Jan - Mar Recap.

So it is crazy how quickly time goes by.  We are already 1/4 of the way through the year 2011, so I thought I would go back and take a look at the resolutions that I set for myself.  I have a lot of things that I want to get accomplished this year, and it is important that I take a look to see how I am progressing towards those goals.  Looking back at some of the resolutions I made, I have been making some pretty good progress on some, while I completely forgot about others.  

First off, let me give a recap of what I have done since the beginning of the year.  I have had a lot of events at my house over the past few months.  This has allowed me to not only strengthen the relationships with my existing group of friends, but also make friends with a new set of people in the ward.  I have also focused a LOT on basketball over the past few months.  I have been to 2 Mavs games and 1 BYU game over the past few months.  I went down to the statisticians table before one of the Mavs games and high fived all the players as they ran out for warm-ups before the game.  I took a trip to Houston to go to the temple with some friends, and I have been working very hard to get my body in better shape by going on a strict diet and playing basketball multiple times per week.  I took a trip to Utah to go snowboarding, and I am looking at trips to go skydiving and to Europe.  All in all I think I am making good progress to most of my goals.  I have made it to the temple at least once per month so far, and although I am a bit behind on my reading I am still working on it.  I read at least a little bit pretty much every night.

One of the things I need to focus on over the next few months is to get my songs finished.  I have a worked on them a little bit, but there is still a lot of work to do.  I still need to work on my skateboarding, getting my house more furnished, and preparing for the GMAT / Grad School.  There are a lot of different things I want to get accomplished over the next few months, and hopefully I can continue making good progress on the goals I set for myself at the beginning of the year.  Work has been extremely busy of late, but it has been very good.  I feel very blessed to have the opportunities that I do, and I look forward to using those opportunities to help other people.  03-31-11

BYU Basketball 2011.

I have been wanting to compose my thoughts on this year's basketball team for a while now.  It never seemed like the appropriate time, because every time I thought the team had done something particularly awesome to where I didn't think it could be topped, they would do something even beyond what I thought they would to just leave me even more impressed.  Now that the season has come to an end and I have had a day or two to collect my thoughts, I thought it would be appropriate to provide my own tribute to the team.  

This year's addition of the BYU Men's Basketball team has been probably my favourite BYU sports team since the 1996 BYU Football team.  I loved watching each and every single one of their games, and made a point of watching their games every time they were on.  I loved this team's heart, resolve, and grit as they were tested several times throughout the year and always represented themselves and the school admirably.  They were in the national spotlight for longer and performed better than I can ever remember any BYU sports team playing in my lifetime.  To be able to deal with that pressure all year long, and then to consistently perform at a high level when everyone begins to doubt you and to outperform their expectations is very impressive.  

Of course the story of this year's basketball team begins and ends with our best player and national sensation Jimmer Fredette.  Jimmer is the man!  He has taken over the top spot as favourite BYU athlete of my lifetime.  I have never watched a more entertaining basketball player ever.  The crazy thing about Jimmer is that he is entertaining in a different way than most basketball players I have ever watched.  His game is a mixture of a lot of different players I have watched over the years, but there is really no good comparison on a one for one basis as to who he compares to.  His ability to get a shot off in the lane against bigger defenders is Ginobli-esque, he has the ability to drive around and through defenders like Steve Nash, and he has the ability to hit long range shots like no one I remember seeing.  He is a very special player and I look forward to watching him play in the NBA.  

Though Jimmer garnered almost all of the attention and focus this year, the team had plenty of other capable players many of whom I will miss watching this off season.  First of all I want to mention the seniors and Jackson Emery.  I have watched him since we were both freshman at BYU.  He was a pre-mission freshman, and I was a post-mission freshman, but I remember him being one of my favourite players from that team.  Since returning from the mission he has gotten better and better every year.  His defensive presence was inspiring to watch, and I have never seen someone as capable as him put his ego on hold so much for the betterment of the team.  He could have easily become frustrated and disenchanted due to all of the Jimmer hype this last year, but even if he was he never showed it.  He led the team by example and our team would not have been anywhere near what it was without Emery.  

The other senior on the team was Logan Magnusson.  Though I didn't get to watch him very much over the past 4 years, I very much appreciated what he brought to the team at the end of the year when we needed him to step up.  He played big by stepping in and playing solid defense, taking charges, and hitting some big shots.  His contribution along with the contributions of Noah Hartsock, Charles Abouo, James Anderson, Kyle Collinsworth, Stephen Rogers, and Brandon Davies all made this year special and this team special.  Making it to the Sweet 16, and within one play of the Elite 8 is an incredible feat, and a fitting way for this team and some of these players to go out.  I will never forget the memories I have from this year, and I hope that future teams at BYU can live up to the standard that was set by these players and this team this year.  03-26-11

Random Thoughts.

My mind has been kind of random lately, with lots of different thoughts about a wide variety of things.  I have listed below 10 of my most recent thoughts for your perusal / enjoyment:

1.    I kind of wish that more roads were toll roads and that I could drive on them so I wouldn't hit as much traffic.  Only if my work is going to pay for them though, if I have to pay for them I want them all to be free but only I can drive on them. 

2.    I am very glad that I am not morbidly obese… for a lot of reasons.  I hope to never be "morbidly" anything in my lifetime. 

3.    The ending to the phrase "If wishes were fishes…" has always eluded my memory. 

4.    Often times I miss my friends from up at school, but then I realize that they are still my friends… and that they probably don't miss me as much as I sometimes miss them.  This helps me stop missing them so much.

5.    Sometimes I wish that TV was my reality, and sometimes I wish that my reality was TV.  Though I don't know how I would feel about cameras following me into the bathroom. 

6.    Blogs are great ways to get to know people better, and generally it helps me to understand and like them better as well.  Sometimes blogs confirm what I already knew about people, that they are idiots. 

7.    Not worrying about dating / girls can really simplify a guy's life.

8.    Currently I am kind of obsessed with basketball.  I have always enjoyed basketball, but I can't ever remember it being to this level where I want to watch / play it ALL the time.  I am going to attribute it all to Jimmermania.  The limits of Jimmermania have yet to be found. 

9.    Work will always be there, have fun while you can and live life such that you can enjoy every single day.

10.  After casual observance over the past 4 months, I have come to the conclusion that the moon is severely underrated. 

These are just a few of the random thoughts that I have been able to remember over the past week or so.  Any comments or thoughts are appreciated.  Have fun! 02-21-11

Contentment.

It's a beautiful warm and slightly windy day here in Texas.  This comes as a nice change of scene from the bitter cold and biting wind that we have had here the past few weeks.  As I went about my day from early church this morning, to meetings and ward potluck afterward, I couldn't help but sit back and reflect on how perfectly content and at peace I am at this time in my life.  Not that I am generally not at peace or full of discontent, but for some reason the happiness that I am currently feeling transcends any other type of contentment that I remember feeling recently.  I have felt very happy at other times in my life and for specific events or periods such as excitement for when my favourite sports teams do well (BYU), or the bliss of being in a healthy relationship, but this level of peace and contentment has been harder to capture since I returned home from my mission. 

 

At the very end of my mission we had a testimony meeting with all of the missionaries that would be leaving the mission together.  There was a pretty big group of us that all came into the mission at the same time, and we were probably the biggest group of American missionaries the mission had seen in a long time.  The mission had been shut down to missionaries from the United States because of the Zapatista rebellion that occurred there several years beforehand, and we were some of the first to be allowed back into the region.  The testimony meeting was great and included some of my best friends from the mission for the past few years.  As it came upon me to take my turn to bear my testimony and kind of recap what I had learned from my mission, the one overwhelming thought that I had was that of gratitude for the opportunity to serve, as well as the happiness that I felt being able to have the gospel be such a big part of my life.  It was on my mission that I realized how happy simply living the gospel can make people.  You really don't need anything but a knowledge of God's love for you, and a desire to serve him and do his will.  Dedicating your life to serving the Lord helps you realize what is important and helps you focus on the things that are important and not get caught up in the day to day minutiae that is always bombarding us.  It is through accepting the Lord's will that we realize the happiness that the Lord has for us as part of his plan.  

I think the thing that has helped me get to the point I am at now is a shift in my mindset.  For a long time I have let myself be worried and focus on trying to change things that I have little to no control over.  I feel like I have gotten to a point now in my life where I am ready to accept things as they are, understanding that this is what the Lord has planned for me right now, and just sit back and try to enjoy every single day.  Often before I would let things that were out of my control frustrate me and that would take up a lot of my focus on a day to day basis.  Living life like that makes it a lot harder to focus on the positive, as well as enjoy the day to day gifts that life brings to us on a daily basis.  There is a lot of good in life, and we need to be looking for it and willing to accept what the Lord has in store for us to truly take advantage of the happiness that he wants for us.  It is important to trust that he knows what is best for us in the end, and that often times not getting what we want in the moment turns out to be a tremendous blessing for us in the end.  Sometimes we are privileged to see the end result, and sometimes we are not, but I am confident that when we get a chance to look back on our lives and see what the consequences of our unfulfilled wants and desires would have been we will be very grateful.  02-15-11 

Dreams.

Some of my favourite things to talk about and remember are dreams.  I suppose for me it is because dreams are something that I really don't know very much about.  What my subconscious does while I am asleep has always been something that interests me.  I also have a strange feeling that dreams come true… not necessarily in the traditional "Disney" sense that is often associated with that phrase, but more in bits and pieces.  I know that some of my dreams most definitely won't come true.  Those are the weird dreams where I end up stealing the "D.A.R.E." car, or hide in the attic of my grandparents old house (which doesn't have an attic as far as I know) because I am being chased around by rogue F-16s.  Most of my dreams however don't consist of crazy scenarios or implausible situations, but seem like real things that could actually end up happening.  They often feel very familiar and when I wake up instead of thinking "what a crazy dream", I think "I wonder when that is going to happen".  

With that in mind, in 2011 I have noticed an increasing trend of mine for me to be able to remember my dreams.  That coupled with all of the new goals and ambitions I have for this year has led to a lot of situations where I am excited to see when what I have been dreaming about will happen.  I don't expect all of my dreams to end up happening, nor do I expect everything that happens in my dreams to happen, but one of my favourite things about dreams is that I have noticed they often lead to déjà vu which I am a big fan of.  I really enjoy that 1 or 2 second interval when I see / hear / experience something, and I know that I have experienced that before.  It is a slightly eerie feeling, but I enjoy it quite a bit nonetheless.  I feel like dreams can be tiny glimpses of our future that the Lord allows us to have to help us know later on that we are on the right track.  Little pieces of personal revelation for each and every one of us that is able to remember what we dream about.  I don't know if that is entirely true, or much about the science behind dreams at all, but there are lots of accounts of people in the scriptures having dreams that end up coming true so is it so crazy to think the Lord may allow us to have some of the same more personalized experiences?  I don't really know what got me so interested in dreams at the beginning, but I do know what has helped my interest in them continue up to this point.  Thanks Inception.  01-23-11

Multi-tasking

One of the things that I have been ever more aware of the past few months is how much multi-tasking I do.  It seems more and more that I am becoming almost incapable of simply focusing one activity.  The one thing that I do take comfort in is that it seems that I am not the only person that has been inflicted with this condition.  Every day the world seems to be getting faster and faster, with more and more things to catch our attention on a daily basis.  There are many times in the morning where I find myself getting ready for the day, while eating breakfast, watching Sportscenter, and listening to music.  That is just one example of the ways in which multi-tasking has taken a hold of my life.  While I was in school, I found that I had a hard time focusing on my homework or what I was studying for an extended period of time as well.  When I did my studying I actually often found that I did a better job of getting things done and retaining what I was studying when I had music / television on, or both. 

The interesting thing to me is that the world seems to be ever more oriented towards a multi-tasking mindset.  Gone are the days when you could simply focus on one thing at a time.  There are so many competing sources for your attention these days that it is no wonder that so many kids have diagnosed or undiagnosed ADD and other disorders which make it harder for them to focus.  I was wondering the other day what it would have been like to live 50 or 100 years ago when there were not so many things to distract us.  Would I still find it difficult to focus on things for an extended period of time?  Would there be as many kids with trouble in school due to their inability to pay attention?  One of the presumed benefits of the ever increasing multi-tasking society we have become is that it helps people get more things accomplished.  We have become a society in which things need to get done, and they need to get done now.  I can't help but wonder as we continue down this path of trying to fit more activities and entertainment into shorter periods of time, what the consequences will be for each one of us individually and for the world as a whole.  01-09-11

* I have however found that blogging while trying to watch TV / movies makes the whole process a lot slower…