Yawn?

MAN! It's been a while since i've talked to you, internet. I hope our friendship is still existent. A lot of things have been happening in my life. Money, Fame, Danger, Action, Romance, Plot twists, and many other things that weren't just on television have been keeping my brain at bay. Its almost like a hibernation, really. A television-induced hibernation. BUT waking up was inevitable, because even WITH the plethora of channels and yes, even DVD's and video games, there comes a point when you just do not want to look at a screen anymore! Its a strange mixture of there being nothing on, and you not wanting to try to make anything be on by simply inserting those funducational DVD's about bills on capitol hill.

AND! There are few and far between times that i wake up in the morning with no need for an alarm, nooooo. Instead I literally jump up and greet the day as if sleep was never going to be needed again! Alas, it happens once maybe five times a year! But it seems that these two rarest of occurrences have combine their unearthly power. For I have awakened from the media with fervor! FERVOR! It wasn't just a "Well.... nothing's on... what NOW?"... oh NO! it was "Well... nothing's on... WHAT now?" The inflection makes all the difference, but i'll save THAT subject for a LATER post because I have something to visit!

NATURE! Its calling me and not in the sense that people say that phrase at parties when they just want to tip toe around awkwardly naming ANYTHING having to do with the restroom. No, it wants me to LOOK at it! Possibly even take pictures! So I will! I'm gonna find the best things to find and just find the CRAP out of them. HAHAHAHAHAAAAAA!!! LETS GO!

Didn't See It Coming...

Chaperone. The word that once made me wince as a young hooligan. The parent of another child who came to both embarrass their own child and force foreign disciplinary practices on me for the duration of the field trip. I was recently asked to be one for my old high school's drama competition over this past weekend. I had no real disciplinary power, which is for the best, as some of the students are a mere three years younger than me and have been good friends of mine for longer than the gap between us.

My only REAL job over the weekend was the "Night Watchman" at the hotel. I was to make sure that none of the students were wandering past curfew (especially into rooms of the opposite gender). This was, as my past principle and other authoritative figures that once would discipline me for wandering school halls, quite ironic. To think that I, once the most infamous rule-bender in the entire school, could now be called upon to help enforce the rules made me laugh in my heart throughout the entire trip.

I was, however, also very flattered. Its the classic "bad guy gone good" story, but very watered down and "Disney-fied", if you will. They knew that I knew the rules, because in order to be the master of loopholes, you have to know where they are. In fact, I had taught most of the kids on the trip the tricks that they had tried to use on me. It's a good feeling. To be called upon for what you were once frowned upon for.

As you may have guessed, I let the power go to my head. Why shouldn't I have? It was a weekend deal. Every once in a while, it's good to let yourself be the king of the world. The entire trip was very relaxed, because I was there, and having no children or really any paycheck on the line, I could interact with the kids in a way that a parent or teacher could. I would joke and talk with them on an almost equal level, while maintaining the respect of someone who had a semblance of authority.

So, in a nutshell: Fun trip. Fun people. Funny play. Good boost to self-confidence.

Surprise Me.

If there is one thing I enjoy being, it is being surprised. Not in the cheesy "Happy Birthday! We all hid in your house for several hours while you were out!". No that's way too creepy/predictable. Most surprises are predictable, which by definition, I'm pretty sure, makes it anything but a surprise. No, I like little surprises that come out of the blue. I like eating somewhere and the sauce being different than the last time I had it. Good or bad, its a change from what I was fully expecting. Let's face it, I don't fully inspect a plate of spaghetti before I take a bite, and I'm not going to be readily suspicious of the recipe being changed every time I eat there. That is, unless it is a fast food restaurant, in which case I'm sure I would be painfully aware of exactly how many changes they've made due the the signs everywhere and the employees telling me between every other sentence.

This is off track, though. The point is, I enjoy the little things like that, or someone just randomly telling you some part of their past that you may not have expected them to tell you, or finding some childhood memory buried deep in the closet under all of the discarded halloween costume accessories. The subtle variations that make one day discernible from the last are the things that keep me running on fumes while college is in motion.

Incredibly Angry

I am furious right now. I missed the holiday that I most looked forward to for almost 5 months now. You see, in March, there are a number of holidays I partake in during my Birthday Week.

Starting on the 11th, my birthday, I prepare myself for the plethora of celebratory days that stretch out to end on the 17th, which is of course, St. Patrick's Day. First, my birthday. it should be pretty self explanatory how I celebrate that. I'm a 20 year old human male, so I obviously spent it taking pictures at a park thinking "Wow. Two Decades." Had I been turning anywhere from 1-18, odds are higher that a party would have been involved.

The 12th is what I have dubbed "Late Day". Where I sit and watch the television or play video games while answering the door for any of the birthday gifts that may have arrived late. This holiday may extend to very well into the month, in fact this year it extends to the 26th, but it is not an active celebration, so much as it is an observational holiday.

The 13th is simply celebrated because I like the number 13. Now, it's not some "rebellious thing" or a "I want to be called odd" thing. No, as a young rapscallion, I heard people always saying it was the worst number, and having been raised to be nice to the kids who were picked on, I elected to take up 13 as my favourite number. It actually comes up a lot more in my life than most would believe, as well. It has served me just as well as anyone else's lucky number might, and this is the day to try to spot as many 13's as possible.

The 14th is Pi/Pie day! The one I missed! I wanted to eat 3.14 Pies! I would have asked for help, but I wanted at least that many flavours! Yes, I know that doesn't mathematically make sense!

The 15th is The Ides of March. A day to: Talk like a Roman, reflect on the past years, and beware. A simple enough day.

The 16th is "Everything You Do Is Right Day" (Seriously, look it up). Now, this doesn't mean that no matter what you choose to do is morally right. No this is more of a "Everything You Set Out To Accomplish Turns Out To End Up Being A Pretty Worthwhile Investment Of Your Time"... Day. I use it as the day to go find something to buy with birthday money, and not feel any buyers remorse for it. EVER!

The 17th is, of course, St. Patrick's Day. You might be thinking, "A day for drinking!" but you're WRONG! ... Well, you're right in a way, but thats not how I celebrate it. No, I just like the colour green and Irish culture. I use the day to go to all the usually crowded places that I like to go that are now NOT crowded because a good portion of america is elsewhere.

Thats my birthday week. I don't make a big deal out of any except the first and last. I may invite a few others to celebrate the ones in between with me, but usually passive holidays are not as interesting to others as they are to me.

People-Watching

I'm much more than certain that most everyone is a "people-watcher", even if they haven't heard the phrase before. If you haven't, it means that you look at people as they pass you by, and you come up with this pre-conceived notion of who they are. It's not really a judgement so much as it is a hypothesis. You can't really stop yourself from doing it, because it's perfectly human to crave some explanation for everything you see. Luckily for us, we can usually satisfy our hunger for such knowledge by simply forming our own opinions. 

I think this is both advantageous and disadvantageous at the same time. Disadvantageous for the obvious reasons of sometimes leading to a completely wrong impression of a person, and it is one of the major factors contributing to the creation of "cliques". However, I personally enjoy it when someone who I don't know at all tells me what they think of me. Not when they are just angry at me, or even happy with me, because then they are just trying to put me down of lift me up, respectively.

No, I enjoy it when someone I have had absolutely minimal interaction with (both direct and indirect) tells me what their first impression of me is. It lets me know what the general impression of me is, among strangers. They tell me with all honesty what they thought about me, with no fear of repercussion, because I can't fault them for being wrong. They were simply basing their thoughts on what they saw. If what they say is contradictory to the way I would like to be seen, it makes me more aware of what actions I could do less or more of in order to seem more amicable to the people around me.

Self-Acceptance Speech

Its kind of weird to constantly find out who you are over and over again all throughout your life. You'd think it would only take one large leap of self-awareness to know everything about yourself, but after thinking about it... that's pretty unrealistic. I think it's natural to have just as much trouble getting to know yourself as it is getting to know anyone else. If you think about it, how many things do you know in all certainty about yourself unless you ask yourself, in all truth, to answer your own questions. It doesn't even have to be anything big. Lets have an example:

For once and for all, do you prefer vanilla or chocolate ice cream?

Its a simple question, but really, do you know? Have you tried both with a multitude of options? That is the sole reason I side with vanilla: Options. At any respectable ice cream selling establishment, they are going to have chocolate syrup, but chances are, they will not have any equal vanilla topping. Plus, lets face it, vanilla ice cream is the only delicious vanilla treat I enjoy thoroughly. Everything else is "white chocolate", which isn't even REALLY chocolate. ... But I digress.

The point is you don't really go through life and ask yourself a question that raises the your awareness of who you are. I don't either, so don't worry I'm not saying I'm better than you. I'm saying that it might be interesting if you tried it. Ask yourself something and put some thought into answering it. Don't over think it, but don't worry about hesitating on the answer. There's a fine balance that most people ignore. They'll tell you to not hesitate at all and go with the first thing that pops in your head, but that leads to correcting yourself later. On the other hand, thinking about it too much goes beyond second guessing and moves on to third and fourth guessing. Just balance it. Ask yourself a question, start out easy, and answer it.

It may even be fun to have someone else ask you the questions. That way, you and a friend, or soon to be friend, get to know the real you.

I think I'm going to try to go 365 days asking myself a question every day. It may be simple and it may be deep. But every day I'll try to find something out about me. If I know me better, than I can be me better.

Private Jet Plane

It sure would be cool to have one.