Fake Rocks (15)

Well since I've gotten myself talking about skiing and snowboarding, I decided I wanted to talk about the other things I like to do. One of these favorite pastimes of mine is rock climbing. Before my mission I used to be pretty good. I went quite often and also from playing on the drumline in high school my grip was pretty strong. Now I don't have the same capabilities as I used to but I still love conquering walls and making it to the top of hard climbs. There's nothing better than climbing in the mountains on real rocks but you need to have a lot of equipment that's pretty expensive. I often go with my uncle outdoors, he has everything you need: ropes, draws, etc. All I really have are shoes, a harness, and a belay device. When I get the chance to go outside I take it but it's not very often. Since it's hard to plan to go outside, climbing gyms are very convenient for when I just want to go. Gyms are fun because they have specific climbs set up for all sorts of different climbing levels. Although it's not nearly as fun as climbing outside, it's nice to be able to hang out with friends and easier evaluate your climbing skills on those plastic hand holds.

Snow (14)

It's starting to get cold out and as everyone knows in Utah, that means snow! (unless we have another year like last year, meh) I absolutely love the snow. A lot of the people I come in contact with don't really understand why I like it so much. Most people like bright sunny days, palm trees, the beach, and that sort of thing. Don't get me wrong, I like all those things too of course, but there's something about snow that I just can't get over. I'm sure part of these feelings come from the fact that I enjoy skiing and snowboarding. I got to go snowboarding for the first time this year last week and it was so much fun! I went with a few of my friends from high school and we had a blast!

We went to Park City and started out in the terrain park playing around on the jumps and the rails they had set up. Even early in the season they already had 20 ft. jumps and creative rail combinations to mess around on. After a few runs there we went to got meet up with my friend's cousins on som other runs. At first we couldn't find them so we decided to race. We have an app that tracks how fast you go and we decided to see just how fast we could go. We did this a few times and reached max speeds from 48 to 55 mph. Almost as fast as my personal record of last year, 61 mph.

The adrenaline rush of going fast and going off jumps, cliffs, and other obstacles keeps me coming back and trying new things! All of this only made possible through the snow. If you don't like the winter maybe try some of these activities and you won't be able to be patient enough for the snow to come back next year!

Here's one of the jumps we had so much fun on.

Steam Reflections (13)

I think when I said I should crank up the steam, I started to think about all the other sayings that had to do with steam: Run out of Steam. Steam it off. Full steam ahead... and other phrases like that. I thought about how the first machines and even some today use steam to operate. In this sense we compare ourselves to machines. It's kind of an interesting thing to think about. We don't run off steam but it makes sense what the idioms mean. Figures of speech often have strange origins that, if you don't understand, would make the phrase seem very odd. Sometimes, however, I enjoy using a very literal interpretation when people use idioms. I'm sure this practice is very annoying to others but it makes me giggle and I'm selfish sometimes so they'll just have to deal with it.

Steam (12)

Now looking at what I have accomplished in these last few minutes, I've realized I've got to crank up the steam if I ever want to finish this thing.

It's strange that I refer

to my body to a machine,

maybe I'll consider

thinking that I'm a crafty fiend.

My abstract ideas

and my random thoughts of genius,

show that I function as

a human that is devious.

Sorry about that, I just wanted to make a wee poem. I'm sure you all get that urge sometimes. Not really sure where the idea came from either. I'll see if I can diagnose the cause in my next post. 

Perspectives (11)

I have now gotten myself on a tangent about perspective. In the few literature classes I've had, I've learned that many writers write to open our minds and give us different perspectives. It is seen very often actually. An example that comes to my mind is the book Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. You all know the story so I'm not going to summarize it for you, sorry. (If you don't know the story then go read it, Foo!) There are some very interesting ideas that can give a view of different perspectives on their own but what stands out most to me, is that After Ender's Game, Card then wrote the exact same story but the only thing that was different was that the story was told by Ender's good ol' buddy, Bean. Thus giving us Ender's Shadow. Funny thing about the book is that when you read it, you don't feel like you're reading Ender's Game. It's crazy! If you don't believe me, tough! Go try it! You'll see how much more you can learn from one experience if you look at it in a different way.

Other Tangent... I should just summarize Ender's Game to score another blog post... naw ;)

Reflection on My Personal Goal 2.0 (10)

One thing I realized about doing homework (it was more of an epiphany during my last post... 2 minutes ago), it's possible to use one idea for multiple purposes. I'm not talking about repetition, what I mean is seeing the same thing from a different perspective. I'm not trying to just drag something out to make the rest of these blog posts (ok, that's pretty much exactly what I'm doing), but I'm talking about my feelings and thoughts that I'm having about my own feelings and thoughts. That's pretty much what a blog is isn't it? So I feel like I am justified in my actions. However, if I'm docked points for it... darn, at least I tried.

Anyway, I really am starting to enjoy making this blog by typing basically whatever comes to my mind. I'm sure most of you are thinking, "Gee wiz! This kid is a nut!" ... you're probably right, high five! I'll keep this rockin' for ten more posts! By then I will have probably lost enthusiasm, but that will be great for other perspectives of what I'm feeling. I guess the only advice I would give is, prepare yourself! 

Reflection on My Personal Homework Goal (9)

I believe I have successfully shot myself in the foot. All of my young padawans that follow this blog should remember how I had mentioned I had a new goal: Do all my homework. Well here I am realizing that I've got quite a bit to do for tomorrow morning. Never fear, kids, I've got a Red Bull and am ready to kick this blog till it falls and then continue to kick it while it's down until it has 20 posts in it. All I have to say for all y'all is get ready to see just how creative I can get with these posts! Enjoy!!!

All That being said, I don't think I've quite reached half a page yet so Ima blabber on about how I need to blabber on to make that half page. If you haven't noticed, it's a little difficult for me to fulfill the requirements of this blog... yup, you nailed it.