Open

Hey, Happy Monday evening. It's been a pretty good day. School went really well. I sluffed first period to catch up on sleep, and that was just awesome. It was an off-day in calc, so it wasn't a huge deal. I did my assignment tonight, and I feel really good about all of it but one problem. It felt good to sleep in. It felt even better to head to school when it was bright and happy outside. Most of the frost on the vehicle had been taken care of by the sun, it was pretty sweet.

Daylight savings is gonna change that, but I'm alright with it. It gives us more time in the evening, so that's cool.

Spring is coming, and that just makes me happy. During the winter I forget how good life can really feel outside. The beauty of that first amazing run on that first amazing mild night, that's awesome. I'm really looking forward to summer evening runs again. I didn't go on too many last summer, but the ones I did hit were really cool. Me, Kyle, Levi, and James would all get together and go hit the parkway. We took it fairly easy, just jogging around, enjoying being together and breathing in what the evening had to offer. Ah, makes me nostalgic. I can't wait for summer evening runs with good people.

Tonight feels very open. Not open in an "I'm emotionally open" kind of way, but open as a "the future is ripe for the taking" kind of open. I feel good about life right now. School is more or less under control. I finished Tess, and I feel like I nailed the test. It didn't kill me. I've got no incredibly pressing projects on my plate right now. I feel like I'm on top of calculus. There are a few assignments missing, but I think I can probably just let them slide for now, as long as I keep up with the rest. I know the material, so that's good. I'm a lot of responses behind in English, as well as the Romeo and Juliet write-up, but I think I can make it happen. There are a few scholarship applications I'd like to get in that have deadlines in the next week or two. A few essays to write, but nothing incredible. I'm excited to do it.

Our choir concert is the 10th. I'm very excited for it. It'll be fun to perform, surely, but I'm really excited to find out what happens in choir once the concert is over with. What are we going to do? It's a complete mystery to me. It'll be a grand adventure I suppose.

I've been meaning to write more. I haven't gotten to it, obviously. Writing does a lot of good for me. I really think it makes me grow as a person. It's interesting to note that I don't default to writing, though. If I don't make an effort to write, it doesn't happen. The same goes for running, and studying, and all sorts of other good things that make me better. If I don't put forth the energy to start it, it doesn't happen.

I haven't been running, really at all. In the past several months I've logged an official five miles or so. I've obviously run more with Ultimate and Basketball, but it's not the same. Since blogaday, I've been very patchy with my writing. I haven't been keeping incredible logs of my bloogsugar, like I could be.

Now, I don't think I've been a slacker these past few months. I don't say that I'm unsatisfied with what I've been doing with my life. It's just interesting to point out that these things don't happen unless I make them happen. I haven't been making them happen, for various reasons.

And I'd like to start making them happen more. Writing, to me, is sort of like the fruit in your cereal effect I wrote about a long time ago. Fruit in cereal, to me, is the essence of affluence. If you have the time and resources to put external fruit into your cereal, you are clearly a well-to-do and happy individual. Life is good if there is fruit in your cereal. Not necessarily because fruit in your cereal makes life any better, but because fruit in your cereal is a symptom of a great life. Make sense?

Writing is sorta like that. I mean, I really do believe that writing does make my life better, but I feel like I write more when my life is better. When I'm doing well, posts fly. When I'm stressed or busy or not feeling well, I don't get as many out there. Writing is like the cherry on top. I guess, to me, it's sort of like thinking, "This is the next step. I've already conquered steps one through six today, and this is just the bonus round. I can take steps to make the world a better place, instead of playing on the defensive."

I talked about playing on the defensive versus the offensive a while ago. I made a plan to be much more vocal about everything. I was planning to use the written word to change things. I think it probably developed during blogaday. I haven't gone on any crusades, but I did take care of a few things. I wrote the letters to my counselor to help me graduate, and those were very successful. I am now officially on track to graduate, how cool is that? I wrote the essays I needed to for the Sterling Scholar business and that Micron app. I never did apply for Micron. After all that work I decided not to, but I feel good about it. I learned more about me through that Micron app.

Back to the defensive ideas. I feel like writing is the next step. I can spend my life being a zombie, simply catching the tasks that are thrown at me, and throwing them back, done fairly well. That's fine and dandy, and it's been working great. But at some point I'd like to be able to stand up and say "Hey, I'm doing this." instead of being told to do it. Nobody has told me I needed to blog for a grade since ninth grade. I do this because I want to, and because I love the effects that it has. Stuff like that is way cool.

Projects for the sake of projects make me very happy. Excellence, I think, is only truly excellence when it exists only for excellence' sake. In the past I've been very any anything for anything's sake. Most things need a reason. But I think excellence is one of those things that really needs no defense. It's sorta like blogaday. Blogaday was pure because it existed for itself, not necessarily for anyone else. Excellence is like that. I wrote about ceilings during blogaday, and how I admire them so. I'm still a big ceiling fan. (Ha!)

It grows late. Well, really, it grew late a long time ago. It's still late. I do suppose it's a good time for me to go read some BOM and then head to bed. I hope you're all doing well. If things work out, I ought to be writing some more this week. No guarantees, but we'll see what I can do. I'd like to write. Right on friends, have a good one.