The Way Home

My New Job (a.k.a. Why I Haven't Had Any Writing Progress Lately)

2011-03-13T15:35:00.000-07:00

I thought I would update everybody on what is new in my life since it has been a little while. The big thing that has taken up my last two weeks has been my new job. I started my job as Visual Inspector at Dow Hydraulics Systems a couple weeks ago and it has been really great. It has been quite an adjustment from not having a job the past few months. The most difficult part about is that it has taken some time getting used to standing all day and constantly looking through a microscope, which can be a strain on my eyes. Basically, what I do all day is look at machine parts and make sure they have no defects. But, throughout the two weeks, I have managed to get used to it and am now really enjoying my job. I love all the people I work with, and although it was a lot to take in during a relatively short period, I feel I'm finally getting the hang of things. Above all, it is just really great to be able to be productive and have something to do each day.

The only downside is that the more I focus on this new job, the less I focus on my writing. Over these past two weeks, I really haven't done any writing (besides revising a couple chapters). So, somehow, I need to learn how to have better balance in my life, so I can spend some time writing each day. I am still really excited about the novel I most recently wrote ("The Elite" is the most recent title, but is still subject to change). I hope to spend some time each day revising it so that I can send it out for close family and friends to read and give me feedback on. The progress is delayed because of my new job, but my hope is to have gone through the novel by about a month from now and at that point to start letting people read it. I am considering starting to write the sequel as I continually revise the first book, but I haven't decided for sure if that is what I am going to do.

And, that is about all for now, I suppose. I'll try to regularly update on the more interesting things that happen in my life and on my progress with my writing, which will hopefully increase substantially in the coming days. I also want to bring your attention to the fact that I have started my music blog "The Leviathan" back up, and will post all music related things there. I am going to try to post fairly regularly there with new album reviews and music recommendations. There are some exciting posts I have planned, and so I hope everyone will take a look. The link to it is available at the top of this blog page underneath the title of this blog. And, that is all I have for now! I hope to write again soon with more news about my writing progress!

New Blog: The Leviathan

2011-03-02T20:03:00.001-08:00

I have decided to devote an entire blog to my progressive rock music reviews and thoughts. That blog is titled "The Leviathan" and a link has been provided for it in the banner at the top of this blog page. I decided that it was too confusing to have both music reviews and updates about my personal life on this blog, so I have split them up into two blogs. This blog will mostly contain updates about my personal life and my current writing projects. My other blog will focus on the music that I love and will feature album reviews among other things music related. I encourage all that have enjoyed my music posts in the past to go visit that blog. I plan to update both blogs regularly. There should be a new post soon in this blog since there have been some major events that have occurred in my life recently. So, I would hope that readers would read both of my blogs--or, at the very least, the blog that pertains to their particular interests. I hope those who visit my new music blog will enjoy it over there!

First Draft of "The Chosen" Finished!

2011-02-17T16:38:00.000-08:00

I am very excited because today I finished my first draft of my second novel! Just to make it clear, this is not a sequel to my first novel, and is in fact not at all related to my first novel. They are both very different. This book, tentatively called "The Chosen," is essentially a young adult science fiction thriller. It is non-stop action from page one until the end with quite a few twists and turns. The first draft ended up being 85,981 words long, which is just a bit over what my goal was. In the next paragraph I'm going to give a very brief description of the book (basically a blurb like what you would read on the back of the book). If you don't want any spoilers on the book because you want to read it and figure it out for yourself, don't read the next paragraph.

The story follows Anthony Taylor, a young teen who is about as average as they come. His parents have recently divorced and he lives in New York with his mom. Out of the blue, his father calls and wants Tony to come visit him at his new apartment in Los Angeles. So, Tony takes the train from New York to Los Angeles, and finds himself the sole survivor of a mysterious train accident. What follows is a non-stop thrill ride where Anthony discovers that the train crashing was no accident and he is actually being tested by some mysterious group called 'The Chosen.' Who is this mysterious group? What is the purpose of the tests they are putting Tony through? These are questions Tony tries to answer as he ends up in the middle of several terrifying disasters. Through sheer determination and the help of three unlikely friends, can Tony survive long enough to figure out who 'The Chosen' are and what they want with him?

The thing I am most proud of with this book are the four main characters, whom I believe are fairly complex. I am excited to flesh out these characters even more as I revise the novel several times. I'm also considering changing the name of the group the book centers around (and therefore the books title). I am considering changing it to "The Elite" or "The Elect." At the moment I am leaning towards "The Elect." I hope to revise the book over the next few weeks and allow some of my closest friends and family to read it and give me feedback on how I can improve it. Hopefully by the end of the summer or so I will feel confident enough in it that I might try to get it published. If anybody who reads this blog is interested in reading a very rough, early draft of my book, please comment or e-mail me. It'll probably be a few weeks, though, since I'd like to go through and revise it at least once before I let people read it.

But, I am very excited, and can't wait to continue working on it, and perhaps even start thinking of ideas for a potential sequel...

Updates

2011-02-03T22:58:00.000-08:00

I just wanted to write a short entry to let people know that I'm still alive and well and that I plan to write even more in the near future in this blog. This past month has not been particularly eventful. The one event that stands out is that I went to the LA A Capella Festival this past weekend. The LA/AF is a day long event for people who want to be in A Capella groups or are fans of A Capella. All day there are different classes that can be attended to help teach people more about A Capella and how to be in a successful group. I didn't attend the classes, but I went with my dad to the concert they had that night featuring different A Capella groups. The event took place on the UCLA campus, and it ended up being really fun to visit. The was one of my dad's Christmas gifts to me, and I had absolutely no idea what to expect.

It ended up being rather incredible. First a local group from UCLA opened the show and they performed two songs. The first was an original, and then they did a Backstreet Boys medley that was a lot of fun. Second was the group, The Backbeats, who placed third on The Sing-Off. They performed every song they performed on the Sing-Off plus a fun rendition of California Girls by Katy Perry, which they were not able to perform on the show. They were excellent, I particularly enjoyed their heartfelt take on Landslide by Fleetwood Mac.

Next up was one of the most interesting acts, it was actually one man who did some incredible beatboxing that sounded like an actual drum kit. Then, he played around with a loop machine so that he was able to sing over his own beats. It was really awesome, he must be one of the best at what he does. The final act was the amazing Mosaic. They played a very diverse set of songs that included Jazz, R&B, Pop and even Opera. They were tons of fun and played off the audience. Their voices blended together perfectly. There were moments were the harmonies gave me goosebumps. They were extremely awesome and I wouldn't mind seeing them again. Besides that concert, nothing much eventful has happened in the past month.

I suppose a big thing is that I've made significant progress writing in my book. I passed the halfway mark and am well on my way to reaching my goal of finishing the first draft of my novel. I really think it is coming along nicely. I love the four main characters and am having a ton of fun writing for all of them. Their interactions are a lot of fun, and I think they are all really different. I think there is a good blend of action and humor in this book. It never stops moving, the characters continually are finding themselves in difficult situations. I can't wait to finish the book and start planning a sequel.

The other news that I can think of is that I've heard a lot of new music recently that I love. I wrote a review of "The King Is Dead" by The Decemberists. I plan to write several more reviews in the upcoming week. I have albums by Pallas, Magic Pie, and Hotel of the Laughing Tree that I should review soon. I've also come across a magical new discovery. The band is named Reign of Kindo and they are completely amazing. They are very different from the music I typically like. They lean more towards Jazz and Pop than they do Prog. But, there is just something really special in the band and they have created some really beautiful music. I may do an entry about their music where I review their albums, including their most recent album, which I think is a masterpiece, perhaps one of my top 20 favorite all-time records.

So, that is pretty much the updates for right now. I hope to write a lot more in the coming days!

Report on Progress For "The Chosen"

2011-01-18T15:04:00.000-08:00

I have been writing quite a bit the last few weeks in my latest novel, tentatively called "The Chosen." I'm getting really excited about this project and have high hopes for it. I've decided to really focus in on writing this novel and set a goal for when I want to finish the first draft. I want to be done with it by the last day of February (February 28th). I have currently written about 25,000 words, and my goal is to reach 80,000 words for the first draft (of course, it may be a little less or a little more depending on how the story naturally develops, but I feel a word count goal helps provide a foundation for which to write the book).

So, that means that I have 55,000 words still to write. I have about 40 days left to reach my goal. So, this means I have to write an average of 1375 words a day in order to reach my goal. That seems very reasonable to me. So, that is my goal starting right now. I might even try to finish sooner than that just by writing a little more than my daily goal each day. But, I'm hoping if I make sure to write a minimum of 1375 words each day, that I'll easily be finished with the first draft in a timely manner.

I want to give more information about what the novel is about, but I think I'm going to wait a bit for that. I will say that I have recently added a couple new characters, and I think it has really given the book a creative boost that it has needed. One of my main goals when writing anything is to create some fascinating characters that the reader really feels sympathy for and really gets to know as if it were a real person. I always worry that if I have too many characters, it makes it so that each character is less complex since less time is spent on each character. But, if there are too few characters, then it could be boring. So, I think I've struck just the right balance for this story, and I'm excited. I hope to finish it soon so that I can show people what I have been working on.

Top Ten Experiences of 2010

2011-01-12T22:11:00.000-08:00

Ok, this is my final year-end list for 2010. I decided that I would rank the top ten experiences I had in 2010. As I reflected on 2010, I came to the conclusion that it was a difficult year for me. But, several highlights came to mind that occurred throughout the year that made me realize the year wasn't as bad as I originally made it out to be. So, I thought I would highlight those good experiences in a list. So, these are my big ten experiences of the year listed in order of significance in my mind.

10. Christmas Morning
This was an unexpected, late addition to my list, but I think it is worthy of mentioning. My family had an excellent Christmas this year, one of the best in recent memory. After a difficult year, it was refreshing to see that what is truly important stayed intact--my family. We all gave each other gifts that we thought those people receiving them would love and I'd say that every gift was a success. One of the definite highlights was a video Christmas card my sister, Alex, made. It had everyone in tears and was a perfect example of why my family is so special. My mom cried several times that morning. My dad got probably his best present ever--an iPad. And, my dad even pulled out great "bonus" gifts for us kids after we thought all the Christmas gifts had been opened. It was a magical time and was a great moment for my family.

9. New Spock's Beard Album and Concert
This is sort of a two in one experience. First of all, I was really excited to receive the new Spock's Beard album since it had been several years since their last album and my friend had ordered the special deluxe edition of the album for me for Christmas, which included a song where the lead singer would sing my name. After so much buildup, I was worried the album would never meet my high expectations, but it actually exceeded them! The album is one of my favorites of all time. It showed me that my favorite band still has the talent to produce masterpieces, even without their main front man and song-writer, Neal Morse, who left the band a while ago. Later in the year, I had the privilege of seeing Spock's Beard live with my dad. They played the entire new album plus some old favorites. Spock's Beard was one of the main bands I always wanted to see live, so it was a dream come true and they did excellent.

8. My Sister's Graduation
I was very excited to be able to attend Alex's graduation this year. She went to Le Cordon Bleu in Pasadena and did an excellent job in the program. She uses what she learned there on a daily basis as she has been making cakes for people for various events. It is really cool to see my sister pursue something she is passionate about and to succeed. She is an inspiration to me. It was an awesome experience to be in the audience along with my dad, mom, sister, grandparents and some of Alex's friends, and cheer her on. I know she will do great things with her degree in the future.

7. The Finale of Lost
I know this may seem like a weird experience to include here, but I feel it is a significant one. Lost is my favorite TV show of all time. I am regularly astounded by what the writers come up with and how the actors portray their characters perfectly. I love every minute of the show and felt that they had an incredible final season. I was really excited to watch the finale, and I knew that it was going to be special. It really exceeded my absurdly high expectations. I'll admit that I cried several times throughout the finale, and especially at the very end. It was the perfect ending. I couldn't have imagined a better ending. It really touched me and allowed me to think about things in a new way. I will never forget Lost and how special it is to me and I'm sure I'll be re-watching it for the rest of my life.

6. My Best Friend, Kevin, Proposing To Amy
Yes, this is more an experience that my friend, Kevin and his fiancee, Amy, had. But, I feel that it was significant for me as well. Kevin came to California with Amy to see Phantom of the Opera and go to Disneyland with Amy. Since he was in California, he stayed at my house during the weekend he was here. I was privileged to know in advance that he was planning to propose to Amy and I was really excited for him to come and for it all to happen. Based on his description, it didn't go perfectly according to plan, but it all ended up working out even better and was a magical experience. I am really happy for Kevin and excited for his future. I'll never forget him driving us home in intense fog right after he had proposed. His excitement was really cool to see and I know that they are a perfect match for each other. I'm sure his wedding in 2011 will be in my top ten experiences of 2011.

5. My Parents Vow Renewal
As my mom's big Christmas gift in 2009, my dad announced that the whole family would be getting together on Valentine's weekend in 2010 in Las Vegas for my parents getting their wedding vows renewed. Now, I'll admit that I wasn't in a great mood this trip. I was nervous about driving in Las Vegas and was still sad about the break up with my girlfriend. But, it was a very significant moment for my family, and my parents in particular. I was a little scared about the idea of a vow renewal in Vegas because I thought it might be cheesy, but it ended up being really sweet. It was nice to see the love my parents have for each other. Any experience that strengthens my family is an important one and this is no exception.

4. Going To Disneyworld
Me and Kevin decided that it would be really cool to go on a vacation to celebrate our graduation from BYU. We decided that the best idea would be to go to Disneyworld, and it ended up being the perfect choice. We spent a week there and I feel that we were able to do everything we wanted to do there. We visited every park, most of them twice, and went on all the rides we wanted to (well, at least all the rides I'm comfortable going on). It would be impossible to list all the highlights of the trip because they were all highlights. We even got to see Erin while we were there since she worked there last year. I really love Disneyworld, and even though it doesn't have the same "Disney magic" as Disneyland, there is a lot to love about it and I feel it was a very successful trip.

3. The Transatlantic Concert
If you had told me a couple of years ago that I would be able to see Transatlantic live in two years, I would have laughed and thought it was a joke. But, this actually happened last year! After an 8 year hiatus, my favorite band, Transatlantic, reunited to make my new favorite album, The Whirlwind. And, if that wasn't enough already, in 2010 they toured the album and made a stop in Southern California. Of course me and Kevin jumped at the opportunity to see them. The concert was a magical experience. I can't even describe the feelings I had of pure joy as I listened to the incredible music that was played. They played their whole new album and then all the epics from their previous album. It was over 3 hours of the best prog music, and it was incredible. By far the best concert I have ever been to. I can't imagine it being beat any time soon.

2. Completing My First Novel
I have always had a dream of becoming a successful writer. This year, I finally made a goal for myself to finish the book I've been writing, and I was able to do it. It was a huge achievement for me and I am so proud of myself for doing it. The book (called Avaria Book 1: The Sacrifice) is something that is very close to my heart. I started writing it for a creative writing class I took at BYU. I didn't write in it for a while, but decided to pick it back up in 2010, and I was able to motivate myself throughout the year to finish it. What is significant about this is that it has shown me that I do indeed have a passion for writing. I am going to try really hard to keep up a rigorous schedule of writing and pursue a career in it. I'm excited for the novels I am working on right now and I soon hope to try to get some of my work published. I realize that there is a good chance I won't ever be published and I know it'll take quite some time to get there, but finishing my first novel has given me the desire to work really hard in order to get there, and that is a huge deal for me.

1. Graduating From BYU
By far, my biggest accomplishment this year was graduating from BYU. I received a Bachelor's Degree in Psychology. It was a long road to get to that point with a lot of uncertainty and hardships, but I endured and managed to graduate. The last semester of my college education seemed particularly challenging, mainly because I needed a capstone course in order to graduate and I had a lot of difficulty finding a class that would work for my major. But, through sheer determination, I found the perfect class for me and even ended the last semester with a 4.0 GPA, which is something I always wanted in college. I struggled partway through college in declaring a major, but decided to stick with Psychology. I am grateful for the classes I took in Psychology and believe that they will help me in my future career and life in general. I'm not sure what I'm going to do yet career-wise, but I know that having a degree and having the experiences I had in order to get that degree will help me in achieving my future goals.

And, there you have it, my top ten experiences of the year. When I look at these experiences, I realize that the year actually wasn't as bad as I make it out to be in my head. Hopefully I can have as many (or more) great experiences in 2011!

Top Five Movies of 2010

2011-01-08T12:30:00.000-08:00

I almost decided not to do a list of movies, because I couldn't really think of 10 great movies from 2010 (not because there weren't that many great movies, but because I didn't see that many new movies). But, I decided to compromise and instead do a list of 5 films that I saw in 2010 that I thought were really excellent. So, here is my list of the top 5 films of 2010:

5. Tangled

I am surprised that this movie made my top five, but I really loved it. I felt the romance between Flynn and Rapunzel was very well done. I loved the scene where they see the lanterns. It is Rapunzel's dream come true, and also the moment Flynn realizes that he wants Rapunzel more than the tiara. It is a beautiful moment full of movie magic. I am impressed with Disney, there was a long period where Disney movies were not very good, but I feel they are slowly restoring that Disney magic they once had. I felt the magic at moments of this movie, and it helped that there were really funny moments throughout the film as well.

4. Toy Story 3

I absolutely adore Pixar. Some of their films (Wall-e, Up) are some of my favorites of all time. I was a little concerned when I saw that their next film was going to be a Toy Story sequel. Toy Story 2 was really good, but could they really keep up that same quality for a third film? The answer is a giant yes. This movie has all the trademarks that I've come to love from the Toy Story films. There are laugh out loud funny moments, but also really emotional moments that surprisingly brought a tear to my eye. I was more than happy to follow the toys on this third journey, but I kind of hope that it ends here, because this was the perfect ending for the trilogy.

3. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1

This is perhaps my favorite Harry Potter movie so far. I loved the first two movies, felt that the third and fourth movies were a little weak, but starting with the fifth movie, they have been steadily improving. I thought this movie would be a challenge since a lot of the book takes place in the wilderness where Harry, Ron and Hermione are alone in a tent. But, I felt it was done really well and allowed for the film to really delve into the main three characters and how they are dealing with this extremely difficult situation. There are still moments of humor, but also moments of sadness and uncertainty. It is a great buildup to what I hope is a great final film to the series.

2. Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World

This movie was the most fun I've had in a movie theater this year, and perhaps ranks up there with my best all-time movie going experiences. This movie is pure eye candy, there are so many things that are just fun to watch. I had a smile on my face the entire time. The concept is very original, where the characters are in some kind of video game/comic book type world. The main character often breaks out into fights with his girlfriend's evil exes. There is a lot of great humor and action, and I just really enjoy this movie immensely.

1. Inception

Inception is by far my favorite movie of the year, and one of my all-time favorite movies. I love movies that are really creative and make you think. The concept of being able to enter dreams (and even dreams within dreams) is a really cool concept and I feel it was explored really well. The ending leaves some room for interpretation as well, and I like thinking about what the ending could mean. This movie expanded my mind and gave me some creative fuel in regards to my own writing projects. I loved it and can't wait to see it again.

Top Ten Albums Of 2010

2011-01-07T18:07:00.000-08:00

This is my list of top ten albums of 2010. Just so you know, my favorite kind of music is progressive rock, thus all of the following albums are from that genre. They are not very well known albums, but each one is really brilliant and I highly recommend them. I feel that 2010 was a great year for music and introduced me to some fantastic albums. Music is a big passion of mine and discovering new albums is one of my favorite past-times. So, here is the big list!

10. Drama Rama- Agents of Mercy

This is a very pleasant album from one of my prog rock idols, Roine Stolt. The music is never very heavy, and they stay on the pastoral side of prog, but it makes for a very pleasant listen. The music is very much in the style of early Genesis and late Beatles, both of which I love. I was a little disappointed that Roine Stolt doesn't sing lead on any of the tracks, but Nad Sylvan has a great voice that really fits this style of music. There are some great moments throughout the album and certain tracks are really brilliant. I am very happy that I own this album and that Roine Stolt keeps putting out such high quality music.

9. Victims of the Modern Age- Star One

I always love Arjen Lucassen's work, and this album is no exception. This project focuses on the more metal aspect of Arjen's sound, so there are lots of heavy parts with crunchy guitars. Each song on the album is based on a different sci-fi movie or TV show. There is a cast of vocalists that trade off singing throughout the album and they are each world-class vocalists. The music is solid and there really isn't anything here to complain about. It is a joy to listen to and everything I've come to expect and love from Arjen.

8. Hybrid Child- District 97

This is an incredible debut album from a really talented group. They are unique due to their inclusion of a female lead singer who was an American Idol contestant, and a world class cellist. The band is quite eclectic and often sounds almost like King Crimson. There are some mainstream sensibilities on this album, but they definitely are not afraid to prog out. I especially love the multi track suite at the end of the album where all elements of the band are showcased. There are even some goosebump moments. I can't wait to see what this band does in the future.

7. In The Wake of Evolution- Kaipa

This is a fun and happy band on the same level as the Flower Kings. In fact, Roine Stolt of the Flower Kings was a founding member of this band. This album showcases the band at their best. It is pure symphonic prog. I love the opening track that showcases all the great elements of this band: a fantastic, unique keyboard player, both a male and female vocalist, pounding drums, and soaring guitar. I love their sound, and discovering this album led me to further explore the rest of their catalogue. Now this band sits comfortably among my favorites in my music collection.

6. The Great Escape- Seventh Wonder

This is my favorite progressive metal release of the year. I feel that they have topped themselves after an excellent concept album called "Mercy Falls." The new album has everything I love about the band. There is some incredible instrumentation from all the musicians. They have one of the best singers in Rock, in my opinion. They have an incredible catchy and fun song called "Alley Cat" that I just can't get out of my head. And there is a 30 minute epic to close out the album that is incredible. I love how they can go from a beautiful section of just vocal and piano, right into a hard rocking section with everybody playing at the top of their game. I can't wait to keep my eye out for this band and see what they will do next.

5. Mars Hollow- Mars Hollow

This is the number 1 debut album of the year. This band came out of nowhere and really blew me away. I gained a whole new level of appreciation of them after seeing them live in a club in L.A. They have a great progressive sound that brings to mind the old favorites (Yes, Genesis, ELP) and new bands that I cherish (Transatlantic, Spock's Beard). Their songs are catchy yet intricate. I really love the opening track on their record, titled "Wait For Me." It is everything great about this band in one track. Also, it helps that the band is extremely nice and friendly to their fans. I can't wait to hear what they come up with next in 2011. Based on this debut, it should be awesome!

4. Artificial- Unitopia

I really loved this album at the beginning of the year. I listened to it over and over again several times and never got tired of it. It is a concept album about the way that we as a society are becoming too artificial. It is really compact and well done. I love how the band does not sound too retro, but infuses some modern influences into their sound. It sets them apart from the other bands that I listen to. Their singer is especially incredible, he sounds a lot like Peter Gabriel and is able to put a lot of emotion into his voice. Another element I love about this band is their use of saxophone. There is a tendency to even stray into Jazz, which is used to great effect. This is a really great album.

3. If- Glass Hammer

I was pleasantly surprised by this album. Glass Hammer is a band that I have struggled to like in the past. I have always tried to like them because people who like the bands I like also really like them. I have been disappointed in the past but this album way exceeded my expectations. I feel they have finally found a singer that fits their sound. He sounds a lot like Jon Anderson from Yes, and I feel he lifts their music to a new level. Oftentimes they sound like what Yes wishes they sounded like today. Majestic, symphonic prog done extremely well. I especially love the epic closing track "If The Sun."

2. X- Spock's Beard

This was the album I was most excited to get throughout the year. I had been waiting quite some time for a new Spock's Beard album. Plus, my best friend bought me the super deluxe version, and my name was going to be sung in one of the songs! It was really exciting. I was very pleased to find out that this album is one of Spock's Beard's very best. I typically prefer their material with their previous front man, Neal Morse, but I think this album is up to the same quality as those earlier albums. Everything I love about this band is on full display here. Great melodies, expert musicianship, and tons of fun. I absolutely adore this album.

1. Lover's End- Moon Safari

This is by far my favorite album of the year. It is clearly a masterpiece to me. I absolutely adore the incredible vocal harmonies that are throughout this album. The instrumentation is great as well, with a focus on vintage progressive keyboard sounds, piano, and acoustic guitar. Every song is a highlight for me. There are no weak moments. I just can't describe the beauty of this album, I am just in awe each time I hear it. I never get tired of it. The first time I listened through this album I had tears in my eyes and thought that this music is what I was meant to listen to. This will be one of the most cherished albums in my entire CD collection.

Additional Music Experiences of 2010:

Best Album Not Included on The Top Ten: Aquarius- Haken
It was really hard to not be able to include this album in my top ten, so I thought I would mention it here. This is a fantastic album by a new prog band. There are brilliant instrumental passages that are amongst my favorite in progressive rock. The closing track of their album "Celestial Elixir" is particularly incredible, and is indeed one of the best tracks of the year. I can't wait to see where this young band goes next.

Best Song of the Year: The Dividing Line- Frost*
Although Frost* didn't release a new studio album this year, they released an incredible live album (The Philadelphia Experiment) with a brand new studio track. That track is The Dividing Line and it is a monster of a song. It is 17 minutes long and has everything I love about progressive rock. It is mind-blowingly awesome, moving seamlessly from some of the craziest stuff I've ever heard to sections of pure beauty. The track leaves me breathless, and certain sections are still hard for me to wrap my head around.

Best Live Experience Of The Year: Transatlantic
I had the privilege of seeing Transatlantic live in 2010 and it was a dream come true. It was the best concert I've ever attended by far. Transatlantic album released a live DVD/CD set called Whirld Tour 2010. Watching that DVD concert was like relieving the whole experience. I just couldn't help but tear up and just watch the screen in pure amazement. This DVD/CD live set is one of my favorite progressive rock items I have in my collection. Just awesome.

Best You-Tube Music Discovery: Project RNL
I am absolutely addicted to the videos Project RNL puts out. They do unique takes on old songs, and also have some originals. They have a very jazzy, eclectic sound and have an incredible vocalist that sings multiple parts in each video. In fact, there is an amazing purely a capella video where he sings every part. They are amazing musicians and are incredibly unique. Their music is pure ear candy. I will be first in line to buy an album of their music when it is released.

Best Non-Prog Album of the Year: New Morning- Alpha Rev
Yes, I like more music than just prog, even though prog is my favorite. This album is featured as Mike Portnoy's favorite album of 2010 so I thought I would give it a try. I really fell in love with it! It sounds a lot like Coldplay. There is a fantastic frontman and some really catchy melodies. I really love the album. And, the lead singer is joining Neal Morse, Steve Morse, Mike Portnoy and Dave LaRue for a project hopefully coming out by the end of 2011 that I am super excited for.

Honorable Mentions (albums that I liked but didn't quite make my year-end list):
Excavations of the Mind- Sky Architect
Pennies In The Karma Jar- Salem Hill
Rise- Resistor
Far Skies, Deep Time EP- Big Big Train
Nightmare- Avenged Sevenfold

It was an incredible year for music and I anticipate that 2011 will be even better. I can't wait!

2010: A Retrospective

2010-12-31T18:20:00.000-08:00

Since 2010 just ended, I thought it would be appropriate to write a summary about how I felt the year went and my goals for 2011. I will resume my year end countdown lists next week. And, in order to not be too redundant, I won't specifically talk too much about the best experiences I had this year since that will be featured in a top ten list next week. But, I will talk about many of them generally because they played such a big part in my year. Here are my thoughts on 2010...

I think this has been one of the most challenging years of my life, and largely I feel I failed the challenge. Right at the beginning of the year, my girlfriend broke up with me. This was an extremely difficult thing for me to get through. I don't deal with rejection well and for the first couple months of the year I was depressed, thinking about my now ex-girlfriend. In a lot of ways, it cast a shadow on all the events that occurred throughout the first few months of this year. But, there was some good that came out of it. I was happy that I was able to stay good friends with the girl who broke up with me. I don't hold any grudge against her at all. I realize that I wasn't the best boyfriend ever since it was all new to me. What made it all hard was the fact that I'm still not sure what it was that caused the breakup. But, it is in the past now, and is best not to dwell on.

Beyond that, I was able to finish my time at BYU strong with a 4.0 GPA for my final semester. I had some great experiences with my classes and great experiences with Kevin. He really came through for me and helped me get over my depression. We did a lot of things that last semester that we had always talked about the entire time we were in college. I was proud of myself for being able to graduate. It was a great event and even my grandparents were able to attend.

Over the summer I stayed in Utah looking for work. I feel bad because I wasn't able to find work, but I did have some great times with Kevin and some great visits back home to California. It was the last time Kevin and I would get to really spend a lot of time hanging out and I feel that we made the most of it. After the summer was over and I still didn't have a job, it was decided that I would go back home to California and look for work there. It was sad to leave Utah since I grew to love it and had lots of friends there. But, it was really great to come back home and spend time with family since I had largely been away from home for college and my mission for the past six years.

I still wasn't able to find a job when I was home but I did start working with my dad. My dad is a band leader, so I would go and help him pack up all his heavy equipment. Beyond that I was able to really further develop my love for writing. I was able to finish my first novel that I've been working on and have really developed a passion for it. I am hoping that some day that I can use that passion in a career.

So, in summary, this year was plagued by two major disappointments. They were, first my girlfriend breaking up with me and second my difficulty in finding a job post-graduation. But, there were lots of great things as well including graduating from BYU, finishing my first novel and getting to spend real quality time with my friend, Kevin, and with my family. So, it wasn't my favorite year thus far in my life, but there is still a lot to be grateful for and memorable experiences that I will cherish.

For 2011, I have three main goals. The first is to finally find a job. I need to learn more about how to be able to find a job and not be scared to do whatever is required. I have faith that I will find something. The second goal is to lose weight. I am very committed to starting a system of exercise and eating right. The third and final goal is to start a rigorous schedule of writing and reading. I really learned this past year that writing is my main passion, so, in order to develop it I need to write regularly. And, to become a better writer, I need to read more as well. So, I haven't decided completely what this new schedule will be, but it'll involve setting aside time every day for writing and reading.

So, I hope for a great 2011 where I can really accomplish my goals and work on my many weaknesses. I'm excited and hopeful!

Top Ten TV Series of 2010

2010-12-18T16:51:00.000-08:00

Ok, I'll admit it, I like TV. I enjoy a lot of different shows in several different genres. So, I thought I would give my top ten shows of 2010 to catalog my year in TV watching. I feel that TV at its best can be creative, entertaining, and showcase genuine human emotions. Just like a good book or good music, TV done well can really be enlightening. And, of course there are other shows that are just good entertainment. With this list, I've decided to restrict it to the new episodes that aired in 2010. I really got into Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel this year, but since they are old shows that I watched on DVD, I'm not going to count them on this list. I loved watching several classic episodes of The Office, but thought their new episodes this year were not quite up to the same caliber, so that show isn't included. I hope that clears up the list!

(WARNING: There are spoilers throughout this list, so don't read my description of each show unless you're caught up or you never plan on watching it.)

10. Flashforward
This sci-fi show only lasted one season, but I thought it was really well done during that season, especially the second half that aired at the beginning of the year. There were many compelling mysteries and fascinating characters (including Simon played by Dominic Monaghan). The finale was especially good when we finally got to see the flashforward play out in real time where certain things people had seen from their future came true exactly, but many were different than they expected. There was a cool question running through the show if we can change our future or if it is set in stone. Unfortunately this great little show was canceled, but I won't forget what I consider an excellent season of TV.

9. Chuck
Chuck was a new show I discovered this year. After always being intrigued because it came on right before Heroes, I decided to finally rent the first season on netflix. What followed was an extremely entertaining spy comedy featuring a very likable and relatable lead character. This latest season is keeping the quality up to the same level as always with a great new character of Chuck's mom played by the original Sarah Conner (Linda Hamilton). I really love the dynamic of this group and seeing to relationship of Chuck and Sarah develop. This show is just too much fun!

8. Community
Ok, this is a very recent addiction of mine. This is the epitome of fun TV. It is hilariously funny and the characters all play off of each other brilliantly. It is often absurd and ridiculous, but that is all part of the fun. I really have only watched the last few episodes of season 2, but I can already tell this show is going to have a place in my heart. It can often also be oddly heartwarming. In a recent episode, a character was celebrating his 21st birthday in a bar so he could have his first drink. After seeing all his other friends acting horribly under the influence of alcohol, he decides to forgo the drink and just take everybody home. A simple but important message that I was surprised to see on network TV. I can't wait to catch up on all the episodes I haven't seen yet!

7. Glee
This is my guilty pleasure show. Anyone who knows me would not predict that I would like this show. But, there is just something so contagious and fun about it. I love the musical numbers and the diversity of the cast. I love the quirky humor that is constant throughout every episode. Sue Sylvester is an absolute classic TV character and oftentimes there is a lesson to be learned. I'll admit that recently Glee has been straddling the line a little too much between appropriate and inappropriate. But, the majority of new episodes that aired this year were glee-ful fun for me.

6. Survivor: Heroes Vs. Villains
Survivor is my absolute favorite reality show and this may be my favorite all time Survivor season. There was just so much to love about it. The battle between Russell and Rob. Parvati giving out not one by two hidden immunity idols during tribal council to protect her alliance. J.T. giving away his hidden immunity idol to the absolute last person you'd ever want to do that to- Russell. It was all awesome and ended fairly satisfying with a final three that all deserved to win. The current Survivor season has been a little disappointing, but Heroes Vs. Villians was a great example of why I love Survivor so much.

5. Modern Family
Absolutely the best comedy on television right now. Somehow this show is able to really accurately portray real family issues. It can be hilariously funny at one moment and then heartfelt and poignant the next. What places this show so high for me on the list is that I was able to get my family into this show. It is often hard for me to convince my family to watch a new show (they always say they already have too many shows to watch), but they took a chance on this and now I'd say it is our number 1 family show. There are so many memorable moments, so it is impossible to list them out here. But, every one of the three little families focused on in this show has their moments. Brilliant comedy.

4. The Walking Dead
This is a new show I discovered when there was some buzz about it around Halloween. I decided to give the pilot episode a chance even though I'm not a big horror or zombie fan. What followed was one of the most compelling and interesting hours of television I have ever watched. Beyond all the gory zombies, this show centers on a group of survivors who are trying to figure out how to get by in the worst of circumstances. There are satisfying twists, multi dimensional characters, and fantastic visuals. It feels as if you are watching a movie. I was able to get my dad and sister hooked on this and the first season (only six episodes!) was truly awesome. I can't wait for more next year.

3. Dexter
Season 4 of Dexter is one of the best seasons of TV ever. So, it was always going to be a challenge to have a successful season 5. I'll admit that season 5 did not reach the brilliance of season 4, but it still left me on the edge of my chair. I loved the character of Lumen and the complicated relationship she has with Dexter. Deborah also had a really great season, culminating in almost finding out about her brother's true nature. I felt the season was very satisfying and I can't wait for what they'll do in the next season!

2. Fringe
This is such an awesome show! I started watching in season 1, but didn't really get hooked. But, over the summer I decided to pick up the second season, and I was blown away. This is one of the best sci-fi shows ever made. The current third season is the best season so far. The alternate world storyline is so interesting and compelling. I love all three of the main characters and I love the versions of them in the alternate world and the little differences in the alternate world. There is a real heart to the show as well, and it is fascinating to see what unique cases they will deal with next. I am absolutely in love with this show and will be heart broken if it gets canceled.

1. Lost
There are no words to describe how perfect I think this show is. Lost will forever be my all-time favorite show. What really makes it so great, I think, are the characters. This is the best cast ever assembled. Getting a look into their characters through flashbacks was an incredible way of really connecting to them. Yes, there is a lot of incredible plot twists and great island mythology that is really fun to think and theorize about. But, in the end, it was all about the characters and how the show was a significant journey for them. The most important part of their lives was the time they spent together and so they move on to the next life together. It was a poignant and moving ending, and I was literally in tears throughout the whole finale. Absolutely perfect in every way.

Upcoming Year End Lists

2010-12-16T16:15:00.000-08:00

I know it has been a little while since I've written in this blog and I apologize. But, I have made some progress in my new writing project, tentatively titled "The Chosen." I have a good direction for it now rather than just a vague premise, so that really helps as I write it. The only thing I'm not sure about is where I want to end the book. Originally I wanted the book to work as a stand alone novel with potential for a sequel if it did well. But, I have so many ideas, it is going to be hard to put them all in just one book. So, I think I'm just going to keep writing and see where it ends up naturally. It should be a fun process.

Other than that, there isn't much else to report. Over the next couple weeks, I'm going to start coming out with my year end lists. What I mean by that, is lists that showcase my top 10 (or top 5) of certain things from throughout the year. I like making lists ranking my favorites, and I feel it is a fun way to review the year. So, the four categories (and I may add more) are going to be: albums, TV, movies, and life experiences. It should be fun and will give you a look into the things I loved this year.

So, that is about it for now! I hope to start posting these lists soon, so look out for that. And, I hope that everybody can enjoy this holiday season, I'm really starting to get into the spirit of it!

New Writing Project

2010-12-01T18:16:00.000-08:00

I don't know why, but I felt inspired to start writing another book. A flood of new ideas came to me and I just can't help but start to write it. So, I have added a third progress bar on the top right corner of this blog. I'm not sure yet how I'm going to divide my time between the three projects. My hope is that having so many different projects going on will help make sure that I'm not bored with any particular project. We'll see how this goes. It is possible that after a while I'll decide that I don't want to work on this particular novel right now, and I'll put it aside for a while. But, I believe if I'm excited about an idea, I should pursue it while I'm excited about it. But, I believe I will draw the line at three. Any more writing projects at the same time will probably be overkill.

I don't want to say too much about this new project at this time. Partly because I like keeping it a mystery, but also because it is still in its early stages so everything about it is subject to change. I am calling it "The Chosen" for now, but even that title might change. This new book is specifically being written with a Young Adult audience in mind (roughly those from age 13-17). I feel one of the biggest flaws of my Avaria books is that I wrote it only for myself. I didn't really think of what age group might like it or how I might be able to market it. So, since I'm getting more serious about wanting to be published, I've decided that I need to write a book for a specific type of audience.

All I can really say at the moment is that the book will follow a young man named Thomas. He finds out that he is being tested for something, but he has no idea what it is. So, he must survive these brutal tests as he tries to figure out who is responsible for giving him these tests and for what purpose he is being tested. The book will take place in modern day America. It will be mostly a mystery thriller, with perhaps some fantasy/science fiction elements. It should be fun. I know that description is vague and could probably describe several other stories, but I don't want to give too much away yet. I just want to say that I'm very excited about it, and perhaps I'll give more information about it on a later date.

Album Review: Moon Safari- Lover's End

2010-12-01T14:52:00.000-08:00

I posted this review on www.progarchives.com but figured there may be some who don't go on that website and could still benefit from reading this review. Even though this is a progressive rock album, I recommend it to all people who love music. So, here is the review:

Every once and a while I get an album that completely captivates me. An album that I feel was made especially for me. An album that touches me deeply to my very soul. Lover's End by Moon Safari is that album. Since I received it, I have continued to play it constantly, and I am still playing it even now. Every thing about it is perfect to me. I haven't been this touched by music in a long time. Because of this reaction, it is hard for me to read some of the more negative reviews. I just find it hard to believe that people can't instantly hear the beauty of this album. In a way I feel sorry for them because they are missing out on something truly special.

Moon Safari is a band I have grown to love the past few years. I felt that there was something special on their debut album, "A Doorway To Summer," but that they still had a ways to go before perfecting their sound. The sound quality of that album was not great, and I felt the album missed a little bit of a bite. "Blomljud" was definitely a step in the right direction and was one of my favorite albums of that year. I did feel, however, that maybe "Blomljud" was just a little too long and could have benefited from some trimming.

But, in my opinion, with Lover's End, Moon Safari have perfected their sound. The sound quality is great and the album is the perfect length where every song is a highlight. Every moment of this album is beautiful. I tear up every time I listen to it because I can't believe the pure majestic beauty I am hearing. The instrumentation is wonderful. There is a wealth of great piano/keyboard melodies and solos. There is wonderful acoustic guitar moments and electric and slide guitar solos. The drums and bass provide a solid backbeat. But, what truly makes this music transcend is the impeccable vocal harmonies. In many ways, I feel that Moon Safari could be a fantastic a capella group because their singing is just perfect. The vocal arrangements are mind-blowing and leave me speechless. I have a soft-spot for these types of harmonies, so hearing them so perfectly executed brings the music to a whole new level for me.

Like I said before, every song is a highlight. The album begins with the wonderful "Lover's End Pt. 1" that really sets the stage nicely for the progressive feast that is about to come. "A Kid Called Panic" is one of the greatest prog songs of all time. It moves along seamlessly with a chorus that is to die for. After a fantastic instrumental powerhouse section, there is some beautiful piano playing with some of the best singing on the record. It is a glorious song. Then, we move to the pure beauty of "Southern Belle." It starts with an indescribably beautiful a capella section before the beautiful piano comes in and a beautiful melody is sung on top of it with more incredible harmonies.

"The World's Best Dreamers" is just more of the same beauty on display. Great vocal harmonies on top of a great symphonic prog instrumentation. The band has some fun with the brilliant "New York City Summergirl" which effectively evokes an American feel through some more great vocal arrangements and more of a pop prog arrangement. "Heartland" is pure symphonic prog at it's best with some great keyboard playing. "Crossing The Rubycon" is definitely a highlight of the album with some great acoustic guitars, more amazing harmonies, and some of the most majestic music I have ever heard. "Lover's End Pt. 2" is a great epilogue of sorts that wraps up the album with a great Beatles-esque vocal section.

My descriptions don't do it justice. This album is pure beauty. A fantastic blend of symphonic prog and impeccable vocal harmonies. This is a special band and they have created their first masterpiece. From start to finish I am captivated and have tears in my eyes. This is the music I was meant to listen to. I am so grateful to the band for this gift that they have given me. I will cherish this album for the rest of my life. I strongly recommend it to all music lovers.

Two New Experiences

2010-11-19T19:16:00.000-08:00

I was able to finish chapter 6 of "Avaria book 2: The Aftermath" and I'm very excited about where things are headed. It is so fun to imagine something and see it come to life through the words you are writing. When I write, I generally have a very rough outline of the book (meaning I have an idea of what the ending will be and some of the details on the way to that ending). However, a lot of the plot gets made up along the way, and sometimes the things I come up with can drastically change what is going to come later. But, that is the fun of the process to me. The book evolves as it goes and becomes something even better than my initial vision. I am having a lot of fun with the characters in book two. In some ways I'm liking it even more than book one.

Beyond my writing, though, I wanted to talk about two things that really touched me yesterday. I experienced two things that really stuck with me and are two of my new favorite things. The first is the album "Lover's End" by Moon Safari. I love music, it is a great passion of mine. I received the latest Moon Safari album yesterday and immediately had my first listen. It was incredible! This is the music of my soul. The band manages to combine jaw-dropping vocal harmonies with extremely fun progressive rock. They are like if a world class acapella group suddenly decided to start a prog band. Acapella music is one of my favorite things, and to put it to a symphonic prog background just puts it on a whole new level. This album is practically perfect and is going to give Spock's Beard's X a run for it's money in the race for my favorite album of the year. I just couldn't believe the feelings of pure joy I had as I listened to the music. I haven't felt that way since Transatlantic's "The Whirlwind."

The other experience I had was going to the midnight showing of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows." Me and my sisters went about two hours before midnight and managed to get great seats. Going to a midnight showing is fun because the crowd gets really into it and it makes the whole experience more exciting. I think the book "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" is one of my favorite books. It astounds me how JK Rowling was able to end such an epic series with a perfect ending that wraps up everything in a satisfying way. I feel the movie really captured the feel of the book. These aren't kids having magical adventures in a fun grade school setting anymore. These are young adults who are figuring out their place in a very scary world. They are learning more about their relationships with each other and about themselves as they face impossible odds. The three main characters are all classic characters and it is a joy seeing them on screen, interacting with each other. I think the actors play them perfectly. I can't wait for part 2 in July! It is going to be epic!

And, I suppose that is it for now. I strongly recommend both "Lover's End" by Moon Safari and "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows Part 1." They are both excellent.

A New Beginning

2010-11-17T16:06:00.000-08:00

It has been a while since I have written in this blog, and I feel bad about it. My plan originally was to try to write on a weekly basis, updating everybody on the major events of my life. Well, as can clearly be seen, I haven't written since the beginning of August. So, I'm recommitting myself to write in this blog more regularly. And, not only that, but I'm going to change the method in which I write in this blog. Instead of weekly entries, I want to write a little bit more frequently. The entries may not be particularly lengthy, but I think it is important that I get my thoughts out in some way. One reason for this change is that I've decided I'd like to use this blog to track progress with my writing. I am trying hard to get into a good routine with my writing and I feel that tracking my progress through this blog will be a good motivator.

So, on the top right hand side of this page there will be progress bars with an approximation of the percentage of work I've accomplished on my current writing projects. At this time, I am working on two writing projects. The first project is a second draft of my first novel, tentatively called "Avaria Book One: The Sacrifice." The second project is the first draft of the sequel to that novel, which is tentatively called "Avaria Book Two: The Aftermath." As I complete work on these projects, I will update the progress bars accordingly. When I start up a new writing project, I will add a new progress bar. It should be a fun way to track my progress, and hopefully it'll motivate me since I won't want to keep the progress bars stalled at the same percentage for a long period of time.

Since there may be some who read this blog and aren't familiar with my writing, I thought I would briefly describe the plot of my first book (without giving too much away, of course). The novel takes place in a mystical land called Avaria located in an alternate universe. In Avaria, there were originally two races, the humans and the Ginerists. The Ginerists are supremely intelligent beings with the power of telepathy and mind control. Because of their mental superiority and strong inclination towards peace, the Ginerists were set up as the leaders of Avaria, with a supreme king in charge of all of Avaria. Throughout time, the humans have argued and fought to such a large degree that the Ginerists felt it would be wise to separate them into different sections of Avaria. The Ginerists also took away all technology and magical development since they were being used for destructive purposes by the humans. The humans developed in their own way in accordance with the environments they lived in, and formed into four seperate races, labeled as Men, Dwarves, Elves and Aquarians.

For the first time in the history of Avaria, the supreme king has been assassinated and his young son, Kydanis, must step up to this leadership position. As an idealist, this young Ginerist, now supreme ruler of an entire world, decides that the only way Avaria can exist in complete peace is if the separate races come together so that everybody can exist together in harmony. What he didn't expect, however, was that this act would be the impetus to a rebellion fueled by years of the people's freedoms being taken away at the hands of Ginerists.

This novel follows three people. It follows Kydanis, the newly appointed king of Avaria, as he attempts to bring the world together in peace, but is seemingly thwarted at his every attempt. It also follows Dak, a leader in the rebellion that is mounting, who believes that the Ginerists have unjustly taken away the people's freedoms. The novel also follows a young boy, named Goodwin, who somehow ends up in the middle of a war between the Ginerists and the rest of the inhabitants of Avaria.

This description really does not do the novel justice. It is hard for me to succinctly describe my novel in just a few paragraphs. It is definitely something I need to work on. But, hopefully it is somewhat intriguing based on this short description.

So, from now on I'm going to try to post more often. When I first started blogging, I tried to create several different blogs, each of which discussed a different side of my interests. In order to write more frequently, I've decided to use this blog to write about all of my interests. So, one day you might read an entry about a particular event in my life, then another day I might talk about an album that has been particularly moving to me, and then, I might talk about the latest progress on my writing. In this way, I hope that this blog will stay varied and interesting, and beyond that, regularly updated. The common thread for this blog is simply me and my life. Anything of particular interest to me is fair game to be discussed here.

I hope from this point forward there will be many more entries and that they will be interesting for others to read. I thank anyone who regularly (or even just occasionally) reads my blog! There will be more to come shortly!

25 Years of Life: A Reflection

2010-08-05T23:35:00.000-07:00

Last year on my birthday I wrote a blog post reflecting on 24 years of life. I enjoyed writing it so much, that I figured it would be a good tradition each year to use my birthday as an opportunity to reflect on my life. I'll most likely keep this entry much shorter than the one I did last year.

in my mind, life is a culmination of successes and failures. The successes are moments where, perhaps against odds, perhaps despite the temptation to do otherwise, a person does the right thing and accomplishes something worthwhile. There can be different measures of success, some successes might be as simple as doing a homework assignment for a class when you are feeling lazy. Other successes could be huge, like winning a gold medal at the Olympics. My life has contained several successes. I'm going to outline a few of these now.

Completing my mission was a huge success. There were moments on my mission of absolute despair where I felt like giving up. I felt like I was not up to the task and that I was not qualified to do the work I was doing. Mostly, I realized that my shyness really hindered me, and I worried that it placed an unnecessary burden on my companions who inevitably had to pick up my slack. However, I stuck with it. Not only did I simply manage to last two years, but I accomplished much good and learned several valuable lessons. Sometimes I don't realize how much of an accomplishment this truly was.

Another success involves my experience at college. It was a victory just to get accepted to BYU, which required me to perform well in High School. However, I was able to graduate with a Bachelor's Degree in Psychology just a few months ago. This achievement required a great measure of sacrifice as I took a lot of time to study and write papers to make sure I understood the material and could pass my classes. I survived a difficult stretch of time where I abandoned my first major and searched desperately for a new one. But, once I chose Psychology, I knew there was no more time to waver from that choice and I needed to stick with it until the end. I am proud that I did, and I need to make sure to use this success as a foundation for future success.

It was also a success to get the job I had at Independent Study. I am the first to admit that I struggle when it comes to getting a job. My shyness tends to make it difficult for me to be able to ask for applications or to do well in an interview. But, I felt that I pushed through my discomfort and did all I could to make sure I would get that job. And I performed well within the job so that I could keep it for the duration of my time at BYU.

There are more successes in my life, but these are the ones that particularly stick out. However, life is made up of failures too, and I've had my fair share of them. When it comes to failures, the important thing is to be able to learn from them and not dwell on them and let them consume you. This is my great challenge in life. I have a tendency to look at all my past failures often and feel that they define me more than my successes do. For some reason I highlight my failures and come to the unfair conclusion that I am a bad person.

Some notable failures include when it took me five tries to pass my drivers test. This may seem trivial now, but I still cringe at the thought of the minor mistake I made on each test that led to me getting rejecting. It was tough to deal with at the time, and there was a point where I thought I would never drive. Another failure is specific points on my mission where I was unable to get over my fears of talking to people. I would have my companion talk to people when I couldn't. I felt uncomfortable when I was taken out of my comfort zone and had to go on exchanges. There were moments where I felt that if I didn't have a companion at all times who was extremely skilled and spiritual, I would have nothing to show for my two years of service.

I feel I failed at dating. I put my heart out there and was rejected, and I still don't really understand why. All I can conclude is that I was just too inexperienced and shy to be able to fulfill her needs. I feel like a failure especially this summer as I have been unsuccessful in my job search. I have applied to several places, but fear once again keeps me from doing all that I could be doing. I also fear that I have made the wrong choice of a major and that I now don't have the necessary skill to have a good career.

But, even though my failures are many, I need to not let them define who I am. I need to learn from these mistakes, and remember that there have also been numerous successes as well. And, if I have been able to succeed in the past, there is certainly hope for success in the future. My life has been full of ups and downs, moments of perfect happiness and what felt like endless despair. But, it is important that when I look back, I emphasize the high points and remember that I am a good person who has true potential. Yes, I have failed, but so has everyone. The true test is how I deal with these failures. If I feel that my life is defined by my failures, I am doomed to re-live them. But, if instead of dwelling on them, I can learn from them, I can turn them into successes and have a much happier and fulfilling life.

New Blog: At The End Of The Day

2010-07-30T15:18:00.000-07:00

I have created a new blog called "At The End Of The Day". The link can be found on the right side of the screen, or you can click on the following link: At The End The Day . I created two blogs in the past called "Leviathan" and "So Many Shows" which I have never been able to regularly keep up for some reason. So, I have combined the ideas behind those two blogs and created the new blog "At The End Of The Day". My hope with this new blog is to add a new entry every day about something that made me happy or excited that particular day. This could be new music I've discovered, a new show or movie I'm excited about, or just some experience I had that day. The entries will most likely vary in length, and may end up being very short. But, I'm hoping I will be consistent in posting there each day. So, please visit that blog if you are interested!

Fun At Disneyworld Part 2

2010-06-27T14:47:00.000-07:00

After our fun day at Epcot, we decided we needed some rest, so we took things easy the next day at Animal Kingdom, which I was grateful for. We first went on the ride Dinosaur, which was one of my favorites in all of Disneyworld. It basically has the same track as the Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland, but instead of Indiana Jones, you travel in a time machine back to the time of Dinosaurs and try to find a specific Dinosaur before the impending meteor. It was a lot of fun! After that, I rested while Kevin went on his favorite ride in all of Disneyworld, Expedition Everest. We then had lunch at a nice restaurant and headed to the Kilimanjaro Safaris, where you take a ride in a truck and see many real animals in their natural habitat with the driver as your guide. It was really a nice safari and cool to see the different animals such as giraffes, elephants, and lions.

After that ride, Kevin went on Expedition Everest one more time while I shopped for souvenirs. We left that night and went back to our hotel room and had hamburgers for dinner which Kevin went and bought at a bar. The next two days we went to Hollywood Studios, which I thought was a lot of fun. We went on the Great Movie Ride, which is where you travel through different movie scenes such as Wizard of Oz, Alien, and Indiana Jones. At one point, while you are in the scene of a gangster movie, one of the gangsters actually comes out of the scene and hijacks the car that you are riding and becomes the new tour guide, only to be killed later so the original tour guide could return. It was a lot of fun. Also fun was the American Idol experience where you become the American Idol audience and people who auditioned that day compete for an audience vote. It was fun hearing the different talent and getting to vote for my favorite. What was also cool was that the winner of each show during the day participated in a finale show and the winner of the finale show would receive a golden ticket that allowed them to go to the front of the line for any American Idol audition throughout the country. I enjoyed the American Idol Experience so much that I went a second time without Kevin.

We also went on Star Tours, which was identical to the Disneyland version. We attended the Indiana Jones Stunt Show, which was incredible and featured live stunt men reenacting scenes from the movie. After that, we went on the Studio Backlot Tour, which featured a tram tour through the Backlot, and some demonstrations of different stunts. We went into a place that had props from the movie Prince Caspian and then to an exhibit that showed the history of Walt Disney and how his dreams became a reality, which was really cool to see. That day we also went on Toy Story Mania, which is where you go through and use a kind of gun to shoot at things and try to earn points. The line was incredibly long, I believe the wait was up to over two hours at one point. Luckily Kevin and I had fastpasses, so the wait wasn't as long for us. That night we attended the Fantasmic show, which takes place in a theater specifically built for the show. I thought it was really cool, although Kevin was disappointed that instead of the part with Peter Pan that they have at Disneyland, they had a scene from Pocahontas. Also, the dragon that is supposed to come out at the end didn't quite work right, so that was a little disappointing. But, besides that it was a great show.

After that day, we switched hotels and stayed at All Star Movies, which was not as nice as the first hotel we stayed at, but fun in its own way. We spent the last 3 days of our trip going back to the parks and re-doing the rides we liked the best. We had lunch with Erin at Hollywood Studios on one of the days. After that, Kevin and her went on the Aerosmith Roller Coaster while I stayed behind and went to the 3D Muppetvision show. After that, Erin left, and Kevin and I went to a stunt show that involved cars driving backwards and lots of explosions. It was really awesome! On our next day we went to Epcot and attempted to eat around the world, meaning have some kind of food from each of the different countries. We got to America, and then were too full to eat anymore, so we were only able to eat halfway around the world. On our final day we returned once again to The Magic Kingdom and had fun repeating all of our favorite rides from there. It was great!

So, all in all, the trip was tons of fun and I'm really glad I went! Disneyworld doesn't have quite the same magic as Disneyland, but there is so much to do and it is so much fun!

Note: Sorry it has taken me so long to write this entry! I'll probably write another one soon where I go through what else has happened this summer (which unfortunately isn't much).

Fun At Disneyworld Part 1

2010-06-19T16:13:00.000-07:00

This past week, I went to Disneyworld with Kevin to celebrate our graduation from BYU. We had been planning this trip for quite some time, so it was exciting to see it actually become a reality. We left early (early for me at least) to go to the Salt Lake Airport. I always get nervous in airports, but everything went really smoothly, and I enjoyed the flight to Orlando because I got to play trivia with other people on the plane, including Kevin, and I even ended up with the highest score of the whole plane ride. I was also able to listen to a lot of great music on my ipod while doing this. It was really a blast! That first day we basically just made sure we got into our hotel and were settled in. We did go to Downtown Disney that night for a little bit, which was when I first realized that this was going to be a very hot week, the weather was really humid and hot which was uncomfortable until I got used to it a little more throughout the week.

The next day, we started our Disneyworld adventures at the Magic Kingdom. This is basically the part of the park that most closely matches Disneyland. I went to Disneyworld about 15 years ago when I was 10, but I didn't really remember the Magic Kingdom at all. So, it was all basically a new experience for me. Kevin and I spent the morning in Fantasyland going on Peter Pan, It's A Small World (both are not quite as good as the Disneyland version in my opinion) and Snow White and Winnie the Pooh (which are both superior to the Disneyland version in my opinion). Then, we met up with Erin for lunch at a hot dog place that she is a huge fan of. We then went on all the other Magic Kingdom rides, included my personal favorite, Mickey's Philharmagic. This was a 3D movie in which Donald Duck goes through several other Disney movies. It is really creative, fun, and most importantly for me, not too intense. We also went on The Haunted Mansion, Pirates of the Carribean, The Jungle Cruise, Country Bear Jamboree, Tiki Room, Stitch's Great Escape, Monster's Inc. Laugh Floor, and the Carousel of Progress. Of course, Kevin and Erin also went on Splash Mountain, Thunder Mountain and Space Mountain while I waited, since I'm not a fan of big drops or fast, roller coaster rides. It was a really fun day, and we were able to see The Main Street Electrical Parade and the big fireworks show at night.

The next day we spent at Epcot, which is probably my favorite of the four Disneyworld parks. I remembered a little bit more of this park from my childhood. Before we got to Epcot though, we met up with Erin at a restaurant to eat breakfast with Disney characters. I wasn't sure what to do when the Disney characters came to our table, but it ended up being a lot of fun, and I got several cool pictures with the different characters (Donald, Mickey, Minnie, and Goofy). After that we took the monorail to Epcot. There are basically two parts to Epcot, the Future World and the World Showcase. We started in the Future World and went on several rides. My favorite was Soarin', which takes you on a hang glider through various parts of California. I also went on Spaceship Earth, which is inside the big golf ball and takes you through a perspective of Earth's history. I also went on a ride called Living with the Land, which is a slow moving boat ride that takes you through all the agricultural advancements that Disney is working on.

After spending time in the Future World part, we began our journey through the World Showcase, which is basically where they have representations of 11 different countries. We started in Canada, where we watched a really cool movie about Canada. At this point my legs got really sore and it became difficult to walk, which was unfortunate since we had a lot of walking in store this day. But, I kept on through England and then on to France where we watched another movie, this time of course about France. I was so exhausted that I took the opportunity to take a nap while the movie played (don't worry though, we went back another day and this time I actually stayed awake for the movie!). Also, at this point I was getting really hungry, which I think contributed to my fatigue since I hadn't eaten anything since breakfast and it was now approaching dinner time. We made reservations to eat in China, so we made our way over to the restaurant which was about 5 countries away. After eating, though, I felt better, and we went to Mexico and went on the little boat cruise through Mexico with the Three Cabelleros, which was entertaining. We then went on a ride in Norway called Maelstrom that takes you through some viking lands and then has you go down a short waterfall. It was a lot of fun. After this we headed to Japan, mainly to get a spot to wait for the fireworks show, illuminations. I needed to sit down since my legs were really sore at this point, so I waited alone while Kevin ran around Epcot getting candy bars and Erin spent time shopping around Japan (her favorite country). They stood in a different spot for the fireworks show for a better view while I stayed sitting. After illuminations, we left Epcot and got much needed rest for our next day....

...and I'm starting to realize that this is going to be a really long entry, so I'm going to end part 1 here and continue on in a later post. Stay tuned for our time in the Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios...

The End (?)

2010-05-25T12:01:00.000-07:00

Life feels strange right now. Almost as if it is not real. I have moments where I reflect and realize how odd things are. I feel I'm at the end. Everything that kept me going is ending. As I faced this extremely difficult last semester, I kept thinking ahead to several things in the future that would give me hope and happiness. One of those things was the big Transatlantic concert which was absolutely fantastic. The other occurred just two days ago- the Lost finale. The finale was even more incredible than I expected it to be. The only thing really left for me is my big Disneyworld trip in a couple weeks with Kevin. After that it is all over. What is there to look forward to? The last Lost episode was appropriately called The End, and I feel that is an accurate title to this part of my life.

So, what is the logical next step? Either I give up- have nothing to look forward to and go through a long period of hopelessness. Or, the better option, I find something new to look forward to. I'm struggling to find this new thing as I start to feel like the future for me isn't too bright. I have crippling doubts of ever having a successful career or a family of my own. I'm starting to really think there is something truly wrong with me- that I'm not capable of accomplishing what any "ordinary" person can easily accomplish. This is a problematic viewpoint and maybe this very outlook about myself is what is keeping me from progression.

These past few weeks have been particularly uneventful. I've been trying with great effort to find a job, but so far I haven't been successful. I'm starting to run out of options about where to apply and it is terrifying me. I did decide last week to go home for a week to be with family. I thought it was a great opportunity to see my family since I didn't have any obligations tying me down to being in Provo. I really enjoyed my time at home. I was worried my parents would scold me about not finding a job faster and it would make me even more depressed, but they were very understanding and fair. I felt like I got to spend good quality time with each family member and I even got a nice visit to my grandmother and uncle. I even surprisingly extended my trip a couple of days because I desired to spend more time with my family. I also was able to get a new pair of glasses and get new tires for my car. So, all in all, I felt like it was a very successful trip.

Coming back to Provo and trying to really put strong effort into finding a job hasn't helped me feel any better though. I just feel an emptiness right now that I can't describe. I'm trying to simply fill my days with productivity to deal with this. I'm planning on spending a good portion of each day looking for jobs and writing my novel. I also want to start to be more dedicated to a simple exercise program. I hate having nothing to do each day, so hopefully these goals will keep me from the boredom that is watching TV all day. Much to everyone's surprise, I do not enjoy staring at a TV screen all day. One of the stereotypes about me that people have (I'm mainly talking about my family) is that if it was up to me I'd watch TV and play guitar hero all day, every day. This stereotype is incorrect. In reality, this would be torture for me. I hate not being productive- I like having school and/or work to make me feel like I'm accomplishing something with my life. I need to have a better variety of interests so I can make life interesting and not waste hours staring at a screen.

Even though I obviously haven't been going through the best time in my life, there have been really great moments. Music has been inspiring me to a great degree lately. I have recently received what I consider to be the greatest CD so far of the year- the new Spock's Beard album "X". Kevin ordered the super special deluxe edition of this album for me for Christmas and it finally arrived last week. It was so exciting to open the package it came in and discover all of the cool goodies. The best part though is that I'm listed in the album as an executive producer and my name is sung in the lyrics of one of the songs of this album. It was such a blast listening for my name in the song. The album is by far the best Spock's Beard album after Neal Morse left, and may even be better than some of the albums Neal was a part of. I'm really blown away by what my favorite band has accomplished here, and I'm positive I'll be listening to this album nonstop for a long time.

Also profound to me was the finale of Lost. I will admit that I was in tears for much of the episode. Lost is BY FAR the best TV show of all time in my opinion. I'm glad that the finale focused on the characters the fans have come to love so much and I feel the ending was perfect. I am sad that there is no new Lost episodes ever, but I couldn't have asked for a more satisfying finale. The next big event to look forward to now is the Disneyworld trip that Kevin and I have been planning for a while. It should be a whole lot of fun, and it'll be cool to see Erin in Florida. Thankfully there is this one thing to look forward to and keep me going for the next little bit. Hopefully I can use this time to find the next thing to look forward to.

Perhaps I shouldn't look at this stage of my life as an ending...but a beginning. I've laid the foundation, now I have the rest of my life to look forward to. Maybe what is making me so sad is that I'm focusing on the wrong thing and am not giving myself enough credit for what I've accomplished thus far. I need to realize my true potential. I need to put aside these irrational, crippling fears. I need to start living. Life is a special gift and I need to not toss it aside. I want to enjoy life. I want to be happy with who I am. I have a long way to go.

The Garden of Forking Paths

2010-05-03T10:03:00.000-07:00

I feel lost. I feel alone. I don't know what to do with myself and it scares me. I've always had a routine to numb me from the fear of an unknown future. My routine is being stripped away and I'm soon about to face my greatest fear. I don't know how to handle it. Every reminder of what is coming is like a dagger to my heart. Why do I feel this void of emptiness? What can I do to fill this void?

Hopelessness is one of the worst feelings one can experience and I feel it about to consume me. I don't have any clear direction for my life. I feel extremely overwhelmed and don't feel I am appropriately prepared for the future ahead of me. I wish I was brave. I wish I was confident. But, I sadly am not.

I feel like I am losing everything. My friends. My family. My comfort. Soon I will truly be alone and that thought terrifies me. I definitely feel that a chapter in my life is ending and the blank pages that are the next chapter stare at me menacingly, daring me to write on them. I wish I could have built myself a better foundation so that this turning point in my life wouldn't be so scary. However, I have allowed comfort and fear keep me from preparing appropriately and I'm paying the price now.

Life is like a garden of forking paths. Every choice gives multiple possibilities to where life can lead. There are an infinite amount of possible futures based on the decisions we make. Some are more likely than others, but oftentimes life is unpredictable and a path you would have never expected ends up being the path you follow. Right now I have a big decision to make, a forking path where I could go one of many directions. I just hope I make the right choice and go down a pleasing path that will lead to fulfillment. If only I could have a flash forward and see myself in several years (or months even) to give some idea of where I'll be, or even give me some measure of confidence about where my life is headed. But, a vision of the future could be a curse as I bring to pass that future just because I have seen it and believe that my future has been determined. This would be especially bad if my vision of the future wasn't the most appealing- it could lead to despair and more hopelessness.

The future is not set. It is ever changing depending on the choices that are made. The forking paths lead to infinite possibilities and I need to make the choices that will lead me down the most fulfilling pathway. I need to not view this as terrifying, but as exciting. There are many possibilities for me in my life, many of which are positive and full of happiness. I need to focus on these positive possibilities and not feel like my life has already been predetermined down a path of misery and loneliness. As I try to change my view, I will "smile and act like everything is alright" even though I am in turmoil inside. There are still glimpses of my past chapter that will keep me satisfied until I write the new one. The danger, however, is staying in the same chapter and never moving on due to fear, staying perpetually stuck in the beginning of the book of life and not having a satisfying ending.

Note: This blog post is mainly due to having a boring week without much to write about and wanting to exercise my creative juices. I'm not depressed, just scared of an unknown future as I'm sure many in my position are.

Transatlantic- All Of The Above

2010-04-29T12:43:00.000-07:00

Graduation

2010-04-26T14:26:00.001-07:00

This is where "real" life begins. I am done with school (for now) and need to figure out what to do with my life. Last week I attended my graduation and in two weeks I won't have a job. I'm scared. But, life is all about growth and how can I grow unless I am forced outside my comfort zone and made to do something new and difficult?

Before I talk too much about my fears for the future, I should relate what has happened in the past week. Last Monday through Wednesday I focused on finals (ok, maybe I really didn't focus much on finals on Monday, but I promise I did on Tuesday and Wednesday!). I had only two finals- one was super easy for my music appreciation class. I studied for about 40 minutes Tuesday morning and then went to the testing center to take it. My other final was considerably harder and was scheduled for 2:30 on Wednesday. I studied from the moment I woke up on Wednesday (around 8:00) right up until I had to go take the final. I was a little late getting to my final (mainly because I was selling some textbooks back) and it started pouring rain as I started walking from the parking lot to the building where I was to take my final. I was only wearing a t-shirt and shorts because I didn't think it would rain, so I was late and drenched and ended up having to take the final on the floor of the classroom since all the seats were taken. I was so wet I was dripping water onto my blue book and I had to take my glasses off because they were filled with water spots and I couldn't see my final. I had to write four essays, and I feel I did pretty well. My mind went blank for a minute on the last essay, but I recovered pretty well as I started writing it and things started coming to my mind. I hope I did well on that final, I should find out this week.

After that final, I went and picked up my cap and gown and then waited for my mom and grandparents to get into town that night. When my mom got into town she called me and I went over so that we could spend some time together. We watched American Idol and prepared for the graduation the next day. The next day I got a haircut from my mom in the morning and then headed to the commencement with Kevin. Now, before I get into how the commencement went, I want to admit that I was really nervous about graduation. I knew it would be crowded and crazy, and I didn't know much about how things were going to happen beforehand, which added to my nerves. But, I was happy that things ended up working out really well and my nerves were mostly unnecessary.

At the commencement we all lined up in different lines according to the college we belong to, which unfortunately meant that Kevin was in a line at the complete opposite side of the parking lot from me. So, I was very much alone and didn't really know anyone around me in my line. But, it didn't end up mattering all that much. We all walked to the Marriot Center and took our seats and I was amazed with the huge number of graduates and family there was in the Marriot Center- in fact I thought they were going to run out of room for the graduates in the Marriot Center. The ceremony itself was really awesome, and as I walked out of the Marriot Center, I saw my mom and grandparents and their excitement, and it was really a cool feeling to finally start realizing how big a step this was.

Outside of the Marriot Center I quickly spotted Kevin and his girlfriend Amy and we waited for our families. It was nice to hug my family members and receive their congratulations. I'm truly grateful to my family for coming, especially my grandparents, they had to travel quite far and my grandma wasn't feeling well, but they said they wouldn't miss it for anything. After they left and after witnessing Kevin ringing the victory bell (I made sure he rang it once for me too) I rode home with Kevin and got ready then went to my mom's hotel to spend time with my grandparents and mom watching Survivor. It was nice to spend time with part of my family.

The next day were the convocations, which I was even more nervous for because I had to actually walk up to the dean and receive my (fake) diploma. I got to the Marriot Center an hour before and had some difficulty finding the line I belonged in. But, it worked out fine, and I sat in my seat and began what was an almost two hour wait for my name to be read and for me to walk. When I did walk, I heard my sister and grandma scream for me (even though the dean said not to before they handed out diplomas). It was nice to know how much my family supported me. For convocations my sisters and dad were there and after several minutes of confusion, we met up after convocations and hugged and took many pictures. It was really cool, and I felt a little overwhelmed. After that, we met up with Kevin and all had a celebration dinner at Rodizio Grill. The food was awesome and my family and my grandparents gave me cards and very generous gifts, and I can not express how grateful I am for them and for all their support of me throughout my college experience and my whole life. I most definitely could not have done it without them, and I hope they know home much I love and appreciate them. After dinner, we went to Kevin's house for cake and ice cream and it was a lot of fun for all of us.

Saturday morning was a bit crazy because I had to move out and clean my apartment by 10:00AM. It ended up not being too bad, and afterwards I immediately drove to my family's hotel and we proceeded to spend some quality time together for the rest of the day. The day was balanced between fun, lighthearted conversation and serious advice and discussion of my future. I was grateful for my parents words of advice, even if it did make me a little more nervous than I was before about my future. On Sunday, we had a final breakfast together, and then I said goodbye to my family. It was sad because I'm not sure the next time I'll see them. After they left I had a long Sunday by myself in a hotel room since I couldn't move in to my new apartment until Monday morning. It was a day spent reflecting about my past, thinking about my future, and just relaxing after what was a pretty nervewracking week for me.

So, there you have it- my crazy week of finals and graduation. It is weird for me to think that I'm done here at BYU. It may not even be true because I'm seriously considering returning here for graduate school. So, I'm very uncertain about my future at this point, and really all I know is that I must find a job as soon as possible, and that I'll be spending the spring/summer figuring out plans for my future. But, I need to not get discouraged- this is the time for me to truly shine and to make something of myself. I have grown comfortable in my routine of school and work at Independent Study, but I was ready for a change, and I welcome it now. Life is something to be cherished, not dreaded. I hope that I can prove myself in the next few months, and for the rest of my life. It is about time.

The Concert To End All Concerts

2010-04-19T13:01:00.001-07:00

Music is extremely special to me and has been a huge part of my life since I was young. This past Saturday night I had one of the most special musical experiences of my life. It was truly amazing to see five of my favorite musicians (Neal Morse, Roine Stolt, Pete Trewavas, Mike Portnoy, and Daniel Gildenlow) come together and play with all their heart. The concert was the perfect example of everything I love about music. There were moments of pure joy, deep spirituality, and flawless performing. I can not say enough to truly express how wonderful the experience was.

But, lets go back to the beginning of the trip. Surprisingly for me, things went pretty smoothly leaving Utah for California. There were no car troubles, speeding tickets or traffic, just an enjoyable drive with my best friend Kevin. I decided since Transatlantic is a super group composed of members of four different bands, that a cool idea would be to listen to an album from each band that these members are a part of regularly. It provided for a lot of great music on the trip, and gave a good balance of time for listening and time for talking. It was honestly one of the quickest drives from Provo to Fontana that I've ever driven.

When we got to my house on Thursday night, my mom was the only family member home, so the three of us went to dinner together to a mexican restaurant and then watched Survivor at my house. It was a pleasant evening, and fun to spend time with my mom. The next day, we spent some time with the rest of my family and all had an awesome homecooked meal and watched Lost. Even though nothing really amazing happened, it was just nice to have some time to spend with my family. I often miss it as I'm at BYU.

Saturday was the big day, and my family left in the early afternoon for my sister's birthday celebration while Kevin and I stayed at my house to wait until it was time to leave for the concert. We watched Iron Man and played pool and got excited about what we were about to experience. We left my house and got to Downey (where the concert was) without any issues. I parked at the theater and Kevin and I walked to a nearby In-N-Out for dinner. As we were walking, we heard the band practicing in the theater and it made us even more excited for the concert that would begin in a few hours. Waiting in the theater for the concert to start was rough since I was so excited for it, but the wait was most definitely worth it.

The band began by playing their latest album, The Whirlwind, in its entirety. When the intro music came on the speakers for The Whirlwind, I could feel the excitement in the room and the audience clapped and cheered for Transatlantic as they came on stage. All of The Whirlwind was incredible- it made me appreciate the album even more than I already do. What was cool was that certain parts of the album that I considered weaker (like, for example, track 2- The Wind Blew Them All Away) were really awesome live and made me realize how incredible those tracks are, enhancing the whole album for me. A big moment was the end of track 11, Is It Really Happening?, which is extremely difficult to play, but the band pulled it off incredibly. This was the first live performance of this album, and the first live performance by the band in almost 9 years, and it was practically flawless. I'm still amazed by it.

After playing this close to 80 minute song, there was an intermission and the band promised that they weren't even half done yet! They came back after about 20 minutes and played all their great epics- All of the Above, Duel with the Devil and Stranger in Your Soul along with two of their shorter "ballads"- We All Need Some Light and Bridge Across Forever, which were great and heartfelt. They even switched the lead singer for We All Need Some Light, which was really cool. All of the music was incredible, I was amazed at how the band could pull off all of this complex intricate music with less than a week of rehearsal. You can tell that there is a special musical chemistry amongst these band members. They had a lot of fun and really felt the music they played. I loved looking at their expressions, especially those of Neal Morse who was performing directly in front of Kevin and I. He is my musical hero and he proved why during this concert. I could see the emotion on his face, especially during the encore of Bridge Across Forever and Stranger In Your Soul. Several times throughout the concert I really felt the music strongly and had the emotion of it wash over me. It was an incredible experience.

After the concert, Kevin and I talked the whole ride home about how awesome it was and picked up Oreo Shakes at Jack In The Box. I'm really glad that Kevin was there to share the experience, and I'm happy to know someone that loves music as strongly as I do. We left for Utah the next day, and now I'm back in Utah and have to focus on finals and graduation. It was a fun vacation before this final stretch of my time as an undergraduate at BYU. The next few weeks should be interesting as I graduate and focus on finding a job. I feel like this concert experience refreshed me and now I can better face the difficult things ahead. How can life be a bad thing when it contains music that is this awesome?

Transitioning

2010-04-12T12:27:00.000-07:00

Well, I promised I would start writing in my blog more regularly- so here is a new post! Do I have anything worth saying? Hmmm…that is the tough question. I covered my dilemma about what to do with my future in my last post, so I’m not sure I want to get into that anymore. I’ll just say that I’ve decided that the best plan for me after graduation is to find an affordable apartment here in the Provo area and find a job. Mainly it just involves me finding the right apartment (which needs to be soon since I am going to have to leave my current apartment in less than two weeks) and applying to as many jobs as I can hoping that one will accept me. Once I get settled into this apartment and job situation, I can start seriously considering future school plans (such as graduate school). So, that is the plan for now. Nothing groundbreaking, but it helps give me some kind of direction since it seems that everyone around me is worried about my future. I know they are just looking out for me, but sometimes it unnecessarily adds to the worry that I already have.

I have my final classes at BYU, at least as an undergraduate, this week. Tomorrow will be my last class, and then I have two finals the next week. Before I think about my finals, though, I’m going to California this weekend to see my favorite band, Transatlantic. This is a huge deal because this band haven’t performed live for 8 years, in fact, I didn’t think I would ever see them perform live since I discovered the band after they stopped touring and essentially split up. But, thankfully for me, they reunited last year, released one of my favorite albums of all time, The Whirlwind, and are now performing live less than an hour from my house in California this Saturday. It is truly a dream come true, and I still am having a hard time believing that it is real. I should have some fun things to report about it in my blog entry next week.

Besides that I’ve just been enjoying my last few classes at BYU. I spent a lot of time last week on a paper for my research class- in fact that was my last paper as an undergraduate, which is pretty cool. So, besides school and work, I’ve spent my free time doing the average stuff- watching shows, listening to music, and hanging out with Kevin. A frustrating part of last week was that my internet decided to stop working on my laptop. I connect to the BYU internet connection through an ethernet cord in my room in my apartment. Well, lately they have been requiring that you have the latest windows updates and an up to date anti-virus program. Well, I thought I was meeting these requirements, but the internet connection wouldn’t work. To make matters more difficult, my wireless doesn’t work (regularly) on my laptop, so I can’t even get online to try to find the updates I need to be able to connect. So, it is frustrating and making things a bit more difficult, but that’s life.

I wish I had something more interesting to say, it is bad sign when the most interesting thing I can think of to talk about is my bad internet connection. I’m hoping that things will start looking up and be more interesting as my job search heats up. Oh! And I guess another thing I should mention is that I achieved a goal of mine this past week- I actually wrote in my novel this week! It wasn’t much, but it is still exciting that I’m getting the writing bug again. Hopefully it’ll lead to more writing in the near future.

I'm still obsessed with Lost and the episode this past week was a classic Lost episode showing the connection between the sideways and island world. There have been theories that involve how those in one reality may need to move to the other, or at least combine somehow with the other. Essentially, they need to transition from one reality to another. I feel I'm in a similar transitioning state, I need to move from one reality (the BYU student reality) and into another (the real job reality). I'm starting to see signs from the next reality pop up in my life now because the barrier between the two is thinning since the transition is occuring so soon. These signs scare me because I want to stay in the current reality because I have grown comfortable in it. However, I need to face this transition with positivity, learning from my previous reality, and hopefully come into a new, more meaningful reality. (Sorry about this weird tangent trying to connect my life to the latest Lost episode, but I wanted to flex my creative muscles and somehow connect this post to the title and picture. Also, sorry to those who may read this that don't watch Lost, because I'm sure this makes absolutely no sense. Don't worry, it doesn't make much sense to those who watch the show either.)

And, I guess that is about it for now. I’ll hopefully have more to say next week.

Mindrevolutions

2010-03-30T14:36:00.000-07:00

“Time is high. Now's the time
For a mindrevolution.
You can change and it starts
Like a wave deep inside.
Everything you send out
Will come back to the giver
With the blind eyes of love
You're saving your soul
And the world.” – from Mindrevolutions by Kaipa

It has indeed been a long time since I’ve written here, and, as always, I apologize for that. For some reason I just can’t get myself into a normal routine of writing, whether it be a blog, a journal, or a novel. I love writing, it is certainly one of my passions, but for some reason I have a difficult time motivating myself. Luckily, there is always time to change and I can promise to start now. Of course, based on previous experience, that just means that I’ll write this week and maybe another week, and then stop again for a long period. Hopefully the past doesn’t repeat itself, and I really can get into a good routine. Its time for me to change. As Kaipa would put it, it is time for a mindrevolution.

I am at a crucial point in my life, at a time when everything is about to change. I have become comfortable in my routine of attending classes at BYU and working at Independent Study, going home to California occasionally for a summer, holiday or concert. However, now I’m graduating, which means no more BYU and no more student job at Independent Study. This change is occuring in about a month’s time, and to be honest I’m very scared of the future right now because I really don’t have any concrete plans. I’m beginning the job search now, but so far it doesn’t seem promising due to a bad job market and a difficult undergraduate degree. It seems that to be able to do anything with a Psychology degree one must have a masters or PhD, which I won’t have anytime soon. I may have made a mistake by not immediately enrolling into a graduate program, but I wanted a break from school, a chance to earn some money so I can better afford graduate school, and, to be honest, I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to get in due to not having the strongest GPA, and not having made the appropriate connections to be able to get good recommendation letters.

But, the reality of things is that I’m not going to be able to get into a graduate program for at least a year, so I need to figure out a plan in the meantime which must require getting a job and living on my own. My hope is to find a decently priced apartment in the Provo/Orem area, find a good job in this area, and start saving money for Graduate School. Hopefully this can happen; I’ve only had one job, so I’m not very experienced in finding new jobs, but I’m sure I’ll get something if I seek dilligently enough. But, obviously my future has been a very pressing issue on my mind and I’m constantly worrying about it.

As for what has been happening to me so far this year, I must admit it has been pretty average. I have settled into a pretty predictable routine of school, work, and hanging out with Kevin in my freetime. It seems like the last few months have gone by incredibly fast- probably because of my fear of this semester being over and having to face a huge change in my life. I have done really well in my classes this semester and have kept my grades up. Kevin, Erin and I have gotten together pretty much every Tuesday for Lost and for several Fridays for our usual Disney Movie Night. It has been a lot of fun, and refreshing to me that I can still be really good friends with Erin even though we went through a breakup. The plan is still intact for the three of us to go to Disneyworld, although Erin will already be there since she is doing an internship at Disneyworld starting at the end of May. It’ll be sad for her to be gone, but I know she’ll be happier there, so I’m happy for her.

In my last blog entry, I talked about how hard things were, and indeed things only got harder after that entry. I was depressed often for the majority of the past few months and I felt it start to affect my life. I went to Las Vegas to witness my parent’s vow renewal, and I feel like I sort of ruined the trip because of the sad mood I was in. I could tell that my family sensed I wasn’t myself. My mom since has been trying to think of everything she could do to help me improve, but not much was helping me. I lost hope. I felt that “the good life” just wasn’t for me and I would have to settle for a mediocre life of loneliness and disappointment. It is a pretty bleak outlook, but that’s how I felt. I did have moments of happiness, such as hanging out with Kevin, attending my classes, which I enjoy immensely, watching several shows that I love (including a new obsession called Buffy the Vampire Slayer) and, as always listening to music.

Speaking of music, a new band that I’m currently obsessed with is a band called Kaipa. The lyric that started out this blog entry is from a song by them that I think is a brilliant masterpiece. I think I need what they call a mindrevolution- I need to completely change my way of thinking so that I can come out of this depression and into a happier, more optimistic place. “You can change.” I’m not doomed, I can change, and I can save my own soul in the process. I have been improving over the last several weeks and I already feel this mindrevolution taking place. Now is the best time for change as a lot of things are changing in my life. I just need to make sure it is a positive change, not one that drags me down even further in the depths of despair. But, I’m gaining confidence and optimism, and I feel the change is coming and I’m about to make some great progress. Things are looking up, that’s for sure.

Hard Times

2010-01-20T13:47:00.000-08:00

Ok, now that I've reviewed last year, I think it would make sense now to jump in to the events that have occurred so far this year. To be honest (and why wouldn't I be honest in my own blog?) it has been a tough couple of weeks for me. For the first couple of days of the year I was still spending Christmas break at home with my family. We had a fun New Year's Day, and decided to go see Avatar as a family. The theater was crazy and many of the shows were sold out, but we managed to get tickets to a showing, and my sister Lauren and I stood in a huge line to get into the theater. This was my second time seeing the movie and it just solidified my opinion that this is the greatest movie of 2009. My family seemed to all like it as well.

After the fun at home, I had to return back to BYU for my final semester as an Undergraduate! I was excited to get the semester started and work on several goals that I had set for myself (aka New Year's Resolutions). Unfortunately, when I got back to Utah, my girlfriend called and broke up with me. I don't want to dwell on this too much, but it was a difficult thing for me to deal with. I have a tendency to blame myself for everything that goes wrong in my life so I had a hard time accepting that I wasn't the one at fault and that it was truly the reason she gave- that she isn't ready for a relationship at this time. There are two main things that are getting me through this tough break up. One is the hope that maybe someday I can start dating her again once she is ready to be in a relationship. The other is my friendship with Kevin.

Kevin has really been there for me at this time and I am so grateful for his kindness and friendship. He has taken a lot of time out of his busy schedule to hang out with me and get my mind off dwelling on the break up and the potential things I did to cause it. We have had many fun experiences in the past couple weeks. First of all, we went and saw Sherlock Holmes and it was really good! It was a great, fun movie that was a fun puzzle to figure out. A highlight for me of the past couple weeks was when Kevin and I went to Salt Lake to eat at The Roof restaurant and see the Joseph Smith movie. This had been a goal of ours for quite some time but it seemed that something always interfered with our plan. Well, I think we finally broke the curse by doing another thing that we always talk about- playing the Lost board game.

The food at The Roof was incredible and the Joseph Smith movie was even more incredible- it really showed me the huge sacrifice that Joseph Smith made to help bring about the great church we have today. Another fun thing that Kevin and I did was go to the IMAX theater at Jordan Commons on Monday to see Avatar. Yes, this was the third time I saw the movie, and I was still just as impressed seeing it a third time. It was the first time Kevin had ever been to the IMAX theater, so it was a fun experience, and I think he might have liked the movie.

I just can't express how lucky I am to have such a great friend who can help me through difficult times. Besides the fun we've been having, I did start school and it seems like it is going to be a good semester. I have only three classes. One of them is a fun class- Music Appreciation. I love music and I wanted a more laid back class for my last semester so I could focus on my two harder classes. My other class is a Psychology class called Personality. The teacher is Dr. Slife, who I had last semester, and he is an incredible teacher. He manages to make these really complex psychological concepts easy to understand.

The final "class" is actually doing research in Psychology for a professor here at BYU. I had a lot of difficulty finding a research opportunity, which scared me because I need it to graduate. I signed up to work with a certain teacher, but he e-mailed me and said that he isn't doing research this semester. I signed up with a different teacher who e-mailed me the same thing. In desperation, I got an e-mail from the psychology department about a research opportunity, so I jumped at the chance and ended up getting on a research team with this group and I'm excited about it. It will take some time this semester, but it should be fun.

Besides that there isn't much more to say for now. I am setting a lot of goals right now because I need things to work on to get my mind off the sad things I'm dealing with, and I need to improve in many areas. I'm hoping that I can lift my spirits this semester and become a better person at the end of it by working on several goals. I feel more hopeful this week than I have the previous two weeks, so that is encouraging to me and I'm hoping this positivity will remain with me.

2009 In Review

2010-01-19T13:39:00.000-08:00

I feel bad that I stopped updating this blog these past few months. The reasons are a combination of just being too busy, being discouraged by the fact that not many people read this blog, and that my life is just not that interesting. However, I feel writing in this blog is important because it gives me an opportunity to document the significant events of my life and reflect on what has happened. I feel that before I can start regularly updating my blog again, I need to have closure about what occurred last year. So, I'm going to use this blog entry to recap my 2009, which I consider to be one of the best years of my life.

Starting from the beginning, which I'll admit is a little hazy, I had a great winter semester and the best part of it was being able to be roommates with my best friend, Kevin. Now, of course, it wasn't all wonderful- we had a mutual roommate that we both got annoyed with frequently, we had issues with cleaning checks, and I feel I let Kevin down a few times throughout the semester, which makes me sad. But, we really did have many great moments watching movies and shows, making interesting meals and desserts, and having fun experiences in the ward. The semester itself contained some difficult classes, but also some fun ones including my creative writing class with Brandon Sanderson which taught me how to have a more regular routine of writing my book and taught me how to take constructive criticism. It also caused me to be slightly discouraged about the possibility of a writing career, but I did discover that I really love to write.

The other great class I had during winter semester was Church History with Brother Fluhman. I love Brother Fluhman because he is able to be extremely funny and spiritual at the same time, making for an extremely entertaining and meaningful class. Many of my most spiritual experiences of the year occurred in this class and I'm grateful for his dedication as a teacher. I feel I finished the semester strong even though I felt discouraged throughout the semester. During Spring and Summer I decided to stay in Utah and continue taking classes and working so that I could keep busy and get ahead in school. I think this was one of my best decisions, even though it was sad that I wasn't able to be with my family throughout the spring and summer as I usually am able to do.

Ironically, though, I probably visited home more times than I ever had in previous years, I just didn't generally stay at home for very long when I visited. During Spring I had maybe my most awesome set of roommates I've ever had in college and I had a lot of fun and enjoyed my two Psychology classes. During Summer I didn't enjoy my roommates quite as much, and it was a tougher situation for me because I worked full-time and didn't have any classes. But, I still made the most of it. One significant part of the summer to me was becoming friends with Erin. I went to the 4th of July Stadium of Fire with her and would come over to her house and watch So You Think You Can Dance. It was a fun time and nice to have two really strong friends to spend time with during the summer when I felt kind of alone due to not really connecting with my roommates. At the end of the summer, I went home to see a concert with my Dad called Prog Nation that featured Dream Theater. I went to California for concerts two other times during the year with Kevin to see Rewiring Genesis and CalProg. All of those concerts were fantastic and are highlights of my year. Another musical highlight of the year was the reunion of my favorite band, Transatlantic, and them coming out with one of my new favorite albums- The Whirlwind.

The fall semester last year, to be honest, was mostly about Erin. We dated during the last four months of the year and had some great experiences. Memorable to me was our trip to Disneyland. The three of us, me, Kevin and Erin, spent the weekend at my house in California and on the Saturday of that weekend went to Disneyland and had a fantastic time- it was perhaps the best time I've ever had at Disneyland. The next day we just stayed at my house and played games and had fun visiting with each other. It was great. Before I left for Christmas break, another memorable experience was taking Erin to dinner and to see Avatar and then exchanging gifts. It was a great way to end the semester and was a magical night to me. After that, I went home for Christmas break and was grateful to feel the love my family has for each other.

All in all, 2009 was an incredible year with plenty of memories that I will cherish forever. I was happy to share many of those memories with my two best friends and with my family. I realized throughout the year, and especially at the end, that life is a wonderful thing not to be taken for granted and that I am a good person despite when I tell myself otherwise. I am excited by the prospect of starting this new year and I have some exciting goals that I hope will make 2010 even better.

It’s Been a Long Time...(Part 1)

2009-12-01T16:49:00.000-08:00

Ok, time to confess. I haven’t written in my blog for several weeks (several weeks? Try several months), and I feel bad about it. The reason I feel bad is because these past several weeks (months) may be some of the most eventful of the year, and even of my life. So many big, important things happened that need to be documented. The only problem is, my memory is not the greatest for things that happened more than a week ago, so I’m sure that some things will get left out. But, I’ll do my best to highlight some of the major events and not make this entry too super lengthy. I do feel, though, to make up for my extended absence, that I should make this blog entry super special. So, here is my attempt to do that. Here it is- the super special extended multi-week blog extravaganza!

Where to begin? Perhaps I should start at the beginning. Or, I could be unconventional and start at the end and work my way backwards, but I fear that may be too confusing. What sticks out to me first is the trip my mom took to Utah to come and visit me (ok, and maybe the Lemleys as well). She came to Utah at the end of August and spent a few days here. It was convenient for me because I had a gap of time between the time I had to move out of one apartment and before I was allowed to move in to my new apartment. So, I was able to spend some of that time in a neighboring hotel room from my mom. I still worked while she was here, so it was a little torturous waiting out the eight hours of work until I could clock out and spend time with my mom. On the first night she was here, we went to dinner at Bajio and invited Erin to come along. We all had a lot of fun talking and eating good food, and my mom invited Erin to my family’s house for Thanksgiving. This was significant because it sparked the idea for a Disneyland trip in November, which will be happening about five days from when I’m writing this (uh...this actually happened almost a month ago). Besides that, I just spent the next couple of days hanging out with my mom, we watched Inkheart, ate good food, and generally had a great time. Then, we travelled back home in California so that I could go to the big Progressive Nation concert with my dad.

Progressive Nation 2009 was AWESOME! Four bands performed and they were all unique and great in their own way. The first band was the instrumental prog metal band, Scale the Summit. They were a fantastic opener and all were great at their instruments and brought the energy level up right at the outset. Bigelf came on next. They were probably my least favorite of the four bands, but they still played a great set of music that sounds like the hard rock of the seventies mixed with some prog metal. One of the coolest moments was Mike Portnoy coming out to play a song with them, it was all really fun. The next band to play was Zappa Plays Zappa, which is actually a tribute band of sorts to the late Frank Zappa fronted by his son Dwezzil Zappa. They were fantastic and blew me away! They played a very intricate progressive rock that was extremely difficult and complex. But, they pulled it all off amazingly. Mike Portnoy came on stage again to play a song with them as well. It was obvious that Mike is a huge fan of Zappa’s music, and after hearing them play, I am too. Then, the main band came out, Dream Theater! Dream Theater is one of my all-time favorite bands and it was a pleasure to see them live and see several songs from their latest album “Black Clouds and Silver Linings” which I absolutely love. The only downside of the concert was that a couple of guys sitting behind us sang every single song really loud and off-key so I couldn’t hear James LaBrie singing. My dad had enough by about the third song, and told the guys behind us to stop singing. It was all a little awkward for me, but I was glad to be able to hear the music more clearly from that point on. One of the most exciting parts of the concert was a big drum battle between all four of the progressive drummers at the concert, and of course Mike Portnoy of Dream Theater came out the victor. Then, the guitarists had a battle, and Steve Vai, a famous guitarist, came out to play with them! The crowd went crazy! The evening was so much fun, despite the large amounts of alcohol and marijuana being consumed (not by me of course, by others in the crowd).

After that, I had to fly on a plane back to Utah to start classes for fall semester. I got settled in my new apartment, which I’m very happy with. It is the same apartment I stayed in for Spring Semester, and I decided to stay here because I knew one of the roommates I would have and I knew I would get along with him. I was tired of having bad roommates that were hard to deal with. Luckily, this semester, I have 3 absolutely wonderful roommates who make things so much easier. I’m very happy with the living arrangement. The only downfall to the whole thing is that my ward is largely a freshman ward, so I feel like the old man of the ward. I’m pretty sure I am the oldest member of the ward (that isn’t in the Bishopric). Luckily, though, two of my roommates are returned missionaries, so I feel that they are more on the same age level as me. But, the ward is really good, so I have no reason to complain.

My classes are also all really good. I decided to only take 4 classes this semester, and it has proven to be a good balance for me. It’s funny though, two of my classes are similar, and the other two classes are similar, so it feels like I learn everything twice. Also, the two different types of classes are complete opposites in Psychology, so it has been an interesting semester. On one side I have Cognition and Behavioral Neurobiology, which are the more biological, brain based side of psychology that feels that everything can be understood by brain functioning. The other side is Critical Issues in Psychology and LDS Perspectives and Psychology, which has taught me the assumptions that most mainstream psychologists hold and how there are serious shortcomings within the field of Psychology. To be honest it has been a little discouraging, and made me waiver in my confidence with my decision to major in Psychology. But, I have made my choice, and regardless will graduate with a degree in Psychology, so we’ll see how that plays out in the future. It should be interesting.

Besides that, a very important part of my life right now is Erin and the time I’ve spent with her. After starting classes for fall semester, I started dating Erin, and have been having a great time with her. We have seen several movies together (Up, Fame, Toy Story 1 & 2, This Is It) and have had dinner a couple times, and have gone to a concert (Star Wars: In Concert). Another memorable time with her was her taking me to my mission reunion. My car had problems the week of my mission reunion, so I wasn’t going to be able to drive to my mission president’s house. Erin was really sweet and kind and offered to give me a ride to the mission reunion. I really appreciated that, it meant a lot to me. I felt bad because during the reunion, I was pretty awkward, since I never really do well at social gatherings with a lot of people. So, I said hi to a few people I knew and left early and got Wendy’s with Erin. I think it was a good choice because it took me out of the uncomfortable situation and allowed for me to spend more time with Erin.

That is really the main problem I have with myself, my crippling fear in social situations. I wish I was able to be more natural and normal and truly express those things I am feeling, but I find myself unable to. Hopefully over time I will improve. Ooh, I got sidetracked a bit with that personal note. Anyways…yes things are going great with Erin and I’m really happy to be dating her. I feel extremely privileged and blessed by the whole opportunity.

Other big excitement over the past few weeks was my trip with Kevin to California to go to CalProg. The week before we were about to leave, my car started acting weird, so I took it to Jiffy Lube to get an oil change. Well, as always it seems, it ended up that I had a bigger problem than just low oil- I had a leak in the oil sending unit, and it ended up costing my family a lot of money to get it fixed by a mechanic. But, it was fixed, and Kevin and I were able to go to California as planned, and we had a great time! My dad got tickets for Kevin and I as a birthday present for me, and we really had a blast. The first band to perform was Touchstone and they did a decent job. They have a female lead singer, which is pretty rare in progressive rock, and she proved to be a really good front woman. The bass player was also a lot of fun, and the guitarist seemed funny, but mainly because he kept having to deal with sound issues throughout their whole set. After their set, Kevin and I went to McDonalds (since I failed to get up early enough for us to be able to get Breakfast before Touchstone started) and discussed how awesome they were. We also pulled out some money at an ATM so that we could buy souvenirs.

The next two bands to play were Agents of Mercy and Karmakanic, and this was what I was most excited about. These two bands have the exact same line-up of musicians, which included some heroes of mine, namely Roine Stolt and Jonas Reingold of The Flower Kings and Nick D’Virgilio of Spock’s Beard. Agents of Mercy was led by Roine Stolt since it is mainly his project, and they played a good portion of songs from their one album that came out earlier this year. They really made the songs come to life! On the album the music is very laid back and pastoral, but they really brought out the beauty and fun of the music, I was really impressed. More impressive, though, was their set as Karmakanic led by Jonas Reingold. They blew me away! Along with Zappa Plays Zappa from prog nation, it was one of the most mind-blowing live experiences I’ve ever had. Their keyboard player, Lalle Larsson, was absolutely amazing and mesmerized me with an incredible solo. Nick D’Virgilio, with little rehearsal time, played magnificently, and had an incredible solo himself that was absolutely amazing. I loved this bands’ performance. After them, It Bites performed, and they were great too! They aren’t quite as full blown progressive as Karmakanic, but their songs were really catchy and fun and all the musicians were playing at the top of their game. The only disappointment was the lack of songs from The Tall Ships, which is the only album I have from them. One of the greatest moments while they were on stage was when John Mitchell, their frontman, started playing Supper’s Ready, and then stopped and said, “That doesn’t sound right.” It was funny.

To Be Continued...

Sorry, I Can't Say No

2009-08-20T15:33:00.000-07:00

Hmmm…what is there to talk about this week? It was not the most eventful week I've ever had. I went to Erin's house a couple of times, one time I caught her and Kevin in the middle of "Cats". Erin's mom answered the door and said, "I have to warn you, they are watching 'Cats' up there." I told her that I would be brave, and I went upstairs to meet my friends, and they thankfully turned the movie off and we watched good entertainment- The Office (I have never seen 'Cats' so I have no place to judge it, so don't hate me if you happen to love 'Cats'). I also went to Erin's house earlier in the week to pick up season two of House and I stayed at her house for a while and played Guitar Hero and watched the first episode of season two of House. That was probably the most fun I had in the week.

The other fun part of the week was going to Tucanos with Kevin on Saturday. Since it was during my birthday month, my meal was free, which was really nice. I love the food there and it is always fun spending time with Kevin. The bad story of the week, which I hesitate to share because it makes me more upset each time I think about it, is that I got conned by a girl selling magazine subscriptions. Ok, I don't really know if I was conned, but the more I think about the circumstances behind it, the more I'm convinced that I was. This girl came to the door and told me a sad story about how she grew up with abuse and drugs in her home, and that she escaped from it and is now trying to change her life around. And, as if she knew me personally, she said that her goal is to become a child psychologist. She asked if she could come in just to give her a chance, so I thought I would be nice and let her in. What happened from there was her asking me to select three magazines and basically pressuring me into buying one. I thought it would be harmless to buy a subscription because it was cheap and I wanted to help this girl out who seemed genuine at the time. Well, the cost kept building after I'd agreed ("oh, by the way, there is a $13 shipping and handling fee that I forgot to tell you about..."). And, the weirdest part of all was that she told me she would get more "points" for her sale if she went with me to the ATM to get the money.

I should have stopped there and got suspicious, but for some reason at the time it seemed harmless, and I wanted to be done with the whole thing before I agreed to buy another magazine subscription. So, I drove to the ATM with her in the car and pulled in the drive thru ATM to get the money for her. To top everything off, I had to pull out in increments of $20, and she didn't have change for the $20, so I just let her keep the change. After the whole ordeal, I was just glad to be done with the whole transaction and I thought that maybe somehow I had helped her cause and that she would feel more self-esteem for making the sale and would be able to get one step closer to getting out of an abusive situation and towards a career as a child psychologist. But, as I've thought about it, I think maybe she was dishonest about her situation just to garner sympathy so that I would be a sucker and fall for her sales pitch. The only consolation I have is that my neighbor next door fell for the same sales pitch.

So, after that experience, I have made a promise to myself that I won't allow myself to fall victim to solicitors. Kevin and I have a joke that began coincidently with lunch at Tucanos. At Tucanos the waiters continually come to the table to offer various meats, and I always accept and never turn down any kind of meat that I'm offered. We joked about how I can never say no to whatever is offered to me. Well, when Kevin went to the bathroom, he told me to make sure that the waitress didn't take away his plate because he still had some pineapple that he wanted to eat. When I wasn't paying attention, the waitress had taken Kevin's plate away, and when Kevin came back and saw his plate was gone, I told him, "Sorry, I couldn't say no" and we started cracking up. Well, I felt the same way after the soliciting girl left, although it wasn't as funny this time. It taught me that I need to be able to say 'no'. Hopefully I've learned my lesson now.

Wow, I did not plan on spending most of my blog entry on that experience, but I guess it shows that it has been on my mind a lot in the past week. Besides that, I've had to deal with some unpleasantness. Last week, a sharp pain started in my tail bone. This made it very hard for me to sit at work for 8 hours. The pain was almost unbearable, and the only way I could get through it was mass amounts of Aspirin. On top of that, on Saturday night I started feeling sick to my stomach. The combination of the two was almost more than I could bear and I spent much of Sunday lying in my bed in pain. As you may have guessed, it wasn't fun. It resurfaced a bit this week, keeping me from work for a couple of days. Luckily the sickness in my stomach is completely gone and the pain in my tail bone is going away. I am very thankful and it is making me very happy now that I'm not in pain.

Wow, this has been a bit of a depressing blog post. Oh well! Sorry! I'm hoping next week is better because my mom is coming into town! The plan is that my mom will come on Monday next week and we'll leave Utah together Thursday night, stay at a hotel halfway, and then arrive at home Friday afternoon. Then, I'll go to my big summer concert with my dad on Saturday and fly home on a plane Sunday afternoon in time for Fall semester to start the next day! Sounds exciting, huh? I'm really looking forward to it. And that is pretty much it for now! I hope to have interesting things to discuss next week.

P.S. Sorry, I had to comment on the picture that goes with this post. I usually try to find a picture from the show Lost that somehow goes with the topic in my post, but if I can't figure anything out, I just go for a cool picture from the last episode I saw. So, this is a random picture, but kind of in a funny way goes with the title of the blog post anyways. I'm not planning on shooting anyone anytime soon, don't worry, I can say no to committing murder ;)

P.P.S. I'm an idiot! I tell a whole story about a girl conning me and I can't think of any connection with Lost? I fail.

Birthday Surprise

2009-08-12T15:06:00.000-07:00

Starting from where I left off last week, I had a wonderful birthday trip in which everything worked out perfectly. Probably the only thing that wasn't perfect was the fact that I got Kevin home later than I promised, but I think he has forgiven me by now. When I finally got to my room after the long drive, I noticed a large birthday card laying on my bed. I was immediately perplexed and thought maybe my roommates or my ward had made me a birthday card. Once I opened the card, I got concerned because I thought it was saying that someone had stolen my stuff and I had to go to a random person's house in order to get it back. When I read the card more carefully, though, I realized it was from Erin and that she was merely wanting me to come over to her house the following day and to bring rock band, so I could have the Lost DVDs I let her borrow back. The card was brilliantly done, by the way, with a beautiful drawing on the front and the inside in a ransom note format with every letter taken from a different magazine. I was very happy that night and texted Erin the next day thanking her for the card and asking what time I should come over with Rock Band.

So, I went over to Erin's house with Rock Band in my car and we brought it upstairs in her house and set it all up. She gave me my DVDs back (and this was when I realized that not only did she have the Lost DVDs I let her borrow, but she had taken another season while she was delivering my card!) and we proceeded to have tons of fun playing rock band. Rock Band is my favorite game of all time, and unfortunately most of the people I know either don't like to play it or are too busy to play it. Erin and I traded off between drums and guitar and we had a blast. After we played rock band, we decided to watch an episode of House and Erin made a pizza. Unfortunately, the pizza was left in the oven too long and ended up being burnt, but she made chicken nuggets instead and those were really good. I stayed at her house pretty late and she suggested that I should leave Rock Band at her house since it was late and I was tired. I agreed to this, and went back home and almost immediately went to bed.

The next day was my actual birthday! Yay! In all honesty, I was a little depressed at work because nobody acknowledged it being my birthday (to their defense, nobody probably even knew it was my birthday) and I had to work, which can be boring. Kevin promised me a "surprise" though once I got off work, so I anxiously waited for 5, which is when I got off work, and I drove home really fast and waited for Kevin to come pick me up. Kevin picked me up and we went to his mystery place for dinner, which ended up being...Brick Oven! I was really excited, that is one of my favorite restaurants! And, for another surprise, Erin met us there and we had dinner with her as well! It was awesome having dinner with my two best friends and we had a great time. We all ordered the market buffet and filled up on salad and pasta. Our waiter was pretty funny and he kept mentioning to me "the embarrassment" that would come at the end of our meal, which of course was the waiters gathering around to sing their version of Happy Birthday. He even made me stand up as they all sang to me so that the whole restaurant could see me. I was a little embarrassed, but it was all fun...I think Kevin is the one to blame for the waiter finding out that it was my birthday.

At dinner I got an incredible present from Erin- the first 3 books in the Percy Jackson series. I have already read the first and am almost done with the second and they are great! After dinner, we went to the next surprise, which ended up being going to Erin's house to play Rock Band! Kevin told me about how he was behind the whole plan of Erin making that birthday card for me and taking my Lost DVDs so that I would bring Rock Band to her house. He was also responsible for having Erin keep me at her house late so that I would leave my Rock Band at her house so we could play it the next day! Kevin and Erin had planned out the whole thing and I had fallen for it! I am so gullible sometimes. So, we all played Rock Band and had a great time. I was impressed to see Kevin actually pick up a guitar instead of drums. He did really well. The final surprise of the night was that we were all going to watch the last performance episode of So You Think You Can Dance together, which I thought I would have to miss. It was a great show and tons of fun to watch it with two great friends. Afterwards we played more Rock Band, and then Kevin and I left. It was a great birthday, one of the more memorable ones I've ever had.

The day after my birthday, I started not feeling so well. I got an incredibly severe headache and I was really tired all day (probably because of staying up late on my birthday). Work was torture that day, but once I got home I took some aspirin and immediately started feeling better. I was able to go to Erin's house that night and watch the So You Think You Can Dance finale. I was very happy with the finale, they danced all my favorite routines over again, and the winner truly deserved it. It was another great evening, and I was impressed that Kevin stayed for the whole show since he had to get up early the next day for work. The next day was an average day at work- luckily I didn't have the tiredness and headache I had the previous day. On Saturday, Kevin and I got together to watch one of my favorite movies, Knowing.

Besides that, I have been watching episodes of House like crazy to try to be caught up by the time the sixth season starts. I also have been reading a lot of Percy Jackson and remembering how much I love Greek mythology. I am very happy with life right now, and I'm grateful to have great friends to hang out with and to help lift my spirits when I need it. I am so happy with the whole surprise that Kevin and Erin planned for me for my birthday, and that, combined with spending the previous weekend with my family and attending an incredible concert, has made this one of the most incredible birthdays I've ever had. Now I have to play the waiting game until the next fun event, which will be attending prog nation with my dad at the end of August. This has been a truly great summer!

My Birthday Trip

2009-08-05T15:28:00.001-07:00

Ok, now for the more fun and less serious part of my blog post today! I am going to outline my crazy birthday trip from this past weekend, both the good and bad moments. It was an extremely memorable trip for me and I think it will be one of the top highlights of 2009 for me. But, it did have what could only be called a shaky start...

On Thursday morning, I got up at 9 to get ready so that Kevin and I could leave at 10 to go to California. After a quick shower and some last minute packing, I brought all my things out to the car and started checking the car to make sure I have enough oil and other fluids in the car so that no accidents would occur on the trip (since I have had that happen to disastrous results in the past). Well, I think I obsessed over it a little too much on Thursday morning. I checked the oil and it seemed a little low to me. Then, I saw that the coolant was pretty low, so I decided I should fill it with more coolant. Well, I made the mistake of having my car turned on as I was checking all of these things, so when I poured the coolant into the correct container, I spilled some and it spilled onto the power steering belt and the belt stopped and seemed to be broken. I have had this problem happen before, and I knew that the belt being broken meant that my steering wheel wouldn't turn correctly and would almost be locked up. So, I drove the car through the parking lot and my worst fear was realized. After a frantic call to my mom as Kevin came walking up, I decided that I had to take my car into the shop to get the belt fixed. After much deliberation, I decided that I would just try to "brave it out" and just drive the car to the shop even though it would be extremely difficult to turn due to the broken belt since I didn't want to have to wait for a tow truck.

Well, I got to the shop just fine, and I left it there for the mechanic to fix. He said he would get to it in about 45 minutes, so Kevin and I left in his car to go get some breakfast/lunch. We came back about an hour later and they hadn't looked at my car yet. So, we waited in the waiting room for some time until the mechanic finally called my name and told me the bad news. He said that this is a common problem for these types of cars, so the car company has developed a special $300 kit in order to fix the problem. With $150 of labor on top of that, the whole thing ended up costing quite a bit, and I felt really bad because my dad ended up having to pay for it. The other bad news was that it would take until 4:00 for it to be fixed, meaning that we would be leaving 6 hours behind schedule.

I was pretty depressed, but luckily I have a great friend who was there to help me through it all. Kevin suggested we go see a movie, so we went to the dollar theater and decided on seeing Night at the Museum 2. It was far from being a masterpiece, but there were some funny moments that helped keep my mind off of the bad things that had happened that morning. After the movie, we had lunch at Del Taco, and talked for quite a bit before returning to the car shop to pick my car back up. We decided since we were leaving so late that we couldn't make it all the way to my house, so we decided to stay at a hotel in Mesquite.

On the way to the hotel, as further manifestation of my bad luck that day, I got pulled over by a cop. I was shocked when it happened because I was going exactly the speed limit, but, lo and behold, the red and blue flashing lights were going off behind me, so I pulled over. Apparently, a cop had been behind me with its lights on for quite some time and I didn't see him, which had delayed him in getting to an accident where a motorcycle had hit a deer. So, I was getting pulled over for not pulling over for a cop. I am shocked that I didn't notice a cop behind me because just the glimpse of a cop without its lights on strikes fear in my heart, but apparently thats what happened. Luckily the police officer was nice and only gave me a warning instead of a ticket. From now on, I will be glancing in the rear view mirror a lot more often when I drive so I can get out of the way of emergency vehicles.

We finally arrived at our hotel, which ended up being pretty nice. That night I reflected on the bad events of the day and decided that they were actually blessings in disguise. Perhaps, if we hadn't had that car problem in the morning, I would have had a problem in the middle of the trip in the middle of Nevada where it would have been a lot more difficult to get help. Also, I got off with only a warning from the cop and learned a lesson about being more attentive as I drive that helped me later on in the drive to my house. Friday morning we left relatively early and the most notable thing that happened was that when we were minutes away from my house, a cop car got on the freeway right in front of me and started swerving through all the freeway lanes! I was very confused and didn't know what to do, so, because of the cop that pulled me over, I decided to just pull over on the side of the road. I guess the cop was clearing traffic for something up ahead, but as we drove past later there didn't seem to be any accident, so I'm not quite sure what it was all about. All I know is that it was scary in that moment.

Well, I finally arrived at my house and the fun officially started. We had a celebration of sorts for my birthday which involved watching that weeks episodes of So You Think You Can Dance, eating my favorite dinner (fried chicken and mashed potatoes), blowing out the candles on the birthday cake, and opening up presents. I was touched by the kindness of my family, and it was a great night and a highlight of my trip. On Saturday night, Kevin and I went to the big concert which was Nick D'Virgilio and 12 other musicians performing one of my favorite albums of all time: Genesis' "The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway". The concert was spectacular and the band did the album justice. Nick was especially entertaining as the front man and sang flawlessly. I really enjoyed the drumming of Jimmy Keegan, who is also the touring drummer for Spock's Beard. It was all a blast to watch and reminded me all over again why that album is so special to me.

After they performed the Lamb, Alan Morse and Dave Meros from Spock's Beard joined Nick on stage for a special set of Spock's Beard songs. They performed four of my favorite Spock's Beard songs: On a Perfect Day, The Bottom Line, Gibberish and June. For "On a Perfect Day" the horns joined the band and it sounded great! On "Gibberish" Nick D'Virgilio got on the drums and gave an outstanding performance as the band nailed the multi-part vocal counterpoint. It was a special night, and Kevin and I couldn't stop talking about it. It is one of the more memorable concerts I've been to and it gave me new respect for Nick D'Virgilio who was the main man in the spotlight.

Sunday was a pretty relaxed day. After church, I watched some TV with my family and that night we watched the movie "Pee-Wee's Great Adventure" and all had some laughs over it. The next day we had lunch with my family before we took off to come back to Provo. I was sad to leave my family, but luckily I'll be seeing them again at the end of the month, which should be a lot of fun. I felt bad because I got Kevin home later than I promised, but I'm hoping that he has forgiven me by now. And that was about it for the trip! It was a great time and I believe it is one of my greatest birthdays ever. Of course, my birthday isn't over yet, but even if nothing happened at all today, it would still be one of my most memorable. There have been other experiences this week, such as Erin taking my Lost DVDs for ransom, but I will leave that story for next week so there is something interesting in next weeks blog entry and that this one isn't any longer than it already is. So, in summary, my trip was awesome and I thank my family and Kevin for making it so awesome.

24 Years of Life: A Reflection

2009-08-05T14:36:00.000-07:00

First and foremost I want to express gratitude on this, the 24th Anniversary of my birth, for the wonderful 24 years of life that I've had. There have been many memorable moments, both good and bad, but overall these experiences have been beneficial and have shaped me into who I am today. I wanted to identify what I consider to be the five most crucial moments in my development. I'll try to keep it relatively brief because I don't want to seem pretentious or self-involved, but I thought my birthday would be an appropriate time for some honest self-reflection. These moments are in chronological order and calling them moments is misleading because many of them cover many years.

1. The beginning of my most meaningful friendship

When I was ten, during the summer of 1995, I took swimming lessons at the Troncales, a family that was really close friends with my family. Taking swimming lessons in the same group as me was a boy my same age named Kevin. Through a series of events that honestly isn't completely clear to me now (bad long-term memory) we became close friends and would often play together with legos and my collection of action figures. This friendship has stayed very strong even up until now, surviving a devastating moment where Kevin moved to Utah only after about a year of being friends. We kept in contact through various methods, saw each other practically every summer, and ended up both going to BYU and even being roommates at a point. Kevin has been a huge influence on me through practically every important part of my life. Which leads to moment #2...

2. My baptism

Kevin was really my first introduction to the Church of Jesus Christ of Later-Day Saints, even though my mom had been a member since she was little. His enthusiasm along with other events occurring in my family, led to my family getting more involved in the church, and this culminated in me getting baptized at the age of ten. I honestly don't remember much about the events leading up to the baptism, such as the missionary discussions I had, but I know that the decision to be baptized has led me down a certain path, and I don't know where I'd be if I hadn't made that decision. I'm so grateful for the support of my family and in Kevin's encouragement as I made that big decision. Also notable to me, is that my dad was baptized shortly after I was, and I feel in some way that my baptism was a step in bringing my whole family together and closer to our Heavenly Father. This was especially made clear when I had the privelege of being sealed to my family in the San Diego Temple.

3. My Dad introducing me to music

This moment may not seem to fit with the rest, but it is significant to me because music is a huge part of my life that has helped to inspire and comfort me during crucial moments in my life. My love of music began when my dad first really showed me the music of The Beatles. He went out and bought the red and blue albums containing the Beatles biggest hits and I listened to them nonstop. Later on, my dad bravely showed me a more experimental type of music called Progressive Rock beginning with his favorite band, Gentle Giant. I was blown away at first listen, and this began my addiction to progressive rock, and my constant search to find new music that touches me as deeply as Gentle Giant did that first day my dad showed it to me. I listen to music almost constantly and it helps me through some of the darker times and has helped me to find inspiration when I've needed it. One particular artist that has been significant to me is Neal Morse, whose music has touched me in a more profound way than any other artist.

4. Getting Accepted to BYU

During my development through childhood and adolescence, I always placed a high importance on school. This was especially true in High School, where I took as many honors and AP classes as I could and graduated with over a 4.0 GPA and a lot of college credit. The decision of which college to go to was a big one, and I had several in mind when I first was deciding where to apply to. But, I ended up feeling prompted to just apply to BYU, so I dropped all other applications and applied to the three BYUs, hoping that I would get accepted. Fortunately, I was accepted at BYU Provo, and I truly feel in retrospect that the spirit prompted me to go to BYU. I have learned many valuable things here, both spiritual and secular. I have had wards that have lifted me up and made me stronger spiritually, and I have had classes that have changed the way I previously thought about the world. I have changed majors in the middle of my BYU experience, but I feel that every single class I have taken has been useful to me and I feel it has truly prepared me for my future.

5. The Mission

There is a lot I can say about my mission, but I will attempt to be brief (which hasn't really been working so far). A mission was about the scariest thing I could imagine as I was growing up. As a chronically shy person, spending two years constantly talking to strangers about something they were most likely going to reject sounded terrifying. But, I decided to go anyways. I had a lot of opportunity to bail out, I had health issues that would have been an easy excuse to not serve a mission, but I persisted and the mission ended up being a huge growth experience. There are two people that were very instrumental in me choosing to go on a mission. My best friend, Kevin, because he had such an excitement about serving a mission that was contagious, and my freshman bishop at BYU, Bishop Greenhalgh, who was a prime example of what a spiritual man of God should be and who gave me responsibilities that helped prepare me for the mission. The mission taught me to be more self-less and to truly care for others, regardless of their circumstance. I love so many people that I met from my mission: my mission companions, my investigators and converts, and church members of the areas I served in. It taught me to be more independent and responsible. And, it helped me to face a big fear and to teach me that I'm capable of great things.

Those are the five experiences that stick out to me that have shaped me into who I am today. I hope to have many more of these defining moments throughout my life and hope that I can keep these ones in mind so that I can learn from them and grow from them. I am thankful for all those who have made my life what it is today, and I hope on this, my birthday, that I can truly realize how much I have to be grateful for from my 24 years of life so far.

Fairly Average

2009-07-27T09:38:00.001-07:00

This past week was a fairly average one. It mainly consisted of my normal routine of work and sleep, which is not something particularly fun to write about (or read for that matter). But, I am committed to writing once a week in this blog, no matter how mundane, so here goes! I think part of what has made this past week seem so uneventful is that it has been a hard adjustment after the fun I had with my family the previous week. I found that I was just getting through the day so that I could get one step closer to the weekend, and more importantly one step closer to the next time I get to see my family, which is this upcoming weekend.

At work I have been struggling with a Japanese course. At my job, I go through independent study courses to make sure they are working correctly, they make sense, that there aren’t typos or errors- mainly I’m making sure that a student wouldn’t have a difficult time getting through the course. Well, the latest course that I’m reviewing is a second year Japanese course, which can be difficult since I don’t know any Japanese. I spent about a day at work reviewing first year Japanese in preparation for this course, but I’m still a little lost in what to comment on in my review. It has made work a little frustrating the past several days. But, I make it more fun by putting the Japanese through a free online translator and seeing what funny translations come out. I think it is important to try to squeeze some fun out of a difficult situation.

I did something I never thought I would last Monday: I saw the Hannah Montana Movie at the dollar theater! Erin invited me, and I thought it might be a fun way to clear my head of all the Japanese, so I went. Erin and her brother joked during the whole movie which made it a lot more fun, and the movie itself wasn’t half bad! I was expecting more of a Hannah Montana concert, but I was happy that it was an actual movie with a plot that had a few funny moments. On Friday I had work off because of Pioneer Day, and I spent part of it watching So You Think You Can Dance at Erin’s house and then talking to her about our Disneyworld trip next summer. I am really getting excited for this trip and I think it’ll be tons of fun and a great way to celebrate graduation from BYU with two great friends of mine.

On Thursday I went to Kevin’s house to help him with some of his latest Disneyland videos. Unfortunately most of what we did won’t work out and he is going to re-film it all, but it was still fun seeing the process of how he makes his Lego Disneyland movies. The best part of the night was making the movie of the Disneyland fireworks show. Kevin made a lego Sleeping Beauty Castle that looked excellent, and looked almost identical to the real thing when it was lit up with glowsticks. My job ended up being holding a light and shining it on the castle at the right moment. Kevin’s dad took care of the fireworks, which he would light behind the castle when Kevin directed him to. It all worked really well, especially the second half of the movie. I was able to shine the light on the castle at just the right moment and several of the fireworks went off at just the right moments to the soundtrack. So, it was a fun night and I’m glad I played a part (even though it was a very small part) in Kevin’s Disneyland movies.

And, really, that is about all I have to say! I spent the weekend catching up on my reading and watching Season 1 of House (which Erin let me borrow). It was nice to just have a calm and relaxing weekend without having to worry about anything. Next week, I’ll try to make up for this relatively boring entry. My plan is to write my next entry on my birthday (Aug. 5th) and to talk about my big weekend trip. I’m going home for the weekend with Kevin and we are going to have a little celebration for my birthday and then go see a concert that I am SUPER excited for! The concert will be 12 musicians playing the entire “The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway” album, with Nick D’Virgilio of Spock’s Beard. After they play The Lamb, the other members of Spock’s Beard are going to come on stage and they are going to play some Spock’s Beard songs! It should be a lot of fun, and I can’t even express how excited I am for it! I just have to get through three days of work, and then the fun begins! I can’t wait! This is a lot of exclamation points!

Family Fun

2009-07-22T08:29:00.000-07:00

This was actually a fairly interesting week! Hooray! What made it interesting was that my family was here for a few days and boy was it nice to see them. It was way too short and I miss them now that they are gone, but it was a lot of fun while it lasted. They came late afternoon on Sunday. It felt like such a long time waiting for them on Sunday. I went to church and came home hoping that my family was close, but they were still over 3 hours away, so I watched the finale of Harper’s Island while I waited. When they finally arrived in Provo, I immediately drove to their hotel and we talked a bit before going to the Lemleys for dinner.

I was a great, fun time at the Lemleys since the Troncales were there as well. We ate chicken salad sandwiches and talked for quite some time. I talked to Kevin for a good portion of the time and I was very impressed with his latest lego Disneyland video he did on The Haunted Mansion. He showed several of the videos he has done to my family and everyone was very impressed. Afterwards we went back home and just talked some more in the hotel room and I got home pretty late. The unfortunate side effect of my family being in town was that I got home late every night and still had to get up early for work, which really got hard, especially after the third day in a row. I was excited on Monday because my Dad and sister came to my work during my lunch break to have lunch with me. I was able to show them my workplace and to show them a little bit of BYU campus, mainly the Wilk where we ate lunch. After I got off work that day, I raced to the hotel and went with my family to a great hamburger place called 5 Guys and then to see Star Trek. Star Trek is one of my favorite movies of the summer, so I was very excited to see it with my family, and they all seemed to love it (except maybe my sister Lauren who said she didn’t really get what was going on most of the time). After we got out of our theater, we ran into Erin who was there seeing Transformers with her family. After a quick hello and goodbye to her, we went back to the hotel room to just hang out and talk some more and once again I got home late and had to wake up for work early.

On Tuesday, I got off work an hour early so that we would be able to get to our concert at a decent time. The American Idol concert was the main event of my family being in Provo. On the way to the E-Center, I showed my dad some of the new Dream Theater album, and unfortunately he didn’t seem too excited by it. Hopefully he’ll still find some enjoyment out of the Dream Theater concert we are attending at the end of the Summer. We parked at the e-center and then left to go have dinner at Costa Vida. The concert itself was tons of fun! I was pleasantly surprised by many of the American Idol contestants, many who didn’t impress me all too much while they were on the show. I especially liked Scott MacIntyre, who had a very pure, strong voice and did a great version of Vanessa Carlton’s A Thousand Miles, Anoop Desai, who sang really well on a couple of ballads and then had more fun during the upbeat My Perrogative, and Matt Giraud who played some mean piano and did a great version of Hard To Handle.

But, the highlight of the show was the second half which featured the top four contestants of the season. Of course, as I expected, the standout set was Adam Lambert, who proved that he is already a superstar. He did several songs that were popular during the show (Whole Lotta Love, Mad World, and the duet with Allison- Slow Ride). But, what impressed me the most were the songs I hadn’t seen him perform before, Starlight by Muse and the David Bowie medley. Adam looks like he has been performing all his life, and his voice is perfect, there were no flaws whatsoever with his voice. Kris Allen had the difficult task of following Adam, but he did great as well and proved why he deserved to win, I especially liked his rendition of Bright Lights. The concert was a lot of fun and it was fun to talk to my family about the performances and see what everybody liked the best. What I loved was that before the concert even started, there was a monitor that would show certain idol themed things, and whenever Adam’s face appeared on screen the crowd would go crazy. It is nice to know that my favorite contestant of the season is widely appreciated, even in Utah.

That night, I had to say my sad goodbye to my family. I stayed as long as I could, and impressed my family with my “name that tune” skills. But, the time came and I left. What made it not quite as sad is that I know I’ll be seeing them again in a couple of weeks when I go home around my birthday for the Rewiring Genesis concert. The next morning was very difficult since I had stayed up so late, so I struggled to stay awake while I worked. Needless to say, that night I went to bed early to attempt to catch up on the sleep I had lost during the first part of the week. The other interesting part of my week was on Friday when Kevin and I went to go see Harry Potter. He had already seen it at the midnight showing, but it was a new experience for me. The show we wanted to see at 7:45 was sold out as well as the next showing at 8:40, so we ended up having to see the movie at 9:45. I was happy with this because it gave us time to go to FYE and shop for CDs, a favorite pastime of mine.

The movie was great! One of my favorite of the Harry Potter movies for sure. I loved all the humor they included in the movie and I really thought the actors did a great job, especially the actors who play Draco and Snape. I found the movie very entertaining and was mostly very faithful to the book. It is one of my favorite books in the series and I feel it sets the stage perfectly for the thrilling conclusion that will be split up into two movies.

And that is really about it for the week. I really enjoyed having my family here for the week, it definitely will be a highlight of the summer for me, and the only negative consequence of it is that I’m going through a little bit of the blues after having to say goodbye and going through my relatively lonely usual routine throughout the week this week. But, I should have hope because I’ll get to see them again in about a week from when I am writing this (ok, a week and a day…don’t want to get ahead of myself). So, that is all! I will write again next week :D

Friendship

2009-07-15T15:04:00.001-07:00

Well, I think I’m going to keep this week’s entry nice and short and leave all the exciting, juicy details of my family’s visit to Utah for next week. So, what could I pull out that is of interest from the past week? This could be tough…oh wait, I just remembered what I was going to write about this week! On Thursday and Saturday, Kevin and I watched the entire Lord of the Rings Extended Edition. Neither of us had seen the extended version of Return of the King, and I hadn’t seen any of the movies since before my mission about 5 years ago (which is a crime because they are my favorite movies). Although, to be fair, I’m not big on re-watching movies, even when they are my favorites. However, I think every five years is spread out enough that they are still fresh when I see them each time.

Anyways, I was reminded all over again about how brilliant these movies are. I find them to be truly perfect movies that have everything you could possibly want: humor, romance, action, a moral lesson, and spiritual imagery. I think I am going to outline my four favorite scenes of the entire trilogy. Most of them deal with my favorite character of the whole series, but we’ll get to that in a minute. The first favorite scene is towards the end of Fellowship of the Ring when…oh I should also mention that these are big spoilers, so if for some crazy reason you’ve never seen or read Lord of the Rings, skip to the end of my entry. Ok, so, it is at the end of Fellowship of the Ring when the orcs are attacking and Boromir is fighting them off. After much fighting, he gets struck in the chest with an arrow, which stops him for a moment. But, he doesn’t let that stop him, he keeps going and continues attacking orcs. Then he gets hit a second time with an arrow! But, he doesn’t let that stop him either and he continues fighting bravely as he is dying. He gets hit with a third arrow and the orc who is shooting the arrows comes close to Boromir and points his bow and arrow inches away from Boromir for the final blow. Luckily, Aragorn comes to the rescue, cuts off the orcs head, and Boromir gets the heroic death he deserves. I love this scene because it showcases extreme bravery and being able to stand up against adversity. Boromir could have easily given up after getting hit by the first arrow, but he knew he needed to continue fighting as much as he could to allow Frodo a chance to escape.
Ok, I need to keep this short, I’m saying too much. My next favorite scene happens shortly after this scene when Frodo is about to row away in a boat to go to Mordor alone to destroy the ring. Sam comes running up as Frodo is leaving, and runs out into the water, even though he can’t swim, and says that he won’t let Frodo go without him. It is an emotional display of true friendship and, as we’ll come to find out, Sam coming along is essential to the success of the protagonists.

The third scene also involves Sam, and it is at the end of The Two Towers where he gives his speech. I cannot do it justice, so I’ll just quote it:

Frodo: I can't do this, Sam.
Sam: I know. It's all wrong. By rights we shouldn't even be here. But we are. It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something.
Frodo: What are we holding onto, Sam?
Sam: That there's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo... and it's worth fighting for.

The fourth and final scene is when Frodo and Sam are climbing up Mount Doom to throw the ring in the fire. They are both exhausted and are collapsed on the ground with no strength to go on. However, Sam gathers up some final strength within himself and picks up Frodo and carries him up the remainder of the mountain. Sam is one of my favorite characters of all time because he is pure in heart and truly just wants to do what’s best. He is a loyal and true friend no matter what happens and will do anything for Frodo. It is truly touching to me and is a model of how I want to be. Without him, Middle-Earth would not have been saved.

Alright, I think I’ve written enough about Lord of the Rings. Besides that, I can’t think of much else to say. On Wednesday, I was excited to sit down and watch So You Think You Can Dance, but was disappointed that my roommate was already occupying the living room and that I wouldn’t be able to watch the TV. Luckily, Erin texted me and invited me over to her house to watch it, and it was a lot of fun watching it with her. Usually I am bored watching it alone without anyone to talk about it with. So, that was definitely a highlight of my week. I also got to meet my roommate’s fiancée and she is really nice, she asked me my advice on which picture to use for their wedding invitation. All the pictures looked about the same to me, so I’m afraid I wasn’t so helpful. My other engaged roommate left the apartment for good on Saturday night, so I am down to just two roommates. My other engaged roommate will probably leave in a couple weeks when he is about to get married, so it’ll just be me and one other roommate.

So, I’ll end it there with a promise that next week’s entry will be more interesting (and probably less geeky). Life is good, I’m really enjoying this summer and I think it’ll be one to remember. Good times.

Laughing It Off

2009-07-06T08:17:00.000-07:00

This past week has been pretty interesting—it started with some frustrating experiences with my roommates. Now, don’t get me wrong, my roommates are really nice, I just got a little frustrated with them this week. I believe I mentioned last week that I had a meeting with my roommate and Elder’s Quorum President, Alec. During that meeting, Alec asked me if I would meet with the Bishop, and I said I would when I felt ready to, but he kept pressing me harder and harder and by the end of the meeting got me to commit to calling the Bishop that night for an appointment on Tuesday. Well, after Alec left, I didn’t feel comfortable with how he pressured me into calling the Bishop and I thought that it is more of a personal thing to decide if and when to see the bishop and it didn’t seem right to be forced into it, so I decided not to call the Bishop and to set up an appointment later when I felt more comfortable about it.

Well, the next night, I’m going to bed when all of a sudden Alec comes in my room and asks me if I have called the Bishop yet. I tell him I haven’t, and he continues to pressure me and says I should call him right now. I tell him that I am going to bed, and then he makes me promise him that I’ll call the Bishop in the morning before work. Because I’m tired and need sleep, and my roommate isn’t going to take ‘no’ for an answer, I say ‘yes’ so he’ll get out of my room. I was upset that he entered my room without knocking while I had all the lights off and was trying to go to sleep, it seems like an invasion of privacy to me. Also, I really felt uncomfortable with him pressuring me to call the Bishop, so the next morning, out of my disapproval of the whole situation with my roommate, decided not to call the Bishop and that I would set up an appointment with him myself on my own terms. So, I know that my roommate’s desire was good, but the way he went about executing it really seemed wrong to me.

The other thing that makes me uncomfortable about my roommates is that they are good friends, and joke around by calling each other “queer” which seems in bad taste to me. Their frequent gay jokes make me uncomfortable. One example is when my roommate Mitch was leaving and saw that I was watching “So You Think You Can Dance”. He said, “Well, I’m going to see my GIRLFRIEND, have fun watching your gay guys on TV.” It seemed like a pretty insulting thing to say. And then, yesterday, my roommates invited me to ward prayer and said, “Who knows, you might even make out with a girl while you are there” and then they started laughing to each other, which made me think they were making fun of me. So, I just stayed home. So, there are some examples of how my roommates make me uncomfortable. This probably isn’t the right place to be venting about these things, but I felt I needed to get it out, and it was also a big part of my week.

I got the new Phideaux album, called Number Seven, on Tuesday and it is incredible! It is a beautiful album that moves seamlessly from songs that rock hard to beautiful melodies sung by their great female singer. I have really enjoyed falling in love with this album. It is a concept album about the journey of a Dormouse, which makes for a very interesting story. Besides that the rest of the week has just involved working. I went and saw the new Transformers movie and thought it was pretty good. It is far from being a masterpiece, but I enjoyed it.

My fourth of July ended up being more eventful than I initially thought it would be. My friend Erin texted me and invited me to the Stadium of Fire. I hesitated accepting the invitation because I knew that the Jonas Brothers were performing, but I decided to go anyways because it would be a better way to celebrate fourth of July than sitting at home thinking about how my roommates annoy me. I left to meet up with Kevin at the Wyview multi-purpose building, but he got stuck in traffic so I walked to the stadium alone. Erin was waiting outside the gate with my ticket when I got there and we both walked in and found our seats. It was an exciting program! I really enjoyed the fireworks show and the touching words about our country spoken by Glenn Beck. I’ll admit that I’m not the most patriotic American, but I was still touched by his comments about how special a nation America is and how we need to fight for liberty and make this generation a notable one in American history. It made me realize that I need to become more patriotic and learn more about the history of the nation that I’m so privileged to belong to.

The Jonas Brothers were about what I expected. The screams that erupted from the stadium as they took the stage were deafening! One of the loudest screamers was Erin who apparently is a big fan. I just sat there watching quietly while Erin and many of the other people around got up on their feet and danced around while singing all the words to every song. I hadn’t heard any of the songs before (besides a cover they did of Sweet Caroline) so I unfortunately couldn’t sing along (LoL, like I would sing along to the Jonas Brothers!). Erin encouraged me to stand up part way through their set so I reluctantly did. It wasn’t so bad…(but it wasn’t so good either). It made me sad when I realized that this band is beating Dream Theater in the Billboard charts. I’m sorry Jonas Brothers fans, but Dream Theater is a lot more talented than the Jonas Brothers and yet they struggle to even make it on the charts while the Jonas Brothers have massive amounts of screaming fans that fill stadiums wherever they go. It baffles me…oh well! I should end my rant about the Jonas Brothers before I get in trouble.

Sunday was a good day. I was a little late to church, but I was still able to hear all the wonderful testimonies. During the whole testimony meeting I did some self-reflection which really taught me some things that I need to work in the upcoming weeks. I’ve only been in this ward about three weeks, but I don’t really feel like I’m connecting to the ward. A good example is what happened in Sunday School. I was one of the first people to enter the room for Sunday School. I sat in the back row and waited while everybody else came in. Well, people kept taking chairs from my row so that they could sit with their friends in different rows. This continued until my seat was the only chair left in the row, so I ended up sitting alone in my row. I laughed to myself when I thought about how people would rather move the chairs than have to sit next to me. Oh well, at least it’s something I can laugh about later.

My roommate ended up coming up to me at the beginning of Sunday School and told me the Bishop wanted to meet with me at 12:15 (right during Sunday School), so I had to leave halfway through Sunday School for my appointment with the Bishop. Well, I ended up waiting about an hour for the Bishop to be ready for me. Then we talked about my social life and I told him I didn’t have one. He encouraged me to go on more dates. It was all pretty awkward. The best part about it, though, is that I was able to get a temple recommend interview, which I have needed for quite some time. After the interview was done, there was only 15 minutes of church left, so I decided to go home early and reflect on some of the things that I had been thinking about during testimony meeting.

And, that is pretty much it for my week! Sorry for ranting a bit and complaining about certain things. I think the important lesson I learned this week is that I just need to laugh about these situations I end up in rather than taking offense. I haven’t been depressed at all this week because I have been able to laugh about my roommates and my experiences at church and about the Jonas Brothers. It makes every aspect of life that much more enjoyable. So, that is my take home message of the week: learn to laugh off the negative things that happen.

The Moth

2009-06-29T13:54:00.000-07:00

As I suspected, this week was not incredibly memorable. So, I will start with a brief description of my roommates and what life is like at Raintree. Alec (Elder’s Quorum President) and Mitch (1st counselor) served in the same mission and were companions that really got along and had great success. They became best friends and are now roommates and both teachers at the MTC. They are both really cool, but they aren’t around a lot. A possible reason is that they are both engaged and getting married in the next month or so. Mitch’s younger brother has been staying at my apartment this past week for BYU football and he is a good guy—it has been fun getting to know him. My other roommate is Alex and he is a really nice guy who has been really friendly and helpful, helping to show me around church and then helping me find my way to ward prayer. All in all they are all really friendly and nice and I’m privileged to have such good roommates.

As for life at Raintree, I’m finding it a lot more…liberal…than Wyview. It doesn’t seem as if the students here care as much about the rules as those at Wyview. My roommates have had people stay over past curfew without my permission, fireworks go off every night, etc. (I should have taken it as a sign when I first entered the apartment and there was a large cardboard cutout of President Obama). I have been learning to deal with these few minor issues. The hardest part of the whole experience is that my roommates don’t seem to like A/C so the apartment is always unbearably hot and my bed is uncomfortable, making it difficult to get a good night’s sleep. But, I have been learning to adjust and things are getting better each day. My ward seems like a lot of fun—there aren’t that many people in the ward. I have enjoyed many of the talks and lessons that I have heard both Sundays I have attended, including lessons from both Alec and Mitch in Elder’s quorum.

Kind of a funny story is that I woke up on Sunday morning and Mitch was on his way out the door. He asked me if I knew where the church was and I said I had no idea. So he proceeded to give me rough directions to the church building. I expected that the church building would be close and easy to find, so I didn’t pay as much attention to his directions as I should have. So, as I was driving, I quickly found myself lost. But, I struggled to remember Mitch’s directions and was able to find my way there (surprised to travel past University Mall since I didn’t realize it would be that far). The only problem was that there are two church buildings in that parking lot, so I wasn’t sure which was the right building. So I kept going back and forth between buildings for some clue as to which was the right ward. My first clue was when I saw only couples with young children going into one building—I figured my ward must be in the other building. Luckily, as I was going down the hall of that building, Alec was walking in the other direction and told me where the chapel was where my ward meets.

Besides that, this week has been mainly focused on work. I am learning what it’s like to work full time and it was a little difficult to adjust to. But, I feel that I’m now getting the hang of it and I’m starting to actually enjoy my schedule. This is my schedule: I get up at 6:00am, leave my apartment at 7:30am and walk to work (in order to get some exercise) and then I work until my lunch break at noon where I eat lunch (shocking, I know) and read a couple chapters out of the current book I’m reading. Then I go back to work until 5 and then walk home. It isn’t too terribly exciting, but I’m learning to enjoy parts of it (like listening to a great album during my walk to work and back and being able to read my book).

Speaking of great albums, one came out this week! It is called Black Clouds and Silver Linings and it is by Dream Theater—one of my all time favorite bands. This is one of the best albums they have created, I love every bit of it, and it has been awesome getting into this week. I broke my walking habit on Tuesday, and actually drove my car to work so that I could go and purchase this CD during my break. I was smiling as I drove back to work, playing the CD loud in my car. It was a great moment of the week. I’m so excited because I get to see them live at the end of August, and I’m hoping they will play some songs from this album.

Besides my regular schedule, nothing else terribly interesting happened. I got to watch a great movie with Kevin called Big Fish. I love that movie a lot and I was very pleased that Kevin enjoyed it as well. It is important for me to be able to have these little breaks throughout the week in order to do something fun, so I was grateful for that chance to hang out with Kevin.

I guess I’ll end this post with the most meaningful part of my week, which is what happened yesterday (Sunday). I learned two things in Sacrament meeting that I really needed to learn: Hope and Humility. I believe these are two things I truly need to work on and I’m going to focus on them for the next few weeks. I am often pessimistic and think the worst will happen in every situation. I also tend to get depressed about the flaws that I have and think that there isn’t any possible way I can overcome them. If I have hope, I can conquer these negative feelings and be able to improve and think of things in a more positive light. Regarding humility, I am prideful because I’m constantly concerned about what people think about me and I often don’t do things that I should because I’m afraid I’ll embarrass myself in some way. I need to not be this way, and stop caring so much about what other people think of me, and worry more about how I think about myself and if I am doing what God wants me to do.

I also had a talk with my roommate and Elder’s quorum president and decided as I talked to him that I need to be more consistent regarding scripture study and prayer. So, I am challenging myself to have meaningful scripture study every day (I’ve decided to do this as soon as I get home from work) and to pray every morning and night. I think that this will help me feel the influence of the Spirit more throughout my day and week, which is something I’ve desperately needed. I really want to change, and I know it is going to be a struggle at times when I want to do something else rather than completing my goal, but overcoming the temptations will make me that much stronger.

This brings to mind a quote from an episode of Lost that I watched last night. The episode was called “The Moth” and it is one of my all time favorite episodes. In the episode Charlie is attempting to quit his drug habit with the assistance of a man named John Locke. Locke takes Charlie’s drugs away, but the withdrawal symptoms are too much for Charlie, so he comes to Locke to ask for his drugs back. Locke refuses and says that he’ll give them back only after Charlie asks for them back for a third time. Charlie comes back a second time, his withdrawal symptoms getting worse and Locke takes the opportunity to teach Charlie a valuable lesson by using an example of a moth. Here are the exact words from the episode that Locke says (since they do a better job of explaining it than I ever could):

“That's a moth cocoon. It's ironic, butterflies get all the attention; but moths -- they spin silk, they're stronger, they're faster…You see this little hole? This moth's just about to emerge. It's in there right now, struggling. It's digging its way through the thick hide of the cocoon. Now, I could help it, take my knife, gently widen the opening, and the moth would be free. But it would be too weak to survive. The struggle is nature's way of strengthening it.”

This is exactly how I feel right now about my new goals. It may be a struggle at times, but the struggle will be a way of strengthening me so that I am stronger the next time I am faced with a trial or goal. Charlie is able to take this message to heart and ends up asking for the drugs a third time in order to throw them in the fire. His struggle with drug addiction has been difficult, but being able to overcome it makes him a stronger person. I hope that in a month or so I’ll be able to be a stronger person as well, made strong by struggling to complete a goal and succeeding.

Getting Unsettled and Resettled

2009-06-23T15:44:00.000-07:00

This past week mainly involved finals and moving. Nothing too incredibly exciting. On Monday I attended my last class of the Spring semester and it was largely…uninteresting. Afterwards I attended the final FHE of the semester and it went pretty well. We decided to have it outside at a nearby picnic bench and we played clue while shielding ourselves from flying volleyballs (a group of people were playing volleyball right next to us). Since there were so many people in our group, we had to team up to play clue. Me and Rob were Mr. Green, and unfortunately we didn’t win, but we got close. It was that terrible Ms. Scarlet—she’s trouble if you ask me. After that we had brownies where a member of our group decided to eat her brownie by putting her face in the pan and eating it straight out of the pan. A guy walked up after seeing this and ended up doing the same thing (with permission of course). I was just glad to have grabbed my brownie before this craziness started.

Studying for finals went pretty well. I did really well on my finals—the best scores I’ve gotten on any test this semester. For Psych 306 I got a perfect score on the multiple choice section, so it’ll all come down to the essay portion to determine if I get an A in the class. In my other Psychology class I got a solid B on the final (which was good for me since I’ve been averaging high C’s and low B’s on the tests thus far in the course). That leaves me with a B in the class, and I will take it. It was a little disappointing of a test because I felt really good about it as I was taking it and felt like I deserved an A. Oh well, it was not meant to be. Also, I had an embarrassing moment in the testing center right before I started this final. I got into the test-taking room and it was completely packed with students taking finals. So, I waited a bit until someone got up from the seat, and I went to go take his seat. As I am squeezing between rows of seats I hear a small scream of pain and stop to notice that a girl’s hair is stuck in one of my shirt buttons. I tried to gently pull her hair out, but I’m sure it was painful and damaging to her hair. It was not a great start to taking that test; maybe my negative feelings of embarrassment affected my test score.

After that, more craziness ensued as I had to pack my things and clean my apartment before mandatory move out time of Friday morning at 10. To start off our apartment cleaning session, Ogden and I went and got Papa John’s pizza. Then, we cleaned for several hours that night. I felt really bad for my roommate David. He was busy until 10pm checking other people out of their apartments since he is the R.A. and then he still had a final to complete that was due at midnight! So, he didn’t get to cleaning until really late and he ended up having to stay up almost the whole night. I did my cleaning and went to bed around 2:00 only to get up at 6:00 the next day to finish packing my car and my cleaning duties. It was a tiring process, but I was happy with the job I did at the end of it all. I was sad to leave my roommates—along with my best friend Kevin and my first college roommate Steven, these are the best roommates I have ever had. It is a shame that it had to be for the shortest semester I’ve ever had at BYU. Oh well, I’m sure I’ll see them around.

Friday was an interesting day because I was homeless. My new apartment wasn’t available to be moved in to until Saturday morning at 10AM. Luckily, I have a great friend named Kevin who was willing to let me stay over at his house (with his parent’s approval of course). The only problem was that Kevin worked until 10PM that night, so I had to find things to do until 10PM that night. I worked at my job until about 1:30 and then left to catch a movie called Year One. It was pretty entertaining, but not a movie I would recommend or see again. After this, I decided to visit Wyview again in order to do some laundry. After dropping off my laundry, I went and saw another movie called Land of the Lost. In my opinion, this was even worse than Year One. I think that may be because there was a smaller crowd that did not laugh at all during the jokes. After this, I decided to grab some dinner at Five Guys and then go change my laundry out at the Wyview Laundromat. While I was waiting for my clothes to dry, I ate my dinner and read my book.

After drying, I folded my clothes and then got in my car and drove to FYE. Since I had some time, I went through all the CDs in the store just to see if I’d come across anything interesting. I didn’t—In fact the most interesting thing about it was probably the fact that the music playing in the store constantly skipped the whole time I was there. I also found a good deal I couldn’t pass up—buy one get one free for season 1 and 2 of Arrested Development! Sweet! After that I went to Deseret Book and waited in the car for Kevin to get off work and followed him to his house where I slept that night. It was an interesting day.

Saturday morning I left Kevin’s house and moved in to my new apartment. The odd part about moving in was that I was not completely sure what room was mine. There was one room that was obviously occupied, so I knew that couldn’t be it. Then there was a room that was mostly empty except for several books on the bookshelf. Then, there was a third room with the door closed. I was worried that my roommate might be sleeping in the closed door room, so I just decided to go for the mostly empty room which ended up being the right choice. My roommates are really cool, they happen to be the Elder’s Quorum President, 1st Counselor and Ward Clerk in the ward, so I’m pretty spiritually covered in this new apartment. Saturday was mainly spent moving things in my new apartment and relaxing from the difficult week.

And, I think I’m going to end here because this entry is getting really long and I anticipate that the next week is going to be fairly uneventful, so I’ll leave the events of Sunday for next week’s entry. So, I’m doing well, just getting settled in my new living arrangement. And that is all for this week. Until next time—peace out!

My Adventures of the Week

2009-06-16T13:09:00.000-07:00

Hmm…what happened this past week? After the excitement of the last two weeks (my cousin’s wedding and Kevin’s birthday) this week was fairly laid back and normal, which I was actually grateful for. Last Monday, I was in charge of Family Home Evening (my FHE “wife” was too busy with school to be there) and I think it went well. My roommate, David, really came through with the lesson—he truly did a great job. After that, I didn’t have an activity planned, so I just left it open for us all to discuss what we would like to do. We decided to play four square, which actually ended up being a lot of fun! I don’t think I’ve played four square since elementary school! The only sad part about the whole experience was that I had to leave early to meet with my partner to prepare a presentation we would be giving the next day.

The presentation was on Purdah and it was for my Psychology of Gender class. It ended up being a really interesting topic to study, and perhaps a little too broad because we had trouble compacting all the material we learned into a 15 minute presentation. I think we even went over a little during our presentation, giving the following group less time for their presentation. I am naturally shy, so it is not easy for me to stand in front of the class and give a presentation, but I think it went rather well. I was able to articulate everything that I had prepared and the teacher even commented afterwards that it was a good presentation. She also said, “I don’t mean to embarrass you, Nathan, but it’s nice to finally hear you talk!” I wasn’t sure if I should take that as a compliment or an insult…

On Thursday in the same class we had a party of sorts where various class members brought treats for the class to share. I discovered something I really like—blueberry bagels! Somebody brought a huge box of bagels and they were fantastic, along with blueberry flavored cream cheese. We also discussed what we enjoyed most about the class and the teacher pointed me out again by saying “You always have such good ideas in your papers I wish you would speak up more in class.” Once again, I wasn’t sure how to take that comment, I guess I should just be glad that she thinks I have good ideas. I finally spoke up by mentioning what I learned from the class. I said that I learned that it is ok for people to not completely conform to the gender roles that are present in society. I have some qualities that could be considered feminine (shyness, sensitive, not a big sports fan), and there is nothing wrong with that as long as I’m comfortable with who I am.

The only other notable thing that comes to mind about this past week is that I went and saw the new Pixar movie, Up, twice—once with Kevin, and then again with both Kevin and Erin. It is one of my new favorite movies, and is now definitely my favorite Pixar movie. It has a perfect blend between comedy and emotion. It is a movie that makes you laugh out loud at one moment and then cry the next. I love a movie (or a show) that can bring such emotions out of me.

SPOILER ALERT!—I’m going to discuss important plot points for the movie, if you haven’t seen it, I advise you to skip to the next paragraph.
I was so touched by the message in “Up”, I feel this entry would be incomplete without at least a paragraph explaining why it touched me. So, please stop reading this paragraph if you haven’t seen “Up”! The main character of the movie is Carl Fredrickson, and his life from a small boy to an old man is shown in the first 15 minutes or so of the movie. He meets a girl, they get married, and they have a shared goal of someday traveling to a place called Paradise Falls in South America. She has an adventure book that shows pictures of this exotic location and a section that is left open for pictures and notes of the adventures they will have. Well, life gets in the way and they end up not being able to go on this trip to South America as planned, and she ends up dying. So, Carl decides to go on the trip anyways in her honor. He attaches thousands of balloons to his house and flies there in an attempt to try to place his house right on the top of Paradise Falls as is shown in the Adventure Book. Well, Carl ends up just short of this location and feels a failure, and ends up looking at the Adventure Book, feeling sad about not fulfilling his promise to his wife about going to Paradise Falls. Well, as he is looking through the book he discovers there are already pictures in the section that was for the adventures they would have. These pictures are of him and his wife and all the things they did in their time together. At the end is a note that says, “Thanks for the adventure, now go have one of your own.” This part touches me because it shows that it is not important what the adventure is, but who you have it with. It is the personal relationships that we form that really matter in life, not going to some exotic location. Life is already an adventure, and what truly matters it who you share it with, not what you do. This was a profound lesson to me and taught me that I can have an exciting and fulfilling life here and now without travelling to exotic locations.

On Saturday night I attended the final activity for my ward, which was food from a place called Costa Vida (I think) and a talent show. The talent show was great and it made me realize that I’ll miss this ward even though I’ve only been in it for about 2 months. The highlights to me were a guy singing a Russian folk song and a great piano piece—Reverie by Debussy. It was a fun night, but I wasn’t able to stay too long because I had to meet up with Kevin and Erin to go see Up. The next day on Sunday, I really enjoyed church and was happy to be able to get all my home teaching done after church. I ended up giving the lesson at these home teaching appointments at the last minute, and I think it went well. I taught about prayer and related a story from my mission that really was a testimony builder of prayer for me. At night we had our final ward prayer, which was a little sad, and then I went to bed.

And that is pretty much it for the week! This week is going to be a little tough because I have to complete my finals and get moved out of my apartment and moved into a new apartment. I’m going to be homeless for a night because I have to move out of one apartment Friday at 10AM and can’t move into the new one until Saturday at 10AM. Luckily I have a great friend, Kevin, who is willing to let me stay over at his house that night so I should be fine. All in all it was a great week, and I look forward to the next one!

P.S. I forgot to mention the incredible performance show on Wednesday night of So You Think You Can Dance! I usually am not a huge dance fan, but I was blown away with many of the dances that night. I’m excited for the season! I also wanted to mention that I’m addicted to a new CD—It is called Frequency by IQ and I highly recommend it! Expect to see it reviewed soon in my other blog, “The Leviathan”. Ok, that is all. Have fun!

Kevin's Birthday!

2009-06-09T12:29:00.000-07:00

What a great week it has been! It started on sort of a low note, though. Last Monday I had just gotten back from Arizona from the trip for my cousin’s wedding, and I had a big test to study for and take. After getting home from work at 12, I spent about 4 and a half hours studying Psychology of gender. Then, I went to go take the test at the testing center. This test involves writing 5 essays, and I only had 2 hours before the testing center closed at 7, so it was a stressful time getting it all done. I managed to finish all my essays, but I didn’t feel so confident about what I had written—I still have yet to see what I got on the test. When I got back home, I walked in on the middle of FHE and joined my FHE group for a game of Jenga. It was pretty impressive how high we were able to stack the blocks. We played a different version where each row has 5 blocks instead of 3 blocks, and I think it made it more fun. After FHE I just relaxed, satisfied that I had been able to get my test done in time.

After that, the week was pretty easy. I was pretty much just preparing for my trip with Kevin to Disneyland—making sure that all my homework was finished. The trip to Disneyland for Kevin’s birthday was great! It was an awesome opportunity to hang out with my best friend at his favorite place on earth and to be able to see my family. On Friday night we got to my house without any complications on the drive, and had my favorite meal and watched So You Think You Can Dance. I love these moments with my family where we just sit down and watch a show and interact and visit while the show is playing. After that, we went to bed so that we would be well rested for Disneyland the next day.

On Friday, Kevin’s birthday, we went to Disneyland in the morning and we were worried about the weather and that it might rain while we were at Disneyland. It even sprinkled a bit as we drove there. I was also a little worried about running into traffic and getting to Disneyland late. Luckily there wasn’t really any traffic and the weather cleared up and it ended up being a really nice day! The only thing was that the usual parking lot was full, so we were redirected to a different parking lot, which made me worried that it would be extremely crowded at Disneyland. This wasn’t true either, as all the lines we were in were really short. So, all in all, the conditions were perfect for a great Disneyland trip!

One of the funniest parts about the whole experience to me is that Kevin got in free for his birthday so he got a button that said his name and that it was his birthday. Because he had this button on, people constantly said “Happy Birthday, Kevin!” throughout the whole day. And, what was funny to me was that it wasn’t only people working at Disneyland, it was also normal customers saying it to him as well. It made me feel a little less special the whole day, but I’m glad for Kevin that he was able to get all the attention on his birthday. Another funny example of this is when we ate lunch at the Blue Bayou, our waiter would always refer to Kevin by his name and would just call me “you”. I enjoyed it all, I don’t like being the center of attention anyways.

One of the greatest surprises for Kevin was that the ride “Peter Pan’s Flight” was open, even though it was supposed to be closed. I joked around while we were in line that I was responsible for getting the ride open as a special gift for his birthday. I was really happy for him that he got to go on one of his favorite rides. We went on all the rides that we usually go on and they were all a lot of fun as they usually are. We had a really funny tour guide on the Jungle Cruise which made that ride memorable. That ride depends on how funny the tour guide is, so we got lucky on that one. Our lunch at the Blue Bayou was fantastic, I had one of the best steaks I have ever eaten. For dessert, they unfortunately didn’t have the pirate ship birthday cake that Kevin kept talking about, but they did have a cookie shaped like a pirate ship with ice cream—it was super good!

Kevin went on Splash Mountain four times while I waited outside since I’m not a fan of large dips on rides. I was glad that he was able to go on his new favorite ride and that I didn’t hold him back—especially on his birthday. I was a little sad that some of his favorite experiences from the trip were the few times I wasn’t there with him, but I really am glad he had such a great time and honestly I probably needed the rest since I am not as physically fit as Kevin. Even though the park didn’t seem so crowded due to shorter lines, the shops as we were leaving were incredibly crowded! I don’t handle big crowds very well, so I had to wait outside for part of the time while Kevin was in there shopping for souvenirs. I was a little sore walking out of Disneyland, but I really enjoyed the experience and more than anything I’m glad that Kevin was able to have fun on his birthday—that was my main goal going in, so, mission accomplished!

The next day I slept in (probably a little too much) and spent the day mostly with my family, since Kevin left to go see his family. I had a nice long talk with my mom (about my flaws and what I need to do to improve my life) and then I watched Bolt with my mom and sister. I picked up Kevin at the Troncales and we picked up Golden Spoon and had a nice little final talk with my mom that seemed to end up with us talking about the frustration of our former roommate. The next day, we had a nice drive back home, and were even able to stop at In-N-Out in St. George on the way back (man, I need to not talk about food so much!).

So, I think I’ll stop there for now. It was a fun trip and I’m glad that Kevin had a great time! I really enjoyed the trip, and even though it is difficult getting back into work and school, the trip was definitely worth it! We also have another trip planned at the end of July/beginning of August to see Rewiring Genesis and Spock’s Beard for my birthday, so that should be a lot of fun! I am happy and there are many things to look forward to. :D

My Cousin's Wedding

2009-06-02T12:16:00.000-07:00

This has actually been a pretty interesting week for a change! Mainly it involved attending my cousin’s wedding in Flagstaff, Arizona. But, more on that in a bit. First I want to talk about the days leading up to the wedding. The days before I left for the wedding were tough because I was trying hard to get everything done for school. The most difficult day was the day before I left—Thursday. I am to blame for this, though, because I should have done more work in the earlier days of the week so that it all didn’t fall on Thursday. Part of the reason was that I let my roommate borrow the fourth season of Lost since he wasn’t sure if he has seen all the episodes, and I find myself unable to resist watching Lost when it is on in the apartment. This has caused me to get to bed a lot later than I should and made the week more difficult than it should have been. Fortunately (or unfortunately depending on how you look at it) my roommate has finished the fourth season, so it won’t be a temptation anymore.

Thursday, I had my class in the morning, and then work in the early afternoon. After work I went straight to Jiffy Lube to get an oil change so that my engine wouldn't burn up as I drove to Arizona. Then, I went home to study for a test I had to take that night. It was a very intense study session, involving doing nothing but focusing my attention on studying for about 4 hours straight (while doing my laundry at the same time). After studying, I went to go take the test on campus, and didn’t do as well as I was hoping. I think I was just tired and my head was swimming with all the knowledge I tried to cram that it was all jumbled up in my head. I learned from this that cramming for a test is never a good idea. After taking the test, I decided to take it easy for the rest of the night and had dinner at Sonic and hung out with Kevin for a while.

The next day (Friday) I began my journey to Arizona. I printed off the directions from MapQuest and they looked pretty long and complicated, which worried me. What I did to help keep me on track with the directions was to keep track of how many miles I had gone since the last change in direction, and I knew the next change would occur when I was approaching the amount of miles mapquest says that step would take. Well, I was approaching a turn, but I was still several miles off from where I should be when I approached this turn according to mapquest, so I kept going straight, passing the turn. When I went several miles over where I should be, I determined that I missed the turn and went back to where I should turn, and continued on my way. The drive from that point on was pretty tough. It was a one lane highway, so it was frustrating when I would end up behind a slow moving vehicle. The only way to pass is to go into the lane going the opposite way (which is scary) or to wait for a passing lane to appear (which sometimes doesn’t come for a while). So, it made for a pretty crazy drive, the cool part though was that I got to see a lot of beautiful scenery, including driving over a huge canyon that looked beautiful.

My second mistake occurred when I was in Flagstaff. I got really confused by the directions, which said to turn left onto I-40 Blvd. I never found that street, and I just kept going straight as highway 89 turned into Route 66. I was getting desperate when I noticed that the street I was on was Milton. I recognized that name from the directions, and was able to find my way to the hotel by skipping over the directions (about 5-6 steps) until it said to go onto Milton St. I was amazed that I ended up in the right place, even though I completely didn’t follow at least 5 steps on the direction sheet. I guess I’m just lucky! After the whole crazy drive, I met up with my family at a restaurant called Bunhuggers and we had a late lunch (I had an awesome patty melt and we all shared fries, onion rings, and fried zucchini). We then went to Target to pick up a few things, and went to the hotel to chill a little and then get ready for the rehearsal dinner for the wedding.

The rehearsal dinner was a lot of fun! There were tons of people there. I’m not a huge fan of being in the middle of huge crowds, but it was great to see a lot of family members that I don’t get to see too often. The food was really good, and I had some good moments talking with each of my family members (except perhaps my mom since she was so busy getting things set up). After the dinner, we basically went back to the hotel room and went to bed so that my mom, dad, and Alex could get up early to help set up the wedding reception.

In the morning, only Lauren and I stayed behind in the hotel room while the rest of the family left to set up the reception. After getting ready, Lauren and I left to go get a late breakfast, but all the restaurants seemed super crowded, so I just drove through McDonalds to get us lunch, since that is my sister’s favorite fast food place. On the way back to the hotel room, a huge storm started up and it even started hailing! My sister and I ran from the car into the hotel while being pelted by rather large hail. As we ate lunch in the hotel room, the rain and hail seemed to get more and more intense and there soon was also lightning and thunder! It was pretty intense, and we just sat in the room and watched a few episodes of Spongebob waiting for the rest of the family to come back.

Well, the rest of the family came back and they were stressed out (particularly my mom) because the reception was supposed to be outside in the backyard of this huge mansion, but due to the weather, they were going to have to move it inside the church where the ceremony was taking place. So, the work they did basically was all for nothing, and now there was going to be a mad dash to get everything set up in between the ceremony and the reception. So, we got ready, went to the ceremony, and it was great! One of the highlights for me was a slideshow put together by my uncle about Trevor and Jenelle, from childhood to current. It was really touching, and then the ceremony started and the pastor said some great things about the importance of marriage and what each partner needs to do to make a marriage work. It was great to see how in love my cousin and her husband are and to see their commitment to each other.

After the ceremony, we all pitched in to set up the reception. It was a lot of craziness, and I found it best to stay out of the way unless I was needed to grab something from the kitchen or help someone lift something. But, the set-up ended up being really nice with some great snacks set up including fruit, pasta salad, shrimp, and cheese and crackers. It was a small room to fit so many people, so there wasn’t really anywhere to sit inside, which made it a little uncomfortable, but it was great to be amongst family and to see everybody so happy for the joyous occasion. Instead of the traditional wedding cake, there were cupcakes, and they were really good! It was a really great reception. After helping to clean up when it was over, my family went to the hotel room to rest from the busy day. My dad got KFC and we ate while watching episodes of The Office. It was a great time as we all enjoyed each other’s company. I love being with my family!

The next morning, we all went to Coco’s for one last meal together and it was really great. I had an omelette that was really good, and we all had fun talking to each other. It was sad to say goodbye as we drove off in separate directions, but I will see them again this weekend, so it isn’t a very long goodbye. The drive home ended up being really easy, and I pretty much just went straight to bed when I got home so that I would be well rested for the day of studying that was to await me the next day. But, I’ll get to that next week…

So, all in all, it was a great weekend and an awesome opportunity to be able to see my family. I am really proud of my cousin and know that she has made the right choice in getting married. Trevor is a really great guy and him and Jenelle make an excellent couple. I know they will have a long bright future together.

Optimistic Outlook

2009-05-26T12:30:00.001-07:00

This has been a fairly uneventful week, unfortunately. I continued in my same routine of school, work, and home life—not that there is anything wrong with that, it just doesn’t leave much to say in this blog. Everything is still going really well and I am still really happy. I have really bonded with all of my roommates and I actually look forward to when they come home at night (unlike a certain roommate from last semester). It is fun joking around about Star Wars and Lord of the Rings, and sometimes these topics spark real deep conversation about religion or politics. It always makes things interesting and I’m very grateful for these moments as they always brighten my day.

I had a moment of negativity on Sunday, but I am proud of myself for fighting it off and being more optimistic. I discovered that I have a tendency to be pessimistic, and I need to learn to change that. I sometimes get this attitude that, “why should I have to do more on Sunday than go to church, isn’t that enough?” But, then I drag myself to a fireside, ward prayer, or break the fast and am really enlightened or have a great experience and realize that it isn’t a matter of “what is enough” but “how much can be gained.” Why would I want to limit the amount of good experiences I can have on Sunday? Church and other related meetings should not be viewed as a chore that needs to be completed, but as a blessing that could really help me grow and become a better person, and isn’t that the goal in life? That was the lesson I learned on Sunday, and it has really changed my outlook on things.

A lot of my negativity yesterday dealt with my calling and feeling inferior in it. I was the family home evening group leader both fall and winter semesters, and I have the opportunity to fill that same calling during Spring. It doesn’t seem like a particularly challenging calling, but I often struggle with it because I’m not good at thinking of fun activities (because a lot of the “typical” FHE activities honestly don’t sound fun to me) and I’m not good at being a leader and getting everything organized. I feel bad for the other FHE group leader who has to deal with all my shortcomings and make up for them, causing their calling to be more difficult than it should be. But, I know I must be in this calling for a reason, and that I need to learn to love FHE more and learn to be a better leader, so I am going to embrace it and simply do my best for the few weeks left in the semester. Last night I felt that FHE went really well—we had a lot of fun watching Kung Fu Panda, and I think it really did allow us to bond as a group. So, I am beginning to feel more optimistic about this calling.

As for other things of interest this week, Kris Allen is the winner of American Idol Season 8! I was genuinely happy with the result even though I was rooting for Adam. It is always nice to see the underdog come from behind to shock everybody with his honest talent. He truly grew the most throughout the competition and I’m sure he will have a great career (as well as Adam). Also, I’m excited because I found out which bands are playing at Calprog (a progressive rock concert in Southern California) this year and they happen to be all bands I love! My mission now is to get Kevin interested in the bands that will be playing so that he can come with me to the concert in October. It seems to be working so far, so I’m definitely looking forward to that.

This weekend is my cousin’s wedding which is in Arizona and I’m really excited for it. I love being able to see my family! I’m sure I’ll have many interesting things to say about the trip in my blog next week. I still feel bad about not being able to make it to my grandparent’s 50th anniversary in Las Vegas earlier this year, so this is my way to make it up to the family, so I’m going to make the most of it! Besides that, I don’t think there is really anything else interesting to discuss. Classes are going good. Work is good. Life is fun!

Things To Look Forward To

2009-05-18T09:01:00.001-07:00

What an interesting week it has been! This semester is proving to be a really great one- I enjoy both my classes and I really am getting along with my roommates. It is so refreshing to not dread coming home every day in fear of a certain roommate being there (and, no, I’m not talking about Kevin). My schedule is the perfect balance between classes, work, and home life. I am really genuinely happy right now and it feels good.

This past week, the first part of the week was difficult and tiring, but the second part was a lot of fun! What made the first part of the week difficult is that I had my first two big tests of the semester and spent all my time on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday studying for them and taking them. On Tuesday, I took my developmental psychology test, and felt pretty good about it. I ended up getting a pretty solid B on the test, which I am happy with. Now that I know what his tests are like, I think I’ll do a lot better on the ones coming up since I know how to study for them now.

The second test, which I took on Wednesday, was a lot more difficult. It was an essay test—I had to write 5 two page essays all in one sitting. My hand started really hurting after about the third essay, but I pushed through to get them all done and finished in about two hours. I don’t know yet how I did on it. I feel pretty confident about it though, I was able to answer each essay question thoroughly.

Wednesday night, after that difficult test, I decide to relax a bit. First, I watched the American Idol results and was ecstatic that Danny got voted off and that it is Adam and Kris in the finals. I have never really understood Danny’s appeal, but Adam and Kris have been my favorites this whole competition, so I’m looking forward to them facing off this week. I’ll admit it, I’m a huge Adam fan and I think he is the best singer to ever come on American Idol (which is hard for me to say because I loved David Cook last year). So, I can’t wait to see what Adam does and to see if he takes the American Idol crown. As an added bonus I won’t be too upset if he loses because I really like Kris as well and would be happy with him winning.

After that, Kevin picked me up and we went to Erin’s house to watch the Lost season finale. We had Papa John’s pizza and chocolate chip cookies. The finale was amazing! Maybe my favorite Lost episode ever! I can’t stop thinking about it, and I will probably be thinking about it for the next 8 months as I wait for the next season to start. Kevin and I talk about it on a daily basis, coming up with new theories and discussing certain aspects of what happened. Lost is the best show ever made. Period.

On Thursday, I had more fun with Kevin and Erin—we went to Boondocks to play miniature golf and some arcade games. The miniature golf was a lot of fun because we didn’t keep score and decided just to have fun and not worry about competition. We joked around a lot (and again talked more about Lost). We played Deal or No Deal, which was funny because out of the four times we played, three times we got the 1 ticket case. I also played some guitar hero against Erin and lost miserably. Oh well, I can’t be the best all the time! (Although I did beat Kevin at Air Hockey 7-1). After all the fun, we dropped off Erin, grabbed some dinner at Bajio, and watched Survivor which was a lot of fun. It was just a great, fun day!
Besides that I’ve just been having a great time hanging out with my roommates. One of my roommates, David, gave a talk and a priesthood lesson at church on Sunday and he did an amazing job on both. I am really impressed with his spirituality—he is quickly becoming a great example to me. We talked about our missions last night and it really made me realize all over again what a great experience it was for me despite the negative things that happened to me. I believe that it is really important that I learn this lesson that my mission was a great experience because I had the same revelation last semester and it is being re-taught to me this semester.

I’ll also add that it was great talking to my mom on Mother’s day. I have the greatest mom in the world and I really appreciate all she has done for me in my life. Without her, I would be nothing—I honestly can’t imagine my life without her influence and love. I also got somewhat of a surprise call from my sister Lauren after she watched the Lost finale and it made me really happy to talk to her. I really love my sisters—they are so great and I’m so proud of all they are doing. It is really great to have such a special bond with my family, it just makes me sad that I can’t spend more time with them this summer. The good news is that they are coming to Utah in July for the American Idol concert, so I’ll get to visit with them for a few days in July. I am really looking forward to that! I also get to see them in a couple of weeks for my cousin’s wedding and then again for Kevin’s birthday. So, there are many things to look forward to. Man, it is just so nice to be content and satisfied with life, I hope I continue to feel this way.

I'm Still Alive

2009-05-15T09:50:00.000-07:00

This has been a crazy, busy week, so I'm going to wait until next week to give you my normal weekly post. Below is a video of one of the best Idol performances ever that happened this past Tuesday night. It is Heartless by Kris Allen. Hopefully you can enjoy this as you wait a few more days for my regular post.

A Fresh Start

2009-05-05T13:40:00.000-07:00

I have had an interesting week! Mainly it involved getting settled with my new spring semester schedule at BYU. This involves quite a few things, namely figuring out my new classes, arranging a new work schedule at Independent Study and getting to know my roommates and ward. I am overall pleased with how the settling process worked out.

First of all, my roommates are great—the best set of roommates I’ve ever had at BYU. I have three roommates, but one of them is gone a lot, so I haven’t gotten to know him too well. But, the times I have talked to him, he has been really cool. There is also Ogden, who is a recently returned missionary who went to Russia for his mission. He is from Las Vegas and this is his first semester at BYU. He is a really nice guy and I have enjoyed getting to know him. He is extremely spiritual and gave a fantastic Sunday school lesson at church yesterday.

Then there is David, who is actually the R.A. for our building. Finding out that one of my roommates was an R.A. concerned me a little, but he has ended up being really awesome. He is engaged to be married soon and is a psychology major like me, although he is trying to decide if he wants to follow that by going to either Law school or Medical school. He has a great sense of humor and constantly is making me laugh. He is also extremely spiritual and has organized a room devotional each night where us roommates get together and say a prayer and have a spiritual thought before going to bed to end the night on a good note. It has been really cool so far, and I have already felt extremely enlightened by it. I gave the devotional once and it was very last minute, but I feel I was inspired as I talked about the struggle I had as a missionary and how the only way I could get through it was with the Lord’s help. After the devotional, David told me that it was exactly what he needed to hear.

A quick funny story that illustrates our funny relationship as roommates happened one night this past week. We were all in the living room talking, and David was talking about building meeting on Sunday. He said, “There is an announcement on the door”, and he opened the door to show us the flyer he had made and a girl was standing there in front of our door about to knock! She was surprised that we answered before she even knocked and we just stared at each other for a while and she said, “Is Nathan here?” and I said, “I’m Nathan.” And she just shook her head and said that I was not the Nathan she was looking for. There apparently is another Nathan across the hall from us. So we just closed the door and all busted up laughing, it was great!

There isn’t much to say about my classes or work this week really. My classes are going to be a bit of a challenge since it is a semester’s worth of work to be done in about half the time. But, as long as I can keep up in the reading, I don’t think it will be that bad. They are interesting classes, although a little controversial. One is about the Psychology of Gender and the other is Developmental Psychology: Childhood which the teacher said would be taught from an evolution background, so that should be interesting.

Friday was an interesting day for me, after work that day, since I don’t have class on Fridays, I decided it would be a good idea to go to the movies. I went and saw Wolverine and had a great time. I don’t think it is one of the best movies ever made, but it was very entertaining and kept my interest the whole time. There were also a lot of great special effects. I really enjoyed the experience. I think I’m going to make a tradition of going to the movies after work on Fridays if there is something worth seeing. I already purchased my tickets to see Star Trek in the IMAX Theater after work this Friday, and I’m really looking forward to that. The creator of Lost and the actor that plays Sylar—how can that be bad?

Also, on Friday night I went to a really fun activity with my ward. It was really the first chance I had to meet my ward and I was really happy. There are a lot of great people in the ward and even some familiar faces from wards past. We had a great steak and potatoes dinner and then played a game called “Do You Love Your Neighbor?” where everybody is in a circle and one person is in the middle and goes up to somebody and asks if they love their neighbor. If they say “yes” the neighbors have to switch and the person asking the question tries to take one of the neighbor’s seats. If they say “no”, they have to say something like, “but I love everybody wearing red” and then everybody wearing red would have to find a new seat and the one who doesn’t is the person asking the question. I usually don’t like games like this because they make me uncomfortable, but I actually had a lot of fun playing this! The funny thing was that people kept saying “but I love everybody wearing green” and I happened to be wearing a green shirt, so I had to move around a lot.

Sunday was a great and eventful day for me. I was pleased to discover that my ward meets at noon, which gives me plenty of time to sleep in. But, once church started, I was busy consistently the whole day. Church was awesome, with a great testimony meeting, which I feel was a great way to get to know many members of the ward. Both of my roommates bore their testimonies. I also got the opportunity to pass the sacrament, which was great since I haven’t done that in a long time. Then, Ogden gave his great Sunday School lesson on keeping the Sabbath day holy. We had a combined Priesthood/Relief Society where the bishop spoke. He said that he was required to talk about two things, and he wrote a dollar sign and the word “sex” on the board. It was a very interesting lesson, one that I hear at least once a semester while at BYU.

After church, I volunteered to collect fast offerings and was partnered up with a member of the ward whose name is Bear. He was really cool and it was nice to make a friend in the ward so quickly besides my roommates. He hasn’t served a mission yet, so he was asking me a lot of questions about what being a missionary is like. After that, David and I cooked chili for the upcoming “Break the Fast” for the ward. Then, we went to our ward prayer which was at 4:30, and then had our Break the Fast dinner immediately after. It was a baked potato bar and everybody brought different desserts. It was really good and the chocolate chip cookies my apartment brought were eaten up fast, they were gone before I even had the chance to grab one!

After that, we had to hurry up and go to the fireside with Elder Bednar. I got a ride from David, and we went to the Marriot Center. It was a great talk about the importance of our bodies and how we should avoid excessive on-line gaming and social networking. It really taught me a lot about how much more important it is to live in the real world than the virtual world that so many young people are getting caught up in. It reminded me of a movie I watched recently called Caprica that takes place in the future where kids have created a virtual world to escape in that lets them do all kinds of bad things, which eventually leads to the downfall of their society.
When I got back we had a building meeting led by our R.A. and only five people showed up, three of us from our apartment. We played “I Never” and had a competition for the best story of the week. I won with the awkward story that I talked about earlier in this blog of David opening the door to show us a flyer and there was a girl standing there about to knock. My prize was Starburst, and I was very happy.

That is pretty much a summary of my past week. I am very excited for this short semester and think that it is going to be a great one. I just need to make sure that I keep a good balance between things so that I don’t get behind in any one particular aspect. I love the start of each semester because it is a chance to re-dedicate myself and to set new goals. I am in that process of setting goals now that I am comfortable with my schedule. I love getting a fresh start.

I Get By With a Little Help From My Friends (and Family)

2009-04-28T13:03:00.000-07:00

First of all, I apologize for not writing in my blog last week. A lot of things were going on and I decided it would be best to "take the week off". Hopefully it'll make this post more interesting since it covers twice as much as a normal entry would. The problem is, do I remember what happened two weeks ago? I'll do my best!

Two weeks ago, I was preparing like crazy for finals. It took a lot out of me. It is mostly my fault because I procrastinated a lot throughout the semester, which led to me having to do a lot of papers and studying in just a few days. I started to get overwhelmed by all I had to do, and started to have serious doubts that I would get it all finished in time. My plan was to leave to go home Sunday morning, so that I could go to Disneyland with my family the next day for Lauren's birthday. I found out the day before that the Disneyland trip was off and instead my sister got a dog. So, I could have staying a day or two longer and made my finals work a lot less stressful, but I was just glad to have completed it all. I had to write about 7 major papers and take 2 big final tests. It was exhausting, when I came back to my apartment on Saturday, I just collapsed and couldn't motivate myself to pack to go home the next morning.

There were fun moments during finals, though. I took a break to go to the movies with Kevin to see "Race to Witch Mountain". It was actually a really fun movie and really was effective in taking my mind off of finals for a few hours. Also, on Saturday night when I got home, I took another break and watched "Deja Vu" with Kevin on the Clearplay DVD player. I was pleased that he enjoyed the movie, and we ate Fettucine Alfredo and Asphalt Pie. It was a good close to our time as roommates this semester. After that, I spent a couple hours packing, and then finished packing and moving my stuff the next morning so I could go home.

I just wanted to devote a paragraph to my experience as roommates with Kevin this past school year. I really looked forward to being roommates with Kevin and it was a great experience. It confirmed all of the things I already knew about Kevin, that he is hardworking, extremely kind, and spiritually devoted. He is a huge example for me in my life and I was extremely priveleged to have that example for a roommate. It is funny, this past year I had the worst roommate (who I will call Sanjaya) I have ever had, and the best roommate I've ever had (Kevin, of course). I don't know if I could have handled "Sanjaya" if it wasn't for having someone like Kevin to commiserate with. Also, Kevin helped me a lot those last few days with moving and cleaning and I am extremely grateful for that- there is no way I could have moved out on time without his help. I hope he knows how much I value our friendship.

On Sunday, I drove home to California. The drive was pretty rough because I ran into a lot of traffic from Las Vegas all the way until I was home. But, once I got home, I was really happy and had a really enjoyable week with my family. It was a big contrast to the week of stress that finals had been. The only downside to the whole experience is that my sister's new dog, Lucy, didn't seem to like me very much. She barked at me as soon as I walked in the door and pretty much barked at me at some point every day I was home. Also, I got really bad allergies from the dog, although I was pleased that the allergies didn't really hit me that hard until about halfway through my week home. I did get some kind of cold at the end of my finals week, which I attribute to extreme stress. It was only in my chest and caused me to cough a lot and have a sore throat, so I had to deal with that as well for part of my time home.

But, despite the "sickness", I really loved being home with family. It made me realize how much I miss them when I am away and how hard this summer is going to be for me since I am mostly spending it away from home. My favorite moments were when I was able to just sit and joke around with my family. A lot of my family members (mainly my dad and Alex) are busy with other things all the time, so it is nice when they finally have a break from their schedules to hang out with the rest of the family. I enjoyed watching episodes of The Office with my dad (and sometimes my sister) and being able to show my family the movie "Knowing" which I really love. I don't think any of them loved it as much as I do, but they all enjoyed seeing it and had positive things to say about the movie. I also really enjoyed the home cooked meals, my mom really spoiled me by making one of my favorite dinners the night I was leaving- Fried Chicken and Mashed Potatoes. All in all, it was a truly great time, and felt way too short. Luckily, there are many more opportunities this summer for me to see them, so this isn't the end of my visits with them this year...

And, I guess I'll end my post there for the week. I just got to meet my new roommates for my spring apartment and had my first class, but I'll wait to talk about those things in detail in my next post. I guess I'll just sum it up by saying that I'm extremely grateful for family and friends. They are always there to help me through my most stressful times and are always supportive and helpful. I don't know how I'd get through life without them.

The Light at the End of the Tunnel

2009-04-13T13:00:00.001-07:00

This has been another great week. As always, there were some bad moments, but mostly good moments. It was fairly average with the routine of going to school, going to work, and then coming home to do homework and then relax by reading or watching a show. Last Monday my ward had a culture night/talent show which was a lot of fun. This has been one of my favorite student wards at BYU, second only to my freshman ward. I love the Bishop and it got me really excited to hear him play some Beatles songs on the piano as the activity was getting started. There were several memorable performances from various members of the ward including several great piano numbers, a celtic band, and a performance of a Phantom of the Opera piece. The food was good too, with food from various parts of the world. There was also 'cake' which is always a plus for any activity. All in all, a very good, fun night.

I have to admit I've been obsessed with something this past week. I've been obsessed with Adam Lambert's performance of "Mad World" on American Idol. It is my favorite Idol performance ever. I was enchanted by it on Tuesday night and thankfully I taped it and I've been watching it over and over again. I also purchased it on Itunes and have been listening to it on my ipod nonstop as well. I've never been this addicted to a particular song before, it is crazy. I am really rooting for Adam on American Idol, but even if he doesn't win, I think he has a strong career in music ahead of him. He is a born performer and has an incredible vocal range. Just awesome.

Besides that, Kevin and I had fun on Easter Weekend. We got some Easter candy and watched Stardust on Saturday. We also went to this great restaurant called 5 Guys which is a hamburger place. It was really good! We dyed Easter eggs and watched Lion King 1 and 1/2. It was a nice way to forget about the fact that I wasn't home for Easter. It brought back memories of my childhood, so that was fun. Then, on Sunday, I went to church and really felt the spirit during sacrament meeting. There were several short talks on various conference talks, and it was cool how the speakers linked all of their talks back to the Savior and the Atonement, since that is what Easter is all about. The Bishop spoke last and really talked about the Atonement and how we need to rely upon the Savior for help in our journey in life. It was really great. Then, after that, I went to Kevin's family's house for Easter dinner and it was awesome with Ham, Scalloped Potatoes, Salad, Asparagus, Deviled Eggs, Jello Eggs and Rolls. Then, to top it all off we had Strawberry Pie for dessert, which was really awesome. I was very happy that night.

I also got to talk to my parents on Easter night and it was great to hear their voices. They each gave me a great piece of news. My dad said that for my easter gift, since I've outgrown candy, he is going to buy 2 tickets to Prog Nation this summer for me and 'a friend'. Hopefully my dad can be the friend that I take, but it depends on if he has a gig that night or not. I am so excited for this concert! It is four bands that I really love, including one of my all time favorite bands: Dream Theater. I'm excited! Also, my mom told me that on Monday, April 20th, my family is going to Disneyland to celebrate my sister's birthday and they want me to come with them. I was planning on getting home that evening, but now I'm going to leave the day before so that I can go to Disneyland with them, so that should be tons of fun! I'm excited about that too!

So, there is a lot to look forward to. These last few weeks have been a little tough, but I'm starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I just have to get through this week of finals, and then I get a nice break where I get to spend time with my family. I was starting to feel bogged down with all the papers I have to complete and revise for my finals, but, with the promise of spending time with family, I feel I have the strength to push through and do well on my finals. This is often my approach in life, I like to have things to look forward to as motivators to get past what I'm worried about right now. It is nice to start seeing that light at the end of the tunnel and to be out of the tunnel for a while before I head right back in.

Finding Joy In Life

2009-04-07T09:12:00.000-07:00

I really love life! My life is so joyful right now, but I can’t really find an adequate way to describe why. This past week was mainly about me trying to figure out my plans for the spring and summer. What I have decided at this point is to stay in Provo for both spring and summer. During spring, I will take classes, and during summer, I will just work full-time at my job at independent study. I have mixed feelings about this plan. On the one hand, I’m sad that I won’t get to see my family nearly as much as I would like this summer. On the other hand, I think it could be a great experience to be in Provo during the summer and experiencing what it is like to have a full-time job. Also, I’m going to make sure to visit my family as often as possible, and hopefully they can come visit me as well, so it isn’t like I won’t be able to see them at all.

Perhaps one of my biggest victories this past week was showing Kevin one of my favorite movies, Serenity. Now that I have a clearplay DVD player, he is able to watch a lot of movies that he couldn’t watch before. He told me that he really liked Serenity, which really made me happy, it is a wonderful movie. I also was able to keep up in my classes this past week and I had an enjoyable session with my writing group because Joe was not there for the second time in a row to tear my story apart. I am really gaining a love for writing this semester that I’m hoping will continue throughout my life. One of my big goals this summer is to continue writing consistently, and even hopefully write out the rest of my book by the end of the summer. It would be really fulfilling to me to be able to say I have written a complete book. Of course, after that, it’ll have to go through many revisions to actually become pretty good, but just getting that first draft out completely would be a big accomplishment for me.

I enjoyed conference this past weekend, the priesthood session is what really stood out to me. I really loved Elder Uchtdorf’s talk. He told a story at the beginning of his talk about a plane crash that happened a while ago. What had happened was that a light didn’t light up and people on the plane started freaking out and focusing all their attention on the light. This drew attention away from the more important duty of keeping the plane on course. They ended up crashing because they took their attention away from flying the plane and on this small light. Just because a light bulb burnt out, a whole plane crashed killing over 100 people. This experience shows that we shouldn’t focus so much attention on the smaller things that we lose sight of the most important things. These smaller things may be good things, but if they draw attention away from the greater goal of exaltation, then they are a problem, and we need to lessen our focus on them. It really taught me a lot about what I should be most focused on.

That was mainly my week. I have joy in life because I have life, and isn’t that enough? I am able to live in a great country and have a wonderful family and friends and go to an incredible university. I find joy in the simple pleasures in life. In the satisfaction of finishing a difficult homework assignment, in spending time with my friend after a long period of him being so busy he could barely talk to me, in being able to text my sisters and see what is happening with them in their lives. These experiences may seem small and mundane, but to me they are profound and what life is all about. I cherish each minute. It is truly wonderful.

The Simple Life

2009-03-29T15:13:00.000-07:00

Ah...another week...what happened this week?

I had a very enjoyable week. The most stressful thing I had to deal with was a huge 6 page paper being due in my Anthropology class on Wednesday. I was scared on Tuesday since I had not done much work on the paper and knew I would have to get it all done on that day. Luckily, the process ended up being very painless and I was able to write out the paper within 2 hours, giving me plenty of time to proofread and edit the paper before I had to turn it in the next day. We'll see how I did on that paper in a few weeks. Luckily, even if I didn't do too well, there is always a re-write that I can do to get a better grade. I'm going to need that re-write for the first paper I wrote for that class, but that is another story...

Once that paper was over with, I was able to relax quite a bit and spent my Wednesday enjoying American Idol and Lost, the two shows I most look forward to each week. They were both awesome, as they always are. (In case anyone is interested, I am officially rooting for Adam and Allison on American Idol). I also had a really great meeting with my creative writing group on Thursday, mainly because Joe was sick and wasn't able to attend. It was nice to get many positive comments for a change, and I feel that their more constructive comments are useful and will help me create a better book. Thanks, writing group! I also found out that Joe's brother-in-law was a missionary in my mission named Elder Law. He came to class with Joe, and it was cool to talk to him again.

The most depressing part of my week was witnessing my friend Kevin become swamped with work and homework and hardly being able to interact with him. He was so busy this week that most nights he would come home and immediately go in his room and close the door to start on his homework without even a greeting to me. But, I understand how much he has to do and I've learned that the best way to help him sometimes is to just stay out of his way when he has a lot of work to do.

But, the good thing is that it seems like Kevin's spirits lifted on Saturday and we were able to have a really fun time hanging out. We had a fantastic lunch at Fuddruckers and watched The Goonies, which was a good movie to laugh at due to the clearplay editing and the cheesiness of it. I saw a much better movie that day in theaters called "Knowing". I recommend this movie strongly and consider it to be one of my new favorites. From the commercials, it is a movie about a man and his son uncovering a list of numbers in a time capsule, which they soon discover are predictions for when natural disasters have occured. The is MUCH more to it than this, but I don't want to spoil it. But, it is definitely my favorite movie of the year so far, and may be part of my top ten of all time. A lot of critics don't like it, but I don't get all the criticism for it since I think it is brilliant. Oh well, different people have different opinions.

And, I guess that is about it for my week. Sorry that my life isn't more exciting with trips to find buried treasure and travelling to magical lands of wonder and imagination. But, I like my simple life and finding simple pleasures like watching a few good shows, listening to a good album, or going to lunch with a best friend. These things are what make me happy to live day by day. I don't need to go on extraordinary adventures, I enjoy my simple life, and I hope you can get some enjoyment from reading about it.

It's a Wonderful Life

2009-03-23T14:21:00.000-07:00

There is a recurring pattern that keeps happening throughout my life. It goes like this: I feel depressed with certain aspects of my life, so I have a resolve to change. Then, I set goals that are realistic and can bring about this change. Next, I start applying these goals in my life and am able to get through a few days successfully with these goals in mind. But, disaster strikes. I have an experience that really causes me to break down or I have a really bad day and I’m so distressed that I simply abandon my goals and go back to my old way of living.

This past week, I made several goals over the weekend to improve my life. I felt fairly successful in keeping these goals all the way up until Thursday, which was my typical break down day. When the day was starting to turn bad, I remembered that this had happened countless times before, and I just need to get through it positively and not let it crush me. During that day, I got a bunch of unusually negative comments from my writing group about my story, I studied all day for a big test and, after I took it, I discovered that I got a bad grade, I got picked apart in my writing group, mostly from the teacher himself, and then on more minor notes, I spilled a whole soda in my car, and spilled ketchup all over my room days before our cleaning check.

But, I knew that I could not let these experiences tear me down and stop me in sticking to my goals. So, I kept a positive attitude throughout the day, and even started to laugh when a new negative thing happened. Because of this attitude, things started to go a lot better. I was able to easily clean those messes, I learned that many of the negative comments made on my story from my writing group were actually helpful and would help me write a better book, and I learned the next day, that there was a huge curve on the grades of the test I took and I did 20% better than I thought.

I learned from this that attitude is very important. Keeping a positive attitude throughout these negative experiences helped me to not get overwhelmed by them. I was able to tell that they were not really that big of a deal, and that I could push through them. I am happy to say that I am now still on track with my goals and have had several great days since. I love life and appreciate all the small pleasures that it offers. I have a great family, great friends, a great church, great opportunities, and great music. I am really privileged to have my life, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. That is why I’m going to stick to my goals no matter how difficult life gets, so that I can improve and make the most out of this wonderful life I’ve been given.

Doing Good

2009-03-16T13:34:00.001-07:00

2009-03-09T15:53:00.000-07:00

Since my week was really boring, I’m not going to bore you by trying to pull out mundane experiences and try to make them seem more interesting than they really were. Instead, I’m going to share something insightful that I learned yesterday that has changed my outlook on life. Every Sunday I go through the same thing, I think to myself, “I served a mission? Wow!” It seems surreal to me that I served a mission because it seems beyond my capability. It just doesn’t seem like something I’d be able to do, and yet I did do it. In psychological terms, I think I have some cognitive dissonance about the whole situation, and I’m still trying to reason out that I really did serve a mission.

Ok, that sounds really weird, but it is true. So, last night me and my friend were discussing mission experiences and I started to realize something- my mission was a great experience! I have often put down my mission because of various factors and that has caused me to have a negative view about the whole experience. So, not only do I doubt my mission’s existence, but when I do admit to its existence, I think of it in a negative light. So, needless to say, this attitude about my mission needs to change, and Kevin helped me realize that last night. So, to signify that I am having a change of heart about how I feel about my mission, I want to share five specific people/families that had a profound impact on me on my mission.

1. Donna Worthy

I had the privilege of meeting Donna in my first area. I was a brand new missionary and was understandably nervous about doing missionary work in general. But, what was the most nerve-wracking of all missionary activities was the idea of tracting. Knocking on strangers’ doors and hoping they are interested in what we had to say was a terrifying prospect. Lucky for me (or maybe un-lucky for me) my trainer hated tracting and we did not do it often. In fact, when we did do it, he said that he only did it because he needed to train me to do it for my mission, otherwise he would have avoided it entirely. Well, one of the first times we ever tracted, we knocked on the door of a nicer older lady which was a welcome change from the more antagonistic doors we had been knocking on. She said she was busy and that we should come back another time, so we kept going back and leaving notes on her door when we discovered she wasn’t home. After this happened quite a few times, we were starting to think that she wasn’t really interested after all and was avoiding us, but we persisted one last time and we finally caught her home and she invited us in! What followed was a series of great lessons taught in a very short time period to Donna. We got through all the lessons and tried to get Donna ready for baptism before Elder Shultz left the mission, but it didn’t work out.

Then, I got Elder Maxfield as a companion, and we clashed a little bit at the start of our companionship. One thing that angered me then was that he delayed Donna’s baptism when he found out that she had a male roommate. Looking back I know he was right to delay the baptism, but I was frustrated then because I was on the verge of one of my first big baptisms. I had the unpleasant task of telling Donna that she wouldn’t be able to get baptized until she moved out of her house or got her roommate to move out. Well, this ended up being quite an ordeal because I found out that her roommate was not a very nice guy and ended up threatening Donna and was a danger to her. When she was moving out, she called me in a panic saying that she had filed a restraining order against her roommate and that she was worried he would come after her in a drunken rage. So, I made sure the bishop was aware of this, and they called the police to watch over Donna as she moved out her things.

Well, after she moved (and a family in the ward was gracious enough to let her move into their home) we were able to get her ready for baptism and so we set up the program and finished the discussions. She was able to get baptized, and I was able to witness it- it was such a great day. I just felt so blessed to be able to knock on the door of someone so receptive to the spirit and get to see her whole progress unfurl. She was such a diligent woman who made sure to be in church every week and to be there ready to learn for our discussions. I will forever be grateful for the things I was able to learn from Donna and the way it helped me to step up to the plate to solve the issues that came up. She also gave me a note that expressed her thanks for my involvement in her life. I cherish this note and my experiences with her.

2. The Torres Family

I love the Torres family! They are one of the most awesome families I have ever met in my life and I feel distinctly privileged to have met them. I was companions with Elder Hulse in Vancouver and we were out tracting. We were not having much success, so we decided to get back into our car and find a new area to work in. As we were about to pull away, a car drove past us, stopped, and then backed up until it was parallel to us. A man and woman were in the car and they rolled down the window and the man said, “Hey, you guys should come visit us!” He then gave us their address and then drove away. We were stunned at first, and then ecstatic. We were very excited to go visit them.

Well, we went over to their house and found out they were the Torres’ family and that they were converts that had become inactive in the church the past few years. Over the course of this inactivity, three of their children passed the age of eight and were now eligible for baptism. We were really excited at the prospect of teaching this extremely cool family in order to bring them back to church and to baptize the kids who were old enough. We taught them the lessons and it was great fun. The kids were very rowdy and were always bouncing all over the place as we taught them, but we were always impressed with their understanding when we quizzed them on our lessons.

I remember that this was around when Star Wars Episode III came out, and all the kids were super excited about it. Elder Hulse urged them to not give any spoilers away, and it was all they could do to keep it in. We had lightsaber battles with them in the backyard, which was always a lot of fun. The Torres family ended up being one of the most active families in the ward when I left. I remember the huge smile that spread across my face as they walked into church the first time. They told us they wouldn’t be able to make it, and then surprised us by coming anyways. I am touched by the great faith they displayed.

They have a huge lotion company that they run and part of the reason they stopped going to church was so they could run this company on Sunday. So, when they got active, they dropped their Sunday business, which was a huge sacrifice. Not only that, they were trying to decide how much tithing to give, and they decided to give a substantial amount that they were concerned about being able to afford. The next day, they received ten times that much in a huge lotion order. I am humbled by their example and am so glad to have been part of their life. I left the area before the kids had their baptism, so I wasn’t able to see it. They were all crushed when they heard the news that I was leaving, so much that Sister Torres said she would call the Mission President and complain. But, it was my time to leave, and I am glad that a future companion of mine, Elder Burt, was able to come in as my replacement and later tell me about how great the baptism was.

3. Susan Lohstreter

This entry is getting really long, and there is a lot I can say about Susan, so I’ll just try to point out the highlights. She was our next door neighbor when I was serving in Richland. She was a recent convert and was a good friend to all the missionaries that had lived next to her. She accepted me and Elder Tenney with open arms. We had double transferred into the area and we knew nobody, so it was a great comfort to have such a close friend living next door to us. We would visit with her practically every day and read a little out of the Book of Mormon and visit with her, and I will cherish all those moments. President Hinckley gave a challenge to read the Book of Mormon every year, and Susan was determined to finish it in time, so we helped her along. I remember the huge smile on her face as we finally were able to finish the Book of Mormon. It was such a great feeling.

Susan added an important element of fun to what can sometimes seem like a lot of hard work as a missionary. She played tricks on us, we had snowball fights, and she planned an elaborate trick on an incoming missionary in our district. She had such a great sense of humor, but also an incredible amount of heart. She has such a big heart and so much love for so many people. There are many problems with various members of her family, and she always shows such great concern for them. She takes care of her 3 year old granddaughter, Violet, who is quite a handful. She also is very missionary minded and was always there to help us with investigators we were teaching. She would often let us teach missionary lessons at her apartment, and when we brought investigators to church, she was always one of the first to greet them.

There are countless other stories I have that involve Susan, but I will stop here for now and conclude that she is one of the most inspirational people I ever met. She always made me feel at home when I was around her and I always felt the love she had for me and my companion. When I was feeling depressed, she was always there to cheer me up. I am forever grateful for her example of love and service and will always consider a close and dear friend.

4. Candi Robello and Cylie Hepton

I can say tons of things about both Candi and Cylie, but I’ll try to keep it brief. Candi is Cylie’s mom and Elder Tenney and I taught her in Richland. She was originally an investigator for the zone leaders, but she moved into our area, so we started to take over teaching her and her roommate Jodi. They were both a lot of fun and I remember them always referring to me as the funny one because I would laugh at their crazy jokes. They had such a fun spirit about them and teaching them was a joy. We held Candi’s baptism on Christmas Eve and it was a very spiritual experience for everybody involved. I really developed a great friendship with both Candi and Jodi.

After Candi’s baptism, we started working with her teenage daughter, Cylie. Cylie had had a rough upbringing and was now living with a bunch of 20 year old girls away from her mom. Well, now that Candi had changed her life around by getting involved in the church, she wanted Cylie to move in with her, and throughout this whole process we began to teach Cylie. Cylie was a lot of fun to teach and she really was a smart girl with a lot of spirituality. We kept committing her to baptism, but she would back out the next day. She proclaimed Elder Tenney as her favorite Elder, and we continued to work with her.

Well, I found out that I was going to leave the area in a couple of days and so, I started to teach Cylie more earnestly. I remember when I told her that I was leaving she had tears in her eyes and seem genuinely upset. When we had our final lesson, I remember feeling the spirit very strongly. We were teaching about the Plan of Salvation, and I believe it is one of the best lessons I ever taught on my mission. I feel it really connected with Cylie and we extended another baptismal challenge to her and she accepted! Also, she said that she would really like me to baptize her if I could. I told her that nothing would keep me from coming to her baptism. This baptism unfortunately did not work out, but I still communicated with her through letters.

Then, I went to my final area in Pasco and was on exchanges with my district leader (one of my favorite missionaries, Elder Gatoloai). He told me about a new woman that had moved into the ward and that her name was Candi. I was so excited and urged him to take me to see her. I was even happier to find out that Cylie was actually living a few blocks from my apartment! So, I started teaching her again. The family she was living with were not too favorable to the church, so we would meet her at a local school and teach her more lessons. I was just so happy to get the opportunity to get to work with her again. I remember baking her a cake on her birthday, and her baking me a cake on my birthday to return the favor. I feel like I formed a close bond with both Cylie and Candi and I miss both of them a lot.

5. Tammi Wright

Tammi was our golden investigator in Burbank, Washington. The area had been closed for quite some time, but Elder Burt and I came in to open it back up and we were happy to have a solid investigator named Tammi. She really was an awesome lady with a very strong sense of spirituality. She went through the lessons with us flawlessly, and for each one I felt the spirit very strongly. I was overjoyed with the whole process and even more excited when she asked me to baptize her. We would meet with her at one of the coolest family’s house (the Rodriguez’s) and they were the perfect friends for her as she got more and more involved in the church.

Then, there was a little bit of a mix up about her baptism date which was originally scheduled for Mother’s Day. There was a child baptism the same day, and rather than have conflicting baptisms in the ward, we decided to move her baptism to the next weekend. Well, during the week in between, Tammi decided she wasn’t ready for baptism and began smoking again. We were disappointed, but it gave us a resolve to keep trying to meet with her and try to get her back on the right path. Our goal was never fully realized, but we had many great experiences with her that made me realize what a wonderful person she was.

One of the more memorable experiences was when we were teaching her at the Rodriguez’s home. We were trying to get her to commit to come to church, but she was reluctant to agree because she had a boating trip planned with her family. She said that she wish she could go to church, but it would take her boating trip getting rained out. When she said this, the biggest storm I’ve ever witnessed in my life started up. It was incredibly intense rain and hail and wind that was so strong it tore apart Brother Rodriguez’s back porch. After the big storm, all she could say was “I guess this means I’m going to church.” This was a huge manifestation of God’s power, and the power of fasting and prayer because Elder Burt and I had been fasting and praying about what we could do to help Tammi. She didn’t end up coming to church, but I am still struck by this awesome experience and the lesson I learned. I appreciate Tammi and the spirit I felt as I taught her. Even though it didn’t quite work out as I hoped it would, the journey we took with her was more than worth it.

So, those are five notable people/families from my mission that I will never forget. This is by no means an all inclusive list. There are many other people who had a profound impact on me when I was on my mission. But, these experiences and relationships make me realize how special my mission was and how I should not take it for granted. I am grateful for the experience and will try hard to remember it in a more positive light.

Just another week...

2009-03-02T13:24:00.000-08:00

This past week has been very good overall. Probably the most exciting thing to report is that I got an e-mail from a band that I really love! About a week ago, I wrote a review on my music blog for an album called "Prickly Pear" by a band called the Source. A couple of days ago, a member of the band wrote me an e-mail to say that the band read my review and they enjoyed the review and felt it was thoughtful, lengthy and positive. It really made my day! I would encourage anyone reading this to read that review. It is in my blog called "Leviathan" and a link to it is on the right hand side of the page. Also, I encourage you to seek out this album because it is incredible and really is growing on me the more I listen to it.

Besides that, I continue to love my creative writing class as I keep mentioning each week. It is really great to see the progress I have made with my book this semester so far. I am going to make sure that I maintain a schedule of writing in my book even after my class has ended. It is so much fun to be able to release these great ideas that have been circulating in my head onto paper. I also got to go to the movies with my best friend Kevin and we had a lot of fun. I cherish these moments where Kevin finally gets a moment to take a break from his busy life and we can just hang out and do something fun for a few hours.

Now, on to the big frustration of the week: cleaning checks. I am very upset with how my apartment complex, Wyview, has treated me and my roommates this past week. Last Saturday (Feb. 21st) we had a cleaning check in the morning at 11:30. We all spent the morning cleaning the apartment and made sure that it looked nice for the cleaning check. Well, we never heard the R.A. come by to do the cleaning check, but when Kevin left the apartment at 11:40 he told me there was a note on the door that the R.A. had come, but we weren't home. Me and Kevin were both in our apartment and it seems suspicious to me that neither of us heard her knock. Either she knocked really lightly or really quickly (or not at all). The note she left for us said that she would be coming back again at 7:50 on Monday night for cleaning checks.

Well, Monday night is not usually a good night for us because we have Family Home Evening, and this week we had a ward Family Home Evening activity that went from 6:30-8:30. Well, we came home around 8 from the activity and the R.A. wasn't there, but our other roommate, Sushant, was there. So, apparently the R.A. never came by that night like she said she would. Then, on Tuesday night, we get a visit from the Hall Advisor who says that the R.A. tried to come three times, but we were never home, so now it was her turn to do our cleaning check. She said she would come back the next night for the cleaning check. Kevin told her that we are all busy with school and work and that she would have to realize that several days had passed since we did our cleaning.

Well, she came back on Wednesday night and was really rude to us saying that our apartment was horrible. She commented on the kitchen floor and accused us of not having cleaned it on Saturday even though me and Kevin both saw Sushant clean it. She said that she has a 5 year old and her floor never gets that dirty. She also commented on other things that were only dirty because we had been using them the last few days since our cleaning check. But, she was really rude and didn't believe us when we told her we cleaned on Saturday and that we were here when the R.A. came by and that she must have not knocked loud enough. She said that now the area manager would have to come for the next cleaning inspection and if it wasn't clean he would talk to us about our contracts.

Well, we got an e-mail from the area manager saying he would come Monday morning between 11 and 12, so we cleaned the apartment really thoroughly last night on Sunday. It was a lot of work and took us from our normal "day of rest". But, the apartment looked spotless when we were finished. Well, we got another e-mail from the area manager this morning saying that he was ill today and wouldn't be able to come by to check our apartment! He said that we would just have normal March cleaning checks with the R.A. and if there was anything wrong, we would have to have a cleaning check straight from him. So, basically, all of our cleaning last night was in vain and we are under a threat for our next cleaning check even though we really haven't done anything wrong. So, this whole experience has been ridiculous to me and I am upset with how Wyview has handled it. In almost 3 years of staying at Wyview I have never had this happen.

So, sorry to leave on a frustrating note, but that is pretty much my week. I hope to have more interesting things to talk about next week!

A Busy Week

2009-02-22T18:23:00.000-08:00

This last week has been a little crazy for me. Each night of the week I basically had some big assignment to complete and I felt like I was barely making my deadlines. But, fortunately, I was able to complete these assignments and I feel pretty good about them. Tuesday night I had to write what my Anthropology teacher calls the "First Simple Quiz". In actuality, it is a long, 2000+ word essay about the book we have been reading in there called "The Harmless People". So, I wrote most of it Tuesday night, the day before it was due, and I was up until about 3 in the morning completing it.

On Wednesday night, I had a journal article assignment for my Social Psychology class. I had to read a journal article (in this case, the introduction to a book that my professor wrote) and answer three essay questions about it. It was due at 11:50 that night, and I finished it at 11:45 and turned it in online just in time. So, that was exciting. Then, on Thursday night, I had to write my first draft for my literature review in Advanced Writing. I'm writing my paper on Music Therapy and how it affects musicians and nonmusicians differently. So, I feel I did fairly well on it. In class the next day, we had to go over our papers with somebody in the class, and the guy who looked over my paper said it was really good, but just needed to be a little more focused on my topic in places.

Speaking of my advanced writing class, the teacher gave back our assignments from the beginning of the week where we wrote the first three paragraphs of our Literature Review. The teacher said that he indicated on our papers if we needed to meet with him or not to go over our papers. He said that most of the class needed to meet with him. Well, I was pleased to find out I don't need to meet with him, which makes me feel that my paper must be decent if I don't have to meet with the teacher.

Besides these major assignments, once again the best event of the week for me was my creative writing class. What made class so cool this time is that Brandon brought along some guest speakers for the class who are in town for a writing conference. The first guest is a good friend of Brandon's who recently got his Horror book series published, so he had some good advice about how to write in the Horror genre. Then we heard from a writer named James Dashner. James Dashner is the author of a series I love called "The 13th Reality" so it was an honor to hear him speak. He talked about his story of how he got into the business, which involved a lot of hard work especially in the area of marketing on his part. It was an inspirational story that made me even more excited about writing and trying to get into the business. It seems tough, but if your writing is good enough, then it is possible to get your work published. He also talked about a series of his that is coming out soon called "The Maze Runner" that I'm really interested in reading.

Also, when we split up into writing groups, my group had the privelege of having Brandon Sanderson join our group to comment on our writing. When it was time to go over my writing, I was very happy when everybody complimented my work and said that they really liked it. Brandon even seemed to have more positive than negative things to say. He gave me some great advice that I am working hard to improve on, and gave me encouragement that I could actually become a good writer. So, that class has really been a great blessing for me.

I was inspired by Kevin's blog in which he talked about the teachers that have had an impact on his life. This made me think of what teachers have made an impact on me, and I feel like sharing who those people are now. So, here are some great teachers I have had through the years:

My high school chemistry teacher. She made me interested in a subject that I was not excited about at all before. I hated science for the most part in high school, but her class made me have a lot better appreciation for science, and chemistry in general. It even led me to enter into AP Chemistry.

Mr. Schaina, my AP Calculus teacher in high school. He was a very intelligent man that I admire greatly. He made calculus fun and easy for me. I really loved his teaching style and I loved the more fun moments where he would ask us trivia questions if there was extra time after class. HE was a great teacher.

Dr. Luke Howard, took two semesters of Civilization of Music from him at BYU. He was a great teacher with a lot of passion for the subject he taught, which coincidently is a subject I have a lot of passion for as well- music. He really communicated his passion and his accent made the class more interesting as well. I think it is the mark of a great teacher who can make me excited each week to attend his class.

Brother Johnson, 2nd semester of Book of Mormon and 2 semesters of New Testament at BYU. Brother Johnson is the first teacher I took 3 classes from because I loved him so much. He has such a great sense of humor and again has a lot of passion for what he teaches. He taught me a lot of what I know about the gospel.

Brother Bott, Mission Prep at BYU. It doesn't get much more inspirational than Brother Bott. Brother Bott is perhaps the most spiritual man I have ever met personally. He inspired me to go on a mission and his teaching approach was very refreshing. He was very honest and would teach things that really had a direct application for the students lives. His lessons are timeless and I will never forget them.

Dean Hughes, Creative Writing at BYU. Dean Hughes is a great writer and a great teacher. It was a wonderful class full of great young writers and I could feel Dean Hughes excitement for having such a great class and being able to teach us. He really helped to give me a writing bug and gave me a lot of great advice that I won't forget. He is a wonderful man and really cared about us students.

Brother Fluhman, Doctrine and Covenants, American Christianity and Church History at BYU. This is the second time I have taken three classes from the same professor, and all three have been amazingly fun and spiritual at the same time. Brother Fluhman is very excited about Christian and Mormon history and it comes out through his lessons. He always goes off on tangents, but they always teach me something. He is amazingly spiritual and incredibly funny.

So, those are seven teachers that have had a memorable impact on me. I'm sure there are more if I think a little harder about it, but those are the seven that immediately come to mind. Classes are so much better and I learn so much more when there is a good teacher at the head of it.

So, that is my entry this week, I hope it was somewhat interesting. I will make sure to write again next week, and until then, I hope you all do well!

Change of Plans

2009-02-15T14:30:00.000-08:00

I was excited about my entry for this week because I was planning on spending the weekend with my family in Las Vegas celebrating my Grandparents 50th Anniversary. But, things changed and I ended up not going to Las Vegas for the big celebration. It has been snowing all week and I was worried about the weather and it creating dangerous conditions for my 5 hour drive to Las Vegas. I even read a news story on Thursday about a 22 car pileup on the I-15 by Beaver, which is the freeway I'd be taking to Las Vegas. So, I chickened out. My parents suggested taking a plane to Las Vegas, but that would cost my parents a lot of money and I would still have to deal with dangerous road conditions from here to Salt Lake City. So, I just decided to stay home. So, needless to say, it has been a little bit of a depressing weekend and I've spent it thinking about my family and how I wish I could be with them.

My week besides this is very boring, so I'm not sure what else I could talk about. My mom had the whole family write a letter to my Grandparents in celebration of their anniversary. Writing my letter reminded me of how much I love and appreciate them. I would go to their farm as a young kid with my other cousins and I have a lot of fond memories from there. I would go on the swing outside, play hide 'n seek with my cousins and sisters, and play card games. One of the best things I remember doing there is writing stories. We would all write our own stories and then share them together. It was such a great experience and it allowed me to feel the love that my grandparents had for me. I really am grateful for all they have done in my life and the example and support they have been to me.

Speaking of writing, I'm still going strong in my creative writing class. I really look forward to writing the next 2,000 words of my story each week, and each week I'm more convinced that I want to be a professional writer. I have been getting a lot of positive feedback from my writing group that has given me hope that I can write a good fantasy book. They give me great suggestions on how to improve my story, and I know my story will get better as I incorporate most of their comments.

Besides that it has been a fairly average week of school and work. It was a lot more relaxed of a week in comparison to the previous week, so that was nice. I feel that this next week will be busy though, so I need to get a move on getting some homework done so I don't fall in the same trap I did last week. I have monday off of school, so that will help. So, I'm sorry my life isn't more interesting! If my blog has taught me anything, it has taught me that I need to do more so I have more to write about. So, I hope all of you out there are doing well and that I can overcome my slight depression right now and start really working on my goals. I know I can make it happen!

By The Skin of my Teeth...

2009-02-07T20:59:00.000-08:00

This has been a difficult week for me. Probably the hardest week so far this year for me. I feel I just barely got through it by the skin of my teeth. What made it so hard? First of all, as I mentioned in my last post, I was sick for the first part of the week. I really felt miserable. I knew that I had some big assignments due by the end of the week, but I could not motivate myself to work on them like I should. So, what did I do? I procrastinated! I had to write an Annotated Bibliography for my advanced writing class. This assignment required me to find 15 sources for the paper I am going to write on Music Therapy, and to summarize each source and explain why each source would be important for my paper. Researching 15 sources is not an easy, quick task, and I had to do it all the night before and the morning of, giving myself only a couple of hours. It was an intense session of baring down and focusing in, but I managed to complete the assignment minutes before I had to head off to that class.

Then, today I had to take a test for my Social Psychology class, and I waited to study until last night. Not only that, but I hadn't read a lot of the material yet that the test covers which made studying quite a bit harder than usual. So, I just really focused and studied for several hours last night, and a couple more this morning. I was extremely worried about the test, but I feel that I was able to do a good job on it and I'm feeling optimistic about my grade. I made a big mistake though in that class this week. I had a paper due on Wednesday night and I completed the assignment on Tuesday night and forgot about it. On Friday night, that paper popped in my head and I realized I never turned it in! This teacher does not accept late papers, so there really is nothing I can do about it but take the 0, even though I did the paper. It was frustrating but taught me that I need to keep better track of my assignments.

On a more positive note (after all this negativity) I had a really good day on Wednesday and had some realizations. I felt really calm and peaceful about the Social Psychology test I was stressing over. It turns out that these feelings were right, because I was able to study and felt I did well on the test today. I also thought about my writing that day and decided that I would like to pursue professional writing. I have had a creative writing class this semester that has forced me to write 2,000 words of my novel each week. This has really helped me realize how much I love writing- I look forward to doing this assignment above many other things during the week. I also have been getting very positive feedback on my writing from my writing group and it is making me very hopeful. Even the very critical Joe says that I've been improving. So, I would really like to write more and finish the novel I'm working on and then see if I can get it published. There is a publishing company called Shadow Mountain that publishes fantasy books for younger readers, and I think it might be a good avenue to try to go down.

So, that is what is going on in my life. It has been a tough week, but I am starting to get more hopeful for the future and I'm starting to set more goals so that I can improve. I hope to have more interesting things to talk about next week!

I'm Sick!

2009-02-02T09:35:00.000-08:00

Well, I have hesitated to write in my blog this week because nothing of extreme interest really happened! It was a very average week. I enjoyed my classes. In my creative writing class I was able to learn about how to write interesting and sympathetic characters. I think it will really help me to create more substantial characters in my story. After the lecture, we split up into groups and my group went into a room and started discussing our pieces. Well, Joe, one of the members of our group, discovered that the room we were in was reserved in about 20 minutes for somebody else, so he left and tried to find a new room while we got started discussing our work.

Well, I volunteered to go first because Joe is very critical, and I liked the idea of not having him there when discussing my story so that he wouldn't tear it apart as usual. I was in heaven as my group complimented me on my story and said that I had great ideas. One group member even said that he felt my story could be marketable to readers of all ages. I was really happy. Then Joe came back and led us into a different room that wasn't reserved and he asked what we were talking about. We said that we were talking about my story, and he starts ripping into it, and I am brought back down to reality and am a little discouraged again. Well, after that group meeting, I came home and got on the computer and saw an e-mail from Sarah, a member of my group. She wrote some comments that she said she didn't have time to say in class. These comments basically argued against Joe and told me that she likes a lot of the things that Joe was tearing down about my story. So, it was a very positive e-mail and made me feel good again. I wrote her back and thanked her for her kind comments. So, I'm feeling optimistic again about my writing. I realize that constructive criticism is necessary in improving my work, but I feel Joe can be a little overly negative when he does it.

Besides that I caught a little cold over the weekend that has been bothering me. I didn't go to church yesterday and I'm not going to school or work today because of being sick. I'm trying to rest up so that I'm feeling good and ready tomorrow to start back up again. This is going to be a difficult week for me because I have a big test at the end of the week, and I have a couple papers to do. So, I'm taking advantage of my 'sick' day and I'm trying to get ahead on homework/studying so that I'm not stressed out by the end of the week. I'm confident that if I just work hard and don't procrastinate, I will come out of this week successful.

I also just found out on Saturday night that one of my friends, Daniel Dunford, is in the hospital. He was playing basketball when all of a sudden he collapsed. He wasn't able to get oxygen for 10 minutes and was rushed to the hospital where he has been in a coma ever since. He is doing better now though and is starting to move a little and respond to certain things, so there is a lot of hope that he'll make a full recovery, but it is still scary. It makes me realize just how precious life is and that I can't take it for granted because you never know when it'll be taken from you. This has made me want to do better in living my life to the fullest and not wasting the precious time I have here on Earth. So, I just leave you with that- value your life and make the most out of it so that you can look back in the next life and be proud of what you accomplished.

Just FYI...

2009-01-30T15:52:00.000-08:00

I just wanted to briefly mention my other two blogs, just in case anyone is interested in them. I used to have a blog called "Progressive Entertainment", but I felt that it didn't work well because I was trying to cover all my interests in one blog and it got confusing. So, I've decided to seperate my two main interests into two blogs.

The first is what used to be "Progressive Entertainment", but is now called "So Many Shows". As the title suggests, this is a blog all about my favorite TV shows from American Idol to Lost. I will try to update it regularly and have something on there on almost a daily basis (when there was a show I liked on the night before).

The other blog is brand new and is called "The Leviathan". This is my music blog where I will write reviews of the newest progressive rock albums that I am able to listen to, and will spotlight older Prog albums that I consider to be classics. I will try to update this blog at least once a week, if not more often.

Links to these blogs can be found to the right of this page. Because of this new music blog, I think I'll refrain from writing music recommendations on this blog and will just refer you to 'The Leviathan' if you are interested. I hope this all makes sense, and I'll have a new post for this week up soon!

I Have a Dream...

2009-01-25T11:11:00.000-08:00

The most significant event this week for me was Martin Luther King Day this past Monday. Usually I don't really think to much about it and I'm just glad to have the day off school. But, this year, the significance of the day really hit me. This is mainly because of what I did for my FHE activity. My FHE group went to a special candle lighting ceremony and walk through BYU Campus. Only three people, including me, showed up for FHE. So, we went to the bell tower at BYU and picked up a candle and then everybody helped each other in lighting the candles. Then, we walked with our freshly lit candles through BYU campus to the Wilkinson Center. It was very cold, but along the way people were holding up banners that had quotes from Martin Luther King. It was very cool.

At the end of this walk, we got rid of the candles and attended a ceremony celebrating Martin Luther King. It was very special and helped me to realize how significant Martin Luther was to our country. He helped get rid of the gross prejudices that had plagued this country for so long and made it possible for people of ALL races to share in the same opportunities. The speaker at the this ceremony made the point that there is still a ways to go to achieve perfect harmony between races, but Martin Luther King helped take us a step in the right direction. We need to not judge people by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. We are all God's children and should all treat each other as brothers and sisters because thats what we are.

I think a great manifestation of Martin Luther King's dream is our new president, Barack Obama. I'm optimistic about potential of what President Obama can achieve for our nation. Though I may not agree with all of his policies, I like how he is uniting people together in optimism and hope for our great nation. Here is a great quote by Neal Morse (my favorite musician) that really reflects how I feel about our new President. "I am praying for him and our country that we’ll operate with wisdom and caring and love. I hope everybody’s praying for that. We hope that things go well with his administration and for the country and for the world." I hope this as well.

I really don't have much else to talk about this week, but just know that I'm happy and hopeful about my future.

Music Recommendation:
? by Neal Morse

? is one of my favorite albums of all time and I was reminded of that fact this week. I recieved the latest Inner Circle CD from Neal Morse (his fan club) and it was a different mix of this album. It was really fun to listen to the small differences between the two versions and made me realize all over again what a brilliant masterpiece it is. I love every minute of it and urge you all to listen to it as well!

Remember Lot's Wife

2009-01-16T15:05:00.000-08:00

What stands out to me this week was the BYU devotional I attended on Tuesday. I think Elder Jeffrey R. Holland is one of the greatest LDS speakers of all time and he proved it at the Devotional. Basically the message of the devotional was to not look back into the past longingly, but instead look forward with confidence and hope in the future. He used the example of Lot's wife who looked back at Sodom and Gomorrah and was turned into a pillar of salt.

Elder Holland told a touching story of when he and his wife were young students at BYU and reached a point where they felt like going back, much like Lot's Wife. They didn't see much hope in the future because of all the tough times they were going through. Elder Holland was admonished by his wife that they don't go back, and that the future holds everything for them. I was struck by this point: "God doesn't care nearly as much about where you have been as He does about where you are and, with His help, where you are willing to go."

It is important for me to forget about the past and my mistakes I've made. I need to remember only enough to not repeat those same mistakes, and then go forward with a bright hope and confidence for the future. There is a way for me to succeed, and I need to press forward faithfully and forget about my tendency to put myself down by looking at my past mistakes.

Besides that, this week has been pretty average. I felt a little discouraged yesterday because I got some pretty harsh comments on my story I wrote for creative writing. But, I know that I have to look at these comments constructively and see what I can learn from them. I do want to be a writer, so I need to learn that it is going to take a lot of practice and improvement to reach my writing goals. So, I am stronger now in my resolve to pursue writing no matter how many negative comments I receive.

I promised to have some humorous quotes from my Church History teacher, Brother Fluhman, so here they are! Yes, many of these seem random and perhaps a few won't be funny to you since they are taken out of context, but I think they'll give some kind of sense of what his personality is like.

"Update on me first off: I had lunch and got a salad."

"I don't count soup as a meal. If it's in a bowl and runny it's not a meal. Even if the bowl is edible- not a meal!"

"She knows he is delicious." (talking about his daughter's thoughts on Zac Effron)

"If you're in your 20's and a guy, don't sing along to High School Musical."

"Tell us what it's like to have a talent."

"Sunday I made the most delicious cake ever, it was off the hizook!"

"These are the not stupidest people ever."

"Please let me have force powers!" (talking about wanting to be Luke Skywalker as a child)

"I dare you, read Deuteronomy, It'll blow your mind!"

"Get up there and start spreading the word, y'all!"

So, that is my week for you. I wish you all a happy week!

Music Recommendation:

"So Many Roads"

Neal Morse

from Lifeline

I think Neal Morse is the most brilliant songwriter alive today. It is a crime that most people don't know about him. I heard this song this week when it randomly came on my ipod. This song is meaningful to me because it talks about the many choices we have in life. We can go down so many different roads, most of which lead us nowhere. Neal Morse begins the song by talking about the desire we have to know which road we should take. This is when we first hear what I consider the "God's Theme" of this song. This theme shows that our desire to go down the right road does come from God. When the song goes into the second part, "Star For A Day", this same theme is played, but it is distorted, showing that Satan is trying to distort our righteous desires to lead us down the wrong path. But, in the end, behind door number 2, there is another way. We must look in the Eyes of the Savior and go down the road that keeps us on our way to Him. It is a profound song and the ending where God's Theme comes again in all its glory gets to me everytime. Everyone should listen to this song!

My Plug for "Progressive Entertainment"

2009-01-12T15:40:00.000-08:00

Hey everybody!

A long time ago I created another blog called "Progressive Entertainment". I am going to start updating it again, so I encourage you all to go visit. The link for it is on the right side of the page. Basically that blog contains information about all my favorite music, movies, and tv shows. You will commonly see posts about my favorite albums, album reviews, and synopses of my favorite shows such as American Idol and Survivor. So, if you have any sort of interest in any of these things, I would urge you to check it out!

Snow! Snow. I Don't Even Like the Sound of It!

2009-01-10T21:04:00.000-08:00

What an interesting week it has been! I just finished my first week of winter semester 2009 and it seems like it is going to be a busy one. I actually enjoy each of my classes, but there are a lot of writing assignments required in each of my classes. By far the most interesting class I'm taking is English 318R which is basically an advanced creative writing course. What is interesting about it is that the teacher is a fairly famous fantasy writer named Brandon Sanderson. I went to the classroom for the first day of class about 10 minutes early and the class was completely full! There was absolutely nowhere to sit. Apparently Brandon Sanderson's class is very popular and most of these people were hoping to add the class. I was actually one of the lucky few that actually had signed up for the course. We ended up moving into a bigger room (without knowing if another class would come in). Brandon put everybody's add card in the trash can and drew out five lucky winners who would be able to become part of the class.

The class will involve me writing 2,000 words a week and to read that much from 4 other students in my writing group. I am really excited about this class because it will help me know if I want to pursue professional writing. The class will force me to work on my writing, which has been something I've been wanting to do for a long time now. I am really looking forward to doing this. Besides that, I have an advanced writing class in Psychology that seems like it is going to be a lot of work and a lot more writing. Then I have the ever hilarious Brother Fluhman for Church History, which I'm really excited about. I may put some humorous quotes of his on this blog from time to time just to lighten up the mood. So, all in all, it seems as if this is going to be a great semester.

Besides that, it has been a crazy week because of one thing: weather, particularly snow. I don't believe I've ever experienced such large amounts of snow in my life. It has been very scary to drive and walk this week. I have a funny story to accompany each of these forms of travel. In regards to walking, me and my best friend Kevin were walking out of the Devotional (which featured President and Sister Samuelson). We were talking and all of a sudden I slipped and fell hard! Not only did I fall, but I couldn't get back up because the ground was so slippery. I exclaimed in desperation, "I can't get up!" After much struggling and some concern from others around, I finally got up and we went on our way. As we were walking I heard a lot of people talking about their experiences falling down that day, so I guess I'm not alone.

In regards to my car, that same day I walked ridiculously slow to my car (afraid of slipping again) and got in and put the car in reverse. I pressed on the gas and my car was not going anywhere! I went around my car to inspect what was causing the car to not be able to move. I kicked some snow away from the car and got in and tried going in reverse again. I was unsuccessful, but got a little farther back this time. So, I repeated the process and kept kicking snow out of my way. I was finally able to get pretty much out of my parking space and just needed to go back a little further, but a car was coming and I didn't want to keep them, so I pulled back into the space and the car went ahead. This was a mistake, because now my car was stuck in the space and no matter how much snow I kicked around, it would not move. So, I decided to just leave the car there and walk home (once again ridiculously slow).

Well, that night when Kevin got home from work, he drove me out to my car with determination that we were getting that car out of the space and back to my apartment parking lot. So, I got in the drivers seat and he proceeded to get snow out of the way so that I could move back. What he discovered was that it was the front tires that were stuck and that they were on a patch of ice causing them to spin purposelessly. So, Kevin would scrape the ice behind my tires and then I would go in reverse a couple of inches. So, we repeated this process which was clearly causing exhaustion to set in on Kevin from continually scraping at the ice and pushing my car as I went in reverse. He even fell a few times on the ice trying to push the car back. After making considerable progress, we saw a guy in a truck waiting for us so he could get out of the parking lot. Well, this guy ended up being the hero of the night as he got out of the truck and helped us get my car unstuck. His brilliant idea was for me to go a little bit forward and then start going in reverse as they pushed me back. After doing this only two times, I was unstuck and able to drive out! It was quite a victory and I was careful to not park in that parking lot and instead park farther away from my work and walk (yes, you guessed it, ridiculously slow!)

So that was my excitement for the week. I can't think of anything else that can top the story of getting my car unstuck. I am going to start a tradition right now that I give a small music recommendation at the bottom of each of my posts. This could be an album or a song or even just a particular artist. Since music is something I am extremely passionate about, I figure I'd dedicate a measly paragraph of each post to what music is exciting me lately. So here you go!

Music Recommendation: The Garden by Unitopia

This is a brand new album I purchased on Itunes with gift cards I recieved for Christmas. It is a progressive rock masterpiece, two discs worth of Australian Prog. I specifically love the 20 minute title track and the song that starts the second disc, Journey's Friend. They manage to showcase their influence of classic Prog bands (Yes, Genesis, Pink Floyd) whil sounding new and fresh. I urge you to check them out!

Reflection and Resolution

2009-01-03T12:10:00.000-08:00

The new year is always good for two things: Reflection and Resolution. Reflection over what has been done over the past year and Resolution for what to improve on for the current year. So, first I will reflect on my 2008.

In 2008, I continued in pretty much the same routine I had always been in. I guess the biggest change was my major in college. Previously my major was Statistics, but after some difficult stats classes, I knew this wasn't the correct career path for me. So, in the fall of 2007 I took a few different classes that interested me to see what new direction would be good for me. This resulted in me dramatically changing my major to Psychology at the beginning of 2008. I have done really well in school this year with my new major and have actually gotten the best grades I've ever gotten in my college experience thus far.

I have managed to keep my job that I have had for a couple of years at BYU Independent Study and I feel I've done a good job there. There was some question as to whether I would be able to return to work there after taking the summer off to spend time with my family. But, my boss was happy to have me back for the fall semester, so that made me feel like I was doing good work there. I also have been able to be roommates with my best friend, Kevin, during the fall semester and that has been great. Even though he is busy a lot of the time, we have still found time to have fun and enjoy the college experience.

As for negative aspects of this past year, I have had a difficult roommate this past semester and I feel like I haven't handled the situation very well. I have let my anger take hold and have really had negative feelings towards him that are sometimes not fair. I also had a big problem occur with my car over Thanksgiving break. I didn't know about car maintenance and about how often to put oil in the car and this resulted in me breaking down and burning up my whole engine on the way home for Thanksgiving. Thankfully my parents and my best friend were very helpful during the situation, but it ended up costing my dad a lot of money, and I still feel bad about it.

So, that is a quick summary of 2008. Now I am going to take this experiences, learn from them, and set some resolutions for 2009. I feel one of my biggest downfalls in 2008 is simply complacency. I didn't allow myself to grow because I knew it would be too difficult or too uncomfortable to change. So, I don't think I changed much over the past year like I should have. So, I feel I must resolve to change so that I can grow this next year. So, the following are things I want to work on:

1. Health

I am very unhealthy right now. I am overweight and this is due to lack of exercise and bad eating habits. So, I am making a goal right now to lose weight and get more healthy by eating better and exercising more. I will cut out the fast food, desserts and soda, and cut down my portions. I will also try walking more to and from school and explore other exercise options.

2. Career

I am very concerned about my future, and I think the main reason is because I'm still not clear on my exact career goal. I am now solid in my Psychology major, but I need to know what I want to do with that so I know if I need to go to graduate school or get some kind of job experience. So, for the first part of the year, I will explore the options in Psychology and decide concretely what I want to do. Then I will figure out what needs to be done to reach that career goal, and then do it.

3. Confidence

I need more confidence in myself. I often put myself down and this causes me to be shy because I see myself as lower than everybody else. I am in constant fear of embarrassing myself. If I simply had more confidence, I could lose this fear and live a more full life. This will also allow me to be better at asking girls out on dates, which is something I need to learn how to do since marriage is another definite goal of mine.

These are the big three main goals that I plan to work on this year. I know that with a good amount of effort and determination I can and will make these goals a reality. I will end 2009 a healthier, more confident man with a clear career path.

This blog will be a way for me to document my progress this year. I'm sorry if this entry is long and boring- I plan on making future entries a lot more entertaining. I will talk about significant events that occur to me this year and how they affect (or don't affect) my life. Thanks for reading and I plan to share a lot more in the coming year!