Year older...

I am 22 now. Turned 22 back on the 9th and had a decent birthday. I didnt do much just went and finished my last final exam, worked out some chores round the house, got a haircut, and then shot out to W&M to spend the rest of the day with Anna. When I got there I was a bit upset since she never said Happy Birthday to me but it was cause she had a surprise planned for when I finally got there. So when I got there she met me outside to go straight out and get the tickets for Narnia that night (which by the way was an awesome movie). I was hungry so I wanted to get something to eat but she was set upon getting dressed up and so we needed to go back to the dorm. At first I was a bit put off cause that was just more driving that I would have to do. When I got out of the car though I looked up to the window to her place and realized what was goin on. She had emblazoned across the archway in the kitchen a big sign that said "Happy Birtday Joe". That is not a typo... What happened was that she htought I would come alot later than I did. So when I called to update her of where I was she rushed to finish the banner and before she knew what she was doing she had dropped the "h" in Birthday. It was adorable. Then to get it taken care of further, she had her roomie color them in while we were out gettin the tickets. Anna is by far the best thing to happen to me since I started to breathe. She just adds such quality to my life. I cant wait for the day when I never have to leave her...

Now onto Narnia. That was by far the BEST adaptation of that movie to film. Given, the 1986 TV versions were cool for their day and age and were extremely accurate, they just didnt have the magical feel that reading would give since the characters were created so cheaply. In fact in some scenes the mythical characters were 2D cartoon drawings superimposed on the rest of the film. Now Im not a purest saying that all creatures and characters should be tangible, but there should be some degree of realism. And when the characters look like Prismacolor pictures that have come to life, you know there is a problem. In the new version though, ILM (Industrial Light and Magic) pulled out all the stops. I have to admit that George Lucas must have been putting some serious cash into the renderfarms over there cause the characters CG or not reacted wonderfully and totally believably with all others around it. Aside from that the story is of course one of the most wonderful epics of the 20th century. Just like the Greeks have Homer's epic stories, we have C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia and J.R.R. Tolkien's World of Middle-earth. Ok its getting late and I have more junk to do. I have to get ready for this trip to India so I got clothes that need washing and clothes to be broken out of storage since after all I havent had any summer wear out since September. I'm out, later...

The Stillness of Winter

Snow falls down around
Covering the whole of ground
Stillness captures all....

Yea... That was my feeble attempt at Haiku for the recent snowfall. I have just been so zoned out and zonked out with all that is going on I just realized that it has been forever since I have written poetry. I will have to do my best to get some done while I am in India. After all I will be at some of the most romantic locales on the entire planet WITH my lovely girlfriend. It will def. be awesome enviroment for some creative prose. Ok I gotta get back to the papers and junk that I have been bogged down with. I will write some LONG entries this next week after I finish all the exams that I have coming up. Oh... yea and crucial bit... I will be 22 this Friday... AHHH... I gotta go see Narnia... I gotta do alot of stuff... Now just to get to it...

Hey Indie....

Yea I'm starting to rock this leather fedora that dad got awhile back. I dunno why I really like it, but I do... now this is goin to be my travelling hat. So I am goin to make sure to take pictures of myself with it on in all the places I go. Well I have school work to do so I will get to that for now.

Closer & closer...

With each passing day I get closer to my departure for India. I had hoped that I might start a podcast about it where I could log my journey from over there. Unfortunately, I can't find any easy way to do so due to limited access to solid broadband. I will be taking so many pictures anyway that it will be a hinderance to try and do sound-seeing tours or to even try to whip out a laptop and blog. I am traveling with my family and my sweetheart, so I will have enough to wrap up my attention let alone the task of blogging or podcasting. What I might do is start a blog for my India trip and as I find the opportunity post there or put up a picture. I doubt I will do anything really serious bloggin wise till I get home. I do plan on journalling my trip by hand into a paper journal. I did that last year when I went and it was really awesome to have later. In fact, I might try to use that same journal cause I know I didnt fill it up all the way.

I am so busy. I know that seems to be the catch phrase of the past 5 years, but especially now because I am trying to wrap up my finals and such while at the same time trying to teach the stuff I have to for this semester at PGHS. So many things going on. In fact I think that the world in general is just getting busier and busier. I think at some point we are going to hit critical mass. There is only but so much the planet can take from all this constant running around we do as humans. We as a species are the only ones on the planet that are so entropically busy. I know ants and creatures of that kind are even busier than we are but honestly they all are that busy as a unit with one set hive kind of goal. Now I am not trying to say we need communism and all of the world should be under one control. What I do mean is that we need to take considerations for all others around us to at least slightly help the species as a whole all gain our own individual goals. So many people are self-centered and only seeking to extend their own little plot of territory and wealth on this planet. If we all instead tried to make sure everyone else was able to move up then we would all gain.