Amarillo

New house! Yay!

Ever since I started college, I've dreamed of living in a house, and somehow this semester, the housing gods smiled upon me and things worked out just right. I guess I've always kind of gone with apartments simply because it's what my older siblings did, and added onto that was the fact that during spring and summer terms, I am incapable of living anywhere that doesn't have a good pool. I think I might spend more time during the summer swimming than sleeping, and that probably deserved some psychiatric attention, but nonetheless that's how it is. Anyway, I'm in The Amarillo House. For those of you who speak Spanish, you invariably read that wrong, because it's actually pronounced just like it looks in English. I know, strange, right? But despite the hick American feel that I get every time I tell someone where I live, I really like the place. Part of that might have to do with having my own room for the first time in about six years, but among other pluses are a washer and dryer, utilities that are included in the rent (which is oddly cheaper than any fall/winter housing that I've paid for), a family of quails in the back lot, a friendly neighbor dog, and some pretty cool roommates. I moved from my previous apartment with my roommates Joey and Aaron, and then we ended up with another guy named Greg who is really cool so far. I am really liking it so far, in any case.

School starts back up Tuesday, and that means that the next week will be full of much weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, but it also means that people have started flooding back into town and the streets are crowded with lots of Freshmen who look about fifteen and lots of worried moms who look like they have lost fifteen years of their lives worrying that their kids won't have enough food on the meal plan. I, on the other hand, have been trying to squeeze the last bit of hakuna-matata out of my two-week summer vacation. That means lots of swimming, reading, friends, piano, and writing, among other things. I've been going through some old journals, and I've been working little by little on typing up some old writings, so anything that I find over the next few days that seems to be of any worth will likely end up here. Here's a little tid-bit that I found from my flight to Moscow. It's short, but I thought it was kind of quaint, so here ya go:

The horizon was an endless rainbow with reds like deep, auburn sandstone and blues so blue that you don't ever even think to ask whether it's cerulean or navy. And right down the middle was a broad band of green--the first I had ever seen in a sunrise. It was as if the entire sky were alight with hope and majesty, and the blanketed forests rolled out beneath us as spindly veins of taillights snaked across the expanse below us. Lifeblood of the land, these streams of sparks stretched on and on, spiraling out from the glowing clusters of the small Finnish towns that jumped out of our way as we passed. 

I honestly don't know what awaits me in the year to come. I think these next two semesters are pretty much set in stone, but then I'll be done with school and on my way to somewhere or something. I think sometimes how funny it is that we always seem to be rushing off to nowhere in particular, but I guess that's just the way it goes sometimes. I have thought a lot about teaching English in China next summer, which is another secret (or maybe not-so-secret) wish of mine. A lot could change in two semesters, though, so we'll see where life directs me. In any case, I'm going to really try to make the best of this last year at BYU, because I'm realizing more and more how unique of an experience it is to be here. I've had my struggles with certain things in the Happy Valley, but it really is a wonderful place in so many ways, and I think when it comes time to leave, I will miss it as I have perhaps missed no other place.

Free World

This picture is here just in case you don't
want to deal with my crazed rant.
At least you got to see a koala, right?
Clicking that link was worth it after all...

So we call ourselves the free world. We say that we are at the height of civilization, that we are the most advanced, the most successful, the most cultured. We are the emissaries of freedom. But who is really free, and what is freedom?

Is the man free whose country lives in debt to another? Are citizens free who are shackled by addictions and apathy--who can't go a day without coffee and caffeine, who can't go more than a few hours it seems without the Internet or their favorite TV shows? "They can, they can." I know. But they don't... Is a nation free whose poor starve and whose population is bound to the concrete mausoleums we call metropoli? Is the nation free when money takes precedence over moral, when who you know is more important than who you are? Are people really free when blinded by bias, when a person's skin color or religion is a justification for hatred, and can a people ever be free when they work so tirelessly to renounce the freedoms that their fathers purchased so long ago?  Are we truly free when money and social status are the currency of dreams rather than ingenuity and determination? Where is our liberty when shackled by the mind-forged manacles that we call beauty or the bonds that we call social refinement? How can a country be free when its rulers--its representatives--are slaves to corporations and conglomerates, when a man's conscience must take second stage to his political mobility and his approval rating? How can we trumpet democracy when the government has forgotten the people--when Ploutos and Oligos have crushed Demos beneath their heels?

I guess the problem that I have with writing stuff like this is that I still don't have any answers. All I have is my discontent--the feeling that things aren't as they should be, that maybe things aren't as they seem. I write, perhaps, only to stay afloat in the darkling sea that is this unintelligible world. In the end, though, maybe it doesn't really matter. People can pretty much do what they want. It's a free world, after all...

But we are thralls to apathy

Lotus Blossoms

With an eternal shrug, we run from ignorance to indifference because caring hurts too much. There are too many questions, too many contradictions, and which voice do we heed? There is too much that's truthy and not enough truth, too much myopic boldness in declaring things we don't understand and too little courage to live by the truths we know and have ever known. So it's educators' fault, right? The government's problem? Ah, but we've forgotten: we've been sitting in front of a monitor too long to remember that success begins and ends with S or us. Does the flower cease to grow when the gardener's away, or is he there to give the plant the things it needs to grow on its own time? Does the lily shrivel and die in the field when God at times seems far off? 

So maybe we really think we're justified... Sure, they waste my time with things I'll never use. Why should I wear out my eyes to memorize their fickle facts and truths that might be lies? I don't need them; I don't need anyone! The wisdom of the eternities is before us--a click away! But the thing is, no matter what you say, we're surfing through a sea of trifles and we're drowning. That Pandora's box before our eyes, that epileptic frenzy of images and sounds that sear our senses and cauterize our minds, it reduces us to a state of vegetative bliss (and surely none can fail to recognize the rapturous euphoria of cauliflower-existence). So we're happy with our lot. We're content to while away our hours in books of faces that we barely know, to breakfast on discontent and lunch upon our lotus leaves. And only thunder wakes us from our reverie.

[This is an excerpt from a spoken word poem in three parts, each addressing problems with the American educational system. Stay tuned for "Hegemony" and "Insularity," the accompanying (unfinished) sisters to this selection.]

Lead Paint

I refuse to grow up
If I'll end up
Just another lost boy
Thrown from Neverland
To Never can and Never will.
To always sleep and Never dream:
Maybe this is your dream,
But I'll hold to mine...
I've found my way
And you can't say
That I'm too young to understand.
It's okay, it's okay,
You can act like it's okay,
But the facts will say
That things... fall apart,
Our childhood playthings start
To fade from our minds much sooner
Than cheap Chinese paint
That kills children.
But we buy it. We buy it anyway...

dirty-dishes love

there are bills on the table,
and the laundry's piled high on the bed.
but the window's all alight with a love
that has no time for dirty dishes,
with a love that knows only laughter, friendship,
and slow dancing 'neath a bare, hundred-watt bulb.

seventeen

shadows of an airy past
dissolve then coalesce
as constellation sketches
on the canvas of my mind,
streaks of tarnished stardust
sighing through the dark'ning skies.

yet ashen memories ignite my soul
and whet my will to burn once more,
though in that blaze–  i'll burn.

bridges to my past...

all of these things....

I have always wanted to try out kinetic typography, but I didn't have the tools I wanted to use, so I always put it off. Well, here's a shot at kinetic typography, poetry, music composition, and video editing. The audio's not great, and every aspect of it was a bit rushed, but it was a fun start to something that I'd like to invest more time in! I hope you enjoy! The poem is below in its original format: