Family Power-Ups at 11:43 AM

Totally just finished a family reunion in Southern Utah. It's amazing how time with certain people can recharge the old batteries. For me it's family. We all live far enough apart that it's not easy to get together, but we all push hard to make it happen at least once a year now and it's totally worth it.

Three of my sibling's families picking veggies. So much fun.

My nephew is too cool for a normal caption. So all I can do is write a caption about not being able to write a caption.

I can't even explain how awesome my family is. 

But I can tell you that most of the kids in my family can kill with at least 3 objects in any given room at age 9 and that includes the room itself.

Kickball

Uniting families and troops since 1942

With all the kids in my family and all the crying I've seen in the last four days part of me can't even believe that I'm recharged, but for some reason now when I look back all I remember are the funnest/funniest kids on this side of the Mississippi. To my siblings credit, all the parents are pretty patient, and there's been enough kids in our family for enough time that everyone takes seems to take everything in stride. 

Oh, and I slept in a different cabin, which means I wasn't woken up at 6:30 each morning by the loving stomps and screams of children.

Natalie teaching the kids how to make box cars.

You know those moments where there's absolutely nothing that's required of your time at that moment and you're in such a cool place with such incredible people that you just get to soak it in? It doesn't happen very often, but I totally live for those.

If you're looking for more of those moments my strategy is to grab a baby whenever you can, because then if anyone asks you to do something, you can say, 'Sorry, but I got this baby.'
Thank you Jack Handy and your two sacks.

Being a Grown up at 11:42 PM

So something happened last week for the first time in my life that really startled me.

I felt like a grown up.

I hesitate to admit this, but I've kind of felt like a little kid pretending to be a grownup for a long time. I paid my bills and I went to work and I bought a few pieces of furniture, but I felt like it was a big trick. I walked and talked like a grownup but I was conning most people and they didn't realize i was just a punk kid.

I attribute feeling like a kid to a lot of reasons, but I want to talk more about why that changed. Now, I don't mean to minimize my life so far. I've seen a lot of things and I've had a lot of pretty unique experiences. However, I think for the first time in my life I am totally responsible for who I am and what I become, and I'm fully responsible for the maintenance of my own life. I've realized that in college or even in other places, if I didn't do something, it would often still get taken care of. Like the utility bill for instance. In college, if I didn't pay it, someone else in my apartment would and they would come collect money from me later. This is a good example of a lot of things in my life. I was never a terribly irresponsible person, but I've entered this new phase in my life where if I don't do something, it doesn't get done.

I've been telling people lately that my job has been kind of stressful and that I've had to work some extra hours. A lot of them have an interesting response. They say something to the effect of, "Oh don't worry, you're a great guy, I'm sure you'll be fine." It's interesting because I've realized that my job has nothing to do with how great a guy I am. My job involves a certain amount of work every week that needs to get done and needs to get done well. If I can't do it, I probably won't be able to keep my job. I can actually be a great guy and still be terrible at my job.
It's been a really stunning realization. There are a lot of places where we say do your best and things will work out, but suddenly I'm in a situation where my best has nothing to do with it. I either complete what I need to, or I don't, and if I can't do my job, they shouldn't keep me when there's other people who can.

Something has dawned on me and it's this attitude of: This is what the situation requires, so this is what I'll do. Best has nothing to do with it. It's like a young mother who wakes up in the morning to take care of her kids after staying up all night with a crying child. She doesn't think to herself, I did my best, the kids can take care of themselves for the next few days, I'm going to Cancun.

My dad worked a fair amount of hours for a large part of my life and I attribute a lot of it to three things.

1) He wanted a good future for our family
2) He had a good name to uphold
3) He did whatever was necessary to do his job well

Now I'm not trying to knock anyone who feels like they're doing their best and life isn't working out for them. Few things annoy me like someone who yells try harder when I'm giving it all I've got. I also don't want to make it sound like you shouldn't do your best. I believe that things work out for people who try to live their values and principles. But, I've found that I'm capable of a lot more than I ever gave myself credit for, especially in situations that demand a lot when I'm willing to do what it takes. My dad did it. He still does, and I've watched countless other people do it in my life, but I didn't really understand. Even now it's only really just dawning on me.

For the last couple weeks I've thrown work-life balance out. I think work-life balance is a good thing to aim for, but it's more important for me to be on top of my job. I need to leave work knowing that I'm doing at least good enough that I'll keep my job. I want my company to be glad I work for them than for me to leave because the clock struck five pm, or because I didn't put in the necessary time to become at least a decent employee. Once I'm actually good at what I do and I can do my work in the time it's supposed to take me, then I'll try to do all my work for the week in fourty hours, but until then I'll do what the situation requires.

Overall this feeling of 'Here's life. If this is what you want, this is what it takes.' Has really hit me. I'm realizing that if I want to be good at the Chinese, or the guitar, or be ready when an opportunity comes, it's all me. If I'm not ready when opportunity knocks at this point, it will be entirely my fault. The charted monorail that was the public education system is gone. I'm no longer driving one of those little cars at disneyland with a bar between the wheels keeping me on the track. I can go anywhere, but there is a price to pay.

I can hear the call of adulthood. I always thought it would be the sound of a bell tower ticking away at life, but I'm surprised because it sounds a lot more like the ocean with constant waves of opportunity.

Birthdays again at 11:45 PM

I reckon something about birthdays makes it easier to blog. Been a while I know. I still have about 10 posts that I need to write about the stuff I did in China before I came home. But, that is not what today is about. Today is about me. It's my birthday, for another 26 minutes at least. Ok, so this day is also about David Terrazas, he has the same birthday, but still, it felt like it was about me, and you know what? It was great. I didn't do anything too crazy. As a matter of fact, I didn't really do that much at all. I went to work, got sushi for lunch, went to the temple, and then went home. But it was great. Here's why.

I tried something new this year. A social experiment if you will. Due to not enjoying being the center of attention for extended periods of time I've never been one to broadcast my birthday. Actually in China last year, I didn't really tell anyone. A teacher at my school found out a week later and was pretty mad, but I feel a little embarrassed when people spend too much time on me. Wierd I know. Anyways, this year I thought, what the heck, let's shake it up and I started just telling people. I told some people today, and some other people last week. Not everyone, but still a decent amount of people (probably 5 or 10, it spreads from there). Turns out a bunch of people wished me happy birthday today, (Probably half would have anyways, old/good friends) and I ended up with a few gifts on my door step tonight. Not only that, there's a party in my honor on Saturday night that I'm not responsible for. This is especially surprising considering how terrible I am at remembering other people's birthdays.

I doubt this will happen every year, but I'm surprised at how a lot of people are excited for reasons to be nice. Days where I realize I may not have given mankind enough credit are great days. Anyways, not only that, but I didn't have to be the center of attention for an extended period of time today. Don't get me wrong, I like attention, but a lot more one on one than in groups. Anyways, I'm now not only more excited about my birthday, but more excited about making a big deal out of other people's birthdays too.

That's enough time in my brain for you guys today. More blogs soon.

Oh ya, I'm 27, and I'm actually excited about it. 3 cubed = great year.

Ideas For Teaching at 5:09 AM

At the beginning of this semester I had the idea to ask my classes what they wanted to learn. I don't give grades, and I don't really have curriculum, so I can teach pretty much whatever I want. So I passed around a paper and asked my students for ideas in the hopes that it might get a better response teaching lessons that they requested then ones they didn't. Here are some of the ideas they requested. Keep in mind these are transcribed directly from where they were written. Enjoy.

1. I want to learn about American Girls.
2. Your's secret girlfriend.
3. I like movie, movie.
4. Let us study English in play sports like basketball and others.
5. We need something more about English Songs Starcraft and Warcraft.
6. Computer games.
7. Who you lovest in our class?
8. How to make head bigger. (I don't understand this one. This might be how to get smart or something)
9. If American Girls beautiful?
10. I want to know some skills, for example, How do you make girlfriends?
11. I want to watch English films.
12. I miss you. (???)
13. Eat food, and sleep, and play computer games.
14. I want to know my boyfriend what he think? (ha ha)
15. I want to know about my girlfriend, what time can I marry him? (they get he and she mixed up a lot)
16. I want to sleeping.
17. I need much snacks in every class.
18. I need to study China Konfu.
19. I want all the comic, <<Naruto>> is the best! (She actually wrote those symbols)
20. Surfer the internet.
21. eat glass
22. play gun
23. teach songs
24. miss a girl...
25. Something about lady gaga
26. How to play human in warcraft II
27. Black people in America. (They don't see any foreigners here. They can probably count the amount of white or black people they've seen in person on both hands)
28. Everything (This one is kind of difficult)
29. Can you show us some photos and bring your guitar?
30. Lady Gaga
31. I want to know whether America has race discrimination
32. songs (x10 on one piece of paper)

I do love my students. I didn't use all these ideas, but it's amazing how well some of the ideas I did use worked.