Vacation's over

During the flight back to school after the holiday came to a close I was once again inspired by my need to avoid doing my homework assignments to write about my short vacation. Thanksgiving is a wonderful holiday when it is used to remember more than just what it feels like to eat twice what we weigh (which might not be on our mind when you love pecan pie as much as I do). It is not a time to prepare our stomachs for Christmas dinner but to prepare our minds for the Christmas season. I find it interesting the way the year is structured. After many holidays that are leisurely and fun we stumble into a holiday that is specifically reserved for gratitude. We spend the most of the year enjoying life and then have a time set aside for being grateful for that life. Hopefully after the allure of gravy smothered goodness has brought the family together we are forced to talk about unique experiences we've had before slipping into a tryptophan induced coma. Just don't talk with your mouth full.

Then after the moment with family when we are forced to remember how awesome our lives are we have a holiday that inspires charity and selflessness. We carry those feelings of gratitude over into a month of giving and helping. There is no better time. We are consumed by it which then inspires us for when New Years rolls around. We have optimistic feeling towards what we can accomplish during this New Year and we set goals accordingly much like after a week of work Sunday allows us to refresh and prepare ourselves for the next week. Thanksgiving is not a day to celebrate turkey but the perfect start of a process that helps make us better people. Optimism is easy when surrounded by family with a full stomach and a carton of eggnog in your hand. Yes, more eggnog.

Too much of a "good" thing.

Eggnog: the official flavor of the holidays. It is something that I look forward to every year. Now that it's back on the shelves I gave in and bought myself a carton yesterday. It didn't last the night. I drank the entire carton and later that night it attacked my insides like a family of raccoons. I didn't get any sleep that night because of it and all today I was out of sorts. It wasn't a fun experience and I'm still feeling the effects of it but unfortunately that won't be enough to stop me from buying it again. There are several reasons that make eggnog so special, the main one is the fact that 'they' keep it seasonal. When something good has restrictions put on it that we don't understand our desire for these things becomes stronger. The thing doesn't change but subconsciously our opinion of that thing is altered and the excitement we get when we can get our hands on it, although irrational, becomes very real. This can sometimes inspire a lack of composure and some self-destructive behaviors. Now eggnog is a relatively harmless thing but there are other things out there that when restrictions are lifted society destroys itself. It doesn't even have to be a restriction that is out of our control like laws or unavailability, it can even be restrictions that we make for ourselves. We find enough justification in a circumstance to override our commonsense and switch off our guilt machine. 'Ya I know I promised the New Year I wouldn't but it's a holiday so I'm sure it'll understand.'

Justification is such a silly concept and yet it claims the lives of countless commitments every day. It is a meaningless, contrived fabrication we use to excuse ourselves from duty, personal goals, or success. We shouldn't let it get in our way of happiness or at least some sleep. I'm rambling so I'll wrap up. There are two morals to this story: The first is go easy on the eggnog and the second is if you want people to like you more keep yourself seasonal.

Just be myself? Who's that?

Well it is 4:15 in the morning and once again I find myself unable to uconsciousize myself. Being an insomniac who is roommates with an insomniac is not always the most productive situation. I oft times find myself wondering what it is like to have a normal sleeping schedule but then I get distracted and begin to think of something else. Of all the innate problems that come with insomnia there are some wonderful perks I am able to enjoy. There is certainly a lot to think about during the late hours of the night while everyone else, including the book of faces, is out of commission. The bathroom is not the only place and time to ponder and I have countless minutes to think about this and that. Recently I got caught up on a common phrase again which I find interesting. The phrase is "just be yourself". Before sending you off into the world for one thing or another people are always overly anxious to give you a word of advice. They act as though this piece of knowledge is the key to success, the main event, an exclusive understanding that is priceless--and yet it is the same general statement over and over again. Just be yourself.

What a pointless statement. What does it mean to be yourself? The more you think about it the less it makes sense why that is the thing everyone chooses to tell you. The truth is unless you are a celebrity impersonator it is impossible for you to be anyone but yourself. The world is full of different people and circumstances that you will be presented with to which you will act a certain way. Having a social life is a constant battle to try and maintain a certain level of comfort. This dictates behavior. Nobody enjoys being uncomfortable (even if sometimes people act so awkward it would appear that they do).We conform and adapt to each situation to glean the maximum amount of comfort we can. These changes in behavior do not take away from who we are but instead help define us as a person. We are presented with a situation and we react to it. I act differently around my parents than I do my boss or my close friends. And I react differently around attractive women than I do hobos or Donovan. Those you are around influence the way you act. Personality is malleable so how can you avoid being yourself, sociable or otherwise.

I find it annoying just how often people regurgitate generic drivel instead of truly being helpful. So to those anxious to give advice to those in need make it something worth saying. Just be yourself is a pointless statement while on the other hand remember what you stand for is truly something worth thinking about. Aspects of personality change but good standards never should. Being yourself won't get you anywhere you want to go but being like Christ will yield the desired destination. We are built to change so be who you need to be not who you think you are.

Feels like a holiday to me.

In case you are not up to date with current events such as what day it was yesterday (and yet you still read blogs) it was 11-11-11. A holiday that we only get to celebrate once every millennia. I feel privileged that it happened in my lifetime but on the down side since it happens every thousand years it is hard to form solid traditions. When Wikipedia doesn't know the  answer to something it can be frustrating. So after asking around and not getting any feed back about proper celebratory procedure I had to resort to making up my own traditions. This is not as easy as it sounds so now I can understand why Easter ended up with eggs and bunnies. They must have been scratching the bottom of the barrel with that one. Anyways after mulling over ideas this is what I decided to do:
I made a list of 11 things that I wanted to accomplish before the day ended. Some productive and heartfelt and some otherwise.
     1. First I wanted to hand out 11 salutations to the first people I ran into in the morning and then not say good morning to anyone else. First come first serve. Limited time offer.
     2. I then wanted to ask 11 people (including cleverbot) what they were doing to celebrate such a holiday and potentially steal their ideas. Instead of getting good ideas I think I just made people feel uncomfortable about not having any. I'll take what I can get.
     3. Slap five with 11 people. No ulterior motive here, I just enjoy high fives.
     4. Check facebook 11 times to keep up with the festivities and to justify my facebook addiction.
     5. Change my clothes 11 times throughout the day depending on what I was doing. Kept my roomies on their toes.
     6. I required myself to take 11 pictures of 11 things. I'll include those pictures at the bottom, unless I forget.
     7. Listen to one of 11 songs by Finger Eleven  11 minutes after the hour over the course of 11 hours. Where ever I was and whatever I was doing was to be awkwardly interrupted when the time came.
     8. To balance the eventful with the uneventful I was to do 11 acts of service for people. Surprisingly many opportunities presented themselves.
     9. At 11:00 in the morning I was to begin researching the number 11 on the internet and find 11 interesting facts.            

The facts were:  The 11^th Apollo was the first manned spacecraft to land on the Moon.

                               The 11^th moon of Jupiter is Himalia.

                                11 years is the approximate time of a sunspot cycle.

                                11 is the atomic number of sodium.

                                11 is the number of space-time dimensions in the M-theory.

                                11 elements appear in gaseous form at 25 degrees Celsius.

                                Ben-Hur (1959), Titanic (1997), and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King(2003)have each won 11 Academy Awards.                                                 

                                   There are 11 guns in the gun salute of a Marine Corps Brigadier General.

                                  Armistice ended WWI on November 11^th

                               11 is the number of points the Maple leaf on the Canadian flag contains.

                                In the 1^st Kings, the 11^th book of the Bible, chapter 11 and verse 11 God curses Solomon for his disobedience and promises the kingdom to David.                                 

     10. I would then post these facts on the facebook event "11/11/11 a day to remember" at 11:00 at night to prove to the world that I was being festive.

     11. Anything I ate I was to eat 11 of them, no exceptions. This included a large order from taco bell. I still feel like garbage but without regrets--content garbage.

After making my wish and finishing everything on my list I felt like the day had been a success. Even without receiving a grand epiphany through my efforts i did learn some things that I like. First is that crossing things off of a to do list is nice but to add to it having cworky, unnecessary things on that list helps put you out there and yield added joy on top of the normal to do list. The day is more eventful and fun. And lastly I learned that I'm glad I don't have intense OCD. Keeping track of numbers is exhausting.      
I hope you all enjoyed it as much as I did.

Who killed chivalry?

          

You hear people say that chivalry is dead all the time. They aren't complaining about the death of armed cavalry (Although the idea of knights on horseback is a cool thought). Instead they are referring to the "knightly" treatment toward women by men. To be a gentlemen who acts with great respect and courtesy to all women in any circumstance. The word moved from meaning a warrior on a horse to referencing the conduct and honor that a knight was vowed to display as a nobel role model in society. Women like the picture of their knight in shining armor continuously treating them like royalty. So the question is why has that behavior become so rare?

The paradigm of normality is fluid. It changes all the time. We cannot simply define these changes as progressive or destructive as the consequences are far reaching and difficult to predict. The most notable changes take ideas to extremes and don't simply alter the main issue. A big one that the world is constantly pushing is equality. This is an important issue with differing opinions about what it means to be "equal". America has gone through revolutions and for the most part looks at women differently than the rest of the world. Women's rights are a good thing but we still take the good with the bad. For example women in the work place want to be looked at the same as their male counterparts. They want to be taken just as seriously winning that type of respect while losing the feminine respect. They swap one treatment for the other. This is why it is hard to draw a line in the sand between what is positive and what is negative.

It isn't about being equally important so much as receiving equal treatment. These definitions of equality are very different. Personally I wouldn't open a car door for a man or stand when some guy entered a room. Socially that isn't normal so when women take on the treatment of men they lose the special treatment reserved for ladies and train men to over look that expectation. It becomes unnecessary and things that were once normal become abnormal or over the top. Holding the door evolves from something that's routine into a pleasant surprise. There are some jerks out there who are naturally inconsiderate no doubt, but most of us deserve some slack. Hopefully the chivalry inside the guys you know isn't dead, just sleeping. If there is anyone who can make a man chivalrous it is a woman. Raise your expectation of what is acceptable behavior from a man and if he is a good man he will rise to the occasion. Don't settle for equal treatment when you are entitled to something better.

For those who dislike reading.

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They'll get better I promise.

All Hallows Eve

All hallows eve. A holiday dedicated to give people an excuse to behave in abnormal an irrational ways. It brings out the hooligan in all of us (except maybe Donovan, killjoy). Many times it is taken too far but when you are living in a place like Rexburg a night of ruckus and debauchery is less than problematic. People are reserved and behave themselves but they still manage to unleash their "inner demons", whatever that means. Each holiday seems to bring out a certain side of us whether it’s the romantic, the glutton, the altruist, the environmentalist, the optimist, or for some the alcoholic. Halloween seems to bring out our dark, obnoxious side that we find inappropriate for other occasions. This could come partly from different expectations or maybe a lack of expectation. We don't feel shame in our weirdness because people want to see us be weird. It could also come from the fact that everyone else is acting just as strange as you creating a comfortable atmosphere where you can let loose. My favorite way to think about it is that the respectable version of ourselves that we spend our entire life tweaking is protected behind a false face. We are disguised leaving the person we want to be known as in a safe place where bad impressions can't attack them. It is a relief to take a break from having to perpetually defend your reputation. Some sort of mask provides that solace. It may not be saintly to want a quick vacation from this but when executed the right way it does allow you to avoid regret. You can be weird and then be able to live with yourself the next day. My weird side comes out generally when I'm around my best friends, very late at night or when my identity is a secret. People like masks. They like to be unrecognizable. It is for this reason that it is the perfect time to get to know people better. If you want to know someone inside and out then it is good to observe them when they feel their most comfortable. This is why it is one of my favorite days in the year. You are able to enjoy the time you have with your friends to the fullest (unless, of course, you run into a deranged sociopath). Halloween is prime time for masks to do their work. So enjoy your break from sanity, I know I do.