Finally

Alright. It was quite a pain, but I moved all of the posts from this blog to my new blog... and will now conduct business from that site (www.hostilelegacy.com). So, change your bookmarks and enjoy.

SITE HAS BEEN MOVED... PLEASE FOLLOW THIS LINK TO:

Hostile Legacy

New Website

Well. Time has progressed, and I think that I like blogging. So much so, that I bought a domain, and set up a Wordpress blog. I am currently in the process of transfering the articles on this site to my new site... which may take a couple of days. In the meantime, you're welcome to check out the new site at....

www.hostilelegacy.com (pretty cool URL huh?)

Hostile Legacy

When I'm done with the site and transfer, I'll put up a post here redirecting to the new one.

Green Tea

So. I just made a website about green tea. Go check it out. I took the pictures and wrote the articles too. Hopefully I'll be able to rank in the search engines soon and get some traffic flowing... then I can put some Adsense and maybe some affiliate links up there.

The site is about green tea. Duh. I wrote two very short articles; one on health benefits, and another on weight loss. Then I took some pictures because everybody likes pictures. At least I do. The URL is...

www.greenteaearth.com

and a direct link:

Green Tea

VBS and Predestination

Ahem. My greatest apologies for not posting during the past week or so. Actually more like ten days or something. But last week, I was extraordinarily busy with VBS (I hope you know that that stands for vacation bible school, but if you don't... well, I just told you). So in '04 and '05, I was in the skit. Last year I was at summer school so I couldn't help out, but I sure made up for it this year.

This year, the theme for our VBS was what they called sonforce. Basically a secret agent thing. Now don't ask me why they did that, cause secret agents and espionage and God don't really seem to mix... at least to me they don't. But the kids ate it up. So every day during the opening session thingy, I would dress up in a trench coat and sunglasses (I felt pretty cool) and then did a little talk about the days lesson, and stuff of that sort. Then I had to rush up to the media balcony and start playing sound affects and media for the skit that came right after me. And when they were doing worship, I was working the slides for them. After that, I would head off to help with the second grade class (Which, truthfully, is one of the rowdiest crowds at VBS. Trust me, I would know). Now, also during the week, I was recruited to make a little documentary video thing for the church with my camcorder. Then again, on Thursday, I was part of a team that went around and pulled individual kids out of classes and talked one on one about salvation and such (which was pretty cool). So. All in all, I think this has been the busiest year for me in terms of VBS.

Well.
*Cough*
Now that I have gone on about absolutely nothing for a long while, I'll add something I've been thinking about lately. Predestination. Now, at least at this point, I would say I'm definitely free will. But it's all very confusing. Last Sunday, I stayed for the second service at church (incidentally, that was to help set up for VBS), and me and a friend did a little bible study/theological discussion (which we actually do quite often). We got to talking about free will, and he came up with a cool idea. Now I don't know if this is true or not, but I am under the impression that predestination people use Pharoh as an example of predestination. Maybe I'm wrong. So if God hardened Pharoh's heart, that means he changed something. That in turn means that Pharoh wasn't predestined. Because God changed something in reality (which he is obviously quite capable of doing) this seems to imply that the choice was originally up to Pharoh.

So here are some things I would say. I would say that God absolutely has the power to change things and predestine us. But I think he chooses not to. One argument I like to use is what I call the 'robot' argument. Our purpose in life is to glorify God, right? So how would you feel if you programmed a computer to worship you. That might be minorly pleasing... but think of how much more pleasing it would be if real people who had the choice to praise you praised you. Free will, at least to me, seems to just be logical. And not just using logic.

So the new testament is telling us to always be praying, and that prayer is a powerful tool, etc. etc. It has a lot to say about prayer. Now what is the purpose, I ask you, of prayer, if we're all predestined? I, at least, can't see any purpose in praying for something that's already been determined to happen or not happen.

If any of my arguments are stupid, or you have any points you would like to make, by all means post a reply.

Alone

My newest song. It's kind of sad... but I have a half-excuse. Actually, most of the lyrics are from a poem a friend of mine wrote. The first verse and the chorus. It was weird, cause immediately after I read the poem... actually even while I was reading it for the first time, this tune popped into my head that fit the poem perfectly, so, I wrote this song. I actually like the music on this one. I think its up there with rain music wise. Here are the lyrics.

Verse 1:

I looked in her eyes
And saw fears
I looked in her heart
And saw tears
I heard her words
And felt the pain
I heard her cries
And saw the stain

Chorus:

There she stood alone
No one on her side
No one was her friend
So alone she died
No one held her up
No one found her name
When she cried for help
No one came


Verse 2:

Alone in the world
She stood on sand
Among waves of grief
Searching for land
She struggled
every day of life
Fought the urge
to end it with a knife

Chorus

Verse 3:

On she stood through the
Stormy waves
Bonded to destiny
Like a slave
And Finally
The waves of strife
Relieved her
Of her broken life

Chorus


And the link to youtube...

(coming soon)

Monks and Hermits

I don't really know what to write about... as usual. But I'm going to write a post and see what comes up.

Let's see. Ah. I've been thinking a lot about monks and hermits lately. I was talking to a friend of mine a couple days ago. I was telling him how I think I'd really love to be a hermit or monk (he said that he could see me doing that) but that I think God is calling me to something else. He burst out laughing, and I couldn't figure why. He said I was the only kid who dreams of becoming a hermit.

So I've been wondering... did God take delight in the middle ages monks? I mean these guys were some serious Christians. They were always reciting psalms... praying... they basically did everything for God and tried their best to be perfect. Now I got to thinking, the monks are kind of taking themselves completely out of the world. I mean they're basically saying the world is evil (which it is, but there's also hope) and then removing themselves. Now I thought we were supposed to minister to the world (which is what I think God is calling me to do... I don't know in what way). We aren't supposed to completely cut off all relations with the world, right? Well, when I think of monks, that's the picture that generally comes to mind.

Eventually, I came to the conclusion that monks actually didn't cut off all relations with the world. They prayed for the world. They helped people, cared for people, sheltered people, labored in community fields... so they weren't just these guys on top of a mountain with no human contact.

Now hermits... that's a different story. They were guys on tops of mountains with absolutely no human contact. So... I'm not sure about hermits. I mean it seems like how could these perfect guys (well... almost perfect) NOT be pleasing to God? I dunno. I'm still working on that one.

One thought I came up with is this; how many times does the bible tell us to minister to the world? And how many times does it spend telling us the rest of the way we are to behave? Aren't we to be constatntly praying, and not partaking in any of the worlds evil... um... products maybe? and memorizing the entire Bible... Everyone always stresses on ministering to other people, but it seems that the Bible emphasizes 'me' much more than 'them'.

Okay, okay, I know ministering to other people is a huge part of the Christian life, I'm just trying to make excuses for the hermits. Oh well.



Just a sidenote.... If anyone has any questions or (I don't know why these two always seem to go together... maybe they should like make a compound word out of them...) comments while reading any of my posts, I'd be more than happy to answer them. Just post a comment (and everyone knows blog writers love comments [er... at least this one does]).

Sacrifice

My newest song... and as usual, please excuse my bad singing voice. At least I think my range is improving a little tiny bit, which is good. This song, at least in my opinion, has the best lyrics out of the bunch. But unfortuneatly, I can't say the same for the music. Rain is still probably my favorite in terms of music.

Here are the lyrics for this one. It took me so long to write this song. I struggled and struggled but I couldn't come up with any music or lyrics. But finally, I got mad at a certain circumstance. In a sudden spur of the moment, tried to do what I thought God would want me to do... which actually made me feel pretty good (I wonder why...). But then I suddenly wrote pretty much the entire song in one short sitting. Amazing what inspiration (or emotion) can do to one. Anyways. The lyrics.

Verse 1:


And here we are,
Stumbling in the lions den
Reveling in our pits of sin
Will we ever get out again

The Dark is close
Closing in around us now
Blotting out the light and good
We'd fight back if only help it would

Chorus:


You cleansed me
Of my sin
Died for me
You took it all away
Loved me
Cared for me
Cherished me
Though I stabbed you in the heart you loved

Verse 2:


The end is near
Everyone will soon be judged
On my cheek blows the cold breath
Of pain suffering and eternal death

The lies and deeds
Done in dark places unseen
Will soon be brought to light
Opened up shown off for public sight

Chorus:

You cleansed me
Of my sin
Died for me
You took it all away
Loved me
Cared for me
Cherished me
Though I stabbed you in the heart you loved

Bridge:

I am ugly but you loved me
I am wicked but you cared
I was scarred and so you healed me
Tried to mend my broken ways
I lashed out and tried to hurt you
You stood up and hugged me close

Verse 3


Now you Oh God
Are my light my strength my hope
In darkness no more I'll grope
Cause you sacrificed yourself for me
(repeat)

Chorus



as usual, here's the link to the youtube video if you want...

Sacrifice

Christian music

So what exactly makes Christian music Christian? Or, what should make Christian music Christian?

Well, generally, I believe people think of Christian music as music that sings about God (or something relating to God).

Okay, Okay, hold up here..... botheration.

I was originally going to write this post--or at least I started with the intention of writing it--about how Christian music doesn't necessarily have to be about God, i.e. praising him, singing about how he did something, etc. But now that I think about it... everything written by a Christian should have a premise that God exists. Obviously, because that is the truth, and like I said in my last post, all art should correspond to truth.

So... can we sing about anything besides God? The first question that probably comes to mind (I guess it shouldn't be the first one we think of but I'll explain that later) is, 'Is it sinful or bad to write about this?'. Take trees for example. Say you wanted to write a song about trees. Or Cheetos and Doritos. I dunno. At first glance, there seems to be nothing really 'immoral' about it. I mean... does there?

You could think about it like this though. Your writing a song about trees (or Cheetos and Doritos, take your pick), so basically, you're glorifying said thing. Glorifying said thing... starting to sound a bit like idolatry. The very reason we exist (I hope you already know this, but in case you don't...) is to glorify God. Now by writing a song about something other than God, doesn't it sort of seem like we're praising creation? Glorifying what God made, instead of the creator himself?

Just thought I'd put in a little disclaimer... I'm making up all of this as I go along so... I don't really hold an opinion at this point. Thought I'd let you know.

So. Idolatry. God. It seems to me that the safe way is to write songs of praise. That's the safe way. But there's also a good way to praise creation. Instead of glorifying it for what it is, glorfy God for making it. Or if you're writing a song about say... the evil of the world (now why does that sound familiar... heh. Maybe I'm just making excuses) then make sure that the song points up instead of down. Sorta like what I said in my last post. Instead of saying everyone's evil and the world is hopeless and we're all gonna die (which incedentally isn't true)--we should give everything we write an upbeat note. A note of the redemption offered through Jesus Christ.

So in the end, do all songs have to be about God? I guess I sort of made a loop, and came back to my 'no' answer. But it's not quite as strongly 'no' as I originally thought. We have to make sure that we still have the understanding that God exists, and that there's hope. Especially if we're writing about something not really relating to God (like Cheetos or Doritos).



Sidenote: if you're wondering why I kept mentioning Cheetos and Doritos, well, I really haven't any good reason to give you. I suppose I just am having sort of a cheesy craving at the moment....

The Modern Art Culture

Well. I said I'd post on something interesting. At the moment I'm at a loss for interesting things, so I'll just post on a verse. The verse is this, James 4:4, and my NASB reads:

You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.

Boy. That hits you hard doesn't it. By trying to be a friend to the world, you are making yourself an enemy to God. Powerful. I don't think I can really 'preach' on this, but I think you can probably see for yourself where that verse applies to you.

The book of James is sure packed with powerful stuff for such a short book. You should read through it sometime.

I'm reading this book called "It Was Good Making Art to the Glory of God". It's a bunch of collected essays on making art from a christian worldview. One of the big questions is what should our art be about, or what should it depict, etc. Basically, it should depict all things beautiful. If you think about it, mainstream art and media go for shock value. But when you see something shocking over and over again, you become desensetized. So to be shocked, the artist has to crank up the shock value another notch. The world's art arena has been cranked pretty high up there on the shock value. And that's not a good thing.

So to be a good artist, you have to shock people. Now that's all good and well (actually it's not, but I felt like saying that), but you can only get so shocking. And the things that shock people are a pretty bad lot. I mean come on, do you think extreme language, gorey grisly violence, graphic depictions of sex... do you think those are glorifying to God? Fine. Maybe you do. but I don't.

So now the question becomes what should we depict in our art? The first thing that comes to mind is beauty. The problem is, when I say beauty, roses, happy smiling people, children playing merrily, a pretty sunset... these are the things that come to mind. Now I think we should focus more on beauty as opposed to chaos, unorderliness, revolting things etc, but we can't just focus on the beautiful, because we live in a fallen world. We live in a world where evil is rampant, so it looks corney and false and goody-goody when people depict a perfect world in their art (By the word 'art' here I don't just mean paintings... I mean music, literature... the creative arts in general).

To make art that resonates and gives the consumer a sense of beauty, you have to depict truth. You have to depict the world as it is. But there's a fine line here, because some people will say there's no hope and everyone's evil and we're all gonna die (unfortuneatly I think I kind of conveyed that in my song Dark Illusions... I rather regret that now. But look on the bright side, the music's cool [if a bit repetetive]). This is not I repeat not conveying the truth. Yes there is sin, and yes we're all evil, but there's an overlying sense of hope and redemption to creation. God is loving, kind, and merciful.

Nothing Important

Well well well, I haven't posted in quite a while. You might think it's because I'm lazy, but actually I was in California on vacation (Okay, fine, I'm lazy anyways, but still...). For the first week and a half we visited family (we also went to Disney Land). The next week I went to a Christian retreat called Mount Hermon for a week. When we (me and my family) lived in California about 8 years ago, we would go up to this retreat every year. But this time around, I attended the senior high camp, which included grades 10-12. I was by myself for an entire week in a place I'd never been, and not a familiar soul within miles. It was great. I wasn't expecting it, but it was actually a really spiritually building experience. One of the speakers was amazing. Pastor by the name of Dave Jung. He did all his messages on the armor of God (mentioned in the last chapter of Ephesians). I will have to talk a bit about that sometime, but I'm to tired at this point. We arrived at our house in Connecticut around 7ish today. Boy it's great to be home.

One day when I was at my cousins house, I was tinkering around on the piano, and of a sudden, out of absolutely nowhere, I wrote a song. Eh, I guess I tend to do that all the time, but I recorded it today. Just finished uploading it to youtube a minute ago. So you can check that out at the bottom of the post (I don't know how long I'm going to be rambling on for).

Hum. Do I have anything else important to say?

Nope. So. I shall tell you about something interesting tommorow.

On Writing, Practice, and Talent

Well. I haven't done a good old post for quite some time. I am sitting here at the computer (which I hope you would have already guessed) trying to think of something to write about. Words fail me.

I'll start off with writing. People always give you sets of rules to follow (I'm talking specifically about fiction here). Do this, do that, make sure you don't do this, and make sure you do that... you get the idea. I was reading a book about writing a couple days ago, and one thing it said struck me like a sledgehammer striking a watermellon. The book, which by the way has been in print since 1965, said that you shouldn't listen to anyone elses rules. What's right for them might not apply to you or your specific scenario. Rules begin by taking away options and limiting you, something you definately don't want to do in writing. You must develop your own rules, and the way you do that is by writing. Practicing.

Speaking of practicing...

Everyone always says practice is the key. Practice enough and you'll become good. Say you practiced something 10 hours a day,7 days a week, 365 days a year. Could you be the best in the world? An interesting question: how big of a role does natural God given talent play in skill? Well to tell the truth, I think some people are just good at some things, and other people just naturally stink. I think this might sound weird to many people because of the way today's culture works. It's all about everyone can do everything, we're all equal, we're all winners, we can do it if we practice.... To tell the truth, that is not the truth. At all. God has given us all different level's of skill and talent. God doesn't dole out equal amounts of talent or intelligence to everyone, precisely measuring how much he gives to everyone. Truth be told, it's just the opposite. But then you have to step back and ask, "Is intelligence or talent or skill at something good?" Think about it this way, just because you're not as intelligent as Mozart or Einstein doesn't mean God doesn't love you, and it certainly doesn't stop you from your purpose as a human being (praising and glorifying God).

Ah. I just thought of a good topic for my next post....

Subscription

I just found this cool thing/program. If you want to subscribe to my posts via email, the just click the little thing at the bottom of this post. All you have to do is give it your email address, and it will email you my posts every time I post them. Nifty little thing. Don't ask why you'd want to get my posts by email. I don't know why. But I thought I'd give people the option.

Another Day

And here's another song. I think it turned out OK, even if it is a bit repetetive. I like the piano for the verse. That part was fun to make.

Here's the link to youtube if you can't see the video below:

Another Day

Another Song

Here is another song. I actually recorded it a while ago, right after the Dark Illusions one. I'm working on another which is almost finished, and I will post it when I finish. I find it quite fun writing music, and the singing adds a lot to it, even if I *do* have a terrible singing voice.

If you can't see the video I embeded on this page, then you can watch it on youtube. Here are the links.

Dark Illusions

Lost

To do or not to do...

So. Is secular music bad? Which movies are bad? should I hit my brother? Should I yell at my mom? Is this choclate bar gonna kill me?

These questions are all asking whether something is bad or not. In the modern Christian society, we focus everything on whether something is bad or not. If it's not bad, it's OK. Well, I was talking with my dad, and he had a revolutionary idea (at least for me). We focus on what NOT to do. Instead, we should be focusing on what we SHOULD be doing. What we do, is we look at things and label them according to how bad they are. Then we judge whether we can get by doing the things we like, without those things being too bad. We try to get by with doing as many 'bad' things as we can. Instead of focusing on the bad, we should be focusing on the good we should and could be doing.

Lately, I've also been thinking about giving and not taking. I think we need to stop concentrating on ourselves, and concentrate on other people and God. We have so much capacity to give, and yet we hoard our time, recources and money to ourselves. We need to stop being so caught up in ourselves and let God work through us. Of course I try to do what I just said (and fail miserably) but it makes me so angry when I think about how bad we (Society and even the Christian community) are defocused from God.

Niagra Falls

Today I visited Niagra falls on the Canadian side. It was the first time I've ever been out of the United States. Heh. It was funny, cause everything over there is in metric. Like kilometers p/hr and such. People in other countries are so much smarter... anyways, Wile looking at the falls, I wrote some observations down in a notebook. It sounds kind of cool, so here's me standing over the falls writing.


The water here has a cool color. It's like real aqua. I can hear the thunder of the water going over the falls. Throughout the river are whitecaps of water rushing towards the brink. Seaguls are flying around too. A thick mist of water bellows forth from the bottom, thinning as it goes up and travels from the falls. I can also see big rocks at the bottom.

Now I'm on a bridge over a little stream thing maybe 100 ft. from the falls.

Now I'm standing ten ft. from the brink watching the water pour down into the river. The water looks like liquid glass that's clear. It also smells really salty; almost like the sea. Now, on the Canada side, I can faintly feel the mist.

A Poem

Here's a poem I wrote recently... I thought it was interesting. And, surprisingly, it's not dark. Instead of trying to appeal to emotions, I tried conveying something resembling a message. It's also supposed to be a bit humorous. Not like the laugh sort but maybe more irony... I dunno. As of yet, it is untitled.



Many men live on this earth,
For some great fame is destined from birth
geniouses, warlords, conquerors, and kings
Fill volumes of history and other such things
Their deeds are those of which the bard sings
Sages ponder and think 'bout their lives
Historians compile and write great archives
Of every thing, in life they achieve
Of ever tiny creed they believe

Then there's the average farmer chap
Who's greatest decisions are whether to nap,
Who's jobs require nought but the strength
To plow a field, or measure it's length.

And yet, the geniouses crazily drink
Warlords slaughter millions without a blink,
Conquerors think themselves gods of love,
And kings... well... all the above

So, in the end, is it not much better
To smoke a pipe on the porch, wearing a sweater?
Is it not so much better, in life,
To honor God, one's children and wife?

A Song

Lately I've been doing a lot of piano composition and song writing. I've finished a couple of songs so far. I decided to write all of them under one theme, so kind of like an album thing. The Album is called 'A Darkening World'. Huh. I told you I wrote dark poetry...






By the way, please excuse my terrible singing voice. I know it's bad, but at least the piano and words are decent I think.

The Dark Side of Homeschoolers

I write dark poetry and stories. Death, destruction, suicide, evil, decay... these are the things that are portrayed in my writings. Now I thought that was rather dark. But, as I have gathered from multiple sources, this is actually a common phenomena among homeschooled teens. So basically, all of us homeschooled teens write really dark stuff. Isn't that fascinating? You would think we would write happy fluffy stuff about God and Jesus or something.

Now, I have discussed this, and have come up with a hypothesis on the causes of this phenomena. Alright. So all of us homeschoolers are nice, amiable, loving people (Well, at least most of the time. OK, fine, SOME of the time. Well, maybe not me personally but...). Now everyone gets angry sometimes. We all have dark thoughts. We all think about death and destruction. Now homeschoolers, because of the society they live in, and their own personal beliefs, have a tendency to suppress these feelings. Of course, we can't make them just disappear, so we just channel them into this specific area.

Then again, not all of us show our writings to people (Because they tend to worry about such stuff coming out of such people). So we homeschoolers channel all these feelings into this medium. I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing, though it may seem like it. This is also a good way to release the emotions without doing potential harm. I guess you might worry some people... (parents for example) but that's about the worst you could do.

The reason I make this observation, is because the more I get into the writings of fellow homeschooled teens--at least their true writings--I find this theme of death anger and hell. It seems so contradictory, and has surprised me, but when you think about it, it makes sense.

Excuses

Well. I haven't posted for a while. And, though you may not believe it, I DO have an excuse. I haven't had internet access for an entire week.

*sits down and breathes deeply*

It was an extremely traumatic experience for me... but I'm getting better. Anyways. I was at the JO's. The Junior National Championships for gymnastics in the United States. It was in Oklahoma city. Man, you wouldn't believe how ripped these guys are... When they're warming up in the side gym, most of the guys don't wear shirts. And man, if you look at the level tens, they are like bulging with muscles everywhere. Heh, sometimes I wish I had done gymnastics...

*smiles ruefully*

Ah well. But hey, at least I'm not fat and I can do a barrel roll on the ground (which, I am proud to say, my brother ((as well as a bunch of the other gymnasts at his gym)) can't do). Many things to be thankful. But then again, if I was a gymnast, I wouldn't be able to do all the other things I like to do. I guess it's a double edged sword.

Speaking of rippedness... I think that looking 'good' or 'fit' or 'muscular' or 'ripped' is highly overrated here in America. Think about it. In school, if your the stupid athlete guy who looks good but gets bad grades, your the super popular guy who everyone wants to be friends with and be like. OK. Now you have the nice, intelligent, quiet guy. He's looked down on as a nerd. Think about that for a moment. Does that make any sense? No. Kids these days are so darn messed up and stupid.

*sigh*

What is our world coming to?

Here's an interesting little thing I found out: people actually come to my blog. Heh. I guess they don't comment, but they actually come and read it. And from random places too! Google has this cool program called Google Analytics. I just put some code into the template of my blog, and vioua-la, I can see who visits my blog. Where they're from, how long they stayed... etc. etc.

'Working Out'

I am just going to randomly throw ideas into this post. Let's see what happens. I suppose it will probably start off bad... like with stuff about me. But I bet it will turn into some interesting discussion or other.

Well. Let's see.

I will probably be up realy late today, cause I have to finish up my school before I leave for Oklahoma city on Tuesday. My little brother is in gymnastics (he' prettiy good too), and this year he's a level nine. That's where national competition begins.

Speaking of gymnastics, I think I found my topic. It takes immense amounts of strength and time to be a competetive gymnast. And boy, gymnastics is *really* tough on your body. I've decided that working out on machines or lifting weights does not really help you in any practical way. You see, when you do those types of excercises, you're isolating one muscle, and working that muscle only. Now think about this. You have 650 skelatal muscles in your body. That's a lot of muscles. And when you're doing anything that has any practical value at all, you're not going to be using one muscle, you're going to be using lots.

For example, say you wanted to be able to lift heavy things. So, you go to the gym every day and do biceps and triceps machines. Now, even if lifting things took only your arms (I'll discuss that in a second), you'd still not be helping yourself at all by just excercising biceps and triceps. Check out this diagram:

http://www4.nau.edu/biology/bio201/images/arm1.gif

That is a lot of muscles. 24 to be exact. And when you lift something heavy, you're not just going to be using your arms. You're going to be using many of the muscles in your chest, legs, abs, and back.

doing things like pushups are much better to develop your muscles. This way you're using all of the muscles in your arms and some of the ones in your chest. Now you may say, 'but I'm basically doing pushups on machines' but that is not true at all; when your'e on a machine, the gosh darn thing even TRIES to isolate muscles. Yup.

Now I do my pushups and sit-up varieties and pull-up varieties, and running, and I'm in pretty good shape. Another thing I do is a little bit of acrobatics. Like flips and stuff on the ground (i.e. backflips, frontflips, sideflips, backhandsprings, fronthalves, backhaves... you get the point). I would like to say that this stuff is also really good for muscle development... but I think it's a bit hard on like your joints and stuff. But hey, it's fun. And it looks cool. heh.

Green Tea

Here we go again on the topic of green tea. So controversial. Well. I hope you know this already (and most of you do but for those of you who don't) I'm an anti-coffeeite extremist, and super-pro-green teaite. Really it's just my personal preferance. But I'm making a website on green tea, and I'm writing a bunch of articles for it. Well, I was doing some research on the health benefits of green tea, and it's actually pretty amazing. Here's one of my articles:


Hmm, sorry, for certain reasons I don not really want to explain, I had to take down the article. It'll be on my green tea website, so you can read it there when I get the site up. I'll put a link to it here.

An Untitled Song

During my trip to Chicago (the one for the internet marketing seminar) I wrote a song. I wrote some piano music to go with it too, although that part isn't quite finished. I thought it turned out decent, see what you think. As a sidenote, if you haven't guessed, it sounds better when put to music.


Are we lost, after all,
To what depths can we fall?
If we fight, can we win,
How much trouble are we in?
Is this fight worth the hell
That it takes climbing up this knell
All this trouble all this pain
We go through

Are we up against a wall?
Can we make it if we crawl?
Is it worth the pain and sweat
These lives we lead full of regret

(little piano solo thing)

Through the pain and the fear
Though the end isn't near,
I will slog through all this mud,
I will sacrifice my blood,
For the Lord who made us all,
He has given me a higher call.
And to that calling I shall make,
For him a legacy great.
For the Lord, who made us all,
To me has given a higher call

Evil Apples

I took down the previous post... because I felt like it. I don't know how the heck I came up with that. Seriously. It just came out of nowhere. Kinda scary actually...

I had an interesting thought yesterday. Why is it that the tree of the knowledge of good and evil always portrayed as an apple? I mean hey, I like apples, they aren't evil. It seems like it should be a more sinister fruit... take the extraevilsuperbad fruit for example. Ok, fine, I made that one up, but still, why apples? They have a sort of negative connotation to them now, like I don't think they should be, but if I try to think of a sinister fruit (which I suppose is sort of random and abnormal in the first place, but that's beside the point), I sort of automatically think of the apple, which I find rather interesting. I wonder if the apple has a truly evil nature, or if it just has a negative connotation from the Bible (which, as you should already know, never actually says anything about the type of fruit). Then again, the apple might have derived it's evil implications because it was evil in the first place. Quite the paradox.

It's almost beginning to sound like the old 'chicken or egg' statement. Anyone with any common sense (someone really stupid trying to be really smart must have come up with this thing) would know that the chicken had to have come first. Even if you're an atheist, the chicken must have come first. I mean, it's not like the egg evolved (Well, it's not like anything evolved, but you get the idea) from a goat. Or a whale. Or a codfish. Or anything else for that matter.

I'm terribly sorry, but I'm going to add a paragraph about me personally. Nothing interesting after this line, so you might as well not read it. I don't know why I'm writing it if I'm telling you not to read it, but oh well. I'm a weird person, right? (That was a rhetorical question)

At the moment, I'm at an internet marketing seminar in Chicago. I'm in my suit and tie, sitting in the conference center, on a laptop with wireless. I've been here since Thursday, and I'm leaving tomorrow. Internet marketing is quite an interesting and complicated world, but to put it simply, it's all about how to make money on the internet. Entrepreneurial stuff applied to the internet, really. Quite interesting.

Of Mind and Body

Well. I just watched the movie 'Super Size me'. It was good but also very sad in a big way. It's about this guy who goes on a diet. A McDonalds diet. For thirty days, he eats nothing but McDonalds; if they don't sell it, he doesn't eat it. He was very healthy to begin with, but as the days progressed, he got worse, and worse, and worse. He gained like twenty pounds, was depressed, had weird physical symptoms, got addicted to the food, his liver began to pickle.... the list goes on. Just goes to show how bad fast food is.

Now me, being the person I am, was quite disgusted, but I could still devour a big mac, or any other fast food item for that matter (Taco Bell is by far the best fast food place; as anyone with any common sense knows). I mean, come on, who *didn't* know fast food was bad for you? And anyways, it's not like we ever get the stuff in the first place...

Throughout the movie, they were also taking little side-trails on food concerning health. One of the figures that saddened me greatly was this: 40% of Americans are obese. That is a large percentage. That is almost half of the entire United State population.

Another thing I noticed is that I can't think of any unhealthy homeschoolers. They all seem pretty fit to me. There are two factors that I think might contribute to this observation. While I was reading Plato's Republic, one of the things he said that was mental education should come before physical education. If you train the mind correctly, and if your mind and brain are harmonious, it seems likely that your body will also be in a harmonious, healthy state. If you are truly smart, you will take proper care of your body as well. Another thing, most homeschooling families (at least the ones I know) are larger. Like four kids and up. When you have this many kids, you tend not to eat out very often (if at all), mostly because it's expensive. A side benefit is that home-cooked meals are almost always healthier than restaurant or fast food meals (parents might also be concerned about this in the first place, and that could contribute to the eating out factor).

Two More Pictures

The first one is me and my little brother Josh after a martial arts tournament. The trophy is his. The second is a picture of my incredibly beautiful culinary creation: black bean soup. My dad makes a really good soup. I put on indian peppers (pretty spicy), indian red pepper (pretty spicy), cheese, and sour cream.

Altruistic Totalitarianism

An Essay about dictatorships I did for Great Books. I had some interesting thoughts in it. For those of you who don't know what altruistic means (I sure hope you know what totalitarianism is) click here



Altruistic Totalitarianism


Dictatorships and monarchies are the purest form of government and have the highest potential good for their citizens. Unfortunately, they also have the highest potential evil, and as history has proven, absolute power is almost always abused. The problem with the dictatorship does not lie in the system itself, but in the men that use it. As a race, we are basically evil. When a man has the absolute power over an entire country, his sinful side is magnified. Throughout history we have witnessed so many monarchies go awry that absolute power has won itself a reputation of oppression, unfairness, and corruption. People now-a-days tend to associate negative connotations with the words 'dictatorship' and 'absolute power.' By their main definition though, these words have no negative denotations. It is not the actual object that is evil, but the people who misuse it.


If monarchy is truly the purest form of government, there must be some sort of ideal structure for it. As we look back at history, it it becomes clear that constructing an incorruptible dictatorship is extremely difficult, if not impossible. One of the problems with this form of government is that there are very few men capable of holding absolute power and not abusing it. Many times, the immediate decedents of an exceptional king are weak or stupid, or both. In most cases this is because a ruler simply doesn't have enough time to devote to his young. At the very earliest stages of their youth, when they are desperately in need of a godly father model, there is no one there for them. Then again, kings often make parents in the first place.


The inheritance system. Herein lies the problem. As soon as a weak and easily corruptible—or already corrupt— man takes the throne, things are thrown into a mess. Any good done by a ruler is almost always vastly outweighed by the imprudence of his feeble successor. If you could ensure that strong, moral men stayed on the throne, the monarchy would promptly become a powerful and altruistic state.


The ideal hierarchy system must be based on this important factor; that the founding monarch is be an honest, valiant, and strong man. Ideally, he would be Christian as well, although this is not a vital point. The traditional system of inheritance desperately needs to be done away with. Instead of his first born son, the ruler would pick a young man out of his country to mentor as his heir. Because there is the slight chance that a ruler might be biased towards his children, it would be customary that he not pick any of his own offspring. As soon as any king begins his rule, he would begin a search throughout his kingdom for this heir. The young heir would travel by the ruler's side, almost like an aide-de-camp, and the ruler would teach him wisdom and country-running skills. If a strong, wise, Christian man took the throne to begin with, this system would ensure that a good king was always on the throne. Also, there would be a board of counselors that the king would appoint. These men would have power only subordinate to the king, and would advise him and help him wisely rule his country.


Another consideration that must be made, is that of marriage. Will rulers be allowed to marry? At first glance, the simple answer is no. It would be distracting. On the other hand, Kings throughout history have had queens (or harems), but ours isn't the normal dictator. In the end, it is necessary that a ruler have an intellectual partner and a second in command—a sort of 'vice-dictator' who would take command in the scenario that anything happen to the ruler. This would mean that the dictator would have to pick a wife very carefully, but if he is already a wise and godly man, this should not be a problem.


There are, as is probably apparent by now, gaping holes in the above system. It is quite possible that a ruler could die before he had chosen an heir. This would likely result in a fierce struggle to gain power. For this reason, it would be the queen's responsibility to choose the heir if her husband died. Hopefully, corruption would also be counterbalanced by the kings council, who would presumably be wise and godly men, and would attempt to keep evil out of high positions. If both the queen and king died before a new heir was in place, it would be up to the council to choose the next heir, and for practical purposes, none of them could be put into the position themselves.


Due to man's sinful nature, constructing a workable monarchy in the real world would be extremely difficult. There is, however, one perfect dictatorship we can look up to: that of God over the universe. He reigns perfectly, always knows what is best, and has supreme power. There is no problem of corruption in his monarchy, and he needn't deal with the problem of heirs, because he is everlasting. Neither has he any need for a council; he is all knowing.

A Lone Picture

Wow, here's a first. A Picture of me at TeenPact, giving a speech as Representative.

Some Thoughts on Music

Well. Well well well. I haven't posted for quite some time. I wonder if it's the time. Last week was TeenPact, which I always enjoy greatly (This was my third year attending). I won a position as Representative, which is just a title, and I had to give a speech at graduation. Well, I used to be the quiet kid who never talks and is super shy... Lately I've found I enjoy public speaking, and I'm not really that shy anymore. I guess God has something in store for me.

Unfortuneatly, I haven't worked on my story for a few weeks, but I hope to start up my quota again, because the next few weeks will be pretty much normal. Then I have an internet marketing conference with my dad, and nationals in Oklahoma city.

Lately I've been thinking about the music thing. Yeah. The music thing.

This is a very controversial topic. I must say, I'm surprised how many conservative homeschooled kids are vehemently against music (especially rock) being bad for you. They seem to not want to believe it, I dunno, probably cause they like it. They don't want it to be true, so it can't possibly be true. I listen to it (unfortunately for me), but I wouldn't get so upset if people would just admit it's bad. I mean, if you smoke, then you don't justify it by saying "Smoking isn't bad for me, heck, it's probably good for me. At any rate, it doesn't affect me." It's this rebellious spirit that I dislike most.

Another thing that I'm surprised at is how many teens so vehemently dislike classical music. last Friday I went to an ice-hockey game to do a demo. I'm part of my Martial Art's school's demo team, so we went and did the demo, and stayed for the game. One of the guys, whom I very much enjoy talking to, is named Adam. He must be 18, and he's going off to join the marines in June. He drove me to the thing and back, and we got to talking about the subject of music. I was very surprised to find that he holds pretty much the same view I hold: classical music is good for the brain, especially for babies and early development. Another thing thing he said was, was that classical music is the base. He said he'd never met a good musician who wasn't grounded in that base of classical music. If you can't appreciate classical music, how can you then appreciate rock, or any other contemporary music? (As a sidenote, we were listening to blaring rock during this conversation). But he's right. Classical music is the very foundation of music. How can you listen to rock and whatnot if you hate classical?

Something else about music. How bad is secular rock? How much do the lyrics matter? I was discussing this with someone, and that person was strongly against secular rock, but also thought that Christian was not bad, or even good. All this was based off of the lyrics. What is in your head comes out of your mouth, so if you're thinking about all the things secular rock talks about, and all the swearing and stuff, it's bound to manifest itself in your actions and words. That was the argument. This got me to thinking, because lately, I've started listening to secular rock (quite against my better judgment I might add). I have to say this again, but the Christian music community is not that talented. But how much does secular rock affect you? Well, I suppose it depends on the person, but I find myself singing lines to songs I listen to, almost withouth thinking about it. Of course, I would never (at least at this point) swear. But... who knows, maybe it will wear me down, and someday I'll start swearing. It seems unlikely to me, but you never know how far you can fall.

Well, that was quite a long post. I noticed that that first part was rather irrelevant... pertaining to my life and such. The stuff that I'm not supposed to write about because it's boring, and no one cares (Or at least, I wouldn't care if it was someone else, hehe). I will try to keep that to a minimum, but I sort of had to start it off that way, to get the words flowing, and I'm not gonna delete it. No idea why.

Father Joseph

Here's a short story I did recently... actually the first I've ever done independent of school.



Silence filled the room—every corner and crevice was laden with it. Then, ever so faintly, the sound of a murmuring voice crept through the thick silence. It bounced around through the empty pews, then scampered up the alter.

The great, high-ceilinged room was darkly lit by sunlight streaming in through heavily tainted windows. The murmuring echoes merged into a deep mellow voice.

“Were you there,” it sang, deep and mournfully, “When they crucified my Lord.”

An ancient man in a black robe walked slowly into the spacious sanctuary.

“Were you there... when they crucified my Lord...” the strains rang through the whole room now.

With wrinkled hands, Father Joseph straightened his high, black collar. After clearing his throat with a cough, he slowly continued pacing towards the alter. All the while, he gazed thoughtfully ahead of him, passing row after row of silent pews.

He loved performing the children's program on Good Friday. Then again, what old man didn't like children?

Children. He sighed deeply.

Those beautiful, innocent, round little faces; all gazing intently at him, all soaking in his every word.

“A joyous blessing from the Lord,” he told himself.

By now, he had reached the raised platform where the Sunday sermons were taught. Hands behind his back, he turned pensively to face the pews. To his surprise, they were not completely empty.

A man was sitting, in the very back of the sanctuary, dressed meticulously in a dark suit. His head was bowed, and his hands were folded in his lap. Father Joseph studied the man, who didn't move even the slightest.

The cool silence was shattered by a cheery, “Good morning Father Joseph!”

The aged priest lifted his gaze from the silent, unmoving man, and followed the jumpy gait of a young woman walking down the center isle.

“Greetings, Miss Mary.”

“Sorry I'm late, the bus got caught in a traffic jam. I was listening to the radio, and it sounded like there was a murder or something,” she said, skipping up the alter stairs and quickly passing Father Joseph. “There were police cars everywhere on Richard Street. You can just see them from the bus stop out front,” Mary waved a hand, gesturing towards the front of the cathedral.

“How terrible,” said the old priest, once more resting his gaze on the man in the back row. After a moment of silence he asked,“Is everything ready for the service?”

“Yes, me and Alisha set it all up yesterday.”

There was a rustle behind him as Mary slipped into her black robe. Carefully, she smoothed her long brown hair and adjusted the cross hanging from her neck.

At that moment, a small family walked into the sanctuary and wandered around looking for a suitable place to sit. Mary looked up from tying her black sash.

“Oh, brother John's out at the front door greeting people,” she said.

“Very well. Let us greet them as well. Come.”

Father Joseph started slowly down the alter, closely followed by Mary.



*****************



“Now, if you have anything you wish to be forgiven for, or you want to thank the Lord for something, or if you just need to tell him something, then write a few words, or draw a small picture,” said Father Joseph, looking with a warm smile at the group of children in front of him. “There are baskets along the side of the room with crayons and pencils and paper. When you are done, fold up your paper and put it in the basket.” He motioned to a large wicker basked before him. “This is just between you and the Lord. Go on now.”

The group dispersed, and the children were led around the room by their parents to where the baskets of paper and writing tools lay. Fondly, Father Joseph surveyed the children skipping around, or crouching on the ground here and there with pencil clutched in hand. He took a few steps forward, leaving the basket behind him.

Then, he noticed the man in the dark suit was no longer present. He slowly swept the sanctuary with his gaze, but to no avail. The man had followed behind the children and parents as the group had made their way around the cathedral, discussing the Easter story. The whole time, he had watched the children sadly, almost enviously.

A hand pressed Father Joseph's shoulder. Behind him, a calm voice said, “A beautiful sight, is it not?”

Father Joseph turned and nodded. It was the same man in the dark suit. “Yes.”

Wistfully, the young man gazed at the children that filled the room. “They are the very picture of life and innocence. They know nothing of the evil world surrounding them. Their parents protect them well.”

Silently, Father Joseph turned his gaze back to the little ones, and nodded in agreement.

The dark young man clasped his hands behind his back sadly. He nodded to the old priest, and walked down the stairs of the alter, back to the last row of pews, where he took his seat.


*************


There was now no one left in the cathedral except Father Joseph. The families had all left, as had John and Mary and Alisha—those that had helped put on the service.

Low strains of music vibrated through the room as Father Joseph carefully folded up his black robe. He was humming to himself in a preoccupied manner.

After storing his robe in the dressing room, he donned a tweed sports coat and straightened his crimson-red tie. Still humming, he treaded up to the alter, and bent down to pick up the basket filled with folded pieces of paper. Unhurriedly, he lifted the basket and exited the sanctuary. When he reached a trash barrel in the reception room, he dumped the papers in.

A single, unfolded piece drifted to the ground, and landed face up. In strong, bold script was scribbled,


God help me. I had to. But it will all be over soon. I'm sorry.


Just then, the loud screech of tires bounced eerily through the room. The ancient priest stood still for a moment, gazing off into space. There were a few yells and screams outside, barely audible from inside the cathedral. The wailing siren of an ambulance in the distance grew a little louder, stopping out front of the cathedral.

With a sad smile, Father Joseph picked up the paper and reverently folded it.

“You are forgiven,” he said.

Thoughtfully, he paced back into the sanctuary and quietly began to sing.

“Ama- -zing Grace,”

He started down the center isle. “How swe- -et the sound...”

Slowly, the mellow strains of the hymn faded, and every crack and crevice of the sanctuary was once more laden with silence.

A Request

It was requested that I put a little of my story-under-progress on here. So, here is a little scene I enjoyed writing.

* * * * *

Ellen hit the loudspeakers button. “Harlington, where the hell are you? We've got three UN gunships bearing down on us. Looks like they're also deploying boarding pods.”
The doors behind her opened and a short, fat little man soared through the air, landing perfectly in the seat next to Ellen. “Yes sir. Fuel engines have been engaged. Power generators have been engaged.” He flipped a few buttons and switches deftly as he spoke. “Sir, are you going to buckle up?” he said after glancing at Ellen.
Casting an annoyed glance to her left, Ellen said, “I was just getting to that.”
“Where are we going?”
“Earth's moon.”
“Port Royal?” said Harlington, rolling the r in royal.
“Yeah.”
The little man gazed out of the window as Ellen hurriedly buckled herself up. He stroked his jet-black mustache and squinted warily at the fleet in front of them. Zilch Harlington, Ellen's co-pilot squinted warily out the window.
“It looks like we are in for quite a ride Captain. Any ideas as to why they are after us?”
As the two waited for the different systems to heat up so they could start moving, Ellen clenched and unclenched her right hand nervously.
“You know,” said Harlington in a matter-of-fact tone of voice, “I think two pieces of toast with raspberry and lemon jam right now would be just delicious.”
When she looked over at him incredulously, he frowned. “Is something wrong sir?”
He never seemed to lose it, and even in the direst of situations he could always find something amusing to say. She shook her head and said, “Nothing.”
An alarm went off. Annoyed, Ellen looked around the control board.

Three Elements

An essay I did on writing. Thought it turned out pretty good.


What makes a captivating story? This is a very complicated question, but there are three devices that can be said are the basic elements of story: plot, character, and dialogue.
Probably the first thing that comes to mind when one thinks about what makes a good book is story. Action and thriller stories draw heavily on strong plot. Things like engaging plot line, unforeseen developments, and 'Twist' endings. Obviously, there are already traditions in this area, because oftentimes, it is easy to predict the ending of a story. This is because we have been exposed to many storytelling conventions. Hero triumphs in the end, man gets girl, bad guy is defeated— these are some of the most common developments used. Because so many stories have been written and told, it becomes harder and harder to come up with fresh, entertaining developments; nonetheless, it is quite possible.
Well designed, paradoxical characters make for an interesting and entertaining story; while Fake, dreary characters ruin the best plot and writing style. When a reader picks up a book, it is the characters that draw them through the story. The reader must be able to identify in some way with the lead character, for it is the reader's concern for the lead that draws him through the story. Usually, quieter stories that don't have much action or suspense rely on strong complex characters. The story revolves around the changes and revelations of a specific character.
Another main component of a good story is dialogue. Although the reader may not realize this, this is the most important element of a good book. The two paragraphs above are about plot and character, which are extremely important; but it is the dialogue that gets down and actually conveys good plot and character. A character's thoughts, opinion, and personality are shown through his speech, and plot is developed through this same medium. Instead of telling the reader plain out what happens, it is almost always better to convey plot development by means of dialogue. Every character should have a distinct manner of vocalization and should not speak textbook-perfect English—no one uses good English in conversation.
A fresh and entertaining plot, complex vivid characters, and natural flowing dialogue are the main components to a good story. Action thriller stories can always use more character development, and literary stories can always use more plot elaboration. These three devices—plot, character, and dialogue—are the foundation of all fiction.

Christian Authors

I have come to the decision that there are very few (if any at all) good/talented Christian authors. There are of course exceptions, like Tolkien and Lewis, but there are precious few. I wonder why that is. Maybe it's because they're too... Christian-ey? I dunno.

Now I'm not saying this because I think Christian authors don't have enough violence and language and whatnot... They just don't have skill. They're either too corny or too sentimental.

The reason I say this, is so far, I have not been entranced with any of the Christian authors I've read (I suppose that must be pretty obvious). And a couple days ago, I got a book from the library called Deep Storm, by Lincoln Child, a non-Christian author. For the first time in a very long time, probably like five years, I wasn't able to put the book down. Don't you love it when that happens? Well, I do at any rate. The story was quite entertaining, and I was quite pleased that the author kept the obscene stuff to a minimum (a couple gory scenes and a sprinkling of obscene words. Not even a single kiss... which was of course good). Today I got another book by the same author called Death Match, and after the first thirty pages it promises to be as entertaining as the first.

POST SCRIPT
My parents both read this post, and say that I should clarify that I'm talking about fiction writers. OK. I did that.

Eragon

Well, I got Eragon from our library last Saturday, and I think I'm going to finish it off tonight. I must say, it was better than I expected, but of course it doesn't compare with Lord of the Rings (Which, incedentally, Paolini draws heavily off of). I haven't seen the movie yet, which is good, because I like to read books before I see movies based off of them, because in 99 out of 100 times, the book is better than the movie.

The reason I got the book in the first place, was because of the author. He was fifteen when he began the first book, and it took him a year to finish the first draft. That's just my age, so I am intrigued reading the work of a kid my age. He's in his early twenties now, but it's still cool reading a published book written by a fifteen year old. This is very interesting, but he was homeschooled. Also, he liked classical music, and listened to it while writing Eragon. But get this, Stephen King (I hope you know who that is) listens to hard rock while he writes. Very interesting.

Now, of course, I've been working on a new story for a couple of weeks. I don't really want to say anything about the plot right now. But, I've gotten over 15,000 words now. My goal is somewhere around 100,000 words, so I'm slowly getting there. Also, I decided to throw myself a little party when I finish; go get a bunch of junk food and soda, and stay up all night, and read my book when I finish the first draft.

If you're wondering, I listen to Skillet when I write. I wonder what that says about my writing. I guess I must be somewhere inbetween Eragon's simple characters, black and white morals, uplifting air, and Stephen Kings dark, horror stories.

Me and Dancing

I'm sure when you read the title, you said to yourself, 'Oh dear, now he's gonna crack on dancing and how stupid it is and how he hates it and blah blah blah.'

Well, you're right, it is quite pointless. Actually... Wait, no, I take that back. It's good exercise. But otherwise it's pointless. Although I must say, most of us could do with a bit of exercise.

But all that is beside the point. Today, or rather tonight, I went to a Ceili (It's pronounced Kaley, like Haley with a 'K' sound. Don't ask about the spelling, it's Irish). It's an Irish dance sorta thing. There was food, which of course I love. I mean come on, what 15 year old boy doesn't like food? Cookies, chips, soda, all that good stuff.

The reason I went, is because my sister takes Irish step dancing, and her school holds a Kaley. She's actually quite accomplished and talented in that area. Anyways, the point is to dance. So, I danced with my sister. They taught some simple steps, and then we danced to traditional Irish music. I never thought anyone would here me say this, but I actually, very surprisingly, enjoyed myself. Yes, I enjoyed dancing. Wow.
(if you haven't caught it yet, this would be the point at which you faint)

I was one of the only boys there. There were plenty of fathers and grandfathers, but I was one of the few young boys. I wonder why.

You may not know this, but I enjoy dressing up in a suit and tie, and jump at every chance I get. So, I wore a nice dark pin-stripe suit, with a blue shirt and a green and black tie, which I like. I looked pretty good, if I may say so myself, and I'm still wearing the former mentioned clothes as I type.

The Fog

I had an interesting idea for a story. Because I'm already working on a novel, I shall write a few paragraphs or lines every now and then and post then on my blog. I'm not going to go back over it and check it or anything, so excuse any grammatical/spelling errors. I have no idea, really, where this is going to go, I just had this image and vague feeling, so, here goes.



With his chin on his desk, George Brown gazed--frowning--out the window.

It was Friday afternoon, but the sun was nowhere to be seen. Although you couldn't tell by looking up, the sky was covered with thick, gray, ominous clouds. There was something mysterious about this fog, and George didn't like it at all. It was suppressing and dark. Ever since childhood, he had disliked fog; the reason probably being that he had once gotten lost in it when he was hiking, and almost never made it back home. Most fogs he could deal with, but this one-- it just didn't feel right.

George sighed resignedly and creakily stood up. It was different not having to go to work every morning. During his working life, he had always dreamed of waking up at 11:00, dragging through breakfast, watching TV, and being generally lazy. But, now that he was actually there, he found it too tiring to wake up any later than 6:00. And it had become boring sitting in front of the TV all day long.

In the distance, he heard a sad, lonely church-bell toll, muffled by the thick fog. He glanced down at his watch. 3:01.

Maybe he'd take a walk up to the old church. Yes, that's what he'd do. He needed the exercise.

Soon he was striding briskly down Rose Street, trying to ignore the fog pressing in around him.

Timelessly Practical Utensils

Here is an essay on spoons I finished today. I think it turned out OK, so here it is.

Spoons. Rather insignificant devices. Or maybe not. In fact, they are the basis of modern society. Yes, there may be a couple in the kitchen, but there aren't that many, right? But there are that many. They infest the earth like ants, only they are serviceable tools, not useless pieces of plastic and metal that clutter.
Because there are so many types of food, it naturally follows that there are many kinds of utensils to match. On the other hand, not all spoons are used for cooking. Take the dreaded 'spanking' spoon for example. I'm sure we all have vivid memories of that wooden—maybe it was plastic, or even metal—spoon; hideous exaggerations buried deep in the archives of our brains. Fortunately, there are merry crystal ladles, homely measuring spoons, and delicate tea-straining spoons to blot out unwanted recollections past. Making their homes in the kitchen, the sandbox, the dining room, the occasional toy box, the office (coffee stirring spoons of course, but they have largely been replaced by plastic coffee straws as of late), trains, restaurants, grocery stores, malls... It's almost frightening how wide-spread they are. If they decided to take over the world—but let's not get into that. All this goes to show just how many different types of spoons there are, and how widespread they are.
There must, of course, be a use for every spoon out there, and, like most anything, proper use is sometimes abused. It may be surprising, but certain spoons make a quite au fait rapiers. If mechanized properly, with adequate skill and knowledge, they can serve as devastatingly effective catapults. Although this is not commonly known, spoons can also serve as a capable nose-guards. Cooking would become immediately impossible without spoons, and it's excruciating to even ponder life without soup-spoons. Obviously, if used liberally, they can make gorgeous jewlery—earrings, nose-rings, belly-rings, necklaces, bracelets and the like. It may come as a surprise, but even a card game was named after these extremely helpful tools. Plastic spoons make great digging implements if you don't have access to a shovel (for example: in a prison).
But, believe it or not, spoons have their shortcomings and dark sides. What could possibly be wrong with spoons? Well, when a spoon is needed—and it doesn't matter what for—They are nowhere to be found. They are dirty and are in the dishwasher, lost in the garbage disposal, scattered outside, or entombed in the trashcan. Sadly, sometimes soup-spoons develop blemishes, holes, and other weak spots. As with most small objects, they can also be a choking hazard, and if lost down the garbage disposal, they are prone to ruin the motor by jamming the blades. A most annoying dilemma.
The spoon is a timelessly practical utensil that will never see an end of new uses and variations. Spoons will indefinitely outlive civilization. Surprisingly, many people do not realize the power they have over modern day society. Indeed, the entire culinary industry rests in the hands of these small indented little devices. Soup-consumption would become barbarically messy, not to mention the eating of other such foods like ice-cream, yogurt, pudding, and Jello. Although they have their weak spots and shortcomings, spoons are foundational to our lives.

Of Idiosyncrasies

OK, I need some good character idiosyncrasies. Please comment on any weird little anecdotes, strange personality traits, or anything other odd things you can think of in people you know (friends relatives. And no need to mention names. Of course, you could... but...).

I would greatly appreciate it.

About Communion

I had never realized this before, but some denominations think communion is really important. When I was having a discussion with a certain someone, the aforementioned said if you don't take communion, you're starving yourself spiritually. Now, personally, I never thought about communion that way. I thought of it as (and still do) as a way to remember what Jesus did for us. How he came to earth and sacrificed his body and blood.

I don't remember anything in the bible saying that communion is spiritual food. I just glanced through my Bible at some passages where communion is mentioned. Jesus instituted it in Matt 26:26. I read through that, and I'm not exactly sure why you would say communion is 'spiritual food'. It seems to me that 'spiritual food' is meditation on the word of God, prayer with God, and discussing things with fellow Christians.

Just thought that an interesting little topic.

King Francis

I LOVE the last stanza of this poem.

It's another one from my memorization slate (which means I did not write it). And remember, if you read it, read it ALOUD. All poetry should be read aloud.

King Francis was a hearty king, and loved a royal sport,
And one day, as his lions fought, sat looking on the court;
The nobles filled the benches round, the ladies by their side,
And 'mongs them sat the Count do Lorge, with one for whom he sighted:
And truly 't was a gallant thing to see that crowning show,
Valor and love, and a king above, and the royal beasts below.

Ramped and roared the lions, with horrid laughing jaws;
They bit, they glared, gave blows like beams, a wind went with their paws;
With wallowing might and stifle roar, they rolled on one another:
'Till all the pit, with sand and mane, was in a thunderous smother;
The bloody foam above the barscame whizzing through the air:
Said Francis, then, "Faith, gentlemen, we're better here than there."

De Lorge's love o'erheard the king,-a beauteous, lively dame,
With smiling lips, and sharp, bright eyes, which always seemed the same;
She thought, "The Count, my lover, is brave as barave can be,
He surely would do wondrous things to show his love for me;
King, ladies, lovers all look in; the occasion is divine;
I'll drop my glove to prove his love; great glory will be mine."

She dropped her glove to prove his love, then looked at him and smiled;
He bowed, and in a moment leaped among the lions wild;
The leap was quick, return was quick, he soon regained his place,
Then threw the glove, but not with love, right in the lady's face.
"In faith," cried Francis, "rightly done!" and he rose from where he sat;
"No love," quoth he, "but vanity, sets love a task like that."

A Revelation

I have had a brilliant idea for a story. I have recently been building my knowledge of writing skills by reading multiple books on writing. And, I've come up with a really cool story idea. I've tried fantasy (like three years ago, and I actually got 50 pages down before the plot fell apart), I've tried one set in the modern age (that would be Malckem, and I actually still like that idea, he's just on the back burner), and now, I'm going to try sci-fi. Like outer space Sci-Fi, but there're no aliens. It is a much more realistic space age... or at least from my point of view.

Writing

Well, I'm sort of cooling off now. I look back, and find that I've posted about every two days (which is very good, at least compared to 97% of people who own blogs who post every month or so). For the past few days, I have been reading a book by Stephen King. Now don't be horrified, and gasp, and think how evil I must be to read one of his horror stories. I suppose you shouldn't do that because... It's not fiction. It's a book about writing. But, I must say, it is an extremely well written book. There is no doubt about it, King is a great writer.

But besides that, he gives some incredibly helpful information. It's all straight-forward, practical, no-nonsense info, really great stuff. If you want to take a look... click here
If you are into writing, I strongly suggest you read it.

Lately, I seem to have had a resurgance in reading interest. I've always liked reading, and read like heck when I was younger (isn't it ironic that I can say that? It strikes me as funny how I can say, "yup, back when I was just a lad..." when I'm only 15) But for the past year or maybe a litte more, I really haven't read much. Especailly not fiction. But today, I went down to Barnes and Noble and got myself two new books. They are both on writing. After I finish this post, I'm going to read and sleep (maybe even write a tiny) for the rest of the day. I quite look forward to it.

Friday night, I watched 'A Beautiful Mind' which although a little disturbing, was an excellent movie (it did win 4 academy awards after all).

Well, sadly, I seem to be falling below my usual standards... I guess I'm just your average, light-headed, stupid, surly, rebellious, annoying teenager. Wait. No I'm not. What an idiot I am. I'm sorry, forget all that I just said; I'm a genius.
smiles in a satisfied manner
A perfectly angelic, kind, patient person. Oh dear, wait a minute... I'm not that either. Well, I guess I'm somewhere inbetween.

One thing that strikes me as kind of funny is that most teens and pre-teens can't see when they're being rebellious and surly and all the things I said before. I have the unusual gift of being able to look at things very objectively. That doesn't stop me from being all of the former... but I at least aknowledge it.

Well, I think I've gone on about nothing at all for quite long enough. Time for some sleep and reading!

P.S. and if you don't know already, I'm quite against the use of exclamation marks. I only put them in if absolutely necessary. They are much to overused in my *humble* opionion.
* smirks for no reason but that he feels like smirking *

Of life

Life is a tradgedy to those who feel, and a comedy to those who think.

~Fortune Cookie


The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.

~Thucydides

music

Some experiments on music and humans.

Dr. Racher, a behavioral scientist, did some experiemtns on college students. She teaches at the Universtiy of CA Irvine. She tested the students with a spacial temporal iq test. This test was with no music. Next for one group, she played Mozart for 10 minutes before the test, another she played 'relaxation' music, and for the third, she played no music. The ones listening to Mozart preformed 8-10 IQ points higher than the other two groups on average.

Dr. Raucher did another experiment, this one with preschoolers. Bear with me, it doesn't exactly have to do with music, as in rock being bad, just a sort of general thing that I find rather interesting. Dr. Raucher took four different groups of preschoolers, and gave them 20 minutes of suplemental activities daily, for six months. Now, the adult to student ration was the same, classroom space, time, etc. everything was closely measured. The four subjects were these: free play, singing, computer (I'm not sure what you do with a preschooler on the computer, but anyways...), and piano. Before the six months, she gave them a spacial temporal IQ test (scaled down for preschoolers. It's like say you have a camel, then you cut it into four sections. They had to piece the four sections together.). At the end of the six months, they had all improved, but of course, that would be expected, because they were growing anyways. But, amazingly, the ones doing piano improved 46% more than the others did.

Another experiment was done to see if there was any measurable effect on human emotions from music. There were four groups, classical, new age, grunge rock, and designer music (this was sort of the point of the experiment... to see if you could manufacture music that would have desirable effects). Tests were admistered, testing for mental clarity, caring, relaxation, and vigor; hostility, fatigue, sadness, and tension.

classical: slightly increased the four positives and decreased four negatives.

new age: increased relaxation fatigue and sadness, decreased hostility

designer: increased four positives, decreased four negatives

grunge rock: significantly increased four negatives and decreased four positives

Of Unicorns and Spirits

I found this post in a certain forum...


Hoyla! I recently acquired a book by Odell Shepard entitled "The Lore of the Unicorn." Here's something from it that I thought you people would be interested in, in light of reading Herodotus in GB1.

"In the King James version of the Bible there are seven clear references to the unicorn, all of which occur in the Old Testament. The animal is mentioned twice in the Pentateuch, once in Job, once in Isaiah, and three times in the Psalms. These passages read as follows:-

"God brought them out of Egpyt; he hath as it were the strength of the unicorn."
-Numbers 23:22

"His glory is like the firstling of his bullock, and his horns are like the horns of unicorns: with them he shall push the people together to the ends of the earth."
-Deuteronomy 33:17

"Save me from the lion's mouth; for thou hast heard me from the horns of unicorns."
-Psalm 22:21

"He maketh them [the cedars of Lebanon] also to skip like a calf; Lebanon and Sirion like a young unicorn."
-Psalm 29:6

"And the unicorns shall come down with them, and the bullocks with their bulls; and their land shall be soaked with blood, and their dust made fat with fatness."
-Isaiah 34:7

"Wilt the unicorn be willing to serve thee, or abide in thy crib? Canst thou bind the unicorn with his band in the furrow? or will he harrow the valleys after thee? Wilt thou trust him because his strength is great? or wilt thou leave thy labor to him? Wilt thou believe him, that he will bring home thy seed, and gather it into my barn?"
-Job 39:9-12

I thought that was kind of neat. I went and looked up those references in my New King James Bible; they've changed "unicorn" to "wild ox." Go figure.

Any comments or insights?


The reason I found this so interesting, is because recently, I've been listening to some tapes by J.P. Moreland (the same guy I got the other two posts from), and he was talking about something that struck me as similar. The topic was about spirits and souls, and he was saying that you aren't your brain, and that's not where your memories are stored and stuff... well, it was all very interesting, but then he got to talking about animal souls. He said that in the King James version, in the old testament in multiple places, there is reference to the animal soul. But if you look in newer translations, it has been changed to 'life' or 'life-force' or 'vitality' or something of the sort, because it has kind of been assumed (on a scientific basis) that animals don't have souls. The post about unicorns seemed almost exactly the same. There is no such thing as a unicorn, so it must be an ox or something. Let's change that little word. An interesting little discrepancy don't you think?

An interesting question

Will we retain our memories, thoughts, and all that stuff when we die/go to heaven?
Can we have painful memories in heaven?


I would say that we retain our memories and thoughts and what not. If we didn't, we'd be a different person/soul/being. I mean, that's pretty much what makes 'you'.

What I think happens, is that when we go to heaven, we gain a new understanding of all the events that have previously happened to us. God is working for the greatest good, it's just that sometimes we're so stuck up with ourselves and so selfish that we can't see the big picture. When we die, we will be awed at how God intricately wove together the events of history into a perfect masterpiece, and how everything was always working for the greater good.

That's my take on things at any rate.

The Soul

I was listening to a seminar thing on tape by J.P. Moreland and taking some notes. Wrote a short paragraph today about a couple points. He has some interesting points. This isn't really morbid... but I dunno if it's happy. It's sorta neutral. :)

The Human Soul

Because of the scientific times we live in, many people wrongly think that you are your brain, and you're ideas, beliefs, and memories are stored there. This is simply not true. A human-being is a soul that presides and resides your body. On the other hand God, who is a soul as well, is to the universe as you are to your body. Spirits are not 'spacial' beings. While angles are spirits as well, they can temporarily manifest themselves in apparition-like forms. Essentially, humans are meant to have bodies. Paul said that he would rather Christ came back before he died, so that he wouldn't have to go through the period of disembodiment. That is, before Christ gave us our new, resurrected bodies. Having a body is more comfortable, it isn't that being disembodied is uncomfortable. When we go to heaven, will we have the same memories and personality? I believe yes, because it's what makes you you. Obviously these things aren't located or stored in your brain, because if they were, they would die with your body.

Hum

I look back, and all my posts so far have been about... the world coming to an end. Hmmm. Maybe I should post about something good for a change. The only problem is... I can't think of anything good to post about. Maybe I will write a post about myself. And try to make it entertaining at the same time.

Futile Babble

The time was 12:00:58 1/31/07. The place, was in my chair, at the computer. I was in Latin class. The teacher had just announced breaktime (which lasts for around 10 minutes), and the chat had momentarily stopped. Then, it started up again.
"So... did you like so and so?"
"Who likes that new album by so and so?"
"Oh, I love hot cocoa!"
"I have to go watch that. Was it good?"
"I'm going to go grab my ipod."
"Man, that was the best movie ever! My favorite part is..."
"
And then, I stood back, and looked at the big picture. It was a sad sight, I must say. This is all kids talk about now-a-days, and it does rather appall me, although I cannot say I myself am not guilty of occasionaly indulging in such capricious, fruitless, foolish chatter. All teens, preteens, and even young adults talk about movies, video games, and music. It's kind of sad. Whatever happened to politics? Ethics? Science? Government? History? *sighs and shakes head*

O tempora! O mores!

Well. Maybe kids never talked about those things anyways. Come to think of it... they never even talked. Well, there's always time for change. I, for one, would like to see a change in that.

Man

If you ask the kids [in America] what they want or need, they will say an iPod or some sneakers. In South Africa, they don't ask for money or toys. They ask for uniforms so they can go to school." —Oprah Winfrey, venting her frustration with young Americans' obsession with material things, when asked why she built a school in South Africa instead of the United States [washtimes.com, 1/24/07; cnn.com, 1/23/07]

How sad is that? It makes me shake my head.

*sigh*

Cloning

Today, I happened to hear some brief points covered in a conversational manner about cloning. One of them is not religious. I mean, he knows about christianity and atheism and stuff, but he doestn' really care. The other, I'm not exactly sure, but I think he leans a little more to the Christian side. Well, anyways, a disscussion was started about cloning. I think that it was generally agreed that human cloning is bad, at least in a complete way.

Okay. Say you have a kid. That kid has Down's syndrome, or something like that. It is ok, and probably even 'right' (If this was possible at least) to geneticly modify the person so as to get rid of the problem. But to completely clone a person is just like... weird... so it probably shouldn't be done (maybe there's something in the conscience that just says it's wrong, I don't know)

Is that the right take? No. Let me repeat that. No, it is not the right take. The first flaw in that reasoning is that it is not from a Christian perspective. I mean, I'm sure 99% of Christians would agree that cloning is bad. But why is that? Say someone said, 'I think cloning is a good thing. We can make lower-intelligence people to do all the dirty work. It would be great.' You would most likely say,
'No, cloning is bad! We should avoid it! Baaaaaaad!' But then, the other person says, 'Why is it bad? I don't see anything wrong with it.' How would you reply to that? 'Um, well, because it feels wrong.'
I'm afraid that just won't cut it, and the other person will walk away laughing at you and your up-tight religious ethics.

Now, you're probably sitting there thinking, "Oh, cool, he's going to tell me what's wrong with cloning! Now I can know how to reply to that question, and not have to walk away ruefully wondering why cloning is bad." I'm afraid I don't have the answers you're looking for. You see, I was listening the disscussion above above (which by the way didn't last that long, and there was no heated debate or anything), and I was thinking, "Cloning is bad. Stay away. Evil." You know, the little beeper in the back of my head went off. Cloning = bad. As I was about to voice my opinion, I realized that I had no solid arguments against cloning. This made me think. What is bad about cloning? Is there anything wrong with it? I mean, it's just taking DNA making a person... what's wrong with that? I then came to the conclusion that cloning is fine, and there are no reasons that it's bad or unethical to a Christian. I mean think about it.

Did I scare you? No, that's not what I think. But to answer these sorts of things, you have to ask those sorts of questions.

Ok, so, cloning is taking something and copying it. But not just any old thing. A living thing. That is the key. Basicly, you're playing God. What's wrong with that you ask? Well, just look at where Satan ended up. He wanted to be like God and look at what happened to him. Sure don't envy him. Maybe if we create lower-intelligence beings, then we'll have to make them worship us, or they won't work for us. I dunno. That doesn't sound to good, but just think of where things could lead. Not good. You could also go the other way and accidentally create something you don't want. Maybe a super-genius psycopathic murderer who has an insatiable lust for taking human life... I don't know. Just look at all the movies and books and stories about things like that.

Well, I have to go and get myself ready for bed. It messes me all up if I don't go to bed early enough, and then that messes up the entire week... but, I will write another post continuing that thought when I have time. Maybe tommorow.

Sea Fever

Note, I did not write this poem. I memorize poems every week, and this is one of them. I liked it so much, that I just have to post it. I love the rhythm it has. it's just so... perfect... I guess. Make sure you read it ALOUD. All poetry should always be read ALOUD. If you don't believe me ask... um... anyone who knows anything about poetry.

I must go down to the sea again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,
And a gray mist, on th sea's face, and a gray dawn breaking.

I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea gulls crying.

I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull's way and the whale's way where the winds like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
And a quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.

Something Happy

According to a certain someone (who's name I will not disclose), I am too sad, dark, and depressing (there may be some truth in that... then again, there may not). So, I composed two 'happy' poems to appease her--oops, I mean, the aforementioned.

Smarties

Smarties are a joy to eat
For when you pop those suckers in
They start releasing joy so sweet
You suck them untill they begin
To dissapate; to get real thin,
And then you bite 'em just like meat
Those little pieces of sugar sweet.

Of Happy things

I sing of happy things, oh yes,
Like kitties! (wait, they're sometimes pests)
Or maybe sunsets musical!
(I'm sorry, I'm trying my best)
Or bloggers blogging happy things,
Robins, joyfull, building nest,
The busy beetle, the growing tree...
I could go on all through the day!
(Naw, that's a lie, only for pay)

A Darkening World

I was feeling kind of... well, dark I guess. So, in response to the mood, I wrote this poem. I think it sounds kind of cool.

A Darkening World

Dark illusions flashing past,
Innocence broken much too fast,
Bloody wars and bloody crimes,
These are extremely unsafe times.
The young will die, the old will live,
Will we ever learn to give?
Will we ever learn at all?
If we do, content will maul
Our sense of justice, peace, and good.
We don't care even though we should.

You know something...

I just realized that I've posted more in two or three days than the average person posts in a week. Er, make that a month. OK, sorry, no, year. Isn't that interesting. I think it's just because I like to write. Yes, I think it's because I like to write. That's it. I like to write. Oh, did I say this already...? well, in case I didn't: I like to write.

I think writing is good for one. The more you do it, the easier it becomes. It solidifies facts, ideas, and beliefs in your mind, helps you to figure out exacly what you're thinking, displays the stupidity you see in things... I believe writing is a good thing. Yes. Oh, and then of course, you need to write in life a lot... most probably for your job. And if not that, you will if you get a college education. It's actually kind of fun rambling on like this... about whatever's on my mind. Sometimes you can even make people laugh when they read. But... I just am not to skilled at that. I mean, my writing is always so serious... I just can't make people laugh. I dunno. Maybe it takes a special ability to write comedy. Nah, just takes practice (like about everything else in the entire world does...).

Boy, I'm glad I have that 'Random Ramblings' label, cause there sure would be alot of 'em if I didn't...

FPSs and RPGs

War is so cool. I want to be a soldier when I grow up, and have a gun, and shoot people, just like in my video games!

Man. How are these games affecting us. I just want to say, they are not doing anything good, at least from a Christian perspective. If you're an atheist, well, then heck, don't read any further. I have heard people (christian teens and adults) say that these games only affect you as much as you let them. If you're a sensitive person, or are more prone to violence, or whatever... I mean, I don't really get their point. How you can think that? First of all, they affect everybody the same. Maybe some people are better at containing it, but it most CERTAINLY does have an effect. It desensitizes you (and there have been studies on this). You just don't react to violence anymore. It's like it's... gosh... NORMAL.

All of the above shouldn't even be in question. The question isn't 'is it going to adversely affect me', it's, 'Does GOD want me to be dwelling on this'. I mean, I don't know of anywhere in the Bible where it says we should be pretending to go around shooting, knifing, grenading, machine gunning, hacking, sawing, stabbing, slicing, and otherwise mutilating other human beings... or aliens or creatures or animals for that matter... I think I must be missing something. And it must be pretty big...
*goes off scratching head, wondering what is missing*

*comes back after an hour of meditation still confused*

Well, I think that there should be a major video game reform... oh no, wait, maybe we should just GET RID OF THEM. Hum, that would seem to solve the problem. I'm sure if certain people read the previous sentence, they might have a bit of an adverse reaction (e.g. jaw drops, excess saliva secretions might drip from the mouth, eyes might boggle abnormally, body would go limp, or maybe they would have a sesiure... you know, the normal surprise reactions). But if you think about it... how can video games be good? I mean... Really, you'd have to stretch things to make an argument... and it'd probably look like a pea to a star if you compared the two. Sure, I play video games. I'd even play M shooters if my parents let me (or any old one for that matter), but they don't. I know it's bad... but somehow, my better judgement isn't strong enough yet. Well, that's what God made parents for.
*sighs and wonders whatever he would do without his parents*