A Big Summer

Travel. Travel. Travel. That's what I want to do!

And with summer right around the corner, this goal has made itself possible =] Todays blog is going to serve as a guide for all of the amazing posts that you should be looking forward to this summer. I can't travel without blogging, and I apparently can't do that unless its summer.

Traveling will help me to live the BIG life that I want to live, and I want to be able to share that with those who read this blog. So here we go:

Starting small. The day that school ends I will be heading off to long beach, and I will get to stay a five minute walk away from the beach for about a week.

A little farther. In late may I will be heading to Utah to celebrate a friends birthday. I am excited to whats out there, I have no idea what to expect!

Farther... Tennessee. later this summer I will visit some of my family in tennessee... a beloved tradition and a week or two of pure happiness.

Even farther... Florida!!!!!!!! For my birthday in August I will be spending 10 days at Walt Disney World Resort. yay!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And Finally........Germany. That's right. I'm going to be ending my summer with a trip to Germany. I've only been out of the country once before in my life.

I'll keep you posted.

Blogging...and ramblings of

I think blogging is a really broad category that can function as a lot of things. On the most simple level, I think that it does serve as a diary, weather or not the blogger intends for it to. The things that we choose to write about and our feelings about them are a reflection of ourselves. The best part about a blog is that no one is going to stop you from publishing it. It’s not like an article, where if you speak negatively about a certain thing you stand in fear of having your article cut, or at least heavily edited. With blogging you can say what you truly feel, with no restraints. and that’s why I think it is so powerful. In the role of convergent media and freelance writing, it is essential to have a blog. This gives your readers an outlet to become more familiar with you. Also, it expands your audience by making yourself more accessible.

I think to me blogging serves a dual role. It serves as a sort of diary but it also makes me accountable. For example, if my blog is about doing interesting things, I need to actually do interesting things and report about them on a regular basis.

For random blogs I just clicked on friends of friends until I found someone that I didn’t know…

Blog 1: http://www.adam-cook.blogspot.com/
This is more of a “diary” type blog, but there is also a heavy use of photography. I really enjoyed reading this blog, even though it seemed that it was mostly compiled for people that he actually knew. I think that their reason for blogging was simply to make a meaningful record of themselves, possibly just to look back on some day in the future.

Blog 2: http://morganpea.blogspot.com/
Once again, a diary type blog. It was really difficult for me to engage with this blog because I do not know her personally. I found myself disinterested in what she was doing with her life. Perhaps if she expanded her posts to have a more profound meaning, instead of “this is what I did today”, than it might be better.

JRN 415 Midterm

This has to be about the 100th time that I have recieved this assignment: Find a niche!!!!!

"Well, what if I don't have a niche" was my response the first couple of times. The next few times I was just depressed that I didn't have one.

Then I realized that sure, other people that I know do have clearly defined niches, but that doesn't mean that I don't have one.

The other day I was talking to my mom about the future, and I was trying to describe what I wanted out of life.

"I don't even have the slightest clue what the future has in store for me", I said, "But I want to live a BIG life, you know".

And that's what is. I want my life to be BIG. Even when I'm stuck at college and can't find the time or money to go on a big European vacation, I want this blog to make responsible to anyone that reads it that I constantly need to be making an effort to make my life BIG.

This week I did a little bit to make my life BIG. I did something that I alweays put off. I climed Mt. Rubidoux. Sure, the drive was only five minutes and the walk was only a few miles, but it was one thing that I did for myself, to make my life as extraordinary as I could at the moment.

I can't even begin to describe how amazing the view was from the top, but the sense of accomplishment that I did something BIG for myself, even if it was just on a small scale, was extraordinary.

JRN 415 Midterm

Listening to God

I honestly feel that I need to start off this blog by admitting that I do not have a direct line to God. He has never spoken to me in plain English and I can only imagine what it is like to hear his voice…but he definitely has not said anything to me.

I don’t mean for that to sound harsh, but this is just one of those topics that really has not come up in my Christian life. At the church that I attended when I was younger there was always a long pause at the end of worship and people would just say out loud what they believed God was saying to them. This sort of freaked me out, and to this day I could not tell you if they were for real or not. Anyway that wasn’t even the oddest part. During that same pause people would…I don’t know, I guess you would call it trying to speak in tongues. After they did that they would interpret whatever it was that they claim to just have uttered. In my opinion, that definitely was not for real.

So, maybe that’s why God does not have a direct line to me, I am too skeptical. I study the bible, I pray, I go to church…I mean I really do try to be a good Christian. I just don’t have that sort of personal relationship with God the way that other people claim to.

I should also make it clear that God does reveal his presence to me, but in much subtler was than a direct line. I remember many times praying for calmness and receiving that along with the comfort of knowing that God was with me. I have always felt that God watches over me and knows what’s best for me even better than I do. So I guess that that means that I really don’t need to be able to have conversations with Him in words because I already have the confidence that He is there and watching out for me. My God is a good God and He knows me well, and maybe he knows that just showing up in the middle of the night would scare me too much, I’m just not that person.

Haiti

Disasters happen. They happen. I mean I wish they wouldn't. I wish that writing a blog, or saying a prayer, or even just living a really good life could stop them from happening. Unfortunately I am not God and I don't really have the power to fix anything, I can only contribute.

Clothing drives, money collections, prayer circles- I'm all there. I'm not as rich as Angelina Jolie and I can't take my private jet over to being people essential goods while posing for tabloid pictures, but I'm pretty sure that they don't want anyone else coming over and using their resources anyway.

There are some things that I can and should do in response to a tragedy like this. I can hurt. I can feel horrible. When other people are in danger or are having serious problems I should want to do whatever I can to help. I can't even begin to imagine right now how horrible it must be to be going through what they are going through, but it certainly breaks my heart to think about it.

I'm not sure if that's the "right" way to respond to something like this, but it sounds about right to me. However, I guess if there's a right way to respond to this there is also a wrong way to respond to it.

Enter Pat Robertson (a.k.a. Mr.-biggest-jerk-in-the-universe-face). I just made that nickname up.

His response wasn't just not normal; I would go as far to say that his response was wrong.

According to ABC News at , Robertson blames the disaster in Haiti on a pact that they supposedly made with the devil. Said Robertson:

"(Haitians were) under the heel of the French. You know, Napoleon III, or whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil... They said, we will serve you if you will get us free from the French. True story. And so, the devil said, 'OK it's a deal'."

So I'm not really if Robertson is just a bad person, if he has no soul, or if he's just a delusional old man that doesn't know what he is talking about. But saying something like that at a time like this sounds like pure evil to me.

I'm pretty sure that Robertson is the only person in the world that believes that, because that's one of the most ridiculous and plainly stupid sounding stories that I've ever heard. But even if there were truth to what he was saying, why bring it up now?

I truly cannot comprehend what it is that makes him want to say something so terrible and to condemn people that are already hurting.

I know that I shouldn't wish ill on anyone, but he'll get his. One day that man will get what he deserves.

Niche Assignment

I have opinions, and really good opinions. I have a lot of things to say and I have a lot of interesting perspectives things like life, people, and a whole bunch of other stuff. Not that that matters. All that matters now is one of those few things that I don't have anything to say about.

I was really proud of myself when I concluded at the end of my blog last semester that I don't have a niche and that that's okay. I felt empowered. I felt good about being seemingly alone and lost in the world. But apparently it's not okay.

For this blog I am supposed to be writing about my niche. You know, the niche that I don’t have. I’m not going to sit here and make one up, although sometimes I feel that that is exactly what this assignment entails. I’m just going to tell you the truth. I don’t want to grow up to be a blogger and in the meantime I’m not going to blog about a niche that I don’t have.

It’s frustrating, you know? I want to have a niche. However wanting something and having something are two completely different things. Or maybe I do have a niche and I just haven’t figured it out yet. Is that wrong?????

It took me until my second year of college to be completely sure about what I wanted to do with my life. Before I came to that decision, I was frustrated. It’s hard to not know exactly what it is that you want, or that you’re good at. It’s hard to not feel particularly special.

Now I’m immersed in that feeling all over again. We have so many writers in our class that are passionate about what they write about and they are exceptional writers in their specific fields.

I’m not like that. I’m all over the place sometimes. If you were too look at all of the articles that I did for the Banner last semester you would laugh because I was basically in a different section each time. As they say, I go between the tribes.

If you ask me a question that I don't have the answer to, it doesn't matter how you ask the question, I still don't have the answer. I still don’t have a niche. Now with this assignment I feel really guilty about that fact.

Maybe next semester?