Band rank

Over the past week, band has been having auditions for concert band. The was it works is everyone plays all the major scales they know(in as many octaves as possible), their chromatic scale(again...), a small piece of music that can be practiced, and finally a non-prepared sight reading exercise. I went into my audition not caring too much. I didn't practice a whole lot, and it showed. Out of twelve scales, I played four or five. I could have tried to play more, but decided against it. My chromatic scale was no better than my others. My prepared piece was okay, but there was nothing special about it. And then my sight reading went pretty well. I figured that I got into the middle of the three bands, as I did last year. I was hoping for the top, of course, but didn't want to get my hopes too high.

I did that audition early on Monday. Trumpets were playing on Monday and Tuesday. For the rest of the week, some friends and I, most of whom should have been getting ready for their auditions, left school and had some fun. The two band directors were listening to auditions, and could not even come out of their rooms or look into the hallway, for fear that the blind audition process might be faltered. This allowed us an easy escape. Too easy, perhaps, because we left every day.

And eventually the last day of auditions came to a close. I had totally forgotten about being placed into bands by that time, but other people were not. They reminded me that sometime this weekend, we would know who was in which band. I wasn't too excited, though, because I expected the post to be on Saturday.

So after school, I went home, and my parents and I headed down to Manchester to see my brother's haunted house(the one he was working at). It ended up being only about 5-10 minutes, but we got to see him briefly. Afterwords, we started back home. About ten minutes into the drive, my friend texted me saying that I got into the top band. This, of course, made me very excited. I asked him how he did. He said that he got first chair in the second band, and he was very happy with his position. He then talked to some people, I suspect, and texted me saying that maybe I didn't make it into wind symphony after all. He saw the middle band's people and saw that I wasn't on the list. Because of this, he suspected that I was higher than him, so he told me that. I could have been in the lower band, however. I asked him to look and make sure, because I had two hours until I could check at home. He said that he would. And then he didn't. And he kept not checking until about an hour later, when I had stopped caring. He said I had gotten second chair.

This amazed me. How could I get second chair? There is three trumpet players who I know for sure should have beaten me. I wondered who the one who beat me was. How could've I done that? Could he be wrong? He can't be wrong. I hope he isn't!

When I got home, I decided to check. It turns out that I got second trumpet part. There are three trumpet parts. Two players play part one, three players play two, and three players play three. I was the middle in second part, meaning that I was fourth trumpet overall. The three that should've beat me did not. Two did, but the third got placed a couple slots below me, to my surprise.

The competition is horribly fierce, and I hate that part of band. I know that after most people try to challenge up once, they lose their anger and settle into the spot they were originally given. I feel pretty safe where I am, but I know that a few people under my spot will try to challenge. And if they beat me, that's okay too.

CDs

Today I came home from school and almost imediately started working on homework. Soon after I got home, my mom came home. She started her normal routine, which included listening to messages. There was a message from the library that I heard, that was for me. My reserved CD was available!

About two weeks ago, I had a great idea. I would make one blank CD into my music CD. I would put all sorts of songs that I love onto this CD. Since I had already made a list of songs that I like(I get bored in class...), I thought it would be very easy. I would look in my dad's CD collection and find all the songs I wanted. Any that he didn't have could be easily checked out from the Hiawatha library. I thought that my plan was perfect.

First, I had to find a CD. This was the first time I questioned how perfect my plan was; I couldn't find a blank CD. But after I asked my dad, I found one. I then went to my mom's laptop. I had already extracted around fifty CDs onto the laptop. I had some trouble finding the songs I wanted, but eventually got them into a list on the computer. The problem I then faced was putting the onto the CD. Windows Media Player said that I didn't have a CD in the computer. I checked, and reassured myself that I did. I ended up copying a song from the computer to the CD, but I don't think it will work because it is in a computer format that my CD player will probably not recognize. I decided to postpone the idea.

I thought that I shouldn't worry about getting the songs onto the CD until I get all the songs onto the computer. To get the rest of the songs, I headed to the library. The library's stock of CDs was not what I had expected. They had a lot of CDs, but I hadn't heard of most of the artists. I decided to look for someone I did know, but not very well. I selected a few CDs and checked them out. When I got into my car, I started listening to them.

I loved being able to change the song whenever I wanted to, or even re-listen if I wanted. I never listened to CDs much in my car. I never put the songs on the computer when I got home. I left the CDs in my car. When they were a couple days from due, I decided to bring them back. While I was at the library, I got a few more CDs.

Today, at the library, I saw a woman who was talking to the librariam. She was trying to check out two movies, I believe. While I was waiting in line, I overheard that she had seventeen items checked out. Two were due today, but she had already returned them. I thought that this must be hard to keep track of, and realized that my idea was correct when the librarian told her about her fine. But this complication was not the thing I was focused on most. I had a mew idea. I could check out movies and watch them, just like she was doing. This, in addition to the CDs, seems like exploitation to the library. But I guess they kind of want that to happen. That is why we have libraries, after all.

I am on my third set of CDs now, and am starting to listen to bands I have heard of, but never, to my knowledge, heard. Currently I have Counting Crows and Bon Jovi. I have heard songs from both, but only a select few. I plan on using the library a lot while I am a student. This will be nice, because I can get books, CDs, and even movies for free. A drawback is that I cannot have the forever, but I get to have a variety of material. This will help to have fun, but still save some money for paying for college.

More Ping Pong

Last night, I had youth group. This lasted from seven to eight o' clock. At about six-thirty, I started playing table tennis with the youth instructor. We continued playing after everyone left. Since I didn't have any homework, I decided to keep playing. He must have been having a good time, too, because we didn't stop playing until nine, when the pastor left.

I learned how to read his moves. I started to get a feel for my own playing style, also. I am generally a player who hits the ball with normal speed until a tasty lookg ball gets hit to me. I then smack that ball, so that the other player has both a lower chance to hit the ball, and gets a little intimidated by me. I also tried to change it up, by hitting the ball very softly. I found out that if I serve the ball softly, usually my opponent will hit the ball back softly, and I will be able to smack the ball back down on them.

Tonight from three to four, ping pong club will be meeting for the second time. I missed the first meeting, so this will be my first. I don't expect to be good compared to many of them, but I can surely be worthy competition. Maybe I'll talk about it tonight.

Table Tennis

Like I said in my first post, or at least like I think I said on my first post, I like to play ping pong. I will firstly say that I'm okay with it being called either ping pong or table tennis. I'm not one of those picky people who gets frustrated when someone says it by its Asian, or European name. It actually annoys me when people get heated over these minimal issues. This also goes for when people write essays over how "10 items or less" is written somewhere in almost every supermarket existent. I never noticed this, and find that it is unimportant, even now that I know it should be "10 items or fewer".

Now going back to ping pong. I once did an LA paper over table tennis. The paper was supposed to be about something in the book we choose to read. I read Forrest Gump, though my teacher urged me not to, because I have seen the movie. It turned out to be like the movie, but much different. It would have been a great project to make a poster over the book and movie, comparing and contrasting, but that was not the assignment. I say this because in both movie and book, Forrest is a mentally slow person. He lives in the south and gets faced with many opportunities. In both, he finds himself playing football for college, fighting in Vietnam, meeting Lieutenant Dan, and falling in love with Jenny. In the book, he is fat, is a genius in mathematics, ends up in a NASA program to go to the moon, and lands on an island in the Pacific. In the movie, he runs from coast to coast many times, just to run, he teaches Elvis a very famous dance move, and he experiences the permanent loss of his beloved. But in both, he gets injured in Vietnam, and in the hospital learns to play ping pong. He is a natural.

He goes strait to the top. When China, who at the time was at very shaky terms with the US, invites some US ping pong players to play in a tournament, Forrest is chosen to go. In the book, he actually ends up saving the Emperor of China from drowning, but in both he ends up making good terms with China. Soon after the table tennis tournament in China, he gets to go back home and starts fishing for shrimp, and ends up creating a huge corporation out of it. His ping pong days are over in a splash (get it, because shrimp...). But because he played ping pong in the book, I was able to write my report about it.

I looked up techniques and styles of playing. Firstly, holding your paddle is very important. There are two main ways to hold a paddle: The traditional, American way that we all know, and what is called the pen-hold style. This is more of how Asians (not to be racists, but this is what I heard) use their paddle. It requires less of a handle, and often times their paddles are made with short handles.

A major part in being successful in table tennis is ball spin. I found this out a little from my research, and a lot from actually playing. If topspin (spin going forward on the top of the ball) is put on the ball as it is hit, the ball will curve downwards. This is one of the most important spins because it allows for harder, faster hitting of the ball. Also, side spin can be put on the ball to throw off an opponent. From my experience, bottom spin is not very useful. It makes you hit it slower, and seems to help the opponent. At times, I have used it and it has thrown off my opponent, but usually it is a risky maneuver.

Bed time, talk to ya later!

My Essay

Today, I got back two of the three essays that I gave to my group to revise. I felt like I really said some things that was hard for me to say. I talked about how my brother kind of ruined my family for a few years. The only thing more nerve racking than giving this essay out was getting it back and listening to my group talk to me about it. I was not the only person to write a personal essay, thankfully. This helped me decide to write about what I did.


-LITTLE SPOILER ON MY ESSAY-

At first, I was going to write about the peacefulness of a campsite I once camped out at. I loved the place because of the solitary feeling I got when living there. I loved the fog that always rose in the morning, and the sound of crackling fire, and the lake that I could go swimming or canoeing in. I was going to write a story about what happened up there. I started writing when I noticed that nothing much happened out there. I could describe the place until I reached the word count limit, but there would be no point in that essay. So I started to write a fiction story that could have happened. Inspired by the moth essay that my LA class read earlier this year by Annie Dillard, I decided to write about an animal that I saw. It started with me trying to see through the fog to my canoe, which was not very far away. I ended up keeping this sentence, because I thought it was very descriptive, and there was action involved in it. Then a rustling of a bush caught my attention. I looked, hoping to see what was there, forgetting what I was doing before. The animal did not move at first, but then an owl gave its last hoot before going to sleep. This caused the chipmunk (or bunny, I wasn't sure on this) to jump. I would then follow it, but I started to realize that this didn't sound real at all. If I made it more real by not following it, it would be boring. I decided to emit the fiction.

-MEDIUM SIZED SPOILER ON MY ESSAY-

Instead, I decided to go by my dad's advise. He told me to write about something personal. Maybe how I broke up with my girlfriend a couple weeks ago, or something with Chris (my brother). I decided to write about Chris. I did not delete the old paragraph, though. I served as my attention grabbing introduction. This was also a great opportunity to use metaphors, similes, and personification. I used the camping scene as a constant measure of complete peace and quietness. I ended the paragraph by saying it was the best morning that I had had in a long time. I then used the mention of morning to flow into my next paragraph. Though they connected with the topic of morning, they were in heavy contrast. I told about my normal morning (the worst morning of my life). (I just had a good idea, I would relate this to the movie "Office Space", which should be general knowledge, of when the main character says that every day is the worst day of his life). (But, as I reread and try to find a good place to put that connection, I realize that my negative, quick tempered tone would not persist if I added an allusion). Anyways, I contrast the 100% peace with the 0% peace of my home. I contrast my feelings of love and hate. I use examples that tell just how much I am willing to stay away from Chris. I use examples of how I hate him (so it doesn't sound like I'm annoyed by a little 8 year od brother who wants to play with me) and end the essay with the theme that everyone needs a 'happy place', and that this place can help.

-VERY LARGE SPOILER ON MY ESSAY-

One thing that I hope is noticed in my essay, because I feel it is a very good idea, is that I never said Chris's name. This could easily be revised, and the essay would flow more easily(I wouldn't have to say 'my brother' so many times). But I don't not say his name for privacy. I, as mentioned in my essay so many times, don't care about him or what happens to him. I feel no connection to him. Calling him and alcoholic druggie is perfectly acceptable for me, because it is very true, and he could have changed it if he only let my family help him. I didn't use his name so that he wouldn't be considered as human as you and me. He is just the other alcoholic in my family, not my brother. This helps my point that I don't regard him as my brother anymore.

-EH, I TALK ABOUT MY TITLE-

The title to my essay is "A Still Serenity". The word serenity is one used many times in my therapy class. We actually say a serenity prayer. It goes something like this, "Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference". Basically, having serenity is what people with alcoholics in their families need. They need serenity to accept that their parents/siblings are alcoholics. They need courage to talk to about it. And they need the wisdom to know what to talk about, or if to talk. Going back over this meaning, I realize that through my examples I have become more wise. I learned that fighting Chris does not work. I then stopped doing that.

I just had an idea. Instead of finding your own happy place, I will talk about serenity. It is a much more positive approach and could serve a greater purpose for the reader. I'll get back on how this works, maybe.

Phanic

Since today is a Sunday, I went to play phanic at two. Today's phanic was different from last weeks for two reasons: It was a nice day, so more people showed up, and we had pictures taken of us.

A photographer from the Torch, the school newspaper, showed up to take pictures for a story they are doing. It is going to be about ultimate (Frisbee), also. If I reslease too much information, they threatened to kill me, so I can't say much more, but if anyone is reading this, be sure to check out that article.

On another subject, there were some pretty cool plays today. The first half, which was played to 3 points, was a close 2-3. the north team (in reference to the goal post they guarded), was ahead 2-1, when the south team came back with a point to even it all out. Soon after this goal, Dan, the south team's main offensive player, came running down, bouncing the ball. There were three players between him and the goal. He got passed the two defenders, but somewhat lost control of the ball. It was just me and him, just in front of the goal. A goal would've been very easy for him, except he hit the ball too far when passing the defenders. I thought I could get to the ball before him, in which case I could have picked it up and chucked it at least half the field away, but he dove for the ball, and swung his racket so that he made a perfect side shot on the goal. This was the end of that half. We all headed down to the south side of the field to take a quick break.

The second half would be to only one point. This was because a bunch the girls playing had to leave soon. We switched sides, but I will continue to refer the team names to the original 'south' and 'north' names. The north team, which I was on, started with the ball. We had a lot of trouble getting very far. The south team, however, got in positions to shoot around five close shots. Our homie (phanic term for goalie) was new to the position, and only luckily blocked most of those shots. I later realized how poorly we were playing defense, because one goal is the half in that game. Eventually, a couple of players on the north team got the ball down field, and the ball got passed to me. I did not catch the ball. The ball instead landed about 5 yards from where I stood, and about 15 yards from the goal. There was a defender standing the same distance from the ball, right beside me, between me and the goal. Since the homie was currently not guarding the goal, I decided to try to beat the defender to the ball, and shoot the ball straight off the ground, like a golf swing. I narrowly beat the defender to the ball, and as I hit the ball, I also hit the racket of the defender. If she had been 4 inches further, she would have blocked the hit. Finally, I made the goal. This tied the game up, and ended the game.

Since the photographer was still there, and we had a great idea last week, three of us decided to stay. The idea was to make some artificial action shots. We ended up not doing this, because it would be hard to effectively make it look real, but instead played some one versus one. Dan and I played against each other, with Ethan playing all time homie (he did that voluntarily, I can assure you). We played half court so that the pictures would be closer up and easier to capture. The photographer never showed us the pictures, so we aren't sure just how good they were. I suppose I can only hope that they look good.

Bad news

It sounds like my dad is very against getting a limo. He was into the idea before, but I guess something must have happened. He hasn't said no, but it's like he's stalling and eventually thinks I will lose interest. But if I get it after all, I'll be sure to blog more about it.

Limo Business

I think the chances of my dad buying the limo, either as a loan for me or to just help me buy it, are pretty high. This is partly because I showed him how much I was into this idea, and also because I know that he is interested in making a small business out of it.


To me, making a business would be the coolest thing. I would love to drive people around as a job. I would always get dressed up and I would get a funny looking limo driver hat. I might even buy some white gloves. I could make posters to put up around my church and some local schools. I could even drive for proms.

But there is a big problem. Without being 18, I cannot obtain a chauffeur's licence. Without this, I cannot legally charge people to give them rides. I think I have a way of getting around that, though. I can drive people around for free. If they so choose, perhaps they could give me an early birthday present. If I got pulled over by a cop, I'm almost sure that he wouldn't buy that, though, but I think that I might be able to defend myself pretty well in court.

Since I'm not actually legal driver, I know that whatever my standard under the table wage is would have to decrease. But for a kid who can only make minimum wage anyways, that isn't bad. A normal limo ride might charge upwards from 100 dollars per hour. I read that one can get a 2006 Sedan to come pick them up and drive them around for 60 dollars an hour. That's like a taxi driver making 60 dollars an hour. Since I actually will be getting a limo, I could probably add twenty dollars to that 60. But it isn't a new, luxury limo. This is an '87 Lincoln Town Car limo with seats for maybe 6. This takes my price down about 20. Now, back at 60, I only have to account for one more thing. I don't have a license. I suppose this should cut my price about in half. Also, because I don't have a license, I couldn't charge an amount, but just earn tips. I think that tips would be pretty high, though, if I'm giving away free limo rides.

Limo Driver

He said he drove a school bus. This was a very important fact that my physics teacher told us about himself. Because of this, he could drive his former students on impromtu field trips whenever he wanted. Also, he could so a physics experiement, where he moved the bus a couple feet with only his body weight (chain the bus to a fence, then jump on the chain, then tighten and repeat). He said that he was a bus driver in the mornings to pick up some extra cash. He shared the route with someone who drove in the afternoon. I thought this was a great idea.

I was on facebook looking for cool, unjustifiably cheap cars. I found 3 items of interest. Firstly, I found a foldout camper, which is very similar to the one my neighbor has, and it was only $500. Compared to other campers, which are above $2000 usually, I thought that this seemed like a bargain. I wrote down the information to show my dad, but neither of us are really interested.

I also found a moped. It was black and white checkered on most parts. There was a hawaiian looking flower on the front fender. It was $600. The person selling it said that she only had to fill it up once every three weeks. Also, it only costs about $3 to fill the tank. Unfortunantly, other people were interested, and so I forgot about it.

The final thing I found was a limo. 1987 Lincoln Town House. It was only $2200. About a year ago, my dad was talking about maybe buying a limo in the future and giving out rides as a kind of part time job. I told him about this limo, and we are going to check it out next weekend.

Bus trips

Yesterday was weird.

It was Saturday morning, I had just woken up at about 8:30, which seemed very late to me. I got ready for band. I packed 2 pairs of sweatpants, 5 pairs of socks (two blacks, one green baseballs, and two short whites), a white shirt, a sweatshirt, and some oatmeal creme pies. I got to school at 10 to practice. We practiced until 12, when we left to get lunch. We go back at 1:30 to get onto the bus. From school, we chartered to Kingston Stadium, where we had our first competition. This performance was merely a warmup for the one later that night, though. After the performance, we recieved bags of food, that would be our supper. We were to eat on the bus.

And the bus is where we had fun. Lots of fun. About mid-trip, we decided to play the slumber partyish game called truth or dare. Since truths are boring in highschool (for most people), we decided to only do dares. The first dare was given to Carl (I switched the real names up for privacy). Carl had to lick Drew's shoe. Reluctantly, he stuck his toungue out, and was about to poke Drew's shoe with his tongue, when Drew shoved his shoe all over Carl's tongue. The next dare was to a girl who wasn't quite as crazy as the rest of us. The dare was "I dare you to tell us the most dateable guy in band". She didn't ever give a good answer. As we continued going around to everyone, the dares got increasingly, well, daring. Alicia licked in between Kyle's big and second toes, and she thought that all feet were gross. Eventually, we were passing a peice of gum from person to person. This actually didn't make anybody sick. From the perspective of a bystander, seeing kids kissing each other and passing gum, in a way most couples wouldn't even do, we seemed like very disturbed people. For us, though, we were just having the best time we've had in weeks, if not months.

Eventually, the lights turned on and we had to get off the bus. We then performed and froze our toes off. It wasn't until the bus ride home that we got really weird (recall the first sentence of this post). First of all, on night time bus rides, we cannot sit girl-boy. This reaked havoc with the past seating arrangement. But we got it figured out. I ended up sitting by Scott. I was in the isle seat, so I could easily talk to Kali and Carl. At first, we were bored. We had been told to keep quiet, and that resulted in the sleeping of most people. Scott, Kali, Carl, and I all stayed awake, however. We decided about 20 minutes into the ride to play a question game.

It was like truth or dare from earlier, but instead of playing dare, we played truth. I remember saying that we should start easy. The first question was to me. Kali simply said three words, boxers or breifs. The questions following that were very personal, and though the identities of others are protected, mine is not. But I can say that I told those three people things that I never told to my girlfriend, who I had been going out with for 22 months. We told personal stories that have been sitting inside ourselves for years. I explained why I broke up with my ex-girlfriend, and also why I liked her. We were so very open. I am not sure why we did this. I'm sure that being with this same group of people for a long time attributes to it. That is also probably why we did the dare game earlier. I think that we also just wanted to talk to somebody about those things that we had never told anyone. Aside from the awkwardness, it was fun to talk about things people don't usually talk about. It was exciting. Truth or dare was definently my favorite part of yesterday.

Free Rice

Yesterday in my 6th period class, United States history, our teacher noticed that we were all tired and lathargic. Since we were done with what we had to do, and had about fifteen minutes to waste, she decided to make us have some fun.

She logged onto her computer in the back corner of the classroom, and googled "free rice". We knew this because she left the projector on after the notes we took. The first link that popped up went to http://www.freerice.com/. She picked a subject, and then we were taking a quiz. I believe the first subject we took was geography. Since I took Human Geography, a riduculously hard class, considering it is only for freshman and is barely worth anything, I had most countries in the world memorized. I think I impressed my teacher when I knew all the Southeast Asia countries by name. I was disapointed, however, that I forgot some insignificant countries, such as Qatar and Uzbekistan.

I, as well as the rest of the class, had a lot of fun playing that game. Before we knew it, we were quizzing ourselves on german and spanish. But without realizing it, we were actually accumulating rice. For every question answered correctly, 10 grains of rice were donated to fight world hunger. After ten minutes, we donated 1120 grains of rice. It is crazy how much rice we could have donated if we all sat down at our own computers and played.

Following Directions

According to an article in a Psycology magazine I read a couple weeks ago, breaking the rules is actually healthy for people. It caused a small adrenaline rush, which, in moderation, is healthy for the mind and body. When reading this, I was reminded of a time that I broke the law. It was a very small, innocent act, but it was also very obvious and wrong.

I was heading home from a church council meeting one Tuesday, when I realized my horrible luck. I was stopped by a red light on Center Point Road. This road is perpindicular to highway 100, which I was currently sitting under. I knew from paast experience that it is near impossible to turn left at the light I was currently at and make it in time for the next lights. It is always a situation that you can see the green light turn red right before your hopeless eyes. This is often uncommon anymore, because many lights switch based on motion sensors telling it that a car had pulled up to the light. These lights, however, are older.

So I turned left. I decided not to try to hit 70 on this sort-of on ramp, so that I could maybe make the light, and, as a side effect, get some major air from the bump at the intersection. I coasted to the line that made me lose my driving test by one point. After what seemed like 2 minutes, I looked around. There was nobody behind me. I looked right, nobody coming for their green light. I didn't have to look anywhere else to see if I was alone, because those were one way streets, but I looked anyways. Since it was dark, I had my lights on. It would be obvious to anyone who merely glances in my direction that I am running a red light. But the only people around were passing by above me at 60 miles per hour or below me at 70. Even if they managed to see me, and if they even cared that someone was running a red light, though it was totally safe for everyone around, they wouldn't have been able to do anything about it. So I took a last glance in my rear view mirror, and see the absence of lights, pushed on the gas pedal. This took me to another light maybe 30 feet away. It is always lagging behind the first one by a couple seconds. I decided to quick make a break for it, and alas, I was free from the grasp of the overprotective stoplight, which ceased to turn green until I had run its red light. I go on the highway, stuck my arm out the window and let my new criminal self go free.

This reminds me of the essay by Ralph Ellison called "On Being the Target of Discrimination". Ralph says that as a child, he would often slide down the fire escape slides. He found it to be a very fun endeavour that was worth the consiquences. His consiquences were not very high, so almost any fun that he could find was worth trying.

Later in the psycology magazine, it asked how I felt after breaking the rule I broke. Did you get caught? If so, was it worth it? If not, what would've the consequences been? The consequences for running a red light is higher than the small thrill I got from the law breaking. I thought about that at the time, though. I suppose that I ran the light because both I had a low chance for getting caught, and I thought that the light was wrong; it should have been blinking red. Obviously this wasn't too big of a deal, but I still feel proud of myself for not being patient, and for not waiting that extra minute.

Of Caring

What is it that we care about? What is the personal gain connected to each thing or person we care for? Can we truly care about it? No need to stand up, I will provide examples.

I care about my parents. If they lost their job, I would have less spending money and a harder time paying for college. I don't truly care.

On the contrary.

I care about my parents. One time I dropped some shrub cutters inches from my father's toes. I felt horrible, even though he was fine, and if he wasn't, I wouldn't be hurt or blamed for my wrongdoing, because it was an accident.

And of things I cannot care about.

I care about my car. If it was stolen or damaged, I may not be able to drive myself around nearly as much as I do now. It would be bad for me if my car was stolen or damaged. I do not truly care about my car.

I cannot think of any 'thing' that I truly care about, or any argument to support the claim.

But of animals, there could surely be a case.

My dog is always around whenever I need someone to play with. This is important because I am often lonely and without anyone to talk to, so my dog comforts me. I do not care about my dog, I care that I have something to be with while lonely.

I rescued a skinny, furless cat from an animal shelter. I feel that all living things, other than plants, have a right to live a full, outgoing life. Instead of caging Snuggles into my house, I decided to let her go into the wild.

To truly care about something other than onesself is a difficult endeavor, but if someone can acheive this noble goal, thats sucks for them, because they get nothing out of it.

Of Understanding

Right at this instant, I am typing on a computer. I am looking at the screen, which tells me what I am writing, but I do not know at all how it works. I think that when I press a button, the computer does something, and then all of a sudden my letter is on the screen. But even though I don't understand, as most people don't, I use a computer ever day.

The fact that I can type on the computer and blog onto this post infers that I sort of know knid of what is happening, but how much does one have to know? I was reading the book "Flowers for Algernon" a couple weeks ago. Charlie told about the time that his workmates were trying to get him to form a ball of dough. Two people made balls of dough in front of him. Charlie didn't notice the big picture, which is why he couldn't form the dough himself. He noticed that one baker was holding his hands more inward than the other, and that the other baker would lean into the dough more. Charlie was trying to understand things that he didn't have to. If he had focused on the dough, instead of the people, perhaps he could have made a slab of dough spherical. In the same way, if I tried to figure out the components of the computer, rather than what the screen did when I moved the mouse, I would have very little success.

When I think about what a doctor has to do in their ten years of college, I get very confused. Why does a doctor have to go to school so long? All they do is look at a patient, and listen to their problems, and find out what is wrong with them. There could easily be a book that has all the common problems people have with the symptoms and perscription needed. The role of doctor seems so unneeded, yet they get paid such high wages and go to school for such a long time.