The Week of the Blue T-Shirt: Hiatus

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

The Week of the Blue T-Shirt: Day Three

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Week of the Blue T-Shirt: Day Two

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

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

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

Miracle of the day:

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

Impressions from Day Two:

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

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

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

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

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

The Week of the Blue T-Shirt: Day One

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

Daily Achievements:

Attend all classes: 10 pts

Workout: 10 pts

Program something: 10 pts

Talk to a stranger on campus: 15 pts

Weekly:

Go on a date: 15 pts

Run a mile under 7 minutes: 15 pts

Go home teaching: 15 pts

Complete all workout achievements: 20 pts

Complete all attendance achievements plus all homework: 20 pts

View 5 online lectures: 10 pts

Conquer C++ day 8: 15 pts

Finish programming Pirate Dice: 15 pts

The total is 350 achievement points.

Monday Recap (40/350)

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

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

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

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

The Week of the Blue T-Shirt: Day Zero

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Happiness at Panda Express

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

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

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

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

Patronus

Update 4: Just added the Angry Pig patronus

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

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

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

Go Aggies.

Writing From Home

Goal: Blog more.

Problem: I don't have much to say.

Solution: Still searching for that one.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Do better."

National Talk Like a Pirate Day

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

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

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

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

A Very Late Shout-Out

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

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

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

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

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

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

Letter-Speak

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Recrudescence

Howdy friends, I'm back :)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Peace

Well friends, I'm out for the next two years. I've been called to serve in the Texas Dallas mission, so I'll be elsewhere preaching the good word till about July or August 2011. It's been fun.

This is what I'm supposed to do, and I'm excited to go do it. The blog should remain up, and I think I've paid the domain fees for the next three years. Hopefully I'll come back and write when I get home. We'll see though.

Anyways, friends, I just wanted to post one last time before I leave. Sure, I haven't posted much this past year, but I still love the blog. It's been an important part of my growing up. It wouldn't have been possible without readers out there like you. Thanks for reading.

If you're interested in writing me, my MTC address is:

Elder Christopher John Thatcher

Texas Dallas Mission

Provo Missionary Training Center

2005 N 900 E

Provo, UT 84604

That address will work for the next eight weeks, or till about september 9. After that, if you feel inclined to write me, you can catch me at

Elder Christopher John Thatcher

Texas Dallas Mission

13747 Montfort Dr Ste 120

Dallas, TX 75240-4454

Much love folks. I'll be back in two. Peace out :)

Five Days

Do you ever wonder about unwritten blog posts? And by that I mean to say that I've been wondering about unwritten blog posts tonight. I have brief flashes of ideas, often when I'm going down some stairs. Just ideas that deserve exploration and writing, stuff that I think, "Hmm, I could blog about that..."

In the event that you've been following the blog, you'll no doubt notice that I haven't been writing about these things. That's alright, but I feel like it's a bit of a shame. Those ideas didn't really get explored too deeply by me. (That last sentence is very ugly-- 'get explored' is not a pleasant way to talk about exploration, and 'too deeply by me' is especially bad. I think that 'by me' is the ugliest part) Revision: Those ideas didn't really experience the exploration I felt they had potential for. Because of that, I didn't experience the exploration that could have come from it. Because I didn't write it here, I lost out on a lot of potential gains.

• I could have learned something about myself, or at least about how I percieve the world.
• I could have left something here for me to come back to later. Without writing, there is no permanent record of having that thought.
• I could have produced something that may have been valuable to someone else.

Of course, none of those bullets are guaranteed. I could write a full post every time that I felt like I had potential for it, and I could perchance never experience any of those successes. Be that as it may, I feel like the potential is there.

I don't mourn the loss of the posts that I didn't write. I do wonder about a future where I would have written those posts. How would things be different if I sat down and worked for that hour it takes to write?

I'm out of here in five days. I'm going on a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. This is something I've been preparing for for all of my life, and I'm very happy and excited to go. I'm out of here for two good years. I don't regret my decision to pack up and peace out of my local life at all.

It does present a lot of cool opportunities. Sometime before I leave I'm going to write myself my "welcome home" letter. It's a letter that'll detail the plans that I have for myself when I get home. Writing the letter means that I'll have to make a plan for myself. It's not every day that you get to check out of your life for two years. It's sort of like a recess. Go somewhere else, work like you've never worked before, and then come back and make your life the best you possibly can. This project, my life, that I've been working on for the past 19 years is about to take a time out. Timeouts are a great opportunity to reevaluate and gather the resources and vision to come back stronger. Timeouts change the outcome of games, you know. I'm excited to take a timeout.

Will you be hearing from me before I leave? I sure hope so. I want to write a post about my plans and dreams. There's more to say. There'll always be more to say.

Will you hear from me once I'm home? I'm not sure yet. This blog did something wonderful for me and my life... I don't know if I'll have the same need for a blog once I resume my life. We'll see, though. I believe in all of this writing mumbo-jumbo. It's been good to me.

This is Christopher Thatcher, peacing out for the night. Peace and love, friends.

The Artistic Life of an Insulin Addict

Icarus

Hi, my name is: Icarus

I went running with James today, and it was awesome. It was a very focusing run. It helped me take a step back and look at life and what I want to do and to be.

I've got a plan now, and I'm super excited about this plan. It's audacious and it's pretty much bound to fail. But I am determined to not give up. It's my plan and I'm sticking with it. Because really now, who's to say what I'm capable of? Who's to say that I'll fail? Maybe I will. But hey, I've got a shot at it, so I'm going to take it.

My advisor emailed me back. It wasn't a super long email, but he essentially said, "Yes, you will have prereq problems, but the teachers should be willing to sign you in anyways. I'll be retired by the time you get back, but this other guy should be able to help you. Good luck on the mission." It was cool to get a response. I know that's his job and all, but it was nice for me to get my thoughts out there and to get his thoughts back. In a small way, it's sort of like getting the "Yeah, I believe in you." back. I know it's not that dramatic, but it wasn't something like, "Nah, you can't hack this, go home." It was nice, that's all.

So, yeah, I'm feeling much better. Less sluggish. Tomorrow looks like it ought to be a really good day. This cat is off to read and then to sleep. It's 1:46 AM, but that's a ton earlier than the past few nights has been. It feels good. I ran today, I've done a little bit of work to actually earn this sleep tonight. Feels nice.

Sluggishness

I'm alive, really. And I do still think and feel, even if I haven't written in a while. This past week has been a little ridiculous. I've really enjoyed it, but there hasn't been a ton of life progress involved. I got a sweet computer game for my birthday, Mass Effect, and me and Michael have been logging lots of hours late into the night on it. Because my life is almost entirely up to me right now, that means I stay up very late and wake up very late. It's not a good way to get much done, but it's been a good time. I'm torn right now between just finishing the game (we're pretty close) or just quitting cold turkey because I can't handle this lack of accomplishment for much longer. There are things that I need to get done that I haven't been getting done. But hey, that's only up to me.

I leave for PLC on Tuesday. That's pretty sweet action. I'm not ready for it, but I think that I will be by then. I need to fix my bike up, pack, and learn all the lessons I'm supposed to be teaching. It should be fun. I've never been an "Adult advisor" before. That'll be cool.

I finally emailed my chem advisor today. Technically he's not my chem advisor since I'm not a chem student. But when I do become a chem student, then he'll be my chem advisor. Either way, I emailed him my proposed schedule just to see if it's realistic and doable. It's a little smashed up because of AP credit and other classes I took without knowing I wanted to do chemistry. But I'm hoping that it'll work. It's a pretty fierce return semester, but I'm really excited about it. It's what I want to do, and I'm so happy to finally have something to work towards.

I'm supposed to be going camping tonight. I don't really want to. Not because I don't like camping, because I do, but because there is other stuff that I'd like to do tonight. I suppose it can be okay, if I work harder right now I can manage most of it, and I can finish the rest on Saturday. Hmm.

Work. Haven't been doing much of it. I feel really good when I do work. I should do more of it.

Okay, I'm out. I've got a bike to fix up. Sorry about the lack of postage, I should be managing more of it in the near future. I've been liking life, I just need to work harder. Nobody is forcing me into anything these days. It's this insane lack of schedule or outside responsibility. There's a list of things to be done, and aside from the occasional reminder from mom, it's entirely up to me. This is life, and it's always been life. No new concepts or governing principles here. This isn't a surprise and it's nothing new. And I know what I need to do. I just need to do it. So here I go, to do it. Whoosh.

Quesadilla

There was an excellent moment tonight. I got home and was hungry, so I and went about searching for something to hit the perfect spot. In a flash of glory, the idea of microwaving a quesadilla hit me like a tidal wave of satisfaction. A quesadilla was exactly what I needed right then.

So I made the quesadilla and it was fantastic. I loved it. And I'm just here tonight to say that sometimes the perfect solution is a quesadilla. It's not often that a perfect solution is easily available or even in existence. Some decisions are so difficult that no matter what choice one makes someone gets hurt. The quesadilla question wasn't like that. I needed something to eat, and a quesadilla was, without question, the perfect solution. No compromises, no trade-offs-- nothing but delicious cheesy goodness.

So hey, life is worth living- we've got quesadillas.

Sporadi-post!

Because normal words that are cut in half and end in "-post!" sound really cool.

Here I am, hooray! I use google analytics to track the traffic to my blog. I'm consistently amazed at how many hits I get from random google searches. I wrote a post about spirit week at eisenhower a few years ago, and I mentioned a kid's first and last name. I usually made it a policy not to use last names on the blog, but I guess I just slipped that day. Anyways, I've had 13 hits to the blog from google searches on his name in the past few years. Thirteen hits isn't a lot, but it's interesting how they are spread out. It's not like there are eight hits in one month, no, they're evenly spread out. Someone is interested in that kid. Chances are that it's just that kid. It may also be the police or the news folks. Either way, I think it's fun.

Things that I'm excited about: 

1) There's an Ultimate tournament between singles wards coming up on the 30th. Granted, it won't be as intense as other tournaments I've played in, but it's still an ultimate tournament. That's awesome. We're going to dominate. With three Thatchers on the team, we're going to work dang hard to bring home the trophy. As an added bonus, this ward took absolute last place at this tournament last year. They're out for blood, and now that me and Andrew have joined the team, I think we're going to get it.

2) I'm going to PLC again, w00t! As a quick recap, PLC is a week long camp that 15+ year old boys are invited to from about eight stakes. The whole week is designed to build leadership skills and awesome stuff like that. I went as a participant three years ago and it totally blew me away. I went back as staff the last two years, working in the "presidency" that ran it. This year I get to go back as an adult leader, despite my obvious lack of adult status. I'm absolutely giddy about this. The months that lead up to PLC are incredibly stressful for staff. There's just a lot to be done, and trying to collaborate power sharing between a bunch of 17 year olds and a bunch of fossils isn't an easy task. The week of PLC is really hard too, but we all know that it's worth it at the end. I'm excited to go this year because there's nothing cooler than the lessons that you learn at PLC, and that's what I get to focus on this year. Nothing administrative, just me teaching these newbies stuff that's true and incredibly effective. These lessons make my heart sing they're so good. I've never run into anything that's as good at teaching effective leadership skills like PLC. So yeah, it's a brute. But it's so worth it, and I'm so excited to go back and help one more time.

3) I get to play basketball and Ultimate tomorrow. Basketball with Dak and those folks, and Ultimate practice for the tournament. I love doing both of those things. That's great news!

So, I was reading some bloggage tonight- personal finance stuff like usual. And I started reading this post about something or other, blah blah blah. Anyways, it talked about being confident, and how to get confident. And I really just had to stop halfway through that first sentence and think to myself, "Huh, reading this crud's not going to help me get confident. A little bit of work sounds like the right thing for me. I'm out." So I quit reading, came here to write, and now I'm off to study. Because let's be serious, reading a blog about how to gain confidence isn't going to make me a better person. Some hardcore study will make me a better person though, and isn't being a better person something that's going to make me more confident? You better believe it.

So I'm out. I hope you're all doing well. Happy postage. 

Work at Ultimate

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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