Peace

Well friends, I'm out for the next two years. I've been called to serve in the Texas Dallas mission, so I'll be elsewhere preaching the good word till about July or August 2011. It's been fun.

This is what I'm supposed to do, and I'm excited to go do it. The blog should remain up, and I think I've paid the domain fees for the next three years. Hopefully I'll come back and write when I get home. We'll see though.

Anyways, friends, I just wanted to post one last time before I leave. Sure, I haven't posted much this past year, but I still love the blog. It's been an important part of my growing up. It wouldn't have been possible without readers out there like you. Thanks for reading.

If you're interested in writing me, my MTC address is:

Elder Christopher John Thatcher

Texas Dallas Mission

Provo Missionary Training Center

2005 N 900 E

Provo, UT 84604

That address will work for the next eight weeks, or till about september 9. After that, if you feel inclined to write me, you can catch me at

Elder Christopher John Thatcher

Texas Dallas Mission

13747 Montfort Dr Ste 120

Dallas, TX 75240-4454

Much love folks. I'll be back in two. Peace out :)

Five Days

Do you ever wonder about unwritten blog posts? And by that I mean to say that I've been wondering about unwritten blog posts tonight. I have brief flashes of ideas, often when I'm going down some stairs. Just ideas that deserve exploration and writing, stuff that I think, "Hmm, I could blog about that..."

In the event that you've been following the blog, you'll no doubt notice that I haven't been writing about these things. That's alright, but I feel like it's a bit of a shame. Those ideas didn't really get explored too deeply by me. (That last sentence is very ugly-- 'get explored' is not a pleasant way to talk about exploration, and 'too deeply by me' is especially bad. I think that 'by me' is the ugliest part) Revision: Those ideas didn't really experience the exploration I felt they had potential for. Because of that, I didn't experience the exploration that could have come from it. Because I didn't write it here, I lost out on a lot of potential gains.

• I could have learned something about myself, or at least about how I percieve the world.
• I could have left something here for me to come back to later. Without writing, there is no permanent record of having that thought.
• I could have produced something that may have been valuable to someone else.

Of course, none of those bullets are guaranteed. I could write a full post every time that I felt like I had potential for it, and I could perchance never experience any of those successes. Be that as it may, I feel like the potential is there.

I don't mourn the loss of the posts that I didn't write. I do wonder about a future where I would have written those posts. How would things be different if I sat down and worked for that hour it takes to write?

I'm out of here in five days. I'm going on a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. This is something I've been preparing for for all of my life, and I'm very happy and excited to go. I'm out of here for two good years. I don't regret my decision to pack up and peace out of my local life at all.

It does present a lot of cool opportunities. Sometime before I leave I'm going to write myself my "welcome home" letter. It's a letter that'll detail the plans that I have for myself when I get home. Writing the letter means that I'll have to make a plan for myself. It's not every day that you get to check out of your life for two years. It's sort of like a recess. Go somewhere else, work like you've never worked before, and then come back and make your life the best you possibly can. This project, my life, that I've been working on for the past 19 years is about to take a time out. Timeouts are a great opportunity to reevaluate and gather the resources and vision to come back stronger. Timeouts change the outcome of games, you know. I'm excited to take a timeout.

Will you be hearing from me before I leave? I sure hope so. I want to write a post about my plans and dreams. There's more to say. There'll always be more to say.

Will you hear from me once I'm home? I'm not sure yet. This blog did something wonderful for me and my life... I don't know if I'll have the same need for a blog once I resume my life. We'll see, though. I believe in all of this writing mumbo-jumbo. It's been good to me.

This is Christopher Thatcher, peacing out for the night. Peace and love, friends.

The Artistic Life of an Insulin Addict

Icarus

Hi, my name is: Icarus

I went running with James today, and it was awesome. It was a very focusing run. It helped me take a step back and look at life and what I want to do and to be.

I've got a plan now, and I'm super excited about this plan. It's audacious and it's pretty much bound to fail. But I am determined to not give up. It's my plan and I'm sticking with it. Because really now, who's to say what I'm capable of? Who's to say that I'll fail? Maybe I will. But hey, I've got a shot at it, so I'm going to take it.

My advisor emailed me back. It wasn't a super long email, but he essentially said, "Yes, you will have prereq problems, but the teachers should be willing to sign you in anyways. I'll be retired by the time you get back, but this other guy should be able to help you. Good luck on the mission." It was cool to get a response. I know that's his job and all, but it was nice for me to get my thoughts out there and to get his thoughts back. In a small way, it's sort of like getting the "Yeah, I believe in you." back. I know it's not that dramatic, but it wasn't something like, "Nah, you can't hack this, go home." It was nice, that's all.

So, yeah, I'm feeling much better. Less sluggish. Tomorrow looks like it ought to be a really good day. This cat is off to read and then to sleep. It's 1:46 AM, but that's a ton earlier than the past few nights has been. It feels good. I ran today, I've done a little bit of work to actually earn this sleep tonight. Feels nice.

Sluggishness

I'm alive, really. And I do still think and feel, even if I haven't written in a while. This past week has been a little ridiculous. I've really enjoyed it, but there hasn't been a ton of life progress involved. I got a sweet computer game for my birthday, Mass Effect, and me and Michael have been logging lots of hours late into the night on it. Because my life is almost entirely up to me right now, that means I stay up very late and wake up very late. It's not a good way to get much done, but it's been a good time. I'm torn right now between just finishing the game (we're pretty close) or just quitting cold turkey because I can't handle this lack of accomplishment for much longer. There are things that I need to get done that I haven't been getting done. But hey, that's only up to me.

I leave for PLC on Tuesday. That's pretty sweet action. I'm not ready for it, but I think that I will be by then. I need to fix my bike up, pack, and learn all the lessons I'm supposed to be teaching. It should be fun. I've never been an "Adult advisor" before. That'll be cool.

I finally emailed my chem advisor today. Technically he's not my chem advisor since I'm not a chem student. But when I do become a chem student, then he'll be my chem advisor. Either way, I emailed him my proposed schedule just to see if it's realistic and doable. It's a little smashed up because of AP credit and other classes I took without knowing I wanted to do chemistry. But I'm hoping that it'll work. It's a pretty fierce return semester, but I'm really excited about it. It's what I want to do, and I'm so happy to finally have something to work towards.

I'm supposed to be going camping tonight. I don't really want to. Not because I don't like camping, because I do, but because there is other stuff that I'd like to do tonight. I suppose it can be okay, if I work harder right now I can manage most of it, and I can finish the rest on Saturday. Hmm.

Work. Haven't been doing much of it. I feel really good when I do work. I should do more of it.

Okay, I'm out. I've got a bike to fix up. Sorry about the lack of postage, I should be managing more of it in the near future. I've been liking life, I just need to work harder. Nobody is forcing me into anything these days. It's this insane lack of schedule or outside responsibility. There's a list of things to be done, and aside from the occasional reminder from mom, it's entirely up to me. This is life, and it's always been life. No new concepts or governing principles here. This isn't a surprise and it's nothing new. And I know what I need to do. I just need to do it. So here I go, to do it. Whoosh.

Quesadilla

There was an excellent moment tonight. I got home and was hungry, so I and went about searching for something to hit the perfect spot. In a flash of glory, the idea of microwaving a quesadilla hit me like a tidal wave of satisfaction. A quesadilla was exactly what I needed right then.

So I made the quesadilla and it was fantastic. I loved it. And I'm just here tonight to say that sometimes the perfect solution is a quesadilla. It's not often that a perfect solution is easily available or even in existence. Some decisions are so difficult that no matter what choice one makes someone gets hurt. The quesadilla question wasn't like that. I needed something to eat, and a quesadilla was, without question, the perfect solution. No compromises, no trade-offs-- nothing but delicious cheesy goodness.

So hey, life is worth living- we've got quesadillas.

Sporadi-post!

Because normal words that are cut in half and end in "-post!" sound really cool.

Here I am, hooray! I use google analytics to track the traffic to my blog. I'm consistently amazed at how many hits I get from random google searches. I wrote a post about spirit week at eisenhower a few years ago, and I mentioned a kid's first and last name. I usually made it a policy not to use last names on the blog, but I guess I just slipped that day. Anyways, I've had 13 hits to the blog from google searches on his name in the past few years. Thirteen hits isn't a lot, but it's interesting how they are spread out. It's not like there are eight hits in one month, no, they're evenly spread out. Someone is interested in that kid. Chances are that it's just that kid. It may also be the police or the news folks. Either way, I think it's fun.

Things that I'm excited about: 

1) There's an Ultimate tournament between singles wards coming up on the 30th. Granted, it won't be as intense as other tournaments I've played in, but it's still an ultimate tournament. That's awesome. We're going to dominate. With three Thatchers on the team, we're going to work dang hard to bring home the trophy. As an added bonus, this ward took absolute last place at this tournament last year. They're out for blood, and now that me and Andrew have joined the team, I think we're going to get it.

2) I'm going to PLC again, w00t! As a quick recap, PLC is a week long camp that 15+ year old boys are invited to from about eight stakes. The whole week is designed to build leadership skills and awesome stuff like that. I went as a participant three years ago and it totally blew me away. I went back as staff the last two years, working in the "presidency" that ran it. This year I get to go back as an adult leader, despite my obvious lack of adult status. I'm absolutely giddy about this. The months that lead up to PLC are incredibly stressful for staff. There's just a lot to be done, and trying to collaborate power sharing between a bunch of 17 year olds and a bunch of fossils isn't an easy task. The week of PLC is really hard too, but we all know that it's worth it at the end. I'm excited to go this year because there's nothing cooler than the lessons that you learn at PLC, and that's what I get to focus on this year. Nothing administrative, just me teaching these newbies stuff that's true and incredibly effective. These lessons make my heart sing they're so good. I've never run into anything that's as good at teaching effective leadership skills like PLC. So yeah, it's a brute. But it's so worth it, and I'm so excited to go back and help one more time.

3) I get to play basketball and Ultimate tomorrow. Basketball with Dak and those folks, and Ultimate practice for the tournament. I love doing both of those things. That's great news!

So, I was reading some bloggage tonight- personal finance stuff like usual. And I started reading this post about something or other, blah blah blah. Anyways, it talked about being confident, and how to get confident. And I really just had to stop halfway through that first sentence and think to myself, "Huh, reading this crud's not going to help me get confident. A little bit of work sounds like the right thing for me. I'm out." So I quit reading, came here to write, and now I'm off to study. Because let's be serious, reading a blog about how to gain confidence isn't going to make me a better person. Some hardcore study will make me a better person though, and isn't being a better person something that's going to make me more confident? You better believe it.

So I'm out. I hope you're all doing well. Happy postage.