This is another post about looking back into the past to look forward into the future. However, it is a little different. Living in the past means you cannot move forward into the future. Taking sneak peaks back there can relive the euphoria, but if it does not reflect or rekindle, it is meaningless. If the times we are living in are full of negativity, then it is necessary to keep these moments in mind. Looking to the past can create a blindness for the current and the future. Looking into the future based on current events is basically just as important as looking into the past. Will these events I am turning a blind eye to happen again? I shrugged them off once, will I be trampled over the next time and let it happen? Yet, it is not all negative. We can learn.

All throughout my posts there has been a message of learning from the past, present, and future. fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. If you are content, stay in that place. If you can reach for improvement, reach for it. my posts have given these messages. It is just hard to reach when your arm is tired and it is going to hurt. Sometimes it comes with consequences. Knowledge is not free, it is a good that is acquired through work and sweat. When the odds were in your favor, and the next day someone stacks weights against you, it is hard to fully know which is lighter.

Patience is a virtue, but wading could be suicide.

A little note

Let me tell you a little story relating to my blog-

The little link has been up on my toolbar that links me to this blog. Sometimes I click it and look back at my old posts. I randomly started reading one of my old posts, and at the end of the post I left a little 'ps' paragraph that almost made no sense to anyone reading it.. except me. It was a little secret note that I left to myself in case someday I had forgotten something that seemed important to me. The part that blew my mind was that I had forgotten it, and this DID remind me. I stared at nothing for a second, how the hell did I forget what was enticing and surrounding my head at the time? Something that was starting to lose its euphoria had instantly been re-sparked and kindled and became a flame again.

That little note is what inspired me to come back to my blog and write another post. I want to look back at this post sometime and realize, wow, flames can be rekindled, bridges can be rebuilt.

I love this blog, and it is written for no one except myself. Its my thoughts, emotions, rationals, and justifications written in cyberspace.

Slumberparties

Oh yes, I know there is a party going on, yet I am not invited. I am sure you understand my problem with getting invited to this all girl slumberparty, the fact that I am a boy. Even though my masculinity can bring me far, it is not enough to bring me into the unknown cavern that is a girl's sleepover. I have seen the movies, I know what goes on in these. These girls, do things that are unspeakable. I know, I've seen the movies! Oh yeah, the intense pillow fights in their nightgowns. What slumber party have you seen in a movie that did NOT involve a pillow fight? None.

I wonder if any girls have ever been injured in a pillow fight? I can't imagine a worse way to get a battle wound. Imagine someone asking you, "How did you get that scar on your forehead?" "Well, You see, I was in intense pillow fight warfare, and well, things got crazy." I hope that these girls that are whaling on each other have some sort of mercy when they beat the crap out of each other. As soft as a pillow is, something that is moving at the high speed velocity of the weapon that is a pillow is still gonna hurt!

I can just imagine the dirty things that these girls do. Oh you know, all girl slumber party pg 13 rated kinds of stuff. I am 100 % absolutely sure that these supposively 'innocent' girls talk about one thing and one thing only... boys. What else is on a teenage girls mind? Lots of boys. They talk about hot boys, short boys, tall boys, skinny boys, fat boys, and more boys. They probably talk about who looks the best without a shirt on. I wonder.. if any girls have wondered what I look like without my shirt on? Probably.

When girls have these sleep overs, I think they need to entertain themselves. They do this with truth-or-dare. In this game there are two options: truth, or dare. I am sure that their truths are super lame, like which guy has the cutest butt or when was the first time you kissed a boy. That section of the game is pretty dull as an onlooking boy. Yet, the game gets really exciting when the dares come out. I can only imagine the kinds of dirty deeds these girls do when theyre only surrounded by other girls. When the girls choose the impulsive decision of dare, oh they better be ready for some crazy stuff.

I got pulled over

They say, "Don't drive in the fast lane if you are going to go the speed limit" However, they forgot to say "ONLY DO THIS IF YOU REALIZE YOU ARE CAPABLE OF GETTING PULLED OVER!" Guess what happened to me. Yeah, for the second time in my life I got pulled over for speeding by a copper. The first time was for 11 over, and the nice officer let me off with a verbal warning (love). But this time it was a little different.

I will start by saying that the route I was on was an off route because of road work. And on a little more pathetic side, my friends mom had told me not to speed on that road because cops had been pulling pissed off people over that had been speeding through that area. I fit the description- pissed off person speeding. When I looked in my rear view I saw the lights and thought "fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu..." Unlucky for me, this was another high school's prom night, and apparently alcohol is consumed primarily on prom night. Oh yeah, did I mention this was an hour passed my driving curfew? 1:15 in the morning, ha. The officer made me get out of the car. Holy crap. It is actually sort of cool hearing a cop say to you, "I'm going to need you to step out of the car." Just like in the movies. But I was a little too star struck, because he asked me if it was ok if he patted me down. What do I say to that? No? So I asked if I needed to put my hands on my car and he kinda looked at me funny. Note to self: patting down doesn't need to have hands on the car. After feeling me up, he told me that he was only letting me off with a warning, 40 in a 30. I basically thanked jesus at that moment. 10 over an hour past curfew, and I got a warning.

So, I don't think I deserved the warning. I deserved a speeding ticket to be honest. I am not sure if my license would have been revoked, but I guess I am thankful for a cop with a generous heart. Let's be honest here, I am probably going to speed again sometime soon. It is hard to not do that. Maybe this lesson will teach me every time I look at my speedometer, and then it will resulting with me tapping the breaks. I guess I am glad that some people break the stereotypes- a cop that let me off easy. I appreciate it officer.


broadpr.com

ADDICTION: Mountain Dew

I have been trying and trying and trying to quit drinking mountain dew. I have many reasons why I am trying to quit this addiction. Yes, it is actually an addiction of mine. I didn't used to think it was an addiction, however, I attempted to quit cold turkey-style. 'Going cold turkey' is just totally 100% stopping. Mainly, it means no gradual decline of habit use. To be completely honest, it isn't working that well.

I first realized I was addicted to this soda pop drink not too long ago. I used to pour the stuff down my throat without thinking anything. And I first decided to quit when I starting being a little bit healthier. I substituted it for propel, which actually worked a little because I think it was the artificial sugars that I was addicted to. And actually I didn't drink any pop at all for like a month. Yet, I decided to relapse a little bit and drink one, and then one more didn't hurt, and then one more didn't hurt, and then I think you get the point. I relapsed.... on mountain dew. how pathetic is that? Every sense then, I have been attempting to quit drinking it again. And as sadly as this sounds, the longest I have gone is 2 and a half days.

So about quitting, I think the hardest way to go about doing it is cold turkey, and damnit I don't even think it's effective. It just makes me want it more and more. I think a gradual decline is a better tactic. But however, I think forcing a quit of a habit doesn't work very well ever, I think the way to go is by finding some sort of motivation for quitting, like when I stopped drinking all those calories it made me lose weight (true story by the way!). So, I think the way to better yourself from your nasty dirty habits is finding those little small motivations that will keep you moving in the right and just direction. Whether it be a competition, or if it is to get buffer faster, motivation is key, not force.


office space

awkward

So from being in many awkward situations, I learn how to avoid awkward situations. Awkward silences are the worst. There is nothing at all that I dread more when speaking to someone. When I say something expecting a response yet no response is given, how awkward! So i learned several ways and techniques to avoid awkward situations.

First, you gotta think before speaking. You need to know which stories are funny, and which make you look like a freak. That is what it comes down to, how your stories make you look. For example, if I give a story about how my friends and I were in a closet at a friends house when her mom came home, that's a pretty damn funny story. HOWEVER- don't ever tell the story of when the dentist found some food stuck in your teeth and asked how long it had been there. You have no idea, I even wondered how it got there!! No, this was a bad story. The wide eyed stairs you receive from a story like this means that it is awkward, sorry. So you need to think before telling a story, does it make you look worse off? Think about your audience and purpose. Is your audience going to think this is funny? Or are they the ones to give you the wtf-look? And your purpose, is it to merely inform a story? Or is it actually to be funny? Because usually the bad stories are the ones with no real purpose!

Yet, like I said, the way to learn is to be put in the awkward situations. It happens to the best of us, but due to my mass amounts of experience, I know how to get out of a situation when put in it! To be honest, just keep talking. But not about the 'awkward' situation, you need to in a subtle manner change the subject. Explain how the story you WERE giving leads to THIS story! THIS story is good! Boring is not awkward, yet boring is a situation you'd rather be in!

Practice makes perfect. Practice avoids awkwardness! Talk talk talk talk! However, don't talk TOO much, because then you're annoying! Another tip- sometimes moments arn't usually awkward until you say it's awkward. the power is in your hands!!!


cousinsomething.files.wordpress

I'm a guy. No, seriously.

Yeah, the title explains it. I am a guy. I was in a heated debate with a friend, if it was easier being a dude or a dudeette. Actually, it wasn't a debate really, she was saying it was easier to be a guy and I pretty much agreed.

REASONS WHY IT IS GREAT TO BE A GUY:

1. I get to scratch my butt in public. Apparently women actually don't allow themselves to do this, and honestly I have never even thought anything of it. I scratch my butt in the middle of the hall ways, however, I avoid intense scratching of volume or depth, as that passes the line into creepy.

2. Every morning when I look in the mirror, I think, "Damn, I'm one sexy hunk." I could care less what other people think of me, the more girth a man has, the more volume and density, which is almost practically related to muscle. If I flex my guns and something is there, then holy crap, I've been working out too much and might need to slow down.

3. I love my hair. The more simple hair gets on a guy, the more girls like it. It is a little known fact that I am sharing with the world. You don't see girls chasing dudes with dreadlocks, but ones with shaved heads. I don't gotta spend an hour every morning seducing a straightener, I just make sure it isn't bedhead and I am good to go.

4. I get to avoid tampons. Tampons scare me.

5. Whenever I am wearing nice professional attire clothes, I get to do something crazy. And when I say crazy, I mean crazy. By the end of the night, I go from business to party simply by removing my tie and putting around the forehead like a headband. Oh yeah, party on dudes.

lumberjacks are so manly

murderati.com

studystudystudy

Well, I have blogged about this topic before and it looks like I am about to do it again. But this, it is actually sort of serious. Procrastination- it has gotten pretty bad. My procrastination is seeming to be sort of a serious manner for me. I have 2 more AP tests coming up and this was my weekend to study for them. What did I do this weekend to pass my time? You have two options, I either, A: Studied. or B: Played video games. If you guessed A, you are incorrect, sorry! Well, to be honest, I tried to study, and I just got bored.

The fact that studying, for me, can become such a drudgery and become so boring I think is actually a pretty major problem. I mean, I would get out the easiest form of studying psychology terms, flashcards. Yet, after a few I would wonder what I could be doing on the video games right now. The logical fallacies fly through my head, such as "I could totally be accomplishing things right now on the video games." When in real life, I am only logging onto these to avoid the dreaded flipping of flash cards.

So this is sort of my self-help post. I think I could study better if I turned off the computer, and after this blog I am going to! I could also study better if I could focus more, so maybe caffeine would solve the problem of tiredness. Maybe sitting in a new spot, such as on the couch and rather then at the computer, because we learned in psych that sitting in your usual procrastination and laziness spot does not help! I think I am going to shower first, I am not sure, but I feel it might help. Definitely, no television (I already tried, don't judge me!) Honestly, the one thing this will boil down to is self-determination. I think I will think of someone who I know is extremely self-determined and I am jealous of, and it might help motivate me to try to be the same.

Thank god writing this post took me just a little bit of time to get away from studying!


studyinnorway.no

Potatoes

So last night i was playing an online game. It was a game that potatoes fly across the screen and you need to count them. It starts to get intense when potatoes start flying really fast across the screen, and also carrots and cabbages fly across the screen and you can't count them. The part that motivated me to play this fucking stupid game for fucking 2 hours was that I was part of a 'competition' type sort of thing. I needed to get a score of 155 potatoes in order to beat this 'high score'. So after an extreme potato counting session for almost 2 hours, I decided I was only to do only one more round. I actually even put the mouse on the top corner X in order to stop my minor addiction to projectile potatoes. The final round: it was the final showdown. This was it, it was for all the marbles. I actually started off really well, and then I scored a 176!!! A 176! I BEAT IT! I was euphoric! I fist pumped the air and clicked send score. And it replyed with "ERROR: Your score was not processed, close the browser and try again."..........................wtf are you kidding me? The shit broke down on me. I stood up, kicked absolutely nothing but the air and started talking to myself, "I don't care what that game says! I am a winner!" and other vulgar phrases like, "That game ain't got shit on me!" Never before have such profanity came out because of aerial potatoes.

So that entire night I was just grinning out of a defense mechanism because I had so epicly won, yet so epicly failed due to not my part. It made me wonder, this was such an achievement for me, yet I had nothing to show for it. Almost any time I have achieved something, I have had something to show for it. I guess that is why they give out trophies at the end of soccer games, so that the little kiddies can put it up on their mantle. Yet, I got nothing. But, I was pleasently surprized at my reaction. I actually sort of enjoyed just knowing that I did something that no one will ever know I did (unless you read this blog post.) This was an even less physical rewarding experience then volunteering. Volunteering you know that you are helping someone, and sometimes that someone will thank you. No, this was just a personal goal that I achieved with flying colors, yet it again was something that does not even exist.

The only thing I am leaving with out of this experience is that I am a winner. And yes, being a winner feels good. There was no losers here, but I was a winner. And yes, a virtual game does not have 'shit' on me either. Hell yeah.


cobornsdelivers.files.wordpress.com

Inanimate Objects Making Money

So recently I have been playing the trading card game, Magic The Gathering (I know it is super nerdy, don't judge me!) And in order to complete my total badass deck of cards, I need to get 4 of a specific card to put in... however... inorder to buy this card I would need to spend 20 dollars on it... 20 dollars on each. individual. card. I'm not stupid and I am NOT about to do this, but it makes me wonder because I know someone who is not as economically savvy as I might spend that much on these tiny pieces of paper. That is all they are... tiny pieces of paper. How can these tiny pieces of paper with a picture and writing on them be worth 80 dollars? Some even go up to 50 dollars individually. It is stupid how they are so expensive.

This sort of reminds me of an online video game I used to play. On this game, the founders created a system of 'donations.' If you 'donated' to the game, you would in return gain a virtual item. (I think they only called it donations due to avoid taxes, but that is irrelevant!) So unlike buying the card, when you spent this money online, you would gain absolutely nothing in real life. Zero. The company was making absolutely 100% profit... off of nothing. And some people would spend a lot of money from these virtual 'donations.'

So I ask, is it really worth it to buy nothing in a physical form? I used to be a little bit more naive, and tell myself that this donation is the price of 'fun.' A price on fun sounds a little rediculous, I mean the game was free in the first place, yet in order to keep it free people need to 'donate'. I don't think some things like these games should be free, I feel that people should pay to operate them, because the company is paying to keep the server up in the first place. I do believe fun has a cost, and I don't believe that some people can pay their way to fun. I think the people who get the benefits from the bonus inanimate items should be the people who people vote are the most caring! Rather then the rich moguls gaining perks, the good people would! A just world phenomenon! Maybe I am still naive.


rockcheetah.com

grades

We got our midterms today. My grades were pretty good I guess. I mean, I actually started to work hard in classes and I actually began to get good grades. Getting them wern't not too hard to do either, it just required labor. That is what the key to success in GPA is, laborious work. The corrolation, I feel, is there and astounding. It also, amazingly as it sounds, feels pretty good to get good grades. Never in high school did I actually try at getting high grades as I have this term and last, and I regret not trying this hard in the past. I mean, I got a C in AP World history, and now I am cranking out A's in AP classes.

I think that also this new extreme nationalism for good grades has been acquired from my past bad grades. When I visited the University of Texas for a college tour, I began to realize, "Oh Crap, my gpa where it is now will not get me into this college." And thinking this really sucked. I mean, i want the option to go to any college I want, and hearing the admissions officer talk I realized just how important class rank is. It was rediculous, because it almost sounded like that was the only thing that they took into consideration! So I cracked down on grades. I started, believe it or not, studying. It is not hard to get a 3.0 without ever looking at a textbook, but getting a 4.0 is a lot harder.

So I think I am going to continue to try to get these good grades. Next year won't be so easy, because I am going to be in a few MORE AP classes. Right now I have found a delicate balance between AP classes and regular classes... but next year it will be all focus on grades. This is sort of going to suck, I just hope that I can get a good GPA the first term, and then senioritis grades the last terms!


butterflypages.files.wordpress.com

so you think you can dance? no, i don't

today I decided to go out on a whim and try out for show choir. this is something big for me because i have been the chairman of anti-showchoir for probably the past 10 years. It was a really spontaneous decision of mine to even try out. today was only the dancing part, but maaaan i was terrible. I realized that when you have never danced before, you actually lack a sense of rhythm. I think the reason I don't have rhythm is a lack of some bone in my foot or something. well, the main problem was my memorization. when you do the dance for the coach guys or whatever, apparently you have to remember the dance, and i forgot to remember the dance. So I got all mixed up multiple times. I think it is even harder to get back on track when you mess up. You see, the reason why I did so awful is because in the 'training' i was playing off the person infront of me, and then they threw a fucking curveball and made us stand in a line, which blew my mind. So after today when I think of my future, I think of possible lawyer, doctor, politician, and maybe even a teacher. But any dreams I have of being a professional dancer are dashed. I was hoping a major in political science with a minor in salsa dancing could get me to presidential status, but now I will only be the president who can't salsa dance.

going into this, I was thinking, "Huh, boy, you haven't ever really danced before in your life have you?" and the amount of experience I acquired in my lifetime showed, which was short of nothing. But hey, I couldn't care less that I can't dance a conga line, I tried! And damnit, what more can a boy with two left feet do! so I am proud of myself for stepping out of my comfort zone, yeah! i could care less that I am making a defense mechanism!

So I look at this and think that I can overcome any challenge! except the vocal audition part is tomorrow...... fuck



extremely related

My Youth

One of my friends has a brother with a tattoo. It wasn't very professionally done and it was his favorite band's symbol to the left of one of his pecs on his chest. I have always had my parent's opinion when it comes to tattoos, that they are stupid and not worth having something on your body always. Yet he told me his reasoning behind getting his tattoo, "It was a symbol of my youth, it makes me think of all the good times I had whenever I look at it." This got me thinking about my youth.

Recently when I was driving I was just thinking of what I thought of my youth. I loved it to be completely honest. I loved all the moments, even the stupid ones that I am supposed to look back on with shame. The times that my decisions were 'less then thinking of the future' and 'less then... legal' I don't regret. I am glad I didn't get busted for these to be honest, so I look back with zero percent regret and 100% nostalgia.

I want to look back on my times and remember them being the greatest times of my life. I want every moment in my past to be fantastic and also, I want to look back when in the future at the present and think the same thoughts I am thinking of now when looking back into the past (wtf kind of sentence was that?)

So about tattoos, It doesn't sound so bad. For the first time in my life 5 minutes ago I actually considered getting one. What would I get? I don't know really, I don't think I would want a band symbol, but maybe something related to what the majority of my youth was devoted to, maybe something like video games. What would I get? A master sword and hyrulian shield maybe? Possibly mario, not sure, but if it was video games it would have to be nintendo. But also maybe something related to computer, but that might just be too nerdy.

I might not need a tattoo to look back into my youth with joyful nostalgia, but it sure would be fun to do!




probably not to this extent
wiinoob.com

more Karma

So I feel sort of bad, I was pretty mean to this guy. You see, in the musical, as rambled on before, I was in charge of moving the stinking stairs. Another 'stage tech' person was this other kid who seems a little different. He was in charge of moving the cube, alone with 3 other kids. He just really pissed everyone off in so many ways. I could blog 1200 words in a week easily just talking about him pissing me off, but thats not really what this post is about. It is about what I felt towards him, it was sort of weird. He would piss me off so so so bad and then I would be mean to him. He wasn't the one to stick up for himself very much. Afterward, I would feel terrible. It was almost like I was bipolar between pity and hatred.

In the middle of a scene, he walked off because he needed a drink. he just went off. We were so mad at him, I don't know how to handle this, as he seemed to be like a two year old. And when he got back, he said that he was not ignorant. I don't get how someone can be not ignorant yet so oblivious at the same time. I even stared him down one time. Yet after these moments, I still continued to feel bad for bullying this kid. I happened to know he liked to play rock paper scissors, so I played that with him. I immediately switched to the pitiful mood.

I wonder what this guy thinks of me. I wonder if he thinks that I am a bully, because I sure do think I was one. Yet I tried to make amends and be nice and give him a birthday present (which was a free burrito card from my wallet to pancheros). I would personally hate someone who was a jerk to me and then tried to be nice to make up for the mean times they acted like a jerk to me. I just don't know how to get things like not getting him to walk around behind the stage where the audience can see him without getting frustrated and angry at him.. don't get me wrong, after we got mad he didn't do it again, but that doesn't mean it felt good to do.

I think this one goes to karma to decide. How my karma ended up here? I am not sure, I think it is somewhere from neutral to bad. I am going to say sorry, but would it really mean anything? Just because it is over that means it won't happen again, but if the musical wasn't over I would still most likely get just as pissed at him. I still feel bad.



ncfy.com

Unintended Volunteering

So for the current musical the high school is putting on, I am probably on the stage more then anyone else in the entire production. I am not the lead principle actor however, not even the second most important. I got drafted to be the co-'stair guy'. Yeah, I move the effin stairs. What more do I do than that besides sing in the chorus? Nothing. I move the stairs, nothing more. Its pretty lame. And I am positive you are asking yourself, "oh mr, how did you get drafted to be such an important person sitting off on the side of the stage and not supposed to be moving, and moving the stairs when needed?" WELL FINE BLOGREADER, I got this stupid assignment on accident. A question by the director was asked of "hey, can someone come help move these stairs?" I accordingly volunteered myself for a quick minor task. Yet, he asked again later, "who helped me move the stairs again?" I politely raised my hand, and he responded that I was stranded on the stairs-moving island without an escape plan. Besides the main actors, I do much more work than anyone else in the entire play. All this work has made me bitter and bitter until I have been counting down the days until the whole damn thing finishes.

This situation brings up a lot of different thoughts about volunteering. I have always been one to raise my hand to offer a quick hand on a minor task, but being put into this morethen minor job was a different matter. I involuntarily volunteered. Yet, volunteering pleasures arise from the joys of helping others, and I am doing this, so I am honestly baffled and confused why I hate doing this so much. I am not sure if it is because the people around me are all just hanging out off stage messing around playing cards, while I am required to sit still and not talk or move. It is not relaxing, because the constant threat of 'DON'T EFF THIS UP YOU MORON" is lingering above my head. I also am confused because I did actually get some recognition from the director, telling me thanks for stepping up to move the stairs.

So I still wonder why I hate this damn job so damn much. I think the reason might go back to the involuntarily accidentally volunteering myself for more then I was originally going to voluntarily volunteer for. But dissonance arises as I chose to be someone with a nice set of morals in the first place, yet laziness and greed make me want to sit on my ass and watch some other poor sap move the goddamn stairs. It is not like I am going to just quit this however, I am going to stick it out. The best way to do that is to just shut up and do it. So this was my stair moving vent, phew.


the stairs sorta look like this
voyayer.efflecliffe.org.uk

No one can get anywhere without direction. Direction is everything, is is the way you are heading, it the way you are pointing is the exact way that you are going, and there is 359 other degrees you can be going, but however you are going this way. There is no wrong direction to take, as it cannot be something that could considered wrong... it is a matter of your preferred direction or nonpreferred direction. The manner of direction and just how right it is is what defines how effective something can be.

So I got onto this ramble of direction due to a bad direction that someone has been giving me recently. Someone who is supposed to be leading me lately has been giving awful direction. I say this because someone who chose to be a leader, and also someone who I accepted as a leader of my own has been leading me awfully. The reason why I am doing such a nastygram blog is due to this.. them blaming me for a lack of leadership skills that they are exibiting. I was blamed for speaking out of place when they were silent. Is that really fair? If I am not being led anywhere, why am I supposed to follow them? How do I even do that? I see no reason to do that to be honest. If they suck at being a leader, let someone else take over.

So again I was sort of stuck in a dilemma here, who should I let be my own personal leader? Do I follow the man in authority who has been giving me sass for not letting them be a totalitarian? Or should I just join in the mob and be another face in the crowd and give the dictator lip? How many alternative options are there, should I become a leader under the authority of the dictator? Or would I just look like a powerless dictator? Questions like these are dumb to answer, and I sort of prefer the easy way out. That is why people are so passive about things like this, because the bystander effect makes us just sit and do what they tell us...............now that was a good ramble lol




news.yahoo.com
totally almost irrelevant, yet only slightly related

chill out dude

I think everyone needs to slow down. It is simple as that, today as I was driving and sitting at a stop light I was thinking; everyone is always moving. I looked at all the faces that drove past me while I was waiting. We are constantly either sitting at a stop light or moving towards the next one. Never do you see people just watching stoplights from the sidewalks, as we don't seem to be accomplishing anything when that happens. It just feels like everyone is moving too fast and need to stop and watch the world around them.

Of course that is another one of the 'buellerisms' yet I feel it is so true. I also fall under this catagory of not enjoying what is infront of me. I feel it is hard for myself to even enjoy something as simple as the world around me because the world doesn't sit still for long enough to me to even catch the glipse of what is going on. This is another crazy what if moments, but what if everyone did decide to 'chill out' for a little bit. I know I sound like a wacked out San Franciscoian, but I think we all should just relax sometime. A moment where everyone could just go outside and slow down for a breather. Everywhere you go, there are people passing you busily on their way to work, out to eat, or to school.

I don't think we should do this national chillout day because of the environment, but for something a little bit more important- our selves. Yes everyone says the environment is important, but I think that our survival is a little bit more important. So I am not going into how the environment affects our survival, yet, I think our emotions and stuff are what really affect our survival as a human species. I think that one of the most important things to do as a human in order to keep one's sanity is to... like I frankly put it, chill out every once in a while.


bp3.blogger.com

Video Games, revisited again

So I created this blog with the worry of picking topics for it. I dreaded thinking of what I would commit myself to speaking about 3 times a week for a year. So I chose something that i was passionate about... that being video games. They were what I spent all my time on, and what I spent the majority of my thoughts thinking about. I must admit, I was psychologically addicted, and I mean every sense of it. I tried to tell myself I wasn't, and I would always joke about it. But video games were an honest to god addiction to myself. However, due to multiple reasons, I kicked the habit, and it feels pretty damn good to do so.

I will start by saying that I would play world of warcraft so many hours a week. I would get home, start playing at 4, and get off about 9ish or be on and off for maybe 3-5 hours of world of warcraft every single night. To be honest I just thought of it as a hobby. The problem was, I was not occupying myself with anything else to do in that time, so really there was nothing wrong with doing that. I would go home and not be participating in any other extracurricular activities. I had so much free time, I played these video games. That was the cause of this addiction, sheer boredom. When I wasn't playing world of warcraft, I was doing absolutely nothing. However, I did normally get my homework done, but it was normally in a half-assed manner because I wanted to spend time playing and I would only devote the bare minimum amount of time to homework.

So I attempted to quit multiple times. I tried everything to quit cold-turkey style from this drug of warcraft. I stopped my account, but I later continued it. I uninstalled the game, but later installed it. Even in desperation (and after seeing a movie that denounced materialism) I unplugged my computer, yet it became plugged in again. None of these methods made my willpower strong enough to stop playing these games. So I recently asked myself, how have you not played this video game at all in the last month? It is simple really, I occupied myself.

Occupying myself was a great way to kick this addiction that spawned from boredom. I joined speech, which took up so many hours of my life, and then with a new girlfriend, and then later with the spring musical sweeney todd. When sometimes people say that actions speak louder than words, I can say that this only sometimes works, but a really powerful theory would be 'out of sight, out of mind.'

So I think the best way to deal with something like a psychological addiction, or something of that nature, is to hide it. Hiding a problem like this can actually be effective. hiding it forces yourself to put it in the smallest corner, where it is one day forgotten. However, with this tactic, the most important part is the forgetting of it. Hiding emotions can be bad when they all boil over!

Social Networking is Working

Facebook, myspace, twitters, and blogs. They are all social networking. These new notworking websites have opened up thousands of new possibilities to the users. They allow us to explore the internet and communicate with each other with us seeing each others photos and interests. We are now able to see what they are up to and how they have been. Not only that, it is easy to keep in touch. With just a few clicks we can instant message. Something most effective then texting and easier to handle than calling on the phone.

I do feel that instant messaging like this on social networking sites has conditioned people to be less socially connected to each other in a way. I mean this by people are too held back by anxiety from not being used to talking on a phone. I remember a long time ago when I dated a girl, she would be scared to talk to me on the phone and she would only talk to me on Aol Instant Messanger. Besides this, I can only think of one other possible negative side effect of social networking sites, that being the rise of creepers. That was a post I made earlier in the year.

I think it is pretty rediculous when parents do not let their children get a social networking site. After useing it for hours upon hours, I think all the great positive things that arise from it smash the few negative side effects that parents are prone to seeing. However, it is really when parents allow really young children to get a facebook. One of my cousins that is 11 or 12 has a facebook. Facebook seems to be more high school or college orientated, and I do not feel that children that young should be exposed to a thing like facebook. I do think that they are more prone to be the target of such 'creepers'. They should just wait until all their friends are getting them... that is in high school!

Social Networking sites are great ways to interact with each other.


mediabistro.com

Karma

I believe in karma. I will first start with a simple story that my friend told me and why he believes in karma. He had been messing around and making fun of some kids with some fellow neighborhood kids. That was that one times many years ago that we had the freak wind storm. He was walking through the woods and an actual tree fell on him and his friend that he had also been making fun with. They were both hospitalized. He said because of this he believed in karma. It is simple how karma works, he caused emotional pain on someone else, and something else caused physical pain on him. An eye for an eye, an ear for an ear.

My take on karma is this, is someone does good deeds their entire life, there is still a possibility that someone can do harm on them. That is the fallacy on karma, bad things can still happen to good people. I just think that these people do not deserve these bad things to have happened to them. That is where the game of karma becomes a game of fairness. It is now a game of who deserves to get what they get. The world is not always just, sometimes a good person will get something that they do not deserve, and sometimes a bad person will also get something that they do not deserve. The balance is pretty delicate. I feel that everyone has a general feeling when someone deserves what they get. If the nicest person in the school came into a financial fortune, people would be pleased.

A person that receives something that they do not deserve has been given one of the most unjust things that they could be given, positive or negative. This employs the golden rule, do unto others what you want done upon yourself. If someone emotionally hurts someone, as awful as this sounds, but by my reasoning I think they deserve to be emotionally hurt themself. However, this just does not sound right to me. That is why I feel we should have a just world, and everyone should be nice to everyone. I don't know, don't worry be happy? ELE- Everybody love everybody?

So I present a new way to improve karma: work on it! If you have messed up personally, attempt to work with it and make things better. Just like in the TV show, My Name is Earl, I think people should attempt to make amends for the mistakes they have made. Besides, it feels better when you do fix them. And you never know, you might deserve someone making their amend for their mistakes to you.


a fantastic idol for improving your karma
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The Incredible Bulk

There is no longer reasons to buy in bulk. When I say this I do not just mean going to Sams Club and buying 50 pounds of toilet paper for your family in the Christmas season, I mean buying in bulk with things such as music and television channels. These things are now becoming more and more accessible to individuals by only paying for what they want, and not paying for excessive items. Before people would not be able to afford things like this, but with today's current methods of marketing it is all possible with things like online transactions.

ITunes is a perfect example of this. iTunes currently lets users have the ability to only buy the songs they like for a dollar a song. They are able to go to a song that they heard on the radio and just buy it with a click. No longer are they needed to go out and buy the entire CD that was almost purely gross income for the record company. Record companies are one of the most overpaid industries, but that is irrelevant. Ipods have revolutionized the music industry, not the music. Things like iPods and Zunes now let people customize their music profile with only the songs they like, and none of the 'bulk' extra stuff that normally would be put into a CD player.

To be honest, CD players are starting to become extinct with the new enemy of CD players, the mp3 players. The kids at school laugh at people who walk around with the cheap old CD players now. They are just old news really. 13 songs of the same artist on something twice the size as the device that can carry 10,000 songs. CD players are out.

The last ramble of this is the possible future. I look at television, as they are attempting to implement a new type of viewing, customizing like an iPod. This would let the viewers only pay for the channels they choose to pay for, rather then the current mass package that comes when someone wants the outdoor hunting channel (yeah my hick cousin bought the biggest package for one channel). One of the controversies to this is a poke at ethics. A small channel like a public access channel or a religious channel would have absolutely no chance of having success. No one would want to pay for a channel like this, and no advertisers want to pay to have their advertisements on this channel. It is yet another example of the Rich getting richer. Another reason why this is currently being avoided is because... yes, the rich ARE getting richer. I am speaking of the channel providers. They are continuing to keep their products in bulk so people will be dumb enough to pay for the premium package for the hunting channel. Regardless, they win.

So in fin, I ask, is all this really bad? Mp3 players are a fantastic invention, do not get me wrong. I have multiple to be honest. And also, if I was allowed to pay for my channels, i would. These things are pure beneficial to the viewers and users, but I ask for the ethics behind the people that they are murdering economically. Sometimes things are too good to be true.


farm1.static.flickr.com

Financial Matters

The first thing I can say in this post is something we learned in AP psychology; money does not corrolate with happiness. A person that is a paraplegic can rate the same amount of happiness as a millionaire. A comedian once said that money can’t buy happiness, however money can buy a jet ski. That is why I feel that money cannot actually ‘buy’ happiness. However, I feel that money can affect happiness. I feel that changes in financial status are what can affect happiness.

Imagine two people of equal happiness. Now, imagine one of them winning a lottery. I am guessing that the person that won the lottery might have a better and happier day that day. Yet, I also feel that if two people of exact same equal status, and then one of them went bankrupt and lost their money, I bet they would be pretty sad and depressed. Happiness can be gained with money, and it can also be lost with money. It is all in perspective. Sometimes giving someone 5 dollars to buy footlong from subway can create happiness. So yes, I feel that money can create happiness, just in an indirect way from what people think

That’s why in all the sitcoms they have a rich person that is pretty sad. They don’t do this to make people feel sorry for financially firm people, rather than it is something that can happen. As crazy as it sounds, rich people are people too. Everyone is the same on the inside in a way.

The final thing I can think of is donations and alms. Everyone says you need to donate to help the poor. I think that donating is a great thing to do. The real reason why I think we should donate is because the benevolent feelings we achieve from giving away money. It is selfish, but for the right reasons. You could spend 5 dollars on something to make yourself feel a little better, but you could spend that 5 dollars on someone else to make them feel better. So the end result is making them feel better, and you feel a little bit better yourself. So rather then being 100% happy yourself, you are say.. 50% happier, and the other person is 100% happier. That’s 150% increase in total, rather then 100%.


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Teamwork

I have been playing a video games recently: Battlefield: Bad Company 2. To start off, this game is super awesome. Lots of tanks shooting missles and helicopters flying around to take objectives; however there is one aspect of this game that differs it from many other video games and things. It is that is requires teamwork to win.

In other games if you have one really great player, the rest of the team can slack because they know that that one play will pull them and carry them to the finish. But this game is different, as slacker and unskillful players will hinder the team effort. The more a single playesr dies, the closer they are to defeat. So the players work together to achieve victory of either destroying the dam over the harbor, or saving the dam from certain doom. The players hop into helicopters together. As one pilots the apache to swoop down, his fellow squadmates fire the machine guns out of the sides to rain hellfire upon their enemies.

Too often do people feel that they can carry their team to victory without the help of their teammates. Yet also, sometimes people put their teammates in the back of their mind and forget that they have backup all together. Flanking an enemy base from behind is extremely noneffective when it is a solo operative mission. Shot by a sniper; mission over. However if your buddy is a medic he can revive you! Teamwork people!

Times like this is when people forget teamwork. I think that if people in all kinds of situations took into consideration of their fellow peers and used them to help themselves they would accomplish so much more. That is why peers should not be considered peers, peers should be seen as teammates. This might sound a little bit crazy, however, if people all viewed everyone else as teammates so many problems could be solved, and also hundreds of new things could be accomplished. Teammates work together for their common goal of solving their common problems. If something really radical happened like everyone was a teammate, there would not even be any enemies. Working together can solve miracles.

I have no idea how to possibly achieve a goal of something like everyone thinking that everyone else is a teammates. People differ by way too many reasons. It seems that they are clouded by their perceptions of the people around them. They understand that they have individual goals and that they have no intrest in their own goals. Teamwork, if ever mass produced, could cause so many positive things.


teamwork, ccsmallbusiness.files.wordpress.com

Friendly Competition

the simpsons



Competition brings out the best and most competitive spirit in people. They fight harder to win, and they fight stronger to be the best. meanwhile, it can also bring out the worst in people. Competition can be a catalyst for bringing out the 'inner demon' of people. Sometimes the tunnel vision of winning shrouds out the other sights. Competition is both a great thing and a bad thing, depending on the person and situation. Sometimes friendly competition can push a person to change themselves to become a better, harder, faster, and stronger opponent, even when it is not even an official 'competition.'

Shrouding out the opponents in a 'friendly competition' can be a devilish tactic. Yet, some people do not ever resort to something like even caring so much about a competition. It is friendly to them, nothing serious. This is no sort of commitment. Yet there are the others who the only thing they think about is competition. The plan to win is to exploit their weaknesses in a friendly sports game. But one might just say that their motivation is just much greater, but how far does motivation go until it reaches the point of unfriendly? If a person seems to be willing to set aside a friendship in order to win, it does not seem to stay 'friendly.'

Competing can be completely intrinsic also. Challenging yourself. Personally, I always compare all my grades with one of my best friends. When they score higher than me, to be honest, I am disappointing. That is why I push myself to score higher. They have no idea I am in this marathon race with them, yet in my mind I am continuing to race and race until I beat them. It is still a friendly competition within my mind. This is not a marathon filled with envy or lust, but a test of change. The actions I take in order to change myself to be a better and stronger person are positively positive.

Competition can be both positive and negative. Two friends that race to the end of the court and back laughing does not seem to be bad at all. Like this, competition sometimes does not mean anything. When a competition starts to change from friendly to a serious race, it is all about the actions the person takes in whether or not it is still a justifiable marathon.

Repetition Repetition

It is no secret and it has been said many times that we humans are animals of repetitiveness. We repeat our actions over and over to make stimuli more and more familiar. I feel that the more we are exposed to repetitive actions, the more we are able to predict the responses and also the more we become accustomed to being in the situation.

Everyone has their morning routine: wake up, take shower, brush teeth, get dressed, spray on heavy fierce © abercrombie cologne, and be on their way. It is just something we do everyday. We do not think much of it, because at this time in the morning, and party due to a lack of sleep and much needed midnight call of duty playing, we are a robot at 6 am. We pretty much only have automated responses. If a question were to be addressed to us, we would reply with the sophisticated response of "uggghhh." Yet, how many times have you driven somewhere and then at your destination thought, "Huh.. I don't even really remember driving at all." This is the automatic processing that goes on in our repetitive brains. We are repetitive by nature.



i thought this picture was totally relevant
geardiary.com


Go back a couple hundred, no thousand, years. Cavemen. What did they do? They went out, got food, came back. Hunters and gatherers. Our nature has proned and primed us into our lives today. We do what we know to do.

I have come to enjoy some of the repetitive environments around me. I have a friend who asks me the exact same question at the exact same spot at the exact same time of the day. What goes through her mind is, Just like yesterday we are going to eat, I need to ask "what are you going to eat? And then just like magic I always respond. I like this social aspect of them being friendly. Yet sometimes, personally, my answers vary... from pizza to pizza bagel.

I do like to switch it up sometimes, but I think that is just me. I do not know why, but one of my favorite things to do is find a crazy alternative route home. One time from my friends house in Hiawatha, I decided to take county road, which eventually led me into toddville as I drove along some random gravel road. Yet, I enjoyed changing up the normal (especially because my parents were paying for gas.. nice!). I think I enjoyed this because I was adding new excitement to my life. Even thought I was purely content where I was going the normal way home, I might have gone into robot mode and forgot about the drive entirely! So let me promise you, going on a gravel road next to a farm is more fun than taking the boring blairs ferry road that is the repetitive drive.

So let me break this down, repetition is not bad, it is just normal. Repetition shapes our lives into what it is and how we view our concepts on certain things. Whether they are a hassle or not, repetition of these events dulls the edges. So if you are content where you are right now, or if you want to change it up, either is a pretty damn fine way to go.

Another Take on Spreading Happiness

So I have tended to aim a lot of my posts at the conquest, or journey, or voyage, or the luxurious resort of happiness. That's right, happiness. what we all strive for and set our targets on. Without it, we are nothing. Yet, I feel we all have some of it somewhere inside ourselves so we are always something.

Several of my posts have been like "spreading happiness.." or something else cheesy like "telling lame jokes." But let me tell you a little story of something that happened to me.. personally! So I was sitting in class, dreading for it to begin. It was another average, normal, boring day. Another day of this and that from my perspective in the back of the classroom. Yet something exuberant happened! The teacher whirled in. It was obvious that the teacher was in a good mood from the moment thay started talking. They were cranking off joke after joke even at what I think they knew was a pretty boring topic. The topic's dull edges began to not be so rough as they lightened the mood. I do not think they were making the topic more interesting, I feel that they were setting everyone in a better mood. And that better mood made us want to be respectful and actually listen to what they were saying. (And yes, I understand it is hard to explain.. as it was one of those.. "be there" moments)

Let me get all hippy/japanese chi on you. I think that there is a force that moves between us. It is not actually 'real' but it is there. It is what people can transfer between each other. Something was transfered to me that day. I sat there in a good mood as we took a stupid test. I doubt that I actually did any better on the test, but I can honestly say I enjoyed it one notch more. So yes, I do feel that it is a force that moves. Sometimes someone can block all the forces you are taking in by giving off such strong negative energy towards you. But those people are the ones that I think can receive the positive rays of force. Just like a magnet, they are the ones with all the negative electrons that are attracting everything. Balance is key!

Spread Happiness!

foodfoodbodybody.files

Exercise

Exercise: bodily or mental exertion, esp. for the sake of training or improvement of health.

So I have never been the most 'exercised' in the 3rd grade gym class, but I have always been able to pull my own weight (except on the pull up bar, I hate the pull up bar.) But really, what is exercise? It is no secret that exercise is 'healthy'. But at what cost? When you exercise, it hurts. My body is clearly telling me "Stop stupid, that hurts me!" Yet, I continue to do it because without it I would not be able to burn the layer of fat in my body. But also as I continue to burn this fat and gain muscle, I am getting rid of the typical human necessity- fat.

Fat is what our primitive ancestors craved and aimed at gaining everyday to survive. Yet now, they tell us we need to survive off burning fat. Pretty ironic, I guess.

Whenever I exercise, I feel the need to do it alone. It is embarressing when someone is watching me squat the bar. That is why I am perfectly satisfied doing my exercise video in my basement. I don't want people judging me on how much I can lift. All I am aiming for is results. I want to 'get big.' In the typical teenager frontal lobic thinking, we are not thinking of how much time spend exercising will increase our life span, but how much better we will look now and how many more senoritas we will get.

So in the end, I hate exercising. But I feel it is totally a necessity to our survival. We can always acquire the fats from wendy's, and thats how we differ from the men in loinclothes. As much as I hate it, I still gotta go do it!

The reason why I tell bad jokes

What is Michal De Montaigne's favorite soda drink? Montaigne Dew!


Lots of my jokes are pretty bad. My jokes tend to end with my recipient with a face palm reaction. Yet, I still contineously shell them out. It is almost embarressing when i saw something that I think is funny, yet no one laughs with me. But sometimes, the reason is not laughing with me, but at me. That in my mind is pure success. As long as the person I am speaking to is laughing, I could not care less of what I end up looking like.

Laughing is what some people consider the ultimate medicine. Joy can be a shotgun full of endorphines that can release into a brain, and I think that a joke can trigger this joy shotgun. I am such a giving person. I spread joy by giving face palm reactions. I think on the inside they are laughing. It is crucial to feel that you at least like your jokes, even if no one else does. Not only do I (think at least) am 'spreading this joy' I am also making myself happy in the process.

I come up with my joes usually from the same process. It is an extremely simple minded process. Take a word that sounds like something, and use it in that context of the something. That is what a pun is. America loves puns. Such as in the 1930's the president's favorite toy to swing around his waist was the 'hoover hoop' (like hula hoop? I know, that was really really bad, but It was funnier [to myself] at the time when I said it). So creating puns is not a hard process.

America loves to laugh!


bp.blogspot.com

College

To answer my own question in the title of this blog, I have no idea. So if you are here searching for the answers, this is not the place. However, if you are with me on the same level, and want to meet me half way, we should first define what our questions are. I think that is we are going to try to get to the place where we can answer our questions; we need to think of them first.

So college, yes, it is no doubt that it is in the front (or back) of all high schoolers minds. Our lives are obsessed and addicted to it. It is all some of us think about. I worry almost everyday about it. College, the time after high school. Do my grades exactly correlate what college I can get into? And better yet, does whatever college I get into define my income job right after college, and then so if A=B and B=C does my grades and ACT score define the REST OF MY ENTIRE LIFE? But then I just keep being anxious. That is what they tell us. They tell us getting into college is important. They say to have a safety school. And they are warping our minds to tell us without a good college degree we are only setting ourselves up for failure. Maybe they are a little modest and saying they are not trying to warp our brains. Yet still, everyday they tell me high school is only important because afterwards it determines what college you go to.

But then that brings up the question of what college is right for me. Do I want to find a balance of 50% fun 50% academics? Or do I want to discipline myself into 100% and no play? yet, that makes me a dull boy. I need to find the perfect balance of college. I have no idea what that perfect balance is, but I think the only way to find it is through trial and error.

So I got what I am going to do there, now where am I going to go? What if I don't get into the one that I think is perfect for me? Holy crap, I don't even know which one is perfect for me! The common thoughts about a small school: all they do is study, and I might be missing out on the (quote unquote) college experience. Yet, if I go to a typical big school, I don't want to get lost. (Not physically, I mean mentally). Personally, I have always been able to deal and find my way in unfamiliar circumstances, so I don't think it will be a huge problem. But what if it is? I don't know!

College. It is important. That is what they tell us, and I have been brainwashed into believing them. It is current preoccupying my life indirectly, and soon it will directly. That is why I am nervous about it. But honestly, I think I need to just go with the flow and accept what comes my way.



beyondrace.com

Why I Write

This is one of those mandatory 7th grade revised essays that everyone has to do at some point in their life. It is when their angry white-haired english teacher forces everyone to sit down and do a web outline defining why they write. Why do we write? It seems obvious, to get an A grade in english class. It seems that is the absolute only reason why high schoolers and middle schoolers write. None of them sit down and open a word document for any other reason. Word seems to be always started with their name and date in the top right hand corner; followed by a few lines of seperation, a title, and then five paragraphs double spaced. Yes, this is one of the reasons I write. But I can say it is not the only reason why.

I write about my experiences. Many times when I have time on my hands I open up a word document. From there, I move forward. I go back in time to some moments I have chosen in my life that I feel is important. These moments are what I write about, but I do not JUST write about these times. I do so much more; I define them. I define everything that happened that night. I do this in order to clarify, and I clarify everything. That is why I feel it is important for myself to go back into these moments and observe the life that happened. Memories can become distant, fuzzy, and unclear when they are shoved to the back of the bus that is your memory. That is why I do this. I think it needs to be brought back into the light. Not only do I enjoy rethinking about things that have happened to me, I learn from them.

Everyone says that the past can repeat itself. That is another reason I feel the need to waft away the smog that covers my memories. I believe strongly that the more clear our memories are, the easier we are able to replicate what we would like to happen if we were ever put in a similar situation. So that is why I write. I write to define my life. My life is unique from anyone else's, and I like to keep it that way. It is interesting to myself to see what I think about things. That is why I write. I write for myself, not anyone else. And yes, I write to not only declare my past, I write to define my future.



acplteens.files.wordpress.com

THE SUPER BOWL

Yes, the super bowl. The time of passes, kickoffs, and bud light commercials. (On side note this year, all the commercials sucked. Usually they are the part I look forward to, and the only one I actually enjoyed this year was the one where the chickens were all screaming because Denys has a new eggs and bacon special). So yes, I did sit down and watch the game and I actually watched the whole thing, with no preference for a winning team, just the want for a good game. And yes, it was a damn good game!

But the reason why I blogged about the super bowl, there is something that I noticed that blew my mind. The competition between fans. The fans of each team for this day were polar opposites. One blue, the other yellow. Colts and Saints. It almost seemed as if they hated each other, and I would not doubt that they didn't hate each other. These fans of the game, enemies at the sidelines, were still allies in every other single way. So that brings me to my theses statement; these fans of opposing teams, even though they were enemies at this day, it is amazing the hatred can arise when they are still united under such things as being americans.

Healthy competition? I don't think so, I think it is sick. All united under the cause of something (as trite) such as patriotism. The golden rule maybe? Treat others the way you want to be treated? Only if you want to be screamed at maybe. I just think it is nuts how these people can be so seperated on something as stupid as love for their favorite football team. Love should come from other people, not a bunch of beefy guys throwing a pigskin.

Besides, I like college football, go texas!






denny's grandslam deal commercial. for some reason, all the ads this year were appealing to the dimwitted, so I decided to join them and I lol'd pretty hard at this one.

Avatar

johnnycat.com, avatar movie


Avatar was a super sweet awesome movie. This is another one of those subjective posts where I talk about an event I went to and really liked it. Not one of those serious social psychology topics I like to try to focus on normally. But, rather, I am going to talk about how much I enjoyed watching the movie, Avatar directed by James Cameron.

So the movie was about a guy named Jake Sully that is a paraplegic that is able to use an 'avatar' body. I am sure everyone has heard of the plot and I don't need to explain the go green save the planet morals that Al Gore wrote for the movie. But I will talk about the 3d. It was worth the extra few bucks I had to shell out because it was pretty damn cool. Of course the theatre was PACKED and I had to sit in like the second row so the 3d wasn't at its full potential, but it was still cool. I think that movies will only continue to use this technology is today's world. It is becoming more and more advanced. They say that in 10 or so years (I can't remember honestly) that all television sets in our homes will have this three dimensional capabilities.

Another thing that baffled me was that the movie had such fantastic success. Of course, some people think it is party due to the extra costs that are being spent on the 3d part, but also it is because of how sweet the movie was. It was the most expensive movie ever made, and yet it has acquired more domestic gross (or whatever) income then any other movie, passing titantic. This almost scared me because it makes me think things are only becoming bigger and bigger. Things are becoming more mass globalized like big businesses are taking over. I just think that when there is something as huge as a movie like Avatar, it can crush all its smaller competition. It is the dictator of movies at the moment.

I am going to see the movie again tomorrow, call me a hipicrite. But like I have said repeatively, the movie was so awesome. I support this political machine.

Sloth is a Sin

yourkidsnotgoingpro


Being lazy is pretty easy. It can be done anywhere, and really at any time. I have been pretty lazy most of my life, but there have been lazier people everywhere I look. I am not the laziest, and I am not the hardest working person, but I can say that I am pretty high on a scale of 1-10 on the laziness scale. So yes, I can honestly say I am being repetitive to achieve word count, and being repetitive to achieve something like word count is not always a bad thing, it is a form of success. Just like being lazy, it is a form of success.

The first and foremost way to be lazy is taking your time. Life (regardless to popular opinion) takes a long time to complete. So you gotta take your time, for if you go too fast, you gotta slow down or you might miss it (I murdered that line from forrest buelers day off, I can't remember it entirely to be honest) So yes, I do take my time when I do things. My biggest way I did this was when I was working at my high school job. To the managers there, I was just another high school stupid worker, so I was told, "Hey go change that trash can." or something trivial like "hey go do that 3 second task." What the heck do they want me to do when I am done? They could seriously tell me to do something that takes more then 3 seconds, of course I am going to come back in 7 seconds and ask, "Alright, what the heck now do you want me to do?" So, maybe it is a form of smiteing in my own mind, but I sure do take my time when I am given these stupid tasks to complete. If I finished efficiently and in a quirkey manner, I guess the only thing I am going to have to do is more stupid tasks and maybe even a possible 10 cent an hour raise in the next 4 months!

I am sort of weird when it comes to procrastination. But I think it is pretty effective. I always wait until the last night to do something (except blogging, its wednesday! Shocker right?) And I can honestly say that sometimes the best work comes out from it. It is created in a panic 'ohshit' sort of manner that forces me to focus on the task at hand, finishing whatever I need to do. When faced with an ultimatum, of course I need to finish it. The arguments against it are 'its not your best work, and you might not finish other work' but hey, if i get a good grade on it, and I am able to breeze through my other classes without taking a late grade, finishing a project at 11:15 at night doesn't sound too bad when thats the consequence for not doing it earlier.

Laziness helps me keep myself at my own minimum standards and honestly I think i should be a little more hardworking... nahhhhhhh

Everything I am going to do with my children

I am going to whip them into shape. Hell yeah I am. My children are going to be so badass you have no idea. Someday when I have kids they are going to be so cool, they will probably have six packs by like 3rd grade, because thats one of the most important things I am going to stress on my kids, being healthy. I do think that being healthy is a really good thing that is taken for granted in our society. Not only being healthy, but usually good looking comes with it. Some people say that you can never think your children are ugly, but I have a hella eye for detail so I am going to make sure they look good and wear nice clothes.


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Another thing I am going to force upon my children are the skills they need to survive. Survivability skills such as musical talent. Piano to be exact. I never took piano as a child and I sort of wish I did. I am going to force it upon them from like age 6 to about age 35. Maybe then I will let them make decisions for themselves, but only at age 35 when they have been married (once or twice, not sure yet).

That brings me to my children dating. I can already say that if I have a daughter, I am going to keep an eye on her boyfriend. AT ALL TIMES! Oh man if I even found him holding my daughters hand, I think I would pull him aside and say (idea from blue collar comedy guys) "My daughter is my world, and if you ever think about touching her I don't mind going back to prison." I think that is the only way to find a good boyfriend for my daughter. If my girlfriend's dad said that to me, holy crap I would shit myself. As for if I have a son, and I would merely tell him to keep it in his pants, and if he gets a girl pregnant, I am going to neuter him. Pretty simple.

So yeah, I can't wait to have children of my own. Apparently it is rewarding because people have been doing it for all eternity. I think I would find a little more enjoyment in messing with my children then from going to their 4th grade choir concerts (those just sound like a bunch of kids screaming, its awful). Having my kids is going to be great.

High School Politics

This picture is not to be misleading, every goddamn picture that came up when I googled 'highschool' came up with 'high school musical'

brandstrategy.files.wordpress.com high school musical


High school is pretty cool actually. i sort of do like it, I just deleted like almost two paragraphs because I was being so pessimistic about high school. I said I hated it and I was ready to leave, but then I realized, holy crap. I don't really wanna leave yet! I love high school. These moments are our youth and we should cherish them. I do like my youth, as onetime I heard some lame old lady say, "Oh boy, how I wish I still had my youth!" And yes, I say that high school is just a synonym for our youth. These are our times.

So when I think of what to accomplish in high school, what I think is that now is our time that we are able to just mess up as much as we want and our record will be cleaned. Maybe that's just my undeveloped frontal lobe speaking in my brain, hiding consequences. But hey, that is what high school is all about. Making stupid decisions and learning from them. Stupid decisions relating to anything can be done in high school. People are passing out on couches, and also young girls are getting pregnant. It is just a time of reckless actions. Now is our times of stupid things and even stupider things.

We need to learn to grow up. Now is our time, but it is also our time to grow up. That is scary for me, and I am sure I speak for all of the high school politicians when I say we don't want to face the future. We are perfectly content where we are right now and sometimes we sort of want to stay here. There is always the anxiety of what is waiting around the corner, good or bad. The scary is unknown, and ignorance is bliss they say.

I think I am ready to take on the world. If you can master something as complex as high school, what more can the world challenge you with? Honestly, what could possibly be harder then taking 7 finals in 2 days? Personally, I don't think it could get worse then that, so I am prepared. I am prepared for college, and maybe even for the world after that. And I think I have achieved high schools one secret goal, preparation. Thanks high school.

Call of Duty, my obsession.

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This topic isn't as serious as some of the other ones I have done this year, but it sure does hit close to home. I love to play this game, pure and simple. I play it almost everyday now, (mainly because it helps me cope with my world of warcraft addiction, but hell I do not think that a call of duty modern warfare 2 obsession is that much better.) and I play it multiple times every day. I actually wish I were playing it right now.

So yes, I can honestly say that I am obsessed with this video game. I can't understand why I want to play it everyday, but I don't seem to really have a problem with it. I mean, I get my necessary homework done every night, so what is the problem? Maybe that is why I play so much. Because I personally see no problems, but I could be crazy and have a clouded vision that blurs my perception of what is 'completed homework.' So yes maybe that is right I am not really `sure at this moment! But, heck, i don't really even care!

Everyday when I get home at 5ish I get on call of duty. There are 70 'ranks' and me, being a sort of mediocre player, am only at the rank of 66 at this moment. I just feel the need to get to 70 as soon as possible! There is no parade when i do get there, I do not get any sort of reward, but I still want to. It is like this in every video game I play. I gain no physical reward, so I guess I need to create a mental reward in my mind in order for me to be motivated to spend these countless hours playing them. I guess the simpliest reason would be this; it is fun to do. but I think it requires more then just being fun to do, the mental 'fake' reason of the thought of just being done and finished with it.

I may be pretty obsessed, but I can say I am no where NEAR as obsessed as some people. After you hit rank 70, you have the choice to 'prestige' mode and go back to level 1. Yeah, no thanks. I am not THAT obsessed with it! I do not think that I have the time and effort to get to rank 70 again.

Amazing things the Human Body can Do

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1. Support itself. That is one of the most taken for granted things we do. Imagine jumping up and down, but instead of the strong leg bones such as the femur, you would have sticks. They would snap so easily! How the hell can our legs support over one hundred pounds everyday for so many years? That is sure something that has baffled me! I mean yes, of course bones can break, but imagine the pressure it has to be under to do that!

2. The Immune system is also pretty damn amazing. I mean, how the heck can we become IMMUNE to bad illnesses? Thats crazy! As a baby, that is our weakest point in life for our health, but as we grow older and older, we begin to create antibodies and then we become more immune to these illnesses. They say that some diseases are becoming super strong to be able to be not detected by drugs such as Tylenol and stuff, but I think we are competing also with our antibodies! It is a race!

3. This almost goes hand and hand with the immune system, our ability to remain healthy by flushing out all the bad stuff. I mean it in a vague way, as such as getting the bad out by any mean necessary. A common misconception is that our body heats up during a fever due to the illness, but it is in a indirect manner, as our body is doing it on purpose to kill the bacteria. We don't even have to try to be able to survive! It is also very cool how when people gorge themselves in alcohol, their bodies tell them, "Uh no way bro, I'm not letten that get in here!" We begin to unconsciously sweat, pee, and barf to get it out. So even when our brain is saying, "Woo lets get hammered!" Our body is saying "No bro!"

4. The ability to procreate. Self Explanatory! No details necessary!

5. Our senses are also pretty damn important. I wrote my whole 1500 word paper on them so I'll keep it short. They are how we view the entire world. How we decipher the world, and how we encode it in our brain. Without our senses, there is no way we could even life. (That was pretty much my thesis sentence!)

6. Our ability to change ourselves in a physical manner is a wonder also. I do not JUST mean long term like evolving, but also short term. Such as Ultimate Fighters beat their legs with bamboo sticks to make them more resilient, guitar players acquire calluses on their fingers when they are under stress of the guitar strings. Our bodies adapt to small things, and over time they adapt to bigger things. That is why I think we would silence all the non believers if we called it not Evolution, but adaptation!


The Human body is a wonderful and amazing thing!!

Happy Thoughts!

If you think happy thoughts, you will be happy. I really do think this is true. I think it is true on many levels, such as scientifically speaking, (i know right), and also emotionally thinking. When people are sad, I think all they need to do is think of the happy times of the past, the happy times that are happening, and the happy times to come, and regardless of any sort of situation they are sitting in at the moment, the sad thoughts will fade away and the happy ones will come in and fill their places in life!



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So yes, I can say I am a professional on the topic medically. My credentials are one and a half terms of AP Psychology. So let me break this extremely detailed and scientific process into 5 words.... THINK HAPPY RELEASES HAPPY HORMONES. Simple as that right? I think that when in your mind you are thinking of happy things such as daisys and puppies, your brain releases the good hormones like epinephrine and dopamine (honestly I don't remember which one, I think I got a B or C on the test) And you create happiness. It is therefore simple to be happy.. chemically speaking of course!!

So but for these so called sad people, I am sure a common theme of "i am too sad to think happy thoughts right now!" So then it is not a battle of chemical warfare, it is therefore a battle of willpower! But I do think, personally, that everybody has a will, and you know what they say, if there's a will, there is a way. When someone is able to flush the bad thoughts out, they can replace them with good ones. But they tend to be consumed by these evil malicious thoughts. When they are able to become strong enough mentally to be able to do it, there will be nothing at all stopping them or holding them back.

So that is why I always try to think positively. Yeah, I have been sad before, I think everyone has. I haven't recently, mainly because I follow my own personal guide to happiness, and I think everyone could have their own personal guide. Mine works for me, and I think it is sad for the people who do not create one. This is the true meaning to being a glass half full person, not that when it is at half you say full, but when it is at a quarter, you don't say there is only a quarter left, you say I am one quarter of the way full.

Give it to me, now!

Our generation has progressed now to that we expect things to be given to us instantly. They want to just get their stuff done so fast and get on with their life. It is a non desirable trait that we have acquired. So many things have made us become so hasty and needy, such as things being given to us at Google. If we can't find it right away, we are pissed and give up.

All the sociologists that look at our generation are saying the same thing. We just expect everything to be given to us right away. We are taught to be stubborn and corrupted from our own greed and laziness. It is because we are able to be stubborn and corrupted that we exploit this characteristic. Why wait and try very hard to find this information if not in a footnote? Or hey, better yet, skip the main information and just get the study guide, or even just the outline. We can google the details later.

There is not much to say, except we are becoming lazier and lazier. Will it become ever even worse? To what point? I imagine a future in space that we sit on a couch and are never forced to leave it. It is a bright future? Maybe not for our grandparents, but I think it is what our current generation would dream of!

I do not feel a future link this would be so negative though. A world of laziness, a world of instantaneous information, a world of instantaneous life. But that is what our grandparents and parents have lived off of, doing things themselves, and what we would consider the 'hard way'. They say it 'builds character,' yet we say it only 'wastes time'. So yes, I am biased. I am on the team of my generation. It is my generation, and we all feel the same way. I think that we can change nations. I say this because we are ALL lazy together, and we work together to be able to be lazy. Some people may say that laziness is a sin now, but I think that it is becoming more and more of a patron value. That is what our elders feel is terrifying.

Gotta go, I gotta finish my AP US History study guides by using Wikipedia.



clipartguide.com

Political Science

I hate american politics. Simple, and blunt. I dislike almost every aspect of our politicians how they use our political system. Politicians are so called speakers of the people, yet they continue to think of themselves and their reelection. Whilest watching President Obama today give a speech in order to elect Martha Coakly for MA Senator, I realized my hatred. It was not watching them that made me rage so bad at this profession that plagues our nation, but the entire aura and essence of it. These people spend day and night thinking for the nation and how they can get themselves reelected, because without their position they would be out of work.

So yes, I must admit I am pretty dimwitted in the area of politics, but I can say that I dislike the people who choose their career as a politician. The biggest reason for this random spawn of hatred is the concept of reelection. Sometimes what is best concept for their reelection is not the best for the people. Maybe what I consider a 'great government for the people' is different then what we have. I do love how the american government works, but it is not worken right. It is merely mob rule with two mobs, the reds and blues. If you arn't one, you are clearly the other, and therefor my enemy. I fail to understand why in US history there has always been multiple political parties. Imagine what could happen under just one?

When you are only given a few years with a house majority, they want to pass as many things as they can in their favor. I am so strong against this, and feel it is unfair. The men who think for our country are rather rash and rushed into important decisions. When your team is pulling for something, obviously you arn't going to be a sqaure and go with the bad guys on it. It is not land breaking, it is not extraordinary, it is not phenomenal. It is merely luck that they were able to pass something when half the country is against it.

If I was put into the position of changing these concepts, I would have no idea what to do with them. I think that these decisions for a country as a whole should be given to the country as a whole. A Representative Democratic Republican is a joke. When they created it, they were scared of Mob Rule occuring in the people, yet it has only occured in the representatives. We need some new inspiration in my opinion.


dougbelshaw

The shady lives of CR

Believe it or not, Cedar Rapids has a shady part of town. It is sad to know that there is parts of town where the income is lower, and the poverty rate is higher. It is a vicious circle that keeps continueing for the people in these neighborhoods. I wish that it was not as hard for someone to leave the ghetto.


blog.lib.umn.edu


A girl once told me that, "Poverty breeds poverty." It is really a understandable, yet awful, concept. Sometimes once you are in the ghetto, you cannot leave. There are many reasons why they are unable to leave, from family matters to just a lack of any sort of financial aid.

They are tied to this area that they call their home. The most common time for leaving your 'homeland' is leaving for college. That is just not possible. Just the amount of wealth in these areas is just too low for them to support their family alone, so multiple people in the family get jobs, and they would not be able to leave and leave the family unsupported. That is why some turn to the life of hustling. Everyday they are hustling. Hustling is just getting money by any means in any kind of shady way.

Gangs arise. Not for the sake of violence or hate, merely out of these boys need for security. That is why they join. The boys feel that there is no way out, so they might as well have people that will support him and maybe even die for him. In the absense of a family, a gang can take its place. And yet the typical view of a gang is a hustling, group of crime commiting violent boys. They take on the need to continue this view and do as what they think a gang does. And the gangs fight, why? Over turf, reputation. Nothing of value. Gangs are stupid.

So how do the people of these shady areas get out of these areas? Honestly, I have no idea. It is something that would be ten times harder then I will possibly ever do. Maybe that is why I am lucky.

REDBULLS

So, I listen to society complain to me and tell me that I am doing unhealthy things. I listen to them tell me chocolate makes me fat, and that cake goes to my stomach. I used to listen to them. It was not until a wise, and sort of older teacher, gave me a little tip of advice.

"Drink all the energy drinks you want, you're young"

This stuck me in an unusual way. It was different when he told me this, it was the exact opposite as every infomercial, every new episode of sesame street, and every magazine was telling me. I liked it, it was a new way to look at things, and let me tell you, I have been thinking this way ever sence the man told me it. I am only able to drown myself in guarana, niacin, and tetramydroflourineadrinkalinglong as a young man. Never again in my life will I be able to do this peacefully. Why the hell should I care about the future now? I mean yeah, I MIGHT have high blood pressure SOME DAY. But let me tell you, that day is NOT today. That is why I am one of those people that live for today, and by live for today I mean do stupid stuff that could affect me tomorrow. Call me crazy.

I understand they are not healthy. Some of the greatest entrepreneurial minds of our century had one thing in common, they thought of things that were small now and that could be huge in the future. I sort of am doing that in a way... but hoping that someday they will be able to make me healthy for my bad choices today. I am a genius like bill gates, except hes basking in riches, I am basking in redbull.

So yes, I again understand not all of my arguments make total sense. But that is the pure essence of being young. My thoughts do not have to make sense!! I can sit and drink this 6000mg of energy blend (whatever the hell that is) and be ready for another with the only side affect of a little twitching and ADHD. I love my youth, and everyone says you can never get it back. So I put mine in full throttle (which is a terrible energy drink by the way).

I apply these new rules I have made to everything. Highschool, we are allowed to mess up. It is our youth, who cares. Now is the time that we are supposed to mess up. If we mess up now, it doesn't change our whole life. Our immune system can help us now, when someday it will be weaker.

This post was made under the influence of red bull.

Procrastination

Sloth: It is a deadly sin. Probably the one that most affects a lot of AP Language and Composition students. This so called 'deadly' sin takes form in a word known commonly as procrastination. You always hear people saying, "Man, I didn't finish that essay until at least 11:30 last night!" You sloth, you. I think it is unavoidable. It is all about priorities.

How is procrastination unavoidable? Some people are so busy, they actually don't have enough time to finish everything! I don't necessarily consider this procrastination, but their priorities set some of the hardest things to do last. Why would we do this? Maybe because we want to save all our brain power for the last, hardest, thing we have to do? Or maybe it is because that is the only piece of work that is worth staying up for, a form of conscienceless time management.

So we battle this inanimate form of time management. It tends to be a uphill battle for both sides when the opposing enemies are in the same brain. Why do we do it? Avoidance of work. Laziness. It is a stupid to let this enemy on your team. He does nothing and is very non proactive. He doesn't get anything done, and only delays the inevitable. Tie him up and shoot him.

Guess what though, I am blogging on sunday when they are due monday, I am about to do my AP Us history homework due tomorrow that we've had for over a week, and then after I am doing the hardest part: my essay. I still do gotta think of a topic though! But hell, I'll do that later.


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bengaliboypaul

Peer Pressure: Take 2

It is sad that people are pressured into doing things. I believe there is many different forces all working in a grand circle of life, peer pressure life that is, that forces people to go against their will in a teenage situation. There is a person who initially tells you to do it, someone that chimes in and says theyre doing it, and a whole unwritten set of rules that the person has created in their head and convinced themselves so it is an 'ok' thing to do.

It is no surprise that it is happening all around the country at teenage and college parties. It is just pathetic how teens are subjecting themselves to it. The 'pressurers' feel they are helping the 'teenager' by forcing them to do things. I think this is because they like it, they like the person, and they think doing these things are cool and will help the person out.

Which side does the teenager choose? It is a debate in our culture, everytime they have to choose. right verses wrong. Myth verses fact. cool verses uncool. sober verses intoxicated. When our commercials and our parents support one side, there will always be kids on the other side that are the exact opposite. If they are doing it, doesn't that make it ok? A common justification.

What I see in these situations are the two sides. Call me biased, but I see the society and parents as the good, and the kids with the case of miller as the bad guys. If I wasn't so biased, I'd try to blow your mind saying maybe your parents were trying to peer pressure their kids, but that isn't the case.

When I see peer pressure in action, I look into someones character, how strong they are. Are they able to just say "I'm good." or will they take a drink? They can either stand out, or just become part of the pressure.

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