Revived Part I

I wrote this morning, for the first time in English the whole semester. It felt very liberating. I haven't even written many notes on facebook, and I've abandoned my precious blog site completely too. You never know what you have until it's gone. And sometimes you never realize what you love until you find it again. That's kind of a motif in my life this week. I've rediscovered a few different kinds of old loves. The sun even came out this week, I liked that too. This morning I even walked on a section of sidewalk that I haven't seen since my freshman year. That was a little nostalgic for me, but it was very different this time. Last time I walked there, I was walking south, away from home, and at dusk. This morning I walked on it going south, towards home, around noon. And the first time I walked there, I had no idea where it led. This morning, I knew exactly where it was, naturally, since I'd been there before. One thing consistent in both occasions is that I was alone both times. It's wierd how many memories come flooding back though, even after so long. Some people say that smells take you back in time more than any other physical sense, but I don't remember how it smelled back then, probably like the rest of Provo. But I definitely went back in time a little bit today. In summary, that is one of the things that I have rediscovered. I didn't mean for that to get so long. This whole week has been a week of old memories though, it's not just the sidewalk thing. And I hope no one thinks I'm crazy for writing about a stinking sidwalk too, that's not the point.

Compilation

This is going to be a long post. Since I've been so negligent about keeping a blog, I'm going back through things that I've written in the past month or two, and posting it here.

From December 28, 2006:
College is pretty much the best thing ever. I love it. I miss it. I dream about it. I'm getting really pumped to go to the bookstore and fight through crowds and pay hundreds of dollars (ok, not that part) and buy some textbooks that will become my new best friends for the next four months. I will go to the library every day because I love it, and it's huge compared to any library in Idaho. I am excited to go see throngs of people all studying whatever it is that interests them. Where else besides a college campus can you find so many people with so many interests and so many interesting lives? Where else can you find the written word of more researchers and historians in one place? Where else can you go to feel completely surrounded by reason? Working at a warehouse for nine months didn't do it for me. North Carolina didn't do it for me. High school didn't even come close. Not every person at BYU is a mountain of talent, it's true, but they are all intelligent beings with hobbies and experiences and memories of the past. There's nothing like watching people and studying people. Humans are the dominant life form on earth and we are the most influential species on the planet. Why not study humans? Why not take the time to meet as many kinds of people as possible? Why not take the time to learn the memories of those who left us their books and journals? They left us their minds in a way that no other animal can do. We have a responsibility to read and study and learn and to use the combined knowledge of every member of the human race in our own world to better our circumstances. If we don't learn from other people, we waste our potential, and the human race as a whole starts to digress. We are a race of progress. Individual learning and study benefits the whole world, however slightly. Where besides college does this dream start to come true for someone with no experience in the world and no political or social influence? That's why I'm excited. I'm going back to BYU in a week to learn how to change myself and my future. I'm totally stoked, you have no idea.

From January 2, 2007:
Funny things happen to your body when you deprive it of sleep for four or five consecutive days and then try to celebrate New Year's Eve to its fullest. For the last few days I've been waking up frequently during the night, and waking up early and for the most part, I've been unable to get back to sleep. After last night's festivities I retired to bed around four in the morning. Got up, ate breakfast, went to Julie's, went back to bed. Got up, watched the Fiesta Bowl game, and now I'm supposed to go back to bed because it's midnight. How can I sleep for eight hours tonight when I just woke up six hours ago? I saw three hours of daylight today. I've been asleep all day long. I suppose I'll be tired as soon as I go up to bed, but I think I'll probably end up waking up at some unholy hour of the morning.
But I have enjoyed some great wonderful benefits of New Years Eve celebrations. My first breakfast of the new year was gingerbread doughnuts with lemon icing, BSU won the Fiesta Bowl, I won at a fierce match of Killer Bunnies, I had the best popcorn of my life last night, made by my cousin Kim(berly), and I had two root beer floats and a banana milkshake today. This new year has gone superbly so far.
BUT, this just in-- my sister just told me that she wants my help cleaning up spilled oil and rotten oranges that were left in a cooler for a week. So, I guess my lucky streak has just run out. Oh well, I'll have a good day tomorrow to make up for it. I start with a dentist appointment, and only fate will tell what I will do with my day. My sister is leaving with her family, I might play some racquetball, and really just try to focus on spending the maximum time possible with all the people who are leaving either tomorrow or early Wednesday. Then I leave on Thursday, so maybe I should pack up some things, or at least clean up my living quarters before I go.
I've said before how excited I am to leave for school, but now that it's so close, I'm not sure I'm quite ready for it. I have two library books that I didn't read. I only started one of them. I'm such a loser reader. This is why I don't join book clubs. I've thought about that before. I think it would be fun to read the same book as someone else to be able to talk about it, but I would have to read it too, that's the catch. So I'll have to return those, and try again when I get to BYU. I'm sure I can find them in the library there anyway. If I can find it in Boise, there's no way the HBLL doesn't have it.
In summary, funny things happen to a guy over holidays.

From January 16, 2007:
1. Food: Popcorn, milk, grapefruit juice, chocolate, ice cream, asparagus, pork.
2. Objects: Ear warmers, wood floors, Chinese health balls, pillows, dogs.
3. Ideas: Astronomy, capitalism, haiku and other creative prose, history.
4. Things to do: Hockey, read, racquetball, look at photography, wear hats.
5. Music: Latin jazz, classical organ, Bach, The Postal Service, The Notwist, Guster.
6. People: Voltaire, Herodotus, George Washington, John Locke, Shakespeare.
7. More food: Queso fresco, Inka Kola, ceviche, flautas, tostaguacs, pozole.
8. More objects: Frisbees, stairs, sleeping bags, the Sun, recliners, leather.
9. More food: Cheeseburgers with grilled onions, bacon, pickles, ketchup, lettuce, tomatoes, an extra patty, more cheese, and no sesame seeds.
10. Words: Fricative, hoyden, nefarious, fickle, thrive, etymology, asphyxia.

24 days later...

So, I'm really still alive, I promise. I just wanted to post something that's been going on lately. This all started in Boise since I got home from North Carolina, but it really grew to frightening proportions since I've been in Provo. Almost every night I dream about my teeth falling out. Almost without fail. Last night I dreamed that I was at some kind of party, and there were all sorts of people there that I vaguely recognized but couldn't recall where I knew them from. I don't know how it happened, but by the end of the dream I had lost my two front teeth (not just halves anymore either, this time they got cut off at the gumline) and I lost another half tooth and chipped one more. It's so weird. Why would I dream about this over and over again? My teeth have never really been a sensitive subject to me, I'm not consciously afraid of anything happening to them. My roommate says that dreaming about your teeth falling out or breaking usually has something to do with stress. It seems odd that the same thing keeps happening to me in my dreams, but in different ways every night. And it's seriously almost every single night, I would even say that every night when I actually remember my dreams, losing teeth is always involved somehow, and I keep losing more and more of them. It started with just one, last night the count reached four for the first time. Creepy? Yes, I think so.

The most ultimate time of the year

I seem to have taken an internet vacation this last week. I suppose that's what vacation is for, even though I wasn't on vacation FROM anything, since I haven't been back to school yet. It wasn't a genuine internet vacation either, I've just been spending more time on Facebook than I have on Blogger. Facebook looks like it could potentially waste a lot of time, but it has been pretty entertaining at the same time. It's a good thing I'm so excited to go back to school and do homework, or I might waste a whole semester again. I hope they assign me lots of reading. I read more when I have to. Sometimes even when I have a good book of my choice I stop reading in the middle just because I find something else to read and distract myself. When it's homework, I can usually discipline myself enough to stick it out and finish the reading, which is usually interesting enough to keep my attention as well as the next book. I have started four books in the last six weeks and have finished only one. It's hard to get sick of a book that you don't read past page ninety.
It's also hard to sit down and read when I have my two nephews and my two brothers here. It's so much fun to have a family again. Reading will always be a lower priority than my family. My nephews are so cute, it will be a sad day when they leave for Utah, and onward to Minnesota again.