Christmas Break and Christmas Miracle

Last year everyone was home for Christmas. This year we're missing my brother who is in Thailand. Now I kind of know what everyone must have felt like when I was gone. Next year I'll most likely be the only son home and I'm not sure how I feel about it. It will be nice to get the bottom bunk, but it'll be super quiet and estrogen dominated, definitely weird.

Last year for Christmas my brother came home from college and listened to one song the whole time he was home over and over, Hey Soul Sister by Train. This year in order to keep him in our hearts and minds I decided to one up him and get multiple songs stuck in my families heads. So far so good. They all have at least two songs stuck in there heads and I still have over a week before I go back to school.

On Christmas Eve I got an envelope from the BYU Visual Arts Department. It had two letters inside of it. The one saying that I was not accepted into the Graphic Design program and the other saying I was not accepted into the Illustration program. After getting the letters I was kind of bummed even though I kind of was expecting it. I texted my friends and told them the news and that was that. At about ten that night we were getting ready to Skype with my brother and I checked my e-mail and saw that I had received an e-mail from Richard Hull, the Illustration Department head at BYU. In his e-mail he told me that the Illustration program had accepted twenty students into their program and I was number twenty one (that would have been a pretty sucky e-mail had he ended it there) and then he went on to inform me that someone else who had been accepted into the program decided to go another direction making me number twenty. So I got into the Illustration program and will start classes this January. Probably the best Christmas present I received this year.

I'm very optimistic as far as life this coming semester goes.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Chances

Statistical Analysis.

But who knows... there are factors missing from Mr. Miller's studies... like luck and coincidence... and that's what I'm banking on.

Mustache: Attempt Two

Attempt two started around when the MLB playoffs started, so the beginning of October, and ended the day after my intramural soccer team lost, so Friday, December 3rd in the afternoon before I went to work. So, about two full months of growth. There were a bunch of reasons I did it, well the list of reasons I did it grew as I did it, but here are just a few and I'm not going to number them because no one was more important than any other or at least I don't want you to know that any one reason was more important than any other. Reasons: because I can, to show girlfriend that she had no control over me(relationship ended shortly after by me), so that I would never have to grow one again, all great men have or have had or can grow mustaches(general I know, but true), as a social experiment(more to come on this), I assumed it had some associated magical powers that I wanted to find out about, less to shave, it made me look older and classier according to two people and for fun.


















Why was growing a mustache a social experiment? I think by growing a mustache I was able to separate superficiality and realness in others. Superficial girls are disgusted by mustaches and they're mean about it. By having a mustache I think I separated the people who liked me for me from the people who liked me for the way I looked when I didn't have a mustache. My Mom told me there are girls who just don't like mustaches and she's probably right, but girls with hearts will tell you that after you shave it off or really nicely when you have it. OK, so growing a mustache isn't exactly a social experiment like a girl shaving her head, but don't tell that to the three people that I've convinced to grow mustaches by using that as a reason. Despite what my Mom said I still think it was a social experiment and plus my Mom just wants grandchildren so she would say that.

So my mustache isn't the thickest and it wasn't very dark until I dyed it with some Just for Men beard and mustache dye that I found in my grandparent's basement that probably belonged to my uncle and that I should have used twice, but I was satisfied and I had also ran out of excuses to keep growing it despite not really needing excuses. I just kept telling people I was going to shave it when this or that happened and eventually it caught up to me. I learned a lot about myself and my mustache growing ability, so all in all, it was a good experience.

I'm going to tentatively say that there will never be a Mustache: Attempt Three...

Emotionally Conflicted, C.S. Lewis and My Brother

I always want to do what's best and sometimes that is hard. Actually it's hard more than just sometimes. It's especially hard in some cases.

Is giving up something good, for the prospect of something better logical? It's already hard to give up things that are good, but what about when what you really want is a potential crapshoot, even if it is better.

Then what seems to be better seemingly slips away and you don't know if that's what you really want anymore, but something else catches your eye. Is it better? Only time will tell.

C.S. Lewis
"Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of - throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself."

This is a painting I did of my brother. He's in Thailand and I miss him.

Mustache: Attempt One

After five or six weeks this is all I had and then I went home and my parents told me I had to shave before church and then after I shaved they told me that they were only kidding and so ended attempt number one.




















But stay tuned for attempt number two which is already in the making as of last week.

I caught ADD: If you're not happy feel free to move

Earlier this year I think I caught ADD from someone. Yeah that's right I caught it like it's a cold. It's hard to pay attention in class sometimes, but it's especially hard in Doctrine and Covenants. I don't think it's the teacher's fault, it's just hard to listen to him when you're in good company. Krista, Bill and I (and sometimes Bill's friend) end up chatting, doing crosswords or ken ken, or playing Boggle on Bill's friend's phone for most of class. We all got a little nervous last week for our first exam figuring our lack of listening might hurt us, but after taking it and all getting A's we discovered that you can get an A without paying attention. This was good news for us, but apparently bad news for everyone around us who may not have gotten such good grades or just want to pay attention. I think just in the last week or so maybe two people have gotten up and moved away from us. Tuesday was no different. We found three seats together, got out our materials and then talked for just about the rest of the class and I managed to finish a ken ken as well. The girl to our left was obviously irked probably from the very beginning. She had two empty seats to her left, but what ensued amazed us. She made attempts to show us her annoyance and flashed furtive looks in our direction often. She leaned in her seat to the left a bit and you could tell she was fighting within herself as to whether to move or not. She probably thought it would be disruptive to the class or rude to us, but we wouldn't have minded one bit. She moved her back pack from the right side of her feet to the left and lifted the desk part connected to the arm rest of the chair numerous times, but never got up. What ended up happening was freaking ridiculous. She leaned her body as far to the left as she possibly could and just stayed in her seat in a seemingly very uncomfortable position for the rest of class. See for yourself.

Things that happen in basements!

This one time I went over to my friends house for his birthday party. I swam in the pool a lot, but the real party was happening downstairs. They had some funky tunes playing and when I descended the wooden staircase it kind of looked like a smaller version of a high school dance, rabbit farm. Bumping and grinding like it was nobodies business.

One of my good friends has a ping pong table downstairs along with a TV and XBOX. We would play one on one halo a lot. We especially liked the one level with the two sides separated by space with snipers. We would try to jump from one side to the other, but you can't do it. We would also play welts. It's where you play ping pong to a certain score then the loser would have to put his back up to the table and then pull his shirt up and the winner would hit the ball at the loser as hard as he could and it would make a welt, thus the game named welts. Haha in the same basement we had a large sleepover. Dom who was a freaking beast of a man took a shower while we were there and then came down with just a towel on and then he walked in front of us and dropped his towel. We all screamed until we discover he had underwear on under the towel and then we wiped our brows with relief. Dom also told us about when he has to poop at school he squats to avoid touching the toilet seat. Probably part of the reason his thighs were so freaking muscular.

One time in LJ's basement, LJ, Bill, Geoffrey and I all squished onto a couch and watched a movie. A couple of us were sick so there were tissues all over the floor. We all ended up falling asleep on the same couch together. Aunt Keala woke us up in the morning and she was pretty confused as to our positioning on the couch and the plethora of tissues. One time we put shaving cream down this one kids pants, well I didn't do it the older kids did, but he cried. Haha so many fond memories in that basement.

New Apartment

The sound my old bathroom fan used to make.



The sound my new bathroom fan makes.

Nipple Chafing

NOT A MYTH! I saw it's effects first hand when I went and watched Claire run her marathon.

Let's first read one man's experience:

"Whenever I go out for a run longer than 45 minutes and I don't protect my nipples I know I am in for trouble. First time this happened to me I was quite shocked. During my long run in the dark I felt my nipples starting to hurt. A stinging sensation. Not much to do about it when you are running! I ended up holding my shirt the last twenty minutes so that it didn't come into contact with my nipples anymore. When I got home I got a good look at my shirt and was shocked to see part of it was covered in blood. My nipples were bleeding. That was my first and painful experience with nipple chafing while running. Afterwards I haven't had the experience many more times, because I took protective measures."

Now lets explore more about this:

Nipple chafing is the result of friction between your chest and your shirt. It mostly effects men and only some of them. "Treat your bleeding nipples like a normal open wound. So wash them with water. Then clean them with an antiseptic and then cover them with a sterile gauze pad. Protect your nipples the next times you go running, because I can tell you that they stay tender for a very long time. The chances of them getting chafed again are quite high!"

So how can you protect you nipples?

1. Use bandaids, but there are some cons to using bandaids namely it doesn't stick to chest hair very well, when you sweat it can fall off and you can be a manly man, but it's going to hurt to take off.

2. Use cream, but if you're going on runs longer than an hour you might have to take it with you because after a while the effects wear off.













3. Use nipguards! Click here for more information about nipguards!













You're probably wondering if I have had any experience with nipple chafing. All I can say is wear a water shirt when boogie boarding. This may be able to prevent rashes and nipple chafing. When running you can probably prevent nipple chafing by going shirtless like Matt Brigham sometimes does.

Electric Boogaloo

So around my freshman year of high school I got really into this TV show called Dance 360. It was hosted by Fredo Starr and Kel Mitchell with DJ K-Sly providing the beats for the dancers. They would pick six dancers out of the audience and then have them dance off. Until there were two left and eventually one. The winner would win $360 and an X-Box haha and sometimes even a cell phone from Boost Mobile. As you can tell from the incredible prizes this show was legit. The show was noted for its famous slogans: "Yo, Fredro, where you at?!", "Three six oooh", "Tag Your Man!*" and "Head To Head!". Here's a clip from one of my favorite episodes.



After I got hooked on this show I started looking up videos of people dancing on-line and discover my favorite styles, which are popping and electric boogaloo. I discovered the different nuances in the dancing world like dance crews and I would even do some dancing of my own, by myself and when no one else was watching. Sometimes I would give people a little taste at dances, but they were very small tastes. I am proud to say that I still dance by myself when no one is watching and maybe one day I will unleash.

Here's some examples of popping, electric boogaloo and some other awesome dancing from the best in the world. You might think it's weird and yeha some of it is weird, but it's also incredible that someone can do that with their body.



This last video is pretty long so I don't expect you to watch the whole thing, but when I watch it I'm not completely sure whether this man is human at all.



So yeah another one of my crazy hobbies. Let's groove tonight.

This Is The Place

One fine Spring night I was chatting with a friend past midnight outside of my apartment door and she had to go to the bathroom. She could have run all the way to her own apartment down the hall and around the corner, but why do that when there is a perfectly fine piece of land right outside. She thought about it and after very few words of encouragement and after she told me a story about how she went to the father and sons camp-out until she was twelve and would refuse to use the out-house, she relieved herself and she brought new life to that piece of land. I probably should have taken more pictures because she was maybe twenty-five feet from the road, a road that isn't empty at midnight in a college town, but nonetheless this is the place.
























This same girl once told me that one of our friends had gone into labor a month before the baby was actually due. Then the next day after I had prayed for this girl who had supposedly gone into labor she told me that she had lied.

This same girl ran a marathon and as she ran she listened to pod-casts about people suffering just so she wouldn't feel so bad about running. There was also plenty of nipple chaffing that we saw when we went to see her cross the finish line, blood running down mens sweaty shirts just like Andy on that one episode of The Office. Kind of gross, you'd think they would have prepared for something like that.

She also scored a goal from past midfield that helped our intramural team beat the Mexicans. And now she can be satisfied that I have finally written this post.

Cancer Shmancer

I'm all for helping those who are suffering from cancer. I've even had some relatives who are cancer survivors. It's going to be huge when they discover a cure. I just think those who are going to create foundations to help raise money should think of better names for their foundations than Cancer Shmancer. Last night I saw a commercial for Cancer Shmancer and I even youtubed a couple public announcements for it and not one time did they say "Cancer Shmancer" out loud. Why? Because it's a ridiculous name. Especially when this is the meaning of shmancer according to urbandictionary.com.

1.	shmancer
	Fake or fabricated cancer symptoms. Example: Sarah used shmancer to get out of losing her job and to raise money through a fake fundraiser.

I'm not discouraging you from helping out this foundation or any other foundation for that matter because that would be inhumane and terrible. You should help! Even if your help is in the form of a prayer. Every little bit counts. I salute Fran Drescher in her movement I just think the Fran Drescher Cancer Foundation would have worked just fine.

Inappropriate Pasta

My friend went to Italy. Italy is known for its pasta. So of course pasta is the best souvenir your friend can get you from Italy. Or is it?

Today was a good day!

Spain beat Germany today to go to their first World Cup Final ever so I'm pretty pumped about that and also I beat my fastest time in Minesweeper on the expert one. 100 seconds!

WORLD CUP!

No words can describe my excitement for this years World Cup. It started a couple of days ago, but there's still twenty plus days left and fifty plus games to still be played so here are my thoughts and predictions on this years World Cup.

Player to watch: Lionel Messi

Making defenders cry because of how freaking good he is. Check out this goal and then check out the face of the defender (0:31) who lost his jockstrap trying to defend it.



This past season Messi received the FIFA World Player of the Year award beating out Christiano Ronaldo. Messi is currently considered the best player in the World and scored forty seven goals this past season to prove it. Messi has impressed for years at Barcelona, but has yet to transfer his amazing club form in national team appearances so that's what he'll be looking to do at this years World Cup. After seeing Argentina's first game this morning I don't think he's going to let us down. No goals yet, but they'll come.

Teams to watch: Spain, The Netherlands, Argentina and Brazil

Spain are favorites to win and any team with Xavi and Iniesta and Fabregas running the midfield very well could win. In fact any team that even had one of them would increase their chances of winning ten fold and Spain has all three. With Fernando Torres returning to full health and joining David Villa up top, the most potent strike partnership in the World is again at large. With the likes of Puyol, Pique and Ramos on defense they've got quite a team, not to mention their back-up goalies would be starting on just about any other team in the tournament. So mark your calendars for their opener on June 16th and watch them take Switzerland for a ride.

The Netherlands are sneaking under a lot of people's radars. It's true I could only give you the name of one or maybe two of their defenders, but I think their offense will make up for there defenders lack of prominence. It's unfortunate that Arjen Robben will miss their first game due to injury, but hopefully he will be ready for the second. With Wesley Sneijder, Rafael Van der Vaart and Mark Van Bommel in midfield and Robin Van Persie and Dirk Kuyt up top they've still got enough talent to get out of their group, but without Robben at 100% their chances are slim of getting to much further than that.

Argentina. We already discussed Messi who could very well win the tournament for Argentina on his own, but it's probably comforting for Maradona and all of Argentina knowing that Carlos Tevez, Gonzalo Higuain, Diego Milito and Sergio Aguero are your other strikers.

Brazil is always in the mix, but I don't really want to talk about them. I lost respect for them the second Ronaldinho wasn't included in the squad. Keep your eyes on Kaka and Robinho. Joga bonito is dead in Brazil, but juega bonito is living on is Spain. If they win this year it won't be because of beautiful play.

USA Predictions

We tied England today. We should make it out of our group. I don't have too many expectations other than getting out of our group, but it would be awesome if we got further than that.

Thank you Robert Green!

Movies

The only movie I've ever cried during.





















A must see.

Living Alone

When you live alone things change. Once your roommates move out you are separated from both your best friends and that one roommate who is really into Freshman girls and you can't stand listening to for extended periods of time. You think to yourself this can't be all that bad because at last he's gone, but at the same time there's a small part of you that wishes you had gone home for the summer. So here are the pros and cons of my current alone situation:

Pro: I have a TV now
Con: I don't have cable on my TV or an Xbox
Pro: I don't have to close the bathroom door when using the bathroom
Pro: I can walk around in any stage of being dressed or undressed
Pro: I've gotten to know some people better
Con: I've gotten to know some people better
Pro: I play more soccer
Pro I have a bicycle now
Con: I don't have a car
Con: It was a lot harder to find a job than I thought
Pro: I don't have school on Fridays
Con: I'm in class more hours this semester than last semester
Pro: I made a blog
Con: I have to think about things to blog about
Pro: I shaved three seconds off my minesweeper best time
Pro: Friends

Emma Watson

In the year of our Lord two thousand and one my life changed forever. A year when George Bush succeeded Bill Clinton as President and nearly three thousand people died in the terrorist attacks on 9/11. After what some people may call a catastrophe and an actual catastrophe a ray of hope shone through the darkness. On November 16, Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone was released and a new star was born: Emma Watson.











I think it's appropriate to say that when I was thirteen I had my first love, there was nobody that compared to my baby and nobody came between us, no-one could ever come above. My friends and I were some of the first to realize her then clandestine beauty and we were mocked for it. It's hard to point out a time when "I told you so" would have first been appropriate. Maybe in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire when she came down the steps to go to the Yule Ball and I submit that it could have even been before that. I now believe an apology is in order because just saying "I told you so" sometimes isn't satisfying enough.

My Pet Peeves

I hope these things aren't just things that bother me, but I guess this is just a list of my pet peeves and not a list of general pet peeves, so they very well could be things that just bother me. Generalities I find have very little importance. They may have importance in some experiments or questionnaires, but when something can be connected to someone you know or to yourself, it gives that something real meaning, meaning it didn't have before because it wasn't personalized. So maybe these are some of your pet peeves and maybe they're not, but either way they have meaning, whether they already did before I don't know, but they will.

Cutting fingernails or toenails somewhere where they shouldn't be cut, like church (and not just because it's loud) or anywhere where there isn't a trash can, sink, toilet or the outdoors. There is nothing worse than just finding a fingernail or toenail somewhere. Stepping on them when you're barefoot is even worse.

When you make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich or just a peanut butter sandwich (just peanut butter sandwiches are also a pet peeve of mine and not just because they mess up the pb&j acronym) don't leave any peanut butter on the knife. It is both a waste of peanut butter and a pain in the butt to clean, even for the dish washing machine. I could use a knife to put peanut butter on a piece of bread and when I'm done, the knife could be put back into the drawer. I don't do that, but just saying I've thought about it before. All you have to do is use the side of the jar and the other piece of bread.

Ok so this next one I think is a general pet peeve. Hair. Hair everywhere. Hair when it's not on your head or body is nasty. Hair in the sink, hair in the drain, or hair that somehow finds its way onto your clothes despite it not being your hair. Then you pull it off your clothes and drop it onto the ground, but your clothes have some sort of static cling so it somehow ends up back on you. Since this is a more common pet peeve I think that will suffice as far as an explanation goes.

Ball hogs. Just pass the ball for goodness sake. It doesn't matter what sport, nobody likes a ball hog. You might be good, but unless the game is really important help everyone have fun. Also if you're not getting paid it's probably not that important. Go play golf or some other one man sport.

Don't be a poser. I think we've all been posers before, yes, even I have, but thinking back that was stupid I should have been comfortable with who I was. So be yourself because if you're not being yourself then your my pet peeve.

I'm running out of pet peeves. I'm sure I have more, but I can't think of anymore right now so I guess I'll just add them when they come to me. Also I hope no one thinks that I'm trying to send a message to someone who did one of these things and thus bothered me.

Inamorata

What my mom wants more than anything else: My happiness.

What my mom wants more than more than anything else: Grandchildren.

There's no pressure like the pressure from a loved one.

Happy Mother's Day Mom, moms and future mothers!

The right way to use the toilet.

Just in case you were wondering.

Fortitude

I wish I was Nigerian, but more importantly in this case I wish I had the fortitude to dance shirtless. Oh wait, I just remembered this one time where I lost in a game of dare poker and danced on a picnic table in my boxers for five minutes (that's a long time and it's even longer when you have to do something embarrassing for the duration). When I had the idea for this blog which was seconds after seeing this video I did not once think about my dancing shirtless and not just shirtless, but wearing only boxers, on a picnic table at scout camp, but as soon as I started writing "fortitude to dance shirtless" I remembered I do have the fortitude... or I did have the fortitude, but now I lack it. I'm just glad that no one was there to video it and put it on youtube because who knows how many millions of views it would have. You may be thinking to yourself, "really, millions of views? really?," and I submit yes millions because I looked more like the kid on the right than the kid on the left. Moral of the story never come in last when playing dare poker or just never play. Also being forced to do stuff gives you fortitude to do things you would never do otherwise.

Mad Libs

I don't think anyone cannot like Mad Libs. It is one of America's favorite pastimes (this would explain why the Asian dude sitting next to Claire in the library had no idea what a Mad Lib was and was no help whatsoever getting this blog posted quicker, but it doesn't explain why Asians are so good at baseball). Last night I was reading in my journal and I came across a fantastic day in my own history, so fantastic that I cannot tell you about it, but I thought to myself what if it was a Mad Lib. You're all probably now wondering what transpired on this day so I'm going to create a Mad Lib of sorts, but all I'm going to give you are the words that would fill in the blanks (both words and phrases right out of my journal) then you can create the story of what you think happened.

stomach
crazy
nothing I could do to stop it
slight dilemma
towel
rushed
explosion
helpless
forced
guy wandering
quickly
better off
burning
frustrated
made fun of
cleaned up
I thought I was safe

Use your imaginations...