirty and don't think twice about it.

Maybe I've just seen too many movies.

Or maybe I just don't want to seem stupid by assuming someone is interested only to find out she's just outgoing and flirty.

Confusion! Probably (hopefully) where confusion isn't necessary...

Signs

Efficiency Expert

After some research last week and some more today, I found ways to save my mom about $500/month just in our insurance and phone plans. Booya! Maybe I should charge a small fee to people to help them save money or time doing things more efficiently. I'm pretty sure I've heard of people actually doing that. Anyone interested in my efficiency services? :-)

It's looking like I'm going to be spending a majority of my time on my computer this summer.

• Learning SEO with Leadgenix
• Learning Adobe programs with BYU's OIT Training AND with the free Comms Department Lynda.com training membership
• Starting a website or two just to see if I can (and maybe start up a business or NPO?)
• Studying for the GMAT

All not including the time I spend on my computer already. What a nerd.

After today!

Matt, this one's for you. Well actually just the title.

Four presentations and 2 books down. Just 1 1/2 more short (easy) essays and 225 papers to grade. At least that's what I keep telling myself. Really, even after I grade the papers I have to spend hours putting them all into excel and making sure everyone's grade is right, and ranking the speakers by how much the students liked them.

But I get paid to do all that, so it's not like it's the worst thing in the world.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoIFa94fD3c

Except not about a girl. More the whole finishing the year of school thing.

UPDATE: Essays are done, so I'm officially done with classes this semester! The 225 papers and everything else with work remain. For now...

You should know something about me...

I balance.
Not literally.
Well, sometimes literally.
Everything about me is balanced.
I’m neither right- nor left-winged.
I’m used to the cold. I’m used to the heat.
I was born in the east, now live in the west.
My last name starts at the end of the alphabet.
My first name starts near the beginning of the alphabet.

I don’t apologize for being neurotic about the details.
(After all, the details are what separate good from great.)
I get chills when I figure out what makes someone tick.
I am moved by good music and great photography.
I’m creatively inclined,  I’m strategically talented.
I actually do care what other people think.
I learn new things as often as I can.
I stay up late. Too late.
I balance.

There's no place like home

I'm not entirely sure what I want to say, which is odd because most of the times I blog, I do it because I think of something I think is interesting, look around me to see that no one is around, so I tell everyone instead. (And of course by "everyone" I mean those (lucky?) few who actually read this.

So I don't deal with change very well. On my mission whenever I was moved to a new area I went through mini bouts of depression (just feeling down, not really depression) for anywhere from a day to almost a week. I always got over it though once I remembered that the Lord's work is great everywhere. (Although definitely harder in some places...)

And then sometimes I just ignore the situation and hope I will get used to the idea of the change over time without getting down. So far this has been how I've dealt with my whole strange family situation over the past few months. Maybe I'll talk about it more in the future. For now it is sufficient to know that things will work out well, but it will probably be just under 3 years until that is true.

Today was, bar none, the most productive day I've had all semester. I woke up at 8:30 (early-ish for me) and graded about 110 papers. Then I started making the book for my media class presentation. By 1:40 I was in the adlab making videos for my account management presentation, which took me until about 6:30. So I was basically going straight from 8:30am to 6:30pm. The sad thing is this is probably how many of you spend most of your days, and you're thinking "that's the most productive you've been this year? Wow, I'll trade lives with you any day!"

That's alright.

K I'm rambling, so I'm going to bed so I can go to church. I haven't gotten to take the sacrament in 2 weeks (general conference weekend, then a friend's baby blessing that took place at the same time as sacrament meeting. I can definitely feel a difference, and can't wait for sacrament meeting tomorrow.

Weird how we (I?) take things for granted so often.

Oh yeah, and how do you like new look of my blog?

Garbage

So BYU's L'Oreal Brandstorm team went to good ol' NYC to blow away the other schools in the National L'Oreal Brandstorm competition.

Unfortunately the world has gone to trash. The challenge: to create a new line of men's beauty product through Diesel. BYU's product line "Immortal" only got 2nd place to NYU's line "Foreplay." That's right, foreplay. It's a product that is basically a cologne/perfume for your not-so-public parts.

Everyone at the competition said BYU had the best presentation. Diesel was sold on NYU's willingness to push the limit. Now, I wasn't there and couldn't really say anything definitively, but from what I've heard (from a biased group, of course, but still...) it sounds like Diesel overlooked a lot of things from BYU's team simply because NYU dared to go where they did.

Gross. On the positive side, I heard that NYU's business school's dean told the NYU team he hoped BYU's team wouldn't walk out on their presentation because it was so raunchy.

Diesel is a gross brand anyway. I learned that first hand while preparing my own case study/product line a few months ago.

Why today was a good day

1. I actually got a lot done in the time I was at school from 7:30am to 3:30pm. I gave the Sierra-West presentation (practice round 2) (wow, that was today? I guess technically it was yesterday, but it feels like 2 or 3 days ago already...). I worked a bit on the MTV account, we came up with a few rad ideas for the Boy Scouts account, then we spent another 2 1/2 hours working on our Sierra-West presentation. It's getting pretty good.
2. Our (Brandon Tholen's and my) tenacity, doggedness, persistence, and indefatigability helped us get the house we have been fighting for (and had almost given up on). And yes, I just used the thesaurus on the word "tenacity" and wrote down a bunch of synonyms. My browser doesn't recognize "indefatigability."
3. I went running for the first time in a couple of weeks. I'm way out of shape, but it still felt good.
4. I went on a date for the first time in a couple of weeks. I'm way out of practice, but it still felt good :) Hoping to find another date for Friday's ballroom dance performance...
5. I paid a bill and went grocery shopping. (And saw one of the most beautiful girls I've ever seen while shopping. I've seen her a few times on campus and she takes my breath away.) Oh yeah, and girl's who shop at Smith's are hotter than girls who shop at Macey's. Just sayin'. I got to compare today because I went to both.

Housing debacle

A group of us (Brandon, Josh, Jonathan, Bryan, Matt, Tyler, and I) were looking for a place we could all stay. We found a place (which to my understanding is pretty nice, unfortunately I haven't seen it yet) right next door ( a house) which would be great. Then we found out the current owner decided to sell it, and the people who were buying it wanted to make it into women's housing instead.

Then we found out that BYU wanted to make it into women's housing in order to get rid of the (crappy) reputation of the Hollywood house. Brandon Tholen and I began preparing for an epic battle of wills, testimonies, and probably not fists. We got our current bishop and our (hopefully) future bishop to strap on the whole 9 yards of ammo, ready to fight for our entry into the house.

Apparently it only took a few precise shots by our sharpshooter, Bishop Henley (can you tell I've played too much Modern Warfare 2 lately?) to soften the hearts (or convince BYU?) of the soon-to-be owners to let us stay there.

If they try anything we've got literally 14 people as references, 3 of whom are ecclesiastical leaders with the ward's and stake's interest in mind.

Score one for networking. Boo-ya.

'Nuff said

"Man is the causer, though nearly always unconsciously, of his own circumstances and that whilst aiming at a good end, he is continually frustrating its accomplishment by encouraging thoughts and desires which cannot possibly harmonize with that end." - James Allen.

'Nuff said.

To-do List

So I seriously have the worst memory of anyone I know. I'm not sure what brings it on. Sometimes I feel like I'm very smart in some ways, and very dumb in others, and when it comes to remembering things, I definitely fall on the dumber side...

So I make lists. Except when I forget to. And then sometimes I forget to look at the lists.

• Find housing for Fall/Winter of next year
• Figure out my schedule and what classes to take in order to boost my GPA as much as possible
• Make sure I have something substantial to do this Summer
• Find somewhere to volunteer regularly
• Get back in to doing things in the AdLab
• Learn SEO (work with LeadGenix?) and see if my idea for an NPO could work...
• Get involved in some other program where I can gain leadership skills
• Get a job -or- see if I can get the bulk sales thing going to make some side cash while I attempt to stay sane doing everything else above.

The funny thing is I know I can do it all, but fear of failure stops me.

No more.

Unmotivation

A quick note about the following: it is one of my least favorite things about myself, so I feel a bit vulnerable writing this.

I haven't felt as unmotivated in a long time as I do today. It's a constant battle I always seem to have to fight, but at some point or another, I always seem to have days where I'm just not motivated at all.

Things that propel my unmotivation:

• Everyone else seems to be better at everything that is useful. I am not really excellent at anything.
• I struggle to find things that interest me. I just don't care about anything. Actually, what I should say is that I feel like I don't care about anything. Disinterest plagues me.
• I'm forgetful. The more I forget to do, the more I feel like I am unreliable. The more unreliable I feel I am, the less interest I have in doing anything because I feel like I will just fail.
• I feel like the things I learn in my classes are the "easy way out." Maybe (hopefully) all that really means is that I understand principles of advertising/marketing naturally, and that I'll be good at it for however long I actually am in that field. At the same time, I just feel like other people are learning much more sophisticated things in their majors, and it makes me feel less educated. But I'm not interested in those other things enough to actually study them.
• I'm lazy. It seems like I have no problem going out and getting my errands done, but I cannot, for the life of me, get anything else that I should be getting done, done.

I keep thinking about what my Comms 230 professor said about being a scholar vs. being a student, and I can't help but realize that I'm just a student. I can't bring myself to care enough about something to learn about it in my spare time. Nor can I bring myself to do my homework because I want to be better prepared for the world. Nor have I been able to search for/apply for internships or get involved the way I know I should be.

That's all for now. I just needed to get my thoughts written out. Hopefully my next post about my personal theme for 2010 will be more optimistic/less depressing.