Logan Blogaday - Day Fourteen

Two weeks of logan blogaday. Ah snap.

Happy Labor Day to all of my American readers. Since all of my readers are American, I won't even bother to put a line in there for my foreign friends. If I did, it would have gone something like, "I bet you wish you were here now too, eh?"

Nah, but really, I like people. Even if they're not from America.

I was going to steal a cool idea for a post I saw on another blog today. Since it's labor day, the blogger told a little bit about every job he's ever had. He talked about what was good about it, what was bad about it, how and why he got it, how and why he lost it, etc. etc.

I'm interested in writing that post, but I don't think I'll do it tonight. I'm not in that mood.

I've learned a few things while I've been here at school for two weeks. Some things that I'm going to write down in a list. Stupid basic things that I wish I'd have known a month ago. I only have one solid one so far.

#1 - Textbooks are worth the price. Even new ones.

Yes, we know that the textbook market is a scheme. But not having a calculus book because you weren't willing to spend 200 dollars is a joke. I'm spending how much to come to school? I'm spending what on tuition? And I'm going to make it twice as hard on myself by not buying a book? It's 200 dollars, honestly. The proportions here are way off. Just buy the books next time, doofus.

So yeah, I finally ordered the book today. After a week of classes I figured having my own copy would definitely be worth it. So that's one lesson I've got down, hooray!

(8) Reach for the western skies (8)

Not sure why that line from that song is in my head, but it is. I like the passion in it. I'm not a musical genius. As far as music goes I'm pretty stupid. I like it that way. I sing to myself when I feel like it. I was singing hymns as I got ready this morning. I'm in an apartment with a lot of musical people. Kyle's doing cool stuff with institute choir and Latter Day Voices, James is dang good at theory, and Molly happened to be over as I was singing. I realized that I wasn't rounding my vowels or supporting my breath or singing forward or doing any of those things that I'm supposed to do when I sing. But I wasn't singing for anyone but myself. I was singing for a purpose, and that purpose was entirely satisfied by not doing all those crazy things. It was actually fulfilled better by my unprofessional voice than it would have been by my professional one. I like my trailer park singing, thank you very much.

And I think that's the moral of my story for a minute. Sometimes I don't care if it's not done perfectly. Sometimes I don't care if they ripped off the idea from rogers and hammerstein or anybody else. Sometimes I like a line of song sung with passion. There doesn't have to be a reason for it.

I'm not ragging on the music buffs in the room. I'm just saying, sometimes the rules don't matter as much. Sometimes it's just about being human.

I'm not pursuing my education with passion. I'm not here because I desperately want to be here. I've learned that even if we don't desperately need something, we can still make good things come of it. But I decided that I want to start pursuing things that I desperately want, not just things that seem to work out.

College makes a lot of sense for me right now. I'm leaving on a mission in not too long, and a year of college fits in perfectly with my schedule. My tuition and pretty much everything else is paid for thanks to highschool and a nice Pell grant. So it makes a lot of sense for me to be here.

But I'm not hungry for it. I'm here cause it makes sense, not because I want to be here. I'm not saying I don't want to be here, cause that's not true. But when you ask me why I'm here, I don't say, "Because I'd die if I wasn't."

Moral of my story? I'd love to be passionate about this stuff. I'd love to want to do something. Anything really. I'd love to know what I want. I'd love to wake up and say, "Oh yeah, I'm ready to go move forward on this whole, what I want to be when I grow up, thing." Of course, that means that I need to know what I want to be when I grow up. It also means that I need to be moving forward on all of that. I'm going to look for it.

I'm a family guy. I think about my family a lot when I make decisions. I'm how I am because of my family, at least in large part. So it's very interesting for me to be considering taking a hippie semester this spring. The idea of halting progress on my major in order to take time evaluating my life and finding out what I really want to study is something that's just laughed at at home. "You don't want to be one of those people that changes their major a hundred times and ends up at school forever." Most of that comes from Nathan, but it's cool. It's not a bad thing at all. But it's not something that I have to do that often- disagree with things that I've been told by my brothers or parents. It's my wisdom versus theirs, but I've got to start somewhere.

I'm still not positive I'll be taking a hippie semester. I might fall in love with Mechanical in the meantime. I simply don't want to be unhappy.

It's sort of like this marriage thing. A time will come in my life when the next step in my life will be to get married. When that time comes, I'm not going to marry someone that I don't want to marry. Even if they are a great idea and I'm really good at math and science. I've got to want to marry them.

Likewise, I can't go ahead and marry mechanical engineering if I don't want to marry it. I'm here because it made sense and I didn't feel like it was a bad idea. I even like the idea. I'm just not sure that it's the place that I want to be. I know it'll work. I'm sure it'll work. But maybe I want to be something else. That's my choice, right?

I don't know why I'm so hung up on all this. After all, it's only been a week of class. I've done like, two assignments. My engineering classes don't excite me though. Look at me go, preparing to do something I never expected to do. Maybe I'll go crazy and actually transfer to BYU when I get back from a mission, just to throw everybody for a loop. Maybe I'll start doing my hair different too!

Okay, not really. One step at a time here. Plus I really like my hair the way it is.

Notice how sometimes I just ramble a bit? It's the curse of blogaday. Under normal posting routines I'll come when there is something to say. Under blogaday's regime I'll come regardless. I'll usually find something. Sometimes it's just not worth as much.

It's like kennecott copper mine. It's successful because it goes through so much ore that it can afford to only gather a fraction of a percent of copper from each ton of rock it processes. It was a pretty new idea when the mine started. Instead of mining a little bit of really high quality ore, they just mine a whole buttload of low quality ore.

Blogaday's like that. Not necessarily super high quality all the time, but hopefully the added volume makes the value equal. Hopefully we get some stuff out of it.

So, I've certainly got lots to work on. But I'm glad that I've got friends who care about me. It's good to learn things. College is good for me. This whole experience is going to make me better, I know it. Sometimes you've just got to be brought down a bit before you can be brought up. That's how it goes I think.

Well, halfway there, right? ;)

I hope you're all doing great. I do care about you. I'm always up for a good bit of helping my friends out. It makes me feel good about myself and it's a great distraction from homework and hunger pains, so let me know if there's anything ;) Have a great night friends, I'm out like leg-warmers.