Never intimidated, getting goals accomplished

My article got published. This is good, because as I was looking at it, I haven't really done anything to put on an application for a while. After 5 or 6 years, being captain and MVP of the water polo team just doesn't seem to really have the clout it used to. Also, on the online addition of the article, it drew quite a response. There is one kid though, by the alias of Steve, who is hell-bent on discrediting it. I am a little on edge every time I meet a new steve now in life. Or perhaps it's a friend- et tu, blake? Anyways, it was a kick in the pants to see it be published.

Also, to bolster that hypothetical application, I started to become more great hearted and noble. That is, I signed up to tutor a 12 year old kid how to read. He can already read, it's just that he's behind the level he should be at, so I go to this senior center twice a week to help him out. Thankfully, there's a routine and materials so I kinda feel like I know what I'm doing. It's funny, but even though I started out doing it just so I could throw something on a resume, I'm enjoying it a lot. I think about how I can help him out when I'm not even there. Usually, I'm conceiving ways I can get him to do a particular thing better. My latest struggle was getting him to sit up straight when he writes, because his penmanship struggles. I would try telling him to do it, but that wasn't really working, so then I decided to have him throw a pencil onto a notebook on the other side of the table. He sat upright and did it so it landed pretty close. Then I made him assume his usual writing position with his face in the crook of his elbow and throw it again. I was extremely pleased to see that he missed it pretty bad, because if it landed right on the notebook, I would've looked pretty foolish. Probably would've swatted it out of mid-air or something drastic like that. Today I wanted him to work on P's, so I told him that and made him write sentences like "Pippen powered up the photon pan." Subtle, I know.

As an intriguing side-note, the other day he said he 'had' to text his amiga back (generally I allow no cell-phone usage unless it's his mom) because she had just broken up with her boyfriend (he's 12, in 7th grade). I thought, "wow, this will probably be hilarious to figure more about, perhaps even worthy of my blog." (it was!) So, with all the sincerity I could muster, I inquired, "well, how long have they been going out?" "Like, 8 dates. She's crushed." "Ooooh, I can imagine." But he helped me imagine. "They were really serious, she was going to go on a skiing vacation with his family, but he just sent her a letter in the mail saying that he never wanted to see her again!"

WOOOOW! She was going on vacation with them? They went on dates outside of school? And what an outrageous break-up! . Had I even hit puberty by then? Does my kid I'm tutoring realize he has put himself in the friend zone and never stands a chance now?

I was talking it later with AJ, and we decided that it's that stupid disney channel showing its teeth. My children will never watch that channel as long as I draw breath (If they ever claim they're bored, I'll just throw in "Greatest moments of BYU football history" and help give them a righteous upbringing). Because kids nowadays grow up watching 10 year olds on TV having 'relationships' and dramatic breakups, they think they must need them too. Also, cell phones for 12 year olds. So many things wrong with that in my mind. I was telling the kid I tutor that I don't want to give my future, attractive and brilliant children cell phones until they're 16. To which he looked at me with all the depth of expression his soul could muster, and warned me- They'll be losers! Oh well. Just as the prophets warned future generations of persecution, when my children find this, let them know- you'll be losers.

Another thing, besides trying to get good grades, that I did for resume building was intern at a law firm. Also, I wanted to see more about law before suffocating in debt trying to get a degree. It, too, turned out to be way interesting to me. The guy who I 'worked' for ('twas naught but an unpaid internship) turned out to be this really chill 31 year old, and every time I'd go into the office we would just sit and talk for a half hour or so about law or BYU football. And he also gave me some significant stuff to do so that I'd get a good feel for it. He even took me over to his house to eat dinner with him and his family. Anyways, I was a bit sad that I wouldn't be doing that next semester.

As for my love life, well, BYU only has the Las Vegas bowl and then it will be another lonely 8 months until it starts up again. I was there to see a righteous victory over Utah though. The Utes made a huge comeback in the 4th quarter to force overtime, but were further plagued by the fact by the fact that they hadn't really made it into the inzone and had kicked about 30 field goals. So it came to a 3rd down for the Lord's university, and Hall threw a bullet to George, who shook off defenders to run alone into the inzone. I was on the second row and was able to jump on the field and join in the celebrating pretty quick.

Conservative Essay

I wrote this recently, we'll see if it ever gets published... I think it might be the best thing i've written.

On May 22^nd, 1856, after expressing to Senator Charles Sumner that he thoroughly disapproved of his recent address, Senator Preston Brooks took hold of his thick cane and began to mercilessly beat Mr. Sumner about the head until his cane broke and Mr. Sumner lay unconscious. Doubtless, since that time the number of cane beatings in the U.S. Senate has sharply declined, but it seems that some of the vocal leaders of Conservatism are clamoring for a return to such behavior. These men and women, who work to polarize all who will listen to them, are undermining the respectability of conservative reasoning at a time when the underrepresented right is rising up to combat a number of liberal agenda items. If real change is to occur, the canes need to be put away, and the zero-sum thinking needs to give way to discussion and understanding.

As mentioned, it is not scholars and intellectuals leading the masses in this grassroots movement. Although their ideas are carefully penned and widely disseminated, they are largely ignored. Instead, the majority of conservative America has been swept away by the more conspicuous voices of the right; that is, the pundits who jockey for popularity by taking ever more divisive and inflammatory stances. They have disastrously boiled an entire ideology down to nothing more than catchy slogans, attacks, and derisive commentary, which are then parroted by those who listen to them. So it is that “the news” of yesteryear has been replaced by a face, red with anger, shrieking about the injustice and illegality of the latest ploy of the amoral left. The goals of these critics are not open debate and an exchange of ideas. Rather, their purpose is to establish t hat only their ideas can be accepted by a rational mind and that those who think otherwise should be ridiculed.

Regrettably, recent news has shown that this petty behavior is not only confined to the Rush Limbaughs, Glenn Becks and Sean Hannitys of this world. During a recent address in front of a joint session of congress, President Obama had a professional lawmaker scream at him during his speech, saying, “That’s a lie!” and, “Not true!” among other unprecedented interjections. As if it was not shameful enough to scream during a speech, congressional protocol was also breached w hen laughter met President Obama's discourse and a congressman mocking his assertions made scornful signs to hold up for all to see. Thankfully, he didn’t take a cane to work that day.

Yet when these actions are considered, it is apparent that they are no more than an echo of their constituents. The media was recently set ablaze when conservatives flooded town hall meetings to shout down members of Congress debating health care. They were so effective in strangling dialogue that some of these meetings had to be canceled or delayed. This behavior surely is strongly correlated to the immense popularity of the pseudo political pundits and their outlandish behavior. After being saturated with the belligerent attitudes of these commentators long enough, it is only natural that their mode of conduct would soon be imitated. Now, even though this type of behavior will certainly command the attention of media outlets, real protest must be carried out in a more civilized way if any type of change is to effectively sweep the nation.

So, as one possible remedy to the current situation, those who are Republican could consider the positive points of the Democrats. Despite what Mr. Limbaugh likely thinks, there are many good ideas supported by the other party. By becoming more open, it is likely that the Republican Party would attract more votes and regain power in Washington. To those who think this is just a hopeless fantasy, think of the success of George W. Bush in propagating compassionate conservatism, or, in other words, conservatism that adopts various liberal goals.

An even more electrifying idea to change the nature of the current debate would be to turn off the television and read the news. There is something to be said about reading the news instead of watching it. The careful presentation of a written article invites more thoughtful consideration of what is being presented, and often causes the readers to form their own opinion instead of passively adopting the outlook of the person who is presenting it. Simply, conservative America needs to begin to choose informative over inflammatory news.

Now while reading the news, one may come to dislike certain actions of the government or a political party, and this is acceptable. A natural byproduct of the two party system we have is dissension, and it is healthy for our nation. It can, and should, then be manifested in the form of petitions, articles, marches, rallies and letters to members of congress. Or voting! Perhaps then, with a bit of luck and a great deal less sensationalism, the conservative movement can have some lasting effect. We can then save shouting at the other side for college football games, where it belongs.

BYU

So BYU pulled out all the grit and determination it was capable of and beat Oklahoma, who was then ranked third. We had a huge party where we stuffed everyone we know into our room and screamed and watched it together. As only the most epic of games must be, BYU ended it with an 8 minute, 90 yard drive to win it all. We flooded into the streets with a couple hundred other students and chanted and sang and than someone brought speakers to make it a dance party.

I don't think it would be outrageous to call it the best day of my life. In fact, it was. I will probably lie through my teeth on my wedding day, because deep down i will know that the day BYU beat Oklahoma was probably a little bit better.

In other news, my classes are excellent. Though i have a hunch one of my spanish professors is crazy. He may or may not have condoned human sacrifice on the second day of class. It should be interesting.

Knights of Cydonia

So I'm gonna throw on here the link to the best footage i have seen of anything.

http://www.clevver.com/music/video/27108/muse-knights-of-cydonia.html

I certainly liked this band before i saw this, but after seeing it, they just might be my favorite band now.

Just as a side note, while listening to this song before seeing the video, i always envisioned someone just riding a horse as fast as he could while the music is being played. I suppose Gustof Von Musterhauser had exactly that same vision...

John Muir was onto something

So i finished my application to the Marriott school of business about a week ago. I've pretty much decided that even if i do get in, I'm not going to go through with it, but just rather get a spanish major. Though i've already discovered that business classes are extremely useful and practical in the business world, and that spanish classes are not extremely useful and practical outside of classrooms, it seems the better fit for my life plans. Besides that, a Spanish major seems so interesting. Its like a literature, history and language major all in one. Since i tested out of those silly sixteen credits of grammar and such, it isn't quite as much learning about the nuances of the spanish language as one would think.

Besides that, the pre-law office finally made its impression that it doesn't mention what i major in, they just want good grades.

The 4th of July was just yesterday. My dad, mom and i went to the usual ward BBQ, which was pretty fun. Then we basically just hung out. The day before though we went to Muir woods with our cousins. It was a pretty casual deal, we hiked through (hike: stroll along a cement path with my sandals on) the trail they had there and looked at all the pretty things around us. I was particularly impressed though, that i can now handle a baby without it looking like im holding a football. Jake and Melissa have their little Rushton that they let me hold. I have been notoriously bad with not knowing what to do with little babies, even though i like them. I mantain that i'm the victim though. I've never had a baby cousin or a baby brother or anything like that.

And on a different topic, after much fasting, prayer and deep meditation, along with about 5 different grocery stores and 14 dollars, I've determined that IBC is the best root beer out there. Seth, Madi and I all went around to a bunch of stores and bought 17 different kinds of root beer and had a very official root beer tasting test. We came to the joint decision that IBC was the best, followed by A&W (my actual favorite), Henry Winehards, and some german name that was pretty good too. This week we're going to determine if you can tell the difference between Pepsi and Coca Cola.

Oh, and in the news recently, Michael Jackson died. I always thought he was a bit creepy and never did really like any of his songs, except for the one about billie jean, or whatever it was. But all of the sudden everyone my age has been acting like they've been lifelong fans. Weird... Or maybe they actually have been lifelong fans, which really creeps me out.

Bucket 1

I've always heard the cliche things about how a man feels about his first car, but i always thought that it was just an empty sterotype. Recently though, the state started giving out a 1,000 dollars for cars that can't pass a smog check (recession? what recession?). Needless to say, my family jumped at the opportunity and handed the ol' 1988 toyota corolla over to the state and cashed their grand. I do not harbor any hard feelings, it was time to say goodbye. It was funny though, The day before we were going to take it in, i was came home from work and i was standing there looking at the car, and much like saying goodbye to a dear friend, i felt a sudden emptiness in my heart that echoed and resonated in the secret chambers of my soul. It had been a good car. I kept it floored wherever i went, that was the only way to get it moving. It was the most forgiving stick i have ever seen in my life, and its sheepskin covered seats always accomadated my friends and brother. It had seen its battles too, bearing scars from where it had been keyed, kicked and dinged. Dearest to me though were the many bumper stickers that emblazoned the trunk, bumper and window. I had 'Bush/Cheney '04', 'Viva Bush!', 'In 'N Out', 'Ygnacio Valley Athletics', 'Brigham Young University', 'Water Polo' and possibly some others. My brother named it bucket 1 while i was on my mission. 1988 tan corolla, there is your eulogy.

For the first time that i can think of, I'm pretty excited for summer to end. It's kinda just work, come home, work again. I like BYU life a lot more.

Fabio? Is that you?

Finished up another semester. It was pretty tough, but nothing like taking a calculus class, which i did first semester. I would sooner strap on a leotard and take an interpretive dance class than any math class again. I did all right this semester though, i got all A-'s (what's an A-? mediocrity in excellence?) and a B in Econ. I had an 89 something in that class and then the final just snuck up behind me and dragged me into a dark alley where it snatched my A- away and slapped me around a bit. I left that hypothetical alley heartbroken. But anyways, it leaves me with a fairly weak business school application.

Which brings me to my other item. I've decided what i want to do. I've always played around with the idea of law school, but never really committed to it. Very recently though, I decided it's what I want to do. So it really doesn't matter what my major is. Well, mostly. I think I would want to do corporate law, so having a degree in business would be a good background. On the other hand, if i major in business, i'll probably have a GPA of 3.5 when i graduate, and I will be a very busy bear until i graduate. If i graduate with a degree in Spanish instead, I think i'll have a 3.6 or something like that by the time I graduate. The law school I'm looking at right now is UC Hastings, which, according to top-law-schools.com, is ranked 39th, has a median GPA of 3.5 and 163.5 average LSAT for accepted freshman but most importantly is located in the bay area, which I've decided is where I want to live. East bay, specifically. I drove through the south bay on an errand Thursday, and it was just yuck. Yuck. Anyways, the fact that i've figured out what I want to do is just colossal in my life.

The purpose of driving through the south bay is because I had to go to Santa Clara to pick up a computer from some pakistani guy for my job. The current computer I have at work is simply too slow. I work for an accountant in our ward, doing basically whatever they need me to. It's tons better than Mervyn's retail store and manual labor for Blake's dad, like the summer after the mission. Or shoveling dirt, like the summer before the mission. I guess lifeguarding isn't bad. I did that during high school. And a newspaper route, which I did during all of middle school. Anyways, it'll be something to keep me occupied until I get back to school. I have basically nobody to hang out with here, it's pretty pathetic. 

As far as epic things that have happened in my life recently, besides my tragic battle with Econ, we went and saw BYU's rugby team play against Cal, who is the perennial winner. It was epic.It came down to the wire, but we had a last second score. It was the first time we had ever won, and all the BYU fans ran onto the field as all the Cal guys just kinda filed off crying. I like Cal 364 days of the year, but I was definitely hating them in a big way during that game. The players were all like 20 feet away from us, and i feel that my taunting was the deciding factor in the game. To sum it all up, I think it was the best sporting event I've ever seen. Seriously though, it was epic.

Finally, I remembered I started writing this to talk about the last book I read. I decided to start off the summer with Cold Comfort Farm. It was hilarious, I thought the gal who wrote it was extremely witty. The ending though, really left a bad taste in my mouth. The heroine of the whole thing likes this guy who lives far away, who is different from the other gentleman she knows because he's more quiet, shyish and all that. Anyways at the end, he shows up and it's like he became Fabio overnight, sweeps her off her feet, super confident and all. I thought it was awful. Maybe she was just sick of writing the book and whipped that out. I do that with papers occasionally. 

Anyways, in a few days my little brother will be off on his mission and I'll have to face the rest of summer by myself, so I better go prepare myself for that.

Lullaby for Wayne

I went and saw Macbeth the other day put on BYU. i thought it was great. Macbeth and lady macbeth were pretty good actors, they made if fun. the witches were pretty cool, they wore these cool masks that looked like some type of islander witch doctor thing. the whole thing was kinda like a Book of Mormon themed costuming, which made it interesting. anyways, i liked it. it was my first time seeing it, so i thought that macbeth's descent into madness was a lot of fun to watch.

Weezer has this song called Lullaby for Wayne. It talks about a guy who "shoots his guns" all day even thouhg all his friends have stopped doing it after they got out of high school. in fact, they have moved on, gotten wives, jobs, and put their own guns away. so the song calls for Wayne to put his own guns away and move on. I thought that it would be cool, since titles of blogs must be quite cool and creative, to name mine wayne's guns. anyways, its a heck of a lot better than stupid band names nowadays, like red jump suit aparatus. 

so while having business school in mind, i have finals coming up here in a week or two. i think i'll do well, but i'm pretty nervous, because i need to basically get all A's to have a good shot of getting in there. well, technically, A-'s, which are the bane of my existence by the way. all of my classes are right around an A-, so it's going to be pretty tense. lot of pressure.

scooby doo

The other day, i went into the bathroom in the library and i had the following conversation with an 8 year old.
"sometimes these scare me" (referring to the automatically flushing urinal)"
ya (brief silence as i think in what way a urinal can scare someone) sometimes im worried its gonna get me wet."
"oh, im not worried about that"
than, as he was drying his hands and i was washing mine,
"do you know who i think is funny?"
"no idea, who?"
"scooby doo"
"wow, thats great" than he walked out without saying another word.

it was one of the funnier thing that happened to me in a while.

also, talking about funnier things, AJ's dad sent our intramural basketball team matching bicep bands and headbands. needless to say we won. i even had a way cool looking assist. only bicep bands could've done that for me.

so as long as i'm just kinda jumping from topic to topic, i decided i want to memorize where a lot more constellations are. i went to the planetarium the other day and the gal was showing all the constellations. so i think from that little experience i can remember how to spot orion, arturus (or something like that. who named these things, king arthur?), the seven sisters and the queen. but anyways, if i could have one superpower, it would probably be the ability to spot constellations.

and just as a side note, my little brother is going on his mission to pocatello idaho. im really excited that he can go, its going to be great. it made me think a lot about my own mission and getting my call. its weird that so much time has already passed since i've gotten back.

The Orange Uprising

So i decided once again to attempt sending in a letter to the editor. i actually sent this one in this time though, so i'm hoping to see it in Friday's 'reader's forum'.

BYU once again, much like the United States a few months ago, finds itself amidst a heated election. Fortunately for me, as a concerned voter, BYU keeps the various parties divided into neat colors. As for myself, I am a loyal voter of the ‘orange’ party every year. Some might feel that I should be scolded for voting without really researching the various platforms, caring about what candidates the orange party has nominated, whether or not my party has drifted from the core values they’re supposed to represent or even the stances of the other parties (the green party likes “In N’ Out”! All right!). But I think I should receive no such censure. Really, voting for the orange party each time is nothing new. It’s just like any other election on a national or local level- just vote republican!

Now, just to clarify, i think i am more republican than anything else. But most of the republican thinking here kinda does seem to lean towards blind following. A good example would be when Bush put wire taps (which are illegal) to try to track terrorists. However, these wire taps could also be used on the average citizen. Not cool. The general consensus here though was something like 'hey, they should do it. after all, i have nothing to hide!'. or anything to lose? like freedoms? But hey, a republican president said it during a war time, it must be a good idea.

Also, it is especially important to just be concerned about a few issues. The republican party pays some lip service to anti-abortion, anti-gay agenda and other such things, but really don't do much about it. they at least aren't proactive in seeking those things, like the democratic party. all the same though, they were really drifting away from the ideals of fiscal conservatism (Bush was spending a lot) or decentralizing the government. it offended, so i went Libertarian party this last election in protest.

There's also a flip side on the democrats too. the zealous adoration of Barack Obama was just out of control. There was no debate allowed as to his supremacy and just how ideal of a candidate he was. and it was so cool to be pro-obama. it was funny to watch, were it not tragic. he was a better candidate than McCain though, i think.

oh, and i actually do kinda research the different BYU parties a bit before voting. i think it's fun.