Change My Life Blogaday - Day Four

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?!

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

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~

Logan Blogaday - Day Twenty-Nine

Sometimes, instead of waking up and doing productive stuff when I don't have a class, I sleep till noon. Just thought I'd let you all know :)

More post coming later.

Logan Blogaday - Day Twenty-Eight

Hey, happy day twenty-eight.

*note- I'm ending the post without expressing thanks and saying that I care about you all. I don't want to do it at the end. So here I am, coming back, to say it now. Thanks for reading the post, if you do. Sounds like everybody had a pretty rough Monday. I'm sorry. I hope you're doing alright though. We're in this boat together it looks like. So at least we're in good company. Much love friends, let me know if there's something I can do for you. Have a great night. /end note*

This morning was awesome. Last night, as you may recall, I decided to go to bed instead of finishing my calc assignment. I decided to wake up and finish it in the morning. It actually happened. I attribute it to Divine kindness, because I know that I can't get myself up in the morning like that. But I was able to get up, get the assignment finished, and get to class on time. That was sweet.

We had a physics test today. I was under the mistaken impression that it'd be more about problem solving than it would be about memorizing formulas. Yeah, it was nothing but formulas. Nothing tricky about the test, just got to memorize formulas. I didn't memorize them because I thought we'd have them. That was entirely my fault.

If I get more than 65% on the thing it'll be a miracle. I'm pretty confident that I passed the test. I answered every question, but I know that two of my answers were entirely bs. I didn't know the formulas, so I made some up using the variables I knew were involved. I did get a few right, no question. But I know I got a few wrong. Thumbs down for that.

That was a downer. I came home after creative arts and did a bit of prep for my physics lab and slept until then. Lab today was long and head-achey. We were doing light diffraction and interference, so we were shining lasers on the wall. That meant that we had to have the overhead lights off, and we were using desklamps to let us write on the papers. I don't know what it was, but the whole thing gave me a headache. Didn't help that I took about 20 minutes more to finish the lab as everybody else. I mean c'mon.

FHE tonight was a stake thing. Luau, without any meat. I guess it's cool, I'm not mad or anything. I just... I'm so tired of people telling me there'll be food and there not being food. Granted, they never specifically said "pig", but I assumed it'd be there. That wasn't a good assumption to make. They did have some sherbet and some sprite, as well as some cookies. Rumor has it there was some fruit somewhere that I didn't notice.

This isn't the first time we've been duped into thinking there'd be food and there wasn't. The honors program keeps getting us with it. Unless you're one of the first ten people there you don't get any pizza.

We're fragile college students. We're trying to make this ridiculous system work. We've got delicate budgets and we're inches away from mental and emotional breakdown when you least expect it. Telling us there'll be food and then not having food is not a good idea. It's incredibly mean.

I had a rough time today. I kept my head up through most of it, but it was ugly. I don't like sucking at school.

But hey, one day at a time, right? Today was a brute. But now I know what to expect for next time's physics test. I know that I can get up in the mornings to study. I worked out a tiny bit, so maybe my arms will be stronger tomorrow than they were today. I played a bit of Ultimate, too.

So yeah, I'm struggling here. But I know that sometimes struggle is a good thing. I am moving forward... but that doesn't mean that I'm not getting my butt kicked by the whole process.

I've wanted pretty often for something miraculous to happen to fix all these problems. I've really wanted to go to sleep and have an incredible prophetic dream that told me what I was supposed to major in. I've wanted a lot of things that are bugging me right now to just resolve themselves.

But that's not happening. And it's not because it can't happen, because I'm pretty sure that if it needed to it would. I'm struggling, but I know that not all of it is because I'm a slacker. I understand that a lot of the problems I face are because I'm not working hard enough or whatever. But I know that some of this stuff is just there to make me stronger.

A lot of this is my fault. But I do take a bit of happiness out of knowing that things suck because I can get better. If I couldn't get better through it, there'd be absolutely no reason for things to suck. So, hey, that's some pretty good news.

It's only 1:06, pretty good for the day. I'm going to try to wake up tomorrow morning and try some calculus before class again. Today was rough. I'm not sure that I've ever had a "breakdown", but today I felt like I was close. But hey, I kept my head up, and we've made it through. Tomorrow's a new day. Only two real classes to go to, plus Ultimate. A calculus assignment, some work for scholar's forum, a few meals to take care of. I can do it, with help.

So here I go. This one goes in the box. Like every other day I've ever lived. Sometime between tonight and tomorrow morning this one will get filed away into that great corrugated box. Tomorrow morning I'll wake up standing on the box, peddling my destiny like always.

Here I go.

Logan Blogaday - Day Twenty-Seven

Hey, great Sunday to you all.

It really was an excellent day. Church was so good today. I learned and felt a lot of things that I really needed. It made me feel really good.

It's now 2:35. I got 40% done with a calc assignment and figured it was time for bed. I'm going to try to wake up tomorrow and get it done. Why is it that math is always my first class of the day?

I have a physics test tomorrow. I feel pretty good on all the material except one chapter that I didn't really read. Hopefully I can get it finished inbetween calc and physics tomorrow morning. No guarantees there, but I'll try. I don't really know what to expect for the test, so I'm hoping it goes well.

Ah, there's so much that I decided today that I want to write about. Moving forward on some things, it feels really good. I'm on the brink of something. Today feels good. I'm debating whether to put a gag-order in place in my life. It's... not something I want to do. But I feel like it'd help a few things. I don't know, more on that in the coming days probably.

Asics (a shoe company) had an incredible slogan a few years ago. It was simply "Asics: Keep Running". It was so minimilistic and beautiful.

That's sort of the new plan. I need to start taking life one day at a time. Trying to get the future figured out from here to there isn't really working. I need to live today first. Not to say that I won't plan for the future. I just need to worry about today. If I can be good today, well, that's what's important for today, right? When tomorrow comes, I'll do my best to be good on that day too.

There was a good quote I liked today. I'm not gonna get it perfect. Some mathematician, when asked how he got so good at his field so fast said, "By studying the masters, not the pupils."

Pretty cool. I wish I had more time to write, but I'm scrambling to get out of here. I hope you're all doing well. Much love, I'll catch you all on the flip-side.

Logan Blogaday - Day Twenty-Six

Day Twenty Six. Look at me go.

Today's been really good and a lot of fun. I didn't get any homework done at all, but I had a good time.

We hit the town for our weekly shopping adventure. We had a few errands to run and they all went really well. A few highlights-

*We had to exchange our router at Best Buy. They did this all with absolutely no hassle. It took us about two minutes. Brilliant customer service. They receive five stars out of five.

*Kyle had a problem with his cell phone, so he took it into the verizon shop to see what they could do for them. Within 15 minutes he had a brand spanking new phone- they just switched it straight across for him with no hassle. Once again, five stars out of five for verizon.

*We went grocery shopping at Lee's. Kashi Golean crunch (a super healthy cereal that tastes awesome and leaves you feeling great) was on sale for 4 boxes for ten dollars. I did a price-per-unit comparison against malt-o-meal cinnamon toast crunch, the stuff I was going to buy. Malt-O-Meal was something like 9.30 for the same ounces as Kashi was for 10.00. Best cereal deal I've ever seen. Thanks Lee's!

*I filled the van up with gas. I got it at $3.73. That means prices in Logan have been dropping. I know it's still ridiculous, but hey, at least it's getting better.

I felt pretty good about the economy today. As far as I can tell, things are going great ;)

Me and Andrew managed to play a few games of starcraft today.

*Me and Tyrel vs. Andrew and Ricka. Me and Tyrel won a decisive battle near one of my expansions thanks mostly due to some sweet psi-storming by my high templar. Their armies were gone, so me and Tyrel walked through and took out their expansions. At this point my computer (Ricka was playing on it) took a dump on itself and did a hard shutdown. More on that later. Still, victory clearly went to me and Tyrel.

*Me and Andrew vs. Dallin and Dave. Me and Andrew routed Dave and Dallin because they were very rusty. It's fun to play on Andrew's team.

*Me and Dave vs. Andrew and Dallin. Andrew decided to play on a 2v2 map, so I decided that if I randomed zerg I'd do the most aggressive zergling rush of my life. I did in fact random zerg, so I did a 6 drone -> spawning pool -> 6 zergling rush against Andrew's base. I got all of his drones before he had any zerglings out. He finally took out my 'lings, but shortly thereafter Dave showed up with 3 zealots and we took Andrew out of the game. Dallin didn't have much to stand up against me and Dave's attacks, and the game was over shortly thereafter. Total match time: 8 minutes 41 seconds.

So I went 3-0 on the day. Granted one of those games was entirely imba, but still.

Imba - ajd.: short for imbalanced, a term used to describe things that are too powerful or too stacked. Commonly used when talking about dota. "Man, that new hero is so imba, he better get patched soon."

I realized that the only people who would get my use of "imba" don't actually read my blog. So I defined it. This post certainly does not fall under my usual style. I've used two pseudo-bulleted lists as well as a definition. Rebellion?

No. Not rebellion.

And that's actually something I've been thinking about lately. (Notice that I'm returning to normal post mode) I'm writing tonight very differently than usual. Does that mean that things have changed? Does that mean that I have made a conscious decision to alter the way that I blog?

No, it doesn't. I have not come to a conclusion. This is the way that things are happening tonight, yes, but this does not come about because of a premeditated decision.

Things sort of change. Brownian motion and all that.

I guess what I mean to say with all of this is that I don't have it all figured out. And even if I make a decision or move forward on something, well, that doesn't mean that I understand. That's one thing that I fear about the blog. I fully intend to write a post about something that I experienced a couple of nights ago. The main jist of the post is that in order to understand life, sometimes we need to treat it like the way we treat light in physics. We don't have a comprehensive understanding, but we can break it down into littler parts and use those sometimes.

Just writing that synopsis sentence makes me feel so, I don't know, determined. Like I've figured this out. And, truth be told, I feel like I figured a little bit more out that night. I feel like I've got it just a little bit better. But that doesn't mean that I'm not so uncertain about everything that sometimes I'm a little bit terrified. It doesn't mean that I'm never going to go back and wonder about it again. It doesn't mean that I'll always remember what I learned.

I used to think that girls had these master plans. Way back in the day, junior high style. I used to think that they'd sit down and establish a plan of how to get a certain guy to like them or how to get two guys to like them at once and then play both cards at once. I really used to think that people had master plans.

And the more that I live life I start to believe that everybody is as uncertain as I am. There are things that I am certain about. And those are incredibly important things. But there are also a ton of things that I just don't know about. And my opinion and the way that I feel about those things changes all the time. Emotional ADD, if you will.

In a post, I've wanted to write a bit that compares the way I feel about picking a major to the way I feel about dating a girl. The two run into a lot of the same conflicts in my mind. I have resisted the desire to write that, though, because I know that girls do actually read this blog. And I love that. But I've sort of made it policy not to talk about stuff like that here. I've done it a bit. Sometimes under a guise and other times just straight out.

I've always wanted to go back and analyze all that. Sort of spill the beans afterwards. Point out all the interesting things that happened. Point out lines I wrote back in the day and what they really meant. There are a few that I still know about, from a few years ago actually, that meant something that I doubt anybody got ;)

There are more, however, that I know I've forgotten about. My desire at the time of writing those was to sort of go back, one day, and explain things. But if things have changed since then, I don't have that same desire now to go back and explain those feelings that existed at that time.

But there are a lot of things I'd like to say that I simply don't. Melissa wrote a line a few days ago about stuff like that. "There are a lot of thoughts in my mind right now, but I think I'll leave them for later or never we'll see what happens."

That whole "later or never" thing seems to happen a lot. I used to want to write about that. There was a gap of what feels like 20 minutes between wanting to write that and this sentence now. I had to search for the quote on Melissa's blog, so that took a bit of time. My bloodsugar was a bit low, so I went and snagged a glass of milk (still a bit low, by the way, but coming up). I took my contacts out and some stuff like that. So time has passed, and I'm not as interested in pursuing that line of thought.

Tonight's post could become very long. My thoughts aren't incredibly deep like they are some nights, like those nights after frisbee friday when I come and write something that I always love later. But my thoughts feel moderately deep. And they feel very broad. I'm thinking a lot of things about a lot of things. I know it's late, but I almost fear so much losing this. It's one of those things that sort of feels like something I should appreciate and tap while I've got it. So, I might just go and blitz a bunch of ideas. I know I won't be able to explore them like I want to, but I think I'll roll with it for a bit.

My body has changed over the past year. I know that sounds SO awkward, but I'm not talking about awkward stuff (and now a general big sigh of relief from the audience). I'm talking about diabetic stuff. Nothing huge, but my body takes a bit more insulin to do now what used to take less insulin to do back in the day. That's just something that happens. Since moving to Logan I've noticed that when I feel like my bloodsugar is low, it feels a bit differently than it used to. I don't feel as low as I used to when I'm low.

I'm not complaining by any means. I'm just noticing that things have changed a bit. Over a relatively short time period, too.

I've been using the normal :) emoticon in messenger tonight. I never ever used to use that emoticon. If I wanted to smile I always used the big one, :D. I find emoticons fascinating. I spent a part of my life really hating them. I find now, however, that I use them more than most other people. I find it so cool that we use emoticons to express things we feel. Emoticons, while they do simulate things that exist in real life, are more or less entirely isolated and new in the world of language. Funny how when we're restricted to text and a few pictures, we use those pictures to mean things. Emoticons mean things to me. I use them for stuff. I never use emoticons when I don't feel like I should.

I have this fear that this post will get too long. It'll become unwieldy. So I think I'll wrap up with a list of posts I'd like to write. You know how I am- I rarely write posts that I've premeditated. But still.

-Life and Light; Why physics makes me feel better about myself
-Stalker 2 (another one of those when I write things in a little notebook all day and then transpose it onto a post at night. I did one in sophomore year)
-A big strong review of my first month of college
-A big strong review of logan blogaday

I'm pretty tired now. I'm sorry this post is so long and sort of everywhere. I hope that you're all doing excellent. Much love. Have a great Sunday tomorrow. Or today, really, since it's late and all that. You know what I mean.

Goodnight friends. Much love.

Logan Blogaday - Day Twenty-Five

Hey, happy day twenty five.

There was supposed to be an incredible Ultimate showdown today. Murray canceled at the last minute. So we're going to reschedule.

That's sort of a let down, but we're going to be okay. We really were ready to play. I've got to say that all six of us dressed up in our Taylorsville T-shirts do look pretty cool. We threw for a while and had a pretty good practice instead of smiting Murray, so I guess it was okay. This just means that we're going to get better before we actually play them. Ha.

It's 3:38 AM. It's a friday night, so it's technically okay, but I didn't have a substantial nap today, so this doesn't make a ton of sense.

I keep dreaming of a night when I'm going to bed early so I have a ton of time to write and study and do things that are important. I waste a lot of time. I know that I can't be one-hundred percent efficient, but still, I'd like to be better.

I did have a few thoughts about stuff today. I used to joke around a lot with Levi and James by saying, "Girls come for Levi, but they stay for James." I thought about that with our apartment here. I was looking and realizing that Kyle is doing a pretty good job of socializing. He's made more friends than the rest of us I'm pretty sure, and most of them are girls. Kyle's bringing them in.

Me, I'm not at all. I've made pretty much no effort to put myself out there. This has not paid off yet. But I've got this belief that I really am a pretty good person inside. And I think that I'm a pretty good friend, at least I try to be. I've got value. But I don't go marketing that.

So I was thinking about that. Kyle's got a lot of immediate value. He's out there being social. Does Kyle have long term value too? Absolutely.

I'm just saying, I don't think that I find or make friends really quickly. But the ones that I do make I care a lot about and hold on to. I'm a late bloomer, you could say.

I made a scale of bloomingness for the apartment. Kyle is first, Levi next, James, then me. Of course it's biased. But hey, at least it's some cop-out way of saying that I think I'm worth being friends with even if I'm not all that much fun the first time you meet me :)

Okay, it's late. I should have done more work today but didn't. It's time for me to head to bed, I hope you're all doing well. Much love, toodles.

Logan Blogaday - Day Twenty-Four

Happy day twenty-four everybody. Another one down!

It's 3:07 AM, and I just finished my calc assignment. Does anyone else see a pattern developing here? I do really want to start getting these things done earlier, but at this point I'm just so happy to be getting them done that it doesn't really bother me. I should be looking at the clock and saying, "Dang, this is going to hurt tomorrow." But because I'm just so happy that I got the assignment done, I look at anything and I say, "Rahahaha, I learned something!" and sorta smile.

So, it's late. But I'm happy.

Confession: I went to High School Musical at the eccles theater tonight.

Confession: I really enjoyed it.

There is much that I could write about the smell of the girl-in-front-of-me's hair. Specifically how that smell, in conjunction with the content of the play, made me think and feel certain things. I assure you that it was a good experience, but I probably wouldn't have enjoyed the musical as much if it hadn't have smelled so good.

Tomorrow is the big showdown against Murray. We're playing at 4 PM sharp on the quad. I've got a pep-talk that I've been thinking about for a while that I'm going to bust out before we play. I love giving pre-match pep talks. It was one of my favorite parts about cross country.

I almost want to spill the pep-talk right now. I'm not going to be able to write it tomorrow night, because by the time I write tomorrow everything will have changed. We will have been victorious, incredibly victorious, barely victorious, or incredible failures. There are certain levels of winning. There's only one kind of failure on the line tomorrow.

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.

I think that's key to how I want to play tomorrow. It's not just me playing Ultimate to prove something. I know I'm far away from Taylorsville high and don't actually represent it up here, but that's what this is. All six of us will be in Taylorsville shirts. Me, Kyle, Levi, and James in our senior shirts, Brad and Andrew in superfan. We're playing this in large part because we heard that Murray was talking trash against everything Taylorsville. This isn't just about me and Kyle playing Ultimate, this is about representing and defending Taylorsville. We don't smite Murray just for ourselves, we're doing it for everyone.

So it's about me, and who I've been. It's about Taylorsville, too. That's T and Olsen and Harward and Mama Withers and Parrish and Hansen and Molen and Coach Farr and Mackay and Margo and Leatherwood and Kaelin and everybody else I can't remember. I know I'm overdramatizing this, but I'm serious here. Tomorrow I'm an ambassador of Taylorsville High. Tomorrow I strike for all of us. Who we've been, who we are. I strike for the younger generation and for the older. Yeah, I'm really getting into this.

HSM made me want to feel romance again tonight. Ultimate makes me want to feel glory again. Sometimes it's nice to remember emotions that haven't been evoked for a while.

It's late, and I've got a lot riding on that game tomorrow. I'm going to study a bit and head to bed like always. I hope that you're all doing really well. I'm glad that a lot of folks are blogging, it's always so cool to hear from everyone. Wish me and all the boys from 36 good luck in our game tomorrow. We've got some honor to defend.

Much love, catch you all later.

Logan Blogaday - Day Twenty-Three

Happy Wednesday world. It was free hug day today on campus. I got a hug from three girls and one safe-hug from a guy. I was surprised that one of the girls actually gave a really good hug. I was doing my very best to give a very not-creepy free hug, but she gave a good hug anyways. It was a bold move. I mean, standing outside the TSC with a sign that says "free hugs" is a bold move by any standard, but to give a good hug? That's bravery. They told me I should give a hug to someone else. I didn't. Hmm.

Today was a pretty dramatic day for me. I was up till a little after four last night working on stuff and studying. I had taken a huge nap, so it wasn't as big of a deal as it could have been. I woke up at about nine to get to my nine-thirty class. I got ready pretty slow, and was ready to leave here at about nine-thirty five. I knew it'd take about 15 minutes to walk to class. I didn't have the heart to leave, so I sat in my chair and looked at the clock for a bit. I did some thinking and some praying, and finally got out the door at about 9:50.

I got there in time to turn in my assignment and hear 10 minutes of lecture. They were 10 very valuable minutes. I came home and took a nap through my dead-time and physics since I figured I wasn't going to get anything from the lecture anyhow. It was a good nap, and I felt really good about life when I got up to go to creative arts.

Creative arts was good, and my institute class was excellent. Left me feeling happy.

Me and Andrew had decided that we would get together at the library at 3:30 to do our statics homework. We're both in the class, and it makes sense to do it together. I'm always so impressed by Andrew's work ethic. If there's something he can't figure out, he simply works at it until he gets it. I don't do that. If I can't figure it out after giving it a valiant effort, I let it go. I don't know why I do that. I think it might be grandfather'd in from highschool where doing that wasn't a really big deal. We were at the library for what felt like two hours, no idea how long it really was. Andrew did four problems while I got two done. I had no desire to do it. We came home, ate, and I took a good nap.

It was sometime before, during, or after the nap in the hazy faze where I had the idea that I could drop statics. (James: statistics) I was at 18 credit hours and dropping two wouldn't hurt. I thought about it, talked to my academic advisor James, called my parents about it, talked with Andrew, prayed about it, and decided it'd be a decent thing to do. So I dropped the class.

This is a bold move. Something I never thought I'd actually do. This was unexpected.

But the truth of it is that I'm struggling with this stuff. I wasn't getting statics at all and it was stressing me out. It didn't have the same workload that physics or calc had, but it was still guaranteeing me at least three hours of work on one evening a week. I really feel like I want to change majors, so busting my back over this class when it might not actually do me any good seemed like a bad idea.

So I dropped it. I feel like I let Andrew down a bit, since we were partners in crime in that class. But this is what I want to do and I think it'll be best for me.

My brother Nathan talked to me about it tonight. That was really helpful. Nathan's a wise guy. He pretty much told me that I'm going to have to work hard. He talked about how college isn't about smarts anymore, and how I'm going to have to be more competitive. It was cool. It was a really nice blend of It's okay, you've got to do what's best for you and it's time to grow up. I really appreciated the good advice.

Today has run the gamut. I woke up a wreck, sluffed a class, took a nap and felt great, ate, took another good nap, dropped a class, talked to a few people, and then did a good physics assignment.

I dunno, this post is a lot more a story than most of them are. I don't like that style as much.

It's late. This post has sorta run itself into the ground. So I'm going to go work out a tiny bit and study. I hope things are going well for all of you. Happy Wednesday.

Logan Blogaday - Day Twenty-Two

Hey, Happy day twenty-two.

I had a really good experience last night. It helped cheer me up and change the way I've been looking at a few things. It was important.

I was going to write about some of it tonight- but it's 3 AM, and I just wrapped up my calc assignment.

I used to joke about dating calculus in high school. Now it feels like I'm dating calculus' ugly older step-sister. They're still related, but this one is older and bigger and wants you to spend more time with her. There's a reason I used to date her cute and innocent little sister instead of her. She's hairy.

It's been a good day. I got a few things done that needed to be done. My head is still above water, but I have no idea for how long. I'm just trucking. One day I'll be ahead, boy oh boy.

I think one of the reasons I have some trouble with this whole college thing is that I cannot possibly see how I'll ever get a job doing any of this stuff. Great, I understand waves a little better thanks to physics. Someone's gonna pay me for that? I can figure out the forces on a stake driven into the ground that's being pulled on by three strings at various angles with various tension- hooray.

It's sorta like falling in love, I think. Maybe I'll save that one up for a whole big post in the near future. I love the idea of writing one good post that covers one good topic. I never do it, but maybe it'd be fun.

So, hopefully tomorrow I'll write about what happened last night. I've got a lot of homework stacking up, these folks just don't know when to stop the madness.

It's Tuesday. That means tomorrow is Statics homework for most of the evening. I should probably finish reading the physics chapter I'm on and start that homework too. I have an institute class tomorrow, that's good. It's long though. We'll see how that goes.

Well, we're getting there, I think. I'm three weeks closer to having a degree than I was three weeks ago I guess. That's good news, right? I'm learning more about myself and about life at least. That's a lot more important than this school stuff anyways. Hooray for youthful bodies and kind blessings that let me continue functioning through all of this.

Yeah, it's late. I'm out.

I hope you're all doing well. Merry Tuesday. Who's ready to buckle down and go smack wednesday?

Logan Blogaday - Day Twenty-One

Three weeks? How'd that happen? Maybe my numbers are off. Or maybe it really is day twenty one. In any event, happy day twenty one folks.

Today was a pretty good day, albeit real long. I had my statics recitation for the first time today, as well as my physics lab. The physics lab wasn't bad at all, it was actually fairly fun, but it definitely lasted two hours.

I was working with a real smart kid from the DR. He did everything really well, and while his English wasn't great, we never had a communication problem. As lab partners go, he was a pretty good one. The truth remains, though, that I still prefer working on my own.

Maybe that's not entirely true. I do value teamwork, and I know that at times it is crucial. As far as academics go, though, I don't see it working too well. The problem with a lab is that I feel guilty if we both aren't doing all the work. I can see partner work going well when I'm like, "Hey James, you do part A while I do part B, and then we'll help each other out, yeah?" I really like the idea of delegation. But I don't know why two people have to work together. I mean, aside from not having enough workstations.

But it was a good lab, don't get me wrong.

I feel like I worked pretty hard today, and I'm happy about that. I still didn't do great staying awake. I dozed off in Physics (again...) and my statics recitation. I haven't done any homework tonight, but I did go grocery shopping, pay some bills, buy my tickets for creative arts, and other miscellaneous stuff like that. Not exactly everything I'd hoped to accomplish, but not all that bad.

So, still adjusting to all of this college business. It's not what I expected it to be, but it's not bad. It's harder than I thought it would be. There's a lot of role-changing going on all the time. 50 minute classes are nice, but it's hard to go from calc to physics to creative arts to accomplishing something to feeding yourself to recitation to physics lab to FHE to shopping to whatever. Not that I'm complaining. Just saying, lots of shifting around. Got to be on your toes and have a good attitude.

We challenged Murray to the game late last week and still haven't heard any word from them. We wanted Tuesday at seven, but since that's tomorrow and we haven't heard anything we're assuming they're not going to show. We're going to see if we can get them to play sometime Saturday morning, probably around ten.

Tomorrow will be a pretty busy day. A whole calculus assignment, physics quiz, honors assignment. Not a huge deal, and I've got some decent time tomorrow. I might go play Ultimate with the club just to get better, that'd be cool. Not sure though, that's a whole lot of time and work.

So, thoughts. Not sure if I'm actually going to write about them right now, but I've got a few. Nothing outstanding or groundbreaking or all that relevant. I like my creative arts class. Isn't that a crazy surprise?

Hey, it hasn't been a bad day. I didn't shoot 100 percent like I wanted to, and I'm not five days ahead of my homework, but I didn't do too bad. Tomorrow's another day and another chance to learn something and make myself more than I am today. Sorry it's a bit of a cop-out post, but I didn't get a nap today, give me a break ;)

Looks like bed before 2, that's sweet. It's only 12:17 right now, so I should be sitting pretty. I hope you're all doing well. Keep up the good work. Maybe I'll do something awesome tomorrow. Well, catch you all later~

Logan Blogaday - Day Twenty

Hey everybody, happy day twenty.

I'm here in Logan again and feeling pretty good about that. It's 3:26, and I just nailed my calc assignment. It was a little rough, but I feel real good about how it went. I read all the introductory information on the section first, and that really helped. I'm going to start doing that for all of them. I had to use the back of the book to get a lot of it right, but it's okay, because I was really starting to figure it out. I feel good about it.

I gave calc a good effort tonight, definitely the best effort I've given an assignment yet. I feel so much better about it than I have before. Going along with my stand I'm taking, I'm going to work harder on my homework. I'm going to start reading and studying the material instead of just trying to do it. Physics slapped me around for trying that, so I'm going to really start learning. I'm excited to give it a good shot.

But it's late. Looks like this is going to be a pretty good week. I hope things are great for you all. Smile, be happy. Things aren't too shabby you know.

Who I Am [Logan Blogaday - Day Nineteen]

"I couldn't tell you that I was wrong,
chickened out, grabbed a pen and paper, sat down and I wrote this song."
-What a Good Boy - BNL

One day in adult roles we were doing speed dating. We'd have about 45 seconds to answer a question about ourselves to another random person in the class.

One of the questions we got was, "what is your greatest fear?" I was paired with a girl in the class I had never talked to before. I thought about the question and thought about a good answer to it. I said to her, "You know, I think my greatest fear is failure. Or letting someone down. Yeah, I don't want to let people down."


She looked at me with a bit of disbelief and said, "that's it? Letting people down? You're not afraid of spiders or being burnt to death in a building? You'd rather die than let someone down? Sharks?"

The way she said it made me think and laugh a little bit. I stuck with my answer.

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.

More than anything else, I'm afraid that even though I know that I've worked hard and been a good person for a very long time, that one day I'm not going to be that person.

And I'm afraid because it's me that does it. I'm afraid that even though I know something right now that I'm not going to do anything with it. I'm afraid that when I know I should push the green button that future me won't push it.

I'm afraid that I'm going to suck, plain and simple.

I don't run anymore. I'm still in shape. I still play Ultimate and basketball. I could run some miles if I had to.

But I used to be a runner. I truly was. I could run forever and not get tired, I could go whenever and wherever I needed to. I ran for life, I ran to be better, I ran to fulfill my obligation to my teammates and my coach. I ran for the smell. I loved the trails. I loved and hated the competition. It was part of me.

And now it's not. And it's not because I got hit by a bus. It's not because I left the cross country team either. It's because I don't go running anymore. This change that has occurred in my life is not caused by genetics or my environment. I wasn't tricked into it.

I'm no longer a runner because I don't go running. I haven't been making the choice to do it. I am not a runner because of the choices that I make.

And that terrifies me. Not because I'm worried about being a runner, but because I'm worried about what I'll do to myself. I don't want to be 40 years old and suck.

This fear is cleverly crafted. It's based on truth, yes, but I'm looking at things so one-sided.

My fear here is that I'm destined to let myself down. Let everybody else down too. (Funny how that was one of my fears that I said wasn't my real fear. I guess they're related...) The problem is that I've always done it. I'm not a terrible person. But there have been hundreds of times when I've felt like I needed to be a better person, and when I knew I had what it took to become a better person, and when I committed to being a better person and worked on being that person. And I know that today I'm not fully that person. I know that even though I've started and participated in dozens of workout regimens I don't workout regularly. I know that even though I've set goals in the past I haven't always completed them. I know that I've made commitments to myself and to others that I simply have not kept.

But I do know who I am. And I do know what I'm capable of.

And this is the point where I start feeling better. Thanks, up there.

So those are my fears, but I know they work both ways. I know that even though I've failed repeatedly at being perfect, the good things that I have done do stack up. I know that I'm not going to make it at being perfect, but I know that that's okay. I know that if I choose to work hard- that's going to pay off. I know that I can be a better person. I know that I don't have to suck if I don't want to.

There are things in this life that I control. I'm the boss of my life. No one can make me suck. No one can make me amazing either.

But I choose what I'm going to do. And if I choose to be better, I'll be better. It's a whole lot of work. But it's what I want to do.

There have been nights like this before. And there will certainly be nights like this in the future. I'm not done with this battle. This fight between who I want to be and who I am. But it's like Dumbledore said when Harry asked about Voldemort trying to come back time after time. Something like, "And if we defeat him every single time he tries to regain power, well, then he'll never regain his power." It's that idea the even though it's going to be a fight, one day there will be an answer. But that answer is only there because of every single little fight we've fought along the way.

I wrote once about tunnels and how what I think we're all afraid of is things not changing or ending. We're afraid of being in one place too long, doing one thing too long. We're afraid of never seeing our friends again. We can make it for 85 years, as long as we know we'll see them at year 86. But when we're faced with the idea of never seeing them again we get so frightened. That's a bit of what this is here. I'm afraid that I'll always be fighting. As long as this life chugs on, I believe that I will be fighting. When will that victory come? When will that idea of voldemort returning to power ever truly be put to bed?

It's not in the foreseeable future. But it's like Dumbledore said. If we keep on fighting, forever, the end result is the same. Vanquished forever is the exact same as pushed back for another month, every month, for the next hundred years.

So here I am. I'm taking a stand. A stand that I've taken before. A stand that I have, in a way, failed a hundred times before. A stand that I'll have to take again. But it's the stand I'm taking, and I'm happy and honored to take it.

What does it take to be a better person? What is the good life, and how do we live it? What am I going to do tonight to make my dreams a reality? What am I going to do to help someone else? What am I going to do to be the person I'm supposed to be? What choices am I going to make?

I'm taking a stand for excellence. I'm going to work harder. I'm going to learn more. I'm going to be kinder. I'm going to care and love about people. More. I'm going to try. I'm going to be friendly. I'm going to do things that I would just rather not do. I'm going to prepare.

What does it take to be excellent? There's a lot, and I don't know it all. But I know that it takes, at the very least, a lot of work and a lot of time.

The good news is that I'm ready to work and the time's on Someone else. So here I stand. This is the mound that I'm placing my flag on. I know it'll fall over. But I'm going to keep picking it back up.

Stand on.

Logan Blogaday - Day Seventeen

Hey, I'm at home tonight. Classes were good today. It's now 2:30, and I just finished trying on my physics. I got about 80 percent on the actual assignments, and finished about half the extra credit. I would be sitting pretty, but Kyle discovered tonight that the extra credit is currently counting as required points. So I've got something like 83 percent total for my assignments now when I ought to have a little bit above a hundred.

I'm counting on this simply being an error on Jimbo's part. Jimbo is our physics professor, you see. Jimbo isn't his real name, but it seems to be more fitting. If in fact Jimbo did this on purpose- well, I'm going to be pretty upset.

Moral of the story: I'm a little frustrated because I didn't do well on that stuff at all. Now, granted, I didn't exactly read the chapter, but still.

In any event, it's done. I don't have another assignment do for a while. I'm going to head to bed. Sorry this post isn't much fun, I'm just a little tired of being at the keyboard. Nobody likes standing waves anyways, honestly.

Hope you're all doing well. Happy days everybody, I'll catch you all later.

Logan Blogaday - Day Seventeen

Hey, happy 400th post everybody ;)

I'll do a celebration or something like that once blogaday is over. For now, I'm happy to be at the end of a really really good day up in Logan.

Today was probably the best day of classes I've had so far. Coming off of last night's success at static homework, I was feeling pretty chipper this morning as I got ready for class. Me and Andrew made it to statics on time, turned in our assignments, and sat to take notes. For the first time ever I totally followed everything the professor said. I was eating it up, taking killer notes, and totally following on the examples. Most of that was because of the homework last night, and I feel really good about that. Score one for statics being great today.

I took the liberty of sluffing my physics recitation today. Call me a slacker, but I don't feel that bad about it. I probably won't do it too much in the future, but I'm happy about stuff. I spent some good time with Andrew instead, joking around about stuff. I also hung out with Kyle and Levi a bit. I spent a while working on my Graphics assignment and thought up a pretty sick vehicle to design.

Ultimate class was good. My play was pretty poor, but I did a fair amount of hustling that made me happy. I even laid out for one sweet end-zone reception, so that made me feel good about myself.

Graphics, for the first time ever, didn't suck. This was actually an awesome day in there because I stayed up with the professor the whole time. That has never happened before. Ever. I made everything work perfectly, it was awesome. I left that class actually happy.

We delivered our bulltimatum to the Murray boys tonight. I don't think I told you, but we had to tone it down. We wrote the bulltimatum either Friday or Saturday night. At church on Sunday we had two lessons about pride. I was feeling like it was a very prideful bulltimatum, and I couldn't shake the image of the US men's basketball team getting third place in Athens in 2004. I knew that the pride was a bad idea, and I certainly didn't want to be put in my place like basketball was four years ago. So we rewrote a tiny little thing that basically "invites" them to play Ultimate. It's a bit of an improvement over the last one. I still like the creative writing of the previous version, but what can you do?

It's about 2:40, I finished my calc assignment about 10 minutes ago. I feel good about it. I didn't get every single question done, and I don't think I got every question right, but I'm okay with it.

It's late, and I'm driving home tomorrow (hooray!) so I should probably do my best to be able to stay awake tomorrow. But I've got two cool thoughts before I go to bed.

Thought one is a vision on something awesome. Calculus assignments are due about a week after they are assigned. I've been doing them the night before, of course. Statics is the same way. Assignments are due seven to nine days after we cover the material. These are my two classes with significant homework. I realized tonight that if I actually jumped on my assignments ahead of time, I could ask my professors questions during class about the things that I don't understand. That way I'd be almost guaranteed one hundred percent, and I'd learn 50% more. That sounds so sweet. It's entirely against my nature, but man, wouldn't that be one heck of a green pasture? I want to give it a shot, I bet that'd feel amazing.

My second thought is simply this: Rise up. Do you ever get tired of sucking? I sure do. Sometimes you just have to look at yourself and say, "Alright, it's time to get better at everything. It's time to work harder and be better. Go." And then you go. I've had a pretty bad attitude about school lately, as blogaday has shown. I've still been getting by, but I think it'd be cool to be a better student. I could learn more. I could do better on assignments. I could care more. There's a lot that I should care more about.

So that's my closing thought of the night. Rise up. Stop sucking so much. Be better. I like it.

I hope you're all doing great :) There's a weekend coming up very soon, isn't that incredible news? I'm headed home tomorrow, score! Free food, comfy bed, people who love me, no kyle. Who could ask for anything more?

Nah, really, Kyle's great. I wouldn't trade him for a pack of bubble-gum.

Goodnight friends. Good luck with everything. Keep up the good work. Keep me posted on all that cool stuff that happens. I'll catch you all on the flip side. Tomorrow I post from Taylorsville, score!

Logan Blogaday - Day Sixteen

Hey Hey, happy day Sixteen. That's a perfect square, you know.

It's 3:39 AM. I finished my statics homework 15 minutes ago or so. Don't be like James and joke about me spelling "statistics" wrong. This is statics. It's not statistics.

I was ready to up and drop all my engineering classes about two hours ago. I had six statics problems to do tonight. One through four were beasts, but five and six were pretty good. I got a lot better at it as I went on. It was mostly trig, in three dimensions, of course. No one likes two-dimensions in college I guess. But I feel better about stuff. Still going to look hard at my options, but I'm not changing majors tomorrow like I was thinking about a few hours ago. Yay for actually getting work done.

I took a really big nap today, as well as a few smaller naps between classes and during physics. I really should have a better attitude about physics. I sort of figure that I'm going to have to teach myself the material anyways, so why bother trying to glean something from class when it's such an impossibility anyways? I should certainly have a better attitude.

Umm, yeah. Not a bad day. I'm super sore today from Ultimate. Sorer than I've been in a long time. It has gotten uglier as the day has progressed, but it's alright. Hopefully a few hours of good sleep will help me out a bit. I've got ultimate class tomorrow, but I'm not going to go practice with the club because I've got my connections class during half of it. My group isn't ready for connections tomorrow yet, haha. I haven't done my graphics homework either. Luckily I'll be able to make both of those up before I have those classes tomorrow. I might sluff my physics recitation. More than likely I'll actually go to my recitation but spend the whole time working on something else. That sounds like a pretty good use of time actually. If I don't go to the recitation I'll just sleep.

Buildings I've slept in so far: Library, Engineering, ESLC. Next target: Family life during creative arts. I hear we're watching a video next time.

No really, I am trying at this whole college thing. Sometimes I just wonder if classes are worth going to, that's all.

I had a good time being with my roommates today. Just talking with them all was great. Hopefully I'll do some more of that in the near future.

I need to do a calc assignment tomorrow. It shouldn't be too ferocious, I don't think.

Yeah, not too much briliance spilling out of my brain tonight so I think I'm going to run off to prepare for bed. I hope you're all doing well. Happy Wednesday. Even happier Thursday tomorrow. Keep up the good work, I'll catch you all later.

Logan Blogaday - Day Fifteen

It's 2:02 AM. I just finished up my calculus assignment, and it was actually pretty cool.

The moral of the story is that I played about three hours of ultimate today. Usually when people throw out absurd numbers of hours they're joking. "I slept for like, seventeen hours!" or "He didn't shutup for six hours man." But no, I actually played roughly three hours of high intensity ultimate. About an hour was during Ultimate class today and the other two were with the club team.

I don't think I'll go play club, but I'll keep going to tuesday practices I think. It's really fun to go play high-level ultimate. I'm certainly not ranked as a good player there, but I'm pretty decent, and I'm excited to get better.

So, yeah, it's been a good day. I did well in classes. I got my assignments done that needed to be done for tomorrow. I played a ton of Ultimate and my body is letting me know. My legs haven't felt like this since the PLC bike-ride I think. It's a pretty great feeling. I mean, it's less comfortable, but at least I know I earned it, right?

I'm going to sleep like a brick tonight. That's something I'm looking forward to. I hope you're doing well. I'll write something a little more fun tomorrow I hope. Rock on friends, thanks for being around.

Logan Blogaday - Day Fourteen

Two weeks of logan blogaday. Ah snap.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(8) Reach for the western skies (8)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Well, halfway there, right? ;)

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