Day by Day: Diurnal Five

 December 30, 2012

An applicable song lyric:
"Tie my handlebars to the stars so I stay on track.  And if my intentions stray I'll wrench them away, then I'll take my leave and I won't even look back."

Something making me happy:
Slippery sidewalks. :)

Something I've learned today:
While some people think the sight of melting snow is ugly, I find it oddly compelling.

Something I need to be more thankful for:
Interesting lessons at church that can grab my attention.

My 11:11 wish:
That we can find the car keys before Wednesday. ::)

Somewhere I want to be:
On a walk.  Outside.  Right now.  Actually, I'll see ya later!

Something I would miss if the Earth were destroyed:
Taking walks in icy (yet warm) weather with slush and rain and black ice. :)

Highlight of the day:
Walking to church.

Some thoughts:
Well today was amazing. :D  Not so much as in fun, but peaceful.  I love going on walks in weather like this, simply enjoying the solitude.  For what other person in their right mind would be outside in these conditions? ;)

Day by Day: Diurnal Four

 December 29, 2012

An applicable song lyric:
"There's a party going on right here.  A celebration to last throughout the years.  So bring your good times and your laughter too, we're gonna to celebrate your party with you."

Something making me happy:
Parties with fellow thespians. :D

Something I have learned today:
Making jewelry takes a lot longer than I would've thought.

Something I need to be more thankful for:
Friend's parents for being willing to drive me home. ::)

My 11:11 wish:
That I can have more fun times like tonight much more often.

Something I would miss if the Earth were destroyed:
Parties.

Highlight of the day:
Having that snowball fight. :D  It's been such a long time since I've had one of those!

Some thoughts:
Had a blast at a four-way birthday party with good friends of mine. :)  Their birthday presents took me over 5 hours much to my great surprise.  Somehow our car keys went missing so now I'm walking everywhere.  Good thing it's a burning 40° outside. ;)

Day by Day: Diurnal Three

December 28, 2012

An applicable song lyric:
"No man can understand.  My power comes from my own hand."

Something making me happy:
Egg and cheese burritos.

Something I have learned today:
Cable TV is a HUGE time waster.

 Something I need to be thankful for:
Plans that keep me busy and prevent me from sinking into a vegetative state.

My 11:11 wish:
That we never get cable.  Movies are fine!  Cable is deadly. O.o

Somewhere I want to be:
Next Wednesday.  :)

Something I would miss if the Earth were destroyed:
My iPod.

Highlight of the day:
Mustering enough willpower to reach out and turn off the television.

Some thoughts:
 Well I just essentially wasted my entire day watching TV. O.o  First thing that happened when I came home was to inform mom that she can NEVER get cable. ::)  On the upside, I did get to spend the day with this cutie!

Day by Day: Diurnal Two

December 27, 2012

An applicable song lyric:
"If you could hie to Kolob in the twinkling of an eye, and then continue onward with that same speed to fly.  Do you think that you could ever, through all eternity, find out the generation when God's began to be?"

Something making me happy:
Contrary to all my complaining about the cold yesterday, today was really warm!

Something I have learned today:
The moon looks gorgeous when surrounded by clouds.

Something I need to be more thankful for:
Cameras. *gasp*  Did I just say that? O.O

My 11:11 wish:
I wish Louisa will have a safe trip home.

Somewhere I want to be:
In bed. ::)

Something I would miss if the Earth were destroyed:
The moon.  Hold on...does that count?

Quote:
Daphne:  Now that Louisa's gone, I can take her place!  Mason, don't chew with your mouth open.  Mason, stop playing the piano while I'm trying to sleep!  Mason, stop being annoying.  Mason, put your shoes back on.  *looks around*  That guy is so HOT!
 Me: *cracking up*

Highlight of the day:
Singing "Black Horse and the Cherry Tree" on Guitar Band at Louisa's goodbye party.

Some thoughts:
Well just a bit ago we dropped off our foreign exchange girl from Germany off at the airport.  And I worked more on a new piano song, Unfaithful.  Not the best title, but it's easy to play. ;)  So I figured that this journal thing doesn't feel the same without a picture. But I AM determined to make this work.  Even if the posts might be extremely late. ::)

Day by Day: Diurnal One

 December 26, 2012

Alright so as I sat on the couch over Christmas break, pondering on what to do, I decided I'd steal this idea from a friend of mine.  Here I'll post daily updates of yours truly answering certain questions which I also stole. ;)  All in hope of releasing boredom, and seeing where this takes me. ;)  I originally planned this to take place on New Year's Eve, but alas, I discovered I had not the patience to wait.

An applicable song lyric:
"Today I don't feel like doing anything.  I just want to lay in my bed.  Don't feel like picking up my phone, so leave a message at the tone cause today I don't feel like doing anything.  Nothing at all."

Something making me happy:
My hair gel.  Begone foul thin and afro-like locks!

Something I learned today:
If you have to watch an incredibly long movie, make sure you have great snacks.

Something I need to be more thankful for:
Warm wind.  It's COLD outside!

My 11:11 wish:
I wish I didn't get cold so easily.

Somewhere I want to be:
Alaska in the summertime.

Something I would miss if the Earth were destroyed:
My fuzzy warm bathrobe.  Gotta love that thing. :D

Some thoughts:
As much as I love time spent relaxing, I wish I could just call up friends and go have fun doing something other than movies or house cleaning.  Just a few problems. One it's too cold outside.  Two, I have no money to head to Jitters or bowling.  And three, I'm just too lazy to get up and organize everything. ::)

How to Ask Out a Girl

Ever have trouble with asking out a girl?  Do they always turn away, make excuses, or stare at you like their surprised you can talk?  If so, this essay is the one for you!

How to Ask Out a Girl

    One blustery autumn day, the leaves on the trees fall, swirling into a sunbeam that pierces the school windows and pools upon a girl with shining auburn hair.  As she walks down the hallways, all the boys stop to stare as she passes.  Up ahead behind a corner, a short boy in a plaid shirt, pocket protector, and glasses, takes deep breaths.  As the girl nears the corner of the hallway, the boy steps out and shakily asks, “W..w..will you go out with me?”  Not hesitating in her step, the girl gives him a look akin to one looking at a talking toad. “You’re kidding, right?” she states contemptuously as she walks past him, not sparing a second glance.  The boy slumps dejectedly against the wall as tears begin to stream down from behind his glasses...

*   *   *

Okay, stop.  This is not what you want to have happen to you.  First of all, what gives that boy in the paragraph above any hope that a girl like her will ever go out with a guy like him?  The answer is...nothing.  At that point, there is nothing that boy could have done to get the girl of his dreams to go out on a date with him.  But that’s because he wasn’t prepared.  Now, if you are facing a similar situation, before you give up entirely and turn emo, writing depressing poems about lost love, hearken to my words of advice, for they may be able to save you.

    Before you start with my instructions, you need to get in your head that, if you’re reading this essay, you probably don’t have what it takes to properly ask out a girl.  If you truly have your heart set on asking out some bimbo that doesn’t know how to tell time if it’s not on a digital clock, then you’re going to have to change your entire approach.  Not just your approach, but the very core of your being.

    First of all, check out your wardrobe.  It’s time to get rid of those plaid shirts and pocket protectors!  Take note that clothes have a very different thought process for guys.  Men think that the way to ask out a girl is to wear a black leather jacket and a white shirt simply because that’s “cool.”  But what makes black and white so cool?  The only reason clothes are important when asking out a girl is because they immediately judge those they see on how their clothes complement each other.  This is the reason nerds never get the girl.  I mean, what outfit would complement a plaid shirt with a pocket protector?  One main reason the “bad boys” always get the girls is because they constantly wear only black and white.  And as we all know, black and white are neutral colors that go well with any outfit.

    Secondly, you need to check your attitude.  If you’ve been raised in a nice, average family, you might have heard that girls like nice guys.  This is wrong!  It’s only a rumor planted into children’s heads to prevent teen pregnancy.  The truth is that girls love the jerks of society.  Chivalry is dead! Just look around your school and you’ll see that all the guys with bad attitudes who talk back in class and treat women like they belong in the kitchen have girlfriends.  Then take a gander at all the boys who are good students with 4.0 GPAs, open doors, and pull out chairs for girls are heartbrokenly “forever alone.”

    Third is transportation.  It’s impossible to impress a girl on your brand new $500 electric mountain scooter.  It just won’t happen. A 1968 Camaro, now we’re talking. Glass-pack, headers, roller hydraulic lifters, race cams, chrome alloy rims, sound system stereo, supercharged; in other words, pure tuned hawtness.  The point of having such a pompous car is quite obvious.  Just like the peacock who flaunts his magnificent tail feathers, such are pubescent boys in impressing a girl.  The girl will automatically drift to whoever’s car is the most pimping.  They can’t help it.  It’s just part of their subconscious animal going to the most impressive specimen.

    Lastly, music has a generous role to play.  To show your confidence, you’ve got to blast your speakers to the point that weak windows will shatter as you drive down the highway.  However, you won’t impress anyone but your mother if you project classical Beethoven's 9th  into the homes of everyone within a 3 mile radius.  No, what you want are those heavy metal/screamo bands that come with labels warning of seizures and an immediate drop of IQ.  The sort of music (if you can call it such) that has the local dogs harmonizing with your speeding car racing through suburban neighborhoods.  Luckily for you, this is one chance you get to choose for yourself.  It doesn’t matter which screamo band you choose, because they all sound the same.  

    So here we are. See how my advice is worth listening to?  Rather than awkwardly stalk a girl in the hallways on the zero likelihood of humbly asking her out on a date, choose the better approach.  If you screech up to the school curb with leather jacket flaring, camaro flashing, music blaring, and dogs harmonizing, there is no way on earth that any girl can physically refuse to go out on a date with you.

Satirical Essays

So for the past few weeks in my English class, we've been reading hilariously satirical essays to show the use of fallacies in arguments.  For example, in Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal, he goes off on how to solve the Irish starvation and overbearing population problems, they should fatten up babies and sell them to the English as a delectable food.  Another essay explains that to be a good debater you have to be drunk, upend objects like tables, and compare your opponent's ideas to sounding suspiciously like Hitler.

Anyway, after reading all these fallacious arguments, how could we resist making some of our own?  So here I give you my "modest proposal" addressing the problem of global warming. 

Going Green

   As we live today in a world solely focused on technological advancements, the human race has been putting off the specific problem of Global Warming for decades now.  However, now with looming threats of flooding from melting of the polar ice caps, mankind has finally turned to face this problem.  But the true question is not how we stop Global Warming; it is how we embrace global warming.  Why spend so much money and brain effort on trying to stop a natural shift in the Earth’s temperature?  It’s inevitable to happen and anyone who says otherwise is just deluding himself.  But wait!  Before you give up on life and start writing your obituaries, turn an ear for my solution to our impending fate.

    The main problem with Global Warming is that the polar ice caps are melting, correct?  That’s not not a problem, it’s an asset!  My suggestion is to build a plethora of floating cities that can sustain many of the life forms living on Earth.  Some increasing problems for the world in this past generation have been increasing crime rates, wars, and overbearing population.  My idea of constructing a set of a dozen or so giant cities and letting nature run it’s course and flood all continental land masses will easily solve all of these issues.  If man allows the caps to flood, then the wars and rebellions spread throughout the world will cease.  Humanity as a whole will strive in working together to build these colossal cities with the latest technologies to make them float on water.  Life will be considerably better for the people on the cities.  Education for one will diversify and become infinitely more interesting.  Rather than simply learning about ancient Egypt or the fall of Rome, school field trips will be to scuba dive and explore these ancient, suddenly accessible cities.  The remaining tip of Mt. Everest left sticking out of the water will become a popular tourist destination as people flock to the only slice of dry land left after the flood.

    Now, of course not all of the population of the Earth will fit on these man made continents.  But rather than imitating the biblical flood where all those left on the land drowned, scientists have discovered a way to ensure the survival of the underwater humans.  For the past 7 years, America’s leading scientist, Clark Gabeson, has been developing a formula to live and breath underwater, even at high pressure areas like the bottom of the ocean.  The only side effect is the for the skin to turn yellow and develop into a spongy consistency while the host develops a strange affinity to living in giant Pineapples under the sea.  These groupings of  underwater humans will stay on the land and grow seaweed and kelp to help feed the colonies living on the floating cities.  Similarly to the Turritopsis nutricula jellyfish which can live immortally due to its life within the deep sea, these sponge like humans will have a greatly increased life span and solve many cures such as AIDs and Cancer with their new physiology.

    However, these are only temporary ideas to keep the human race alive.  The real reason is simply a delay tactic.  By flooding the Earth, then living on cities over the water for a few centuries, this gives the land a chance to heal from pollution and human influences.  By the time the water dies down and mankind can once again place their feet on dry soil, the world will have replenished its natural resources and we can start humanity from the beginning.  Of course if the earth is too damaged from the human race, we can simply build star-ships based off the blueprints of The Enterprise to find a new planet suitable to contain human life.

Little Kids

Can a guy be a nanny?  Because that may just be what I should do when I get older. ::)  I just spent the past three hours playing with 10 younger kids, most who are under the age of 10. And as I look back, I can't really find a more fun three hours I've had since the summer started. ;)  From piggyback rides, lightsaber fights, freeze tag, and gymnastics, I had a blast! 
I've heard teens my age complain about children, and how they never want to have kids.  This completely baffels me as I have more fun with an age group far below my own than my regular group of friends. Maybe I was meant to become a proffesional babysitter. ;)

Special Things

Wow. O.o  Been a while since I've posted here!  I blame laziness. ::)  Well, I'll have to get everything caught up...but not now. ;)  I just wanted to post this here before I forgot it existed.  It's such a sweet poem that I'm definitely going to want to read when I turn 70. :D

"When an old man died in the geriatric ward of a nursing home in an Australian country town, it was believed that he had nothing left of any value.
Later, when the nurses were going through his meagre possessions, They found this poem. Its quality and content so impressed the staff that copies were made and distributed to every nurse in the hospital.
One nurse took her copy to Melbourne. The old ma...n's sole bequest to posterity has since appeared in the Christmas editions of magazines around the country and appearing in magazines for Mental Health. A slide presentation has also been made based on his simple, but eloquent, poem. And this old man, with nothing left to give to the world, is now the author of this 'anonymous' poem winging across the Internet."


CRANKY OLD MAN

What do you see nurses? . . .. . .What do you see?
What are you thinking .. . when you're looking at me?
A cranky old man, . . . . . .not very wise,
Uncertain of habit .. . . . . . . .. with faraway eyes?
Who dribbles his food .. . ... . . and makes no reply.
When you say in a loud voice . .'I do wish you'd try!'
Who seems not to notice . . .the things that you do.
And forever is losing . . . . . .. . . A sock or shoe?
Who, resisting or not . . . ... lets you do as you will,
With bathing and feeding . . . .The long day to fill?
Is that what you're thinking?. .Is that what you see?
Then open your eyes, nurse .you're not looking at me.
I'll tell you who I am . . . . .. As I sit here so still,
As I do at your bidding, .. . . . as I eat at your will.
I'm a small child of Ten . .with a father and mother,
Brothers and sisters .. . . .. . who love one another
A young boy of Sixteen . . . .. with wings on his feet
Dreaming that soon now . . .. . . a lover he'll meet.
A groom soon at Twenty . . . ..my heart gives a leap.
Remembering, the vows .. .. .that I promised to keep.
At Twenty-Five, now . . . . .I have young of my own.
Who need me to guide . . . And a secure happy home.
A man of Thirty . .. . . . . My young now grown fast,
Bound to each other . . .. With ties that should last.
At Forty, my young sons .. .have grown and are gone,
But my woman is beside me . . to see I don't mourn.
At Fifty, once more, .. ...Babies play 'round my knee,
Again, we know children . . . . My loved one and me.
Dark days are upon me . . . . My wife is now dead.
I look at the future ... . . . . I shudder with dread.
For my young are all rearing .. . . young of their own.
And I think of the years . . . And the love that I've known.
I'm now an old man . . . . . . .. and nature is cruel.
It's jest to make old age . . . . . . . look like a fool.
The body, it crumbles .. .. . grace and vigour, depart.
There is now a stone . . . where I once had a heart.
But inside this old carcass . A young man still dwells,
And now and again . . . . . my battered heart swells
I remember the joys . . . . .. . I remember the pain.
And I'm loving and living . . . . . . . life over again.
I think of the years, all too few . . .. gone too fast.
And accept the stark fact . . . that nothing can last.
So open your eyes, people .. . . . .. . . open and see.
Not a cranky old man .
Look closer . . . . see .. .. . .. .... . ME!!

I wanted to capture this poem in my mind, like it captured the soul of this old man who now is with his loved ones again.

Bears!

     *Whew!*  Well that was a first experience for me!  Just a few days ago, I was walking the whole 3 miles home from school.  Rather than take the long way around and follow the road, I decided that it'd be much faster to cut through the woods on the ski trail to get to the highway.  Well I'm walking along, minding my business, and I reach a large hill.  Just adjacent is the highway; right in my view.  I start heading down when halfway, I hear a noise.  It was only a slight rustle, but my eyes immedietly turned.  There, just a couple feet away, was a mama bear and her two cubs.  Now here's a guy who has seen pletny of moose in his life, but no bears!  "Why do I have to start seeing them now?"  Was the thought that was racing through my mind.  Right after I saw them, without changing my pace, I retraced my steps.
     Back up on top of the hill, I stood there watching these three bears.  Now a smart person would have retreated and taken the long way.  Is that what I did?  No!  By then adrenaline was coursing through me and I was coming up with an idea.  The bears were slowly moving away from the trail and I waited until they seemed to be far enough away.  Then I came to the conclusion that it wouldn't be TOO hard to make it to the highway withought catching the notice of the bears.
     I started heading down, not rushing, not slowing; trying to stay as unnoticable as possible.  Finally I reached the point where the bears were on my right and the hill leading to the highway was on my left.  Taking one more glance around, I spotted the bears.  At that moment, my brilliant idea of waiting for them to move seemed idiotic.  They seemed so much closer at the bottom of the hill!  It was then the mama bear lifted her head.  We locked eyes.  The cubs were still frolicking about her legs, but the mama was stock still, staring at me.  What did I do?  The only thing I could.  I averted my eyes, turned around, and walked up the hill to the highway.  I guess I didn't look that appetizing or it wasn't my time to head back to heaven, because I managed to make it to safety.
     Figures that the first time I see a bear in the wild had to be from the unsafe distance of a few feet!  I don't think I'll be taking that shortcut again without a large group of people to hide in. :P

The Start of Something New...

Well this is my first time ever trying out a blog...  It should be interesting. :D  Now this is mainly an online journal for me.  Mason.  So if you're someone who stumbled across my blog, this isn't something I'm doing for others' entertainment.  I'm a horrible journal writer, but maybe if my journal was on the internet it'd be a bit more successful. ;)