Spirituality

So I've had an interesting day. I got a living ordinance recommend this morning, pretty much first thing, which represents a big step forward for me. Then the prophet showed up to our sacrament meeting. Wow. That was... nothing short of incredible -- and oddly hilarious. Turns out Pres. Monson has a really good sense of humor. I got to see Bengt again for the first time since he took off for his mission in Seattle, WA, and he's still just about the same as he left, which is quite different from my past experience dealing with new RMs.

After church, I picked up Melody and went to her parents' house for dinner and had a decidedly un-spiritual couple of hours before we went and saw Rose for advice on how to further our wedding plans. She was very helpful in that department, and more importantly, launched us into an excellent spiritual conversation. Several hours later we finished up there, much-enlightened (and me with the sense that Jewel could easily turn out to be that particular sort of awesome person many years down the road), and headed to Melody's current residence to let her get some sleep. There, we had another major spiritual discussion, after which I went home. And had ANOTHER spiritual and uplifting discussion with my dad that may or may not have ended with him finding his way to the path towards self-forgiveness over what happened to my brother Caleb before I was born.

So yes, it's been quite a day. A lot more specific stuff and stories were experienced and shared along the way, but if I try to write them all out, I'm pretty sure I won't get any sleep at all tonight.

Repurposing

Renovations to the blog are underway. Not that you couldn't tell, what with me actually posting here. I'm strongly considering placing an adult content warning on the page, but I think I'll hold off doing that for the moment, at least until there's adult content to be hiding. This blog, from this point forward until something causes me to decide to change it again, is to be a journal more than anything else. I'm going to be documenting more or less whatever I'm thinking about when I decide to write, and much of this will be influenced by her, who for the moment I won't be mentioning by name because I don't know how she'd feel about that.

At any rate, I'm really tired at the moment. I've been going through back entries here, just sorta remembering where I've been before I try to go someplace new, and it's done some good but mainly it's made me want to sleep very badly. Today as a whole hasn't been great, but it definitely hasn't been a bad day either. There was some frustration, some confusion, some disappointment, but there was also some humor, some (or possibly more than just "some") spirituality, some reminiscence, and certainly a lot of love. My situation at the moment is weird, as I'm now just slightly into the second of three weeks of having my parents' house entirely to myself due to a road trip that school and work prevented me from joining.

In related news, I hate washing dishes. And also my job, ughhh. Still haven't found my way out of that one just yet. But it's alright for now. I'm surviving it, though long-term I feel certain it will be the death of me if I don't get out. But as I say, I am still surviving. It's a huge pain at times, but then again what isn't, right?

I'm going to go to bed now, mainly because if I don't, I'm going to pass out right where I am, and that will likely make it rather tough to hear my alarm in the morning. Look forward to more updates in the future, though I will give you all a fair warning now that a lot of it is going to scar more-sensitive minds. I've come a long way since last time I was here.

Outside posts

With the close of this blog's original purpose far behind me, I've decided to preserve my outside posts (made on behalf of the class, but sometimes still quite relevant) as they originally appeared on my sidebar. This is mainly because I'm moving on with the blog and I don't like losing data, even if that loss is only to forgetting where I put something.

2/1 post @ Composition Mystery

2/8 post @ The Ultimate Language Barrier

3/2 post @ Flicks and Footnotes

3/2 post @ Composition Mystery

3/2 post @ Power of the Peanut Gallery

3/2 post @ Some Thoughts

3/8 post @ Soap Box Princess

3/9 post @ Some Thoughts

3/9 post @ The Ultimate Language Barrier

3/16 post @ Flicks and Footnotes

3/28 post @ Outbound Theories

4/4 post @ Some Thoughts

4/7 post @ Big Screen Snobs

4/14 post @ Flicks and Footnotes

4/14 post @ The Ultimate Language Barrier

Coming to an end

This semester has been a wild ride for me.  Not so bad as some of the past, but admittedly that's because I sort of went numb for the last half or so.

I'll be honest: I pretty much gave up.  It was not an easy decision.  But I realized that I was unhappy, and that a lot of that came from my not realizing sooner how unhappy I was becoming.

I'm going to be leaving on my mission before I'm back at school next.  At the very least, I hope the experience makes me learn to be less horrible as a student.  I've never been good at learning just because I'm told to.  I've never been good at doing anything just because I'm told to.  I am intensely bad at not asking why.  There have been many specific instances that this trait has caused trouble for me -- major trouble.  For example, and this is admittedly not a very major example, one year I got talked into going to Especially For Youth over the summer.  It's basically a youth camp put on by the LDS church in our area (I'm uncertain as to whether it's in other places as well), with the intention of increasing spirituality and such.  In practice, it's a week of social events with very little real foundation in the gospel (save for the few directly scriptural events, usually classes), and a massive focus on conformity and structured living.  This is for some people.  Many people, in fact, judging by the program's reputation.  This is not for me.

For me, Especially For Youth was a week of hell.  I have to say that for me one of the most poignant experiences of the entire event was the dance at the end of the week.  I don't dance well at all, and never have really wanted to change that.  I cannot abide the social structure of dances, nor the environment.  Really.  I can't stand them.  Now, this dance started as it was supposed to and everyone got shuffled into the cultural hall where it was being held.  I sat down just outside one of the doors in one of the chairs kept there and began quietly keeping myself entertained (I think I was writing something or other).  Over the next couple of torturous hours, I was approached at least once every five minutes or so by a counselor who insisted that I go into the dance and start dancing.  I assured them that I wasn't going to go wandering off by myself and that I just wanted to be left in peace.  They continued to insist.  I asked why I needed to be in there.  They had no answer whatsoever.  It wasn't that their reasons were weak, it was that they didn't have any at all.  And therefore I refused to go in.  Honestly I was incredibly stubborn, but that's how I get when I'm not told why.  At one point the counselors tried to gang up on me.  Three of them all surrounded me and tried very hard to convince me that I should go in and dance "just because [I] should."  All it did to tell me to do it "just because" was convince me all the more that I was right to refuse and that they were wrong to ask me -- it told me that they didn't know any better than I did why I should be in there and that they were just doing what they were doing (i.e. being there in the first place) because they couldn't be bothered to think for themselves.

I have always found something incredibly wrong about people doing things and not having reasons for it.  Even if the reason is no good, like "because I was told to" or "it seemed like a good idea at the time," I can cope as long as there is a reason.  A bad reason, sure, but at least there is a reason.  If not, then my entire sense of order in the universe tends to break down in some way or another.  In a way it's a personal failing; I cannot cope with the world if there are no reasons behind things.  Behind events, behind feelings, it doesn't really matter what.  There has to be a reason for everything, even if I cannot see it, and when people refuse to tell me without actually saying that they can't tell me, I see it as a flat-out insult and cannot abide the person at all.

Again, a personal failing in one way, but at the same time this trait of needing to ask why has led to far more personal discoveries and in some ways actually helping many more people than almost anything else I have ever done or felt.

There are at least two sides to everything.  Even my poor habits and negligent study.  Even my understanding and wisdom.  There are always two sides.

Trains

I'm fascinated by model railroading.  Plain and simple, fascinated.  My dream (or one of them, anyway) for as long as I can remember was to be able to put a layout of my own together, and I've envied anyone and everyone with the means to do so.

I came close to doing it about a year ago, but finances got the best of me.  I convinced my father to build me a table and began to make lists of needed supplies.  And then I stopped.  I don't really remember why.

But as of today, that table has been moved into my room and I've purchased a substantial amount of supplies and track.  It's not enough to finish yet, and to be honest I can't really afford it, but for very deeply personal reasons I cannot afford to not at least give this my best shot.

Among several major others, my single most far-reaching reason for wanting to make a model railroad is my grandfather.  He was the single greatest man I have ever known, and he gave me the unique opportunity to grow up (at some times literally) on a model railroad that has been in his and my grandmother's basement since shortly after I was born.  It began quite simply, as an oval on a table with no other features, and grew to fill the entirety of a room and even spilled out through a hole cut in the wall to make a freight yard.  The layout was never finished, or even given proper scenery, but it remains my eventual goal to learn what I need to finish it someday.

My own layout as it has begun is my first real step towards that goal.