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?

Blogaday 11 of 20

Day 11 - it's taking a toll.

It's 9:18 PM right now. If anybody's been watching the time stamp on my other posts or catching the times I drop, 9 PM looks like sunrise compared to when I've been writing the past 10 nights. So in a way this night has a lot of fundamental differences between it and other nights. I'm showing up three to five hours earlier than usual, but I'm also much more tired than usual. I'm less in love with blogaday than usual as well.

Last night was a little crazy. I got to bed a little after three. Nobody's fault but mine, of course, but it was still late. I've been getting to bed at three a lot lately. Most days I just accept it, because I've had a nap, and I figure that I'll survive. But I felt pretty bad about it last night because I knew I had a council meeting this morning at 6:15. I looked at the clock and realized that I had to be at the building in three hours. I was scheduled to get about two hours of sleep.

I had taken more than a two hour nap, so I thought it was a little insane that my official night's sleep was piecemeal compared to it. Things were obviously messed up.

I functioned well during the meeting and at school today. I only fell asleep during appropriate times. I had a really good calculus class, and seminary was really good as well. I got home and played some warcraft, and then crashed as I am wont to do.

And really, I am functioning. I know I've said it before, but I am not failing my classes because of my sleep. I'm not ruining relationships with people that are important to me. My kidneys are not shot because of the schedule my body is on.

But at the same time, I recognize that this can't be good for me. However skilled my body be at adapting to the stresses placed upon it, wouldn't it just be a better idea for me to get a hearty chunk of rest? Imagine what I could be capable of if I was getting a solid seven to eight hours a night, in one chunk. I think I'd be more alert and happier. I think I'd probably take better care of my kidneys. I think that I'd probably be able to use more of my brain, and that's always a great deal.

Yeah, I'm not dead, but I know this isn't the way that things are supposed to be. I definitely got carried about with the new routine of blogaday and white strips. Both things are very good for me, but both were poorly timed. I was able to not feel bad about going to bed so late because I was doing really good stuff super late. I was furthering my goals, which was awesome.

But there's a time and place for all things, and I can further my goals before midnight. I'm not going to hold myself back because this is the sleep cycle I just happen to be in. I can break out of this. It'll be a bit of a brutal few weeks as I work on it, but I believe I can do it. I want to see what it will do for me. I really think it will make my life better. I have no idea in what manner it'll do it, but I'm really excited to find out.

So here I am, with a problem. It's not monumental, but it's a problem and it's been holding me back from my full potential. It's time to get rid of that problem. Historically, I've been terrible at sleeping patterns anyways. But history doesn't matter so much, I'm going to take a stand and make it happen. It's go time.

La la la la. So what's the news?

It's Tuesday, January 8th, 2008. This has been the least upbeat of all blogaday posts so far. Perhaps it's time to change that?

I played two games of dota today. For the uninitiated, dota (pronounced [D'oh-tuh]) is a custom game type for Warcraft III. If you've been around me and my boys, you've heard us talking about it. We played incredible amounts during December. After nearly every mad performance we'd all drive home and squeeze in a game or two together before we had to be back to sing again. It's fun because we can always play together. There are seven mads (James counts) that play. Teams are made of five, so it's not too hard for us to make a few phone calls and start a game of at least four guys. We have fun playing and bonding. It gives us something to talk about when girls aren't around, and, embarrassingly enough, something to talk about when girls are around.

Now, I'm not going to go into all the mechanics of dota, because it's a very complex game that doesn't lend itself to being explained. Suffice it to say that you control one hero through the whole game, and you're trying to kill the other team's heroes. They, likewise, are trying to kill you.

We're currently teaching Glen how to play. Dota is interesting because of how very very hard it is to break into. Playing online is generally a little fierce, and if you come in as a noob it's very hard to learn anything between the death threats and various remarks about your dear mother. We've taken little Glen under our wings and are training him up to be a champion one day.

But, this training of Glen has made me step back and evaluate my own dota play. Before Glen showed up, I was the worst dota player we had. I'm still terrible. There was one week where I did very well, and I think that convinced me that I was good. I still haven't faced the roses that I'm not that great. But I'm getting there, and I've got some plans to fix it.

Dota is a good game because it is all about the flow of information. Like I said before, the more information that an individual has, the better able that individual is to make good choices. Dota is all about choices. In order to make good choices, one must know what is going on on the battlefield. One's got to know where the enemy heroes are and how strong they currently are. They've got to know the limits of their own hero. How much damage they can take, how much they can dish out. They need to know where their team mates are and their capabilities and limits.

Above all, it's important to know where to draw the line. In dota, you're constantly pushing your forces up towards the bad guys' base. The closer you get, the better chance that you're going to get ganked, or surrounded by bad guys from all directions and owned.

Glen has been getting ganked a lot lately. I have as well, but let's focus on the loveable noob for a minute here. It's easier because he has an excuse. Talking about him makes it sound like a learning experience. Talking about me makes it sound sad.

So anyways, Glen dies a whole lot. He has often been heard to exclaim, "There was nothing I could do about that. I couldn't teleport fast enough." "There was nothing I could do about that, their stun was just too much." "Nothing I could do, these guys are just too good."

And he's right. Once Glen got ganked, there was nothing in the world he could do. He's been playing with very fragile heroes, and the enemy has been exploiting his weakness.

But it's interesting to note that Rick never gets ganked like that. Kyle never gets ganked, or Levi or Dak or James or Tyrel. The only two that get ganked are me and Glen.

Glen gets ganked because he doesn't yet know when to turn back and get onto our side. There's a certain sense that one develops over time, a sense that tells you "Ah crap, there's five guys about to surround me, isn't there? I should b before it's too late." (By the way, to "b" is to get back to your side all careful like)

Glen has an opportunity to survive, every time. But Glen keeps putting himself in situations where the enemy has a great chance to surround him and take him out. Glen isn't as well-versed in dota, and so he hasn't been watching our warnings to b. He isn't able to ascertain all the enemies' locations like the more veteran guys have. One time today the message came up saying that the scourge had slain roshan. That means that all five of their guys were at one specific point on the map. We all knew that. Glen, not so much. Glen was actually really really close to that one specific point. We knew that at any moment five mean heroes would storm and fall all over him. He still had a second to get away, so we called b left and right, but to no avail. Glen stayed, and got hosed.

You can replace "Glen" with my name, and it's the same effect. We are both guilty of this.

In any event, what's the moral of the story? The moral of the story is that success in dota relies entirely on your ability to decode the information that you are getting and to make responsible decisions based upon that information. It's been said that if you never die in dota, you can't lose. That's not one hundred percent true, but it's dang close. Information is key to success in dota.

There's two applications for this moral. My life, I figure, is a lot like Dota. Yeah, there's no creeps, and my special boots don't give me +50% move speed. I caught a butterfly once and couldn't evade anything. But the principles that govern success within dota can also apply to life.

One must always be on the lookout for information. One must use that information to make responsible decisions. In a way, we must react to the environment, placing ourselves in prime position to succeed. If there's an enemy hero running away cause he's low on health, and you can manage to get yourself between him and his base to kill him, you'll do it. You want to strategically place yourself. Likewise, if there's a golden opportunity, the job of your life just opened up for one day for the first person to apply, you will strategically place yourself at the doors as soon as they open. It's rare that one is able to place themselves in the exact right place without knowing the information first. It does happen, from time to time, but reading the signs yields success nearly one hundred percent of the time.

So, just like Dota, one can watch for opportunities to dominate in life. It takes constant vigilance, and one must be aware of their surroundings for it to work. But the basic principle, that information empowers us to make better choices, and that better choices make our lives better, is the exact same between Dota and real life.

And just as one can look and see opportunities to gank an enemy in dota or to land that sweet job in real life, one can use the information to sense when they themselves are about to get ganked.

Now, generally when one gets ganked it's a pretty rude thing. You're almost always "pushing", that means moving forward to kill their stuff, and that means that you're earning gold. Earning gold is vital, because with gold you buy items to make your hero stronger and better able to win. You get ganked when you push because you're putting yourself on their side where they can see you and easily sneak behind you to cut off your escape. One needs to watch the information to know when this is going to happen so they can run before it does.

And just like that, we can see times in real life when we're about to get ganked. I feel like my three AM bed time was just about to get me ganked. It was the same idea, really. Here I was pushing- posting and whitening my teeth, doing good things- but doing them at the wrong time and the wrong place. I haven't been ganked yet, but even if there are no signs pointing to a gank being on the way, I am an incredibly easy target. I'm right next to the enemy's tower and I've got low hp. I might as well paint a target on my face.

One can't play dota always on the defensive, but there's a time and a place to push and a time and a place to back up and defend. I was being a little too aggressive with my blogging and staying up. I have the same problem on Dota.

My body's been sending messages about this sleep thing. "You're going to get ganked come third period, you know it." It's been risky. I'm doing my best now to back up and take a healthy place on the map.

I'm going to be less aggressive with the sleep. That's going to make me die less, and that's going to mean I'll have more gold. More gold means better items, and better items means more kills. More kills means more gold. More gold means more items and more kills and a win at the end of the game. Not dying is pretty important.

So that's the lesson that I've got to take from Dota today. I think it'll make me a better player and a better person. I'm happy to say that I'm on my side of the river right now, hugging a tower. It's 10:07, and things are winding down. I had a big nap today, and so I'm not sure if I'll be able to sleep tonight like I want to. I will do my best, though. I'm going to try to make it happen.

I do respect Dota for what it is. It's entertaining, it's a challenge, and above all it's a good time to play with your buddies. There will come a time when Glen and I join the ranks as viable players. I know that we've got it in us. Glen just needs more time, he needs to develop that feel. I've got the experience, I know exactly what the feel is, but I need to start actually listening to it. When Kyle says b, I think I probably will b. There's a time and a place to take a stand and fight, and there's a time and a place to turn tail and run like a little girl. In Dota, there's no shame in running like a little girl. In life, there's less shame in running like a little girl than people try to tell you. There's a time and a place to run away.

I just want to be on my toes. Getting the information and then acting upon it. The information is surely coming, it's just a matter of whether or not I will act upon it. It's 10:10 PM, and I'm ready to close up shop for blogaday day 11. I feel good about this post. With this completion here, I am 55% done with the most ambitious project this blog has ever seen.

Tomorrow, I work on scholarship stuff. Tonight, I've got one beautiful calculus assignment to tackle before bed. I didn't know if I was going to do it or not. But I think I am. It's an opportunity. One could say I'm going to gank this calculus assignment. Doing so will give me more gold, in a sense. It'll make me better able to gank calculus in the future. My information says that this is a great opportunity, and I'm going to take it. Calculus is so dead. Alt+G click, Alt + G click. Gank calc, gogo.

Blogaday 10 of 20

Day 10. Monumental, really.

There's two things that are pretty interesting about this whole business. The first is that I knew from the moment I woke up this morning that I would end up here. I planned to come and post. It has been my routine for the entirety of 2008 so far. I live a day, and then I begin the end process so I can live one more day. The contacts are out, the whitestrips are in. I'm here to post. We all knew it'd end up like this.

The second interesting piece is how very traditional and normal this seems to me. As far as my subconcious goes, I've been doing blogaday forever. It has always been the norm for me to sit down before writing in my journal and bust out a post. I know that this has only been going on for 10 days, but underneath higher reasoning, this is just the pattern as it's always been.

I tend to do that, I find. I adapt myself to the current situation and give myself to it wholly. Very soon it becomes my natural style. Days when I'd run after school, I'd feel like I'd always run right after school. Now that I'm not, it feels like that's always how it's been.

It's just interesting how very quickly I forget the way things were in favor of being better suited for the way things are right now. I'm sure that this way of being has its ups and downs. It does lead to forgetfulness, which is damaging. It's easy to forget the three years I spent on the nerd team, or all the races I've run for cross country. It's easy to forget what sophomore jazz band was like. All the forgetting, I think, makes me better able to succeed in the environment I'm currently in, so it's not all bad. I'm not running around super emotionally wondering where my youth has gone, or what happened to the good old days.

And I don't think that I've forgotten, but the good old days just aren't constantly on my mind. I don't sit down to post and think "You know, this is significantly different than how the vast majority of my life has gone. Weird." I just sit down and post like it's normal. Things aren't forgotten, they're just not part of the processes that are natively running in my mind. When something triggers them, they can still come forth.

But here I am, feeling pretty comfortable and secure in my blogaday routine. Rolling right along.

Interesting to note is that it's 1:40 AM, and there is an official no one online for messenger. This hasn't happened in a very, very long time. My contact list has an official 69 contacts. A few of them are duplicates. Some are on missions and haven't been online in a year and a half. Some are people I know very well and never talk to online. Others are people that I've never met but share similar interests who I used to talk to but don't ever talk to now. Some are people I don't really talk to in real life and will never talk to online either. Of all my contacts, I'd say that there are 10 that I actually talk to with messenger. I could prune the list, but I don't necessarily see the need to.

In junior high I used to pride myself in having a maximum of 25 contacts. Me and Jason would talk online, and he'd be like "Hey, how many contacts do you have online?" and I'd say that I had three or four, and he'd say he had nine. He always had more contacts than me. I never felt like I had the shorter end of the deal though. I'd rather have 25 golden contacts that I actually talk to and care about than 60 that I don't.

This online communication is very interesting business. A lot of my life has been played out with the help of MSN messenger. I don't regret that. There has been much good done. There's also been some bad stuff done too. It's got its ups and downs. I believe that it, like everything else, is about balance.

I remember how last year Harward made the statement that messenger wasn't really a valid form of communication. He said that no real meaning was ever transmitted, and that we were all just wasting our time. I didn't stand up and say it at the time, but I strongly disagree with that statement. I've seen it happen, I've been there. Meaningful stuff does happen over msn messenger.

And I think that that's one thing that an older generation is going to have to come to terms with. The way that we are meeting our needs is changing. We are adapting. There are people who embrace it and people who reject it. For a very very long time I rejected social networking sites as a matter of principle. I still vehemently reject myspace. There will come a time when I do create a facebook account though. That time will not be for a few months at the very least, however. But it's a decent tool that I think will help fulfill a need, so I'll go for it.

This blog is a prime example of something that couldn't really have existed seven years ago. Realistically, it could have happened seven years ago, but probably not for free and probably not this easy. 15 years ago, this wouldn't have ever happened. But just because this opportunity has only been made available to me in the past 10 years doesn't mean that it's illegitimate. This blog has meant a ton to me. Individuals that classify all blogs as useless and irrelevant are probably good people, but I think they might be a little misguided. I used to be one of those people I think. Not necessarily with blogs or any of that, but classifying all of one thing as useless without any back up.

Let's be honest. I don't understand dance, at all. I've done a very very little bit of it. I've danced at region dances, and I danced in the day of celebration. I enjoyed both of those experiences a lot. I don't understand why some individuals devote so much to dance. It's not something I really get.

But at the same time, I can respect it. I think in my younger days I might have said that dance was stupid, or dance was worthless, or dance was etc. etc. But now, I can recognize that it fulfills a need of whoever is dancing, and therefore it's probably a good thing. I don't get it, but I can respect those that do. I'm not going to classify something as terrible without ever really being there.

Which leads to two points that I've discovered. I believe these points are true. There's a chance that they're not, however. It's just something that I think. If I'm wrong, well, I'm wrong, and I'm functioning and making decisions based upon fallacies. But isn't that the case with every idea that we have? Every feeling about life, every "Yeah, that's how this works..." is vulnerable to that same judgement. It's what we think, but it might be wrong. We're willing to accept that. We will take the risk of being wrong and exercising in fallacy if we've got a chance of being right and understanding. That's just how we roll.

Anyways, potential fallacy number one is thus. Anything that leads us to understand ourselves better is generally a good thing. That doesn't mean that it always is, but journeys of self discovery are usually good. This blog has helped me understand myself better, which has been great. High school helps us better understand ourselves. That's good too.

Potential fallacy number two is all about meeting those inner needs. Anything that helps meet our needs is generally a good thing. I always find it interesting to see how people have their needs met. I love our skill at having them met. Call it an evolutionary response or just plain out reasoning, but if our needs aren't being met, we will invariably change the situation to have them met. If a kid is in the drama organization because he has certain needs and the drama club is meeting those needs, and suddenly the clan stops meeting those needs, he's going to leave and go elsewhere. It's an almost automated process. We will go where we need to go to survive and flourish. I ran cross country for four years. It was beautiful. I love cross country. Part of the reason that I left was because the needs that cross country used to be meeting vanished to an extent. It was no longer a necessity, and so I took the opportunity to free myself.

A lot of things that wouldn't meet needs for me might meet needs for other people, I figure. There are reasons that people dance. I don't dance, but I suppose that if I had the same needs as those people, or if I had no other means to meet the needs I have, dance could work out.

I think the moral of my story is that one shouldn't judge an activity. Harward's premature analysis of messenger was a little surprising to me. I'm willing to wager that Hardward never had any needs met by msn messenger. But here I am, a functioning part of society, and I have. It's not for everybody, but it's clearly not for nobody.

We started a multimedia presentation in English today. I do love multimedia presentations. Nick pointed out that I was bound to hijack the whole operation to our group today, so I'm glad that we're at least on the same page. This is one of those places where I probably ought to draw the line further on their side than on my side, but it's very tempting to just say "Wow, check out this great idea, let's run with it!"

Multimedia presentations in school are always delightful to me. I remember that we used to do presentations in elementary school with Corel presentations, just doing slideshows. That was a really good experience for me, because it taught me a lot about it at a very young age.

It has been my experience in school that most people are not going to create an incredible multimedia presentation when given the chance. It's an unusual format for most, and that unfamiliarity makes stuff difficult. I see these projects as an opportunity to shine. When most people are struggling, I'm going to get out there and do my very best. I'm going to pull out something great. I love multimedia opportunities.

Multimedia, by its very definition, is cool to me. Multi, meaning many, or multiple, and media, the plural of medium, or the means by which we do something- in this case, transmit information. So basically, using lots of different ways to get a message across. Like we discussed a few nights ago, layers. Multimedia lends itself to incredible layering. That's why slideshows are so incredibly useful for teaching a class or a seminar. You've got the speaker doing his thing, and the slideshow backing up everything he says. It adds at least one more layer, and that layer adds efficacy.

Multimedia is cool because we can have so many layers. For this project we get to use pictures and audio primarily, but we'll manage to sneak a bunch of text in as well. The trick will be to consolidate all three of them into one effective message. I'm excited for the challenge. We've got an excellent group, and we've got some pretty bold plans. I do hope it works out.

You know what's an incredibly cool word? Intrepid. My online sources define Intrepid as: "resolutely fearless; dauntless". How cool is that? Resolutely fearless? That's incredibly cool. I really like the fact that it's resolute. One can be fearless on accident, or through ignorance. Resolutely, though, that implies that whatever this intrepid being is had to stand up, square his or her shoulders, and become fearless by choice, knowing full well what lay ahead. Intrepid, now that's a good way to be.

I do hope that blogaday is still functioning as well for everybody else as it is for me. It's surprising how very similar all these posts end up. I think that each night has had it's own unique content, more or less, but all the posts seem to be following the same general pattern. I'll start out by talking about blogaday mechanics-- wait a minute, have I authored this paragraph before? I sure did! Last post's last paragraph was about the same idea.

I find that if I talk about the mechanics of blogaday for long enough, something will generally pop up.
-Me, like, last night.

Rahahaha. I think that's one weakness that my blogaday posts have though, the conclusion. I talk about blogaday for a bit, and then I'll usually hit on two individual ideas about life. And then I'll struggle to end the post. Though, I wouldn't really call it a struggle. Blogaday by its very nature is pretty free of struggle. If I wanted professional posts, there could be struggle. But I'm only doing this to talk and to understand and to meet the challenge I laid for myself. Whatever happens will happen. 20 terrible posts would simply be 20 terrible posts that taught me something about myself. 20 amazing posts would be 20 amazing posts that taught me something and might have done the world a little bit of good. I am doing this for many reasons, and I will not cease doing this until the time is right. Whether I produce gold or lawn manure, I will write.

And I think there's a sort of noble invulnerability and innocence in that. It's kind of like the ceilings of a few nights ago. Things that exist in a pure form, not relying on anything else to give them meaning, are pretty beautiful. I don't think that anything can really exist like that, not one hundred percent. But there is much to be said of finding worth in existing as opposed to finding worth in your critical acceptance by others.

Well friends, it draws late. It's blogaday day 10, hooray! Halfway there. That's not a bad feeling. Calling 20 days was awfully ambitious. But once again, I'm really glad that I did it. It's been a great adventure, and I'm excited to see what tomorrow brings.

Have a good night everybody. Good luck with the things you're facing in life. Keep your head up, we're gonna be alright.

Blogaday 9 of 20

Good gravy, day nine. Not a day to take lightly.

The successful completion of blogaday will mark a pretty intense day for The Other Dentist. Two of the days came in December, leaving 18 for January. With those 18 posts, January 08 will become the second most posted-in month ever in the history of The Other Dentist (behind august 06, as it were). If I post just one more time outside of blogaday, January will tie. Two more times and it'll take the cup.

Traffic for the past eight days has doubled the previous eight days. I'm getting more comments than usual, not necessarily per post, but per day. People are reading the blog, and that's a good feeling.

Most importantly, I feel a strong sense of satisfaction and accomplishment at what I've achieved so far here. I'm only nine days in, and I feel like a million bucks. Here's to 11 more, eh?

So current time is something like 1:39 AM. I had a 50 minute nap today, but aside from that have been up since nine thirty-ish. I feel fine right now because of the nap, but I know that it was deceptively short, and I'm betting that tomorrow will suffer because of it. I'm definitely going to need to get to bed early tomorrow, and will probably end up taking a big nap too. We'll see what happens.

I do worry about my sleep schedule sometimes. It functions pretty well for me, but I know that it's not exactly practical for the future. It'll never fly on the mission, that's for sure. I think that's primarily what I'm worried about. I could swing it for college I bet. I'm going to work on it though. It's a hard cycle to get out of, and I'm not positive that I want to right this minute. I don't feel like it's ruining my life, but I do believe that change is in order. I shall have to think on this.

I made a sandwich tonight. I only finished half of it. That's pretty surprising to me, because I almost always finish the whole of whatever I'm eating. Now granted, I had already had quite a bit to eat before it, and I had just filled up with lots of fluids, but still. It's currently sitting here right next to my keyboard. I wonder what will come of it. I know that if it survives the night it'll just get tossed tomorrow. There's very little chance that I'll get around to eating it tonight. I've already started my night time cycle, and food rarely fits in once the ball gets rolling. It's not a terrible sandwich, but definitely not a masterpiece. As far as sandwiches go, it's about a 3 on the 1 to 10 rating. It's just too dry, really.

So what's on my mind tonight? To be completely honest, I've got about an 80 percent grasp of what's on my mind. The other 20 percent I haven't quite pegged yet. That fifth is still floating around on the outskirts, not quite formulated yet, but definitely there. I'm aware that it's there, but I haven't categorized or imaged or worded or anything'd it yet. It's just out there.

As for the eighty, I've got a pretty good idea on it. I mean, I know it's basic subject at least. I'm not quite sure exactly how I feel about the subject, which leads to interesting things on my mind.

It's not a bad thing by any means. It's the way things are tonight, and that's not too shabby. I'm just mentioning it because it's blogaday- I've got to mention something.

Which is an interesting question that blogaday raises. I ran into it the last time I tried one of these, way back when. Of course, that was a seven day blogaday, which I've already far surpassed. (Two days is far surpassing in my book). ((And yes, I did just use those parentheses incorrectly. These ones too.)).

In any event, the question blogaday raises is something like this... I have to write something every day. Sometimes I have something to say, and other times I have nothing to say. Sometimes I can find something to say, and other times I can find absolutely nothing. I think the question is whether blogaday fuels thinking and ideas or whether it's just a way to get existing ones out. I like to think that it fuels new ones, but what if it doesn't? What if all I'm doing here is venting that which I already have, and blogaday doesn't do anything for production?

That would mean that once I'm out of ideas (right now), blogaday would become a detriment to the blog and the reader. I'm going to write no matter what, but if I produce a post that's nothing but boring, the reader will be less inclined to visit tomorrow to see what I have to say. I lose readers that way, and fewer readers (as vain as it is...) means less motivation to write. Under this scenario, blogaday has potential to destroy the blog as we know it.

But I do like to look on the brightside, and hope that blogaday really does fuel new thought and understanding. If that's the case, even if I do lose all my readers because it got boring after the first eight, at least I'll know I'm a better person because of it.

Blogaday has interesting mechanics. I've considered writing a few posts as drafts when I'm feeling very throughtful, and keeping them in reserve for nights when I don't have time or don't have any particular ideas. Does that break the rules? I really think it does. Blogaday is about stretching me and helping me think and ponder more. It's about giving me an opportunity every single night to explore myself and the world around me. Saving posts up would be like skipping a day of eating or sleeping. It looks good at the time, but it wouldn't be beneficial down the road.

I see the question between saving posts up and doing it every night as the division between say, a high school play and a play at Hale. A high school play aims to be incredibly good and to make some money at the door. More importantly though, it aims to teach the kids something. That's the high school play's number one goal. It's all about the kids. Hale is all about the money. Sure, maybe there's something about the community thrown in there, and maybe there's something about promoting the arts or whatever. But at the end of the day, it's a business, and it must run very professionally. It's going to be about making money.

So the question is whether or not this blog is about the kids or whether it's about the money. The kids being me, of course. Is it about my progress, or is it about impressing the audience and gaining more readers? If it's about me, I can't cheat and save up posts. If it's about the audience, it'd make sense to save posts for a rainy day.

I find that all very interesting, that balance between professionalism and training. We deal with it a lot in council. Brother Coleman is the kind of teacher and leader that thoroughly believes in letting us learn on our own. He gives very very little instruction concerning what we ought to do in what situation. I really think he'd rather see us fall flat on our faces and learn something than do a great job and learn nothing. It takes a lot of courage to be like that, and a ton of self-control as well. I think it's in most of our natures to step in if things are getting hairy for somebody else. Coleman is awesome enough to let things get at least a little bit hairy before he'll save the day. He's all about letting us learn.

Udy, on the other hand, is more of a director. He's still a big fan of us doing our thing and learning, but his priority is the successful operation of the seminary over there, whereas Coleman's priority is our education and our enlightenment. Both of them are of course working for both of those priorities, but it's pretty easy to see where they both are drawing their proverbial lines in the sand.

It's interesting to see those lines in high school. Most classes will have them. There are a small few that don't, but most that I've been in have some form of it. It's interesting to note that teachers are not the only ones that have to draw lines, but kids as well. I draw lines every single day. Any time there's any form of group work in school, I have to decide between the absolute performance of the group versus the participation of all individuals. That's really the question. Whether we will do what it takes to make the best product possible, or whether we will sacrifice some product for more education for the participants.

Lit mag last year was a perfect example of the line question. If Wessman put himself in charge, he could produce a mighty fine lit mag. The production process would be organized, deadlines would be met, and we'd probably turn a profit on the thing. But instead, Wessman puts his editors in charge, who in turn give the other students responsibilities. There's a long chain that goes down, that ultimately results in a litmag of imperfection. It can still be an excellent lit mag, but it's not going to be as great as the Wessman edition would have been.

As an editor last year, I had to draw lines as well. I had to decide how soon we needed something down and of what quality the job needed to be. There were students who I knew could handle any job I gave them, so I gave them the pressing difficult stuff. If there was stuff that was a little lighter, I'd give it to a few who still needed to prove themselves. I knew that some assignments I gave out would come back unsatisfactorily. But that was the line. It wasn't about the absolute lit mag, it was about the experience building it.

T has to do that with her choirs as well. If she was about absolute sound, her choirs would be super small and super strict. If you sucked, you'd be out. If you weren't going to work, you'd be out. But T is obviously not about absolute sound, as is apparent. She does care about the sound, but she clearly is more about the students than the performance. Is that a good thing? I believe so. T obviously believes so. But it's a personal question that everybody must determine for themselves.

Where does the high school draw the line? Where does a seminary council draw the line? What about professional businesses? Things get really confusing with businesses, because then we have to start analyzing the economic impact of those decisions.

It's crucial for a company to continuously be training their employees and future leaders. The best way to do that is to allow them opportunities to grow in the field. Those opportunities are almost always coupled with opportunities for them to fail and cost the company a lot of money. So what's the choice? Do you turn the project over to your very best employee, the man you know will pull it off and make you money? Or do you turn it over to the new guy, and give him a chance to prove himself? He won't make as much money, probably, but he might learn something and be able to make you more money in the future. He might bankrupt the whole adventure, too. It's a difficult line to call.

And perhaps we all have personal lines of that nature. Except instead of choosing whether we let the new guy learn something or the old guy dominate, we choose whether or not we'll try something new or whether we'll stick with the proven. Will we put ourselves out there on a limb? Success on the limb would definitely benefit the future, but failure would damage the present. Where do we draw the line?

Lines have been increasingly important in my life as of late. This is just one of the lines I've begun to notice. It's important because I find my opportunities directly related to how whoever is in charge chooses to draw their line. At this stage of my life, I am the new guy. I'm waiting to prove myself. I've done it in a few places. I've had successes and I've had failures. I'm still the new guy though, and it's interesting to see where different people put their lines. To be honest, I feel like I'm ready for more people to relax their lines a little bit. I wish that I had more chance in my classes to teach. I know it's kind of stupid, but I feel like I've got something to offer Calculus and English and what-have-you. I think most people probably do. I hope that once I enter the business world, that I'll be given a chance to prove myself. It'll be interesting to see.

I use the word "interesting" quite often. What does interesting mean? I think, to me, it means something that teaches something about that which is beyond our own selves. Things which are purely mundane are never interesting. We already know the mundane. When I say that something is interesting, I say it because it leads me to believe that there's something bigger than me out there. And whether that something is the movements of the economy as a whole or just one other individual or the divine, it is still interesting.

Interesting is, well, interesting.

And I believe that that, my friends, is enough for blogaday day nine. Once again we find that I got somewhere in the end. I find that if I talk about the mechanics of blogaday for long enough, something will generally pop up.

What am I? Why am I doing all this? I'm doing it because I feel like it's the right thing to do. I figure that's a pretty good reason. Be it entertaining or enlightening or a pile of dung, here it is. Is it for me? Is it for you? I believe it's for us both, in a way. It's an adventure, no matter what the mechanics of it all.

Good night friends. I hope things are going well for you. Keep up the excellent work.