Friday, April 25, 2008

I'm not the only one

I learned some things today. Not huge things, but things that I didn't expect. They've forced me to rethink some things. Not big things, certainly, but things nonetheless.

Looking through google analytics at my blog stats, and I see a visit from guatemala. I get random hits from random countries all the time, no sweat, but this one lasted for 16 minutes. I checked the source, and it came from a blog that's run by T. Armstrong, you know, the T. Armstrong we all know and love from school.

Anyways, I checked it out, and mr. Armstrong has got himself one very attractive blog. Apparently he's been at it since last year. He's only got 18 posts between now and then, but still, the fact that he's had a blog for that long and that I never knew about it.

It was one of those, "Oh snap, you don't know half of what you think you do," moments. I figured we'd tracked down all of the taylorsville bloggers long ago. Nah, he slipped through. Granted, he's not linked to or from anybody in the local blogosphere, but still. It surprised me. I'll wait to shoot him a link till I get permission from him, but you can google him if you want.

Another, more important, discovery came today during English. We'd been talking about the valedictorian race all day long, because Horton called down everybody in the running to verify information and tell them that they'd find out next week sometime. I got called down, as did Nickmo, Jason, and several others.

In english we were talking about it, and we discovered one girl had taken nine AP classes. She has something like a 3.98 GPA, but as a raw weighted GPA, she totally owns me.

Now, I'm alright with that. As I've said before, I'm alright losing. Even the one condition that I've always stated, whereas I refuse to lose to one certain person, I'm beginning to ease up on. Heck, I'll even lose to that guy. If he speaks, though, I want to speak too.

Tangents aside, I was blown away. Not by her accomplishments, even though I think those are pretty impressive, but rather by the fact that I had ignored this for so long. I think of all those times that me and Nickmo talked about it in class. When Parrish asked, "Who's it going to be?" and me and nick always talked about us and jason. She was sitting right there, totally blowing us away, listening to us be arrogant. I dunno, it was just something I totally wasn't aware of. I was so unaware of it, I was entirely unaware that I was unaware.

So things aren't looking too hot for the valedictorian thing. I'm down with that. Mom's a lot more invested in it than I am, but that's cool. We'll see what happens. I'd love to be able to speak, but I'm alright if I don't get to. Life will be a lot less stressful if I don't get the nod, but I think it'd be a cool opportunity. It'd be like a five minute vocal blog post. What could be cooled than that?

I've done very little homework this term. Heather said something interesting today. We were in English, and very few of us had done the assignment from last time. We'd talked about it before, known it was happening. After a while though, she turned around and said, "I can tell myself I don't care, but I still do." She was worried about not doing her assignment, getting a bad score and grade, etc. etc.

I don't know if I'm in the same boat as she is, but I think that I'd like to be, for various reasons. I've managed to turn off my caring switch under the pretenses of preparing for BC calc. I really haven't done a ton to prepare for calc anyways though, I've just been being lazy. Talking with mom today, I realized that I should probably start working on my homework again.

I'm starting to look at it as a bit of a race. It'd be a big shame to give up all the work I've done up to this point just because I feel like being a slacker.

In reality, keeping a 4.0 will do very very little for me. College is already taken care of, and scholarships are already set. The valedictorian race will be done long before fourth quarter is even at midterms. On paper, the 4.0 doesn't do much for me.

But it's the principle of the matter. Why be a slacker? I know it's a bit disappointing to everybody around me, especially mom. I don't wanna be one of those guys that does things just for his mom's sake, but let's be honest, she's pretty cool, and I love her, so she probably deserves a little bit more effort on my part. I don't want to look back on the last term of my senior year and regret stuff. I think it's about time I started getting some work done.

This discussion is mostly focused on English. Calculus is a giant ball of mystery right now. I've been keeping up in Adult Roles. Choir and Mads are hard not to keep up in. Health is cake. I need to take care of English though.

Things are changing. Ballgames are changing. I've got a whole post in my noggin about ball games. I wish it wasn't so late, I could write for a long time about it all. Soon, hopefully. I learned some new things about ball games on tour. Tour was quite the learning experience. There was quite a bit of risky adventure, but I think I pulled myself through it all quite nicely.

It feels good to think. To ponder where I've been and where I'm going. To think about those who are coming, and those who have gone. Things are changing, like I said. That's got its ups and downs.

I tend to feel pulled in two directions all the time. There's the good part of me that wants to work hard and study and write and workout and prepare for everything in life, and then there's the lazy part of me that wants to waste the whole day. There's the wise part of me that wants to keep myself relationship free, and there's the whole other part of me that is actively trying to woo the ladies. Ups and downs, as I'm wont to say several times a post. Both sides are seeking the ups. In all honesty, both sides are very capable of finding the ups where they're headed. I think it's just a matter of finding the path that leads to the most ups. The higher ups, the better ups, the one ups, etc. etc. If we integrate my path through life and find the average value, I hope it's high because of the choices I made.

Wow, did I really just make the calculus reference? It's really sort of a good one. Let's see if we can flesh it out a little bit better.

A lot of choices we make move us either up or down on the graph of life. As we live, we carve out a curve, based upon our choices. At the end of the day, when we integrate that curve and take the average value, we can see how well we've done. Our choices today have a direct influence on the value of our lives.

Ha, atta boy Newton.

Ah, just trucking along. Tomorrow looks like a good opportunity. I hope things work out. I'm sure that they will. T told us that we're probably going to sing "You are the New Day" for graduation. I'm very happy about that. She also tapped "The Prayer" for concert choir, I think. Don't hold me to that. I'm super excited about that choice though. We sang it once in mads, just sort of a practice run. It was beautiful. I've been singing it on and off every once in a while, not even remembering what it was since then. It's gorgeous, I hope that we do sing it.

It's late. I'm excited for the possibilities that tomorrow brings. It's a quest for understanding and fulfillment. A journey of self-discovery. A marathon of endurance and a constant vigil over the person that you want to be. Hmmm.

I hope you're all doing well. It feels good to post. Sometime soon I really want to go all out and tell the important stories. There are a few important stories that I haven't posted here, because of how important they are. Maybe they'll never be posted, but maybe they will. I'm becoming more bold, I think.

I've flutted about long enough, I believe. Today we have snorkeled, and tomorrow we scuba dive. Understanding, here I come.

3 comments:

Nathan said...

Anyways, I checked it out, and mr. Armstrong has got himself one very attractive blog. Apparently he's been at it since last year.

... It was one of those, "Oh snap, you don't know half of what you think you do," moments.


I love those moments. A few weeks ago I stumbled across the blog of a guy in my elders' quorum (my district leader, no less), and it blew me away. The resulting conversation in church was very pleasant.

I'm starting to look at it as a bit of a race. It'd be a big shame to give up all the work I've done up to this point just because I feel like being a slacker.

... Why be a slacker? I know it's a bit disappointing to everybody around me, especially mom.


Sadly, that's what I did. And believe me, it's not pretty; you remember what happened. I know pretty much all of my friends were disappointed in me, too, which only made it harder because I knew that they knew I was completely capable of not only pulling it off, but being brilliant.

So keep it up till the finish. Valedictorian or not, you don't want to throw a good thing away.

A lot of choices we make move us either up or down on the graph of life. As we live, we carve out a curve, based upon our choices. At the end of the day, when we integrate that curve and take the average value, we can see how well we've done. Our choices today have a direct influence on the value of our lives.

I'm reminded of my junior year, when Spencer Daniels and I would make graphs in the halls by the way we walked. For added effect, we even curved our bodies with all those curvy bits (I've forgotten all their names except for my old friend parabola). Good times. 8-)

She also tapped "The Prayer" for concert choir, I think.

Does this happen to be the one Celtic Woman sings?

Today we have snorkeled, and tomorrow we scuba dive.

Brilliant.

Fluffy said...

I really liked this post, Thatcher. I'm not really sure how to explain it, but this post really impressed me. All the ideas seemed to be really good and uplifting. I liked it a lot. Keep up the good work :)

Taylor Armstrong said...

You should see it now I have figured out some stuff on the html. The background is just a sample for me. I like those moment that we had in English. They make my day sometimes; for then I don't have to do as much work when we get on gigantic conversations about something.