enj

Things change fast, it’s something I should really come to terms with.

I think I’ve let myself get caught up in more then one illusion of the future recently, and I need to step back and take things day by day. I have a few quotes that I have liked the moment I heard them, and are pretty good:

“We suffer from the illusion that we can control things around us” -Daniel’s Dad

“One more road to cross, one more risk to take, gotta live my life like its one more move to make” -DMX

I have found in the past that I have been most satisfied when I accepted the least control over situations. I think this is highlighted when I felt no dissapointment, anger or frustration when I wrecked my car a year ago. I think it would serve me well to cultivate this acceptance and enjoy things as they are now, while keeping an open mind toward future opportunities and future failures.

There is a chinese proverb that I can paraphrase which attempts to illustrate this acceptance of the world around you through examples:

Old man Wang was a broadminded man. He owned some land and a farm and all the villagers respected him. One day his best horse ran away, so all of the villagers came to console him. He simply said “There is no reason to be upset, how can I know this is bad news?”
A week later the horse returned with a mate, this mate was an exceptional stalion of great worth. All of the villagers came to congradulate him, but he just said “There is no reason to celebrate, how can I know this is good news?”
Old man Wang had a son who loved to ride horses, and this new stalion was an excelent horse to ride. One day the son went riding and fell off, breaking his leg. All of the villagers came to console him again, and this time he said “Now you see you cannot judge something as a good or bad event so easily”
That same month, China went to war with nomadic invaders, a bloody war costing the lives of many fine chinese men. Old man Wang’s son did not have to serve because of his broken leg, and thus was spared.

While it is not a logical arguement, I feel that it is a nice way to look at things. And by being broadminded about everything, you are much less apt for dissapointment, while being able to seize successful opportunities.

I hadn’t really thought of a new years resolution, but I think maintaining a more broadminded perspective might be a good one. But hey, it might not, gotta stay broadminded ^_^

This semester I enrolled in a class called Introduction to Public Speaking. This is the only requirement I have for my major in Mass Media Studies that has not been completed (aside from the major courses)

The idea of the class is not so bad, and my good friend Daniel and girlfriend Teresa are both in the class. It is because of the class that I even have said girlfriend. All this aside I am pretty bitter with the class. My first speech recieved a grade of 84% and my second speech an 80%. I think both got lower points then they deserved. It is all because I stubbornly refused to do obvious signposting, sacrificing points for my principles.

There are 3 speeches in the class, the first being informative (I did this on Terschelling) the second being persuasive (I did this on the futility of DRM) and the final a special occasion speech. For this speech we were restricted by less rules, and I took advantage.

Jeremy came up with the idea for and helped with the “plot” of my speech. Today I presented it to the class, and while I feel my presentation of the first half suffered a couple stumbles, I really nailed the ending.

The speech was so enjoyed by the class that I had requests for the manuscript, and I decided it might be a fun thing to share. I posted it to my website and you can access it either from the side bar to the right, or from this link:

How Jeremy Dyckman Saved Christmas

I uploaded my skate video to Google’s video service: enj skating

It’s a fun little watch. Its mostly me skating with my friend from the skatepark wearing the pink shirt in the beginning.

I plan on making more, but I have to take new footage. I hear I should include busts, but that means I have to make some first ~_^.

It’s all good
-enj