The Other Dentist

Lamentation

2012-01-25T01:32:00.002-07:00

I have a rocky relationship with late nights. What I mean to say by that is that except for one big thing, I love everything about late nights.

I could go on and on about how I love doing homework when all my roommates are asleep so the apartment is quiet and without distraction. I could talk about how I feel like I can focus like crazy at night time and get everything done. I could talk about how nobody ever schedules anything this late at night so there's no way I could ever be late to something. I could talk about how it offers me a chance to think and ponder and read and write without falling asleep (if I tried any of those things during the afternoon I'd be out cold in a heartbeat). I love late nights.

My one complaint, the whole reason this relationship is a little rocky, is how other people act late at night. Many individuals have commented that they laugh at things that aren't funny late at night. This is usually expressed as something like

"oh my gosh, I'm so tired, I can't stop laughing and it's not even that funny."

Here's the issue: there's nothing I love more than making people laugh. It's what I do when I'm with a group. Like anything, though, I draw energy from my audience. If I'm making jokes and people are laughing and having a good time, shoot, that's the best. I get on a roll and keep building on things and we have a great time. I feel like an all-star whenever that happens. It's rare, but boy howdy is it fun.

When it comes to late nights, most of my skills and abilities are sharpened. I feel like I think, focus, and do math better as the night progresses. I used to think that the same was true of my humor. People just laughed more the later it got.

It ends up that I'm not any funnier late at night.

People just laugh more because they're tired. That's all.

See, that's why me and late nights are in this situation right now. You know, the situation where we're in couple's therapy because we really need to "work some things out". I love late nights, but the fact that she gets my hopes up- making me think I'm the funniest guy in the apartment complex- and then shatters the illusion is really getting me down. I mean sure, I like making people laugh, but when they're not laughing because I'm funny, well, come on now, that's like beating little kids at basketball. You don't want the easy wins. You want the good ones! Let me beat someone at basketball that can tie their own shoes for once.

So that's my rocky relationship with late nights. I hope y'all are doing well. Peace out.

Landing Page

2012-01-24T22:37:00.002-07:00

So, let's be honest, I have nothing noteworthy to post tonight. I just made a ridiculous picture to put on Facebook and felt stupid uploading it without my obligatory blog-promotion on it.

I therefore bid a fond welcome to any of you who have stumbled here via facebook trying to join the crusade to stop gorgeous girls from going on missions. It is, in fact, not a real crusade. It does not reflect the views or opinions of 20th century Fox or its affiliates. Levi wanted me to make it clear that he was not involved. I'm not really starting a crusade, I just felt like making a funny image.

So, yeah, if that's not a dissappointing post I don't know what is. I hope this doesn't make me a terrible person. For the record I'm totally down with girls going on missions. Even gorgeous ones. If we really wanted to stop it from happening we'd ask them to marry us. While we all sigh when someone completely gorgeous leaves our presence for 18 months, we know it's for a good cause. We do not discourage it. The mission is the best thing I've ever done in my life and I wouldn't trade it for anything. I wouldn't discourage anyone from going- gorgeous or not. So, with that disclaimer in mind- welcome to the crusade.

My Week Without the 'Book - Day Three

2011-12-02T01:29:00.002-07:00

Three whole days without checking Facebook. I'm setting all sorts of personal records. With the exception of my two-year hiatus and scout camps, I haven't ever voluntarily gone this long without being on the blasted site.

Now, I want everyone to know that I have absolutely nothing against the 'Book. A ton of people are way upset about the privacy issues and all that. I don't really mind. I guess I've just never been that paranoid of a fellow. If the CIA really wants to know what I'm up to they can find out. They'll figure out I really love Ultimate and that I make jokes about calculus being my girlfriend. Yeah, lots of terrorist activity there...

I made a new math friend tonight at my discrete math study session. I love math friends. I think one of the great things about studying math is that you get to meet a ton of good people. There aren't too many dirtbags who are way into the subject, you know? Whether it's pure math, math education, computational, whatever, there tends to be a large number of good folks involved in it. I've been way happy with the quality of the people that I associate with in my classes.

I've been recognizing more and more lately that one of the reasons that life is so good is because I'm surrounded by truly great people. Today was my day to do dishes in the apartment. We have some visitors staying for a few days and for whatever reason we had roughly two metric tons of dishes in the sink. Two of my roommates helped me out with it, just because they're good guys. I hear about people that have struggles with their roommates or who get shafted by people in their family or whatever. I haven't ever really experienced that stuff. I'm not sure why I've always been surrounded with great people, but I'm grateful that it has happened that way. I hope that it continues to go that way.

It's getting late and I don't have too much to say, so I am going to peace out. I hope that life is going well for you all. I'm happy to be staying strong on this whole no Facebook thing. Looking forward to rejoining the world next Monday though.

Oh, PS, cool junk I read today instead of spending time on the 'Book. Have you ever wondered what fire would be like in a microgravity situation? Like, what would happen if we lit something on fire in the International Space Station? Since there is no gravity, would the flames go up, or would they go out radially? Sure, the heat radiation would go out in all directions, but without gravity messing with the density of air and all that business, what does convection do to it? Yeah, apparently NASA has been thinking about that question for a while now. I read an entirely insufficient article about it today with an entirely insufficient video to go along with it. I didn't learn much, but the questions it presented were way cool. For your viewing pleasure: http://www.space.com/13766-international-space-station-flex-fire-research.html

My Week Without the 'Book - Day Two

2011-12-01T00:28:00.003-07:00

What's this, a post before 2:00 AM? I know- I'm as surprised as you are. With my Facebook fast in full swing I am running out of non-time-committal distractions. Let's face it, I waste a lot of time. I recognize that fact. Despite the recognition, however, I have a really hard time committing time to something. I struggle to watch full movies because two hours just seems like way too long of a time to waste. I have a much easier time sitting down at my computer to "read the news" or "check Facebook" for just a few minutes. Those just a few minutes can graduate into two hours in no time. I end up wasting the same amount of time I would have spent watching a movie, just without the aversion to a time commitment.

Moral of the story? Facebook is one of my favorite time wasters that doesn't require a huge time commitment up front. With that out of the picture I'm being forced to commit my time to bigger and bigger chunks. Normally something as cool as a blog post would have to wait till late in the evening when most distractions are gone and I am more focused. Since I shot Facebook for the week my main distraction is gone and so I'm moving forward with life. Rejoice!

Since I can't share anything via facebook today, I shall share a decent link with you today. I read the news habitually. I love google news because it aggregates what it assumes will be relevant to me and I get to pick what I want to read from about a billion different news sources. It's a good tool.

I've been pretty fascinated with the occupy movements. Everybody and their dog has an opinion about the movement. I've found it's a little more complicated than a bunch of weirdo's in tents- although in all honesty that is probably the most characteristic thing we could say about the group. I admire what they are doing and the awareness that they are raising. Whether or not I agree with all of their ideas, I do find their way of doing things both scary and respectable. I give them a million bonus points for trying.

I read a good article from the LA Times today regarding the movement. It is an opinion article, but the author states 3 inconvenient truths for the movement. I particularly like his third point, in which he explains his view of one of the reasons for the widening gap between the fabled 1% and the 99%. He says:

A third dynamic widening income disparities is in some ways the most inconvenient of all: the collapse of intact families. The explosion of out-of-wedlock births and of children living outside of two-parent households has widened economic disparities of all kinds, including income.

The reason is straightforward. The role that human and social capital plays in helping a person generate income in an advanced economy has increased over the last half a century. And over that same time, the primary institution for inculcating human and social capital has badly weakened.

I suggest you read the whole article (it is pretty short) at http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-schulz-occupy-20111130,0,7958755.story

The basic concept is a strong one- a strong family will probably give a kid a better shot at a decent economic future than a family without parental presence. Don't get me wrong- I'm in no way an expert and I definitely know that all people, no matter what their circumstances, can do awesome in school and economically. I will say that one of the reasons I was able to do well in public education was because I had a great family that was able to help teach me and walk me through work. I don't think I'd have done as well at school (which is the closest thing I have to economics right now) without the family. How do we fix the problem? I don't have the answers: but I think families are the start. Glad to see a newspaper guy agrees with me.

Much love, y'all have a nice night.

My Week Without the 'Book - Life Graphs

2011-11-30T16:13:00.006-07:00

I am a grapher. I love graphing different things in my life to help me understand what is going on and what I should do about it. Graphs are super cool because you can explain the relationship between any number of things in the blink of an eye. There's a depth of understanding that comes from a graph. You know what's happening now, what happened a minute ago, and you certainly know what will happen as time approaches infinity.

I want to write about something I've been thinking about that I'm calling life graphs. A life graph is a Radar Chart or Star Plot. The idea is pretty easy- you put five lines (or howev

er many you want, you know, like n) coming out from the center. Each line represents something important that you can assign a value to. I know for a fact that Dance Dance Revolution once used a radar chart called a "Groove Radar" to show you how difficult a song was. Pokemon (at least in one of the guides) used to show how good a pokemon was using radar charts. Following their good lead, let's think about humans instead of Polywraths.

Consider a life graph with 5 axes (that's axises for those of you from central and southern Utah...) that represent five important aspects of life- school, work, family, spiritual stuff, social stuff. Depending on how you rate yourself on those things, we can make a sweet radar graph. Check it out.

So our friend Pablo has got the social stuff down- but he's lacking in other categories. The life graph is fun for looking at strengths and weaknesses and opportunities for improvement.

One of the cool things about radar graphs is that their area does not increase linearly- it goes up as a square. A graph of [1,1, 1, 1, 1] has one quarter the area of a [2, 2, 2, 2, 2] graph. Moral of the story? If we take total graph area to represent satisfaction with life, a small improvement in one area can lead to a disproportionately large increase in area and happiness. Theoretically, of course.

An important thing to note is that these axes (axises...) are completely arbitrary. This is just an idea, so we could toss any ridiculous axes in there we want. We could have a 7-spoked graph or a 12-spoked graph. I suppose that deep down, as humans, we have certain things that are truly important to us, whether we recognize it or not. Perhaps there is an official life graph inside of us that we don't fully recognize. Maybe we should find out what its axes are.

An important thing to note is that the relative values on the axes are not necessarily weighted the same between different axes. A score of 20 on my "Starcraft II l33t skillz" axis probably isn't worth as much as a 20 on my "school" axis. Visually, this means that each one unit in my SCII axis doesn't move me as far away from the origin as every one unit does in my school axis.

I've been feeling lately that life is about balance. Our life graphs are constantly fluctuating. A month and a half ago my school axis was dominating and my social axis was pretty shallow. These days my social axis is doing much better- but possibly at the expense of school. I find that it is very difficult to dominate at all things at once. In the words of a wiser man, life exists in both abundance and scarcity at the same time. My goal right now is to balance and therefore increase area.

Spencer had a great application. He suggested a "wife graph" instead of a "life graph". The current idea is a 4-spoked graph that quickly evaluates any marriage candidate based on our ridiculous ideas. We think it'd be nice if these graphs were displayed automatically when girls walked into the room. Maybe we'll program an app for that...

Consider the following examples:

"Maria" (a fictional character) is lacking a brain- which is a total shame. See, aren't graphs fun?

Girl Y (also fictional) has balance. See, I told you graphs were fun.

We could go on and on, but we probably shouldn't. What is the moral of the story? Why have you read this far? Because graphs are cool and can be used to understand ourselves and others. I understand that this is a complete oversimplification of the whole system, but it is the idea that counts. These things are not that stable.

Here's the optional homework for willing candidates.

1) Make your own life graph. Figure out how many axes you want, figure out what you want those axes to be, and then evaluate yourself on them. I've had fun evaluating things between 0 and 6, but you can use whatever scale you want. After you do that, take a look at what you want to work on and make a goal to do so. Balance is important, but remember that that doesn't mean backing down on your high scores- it just means bringing your low scores up. A change from a 2 to a 3 is pretty significant. This brings up some significant questions that we can address. What are the axes that are important to me? What is truly going to give me satisfaction with life? Where are am I doing well? Where do I need to improve? What do I need to do to improve in that area? A quote from the guys I don't know talking in my living room right now: "I'd rather be decent at socializing than fantastic at hoops" (I'm assuming he's referring to basketball). I know people that would disagree. We define our own graphs here based on our priorities.

2) Make your ideal wife graph (or dude graph, you know, if that's what you're into). Here's the only catch: You get as many axes as you want (which you can define yourselves) and you only get to use 50% of the available points. So, if you label each axis from zero to six and have four axes there would be a total of 24 points available. In that case you only get to use 12. The reason? Priorities :) One trillion bonus points to anyone who wants to share their graphs- whether anonymous or publicly.

Thanks for reading this post that has been altogether too long and way different than normal. I love the idea of the life graph, and have had a blast explaining it to my roommates using our whiteboard as a fridge today. Just imagine this post except a million times shorter and with moving dynamic pictures instead of jpgs. Yeah, it was that good. I hope you're all doing well. Have a great night!

My Week Without the 'Book - Day One

2011-11-30T00:08:00.003-07:00

Happy Tuesday friends- it has been a good day. I made a decision over the Thanksgiving break that I would go one week without using Facebook. I did it mostly because I find myself wasting a lot of time on it and because I thought it would make for a good experiment. It's surprising how many times I check that blasted site per day. The only reason I know that now is because I've had to stop myself from checking it exactly that many times in the past 24 hours. I don't have an exact number, but I know that it is large.

So, here I am, writing in order to satisfy whatever strange desire I have for social interaction via my keyboard.

In a previous comment, "Johnson" asked if I had gotten my [Talk to a random girl on campus without mentioning the weather] achievement that I established during my week of the blue T-shirt. I'm proud to report that today, strictly because of that comment, I did so. I talked to a girl named Krista on the hill. She is nice. We had a good talk and I purposely didn't mention the weather. We got to a point where she was turning left. I had the choice to go left or straight- either way my distance was the same. I was enjoying talking to her but knew that if it went on much longer the weather would probably come up in some shape or form, so I opted to travel the other direction just to be safe. Call me a pansy, but I'm sitting on 10 achievement points because of it. I'll take that over human interaction any day. Oh wait...

Life is going quite well. I decided to shamelessly promote my blog via the 'Book earlier this week and the response was pretty overwhelming. I'm a total Google Analytics fanboy and the numbers were a lot of fun to watch. I posted my shameless plug on Sunday, November 27th. That day I had 51 visits and a total of 116 pageviews (that's 2.274 pageviews per visit). As a reference, in the month previous to the 27th I averaged 5.6 visits per day with each visitor seeing an average of 1.6 pages. So, with one status update on the 'Book I had the best day the blog has ever had and surpassed my average by nine times. Sweet. I appreciate all the visits and especially the kind things that were said.

I had a job interview yesterday and I feel like it went really well. I've never had a job interview before, if you can believe that. I applied for a temporary position at the bookstore here at Utah State. I've always had a dream of working there. There is always a huge rush at the end of semester so they hire a ton of four week employees. I wore khakis Monday morning on a whim- ha, I felt cool walking into the interview like I had planned that. It was an interesting experience- I walked into this little office where there were three girls sitting behind one desk. They told me to close the door behind me and then they introduced themselves. They alternated asking questions from an evaluation sheet and jotted down notes and a numeric rating for answers that I gave.

I don't feel like I did awesome with the answers, but I figure it went okay. I'll be honest- I absolutely love tests and this whole experience was a lot like a test. It might as well have been 13 "short answer" questions. I didn't have a ton of time to think of killer answers, but I did my best. I should know tomorrow or Thursday whether or not I got the job. I sure hope I get it.

There are only three weeks left of school and I'm working hard to leave this semester with a very competitive GPA. I find it interesting that my lowest grades throughout my scholastic career have always been in math classes. With the exception of a B+ in a physics class, my transcript is all A's except for my math classes. In fact, I haven't gotten an A in any math class up here at Utah State (A-'s don't count). So, funny that I'm here as a math major even though that's the most challenging thing I've done scholastically.

Great news on the math front. My stallion of a math professor, Dr. Brown, is teaching a course next semester on computational complexity. It's a readings course (by invite only, I think), but I really want to see what I can do to get invited. The course lives right between computer science and mathematics. The idea is to look at how mathematically complex the algorithms to solve certain problems are and see what can be done to make them less complex. Since I'm dualing in math and computer science that course is exactly where I want to be. Taking it would leave me sitting on 18 credits and a nasty workload, but I really want to try it. Opportunities are cool.

Alright, I'm out of here. I hope y'all have a great day. Don't forget symmetric matrices.

The Best of TheOtherDentist

2011-11-26T01:47:00.003-07:00

Happy Friday, friends. I hope that you're all doing great. Life here is good. Great things are happening for me and my family. We've really been overwhelmed with the goodness of the people that surround us. People take their lives and their decisions seriously, and I love it. We're all in this together (cue James and Levi to start singing High School Musical...).

This blog has meant many things to me over the years. As it becomes large and unwieldy (I will hit my 500th post in no time) I have decided to post a "Best of TheOtherDentist" guide to help new visitors get a feel for what it has all been about. I've been rambling here since the 9th grade. What started out as an assignment for my Journalism class has turned into something that has helped me better understand myself and, hopefully, make the world a little better place.

The unwritten goal of this blog has always been that: to make the world a better place. My theory on world-benefiting is different from most. Given that I am in the world, my improvement means that the world improves. Since you, loyal reader, are in the world, your improvement or benefit causes a net improvement or benefit to the whole. Sometimes that improvement comes by way of motivation or encouragement. More often, I think, it comes by way of a little smile or sunshine. I hope the blog has done that over the years.

Without further delay, my very own "Best of TheOtherDentist" list. This is not comprehensive and I don't intend for it to actually mean that this is the best. This is just a good place to start.

Posts With Meaning:

Song about Sandpaper

Freshman year of college- I went to a party where there was a girl I really really really really liked. I pretty much knew she liked me, but didn't do anything about it. Frustrated at this situation and recognizing that many of my comrades (yes, I did just use "comrades") were in the same boat, I wrote this post to complain.

We like our girls cute, modest, intelligent, and ninety meters away where we can't do anything stupid. We'd step in front of a bullet for them, yes we would, but when it comes to saying "hi" in the mornings we'll kindly pass, thank you very much. That bullet starts to sound mighty appetizing when it's time to graduate from texting to real phone calls, I'll tell you what.

We are a noble class of gentlemen. We get good grades. We do our duty. We tie our ties well. We've never ever offended you, your sisters, your friends, or your mom. We have no criminal record. We have clean language, and you better believe that we drive safely.

This is our anthem. Too good to settle for the easy ones, too stupid to go for the right ones, and too cowardly to go for our dreams. We are sandpaper, and proud of it.

Logan Blogaday Day Twenty Four

Freshman year of college- I include this post not because I feel like it is my best writing, but because it effectively captures two of the major themes of my blog. First: I love Ultimate and get way too into it. Second (and more importantly): The way that I feel on Thursday is not the same way that I felt on Wednesday. The person that I am on Thursday owes something to the person I was on Wednesday, and ought to respect the way that I felt and decisions that I made. I hope that makes sense.

This particular post was written as we prepared to go play some kids from Murray high in Ultimate. They had been talking trash against Taylorsville and we desperately wanted to put them in their places. The match never took place. I didn't know that was going to happen when I wrote this post.

In 13 hours I'm going to start a match that I've been waiting a very long time to play. Brad's going to start a match that he wanted to play in high school but never got the chance to play. This isn't just a match for right now.

This match, like so many other things in my life, counts as a monument to the person that I've been. That person who helped put me where I am today. This match is more for him than it is for me. I know that sounds so corny and stupid, but it's sort of true.

Who I Am - Logan Blogaday Day Nineteen

Freshman year of college- I was really working on figuring out who I was my freshman year. I had come off of a very successful high school situation and was suddenly a very small fish in a very big pond. I learned a lot of important life lessons during this time. In an attempt to capture what I was learning I did a blogaday project where I posted every night for a month. This was day nineteen, and it was important to me.

But tonight I realized what it is that I actually fear. The thing that legitimately has me worried.

I'm afraid that I'm going to change. I'm afraid that even though I've been on fire before, I'm not going to be on fire anymore. I'm afraid that even though I used to be a runner that I'll never be a runner again.

Moving Forward

Post-Senior year of High School- Probably the longest post I will put on this list. This post happened the same way most of my posts do- I started writing one night because I felt the need to write. I didn't have anything to say, but wrote what came to me, all stream of consciousness-like. Lots of religious undertones in this one. Pretty important ideas in this one.

Another reason that it happens is because of a dual weakness/strength that I have. My life is a sine graph. I realize that most teenagers believe that their life is a roller coaster. The math nerd inside of me knows that it's a sine graph. It's not exactly periodic, but it does *always* come back up (or down, depending on frame of reference).

11:41: "Why are things the way they are? Why, because if they were any other way, we would be asking ourselves why they are the way that they are, totally ignorant of the fact that things aren't the way that they are in the world where they're not different."

Investment [Relationships]

Senior Year of High School- This was my formalized theory for how relationships work as described by me right before I graduated. For better or for worse, I still pretty much feel this same way. I was on a personal finance kick and on a relationship kick, so here goes.

We've come up with the idea of investments, that is, long term investments and short term investments. We see a guy running up to a girl and giving her a hug (a la P Burn) to be a short term investment. It carries fairly high risk, but it is almost immediately either rewarding or disappointing. Its long term effects are not incredibly extensive. We classify short term investments as bold actions by a guy to get a girl's attention for at least a brief amount of time. These are very active investments.

On the other hand are long term investments. Me, Kyle, and James all see ourselves as long term-investors. Long term investments are actions taken by guys that will not immediately result in any significant recognition from a girl, but will, over time, improve our standing with them.

Creative Writing, Videos, Art, etc.:

Ballad of the Unfulfilled

Freshman year of college- I wrote this on a whim to make light of my brother's attempt to woo a girl that wasn't very talkative. I include it in this post because it's representative of my style at the time.

" She hadn't said it. But she hadn't argued with it either. He knew that this line of dealing with her couldn't end well. But he was desperate. Our hero had a gnawing paper-cut wound, after all.

With a happy heart he whisked her off to Chili's where they dined and enjoyed themselves. Our hero happily noted that he was one step closer to following the council of his priesthood leaders to “Get married! Now! Don't wait!”

*as a note, please don't assume I take any of my creative writing seriously. I am not one of those people.

-Or Bust

Junior Year of High School - This isn't actually a post, it's a small "painting" I made in MS Paint. I include it because it's one of the very few artistic things I've done on my own. Word!

Rock the Vote

Junior Year of High School - Our friend Molly made a "Boy of the Week" program that she announced on her blog. I decided to officially endorse my friend Kyle as a candidate, and wrote a blog post explaining why. In this post I take almost nothing seriously and have a great time thinking of ridiculous stories. In all fairness, I must say that everything in the post is based loosely on truth.

As you know, Molly recently began taking suggestions for her "Boy of the Week" program. While I myself do not have a Boy-of-the-week program, I can see it's merit. It's not my style, but that's alright.

I have a suggestion to make for your boy of the week program, and his name is Kyle.

There are many reasons that one should consider liking Kyle Klein for a week or more. Aside from his towering stature and his rugged good looks, Kyle has a plethora of ninja-skills to back up his impressive aura of good looks.

One time, when Kyle was surrounded by communists and about to be gunned down by an execution squad, he sang the entire pokemon theme song in japanese. The Communists were so impressed that they dropped their weapons and wept for joy. Kyle later grew wings and flew back to America.

Leg Shaving and the End of the World

Junior Year of High School - My final project for my Junior Year AP English Composition class. We had to make a documentary. I noticed that most documentaries that I saw in class offered bold claims without any significant evidence or backing. I set forth to prove a satirical point about the need for scientific evidence. I credit Mr. Harward for teaching me some awesome stuff about literature that made this video tons of fun.

This is where I'd put a quote from the post. I can't quote an embedded youtube video. I highly reccomend you check this one out. You'll like it, I promise.

Jello

Junior Year of High School - So, I gave my sister a stapler submerged in Jello for her birthday, a la 'The Office'. I took pictures. You should look at them because they are neat.

Fun Posts:

The Best Game Ever Played II

Early Sophomore Year of High School- This was one of my first posts about Ultimate. You can tell I was young because I still referred to it as "Frisbee" and not as Ultimate. My mechanics weren't as good back in the day. I wrote about the most epic game I had ever played. Those were back in the days when Brad was still in charge of Frisbee Friday- before I became the leader and really started making things happen. This was before Kyle or Levi or James or any of my buddies started playing with us. This was back in the day when I was still the "young generation". Ha, it's great to read back and remember what it was like. Not my best writing, but definitely worth it for the walk down memory lane.

At 13-13, play starts to get fierce. It brings out the very best and worst of all the players on the field. When you make a good play, you know it, and your heart goes wild. When you screw up, it's one of the very worst feelings you've ever had. You've invested so much into the game, it hurts to lose it. Your legs hurt, your hands are getting hashed from catching, swatting, and throwing. Your lung hurt from the cold air, your breath comes out hard and short, and very frosty. But you know why you're in the game, and you know that you want to win. You put everything out there. This is when Frisbee gets real.

Manly

Right before Senior Year of High School - I had to cover for my mom at work one day, and kept a written journal (with time stamps) of important things that happened. Tons of fun.

10:12 Am - A guy with a hat that says "Terminator just walked by... gasp! A lady just walked in mid write, and is like "Do you sell only girls?" and I'm like "As far as I know... wait! There's a tuxedo over there, in white!" then she left. 2 more customers. Woman and man. Man wants to be here as much as I do. Deep breaths. Oooh, another good song. They're gonna buy something. Deep breaths.

The Lies Your Parents Told You

Sophomore Year of High School - I had to include one post about track. My woes in the 3200 meter race are fully documented. This is a shorter post, rejoice!

How could I lose? The establishment was on my side.

Yeah, they lied to me. I got slaughtered. These robot boys just kept on running. I don't know how they did it. There was no mercy, they just went, and I didn't. They ran fast, but I was slow and steady.

Slow and steady doesn't win any races.

Ridiculously fast and steady, now that's where the money is at.

The Conclusion: I love my blog with a fiery passion. I have learned so much about myself as I have created it. I look through my old posts and want to include all of them. They capture who I really was and what I was really feeling at the time. I'm so glad it exists. I've realized that most of my posts are pretty similar. My style and rhythm remain the same.

This blog has always been fueled by the comments of its readers. It exists to serve the community. That means me and the great people that I've been associated with. I know that mos of my readers of yesteryear have moved on, but I'm very grateful that they were here for the ride. They gave me a reason to be good and do my best at life.

I want to continue to be me. This blog is a decent representation of who I am and where I've been. I want to live up to the hopes and dreams of the kid that wrote all these posts so long ago. How am I doing? There's a spirit of unconquerableness that always pervaded the things that I wrote back in the day. Do I still believe I'm capable of the excellence that I wrote about back in the day? I sure hope so. I can't forget who I want to be.

Thanks for reading, friends. Whether you're oldschool like Nickmo or Jaron or whether you're a new facebook-stalking friend from Germany, I hope that you find something here that will bring a smile to your face and help you make it through your day. Life is good. Much love, keep up the great work, friends.

Blast From the Past

2011-11-05T23:54:00.000-06:00

Behold, our 9th grade Spanish project!

In 2005 me, Kyle, Levi, and James all had Spanish together in Señor Hortin's class. For one of our assignments we had to read a book, Caminos Peligrosos. Each group of four was assigned one chapter and told to make a multimedia presentation recapping the major points of the plot. The book itself was all sorts of fun. Apparently some people from Argentina (I think) went to the Yucatan peninsula to steal some artifacts in order to make ludicrous amounts of money back at home (they were probably in trouble with the mafia or something, I forget). They got to the peninsula, found the artifacts, but needed a special declaration/paper in order to get them through customs. Our story picks up when Maria Josefa (James) and Eduardo (Kyle) are trying to hassle Alonso (myself) into giving him the paper. Later we see them flee the scene of the crime and then evade police by pretending to be lovers. One million bonus points are awarded to James for being willing to play a girl and hug Kyle in a video that would eventually make it to youtube (not sure he ever saw that coming...)

Filming, audio, editing, and publishing all happened after school at my place the day before the project was due. We had initially planned to do it with video but were unable to find my brothers video camera. We improvised by taking stills with a digital camera and then recording the audio separately on my computer. Best part? Check out the picture at 2:09, you know, the one with Levi in the sweet Jazz Band jacket from T-ville. Yeah, check out the lower right hand corner. You can see the camera charging on the desk behind him.... Not sure how we missed that the first time.

The whole production was pretty rudimentary, but not too shabby for a project in 9th grade under the gun. Señor Hortin, who always tried to be a tough guy, was laughing his head off. He even took the disc down the hall to our good friend Ms. Peck and showed it to her because he knew she'd get a kick out of it too. We were approached by a lot* of agents telling us they wanted to take our film to Sundance, but we decided against it so we could focus our time on the nerd team instead. *that didn't actually happen.

There's nothing I love more than exceeding expectations. Looking back on it this project really isn't that impressive, but at the time we thought it was the coolest thing ever. There's a great feeling that comes with producing something that is good. A feeling of pride comes with it. There's an additional sense of satisfaction that comes when you can make others laugh and feel good with you. Step by tiny little step, we're going around making the world a little better of a place. For what it's worth, we made our Spanish teacher have a little bit better of a day that day. After all he did for us, we're glad we could help just a tiny bit. We're going to keep trying to make the world better. Much love y'all.

Snow!

2011-11-04T22:57:00.003-06:00

If this were Quake or Counter-Strike tonight would be the night we'd hear the announcer yell "First Blood!". Since this isn't a video game, we'll just have to be content with a picture of the parking lot. It begins!

The Week of the Blue T-Shirt: Wrap-up

2011-11-04T21:34:00.004-06:00

Howdy friends, welcome back.

So, my father passed away last week. It wasn't too unexpected and we are very happy that he didn't have to suffer too much. He was an incredible man and I'm so proud of the person he was and the way he lived his life. I'm at peace knowing he's feeling better now and that he's doing good work. I will miss him. I hope to be the kind of man that he was.

Because of that, the week of the blue T-shirt was cut short, and I think I'm going to let it lie like that. I wanted to come back and review some of the highlights before I moved on to some other cool posts.

I had a blast with the Week of the Blue T-shirt. I had been writing myself to-do lists for a long time with varied success, but this was a completely different experience. Instead of focusing on things I had to do in order to not fail school, I was focusing on little things I could do to improve myself and raise my over-all level of happiness. This change was pretty significant for me.

I discovered that being social is something that makes me really happy despite being entirely unnatural for me. Without considerable effort on my part I tend to keep to myself on campus and everywhere else. One of the first goals I set was the goal to talk to a new girl on campus every day. This was a huge stretch for me but really paid off. I was proud of myself for doing something difficult for me. As with all things, I get better at it as I keep doing it, and I've already seen progress. It's becoming more normal for me. Today I talked to three girls on campus. I know that sounds entirely lame, but it's a big old deal for me. If this experiment were good for nothing else, that alone would have made it worth it for me.

I rediscovered the simple truth that working out makes me feel better. There's this inherent feeling of progress whenever I work out. I've got this theory that every mile counts. When it is cross country time, as the theory goes, the kid that runs 1000 miles during the summer is going to have an edge on the kid that only ran 999. Likewise, the kid that runs 1001 has an edge on the kid that only ran the 1000. Even though I haven't been very consistent and even though my workout program is anything but awesome, I feel great about making progress. I'll tell you that my abs, arms, and mile time feel better this week about themselves because of what I did last week. I can't guarantee that there is any measurable improvement over last week, but I am confident that deep down inside I'm stronger for having done those little things. The good news is that as I continue to do these little things I will continue to improve. Baby steps back into good shape, w00t.

I rediscovered that I absolutely love blogging and I love trying to influence others to do good stuff. Consistency has always been my issue. True to form, I wasn't able to complete the week like I wanted to, but I feel like the blogging experience made me a better person and gave a little nudge to other people. This is something I'd like to continue to do.

So what's the take-home message from the week? Certain choices lead to a happier me, and those choices are absolutely worth making. Most of them don't come naturally. Working out, talking to girls, programming, etc. aren't things that I just find myself doing. Every single time I did them last week they made me feel good and like I was making progress. If I can identify these things and continue to do them I will continue to improve. That's great news.

That's it for the Week of the Blue T-shirt. Thanks for being part of it, friends.

Final Score: 135/350 points (38.6% complete)

I'm calling it a success :) Stay tuned for more awesome posts.

The Week of the Blue T-Shirt: Hiatus

2011-10-28T01:14:00.002-06:00

Due to a family emergency I am putting the Week of the Blue T-shirt on hiatus. Thank you for your understanding. I hope you are all doing well. To assuage your fears: My family is doing great, don't you fret. God has a plan for all of us :)

The Week of the Blue T-Shirt: Day Three

2011-10-27T00:56:00.003-06:00

Day Three is in the books. It wasn't what I expected but I feel like I made good choices that led to good results. Family business brought me and my brother home for the next two days, so points weren't as plentiful as I had planned. Here's the rundown:

Wednesday Recap: 35 Points (total: 135/350)

I left my place at 9:30 to head to class in the frigid tundra that was Logan this morning. I talked to the second girl I saw and we had a nice little conversation. Aside from the weather (which we of course talked about) we found out she knows some people I know. She's studying FCHD (I think...) and likes it. Good times. Goal for next ambitious week: talk to a girl without mentioning the weather. (+15 points for talking to a random girl on campus)
Despite falling asleep for a few minutes in four out of five classes today, I attended all of them and learned some stuff in each. I don't feel like I was an incredible student today, but at least I won't be publicly mocked for paying for classes that I didn't attend. (+10 points for class attendance)
Our impromptu adventure to Salt Lake led to less-than-normal workout conditions, but I was able to do 6-ish minutes of jump rope followed by the classic T-Ville Cross Country 10 Minute Abs. Of course, I took little breaks and it ended up being more like ex T-ville Cross Country washed up abs. Hey, baby steps back to great shape. (+10 points for working out today)
Noteworthy event, even though I don't get points for it: Walking home from campus today I decided I'd go out on a limb and talk to a second random girl today. I had already met my goal and awarded myself points, but shoot, what type of pansy quits after just talking to one girl? So, I struck up a conversation with a girl whose name starts with a 'K' from Oregon. Our conversation was a little bit like pulling teeth, but in an attempt to think of a great question I ask, "So, what's Oregon like" (Smooth, I know ;) ). So we talk a bit and then the guy in front of us is like, "Wait, are you from Oregon?" and she's like "Yeah, are you?" and he's like "Yeah! I'm from the dry east side!" and then they talked and had a great time. So get this: I, with my complete inability to talk to girls, helped another human being talk to a girl! One of my goals for this blog has always been to make the world a better place. Now, I'm telling y'all, this is pretty much the smallest case of making the world a better place ever, but I'm totally going to claim it. Those two never would have talked had I not attempted to be smooth and woo her first. If they have kids and one of them is an NFL star I'm definitely asking for 15% of his wages.

Day Three Impressions: I stay up a little later than normal in order to score extra points and create these posts. That leads to a little bit of sleepiness, but I feel like I'm gaining more from this project than I am losing so I'm going to keep at it. Yesterday, in order to meet my goal to program something every day, I did my CS assignment early. That ended up being way important because it allowed us to come down to Salt Lake without any problems today. I'll be honest, I feel like a champion this week. This achievement point thing is awesome.

Due to recent comments I feel obligated to tell you to not do drugs or drink alcohol. I do not, however, condone the wearing of red T-shirts this week. You saw the title folks, you know the drill.

I hope y'all are doing well. Have a good evening, I hope to see you tomorrow~

The Week of the Blue T-Shirt: Day Two

2011-10-26T01:09:00.005-06:00

It's Tuesday night, and I'm calling it a day. I had an awesome day today and feel really well about how it went. It's getting pretty late so I need to hustle through this. Here's the recap:

Tuesday Recap: 55 points (total: 100/350)

I only had one class today, but you better believe I attended it. It was my CS lab and it went well. I had the privilege of listening to the girl (I know, there aren't too many of them in CS class) that sat on my row explain to the guy (who is clearly interested in her) about her current romantic situation. Freshmen are fun to listen to (read: I'm jealous that she has a romantic life and I don't) (+10 points for class attendance)
I had a great experience yesterday talking to a random girl on campus, so I hoped to have another good adventure today. By 8:50 PM I still hadn't talked to anyone new on campus and it was uber dark outside. Figuring that approaching a random girl and trying to get to know her at that hour would be a disaster, I instead talked with the nice man from Sri Lanka who was conveniently walking away from the engineering building at the same time I was. He's studying Mechanical Engineering, is from Sri Lanka, and was clearly not interested in talking to me. Success! [+10 points for talking to a random stranger on campus(I would have got +15 points if it was a girl...)]
I did a nifty little arm workout here at the apartment and then went on a mile-ish run around the cemetery. Arms feel great, and the run was really productive. It segued right into the miracle of the day- (+10 points for working out today)
The home teaching appointment tonight went great. Super good experience. They're a bunch of great guys and I've got a stallion of a companion. Good times. (+15 points for home teaching)
I programmed the solution to my CS assignment tonight. Pretty easy- a fun while loop that reads in high and low temperatures from a text file and then shoots out averages and whatnot. Look at me go, doing well at CS1. I'm still not convinced my cat would have a hard time with this class. (+10 points for programming something today)

Miracle of the day:

I had a home teaching appointment today and I hadn't yet met two of the guys in the apartment. I was particularly interested in one of them who hasn't been coming to church too actively. I had seen his picture in the ward directory (read: menu). About 3/4 of the way through with my run I was thinking to myself "I could really go for a break right now, and that'd give me a great excuse to talk to a random girl and score some achievement points...". Crossing the street, in perfect timing to meet me running, was not a beautiful girl. Instead it was the back of a person who looked exactly like what I assumed the back of this guy who I'm supposed to home teach would look like. We met (in perfect timing, like I said) and I'm like "Happy Tuesday, are you Santiago*?" *(names have been changed to protect the innocent). And he's like "Yeah, I think we've played Ultimate together once" (which in fact we had) So we got to walk and talk for a good four or five minutes. It was cool to get to know him and build some trust. Definitely right place right time stuff right there. I don't get any bonus points for a miracle (let's be honest, I'm not the one to blame for it) but still way cool. As a side note, if there were bonus points avaiable for using an absurd number of parenthetical comments in one paragraph I would definitely score some for this baby.

Impressions from Day Two:

The achievement points are still pushing me a lot harder than I normally push myself, and I'm loving it. I am considerably more social than usual and I find myself wasting less time. If I'm not doing anything, I wonder what I could be doing to be reaching my goals. This is a cool combination of goal setting and accountability, and thus the results aren't too unexpected. I've established goals that are easy for me to remember, and I'm holding myself accountable with points and a nightly report that I'm publishing. I'm loving it. I'm not confident it's sustainable for more than a week, but I'm way happy to do the experiment.

My sister-in-law Kim is awarded one million bonus points for jumping on the Week of the Blue T-shirt bandwagon. She posted her list on yesterday's comments. She is currently at 60/640 points. Super cool!

Tyrel made a to-do list today (not irregular for him) and then tacked on achievement points for kicks and giggles. Look at us go, making waves. Bonus points for Tyrel. I hope your to-do list went great.

Still unknown poster aloeiy has apparently been doing something like this for a long time. Look at that individual go, being way ahead of the curve.

I hope you're all doing great. Thanks for joining in on the fun. It's not too late to make this week a week of the blue T-shirt for you too. Keep up the great work, catch y'all tomorrow.

The Week of the Blue T-Shirt: Day One

2011-10-25T02:15:00.004-06:00

Monday is in the books and I scored 40 achievements points today. I promised I'd post the whole list, so here is what I've got so far for Monday through Friday.

Daily Achievements:

Attend all classes: 10 pts

Workout: 10 pts

Program something: 10 pts

Talk to a stranger on campus: 15 pts

Weekly:

Go on a date: 15 pts

Run a mile under 7 minutes: 15 pts

Go home teaching: 15 pts

Complete all workout achievements: 20 pts

Complete all attendance achievements plus all homework: 20 pts

View 5 online lectures: 10 pts

Conquer C++ day 8: 15 pts

Finish programming Pirate Dice: 15 pts

The total is 350 achievement points.

Monday Recap (40/350)

I was late to institute, but I made it (mostly because I wanted the achievement points) and I'm glad that I did. I attended all the rest of my classes and learned a lot. Apparently I've been using definite articles in Spanish wrong for the past 2.25 years. D'oh! (+10 points for class attendance)
For the first time since the mission I opened my mouth and talked to a random girl as I walked home from school. Her name is Maddie and she was pretty nice. (I would like to point out that this attempt at talking to a girl on campus went a trillion times better than the last attempt to talk to a girl. That was almost 3 years ago and it was a complete and utter failure. That's a story for another day...) (+15 points for talking to a stranger (read:girl))
I ran to the field house and then ran a mile on the track. Apparently I'm out of shape because I nearly hurled my lunch after running it. I wasn't racing, by the way, that was just jogging. Not a great sign. I went upstairs to look at the weight machines but they intimidated me so I went outside and did some lunges. Success! The last mile I clocked was 7:21 (about 3 months ago) so my goal this week is to beat 7:00. I made progress today. (+10 points for working out)
We discussed a math problem about how many different regions we could cut into a pizza using a certain number of straight cuts from crust to crust today at length in Discrete Math. Dr. Brown said that somebody should go ahead and program a recursive solver in C++ just for kicks- so I did. Well, first I read half of day 8 of my C++ book to learn about pointers (which are awesome, by the way) and then programmed it using some pointer action. Not too shabby. (+10 points for programming something today)

I don't get bonus points for this or anything, but I wore a blue T-shirt today. You can expect that the rest of the week.

All in all I feel like I had a great day. My behavior was definitely different because I was gunning for the achievement points, I'll be honest. There's no way I would have talked to that girl walking home from campus without a goal to do so. I'm motivated. I've been having a blast with the system and hope that y'all are too. More fun coming tomorrow, I promise. The invitation is still on the table to anybody who wants to start achievement pointing this week with me. One million bonus points are on the line- you know this is going to be good. Oh, and an additional million bonus points to cool suggestions for achievements. aloeiy gets points for suggesting a cool service project and tennis. (By the way, who the devil are you aloeiy? I've been trying to use all my powers of investigation and deduction to figure out who you are, but I'm still clueless. At least give me a hint, because I've got no idea).

Anywhom, it is late, gotta run off. Catch y'all later. This is day one of The Week of the Blue T-Shirt. Consider this box checked.

The Week of the Blue T-Shirt: Day Zero

2011-10-24T00:39:00.005-06:00

With an exception made for the terrible smell that lingers in my room due to unregulated emission of illegal gases by my roommate (read: brother), this week has the smell of awesome to it. I've had a string of pretty good weeks, but I get the feeling that this one needs to be particularly awesome. I'm not sure where this feeling is coming from but I recogniz
e that it is real and am therefore working to make it a reality.

Quick update on my status: I'm attending school, dual majoring in Computer Science and Mathematics. Classes have been going great, and so far it looks like I've got an "A" in all of them. I got home from a mission 3 months ago and have been working on getting life started. So far things are going well. I still want them to go better.

I've been playing a lot of Starcraft II lately. It's awesome and I highly recommend it to anybody out there with some time to kill. One of the things I've learned as I've played it these past few weeks is that I'm a total sucker for achievement points.

The concept of achievement points is pretty simple. When you accomplish something particularly difficult or noteworthy you are awarded achievement points. Examples of achievements are the above image (build 5 zealots in the first 250 seconds of a single Melee game), stuff like winning 5 matches against hard computers in a row, having a single unit kill 40 other units in a league game, etc. etc.

To date, I've accumulated 1105 achievement points on SCII. (Confession: I haven't actually got 1105- I'm using a friend's account, and he got the first 100 or so before he let me use it.) You need to understand that these achievement points have often led me to stay up an extra hour or two playing. They're fun, let's be honest.

So as I sat pondering tonight a thought came to my mind. What if I built an achievement point system for my life this week? I've spent a long time playing Starcraft, and I figure it's probably time to put this drive to achieve into something that's actually worthwhile. (note: I'm not saying Starcraft isn't worthwhile) So that's the plan: I'm going to outline a plan for this week and attach point values to certain achievements. I'm thinking "Work out on Monday" is worth 10 points. "Work out every day this week" is a combination of all the sub-workout achievements, and will yield 20 points (that's consistent with SCII, by the way.)

This week is officially dubbed the Week of the Blue T-Shirt. While home this weekend I realized that I own a billion blue T-Shirts and that I really like them. I'm going to wear a different blue T-Shirt every day. Tomorrow I'm going to publish my system, all the goals for the week, and you'll be able to track my progress throughout the week. I think it's going to be fun.

So, invitations: TheOtherDentist.com officially invites you to make this week an achievement week as well. A million bonus points to anybody who will make a system and then publish their results this week. 0.5 million bonus points will be awarded to anyone who does it next week, because maybe some people out there want to think about this for a minute.

Second invitation: You are hereby invited to suggest cool achievements for me this week. I reserve the right to not use them. I would love for good suggestions of productive things to do this week that I wouldn't normally do. Realistic things, please. But if you've got something you've been dying to tell me to do, let me know and I'll see if I can't put it on the list.

This is going to be fun. Stay tuned for Day One tomorrow. I'll publish my outline and progress for Monday. w00t!

Happiness at Panda Express

2011-10-12T00:49:00.002-06:00

My fortune cookie at Panda Express tonight told me to share my happiness with others. Get this great story:

We go to Panda today. It is Tuesday, and Panda does USU appreciate day on Tuesday so you can get 10% off with your student ID card. My brother Andrew had taught me to go online and fill out the survey on the back of every receipt so I could score a free third entree.

So, with receipt in hand and student ID at the ready, I just scored a chow mein and 3 entrees for $5.67. That's a stellar deal.

Share my happiness with others? You make it easy to be happy, Panda Express.

Patronus

2011-09-27T22:42:00.008-06:00

Update 4: Just added the Angry Pig patronus

For the unaware: Two days ago everybody on facebook started using an app that would ask a few questions and then tell them what their Harry Potter patronus ought to be. Facebook decided this was important so I kept seeing that my Aunt Sally's patronus is an otter. Convinced that no mere internet survey could accurately identify my patronus, but curious nonetheless, I set out on a quest to identify my patronus and post it on facebook. The result is a growing collection of USU related patroni. Images were manipulated using GIMP 2, fonts were downloaded from mugglenet. Any similarity between the facebook patronus app's border and my border is strictly coincidental (read: copy/paste).

I'm confident this project will get old in a week. In the meantime, if you have a special request for a patronus you'd like me to make please leave a comment and let me know. Bonus points if you point me to a good image I can use to make it.

Feel free to use the patroni for fighting off dementors, making fun of the facebook masses, and slaughtering BYU this coming Friday.

Go Aggies.

Writing From Home

2011-09-24T01:30:00.002-06:00

Goal: Blog more.

Problem: I don't have much to say.

Solution: Still searching for that one.

So, theory: The reward for doing something good of your own free will exceeds the punishment that comes from doing something bad of the same magnitude. To put it mathematically, as I am wont to do:

Let's flip a coin 100 times. If it lands on heads we say that we did something good and we reward ourselves 70 points. If it lands on tails we say we did something bad and we subtract 60 points. This is not my probability class, so I won't make you work it all out, but you get the idea. Even if we are only getting heads 50% of the time, we still come out with a positive score.

Now, I don't throw this out there to suggest that making bad decisions is okay because our good decisions outweigh them. I don't believe that's true. What I do believe is that our good decisions are worth a lot more than we give them credit for.

I had a good talk with a good friend the other day (It was a good day- just because I wanted to use "good" another time in this line.) She's teaching English in the blessed land of Mexico and she said that when the kids say a specific thing in English after being prompted they get a reward. When the kids say that same thing without being prompted they get a much larger reward. I think this reward system is pretty analogous to life. It's one thing to do a good thing because it's an assignment for a class or because you're part of an organization. It is a very different thing to make a decision on your own to put yourself out there and do something awesome. I think bonus points are awarded for that.

When I think about successful people, I can't imagine it's just because they had an awesome coach that made them who they are. Sure, the coach is essential, but I bet the great ball players dedicated extra time to playing and to practice. I'm sure they decided to eat better and followed through with it. Other people's efforts to make us do great things will only take us so far. If we're ever to truly become great we must become independently motivated and create our own success. I state that like it's a fact- it's not really. That's just the way I'm feeling tonight and it is what I believe.

So, what do I want to become? I want to become an awesome programmer. I am not yet awesome. I'm not even really a programmer yet... So, how do I do it? Well, there must come a time when I decide that I'm going to learn how to do it. I must decide to practice and create things on my own. If that doesn't happen I'll never become great. My CS professors can only carry me so far. Arjun the loveable Indian lab instructor is only so powerful. I've got to man up.

That's my theory of the evening. Chances are worth taking because the reward for success exceeds the punishment for failure. The reward for following someone else's instructions and being successful is great, but the reward for creating your own success is far greater. It's an offensive game instead of a defensive game. Defense is turning in all your CS assignments and getting an A on it. Offense is all that plus making your own stuff. That's who I want to be in my educational career.

"Do better."

National Talk Like a Pirate Day

2011-09-20T00:28:00.002-06:00

Yarr, happy National Talk Like a Pirate day. I'll refrain from writing this post in pirate-speak, but you should know that it takes a great deal of self control to talk like a normal person. I love this holiday like crazy, and this year if the first that I've been able to actually remember it the day of. Every other year I get very excited a week in advance and then forget. You could say that I celebrated my very first National Talk Like a Pirate day today.

So, there's this girl in my CS 1400 class that looks exactly like a girl I ran cross country with in high school. I've felt like a slacker for not talking to her yet, so today I went up and said howdy. Yeah, ends up it's not the person I thought it was. That's kind of embarrassing. So, that take my attempts to talk to random girls on campus count up to two. Both times were magnificent failures. Since I went about 2.5 years between attempts one and two, this should mean that my next attempt will come somewhere towards the end of Spring semester 2014. I should be close to graduation by then. Maybe I'll have learned to talk to girls by then.

In piratey news, I wrote all the solutions to my Math 5710 test in pirate-speak today. "Yarr, the events arrrrrr independent" and all that. I was very proud of myself. I was very comfortable with the math itself and feel like I did great on the test. I sure hope that my professor makes the connection between September 19th and the fun pirate notation all over my paper. I left her a few notes explaining it in normal English. I'm not sure why I insist on being so obnoxious on math assignments and stuff like that. I suppose that I probably shouldn't mess around on a test that's worth 18% of my grade, but I just couldn't resist. I mean, how many opportunities do you get to take a test on National Talk Like a Pirate Day? You've just got to take it. I guess I like to be original or creative in my homework and there's only so much of that that you can do in a math class. You've just got to find the way.

My classes are going great and I feel like I'm learning a lot. For the first time in my life I come home from school and do my homework before I do other stuff. It's weird, but I'm loving it. Life is good. I hope all is well for y'all out there in ye olde blogosphere. I hope to be producing some cool stuff soon. None of it is started so don't hold your breath- but maybe one day there'll be some fun stuff. Word, have a good night y'all.

A Very Late Shout-Out

2011-08-26T01:56:00.002-06:00

Howdy Friends, happy Thursday. I'm moving back up to school tomorrow and I've been grumpy and stressed because of that most of the day. I was pretty close to freaking out tonight as I finally unpacked my mission luggage and started rounding things up for the big move.

As part of this process I went through some of my old shoe boxes of treasures from before the mission. I found a few old turkey-grams from the Taylorsville Seminary. For the uninitiated, every November the seminary would write turkey-grams. They are small pieces of paper that you could write a quick thank you note on and then they'd be delivered to that person.

I read about 15 turkey-grams that I had saved. I know that there were more than that, and I don't really know why I chose to save these 15. But I'll tell you what- they really helped calm me down and made me very grateful to have such great friends that care about me so much. It really made me feel loved.

So, I know the audience that this blog reaches is pretty minute. The people that wrote me those 'grams are probably not reading this. But for what it's worth, thanks. Thanks to those people that cared enough to send a small turkey-gram my way. Who knew it'd help out so much so many years later? I am sincerely grateful for those notes of appreciation tonight. I can't really explain what it means to me, other than to say that it has made a big difference.

There's an important moral to this story. Everybody wants to be cared about. Everybody at some point or another needs somebody to show some affection. Everybody needs help. The trouble is that we all go through this- nobody is always feeling 100% chipper and ready to help their friends. Even the helpers have bad days. But if we do the best we can, and if we share that love with people as often as we can, I think we'll make it out of this alright.

The application: tell somebody thanks. It's a pretty big deal. I'm off to do so. I hope y'all are having a good day. Thanks for being my friend(s). (You know, assuming I've got more than one reader....)

Letter-Speak

2011-08-23T23:33:00.003-06:00

Short post tonight- I still haven't decided what this blog is all about during version 2. Just a random thought on things I write in letters.

I often write, and see written, "I hope this letter finds you well." There are two possible meanings that this phrase can take, and I haven't decided which one it actually represents.

Before I go any further, I'd like to point out that I'm a total fan of making things mean whatever-the-devil I want them to mean. If I want "Sweet and Low" by Augustana to be about diabetes, heck, for me, that song is about diabetes. If that's not actually what the artist intended, I say too bad, because I'm going to interpret it for my maximum satisfaction.

So, knowing that it doesn't actually matter what it is supposed to mean, I'll just explain what I think it might mean and then tell you which one I pick. Pointless? Probably, but here we are.

Solution A: "I hope this letter finds you well." In this solution the letter is the boss and he is trying to find the person. If the letter finds the person well, it means that the letter has not failed in its mission to locate the individual. "The letter found him poorly" could mean that the letter never arrived, or was beat up upon arrival, or got there very late.

Solution B: "I hope this letter finds you well." In this solution the "find" verb isn't so much about location as it is about the state that the person is in when the letter "finds" them. As a related example, we can say, "Summer found him dreaming of winter". I hope that the letter finds you well refers to the letter discovering that the person is doing well whenever that letter arrives. This is my preferred interpretation.

What's the moral of the story here? Many things can be interpreted in more than one way. I like to pick the way that fits me best- whether or not it is officially intended by "the man" or whatever counter-culture label we want to put on it. Therefore, Sweet and low is about diabetes, Human (the Killers) is about an LDS mission, and inception ends- it does not keep going. I'll take my right to choose all the way to my misinformed grave, thank you very much.

I hope this blog post finds you well- whatever way you like to be found.

Recrudescence

2011-08-13T23:34:00.002-06:00

Howdy friends, I'm back :)

My blog has been dormant for two years. I was serving a full time mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in Dallas, Texas. I loved my time as a missionary and wouldn't trade it for anything. It's absolutely the best thing I've ever done.

I got home a little more than three weeks ago and I've been working like crazy. I love being home and I love taking on life 2.0. It's been a great adjustment and I'm really looking forward to the future. Great things are in motion and everything is looking up.

I want to blog again (behold, I am blogging!). I don't know what this blog will end up being, but for now I expect it will be a place for me to sort out some thoughts and share what I've been thinking about. It may change forms. You're welcome to read it. If you don't read it we can still be friends. I guess.

I've been thinking a lot lately about choices and plans. Having a two-year-recess where you think little-to-nothing about yourself is incredible. Getting home necessitates that you begin to think about your plans once again and make concrete decisions about where you are going. I have been doing my fair share of that. I've loved getting input and advice from others and I'm feeling good about the direction that life is headed in right now.

I have this nagging reservation and it is causing me to think. The decisions that I'm making right now will clearly impact the rest of my life. I make decisions today based upon the way that I feel and upon the information that is available to me. I know, as you know, that further information will become available as time goes forward. I'm making choices without knowing the consequences. I know full well that my feelings are going to fluctuate and change as time goes on. This can create a situation where a decision that I made last week under the influence of a certain set of feelings can still be in effect this week. Now that my feelings have changed, I would like to have made a different decision, but since the decision was made last week I am stuck with it. That's not a real life situation I'm talking about, it's just an example.

So that's the hang-up. How can we make decisions based on life when we don't know how we are going to feel in a week? How can we decide what to study when the market can change in that three year time span?

I've got this unconquerable attitude going on right now- I'm really enjoying it. I've learned that my feelings change. The true test of greatness comes in doing things that are not easy- or, in this case, in doing things that we don't necessarily feel like doing right now. We can't become a world class athlete if we don't train on the days we don't feel like it. So, with this unconquerable attitude we can set a goal or a vision and say, "I will do whatever it takes to achieve that goal, no matter how I feel in the future." We put our head down and go to work- and we likely achieve what seek.

We can contrast that with the more cautious approach that handles things on a more day-to-day basis. If we don't feel like running that day, maybe we should listen to ourselves and not run. If we have a great desire to be an art major on thursday, maybe we should give it a shot. We must listen to the way we feel because that's a large part of who we are. We are receiving messages from ourselves and from the world and divinity and we've got to respond.

So my deep question of the day is this: "Where do I draw the line between striving to reach my previously-set goals and reevaluating based on how I feel?" Because if I change my goals/desires every day based on how I feel I will likely go nowhere. If I put on the blinders and work like crazy I could potentially beat all odds, achieve what I wanted, and realize that it wasn't something I really desired. Does that make sense?

Clearly it's a balance. We're striving to understand ourselves and the world around us. Sometimes that means we've got to take a moment to look inside and find out if what we're seeking is really what we're after. Other times that means continuing on through the hard days and trusting that good will come of it. Sometimes it means remembering the way that we felt before and remembering why we set out to make it happen in the first place. We have to trust last Thursday's version of us when we're questioning on a rainy Friday afternoon. Thursday felt something great and made a decision because of it. If Friday can't feel that, it doesn't negate the reality of Thursday's feelings. So who wins in that situation? Rainy Friday's lack of motivation or Thursday's zeal? Both are legitimate feelings coming from a legitimate human being based on legitimate stimulus.

So what's my plan? Look above and search for help and guidance there first- and then move forward boldly and tenaciously to make that vision a reality. I don't have many regrets about life. One of the things I do regret is not boldly going after what I really wanted in the past. I let opportunities pass me by because I knew I'd feel differently at some undetermined point in the future. My decision now is to not let that happen.

Levi's often quoted by Molly as saying, "It's the hard days that make you a champion." I'll second that. It's not every day that we get an opportunity to prove to ourselves that we want it that bad. Do we want it bad enough to go running even when we're super tired and it's raining? Do we want it bad enough to get our homework done even though we're just burnt out? Anyone can do homework on an easy day. Anyone can go running when they feel good. But the hard days make us champions.

Today I'm going to make a plan about who I want to be at the end of this semester of school. It will reflect how I feel tonight based upon everything that has happened to me in the past 21 years. The plan will involve studies, finances, girls, social life, spirituality, etc. I'm looking for guidance because I know how important these decisions will be. It's Saturday night and I've got some zeal. Will this zeal be sufficient to Wednesday's lack-of-motivation that I'm sure to face? Is that the right choice? Is it right to blaze through that hard day and carry on with the goal? Or do I change my mind and listen to myself? Do you see the conflict here?

It's about trust. We trust ourselves and we trust God. And if we trust and listen we'll know when to make the change and when to keep pushing forward. I'm counting on that one here.

Rahahaha, bonus points to anyone who managed to reach it to this point in the post :) It is what it is and I shan't apologize for that. My working theory is that the quality of these posts will improve over time. Thanks for reading friends. It's great to be back. I'll catch y'all soon.

Peace

2009-07-14T18:23:00.002-06:00

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

2009-07-10T02:42:00.002-06:00

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

2009-06-29T09:36:00.000-06:00

Icarus

2009-06-06T01:41:00.002-06:00

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

2009-06-05T15:24:00.002-06:00

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

2009-05-27T02:03:00.002-06:00

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!

2009-05-19T01:59:00.003-06:00

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.

Work at Ultimate

2009-05-16T01:43:00.002-06:00

So, It's sort of late and my bloodsugar was just uber low. While it's rising now, I'm still a little drained. So this post might be a slog of language that isn't as refined as usual and thoughts that aren't as developed as any of us would like.

I've decided I want to blog, and I had a pretty good thought today. These two things, combined, mean I should probably post. So here I am.

We played Ultimate tonight, which was pretty cool. The demographics were a little different than usual, but we still had a fairly high level core of players. Me, Levi, James, Andrew, Brad, and Jake were all pretty competitive tonight. We had a lot of new folks and more girls than usual (although I was definitely impressed with the girls-- all four of them exceeded expectations)

My chauvenism aside, my team was outgunned for the last game. Conditions were perfect for Ultimate, but the other team was straight up better than mine. That'd be okay, other than the fact that I was second captain. I had nobody to blame for the mismatch but myself.

Levi was consistently guarding me on offense, so I had him on defense. It was really frustrating to see him back at the top of his game. He's had ankle problems for months, so I've been a little faster than him. He was in tip-top shape tonight, and he was burning me left and right. Not only that, but he was doing a great job marking me when I had the disc, and got way too many handblocks on me. Getting beat by someone I'm not used to getting beat by frustrated me.

My team wasn't performing the way I thought they should, and I was getting really frustrated. I decided that I was going to work harder. I have this habit of saying sorry every time my team gets scored on. It's been going on for years. It's really easy to look at any play in Ultimate and see what I could have done to stop it. If my guy burnt me, I know I could have run harder or faster or better. If someone else gets burnt, I know that I could have used my brain to set myself guarding them instead of the person that was destined to get burnt. Somewhere along the line I know that I could have changed the way that that play went. I know that that's not really a healthy way to view Ultimate or sports in general. I need to accept responsibility, yes, but I also need to have realistic views about how often my team is going to be successful. We will get scored on, even if I play a perfect game. I can't expect myself to play a perfect game. It's not like I'm beating myself up on this, I never really have, it's just important to note.

Anyways, I decided that I was going to work harder. I was tired of losing, and I knew that if I worked hard enough, I could beat levi and change the game. I proceeded to run really hard, and to defend Levi with a ferocity that wasn't really appropriate for the level of play we were at. I commit three or four fouls on him-- it was pretty dirty. I wasn't trying to foul him, but I certainly wasn't trying not to. I did enjoy marginal success as I ran harder and faster. I didn't give up so often, and I made some good defensive stops and decent offensive opportunities. It was alright.

My team still lost. Pretty handily. I worked, but it didn't get us the victory. I kept my bad attitude for the entirety of the game. We had some good moments, but I was still tired of my team and tired of losing. My work, in the end, changed a few things for us. We scored more than we would have. I stopped Levi more than I would have otherwise. My team was slightly better for it. We still lost, though.

I realized that I was doing the wrong kind of work. I've got decent Ultimate skills, but I'm not as fast as some of the other guys. My handling is pretty good, I feel, but I'm still defendable. I feel like I have an advantage in team leadership and training. I've played more Ultimate than almost anybody that shows up to Frisbee Friday, and I've taught more Ultimate than most of them too. I generally know how to motivate a team and help them see what needs to happen to win. It's a role that I love, but it's not the role that I chose to fill tonight.

I could have worked to have a better attitude and to help the team meet their potential. Instead, I put some walls up around myself and worked hard to improve my individual performance. While we did gain from this, I really think that we'd have gained more from me being a nice guy and working for the team. I know I would have been happier with the outcome had I done that. I bet the other folks would have been too. And I really think we'd have played better.

So I'm not saying that I blew it. I'm just exploring the idea that I am better fit as a motivator and general than I am as a standout Ultimate player. I just have more to offer in that category than I do in the other. Some folks are better suited for certain jobs. That's one that I've worked hard to learn to fill, so I might as well work hard at filling it on the field.

It's sort of a downer, cause I'd really like to be the best Ultimate player I know. I guess in a way I still have that opportunity. I just do better when I focus on other things. I can still be a good ultimate player, I just have to be good in a way that's different from Brad.

So, my bad on being such a pansy tonight and getting upset about consistently losing. I worked hard to change it, but I wasn't doing the most productive work that I could have been doing. Interesting how that all goes.

That's the end of the post. I hope that you're all doing well. I'm excited to go to bed and sleep like a rock because of all that running I did. It did feel good, to try so hard at something. I'm glad that I get to reap the benefits well into the morning. My phone is still dead, so I apologize if any of you have tried to reach me. Keep up the good work friends, I'll try to do the same.

May 13, 2009

2009-05-14T01:29:00.002-06:00

I am going to ramble tonight. And it's for a lot of reasons. I want to post, but I feel like I stop myself from posting when I try to do something that is too good. I also feel very human tonight, and I find that nights I feel like this and write about it generally lead to me learning more about myself. This is what I want to do-- so here I am.

Do you ever remember something you used to know? Or recall something that you used to think about all the time, but stopped thinking about somewhere along the line? That happened to me last night as I wrote in my journal. A theory of mine, one that I may have actually put up here. Just something I used to use to explain the way that I chose to act and the way that others acted. It wasn't really a theory, more of a model. But I'd talked about it with my guys, and we were all on board with this. We used it to classify ourselves and to classify others. It was a pretty sweet model, and I felt like it helped me be a little bit of a more effective person. I forgot about it somewhere between here and there. I know I didn't think about it for the entire time I was in Logan. I probably didn't even think about it at all last summer either. But in one pretty awesome moment I remembered it last night. And that makes me happy.

It was the investment theory that me and the guys had worked out. The idea that every conscientious action that a guy undertook around a girl was in some form or another an "investment". If he was trying to win her heart, he would purposely do something. Sometimes he'd slide up next to her and put his arm around her and try to act smooth. We referred to this as a short term investment. P-Burn was our poster boy for the short term investment. Now, short-term investments do work, occasionally. They are high risk-- but that means that they carry high rewards if they're successful. Short-term investments were never quite my style. Short term is one side of the spectrum, and the other side of the spectrum is the long term investment. That investment style is low risk and relatively low reward. The only reason that long term works at all is because, over long period of times, you can accumulate a very large quantity of long term investments that stack on top of each other. Given enough time, you can become a good guy in the eyes of many. Long term investments were my way of justifying not being brave enough to flirt with girls. But aside from all of that, it did make a lot of sense.

Understandably, not every action undertaken around a girl is actually a conscious and calculated piece of work. But the moves that are, we figured, exist somewhere on that continuum between short term and long term.

You know, I made exactly one friend in Logan. Interestingly, I think that the investment model works for friendship too. The whole idea behind the investment model is that a guy takes something of his own and devotes it to gaining some part of someone else. I'd take some of my energy, time, ideas, ability and work and try to win some regard or a smile or something from someone else. It's a risk that we all undertake. We devote our energy, which is precious, and risk failure every time we do this. It's a big deal.

In Logan I didn't devote too much of my energy to people. I had some of my closest friends in the world with me wherever I went. I had schoolwork, video games, sleep, and the occasional game of basketball to devote my time to. I didn't set out to make new friends, and I more or less didn't.

Now, I'm not lamenting this. I smile because I really did make one awesome friend. Someone that, when I'll see down the road, I'll smile and be happy to see. Not an awkward reunion where I have to say hi because I know them, but because I really am legitimately happy to see them. I'll want to know how they're doing, and I'll be sincerely happy when I hear that they're doing well. I made a friend. And it's a real friend, and not a friend that's going to go away. It's a really great feeling.

I don't make friends super easily, all things considered. I can be nice to folks, I can help folks out, I can enjoy being with folks, but friendship is a pretty big deal for me. So I don't really feel terrible about making only one new friend in Logan. I value it, that's all.

The moral of my story: making friends takes investments. It requires a sacrifice and risk of time and energy. But when people do give of themselves they tend to be rewarded. I didn't give much of myself to others while up in Logan. I won't say that I regret that, but I will say that I want to be the kind of person that is constantly giving of himself for others.

Don't you just love the past? I love telling stories. I love remembering things that I haven't thought about for a long time. Events that are long past, but that still bring a triumphant smile to my face. I love remembering nerd team and track from junior high. So long ago, but such a huge deal to me at the time. I love remembering hard things that I've succeeded at. I love the old jokes, the old work, the old stuff that made me who I am today. I love knowing that I didn't die and change when I went to college. Some stuff changed, and certainly I've changed, but that doesn't mean that I have to throw all that old stuff away. I want to be a complete person, and you can't be a complete person if you just throw out high school and junior high. The littler version of me, for better or worse, brought me here. And all in all, that's pretty cool stuff.

If there was a zombie outbreak, I think I'd go to shopko. There are lots of reasons that Shopko wins out over Wal-mart or target or anything like that. When mass hysteria breaks out, crazy people trying to load up on food and weaponry will be just as dangerous as the zombies will be. The great thing about shopko is that I haven't seen a single person shopping there for years. So while the masses are fighting amongst themselves over Wal-marts dwindling supplies, I'll be sitting pretty on top of my untouched mountain of insulin, crossbows, deodorant and nutri-grain bars in the middle of shopko. Christopher: One, Hysteric masses: Zero.

Zombie outbreak aside, how do you become that guy? You know, the guy you want to become. I think that I need to work on remembering that I want to become that guy. Because if I don't think about becoming anything I don't think I'll actually become anything. I need to remember that I'm a dynamic character. Sometimes I get stuck in this rut of thinking that I'm the way I am and that nothing is going to change that. Some rut about discovering what my deal is and trying to find good ways to work around my flaws. It's a tragic view of life that I totally don't buy into when I'm really thinking about things. It only comes around when I get off the horse of progress and simply exist. I don't spend near enough time on that horse anyway.

See, that last statement, "I don't spend near enough time on that horse". How many ways can I actually look at that? On the tragic side, I, as a person, am limited as to the amount that I can spend progressing. Because I don't do much of it, I am therefore destined to continue to do not much of it. It's just the way things are. On the optimistic side of life, that statement just says that I have previously made choices that didn't make me progress. That's all. It doesn't say anything about what will happen tomorrow. And that's pretty refreshing, because that means that tomorrow is up to me and the decisions that I make. Now that's high quality living right there.

That's one thing that blogging has always done for me. It has always reminded me that I'm in charge of making myself into something incredible. It reminds me that it is my responsibility to make choices that will make action happen that will move me forward. Knowing that what has happened to me has been a function of the choices that I've made is critical. Knowing that means that I know what I have to do to become that guy that I want to be.

Thinking about people, friendships, relationships-- stuff that's important to me-- that's all that comes down to right now. Decisions. How am I going to spend my life energy? What am I going to do about all of this? Pushing boundaries, experiencing new things, it all bundles into it. I make decisions to do things, based upon what I want. If I want nothing to change, I just do what happens. But if I want change in my life, I need to do work to make it happen. While I'm generally happy with my life, I do want change. That means work. And work is always a good thing. Can I really get what I want right now? Haha, there's a good chance that I can't. But that doesn't mean that I'm not going to work for it. As corny and cliche' as it is, I'd so much rather work and fail then never work and fail anyways. Because failing because you didn't work is killer. Failing because you worked and failed carries a certain sweetness and victory to it. There's something very rewarding about failure, I think. Well, righteous failure at least. I guess what I'm trying to say is that there's something very very rewarding about doing your absolute best at that one moment of time and still coming up short. Failure, sure, but you know right then that you did your best. And it's not often that one can truly know they did their best. Sometimes victory doesn't require your absolute best. Sometimes you win with 75% of your capacity for effort. But when you give 100% at one moment in time and still come up short. Mmm, that's sweet, because you know that that's the way it is. At least you go home happy, knowing you worked.

See, that's another one of those good old stories. I have spilled my guts to a girl I knew would reject me exactly once in my life. I may have come close to doing it some other times, but those times *might* count. This time was so legit that there's no way it couldn't count. It was some time ago, but I'm still happy about it. Because hey, I did work. It was something that I'd never done before. It took courage and determination. Now I'm romanticizing it, but still. Life is cool like that.

Who am I writing to? I'm not sure. I remember that I was never quite sure who I wrote to before, but I always had an idea. I even invented a character for some time, mystery blank. Boy, was she something else. Some distressed girl that found some measure of comfort from reading all the stuff that I wrote. It was my way of making the world a better place, by helping her through the blog. Now of course, it wasn't as close to crazy as it sounds, I promise. That was just the name I gave to the mythical girl that was some embodiment of the sum total of all my readership. Not that all my readership was some distressed girl, but rather that that was my favorite way to find motivation to write. And in a way I do believe it, yes. Because like I said, I gave some part of myself. And whoever it was that chose to accept that part of myself, that interaction and exchange still took place. Interesting how that all works, isn't it? Hmmm.

So what's the plan? Tonight I'll take out my index card and write down the things I know I need to get done tomorrow. And then I'll wake up and work on investing. Investing in old friends, new friend, in Ultimate, an economic future, preparedness, everything. Investing because I do want a different future than the one I'll get by doing nothing. And while I don't know every detail of the future that I want, I know enough about it to start working. I've got a picture, and I'm running with it.

I hope things are going well for you, whoever and wherever and perhaps whenever you are out there. Much love to you all. Much work too.

Working on it

2009-05-13T02:21:00.003-06:00

Blogger likes to mess with my font. Sort of bothersome, but I suppose it's not the end of the world. In any event, I do intend to blog. For a few days I had this awesome drive to post. That inner drive is nearly gone, but I'm still pushing myself to get it done. No awesome post tonight, but maybe tomorrow, eh?

In the meantime, a cool video. I saw it on facebook, so my apologies if you've seen it before.

Songs for Today

2009-05-12T00:07:00.005-06:00

Some people make mixes and stuff. I've always wanted to be one of those people. These are the songs I listen to on youtube every once in a while. I don't have them, and I probably won't ever have them. I like them more than the songs I do have, I'd daresay. Regardless, a list of good songs for today-->

When we die - Bowling for Soup

Sweet and Low - Augustana

Human - The Killers

Love Remains the Same - Gavin Rossdale

You Found Me - The Fray

Hollywood's not America - Ferras

Almost Lover - A Fine Frenzy

I never watch the music videos, so if you happen to watch them and find something objectionable, I apologize. I may come back later and explain about each song, if there's interest or I get bored of my other post tonight. I hope you enjoy the music though.

edit: no other post tonight. Ha, take that.

2009-05-09T00:21:00.002-06:00

This is me and my brother of a cousin, AJ. What a stallion.

Ballad of the Unfulfilled

2009-05-06T02:46:00.003-06:00

I wrote this narrative to clue the girls downstairs in on what was going on between Andrew and the girl next door. I thought you might like it. Any similarities between characters in this story and people in real life, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. No animals were harmed in the posting of this story.

Ballad of the Unfulfilled

The tale of Andrew Thatcher and girl next door

(Written in loving tribute to Scottie Klein)

“. . .” she said.

Our strapping young hero had just asked her a question, and her answer startled him. He was expecting something, anything that would clue him in to her feelings. With no revelation in sight, he decided to try a different tactic.

“What about Chili's?” He probed further.

“...” was all that she said.

In an effort to determine where she wanted to eat, he was boldly and desperately engaging all of his faculties. Distracted by a gnawing paper-cut wound that threatened to become infected and cost him his entire arm, he knew that making a decision quickly was of the essence. With a sly smile, he decided to do the same thing to her that he did to the old folks at the care center.

“Oh, you like Chili's? Great! Let's go!”

She hadn't said it. But she hadn't argued with it either. He knew that this line of dealing with her couldn't end well. But he was desperate. Our hero had a gnawing paper-cut wound, after all.

With a happy heart he whisked her off to Chili's where they dined and enjoyed themselves. Our hero happily noted that he was one step closer to following the council of his priesthood leaders to “Get married! Now! Don't wait!”

As they traversed the long distance from Chili's to Brad's borrowed car in the parking lot, a ferocious dragon leapt out and barred their path. The dragon, despite its terrorizing stature, was indeed a thing of pulchritude. His name, in fact, was Pulchridude the Dragon. The hero, wincing in pain from his still bleeding paper-cut wound, slew the dragon with a clever brandish of his Chili's receipt. “That which threatens my life has just ended yours, heathen-beast. Let this day forever be remembered as the day that I slew Pulchridude the Dragon with a receipt from Chili's that offers me a chance to win $1000 if I complete a survey. How's that for romantic, fair maiden from next door?”

“...” came her response.

Later, as they sat in the twilight of Apartment 36 without the open-sign on, our bold hero casually slid his unwounded and therefore more attractive hand towards hers on the couch. He slyly studied her body expressions, hoping to notice whether or not she appreciated this casual sliding of his unwounded and therefore more attractive hand towards hers on the couch. With nary a change in demeanor, she sat on the couch in the twilight of apartment 36 without the open-sign on, as if to say with her composure, “...”.

What seemed an eternity later, nothing had changed. Dissatisfied with his repeated failures to determine her true feelings, he finally asked the bold question. “Fair maiden from next door, may I hold your dainty hand?”

“...”

He waited. He wasn't sure if she had offered an answer and then stopped, like this: “...”, or whether she had started answering and just wasn't done yet, like this: “.............................., …................................, …......, …........, …..............................................”.

He considered the implications of pulling an old-folks home on her. He could probably just go for it, and then tell all of his friends that it had been a success. As he settled himself to a reality of simply pretending his future eternal companion agrees to everything he says, he was haunted by the ghost of Norm. In haunting fashion, as haunting ghosts are wont to do, Norm warned our hero of the treacherous path he was treading. Our hero made a vow to Norm that he would never perform such a heinous crime. Norm quickly forgot the vow and became distracted.

As the hero dropped the fair maiden from next door off at her house, he felt like a big man. He hadn't been a dirtbag, and therefore the date was not an epic failure. He said his hasty goodbye and ran up the stairs and ended the twilight of apartment 36 by turning the open sign back on. As he turned his back on the fair maiden from next door, he could swear he still heard her voice echoing on the wind, “...”

Unfinished Project

2009-05-06T02:18:00.002-06:00

Midway through my senior year I decided to begin a "text of the day" log. I'd pick the single greatest text I got that day and write it down. After some long period of time I'd compile them all and post something great.

Summer came, and I stopped texting folks and folks stopped texting me. The texts that I had managed to collect, however, are simply too good to not post. They deserve to meet the purpose of their creation. Beautiful in their awkwardness and appropriateness*, these marvels of modern communication made my days and weeks a little brighter. Thanks friends, for being worthy of text of the day honors.

*"appropriateness" wins the award for ugliest appropriate word ever.

There's a good chance you won't actually get most of them. Most were pulled from the midst of good conversations. I think they're all capable of standing on their own, however.

Here, for you today-- Christopher Thatcher's texts of the day.

First text: "Hahaha :) you're a cutie"
Second text, 30 seconds later: "Don't read too much into that... Haha."
Sent: Wednesday, April 23, 5:25 PM, 2008
From: Tyrel Jensen

"So i was mowing lawns and thinking, and this thought came to mind. If only people were like shakira's hips. Her hips don't lie."
Sent: Saturday, April 26, 6:24 PM, 2008
From: Glen Roundy

"Thatcher, am I a bad father? :'(?
Sent: Monday, April 28, 10:32 AM, 2008
From: Tyrel

"My belly button lint is actually grass :("
Sent: Saturday, May 24, 4:46 pm
From: Glen Roundy

"Oh my gosh. I want a baby. Lol. For the first time in my life."
Sent: Sunday, May 25, 5:55 PM
From: Hope Coon

"lol, what do you know about being a real man? you can't even manage your own bloodsugar :D i happen to like quiche"
Sent: Monday, June 23, 2:50 PM
From: Kyle Klein

"hey...dont do anything i'd like to do"
Sent: Wednesday, July 9, 2008
From: Kyle Klein, sent to me while I was on a date with Heather. From out of nowhere. So hilarious.

"We're talking about diabetic people in my nutrition class. Thought I'd say hi."
Sent: Tuesday, September 16, 11:40 AM
From: Marissa Weeks

And the number one text...

"She's not that much of a catch. She's just freaking good looking."
Sent: Tuesday, April 22, 10:36 Am, 2008
From: Name Withheld

Back - For a Limited Time Only

2009-05-05T03:57:00.003-06:00

Hey friends, I'm back.

Once upon a time Chris went to college and his blog turned emo. While this was an important stage in the life of Chris, his blog didn't like it. Then Chris underwent some growth and became considerably less emo. His blog, recognizing that Chris wasn't going to post lyrics to emotional songs anymore, decided to change his looks a bit and once again embrace the world.

Cool story, eh?

So, I'm back, for a little more than two months. I'm pretty happy with the graphical changes. They took far longer than they should have, but I think they're pretty decent. I still have some work to do with how the actual text looks, not sure how that's going to work out. But in the meantime, enjoy the new banner and background. At least I got the title right this time.

What happened over the past six months of my life? What's been on my mind? What's been important to me? We'll get there, well, at least as much as we can get there, I promise.

State of the union: May 5th, 2009-

Last Wednesday I received a mission call. I've been called to serve in the Texas Dallas mission, Spanish speaking. I'll be entering the MTC on July 15th. I am blown away at how incredible this all is. I'm happy and enthusiastic about all of this, and I'm so ready to get to work getting prepared.

Last Friday I completed my second semester at Utah State. My grades were what I expected, and I will be keeping my scholarship. I feel like I learned a whole lot from my time at Utah State. I've faced challenging days and I've faced days that were far too easy. I'm taking it all as a net gain, and I'm very happy with it. I'm excited to be away from school for 2.5 years, and to come back with more determination than ever.

Here I am, at home, for a little more than two months. I'm in an entirely new period of my life. I've never been here before, and I will never be here again. It's a short period, only two months long. There are very few things that linger over from the past six months of my life. Things began changing very rapidly last week, and they continue to change and will continue to change for quite some time.

This freshness and newness of life gives me a lot of opportunities that I'm excited to take. I'm living in a town I haven't lived in for eight months. The weather is finally nice. I have no job, but I may be getting one soon. I no longer have monthly bills, I no longer have scheduled classes, and I no longer live with anyone that isn't related to me. For two months, I'm facing a life I've never faced before.

I'm here because I want to come back. I've got things to say, things to explore. This blog, like I've always said, is here to make the world a tiny bit better of a place. It makes the world a better place because it makes me a little bit better. Since I'm part of the world, and since I'm getting better, the world is getting better because I'm typing here. No battle. I don't feel like that was happening during my emo-blog period. I feel like that stage has passed, and that we can all get back to what's important.

Where will it take me? I've got no idea. This may be an awesome flop. But hey, at least I got a cool banner out of it, right?

I'm out, but I'm going to be back. Ladies and gentlemen, I made it. I passed my first two semesters. I kept my head up, and we made it through. I'm finally here. This is incredible.

Forgive me for the mushy palindrome

2009-02-12T14:09:00.001-07:00

So, this is a video that I had nothing to do with creating. So that means that I usually wouldn't embed it here. But it's a really cool video and I'm having a pretty good morning. So enjoy the palindrome :)

Rockin' all sorts of suburbs

2009-02-12T00:24:00.001-07:00

Save Tonight

2009-01-30T02:35:00.002-07:00

I thought the other night about starting a new blog. I wasn't thinking of actually doing it, I was just thinking about what it would take to do it- what that experience would be like. I thought about it the same way I think about flying an airplane. It's not something I'm going to do, but it's something that is interesting to think about when it comes to mechanics.

I thought about starting that new story for all of those new people. How does one introduce one's self? I mean, where do I stand?

This blog has been here for four years, on and off. More on than off, really. I love it for its historic value and for the way it has captured a part of me forever. I don't need to introduce myself here, because it's assumed that those who read it know who I am. We're familiar here.

But I sort of caught hold of that introductory idea. That concept of evaluating where I am right now and sharing it to give everybody a better idea of who I am and where I'm going.

And that theme sort of stuck with me for quite a while, as far as ideas and feelings late at night go. It started ringing bells and resonating in a lot of areas that had nothing to do with blogging.

How do we truthfully evaluate where we are? I suppose it's easy enough to catch specific areas of ourselves. Where do I stand academically? I came off of a great high school career that was filled with success and great opportunities to learn, both in the classroom and in leadership positions. I'm currently attending a university on academic scholarship, and I have no major, but I'm leaning towards chemistry right now. I'm holding a 3.75 gpa, but I'm working on raising that this semester. Now we have a decent idea of where I am academically, we can do that.

And we can do it for other areas too. What's my relationship status? Sometimes those ones get complicated, but more or less it's not too hard tell all the stories if you really need to. That can be understood.

I guess it's just that idea of the big picture that really got to me. Living day to day doesn't take much personal exertion. Granted, I wouldn't be attending this university in the manner that I am if it hadn't been for everything that has come before, but still, here I am. I went to school yesterday and didn't think at all about high school. I didn't think about AP credit or about choir or about litmag or Ultimate or good times at lunch. Those things that helped build me and bring me here, I wasn't too worried about them. And I wasn't thinking about where I'm going either. I was certainly at college because of where I want to go and because of what I've done to get here, but those things weren't serious concerns in my consciousness.

And perhaps that's just the reminder that I got. I am where I am because of the choices that I've made. Good or bad, they have built me. That's so cool. And even cooler is the fact that I'm making choices all the time, still. And that who I am in a week, a month, a year- that's up to the choices that I make right now. I love being a dynamic character.

Starting a new blog, introducing myself, that idea is so refreshing and appealing because the very act implies a world of forward progress that is about to be explored. "Hi, I'm Chris. These are my interests and hobbies, these are some cool things that made me who am I, and here's where I'm working on going." You can't introduce yourself with a new blog without that forward looking element. It's just, refreshing, I guess.

Life is good. It has its ups and downs. Learning from stuff isn't really something I ever was conscious about doing. Maybe it's just a cop-out. But still, progress happens, and that's a good feeling.

I hope you're all doing well. It's a late night post that I felt like writing. So yeah, good luck with everything friends. :)

Things That 2009 Needs

2009-01-02T02:27:00.003-07:00

1. More Five for Fighting
2. Regular running
3. A 4.0 semester
4. A regular bed time and a regular wakeup time
5. A mission
6. No more Dota
7. A temporary job
8. More good posts
9. More work
10. A decision on a major
11. USU intramural ultimate trophy in my apartment
12. A mile under 5:30 again
13. More haircuts
14. More time in the library
15. More shirt ironing
16. More teaching
17. More caring
18. More ramen
19. More rich brothers
20. More earning interest on borrowed money. Ha!
21. More frugality
22. Less Arby's runs
23. More Del Taco runs
24. More self disclosure
25. More growth
26. More decisions
27. More study
28. More learning
29. More writing
30. Less procrastination
31. More supportive texts to friends
32. More friendship
33. More sacrifice
34. More ideas for the list.

An Updated List

2008-12-20T21:43:00.001-07:00

Things that Christopher Thatcher is incredibly bad at:

1) Dota
2) Metabolizing glucose
3) Sledding
4) Arm Wrestling
5) Leg Wrestling

Notice the addition of "sledding" to the list. That's a big one.

A Previously Published List

2008-12-19T02:17:00.001-07:00

Things that Christopher Thatcher is incredibly bad at:

1) Dota
2) Metabolizing glucose

to be continued...

A Song about Sand Paper

2008-12-17T03:06:00.003-07:00

*note- this post is to be read like a country fellow with his guitar and peculiar cowboy drawl. endnote*

This isn't a song. And it's not really about sand paper. It's not singly about sand or singly about paper either. It's about folks all over the world like me and kyle who are simply not smooth.

Guys like me and kyle who are pretty good guys on the inside, we like to think. But guys that wouldn't know how to woo a girl if she jumped into our arms and said "I'm already in love with you, just don't screw it up!"

Guys like me and kyle who don't pick up on hints. Guys like us who are too busy not trying to offend girls that there's no way in all of Georgia that we'll break that touch barrier unless it's for CPR. And you better believe we'll apologize to you for it afterwards.

Yeah, guys like me and him, who are so afraid of looking stupid or doing something that she doesn't want that we'll just avoid her for all of time instead of walking over there.

This song's for all the gentlemen that spent three hours at a party with a girl and didn't even look at her. Yep, this songs for those guys that went home from that adventure and texted her five minutes later because that's just the way that they roll.

I strum my philosophical guitar for people who are not and who will never be Tyrel. Guys who won't even be Glen or P Burn. Nope, we'll just keep on being not smooth.

But, after all, it's our own peculiar brand of not smooth. We're not smooth by the nature that we're too terrified to even try to be smooth. So not smooth that instead of even risking our wildest dreams come true we'd rather sit from the sidelines as those bold enough to act sweep them all, one by one, off their feet.

Yes indeed, this country song should probably rhyme but doesn't. It should probably have meter, but doesn't. And really, it should probably be sung by a giant jackalope that Pixar animated, but isn't.

But regardless of the song's shortcomings, this one goes out to all the fellows like me and Kyle. The ones without the girlfriends. The ones that, while girls probably like them, won't succeed for a very very long time because they're too nice to try. Too cautious to risk. Heard too many stories of hugs from guys that were unwanted, awkward moments forced by someone wanting to know an answer.

Yep, we're not as smooth as the Tyrel's out there. And we're not nearly as bold as the P Burn's. We like our girls cute, modest, intelligent, and ninety meters away where we can't do anything stupid. We'd step in front of a bullet for them, yes we would, but when it comes to saying "hi" in the mornings we'll kindly pass, thank you very much. That bullet starts to sound mighty appetizing when it's time to graduate from texting to real phone calls, I'll tell you what.

We are a noble class of gentlemen. We get good grades. We do our duty. We tie our ties well. We've never ever offended you, your sisters, your friends, or your mom. We have no criminal record. We have clean language, and you better believe that we drive safely. If there were superheroes in the world, most of them would be us. Most of us voted in the last election. We love and respect the women in our lives. But no, we will not go out of our way to talk to you at the party. And no, we will not ever try to bust a move. We're brave enough to fight a wild bear for you, but we're not brave enough to look you in the eyes when we talk.

This is our anthem. Too good to settle for the easy ones, too stupid to go for the right ones, and too cowardly to go for our dreams. We are sandpaper, and proud of it.

Nobody gets by without sandpaper. You need it for stuff. But you wouldn't want to be stuck on a doorstep with it, now would you?

Here's to you, fellow men of the sandpaper. One day our time will come. One day...

Two and a half months

2008-12-14T02:44:00.002-07:00

I'm back. And I'm home. I'm home in so many different ways and it feels incredible. I'm happy to be alive and sitting where I'm sitting today. I've got a lot to talk about a lot of people to hug for that one. And it can't all be contained in this one happy and smile-filled post, but I'll do my best to put a small portion in.

I'm sitting in my childhood home, upstairs in my room. My computer is sitting on my spacious desk while I type at it dressed in my pajamas, old man slippers, and the incredible scarf that Molly made me. The furnace is on and I'm toasty and happy. There's snow outside like there used to be.

I just read a lot from my journal and from some of my older posts. Just things from the past couple of months. It feels *so* good to read that journal. My posting here fell off about two months ago, but my journal has never stopped. I loved reading back and remembering so vividly all those things that I experienced. Things that I had completely forgotten but that were important to me at the time. That phrase, "important to me at the time" is something that I want to talk about tonight.

Do I remember that time we had to push the van up the hill? Do I remember the lessons I learned from it? Do I remember the list that I made the night after I talked with Heather? Do I remember how it felt to take that long walk? Do I remember how fun battling brad at battlefront was this semester? Do I remember running all the way home, down-hill, to get back in time to play warcraft? Do I remember singing that duet with Jake in mission prep? Do I remember the fireside?

With the exception of the van, those are things that I wrote about throughout the past two and a half months. I write pretty important things in my journal. I never really thought that I did, but reading this evening helped me see that a little bit. If it was good enough to get into the journal it certainly meant something to me. It changed my life and made me think. It was something that I wanted to remember. Those things that happened, whether they were things that I did or that someone else did, changed those days forever and made me feel differently.

I've written and thought a lot before about honoring the past version of myself. The first time I can remember doing this was late one night as I was wrapping up one of my very first emo-posts. As I came to finishing it, I realized that it was pretty personal, very long, and might bring some people down instead of lifting them up. Those were things that I didn't like to post, especially that last one. But as I argued with myself over whether to delete it or not, I wrote something like this: "I really want to take this down. But as a monument to the way that I felt tonight, to the person who I was tonight, I'll leave it up. Because I know tomorrow-me is going to want to take it down. But for what I feel and who I am tonight, I'll leave it." Ever since then I've kind of had that mindset. When I feel passionately about something I know that there's a good chance I won't feel like that in the near future. And when I stop feeling like that, then what happens?

Looking back on these past few months, on all these events and occasions, I realize that I did quite a bit of feeling. Those things I mentioned, and many others as well, made me into "someone" those nights and days. I left monuments to them through my journal and sometimes my blog. But I hadn't ever really revisited them. They existed, but what good is a monument that is never visited?

The moral of my story? I read tonight. I read to prepare for a post I was planning that was entirely different from the one that I just wrote. But something cool happened as I read. I remembered those things that have happened. And as I remembered them, I felt like all those different Christopher Thatchers that existed on those discrete nights came back together to be me again. I feel very whole right now. Whole like everything I did this past semester hasn't been forgotten. Whole like I'm living my life on purpose and moving forward. I feel whole like I haven't forgotten the things that are important. It's a difficult feeling to describe, but it is important to me.

Those things were important to me at the time that they happened. And they're important to me now as well. When I forget about things, what changes? Is it the event itself? "It was important to me at the time, but it has fundamentally changed since then, so it is no longer important"? Or is it myself that changes? "It was important to me at the time, but since then I have fundamentally changed, and it is therefore no longer important"? I don't necessarily know the answer to that question.

But I'll tell you something good. Reading and thinking and praying tonight makes me very happy to be the same me that experienced all those things. Those things haven't changed. I haven't changed, in the respect that I'm still the same me that experienced them. And I'm happy about that.

I'm proud to report that I made it through all of those experiences. I survived pushing that van up the hill. I survived those rounds of battlefront and dota. I survived the physics final. I really did find out that girl's name. I did that laundry, and you better believe it got clean and dry. I shopped at Lee's. I stayed up late, and a couple times I even went to bed early. I was part of apartment 36. I cared about those guys and they cared about me. I was part of a quorum and a ward. I made friends. I got better at Ultimate, and I did play in that tournament. Yes, those things did happen. And yes, I do remember them.

The past few months have changed me forever. I could say that about any sequence of months in my life. There have been ups and downs, but all in all I'm proud of what has been accomplished.

I'm happy to announce that I'll be back here more often. Like I said at the beginning, I'm back. Don't expect daily updates about my life, but do expect a couple of posts a week about what I'm thinking.

Thanks for reading friends. Thanks for being around. It's been a good adventure thus far. I hope that you're all doing well. I do care. Good luck on everything. And if I can do something for you, let me know, cause that stuff makes me happy. Keep on trucking, friends. I know I will.

Here I go, happy to be getting better.

Christopher Thatcher - Good Day

2008-12-03T03:02:00.002-07:00

I'm very happy to report that today was a good day. Today was a day that I felt like smiling. I did a lot of that today. I did some running that was free and purposeful. I did work and I learned things. I was social. I looked good for a large portion of today. Things were good today.

I've been around long enough to realize that today was not good entirely because of the things that I did. I know that part of it was my fault, and I feel good about the things I did to make it a good day. But I know that I'm a sine graph. I know that things go up and down without me necessarily knowing why or how. I know that no matter how good today was, bad days are on the way. Not because anything terrible is going to happen, but just because I'll be unhappy sometime in the future. It's the way things go.

And so I recognize that today may be part of a much larger cycle. It wasn't all me making this day good. Why is it important?

Because I feel like I was blessed with a good day for a reason. I don't know what the reason was or is. But I don't necessarily think that it's that important that I know. What's important is that I take this good day and that I use it.

I feel like I have more capacity to do good on a good day. I smile more. My smile makes other people smile. I want to work on a good day. I want to share happiness with others and I want to move forward into the future. If I've been dealt that good of a hand on that day, I feel like it's my job to use all of that to make good things happen. My job is to take the good day and run with it.

And that's what I wanted to say tonight. I don't know why I've been blessed with this good day. And I know that tomorrow might very well be a sad and depressed day in which I don't want to do anything.

But for now, while the sun is shining and I'm feeling great, I'm going to run with it. I'm going to do the absolute best I can with all of this, because today's a blessing. They don't come around all the time like this, you know. I've got to take it.

That's my happy message of the day, it makes me smile. I hope that I can write a big post soon about everything in my life. But tonight's not that night.

I hope that you're all doing well. Things are going to get better. They have a tendency to do that, you know. Sometimes it's stuff we do, and sometimes it's not. But things will get better. Maybe not forever. But hey, good days will come. I'm going to run with it.

Christopher Thatcher - Saturday, November 22

2008-11-22T23:11:00.002-07:00

I've been meaning to write an update for a very long time now. This is not the update you're looking for. A little bit of jedi mindtrick there for you. It's a little bit of a tale, something ridiculously stupid that I did last night that I feel like sharing.

Every night before bed I do a shot- it's what I do. I do 32 units of Lantus to keep my bloodsugar stable throughout the day. This shot is in addition to all of the other shots I do whenever I eat. The cool thing about Lantus is that it activates over a 24 hour period at the same rate all the time, so you hardly ever notice it's there. It makes a big difference though, and it's really nice to have around.

A couple of years ago my sister accidentally did novolog instead of lantus one night. Novolog is the stuff that we do when we eat. It starts acting immediately and it does all of its effect at once. That's why it's so nice for when we eat. She's on a similar treatment plan to me, so her lantus shot is always a big one. That night she did a ton of Novolog instead of lantus. She realized what she'd done shortly after she'd done it, so she told me and Andrew and then went to the kitchen to gorge herself on carbohydrates. Ever since that happened I've been terrified that I'll make a mistake and do the same thing.

Flash forward to last night, when I do the exact same thing. It was really late because I'd been up playing warcraft with Tyrel and Dak. By late I mean 5 am, my bad there. I guess I wasn't thinking too well, because I had plenty of opportunity to stop and say "wait a minute, this isn't my normal routine!". Things were out of whack, but because I wasn't careful I ended up with 32 units of novolog shot straight into my belly fat.

Here's the fun part. Lantus works over a 24 hour period, right? So it doesn't matter that you do a ton of it at one time, because it's so spread out. Novolog hits immediately (okay, so it's actually somewhere between ten and twenty minutes to start working, and its effect doesn't get over for about an hour- but still, it's supposed to be immediate). So I all the sudden have a ton of insulin in me that's trying to take my bloodsugar down. Like, really far down.

To understand the magnitude of how stupid this was, let's look at a bit of math. For every 15 grams of carbohydrate I eat, I do one unit of Lantus. One slice of grandma sycamore bread has 22 grams of carbs. Eight ounce of milk has about 15 carbs, etc. etc. You can look on the nutrition facts. When I test my bloodsugar, I do one unit of novolog for every 30 the result is over 120. That means that if I test and I'm 180 I'll do 2 unites of novolog to get back to where I want to be. Okay, glad we got that figured out.

So I test last night and I'm 337. Yeah, that's really high, once again, my bad. That's seven units of correction. It would have been sweet had I actually done seven units. Instead I accidentally did 32. That leaves 25 units of active novolog in my body, just waiting to send me into a coma and leave me dead. It was time to binge.

I went upstairs and woke Andrew up to let him know what was going on. It's always good to have another person around in cases like this, since they're not in danger of falling over all the time. If something bad happens, he'd be there to fix stuff. He was a really great brother and he woke up at 5 AM to lay on the couch and ask every couple minutes "hey, you still alive?". What a stud.

I talk about falling over and dying, but it's really not that frightening. Because my bloodsugar was so high when I did the shot, I knew that I had quite a bit of time before the insulin would start kicking my butt.

On average, I do about eight to ten units of insulin for dinner. I do four or five for breakfast. 25 active units of novolog is three dinners. I did the math and needed 375 grams of carbohydrates in the next twenty or so minutes.

I started rummaging through the kitchen to find food that would have a lot of simple carbs that my body would absorb quickly. I knew I wouldn't be able to force a ton of food into me, certainly not three dinner's worth. I had to choose wisely.

I ended up drinking two cups of super-tang. That's a total of six scoops of tang mix spread out between 32 or so fluid ounces of water. That's enough tang mix to make six quarts of NASA's favorite drink. It was super concentrated tang, but it carried a ton of really fast carbs. My super-tang drinking habit netted me 216 grams of carbs. Holy crap, that's a ton of carbs.

After that I looked for the next highest carb-density food in the kitchen. Ends up that maple syrup has 60 carbs for every quarter cup. Holy crap. So I decided to eat two eggo's and spread a half cup of syrup between the two of them.

I tried really hard and it was totally disgusting. I managed to down 3/8 of a cup of syrup between the two. After that I figured I'd have enough carbs to make it through the evening. So I went and laid down on the floor of my bedroom, waking up every twenty minutes or so to test and make sure my bloodsugar wasn't going insane. After two hours of that I figured it was going to be okay so I took out my contacts and went to bed.

Going to bed at seven thirty sort of means that I'll sleep until four the next day unless someone wakes me up. So today has pretty much been a wash.

I feel really stupid about all of this. It's a stupid mistake that I've been looking out for for years now. I was stupid and careless last night and I had to pay for it. I'm super glad that I'm at home this weekend. Food is a lot easier to come by in my parent's kitchen.

I shouldn't have been up that late in the first place, because that's just asking for trouble. I made it out alright, but my body still took a beating for it. Sleep loss is only the beginning. Downing that many quick and worthless carbs in that short of time isn't a good idea for anyone. It was a bit of a struggle to keep it all down for the next hour or so, my body really didn't like having the super tang and syrup mix in it.

But hey, crisis averted. I don't write this to stir up any sort of anything from the audience. I'm writing it because last night as I was dealing with it all I thought about writing it here. Hopefully I'll be able to write an update soon. But know I am alive and that things are going generally well. Today wasn't super great, but my life has been getting better as a general trend.

I hope you're all doing well. Happy nearly thanksgiving break. Much love to everybody out there. Hopefully I'll be able to see most of you sometime soon. Peace.

Christopher Thatcher - A Post of Passion

2008-11-04T21:54:00.004-07:00

"I'm moving to Canada." - about fifty facebook statuses

First off, moving to Canada hasn't ever been a good strategic choice. Today is no different.

Obama got elected, and a lot of people I know are freaking out about this. I'm just going to lay out how I feel right now and let you all sort through whatever happens.

I believe in America. I believe in the people of America. I can not and will not believe that my personal beliefs about politics outweigh the personal convictions and political ideals of any other individual in this country. I think I'm smart, but I love that my vote counts just as much as anyone else's.

Our electoral system elected Obama. If you have a problem with the results of this election you have a problem with the constitution and the fundamental beliefs that this country was built upon. Because no matter who you voted for, we as a people have elected our next president.

If the voice of the people had come in for McCain, and somehow someone other than McCain was our president, I'd be heartbroken. The exact same goes for Senator Obama. Even if I was the hardest and most intense McCain supporter in the world, I would rather see the voice of the people go satisfied instead of my own personal desires.
I believe in the American system more than I believe in my own ability to choose the best leader for my country. America was built upon this sacrifice. We're built upon the idea that anyone's individual desires are not greater than the will of the people as a whole.

This isn't about me and what I know. This is about all of us and what we have come together to decide. I believe this is the best way. That's what the founding fathers believed.

In conclusion, America has spoken. Like it or not, this is the way things are. I think we can all take tonight to be upset and to cry and to invest in Asian markets. But by tomorrow morning I expect to see a country that is ready to wake up and work for a better future. This is the American system. I believe in it and support it. No matter who the president is, we have a responsibility to honor that office and to work as individuals to make our country better.

So I'm going to wake up and get an education. I'm going to work hard for me, my family, my beliefs, and for the American economy. I'm going to make things better by being a good guy. I'd do that no matter who was elected.

Be you red or blue, we have our next president. He's not the democrat's president and he's not the republican's president, but he's the president of the American people. Party lines don't exempt you from being American.

I rejoice in the greatness of our system. I rejoice that it's still working. I don't care how you feel about Obama, I only care how you feel about America. Do you believe in the system? Do you have faith in what we were built upon?

I know this will get me into trouble. But it's how I feel. I believe in America, and I would no matter who was elected. Thanks for reading, my politically charged friends.

-Christopher "I love the closed ballot!" Thatcher

Christopher Thatcher - Crucial Juncture of Death

2008-10-31T10:37:00.002-06:00

10:38 AM - I'm in the lab again.

I have a calculus test on Monday. It's Friday. I haven't exactly done the last two calc assignments. And by "haven't exactly done" I mean "haven't done." Professor Cannon, who is a stud, gave us a practice exam on Wednesday so we could get it done and ask questions on it today. I went two for five on questions, but I feel like I have a pretty decent shot come Monday. And hey, 40 percent's not that bad, right? SLCC, here I come!

It's becoming more and more difficult to actually do work. I'm surprised this didn't happen before. We were up pretty late last night playing warcraft. We suddenly realized that we have a killer network set up at home, and that it's really easy to pull Levi or James' lappy into me and Andrew's room so we can play from the same place. Me and Kyle were switching off using my computer, with Levi four feet away. We were online playing with Dak, Tyrel, and Glen. It was pretty intense. Lots of fun, but it lasted a wee bit too late into the evening. I did manage to study my calc after we got done, but it wasn't for nearly long enough. Staying up that late helped me be pretty tardy (and the award for ugliest word in the human language goes to...) to calc this morning.

So, it was fun, but it sorta hindered my academic progress. Worst part? It's friday, and I'm thinking that when I get home, I've got a full day to waste doing fun stuff like that. Alas, I need to study. But dang, can't argue with fun social gaming like that.

So, this prospect of the calculus test is a very interesting one. Tests are weighted as 40 percent of the entire grade in there. There are two midterms, so each is 20 percent. That means that this single midterm I'm taking on Monday is equal to every homework assignment combined for the entire semester. With that proportionality, it'd make a whole lot of sense for me to spend hours and hours preparing for this blasted test. After all, I've been dedicating at least two hours every other night, or six hours a week to do those assignments. And that's an incredibly conservative estimate. It's more like three every other night. So I'm saying that it'd be a shame for me to not put forth the effort to get an A on this test. I think that it's possible, but it's pretty far out there right now. The material isn't incredibly difficult... there's a TON of room for error, but that's to be expected. I have absolutely no experience with spherical or cylindrical coordinate systems, and I know that that will be at least 20 percent of the test. Jacobians and transformations don't look that difficult, but I didn't do the assignment that taught us that, so I'll need to do that this weekend.

Mora of the story? This weekend is officially Go Time for calculus. As a general rule, I've never passed up a good Go Time opportunity for school. I've always missed little assignments and stuff, but when it really came down to make it happen, I put forth the work to make things fly. This will be a pretty tough weekend to make that happen. I hope that I can make it work. It's important- there's a whole lot of money riding on that GPA...

So, every Ultimate announcement I ever make on this blog usually ends up doomed. We still haven't played Murray. But there's a savage seven tournament on the 15th of November, and we're going to field a team. It's going to be pretty cool because BYU is fielding two teams and Utah State is fielding at least one. It's open to everybody though, so we're going to assemble our seven and go get owned. Savage Seven is cool because it's just seven vs. seven all day long. No subs. You play games to seven, with a hard cap, so no win-by-two or anything like that. Me, Andrew, Levi, Brad, and James are all in for sure. Kyle is a maybe, depending on how his back is treating him. Last night he sounded pretty confident though. We'd really like to get one guy from our Ultimate class, since he's pretty sick and friendly. But he'll be out of town, so we're looking into recruiting one of Andrew and Brad's friends. We only need one more guy, and I'm really looking forward to playing. We'll get trashed, but it'll be fun to go play high level with guys I like. That's in two weeks, I'm pretty happy.

I haven't written for a while. I don't really mind. Traffic is down considerably. But, really, I think I'm okay. Life has been better lately. That's not even close to all my fault, but things are moving forward. I've been working a lot harder on school and on a lot of other things that needed to change. The biggest deal for me has been Kyle. I started really trying to be nice to him, since I was always a butthead. It didn't really matter the situation, I just wasn't nice to kyle. So I've been really trying, and it's been making a difference for me. I don't know if anyone else noticed, maybe not even Kyle, but it makes me feel a lot better about myself.

I'm not much of one for quotations on the blog, but I'm tossing one in. C.S. Lewis, that stallion that he is, had a pretty good one in the Screwtape Letters. The whole book is one professional 'devil' writing to his nephew who's trying to be a devil too, or something. It's essentially good advice on how to tempt and get people to be jerks. Pretty cool premise. Anyways-

Do what you will, there is going to be some benevolence, as well as some malice, in your patient's soul. The great thing is to direct the malice to his immediate neighbours whom he meets every day and to thrust his benevolence out to the remote circumference, to people he does not know. The malice thus becomes wholly real and the benevolence largely imaginary.

I heard that a while ago, the day after I had really found some motivation to work harder and be better. It's a pretty cool reality. So, I'm trying not to be a jerk to Kyle. I associate with Kyle more than anyone. And If I'm a jerk to the one person I associate with most, that makes me a jerk for a big portion of my life. I don't want to be a jerk. So I'm working on it. Old habits die hard, but that front is going well.

There's a lot of really good stuff going on up here. Lots of work yet to be done. It's hard to love school when I don't know what I want to do with my life. But school's not the only important thing up here. Almost all of my life to this point has been about becoming. Go to school to become a good college student. Go to college to become a highly paid worker. Run to become a better athlete, read to get smarter, prepare for a mission, etc. etc. This stuff is all awesome, but I will say that it is very nice to look at things and know that I got them done and that nothing is going to take that away from me. The thing about becoming is that it's always in a state of flux, and it's always possible to go back and suck again. I ran for a long time in order to get better. I used to be pretty intense, and now I'm not. Things like that can go away, you're never sure if you're there permanently. But there's some good stuff in life that once you get it done, well, it's done for the month. It helps you and everyone else become better, yes, but once it's done, it's never going away. Case in point: Me and Levi did some hometeaching last night. Yes, it was the second to last day of the month. And yes, we still haven't found our wayward non-resident. And no, I'm not saying this to toot any sort of horn. But it does feel good to be able to report 80 percent on Sunday. Yes, 80 percent isn't good enough. But hey, that 80 percent for October isn't going anywhere. That one's going down on the books. It's a good feeling.

Okay, not too long until I have to get to physics. Only two more hours of class and then I'm done for the weekend. I'm going to the basketball game tonight (w00t) and hopefully getting some work done. Should be a good weekend.

I hope you're all doing well. Happy long post Friday. I do like writing less often. But hey, good luck with everything. Life's tough, but it has its advantages. Happy Friday friends, much love.

Christopher Thatcher - Not Smooth

2008-10-26T00:47:00.002-06:00

I really enjoy being home. I came home to see the musical. I sort of have an unofficial goal to not come home too many weeks in a row, just because I know it's important that I stay up in Logan. But this weekend has just been really good. The musical was incredible, and I've spent a lot of time with a lot of really good people. I love it here because I'm in my element. I'm surrounded by people that know me and that believe in me. I don't have to prove anything, I'm just me, doing what I do. I love that. I know that I'm me wherever I go, but it's so nice to joke with everybody and laugh together. I have really valued the time I've had this weekend to be with people.

It's back up to Logan tomorrow to start a new week. I can't say I'm excited to go do more calculus and physics, but it'll be good to go learn and move forward with life.

Not too much to say tonight, other than that I really like being home. I love Logan too, and I'm happy to be there. But let's be serious folks, I like home more. Just because home is that good.

I hope you're doing well friends. Happy Saturday evening. I'll catch you all later.

Christopher Thatcher - Field Trip

2008-10-24T10:39:00.002-06:00

I'm posting today from the lab in the library basement. I didn't post last night for a couple of reasons.

The good news: I was able to get my physics assignment taken care of, with a little more than one hundred percent, I think. My calculus assignment, well, I got all the problems completed minus two, although I was certifiably wrong on a lot of problems. I give myself an 80 percent for effort, and a 60 percent for actual accuracy. Hey, could have been worse, right?

This morning was miraculous in that I got to calculus early and stayed awake through the entire 50 minutes. It has been a very long time since that has happened. I feel pretty loved.

I have a dilemma for the weekend. I want to come home to see the musical and be with people, but there's a pretty cool ward activity going on up here tonight. I have a ride home and back, no problem. I'm still pretty torn, though. Right now it looks like I'll be staying here, unless something changes. I still got some time, though, so we'll see. I don't really wanna miss the musical, because I believe in supporting the school and all that. Seeing friends is always a plus. But it's an important ward activity, alas. We'll see.

So, calculus is pretty cool, but I'm not that good at it right now. There's just an incredible amount of error that can slip in. We're doing triple integrals. So instead of integrating along some line from x=0 to x=2, we integrate some volume V bounded by the planes z + x + y = 1, x = 0, y = x + 2z, and something else that's fierce. So we've got to spatially visualize these crazy planes to give a three-dimensional model, and then find out the limits of integration between them. Half of the limits are in terms of other variables, which makes it all sorts of fun. It really is pretty cool when it works right, but integration is messy just by itself, and doing three integrals on top of each other means that errors creep in from everywhere. I do really like the subject, but I recognize that I'm not getting accurate answers. The next test is going to be a very interesting one.

10:51 AM, have I ever blogged during this hour of the day in the history of the other dentist? Probably once or twice, actually, but that might have been the very first few times I was posting here during journalism for junior high. I've spent a fair amount of time in this computer lab here, so the environment isn't new. But it's interesting to write during the morning. Afternoon? I don't even know.

Fifteen minutes till I have to hoof it over to physics. I'm actually going to lecture today, hooblay! I've decided to stop sluffing. As much as I really enjoy sluffing, it's not a great idea. I'm going to try really hard to stay awake in there today. History is stacked against me on this one, but I've already seen two miracles this morning- who says I can't believe in a third?

Yay, I'm talking to my mom online. She got a laptop for her work, and now she's finally learning to use a computer. It's been a pretty funny adventure. Pretty cool that mom's so smart though. It doesn't take her long to pick up on new stuff like this. I should call and talk to her more though. I can get by without talking to people I care about, I've found. But it's always nicer when I do. Pretty interesting stuff, though.

Next semester is going to be incredible, I've decided. I'm going to be so not new to college it's going to be insane. I've got a few goals kicking around in the oven, and I think I know a pretty good direction to move in. I've had one run through, and I'm pretty confident that the second one will be a lot smoother. Just saying, I'm looking forward to it.

Okay, it looks like I am coming home this weekend. Mom's good at advice. I'm off to physics, friends. I hope that you have a great day and weekend and all sorts of fun stuff. Peace and love~

Christopher Thatcher - Day Eighteen

2008-10-23T03:27:00.002-06:00

Happy 450th post, The Other Dentist.

I think that after day 24 I'll go back to the old style. You know, with real titles instead of auto-generated ones. While I do love the simplicity and cohesion of it all, it'll be fun to use titles again. I'll also probably drop off on posting, but we'll see. My readership has gone up tons by posting every day. Watching the stats, the two nights that I didn't really post dropped down considerably. But hey, it's not about readership, is it?

It's super late. Today was whack. I slept through some stuff I shouldn't have, and then took another nap on top of that. But I accomplished most of the stuff I wanted to. Tomorrow has a ton of work lined up for me because of what I didn't do today. But I've got time to do it, and I hope that I can. It's plausible :)

I took a good look at my current academic standing tonight. I ran a few simulations of final grades for my classes, to find out what my final GPA will be for the term. The most realistic of these simulations sees me getting a 3.73 final, which is more than high enough to hold on to my scholarship. I'd like to pad that up further, but that's what I'm shooting for right now. That all hinges on good performances on the two remaining physics tests and the two remaining calc tests. That means I need to start attending physics class again, and start being on time to calc again. But I think I can pull it off. Like me and Nike said, I know how far I have to go.

So, ridiculously scheduled day. But not a total wash like I thought it might be. This one goes in the "done" pile. Not because all the work it had was done, but because it's over. Tomorrow's the day for me. I read a physics chapter tonight, but I have a whole assignment to do tomorrow. Shouldn't be too terrible. Calculus assignment as well. Double stacking those is a bit of a nightmare, but not something I can't do.

Today wasn't great for my academics. But mission prep went really well, and I felt pretty good about most of the things I'm working on. I had a good time talking to friends tonight and being with my roommates. Me and James made a delicious cake from scratch, it was great. Brad finally started playing KOTOR, so me and kyle have more temptation than ever. Not a wash, and that's good news.

Tomorrow's another day. Time for study, then time for sleep. Thanks for being around friends. You're pretty cool. I'm trying up here. That's great news.

Christopher Thatcher - Day Seventeen

2008-10-22T02:54:00.002-06:00

No time to dilly-daddle, I've got sleep to get to!

But in the meantime, it has been a pretty good day. School likes to throw things at me, but I'm keeping my head above water and trying to make it work. Assignments are rough, but we're getting there.

I really want to start exploring my options for next semester soon. I feel pretty good about the math education major, and so I'm excited to see what that entails for the next several years of my life. I did a psuedo-four-year-plan for scholars forum, but I didn't pay much attention to that, so it'll be good to get a good idea. Hopefully I can get that at least looked at this week.

I want to be passionate about something. Right now I'm passionate about being a better guy, and it's making a huge difference. Before I wanted it, but I wasn't passionate about it. Now I am, and that's good news. I'm still working on it, but at least now I can smile about the prospects.

But yeah, I want to be passionate about something. I think it'd be super cool to be passionate about my education, and then later my career. I think it's realistic. I can find it. Just gotta look.

so, 3:00 AM, my procrastination on calculus smote me a bit today. But it's not unbearable. I've got one paper to write tomorrow between calc and physics, and then a whole chapter of physics that I really should get done in the evening. That probably means I'll have to take a nap in order to be effective. I don't know how I feel about that. I know that it helps my schoolwork, but I don't know how I feel about the health effects. Is it worth the trade off? A big nap tomorrow means staying up late. Granted, I can sleep in on thursdays, but that just keeps me in this vicious cycle. I'll think about it. In any event, I'm pretty excited to give physics a go tomorrow. We're finally out of electricity and into magnetism, and that's really really good news.

How'd I do at being a better person today? Much better, and it feels good. Still several gaping holes where I wasn't a nice guy, but I can deal with that. I didn't do well at changing my sleep patterns, but I felt good about my efforts in the other categories.

So, I might come back this weekend, not sure. The high school play is on, and that'd be pretty great to go to. I've got a ride, and I'd be back up here for sunday like I need to be. I don't quite know if it's worth it or not, but I'll probably end up going down. Hooblay!

Alright friends, I'm out. Good luck tomorrow in your adventures. I'll catch you all later- I hope you're doing well.

Christopher Thatcher - Day Sixteen

2008-10-21T01:22:00.002-06:00

1:28 AM - baby steps towards going to bed at a decent hour :)

Today was day two of moving towards being a better person. I woke up knowing what I wanted to work on, and I feel like I did a good job remembering that throughout the day. There were a lot of moments when I realized that I had just screwed up on a goal or on something I need to work on, but that made me pretty happy. The fact that I can notice when I do stupid things means that I can move towards not doing those stupid things anymore. Today was a good day because I was able to work on being better.

Am I better than I was yesterday? I think so. Still got forever and a day to go... but hey, I've got time. This is good news.

I said last night I'd explain a little better some of what happened this weekend. I don't want to go into too much detail right now, but a few things happened that made me more human than I've been for the past few months. I know that sounds incredibly stupid, but it makes sense to me. It's sort of like something that should have happened a really long time ago finally happened. It was very late, but it finally showed up. I don't really know why, but it helped things change considerably.

Yes, I know it has only been two days. But I'm feeling better. Best of all, I'm feeling hopeful that I can make this work. I'm behind on some things up here, but I know I can fight back up. I've let a few things go these past few months. No idea if they're salvageable, but I'm going to try.

Today was good, and I feel like I made progress on almost all of my points of emphasis. That makes me happy. I'm going to call it a night and go study. That's going to take care of two emphases at once. Good news.

I might be pretty scarce around here in the near future, we'll see how it goes. If I don't show up for a while, I want to thank everybody who has been here for this adventure. All of the encouraging comments really did help a lot. You're an incredible group of friends. There are probably some lurkers out there who I'm not aware of. You folks are cool too, even if I don't know that you're my friend yet.

Much love, and good luck. Things are going to be alright. Work feels good. Progress feels so good. I know that I'm going to screw up, but I'm going to keep on trying. Get back up, it's time to finish the race.

Christopher Thatcher - Day Fifteen

2008-10-20T03:16:00.003-06:00

It's super late, too late to really post, but I wanted to stop by and say that it's working. I feel like things are changing. I feel like I can actually do what I have to do to make it work this time.

A lot of things have had to happen to come to this point. It's been a day, but so far I love it. It's a big story. I know that the story isn't done yet, but it took a pretty cool twist this past weekend. I didn't see it coming, but it's been waiting for a while I think.

One more step along the path, one more checkpoint. This weekend was good for me, good things happened. Today was a good day. Tomorrow will be hard, just because it's so late right now. But I'm going to do my best. I've got a plan, and I've got reasons for working. It's go time.

I hope to stop by tomorrow and do a better job explaining things, when I've got a little bit more time. I'm really considering taking a hiatus, and posting only occasionally like Melissa plans to do. No guarantees. But for now, I'm just going to keep up running, cause that's what I want to do. Much love friends, goodnight.

Christopher Thatcher - Day Fourteen

2008-10-19T01:23:00.002-06:00

Why are things the way that they are? Who am I, and when did I start being me?

I'm not happy with the way things are right now. And what that really means is that I'm not entirely satisfied with the way that I am right now.

And I've been dissatisfied with this for a while, as the blog history will show. And my efforts up to this point have been more or less unsuccessful.

Tonight was a good night that made me want to be better. And so here I stand, once again, writing a post, vowing that I'm gonna go do better. See, the most interesting thing about all of this is that I'm not doing anything that much differently than I was doing before. I'm not doing bad things or being a bad guy. I just don't feel as good about myself as I used to. I recognize that there's a lot of work that I need to do to become a better person.

But like I said, I know I've been here before. I've started many a quest. I've halfheartedly failed a lot of quests too.

But all of that considered, I'm not down and out yet. I am going to make this work. I've got a goal. And maybe it won't work out, and I'll be right here again in a week. And if that's the case, then that's the case. I'm going to keep getting up, and I'm going to keep trying. After I've worked hard enough, I'm going to learn what it is that I need to learn. I'm not giving up.

So here we are. Writing a post that's pretty much been written before. An author with dwindling desire to write and an audience with dwindling desire to read. So maybe it does look like fall outside the window, but it's alright, because spring is going to come. And whatever happens, I will keep getting up. Yep, I've been better than I am right now. And I want to be that good again, and I want to be even better than that. But it takes work.

So here I go, to work.

Thanks for being around friends. I hope things are great for you.

Christopher Thatcher - Day Thirteen

2008-10-18T02:15:00.000-06:00

I am proud to announce that I am not posting tonight either. I'm only here so I don't ruin my pretty dang long streak of posting every day. Much love, I hope you're all doing well.

Christopher Thatcher - Day Twelve

2008-10-17T03:37:00.001-06:00

Hey, happy Thursday. I'm here to say that I'm not posting tonight. Yes, I know that this is a post. But I'm not posting anything else, other than to say that I'm doing good over here. Nobody's dead, nobody's even in mortal peril that I know of. I'm just doing something I feel like doing- not posting.

I hope you're all doing well. I should have a phone by tomorrow. I'm in town, maybe we should party down.

Christopher Thatcher - Day Eleven

2008-10-16T02:58:00.002-06:00

Happy Wednesday. I've had a lot of fun tonight. Tonight was probably the closest I've come this whole time to "having fun" the way that I imagined I would. I've had a lot of fun all sorts of other times, that's for sure. But tonight was sort of the classic adventure that you hear about and love.

Me, Brad, and Andrew went to the fieldhouse to play some basketball. The courts were full, so we played squash instead. Squash is like raquetball the same way that the phonebook is like the internet. You know that they're both related and so some of the same tasks, but one is just a lot slower and less fun than the other. We had a good time playing around with the different game mechanics, though.

The fieldhouse is a pretty cool building. It's like a big warehouse. It's just bit and open, with all sorts of fun stuff going on inside. The squash court is up on the second floor, tucked away in a small box-room that's tucked away inside a bigger box-room. I have this insane vision of setting up a blanket and a projector in there and watching a movie for a romantic date. It's one of those rooms or parts of a building that is so not normal. It's the kind of stuff that's fun to explore, because it's outside the realm of what you're used to. It's tucked away, twice. Narrow hallways and too many doors. It's just fun.

We were able to play some basketball after squash, and that was good times. We're not good, but we have a good time.

We drove to McDonalds to get some food and rent Iron Man from redbox. I'd never seen it, and I loved it. That's just a cool movie. It's well done. I don't have much else to say about it, but I know that I enjoyed it. I don't have to qualify it from a literary standpoint, I just had a good time.

It was fun to hang out with Brad and Andrew and have an adventure like that. Fun to watch the movie with Levi and Kyle, too, but the majority of the adventure was with the other two.

I only have one class tomorrow, and it doesn't start till 12:30. I'm going to get up a little early so I can study physics and go get registered to vote up in Logan so I don't have to drive home to vote come November. Still undecided as to who to vote for.

But it's been a real relaxed evening that's just been fun.

I'm not nice to kyle, and that bugs me. When I get to know people really well, I get really comfortable and casual around them. Kyle is the epitome of that effect. I'm nice to people I don't know, but sometimes I'm just a butthead when it comes to dealing with Kyle. That's something that I know needs to change, cause I really care about Kyle. He's a good kid, and when we're working together, we do pretty good stuff. I know he knows all that business deep down, but that's still no excuse for me to be not super nice to him. That's a good goal to work towards.

My phone's been dead for a while now. It'll be back to functioning capacity come Friday, if everything goes according to plan. That'll be great news. If you've called or sent a text that I haven't responded to, I apologize. I'll do my best to take care of that as soon as I have a working phone again.

Good day today. I got some good stuff done, I had a lot of fun, and I feel like I'm prepared for what tomorrow will bring. I'm so excited to come home.

Well friends, it's time for me to head out. I hope you're doing well. Happy college, everybody. I'll catch you all later.

Christopher Thatcher - Day Ten

2008-10-15T02:09:00.003-06:00

Ten days trying to remember that I'm the man for the job. Remembering is pretty hard some times. But we're getting there.

I think one of the hardest things to do up here is to remember the big picture. Things get so tiny up here so fast. Sometimes it's hard to see beyond the end of the day's assignments.

It is so nice to get a glimpse of big pictures though. I read a few paragraphs about scholarships today. An assignment for scholar's forum gives us an option of doing a few of those things, and one of those things is writing a letter to someone who gave you a shot at coming to school because of a scholarship.

It was just really cool to step back and see that people were actually funding me because they believe in me. A couple of sources. Utah State, the federal government, ATK/chamberwest. That's pretty incredible.

I feel pretty inadequate sometimes. I started my calculus assignment tonight at one. That's late. It wasn't because I was working on other stuff today, it was just because I was really being a slacker. I don't work as hard as I can up here. I'm not doing all the awesome things I could be. Sometimes I feel like I'm just sucking it up.

And that's a really really close-picture mindset. In all honesty, yeah, my schoolwork isn't all that great right now. I do plan on getting a 4.0, but I still feel like I could be doing much better. Day by day, I'm not doing too great.

Stepping back, though, things are going better. I'm taking decent care of my body. My bloodsugar levels used to be much better than they were at home. The past few weeks have been a little worse than usual, but I think I can get it back into swing. I've been doing more exercise up here than I was doing my senior year of high school. Thank you PE class and giant hill between me and campus. I'm learning how to cook and shop for myself. I've finally found the value of a clean room and a clean kitchen. I've started taking the garbage out without anybody telling me to. As life goes, I'm starting to be a useful roommate instead of an appreciated and loved parasite like I was at home.

I am moving towards graduation, as ridiculous as that sounds. I don't know what degree I'm doing to graduate with just yet, but I'm moving towards it. I'm knocking down some generals and learning some stuff. I'm more educated now than I ever have been before.

There's a lot that needs to be done. And I know that I'm not doing as well as I should be. But I'm not dead yet. And I'm not giving up.

I read Nate Cunningham's email to everybody from tonight. I haven't been reading them, but I decided to tonight, and it was really cool. He's way pumped up about everything in the MTC, it makes me happy. It got me all excited to go serve.

To be honest, that's something that I'm so happy about. Knowing that a mission is in my future gives me a lot to smile about. I feel so inadequate here. I'll be inadequate there, too, but that's an inadequate that I know how to fix. That's one of those things that I know is going to work out. It's a two-year investment that pretty much can't be the wrong thing to do. I know that that's what I'm supposed to do, and I know that everything is going to be so much better because I did it. It'll be incredibly hard work, but it's what I want to do. It won't magically change me into a better person, but I know that I'll become better through doing it. That's just a great plan, I gotta say.

so, I spent most of today pretty discouraged. But it's 2:24, and I'm feeling pretty encouraged. I'm really considering sluffing physics tomorrow. I sleep through it everyday anyways- what if I spend that hour doing work instead?

A final thought before I leave- As me and kyle walked out of the engineering building today I spotted a one-dollar-bill lying on the ground. I pointed it out to kyle, but I didn't pick it up. I didn't pick it up because I feel like money on the ground carries an incredibly large responsibility. Once you pick that up, your first task is to try to find out who it belongs to. Failing that, you have to do something incredible with it. My first thoughts are donate it to charity or use it to change the world. I couldn't really pocket that one dollar bill, because I wouldn't feel that good about it. I'd have to give it to something great or do something to help someone with it. It couldn't just be mine.

So, kyle picked it up, and we discussed this all the way home. I explained that I hadn't picked it up because of the great responsibility that I felt like it carried, and Kyle explained why he picked it up and why he's going to use it to pay for a haircut in a few weeks. We took the conversation pretty light and easy, having a lot of fun arguing back and forth. I had fun with it, and I hope I didn't make Kyle feel bad.

But the whole thing got me thinking. Kyle was sort of "given" that one dollar bill. From wherever, you decide. Be it divine intervention or whatever you want to call it, Kyle had a dollar bill bestowed upon him. I take that sort of seriously. When I have things bestowed upon me, I feel like I have a responsibility to make the most of it.

And I realized that I've got a lot of stuff bestowed upon me all the time. Fifteen minutes of free time that I've been "bestowed"- What am I going to do with that? A particularly good hair day- What about that one?

I don't live my life like that, but I start to wish that I did. I know that if I work harder, my life is going to get better on a lot of fronts. There's a lot of reasons for me to work to be great. Being great for the right reasons is pretty incredible. That's something that I want to be. That's something that I've forgotten. That's something that I just realized that I need to remember, that's good news :)

2:30, sounds like a great time to skeedaddle out of here and start some important study. Thanks for letting me write. That's code for "thanks for not leaving mean comments telling me to stop writing." Things are tough. For everyone. But I want to be better. And I'm going to work at it. I need it.

Happy Tuesday evening. I'm coming home this weekend, and I'm so excited about that. Much love, I'll catch you all later.

Christopher Thatcher - Day Nine

2008-10-14T02:52:00.002-06:00

So, I'll admit- I'm a big sucker for cool slogans or inspirational lines. I really love athletic companies because they have such cool lines. Honestly.

Levi has a Nike poster hanging in his bedroom. It's got Steve Prefontaine running on a beach. In the bottom corner, very minimalist, is one line. "You know how far you have to go."

I haven't liked that line until tonight. I always thought it was a bit of a let down. Nike has always had good lines. This one didn't hit me like the other ones.

But I'm loving it tonight. I have a lot of questions in my life right now. I have a lot of goals and things that I want to do. Hopes and dreams, wishes, all those things that I'm trying to get.

And I'm looking at my life and realizing- I know how far I have to go.

I have no idea what the answers to my questions are. But I know that I can find them. And I pretty much know what I need to do to find those answers. In a very real way, I know how far I have to go. Those answers are out there for me. They're out there for you too, I think. They don't come without work. I like knowing that I can do work to find out what I want. That's reassuring.

I've got classes. I know how far I have to go to make things work. I can realistically pull a 4.0. It's not something I've really been planning on lately. But I can do it. I'm not saying I will. But if I do decide to do it, I know how far I have to go.

I just really love that line tonight. I feel it, I believe it. I know what I need to do to find out. I know what I need to do to find out *how* to find out.

I have no idea how to get from the beginning to the end. But somehow I know what I've got to do to get to the next step. I can see that far.

And I'll go. I don't know it all, but I know enough to get to the next step. I know how far I need to go. I love it.

Christopher Thatcher - Day Eight

2008-10-13T03:47:00.003-06:00

3:47 AM - Must be calculus.

It's late, so I won't say too much tonight.

I want to remember more. One of my recurring fears here is that I never stay on one thing long enough to make any real progress. I get so excited about something and move towards it, and then I'll get distracted and stop. I'll get excited about something else and move forward with that.

I want to remember what has happened in the past. I'm talking the distant past, as well as what happened yesterday. I feel like my life is pretty fragmented. Blogging every day should help that, but if I don't do any real pondering about what happened in the past, it's not going to sink in. I need to actively think about it and wonder about it. This will take work.

So that's the goal for the week. Longer than that. That's the goal for my life- to remember. I have that fear that this will be something I'll forget. But this is what I want to work on. I believe in myself here. After all, I am the man for the job.

And, should I fail, I'll have another chance. That's good news.

What happened this week that was important? A good talk with a friend seems to be the most significant thing in my mind right now. Interesting that things I do for other people are more important than pretty much everything else. I should probably learn from that.

It's late, and my body has taken a beating tonight. Happy Sunday, friends. I hope this next week goes great for you. It's go time.

Christopher Thatcher - Day Seven

2008-10-12T02:43:00.002-06:00

2:43 AM. Today has run the gamut of Christopher Thatcher statuses. I've played basketball and seen personal athletic accomplishment and smiles. I've been silly and joked with Andrew. I've felt a little sick and slept more than usual. I've been sloppy and ugly, and I've also gotten cleaned up and really liked my hair. I've been social and I've been a recluse. I've been a slacker and I've cleaned. I've disregarded the future and I've wondered and planned for what's coming up. I've been all over the place today.

I find myself with this fear, like I always do, that I change my mind and my direction the same way the wind plays and changes direction. I worry about that.

But I'm going to be alright. Even though I didn't move forward today in all the areas I feel like I should have, I did do some good things. Those things do count.

My thoughts tonight have been on sowing. I love that phrase, "Reap what you sow". It's very pungent and powerful to me. I've never done much planting or reaping, but it's something I've always been fascinated with. The very basic metaphor is just so earthy and real to me.

What did I sow today? I sowed a bit of physical health and achievement with basketball. I sowed some social friendshipping and spread a little bit of good will. I donated a dollar to the march of dimes, that's something. I did some sowing.

And beyond just today- I know that I'm doing some sowing just by being here. I'm learning a lot. It's not just academic. I'm learning how to live. More importantly, I'm learning so much about myself. I'm sowing what I hope will be a better living for myself and my family in the future. I'm sowing self-betterment, I hope.

There's a lot that I'd like to sow. But sowing is pretty hard. But it's worth it.

So I think that's my plan for this week. Sow. That's what I want to do. I want to be able to reap something when the time comes to reap. Hmmm, I like it.

No water update tonight, on account of me feeling like going to bed instead of staying up to write. But I am excited to write some more of it. Haha, look at me go.

Much love friends. I hope that things are well for you. I know that well is an adverb. And I know that I use it incorrectly. But I want to.

Goodnight everybody. My phone will be dead for a while. My charger isn't charging it, for whatever reasons. So hopefully by Monday it'll be better. But it's off for most of tomorrow. Please catch me online if you need or want to talk to me.

Okay, for reals, much love, and happy Saturday night. I'm off to do some high quality sowing before bed, actually. Good luck friends.

Christopher Thatcher - Day Six

2008-10-11T03:03:00.002-06:00

3:04 AM - I've seen worse!

I went home last weekend and left my cell phone charger there. I knew my brother was driving up here on Friday, so I'd have it then. The plan was to make my cell battery last five days. It'd be like a mini-Hanukkah-style-adventure for me.

I kept my phone off for most of the daytime, and turned it on at night when I knew chances of getting texts from people would be higher. There were a couple times during the week when I turned it on between classes because I felt like it, and I'm very glad I did.

The moral of the story is that it's not Friday night at 3:06 AM, and my charger is out sitting on the counter. I haven't plugged my phone in yet, but it's still working off that first charge. I totally made it. I'm pretty happy with that.

I took the physics test today, and I'm very happy with how it went. I don't want to get my hopes up, but I'm feeling very comfortable with it. Jimbo did a good job explaining exactly what was going to be on the test, so I drilled those things down pretty tight, and it paid off. I know I missed a few points because I was missing a unit vector on one of the electric fields, but I'm hoping for very high 80's or low 90's. That'd be awesome.

I talked to some people I haven't talked to in a while tonight, and that was fun. I got to play a Free-for-all match with Dak and one of his buddies online tonight, and that was pretty sweet too. I'm not good at FFA matches, but I randomed zerg and pulled through in the end to win. I love playing against people. It's so much more rewarding than playing against computers. After we played we all talked politics and school and stuff for a while, which was actually really fun. Dak's another on of those guys that I really think is a stud. If proximity were different, I bet he'd be living with us right now. He's one of those guys that I think had he not gone to different schools, he'd be in the group. He's a good kid.

Not having the van has changed things a little bit. It's a lot harder to actually make it to the grocery store now. I know that we should find a good way around that, but we haven't yet. I'm honestly considering walking tomorrow. It's going to rain, yeah, but I need to hit the credit union anyways. All the cars that live in 36 are home for the weekend, so unless Katie wants to take me places, I might be on foot. It's not too bad though. It'll be bitter cold, but a little bit of cold and wet walking never hurt anyone but all those settlers on the plains.

So, I had a bit of an urge to write something tonight. So I did, haha. As a warning, it's more water. It's a new little section, though. I'm not trying to be professional here. I just sort of want to write something, so I'm going for it. I understand it's not "good" and that it's pretty stupid. I'm not trying to be good here. I'm doing it cause that's what I want to do. I'm not trying to compete with any of the talent out there, cause I know I'm way outclassed, and I like those folks too much to try to beat them at something anyways.

So, without further ado- the first part of a little storyline I want to follow.

The Ballad of Stan - Part One

Stan skidded and turned the corner into the spacious room, panting from the run. In the middle of the basement lecture hall stood the one man Stan was hunting.

Evil Jackson had been pacing nervously, listening to the sounds of battle above him. He was both the mastermind-behind and the key-to the plan that led to this afternoon's unfortunate skirmish. This position left him regretfully indispensable. He was the leader of these bad guys, and certainly one of their most feared combatants. He had been obliged, on account of his indispensable nature, to stay away from the battle in order to remain safe and ready to go through with the plan as soon as the opportunity presented itself, though. He would have much rather preferred to be clobbering good guys, but the team couldn't risk losing him at a time like this.

Looking up startled, he evaluated Stan quickly. The mission was too critical to be stopped now. They were so close to sealing the deal that would finally shift the balance of power into their hands. An intruder now could change everything. Evil Jackson could have finally met his match. He was surprised and relieved by what he saw.

Stan didn't strike fear into the hearts of those he contended against. Stan had gotten the short-end of the hero-ability-stick. He had been a social nothing before life as we all knew it changed, and he continued to be a social nothing right up until this brief moment in time. He wore a nice (but not that nice) polo and some jeans, not the standard issue cape of Saving Boston, the team fighting to save the world that day. He stood in the doorway like a kid unsure of where his next class was, not as the conquerer come to save the day from evil miscreants.

Evil Jackson knew he was more powerful than this intruder. As bad guys go, Evil Jackson was pretty powerful. Evil Jackson had gotten a pretty good ability stick, and he had certainly had ample opportunity to practice using that stick against good guys. Stan wasn't even a permanent member of Saving Boston, and Evil Jackson knew that Saving Boston would take pretty much anyone. Jackson's heart rate had spiked when he knew an intruder was breaching the room in order to foil the plot, but he settled down on seeing Stan. He had this in the bag. Still, he reminded himself, this kid had managed to make it past the defenses, he probably shouldn't let his guard down. Jackson tensed like a spring and waited to see what move this kid would pull, ready for anything.

Stan breathed a sigh of relief when he realized he'd found the right room. He smiled a big and innocent smile at Jackson, just like an old friend discovering the second half of a sandwich he thought he'd finished. Jackson didn't like being smiled at like a sandwich. He much preferred his enemies quaking with fear, or at least standing with some sort of defiance. Stan just looked happy to see him. Jackson dropped his guard for a minute. That move might have proved costly had Stan been anything more than a man looking for a metaphorical sandwich.

Beaming like a moron and walking down the aisle towards Jackson, Stan held out his hand for a good shake.

“I'm so glad to finally meet you, man. Today is going to work out just fine. Hi, I'm Stan, and you're going to finally make me worth something.”

~End first part

So, yeah. Happy Friday everybody. Looking forward to tomorrow a lot. I hope you're all doing well. Much love, and happy weekend. Hopefully I'll see some of you next weekend, score!

Christopher Thatcher - Day Five

2008-10-10T03:07:00.002-06:00

3:08 AM.

I have a physics test tomorrow. I procrastinated getting ready for it until today, so it was a pretty stressful evening. I decided not to do my calc assignment, since the test is a lot more weighty right now. I'm going to take a 0 on that assignment, but that's the choice that I made. Nobody backed me into this corner but myself.

But I am feeling better about physics now than I was a few hours ago. I looked over some of the stuff that I know is going to be on the test, and I feel pretty good about it. I'm hoping to have some time between calc and physics tomorrow to go over some of that stuff, so that should be good. It'll be very interesting to see what I get. Wish me luck.

It's late, so I won't say much more. I would like to say that I miss how I used to work so hard at school. I used to do my very best at assignments just because I knew that was the right thing to do. I was all about excellence just for excellence's sake. I believed that if I worked harder, I'd learn more, and that if I learned more, I'd be a better person.

I do still believe those things, but my academic effort today wouldn't have shown it. You win some- you lose some.

Tomorrow's a new day. A new day with a physics test, sure, but a new day nonetheless. It should be good. I'm out~ Good luck friends, you're pretty cool.

Christopher Thatcher - Day Four

2008-10-09T02:56:00.003-06:00

2:56 AM.

Okay, so I have an explanation. Me and Brad have been playing Star Wars Battlefront II for the last three hours. We've been waging a galactic war against each other for a couple of days now. There's a game type on there called galactic conquest. Each player starts with six or seven planets, and the map is sort of arranged like a chess or checkers board. You then move your fleet to attack their planets. When you do that, you start a normal battle like always, except that you can buy bonuses like a hero to fight with you or enhanced blasters.

Anyways, me and brad have been dead even for the past two days. I was actually holding a 7-6 lead to him. After tonight's marathon, Brad is leading 7-5. That's a big deal. He took out my main planet, Endor, and got a ton of credits for it. He's got about 2000 more credits, plus two more planets. He's in better striking position too. So, I'm sort of cornered. But I think I can make this work. I believe in myself. Chances are I'll keep you all posted.

So, yeah, didn't do any homework tonight. Surprise. But I'm not terribly dismayed by it.

I don't have class till noon tomorrow. And that class is recitation, so I *might* just stay home and study instead. My plan is to wake up at about 8:30 tomorrow and just start working on physics. I know that only gives me about five hours of sleep, but I think I can make it work. I took a nap today, and I think I can probably squeeze one in tomorrow too. I don't have any classes tomorrow that I can fall asleep in. It's sort of a crazy plan, but I think it could work. Of course, it's dependent upon me waking up tomorrow morning. I'm going to do my best.

It's funny how we value things. I didn't do any homework today, but because I did a few good things for my friends, I feel like it was a really successful day. Some things are just a lot more important than others. Homework is a big deal. Academic success is pretty crucial for me right now. I can't really afford to lose this scholarship. I really don't know what to expect right now. I think I'm doing well in all my classes, but I don't know how well. I don't have the slightest idea how grades are going to go down.

We're getting there, moving forward. I had a really good institute class today. I do love teaching the gospel. We had a lot of sharing today, and I just really love that.

It's funny how life goes. This delicate game that we all play. Sometimes I just have no idea what's gonna happen. But I know that things are going to work out. Sometimes I wonder if all the things I've invested time and energy into are going to pan out in the end. But I don't worry about that too much. Because no matter what happens with investments, I'm happy to be where I am because of what has happened. I don't think that anything could happen that would make me regret what has happened the past 18 years.

It used to be October 8th, and now it's sort of October 9th. Tomorrow I have a calc assignment to do and a beastly physics test to prepare for. Today was what it was, no questions about that. Tomorrow will undoubtedly be what tomorrow is. I sure hope that's a good thing.

This is Christopher Thatcher, boosting his google results by using my full name more often, and signing out for the night. I hope that you're all doing well.

On a lark, I'll link you to one comical picture. You know it's safe cause it's linked from my blog and not somewhere else. If you can't see why it's so hilarious, look in the bottom right hand corner at the signs on the wall. Goodnight friends, much love.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/speedyjvw/2593920234/

Christopher Thatcher - Day Three

2008-10-08T02:30:00.003-06:00

Happy day three friends.

It's a little bit later than I want it to be, and so tonight will be pretty short. I was a pretty big slacker when it came to homework tonight, so I'm going to have to pay for it tomorrow by being tired and underprepared.

But it's alright, because I'm feeling pretty encouraged right now. I didn't do a great job on calculus tonight, but I enjoyed doing it. I'll have to take a much closer look at the next assignment. I think I can get it though.

I have a physics test on Friday. I got 88 percent or so on the last one, but I really want to get 100 on this one. I know that I can do it. I've got a lot of study and work to do to make it happen, but I think I can do it. I'm hoping to make flash-cards.

Tomorrow is a pretty big swing day when it comes to how the rest of the week will play out. If I do well tomorrow, I can make this week work out, even though I was a slacker today. If I'm a slacker tomorrow like I was today, my physics score will drop accordingly. It's an important day.

I need to do a better job eating. I do more grazing than eating. Grazing is a lot harder to handle when it comes to bloodsugar. Solid meals are much easier to take care of. I need to do better taking care of myself.

So, friends, this uneventful post is coming to an uneventful end. I do wonder what it would be like to take a few days off of blogging. I'm not saying I'm going to, but I'm sort of toying with the possibilities. I'm under no obligation to keep writing, and while I do certainly like what it's done for my life and for everything else, it might be interesting to take a few day hiatus. We'll see. If I do decide to take a break you'll know long in advance, cause that's how I roll.

James started a blog. Everyone's favorite commenter is now found at santiago12.blogspot.com. The good news is that since his blog is new, blogger gives you a warning to let you know that he might be a terrorist spammer of death before you actually go to his blog. James isn't a terrorist spammer, so it's okay to go visit him.

2:37 AM. I've got class in a little under seven hours. Still about 40 minutes left in my tonight before I fall asleep. Could be worse, and I brought it on myself. Alright friends, I'm out. Happy Tuesday evening. Good luck tomorrow- it ought to be a good day.

Christopher Thatcher - Day Two

2008-10-07T02:39:00.002-06:00

Day two - yes, we do take this stuff seriously.

Today was a good day in Logan. School was in session, and while I had my share of poor academic choices today, I still feel good about my efforts today. I talked with my family last night about my tentative plan to become a high school math teacher. Of the four people I was talking with, three of them are teachers. The other one is married to a teacher and used to be my boss. We talked about the advantages and disadvantages of pursuing a career in education. It was pretty enlightening, and very encouraging. They gave me some good advice as to how to proceed to find out if this is what I really want to do.

Today was a good day. But I feel more like talking about what my thoughts have been on today instead of what I did and didn't do today. So, I'll go for that.

What I wrote about last night was very important to me. I believed it then, and I still wholeheartedly believe it now. I see it as an important moment in my life. It joins the filing-cabinet of other very important moments in my life.

One of the really cool things about what happened last night is the trail that it left in my life. I'm able to look at what actually happened, and I'm able to look back in history and see a lot of the steps that needed to happen first in order for it to happen. Thanks to a lot of factors, I have a pretty good picture of the incredibly complex and well-orchestrated development of that life lesson.

There are only a very few events in my life that have left such a paper trail. One of the most significant is the way that I met one particular friend who became very important to me. I believe it was the summer betwixt eighth and ninth grade, and I made a choice to go somewhere I didn't particularly want to go that day but felt that I should. That choice changed a lot of things in my life.

I won't tell the whole story here, although I do feel it's a pretty good one. The point here is that there are some things in my life where I am able to look back at what's happened over a long period of time and see a specific moment being built up decision by decision. Without a very long line of preliminary parameters being met, those things just couldn't have happened.

There are two explanations that I can see that sort of explain that. The first explanation is that those moments were planned from the start, and that we've been moving towards them from the very beginning. The second possible explanation that I see is that these events are unplanned, but that they happen because of the choices that we've made. They wouldn't have happened had we not made the choices that we did in order to set up the scenario in the proper way, but they did happen since we did.

In general, I prefer a mix of the two options. I do believe that these moments and events in life are not just happenstance. But I also believe that they are brought about because we choose to move in that direction. It's a team effort here.

The moral of my story, I believe, is that a lot of things happen in life. A lot of very important things, actually. Sometimes I'm able to peer back in wonder and awe at the orchestration that actually let those things happen. A lot of pieces had to be moved to the right squares to make it work. I'm always amazed at how very complex those motions were. It's no simple task, making things like this happen. Trails are set in motion years in advance. This is pretty heavy business.

More often than not, though, I haven't seen the paper trail. Aside from the things I learned last night and meeting Hope, I don't know if there are any other things that I have really appreciated the paper trail on as much.

What's important, though, is that I know it was there. Even if I never saw it or appreciated it, I know that it was there. The decisions that I make do make a difference to what happens. That's heavy.

When I've thought back on situations and wondered, "what would have happened had I done X instead of Y?" I'm always a little bit worried. I don't like that possibility.

So there's a lot of paper trailing going on in my life right now. I don't see it. I didn't see any of it until I had felt so much about the lesson that I learned that I peered back. Until I learn a lesson or have an event, it's very difficult to see the paper trail that leads to it. But I know that it's happening.

And that means that I have to be pretty active when it comes to choosing what I'm going to do. If the choices that I made before led to the things that have happened so far, choices I make in the future will continue to build. I'm terrified of the history that could have been had I done different things. I don't know what the future is, but I don't want to miss something incredible.

I believe that the difference will be made for me in the very little things. When I feel like I should do something, that's a giant flashing neon sign saying that I should definitely do it. The future depends on it.

This makes me think of things that I should do. Some are long term, and some are very short term. But I do believe they're important. I'm going to get cracking on those.

Much love friends. Happy day two. Tomorrow is Tuesday, and I think that's pretty great news. It's also Tyrel's birthday, so you should all text him a happy birthday. I'm off to move forward. Good luck friends, thanks for being around.

Christopher Thatcher - Day One

2008-10-06T02:50:00.003-06:00

My name is Christopher Thatcher, and I'm living my life.

Last night taught me a lot of things that I've been waiting to learn for a very long time. Things have changed a little bit since I last wrote, so I'm here to fill you in.

At 3:30 last night I was pacing the kitchen in my madrigal slippers. I was thinking about a mission and how close it was. I glanced up at the clock and saw that it was 3:30. I was filled with a reminiscent feeling and some comfort. I was home. Things were exactly the same way that they'd always been. I was where I'd always been, I was thinking the things that I'd always thought. It was a very familiar and comforting scene.

As I pondered that, I realized that my childhood is over. I don't live there anymore. I've accepted adult responsibilities and privileges. I won't find myself living at home for more than a few months here and there ever again. These feelings were significant because they were the first time I'd ever realized that my childhood was essentially over.

But I started remembering all the things I'd done there. At the house, in Taylorsville, in that kitchen, at that table, during my childhood. I remembered some of the good times and some of the bad times. I remembered the person that I had been while I was living at home.

A lot of things came together yesterday, and that thinking and writing and praying last night sort of capped it off. I realized something that is very important to me.

"I've been trying to change my life- but I'm already the man for the job"

I remember who I've been. I remember the things that I've accomplished and the people that I have loved. I remember the work that I did to become that person. I remember the people who taught and guided me along that path. I remember what was asked of me and what I faithfully supplied.

Last night I realized that that's the person that I want to be. More importantly, I realized that that's the person that I am.

This is a declaration of sorts. I am not a scumbag. I am a good person. I am capable of a lot. I want to do much good. I know who I am.

There are things that I need to change, yes. I am not perfect, and the struggles of my life are still present. But I had forgotten who I was. I had forgotten to the point that I was trying to become someone else to make things work. And that is not the answer.

I know that I need help. But now I know that it's me that needs that help, not some other guy that I'm trying to become.

I've done hard things. I know where my strength comes from. As I rely on God, I can make it through this thing we call life.

This is the mound on which I wholeheartedly plant my flag. This is what I've been searching for. This is not the silver bullet that will take all my troubles away, but this is a crucial step towards progression. I believe that my life has been what it has been so that I can learn this lesson. I don't believe I'm finished learning- not this lesson and certainly not all the lessons.

But this is important.

Who am I? I'm Christopher Thatcher, and that's so incredibly important for me to know. Things are a little different now.

Change My Life Blogaday - Day Fourteen

2008-10-05T02:33:00.002-06:00

2:33 AM. Wouldn't trade the last hour for sleep, since I spent it talking with my brothers about good stuff. Could have cut out some starcraft tonight though.

Great day today though. Conference is something that I really need right now. Priesthood session made me feel so, clear-headed, I guess. It helped me understand things a lot better. It made me appreciate a lot of stuff, and helped me remember who I am and what I've got to do. I came home and wrote a lot of good stuff in my journal about it, and that makes me happy. I feel like I'm more capable of facing what's out there now. It was something that I needed.

I'm headed back up to Logan tomorrow. I'll probably be back down in another two weeks since we have that Friday off. I might sneak back next weekend to see All-State, but I haven't decided quite yet.

It's weird to come home and then leave so soon. I know it's just the way things work, but it all seems so fleeting.

It's pretty late, though, and I don't have a lot to say on top of the amazing things that have already been said today. My thoughts tonight are on making myself a better person and on going on a mission. That's somewhere in the neighborhood of eight months away. That's not that long. It's something that I'm really excited about. I know it's the right thing to do. I don't know if I'll ever feel prepared for it, but I'm going for it. That is one thing that does make me smile. I'm the man for the job. That means something special to me. There's a lot of history and learning behind that line.

Can I just say that I love history? I love the way that our lives work. I'm not entirely contented with the way my life is right now. I'm not always happy. I spend more time sad in this part of my life than I have in most other parts of my life. But on top of all that, I do know that things are going to be okay. And I do know that even if some things aren't great right now, they're going to turn out alright later. And I know that even if sometimes I suck, I know that I haven't always sucked. I appreciate the fact that what has happened before has helped me be where I am. And I appreciate that that stuff doesn't just vanish because I've gone off to school. The things I learned, the relationships I made, and the skills that were developed, that sticks around. That stuff doesn't put me on top of the world in Logan, and it doesn't give me the giant leg-up that it always gave me at home. But it's important. And it's in the toolbox. Nothing can really take that out of the toolbox. And because it's in there, I can do things I wouldn't be able to do otherwise. I do appreciate history.

I sort of wish I was more spiritual on this blog. Almost everything I write has a spiritual basis here. I just never come out and say it. Why is that? Am I worried about offending people? Maybe it's time to just start offending them anyways. That stuff is important to me. Perhaps I'll become more bold as time goes on.

It is goal-setting time. My goal for this week: The day after I write a post, read it again. The same goes for my journal entries. I'm going to start doubling up and following my trail. This will probably change the way that I write a little bit. Subconsciously, of course. I don't know when I will read it all. I think it'd be ideal to do it in the morning. But we'll see. We've got time to experiment. I'm not putting any constraints down on it, other than to say that I will read it.

Today was excellent, because of conference. I'll share one line that I really loved from President Uchtdorf. "Stand close together, and lift where you stand." I love it. I think I'm putting it up on the fridge when I get back to Logan. Friends, I don't talk to you nearly enough. But I do care about you. And I am trying, for what it's worth. I think that there'll be a shindig at my place on the 17th, I hope. No promises yet, but somebody remind me when it gets closer. Okay, much love friends. I'll catch you all on the flipside. I hope you have a wonderfully uplifting sabbath.

Change My Life Blogaday - Day Thirteen

2008-10-04T01:10:00.002-06:00

1:11 AM - Weekend excuse, anyone? Is that twelve o'clock goal even still on the table? Let's be serious here. I certainly haven't been living my life like it is. I have done so much better at getting to bed. But that's not twelve. That's one or two instead of three or four. That's a big difference.

I'm at home tonight, and that makes me real happy. I haven't been home for about a month. I never really planned on going that long without coming home, but I guess it sort of worked out that way.

It's really good to be home, though. It's good to be with my parents and talk to them and joke with them a little bit. It's really cool to see how things around here have changed. It's only a month, and it's not a big deal, but the yard is doing well. Our tomato plants are finally bearing tomatoes (that means me and Andrew get to take some to Logan- Score!) and the pumpkin patch exploded. We have some seriously huge pumpkins growing. It makes me happy to see the old sandbox being so incredibly fertile.

I love that transformation. It was a sandbox for us kids for many years. Totally infertile. Once we were all more grown up and the swing-set gone, we started dumping our leaves from the tree and the clippings from the lawn in there in hopes of it going all mulchy composty. At the request of the kids, we tossed the pumpkin guts and seeds out there from last time we carved. Dad borrowed a tiller this spring and tilled the whole thing up.

Flash forward a few months and we have the biggest residential pumpkin patch I've ever seen. Okay, so it's not like, huge, but it's big. Takes up almost all of the sand box. And spills over several feet onto the lawn in every direction. It just makes me happy to see it happen, that's all.

Mom and Dad started a tiny remodeling project in the house too. They're just changing the way our entry-way works a bit. Taking out the two closets that used to be there and making it a lot wider. We're gonna put the piano out front in the entry way (I know, I know...). It'll be pretty good though. It's a nice change, at least.

A few thoughts. Nuggets, I suppose.

I'm very excited for conference tomorrow and Sunday. College has been very good at a lot of things. One of those things has been breaking me down a little bit. I know I really need some help, and I'm excited to get some good instruction. That stuff is good for you.

I watched the fourth quarter of the Utah State v. BYU game tonight. Can I just say that I'm incredibly proud of my Aggies? That was an incredible quarter. Two touchdowns. They sacked Max Hall, AND made them punt it away after gaining almost nothing that one time. If we forget the bogus penalty call, they got their sweetly kicked offside-kick back. Neglect one more penalty call, and they scored maybe a third time. And did anyone see that INCREDIBLE QB keeper where he got 18 yards for the first down? He was shakin' and bakin' like nobody's business. It made me proud.

So, yeah, we lost. I wouldn't have it any other way against BYU. But we played well. And we played our hearts out. Fight to the very very end, even though we know we're out. That was a GREAT moral victory for the Aggies. That one makes me really happy. It's really hard not to be happy for those guys right now.

This is actually the first time I've consciously used "we" when referring to Utah State sports. Look at me go, being proud of my team.

I had some important thoughts last night after I posted. I went to bed pretty late, since I had taken naps. I don't like what naps do to the next day, but I love the effect they have on late night. I'm awake and pensive, and I just really value that time.

Anyways, I thought about community. Specifically, I knew I was coming home, and I thought about my ward. I won't be visiting my ward this week because of conference, but I remember how much they care about me and want me to succeed. I've been in the ward my whole life, and because of the demographics, I'm fairly well known there. That's just the way wards work. I thought about coming back and telling all the families and people about how I've been doing, what I've been accomplishing, and where I'm headed in the future. I thought about them smiling and encouraging me. I remembered a lot of the good things they've done for me to bring me to where I am. All the scout leaders, teachers, priesthood leaders- that's a whole lot of service rendered in order to help me become something great. It was a nice thing to remember. It was a very "home-y" feeling.

It really made me want to work hard, though. Remembering that all those people realy cared about me. They want me to succeed. Not only that, but they've got a vested interest in my success. They've been a part of my development. They've helped me become who I am, so why shouldn't they be rooting for my success? I didn't want to let them down. And I still don't want to let them down. And that same level of thought came my friends. Kirt, Kasey, Jose, Jared. They care about me too. I have a reason to try to be excellent. It's not just for me.

Thinking about all of this makes me remember all the older guys I used to run with. Noaksey, Porter, Clements, Whiting. I think Whiting is actually home now. But I remember those guys. I remember that they helped me. They cared too. And that makes me want to do better.

It's interesting how very strong that feels to me right now. I think it's interesting because I haven't thought about those people for a very long time. I haven't thought about living my life for other people for a while. I'm conscious of those around me, don't get me wrong. I try to serve, and I recognize that I'm not here just for me. But the idea of being excellent because it'll make other people smile, that's something I haven't thought of for some time. It's been there- it's not entirely new. But that's something I should hold on to.

This feeling contrasts with something I felt tonight. Something I've felt a lot, actually. I sort of hate discovering other people's blogs. I'm always very excited about it, but I'm secretly always threatened when I find them. Sophomore year was a bit of a blow when I discovered Jaron's blog. I found this kid that thought just as much as I did, and he wrote a little better too. Here he was, doing something that I did, and he was doing it well. I'm always a tiny bit upset when I see people write about how awesome they're doing with their life. How they're learning things about themselves and how they're moving forward.

This is not a calculated response, and it's not something I want to do. It's a sign of immaturity and insecurity. Now, mind you, this isn't some huge thing. And when it happens I fight it. But I do want to change it.

It's interesting because that's the exact opposite response as compared to the community or ward effect. With the community effect, people want you to succeed, they're on your side- just because they care about you. With the immaturity effect, I sorta want people not to, because that somehow threatens me.

Obviously everything points against the immaturity effect. Rightly so- it's a load of tosh. That's just something I want to root out of me. I do care about people. I care about a lot of people. And I am so happy for them when they succeed. My example from earlier, Jaron, is one of my favorite people ever now. I'm behind him one hundred percent. I would love to see him succeed, truly. So I know that I'm not a dirtbag all the time. I know that it changes. But what makes it change? How do I stop being threatened and start caring about people? How do I start loving people just for being people? How do I gain the maturity to be okay with not being the absolute best?

Some important stuff happened last night. I felt something very important as I was lying there getting ready for bed. Not a new feeling, but something that I hadn't felt just like that for a very long time. It came to me by surprise. When it came I felt like walls inside of my chest came down and relaxed. I felt like I had physically and mentally and spiritually changed by what I had felt. I didn't feel like I was suddenly a new person, but I felt like I had a little bit more. As some topics go, this isn't exactly the place to be discussing it. But it's out there if someone wants to talk about it, you know how to reach me. It was good for me.

What does it mean to be a good person? "What is the good life, and how do we live it?" What does it take to change my life? What does it take to change me into someone better? Who do I want to be? Who am I? What does that mean?

I've had a desire lately to start reading my blog posts and journal entries from the previous night before I leave the apartment in the morning to work. I think that'd be a pretty good idea. I've never done that before. I sort of wish I was a morning person.

But now it's time for me to end this post. Molly gave me a shout-out on her post tonight. Someone remind me to give her a shout-out from here soon. I've got one stored up for her, and it's actually pretty important. But I don't think it fits with tonight so I'll save it for later. Maybe if I wait long enough I'll tell her in person. But probably not, cause it fits a lot better here than it does in person.

What do I know? Whatever it is that I do know, I've got a responsibility to myself and to others to go use it to make myself and my world better. Bringing it together is important.

This is Christopher Thatcher, signing on out. Happy Friday, friends. Happy life. I hope you're doing excellent. Good luck on your quests. I do want you to succeed. I do care about you. Much love~

Change My Life Blogaday - Day Twelve

2008-10-03T01:50:00.002-06:00

1:55 AM.

It feels early, which is the scary part here. My current mood is pretty contented. I read my physics chapter today and did the whole assignment. That was my goal for the day, and I got it done. It feels good to have it done. The assignment used to be due tomorrow night, but it got changed to Monday. In any event, it's taken care of, and that feels really good.

I sluffed recitation today in order to stay home and read the chapter. I think it was a pretty good call. I didn't have a quiz in there today. I got up at about 11:40, ate, then read my chapter. Had I gone to recitation, I'd have had to get up, get ready, walk to the fine arts building (at least a 15 minute walk) and then try to read in the uncomfortable desk. So, I don't really condone sluffing. But it worked out well for me today.

I've been doing better with schoolwork lately. Me and Andrew are in the midst of a food crisis now though. We should have gone shopping for milk a couple of days ago, but never did. We're going home tomorrow, so it seems like a waste to go tomorrow. So, we'll probably get milk on Monday. Or better yet we'll buy some at home and bring it up. That'd be sweet. In any event- it's interesting to see how life consists of more than schoolwork. Just because I'm doing okay in physics now doesn't mean that I don't have to worry about food. It's a good system.

So... not too much deep thought going on right now. So I'll just run with a few ideas, since that's the business I'm in.

I'm going home tomorrow for the first time in a month. I know a month isn't that long, but as far as I know, that's the longest I've been away. I don't really miss home. I really love being there, and I really love my family, but I don't feel a gaping hole in my life when I'm not there. I don't call my mom nearly as often as I should. It's just not something that comes up. I know she'd like to hear from me, so I should work on that. But I am very excited to go home. Not for any particular reason, but I'm just happy to go be there. It's so cool that it's different now though, you know what I mean? Going home was something I used to do every day after school. Now it's a really big treat. It'll be fun to see my family and give my mom a big hug. Dad's cool too.

Ultimate class today was really fun. I felt like I played pretty well. My throws and placement is getting a lot better. I still make some dumb choices sometimes, but I think I'm becoming more capable. I had a thought tonight- I'm pretty sure I can make myself a better ultimate player just by deciding to be. I'm not saying that I can take my skills to the next level, but I can play harder than I do. I don't mark (that means defend the guy with the disc) very aggressively unless it's Levi and I'm mad at him. When I'm mad at Levi I can usually get a hand-block. When I'm marking other people, though, I sort of let it slide. I know I won't go 100 percent on hand blocks just because I want to, but I can pressure them more and make their life harder. That's something I want to start doing. I want to be tenacious. I had some cool plays out there today, but I'd like to be known for tenacity. That's just a good word.

Happy Birthday to Kyle tomorrow (friday). We didn't get anything cool set up for him as roommates, but I hope he has a good day anyhow. He's a good kid. I'm very glad we're buddies and that I'm living with him. We give him grief, but it's cause we love him.

Not a bad day at all. I took a nap (or two) when I didn't really have to. That hurts my progress towards getting to bed at a decent time.

I wonder if things are temporarily easier or if I really am getting better at all this. I still have really tough moments, but this week has been better. I'm appreciative of that.

How'd I do at changing my life? Not too much changed today. But I feel good about the way I lived my life today. I feel good about the progress I made with classwork. Tomorrow looks like it should be pretty good. I don't have too much I absolutely have to do, and I'm really looking forward to going and being with my family. So this is me, signing out for the night. 2:10 AM. Late, but doing alright up here. Much love from Logan. Keep up the good work friends. It's going to be a good life, I'm thinking.

Change My Life Blogaday - Day Eleven

2008-10-02T02:24:00.002-06:00

2:26 AM. Late, but dang happy about it.

Today went well. On a lot of fronts. There were a few fronts that didn't go well, but today was definitely better than it was worse. That's for a lot of reasons.

I got my calc test back today. I got 93/100. There were only 10 people above 90. The class has 40 people, so that looks pretty good. I lost two points on an easy arithmetic I just screwed up. The other five points came from the limit definition of a derivative, like I knew they would. But still, I was very very happy about it. Cannon (my professor, who is a stud) doesn't test very hard, but it still felt great to know that I understood stuff. That's more what it's about than anything. Yeah, having a good score is awesome, but this is actually proof that this college thing can work. It's hard to get to calculus on time, it's hard to do my homework before midnight, but I am learning. Maybe I can make it happen after all.

I slept through physics, again. Today was especially bad in there. I didn't stay awake for more than 10 minutes before I started dozing off. I was out for a few, and when I came back to I was all hot and uncomfortable. The right side of my chest was feeling tight and a little hurty. Not heart attack style. It kinda felt like my lungs do after I sleep in too long on a saturday and take a very deep breath. It wasn't any cause for alarm, but it made me uncomfortable. I wanted more than anything to just stand up and leave.

I could actually get a lot from the lectures if I'd read the chapters beforehand. That's hard to do. But it'd change things. Right now that's the class that I'm doing the worst in. More news on that later. But if I was going to focus on changing one class, I should probably focus on physics.

Creative Arts test today, I got an 88. That was more good news. That was only slightly above average, but I'm happy with it. Definitely a safe score. I really like creative arts. It's an honors class, so there's only 40 of us in there. Dr. Peterson is incredible. He knows who I am. It's insane. He knows I'm chris and he knows that I play halo and carry about Lawrence (or is it Laurence? I'm a terrible father!) six. After tonight, he knows about the jello story.

We had a "Creative Expo" for that class tonight. Since it's an honors class someone decided that'd be a cool idea. In theory, we all got together at six at the family life building and showed off our talents. In reality I showed up at 6:45 to something a whole lot cooler. We had had to move the room because the one we were planning on being in wouldn't work. That threw a lot of the talents out the window, since half the people wanted to play piano. But I showed up 45 minutes later to lots of pizza left and Dr. Peterson just chilling with all the kids that showed up. Just having a cool discussion, asking questions, just hanging out. It was so dang cool.

After a while we actually started sharing talents, and that was a lot of fun. One guy showed off some sick woodwork he did. Another girl read some poetry of hers. She prefaced it by saying that her writing was very personal, and that it didn't rhyme, because he worries more about conveying one emotion at one specific time. Jaron has spoiled me, that's for sure. He's got skills. Her poetry was a ton rougher than his, didn't have the polish. But there was something incredible about the first poem she read. Her words weren't really beautiful, but what she was saying was amazing. It was titled thunderstorm or something like that. Once again, not showing the poetic maturity I've come to expect from my friends, but still. She progressed from talking about a thunderstorm brewing inside of her to a teardrop that escaped to a ray of hope and light that got refracted off of that teardrop into a rainbow that promised the sun would come out another day. I'm not doing it justice, but the progression was just incredible. It was one of those things that hit me and made me remember that some people really are like me. I really related to it and loved it.

A few more talents were shared. Highlights include some cool artwork one guy did that I didn't get to see and chocolate zucchini muffins. Dr. Peterson asked if I had one, and since I hadn't prepared anything, I said no. When I saw that we still had lots of time and that things would be way chill, I decided to stand up and share my jello story. It was a cool environment to share it in, and I really appreciated how it went. I stood in front of the very casual and friendly group and just told my awesome jello story. They were really good listeners, and I think they liked it. Someone asked if I was going to ever recreate it, and I said, "Probably not. It was only cool because we did it so fast. If I recreated it I'd have all the time in the world, which wouldn't make it as cool." Dr. Peterson, being the stud he is, said, "No, it was cool because you had a reason to do it." I dunno why I thought that was so cool, but I really did. Actually, no, I do know why I think that's so cool. And I agree with him.

I did my physics tonight. It feels so good. I came home from the honors doober and read my chapter and then did the work. I finished the work at about 1:35 ish. I had done perfect until the last problem, which I got 0% on. So I did a few extra credit problems to make up for it and called it good. The material this time was really pretty easy. I love reading the chapter because then I actually understand it. I didn't read the last time, and it kicked my butt.

There's another assignment due Friday night, and I'd love nothing more than to just get it done tomorrow evening. The chapter is shorter than the one I did today, and so is the assignment. The material will be a little bit newer, but I think that I should be able to do it. That'd be great. Get that assignment done before it's actually due. That'd make friday sweet.

So that's the plan. Wake up before noon tomorrow and read the chapter. At least start it. It's late now, but I took a nap today. It was a strategic nap. I've been shying away from those lately, in an attempt to change my life. But it worked out today pretty well I think.

The news: Life feels better when I do my physics homework. Life also feels better when I'm with people, being friendly. Life feels good when I remember good things that have happened before.

That is one thing I've noticed. I think that coming to a completely new environment like this sort of shocked me into a hard reboot. I came back with the same hardware and software, but I felt like I was totally different, that I didn't have anything that I had worked so dang hard at to get before I came up. Telling the Jello story tonight made me remember the past. Made me remember some of the stuff that I'm good at and some of the cool stuff that I've accomplished. I know I can't ride off of high school successes anymore, but it's important that I don't forget them. They're still part of me. It's important. I believe, and I've said it here a lot, that as people we're the sum total of all the choices that we make. I've made a lot of choices. Lots of them before I moved to Logan. I can't forget those. I can't pretend those haven't changed me and taken me places. This isn't high school. But what happened back there still matters. I need to remember that. And I think I can.

So today was good. Still had moments of serious sleepiness. Still had moments of self-doubt and dreary outlook. But things came together. Hard work makes me feel good. Tests came back today that show I'm not a big retard. We're getting there. Still a lot to do.

Changing my life- it's not going to be a flash. I said that before. Back in the Logan blogaday I remember saying that I've been looking for easy answers. That I wanted to fall asleep and have a dream that would make everything make sense. It'd make me want to work harder and it'd tell me what to do about stuff. I knew it wouldn't come.

Changing my life, it sorta feels like that's what I've been looking for again. Something to come and change me in a flash. But that's not going to happen. I want to do my physics tomorrow. Will accomplishing that mean I've changed? It'll mean two good days in a row, but it won't mean that the quest is over. I don't stay at the same value for too long. I'm constantly progressing and regressing. If we can determine anything about the graph of my life, we can certifiably say that it's continuous. No jumps, no breaks, and certainly no asymptotes. But continuous, that means that I can't go too far from where I was yesterday or a minute ago. The important part of the graph, I think, will be the general slope of the line from point a to point b at the end of the game. Derivatives at any given point aren't incredibly significant at the end. I mean, they're important because they get us where we are. But where will I be at the end? Higher? I certainly hope so.

There are only a few things that could make this night any better. My apartment smelling like girls I care about would be one of them. Not sure why I threw that out there, but it's 2:59 AM, give me a break. I'm allowed to wish this place smelled a little better, right?

As a note, my apartment does smell good. I cleaned up in here last week, and me and Andrew have kept it looking nice. It just doesn't smell as nice as it could.

Okay, this is probably where I should stop. I'm glad I got to write tonight. Things have fallen into place tonight- not even close to mostly my fault. But for what it's worth, I feel like today was good. Tomorrow has a very valid shot at being good too.

I hope that you're all doing well. One day down. Not sure how many left, but that's one important day that we made it through. Here's to one more.

Change My Life Blogaday - Day Ten

2008-10-01T01:38:00.002-06:00

1:38 AM.

Tonight is the first night in a long time that I didn't want to write for a bit. I'm feeling better about it now, but about five minutes ago I just didn't want to. Things have changed a bit since then. That's good news.

Today had ups and today had downs. We'll start with ups, move to downs, and then finish with a look at the future.

Physics recitation was actually really good today. Instead of reading the chapter I tried my best to follow along with the class. I learned some stuff, and a few of the things we'd talked about finally started clicking. We had a quiz, and I feel like I probably did a pretty good job. It was one of the best recitation's I've ever had. I did fall asleep through some of it, but I sort of just do that.

Ultimate was really fun today. I feel like I played a lot better than usual. I was using my brain a lot and making good cuts to good spaces. My throws were on, and I felt like I was a valuable asset to the team. I usually feel like a valuable asset, but I felt better about it today.

Graphics even went well. I stayed up with the teacher and finished what we were supposed to. I got 3/10 on the quiz, but I know that that's probably a lot higher than class average, so that's cool.

I played Ultimate again tonight with some country bumpkins. It's hard to go from real ultimate to country ultimate. I love when someone calls a foul and the smart-guy is always like "Oh, I didn't know there were fouls in Ultimate" like we're a bunch of sissies. Yeah. There are fouls. And yeah, we do take this seriously. It was fun, and I had a good time. It was just an old adventure that felt like a new adventure because I hadn't done it for so long. It's hard for me to defend without a force, it's weird.

I went and played volleyball with the ward tonight. I felt like it'd be fun to try, so I went. I've never really played much volleyball. I don't know the rules and I don't know how to be good at it. But I had a good time playing. I felt like I did a few good plays, so that was fun. I'm thinking I'll take a volleyball class next semester. I've probably said that a million times during blogaday. It's just something I get excited about though. Taking a PE class is one of the very few opportunities I have to diversify and do something fun. I don't "try new things" very often. I've been accused of not being spontaneous. And it's true. Volleyball is pretty dang spontaneous though, so don't give me any of that lip. Unless, of course, it's the good kin- too much living with Andrew makes me say that sort of thing instead of just thinking it and not saying it. I could, of course, go back and delete it. But hey, I'll keep it up there.

I had a lot of physical activity today, and that's pretty cool.

I didn't read my physics chapter tonight though. At about 11 o'clock I had a choice of doing my physics and talking to someone I really wanted to talk to or playing starcraft with Andrew and Brad. I chose starcraft. Hour and thirty minutes later, I felt a bit like a loser. I'm a bit of a sucker when it comes to peer pressure like that. I'm pretty strong when people tell me to do things for myself. "It'll be fun, you'll like it" doesn't mean much of anything to me. I'm okay with not being fun. I'm an old man. It's when people start using themselves that I fall. I know that it'll be more fun for the other guys if I play. I tend to do stupid stuff like that pretty often.

So that's my sad story of the day. I didn't do any homework tonight. Probably a pretty bad choice. The next three nights of my life are going to be pretty heavily based on physics. Tomorrow I need to read a chapter (since I didn't do it today) and do my assignment. Day after that I need to read the next chapter. Day after that is an assignment, but since I'm coming home I might try to get it done beforehand. That's a lot of physics. We'll see how it goes.

I also slept till about 11 today. Yeah, that wasn't a great use of my time.

How did I do at changing my life today? I tried a new thing, and that was fun. But changing my life gets about no points for today. No, wait, I get a few points. I worked a bit on finances. My bank account feels better because of what happened today. That doesn't count for much, but at least it's something.

How did I do at moving forward on my education? I receive very few points for that today as well. I had no pressing homework, but I didn't touch any of it. I left myself with *two* assignments to do tomorrow during my hour-long break. I need to study for a creative arts test and write a paper for scholar's forum. Actually, I can probably write that paper after institute and still get it in on time. But still.

Things that really need to change: I need to stop sleeping in on Tuesdays and Thursdays. That's a big waste of resources. I need to do homework more often. It seems like every time Kyle has ten spare minutes he'll sit down with his math or physics. When I do homework, I dedicate a few hours to making it happen. I work pretty much non-stop, minus a few ADD breaks here and there. My way works, but so does kyle's. A billion minutes spread over a few days is sometimes more pleasant than a billion minutes from midnight to two.

Tomorrow is a hefty day. Lots of time-sensitive heft as well. But I feel like I can do it. First task is to get up. Second task is to get to calculus on time. After that it should flow right out.

I don't know how I feel about this post. It's very journalistic. It feels like a lot of my posts have been like that. I know that that's part of what this is all about. But still, it could be better. I like that this gives me a good opportunity to think about what happened today and what I could have done better. I like that it helps me look forward to tomorrow as well. But I do miss asking questions about my humanity.

One thought I did have today, with a throwback to something I've thought before. What are my priorities up here? Or rather, why am I here? What do I want to get accomplished here? I can really identify three things. Prepare for a mission, Do well with my education, and take good care of myself. Those three things can be broken down further. Do well with my education, what does that even mean? Does that mean learn something so I can get a good job? Learn something so I can change the world? Keep my scholarship?

If I have my priorities, and I've declared them, am I actually working towards that? What am I actually working on? I have declared priorities or goals and actual work towards something. Does the work I do match up with my priorities or goals?

What's important? Am I working on that instead of other things? There's a thoughtful me and there's a me that autopilots. Sometimes I worry that autopilot writes and goes through the day. I know there's a better me inside. I need to work on that more.

I'm off to study, like I do. I hope that you're all doing well friends. Keep up the good work. Much love. I'm going to do better tomorrow.

Change My Life Blogaday - Day Nine

2008-09-29T23:46:00.002-06:00

11:50 PM - Not too shabby.

Today was a good day for me. I felt like I did a pretty decent job. I didn't move too far forward with anything school related, but I did definitely hit 100% of my to-do list, and that feels great.

My calculus test this morning went pretty well I think. I know that I missed at least one- nobody likes the limit definition of the derivative anyways. But other than that I feel pretty confident about stuff. There wasn't anything on there that I hadn't seen before. There was some stuff that popped up that hadn't been on the practice exam, but I'm pretty sure I got it right. I'm really excited to see how I did.

Calculust: n; The ugly cousin of calculove- a feeling you get that makes you want to do math for you, not for the betterment of the world or for calculus' sake.

I fell asleep in physics again. I haven't stayed awake in that class for weeks. It's not like lectures are boring. My body just crashes and I don't care to listen because I don't understand. If there's one class that's going to kick my butt this semester, it's going to be physics. I need to change something there.

Creative arts was good, but my break between classes was better. I had decided last night that my goal was to stay awake for those three hours I had so I could get to bed early tonight. It was a pretty big stretch, but I actually did it. That first hour when I'm home all alone with nothing to do is pretty rough. But I did a lot of reading online and then I went on a run with brad. The run was really good. First run I've been on in Logan- yikes. I really should do it more often. But weather was absolutely perfect, and it felt really good to be out there. I know I'm not anywhere near top-form, but I didn't hurt like I thought I would. Ultimate has been good for me.

FHE was incredible tonight. The whole ward dressed up like hobos and we had a card-board-box-house making contest in the parking lot as families. We didn't win, but we made a DANG fine house. I'd sleep in it, no question.

How'd I do at changing my life today? Probably a seven out of ten. I met the goals I had set for myself in that I stayed awake during my break and I used that time to move forward with my life. I do lose points for the run though. Running is almost always a good thing to do, and there's no doubt that running was good for me today. But there was other stuff that I could have got done that would have been better for me. Running isn't really what I need right now. It did fulfill the goal, and it did keep me awake, but it wasn't quite physics homework. I played one 30 minute game of starcraft tonight too. That was 30 minutes of fun, but pretty wasted time. I could have done something good.

Seven out of ten is excellent. I get a bonus pat on the back for it being 11:58 PM right now. That's not 3 AM- that's excellent.

Looking to the future, what's next? Tomorrow is Tuesday. I must read a physics chapter and get ready for my institute class on wednesday. Those are the two most pressing things tomorrow. I don't have a math assignment to do tomorrow because of the test today. That's great news, and that opens up some time for physics. Because I don't have a class till noon, I could get up and use the time to make my life better. Mornings have historically been a weak-point for me. But hey, isn't that what changing my life is all about?

I've been throwing that term out a lot lately. "Change my life". I'm not quite sure how I feel about it. I'm serious about it. Sometimes. I know that I need to, sometimes I just don't work on it. Moving towards optimum is important.

Oh snap! Maybe I'll go play volleyball tomorrow night with the ward. I'm bad at volleyball, but I've been wanting to get better at it. I think that I'll take a volleyball PE class next semester if I can get in.

That's one thing I've been thinking about and being excited for. Just taking classes for the heck of taking them. I will take a horticulture class. I want to experiment with my PE classes too. My doctor told me to take a PE class, and so I'm going to do it. One a semester. It'll be fun and good for me.

So today was good, but I fear it was a little sheltered. There were no incredible storms that raged today. I made it through today just like I wanted to, but I worry that I haven't done enough to prepare for tomorrow. There's work to be done yet.

Today was a step. It's early, and I didn't take a nap. I've got enough left in me to study the way I want. I'm going to sleep well. So for now I'm going to bail. I hope that you're all doing well. Happy Monday evening. Sorry there wasn't much philosophy in this one tonight. I had a few cool thoughts last night that I'll probably write about soon. Not deep philosophical question thoughts, but those cool thoughts that are actually ideas of things I could do. Things like the powergym from back in the day. Stuff that's fun to write about a dream about. Maybe I'll write about them tomorrow night.

Much love, I hope you're doing well. I'm still working at this. I sometimes feel like this is my part-time job and that I should really make it my full-time job. I'm doing better at all of this, really. But sometimes I wish that I didn't forget for a few hours that I'm working to change my life. Sometimes I wish I worked hard straight through the whole day. I know I can't do that, but I wish I wanted to at least. I can't passively wait for my life to change. I gotta get out there and be the person I want to be. I'm going to work hard tomorrow and be a good student. I can do this. It takes work. More than part time work. Dedication and all of that.

This is Christopher Thatcher, signing out. I feel like there's something out there for me tonight. Something I haven't found yet, but something I'm hoping for. Goodnight friends. I'm off to chase life.

Change My Life Blogaday - Day Seven Addendum

2008-09-29T02:59:00.002-06:00

I just had this thought. One day this week, after I've written a good post, I'm going to change my facebook status to "Christopher is shamelessly promoting his blog. Http://theotherdentist.com" and see how many hits I get that day. I'm betting I get 40 hits that day. I average about 15.

Hmm, very interesting. That'll be weird to see. That's so risky. I mean, what if people like what they see and stay? That'd be great, but then I have new readers. And my audience changes a little bit. If my audience changes, does my writing change? In an ideal world, no. Maybe I'm a little too scared of the fallout to actually do it. But I think it'd be a fun experiment.

I dunno. Just had the thought, so I figured I'd write about it before bed. Okay, goodnight for reals friends. Much love.

Change My Life Blogaday - Day Eight

2008-09-29T02:42:00.002-06:00

2:42 AM - Sorta another one of those "I didn't try too hard to get to bed on time" kind of days.

But it was a good day. Sunday's are usually really good. Church was excellent. I went to a great fireside tonight with the stake presidency, it was cool. We heard from all of them and their wives. Their perspective was just so cool. It was very refreshing. Their lives are the way they are because they've been righteous guys that made good choices instead of doing stupid things. I loved that it had nothing to do with how they did in school. Doing well in school is great, but it's not the absolute most important thing. It was a happy message for me.

I have a calculus test tomorrow. I did my assignment tonight and spent some time studying. I made up my cool 3x5 index card. I'm really excited for this test. I'm excited to see what will actually be on it. And I'm really excited to see how I do. I feel pretty prepared. It's a cool chapter, and I feel like I understand the things that we've talked about. It's a big chunk of my grade, and I'm really happy to go find out what will happen. I want my score already, and I haven't even taken it.

I don't know why I get so excited for calculus tests. I remember the AP tests. They were glorious. I remember getting so psyched out for AP calc. I would always be singing those lines from "this is the moment"

this is the moment
my final test (my test)
destiny beckons,
I never reckoned second best

I'm excited to go take the test. I might get my butt kicked. Or I might ace it. I'm just really excited to find out, either way.

College has more homework than high school had. It requires more study time too. I'm pretty sure I still haven't accepted that fact. I probably should soon.

Okay, these past couple of days have been pretty good. I spent a little bit of time today discouraged and worried again, but the fireside really helped. I need to get back into fighting mode. I did a good job yesterday moving forward. I feel pretty good about how I did tonight with my homework and my church responsibilities. But it's late. I need to fight for progress tomorrow. I need to fight for sleep too. If I can have a moderately progressive day and get to bed early, dang, that'll be a big success.

So that's the goal. One hundred percent on homework (shouldn't be hard) and then bed by midnight. The real test will be the two hours I have between creative arts and my lab tomorrow. It's in the middle of the afternoon and it's so hard to stay awake. If I can spend that time being productive- in any fashion, it doesn't really matter how- I can count tomorrow a success because I'll just pass out by midnight.

Okay, not too much substance tonight. Sorry about that. I hope tomorrow is better. It was a good day though, and it felt good to understand my calc tonight. Today was good because I got to spend a lot of time with good people. Molly will probably write about being a tag-along, but it was good to have her with us tonight. I talked on the phone to a girl for a bit (ohmygosh ohmygosh ohmygosh) and texted and messaged a little bit. Oh yeah, I'm a social butterfly alright. But the moral of the story is that it's nice to be together. Some of us are together geographically, and that's pretty cool. But even when we're not together geographically, it's nice to be there for each other and help take care of each other. It's important.

Banding together is a super cool thing. We had a good lesson on it today. I had a great lesson on it last night pushing the van. I like it. I should really do more of it.

It's time for bed friends. I hope that you're doing well. Good luck tomorrow! I'm excited to see how we all do. Here I go- trying to get better. Much love friends, goodnight~

Change My Life Blogaday - Day Seven

2008-09-28T03:47:00.002-06:00

3:48 AM. Hey, it's the weekend, cut me some slack ;)

So yeah, it's incredibly late, but I wasn't really shooting for midnight tonight anyways. I just spent a real long time talking with Andrew, which was pretty cool. We talked too long though, and it got late.

Today was a real good day though. I woke up today with an attitude. I wanted to make today worth something, and I worked to make it happen. My goal was to face every minute of the day with the idea of, "Okay, I've got a minute, how am I going to progress? How am I going to use this minute to move forward?"

And so I worked hard and got some stuff done. I got the room cleaned, and it looks awesome. It's so nice in here now. I know it won't stay forever, but it's such an improvement. I love it. I got a rebate mailed off. I paid my rent, I folded some laundry, I got some groceries, I did some home teaching, I studied for my calc test, I ironed two shirts. I got a lot of stuff done today- more than usual.

I also watched a lot of college football and wasted a considerable amount of time. It wasn't one hundred percent, but it was a lot closer than usual.

I think that drive and attitude I tried to foster today really helped. "I've got a minute, how am I going to use it to progress?" That was important to me today. I didn't want to face another post knowing that I didn't change my life today. I didn't want to fail one more time. So I fought for it. It wasn't a huge day, but it was better.

So I'm pretty happy about that.

We had an adventure tonight. I'll write about it, because that's what I want to do. We had the push the van up a pretty steep and decently long hill tonight. It was a block of uphill, essentially. We knew we'd need guys to make it happen, so we called the apartment down. Me, Kyle, Levi, James, Andrew, and Steve-o were all there to push it up the hill. Melissa and Katie piloted our support vehicle, while Molly steered the leg-powered van.

It was about 11:15 PM when we did this. It was just one block we needed to travel. From the bottom of the hill to the B-lot. It was a really good experience.

Pushing was so much harder than I thought it would be. Pushing the van on level ground isn't hard at all. Momentum works for you- life is good. Uphill is crazy. Gravity doesn't like you. I really thought that with six guys pushing it would be pretty easy. It was longer and more difficult than I had ever thought.

We made it, but pushing up that hill was rough. I was grunting and shouting like I never ever do. It was really all I could do. Me and Andrew were up on the wings, pushing from the driver's side door or passenger's side door. The rest of the team was in the back. I couldn't see back there, but I knew they were pushing. One guy ran and joined us from the side of the road. I didn't even see him, and didn't notice any particular help, but I'm so incredibly grateful for that guy. What a stud, to just hop on and push a vehicle he's never seen before with six guys he's never met. It's 11:15 at night. He just ran and hopped on- so cool.

But getting up that hill hurt. My legs just didn't wanna do it anymore. We finally made it, and it felt so good. I love the fact that we can call our guys and that they'll come running. I love that we had a support team and people willing to help us get it done. It reminds me of the power of a team or a quorum; it's just incredible. I was so proud of the guys. I was incredibly grateful that they'd come to back me up in something like that. It was the van, and I'd gambled on getting home. I was wrong about what it could handle, but they didn't gripe at all about it. They just showed up to help me out. No complaints, no accusations. No murmuring about the van sticking them in another bad situation. They just showed up to help me out. It was incredible.

When we finished pushing the van I felt something that I haven't felt for a very long time. The feeling of being utterly beat physically. There are a lot of kinds of being utterly beat physically. The idea of running 14 miles that one Monday for cross country comes to mind. But that's a different kind of beat. That's an endurance beat. It's a tired of running beat. It's a "someone get me protein, glucose, and carbohydrates right now because my body is in peril" kind of thing. There's also an "I've stayed up too late" beat. Where your body or mind is tired. It's there, but it's different.

Pushing the van up a hill is a cool kind of beat. It's one where your muscles and lungs and heart are all very tired from very intense exertion. There's an awesome thing about pushing a van up a hill- you can push your very hardest. Nowhere else can you really do that. You put all your force into pushing that van up the hill, and you're still coming up short. With cross country you can only run so fast. You can only run so far. Your body sorta stops letting you run faster, your legs just won't do it. There's a boundary placed on you. It's not so much that your muscles or your mind or your desire can't run faster, it's just that there's something in the way. Pushing the van up the hill isn't like that. You put everything into pushing. You don't hold anything back. It will push back just as hard as you push forward.

Getting to the top of the hill was a beating that I cherished. I was physically and mentally exhausted from intense exertion. Not a forever long exertion, just a dang intense one for a good couple of minutes.

Everything changes when you're physically beat. You think differently. Your emotions react differently. You take different chances and you say different things. Priorities are altered. It's actually a really refreshing experience. I'm much more affectionate when I'm physically beat. I'm sort of in love with everybody when I'm that beat, it's kinda nice.

So that's the cool story of the day. A very big thanks goes to everybody that helped our tonight. Much love to my horses who pushed. Much love to our friend who joined us; he's a stud. Much love to our lovely support crew in the back- thanks for keeping people from running over us. And much love to Molly for pretending to be power steering while I pushed. Yes- it does make me feel a little less manly now that I know a girl can steer my van just as well as I can. But still, I appreciate it a lot friends.

It's a nice reminder about everything, when we come together like that.

Yeah, I feel good about that. It's 4:08 AM, and this cat is off to a bit of reading and writing and them bed time. Much love- I hope you're all doing well. I'm serious about all this, you know. No shows and gimmicks. This is the real deal. I'm still me. Still insecure and confused and scared like crazy sometimes. I don't have everything figured out. And I don't pretend to. But I do appreciate what happened tonight deep in my heart. That's where I stand- and I'm sticking with it.

Change My Life Blogaday - Day Six

2008-09-27T03:11:00.002-06:00

3:11 AM. Not even good.

Weekends, did they count on the midnight plan? I'm not sure if I have to shoot for midnight on the weekends, but I should at least try for something reasonable.

So today was actually pretty fun. My classes were pretty good, considering I only had calc and physics. Calc was great because I got there on time and was able to ask a few good questions and learn some stuff. I have a test on Monday, and I think I can be prepared for it. That makes me happy.

Physics was, well, physics. Honestly, I've got no passion for that class at all. I go to lectures because I'd feel like a slacker if I didn't, but I don't make any attempt to get anything out of it. I wonder if I *could* get something out of it if I tried. I go to recitation because I'd feel like a slacker if I didn't. The grad student in there isn't much of a teacher. I usually go and read the chapter. Or doze off accidentally. I do the homework because I want to get a good grade. Sometimes it's fun. Other time its just a chore.

So tonight I had an assignment due by One AM. For every hour you finish a part late you lose 2 percent on that part. So it's a pretty soft deadline. I've got 70% of it finished. I was about to pretend to work on it some more, but I did the math and figured that I could get 95 percent if I did it all now, or I could do it sometime tomorrow and get 83 percent.

I know it's a loss of 12 percent. And I know it's not ideal. But there's no way I'd learn anything from doing it now cause of my attitude. So I'll give it a shot tomorrow. I have one I need to do Sunday night too. Oh physics, when will the fun ever end?

Things I like: Classic newtonian mechanics. Things I don't like: electric fields.

But it's cool. Other than physics my classes are all going really well. Graphics is still a bit annoying, but it's getting better.

My thoughts tonight are about changing my life, as I think they rightly should be. My progress towards changing my life was pretty negligible so far today. I did spend some time socializing, which was good. And I did move forward on calculus. And I stayed alive, that's good too. But other than that, I don't see much progress. My sleep habits will take a hit from today. I slept in the afternoon and early evening and stayed up till what will probably be four. My college GPA is at more risk than ever because of my actions regarding physics tonight. Not so much about the assignment as about the fact that I won't know this on the test. I did do a few nice things for people today, and I wasn't a jerk. But those were sorta little, passive things. Nothing huge. Still important, but not giant.

I looked at today as a very relaxed and easy day. The idea of the weekend lulled me into a false sense of security. I didn't *work* very hard today.

Changing my life will require sacrifice. What did I sacrifice today? Almost nothing, really. I sacrificed sleep to wake up and make it to calc. I sacrificed some time for physics, but it was far too little in the end.

Point being: I shouldn't have watched transformers with everybody tonight. While that was fun, I could have done my work in those two hours. I should have watched the presidential debate instead of sleeping through it. I should have taken better care of my bloodsugar. I probably should have shaved- I look like an awesome eighth grader without a razor with this puppy on my upper lip.

So, I don't feel terrible about this stuff. This post doesn't have a super happy inflection to it, but I'm really feeling decent. It was a fun day, that's for sure.

It just wasn't progress. It may have been retrogression, really. Nothing too severe, just not great.

So what's tomorrow? It's a brand new day that *could* mean progression for me. Or I could toss it.

I do love that the variable here is me. I'm the boss here. When we're integrating my life, we're doing it with respect to my choices and actions.

Friday is just about done. I hope that you're all doing well. I'm still committed to this, you know. Changing my life. It's important to me. It's not easy, but I guess I knew it wouldn't be. This cat is out, sleep well everybody~

Change My Life Blogaday - Day Five

2008-09-26T02:00:00.002-06:00

2:01 AM- Didn't even try.

Okay, so I tried a little bit early on in the day. But I wasn't the powerhouse of awesomeness that I wanted to be today.

I realize now that my expectations for today, the ones I talked about last night, were pretty unrealistic. I realized that then, too, but looking back it's a lot easier to say.

So, it's 2:02. My calculus assignment isn't done, and I don't really plan to get up and finish it. I worked on it for some time, on and off, and I really feel like I've got the ideas down solid. There's a lot of messy algebra that I do poorly at, and it was taking a lot of time.

I abandoned attempts to finish that assignment in order for me to do the practice exam that professor cannon gave us. It was six questions, and I feel really good about how it went. There were a few small things that I need to brush up on, but nothing major. I was able to do almost all of what was asked. I really love the idea of practice exams. I feel good about my prospects in there.

So, I'm taking a hit on the assignment, but it's for the best I think. Plus I get to drop the lowest for assignments in there anyways. I'll get a 3/10 or a 4/10 on this one, so it's not a complete loss. I'm alright with the situation. I do recognize that I could have played it better. But that's the way things are right now.

I woke up at about 11. So, didn't make my goal there either. Not beating myself up about it though. I really don't feel that bad about it right now. I actually feel pretty comfortable with stuff.

I only have two classes tomorrow- calc at 9:30 then physics at 11:30. I'll be back at the apartment eating lunch at about 12:40 it looks like. Not bad at all. I've got a pretty hairy physics assignment, but it shouldn't be too formidable. Tomorrow looks pretty doable.

Me and Andrew had a good talk last night. Both of us had trouble getting to bed because it was earlier than usual for both of us. So technically I was in bed pretty early, but I spent a long time talking to Andrew, which was nice. We talked about the whole marriage deal more than anything else. It was a pretty cool conversation. I like talking with my brothers about all of that stuff, because we're pretty similar on a lot of stuff. We have reasons for the things that we think, and so we agree and understand each other well. It's fun when the other guy doesn't think that your fears and insecurities are stupid.

So there was a lot of thought put into that sort of stuff last night and today. Not a big deal by any means- nobody get excited.

Ultimate was really good today.

Not so much to talk about tonight. So I'm going to run like the wind.

As far as changing my life goes: Today was still an improvement over the past month. I started working on my calc pretty early. My execution wasn't great, but I made an effort and learned the material pretty well. I made a good strategic choice to pursue the practice test instead of the assignment, since it's worth so much more right now.

Tomorrow looks good. It's time to study then head to bed. I hope that you're all doing well. Keep up the excellent work. Much love friends~

Change My Life Blogaday - Day Four

2008-09-24T23:40:00.002-06:00

11:40 PM. You better believe it.

Today had successes and failures. I woke up early enough to print what I needed, and I made it to calc on time. I didn't have much left in me though, so I dozed off on accident through most of class time.

This is an interesting trade-off that seems to be a big part of my life right now. Not this trade-off in particular, but all sorts of similar trade-offs like it. Do one thing well and another seems to suffer. Take a nap now, stay up later. Stay up late, finish calculus. Stay up late, fall asleep in calc so I have to stay up later next time. It's an interesting little game we play.

I sluffed physics today to take care of my assignment for scholar's forum. I really should stop doing that. I've only done it twice, but still. I spent all of my physics time researching majors and stuff that I want to do, so I think it was really really valuable time for me.

I met with an academic advisor today, and that was really worthwhile. I went and talked to an undeclared advisor because I decided to exeunt that whole mechanical engineering scene. I went in a declared MAE major, and I walked out undeclared. Oh baby. So right now I'm one of those statistics I've heard so much about.

That's interesting too. Why do so many people do this? And why do we as a culture (okay, why do I, in my culture) seem to look at this as a bad thing? If it were such a bad thing, why do so many people do it? I think it was a great step for me to take.

The current plan is still secondary education. Right now I'm looking at math, chemistry, or physics. That means I'd major in one of those and do the teaching emphasis. It'd end up as a composite major (used to be a dual major) between the chemistry (or math or physics) major and the education major. It actually looks way way cool. I'm pretty excited to start pursuing it.

Since I'm officially undeclared for now, the plan is to finish off my general university studies next semester. That's only 12 credit hours, so I'll probably launch into my math/chem/physics degree, depending on what I decide to do. I took a closer look at the "Mathematics and statistics education composite" degree, and that's pretty sweet. I've never taken a statistics class in my life, but I really like the look of it.

I'm just actually excited about this stuff. I read course titles and I'm like "Dang, that's freaking sweet!" I don't get as excited about the math courses as I do about the teaching stuff, but it's still cool. I get more excited about stats titles than I do about math titles too.

So that was really good for me. I know that I've given honors a bunch of crap for being what it is, but I'm super happy that they made me do this assignment. It was something I really needed. I will give them glowing reviews for that, definitely. If nothing else, it was worth doing honors because they tricked me into doing this assignment. I'm still not planning on jumping into their secret club, but I will ease up and stop being so hard on them.

Today has been a pretty good day for me. Successes and failures, yeah, but important successes. I did all the laundry today- still need to fold it, but yeah. I also went grocery shopping. Both of these are significant because Andrew was doing homework while I did them, so it was mostly independent. Big thanks to Katie for driving to the grocery adventure. And big thanks to Molly for telling such great stories.

So, I'm going to miss the midnight mark. But I'm going to be SO much closer than ever before. I will not exceed one oclock, unless I'm in bed studying. Computer goes off in not too long. Unless something unusual happens. Yep, I'm setting conditions on my goals.

Okay, I'm back, about 20 minutes later, I had some stuff to take care of.

So, successes of the day: Woke up early enough to take care of stuff. Made it to calc on time. Finished my scholar's forum assignment on time. Went grocery shopping, scored some pretty good deals. Did the laundry. Going to bed at a decent time.

Failures of the day: Sleeping through calc. Sluffing physics. Not reading my physics chapter. Being a butthead to my roommates for part of the day. Not contacting my home teaching apartment like me and levi planned to (yay for a good companion ;) )

Tomorrow is a risky day. No class till noon. I'm done with classes by five. I have one calc assignment to do, but more importantly I have a calc practice exam to get finished. I should read my physics chapter and take care of home teaching. So there's a lot to get done tomorrow. But there's also adequate time to do it, if I take care of things the way I should. It's one of those days that still makes me a little bit fearful. One of those days that the old me (from like, four days ago) would almost certainly be sure he'd screw up. Still a little scared, because it's a lot of potential. Could be great, could be terrible.

I ran into something cool the other day. Just a random blog that google reader suggested. I didn't read much of it, but the title made me smile- "Wherever you go, go with all your heart." So that's the plan. One day at a time. Break that one day into segments. One task at a time. Gotta wake up, and I gotta wake up well. I've got to get to physics recitation, and I've got to get there well. I've got Ultimate class, and I've got to work as hard as I can there. I've got graphics, and I've got to bust it in there too. I've got a calc assignment and a test, a physics chapter and some other good stuff. I've got to eat to stay alive and I've got to take care of those kidneys of mine. I should probably shave too.

Lots of tasks. One at a time. And do it well.

As a final note, I'd like to point out something Molly wrote earlier. She talked about love. I won't summarize or restate it here, but I just wanted to say that what she said is true. So there I go, tossing my credibility behind what Molly wrote. You should read it, it's good.

It's 12:31 AM. Thirty-One after the plan, but still makes me smile. Today was pretty good for me. Tomorrow is a bold chance. The best part about this one-day-at-a-time model is that I can put bad days behind me while still standing on the good days. Tomorrow will be better because of what happened today. Tomorrow does inherit a few problems I created today, but it's still got a decent chance. I'm excited for that opportunity. For now, it's time for me to go. Thanks for reading friends, I hope you're doing excellent. Much love~

Change My Life Blogaday - Day Three

2008-09-24T02:49:00.002-06:00

2:51 AM - Yeah, that's no good.

But I'll explain, oh, I'll explain for sure. I woke up a little after 11 today, and that's no excuse. Calculus took me a lot longer than I expected tonight, and I got pretty hyper and joked around with my roommates from 12 to 1.

So, yeah. I failed hardcore at going to bed by twelve tonight. I don't have all of my homework done for tomorrow, but I think I can make it work. I'm sluffing physics tomorrow to take care of an essay I need to write. I know, I know, sluffing is bad, but I don't get much out of those lectures anyways.

So, yeah, bad news on the bed time tonight. But I don't feel too bad about it. I still have a goal, but I realize that I can't really jump on that goal immediately and expect awesome success right away. I want to get there, I really do. But I know that I'll have to work towards it. On Tuesdays and Thursdays I don't have classes till noon. That means I can theoretically sleep till 11:30. Since it doesn't matter if I'm 20 minutes late to that class anyways... Moral of the story: if I'm going to make it to bed by midnight, I need to get up long before 11 to have any chance at it. I need to take this fight to both sides of the party.

Some good stuff has happened today, and I'm happy about that.

I'm meeting with an advisor tomorrow, and I'm incredibly excited about that. Technically I have an academic advisor in the engineering department because I'm declared as a mechanical engineering major, but since I'm changing that, I'm meeting with an undeclared advisor tomorrow. I'm totally going to undeclare, and I'm really excited about it. I'm going to be such a statistic.

But I was looking a bit closer at the education thing tonight, and I'm really liking the way it looks. It seems to- I don't know, so smooth. Their website kicks the crap out of the engineering one. The words on the site though, what they say, it's just on such a higher level for me.

Maybe it's just contrast, but it looks pretty smooth, alright?

So I think that's mostly what me and my advisor will talk about tomorrow. My tentative plan for now is to undeclare and take care of the general university studies, go on a mission, come back and apply for the secondary education degree, doing the composite with whatever it is I decide to teach. Right now it's looking like math or science. That's a giant surprise. I might have to get a degree in math education or chem education or physics education with an education minor, I'm not quite sure how it'll all work out.

Either way, it's something that I'm really digging right now. And it looks like I can make it work. It looks like the next few years of my life could actually be pretty dang cool. The department looks solid.

So there's a lot more research to be done, but I'm loving the preliminary looks. It's 3 AM though, and I'm hoping to wake up a little early tomorrow so I can get some stuff printed off and do a bit more reading before I meet with my advisor.

So, goodnight friends. I'm really glad you're out there. Things in the Logan are looking up, and that's awesome. I hope that you're all doing well. We're going to have a party one of these days. Keep rockin' on friends- goodnight!

Change My life Blogaday - Day Two

2008-09-23T01:11:00.002-06:00

I woke up this morning at about 7:30 to finish my calc assignment. There were a few problems that I coulnd't get done because I didn't have enough time. I took a pretty good look at all of them except for one. On that problem I simply wrote, "I refuse on matter of principle." I hope the grader appreciates my strong moral backbone.

But it really was spectacular to wake up that early this morning. It was a rainy day, and I loved it so. This was the first real rainy day of all my time up here in Logan. There was one storm earlier, but I was asleep for it. This rain lasted all morning, and everything was wet and gray for hours. It was beautiful. It filled me with energy and optimism. I made it to calculus a few minutes early it was so good.

There are a couple of reasons that I love rainy days so much. I thought about that as the day went on. When I woke up, I loved the rainy day because I hadn't ever had one of those during this era of my life. The last rainy day I experienced was during high school, when I was living the dream. I appreciated the fact that rainy days hadn't been touched by my recent suckiness. It was a remnant from my former life that passed over to my new life. I appreciated that part.

I thought about it today as I walked, and I realized that before all of this artificial watering began- the irrigation, the sprinklers, all of that- this whole place would have been meadowland or something close to that. Before people were running around cache valley and tricking it into growing with their irrigation canals, something else lived here. The rain that comes was the lifeblood of that natural scene. I know it's a little bit hippy... but I realized that if ever there was a time when the true natural essence of my surroundings comes out, it'd be during a rainstorm. Rainstorms meant life, and even though people can trick life into growing without rain anymore, it feels like that old life that used to exist because of the rain comes out during a storm. It's like the whole place has twice as much natural energy and life in it during a storm.

I wish I could have said that the way I wanted to. It's a little too touchy feely for my style, but I really appreciated it today as I walked.

I love rainy days because I get to wear my nice long-sleeve striped shirt and my sweet nautica sweatshirt. The long sleeved shirt is my favorite shirt. I've had that nautica sweatshirt for years now. It's been on countless scout camps and PLCs. It was the first sweatshirt I ever tucked into my pants in junior choir. It fits like a charm. Over the years it has aged and changed right along with me. It's an excellent sweatshirt, and I love being able to wear it.

I love rainy days because they are so rare. How many rainy days have I really lived through? Days where the sky is gray like it was today and it kept coming down, definitely less than 500 days of my life. Compared to how many sunny days I've had, I'm putting that one in the thousands, that means that I've had less time with rainy days. It also means that I can sort of remember rainy days better. The set of rainy days is much smaller, so they sort of feel more intimate and special. They go together.

Current time is 1:24 AM. I finished my calculus assignment finally- got about 94 percent on it. Not the hundred I'd like, but close enough.

I watched the two-hour premier of heroes tonight. I shouldn't have. I wasn't planning to, but I got caught up in the excitement. I'll be honest, I was really disappointed. I won't list any details here for those who haven't seen it yet, but I didn't like it much. If you want to talk to me about specifics contact me. I don't know if I'll be watching the rest of the season. It might turn around. But had I not done that I could be writing this post at 11:25 instead of 1:25 and I could be dominating my goal.

So, yeah, I'm late. But I'm still doing so much better than I was a week ago. I'm still committed to changing my life. I like the title of my new blogaday, it makes me happy.

I made some mistakes on time management today, but I accomplished the things that were critical. I've got lots to do tomorrow, as usual, but I'm excited to do it. I've got a pretty cool calculus assignment that I'm excited to do. It'll be rough, since it's new stuff (every assignment is new stuff) but it's mins and maxes of multivariable stuff, so it shouldn't be too much of a leap from what I already know. We went over it all in class a few days ago, so it shouldn't beat me up too bad.

I'm out of here. Hopefully I can get up before class tomorrow and get some stuff done. I'm going to a show tomorrow night at the theater again. That should be fun. Things are getting better up here. Or at least, I'm getting better. Relationships are improving. I'm becoming happier with myself and getting out there to serve a little bit more.

No magic switch. But we're getting there. In physics there is no free lunch. And life, yeah, not too much free lunch there either. But one can buy a pretty great lunch if one'll put forth the effort. It's 1:30 AM, and I'm getting into bed to do a bit of study. Much love friends, keep up the excellent work. I hope things are going great for you. I'm excited to hang out with everybody next time I'm in town- maybe I'll even have a shindig. Or, maybe I'll just visit the people I really wanna see. Or maybe we'll do frisbee friday AND visits later. Oooooh. I dunno. But something good next time I'm down- don't know when it'll be. Much love friends, I'll catch you all later~

Oh, and a final note: thanks to everybody who is supporting my quest to change my life. I really do appreciate all the kind encouragements. All y'alls rock.

Change My Life Blogaday - Day One

2008-09-22T00:34:00.003-06:00

Hey, today was a really good day. I slept in a little bit, but still got up long enough before church to look over my lesson a little bit more and get there on time. It felt good to teach, I really enjoyed it. The lesson went pretty well I felt. It wasn't earth shattering, but I'm really glad that I was able to teach it. It was good for me.

The rest of church was good. Our apartment had to spotlight another apartment at ward prayer tonight, so this weekend we made a comical video. Andrew's got skills. It went over really well, and we had everybody laughing, it was good.

It's now 12:36 AM. My calculus is totally not done, and my one page paper I have to write for creative arts isn't even started. But I feel like I can get my calc done tomorrow morning. And I've got an hour between calc and physics when I can write that paper. Cause c'mon, it's one page.

So I'm going to call it a night. I'm not ready for tomorrow entirely, but I hope that by sleeping I can make it work. Today went well.

I've been thinking more about being a teacher. I still really like the idea. Everybody else seems to think it's realistic too, so that's good news. I think I'm going to call mom and dad tomorrow and see what they think about it. It's just nice to explore options.

So, yeah, I know I'm 38 minutes late, and that's not good. But I'm calling it. I know my calc's not done, and that's going to be brutal, but I'm going to try. I've got to make something happen, so I guess this is it. It could backfire big time, but I'm going for it. Goodnight friends, happy Sunday. I hope you're all doing well. Much love, have a good one.

Logan Blogaday - Day Thirty-Three

2008-09-21T03:55:00.002-06:00

Keep your hand upon-a-the plow- AND hoooooooooooold Ooooooooooooooooooooooooon.

Day Thirty Three. 3:57 AM. I have officially made my sleeping situation worse. Poor choice on my part there. I want to work on that.

I spent the first twelve hours of today loafing around, more or less. I got a bit productive tonight though. I was asked to teach in priesthood tomorrow, so I worked on the lesson a little bit more. I did some thinking and other good things, so now I'm here to think some more.

It's no mystery that I don't like my life right now as much as I used to. I don't feel like that is a "depressing" or a "sad" thing to say. I don't feel depressed or anything like that, so I don't want to send that message. I'm trying to figure my life out.

I just had a good talk with Andrew. I look at where I am in my life right now, and I feel like I'm not as good as I used to be. I look at the person I was 120 days ago- I was 17. I felt so good about stuff. I was excelling in school, I was serving, I had friends and family and I was trying to be the best person I could be. Compare that with how I am now. Friends and family are still there, and I still care about them, and they still care about me. I'm passing at this school thing. Service is minimum, but not entirely gone.

I just don't feel like I'm as good as I used to be. That's a frightening prospect. What changed between then and now? What has taken me from who I was to who I am?

I have not done anything terrible. That's really good news, as it always is. There are a lot of things that I should have done that didn't. I don't think there's too much that I shouldn't have done that I did do, if that makes sense. I'm worried about omission here.

Why are things the way they are now? The move from being the top of the world at Taylorsville to being absolutely nothing in Logan has something to do with it. Leaving the incredibly encouraging and supportive environment at home for apartment 36 (Which, mind you, is still fairly supportive and encouraging...) also has stuff to do with it. A new ward, a new school, new people. The scene change has something to do with it.

The choices that I've made has something to do with it too. I haven't chosen to do some things that could move me forward in life. I don't think it's a "I'm not going to do this!" choice, but it's just a "..." choice.

Perspective also has something to do with it. I don't think I'm a terrible person. Sometimes I'm just made to think that though.

I think that the natural progress of trials also has something to do with it. This situation that I'm in isn't entirely mundane. There's more at work here.

That's a lot of factors.

So I look at this trying to find so many answers. I don't know what to do or how to approach it. It scares me to death too. I can get through this though, and I will.

It's hard to shake the contrast though. I remember graduation- I was so confident. I knew exactly what I was saying, and I totally believed it all. I still believe it. But there's a difference now. 120 days ago I could stand in front of a crowd of more than a thousand people and have something to say, something I knew to tell them. Now, I don't feel like I know anything I could tell people. I know that I know things. And those are very important things. But I don't feel like I'm the guy to share it right now. My confidence is a little bit shot.

I am where I am, in part, because of what I have done. Gradually I have risen through my life and fallen through my life. Integrate it all and you have what I am. The path upwards to who I want to be has to be a gradual one. No easy answers- alas.

And so I guess that that's where this journey takes me. I am where I am, and now it's time to change my life and go where I want to go. I've talked and I've thought. I've even pursued action. It's time to change my life.

One day at a time, I'm fixing the problems I have. It's time to go to war. Time to start fighting battles.

First on the chopping block- Bed time. My goal for next week is to be in bed by midnight. Reading scriptures in bed can count, as long as I'm in by midnight. That's huge. Pulling that off means so many things.

But I have to start somewhere... And that's something measurable. I know that it won't change everything. But it's a start. Fighting any battle will feel so refreshing.

I understand that my body is not going to like this. My habits aren't going to either. Procrastination will have to stop a little bit. This will be hard.

And I'm serious about it. As much as I know I won't be serious about it tomorrow. Can I remember what tonight is? Can I believe in who I am tonight enough to remember tomorrow who I was and to respect my old wishes? Can I believe in myself that much?

This can't be some passing fancy. There must be commitment in order for there to be any success. No one can change my life for me. Going back to Taylorsville won't fix my problems. I am where I am. And I'm not happy enough with that. So I have that choice- that same choice I've always had.

Run or die. Do I run, bust it, to move further up? Or do I die and take 11th place instead of tenth? Run or die, who am I going to be?

It's time to run. I've done enough dying lately. Wish me luck, friends. Any support you can give me would be great. I'll keep you updated on my crusade. This battle is one that's against myself. I suppose that most of them have been, haven't they? Perhaps it's a bit dramatic, but it's the way things are.

Thanks for reading friends. Good luck with everything. I'm out. It's five hours past my bedtime. Thanks friends. I'll be praying for you.

Logan Blogaday - Day Thirty-Two

2008-09-19T03:51:00.003-06:00

Hey friends, happy Friday. This is the first post in many weeks that has been written while Andrew is still awake. It's 1:34 AM. I find it a bit funny that I go to bed earlier on the weekends than I do on the weekdays. Less homework and all.

It's Friday, so that's pretty cool. I only had three classes today, and they all went pretty well. Kyle, Levi, and James all peaced out for the weekend, so it's just me, Andrew, and Brad officially, but Chelsea is hanging around with Brad and Big Selck is squatting here for the night because he's got a marathon in the morning. It's good to have him around though, he's a good kid.

Me and Andrew had one of our first official adventures today. We decided to go to beto's for dinner tonight. Of course, beto's in now rancherito's. I don't like the name change, but hey, whatever. As we drove down there the van started acting funny. I got a few warning beeps from the dash and then all the sudden my speedometer, odomoter, fuel gauge and every other kind of gauge just dropped down to zero. This had happened once before last year as I drove to Taylorsville, so I knew my battery had just died on me. I knew that meant that my serpentine belt had been off for a few days, so we quickly turned into a parking lot and got a decent spot before really bad things started happening.

We were about 300 meters from beto's, so that was awesome news. We checked under the hood, and our serpentine belt was indeed off. Unfortunately for us, it was totally gone. When the belt has falled off in the past it usually just slips off and stays in the vicinity. This time it was gone, which means it's chilling somewhere in Logan right now. Nobody knows where. My money is on somewhere between here and lee's.

We went and ate our food while the van cooled down. We were really hungry, and working on a hot vehicle isn't a good idea. Something about scalding hot engines and all that crap.

The food was delicious and plentiful, although a ton more expensive than I'd ever be willing to pay. Apparently beto's got posh while Andrew was in Costa Rica. So we probably won't be going back ever, but it was fun while it lasted.

We knew we'd need a new serpentine belt, so we were exploring options. We were really close to a shopko, and we figured they might have an automotive section. We didn't know what belt we'd need, but we figured dad would know. While looking out the window Andrew noticed an Auto Zone about 15 meters south of us. That was a really good deal for us.

Cut to the chase: we got the belt, spent about 45 minutes putting it on, got a nice couple to give us a jumpstart, ran the van long enough and hot enough to charge the battery, and then came home. This marks the first automotive adventure we'd had in Logan thus far.

It also gave me good reason to take a close look at the van. It's been making new angry noises every once in a while at us. Very grindy, seems to happen when we're going uphill and I let off the gas. The tires are completely bald, and one of them is even showing cracks. The transmission still leaks, and it can't hold on to motor oil to save its life. Power steering pump still leaks too- that's why I now supply the power steering instead of the van supplying it. Headlights function, but I'm pretty sure my cellphone would do a better job lighting the way in front of us. The front driver-side door doesn't close unless you do some tricky stuff to it. Other than that, though, it's still running well. Seatbelts still work, seats are still comfy. The windows still go up and down when you crank it.

It really looks like it's almost time for the van to call it a day. It has been a long-serving and faithful part of the family. The odometer reads something over 290,000 miles right now. That might be with two separate engines- I'm not entirely sure about its history before we got it- but still, that's dang impressive. It has been running with a gimped transmission for several years now. It has served us very well.

But it's old, and getting it ready for winter is at least 200 bucks. We have no guarantee on how long the van will hold up, so investing that much money into good tires seems questionable. We don't really need the van up here, since Kyle's got half a vehicle and Brad will have one pretty soon.

So the van's future isn't decided yet by any means, but I think I'm finally ready to accept the fact that it might go soon. I sorta expected it to last me until I got on a mission, and it still might, but we'll see. The next time we go to salt lake might be the last time the van makes the trip. We'll see what Dad wants to do.

I've been thinking about the major, lately, as I do. I think I might have found one more underlying thing that makes me worry about this stuff. When I was thinking about being a teacher the other day (still thinking about that, by the way), I loved the idea because I already feel like I'm a bit of a teacher. I've done it before. In small capacities, yes, but I've done it. I've been around teachers for a very long time. I'm familiar with it. The idea of getting a degree so I could be a teacher sounded like something that would make me better at something. Increase my skills and all that. Make me a better tool.

I think that's one of the reasons it's so appealing. I'm afraid of engineering because it seems like I have to "become" an engineer. Like there's no part of me that's an engineer right now, but that I have four years to transform myself. Just seems very- not me, I guess.

I love the idea of progress. I love the idea of taking me and making me a better me. But I don't fall in love with the idea of changing me entirely. I don't like the idea of, "Well, you're sort of worthless as it is, so let's transform you into an engineer!" I know that that logic is a little bit twisted, but I don't want to lose myself to be an engineer. I want to take what I've already got an apply it. I want to get better, but I want to stay me.

I had a lot of free time today, and I didn't do anything incredible with it. I'm not saying that I feel bad about that or anything, I just sort of wish that I was super good at using my time wisely. I could have learned something good today. I could have made a new friend, or worked out, or read something enlightening. I'm sure that some day in the future I will wish that I'd done more to make myself better when I had such a great chance.

I think I want a book to read. I haven't read a book just to read a book in a very very long time. Reading a book is so noble it feels. Maybe I'll find something.

I'm probably headed home next weekend, unless something changes. I don't really have any reason that I need to go home, but it'd be fun to be back. Mom misses us. And I've got a pretty cute nephew that keeps getting bigger that I'd like to see. Let's not forget to mention all the people in Salt Lake that I'd like to see, that's good stuff too.

It looks like it's time for me to go now. I'm going to a play tomorrow, that should be pretty good. I'm glad I'm in creative arts, it's a pretty sweet class. We're getting there, definitely. This stage of life is different from all those other ones, that's for sure. I've done a lot better this week, which has been really nice, but sometimes I still get a little worried about stuff. It's an interesting battle we fight, living the way we do. But it's certainly better than nothing.

I'm a fan of life. It's time to go though. I hope that you're all doing well. Happy Friday evening. Much love, I'll see you all later~

Logan Blogaday - Day Thirty-One

2008-09-19T03:51:00.002-06:00

Thirty-One Days. Yikes, that's a whole lot of days.

It's 3:52 AM right now, just finished up a calc assignment. I know I got a few of the answers wrong, but it's way too late for me to be too concerned about it. It was cool to start understanding some stuff that I hadn't understood before. I'm dealing with unit vectors, and I'm finally getting them. We've touched on them in calculus before, we've used them a bit in physics, and we used them very heavily in statics. I finally started understanding them tonight. So that's good news. I always got by before, but now I feel good about them. So that's good news for all of us.

Today was a good day. Not too much went down, so that was cool. I had a really good time socializing tonight. I don't do that too often, so it was nice to go hang out with people. Katie and Molly are pretty nice to make us food.

I really wanted to go home this weekend. It's the homecoming football game, and I wanted to go support. I could have gone home tomorrow and come back saturday night, but alas, I have a play I have to go to on saturday. It'll be fun, but it's a thumbs down that I can't make it home. It hasn't been long at all since I've been home, and I wouldn't say that I'm homesick or anything, but I'm pretty excited for the next opportunity I have to be there. Home is still home, no matter what happens up here, and I like that. It adds value to the place. I know I'll be going home pretty often between now and thanksgiving, but dang, thanksgiving looks so good! Being at home for more than two days, plenty of food and family and then some friends, dang, that's good stuff.

Not too much to say tonight, or at least not too much to say this late at night. Tomorrow should be pretty good, providing that I can get up to actually make it to calculus. That's really the only thing standing between me and the weekend, just one more day to wake up. I think I can do it.

I hope that you're all doing well. This is the last official day of blogaday, but I'll certainly post tomorrow and at least a few days after that. I'm not wrapping it up quite yet. So, yeah, happy Thursday everybody. Here's to a dang good Friday. One day at a time~

Logan Blogaday - Day Thirty?!

2008-09-18T02:52:00.002-06:00

Whoa! Day Thirty? That's insane! That one definitely snuck up on me out of nowhere. But I'm happy for it, I guess. Not too bad. I don't intend to stop blogaday once my 31 day commitment is over, just so you all know. I might shake things up a little bit, but I don't foresee any major changes in my posting habits. At least I hope not. I've been enjoying this. I think it has been really good for me. And it's so great to have a community again. I like that even though some of us are pretty far apart we can still support each other. That's good stuff right there.

Today has actually been really really good. It's just a little bit before 3 AM right now, so it's still super late, but I accomplished some good things today. I got to calculus with about 10 minutes left of class. That means I missed almost all of the lecture, but at least I got my assignment turned in. Luckily the stuff we were covering didn't look too beefy. I think that if I read the section real carefully a couple of times I ought to be able to get it down.

My break between calculus and Physics was an important one today. I've only managed to stay awake for that one-hour break about three times in all the fifteen or so that I've tried it. It's still relatively early in the morning, and unless I'm up moving around I tend to get really drowsy. I always say I'll read my physics chapter, but I usually get one section out of eight read and then fall asleep on the book. Sometimes I intentionally sleep through it.

But today I went to the computer lab and sat next to Molly. I'm pretty sure she didn't notice that it was actually me right there, since I was pretty sneaky about stuff and didn't say hello, but I thought I was cool for being so ninja like.

So I updated myself on all the new blog posts, read some news, read some slashdot, you know, made the rounds. I finally sat down and started looking at majors again, and that was pretty cool. A couple of days ago I made a big list of majors I'd be interested in looking at. I didn't filter out much- if it sounded like I might enjoy it I put it on the list. I didn't have that list today, but I went through a lot of the ones that I remembered and just checked out their pages on Utah State's website. It was pretty cool. It felt good to actually be doing something about the situation, you know? I didn't make any decisions or anything, but I found some stuff that I'd never looked at before that looked pretty fun. Business information systems looks like it might be sorta cool, but so does a lot of other stuff. Parks and recreation? You better believe I looked into it.

As I walked on campus today I had a thought. I could actually be a high school teacher. I've always sort of neglected that idea because I know that it doesn't pay all that well. My financial philosophy, though, is that I can be completely happy and comfortable and taken care of regardless of how much money I make, provided that I manage it well and don't fall victim to lifestyle inflation. Putting the money idea aside, teaching is actually quite alluring.

Teaching is something I've always enjoyed. I get all giddy when I have a captive audience. It's something that I think I'm fairly good at too. Okay, I'm not actually saying I'm "pro" or anything, but I'm saying that it falls within the basic skillset that I seem to have. I obviously have a TON of work to do to move forward with it. Teaching would give me an opportunity to do good in the world, and that's something I'm very interested in doing. I also thought a bit about the administrative route. I do like being in charge, you know.

So I'm not saying I'm jumping on that wagon just yet, but I'm going to look into it a little more. It's worth investigating, just like a few other things are.

I had an incredible institute class today. Brother Manning, my teacher, is a super good person. He does his best to be sensitive and to follow the things he's supposed to follow. It's a mission prep class, and it makes me happy. Me and one other guy, Jake, sang "I am a Child of God" together in front of the class today. It was part of the lesson, and it was just cool to be able to do that. First off, that we were all okay with each other so that we could do that. Second, that Brother Manning called on the two of us knowing that we'd be okay with it. Yeah, I sing loud during the opening hymns, and he knew Jake was musical, but still, pretty awesome. It was just a great lesson, and I felt a lot of important things through all of it.

I worked today to follow through on those things that I felt like I should do. I wanted to say hi to everybody that I met as I walked home from that class. I didn't do that... I got about 2/17 I think. But still, that's two. I finally got some oil and consecrated it, and I feel great about that. That's something that I should have done a while ago, but it just feels so good to have it now. It's, well, the epitome of manliness, this stuff that we do. I like it.

Today was an excellent day, and I'm feeling good about things. It's 3:13 AM, for a lot of reasons. Tomorrow's thursday, and I think I understand most of what's going to be asked of me.

One final thought for the night before I go. I feel ready to move forward on a few things. Which is a great change from this past month of uncertainty and doubt about whether I'd ever be able to move forward. It's nothing huge, but I feel like I'm ready to be nice to people. I had a thought tonight that being unkind was just so plain childish. I feel ready to put that behind me and start being nice to everybody. A lot of that focuses on my roommates. I don't know if any of us noticed it, but it seemed like we were all doing a better job tonight being kind to each other. We joked around, some of that was good and some of that was bad, but we were mostly kind to each other, and I love the way that that feels. I just, well, feel ready to make that step and commit to being nice. I think that counts being kinder to everybody else too. I just want to be a nice guy.

Tomorrow is a bold new day with a bold new calculus assignment for me to conquer. I'm excited about what I can learn about it tomorrow. I'm excited to see how tomorrow can make me grow. Today was a good day for me.

I hope that you're all doing well. I'm really glad we're all in this boat together. We're pretty cool, I'm thinking. Have a great night or day, whenever you read this, friends. I'll catch you all later. We'll do something cool when that happens. Yep. Goodnight friends!

Logan Blogaday - Day Twenty-Nine Part B

2008-09-17T02:59:00.002-06:00

3:00 AM flat- Yep, must be calculus.

It's not that the assignments are that beefy, because they're not. They're entirely reasonable. I just don't start them till one in the morning.

Before I jump into anything I'd just like to say thanks to all my friends who have helped support me through all this college business. It's been one of the roughest months of my life, and it's nice to know that there are people out there who care about me. So, thanks friends. I really do appreciate you, and you really do make a difference.

I've had a lot of thoughts today. One of the biggest ones is the question of how much control over myself I really have. If I really wanted to make myself get up in the mornings and study before class instead of staying up late, could I do it? Am I strong enough to make myself do things?

I know that the answer is ultimately yes. But isn't that a frightening prospect, the idea that I couldn't do it? By all means, I've been trying, perhaps a little half-heartedly, to be perfect for a long time. We all know how that's been working out for me.

So I think that's what's on my mind tonight. That idea of self-mastery. The concept of putting off the natural man and doing all the things that the better part of you wants to do.

A wise fellow taught a good lesson on "spirituality" to me and Kasey once. He asked us to define spirituality. We fumbled about for a bit, and then he threw us a rope and said, "Okay, what are the characteristics of a spiritual person?"

He eventually boiled it down for us. He explained that a spiritual person is someone whose spirit is in charge instead of their body. A saint as opposed to a natural man. Someone who controlled themselves. Self mastery.

So I think that's something that I want to work on. I didn't start my calc till after One tonight. I'm surviving because I slept till noon and had a little nap. This is functional, but I don't want to be like this. I can change this. I'm strong enough to. I have to want it and I have to work for it. But I can do it.

I don't know if it'll happen today or tomorrow. Saying that almost guarantees it won't. But that's the new goal- work on self mastery. Just what I've been thinking about tonight. Bringing all the parts of me into one harmonious blend of goodness with the important parts of me in charge instead of the lazy parts.

Remember how I said that if I got more than 65% on my physics test it'd be a miracle? Write this one down in your journals- I got 79/90, or 87.8 percent. I understand how I got that score, but that's dang high considering everything. I'm counting myself blessed. I'm definitely preparing myself more for the next test. But, well, that's something worth smiling about.

A pretty good day, all things told. My tuesdays and thursdays are really easy. I got a few good things accomplished today. There was a lot I could have done and didn't, but it was still pretty good.

I'm really liking this one-day-at-a-time routine.

Tomorrow is a wednesday. What am I going to do tomorrow that is going to change my life for the better? I'm going to read my physics chapter. That's my enrichment activity for tomorrow. One physics chapter, five days before it's due. No guarantees on the homework, but I'll read the chapter.

Okay, it's late. I hope you're all doing well. Sort of an odd post... but once again, thanks to everybody who's been helping me get by lately. You're great friends. I appreciate you. Have a great one~