Blogaday 21 of 20

Day 21. Oh, don't act so surprised. You knew it was coming.

So, I do have an excuse for last night's brevity. I was super tired, but apparently I was also coming down with something. I've been sick today, but I'm doing much better now. This happens every once in a while, maybe quarterly. I'll have one big purge, then spend the next 18 hours or so feeling pretty trashy. After 18 hours though, I start to get better. It's not a bad system. This one was actually more like 14 hours, but who's counting? I am glad that whenever I do get sick, it's usually just for a day.

So that prevented me from going out and doing anything tonight, but I had a good time playing warcraft. I miss playing with Levi, but it's alright. His computer is being lame right now. I miss the good old december times though. Me, Kyle, Levi, Ricka, and Tyrel. Between performances, it was just incredibly easy to say "Oh, two hours till we need to be back at the school. Dota?" Nobody had work, because everybody had quit for December. We all knew that we were available, because we had to be to meet the madrigal schedule. It was a golden age of innocence.

It's been forever since we've had a classic game of dota with the five of us founding members. We've converted Glen, and sometimes we'll play with Dak or a few guys we've met in game that are cool. I still think that the very best is the founding five though. We need more of that.

Micron is due tomorrow. I've got half a mind to stick it to the man and not even apply. I know that that's not sticking it to the man. I'll get it in. I know I've got no chance now, and I'm alright with that. I don't necessarily like the way that Micron made me feel for fifteen minutes. That sorta left me with an ugly taste in my mouth.

And I did bounce back, in a way. You saw me write about bouncing back and banking on the Jello. But that really wasn't the bounce that I needed. Of course, I do still plan on banking on the Jello, but the real understanding came later.

See, I'd worked on that crap for most of that night, and I'd gotten it into my head that it was kind of important. That's why it was such a blow when I found out I was competing against mutants, you see. Even after I realized I had no chance, I still thought it was important.

But that night as I prep'd for bed, I looked at what I had written in my journal the night before. It's nothing huge, and I'm not going to share, but it reminded me that while 25,000 dollars is nothing to scoff at, it's most definitely not the most important thing. There are things out there that are actually important, and Micron isn't really one of those things.

My priorities had been a little off. It's interesting to note, though, that this week has been an awful good one. My priorities hadn't been off for the entirety of the week, just parts of it. And it wasn't like those parts were one big glob, but rather I'd split days between on target and off target. I'd still managed to pull a lot of good stuff off, even though I wasn't exactly focusing on that which was important. Interesting week, that's for sure.

So I feel really good now that I've gained some understanding about all this. It's given me new perspective. I really think I just appreciate myself more. I know that Nick's laughing at this part, saying, "Bahahaha, it's possible for you to appreciate yourself even more?" but hey, give me a break here. When I started comparing myself to mutants, I realized that I didn't have what they have. It's rare that I look at people, aside from the athletic folks, and think that they're absolutely better at me at what they do. I know that's sort of weird, but that's the way I am. It was interesting to have my world crash down on me so fast. Parrish had said that right now I was a big fish in a very little pond, but that when I got out into the real world I wouldn't be the biggest guy around. I knew I should have listened, but something inside of me made me think that I wouldn't ever have to face that. Five days or so later, I realized that I was tiny compared to those mutants. I just didn't have what they had.

But there's been a remembrance of sorts. Some very incredible stuff has happened this week. Stuff that makes me know that I'm significant, and I really like that. So maybe Micron doesn't care what happens to me, but I know some people who do, and that's pretty neat.

~~~~

Blogaday Post-Mortem

Visits the 20 days prior to blogaday: 147
Visits during the 20 days of blogaday: 273
(up 85.71 percent)

Average time on site for 20 days prior: 48 seconds
Average time on site during blogaday: 1 minute, 27 seconds
(up 81.36 percent)

Comments during the 20 days prior: 2
Comments during blogaday: 22
(up 1,100 percent)

Number of pages of Times New Roman, 12 point text: 50

Number of words: 33,472

Number of characters: 176,838

Average characters per word (approx): 5.28

Times I said incredible or incredibly: 49

Average incredible or incredibly's per post: 2.45

References to blogaday within blogaday: 82

Average blogaday's per post: 4.1

Alphabet Breakdown:

Letter ----- Occurences ----Percent total

e																		16090																					11.81%
t																		14838																					10.90%
i																		10962																					8.05%
a																		10820																					7.95%
o																		10803																					7.93%
n																		9134																					6.71%
s																		8093																					5.94%
h																		6853																					5.03%
r																		6546																					4.81%
l																		5846																					4.29%
d																		4928																					3.62%
m																		3702																					2.72%
g																		3653																					2.68%
u																		3627																					2.66%
y																		3190																					2.34%
c																		2980																					2.19%
w																		2922																					2.15%
f																		2679																					1.97%
b																		2613																					1.92%
p																		2332																					1.71%
v																		1513																					1.11%
k																		1401																					1.03%
j																		289																					0.21%
x																		215																					0.16%
q																		79																					0.06%
z																		76																					0.06%

Isn't that incredibly cool? Spreadsheets for the win.

There was more to analyze, certainly. But that just took up a lot of my time, thanks to me not knowing spreadsheets at all. Pops wandered in and taught me some stuff, so that's pretty cool.

In any event, I hope you enjoyed the first post-mortem. There'll be more to come, I'm sure. It's late though, and I need sleep. So I hope you're all doing well, and I'll catch you all on the flip side.

Blogaday 20 of 20

Day 20. Finished.

There's so much. I just went through and looked through the list of all the posts on this blog. There are 338 official published posts. Two are saved as drafts, and will almost definitely never be published. But as I was looking through the list, I realized that there is an incredible amount of stuff that I've forgotten. That are things that were really important to me that I haven't thought about for years. It's pretty insane business.

I kind of feel like that's how it is with my own history. There's just a lot there. Why am I the way I am? Because of choices made every day for the past seventeen years. I don't remember the vast majority of them, but I know that they've come together to make me the person that I am. I am a cumulative person.

Day 20 is unique. It's the last day, and part of me wants to do something incredibly significant and epic. Another part of me wants to do what blogaday does best, and just roll with some writing. For anybody wondering, this is not the essay I'm going to give to the principal.

It's 1:58 AM, Thursday night. Second term officially ended today. All grades will be finalized as of tomorrow. I think, I think, I'm going to get a four-oh again. I did the math, and if Kaelin does the independent study grades like he did last term, I'll barely squeak by with an 80.07 percent. That's breathtakingly close. But wow, I feel pretty good about it. The only reason that independent study is at risk is because I'm always late to class and am missing a ton of quizzes. Thumbs down for me being tardy.

I didn't take a nap today. I played two games of basketball, not being a pansy in either of them. I'm super super tired, and so ready to crash. There's no school tomorrow, and I expect a ton of sleep.

But I don't really want to crash, right now. I really do, honestly, but I feel like I need to do day 20 justice.

But I think day 20 wants my life to be awesome. And so day 20 will understand if I crash.

Ladies and gentlemen, I did it. This post is extremely short. There are a few other short ones. But truthfully and honorably, I completed the blogaday challenge. Twenty days, an entirely unexpected and bold call. I did it, and that feels really great. I'm going to be thinking and writing more about this whole experience in just a little bit. For now, though, it's bed time. Good night friends, I hope things are well for you.

Blogaday 19 of 20

Day 19. Wow.

Banking on the Jello. I am banking on the Jello.

I had this epiphany of sorts earlier this evening. Suddenly, the idea of banking on the Jello sounded incredibly brilliant. I had it all figured out in my head. I was going to make that the theme of the next semester, the next segment of my life. So I came here and threw down that first line, the one that you see in bold. I couldn't wait to start talking about it, I had to at least get that far. I wrote it then went back to work on this Micron action.

I revised my essay, the second of four times I'm planning on that one, and I worked on my activities list and all that. As I was wrapping up, I decided to google the micron scholarship and see what there was out there.

What I found scared all manner of apparel off of me. I found the bios of last years winners. Holy crap. Mutants, all of them. Every single one of them doing crazy things incredibly well. Research project after research project after research project. What's that, you've had your papers published by universities? Yeah, well I'm freaking president of the Ultimate club that doesn't do anything, what now?!

Yeah, just like that. How am I supposed to stand up to that? I've never been in any form of a science fair since the sixth grade. I did go to the state math competition. Three times. But I didn't win, like all of them did. I don't have two degrees from BYU yet, like last years big winner did. I've never been to anything outside of Utah, let's be honest. I've not gone to anything at the Universities here, and I haven't gone and used MIT's amazing labs to do something insane.

Mutants, that's the only explanation I can find.

And I was hopeful, oh so hopeful. Probably too hopeful. And now a lot of that is gone. My science and math activities list has five activities on it, and most of those are AP chemistry. all of theirs had a billion.

My dangerously inflated hopes have been seriously cut back. There were massive lay-offs in the hopes division. Economic crisis, really.

I will finish and submit the application. I will do the very best job that I can. I'm not going down without a fight. It's just that now the fight is with Chuck Norris, and not the little girl down the street like I thought.

But you know, I'm not going quietly. Because I believe in myself. Me and Kyle talked a bit tonight, about how hard it is to write a paper saying, "Hey, check me out. I deserve for you to give me 25,000 dollars over four years, and here's why..." And maybe I don't really deserve the scholarship. There's an outside chance that I do, but chances are that I wouldn't be an incredible investment for Micron like some of the mutants out there will be.

But straight up, there's something inside of me. I know, deep down, that I'm special, and that I'm going to pull it off. I'm not positive what it really is right now, but I'm going to make it happen. I will be successful out there. It's inside of me. I might not be teaching professors about bioacoustics, and I might not have my own parking space at MIT, but I've got something incredibly important inside of me.

I am not the nerd you are looking for, Micron.

But I am going to change the world.

And that's the realization tonight. That I'm not really all that and a bucket of cheese. My resume doesn't come close to matching up to theirs. I can't back it up with documentation, but I know that I've got it. I can't pretend to be on that level. I can't pretend to be the guy at the science fair, because that's not me.

But you know what? I've got the Jello. And they'll never, ever, ever have the Jello like I've got the Jello.

That's right. I'm banking on the Jello.

Do you remember the Jello story? Do you remember how important the Jello story is to me? Do you remember what we proved that day?

There are two sides to the Jello story. Both relate to the way I perceive my worth as an individual. One is more of a "guilty by association" style relation, so we're not going to talk about it here tonight. Just know that it's incredibly important to me.

The second side of the Jello story is proof. Cold and gelatinous proof that I've got it.

Is now the time to truly tell the Jello story? I should have written about it before, I might have even written about it here. I based my science sterling scholar paper on it.

I don't think that now is the time to go into the details. But know that they're triumphant. And know that they proved something to me on that fine June day. Know that I proved to myself that I had it in me.

It was an incredibly symbolic moment for me. It meant that what I was doing with my life wasn't a waste of time. It showed that my attitude toward life and school and everything around me was paying off. It showed that there was hope in this world for me. It showed that I could be successful, and it showed me how to do it.

That is my history. That symbolic moment encapsulates my theory and plan for the rest of my professional career. The principles that governed success with the Jello will govern success for the rest of my life.

And that unique history is my story. It is me. I cannot pretend to be anybody but myself. I have an unique set of abilities and skills and talents. I have a unique set of weaknesses and follies too. I am who I am.

I'm banking on the Jello. And if the Jello represents who I am, I'm finally banking on the right thing. I have to run, full speed ahead, into what's coming for me. And when it gets here, I have no option but to bank on the Jello. To believe in myself as a person, and to tackle that problem using what I've been given. There is nothing else to do.

Jello has gotten me this far. Jello is all that I've got. There's no more question about what to do here. I've got to bank on the Jello.

Blogaday 18 of 20

Day 18. Exceedingly close. I'm entirely almost there. Do you know how far this has come? From a project that wasn't even sure it was starting on the first day, it's become pretty hefty. Much thanks to Nate for the encouraging comment the first day that made me want to definitely do it. It's been a good adventure. And, more than anything, it's done some catapulting.

I talked about it last night, but this blog was built on redundancy, so we shall reemphasize. I feel like my life is ready to take a shift from surviving senior year to really dominating my senior year.

It was no secret that the past two weeks of my life had been some of the more confusing and difficult for me in recent history. No tragic emotional or physical or even mental accidents. I just wasn't getting the sleep I needed, and felt like I wasn't really in control of my life. It was hard to wake up, hard to go to sleep, and hard to make it to school. I wasn't operating at peak efficiency, so I was missing opportunities like crazy. It just wasn't the way I wanted to be running the race.

And I really am reminded of a race when I look at my life right now. It feels like an old 5k last cross country season. I was all dressed up, ready to run. I was surrounded by people I genuinely cared about and wanted to see succeed, and I know they felt the same way about me.

The race would start, and I'd get out there and be strong for the first couple k's. The middle was always the hardest. I'd get tired, it'd get really hot or really cold. The legs would hurt, the lungs would burn. I'd be fighting a mental battle with myself. I'd have to convince myself that it wasn't too much farther, that I'd come this far already, and that throwing it away would be criminal. I'd think about how much my lungs were dying, how incredibly futile this whole race was. I'd remember all the hours I'd spent that week training for the race, and I'd think of how amazing it'd feel to win it. Loads goes through your head during the middle. Sometimes you speed up, and sometimes you slow down. Invariably, it's the most trying part of the race.

Sometimes, in a race, I'd never transition out of the middle mentality. I'd finish the race in the middle. Those were sad races.

But when I could really make the jump between being in the middle of the course to being in the final 1000 meters, final 2000 meters, or final however-far, then things started to get crazy. Suddenly the race changed from a trial in endurance and self-deprivation to an opportunity. Suddenly, I only had a thousand meters left to prove my manhood, to prove my school's manhood, to prove coaches manhood and Kirt's manhood and everybody else's manhood that had helped me along the way. Take that Parrish!

I remember so many footraces, looking at the end of the line, where I knew that I had to go like crazy if I was going to beat this guy before we crossed the line. I knew that once that line was crossed, I'd have absolutely no opportunity to redeem myself for seven more days. If I truly was going to beat him, I'd have to do it in the next 60 seconds.

One of the main differences between the middle of the race and the end of the race is your mindset. The middle of the race is an exploratory time period. Your mind cycles through how much you hurt, wondering why you run, thinking about your position in the race, thinking about your team mates, thinking about your homework, thinking about the ladies, thinking about the weather, thinking about your hydration and blood-sugar and fruitsnacks in your sock. Your mind is everywhere.

The end of the race is entirely different. As soon as you catch that one thought that will catapult you from middle of the race to end of the race, you're gone on the wind. As soon as the race changes from a punishment to a vanishing opportunity, your brain tosses out the flak. You are immediately consumed with only one thought. Everything else really becomes unimportant. In a footrace, the only thought going through your brain is "Gotta go. Gotta go. Gotta go. Gotta beat this kid. Gotta go. He's moving, I gotta move. He's picking it up. Can I make it? Yeah, I can get him. Gotta go. Do it. Push it. Move those legs. Gosh this feels good. Do it. Go. Go. Go. Go. Go. Go. Go. Go. Go. Go. Go. GO. GO. GO. GO. GO."

Your brain starts thinking and subvocalizing in rhythm with the pounding of your legs and the musical rushing of your breath. Every part of you comes together to push. There really is nothing in the world that I've ever experienced that compares to that final push. It's incredibly difficult to get there. In all my races, it happened less than half the time. It took an incredible amount of activation energy to make it happen. I'd have to run 4000 meters strong or it'd never be worth doing. I'd have to have a challenge, a reason for running. And then I'd have to make the choice. My body would be tired and tight and oxygen-starved. It took monumental courage to make that choice. Knowing full well the current state of affairs in my body, I'd have to say, "Yeah, I can do this. This kid is mine." and go for it.

And I'd loosen up, let the legs start flying. Full strides. I'd get into the rhythm with my breath and thoughts and arms and everything. After a few strong paces, subvocalization in my brain would cease. There wouldn't even be words up there anymore. Sometimes I'd hear my breathing, other times there would be a numb sort of burning purpose. The knowledge that what I was doing was incredibly important to my past and present and future, and that everything else could wait. I'd become united as a whole, hurling myself with speed that wasn't measured or planned or worked on. This wasn't something that could be taught or trained during practice. It was purposeful, and that was the key. I knew my limits. I knew exactly how long until the race ended. I knew the state of my body. I knew the breaking points of my competitors. I knew how strong my heart was. It was a conscious choice, to throw prudence out the window and hurl myself towards the line, regardless of the damage to skeletal structure and internal organs I felt I was receiving. My pain didn't matter; I had something I had to accomplish.

The key to activating the end of race moment was, for me, to be in a position where it would truly be worth it. If I had run a slow race up to that point, I knew that inflicting the punishment of the end race wouldn't prove anything. I'd still be slow, I'd still be a coward for the first half of the race. If I came to that crucial decision making point, and I found myself miles behind the next competitor, I wouldn't enter end-race, because it wouldn't be worth it to me.

The chance to enter end-race was forged weeks in advance. If I showed up to race well rested and motivated, I'd have a shot at it. I'd have to get out and bust my heart open to put myself high enough in the rankings to make hammering my body to pieces give me the ascension I deserved. I'd have to be hydrated, and there could be no chance my bloodsugar was low. I'd have to be emotional and mentally in that race. I couldn't be distracted.

Above all, I couldn't have any excuse. If there was any reason, any one, small, tiny way for me to get out of end-game and not feel terrible about it, I would find it during middle-race, and end-race would never ever happen. "I'm too tired. I might be low. I'm severely dehydrated. I stayed up doing homework. I've got more important things. I'm so far back, there's no pride anywhere anymore." It was easy to find a way out of it.

But when the stars aligned because of the work I had put in, that's when I truly became proud of myself. It took, as I've said, a monumental amount of activation energy to get there. But once I was there, there was absolutely no turning back. Once it happened, it happened. Glory was my reward. There was no question. If I reached a true end-race, it never mattered how I finished. It didn't matter if I caught the kid or not. If I was to the point where I was willing to sprint in, ignoring my body for the desires of my spirit, then I knew I wasn't weak. I knew what I had done was significant. I knew that I was strong.

And if the entirety of my educational career has been a race, now is certainly the time to enter end-race.

I have suffered through the middle-race doldrums. My mind has been to the moon and back, searching for an excuse not to put myself through what I know ought to be coming. I haven't found one good enough.

For the past 12 years I've been working hard to put myself in a position where what I do in the next five months will matter. Twelve long years to work on placement. If maybe just once, I had called it off, let myself fall back down the ranks, I could say right now that I wasn't in position to enter end-race, that it wouldn't matter. But I haven't. I am at perfect placement. I have 12 years of effort to put me here, to give me this opportunity. I can't throw 12 years away.

I am physically fit and able to perform the labor required to sustain an end-race experience. Sleep notwithstanding, I have no excuse that would disqualify me from brutally and wholly finishing this race.

The stars are aligned. Every factor has been carefully placed. I am ready to run.

So what does this mean for me? What does it mean once we step away from the metaphor? It means that I am going to give myself wholly to excellence, no matter the cost. It means that I will, without a doubt, five the BC calculus test. It means I will, for sure, get this Micron application in. It means that I will give myself wholly to being the seminary council president I can be, to making PLC fly higher than ever, to being there for those who need me. It means I'm going to be a better madrigal. I'm not going to hold us back. It means that when I play basketball, I will go for the gold, every time down the court. It means I'll keep the 4.0, no matter what comes my way. It means I'll stay up just a little bit later reading. It means I'll get up just a little bit earlier, because I'm going to be on time.

End-race means the flawless transition from one obstacle to the next, till their might as well not be any obstacles. No time to consider the cost of putting one foot, flying, in front of the other. You simply do it, every time. Every obstacle and everything that stands in between you and victory is systematically and boldly eliminated. There is no fear, there is only the true and free run for the finish line.

Will I fail? Often, yes. But at the end of the day, I am going to feel good about what I've done. I am going to finish high school flying. Yeah, I will be late to class again. I will mess up. But I'm going to take it. I'm going to accept it and hurl on. Launching myself with full purpose towards excellence.

Middle-race is over. It served its purpose.

End-race. It's on.

Blogaday 17 of 20

Day 17. Incredibly successful! Seventeen day writing streak! Are you kidding me?

Yeah, it's day 17. There are only three days after this one. I feel good today.

Yesterday was a very good day for me. Today, likewise, has been excellent. I feel like things make sense today and yesterday. I feel like I'm getting a better idea of where I fit into the world. I feel like, after these past two days, I've got a plan. I feel like I've got my head on straight and that I'm aware of my surroundings. For the first time in a lot of weeks, I feel like I'm in control here.

It's 1:30 AM, which is later than I'd like it to be. I took a very small nap today, but nothing major. I played one game of warcraft (did great, thanks), and read a lot of entertaining stuff I didn't have to read. I wrote four English responses, as well as the book club summary. I got our agenda ready for our council meeting tomorrow morning, and I brushed my teeth twice. Today has been an effective day.

After school I had a really long talk with Mama Withers about everything. I went in to ask her about some scholarship stuff, and we had a discussion for about an hour about a variety of topics. We talked about Andrew and Brad, and then college, and then girls, and then we got onto the really big subject of school and how I fit into all that. It was really really nice to talk to her about everything, just to be able to vent my ideas to somebody who's a lot older than me but that still respects me.

I came out of that little rendezvous with a plan. It's a plan that I'm incredibly excited about.

And I expected to have more time to write tonight. I wanted to make it sound all intense, do a big build up and all that. But it's late, and I have more important things to do. We're still going to get the important parts, but not so much of the fluff.

I graduate in five months. Terrifying, really, but the sense of urgency is suddenly upon me. I will only be stuck in that building with my peers for the next half year. After that, we're gone.

And once we're gone, my chance to make a difference there will be out the window. I believe that I have already made a difference at the school. Every small action I go for makes a difference. I've smiled at people and said hi to a few folks. Inversely, I've looked mean at a few. Both of those made differences at the school.

But I've got time left to try something big, and I'm going to go for it. I am in the position I need to be in to make it happen, and I'm going to go for it. What's the worst thing that could happen?

After talking with Mama Withers, I've decided that I am going to be incredibly vocal for the next five months.

I am going to start writing a ton of letters to the editor. That's probably the smallest part of what I'm going to do, but I'm still really excited to do it.

Blogaday day 20, with any luck, will end up on the principal's desk. That's not a guarantee, but I think that if things work out the way I want them to, I'm going to be writing an essay of sorts on how I feel about the school. Stuff like what I've observed, what I think are problems, what I think we can do to fix them. I'm going to write it up all official, send it through some revisions, and have it planted.

And I understand that I have no authority. I understand that what I say has a good chance of never being read. But, at the same time, I feel that it's my responsibility to do this. I am not in a leadership position for the student body. I am in no way officially affiliated with the front office. As far as they know, I am one hundred percent drone student. As a drone, I've been through the mill. I've seen what works for me and I've seen what doesn't work for me. I am a consumer here, and I feel like I've got the right and responsibility to let the manufacturer what's been good and what's been bad. Curse you adult roles.

But I'm going to go for it. I know it's not going to be much, but it'll be something. I think that I'm going to adopt it as my new style, pure vocalization. Blogaday has done something to me. I feel like it's catapulting me towards something greater. As cool as I feel blogaday was, its purpose was not perfection, but rather its purpose was to inspire me to greater things. I feel like I've got the power now to go make a difference. I think the way that I'm going to make that difference is going to be through writing.

So I'm going to start writing letters and emails and essays. I'll post what I can here, and I'll deliver everything else. I feel like I've got a golden opportunity here to make the world a better place, and I'm running with it. If nothing happens but the front office becoming tired of seeing my name on papers and the newspaper refusing to print one more of my entries, that's going to be ok. This isn't about me really. In a large way I guess it is, but it's not entirely about me. I don't think I'm doing this for glory. I think I'm doing this because I think it's the right thing to do. I think I'm doing this because I see the opportunity, and I don't want to let it fly away. This is the stuff I've always wanted to do. I'm going to start doing it.

And that's the plan. Right now it's very broad. I only have a few specific projects. The essay for the principal, the two letters to my counselor about graduation, and a few letters to the editor. I'm going to be on the prowl for more opportunities, obviously. This is day one of the new project. I think blogaday has been the same idea I want behind my project. Writing for the betterment of the community around us.

And that's really what this is about. It goes back to the flow of information, as most things tend to do. The more information we have, the better able we are to make good choices. The more good choices we make, the better everything becomes. Maybe I have information that I can share with somebody with some power that can make a difference. Maybe that information could help us all get even more information, to make things that much better. Maybe the only information we're really looking for is how students actually feel about stuff. I'm a student, and I'm going to start volunteering that information. Nobody has ever asked me for it, but I'm tired of waiting.

So I'm going advocate on you all. It's not something I've really done before, and it will definitely stretch me. It will help with my writing, that's for sure. I don't know where this will take me or anybody else, but I'm excited to give it a shot. It's an outside project, and I really do love that.

I hope this has made sense. I hope this hasn't terrified any of you. I know that it's risky, and I know that there's a huge chance of failure. I know that I'm setting myself up for embarassment and humiliation and all that great stuff. But that's what I feel like I've got to do. It's bold, and I haven't really slept on it yet. But I feel like it's a good thing to do, so I'm going to work on doing it.

As far as the timeline goes, Thursday night will be blogaday day 20. I'm not sure if I really want to do it this way, but it would seem awful fitting if blogaday day 20 was the rough draft for my essay to the principal. If that's the case, I can write it Thursday, work on it over weekend, and have that baby planted the first week of second semester. An edition of the newspaper comes out on Thursday, and that gives me plenty of fodder for letters to the editor. I have the Micron essay that I absolutely must write this week, and that takes priority over everything else. Today was the day I work on my GPA, and tomorrow and Wednesday are the days I finish this scholarship app. If I can have that completed by wednesday like I want to, I could start this next part of my adventures on Thursday. That doesn't seem like too bad of a plan.

Throughout all of this, it's going to be incredibly important for me to remember what's important. I'm putting myself in risky territory here. I'm going to need help from everybody. If I go crazy, you're going to need to tell me. If I hit the mark, right on, I'll need some warning on that one too.

This is something that I've got to try. I know that it'll be hard to stick to it. It'll take courage and work to actually make it happen.

But in a way, I've been preparing for this for the past 12 years of my life. I might as well give it a shot. What's the worst thing that could happen?

So here I go, louder than ever. It's time that these ideas move on from the blog and in to the real world. It's one thing to think, but it's another thing entirely to change those thoughts to action. I've not done it too often before, this is going to be new. I feel like it's the logical next step though, all things considered. I hope I'll have your support on this one.

Wish me luck, this is going to be incredibly intense.

Blogaday 16 of 20

Day 16. That's a perfect square, you know.

It's been a very good Sunday. Church was excellent, and meetings went very well. I haven't had a nap today, and I got a lot accomplished. I finished the morningside ad that we're showing in seminary monday and tuesday, and that feels pretty good. I've taken a look at school this next week, and I really think that I can pull it all off. There will be some work involved, but I think we're going to make it through. Today has been a good day. It's 10:40, and I'm looking to get to bed earlier than usual. I've got a review calc assignment to do before bed, but that shouldn't be too crazy. I'm thinking I might just take a look at it, but not do the actual problems.

I know that I've explained it before, but can I please just talk about why calculus is so incredible, one more time? Not only is the subject matter brilliant, but the way the class is structured makes me pretty happy. Assignments are weighted very very lightly. I'm missing four assignments and a quiz right now, but I've still got an A. Granted, and A is anything above 80 percent, but still, it's an A. Tests are 60 percent of the grade, and minitests are another 20. For an AP class, this is brilliant. It stresses ability to own a test as opposed to ability to slave through assignments. I do respect slaving through assignments, but there's a time and a place for it. I've always thought that knowing the material was more important than actually completing the assignment. I'm proud to say that I know my material, despite not finishing some of the assignments.

It's cool stuff like that that makes me happy. Stuff where the school system really just clicks and does something so entirely appropriate. It doesn't happen all the time, but I really do love the way we structure AP calc. Yeah, sometimes Kaelin does go on and do too many problems for us, but I still think we're getting by. The set up of the class is brilliant.

You know, I really don't have any burning need to post tonight. I'm here, writing, and that's all dandy, but I could be fine to just call it a night right now. I feel like I wrote a pretty good post last night. I feel like I've done a lot of good work today. This post doesn't really have much of a hole to fill today. I feel accomplished, and so the post isn't super necessary.

And perhaps that just means that instead of filling a hole, the post can just have an opportunity to explore and fly on its own.

I think that understand what this post is destined to do. I think that this post exists as an acceptance. I can accept today without a brilliant blog post. I can accept today for what it is and for what good has been done in the world. Today has been whole, even without a long blog post.

And so that's where I'm calling it. Day 16 is a happy day. Day 16 accepts the way things have been today, and also sends his regards to day 17. We need no discourse today, for today has been pretty dandy. I know that some of you out there have had pretty crappy days, and I grieve with you there. But today has been today, and that is the way that today has been. I think the best thing we can do now is lean forward and prepare to run with day seventeen.

This is blogaday day 16. It's a perfect square, and this square is peacing out for the evening. Much love~

Blogaday 15 of 20

Day 15. That's seventy-five percent completion. Three quarters of the marathon run. It hasn't been all of what I expected it to be, but I suppose that that's the point. Blogaday finds its beauty in its defenseless existence. It simply is. There aren't any official reasons that it exists, and that quality makes it nearly invulnerable. It doesn't matter if you hate blogaday, because blogaday doesn't have feelings. Blogaday's value doesn't change relative to how people feel about it. It's here because I said it would be here. It's defenseless and invulnerable. Kind of an interesting deal.

Today was Jimmy Falcon's, and I had a really good time. Everything went off very smoothly. The dance was a lot more fun than I expected it to be. I had my hair straightened for the first time ever. It didn't make much of a difference, but it was still a fun adventure. It was fun to dress up differently than I ever really have before. It was a very different style dance, but it was a good time.

I have a wound on one of my fingers, and I'm not sure where it came from. It's a pretty cool looking wound, just a long scratch really. It reminds me of how incredibly cool we really are. My skin is taking care of the wound as I sit here and type. It's been making progress on this baby since the moment I got it. Things have changed for that finger over the course of this day. Radical processes have been underway since 4 oclock this afternoon to make things right. It's cool to know I've got a man on the inside working on it. Those cells are pretty boss.

For many years, it's been against the rules for me or any of my friends to talk about the social ladder. Or the social circle. Or the social graph or anything else of that nature. It's been taboo to talk about where we stand, where others stand, and actions that people are taking to make sure they stand in one particular space. One can study pretty deeply into all of that nonsense. Me and my boys have always figured that the best way to solve the problem would be to ignore the problem, in this one, very particular, case.

This whole idea of a social caste system is interesting. I believe that it's a construct of our imaginations. I believe that if nobody believed in the caste system, it'd cease to exist. I've done my best to disbelieve in it. I try to not judge people based on how I think they fit into the spectrum. I don't like the idea of the system, and I still don't fully believe that it really is corporeal.

But I'm not necessarily here to talk about the "system". I would like to talk a very bit about this whole social business though. I've been wondering a bit lately about where I fit into things. I've been wondering about what my relationship is with certain people. What niche am I filling in this person's life, or this other person's?

Four of us made a little diagram of the social groupage in government a few days ago. As I understand things, I've always been in the same group as Levi, James, and Kyle. If all else fails, I can fall back on those guys. People have come and gone and got really really close to me, oftentimes a lot closer than I've been to any of those four. I've been better friends with people than I've been friends with those three. But things still remain, those three guys and I comprise a very basic unit in this diagram of groupage.

Mind you, the groupage isn't important. The diagram isn't important. It's just very interesting to note the niche that I fill in those three guys' lives compared to the niche I fill in others. It's interesting to note that none of those three even know I'm doing blogaday. James will occasionally stumble across the blog, but I'm willing to bet that's less than once a month, and I don't think he sticks around to read much. Kyle's not going to commit the time to read, and Levi is very rarely surfing the Internet. Even if those three knew how much I've been writing these past two weeks, I doubt they'd read it.

And really, I'm alright with that. I know that they are not in my audience. I don't pretend to fill that niche in their lives. Writing has been a big part of what I do lately, but that part of my life just isn't part of the crossing of us four's lives. It's just the way things are.

Parrish says I talk fast, and Kyle's mom doesn't understand much of what I say. A lot of people may perceive me as arrogant. Some people have never talked to me, but know my name. They've got no idea of the face, but they've heard the name or seen the pumpkin. Some people aren't aware of my existence. Some people were in my driver's ed class. What's my relationship with those people?

These past few weeks have been interesting in regards to relationships with people. I've been being attacked more than I have been in the past. I honestly have been attacked very very little- almost a negligible amount. But I've never been attacked before, it's a very interesting feeling.

I think my question here is, "where do I fit in with people?" I know that I fit in differently with every person that I associate with, but I'm asking that question for every single person. Is that the place I want to fit in with that person?

I fear that because of the way I've acted, I've become dissociated. I know it's taboo, but what if I really am just a name to some people? What if I've somehow become a legend to one single kid, but that kid doesn't know how I really am? What if I've never been anything personal to that kid?

I've talked with a few people about this stuff lately. It's been interesting to see their answers. I've been coming to this point for a very long time. Girls have said that I'm intimidating. That really surprised me when I heard it. I never aimed to be intimidating.

But apparently I am, and that's a very very interesting situation to be in. How could I become something that I never even tried to become? Did it just come with the territory? Was it bagged and lard'ed on to some other decision that I made?

And it's not like I'm intimidating just any girls. It's good friends that I've known for three years now. People I've talked with and done a lot of business with.

And I don't purport to have these girls shaking in their boots. But am I scary enough to prevent a girl from coming up to me and telling me something she needs to tell me? Maybe.

And I know that this is taboo, I really do. I know that I'm not supposed to be saying any of this. Perhaps this will be the very first post in a very long time that I want to delete come morning time. It's risky territory, because it's socially unacceptable, at least according to my feelings, to talk about stuff like this. It's in bad taste.

But perhaps it needs to be talked about. I want to be known by people for the way that I make them feel. I believe that I've got accomplishments, yeah. I know they're not huge, but they mean something to me. I know that my name gets tossed around a bit. I know they made that typo on the email. Yeah, I know that Harward talks about me to his juniors sometimes.

But I don't want to be a shadow. I don't want to just be a silhouette, where people only have an idea of me. I'd love to be accepted or rejected or feared or loved based on the kind of person that I am.

It's an interesting situation to be in. I think that we all, more or less, find ourselves in a situation. Some are complained about, others are rejoiced over. Some people air their grievances publicly, and others wet their pillows over it under the moon.

The situation is based upon this construct, and the construct plays with imaginary currency. It doesn't really matter, at all. This social ladder, this social whatever it is, doesn't even exist. But we empower it when we give it credence.

And for a construct that doesn't exist, it sure does interesting things to us.

I worry that the imaginary lines are getting in the way of real interaction. I worry that I'm missing opportunities because of the imaginary rules. I worry that I judge others, and that others judge me, based on this social constitution that's never been penned.

I suppose it goes back to a question we talked about a while ago. "When did I become me?" Who me is depends upon how we define our worth. Do I find my worth through accomplishments, through the perceptions of others, through my kindness and service? Is it my reflection in the mirror, the state of the minivan? Is it what my teachers think of me, my test scores and my GPA? How do I define my worth?

And how I define my worth leads to how I want to metered by others. What do I want them to look at? When they're evaluating me, what metric do I want them to use? What do I want to judged on?

I think that understanding that is pretty crucial. I also think that I don't have the answer to that question as firmly as I'd like to. I think I know what it is, yeah, but I don't know if I work on it as much as I ought to. If I do know the answer, I ought to be making that one of the most important things. Because if that's how I define my worth, and if I'm interesting in increasing my own personal worth, I ought to be working on it.

How do I see myself? How do others see me? Are either of those important? Are they the same, or different? If they are different, is that my fault, or theirs? If they are different, is that important? If it is important, what can I do to change that?

Now, I don't want one to get the idea that I'm incredibly dissatisfied with my life. I don't want you to think that I hate everybody, either. I don't think that I'm a victim, and I don't think that the world owes me. But this discrepancy between how I want to be seen and how I am seen is interesting. It's interesting because I didn't work to make it happen, but it did. It's interesting because I don't know what I can do to necessarily change it. It's a very interesting situation.

Do you remember that sandwich I wrote about a week or so ago? I said I'd made a sandwich, but had only finished half of it. I said I wouldn't finish the rest that night, and I predicted that I'd just throw it away the next day. You know, I didn't throw it away. I ate it the very next day after school. It was still on my desk, and it definitely tasted better the second day than it did the first. I was a lot more hungry the second day, I think that's why.

And why mention the sandwich, after going on for so long about something that looks a lot deeper? There are lots of reasons, really. Maybe I'm trying to make a point about how important things really are. I'm not, really, but it's not a bad idea. I think I wanted to end the sandwich story. I had started it, and wanted to do it justice. The sandwich did get eaten. It fulfilled the measure of its creation.

Indeed, friends, it's time to wrap blogaday day 15 up. It's been a good post to write. I think it's been good for me. In any event, I hope that you're all doing well. I hope that you find the happiness that you're looking for. This is the end of blogaday day 15.

Blogaday 14 of 20

Day 14. That's two straight weeks. It's been a big deal. I've appreciated it, but I'm going to be rejoicing when this is all over.

A lot of things are going to be changing once blogaday is through. It will end within a day of first semester ending. I'm hoping to turn things around really soon. The end of term is always stressful, but this time around it's an entirely different stress. It's not so much about schoolwork as it is about sleep and life in general. I meant to get to bed earlier tonight, but I'm not going to make it by too much. It's 1 AM right now, so I'll be in bed well before three, that's good. It's still not as early as I'd have liked. I do get to sleep in tomorrow morning. I won't be able to get a nap tomorrow, so maybe that's what it'll take to get me back into the saddle, at least for the next week.

Next week is going to be very interesting. It's the last four days of first semester. I only have to go to government twice more. I always have a really good idea about where my grades stand when the end of term rolls around. Right now I'm sitting on a 4.0, but that could change without me knowing it. The big risk is English. Grades haven't been updated, aside from participation, for months. I know I'm probably missing a few responses, and I've still got a fab vocab test to make up. I'm not worried about either of them, but it's whole mystery factor that frightens me. I don't know if there's something that I've missed. I don't know, honestly, what's all due next week. I have hardly touched hamlet. I know that my book club summary is due, as well as our photostory. I hope that that's it. Assuming I've gotten most of my responses in, I should pull the A in there. I just wish I knew where I stood.

Aside from English though, school isn't incredibly stressful this next week. We have three tests in Calculus, and I'm nothing but excited for them. Calculus is an incredibly cool class. I've been keeping up on my work, so I feel really confident going into this. Kaelin drops the lowest of the three minitests, and I nailed the last two without any wrong, so I don't have to worry about that one. There are two big tests, and if I get anywhere above a 92 on either of them I'll be entirely set. I know the material, and I'm pretty excited to have a go at it.

Calculus makes me happy. I was 30 minutes late to class today, and 70 minutes late yesterday, but it's honestly what keeps the classic version of me happy with school. I know that I'm going to learn something in calculus. There's no question, it's going to happen. I'm going to walk out of the classroom a little bit of a better person. It's a standard. A lot of school for me right now isn't giving me much. There's a few classes that I don't ever feel like going to. But when all of my other classes fail me and let me down, I know I'll still have calculus.

Adult roles looks pretty secure. I've perfected all my chapter tests, and since those are weighted fifty percent, things are looking pretty good. I'm currently sitting at 97 percent in there, and the only thing pending is the communication test we took. I know I didn't perfect it, but there wasn't too much in there that I'm worried about. I'd have to have a very very bad score to drop me three percentage points, so I'm pretty happy in there.

It's almost impossible not to get an A in mads.

Choir is all taken care of, so that's good news.

There's a test in government this week, and I'm not entirely prepared for it. I have no idea what to expect. Mclerin said it'd be really easy, so I ought to walk right through it. It's just amendments one through eight, so no real big deal.

There really aren't that many pending assignments. Everything that's looming is English. I've also got a video to get edited for seminary by monday morning. That will be really easy though, and fairly entertaining. It'll be fun to edit it. I'll probably take care of that Sunday.

I've also got an essay to write for Micron. I've been meaning to get around to it for a few weeks now, but never have. The scholarship app is due a week from tomorrow, so I really need to get moving on it. All that really remains to be done is to talk to the registrar and have her fill a little bit out, and then write my essay. It's only two pages, and the question is one I'm really excited to answer. Like I've said before, my odds for getting this scholarship are astronomically low, but I'm still going to give it my best shot. What's the worst thing that could happen? It's already made me think a lot about my future, so that's been beneficial. Even if I score no money out of it, I learned a bit about myself.

And that's really the same deal with my sterling scholar portfolio. It's a brute to put together, and I really hold no hopes about winning region. I'm doing it because I'm supposed to. The process of doing it has taught me stuff though. As much as I don't really like making it, I've been forced to analyze some of the stuff I've done in the past. It was a good experience.

So that's the state of the union regarding school. It's insane to think that end of term is in four school days. It's so close. It doesn't feel as close as it is. Everything always seems to stack up at end of term. I guess this isn't any real difference. We've got a morningside on wednesday. It's going to be really good. We've done a decent job advertising I think, and we've still got a bit to roll out once the new week hits. I'm excited for it.

Jimmy Falcon's tomorrow. That'll be good times. My group has been really cool about it, which has been nice. Kirt pulled through for us very nicely. I love how very relaxed we've been about it all. Preparing for this dance has been an almost zero stress experience. We're not doing anything elaborate, and I'm excited to go have a good time. By all means, it should be a very fun adventure.

My parents are out of town for today and most of tomorrow. I've realized that I enjoy an extremely large amount of freedom, even when they're home. In fact, there's almost no difference between what I would have done today had they been here or had they been away. Dinner was different, but other than that, things are the same. This level of freedom is a very two edged sword. I can guarantee that if mom and dad rode me harder about bed times, I wouldn't be in the current mess that I'm in. School suffered terribly today because of my sleep patterns. I've been very late to calculus twice because of my sleep patterns. Important things are suffering. But mom and dad are way cool about it. They let me know that I'm a doofus for staying up as late as I have, but they don't say "You've gotta go to bed." They always say "You should go to bed." It's a good deal.

Freedom like this is always interesting to me. I crave it, but at the same time I fear the absolute truth that it brings. I always find myself thinking "If I just had one free day, I could get so much done!" and then I have a free day and sleep through the waking hours and post and play video games through the sleeping ones.

Who's excited for college? Oooh oooh, me. Who's a little wary about summer? Oooh, oooh, me!

This will obviously be a pretty intense summer. I don't know entirely what to expect. I hope to get a job, as I really really need one. I know I'll be doing PLC the first week. I want to go running, and I want to spend time with good people, obviously. I hope to play a lot of Ultimate while we've still got the chance. It'll finally be time for the reunion game we talked about two years ago. We need to make sure we're going to win by then. I don't want to lose to a bunch of rm's who haven't played more than four times in the past two years of their lives. That's going to be an adventure though. Playing ultimate with Andrew again? Do you know how long that's been? Of course you do, it will have been two years, but come on! I miss the old dog. It'll be amazing to play ultimate with Brad again too. That kid can fly.

I've been thinking about this blogaday business, obviously. I'm thinking maybe next time I get inspired to do something challenging, I'll call a scholarshipaday. That one has financial incentive. Blogaday is cool and all, but scholarships would be even cooler. There are a lot of little ones that don't require much. The only thing standing in my way, most of the time, is the essay. I've been writing long winded posts every night for the past two weeks. Why not write essays instead?

This post has been a little bit of a let down, really. Not to be a downer, but it hasn't had the inspirational breakthrough that most blogaday posts have possessed. I am not sure whether or not an opportunity for inspiration has knocked. I'm pretty sure I'm not in a positive to run with the opportunity if it did come, though. I'm tired and lazy and surviving today.

See, there's always a difference between surviving and thriving. The very last thing I do every night before I pray and go to sleep is to bust out my half sheet of legal paper and make a to-do list for the next day. It doesn't happen every night, but it's really been helping me be more effective. I can always tell what kind of day tomorrow is going to be by how my to-do list looks. I love days where I have a ton of things to do, but I know that I can do them all. I love small steps towards getting something awesome done. It's always daunting when I have to put "Write essay" on the paper. It feels better when I can break it down into segments. You can't really break down, "write essay", but I like to make big tasks into little ones. The moral of the story is that some nights I can write "Thrive" as a to-do. Other nights, I'm forced to write "Survive". I can usually call what kind of day it's going to be.

Tomorrow is invariably tied to what happens today. Tomorrow will inherit the preparation or lack thereof of its predecessor. Today can rob tomorrow of many opportunities. Likewise, it can bestow a lot of golden chances, if today is willing to work for it. I can usually tell how tomorrow will be based on how I've acted today.

And I think that's been one of the problems of these past few weeks and this current sleep cycle. I get to bed so late that I figure that tomorrow is going to be a wash anyways.

As a matter of curiosity, my days are incredibly fragmented. In about an hour I'll go to sleep. If tomorrow were a school day, I'd be looking forward to 3.5 to 4 hours or sleep, sometimes a little less. I'd wake up, bust out the mad school action, and then come home and sleep for 2 to 3 hours. I'd then be awake for however long, do stuff, and then go back to bed for another 3.5 to 4 before school.

It almost feels like there are two days in one. There's a school day, and there's a home day. They're almost the same length, and they're both preceded by almost the same amount of sleep.

Now, this pattern has only been going on for two weeks, seeing as school's only been in for two weeks since the break. I slept similar to this during the break, but it didn't matter, because I could always sleep in.

And I know that i've talked a lot about this cycle throughout blogaday. For as much as I've talked about it and thought about it, I've done very little to change it. That's bad news. I don't like it at all. There's work to be done on it. And, like I said, I hope tomorrow is a good first step towards fixing it.

Is tomorrow going to be a thrive day, or a survive day? It's definitely got opportunity to be a thrive day. It's not set up as golden as I'd like it to be, but it's not going to be shafted like most school days this week have been. I'm looking forward to a minimum of seven hours of sleep, and that's beautiful. I've got a basketball game and a date. I know that if all else fails, at least dinner will be delicious.

Tomorrow isn't shafted, and that's a good feeling. I need to work on making sure that I continue to not shaft the future. I lost a few days this week, this one included, to the future-shaft. It's a bad feeling, but at the same time, I know that there's nothing to do but move on and do better next time.

I've got work to do, it's that easy. Understanding what that work is will be integral to success. I've been making school work this week, at a minimum. This week has been one of survival. The flashes of inspiration that mark a thriving and growing week have been there, but not as often as I'd like. I haven't made much progress towards going to college for cheap. I haven't made much progress towards mission prep. I haven't made much progress to being a healthier person, although there has been some.

I did manage to write five posts so far. I have read, and I'm yet to fall over and die. I've played two games of basketball, with another one scheduled for tomorrow. I've learned some amazing calculus. I've gotten a little bit better at warcraft. I know warcraft doesn't count for anything, but hey, at least it was fun. I've sung a lot, but not as much as I'd have liked to. I've brushed my teeth.

The moral of my story is thus: there's a new chance to begin fresh really really soon. I'm excited to hit this next week hard. I've got a few things I need to absolutely get done before next weekend, and I'm going to do them. I want to get as much as possible closed up, so I can be entirely fresh once school starts again.

I'm surviving, there's no question about that. I will make this work. I'm becoming less and less satisfied with mere survival though. I want to flourish and grow and thrive, and I'm ready to work for an opportunity to do it. I've thought about blogaday this whole week as a pair of shackles. Good things have come of it, but it's been a lot of work during the wrong part of a clock. I have an opportunity to turn that around and start doing some better stuff. I've got an opportunity to sleep well and be ready to give school the shot it deserves. I'm excited to be ready to write this essay. I'm excited for this morningside on wednesday. It's a sacrifice, surely, but hey, maybe it'll change my life. I'm excited for no school friday.

I need to work hard, but I'm going to get to the point where I can give next week a fair shot. This week got pillaged, and there's nothing I can do about that now. It is what it is. I'm going to make sure it doesn't happen to next week.

And so, for blogaday 14, that's it. A rambling post that went everywhere but never got much of anywhere. Hey, it's blogaday, that's the way it goes. I think if somebody were to analyze the patterns down the road, 14 would be the point where it turned around. I'm entering end game soon. 14 is really the last of the posts that doesn't feel like I'm getting close to the final note. I think that it's becoming apparent that I've been doing this for a while though. This is a tired post. Both from my point of view and blog's point of view. This post is surviving, and I think that's mostly it. It's not smiling because of its accomplishments, it's smiling because it didn't get hit by a bus.

Is it a tragedy? I don't think so. It's the way that things are. The time to mourn that and change that is long gone. Our best shot now is to say goodbye to 14 and move on, get ready for 15.

This ship is sailing onward. Regardless of today, I'm going to work to get tomorrow where it needs to be. This is blogaday day 14. I'm out.

Blogaday 13 of 20

Wow, day 13. It's going to be an interesting one.

It's currently 3:12 PM, significantly earlier than I've ever blogaday'd. I'm currently at the high school, in the media center. I'm typing this on a computer in bondage. Internet blocks for the loss.

I can't access any blogs, or anything even remotely related to blogs. Popular science has a blog that they update several times a day. Right now they're doing a ton of coverage of CES, consumer electronics show or something like that. It's all the consumer tech for the next couple years, it's pretty important business. This year a few companies are showcasing handheld projectors. They're about I-pod sized, and you can beam a 50 inch image onto a wall in a dark room. In a light room, you can still bust out an 11 inch masterpiece. Tech like that is dang impressive. As time goes on we'll be able to shrink the size even more. One could theorize that we could bust out these projectors on cell phones or ipods themselves. Laptops could come with a tiny projector built right in. It'd make presentations incredibly easy. Sharing video would be super easy.

So CES is pretty cool stuff, and I'd love to go read about it. But I can't, because weblogs/personal webpages are evil. Yeah, give me a break.

In ninth grade, everybody in the journalism class received the assignment to start a blog. I had to do some research to figure out -

Bahahaha, I'm getting kicked out. That's ridiculous. Broken school computers for the win!

So, I'm out. I'll finish this later. This place is a joke.

Whoosh, I'm back. I'm at home now. I have a churchball game in 2 hours, and I'm very excited about it. My ward is at 6:45, and kyle's is at seven. I'm going to Kyle's. I feel a little bad about just shafting my stake, but I've got a commitment to Kyle's ward, and there's no commitment to mine. Any time I can make it to both, I will. Tonight's just a night that I only get to play with Kyle's. I'm really looking forward to it though. It's basketball, and I do love basketball.

But yeah, I'm sleepy, so I'm going to finish this later. Yay for three part posts.

Whoosh, I'm back. It's now 1:22 AM. I'm happy because it's earlier than usual. It's still late, and I'm still unhappy about the fact that it's late. But I'm aware that things could be worse.

This cycle that I'm in, the sleeping deal, isn't going to fix itself. I think the trouble here is that I'm entirely capable of living through it. Even if nothing changes, I'm not going to die. Because of that, it's difficult for me to do something significant to change it. I know that it's necessary. I do not want to keep this up. It's a bad cycle and habit to be in as it is, and I figure it'll only get worse as time goes on. I will have to do something about this.

But it's blogaday, and I've committed to writing. so, therefore verily, write I shall.

I had my meeting with Parrish today. It was interesting, I guess. It wasn't what I expected. I got dinged pretty hard with the whole "You write like a sexist pig" treatment like Nick did. I don't know about all that, it kinda bugged me. I can see where she's coming from, I guess, but I don't think it's as big of a deal as she says it is. Maybe it's because I'm a guy and have never been "repressed" or whatever.

The problem is that I represent the entirety of humanity with male terms. "She is representative of man's struggle with nature." I use "man" to represent humanity. I would use humanity, but I just used humanity in the last sentence, and I don't find that repeating words two sentences in a row is the most effective way to write. "Man" represents something. I don't literally mean that only males have that struggle against nature. I don't mean to leave women out of the deal at all. It's just the word that I'm using to represent the entirety of humanity. I would have said the entirety of mankind in that last sentence, but she doesn't like that one either.

I don't know, I figure it's not a big deal and all that, but I felt like I had really offended her unintentionally and that my essays were trash because of it. Kinda obnoxious.

And I know I'm going to get dirty looks from the audience for saying this. It's heresy to feel this way about Parrish. Kyle will be clapping, but other than that I figure I'll be shunned. I've Karl was residing in a grave, he'd be rolling in it.

We talked a lot about my style. She made the point that Nickmo has often alerted me to, that I write the same way I talk. She didn't say that this was necessarily a bad thing, but she said that I needed to learn the time and place to write like that and the time and place to write like a machine.

Yeah, that's probably not a bad idea. But it did feel like my style was under attack a little bit. And I know, I know, she prefaced everything she said with "It's hard to put my finger on this" and "You're a good writer, but in order to be a great writer..."

And she's right. According to the old rules, in order for me to be a great writer, I need to learn to write with no voice. I need cold hard analysis and nothing else, at certain times. There's still a time and place for my voice, but I need to learn to shut it up when the time is right for it.

And I understand that, but I don't know if I accept it. I don't know if I'm willing to play by the old rules. I write the way I do for a reason. I know that my writing isn't perfect by any means, but I love it for what it is.

I've developed this style over a lot of years. It comes from the Bible and Book of Mormon and The Simpsons and SNL Celebrity Jeopardy and the Battle.net Forums and numerous blogs and Popular Science and Harry Potter and all sorts of other stuff. I've borrowed extensively.

I write informally, all the time. I do that because that's the way I want to be heard. I believe that in order for me to be the most effective, I need to write informally. Parrish asked me to consider how I would write an essay for the AP American History test, trying to get me to admit that I needed to be cold. I responded by saying that I believed that since the graders had just been reading the exact same essay over and over again for the past five days, that any breath of fresh air or humor would cheer them up and force them to give me a five. I really believe it.

And I think that's part of the reason that I write the way I do. Because I believe in the individual. I don't believe that we can stereotype all college professors as stodgy old coots that would burn me at the stake for considering myself their equals. I believe that everybody is an individual and that they think and act and feel for themselves, regardless of what they're "supposed" to think or do because of their profession's stereotypes. I want to talk to people, not to nameplates or titles.

So what am I saying here? I'm saying that I don't necessarily agree with the counsel I got this afternoon. I know that from an academic stand point, Parrish is absolutely correct. She knows more than me here, and academically speaking, there's no question whether or not I ought to listen to her.

But my writing is more than academics to me. I don't write to get the A or impress the teacher. I write to live. I write the way I do for a reason. Those reasons are based on the deepest fundamental beliefs I hold about the world around me and how I fit into it. I understand that my writing won't work for certain people. But my beliefs about people in general prevents me from giving it up, at least not yet. If what I believe about people is true, I can't help but believe that my way of writing is going to be my best shot at getting my point across. I write the way I do because I believe it'll help me accomplish what I need accomplished.

And so I find myself in an interesting pickle. I am at a crossroads between laying down and accepting what I've been told to do, or taking an entirely inconsequential stand based upon my belief system.

And as far as pickles go, this one isn't too earth-shaking. My decision will probably go entirely unnoticed. I probably won't even feel much of an effect from it. I'll still write the way I write, that's for sure. I'll revise my essays the way she asked me to, but my writing, and by that I mean my journal, my emails, my blogging, and any public speeches I give, will remain one hundred percent me and my style.

It's just rare that I find myself weighing what I know to be right academically to what I believe to be right personally. I know it's stupid, but I believe in people, and I believe that people aren't looking for the old rules any more.

Writing is interesting to me. I do it a lot. I think about it a lot. It's kind of a big deal.

~

I'm sitting here in my mad pajamas. This is the first time I've worn them since Dec. 19. Tonight will be the very first night I spend in these pajamas. Because of the frantic schedule of December, I never did sleep a night in them. I took a few naps at school, sure, but they were always neatly folded in my drawer at night, ready to be worn tomorrow. I washed them often. They were a uniform, not pajamas.

And I've had plenty of opportunity to wear them to bed before now. It's been hard to take them, though, because for as long as I've known these pajamas they've been for singing, not for sleeping. Making the transition from special pajamas to normal pajamas is something that I've never had to be involved with before.

Perhaps I've been delaying the wearing of these pajamas because of the finality it all represents. I've never been much of one for the sentimental, but this really means that I'm not going to be prancing about in these pajamas or slippers any more. That chapter of my life has effectively ended. I've always been pretty good at the page turn between chapters. And I'm not trying to say that I'm an emotional nutcase over here about the pajamas, but it's interesting to note that tonight's the first night, even though I'vehad plenty of opportunities. That obviously means something, right?

So I've sat for the last seven minutes or so and haven't typed anything. I've thought about plenty of stuff. Some related, some unrelated. I do that at night. Especially when I've got something to write into in front of me. I spend a long time in my journal each night, but not necessarily a long time writing in my journal. A lot of it is just wandering through thoughts. I'm not sure if it's an intentional response or just daydreaming, but it's an interesting effect. I just experienced seven minutes of grade-A thinking. Score one for me.

I think it grows late. I understand that this post doesn't really have a conclusion of any sort. It's been penned in three separate sessions, under three very different circumstances. At one time I was in a suit, at the school. I was then at home, in my jeans. And now here I am, home, several hours later, in my Christmas pajama get-up. The post itself has kind of been all over the place. Kinda been all over the place? Kind have been all over the place? I seem to have forgotten what kinda is supposed to mean or represent. Odd how words just randomly drop out of association in my brain sometimes. Usually it takes staring at one for a really long time until individual letters seem to look so funny. But here I am, not staring at anything, and I've forgotten, subconsciously, what kinda really means. Kind have? Kind of? Some kind of tube? Yeah, maybe that starts to make sense. I'm not poistive though.

It grows late, and I'm sure excited for bed. This cat is out of here. It's blogaday day 13, and I talked to a very educated lady about my writing today. It's blogaday day 13, and I'm ignoring every bit of advice she gave me. Funny how that works, eh?

Blogaday 12 of 20

Day 12. That's a pretty big number.

Tonight is setback number one for my new plan to fix my sleeping habits. It's currently 2:27 AM. That's late. It's not what I wanted, but it's where I'm left because of the choices that I made today. I just spent a long time watching Michael play half life. Incredible game really. Me and Michael are really good at backing each other up on video games. We spent 40 hours playing Kotor together over the labor day break a while ago. It's a single player game, but we'd both always be there. We'd always back up with suggestions, reminders to save the game, and any ideas when we got stuck. It really was quite an adventure. It's time consuming, but it's got to count at least a little bit for bonding, right?

I had a plan for a post tonight, but throughout the evening I've grown less and less fond of that idea for this evening. I still like the idea, and will probably still use it soon, but I've got something else in mind. Because of time constraints, and just because of how I'm feeling, we're going in a different direction. The ideas I want to talk about tonight aren't really new. If one is willing to dig deep enough, they could actually find references to them in a post a little less than a year ago. But I really only briefly brushed them back then, so I want to revisit them. Just like old times, take this post for what it's worth. It's blogaday. I'm going to say some stuff, and if you don't like it, well, it's blogaday, get over it. Hooray!

So I've been thinking a bit about school spirit again. What is school spirit, really? I think, loosely defined, that it's loyalty to one's school, and the desire to see it succeed. I don't know what the level of school spirit is at Tville right now. It could be up, it could be down. That's not necessarily the question.

But I've got an idea how it could be raised. But really, we don't even have to talk about school spirit right now. Let's forget we even started out with that. We're going to come at this from another angle.

As a student, I've noticed a deficiency at the school. I point this deficiency out as a participant and part of the problem. I am affected by this deficiency though, so I'm totally just going for it.

The school lacks communication. I have never once watched an entire episode of TVTV. I was enrolled in the class for a day. I had two brothers that worked on TVTV for multiple years they were at the school. I've got lots of good friends in the class. I've never seen a full episode. I saw a bit of when they showed the cross country team last year. And I remember that our sophomore year they had one really cool intro with the action figures and stop motion animation. Other than that, I've got nothing.

I've heard the announcements, in their entirety, maybe four times over the intercom. The 'com is just too quiet and the classrooms just too loud.

I do read the newspaper, more or less. I've even written for the newspaper once or twice. I do sometimes read the fliers on the walls, as I've been responsible for a few of them. I check the school calendar online when I need to know the date for something. It's not like I'm ignoring the admins here.

But the fact remains that I am not receiving the information that the administration is trying to hit me with. I fully believe that the administration recognizes this. We find ourselves in a pickle.

What will communication do for a school? Here we can introduce school spirit. I think that all esteem, be it self esteem or this whole school spirit business, is based upon achievement. I know that that's not all of it, but we can feel good about ourselves when we do good things. Likewise, we can feel good about ourselves as a school when we pull great stuff off. If our football team takes state, we're obviously going to feel good about ourselves.

But what if the football team takes state and nobody at the school hears about it? What if the football team didn't even know it? It happened, but we didn't hear it. Would that make us feel good about ourselves? Nah, I don't think it would have. Somewhere in the universe, something has been affected by us winning state. But at the school, nothing has changed.

Without communication, even when we're doing good things, like our monumental food drives in the past or our cancer initiative this year, if we can't hear about them, we can't feel good about it. Simply knowing that we exist, knowing that we're breathing and moving along would make us feel good. Right now I don't even know if we know that much.

The problem is compounded though. We are already pulling off great things, that's true, but how do we go about pulling off more great things? The way I see it is that in order to do anything great, we'd need the backing of the whole student body. If not the whole, than at least a significant portion. And how are we to rally the whole student body behind us if the whole student body has no idea we're attempting something great? If we can't communicate with them, we'll never be able to harness their power.

So we've got a communication problem. That problem is making us run less effectively as a school, it's keeping us from enjoying our existing successes, and it's preventing us from having significantly more successes.

So, in theory, if we could eliminate this problem, we'd run more effectively, we'd be happier as a student body, and we'd be able to pull off amazing things. This is kind of a big deal here.

And once again, I know that I've got no official power over at the school. I am writing this as an observer, as one who goes to school there. This isn't an open letter to the principal, unless the principal happens to read my blog or somebody prints it and hands it to him. This is just what I've been thinking about.

If one were to fix the communication problem, how would they go about doing it? The way I see it, our current system is broken. It is clearly not working, at least not for me. We have 20 minutes a day dedicated to channel one and TVTV. Government on A days doesn't watch because Mclerin says the TV doesn't get it. I'm pretty sure he knows that we're getting it, but that he's making sure it's not turning on. It turned on today, and we turned it off. We don't want to watch it. On B days we usually let the TV run, yeah, but nobody's listening. Even if somebody did want to listen, they wouldn't be able to for the noise. It's ineffective.

So change is obviously in order. I think if the administration is really going to fix this problem, they need to start enforcing channel one and TVTV. It seems to me as if the teachers don't care. They're not making us watch, and so we're not watching. If we were compelled to be quiet and to watch, we'd learn something from it. We'd hear the announcements. It'd be a wonderful thing.

That's one step, but I don't know if it'd be enough. If one were to truly mobilize the student body to do great things, we'd have to go further. It's a new day and age, and we might as well keep up with it. The student officers have already adopted mass texts as means of getting announcements out. I applaud this. I learned about the senior baby pictures today. I hadn't heard a thing about them before, but I got a "reminder" tonight, and so I'm going to go for it. I appreciate that the students have started using technology to make their lives easier and my life better. As a whole, I think the school ought to go that direction.

As much as I despise myspace, how much of the school is on the nefarious network? I understand that you wouldn't reach 100 percent of the population. It might actually be closer to 20 percent, but still, that's 20 more percent than you're getting right now. Assign the historian to maintain a High School myspace account. She can seek out all the students and friend them and pepper them with reminders and bulletins and other good stuff. All the sudden we'd have kids that could communicate back with the school now, too. If they want to come by and say that we suck, well, they're more than welcome to do that. It's 20 percent more of the population you're getting.

I know this is coming just because of the way that I am, but could I please sign up to get the announcements emailed to my inbox? I can't hear a word Horton says, but I'll read anything that comes by the box. It'd be incredibly easy to set up. Yeah, you'd have to have one person type the announcements all up one day, but isn't that already happening? People submit their email addresses and a mass email is sent out to those who want it. We get the information without them expending much energy. It'd be more percentage of the population. We're currently not reaching them, so anything is a good step forward.

Once again, another one from my sphere, but why can't somebody maintain a school blog? If we alerted the students to its presence and set the school computers to have it as the homepage, it could work. It'd be a great project for a web design class or the newspaper. Maintaining a professional blog is becoming a real profession, and it'd be an easy stone to kill two birds with. Teach some kids something, and get the information out to the masses. One could post announcements, recaps of sporting events, anything that's relevant. Yeah, we wouldn't hit the whole population, but at least I'd know what's going on.

One thing that goes along with all of this is the need for the announcements and TVTV to be cleaned up. The announcements, so far, have never proven themselves worth listening to. I think that's one reason none of us actually do listen. I think a lot of air time on that PA system is wasted. There are some announcements that need to be aired, but some announcements that don't need to be. If there's an announcement that's only going to affect three people, maybe it'd be better to send them little office notes instead of turning off the whole student body from the announcements. I think that if TVTV was freaking awesome, more of us would watch. I honestly don't know the quality of the show, I haven't seen anything for two years. But I bet if it was incredible, we'd watch.

I just think that before we can tackle any other issues at the school, we need to fix this communication plug. It goes back to the fundamental theory I've been working with for the last really long time. The more information one has, the better able that individual is to make good choices. Good choices leads to a better life, and therefore, more information leads to a better life.

We're not getting any information down here at the student level. There is much that can be done, very easily, to increase the amount of information that we're getting. I believe that increasing the flow of information will make the school a much better place.

I do believe in the school, and I'm not complaining over here. I love it. I just want to point out that we've got a problem, and that we really ought to fix it. We have the tools already at our disposal. I think we ought to recognize the problem and smack it in the face.

The flow of information is incredibly important. Our world is becoming more and more reliant on that very flow of information. We will only continue on this pathway. Effective communication will save us. It's not that hard to pull off. Who's with me?