What's there to be excited about?

John Green's Vlogbrothers video from yesterday was a Question Tuesday. One of the final questions was, "What are you most excited about?" And John really took that question to heart and said something about how he should ask himself that every day. Then John said he wanted us to leave in the comments what we're most excited about.

And I sat at my computer for probably five or more minutes trying to figure out what I'm excited about. I had no idea. What am I excited about? I didn't think it would be that difficult to come up with one thing. I don't think I could've come up with more than one thing without spending a ridiculous amount of time brainstorming, either. (I finally came up with starting the Doug Dorst & JJ Abrams book "S" yesterday afternoon. It's super neat.) It really was in that moment that I realized I'm not excited about things lately. 

Last night Alex Carpenter posted this on his Tumblr: 

I can’t remember the last time I talked to someone who was really happy. And that scares the crap out of me. I hope that things are better for everyone soon.

It's not that I'm unhappy, but like Alex I wouldn't say that I'm "really happy," nor do I know anyone who would call themselves "really happy." I'm pretty much just content; I'm satisfied; I'm a normal amount of happy. But after that post and John's video, I started asking myself why I'm not excited about things.

The answer is I don't know. I think some of the reason is I don't have huge things happening in my life. I've graduated and I have income and I spend lots of time doing relaxing things that I love, like reading books and watching YouTube. But that shouldn't mean I can't be excited about things! My life might be pretty uneventful now, but I should still be excited about the small things. I think it's totally fine to not be excited all the time; there's a lot to be said for being sad some times. It's important that we acknowledge when sad things happen and, you know, be sad. There's nothing wrong with that. 

When it takes me five minutes to figure out one small thing I'm excited about, though? I'd rather not be like that.

So I'm taking the time right now to legitimately think of things I should be excited about that I've maybe been indifferent about or just not even thought of.

• Tomorrow I'll probably go bowling. Last semester I bowled three or more times a week, at least two games every time I went. This year I only go about once a week so it's a real treat. I'm still looking to break 200, which is something I'll be stoked out of my mind about when it happens.
• By the end of the year there's a good chance I won't live in Provo anymore. It's possible that by the end of the summer I'll have moved somewhere else. I've been here five years so going to a new place is going to be, well, awesome.
• I've designed a lot of new posters in the past week. Also related to design is the fact that I was introduced to a new website to find fonts.
• Some time this spring I'll be going back to New York. To visit, I mean. Not to live. (At least I don't think I'll move back there.) There are some days I miss that city immensely. I left a piece of myself there, a lot of pieces probably. I'm scattered all over New York: I-House and the 125th St. subway stop, the Chipotle near Columbia, the Thai place Kelly and I went to nearly every Friday, Coney Island and the ocean, Metrotech in Brooklyn, the Met, various parts of Central Park but especially on the peninsula by the fountain and the lake, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Highline, in the theater where I saw Arthur Darvill in "Once," the tiny theater where I saw Cameron just days after getting to New York. Saying I'm excited to go back is an understatement.
• ShayCarl and his family just finished five years of daily vlogging. That's a momentous thing and I've been watching since October or November of 2009.
• I've worn my Chacos more times this winter than I ever thought I would. It's been in the 50s most days for the entirety of February and March. Plus, I got to wear them all over St. George when I went in January.
• March Madness will start next week. So much basketball.
• I started listening to Rhett and Link's podcast "Ear Biscuits" and it's amazing. They basically just have hour-long conversations with YouTubers except they're way more in-depth and get down to who these YouTubers are beyond video/content creators. So far I've listened to the one where they interview Grace Helbig and I'm part way through the second part of ShayCarl's episode. I just really love YouTube, okay?
• For my birthday I got a nice Moleskine notebook I've been using to start doing typography sketching and stuff like that. It's really fun and really relaxing to write out and design quotes, words, etc. Some of it totally sucks but other sketches I'm actually quite proud of.

Having written all that out, I can honestly say that I feel better about myself and my life. I feel genuinely happier acknowledging all this cool stuff that's going on or will be going on even in the coming months. It's weird how that works, eh? Really taking the time to think about the good things in my life not only makes me more grateful for them but also makes me excited to do more awesome things that will make me happier. It's not like I didn't already know that, that taking the time to be grateful is good for you, but it's important that we always remind ourselves of that. The phrase "happiness is a choice" comes to mind. It's a concept I've come to know and love.

But if you are always striving to choose happiness, and everyday you wake up and you say to yourself, “You know what, I am going to choose to not let the outside influences of the world affect my mood, and I am going to be in charge of how I feel because I am choosing happiness," I promise you that you will lead a lot happier life.

That's from, of course, ShayCarl. And he's so right.

Four books

(I've been writing this post since the middle of November. Yikes.)

This might be the hardest question of them all. I love books. A lot. I think we'll just switch this to three authors and one genre. That's fair, right?

John Green
I have quoted this man a countless number of times. I can guarantee that each and every one of you reading this either read something I wrote that quotes John or heard me quote him in real life. John's books include Looking for Alaska, An Abundance of Katherines, a short story in Let It Snow, Will Grayson, Will Grayson, Paper Towns and The Fault In Our Stars. Though he seems to deny it every chance he gets, John is possibly the best young adult author out there. And while he writes for "young adults," all of his books are worth reading even if you're a "real" adult. John's eloquence never ceases to amaze me. Also, I met him once. It was great.

Jo Rowling
Harry Potter has affected my life in incredibly profound and often inexplicable ways. The first time I read a Harry Potter book was in 1999. I was 8 years old. I've never looked back since. Harry Potter is kind of a huge deal in my life and to some extent probably always will be. I definitely have some weird, evangelical zeal when it comes to Harry Potter. My Hogwarts house of Gryffindor plays an integral role in explaining parts of my personality. When people ask me to share facts about myself, something Harry Potter related comes to my mind every time.

Anthony Horowitz
When I was in, I believe, 7th grade, I started reading the Alex Rider series. They're about a teenage spy, basically a young James Bond. I've been hooked ever since that time; the final book in the series came out March 2011. Besides Harry Potter, these are the books that have taken up the most time in my life; mostly because I started reading them when I was about 12.

Autobiographies of tennis players
So in 7th grade, I really started to love tennis. It was some time in high school that I started reading autobiographies of tennis players, though. I own the autobiographies of John McEnroe, Arthur Ashe and James Blake and have read each of them multiple times. Tennis players are seriously fascinating people; there's something really different and special about them.

---

As the semester really winds down, I find myself in an interesting position of balancing fun and studying. It's not terribly difficult but does take some talent. I don't ever put off studying to have fun but I sure do try to pack in as much fun stuff as possible before going home for Christmas. You come to miss your college friends so much while you're away so seeing them as often as possible in the week leading up to break is the best kind of challenge. Luckily, Becca, Ryan and myself have decided to have an epic Google Hangout session some time over break. The Internet sure makes life awesome.

Just last night I bought my ticket to see The Hobbit at midnight with a bunch of my lovely friends. Back in October my plan was to fly home in time to see it with Megan and Maddie, but then my friend Amber got engaged and there was no way I'd miss her reception so I'm sticking around until Saturday. Back to the movie, though: I work at 8 am on Friday morning. It's going to be quite the experience, seeing the movie at midnight, getting home probably around 4 and then having to get up for work just a few hours later. And I will not regret a single minute of that time.

Last YouTube video I watched: Imagine Dragons - Radioactive

Oh, and Imagine Dragons is playing in SLC on March 22 and I am so utterly stoked already and it's more than three months away still. It'll have been just over a year since I last saw them. A year is far too long without seeing that wonderful band live.

Pretzels and cream soda

Yes, I realize I already blogged today but I just experienced something crazy.

I remembered that in the refrigerator remained a single bottle of Sprecher Cream Soda. Usually smells bring people back to a certain time, a certain place. Tonight it was the taste of that cream soda. It tastes like home. The moment I took a sip out of that dark amber bottle, I tasted home. It sounds so weird to say but it's the only way to explain it. (The pretzels I'm eating are only there to be a salty foil to the sweetness of the soda.)

The way we as people relate tastes and smells and how things feel, as in physically feel to the touch, to other places and things . . . It's pretty phenomenal. As I drank this gorgeous amber beverage I couldn't help but marvel at how incredible it is that our minds make such connections day after day and that often we don't even realize it. Human consciousness is remarkable.

Don't jump to any conclusions: basically the last thing I am right now is homesick. Being back in Utah is fantastic and it will only continue to get better, or so I hope/plan. Life may not be perfect but it is better than okay.

As I typed the word "soda" a bunch of different times in this post I remembered a quick conversation Jordan and I had at Ikea last week. I can't quite remember why I said the word "soda" at all but Jordan was very quick to point out how Midwestern/Canadian I sounded what with the whole "really long vowel thing" I often have going on when I speak. If I ever lose that quirk to my speech, I'll be a very unhappy camper.

So I've mentioned The Fault In Our Stars a bunch of times over the past two days and here I go again: Kate is reading it currently! She's two chapters in and liking it very much. She said it pulled her in right away which is always a good thing. It's very different from An Abundance of Katherines, which is the only other John Green book she's read, but that's okay. Katherines is totally a funny and witty and much less serious than TFiOS. Hopefully Kate likes it all the way through! (I think the last time I talked about Katherines was this post . . . Oh boy.)

Last YouTube video I watched: Greg Holden - Home (Live) (Most of you will hear this song and think of that Phillip Phillips guy from American Idol, or I guess of the US women's gymnastics team. And yeah, he sings this song. But Greg is the guy who wrote it! How crazy awesome is that?! I also happen to love Greg's version a million times more. Maybe I'm biased but that's how it goes when one of the guys is a YouTube love and the other guy won American Idol.)

This is me

Since I got my orange laptop cover at Christmas, it's been my goal to make it look as me as possible. Thus far I seem to be succeeding.

As if a ridiculously orange cover wasn't me enough . . . It's a somewhat eclectic mix, one that I love quite a bit. Whenever I get new stickers, as I did yesterday, I get more excited than I probably should. Yesterday's additions include Rodeo Arcade & Maker.

By far the all-time favorite sticker though is my media pass from the Real Salt Lake home opener earlier this year. One other person on campus has one of those; her name is Taylor and we're journalism BFFs so we covered the game together. The day we went to that game was the day I finally knew without a shadow of a doubt that I wanted to write sports.

Every sticker on here means something to me and represents a little of who I am. Well, except for the random green one. I don't know where I found it even but I thought it looked cool. It's by no means a comprehensive representation of who I am but I like to think people can look at it and learn at least a little bit about my personality. Hopefully they wouldn't think that's all I am, though. When people fail to imagine each other complexly we get into all kinds of trouble.

As I mentioned yesterday I did indeed spend my evening reading The Fault In Our Stars. I read it all. Cover to cover. It was wonderful. I forgot how intense and thought-provoking it was. Though I knew exactly what was going to happen, some of it felt as raw and intriguing as the first time I read it back in January. My favorite part of reading again was probably annotating. I have this weird aversion to writing in books so I use Post-It notes instead. It was probably more brilliant this time around than it was before.

It probably makes things a little inconvenient for others if they borrow my books but such is life.

Last YouTube video I watched: On Leaving [I strongly encourage you watch this video. It's especially worth your time]

Meh

Today was not wonderful, nor was it terrible. It kind of just was, if that makes sense.

This morning I had orientation for my new job. It's going to be an interesting and busy semester, that's for sure, but I'm excited nonetheless.

The most exciting part of the day, by far, was checking the mail. I got two packages. One was from Amazon, a book for a class. The other was my ShayCarl Volcom tee. I found a way to get it 50% off so I really could not resist. They also stuffed two stickers in the envelope so now my laptop case has some new decoration; I couldn't be more pleased.

Well, I'm going to read The Fault In Our Stars now. I need some John Green in my life today, I can just tell it's one of those days. I'm feeling weird about life and decisions today, so I figure reading will help me put things in a different perspective and give me a way to think about what's been going on.

Last YouTube video I watched: Song For The Painfully Indie

Edit: I've decided for the rest of the afternoon I'm ditching my phone. So if you're in dire need of conversing w/ me, the best way to do so would probably be e-mail.

On the naming of inanimate objects

I've been talking (read: texting) with Jordan this morning (as always) and we're talking about the different names we've come up w/ for objects in our lives; as in, we give real human names for everyday objects.

I know plenty of people that do this and it's strangely fun to do. My friend Cameron has a longboard named Guinevere. Kate's new car is named Basil. (Okay, so that's not quite a real human name but it's still named.)

My belongings are pretty much exclusively named for characters from books and TV shows. I think my favorite name of a thing I have is my phone, which is named Colin after the main character in An Abundance of Katherines by John Green. My very lovely friend Kate's full name is Katherine, so I made her read that book. From that point on, for whatever reason, her phone was Hassan, named for Colin's best friend, and my phone was Colin. It goes a bit beyond the phones though since we've actually addressed letters to each other using those names. (We boh quite like that book.) At this point I cannot even remember why we gave our phones those names. I wish I did. It's a shame I didn't blog back then.

Well, I should probably finish up this post so it gets posted on time. Since I get home from work at 11 little time is left to write at night, which is when I enjoy blogging the most. I now have five days of work left. It was almost only four but I got scheduled to work on Saturday. It's not a terrible thing because who doesn't need extra money like that but it's still a bit disappointing since I don't get to hang out w/ Megan and Kate. I try to stay positive about working on Saturdays by thinking of what I'll do w/ the extra money. It's really just going towards food and rent and textbooks but I like to think it's really for awesome road trips and other adventures.

I'll be back in Utah in only SIX DAYS. Time sure flies when all I do is work and talk to Jordan.

Last YouTube video I watched: The Invisible Man

The second last day of April

What to write about as this month winds down . . . Most days I have at least a little bit of an idea, but tonight my mind is pretty blank. I think today will be dedicated to some of my favorite quotes. The inimitable John Green once said, "Maybe our favorite quotations say more about us than about the stories and people we're quoting." How true this is. So as I share these five quotes and explain why I like them I'm sure you'll learn something about me.


"You are going to live a good and long life filled with great and terrible moments that you cannot even imagine yet." -John Green. This is from John's latest novel The Fault In Our Stars. It's always important to remember how wonderful life will be. You hear people say over and over again about different times that it will be the "greatest time of your life." I've heard this said about high school especially. I don't get why. I would sure hope that high school isn't the greatest time of someone's life. And though of all the terrible moments that will happen to in the rest of life, I'm pretty sure the great ones will be more prominent.


"We can have in life but one great experience at best, and the secret of life is to reproduce that experience as often as possible." -Oscar Wilde. I remember reading this quote maybe a year or so ago. It's stuck with me ever since. I don't necessarily think it's only one great experience in life but there are definitely some moments that define life, moments that truly change us and put us on a different course of action. Sometimes I wonder whether I've had my one great experience, and occasionally I think I have.


"Comedy is simply a funny way of being serious." -Peter Ustinov. I'm not sure who this Peter character is but he's spot on. Humor and comedy are marvelous. I like to think I'm a funny person and along with my whole "happiness is a choice" mantra comes the mechanism of laughing instead of whatever the alternative is, whether that be crying or frowning or being sad in general. I'm not the kind of person who laughs while the situations are going on, like if you tell me your dog died I'm not going to laugh, but I'd much rather deal with problems in a humorous manner than in a strictly serious one.

"What is that expression in your eyes? It seems to me more than all the words I have read in my life." -Walt Whitman. I am quite fond of Whitman, I've realized. Even before I read the book Paper Towns, which is full of Whitman metaphors and analogies and whatnot, I loved this quote. Sometimes you just look at a friend, or even just a random person, and it speaks so loudly about who they are. There can be so much said about simple looks that really cannot be explained, at least not fully, by words.

And this last one is not a quote but rather a word coined by the magnificent CS Lewis. And that words is sehnsucht. It means "the inconsolable longing in the human heart for we know not what;" a yearning for a far, familiar, non-earthly land one can identify as one's home. The foremost scholar on Lewis came to one of my classes this semester and he made the following point: Tolkien said “good literature should awaken a longing for place.” Stories bring up a longing within us, and that longing was often for heaven, Lewis thought. He believed if you feel lonely it makes you a relational being. If you’ve ever felt lonely in a room full of other people, it shows you were made for a relationship no mere human relationship can satisfy. Basically, CS Lewis is the man.

So there you have it. Some quotes I find are awesome. Now go enjoy your lovely Sunday. Or whatever day you happen to be reading this on. 

Last YouTube video I watched: Kids On The Run (Tallest Man On Earth)

The Fault In Our Stars

I have much to say about this book but dare not spoil it for anyone. I figured now was as good a time as any to write a sort of review. Had I done this right after reading the book, I doubt it would have made much sense. I don't guarantee it making sense now either but I will be much more articulate than I could have been that night.

To start off, this book will probably make you feel all the feelings. In a very broad sense, it's a book about a girl who has cancer. Beyond that, it's a book about time, happiness, relationships, and leaving a mark on this world. John Green does an incredible job of making you want to laugh instead of cry, though. I will admit, I did cry while reading this book. I cried a lot. More than I have probably cried in the past two years. (If you don't already know it, that is a huge deal for me.)

I have a fascination with time, happiness, and relationships so this book was right up my alley. I think constantly about how time moves and how some events or periods in your life feel significantly long ago though they are not. Or about how the time you spend with someone feels incredibly significant though it was not that really that long at all. The idea of infinity and forever, which I'm pretty sure are different, are another big part of this book. I mean, this girl, Hazel, has cancer. She's terminally ill, so obviously time is a big deal. And the way John references time throughout the book is just quite phenomenal.

And then comes the happiness. If you read my blog enough you'll notice my use of the phrase "happiness is a choice." I wouldn't say that totally comes into play in this book but there is a boy in this book, Augustus, who says, "I decided a while ago not to deny myself the simpler pleasures of existence" and also says, "I’m not in the business of denying myself the simple pleasure of saying true things." And one more thing Augustus says, "You don’t get to choose if you get hurt in this world, old man, but you do have some say in who hurts you." Choices, people. They're a big deal. You can choose to be happy. I do it all the time.

That last quote from Augustus, the one about not being able to choose if you get hurt but getting to choose who hurts you, that brings me into a bit about relationships. I really like knowing why two people like each other and what makes up their relationship and if they break up why they broke up. This can be troublesome for me personally because I can't exactly go around asking boys I have previously dated all the specific reasons for why we broke up. And since we broke up, I can't ask them about why they thought we were together and what made up the best parts of our relationship. The idea of being able to choose who hurts me . . . That puts things into perspective. It doesn't necessarily matter why we dated or why we broke up. You just have to know that it was worth it. You cannot avoid being hurt, whether in relationships or in anything else in life, but you can choose who or what does the hurting.  (I just have to say that I am completely okay being hurt by the people who hurt me.) ((Also, I'm referring to boys in the plural here only because it's easier to do than singling anyone out. I really haven't been hurt that many times.))

So I realize this is less of a review and more a bunch of my thoughts relating to themes of the book. I don't think I know how to review a book, not really. I think my hope is that someone will come upon this and relate to the themes I explained and pick up the book and actually read it.

I also want to make the point that though John Green is a young adult author and that the main characters in this book are teenagers, it isn't just a young adult book. It's not simple and cannot be read without thought. Well, it could be, but any book could be. Trust me, there's a lot more to young adult books than you might ever expect. And anyway, teenagers/young adults are smart people. (At almost 21, I still consider myself a young adult. I'm certainly not a real adult.) There is no reason The Fault In Our Stars cannot be read as critically as any book for those so-called "adults."

I could go on and on about John and his novels but I'll spare you. Come talk to me if you really want to hear about it all.

And if you're looking for some good music to listen to while reading it, or any other book for that matter, I recommend The Head And The Heart's self-titled album "The Head And The Heart." It's the only thing I listened to while reading. And while writing this post I listened to all Noah And The Whale.

Last YouTube video I watched: Stop Motion Markers

P.S. My 21st birthday is in 8 days. When did that happen? Crazy stuff.

My thoughts are stars I can't fathom into constellations

At this point in the night, I've written and erased a couple hundred words for this post. The stuff I've been trying to say has ranged from raving about Noah And The Whale, expressing some very blunt thoughts on the event I mention but never name or explain, sharing more Shaytards videos, going on and on about my best friend from back home, explaining the differences between my nighttime activities this semester and last, and even going through why I care so much about my friends on their missions.

As I started writing about each of these things, nothing felt quite right. While it was enjoyable to write about each of those things, none of them are what I really want to talk about or express. I'm not certain if that's because some of it seems too personal or revealing or because writing on this blog is a sorry excuse for not talking about some of it with real people.

I think what I really want to talk about is loneliness. I haven't wanted to admit it lately because of how much I've been focusing on choosing happiness and making the best of everything that has happened in the last few years and everything that is currently happening. It seems ridiculous to admit because I truly do have wonderful friends at school, especially since Becca is finally back from her internship at Disney World. It's an incredible blessing to have her living right next door.

This is not to say that I feel alone. I just feel . . . lonely. I think there's a difference. At least, I feel a difference between the two, one that is not easily explained, if at all. I just read this book called The Fault In Our Stars by John Green. A character in this story accurately portrays, in a manner much more poetic than I ever could, the inability to explain his thoughts. "My thoughts are stars I cannot fathom into constellations," he says.

Despite this feeling that I am quite sure is loneliness, I still am happy. It's a strange combination. I am also quite sure that this loneliness I feel was brought on by my own actions, at least partly. I have a plethora of thoughts I would like to share with some friends but I do not care to do so, and so in some ways I'm distancing myself from them, which sounds stupid because my friends are lovely people. The one friend I would like to share my thoughts with isn't currently able to communicate with me in any form except the US Postal Service. The other reason behind the loneliness is due to the fact that I think I somewhat lost a friend with whom I once shared some of these thoughts. It feels very similar to when Matthew finally left for his two years. It's saddening to say that I am familiar with this type of loneliness. But that's just how my life has been.

Reading back what I've written thus far on this subject, it comes across as pretty depressing. That was not my intention because I honestly don't feel depressed, or even sad. At all. I'm just lonely. And I should probably stop saying that, lest this post get really blue.

Last YouTube video I watched: One Take Song

Finals week take 2

Remember how at the end of my last post I said I had a final to dominate?

Yeah, I totally did dominate it. I also dominated a second one. Advertising was a 98 percent and, get this, I got 100 percent on my religion final. Is that not wonderful and amazing? When I wrote that post this morning, I did not expect my day to go as nicely as it did. I'm quite astounded. Maybe next time I need to ace some exams I'll go through another dramatic event. They seem to be extra helpful. Utah is looking a little nicer after those little pick-me-ups of great exam scores.

As a Facebook status this morning I wrote that in order to survive finals week I needed the following: a Chipotle burrito, a glass of chocolate milk, watching The Office, and hugs. I haven't gotten my burrito and I don't think I will; hopefully when I get home this will be made a reality. I did get a delicious bottle of chocolate milk at lunch with Lorraine though. I have yet to watch The Office today but I definitely will be before going to sleep. As for the hugs, I've had a fair few of those as well. All in all, I'd say I'm surviving quite nicely.

Now I only have 2 finals left, both of which are scheduled. Italian is tomorrow afternoon and Spanish is late Thursday morning. This week would be shaping up to be absolutely perfect were it not for the event that won't be explained and the fact that I'm leaving on Sunday instead of Thursday evening.

I'm beginning to see that I was greatly misguided in thinking that this finals week would be fun and stress-free. As for who did the misguiding, the responsibility is all mine. Mostly. Not everything is within my control. Is it even possible for finals week to be legitimately stress-free? I don't think so. The days leading up to this week were great. I was hardly stressed at all. Dare I use the word blissful? Because that's probably the best word to describe everything from the last day of classes to yesterday morning. The week so far has been far from blissful and not fun at all, but my stress levels are not that high, surprisingly enough. I just hope it will stay that way.

Last YouTube videos I watched: Breaking Up is Hard: The Miracle of Swindon Town #8 and also this gem Axl Rose: The Miracle of Swindon Town #14 (John Green is very good at explaining things, especially when he's playing FIFA. You get two videos because I just love each of these so much for various reasons.)

And I really actually want to end with these three quotes, also from John Green, because without having read them this morning I don't think my day would have been as nice and manageable as it was.

The good times and the bad times both will pass. It will pass. It will get easier. But the fact that it will get easier does not mean that it doesn't hurt now. And when people try to minimize your pain, they are doing you a disservice. And when you try to minimize your own pain, you're doing yourself a disservice. Don't do that. The truth is that it hurts because it's real. It hurts because it mattered. And that's an important thing to acknowledge to yourself. But that doesn't mean that it won't end, that it won't get better. Because it will.

We all want to do something to mitigate the pain of loss or to turn grief into something positive, to find a silver lining in the clouds. But I believe there is real value in just standing there, being still, being sad.

I know this isn't very helpful, but, um, you're gonna be okay... It's a terrible thing in a lot of ways that everything ends. Like, everything. All of human experience ends. But in other ways it's really liberating... You're gonna be okay.

Yes, John Green, it really will. Have a great week everyone.

The truth resists simplicity

So my friend Hank always asks me why I blog and everything I tell him is never sufficient. Or he always says I'm not answering the question. Or he just asks more questions why after I give what I consider to be a legitimate reason. So I figured if I wrote down why I blog, maybe it would make more sense. (No guarantees, Hank.) [And for those of you who happen to watch Vlogbrothers, is it sufficiently confusing yet that one of the brothers Green shares a first name with my friend? I imagine it might.]

He and I have already determined that I blog because I like writing and I like sharing my thoughts/experiences through writing. But when I say that, Hank always asks, "Well, why post it on the Internet?" And that kind of leads into the fact that I like "connecting with people." Whatever that means. (I really think it could mean any number of things.) One pretty specific reason I write on my blog is so I can share things that happen to me with friends from back home/friends in general who go to other schools or who I don't get to talk with often. Perhaps the most obscure reason I like to blog is because of a few very personal reasons/thoughts. I suppose you might call them "ulterior motives," though I wouldn't consider them quite that cynical. (It's the kind of stuff I've never shared with anyone, and I doubt I'll be sharing any of it anytime soon.) There just isn't one answer or reason in my book, even though Hank wants there to be.

So yes, despite all of these "reasons," Hank still asks why. Well, you know what? I blog because I want to. I blog because I can. Why post it on the Internet? Why not? Those are the simplest answers to that question but that doesn't make them the truth. They embody part of the truth, but definitely not all of it. The Vlogbrothers always say the truth resists simplicity and this is definitely a situation in which that quote applies.

Hank tries to get to "the core," as he calls it. Here's the thing: there is no one or simple answer to his question of why I blog. I'm pretty sure it annoys him a little bit that I can't give him a straight answer, but the fact of the matter is, there isn't one. It makes me laugh when he gets frustrated over the fact that I'm not answering his question in the way he wants me to but such is life. As much as we like to think of ourselves as simple creatures, we're really not. We must imagine each other complexly. Yeah, I could water myself and my decisions down to a few words and reasons, but would those few words and reasons really explain who I am? I don't think so. It's kind of like those little biography boxes on social networking sites. How much can you really tell about someone from those boxes? You can write any number of things but those few lines really don't do anyone justice. If people based who I was strictly off that box and nothing else, they wouldn't know me very well at all. From my "About Me" on this blog, you'd know that I like sports and that I drink a beverage most people associate with The Christmas Story. You might also think I'm Canadian. Yes, that one biography sentences describes a few things I like, but it's not who I am. Not really.

So the moral of the story is that even though we must try our very hardest to understand each other, sometimes we have to accept that we don't, at least not fully. Or that we won't, at least not yet.

Last YouTube I watched: The 5 Worst Typos Ever

Fact.

Because as good as kissing feels, nothing feels as good as the anticipation of it.

I've been seeing this quote a lot lately, both on Twitter and Tumblr, so here it is for all you folks who haven't read An Abundance of Katherines or any of the other books by John Green.

And just for good measure here's another gem from a John Green book, this time from his portion of Let It Snow. I haven't had a cheesy waffle yet but I sure hope to in the near future.

Cheesy waffles, I was thinking, taste like love without the fear of love's dissolution

You're welcome.

In other news, last night I bought my plane ticket for Christmas! I am quite ecstatic. I'll be leaving on the 15th and returning on the 3rd. I'll be in Wisconsin for more than 14 days! Which actually has not really happened before; usually Christmas break for me has literally been two weeks. All you chumps who have month long winter breaks . . . What a joke.

Last YouTube video I watched: 27 Part Video

Flow

You know those friends where it doesn't matter the time of day or if something big has happened, whenever you talk everything just clicks? I feel like I have a shortage of those friends at the moment.

This weekend I hung out w/ a friend I've known since I was 14. We get along great and we have things in common. Spending time together is fun. But it's not really anything more than that. He's a great guy, pretty funny, but I don't think we'll ever hang out and at the end I'll say to myself, "That was awesome. I wish we could hang out every day. All the time. Forever." It will only ever be just fun. We spent a few hours together, easily long enough to get into some good conversation. But it didn't happen. I don't want to call it superficial conversation but I don't think there's another word for it. We know each other enough that even if there was silence it wasn't awkward but something was off. It was almost too chill for me. And that's saying something.

At school, both freshman year and sophomore year, I've had friends, both guys and girls, where the conversation just flows and anything and everything we talk about is interesting, no matter what it is. Being home puts my friend options at a much lower level. I do have a few really good people still around but more and more people stay at school or just go away all summer. Then there are my school friends who are far away to begin with but are even farther away due to study abroads or other vacations, and with a few of my favorites: missions.

I am definitely a communicator when I have the right people around so flow and clicking is a big deal to me. I can talk with anyone but I don't click with everyone. Connecting with people can be very special. Communication is obviously a key to connecting, in any form it takes. When you get to the moment where you can almost see through someone else, you know great things will happen. You crack them open and suddenly you've found a person who understands you completely, or at least tries very hard to. You've found someone who will imagine you complexly.

When did we see each other face-to-face? Not until you saw into the cracks and I saw into yours. -Quentin Jacobsen (Paper Towns by John Green)

That might seem like a weird jump from talking about flow in conversation to some John Green doctrine of imagining people complexly but if you haven't figured it out by now, I abide greatly by the whole stream of consciousness dealio. I can't avoid it. I talk like that. I write like that. I communicate like that. All of which makes it even more exciting when I do find someone with whom I click.

Last YouTube video I watched: Liam's Still Got Legs

Not precisely in an unpleasant way

“I liked standing just outside the couches and watching them - it was a kind of sad I didn’t mind, and so I just listened, letting all the happiness and the sadness of this ending swirl around in me, each sharpening the other. For the longest time, it felt kind of like my chest was cracking open, but not precisely in an unpleasant way.”

If you guys weren't aware, I'm so incredibly in love with the writing of one John Green. The quote above is from his amazing book Paper Towns. And it's what I'm going to blog about today.

I'm sure I've mentioned previously how last April I said good-bye to my awesome friends who are guys on account of how they're going to preach the word of God for two years straight, thus making our only form of communication good ol' snail mail. (For someone who spends so much time on the Internet, I already did have an appreciation for the mail but it sure has grown in the last year. If you ever need to know how much it costs to send letters to Scotland, I can let you know in a heartbeat.)

So here's where the quote comes in: Freshman year, for me, was amazing. I could not have asked for a better start to college. But here's the thing: all good things must come to an end. I spent many hours last year with my friends, both guys and girls, just sitting around and talking. When it got especially warm at the end of March and into April that time was spent outside on the basketball court and laying on a bunch of blankets outside one of our halls. These were people I had only known for seven months, if that. And yet it was the end of something so beautiful and something so full of love. Every moment we spent together was bittersweet only due to the fact that we knew that was one more moment we wouldn't have together. With the girls, I knew I would see them come fall. With the boys . . . it was kind of ridiculous because we would be saying good-bye before they were technically gone. I think my favorite things about the ending weeks of freshman year were sitting with my boys, not necessarily talking or doing anything besides watching movies or sitting, but just being with them, observing them; these things made the leaving a little more powerful and important. But like Q in Paper Towns, it was not the kind of sad I minded.

There were plenty of times I took a (figurative) step back and just listened to what was going on around me. Laying on blankets in the sun, "studying", was the perfect opportunity to take in everything. As sad as it was, knowing I wouldn't see my amazing boys for two years, it wasn't necessarily the hurting kind of sad. It was sad, and that was it. You couldn't stay sad for long around them because of the times we had already spent together.

Yes, it was an ending. But that's okay. I can handle an ending like that.