It's been over a week since I wrote on this. Hope people are still checking it out. This one is just a bunch of tidbits floating through my mind.
Some goings on: Extra homework assignments, midterms, and stuff going on. I got another interview invitation at University of the Pacific. Way COOL. That's 4 interviews in November. I'm not sure how I'm going to keep up with missing so much school. Still 8 more schools to hear back from. But 5 interviews out of 9 so far is pretty good.
We went paddleboarding the other day. We tried a different spot. We drove out on the service road that circles the Provo Airport till we found a spot where there wasn't any plants and could just throw the board right in the water. Perfectly calm day. Absolutely beautiful. The clouds were boiling on their undersides, the smoke from a nearby fire was staying 20 feet from the ground, and the forecast was for rain the next day, but I went paddleboarding in the calm cloudy evening. The sun breaking through on the far side of the lake over those mountains to the southwest. Some birds out on the lake calling, ducks splashing around in the plants. Just great. The only downside was the CRAZY amounts of mosquitoes right near the shore. Emily and Grace got stormed and chased back into the car. I was racing to get more than 50 feet from shore, while reaching down once in a while to wave away the buffet line hanging around my legs. Yesterday I counted 21 bites on one calf, and another 25 on the other. Good fun. Emily asked if it was worth it. Oh yeah. Totally. I just paddled straight out into the lake about a mile, twice. Sat on the board way out there. Very nice, but still not comparable to the celestial room of any temple. But VERY nice anyways.
The other night we watched Drumline on TV. I wasn't expecting much, but was pleasantly surprised. One of the driving themes of the movie is the debate of technique vs. style. Or crowd-pleasing versus "good". Same theme as Strictly Ballroom. As we watched the movie I thought of about 5-6 other examples of the same debate. In Gladiator (not worth watching) there's a small challenge for the main character, killing quickly vs. killing entertainingly (great, huh? thbthbthb). Emily and I went to a lot of the gymnastic meets this past year and noticed some gymnasts were very entertaining but not very good, while others were very good, but not entertaining.
It's so strange to think of the differences between men and women. Not the physically apparent ones, but the psychological ones. We were watching a TV show with another couple the other night and one character confesses to his wife that he was unfaithful. Our friend, she says what I was thinking, "That would crush me." What struck me as odd is that it would crush her for a very different reason than it would crush me, although both would be founded on the same thing. She is very pregnant right now, and I've gathered at least enough to understand that her husband is a bit frustrated with the lack of affection right now. Me, I would be crushed if my spouse (whose affections I work so hard for) just gave out her intimacy to some schmoe. Either way it would be a breach of covenants and promises and that's what would hurt the most, but just a funny show of the differences between men and women. The other night I told Emily she was looking extremely nice. She responds, "Is that all?" I now what she wanted, she was fishing for more compliments :-D, but I also tried to defend it saying, "That's a lot! I wouldn't tell you you were pretty if you weren't otherwise great." If she were mean, lazy, or otherwise unpleasant and our relationship were in a similar condition, I wouldn't be in the mood to say anything nice about her.
Also funny since Emily, like most women, works SO hard to be pretty. Just don't compliment on it without having some other good cards up your sleeve too. Fling out those cards at just the right moment, "You're so great with Grace." "You keep the house so nice" "Dinner was absolutely delicious." Fwing fwing fwing. She won't know what hit her. Cards and compliments flying everywhere. 52-card pickup for FHE tonight.
If you want GOOD TV, I'd like to make some recommendations: Avatar: The Last Airbender on Nickelodeon, and Man vs. Wild on Discovery Channel.
Avatar is a great show, a cartoon, with an incredible amount of thought gone into it. Highly entertaining, but imaginative and creative enough to make you think. A great deal of eastern philosophy, religion, martial arts and discipline play a huge role in the show. It's now on it's third and probably final season (It was only meant to cover three different "Books" or seasons). It's lighthearted and funny while being very introspective and mature. You can find the episodes around the internet to watch, but just recently it's been a little more difficult because of some cracking down. You should be able to find all the episodes on Nick.com, but they're all out of order and their system of organization is really strange.
Man vs. Wild is a show with this amazing guy, Bear Grylls, being placed in wilderness situations followed by a camera crew as he shows the audience how to survive in all sorts of environments, drawing on knowledge of native cultures, wilderness experts, and local peoples and rangers. He keeps it interesting and exciting as well as good natured and informative. Bear Grylls is a great role model and an amazing person, both for the things he's done as well as the life he lives. There's been a bit of controversy over the show and how "real" it is. I think a lot of it is from people who pulled the wool over their own eyes to think he'd really be putting himself in danger for a TV show. He only said he did what he was shown to be doing (which, most of it, is quite impressive anyways). The techniques are all viable for the situations. I'm sure the editors and producers at Discovery tried to make it a little more exciting by keeping back some details, but they're out now, and they've reedited most of the previous episodes to better express the nature of the events. The whole show was meant to be informative more than anything, but it seems a lot of people watched it, waiting for the guy to kill himself (which is a large reason stunt shows and extreme sports are fun to watch, there's always the "what if something happens" that makes it exciting). Then, when viewers find out that he's not as seriously in danger as they led themselves to believe, they feel betrayed.
It is a great show and a lot of fun to see the survival techniques and locations as well as gain a knowledge about plants and animals.
5 comments:
The University of Pacific would be very cool. We would come visit all the time. I love it up there.
As far as your observations about women, I hope Erik reads this. Women really do like good compliments.
Christian,
There was something in the paper this week about a paddle boarder paddling up the California coast, trying to make it up the whole coastline: first to do such, but he also has a good cause: awareness of the pollution (esp. plastic) that is in our ocean. I thought that was nice that he has the intent to better society with the publicity he is receiving.
Women do like compliments. Fortunately for me, Jonathan is a PRO. He's almost too good that I don't believe him (or so it may seem) but really it does wonders for my self-esteem.
XOXO
I didn't know I had to try SO hard to be pretty. Emily
Haha Christian, I knew that " Emily tries SO hard" comment would backfire. :) Congrats again on the U of P, we'll keep crossing our fingers that your interviews will go well and that you'll hear good news from UCLA and UCSF.
Christian, this was a good blog entry! And, I too, smiled when I read your line about Emily working so hard to be pretty....we all know what you meant to say...Em is a natural beauty, but she is like all of women, we love to find clothes and things to add to it.
Your dad is a PRO at building my self esteem, too. Just follow in his footsteps and you'll be fine.
I have watched the survival show a few times, at your recommendation and it is very interesting. Hans loves Avatar...last night at dinner, he began telling dad and all about it...we smiled because it was a littl challenging for him to put it into words.
I'm so glad you are enjoying the paddle boarding...but the mosquitos would be awful. I remember going out to that lake when dad and Erik were putting a new saliboat into the water for the club...I couldn't handle standing there and raced back to the car, too!
Love you...our prayers are with you in all your interviews!
Post a Comment