this week...

School started this week and all of my classes are wonderful and I'm really glad to be back in an environment that I love and studying all kinds of amazing stuff.
i.e.: Audio Production, Piano, Mass Media, Astronomy, Interpersonal Communication, et cetera.

I didn't pass my orchestra audition, which I'm actually really happy about, but that leaves me with one less class than I had before. Maybe I'll have to add something else.

The unfortunate thing is that actually having a structured schedule has not really done anything to make my time less unorganized.

The past few weeks, and month, and all of 2009 so far actually, have been very discombobulated and confusing and hard for me to keep straight in my head.
That isn't to say that things haven't been good, or that my wonderful friends haven't been there for me, or that I haven't done any cool or nice or fun things, because actually I have.

However, this past month has probably been, spiritually speaking, one of the worst months of my life.

But do not fret or lose hope! God is still teaching me, and I am still learning.
I've once again turned my heart to him and begun to eagerly listen to his calling, and things are getting much better already!
I just needed to admit that the past month hasn't been so great.
I feel really good today though, and it is very nice to know that the lining is silver, and that the God who holds the stars in the sky can hold my tiny infinitesimal life in his loving hands and that he will show me an even greater hope than I had before.

Peace.

conversations

"Conversation is more than the sum of the words. It is also a way of signaling the importance of another person by showing your willingness to give that person your rarest resource: time. It is a way of conveying respect. Conversation reminds us that we are part of a greater whole, connected in some way that transcends duty or bloodline or commerce. Conversation can be many things, but it can never be useless."

- Taken from the book God's Debris

Thanks.

The Fleecing - Pedro the Lion

Deep green hills whose shoulders fade, into the gray tall wet grass.
Whose flesh makes fools of grazing sheep, whose fleecing makes a fool of me.

And who shall I blame for this sweet and heavy trouble?
For every stupid struggle?
I don't know.
I could buy you a drink.
I could tell you all about it.
I could tell you why I doubted, and why I still believe.

But I can't say it like I sing it.
and I can't sing it like I think it.
and I can't think it like I feel it.
and I don't feel a thing.
Oh no... I don't feel a thing.

And who shall I blame for this sweet and heavy trouble?
For every stupid struggle?
I don't know.

I could buy you a drink,
I could tell you all about it.
I could tell you why I doubted, and why I still believe it.
And why I need it.
And what the pharisees don't see.

And we'd have more drinks. We'd speak of so many things.

But I don't know you, and you don't know me.




- David Bazan.


And if you thought you had a bad 2009 so far:
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,24936304-662,00.html

Peace.

San Francisco, Marshall Scotty's, and other things

The past few days have been interesting.

Since I have tried and failed to write my thoughts out in a cohesive manner, here is a bulleted list of stuff:

- Last weekend I drove up to San Francisco with my mom.
We drove my grandpa's new Mercedes Benz convertible which was insane and rather swanky. We stayed at my Aunt's new house in Oakland. It was really awesome. I wanted to stay there forever. My mom and I are pretty different, but it was still really fun spending all of that time with her.

- We went to the Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA)
This made me think a lot about art (obviously). It made me realize that I like seeing art in life and not just in a museum. It's not that museum art isn't amazing, it's just not as good as life-art.
As an artist, I find this encouraging.
I could write an entire post about this, but, let me just say that there were a few things in the museum that puzzled me. One was a small room full of sand.
What is the purpose of this? Is sand really art? Is it only art if you put it in a small room a certain way? or is it art when it's at the beach or on a playground or in your shoes or in your pants?
I like to think it's all of those.
I think life is just better when everything becomes art.
I think God is an artist and that he made stuff as his art. Art with a purpose, of course. But, well, we don't have to live our lives in a museum is what I'm trying to say, I think.
Sorry if I lost you there.
Anyway:

- I discovered this place that I used to frequent as a child called "Marshall Scotty's Playland" in east county. It is a small amusement park with a several traditional fair-type rides, and I'm pretty sure I had a few birthdays at as a child.
It has since been abandoned, and is broken down and very overgrown.
So, naturally, I went there with my friends.
It was really cool.
Then we got attacked by a dog.
Thankfully, No one was hurt.
Pretty much, we went in the park, walked around, marveled at the old abandoned rides like the bumper cars and the go-kart track, and then I pointed towards the tree-infested Ferris wheel, and as we walked towards it in near-total darkness, we heard a loud voracious bark very near to us. Courtney and Ian ran away faster than I thought possible, and were over the fence in about a second. Kenny and I were right near the dog and I yelled to hold still and not to run so that it couldn't chase us. It didn't. Which was nice.
I learned that on a scale ranging from Flight to Fight instincts, my friends would be placed: Ian, Courtney, Will, Me, Kenny. (Ian being the flightiest and kenny being the fightiest)
The whole experience was a huge rush and was amazing, but I'll probably never go back there again. :)

- Thursday, this guy at my work whom I hardly know asked me to see a movie with him... which you intelligent air particles would understand to be a date. I didn't get that at first. I just wanted to see a movie. But I guess it was a date. It was a lame date. It was a cool movie, but I really don't want to date anyone right now. I really need to communicate this clearly next time.
And no, Eric, I did not find Gran Torino cry-worthy. I'm sorry. Also, Crash is better.

- Friday morning I randomly threw up and I don't know why. I haven't done that in a while. Since before my senior year of high school, actually. Throwing up is kind of a fear of mine. But, well, I guess it's just one of those things. I think I'm slightly more OK with it each time that it happens to me. Not that I ever want it to happen to me again.

- Saturday (yesterday) I had a weird day. I was at work and then I got a pretty bad headache, so I went behind the register and stood there for a moment and took a drink of water, and then remembered I'm not supposed to just stand around drinking water, so I went back to organizing stuff. Well, then a few hours later my manager came to me and said he saw me standing behind the register doing nothing and that I shouldn't be doing that, because that's rather lazy of me, and so I got written up for it. It sucked. I didn't argue, I just said sorry and that I understand.
And then when I left his office I cried quietly to myself. I don't even know what to say about that. That's just the way it is.

- But! After work I went to A-ron and David's birthday party and it pretty much reconciled every lame thing that happened to me so far this whole year because it was so much freaking fun.
Happy birthday A-ron!

- Also this week, I realized something that I hadn't before, I rediscovered something wonderful that I can't believe I forgot about, and I made a very unusual but hopefully wise decision. We'll see how it plays out.

- Wednesday I have my audition for the Grossmont Symphony Orchestra and I'm really excited and nervous and will spend the next few days practicing.

- There are many things still left unsaid.

Sorry about the length of this and my lame posting format.
I'll get better at this.

God willing, we'll all get better.

2009: the year of awe (and other goals)

So, I realize that 2009 is well underway at this point, and that I'm kind of behind on my blogging. I'm behind on a few other things too, which can get annoying.

This year so far has been interesting.
Yesterday I went to Disneyland with Cassandra and it was SO MUCH FUN!
Wow. I forgot how impressive that place is.

But, yeah; I wanted to use these words to lay out some goals that I have for this year:

- Learn to worship God in the truest way possible. (This might take some creative thinking/living, but it should be worth it.)

- Write a poem every day. (So far so good!)

- Write and record a lot more songs. (I'm thinking at least 50)

- find the lyrics for the 2004 classic Louis XVI and record it.

- Get my AA and degree from Grossmont (and get good grades! Last semester I got all A's and I think that that was a good thing to do... I should try to keep it up!)

- Intern (or get a job) with a sound company

- Be more organized

- Help someone in need (hopefully more than one someone)

- Make someone's life better

- Spend less time on the computer (Funny... because I also want to maintain my blog; but I think I'll be able to find a balance.)

And my most interesting and perhaps most important goal:

- To be in awe.

I've noticed that as I've gotten older that I've started to "get used to" things really easily. Lots of things can get familiar and I can easily get complacent in the way I act sometimes.
But you know what, I'm sick of feeling jaded. I'm sick of feeling sick and tired of things!
I want to be in awe of life and I don't want to take the amazing beauty around me for granted.
So that's my goal.

I'll leave you with this:

"If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly, our whole life would change." - Buddha

Bye for now.

two thousand eight

some thoughts.

I really wanted to make a post that summarized the year of 2008, but I am unsure how I can.

I might just try to recall (in a several formats) a few of the highlights:

The great year of oh eight started well and I spent a lot of time with my friends and family having fun and learning and growing and trying new things.
Courtney and I adventured like crazy (not too unusual), but i got to come across a whole year's worth of new things.
It was definitely a year of firsts for me. A lot of interesting little firsts, things like: first time I've been to Asia, done sound for a live show, eaten scorpions, gotten straight A's in school (I've gotten close before!), been put in a straight jacket, been to Texas, been to a college basketball game or a professional football game or a game at petco park, and first time I've cried because of a movie. Just fun stuff like that. I'm sure there's more, but I can't think of them at the moment...

In 2008 I traveled on more airplanes than ever before: I went to and from Davis (Sacramento) in January, in May I went to Texas (via a flight to SanFran and then to San Antonio and then a drive for 5 hours across the edge of the state to South Padre Island and then on the way back a flight to Phoenix and then San Diego... so 4 planes total) with my girl scout troop. (yes, I was in girl scouts, but no, I'm not anymore.)
And then my big trip of the year was obviously China! (Via Los Angeles and Tokyo... and I did fly from LA to SD on the way home... that was a fun little flight in a TINY plane.)
But, well I actually didn't want to talk about China yet, but I have a whole blog about China: morganhasablog.blogspot.com
You should read it if you like reading things that I write... about China...

Anyway, before the summer, I had my spring semester of my freshman year at Grossmont (and Cuyamaca) and I took: Philosophy, Biology, Photography and Audio Production.
At that point I was practically bent on having a quadruple major, and majoring in all of those subjects. This obviously does not seem very feasible, so, for now I'm just majoring in Audio.
While studying philosophy, I read the book Sophie's world, and I think it's incredible and that you should read it if you are in any way interested in philosophy. (see the quote in the previous post about the books you read.)
- My fall semester (after China), consisted of more Audio Production, Motion Picture and Film Analysis, Astronomy, and Music Technology. All of those classes were amazing and I can not really believe it but that semester flew by like none other. I feel like I just blinked and now it's gone... I guess it was a great semester, but I wish it would have taken it's time.

- I checked a few things off of my "to do before I die" list, and one of them was that I met Charlie Peacock!
He has really encouraged me and inspired me (both musically and spiritually) over the years. Meeting him was amazing and we got to talk for a few hours after his show at lestats and after he spoke at NCCC the next night. Thanks again, Charlie.

Another thing off of the list: I went to the Great Wall of China, which was (obviously) pretty great.

- In March I "met" an interesting person named Kenny Becker, and in April we became really, really great friends. It was kind of like magic or something.
Don't ask me how it happened, because I'm still trying to figure it out. Anyway, meeting and getting to know and adventuring with and staying up until 4AM talking about life and God and the universe and everything in between with Kenny has been an unusual and incredible and very significant part of this year.

- I got to do a screening of the new Invisible Children film, "Go" this year, which was great.
And going to Texas over that one three day weekend in May was fun, and around that time I read this really interesting book called God's Debris. It's a thinker. Read it if you want your head to implode.

- I think I struggled with God more this year than any other. I've been a Christan for almost 10 years now and have always had a very strong faith and belief. And it's still very strong, but this year has been more of a struggle. Maybe I'll post about it later. But for now it's all good. God is good anyway, even if I don't always wish to acknowledge it.

- Something that kept me alive and happy and strong over 2008 was of course, music.
I went to a few incredible concerts: Explosions in the Sky, Jon Foreman, Mae and The Honorary Title, Radiohead, The Rocket Summer, Switchfoot (only three times this year), and Sigur Rós (which was one of the best of my life!).
I saw the rocket summer in the spring with my friends courtney and cassandra and staci, and I then saw the rocket summer again in the fall... but this time (miracle of the year right here) a boy came along! Yes it was kenny, and no, he was not bound and gagged or drugged or bribed. He likes the rocket summer. Ha.

It seems to me, looking back, like my year was divided into 3 major sections.
Spring semester, Summer/China, and Fall semester/after China.
The most amazing thing is that at the beginning of 2008, I had no idea that I was going ot go to China! No plans at all! But I was presented the opportunity, and I took it, and before I knew it I was off on the aadventure of a lifetime. It really showed me that God can do anything that he wants. Take it or leave it, it's true.

I guess China was probably the biggest sticky-out thing that happened to me.
And I guess, historically speaking, voting in the November election was also pretty significant.
"Beijing 2008" and "Obama/Biden 2008" are two slogans from this year that will not easily be forgotten.

There were also many more adventures, musics, movies, birthdays, plays (like Romeo and Juliet, and A Midsummer nights dream), magical moments, books, NCT shows, meetings, classes, debates, and great times this year.
- I want to personally thank my friends for being there for me this year: Athan, Courtney, David, Eric, Evan, Kenny, Matt, Will, Abbey, Becca, Madi, Cassandra, Maya, Heather, Larissa, A-aron, Allie, Gary, and everyone I met and befrended in China.

On the other side of the coin, plenty of lame things happened this year too, like my car broke down a lot.
But probably of one the worst things that happened to me, though, was that my cat ran away.
The last time I saw Zack was in April and I really miss him terribly. He was everything anyone could ever want in a cat. He was my closest friend for almost 8 years, and I never really got a chance to say goodbye to him, which I don't even know how to deal with sometimes.

Zack, I love you and you are missed.

Well, that was my year.

In a lot of jumbled, marginally-coherent, not-chronologically-ordered words.

I just had to get it out, I think.

I we had a good year.

Now lets have another.