I'm not the only one

I learned some things today. Not huge things, but things that I didn't expect. They've forced me to rethink some things. Not big things, certainly, but things nonetheless.

Looking through google analytics at my blog stats, and I see a visit from guatemala. I get random hits from random countries all the time, no sweat, but this one lasted for 16 minutes. I checked the source, and it came from a blog that's run by T. Armstrong, you know, the T. Armstrong we all know and love from school.

Anyways, I checked it out, and mr. Armstrong has got himself one very attractive blog. Apparently he's been at it since last year. He's only got 18 posts between now and then, but still, the fact that he's had a blog for that long and that I never knew about it.

It was one of those, "Oh snap, you don't know half of what you think you do," moments. I figured we'd tracked down all of the taylorsville bloggers long ago. Nah, he slipped through. Granted, he's not linked to or from anybody in the local blogosphere, but still. It surprised me. I'll wait to shoot him a link till I get permission from him, but you can google him if you want.

Another, more important, discovery came today during English. We'd been talking about the valedictorian race all day long, because Horton called down everybody in the running to verify information and tell them that they'd find out next week sometime. I got called down, as did Nickmo, Jason, and several others.

In english we were talking about it, and we discovered one girl had taken nine AP classes. She has something like a 3.98 GPA, but as a raw weighted GPA, she totally owns me.

Now, I'm alright with that. As I've said before, I'm alright losing. Even the one condition that I've always stated, whereas I refuse to lose to one certain person, I'm beginning to ease up on. Heck, I'll even lose to that guy. If he speaks, though, I want to speak too.

Tangents aside, I was blown away. Not by her accomplishments, even though I think those are pretty impressive, but rather by the fact that I had ignored this for so long. I think of all those times that me and Nickmo talked about it in class. When Parrish asked, "Who's it going to be?" and me and nick always talked about us and jason. She was sitting right there, totally blowing us away, listening to us be arrogant. I dunno, it was just something I totally wasn't aware of. I was so unaware of it, I was entirely unaware that I was unaware.

So things aren't looking too hot for the valedictorian thing. I'm down with that. Mom's a lot more invested in it than I am, but that's cool. We'll see what happens. I'd love to be able to speak, but I'm alright if I don't get to. Life will be a lot less stressful if I don't get the nod, but I think it'd be a cool opportunity. It'd be like a five minute vocal blog post. What could be cooled than that?

I've done very little homework this term. Heather said something interesting today. We were in English, and very few of us had done the assignment from last time. We'd talked about it before, known it was happening. After a while though, she turned around and said, "I can tell myself I don't care, but I still do." She was worried about not doing her assignment, getting a bad score and grade, etc. etc.

I don't know if I'm in the same boat as she is, but I think that I'd like to be, for various reasons. I've managed to turn off my caring switch under the pretenses of preparing for BC calc. I really haven't done a ton to prepare for calc anyways though, I've just been being lazy. Talking with mom today, I realized that I should probably start working on my homework again.

I'm starting to look at it as a bit of a race. It'd be a big shame to give up all the work I've done up to this point just because I feel like being a slacker.

In reality, keeping a 4.0 will do very very little for me. College is already taken care of, and scholarships are already set. The valedictorian race will be done long before fourth quarter is even at midterms. On paper, the 4.0 doesn't do much for me.

But it's the principle of the matter. Why be a slacker? I know it's a bit disappointing to everybody around me, especially mom. I don't wanna be one of those guys that does things just for his mom's sake, but let's be honest, she's pretty cool, and I love her, so she probably deserves a little bit more effort on my part. I don't want to look back on the last term of my senior year and regret stuff. I think it's about time I started getting some work done.

This discussion is mostly focused on English. Calculus is a giant ball of mystery right now. I've been keeping up in Adult Roles. Choir and Mads are hard not to keep up in. Health is cake. I need to take care of English though.

Things are changing. Ballgames are changing. I've got a whole post in my noggin about ball games. I wish it wasn't so late, I could write for a long time about it all. Soon, hopefully. I learned some new things about ball games on tour. Tour was quite the learning experience. There was quite a bit of risky adventure, but I think I pulled myself through it all quite nicely.

It feels good to think. To ponder where I've been and where I'm going. To think about those who are coming, and those who have gone. Things are changing, like I said. That's got its ups and downs.

I tend to feel pulled in two directions all the time. There's the good part of me that wants to work hard and study and write and workout and prepare for everything in life, and then there's the lazy part of me that wants to waste the whole day. There's the wise part of me that wants to keep myself relationship free, and there's the whole other part of me that is actively trying to woo the ladies. Ups and downs, as I'm wont to say several times a post. Both sides are seeking the ups. In all honesty, both sides are very capable of finding the ups where they're headed. I think it's just a matter of finding the path that leads to the most ups. The higher ups, the better ups, the one ups, etc. etc. If we integrate my path through life and find the average value, I hope it's high because of the choices I made.

Wow, did I really just make the calculus reference? It's really sort of a good one. Let's see if we can flesh it out a little bit better.

A lot of choices we make move us either up or down on the graph of life. As we live, we carve out a curve, based upon our choices. At the end of the day, when we integrate that curve and take the average value, we can see how well we've done. Our choices today have a direct influence on the value of our lives.

Ha, atta boy Newton.

Ah, just trucking along. Tomorrow looks like a good opportunity. I hope things work out. I'm sure that they will. T told us that we're probably going to sing "You are the New Day" for graduation. I'm very happy about that. She also tapped "The Prayer" for concert choir, I think. Don't hold me to that. I'm super excited about that choice though. We sang it once in mads, just sort of a practice run. It was beautiful. I've been singing it on and off every once in a while, not even remembering what it was since then. It's gorgeous, I hope that we do sing it.

It's late. I'm excited for the possibilities that tomorrow brings. It's a quest for understanding and fulfillment. A journey of self-discovery. A marathon of endurance and a constant vigil over the person that you want to be. Hmmm.

I hope you're all doing well. It feels good to post. Sometime soon I really want to go all out and tell the important stories. There are a few important stories that I haven't posted here, because of how important they are. Maybe they'll never be posted, but maybe they will. I'm becoming more bold, I think.

I've flutted about long enough, I believe. Today we have snorkeled, and tomorrow we scuba dive. Understanding, here I come.

About Me, 4-12-2008

So, after being here for a little more than three years, I figure it's finally time to post a decent "about me" page. So, forgive the formality, but here we go.

-



















Welcome to The Other Dentist. I'm Christopher Thatcher, and I've been blogging here for a little more than three years. I started the blog as an assignment in ninth grade journalism, and never really gave it up. My reasons for posting have been all over the place over the past three years. They've ranged from trying to get girls to fall back in love with me to trying to have a better shot at some scholarship money. Regardless of the motive, though, at the end of the day the blog has taught me a lot about myself, and that's where I think its value lies.

The beauty of The Other Dentist, I think, is that it incorporates all the different sides of me. Some nights I come here to post, and I'll be super excited about a new project or idea I had, and I'll write forever about all the implications and opportunities it provides. Other nights I'll show up burnt out and emotionally vulnerable, and I'll write about the way I really feel. There have been funny times, and there have been incredibly serious times. I've learned that there are a lot of different "versions" of me, but more importantly, I've learned that no matter what happens, I am always, always, me. That's what this blog is about. It's not professional, it's not mandatory, and it's definitely not emo. It's just me, and that's what I love about it.

As an introduction, here are some select posts. The archives have over 360 of them, but here are some of my favorites.

23 - Wednesday, January 23, 2008
This one is the end of my blogaday adventure. Me talking mostly about life. It's pretty representative of how I feel about things. A happy post, to be sure.

Blogaday 19 of 20 - Wednesday, January 16, 2008.
Day 19 of blogaday, this is me recovering from having my hopes dashed against the rocks at scoring a huge scholarship I had been gunning for. I thought some important things that evening, and I'm happy with the things I figured out.

Blogaday 15 of 20 - Sunday, January 13, 2008
Last blogaday, I promise. This one is the emotional, "I'm actually talking about my feelings" side of me. I respect it.

300 - Friday, September 28, 2007
This is the first post where I talked about a very important question to me, "When did I start being me?" Another heavy life post.

Super Unleaded - Saturday, August 11, 2007
This post is important because it talks about the time I put a gallon of super unleaded in the minivan. It's the loud and obnoxious side of me.

Leg Shaving - The End of the World - Monday, June 11, 2007
The best video I've ever made, produced for my final english project last year. Seriously, if you only check out one thing on this blog, make sure it's the video. It explains why guys shaving their legs will lead to the demise of the whole human species.

Jello - Wednesday, March 7, 2007
Don't get this confused with the Jello story, cause it's not it. It's just the time I submerged a stapler in jello for my sister's birthday.

-Or Bust - Monday, January 22, 2007
My favorite artwork I have ever produced. Yep.

Honor - Sunday, November 12, 2006
The video of the time we retired a few ultimate sport discs. I hear it made Trevor cry.

(8) Just a chance that maybe we'll find better days... (8) - Friday, October 27, 2006
This was a very emotional night for me, and I'm really proud of what came out. I think these nights are the most significant on the blog, because they remind me of what I really am deep down. I like it.

Rock the Vote - Sunday, October 22, 2006
Kyle commissioned me to woo the ladies for him. This was my attempt at writing a piece that would make every girl in the world fall in love with the boy. I'm not sure it worked, but I enjoyed writing it a lot. It is, to date, the most commented of my posts.

The Best Game Ever Played II - Sunday, November 20, 2005
This is my talking about the best game of ultimate I've ever played. I get pretty dreamy about it, it's good times.

Feel free to not read this - Saturday, January 7, 2005
This was my first really good "let all my emotions fly" post. I really enjoyed writing it. I wanted to delete it by the next morning, but I decided to keep it up as a tribute to the person I had been the night before. This post, and the effect it had on the next few days, did a lot to teach me about myself.

~~

Why do I write? I write to learn more about myself. I write to fulfill an inner need to express myself. I write because I think that maybe the things that I've got to say can help somebody out there. I write because I'm me, and I want to preserve that me that I've got.

Here I am. This is me, and I make no excuses for what goes on here. I hope you'll keep stopping by.

Hansen's Revenge

Happy Tuesday evening. It's 10:16, and I'm nearly ready to start wrapping stuff up for tonight. Sleep's kind of a big deal, I need some of it.

I'm feeling a bit stressed and conflicted right now. The AP Calculus test is in 29 days. I'm taking the BC test, for a lot of reasons. This means that I have four weeks to learn parametric, vector, and polar coordinates. Series, convergence and divergence, and the million tests to figure that out. Integration by parts and by simple fractions. Improper integrals too, whatever those are.

It's a pretty big deal. I really want to five this test, and I really think that it's possible. Tonight I sat down and scheduled out the next week or so of work. The plan is to study one section a night for the next five nights, basically giving myself a quick run-through of all the topics I've never seen before. On the sixth day, I think that's Monday, I'm going to take the first practice BC test. I'll do it under the actual time limits and all that, making it as accurate and realistic as possible. That's the day before we leave for tour, but I'll take a good look at what I did well and what I did poorly, and then make a game plan for tour. I'm not sure how much studying I'm actually going to commit myself to doing in California, but if it's necessary, I'll pull it off. Once we're home from tour, I'll take another good look through all the new BC material, focusing especially on things I did poorly on in the practice test. Once that review is done, I'll spend a few days really hitting the regular calculus tricks. I'll make sure I've got all the trig differentiation and integration memorized, shell method, all the mean new integration, any formula I'll ever need. I'll take the second BC practice test. I'll check those answers, see where I'm suffering, and make sure that I'm competent on them. Once all that's through, it'll be May seventh, and I'll walk in and take me a BC calculus test.

It's fairly daunting, I'll be honest. I've never undertaken something like this before. I know the people who did it last year did really well, so it's not impossible. It's probably not half as big of a deal as I'm making it out to be. It reminds me a lot of chemistry last year, except that we had at least mentioned all of that stuff in class once.

So, I'm a bit stressed about it. But I can do it. I'm excited to learn all this new stuff and prove that I can actually pull this off.

The most important part of this next month for me, I think, is going to be to remember that BC Calc isn't the most important thing. Whether or not I five the test will affect me in the future, certainly, but it's still not the most important thing. I'm going to need to make a concerted effort to make sure I don't forget everything else. Specifically, I can't forget to be happy and social. I need to make time for people. That was the moral of the story for March, or at least one of them. Ends up that April will be the big test of my ability to actually learn those morals that I keep being given.

So I think that's where I'll need some help. If I'm being a butthead, remind me what's important, please. I really do want to five this test, but not at the expense of my own happiness or my ability to help out those people around me.

My parents are going to Mexico tomorrow for a five-day vacation. Me and Michael will be okay, but life's a lot easier when they're around. It'll be an interesting experience. If I don't show up to the first period, it's because I'm still asleep.

So here I go, working to five this test that really isn't even that big of a deal. I'm ready and willing to put forth the effort. I'm going to do my best to make sure it remains exactly where it should on my priorities list, though.

I'm glad I've got friends. They're cool. You're cool. I hope you're doing well. I'm out~

29 cents

I swung by Barnes and Noble this evening to pick up the Princeton Review for AP Calc. After locating the book, I took it up to the register. The guy scanned it in and said it's be twenty-dollars and twenty-nine cents.

I had a ten and two fives. I was 29 cents short of paying for the book. So I tell him, "I'm 29 cents short, so I'm going to run out to the car to grab some change."

He replies, "You know what, don't worry about it."

He then reaches into his pocket, pulls out a one dollar bill, and throws it in with my 20. My receipt indicates that I paid 21 dollars for a book that cost $20.29. He figured the change, and put it back in the pocket.

I thanked him a few times, and he was very gracious about it. He pocketed his change, and I was walking off he says, "Good luck with your test."

This is important to me. It proves that there are good people out there. Twenty-nine cents wasn't a big deal to either of us standing at that register. It was more or less inconsequential. But he was a really nice guy, and he decided to sacrifice a bit of himself to help me out. He'd never met me before, and there's a really good chance that he'll never ever meet me again. I didn't catch his name, and he didn't catch mine. All I really know is that he worked at the sandy Barnes and Noble on Monday night, April 7.

I know it's stupid, but it makes me want to pass this test even more. All of the sudden, there's one more person that's invested in the score I get. Kaelin has put in a ton of work on me. I've put in work, the guys from Davis put in work, Kyle's put in work, Melissa's put in work. There are lots of us that have put something into this test.

But now there's one more guy. He tossed his 29 cents into the ring, saying to the world, "I've never met this kid, but I believe in him."

I dunno. It's a big deal to me. It makes me want to go out and help people. It makes me want to five this test.

I was given a micro-loan today. I doubt I'll ever meet this guy to pay him back monetarily. But I'm going to do my best to ensure that his 29 cent investment is not wasted.

Fiving the BC calc test is a feat that will rival last year's fiving of the chemistry test. It's entirely possible, but I'm on a super time crunch. I have to bust it in order to make it happen.

I'm going to do it. I will five the BC test. Academically speaking, that's what matters to me right now. It's going to start taking top priority in my schooling. I've got someone counting on me.

Live your Life

I've been happier this week. I love that. I think that there are a lot of reasons why, ranging from no more end-of-term stress to Divine intervention, but I sort of want to focus on just one reason right now.

This past week, I've been living my life. I've been doing the things that I like to do, as well as the things that I really feel that I need to do. I've been being me, all the time. It's made a difference.

My life is sorta like my blog, I think. You notice how sometimes I get really distracted on here? I'm not talking about within my posts, but like, what I want to do with my blog. I'll go on big tangents sometimes. The Alliance, Blogaday, my failed sleep-a-day, thinking about switching hosts, thinking about holding contests, thinking about doing all sorts of stuff. Somedays I really just want to try something new. Something pseudo-professional. Something like a project for my blog.

Some of those projects have been successful. Blogaday, in particular, was wild. Some projects have seen marginal success, like The Alliance, but have always seemed to lack what it takes to sustain themselves. Most projects have flopped.

Most of the flop projects are always accompanied by less posting here. When I do post during flop times, it's usually nothing inspiring.

I'm not sure why I feel that tug towards blog projects. When I look at what has made this blog important to me, what gives it value, it's the exploration of my self that makes it all meaningful. It's the difference and insight for others that makes me think, "Yeah, this is important."

Projects have never really brought anything important to the table. Blogaday is the exception, but that's only because it allowed for more exploration. What gives this blog meaning is the old-school and traditional staples: just me and my posts.

And I think my life runs a pretty close parallel to the blog. The same issues that I have here are the same issues I have out there. Some days I just get really distracted. I want to go do something, I want to go be something different. I want to do something epic and time consuming and pointless. Why? I don't fully know, but it's distracting.

And when I do finally sit down and look around me, I start to realize. The things that give my life meaning are not the projects. They're not the grade point average or the standardized test scores. I am not defined by my academic performance.

Just like with my blog, the things that give my life value are the old-school staples that have always been there. The way that I interact with and help other people, time for myself to do important study, and time spent with my family are the things that are important to me. When I focus on those things, I feel like I make progress. I feel much better about myself and about everything around me.

It's when I get distracted and start trying to be something that I'm not that things get rough.

So that's been the discovery of this past little while. It's been a long time coming, I think. And I'm not saying that it's been a lightning bolt of inspiration that has changed my life in a day. I still get distracted, but I'm working on remembering what's important. I'm working on priorities. It's been making a difference.

I talked a bit above about being me, and not trying to be something I'm not. The Micron scholarship I shot for, as well as the sterling scholar stuff, sorta helped me discover what was going on. I don't want to be a scientist. I've got a good academic record, but that's not where my true talents and gifts lie, I think. Or, maybe rather, that's not where my calling lies. I don't think I've been called to revolutionize the world of science or engineering. Micron and Sterling Scholar were all about that. And while that's awesome, and while I'm very glad I worked on both of those things, that's not who I want to be.

My calling- that's a very interesting thing to think about. I mean, can one really define, specifically, what they're supposed to do? That's a personal question, I think. I have my own beliefs about it. I don't think I'll write them all out here, but I suppose that if you want to talk about it, find me sometime and ask.

The important thing, though, is that, with help, I've started figuring things out a bit. Without going too far into everything, I've come to the realization that I have not been called to be extremely successful.

And that was something that totally got me by surprise. I guess I just sort of assumed that I was. I assumed that because I've experienced some success in the past, I was a failure if I didn't go out there and become incredibly rich and famous and change the world. If I wasn't top of my class at the university, if I wasn't a millionaire by thirty, I wouldn't be living up to what I needed to do.

But that's just not the case. And the fact that I know that that's not the case now, that's changing things for me.

I mean, yeah, I want to be successful. But I'm realizing that that's not the most important thing in life. And because I'm realizing that, I'm starting to work on the things that really ARE important. When I'm working on things that are important, I'm happy.

So what's the moral of the story? I think there's a few things I can take from this. The first is one that I've learned before. Life is a sine graph. It's got its ups and downs. I'm feeling pretty good about stuff right now. I know that there will be times in the future when I feel pretty crappy. I think the key to success with this one is that I need to maximize my life when I'm up like this. Learn what I can, so that when I go down things will be better. Accomplish everything that I can when I'm up like this, working at a million percent. I need to make progress up here. I need to make progress down in the troughs, too, but I can't take times like this for granted. Life is life, whether I'm up or whether I'm down. I've been given this up, and I need to make the most of it.

Second lesson, I feel, is that cliche's are true, but it doesn't matter that they're true, because it's impossible to discover they're true until we run into them for ourselves. This past forever has been a journey of self-discovery. Things have started coming together lately to help me learn more about myself and the world around me. Ideas and opinions I have held for a long time are changing. I am discovering myself. For a long time I honestly thought that I was through with all of that. I felt like I'd done quite a bit of discovering through the years, and I was feeling pretty good with where I was. People have always said that the journey of self discovery never really stops, but I figured it had. Welp, I was wrong. Here I am, appreciative of the fact that I was wrong.

The third, and most important, lesson: I'm not as tough as I thought I was. Back in sophomore cross country days, Porter and the older guys would always mess around with each other as we ran. They'd smack each other, jump on each other, and really just have a good time. They're battle cry and anthem was always, "Do you think you're tough?!" Any time they'd get hit, or be ready to hit, or really any time they just wanted to say hi, they'd ask if you thought you were tough. The first time they asked me, it caught me off guard, and I thought about it. The next million times they asked, I just figured they were joking. But now, years later, I'm starting to see the wisdom of it all. Noaksey said that madrigals is what made him realize that he wasn't tough. I've got a long way to go yet, but I'm starting to realize, just like Noaksey, that I'm not that tough. This process of changing what I want to be when I grow up, what I want to do, and ultimately what I want to focus on, it's been a bit humbling. I've had to realize that I didn't have it all figured out. Admitting that what I've been working towards for the past long time just isn't what I want to do. I was wrong. And the fact that I was wrong helps me realize that I will probably be wrong in the future, too.

Normally that kind of stuff bugs me. I hate to be wrong. But this week, I'm loving it. I'm so excited to be human again.

So hey, life your life. Was that Thad's catch-phrase when he ran for office? I think so, and I'm totally horking it.

It doesn't matter if I don't make a lot of money, because making a lot of money isn't what I've been called to do. I've got a feeling that I know what I've been called to do, and I'm going for it. I'm living my life.

It's like that great smelling burst of spring air through the window. I really feel like I'm on the right track. I love being on the right track.

So go ahead, accuse me of just having a really good night. Accuse me of being overly optimistic and cheerful. I understand. I'd do the same if I were you. But the truth is, I'm feeling good about this. I'm feeling good about life and the future. I feel like I can, with help, really get out there and make a difference. I feel like I know where I'm going. I have no idea where I'm going, but I know what I want to do when I get there. I know who I want to be.

So hey, live your life. I'm figuring out what's important to me, and I'm pursuing it. I think that if there was one thing I'd say by way of advice, it'd be to try the same. Figure out what's important to you, and then chase after it with all you've got.

I hope things are going well for you all. I appreciate the fact that you're all out there. I think about you guys. If there's anything I can do to help, well, drop me a line. I know nobody will actually drop me a line, but I wanted to put it out there, cause I mean it.

Here I go, full steam ahead. I'll need help, but I know that it's possible. I can make it.

Calc 152

Hey, really meant to get around to posting tonight, but now it's looking a bit too late. I just finished my calc assignments for AB. Didn't do any BC work, unfortunately. At least I'm staying afloat, eh?

Hopefully I'll bust a post out tomorrow. In the meantime, here's to you, wednesday.

Fulfillment of a Dream

So, remember how about a year ago, I said I was going on a quest to get my own wikipedia page? I decided to officially try today. I've already been flagged for not asserting my own relevance, but I threw up the "hold on, I'm getting there!" tag, so I've got at least a few days to prove that I'm actually important.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Thatcher

I will be victorious, I'm going to make this happen. I'm so proud of myself.

Relief

I am no longer looking at studying mechanical engineering. Right now I'm looking at business, specifically marketing.

Can I just say? Wow, this feels so much better. That was one of the things that was getting me so down this week, this whole uncertainty about the future. Mechanical looked like the best shot, but it looked about as fun as getting poked in the face with a sharp stick. I'm really starting to warm up to business.

It seems like a great fit for me. I'm constantly analyzing the business aspect of everything I look at. It allows me to go to work with people, and I'm definitely more interested in people than I am in machinery. Just because I'm good at math and science doesn't mean I have to be relegated to the engineering department.

I feel a ton better about this. I've still got a lot of research to do, but stuff is already looking a ton brighter.

Of course, studying business means that BYU would be the logical place for me to go, not Utah State. I am going to USU this next year, absolutely. After a mission though, if business is in fact the thing for me, I'm going to want to look at transferring to BYU.

I know I've said it before, but I can't reiterate it enough. I feel good about this! I'm excited about it! I was never excited about Mechanical. There were times when I thought it'd be ok, and that was as good as it got. My feelings varied between fearful and passable. That's hardly a way to live.

Hooray! I'm not saying this is my final plan, because I haven't done the research necessary. But from a first look perspective, this is looking freakin' awesome. Score it!

Live Blog: The Tournament

Editor's Note: I do remember last night. I am cognizant what happened. I remember what's important. This is me, and I'm doing my best to be the whole me. End note.

Greetings and Hayabasu, ladies and gentlemen. Happy Junior Jazz Tournament Day!

Game one: 9 AM, Union Middle
Vista (1 - 1) v. The Agitators (1 - 1)
Final Score: 25 - 52, Agitators.
Total Fans (non-familial): 2

I got to the game five minutes late, and walked in with the score 4-0, Agitators, beginning of the game. Kirt snagged three rebounds within 45 seconds, and I was certain he'd grab a triple double by the end of the game.

The first quarter was incredibly sluggish. It ended 4-2, us. Pope wasn't as ferocious or as accurate as usual. I came in for the last part of the first, and didn't pull much off. I got a bucket during the second, but nothing to brag about.

Quarters two and three progressed the exact same. Super slow, sloppy play. Lucky for us, the other guys were doing just as poorly. It looked like churchball, and not even good churchball. We had a good time, and we had our moments, but it was uninspired ball.

The fourth quarter came and we blew it wide open. We were up by six or something, and we just took it away to win by 27. I started detaching on every single play for the fast break, and I got at least three easy, uncontested layups out of it. Everybody else started getting the idea, and all the sudden we were in the middle of a good old clinic. Every single play, we'd push the defense, and if we didn't force a quick turnover, we'd force them into a shot they didn't want to take. One of our big guys would get the board and feed it down court to any of the three guys who were busting it down there. It was just a matter of pass pass pass and sweet layup. I had one sweet reverse, w00t.

Perhaps the crowning moment, for me, was on defense, fourth quarter. I was up on their point guard, he faked me one way, got me off balance, and went the other. He went straight up the key, but I was right behind him. He went up for the shot, and I got the sweetest, cleanest, best feeling block I've got in a long time. There's something extremely satisfying about blocking a man from behind.

Best part about the play? I did it again two minutes later. Different guy, same play. Oh how sweet it is.

Keys to success: We played terrible the first three quarters, but the fourth was amazing. Why was this? Because I put my headband on for the fourth, but not for the others. The headband won the game for us. And I took a charge, that was cool to. But it wasn't a key. It was just cool.

Outlook: We've got another game at noon, and they'll be 2-1, just like us. Alex is sitting in on their game right now, hopefully scoping out the bad guys. We play Team #1. They don't sound nearly as intimidating as The Agitators. They better bring their A game.

Cause boy oh boy, I ate my wheaties this morning. And boy, don't mess, 'cause I ate your wheaties too.

Game Two: 12 AM, Union Middle
Team #1 v The Agitators
36 - 42, Agitators
Total Fans: More than last time

We played a pretty good game, but not our best. We came out strong in the first, went 8-2 for the first little bit. I tossed a sweet alley-oop pass for Jay lay it in, it was smooth. I got one more block from behind a man (woot), and scored a few buckets.

Player of the game was definitely Kirt. This was a pretty big and physical team, and they had us outbodied more or less. Kirt was the man who stopped them inside. He was about their size, but he just outskilled them by far. He was ballin, it was a ton of fun.

Keys to succes: Kirt.

Outlook: Playing Larsen, who just beat the guys we lost to on Thursday night by about 20 points. They only have six guys though, so we ought to be able to run them.

Game Three: Union Middle School
Larsen v. The Agitators
Final Score: 58 - 54, Larsen
Total Fans: the most yet.

We lost this game. We really could have won it, but we played pretty well and they came up with the win. So we go home from the tournament. Boo.

I had a few sweet sweet blocks in this game, and that felt good. I made some nice buckets, and picked up some good fouls. I made a few good plays, so I'm pretty happy with my performance out there.

Keys to success (for the other guys): They had two real players. But boy, they were good players. We had a hard time shutting them down. Other than that though, we really played pretty well.

All in all, super fun tournament. Great team to play with, we had a good time. I'd do it again if I could. Hope you all have a good day.

Shining Night

Sure on this shining night
Of starmade shadows round,
Kindness must watch for me
This side the ground.

The late year lies down the north.
All is healed, all is health.
High summer holds the earth.

Hearts all whole.
Sure on this shining night I weep for wonder wand'ring far

alone
Of shadows on the stars.

-Sure on this Shining Night, James Agee

~

Life has been different for a long time. All of March, I think. Maybe it's only been a week, maybe it's been longer. At least 10 days. I'm terrible at determining lengths of time. Maybe that means that I'm just great at living in the present. But I don't necessarily feel like that. The important thing to note is that things aren't like they usually are.

It's Friday night, 12:58 AM. My window is open a little bit, but none of that awesome night air is coming in. I walked around outside a bit this evening. Life smells really good right next to a tree in early spring. Trees smell like summer evenings. Summer evenings smell care-free and progressive. I could go for a summer evening right about now.

I feel like I've lost volumes of text over this past month. There have been several days when I've had so much to write about and talk about and spill, but it never really happened. Some of those thoughts remain, but others are gone, presumably forever. Perhaps it's a tragedy, and perhaps it's good fortune. I view it as tragedy. Should every important thought I have be written? Obviously such a thing can't be realistic, but I think the important ones bear some necessity to be recorded. I've lost some important thoughts. Hmm.

I've been loving "Sure on this Shining Night" today. The Lauridsen arrangement, not the Barber. It's just so very close and intimate I feel.

As I drove home from my final adventure of last night, I wanted to hear someone begin narrating from behind me. It felt like the end of an episode of heroes, and I would have killed for some insight from Mohinder. As cryptic as I know it would be, it would have felt good to have it there.

It's like I'm taking big steps here. Some are reactionary, some are very premeditated, and others simply happen because nothing else happened in their place.

I haven't been as happy lately as usual. Not as satisfied or fulfilled, that's for sure. This changes things for me. I have some theories as to why. My personal study time has been reduced, which is pretty bogus. I'm not pulling March Madness off as I should. I'm about four days behind, I think. Most reading this month has been after 2 AM, it feels. I've found a few ways to stay awake so I can keep going, but it's not as healthy or as beneficial as I'd like. My personal journaling has gone way down. At least seven days this past month have been "Good day, super tired. G'night." Probably more than seven. I have not been working out the way I'd like to. By that, I mean that I haven't been working out. I haven't been running this month.

On the upside, my bloodsugar has been much better than the previous month. I also just nailed another 4.0. That means I'm 15 for 15 so far. Only one more term to go.

Now, I don't toss this list up here to complain, as complaining is not in my nature. I put it up here to illustrate the point that I have not been living my life the way I wish I was.

I don't say, "I'm not living my life the way I want to," because I don't want to misrepresent the shadowy and nether regions of me. There are parts of me that want one thing, parts of me that want other things. Out of respect for the parts of me that are discordant, I cannot strictly say that I wish things were a certain way.

That's how life is, for me. It's not one thing. I think we're all sort of like an electron. We can get a good idea of where we might be. We can figure out, to an extent, where we won't be. But when it comes to graphing our position, we're always going to end up with a fuzzy line. It's impossible to determine the velocity or location, because everything we do to try to figure it out ends up altering them.

I think I'm like that. It's a complex character versus a simple character thing. I am not a robot.

There was a model I thought of a few weeks ago, about goals. I realized that I could split every one of my goals into three parts. I could split them into What I've declared that I'm working towards, What I'm actually working towards, and what I wish I was working and moving towards.

For example, let's look at my financial goals. What have I declared that I'm working for? I say, "I'd like to make a really decent living so I can support myself and my family." What am I actually working for? "I'd like to be filthy, filthy rich." And, finally, what do I wish I was working for? "I'd like to be wealthy so that I could support my family and myself, as well as have the resources necessary to make the world a better place. I'd like to help further education and opportunities for those around me. I want to pull a Carnegie."

This isn't what's important right now.

What if I wanted to be the same, all the time? That sounds bad, but I think that's one thing that concerns me a lot. I know that I'm me, all the time. I'm not dissociative. But it goes back to how I define my worth. And how I define who I am. When did I start being me?

Last night at the basketball game I was all over the place. I was loud and enthusiastic and happy for everybody in the entire building. I was euphoric.

And now I'm here. Happier than I have been the whole rest of the day. I feel good, but in a very different way than I felt good last night. At school, I do what I do. At home, I do what I do. I do different things between the two of those. I work on different things, and I feel differently about some things. I value things at school differently than I value things at home.

And I don't want to paint myself as some two-faced monster, because I don't think I am. I don't think that any of this is intentional. I don't think I'm a bad person at school or at home. I don't think that I'm always different. I just know that I'm not always constant.

And I know that I can't always be constant. I am not a simple character. Nobody is.

Blogging is a form of therapy for me. There are other things that fill the need that blogging fills. There are things that work better than blogging. I have one of those things right now. So, friends, good night. Thanks for being there.

Under Construction - Pledges

Last night my big brother hooked me up with a domain, theotherdentist.com. You'll notice that now instead of being at cjthatcher.blogspot.com, you're here at theotherdentist.

So that's pretty cool. I'm still not used to typing "theotherdentist" but I'll get there. Because I've got a domain now, my options for this blog are suddenly a whole lot bigger.

Therefore, there's some construction coming all of our ways in the near future. I'm not exactly sure what the end result is going to be, but I'm excited to discover it.

I've wanted to make a few changes for a while now, as was evidenced by the poll and a few other things. This gives me a good opportunity to try all of that out. I've got ideas kicking around, and it's going to be really cool to work on them and try new things. Things will sort of just happen, so be expecting that. Some things will show up one day and be gone the next, that's just the nature of what I plan to do. I'm not putting any schedule on this, since life is a little busy right now, but just be assured that it'll come eventually. I'm adventuring, give me a break.

I do feel the need, though, to make a few pledges while I'm here. As I embark on this next new adventure, I am forced to look back on the smoothness of what has brought me here in the first place. Last Friday marked the third birthday of my blog. It was created in ninth grade as an assignment in Brough's journalism class.

Three years later, it's still kicking around. I feel like I've been a bit spotty in my posting as of late, but the blog never holds that against me. The truth here is that I'm a different person because of the existence of the blog. It has been a great tool of self discovery. I think it's helped me define who I am a bit, and also helped me refine some skills in communication and writing. I like to think it's made the world a little bit of a better place.

I'm incredibly glad that it's been a part of my life. It's been a big deal.

So as I embark on the next step of this journey, I won't forget the things that have brought me here, to where I stand today.

Anyways, I pledge that all my old posts will always remain accessible. I also pledge that regardless of what happens, I will keep writing. I'm not going to make a schedule or anything, but I'll do my best to keep writing. I will keep writing through this next year and a half. Just because I graduate high school, I'm not about to stop. I'm not sure what will happen after the mission, but we'll catch that when it comes. In the meantime, I will write up to the day or week or so before I leave. Snap.

So those are the pledges. No matter what happens, my old posts will remain, and I will keep writing. Sounds like a fun adventure. So here we go, looking for the next step. Hooah, it's go time. Wish me luck.

Log Base Two

Not that this is going to happen that often, because i most definitely don't want to make the blog a repository of my dietary logs. However, since it's day two, I want to post, just to make me feel cooler.

Thursday, March 13, 2008
Total units insulin: 71.5
Avg Bloodsugar: 137

Kickin' Wednesday

It's late, and I don't have time to write. But I'm going to, briefly.

I'm on several kicks today. My life comes in cycles. One of the things that keeps recurring on a periodic basis is my self-improvement kick. Every once in a while I get really excited about personal finance and personal health.

Been spending a lot of time thinking about both of those today. Personal health, I made myself a bit of an idea.

If I spend 20 minutes a day logging my bloodsugar, my insulin, and every single thing I eat and when, I really think that I'll make that time up in days left to live.

Let's do a little bit of math. I know it won't be at all realistic, but let's do it anyways.

So, 20 minutes a day * 365 days = 7,300 minutes
7,300 minutes / 60 / 24 = 5.07 days per year I spend logging bloodsugar/insulin/food

let's say I live my projected 61 years or whatever

61 years * 5.07 = 309 days of my life I spent logging.

309? If I really do end up living to be 61, I will have definitely recouped all that time I spent logging with more days I've earned to be alive.

So I think I'm going to do it. It's a big step, I know. I worry about setting goals like that. Logging everything? That's tough. But I want to do it.

Because I'm tired of just getting by, especially as it relates to my health. Yeah, I've got to worry about heart disease and obesity and all of that like every other person out there, but I've got double portions of everything coming my way when it comes to not eating right or taking care of yourself. What will hurt a normal person x down the road will hurt me at least 2x. I fully accept and welcome that. It just gives me more reason to actually make this work.

I want to take my life to the next step. Trouble is, there's about a billion next steps that I want to take. It's hard to sit down and find one step that I'm ready for. I want to move in a lot of directions.

But I think that this is a good one. I'm going to do it. For the next two weeks, I'm logging everything. Every glucose test, every shot, and every morsel of food that gets in me. I'm doing it, no battle.

Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Total units insulin: 62
Avg Blood sugar: 146

Tribute

This Friday marks three years of The Other Dentist. It hasn't always been called that, you know, but it marks the official three year anniversary since the first real post.

How cool is that? I'll try to think of something epic to do. No guarantees though.

It's 12:04, and I'm fairly ready for tomorrow. In other words, I just finished my calc assignment. w00t. I always feel good about myself when I finish a calc assignment.

Today was very important. Madrigals was tender. Usually when I throw "tender" out there it means that I'm joking, but I'm totally not this time. It was a tender class period. It changed us all a little bit, I think.

I want to write more about it later, but I don't want to run the risk of losing it, so I'll write a bit.

I've been looking at mads for these past seven weeks as either giving or taking away some of my life force. I'd go in with my bucket, with the water level dependent on how the earlier part of the day went, and invariably I'd walk out of mads with either significantly more water or significantly less water. There were very few days that didn't change the water level. Mads either filled me with energy, optimism, and hope, or it sucked all the enthusiasm out of me and made me a cranky old man in English.

Today was different though. I think that because it was so tender, it changed me a little bit. I walked out of mads today with a lot of water in my bucket, yeah, but that wasn't what was important. What was important was that I walked out of mads with a bigger bucket than before. I think that we grew a little bit today, as people. I know I did.

I don't get sentimentally attached to associates in my life too much. I love my friends, yeah, but I'm not one of those "close" kind of people. I always work a ton with mentors in my life. Sharpe, Hansen, Coleman, etc. etc. When the time comes for me to move on from those people though, it's never a really big sentimental break. We both respect each other a lot, and we both know that we're a little better for having worked together so much, but we just move on. It's a pretty good system.

Ms. Webb is departing from hence at the end of the week. She's been with us for seven weeks now. For the first time in quite a while, I'm going to miss a mentor.

And it's not that me and Ms. Webb were close by any means. We shared our moments, of course, but that's just because of how incredible she is. It's just that she had an effect on me, and on everybody around me. She changed us, raised us all up a little bit.

School is going to be different without her around. I've gotten very used to the way things are, and it'll be a big change going to something different.

But it's not so much the choir as it is the absence of that figure. She had a way of radiating truth about what's going on. She always told us to come to the party. Why should we be excellent, why should we try so hard? Why do the things we do? She knew. It was that truth that she carried and always shared with us that changed us. Anyone could have instructed us using the exact same methods as she had and it wouldn't have made the difference that she made. She carried truth about life, and she gave that to us. It wasn't so much about singing as it was about being the people that we should be.

She's had an effect. I'm going to miss that effect a lot. Looking ahead to next year, I wonder what the baby mads will ever do without her. It's just a bit inconceivable to me, thinking of senior year without Ms. Webb.

I know I sound like a bit of a doofus. It's not often that I go about on all this sentimentality stuff. But here I am. As a mentor, she made a difference. I'm a different person because of the seven weeks we spent together. She talked about this the first day she was with us. i didn't know what to expect, but it's my custom to give everybody the best shot at working with me as I can. So I gave it a shot. There were days when I didn't come to the party. Days when I wanted to stop the party, really. But at the end of seven weeks, I'm a better person because of what we've done together. Music is just the very smallest part of all of this.

What a neat lady.

Solution

Calculus: It's cheaper than having a girlfriend.

One more day till revolution

There's really more than one day till revolution, but it's a good line from a good song and all that.

I've been meaning to write this week, but I've never gotten to it. Friday's a no go, we'll see what Saturday brings.

But there is definitely some good stuff coming. I had Sterling Scholar interviews this wednesday, and that experience led to some pretty fresh thinking I think. There's a lot of stuff I want to explore there, and the best way that I can think of to explore is to write about it. There's a lot I want to learn about how I feel about that stuff right now, so I'm hoping to get that taken care of soon. I've got a few ideas kicking around that I'd like to toss out as well, so they'll be fun I hope.

So, really, this post exists because those other posts don't exist yet. It's a reminder to me and to you that I'm still alive and that I do want to write but don't feel like right now is the time to do it. I'll shoot for Saturday, definitely.

Welp, I hope you're all doing well. Good luck with your adventures. March Madness for-the-win.

Open

Hey, Happy Monday evening. It's been a pretty good day. School went really well. I sluffed first period to catch up on sleep, and that was just awesome. It was an off-day in calc, so it wasn't a huge deal. I did my assignment tonight, and I feel really good about all of it but one problem. It felt good to sleep in. It felt even better to head to school when it was bright and happy outside. Most of the frost on the vehicle had been taken care of by the sun, it was pretty sweet.

Daylight savings is gonna change that, but I'm alright with it. It gives us more time in the evening, so that's cool.

Spring is coming, and that just makes me happy. During the winter I forget how good life can really feel outside. The beauty of that first amazing run on that first amazing mild night, that's awesome. I'm really looking forward to summer evening runs again. I didn't go on too many last summer, but the ones I did hit were really cool. Me, Kyle, Levi, and James would all get together and go hit the parkway. We took it fairly easy, just jogging around, enjoying being together and breathing in what the evening had to offer. Ah, makes me nostalgic. I can't wait for summer evening runs with good people.

Tonight feels very open. Not open in an "I'm emotionally open" kind of way, but open as a "the future is ripe for the taking" kind of open. I feel good about life right now. School is more or less under control. I finished Tess, and I feel like I nailed the test. It didn't kill me. I've got no incredibly pressing projects on my plate right now. I feel like I'm on top of calculus. There are a few assignments missing, but I think I can probably just let them slide for now, as long as I keep up with the rest. I know the material, so that's good. I'm a lot of responses behind in English, as well as the Romeo and Juliet write-up, but I think I can make it happen. There are a few scholarship applications I'd like to get in that have deadlines in the next week or two. A few essays to write, but nothing incredible. I'm excited to do it.

Our choir concert is the 10th. I'm very excited for it. It'll be fun to perform, surely, but I'm really excited to find out what happens in choir once the concert is over with. What are we going to do? It's a complete mystery to me. It'll be a grand adventure I suppose.

I've been meaning to write more. I haven't gotten to it, obviously. Writing does a lot of good for me. I really think it makes me grow as a person. It's interesting to note that I don't default to writing, though. If I don't make an effort to write, it doesn't happen. The same goes for running, and studying, and all sorts of other good things that make me better. If I don't put forth the energy to start it, it doesn't happen.

I haven't been running, really at all. In the past several months I've logged an official five miles or so. I've obviously run more with Ultimate and Basketball, but it's not the same. Since blogaday, I've been very patchy with my writing. I haven't been keeping incredible logs of my bloogsugar, like I could be.

Now, I don't think I've been a slacker these past few months. I don't say that I'm unsatisfied with what I've been doing with my life. It's just interesting to point out that these things don't happen unless I make them happen. I haven't been making them happen, for various reasons.

And I'd like to start making them happen more. Writing, to me, is sort of like the fruit in your cereal effect I wrote about a long time ago. Fruit in cereal, to me, is the essence of affluence. If you have the time and resources to put external fruit into your cereal, you are clearly a well-to-do and happy individual. Life is good if there is fruit in your cereal. Not necessarily because fruit in your cereal makes life any better, but because fruit in your cereal is a symptom of a great life. Make sense?

Writing is sorta like that. I mean, I really do believe that writing does make my life better, but I feel like I write more when my life is better. When I'm doing well, posts fly. When I'm stressed or busy or not feeling well, I don't get as many out there. Writing is like the cherry on top. I guess, to me, it's sort of like thinking, "This is the next step. I've already conquered steps one through six today, and this is just the bonus round. I can take steps to make the world a better place, instead of playing on the defensive."

I talked about playing on the defensive versus the offensive a while ago. I made a plan to be much more vocal about everything. I was planning to use the written word to change things. I think it probably developed during blogaday. I haven't gone on any crusades, but I did take care of a few things. I wrote the letters to my counselor to help me graduate, and those were very successful. I am now officially on track to graduate, how cool is that? I wrote the essays I needed to for the Sterling Scholar business and that Micron app. I never did apply for Micron. After all that work I decided not to, but I feel good about it. I learned more about me through that Micron app.

Back to the defensive ideas. I feel like writing is the next step. I can spend my life being a zombie, simply catching the tasks that are thrown at me, and throwing them back, done fairly well. That's fine and dandy, and it's been working great. But at some point I'd like to be able to stand up and say "Hey, I'm doing this." instead of being told to do it. Nobody has told me I needed to blog for a grade since ninth grade. I do this because I want to, and because I love the effects that it has. Stuff like that is way cool.

Projects for the sake of projects make me very happy. Excellence, I think, is only truly excellence when it exists only for excellence' sake. In the past I've been very any anything for anything's sake. Most things need a reason. But I think excellence is one of those things that really needs no defense. It's sorta like blogaday. Blogaday was pure because it existed for itself, not necessarily for anyone else. Excellence is like that. I wrote about ceilings during blogaday, and how I admire them so. I'm still a big ceiling fan. (Ha!)

It grows late. Well, really, it grew late a long time ago. It's still late. I do suppose it's a good time for me to go read some BOM and then head to bed. I hope you're all doing well. If things work out, I ought to be writing some more this week. No guarantees, but we'll see what I can do. I'd like to write. Right on friends, have a good one.

Thanks

Hey everybody, no great big post coming tonight, since I'm headed to bed soon, but I wanted to stop by and say thanks to everybody who participated in the poll and left comments. Gathering data like that is very important to me. Counseling, really. As I get a better feel for what you guys want, I'll be able to produce a better blog for you all. What happened this last week was good for me.

Sincere thanks to those who took some time to reflect and comment. I'll be giving all the comments another good look this week sometime and then I'll try to formulate a game plan for the future of The Other Dentist.

The poll closes in about an hour. Interesting results; I'm really glad I have them. Comments are still open and always incredibly appreciated.

So once again, thanks, really. I know it's a little thing, but it's important to me. I'm glad that I have friends that would put forth the effort to do that for me.

I hope that you're all doing well. There'll be some good stuff coming in the future, I'm excited about it. I'm excited to get back to posting. I feel like it's been a little while, so it'll be good to get back. Things have been pretty cool these past few weeks, and I'm excited to talk about life some more with you all. I think that pretty soon I'll toss a post up detailing my plans for the future, that'll be good. In any event, I wish good things for you all. Have an excellent night, and keep up the good work.

The Poll

There's a poll on the site. For the first time ever, as far as I can remember.

The jist of it is that I want to know what you, the audience, wants to see from me in the future. I know it's a bit of a hard thing to ask, but I'd really appreciate it if you'd give me some insight. I'll definitely be looking at the poll results seriously. I don't promise that I'll pull off what you guys ask, but I'm willing to give it a shot.

There are four options on the poll. Let me explain them all.

1) Another Blogaday. This one is pretty easy. I'll just call out another blogaday of whatever length, and then do it. You all saw what happened with the last one. It's a similar idea.

2) A Week of Professional Writing. This one would be a lot more experimental. It'd be a week where I'd have a post every single day. But instead of having a normal post where I train of consciousness my way around forever, I'd have a directed post that I'd worked on and thought about and officially written. It'd have one topic, would include all sorts of bolded text and italicized text and links to outside information. It'd be the kind of stuff you'd see from established blogs out there, not just fun little personal journal stuff. It'd be actually production, not just stuff I write. It might be interesting to see.

3) More of the Same. That just means I'll keep doing what I've been doing. Yep.

4) Other, please specify. That one means leave a comment and tell me.

Really now, I'm just trying to get a feel for what's working and what isn't. What do you guys like? What do I do that you guys don't like? What would you like to see? Of course, if everybody knew exactly what they liked and what they wanted from me here, they wouldn't even come, they'd just write their own stuff. I know that this is a long shot, but I'd really like some feedback here. What kind of posts do you like? What kind of posts do you not like? What's been working for you? What makes you want to come back? What makes you not want to come back? Is there something you'd like to see me try?

If there's one post you comment on, I'd love for it to be this one. I know I'm asking a lot, but I'd appreciate any and all info you guys are willing to give me. So give the poll a shot, and please leave a comment explaining stuff, if you'd like to. I promise to read it and try to incorporate your wishes. Thanks a lot friends.

348, I think

Happy 348th published post, or something close to that. Can you believe I've actually been here for that long? Do you know how many words that is? How many hours spent typing here? It's pretty incredible to me. It makes me happy.

I've been thinking a lot about the future lately, as I am wont to do. Just, where I'm going, how I'm going to do it, what it's gonna be like, etc. etc. Just a lot of that kind of business. It's been fun and enlightening, makes me want to be a better person I guess.

And I think that's one of the cool parts about it all. More or less, every single thing that I worry about for the future comes down to "Well, I've got to be the best person I can be now, and then things will work out better in the future." Every prospect in my future is going to be modified by how I'm doing right now. If I work hard now, my future is going to look brighter than if I don't work hard now. That's pretty cool gravy.

Been thinking about college. To me, right now, it's less about school than it is about being off with five other great guys. I feel like it's training grounds. I'll be working harder at academics than ever before, I'll be cooking my own food, buying my own groceries, being where I need to be or not being where I need to be, more or less being my own person. It's not the big show yet, since I'm playing with other people's money (thank you scholarships and student loans). I'll be with my big brother and some great friends. It's like a half step towards being on my own, I think it's going to be great preparation.

Been thinking a bit about what I want to be when I grow up. Engineering has been the plan for a while now. I love solving problems. I wonder if it's my passion though. I begin to feel that business is more of my thing. I get really excited when I hear or read about clever business models. I'm all about innovation, especially as it relates to businesses.

Of course, business isn't one of those things that is officially a good idea for me. Everybody laughs at the business majors. Business majors sometimes have a rough time actually getting any job, or so I hear. And that's really one of the things I'm most worried about. What if I go to school, do well, show all this promise, and then fall through the cracks? What if nobody picks me up? What if I'm all about trying to make it on my own, and then I fail? That'd be thumbs down.

I feel like I'm going to be on the edge of whatever I end up doing. I can't see myself as a middle of the road professional. Wherever I go, I'm going to want to try something new. I feel that if I'm not gonna be doing anything new, what's the point in doing anything anyways? Can't we get a robot to do it, if it's not something new? There's some uncertainty there for me then. New is risky. New is one of those things that isn't a secure paycheck month by month. New, of course, has a higher chance of ridiculous success. But it carries that added risk that you'll land flat on your butt and have to pick up the pieces. Picking up the pieces is hard.

So I'm not sure what the future holds for me in that area. I think I've got an idea of what I'd like it to hold. I'd like to do something new, obviously. But I'd like to make the world a better place, while making money. I'm not opposed to making money off of people, as long as I'm actually making their lives better. I couldn't stand to sell someone a product that was entirely worthless. But if what I was doing was actually improving their quality of life, see, I think that'd be a great feeling. I'm not how I'll do that yet. I think I've got some time to figure it out as I go. But I'd like to make things better. Help people live better lives, boost the economy. Become financially secure, and then use that security to continue making the world a better place. I worry sometimes that I'm a little too concerned about the finances off tomorrow. I know it's not the most important thing. I just think that being financially secure offers so many opportunities to do good things. Of course, it offers opportunities to do bad things as well, but that's a given. I'd like to be financially secure.

Been thinking about the future of relationships, specifically marriage. Now, I know, that's a no-no. Don't worry, I'm not pegging out girls just yet. Just thinking about how that's going to be, what kind of person I'm going to need to be to make that work. This is one of those things that right now I don't have to worry at all about the other person. All I can do right now is work to make myself the best person I can be, and then hope everything else works out. I've just gotta work like crazy. That's my kind of deal. Now, maybe I'm not the best at working like crazy, but I love the idea of it. I love the fact that right now I don't have to worry at all about anybody else on this. How that all ends up later in life is entirely related to how hard I work now. I love direct relations like that. Work work work now means incredible spouse later. I'm sold.

This post will be a bit all over the place. Prepare youreslves.

~~~

When I was turning in my English portfolio, I remarked to Parrish that it was four pound of me. All sheet-protected and pretty, it was sort of a big deal. It had 10th, 11th, and 12th grade writing in there. It also had some blog posts, all of water, all that fun stuff. As I was plopping it onto the pile, Parrish asks, "What's the best piece in there?"

And it got me thinking, How do I define the worth of a piece of writing? Is it how eloquent the language is? Is it how comical it is? Is it, perhaps, how effectively it gets its point across?

I didn't have an answer for her. I had a lot of writing in that portfolio. I had a ton of writing that I was very very proud of. Stuff that I'd spent many hours revising and polishing.

I included blogaday 15 in the portfolio. I wrote that post on the 13th of January, turned the portfolio in on the 25th. It was by far the newest piece in the book. Blogaday 15 received no comments on the blog. It was a much more personal post than I'd written in a very long time. Two people told me after I'd posted it that they liked it. They didn't leave a comment, but they told me.

I like to think that maybe blogaday 15 was the best piece of writing in the portfolio. Not because it's well written or incredibly powerful. But because it did good things for me, and I get the feeling that it did good things for a few other people out there in the world. Maybe it didn't, but I think that maybe, on a tiny tiny scale, it changed a few things.

And isn't that the point of writing? Why else do we get up in the morning, if not to change things for the better? Why are we here, if not to move ourselves and others forward on this eternal march towards betterment?

I had stronger pieces in that portfolio. Blogaday 15 was written with almost zero revision. I had more entertaining pieces. I had pieces that more people had seen, that more people had commented on and loved. I had tried and true veterans. But I think that blogaday 15 takes the cup. Not because it's my favorite piece, and not because it was my strongest piece. But because it did a little bit of good for me, and because I think it made the world a bit of a better place.

How do I define the value of a piece of writing? I think that I've got to say that I define it by the good it does in the world. When it all comes down to it, nothing else really matters, other than how we're doing at being better people and helping others do the same. I think that writing that misses that mark misses the meaning of its creation.

And perhaps I'm wrong. That happens. But it's my theory, and I'm sticking with it.

~~~~

I had a dream last night. I won't go into it all, but it was quite an interesting one. I only write it here because the feelings that it invoked were very interesting. A few other guys and I were in my basement before an impending crisis. I don't think we knew what it was, but looking back the only thing that'd make sense would be a nuclear strike. We had sealed everything off in preparation. The window was all plexiglass, and we knew we'd be safe in there. The strike (or whatever it was) happened, and suddenly we were a few years later. It felt like no time had passed, but we knew that much time had. Later in the dream I found a yearbook that told me it was now at least 2015, but I'm thinking the date was later than that.

In any event, we found ourselves in an extremely interesting situation. We, as a group, had absolutely no idea what existed outside our little safe room. We didn't know if anybody in the whole world had survived the crisis. We didn't know if there was any infrastructure left. We didn't know if the outlets in the wall would work. We didn't know if there was radiation outside that would toast us the moment we opened the door. We didn't know if everybody had been mutated and that zombies awaited us on the other side. We had no idea if those we loved had survived, or, if they had, where they were now that it was so far in the future. We had a computer in the room, but we didn't know if the power would last for us to use it. We didn't know if the internet had changed so much that our old web browsers would still work. We didn't know if we were wired. I remember worrying specifically about my cell phone, whether I'd ever get the chance to charge it again.

We ultimately had no information at all. We were placed in a situation where we had never been before. We had always known that there were constants out there. People and powers that we could rely on. We didn't know if anybody was alive out there. Everything was different.

We didn't spend long wondering. We ventured out of our safe room into my basement. I picked up the power drill as defense, in case there were zombies. As I ventured up the stairs, I encountered the only scary creature of the whole adventure, some big caterpillar/worm doober. I had to fight with it for a while with the power drill, but eventually I killed it. Way to go me.

But we got upstairs. I remember my house was pretty dark, but still livable. I wasn't being toasted by radiation, but I didn't see any signs of life outside of the people that had survived with me. I remember that we looked outside, to the west, and saw some ruins. Levi or James decided to go check them out, to see if there were any people there. I remember not seeing him or knowing where he was for a long time after that.

We stayed like that for a while, but then we adventured further. We went outside, and we set our course for the stake center. We made it there, and finally found some people. My neighbor was there, as well as a few familiar faces. We were ushered inside pretty quick, and then the lights were turned down so the place looked unoccupied. Apparently there was a lot of persecution going on against us. I got to talk with those people for a while, but not for too long. I never did get to figure too much out of what happened.

The next bit I remember was a year book from Tville. Because it's a dream, I don't remember where I got it. But I remember looking at it for a very long time. The pages were all sepia'd, but some of the pictures were moving Harry Potter style. The date on the yearbook said 200815. I figured it was a new numbering system, something like 15 years after the crisis, or seven years after 2008, making 15. I told my brother that it was dumb, and he agreed. We both looked through the pages forever, trying to find some shred of our former lives. The school was functioning like normal. High school kids, doing their thing. Obviously the world was different, but they were living in the new world.

We finally found evidence of us after a long search. There was one picture of a bunch of kids in front of the trophy cases by the main gym. It was a picture that the yearbook staff had put in from many years ago. I immediately saw a bunch of familar faces, as it was from our year. After a few people moved, I saw myself in the back, on my cell phone. I felt stupid for being on my cell phone for the picture, but overjoyed to know that I had actually existed and that these two worlds that I had known were connected. As I looked at the picture, me and Andrew saw in the trophy case various incarnations of Wilbur. We saw two that we identified as our own. We said something like "Our guardians" or "Our legacy" in reference to those two mascots. Interesting to note is that this part has no basis on reality. Me and Andrew have strong ties to one incarnation of wilbur, but that wasn't in the dream. It was like he and I had crafted these wilbur's. Interesting, eh? We both knew that we had existed, and that while we'd been absent for at least seven years, that those seven years hadn't seen us entirely erased.

And that was most of the dream. I woke up before I needed to, so I laid in bed for a long time thinking about it all. As dreams go, it was very interesting, just because of the scenario that it presented. I had never really placed myself in a situation like that before, where everything was uncertain. Where all the givens of life were tossed out the window. Is there food out there? Are there zombies waiting to eat me? I'm yet to see I am Legend, but I have heard that there's a similar idea there. Don't blame it on that.

I'm taking the dream for what it's worth, obviously. Just an interesting dream, and sort of fun to think about. I wonder if such a thing actually happened, how I'd react. I think that as a group we did a fairly decent job. Dream logic is obviously not the same as wakeful logic. What if me and a few buddies had actually found ourselves instantaneously several years in the future after a global crisis? Would we have ever opened the door to see what was on the other side? Would we have turned the cell phones on, hoping that somehow we'd find an outside world? Would we have saved the fruitsnacks, or would we have eaten them there? One of the things about the dream was that each step away from the initial safe room was a brave undertaking. Opening the door the first time could have meant our death. Once we had secured the house, we took the next uncertain step to the outside world. Once we had secured our surroundings, we took the step down the street to the church. Once that was figured out, we took the step to the highschool. Step by step. In reality, I don't know if we'd have ever opened the door. Things worked out alright for us, maybe I'd be brave enough to do it. Just interesting stuff to think about, that's all.

~~~

Some more to write about, but I hope there'll be another day for it. It's been a good post for me to write. I hope that you're all doing well. Happy Sunday evening, friends. I wish you good things.