Wild Dolphins

So I have seen dolphins and other wildlife in zoos and in water shows, but you rarely get to see these things outside of their enclosures. I never thought that I would see dolphins outside in the wild in a million years, but that all changed yesterday. I went on an all day trip to see dolphins and other things. Dolphins were the first part of the trip. I saw a whole herd of them just swimming in unison right alongside our boat. Maybe I'll post some pictures of that. Then I we went snorkeling. There is so much life out there in the ocean. We saw tons of fish just swimming right underneath us. It was all so pretty and cool, then we ran into jellyfish and that wasn't so cool. Jellyfish may be cool looking, but they sting a lot and that in itself just makes things uncool. Anyhow I narrowly avoided swimming into about four or five jellyfish that just popped up out of nowhere. I thought that was pretty skillful. Anyways, at the end of our trip we camped out on this beach and we had a picnic and afterwards went swimming in a little cove. I went and swam in this little underwater cave. that was really col there were all sorts of crabs and things just crawling on the walls. at the end as we left the marina there were schools of minnows just outside the boat that scattered anytime something fell in the water. I loved it and I thought that It was one of my top ten favorite days of all time.

New Adventures at Christmas Time

Every year at Christmas time I generally spend a lot of time indoors playing card games or going to the movies and doing things like that. Of course turkey and other holiday goodies have their place but what would it be like to have Christmas in a completely different way. What if you went swimming around instead of staying inside? What if you got a sunburn because you stayed outside way too long? Christmas would definitely be very different.

So here I am in the Middle East and I am loving it. Everything is different. I thought that maybe there would be something I'm used to out here, but everything is new. I don't really know too much about Islamic custom, but I'm pretty fascinated with how these people live. It is so different from the way that I'm used to living. Anyhow, This Christmas I'm swimming, hiking, and spending a lot of time outdoors. It is so refreshing to spend all this time just outside and busy.

It almost seems like I got transported to some magical wonderland that just invites me to do everything. It's kind of funny but I have spent more time this year outside of the U.S. than inside it. I don't really know how that works out but one thing is clear. I'm not giving blood anytime soon. I've already racked up six years outside of the country and counting. Apparently I'm a threat for mad cow disease, but despite that I'm doing just fine.

So I've come to the conclusion that I love the U.S. a lot. This place is fun and has that magical ring to it, but I do feel like the U.S. is my home. There is a lot to be said about having a home. There are some people that associate a place with home. They live in one place for a really long time and get so used to it that they can't really consider other places as being home. For me I've moved around enough times that I stopped associating myself with the places, but I do associate with the people. I have to be able to feel at home in so many places just because the people there made it an amazing place. I could meet wonderful people and make strong friends that last. Here I just know my family. I feel at home with them, but outside of that little circle things get complicated. I don't know anyone else really. But I do have a home and I am grateful for that.

Christmas is a wonderful time with its own magic. This is my favorite time of year and I am just excited to see what lies in store.

21. Conclusions

Dear Sister Steadman,

Over the course of my blog I have tried very hard to get everything to show how I think and feel. I write about things that keep ringing in my head and things that stick with me. I just want you to know that by writing all of these things down I have gotten to know myself better and learned more about what it is that I value most. Whether I talked about thanksgiving or breaking up with girls, I talked about the things that were most important to me. I am glad that I get to express myself and get things across that maybe other people can't understand any other way. I didn't really try to make this a blog about what happens to me but a blog that dealt with the way I view things and understand the world. I hope you have enjoyed the things you read or at least got to understand me better.

Sometimes I feel lost and confused and I think that by writing it out in a blog I was able to straighten some things out and make my life better.

20. Death, Roses, and Saying Goodbye

Goodbye. Maybe you think that word is just a fleeting thing. Maybe you think that the person you say it to will have the chance to say hello again. Most of the time I accept that goodbye is a permanent thing. When I walk away, I will more than likely never see you again. I rarely get a second chance to make things right. I rarely get to reunite with the ones I love. I came to grips with this fact early on.

As a child I had to move many times. I would tell my friends goodbye and hope beyond what was rational to see them again. My first friend that I can remember was Daniel. He lived across the street we would get together and play all the time. That was the first year that I went to school. After I moved, I never saw him again. He practically died for me. My friend and I never talked again, we never saw each other again and it was the first time that I really experienced loss. There were many more friends that came and went over the years. I only keep in touch with one. I've known him since the 8th grade. Everyone else has managed to disappear. Even family members have disappeared. My cousin Trent was the first one that really hit me.

The last time I saw him was at a family reunion. We were all playing games and having a great time. I never thought that I would see him die so soon. Three years later he died in a car accident while he and his girlfriend shopping to get ready for prom. I never got the chance to talk to him after that reunion and I never got to let him know just how much I respected him. All I do now is carry a post card with his face on it. I keep it in my pocket but I remember him. I don't want him to vanish altogether. But he isn't the only one. There are more people I want to keep alive. I just don't know how.

When it comes time, I will say goodbye to all the good people out here at college and go somewhere else. I want them to stay alive in my life. I don't want them to vanish, too. In the end, I don't know that there is much I can do to prevent the inevitable. People will come and go from my life and I will get stuck with a new sense of loss. I wish I could just send all of these people roses and let them know that they aren't forgotten but what good would it do. In the end I just remember them as a distant memory. Someday I will find a place that I can call home and I won't have to let that go. I can stay and I can grow close to things and not worry that it is going to end.

I hate being by myself all alone. Maybe someday I won't have to be.

19. What is Important in a Relationship

Some recent events have made me ponder on the subject of meaningful relationships. What are some key elements that make a relationship work? First I feel that both sides have to be equal. For example I cannot simply fail at everything and have my partner be perfect. That would drive me insane. If I were to text someone and they got mad because I didn't call them despite the fact that they weren't picking up the phone, I would be somewhat upset. Not everything can be my fault. It takes two people to make a relationship work. One person cannot simply change to meet the other person's expectations while the other stays the same.

Another big point I feel inclined to point out is the ability to compromise. No relationship is perfect. There will be conflicts of interest. People are not all the same. This is why people have discussions in which they work out their feelings and get over their difficulties. Another big issue is how people resolve their issues. I don't think someone has to yell in order to get a point across. People should be able to calmly resolve disagreements in a relationship. Never should a disagreement get physical. If you are a girl and you read this pay attention. NEVER EVER EVER LET A MAN HIT YOU! If there is one thing in this world that I find most base and disgusting it is when men abuse their wives. I have watched as women continue to live with men that destroy them in every way possible and I feel sick. If your man is physically abusing you walk away. It won't get better and he doesn't deserve to be with you. I won't even bother to comment further about that. There is no situation that makes it OK for him to do that to you.

Another thing that is important is the physical attraction. While this may not be the most important thing, it does play an important part in letting two people come together. Eventually other things happen and physical beauty is replaced with inner appreciation. We all grow old but love doesn't have to die with our good looks. Everything is there to get us to the point where we discover what is special about a person. That is something that stands the test of time. We need to get to that point where we can discover these things in each other.

When these things come together we can find true love. Equality, compromise, temperance, and attraction all come together to create something special. Granted there are many other things that can add to this, but for me personally I think these are the most important.

18. Nothing Like Chocolate to Make You Feel Better

I don't care who you are chocolate makes you feel better when something horrible happens to you. When all of your plans go completely down the drain and the people you trust turn away from you chocolate does not. For instance let's say that I were put in one of those situations where every possible choice had a negative consequence. Hypothetically speaking let's say there was a girl that kept on stalking me to ridiculous ends and I was in no way attracted to her. I thought I had been more than obvious in letting her know that I didn't like her but apparently I wasn't blunt enough. It didn't help that I ended a relationship that day and wasn't really in the mood to deal with her in the right way. Mind you this is all of course extremely hypothetical. So during the time that I would have been on a date that had been planned all week but abruptly canceled, I hypothetically decided to hang out with one of my friends. She also happens to be the roommate of the hypothetical stalker girl. I don't think that stalker girl is home so I just hang out and have a fun time. I agree to go to a house party with my friend and her boyfriend when stalker girl wakes up from her nap.

This is the moment where I would hypothetically start regretting accepting the party invitation. Of course stalker girl decided to come to the party too. She loves parties and insists on giving me a hug. At this point in the hypothetical situation, I would come up with a very sarcastic and seemingly rude comment. I believe that off the top of my head I might make a reference to Frankenstein and imply that I have no idea why she is standing with her arms wide open. I might also insist that she should sit down. I think I'm being very obvious. She thinks I'm teasing.

Later at the hypothetical party, I don't really know anyone. She insists on sitting right next to me. I'm sorry but I don't think it is cool when someone starts staring at me every five seconds. Then the most insane situation arises. I am sitting next to stalker girl when the host of the party shows up with her friend. Now there are some things to know here. One stalker girl is very loud obnoxious and not very bright. These are things that I absolutely cannot stand in a girl. I can deal with people that aren't smart. They generally have other qualities that make up for it. Example, my best friend in Kansas is not intelligent by any means but he has a way of talking to people that makes them feel better. He is very personable and what he may lack in intelligence he makes up through networking. Stalker girl seems to play on her non-existing intelligence and tries to make a show of her helplessness. In a hypothetical world or even in the real world I will never find that attractive. On the other hand if we return to the hosts friend she is very kind soft spoken and intelligent. I believe I see the obvious choice that I would make if I had to choose between the two girls. So I ended up talking to the new girl for about an hour. Everything was going great. I made a few comments to the stalker girl so I wouldn't completely destroy her feelings when I ran into one of those morally difficult decisions. All of this being hypothetical of course.

"So my roommates and I have this dare going on in relation to Christmas..." She motioned over to the mistletoe that was so conveniently placed just a few feet away. The dare was to kiss a boy on the cheek under the mistletoe before the Christmas holiday. She wondered if I could help her. OK, basically she was wondering if I wanted to kiss her. I'm not that hypothetically blind. For most people this would be a no-brainer. As for me, I found myself sitting next to stalker girl who had been listening to the whole conversation. I can only imagine the horrible things she thought about as I had my conversation. I think it took me all of two seconds to figure out that this is probably the most amazing situation that I could ever find myself in.

The next thing I hypothetically remember involves me getting a soft kiss on the cheek. In the history of the kiss there are many that rank higher on the scale, but not in my book. I don't really go around kissing every girl I see, but this was amazing. I've never been kissed under mistletoe before. To top it off she was also very attractive. That still doesn't change the fact that stalker girl got extremely offended and may have stormed off in a hurry. I don't remember if there were tears involved. I had another ride home. In the end I ended up with a date and many angry text messages. Of course something like this is so imaginative it has to be fiction.

However if I were in a situation like this I would feel sad that i hurt someone's feelings. I really hate doing that. But I decided that if I have to choose between making myself miserable and making someone else miserable I know what I will choose. I'm not talking about going to the orchestra because my date loves it and I don't, I'm not talking about spending crazy hours doing service projects to help other people when I could be relaxing. I am talking about putting myself in a position to hurt myself emotionally. I don't deserve to be stuck in a relationship that is doomed from the start. I don't think the other person deserves that either. So I choose to be happy. I choose to make my life what I want it to be. For all the other times when I have heartaches and troubles there is always chocolate. It never runs away from me. It doesn't care that someone texted you that you were an animal and deserved to be thrown into oblivion. It just sits there and waits for you. It waits just like the right opportunity, waiting for you to rise and shine in the moment.

By the way she is really cute. I just thought I would throw that in.

17. A Dash of Cologne and a Well Placed Smile

I've always wondered how superstars can get away with all the things they do. Have you ever wondered how an actor can go and recklessly destroy thousands of dollars of property without facing any real consequences? I have and to be honest it bugs me. If I so much as say something out of place it will land me in trouble. How do they do it.

The only solution is their innate charm and some really good smelling cologne. I am more likely to forgive someone who looks and smells good before someone else. Another plus is the award winning smile that all movie stars seem to possess. Somehow seeing pearly whites just makes me feel good. Anyhow when all of these things are combined they seem to have a way of letting someone do anything. I have seen people get permission to do the most insane things just because they were amiable. I thought it was so cool I tried to use this amazing charm on people. Lets just say it didn't work out the way I wanted to. I think another thing that helps with this is the ability to lie. I definitely can't do that very well so I just tell the truth. I actually think it is better that way since it keeps really awkward things from happening later.

In the end I think it is just best if I stick to the things that don't require luck and smiles to keep me from getting burned. If I remain an honest and really straight forward guy I will end up with all I ever wanted.

16. The Joy that Keeps on Giving

I love to write as some of you may know and I really do enjoy reading something that I feel is new or has something to add to something that I thought I knew a lot about. I have read very many books and I still find new things when I read new novels. I can't seem to get enough of them. There are so many ways that someone can tell a story. For example Michael Crichton uses a form of first person narrative in "Eaters of the Dead" that resembles a journal. It stays easy reading because he keeps it in a single point of view. Bram Stoker uses a similar form of narrative however he uses multiple points of view to establish his story. Bram Stoker's narrative then becomes hopelessly confusing and difficult to follow. However to give him credit he did write on the very cutting edge for his time.

I guess the most classic form of literature that I find in the market is the third person narrative. That is the narrator witnesses everything and doesn't get personally involved. By that i mean he doesn't ever see directly through the eyes of the characters. He just seems to watch them from above. This can be seen in "Ender's Game," " The Hobbit," "The Eyes of the Dragon," and many other books.

Other rare mediums of storytelling include historical setting, short story compilation, and documentary. But I've seen that most authors stick to the mediums that sel the best. That is they stick to things that people are used to.

A perfect example of this is "Twilight." Stephanie Meyer doesn't try to write in an unknown style. She writes in the style that is selling the most right now. First person narrative. It is told through the eyes of Bella and she becomes the narrator of her own story. Other books that are coming out that sell using this format are "The Immortals" series by Alyson Noel and the "Jumper" series by Steven Gould and "The Hunger Games" by Suzette Collins. All are told up close and personal as if the main character said and did everything while writing it down.

This kind of writing makes it possible for the writer to write at a more personal and emotional level. Unfortunately it limits the author to a single view point. Things can't be looked at globally. The author in essence writes himself into a spot where he knows what is going on but his character hasn't put everything together and so he can't tell you. I personally think that mysteries are much easier to write this way.

In the end there are a million ways that a story can be told. Neither one is better than the other. That all depends on the writer.

15. The Best of Thanksgiving Times Two

Many people on the holidays find time to get together with family and eat a large turkey dinner that generally makes them want to fall asleep. It is the magic of the holiday. It is a singular event that doesn't repeat itself until a year later. Being that I live half way across the globe from my family I get to crash other people's big meals. I love big festivities and sensational dinners. They always make you feel like you belong to a group of something bigger than yourself. That is probably what I like most about the holidays. I remember that there is more to life than me and my own little world I create through books and movies. There are people out there in the world that actually care about me enough to spend time and ignore my obvious character flaws.

I have to admit though I try to keep it a secret, I am a horrible conversationalist. I tend to talk about the most boring subjects in the world and the things I find funny aren't really all that funny in any sense of the word. I kid you not I could be watching a movie and see a very sad part where someone dies and it is supposed to be very tragic, but I laugh. I'll see the lead actress fake tears and it seems like she's laughing or something. I then imagine in my head that she is really thinking "OK, just five more tears and I win 5 million dollars." I for some reason find that hilarious.

I will admit there are times when I am capable of crying at the movies. It just so happens that the last time I cried while watching a movie I was watching the Green Mile. I think I had just turned thirteen. Sometimes I lie about crying at movies just so people don't think I'm some kind of heartless monster. The thing is I just can't translate the movie into reality. I see it for what it is "Fiction." What I see generally is a group of entertainers taking to the stage to please people and make off with millions of dollars. Even when it ends up being a violent movie. I don't see real people dying I see a group of revolutionary filmmakers finding ways to simulate blood flow with a life sized doll. The times when I am most moved by film are the times when it can relate directly to my life.

Maybe that is why I love chick flicks so much. They all have something I can relate to in my life. Romance. Not to burst the bubble on all the guys who like action movies but when was the last time you found yourself surrounded by an armada of mercenary soldiers bent on world destruction but trying to kill you first? I love action flicks but they just don't hit me in any way as real. The only exception is when I read a book that gets turned into a movie. That is when my emotions get all worked up. I absolutely hate it when people take a wonderful idea and simply ruin it.

One of my all time favorite books to read is "The Last of the Breed" by Louis La'mour. It is one of two novels he wrote that doesn't fit in with his normal genre. It is an action classic. The characters are vivid and they make you want to keep reading. Unfortunately this book was made into a horribly done film. "Behind Enemy Lines" takes the basic elements of this story and does a horrible job of piecing them together. I watched it with my friend when it came out to theaters and we both instantly recognized it for what it was. We both agreed that it did not do justice to the story at all. However the thing that annoyed me the most was the lack of Credit given to Louis La'mour for his story. I don't care if he died years ago. It is still his story and he should get the credit for it.

That is a really random tangent which goes to show that people really must love me a lot of they can even follow a conversation like that without telling me how disturbingly weird I am. This year I went to two different dinners and had an absolute blast. I love the holidays and getting to spend it with others.

14. Speechless

OK I don't know if any of you ever feel like this but whenever I'm trying to impress someone I feel like I never say the right thing. I feel like I just screw everything up and say everything wrong. For example I can ramble on all day about books I've read and about the different things I am interested in studying but when it comes down to deeply personal things I choke. I think I try to impress people too much or maybe I try too hard. For example the other day I was talking to a girl I wanted to impress and I started talking about different books I'd read. Who in their right mind ever talks about Billy Bud in normal conversation? I don't think that anyone ever talks about that unless their a super nerd which I apparently am. I always thought that I was just a regular guy that just happened to be smart but recently I think I've crossed into the realm of really nerdy.

Anyhow this doesn't really help with the fact that I still have the tendency to freeze up when it comes to talking to girls I really like. Maybe this problem isn't merely limited to me. I was talking to my roommate and it seems that every time he tries to talk to the girl he likes he seems to freeze up. He is a very social guy that doesn't have the nerd problem but he still has the "I don't know what to say issue." Maybe it is a sad defect of the Y chromosome. We really don't know how to please our unfortunate halves. Then again I can think of plenty of guys that definitely know how to please their other halves so maybe it deals with the fact that I'm just plain weird. I came to grips with that years ago. I just never thought that it would ever come back to haunt me or give me problems.

At least I don't find myself asking what her favorite ring size is or what her ideal family size would be. I think that would be downright tacky. Then again I tend to be tacky sometimes.