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.