2005, A Year on Steroids

And now my friends, it's time for the obligatory new years post. There is alot I can write here, because the new year always brings alot of things to the table. It's a time to reminisce and remember the last year, its a time to make goals for the new year, a time to look ahead, and a time to party down.

Logically, this whole idea of a "new year" is a bunch of hud. Its an arbitrary date on the calendar that is no different from any other. So what, the earth is at the same random location it was at 365 days ago, what does that mean to me? Its the same as any other day. New Years could be on May 13th, and it'd be the same. Logically it makes no sense.

But you know what? It's alot more fun to play along, even when logically it doesnt make sense. Thats something that I've learned lately. Sometimes things just don't fit the way you and the world look at stuff. "He punched me, I ought to punch him back, it's only fair." Guess what, don't punch him. Logic says to punch him. Something deeper says not to. You know what I mean?

So, even though logic says New Years is an arbitrary date that doesn't mean anything, I chose to play along. Hooray for the new year.

Last night I went down to the conference center with Kyle, Courtney, Tania, and Valerie for the first night thing. It was really really awesome, and I'm glad I went. They did the coolest thing ever, I was way impressed. They told everybody with a cell phone to send text messages and pictures to an email adress, and they'd put it up on the big screens. So, everybody just started sending awesome stuff, and it was cool to see what people had to send.

I'm very fascinated with public forums, places where anyone can put what they want. It doesnt have follow any pattern, its just what that person wants to say. One highway in the state going West past kennecot is ridiculously amazing. Its flat on both sides, with lots of rocks. As you drive on it, for miles and miles people have taken rocks and spelled stuff. For miles you can see what some person thought was important enough to warrant them taking half an hour to gather rocks and spell it out for you. Everyone has an equal oppurtunity out here. If you are willing to move rocks, you can put your message out to the world. There's all sorts of good stuff out there. I havent driven past in the day lately, but last time I did there was tons and tons of insightful stuff. A couple "Vote Bush '04" some "I (L) Person Y" and all sorts of other stuff. Someday I want to go study that highway, and document what everyone has to say.

Thats why I love textbooks and music stands. Text books have everyone's name in it that has had it, and sometimes they leave a little bit of wisdom for the next generation. I look at every text book I ever get to check out the names. Music stands have a limited space to add whatever grafiti you want to it. Im pretty sure the stands in Doc's room got painted over this year, but in the beginning of the year you could find one with a very good looking ninja turtle drawn on it, and another with "Girls are poonuts" scratched in.

I love stuff like that, and thats why I loved the little thing they did at the conference center. The first message that they put up was a quality "I finished the book of mormon last night. Yeah!" Everybody started clapping, it was pretty cool. Thornock took a picture of his face and added the text "Who needs a date?" A couple of people proposed, a couple people accepted. Some girls from plaza B said "Do you honor your priesthood?" and one girl was looking for "someone to kiss at midnight, but they have to have finished the book of mormon."

I was fascinated by it all, it was cool. Me and Kyle got our pictures up there, but they didn't add our text, which made me sad. We put (well, we had tania put..) "We love modest girls, give us a call: (Tania's cell phone number here)"

So, we didn't get any calls, but it was still a good time. Ryan Shupe was amazing, they did super good. It was awesome, cause they looked like they were just having a ton of fun playing up there. They were bouncing around and smiling, and it was cool, it was good music. I'm pretty sure his parents live in my ward.... They just moved in, their last name is shupe, and they kept talking about "Ryan" today, and how they went and listened to "ryan" last night. C'mon guys, his name is ryan shupe, thats what everyone calls the guy. They're related at least, its nutty.

So that was alot of fun, then I came back home and played balderdash with everybody that was at my place. Jesse kicked the crap out of all of us, but I didn't do too bad, I got 3rd, and started 2 rounds after everyone else. "A documentary about reclusive senior citizens with extraordinary talents" wootah. Oh, and my spleen feels wet. And I can't go barefoot because of someone else's mistakes. :D

Ok, so I went and did carpet like I thought I would on friday. It was pretty rough. I figured out that even though you eat at mcdonalds every day, it doesnt mean you work there. During the summer, when I cut carpet, I usually had at least a 2 inch margin of error. I could cut 2 inches crooked and still make things work. Friday I was supposed to cut a straight line. Straight. Just straight. That's alright if my name is justin or something, but since it's not, I kinda got my butt kicked, it was discouraging. Eventually we worked a system out where it got better, but it was still rough. The carpet was rubber backed, and so that just ate through the blades like mad. Oh well, I get paid for it, and got to relive the glory days of the summer. Hooray.

Ooooh, bad news. My mail order girlfriend, the frisbee, has been delayed in Logan. Apparently when Andrew got it, he didnt change the adress from his apartment in Logan. So, instead of shipping here, it shipped to his apartment. So my one true love is now sitting in the office at continental apartments in logan, all lonely and cold. I won't get to see her for at least 2 weeks. Terrible terrible. Oh well, I'll survive, I've been through worse.

Gosh I love to write in this thing. It's like a journal, I can write down everything I think, but it's alot better than a journal because I can write in it about 5 times the speed I can with a pen. I'm encouraged to write by the fact that I know somebody is going to read this. I do it mostly for me, but my excuse is for all y'alls. Its a nice system, I love writing.

Well, now it's time to look back on the year, and look forward on the next.

Last year was definitely the best and worst year ever. It was the best in alot of ways, like, winning the nerd championship, having all that pay off. Winning wasn't as much fun as beating everyone to get there, but it was good times. one of my best memories of all time will always be just running orion in round 2. 11-1 streak, you can't beat that with a 10 foot long clown pole. Nerds was alot of fun, the best thing I did in junior high. It beats anything else. If I could offer any advice to little junior high kids, it'd be to join the buzzer team, and work hard.

Last year was good, simply because 9th grade was a party. I got to the point where I didn't suck at track, and that was happy. The district meet was fun, I ran a 5.22.25 mile, and I'm dang proud of that. I got 1st in the second heat in the mile, and 1st in the second heat in the 800. That means I was the best mediocre runner out there. That was fun, I can look back on that and be proud of it. Sure, I wasn't the fastest in either race, but I didn't need to be. I did great, and I'm happy with it. I did what I wanted to do, and I'm proud of that.

I'm proud of how much work I did this summer. I worked my butt off doing that carpet. I'm not the strongest guy you're gonna meet. In fact, it'll only take you about 45 seconds to find somebody alot stronger than me in the viscinity. But all that aside, I worked hard. And I made up for my girly muscles with stone cold determination. We finished our job below budget. That is one great feeling. We beat the powers of adhesive, pulled that carpet up. We owned the power of gravity and friction, and placed some good looking carpet where the crap used to be. I got to be pretty good with one of those knives, and only but myself once, and buddy once. I made alot of money, but I learned alot in the process. I got to be a really good friend with Sharpe, and got some good hookups. It was a great summer from the work standpoint.

I gained a greater love for Ultimate Frisbee. This summer was the best frisbee summer ever. I don't think that there will ever be a better time in my life. For all my efforts I'm going to put in these next few years to build a frisbe empire, I can't help but think that I'll fall short of the glory that was before my reign. This summer, every friday, we'd go out to the field, and just play for hours. The sun wasn't up, so i didn't have to worry about sunburn, the wind was always calm, and the players great. I went from being last pick to not last pick. Some of the best memories will be driving to frisbee with Andrew, talking about life. He taught me some good stuff ya know, I love frisbee.

Cross country in high school was cool. I got to get to be at least acquaintances with the rest of the team. I'm not gonna say I'm friends, cause I don't think that I qualify as a friend in most of their eyes, but at least we had fun. I got to be in alot better shape, improved my time alot, learned alot, had a good time. Sure, I'm still a slacker, I'm not fast, I'm not talented in that field, but it's fun, and it keeps me healthy, I'm glad I did it.

Now, the only reason that last year wasn't 100% great was because of girls. Alot of you don't want to hear this. In my mind, I can see levi doing his trademark sigh, and thinking "here he goes again." Levi, I love that sigh. If I didn't love it so much I wouldn't write stuff like this.

But ya know, I'm not gonna talk about personal stuff. You all know the stories. Im pretty sure nobody knows the whole story, I don't even know the whole story. But I got most of it, and it's cool. but I'm going to talk about this whole "love" business in general terms.

Love, simply defined, is life on steroids. Well, that's not entirely fair. There are a couple kinds of love. There's the classic romantic love, there's the whole parental love, and then maybe something else I'm yet to experience so much. Basically, I'm talking about romantic love, cause its alot easier.

You live life just normally, and there are ups and downs. Good days, bad days, we all know how it goes. You're never happy forever, and you're never sad forever. Perhaps one is more prevalent in your life, but both exist. Love is just a modifier to life. A scalar if you will. The ups of life are dizzyingly high, and the lows are terribly low. On a normal day, if you're a 4, on a day in love, you're gonna be a 16. If you're a -2 on a normal day, on a day in love you're a -8.

Thats mostly why this year was higher, and lower than any other. There were some great times, some times where I just couldn't help smiling. Good crap, I really liked the first half of 9th grade plus the next couple months. When things were up, they were sky high. And then things start to suck, for whatever the reasons, and then things suck big time. I spent alot of time being amazingly happy, and alot of time being ridiculously sad.

To pain the picture more clearly, life is like hunting with a BB gun. You run around, shoot at stuff, some stuff falls, some stuff doesn't. Then one day you accidentally shoot your foot. And it hurts.

"Love" is like hunting with a rocket launcher. When you hit the deer, there's not much left of it when you finally walk over to it, and thast the way you want it to be. You can't take out an elephant with ease. Then one day you shoot yourself in the foot, and you just lost both legs.

Its life on steroids. Parts of this year sucked big time because of it, but parts of this year rocked to the max. this "love" is a dangerous thing, I don't want any of that mad action right now, at least not for a little while. I'd be very happy to go back to the whole innocent "giggle, I like that girl" Perhaps someday, perhaps.

All in all. Great year. Lots of ups, and lots of downs. More ups than downs? Probably.

2006 looks great. There's gonna be food, and girls, and more food. Levi's gonna be there.

No really, frisbee, getting good at running, working again. Maybe I'll get some muscles.

I tell you what though, I'm not kissing anybody, or loving anybody if I can help it. Maybe it'll happen, maybe not. Who knows. Sure, it's more fun than a barrel of monkeys, but its about as much fun as bird flu at the same time.

2006 will rock, 2005 rocked too. Thats all.