Import on Joshy Orndorff .eth

Backup Plans are for Pu...

Wed, 30 Dec 2009 00:00:00 +0000

This blog post was originally written on 30 December 2009. It is reproduced here for archival purposes and your reading pleasure. It is reproduced as accurately as possible with no style, mechanical, or spelling corrections whatsoever.

Original 2009 Post

Current mood: optimistic

The fact that almost no one reads my blogs here on myspace anymore is not lost on me, but I will continue to post them here because this is where it began, and thus myspace has a very special place in my heart. I’ll also continue to reproduce them in places like facebook so that I get about six readers rather than the two who still use myspace, but we all know where my heart is :)

Tonight's Topic: Backup Plans Safety Nets Under Life's High Wire or Parasites on Life's Back

All the way back in 7th grade I decided what I wanted to do with my life. Some of you have probably heard me say this, and to some it might be news, but when I was only 13 years old (how is that almost a decade ago already!?) I decided that I wanted to be in a rock band for a career. This is one of those career choices that are usually only a phase like when a little kid says he wants to be an astronaut or a peewee football player says he wants to go to the NFL. All the adults around believe that he truly wants that, but are simultaneously confident that he will outgrow the outlandish goal as he matures and realizes how unlikely success in the given field actually is. And usually they are right. Most people with the kind of goals I’m talking about here do decide they would rather do something more feasible like get a business degree, or be an engineer or find a job and a spouse and get started on life. And there is certainly nothing wrong with any of those options if they make a person happy.

But some of the kids who want to be presidents and skydivers and rockstars actually keep their eyes on that goal as they grow older and more mature. This is a great thing because they haven’t let the monotony and doubt that is ever-present in the world bring them down. At least not yet. But as one ages and continues to confidently proclaim that he intends to chase his childhood dream, the reactions slowly, but steadily, change from “That’s great, being in a band would be lots of fun,” to “That would be hard, but maybe if you set your mind to it you’ll get lucky,” to “That doesn’t seem very practical but I guess you could try for a little while,” to, “well, I guess if you really want to try it, but what’s your backup plan?”

“What is your backup plan?” I can’t begin to count how many times I’ve been asked that. It comes from all sorts of people. From people who see that their life is going nowhere and want the same for me. From people who have decided that ordinary people can’t do great things. And worst of all, it comes from family and close friends who are concerned about what I will do if (or more precisely when) I fail to reach my aspiration. So they suggest that I create a backup plan. Just something a little safer – something that I can resort to if my more ambitious goal doesn’t end up working out – something that can be likened to a safety net beneath the high-wire that I hope to walk on.

The question of a backup plan is especially prominent at times when important life choices have to be made. For me that time was my graduation from high school. In the months and weeks leading up to said graduation, many of my friends and acquaintances expected me to finally admit that I was going to give up on the rock band idea and go to college like all the rest of them. But I was determined. I had not been jerking everyone’s chains the past several years when I said I wanted to be in a band; I was serious. And graduation was the time to finally do something big about it. But my family and friends we concerned that it might not work out and I would end up homeless and depressed because it never worked out. So they kept asking and encouraging me (out of love no doubt) to come up with a backup plan just in case. And eventually I became pretty scared. I was scared that I would end up living with my parents for a while and burdening them, I was scared that people wouldn’t want to hear my music, lots of little fears built up in me, and at about the last possible minute, I decided to come up with a backup plan. I decided to go to college.

But backup plans are a funny thing in a lot of ways. They are designed to give you something to fall back on just in case your main plan doesn’t work out. But you can’t just decide to have one and then get to work on your main plan in the same way that you would have if you hadn’t chosen a backup plan. The backup plan takes work too. In my case, mastering the material necessary to attain a physics degree was certainly no trivial matter. It actually takes a lot of work, and for many people it is their main plan. In fact it takes so much effort that it became difficult to find any energy and time to dedicate to the rock band project which was supposed to be my main plan. My backup plan was taking over. To follow my previous analogy, I spent all my time setting up my safety net and barely ever even got around to actually walking up on my high wire. In the process of sorting out all of the netting material, I had gotten my arms and legs hopelessly tangled in it and getting the net set up properly became more of a focus than walking above it.

I should make it clear that I’m not trying to downplay my experiences at college at all because I’ve learned a lot, and formed a lot of important relationships with some great people. Many of those people are actually what inspired me to write this blog. I am only trying to say that my backup plan began to distract me from my main plan.

An additional consideration with backup plans is that you are supposed to resort to them as a second choice when your first choice doesn’t work out. But it seems to me that there is a very artificial distinction between ‘something that hasn’t worked out’ and ‘something that hasn’t worked out yet’. And I propose that the only person who can appropriately make that distinction is the person who is actually trying to make the first choice work. It isn’t time to go to the backup plan until the first plan has failed, and that can’t happen until the dreamer says goodbye to that 13-year-old who dreamed of being a rockstar.

Flash Forward. Now the time has come once again for me to graduate, and just like the last time, it is very scary. There are lots of hard questions to be answered and difficult decisions to be made – not the least of which is “what am I going to to with the next months and years of my life?” But I am confident that this time I will have the courage to make the hard decisions. I still want to be in a band, and I don’t think that any other career would truly make me happy. And while I have no idea what the outcome will be, I’m confident that I would rather find out than take the safe route.

Undoubtedly if I once again start to tell people that I want to make the band work they will once again ask what my backup plan is. By now I know that there are only two possible answers to that question:

I’m putting my dreams on hold indefinitely while I walk down a safer path to [insert backup plan here].
I don’t have or need a backup plan because I’m not giving up on my primary plan.

From this point on I will definitively chose the second answer. Because I truly believe that backup plans are for punks… or whatever other letter you had in mind to complete that title :)

Thanks for reading, and as usual (although it hasn’t been that usual as of late) feel free to post any thoughts or ideas as comments.

love, Joshy Woshy

ps. I love that they include “Sneezy” as one of the mood options, but other, more applicable, dwarfs including “Bashful” are not options :)

2011 Commentary

When I imported my old blogs into my drupal site in 2011, I made some updated commentary on them.

I don't think there is much that I can add to that one except for maybe an update. After graduation, I spent some time living in China. I know that sounds like the last thing that I should have done after declaring that I would focus on my dream. And to be honest, it probably was something of a step sideways, but it was a fun one for sure. Now that I'm back from China, I'm living in LA and working toward the dream. I have a band together and we are moving in the right direction. Are we famous yet? No. Are we playing live shows yet? Also no. But the key word in both of those questions is yet. And I'm working toward the dream now. Expect more band-related updates in the future, and if you are interested in seeing what I've done musically so far, check out my music page.
Please leave your thoughts or ideas in the comments. love, Joshy Woshy

Spark Plugs

Sun, 04 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000

This blog post was originally written on 4 October 2009, and later edited and reposted on 13 January 2010. The 2010 version is reproduced here for archival purposes and your reading pleasure. It is reproduced as accurately as possible with no further style, mechanical, or spelling corrections whatsoever.

2010 Reproduction

I thought I’d share a few things that I’ve learned about checking and changing spark plugs. This seems like a simple task, but after a few recent projects, I’ve found that it isn’t so straight forward.

Don’t take them out of the engine when it is hot. You WILL burn yourself. You may be thinking that you will be careful and hold them in the socket or wear gloves, but you will end up touching them, and they will burn you.

Once this happens, you will drop them on the floor. You may think that you’re tough and the burn won’t faze you too much, or that you would just set them down quickly, but you won’t; you will drop them.

And when you drop a spark plug, there is only one way for it to land. That, of course, is on the electrode, and it will bend. It may land on a towel, or in the grass, or maybe even in a pile of cotton, but the electrode will hit first and it will bend. Don’t ask me why, but it ALWAYS happens this way.

After you bend the electrode and you finally dig out your gap checker to fix it, you will start to fumble with it, and drop it again, and it will bend again, and you will have to reset the gap… again.

So, just to make your life a little easier, wait a few minutes and let the plugs cool so that you don’t have to laugh at yourself for bending them… twice. Hope this was useful to someone :)

2011 Commentary

When I imported my old blogs into my drupal site in 2011, I made some updated commentary on them.

This is unlike my other blogs in the sense that is isn't really issue related, and it was my first serious attempt at creative writing in quite a while. I really like reading this one because it is short and kind of funny. Hopefully you like it too. But in all seriousness, I'm definitely not discouraging checking or changing your own plugs. This is an easy job that anyone is able to do by themselves, so get out there and start bending your electrodes ;-)
Feel free to leave thoughts or ideas as comments, love, Joshy Woshy

How to love one another

Sun, 21 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +0000

This blog post was originally written on 21 June 2009. It is reproduced here for archival purposes and your reading pleasure. It is reproduced as accurately as possible with no style, mechanical, or spelling corrections whatsoever.

Original 2009 Post

Current mood: contemplative

A few days ago I got back to Ohio from a week-and-a-half long motorcycle trip across the country. I was living abundantly. I left from Grand Rapids, Michigan on Friday, and rode all the way to San Francisco. I saw a lot of highway, a lot of scenery, a lot of people. Every aspect of the trip was awesome, and I learned a ton that I think I should share.

Nate and I left on Friday, after a farewell from Rich, George, and Caitlin, and rode to Wheaton, Illinois where Krista was nice enough to let us stay with her. It was nice to see her and Nicole again since it has been a few weeks since school ended. Nate’s clutch cable broke as we were getting into Wheaton that night, and the next day we got a late start because we had to find a replacement. Unfortunately, the replacement was in Iowa City, and he had to ride all the way there without a clutch! What a feat. After repairing the cable and eating a packed lunch (courtesy of Krista and family) we headed on to Nebraska with no plans, and no place to stay for the night.

It was getting on toward 11:00 when we got into Omaha, and we still had no plan and were not able to contact any churches to mooch a place to sleep – a plan that we were sure would have worked if only it weren’t so late. Eventually we decided to head into Lincoln to see what we could find there. After looking into a cheap hotel and deciding it was way out of our price range, we began cruising around again. We found a church that we thought looked promising but it was locked. We decided we would be able to sleep on the church’s back porch and get out before the 8:00am service in the morning, but we knew our bags and helmets and such would be soaked. Luckily, we heard some college kids partying on the porch of the house next door, and we went over too see if they would take us in. After introducing ourselves, and briefly meeting the kids, we asked if we could crash on the couch. The guys who lived there decided they didn’t want strangers in their house for the night, but a girl on the porch heard our story and offered us to stay with her. Shortly later another girl offered us her house and said that she would make pancakes in the morning. I was really struck by the generosity and kindness of two seperate people who didn’t know us and had no reason to trust us. As hard as it was to pass up pancakes, we ended up staying with Sam, the first girl who offer us a place because she was going to be earlier, and we had to get an early start the next day. But while we were waiting for her to finish her cigarette, we met a few more people on that porch. A fairly druck and possibly high anarchist named Dylan gave us contacts of people we could stay with in Denver and several other major cities if we needed it. He was incredibly friendly, and gave us his cell number incase we needed help finding a place in the next few days.

We left early Sunday morning, and headed to Denver where Nate had a friend for us to stay with. We got caught in some serious rain just after getting into Colorado, and we were freezing by the time we got to Denver. Marsha – Nate’s friend – offered us dinner and hot showers as well as a dryer for our soaking wet clothes. She also replentished out food stash before we headed out the next morning.

When we left Monday morning we took highway 40 into Salt Lake City. It was gorgeous – mountains, the continental divide, snow caps. It was awesome. We got a little wet but not too bad. I had an old friend – more of an aquaintence at the time, but a friend now – named Leigh Ann who offered her house to usin Salt Lake. I called her from a gas station about two hours outside the city, and she gave us directions. The next hour of riding we got soaked, but when we came throught the mountains near the Salt Lake valley, the sky cleared and the sun came out bright and beautiful. There was sun, clouds, rainbows, mountains, and our bikes. It was awesome. The rest of the ride was really cool. Leigh Ann and Dan (her husband) were very kind to us again letting us use their shower and dryer. I was starting to think how amazing it was that so many people were kind enough to let us into their homes.

They didn’t have a computer at their house, so we didn’t plan a place to stay the next day which was going to be somewhere in Nevada. We didn’t worry much, and headed out with no plan. There kind of a cool feeling that comes with riding unfamiliar areas with no plan and no worries. After almost running out of gas in the Utah desert, we hopped from town to town in Nevada. In Battle Mountain, we stopped in a gas station and borrowed a yellow pages. We decided our best bet for a place to stay would be a church, and this time it was only around 2:00 in the afternoon, so we figured most of the church offices would be open. we started calling churches in Winnamucca which was the next town down the highway. We talked to dozens of churches. Some had events that night. Some wouldn’t let us stay because they “didn’t have the funds.” Some wanted to let us stay but couldn’t because of the trustees. I noticed that part of the sky was getting dark, and asked a guy sitting at a booth which way was west. He stuttered, and then hesitantly answered me. I could tell that he was somehow different – some kind of mental condition maybe – and my instinct was to end the interaction politely, but as quickly as possible. I went back to looking at the directory. We knew that technically we could afford a hotel if we needed to, but money was tight (we thought) and we had to make it out to California. After calling every church listed to no avail, we decided that there wasn’t much we could do other than keep heading west. As we were leaving the guy at the booth (who I now realized had all of his belongings with him in two garbage bags) asked us for “an emergency pair of socks.” All the time that we were trying to find a free place to stay, this guy was overhearing us and he didn’t even have a pair of socks. Maybe we weren’t as bad off as we had thought. Nate gave him a pair of socks, and we headed for the door. The gas station attendant offered us some free french fries, but I told her we were getting ready to leave (although french fries sure sounded good). I was glad to see that she brought a whole meal to the guy at the booth. We hit the road.

In Winnemucca we filled up our tanks, but didn’t see any obvious place to stay (we had already called all the churches) so we moved on another hour to Lovelock. We stopped in a gas station to warm up since we had been rained on a little. The gas station attendant gave us free hot chocolate to warm up, and suggested a few churches where we could try to find a place. Most of them were locked, but the catholic priest lived next to his church, and we went to see him. When we asked us if he could help us out, he told us that “the church is not a place for sleeping.” What the hell were we thinking!? We figured that our friend Dylan didn’t know anyone in such a small town, so we made our way to one more church where the pastor and her husband were legitimately concerned and wanted to help us, but the wife had recently been kicked out of the church and only had a few weeks left so she couldn’t let us stay there because she didn’t want to make the situation with the congregation any worse. She helped us find our way to the police station, and the sheriff’s office where we filled out an “indegant form” – something we had never heard of before. Filling out the form allowed us to get a free hotel room. We assume that the city picked up the tab for us. I had never heard of this servicec before, and I wonder how many cities offer it. So far the Random girl and her anarchist friends from the porch in Lincoln, the local government in Lovelock, and several gas station attendants had been for more kind and helpful tha many churches. Interesting.

The next day we rode to Placerville, California (just outside of Sacramento) and stayed with Karl Falk and family. The ride to his house was awesome because we took several side roads, and saw some great mountains and lakes including Donner Pass road, and Donner lake.

Thursday Morning, Karl’s mom gave us a bunch of food, and we rode into San Francisco over the golden gate bridge, and along highway one. We made it to the camp where Nate was working for the summer, and parted ways. He gave me his atlas, but I lost it immediately – literally, I didn’t have it at my very first gas stop; I have no idea where it went. I rode around Palo Alto and Mountain View for a while and then headed back to Karl’s.

The next day I sold my bike for $1000 after having a listing online for only 10 hours. I hung out with Karl and his brothers for the next few days, and got a taste of California, and I got to See Nate Frasier – a friend and teammate – also. On Sunday morning Karl took me into Sacremento where I boarded a train toward home.

The first day of the train ride was pretty uneventful. I saw some good landscape, and talked to Annika and my sister on the phone to pass time. The next day I met a girl who said her name was Nova. I wasn’t convinced… She was hitchhiking back to Indiana for an old friends wedding, but decided to get the train because her traveling companion had met a boy and decided to stay put. I found out she was an athiest despite her father having been a pastor before he died, and her stepfather also being a pastor. I told her I was a Christian, and that I was interested in the Mormon church, but that I was a little disillusioned by the way that churches had responded to our requests to stay with them the past week. She told me to keep traveling around. We talked a lot.

Eventually the train made it to what I’m referring to as hell-on-earth station in Chicago. Everyone is in a hurry, and nobody smiles. Scary. A random guy came up to me and asked me if I could help him get to South Bend. I reached into my pocket which was bulging with ten benjamins, pretended it was empty, and told him I couldn’t help him. It was a small lie but I was sure he was trying to con me. I had a three hour layover and decided that since I hadn’t spent any money on food so far on the trip I wouldn’t visit the food court, so I made myself comfortable in the waiting room. After all, I still had one granola bar left that Karl had sent with me and I could eat that on the second train ride even though a five hour ride was a lot and I would proably be starving with only one granola bar. I made friends with a guy sitting opposite me. I told him I grew up near Cedar Point and he said that he loved roller coasters, and his wife used to like them too. He told me about a vacation that he and his wife went on to visit several theme parks. I noticed that he always talked about his wife in past tense, and after about a half hour I decided to ask him about it. He said that she had died of brain cancer. I figured that he probably didn’t want to talk about that much so I didn’t say anything else. I mentioned that I was planning on taking a nap in the waiting room, but meeting him was much more interesting. He said it was good that I didn’t take a nap or the security guards would think that I was “one of us” as he put it. I wondered who “us” was, and then realized that he was homeless. He had a backpack of stuff with him, but that backpack and the pink floyd T-shirt on his back were all he owned.

I thought a little more. How could a homeless guy have afforded to take vacations to see amusement parks. And didn’t he mention the house that he and his wife used to live in? I guess that was past tense too. For the first time in my life I really truly comprehended that fact that people could start out lucky like me and my family with a house and enough disposable income to take vacations and then somehow end up on the street. He said that his wife had been diagnosed with brain cancer about a year ago. After two operations and countless checkups, she didn’t make it. By the time the bills were paid he was on the street. He told me about the trip they were on when they got engaged – a vacation to Alaska. She suggested they hike up the icy hills alone and he asked her and she said yes. He sat quiet for a minute, “I miss the hell out of her.” The contemplatinve silence was interrupted by a guy who asked me for ten bucks to buy a bag of weed. I told him I didn’t have any money for that kind of thing. My new-found friend kicked the him out of the station, and explained to me that if the guards saw someone asking for weed money they would kick all of the homeless people out of the station. We spent the next half hour talking about rock and roll, and his old band, and my band, and all kinds of other stuff. As I was leaving I asked what he did on rainy nights like that and he said he just tried to stay as dry as possible and when he could afford it, which was rare, he would buy a bus ticket and ride all night, but it was very rare because that cost about seven dollars. I blew seven dollars on two tripple thick shakes a few weeks ago… Before I walked away I offered him my last granola bar. It would be easy to make it five hours without food.

On the second train ride I thought a lot about the guy I had met at the station. He had had such a normal life until recently. I wonder what the guy in Battle Mountain who needed the socks was like before he was on the street. I wonder if the guy who was trying to get to South Bend really did need help. I could have easily afforded to give him $10.75 for a ticket. I guess I’m not much different that the priest who told me that the church is no place for sleeping.

The problem isn’t that I can’t afford to help anyone, it is that I can’t afford to help everyone, and I’m afriad that if I help someone it will be someone like the weed guy. Maybe that wouldn’t be so bad. If I can afford Calvin College I can probably afford to be scammed a few times if it means that I could be helping someone out along the way.

I learned a lot on that trip, and I think I’ll take Nova’s advice and keep traveling around.

love, Joshy Woshy

ps. Chadwick, I hope you don’t mind that I used your phrase “live abundantly.” And I’m sorry I missed your graduation party.

2011 Commentary

When I imported my old blogs into my drupal site in 2011, I made some updated commentary on them.

This essay came after a long break (over three years) from writing, and I think that shows not only in the content, but also in the stylistic choices that I made. Rereading that article now makes me think quite fondly about that trip and also makes me wonder what the hell I’m doing letting myself fall into a routine. Don’t get me wrong, my routine these days is pretty sweet. It involves running up scenic California mountains, chasing my dream of playing with a band, and riding a motorcycle in January. But somehow, day-to-day life seems bland compared to everything that I squeezed into that week and a half discussed above.

Helping or not helping homeless people is something that I still struggle with a lot, and probably always will. Since writing the original essay, I’ve realized that a lot of needy people are just like the guy I met in the train station, but others really are mooches. There is one guy who sits in the same spot on Colorado Blvd in downtown Pasadena everyday with his tattoos, cigarettes, and fat-ass cat just asking for money. It’s obvious from his inventory, and even more so from talking to him, that he is not really hurting, just lazy. I don’t help people like that ever. If they can get by and be happy living that lifestyle, then all the power to them, but it certainly isn’t my responsibility to support it. On the other hand, there are a lot of people who really could use a hand. I think the essay did a good job pointing that out. And unfortunately there are even more people who can’t easily be placed into either group. I guess all things considered, it is better to err on the side of generosity.

When I was coming out to LA with Annika we got to talking about this kind of thing after a guy asked us to buy him lunch at McDonalds. She, or course, was familiar with this essay so I didn’t re-hash it, but neither of us had any definite answers as to when it was a good idea to give. The best thing I could come up with was this: I want to live in a world where people can trust each other and help each other out, but that just won’t happen unless I start trusting people and helping them out myself.

So that’s pretty much where I stand for now. I’ve come an embarrassingly short way toward actually being more generous since the writing of the original essay, but progress is progress, and the future is bright. On a separate note, it was really hard to reproduce this one with the same typos and mistakes that I made when I typed it up a year and a half ago. But I decided to do it anyway. I really believe that reproductions like this should be as accurate as possible. Sure I could probably change “contemplatinve” to “contemplative” without losing any of the original meaning, but any time you edit an essay, you bring a little bit of your current mindset into it. And I really want these blogs to serve as an accurate record of my thoughts and feelings at the time of writing. So I didn’t change anything. That being said, I’m going to be extra careful to proof-read this commentary before I post it :)

Please post your thoughts or ideas as comments. If you commented on this essay in one of its previous locations, don’t feel obligated to say anything new or unique here, or anything at all for that matter. But this is probably going to be the final home of this essay, so if you want your comment preserved, this is probably the place for it.

love, Joshy Woshy

Ode to Julie

Sat, 25 Feb 2006 00:00:00 +0000

This blog post was originally written on 25 February 2006. It is reproduced here for archival purposes and your reading pleasure. It is reproduced as accurately as possible with no style, mechanical, or spelling corrections whatsoever.

Original 2006 Post

Current mood: excited Some of you may have noticed that not too long ago Julie posted a blog in my honor. I figured since she did that, and since she is totally AWSOME, I would return the favor! So here goes.

Julie Julie is a coolie I eat lunch with her at schooly she isn’t mean but she might be a queen I have never seen her drooly

Julie Julie she is fun She’s on Cross-Country ‘cause she likes to run She’s not a giraffe but she makes me laugh In her myspace picture she’s holding a gun

Julie Julie she is super She is never a party pooper She’s not lame and won the chess4 game She’s an awsome hula hooper

Wow!! that was an excelent piece of work if I do say so myself! I think it captures what I was trying to say.

I met Julie during cross country. She was one of many incoming freshman, and I accidentally called her the wrong name once. But since I did that, I felt really bad, and made sure not to do it again, so she was the first name that I learned!! What an honor! So anyway, we didn’t hang out a whole lot during the season, until toward the end. Most notably was the time, when she was supposed to come over, and Steve was going to give her a ride, but her parents said she couldn’t go, and she went anyway!. That was totally awsome. We call it her liberation. Due to forces outside of our controll Julie never made it to my house that night, but thats not important. There was also the time when she totally skipped band to hang out with the team after state! that too was awsome. Mr Ryan smith (aka Kyaker 76) was not too happy about that, and it had some negative effects on her grade, but Come on that was probably among the best few hours of my life. I mean it was November and some of us (including COLLEEN) jumped in the lake! And we ate junk food at coach Scott’s house. Of course Julie would know all about junk food as she once ate a VERY VERY old oreo off of my basement floor. And there was that time when Julie guided me, Kassie, and herself on a tour through Agrabah on Aladdin’s magic carpet. That was pretty sweet. The list could go on and on.

So there you have it. One of the coolest people in Huron (or maybe even the world for that matter) in a peom and a paragraph. If you don’t know Julie be sure to check out her totally ROCKIHN’ myspace! (She is #1 on my Top 8) That’s all for now.

love, Joshy Woshy

2011 Commentary

When I imported my old blogs into my drupal site in 2011, I made some updated commentary on them.

Wow, remember the days when spell checkers weren’t built into web browsers. Those really were the dark ages. Luckily I’ve learned to spell awesome even without a spell checker since then.

Thoughts and ideas are welcome in the comments.

love, Joshy Woshy

Conformity

Sun, 19 Feb 2006 00:00:00 +0000

This blog post was originally written on 19 February 2006. It is reproduced here for archival purposes and your reading pleasure. It is reproduced as accurately as possible with no style, mechanical, or spelling corrections whatsoever.

Original 2006 Post

I didn’t realize that there was a catagory called School/College/Greek or my College blog would have been filed accordingly. Oh well. Hopefully this second blog for the day will make up for my ingorance of my blog over the weekend.

Tonight's Topic: Conformity Conform or Rebel

A lot of teenagers claim to be against conformity. They feel like they shouldn’t accept what society says is right or normal just because society says it. They want to think for themselves. They want to try things and experiment before they make an oppinion on something. Many of their peers, adults included, see this as a good line of thinking that will take them far in life. And in many cases it is. A popular cliche comes to mind: If all of your friends were jumping off of a bridge would you jump too? Countless parents have said this to their children encouraging them to think on their own instead of giving in to the persuasions of friends. Of course these same parents have probably said something along the lines of “That’s your curfew because I said it is!” The parents are obviously sending mixed signals by encouraging the child not to give in to his friends, but also encouraging him to accept what the athority says as absolute truth. So what is the correct way to think? Is something true if almost everyone says it is? Or should we investigate things for ourselves.

There was a time when the general consensus was that the world was flat. If you sailed too far in either direction you would fall off. As we all know one man refused to conform to this teaching, and against the better judgement of his contemporaries, he sailed off to prove that the world was round. Of course we could look at it from another point of view. Albert Einstein is perhaps the most famous physicist of all time. He wrote many papers, most notably the theories of relativity. Of course this is not to say that everthing in the theories was thought up solely by Einstein. His ideas were founded upon the ideas of his predecesors. If Einstein had spent his time trying to first prove that indeed pbjects do consistantly fall to the ground when dropped, he would have wasted a significant amount of time. Instead he used his time building upon these theories that had already been proved, and were commonly accepted.

The issue is more than scholastics though. The option to conform or not is present in our everyday lives. ( not to say that scholastics are not present in our everyday lives) For example most of us were raised in a certain religion. Many of us chose to conform to the beliefs of our parents. Others chose to investigate the matter for ourselves. Of those who chose to investigate for oursleves, many found that they too belived what their parents had said in the first place. Would it have been better to take our parents’ word for it? Or was it necessary to discover the truth for ouselves. Those of us who decided on a different religion than our parents would certainly say that it was crucial to investigate for ourselves.

So perhaps there are some times when it is good to conform to standards, and other times when it is better to think independantly. Or perhaps it’s best to always think independatly, and come to the conclusion that in a given case conformity is the best option.

There are people, too, who think that the best thing to do is to simply do the oposite of the standard at all times in all cases; to rebel against everything. A perfect example is the following quote from Bert McCracken, lead singer of The Used:

“I’ve rebelled against all types of conformity throughout my life, not just Utah’s conservative culture,” he says. “I rebelled against the Mormon Church by going to other churches. I rebelled against my parents by not eating meat. I rebelled against my friends and myself by doing drugs. And I rebelled against everything that was holding me down by playing music with these guys.”

It is clear that Bert wants nothing to do with any kind of standards of thought or action, (It is also clear that Bert is mildly insane) but what is he really doing by rebelling against everything. Is he saying that he doesn’t need anyone to tell him what he should do because he is independant? Probably. Or is he just conforming to a standard of disconformity? Is he really independant? He certainly isn’t afraid of anyones criticism or judgement. But what would he do if there were no standard to conform to? (or rebel against as the case may be) Would he make a decision on his own? Would he decide that eating meat really was the best option? And what if everyone followed him? Would he then change to rebel against his own Idea?

This last example is obviously very paradoxal, and is not the main point of the bolg, but it does illustrate what happens when someone rebels for the wrong reasons. Of course it is important to consider that very similar things happen if someone conforms for the wrong reasons.

Thats all for now. As always please post any thoughts or Ideas as comments.

love, Joshy Woshy

2011 Commentary

When I imported my old blogs into my drupal site in 2011, I made some updated commentary on them.

Wow, that one kind of hit the nail on the head. I really believe that it is important not to accept an idea or rule as true or good just because everyone says to. We absolutely must think for ourselves! As I mentioned above it is not practical to rethink absolutely everything because if we did that we would make no progress. So I propose the following as a rule of thumb. Accept what is established as true until you have any reason to doubt it. The minute you have a reason to doubt it, investigate it thoroughly for yourself. If you find evidence that an idea or principle is wrong, investigate it. If you just have a feeling that it might be wrong, investigate it. And be sure you do enough day dreaming that you are able to be struck by spontaneous inspiration.
I also really believe that heeding / respecting / obeying authority simply because they are authority is wrong. It is that kind of thinking that leads to mass wrongdoing simply because otherwise sensible people were “following orders”. And of course rebelling against everything is not a good choice.

The one thing that I do regret about this post is my inaccurate depiction of Columbus. I now know that in the fifteenth century it was well-established that the earth was spherical. I also now know that Columbus was a total dick to indigenous people in the new world. That being the case, I should not spoken so highly of him.

Post your thoughts or ideas in the comments.

love, Joshy Woshy

Going To College

Sun, 19 Feb 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Original 2006 Post

Current mood: cheerful

A while back I said that I would try to blog every other night. Well obviously that isn’t going to happen. I don’t have enough motivation to blog that often. (which really means I don’t have enought creativity to blog that often) Anyway thanks for waiting it out.

Tonight's Topic: Going to College? The Thoughts of a HighSchool Senior

As a highschool senior, for nearly a year now, it has been nearly impossible for me to have a conversation with an adult (funny because technically I’m an adult now) about anything other than college. Come to think of it, it’s pretty hard to talk to anyone without college coming up. Eveyone wants to know how many places I’ve applied, and how many scholorship’s I’ve gotten, and what my major will be. It’s kind of depressing really to think that everyone is so excited about the future that they have forgotten about the next four to five months of my life completely

Before I go any further with this let me point out that being a mormon, (or a christian in general for that matter) I try to live my life by imitating Jesus. Jesus never went to college and he turned out to be a pretty cool dude. But I digress.

Is college really necessary? I can think of quite a few people ( in addition to Jesus) who have lived perfectly complete lives without college. What if someone has a plan to start his own business after highschool. Or what if he wants to travel? Or what if he wants to get married, and live off of his wife the wives lived off of their husbands centuries ago? Not long ago college was something that only a select few very intelegnt students attended. It has been sugested that since there is now more information available in nearly every subject, that it takes longer for someone to learn it all. But isn’t general knowledge what we are supposed to acheive in highschool? ( Is highschool really only one word? That feels weird.) As a highschool student I can say for sure that I spen way more time at school sleeping and screwing around than I do learning. Additionally, ragardless of wether you think that college is necessary or not, isn’t it something that is an individual choice? Wouldn’t it be nice if we seniors could make that choice without being pressured from every angle?

Applying to colllege is a long often expensive process. I can’t help but wonder how many colleges is the right number to apply to. I understand applying to your choice college and a backup in case you don’t get in. But some people apply to four or five. Is it that there are backups for backups? like a list where you go to the best one that you get accepted into? That seems logical. Of course it is very expensive to apply to that many colleges. One could argue that colleges are like butt holes. You need one, but you certainly don’t need two.

Another hot topic is funding college. How on earth am I supposed to afford four years of school? Wouldn’t it be nice if the government provided some kind of useful public education like they are supposed to. Is it really fair that we pay taxes for education, but still have to pay for our own education in the end. Wouldn’t it be nice if the tax money payed for the students to learn instead of paying to hire subs when the faculty decides to go on strike?

This was one of my less structured blogs, and it didn’t have one specific issue to discuss, but I think I expressed some common thoughts among senoirs. please feel free to post any thoughts or ideas as comments. I expect comments from people other than seniors!! The Ideas of the non-senior friends are probably less biased anyway.

love, Joshy Woshy

2011 Commentary

When I imported my old blogs into my drupal site in 2011, I made some updated commentary on them.

It seems like this was more of a general frustrated vent than an actual issue blog at the time, but I seem to have hit some actual issues anyway. The biggest one is that high school students should enjoy high school. That is as true as the day I said it, and I see now that it is true about everything. College students should enjoy college. Stop worrying about jobs all that crap.
Everyone should make the most of where they are and enjoy it, because chances are, even if it seems kind of sucky, you will miss it when it’s gone. For example I had a small crappy dirty apartment in China, and I miss the heck out of it now. Here’s another example. A few years ago I went on a cross-country motorcycle trip with my friend Nate. We had almost no food. We had no place to stay some nights. It rained like crazy, and was really cold. That sounds pretty crappy huh? It was actually one of the best weeks of my life. Even when I go running for the first time in months and feel like terrible and want to quit, I try to tell myself to enjoy it because one day I’m going to be old and grey and unable to run, and I bet when that day comes I’d give anything to experience sore legs and oxygen debt just one more time. Of course it’s hard to keep that mentality when I’m actually in oxygen debt :)

I’d love to see your thoughts and ideas in the comments.

love, Joshy Woshy

The Meaning of Life

Wed, 15 Feb 2006 00:00:00 +0000

This blog post was originally written on 15 February 2006. It is reproduced here for archival purposes and your reading pleasure. It is reproduced as accurately as possible with no style, mechanical, or spelling corrections whatsoever.

Original 2006 Post

Current mood: optimistic

Sorry about the long wait for this one. I seemed to have run out of topics for a while. I will try to continue to post these as regularly as I had been. If you have any topic requests, please let me know. I think that I may start making the blogs a bit more personal, but I’m really not sure.

Tonigh's Topic: The Meaning of Life How Should We Spend Our Days?

For a all of human existance people have wondered what the meaning of life is. I know that I have. Sometimes thinking on the meaning of life creates an incredible optimistic feeling that gets me excited, and makes me feel like I’m really doing something worthwhile, and other times it makes me feel like I’m wasting my time on petty things, and I will die wishing I had spent my days more wisely.

We are all aware that our days on Earth are limited. Depending on what your religous beliefs are you may feel that there is another life awaiting us, or that after we die, we simple cease to exist. My Christian (Mormon) faith tells me that there is an afterlife, but that is not the purpose of this blog. This blog is to examine our time on Earth, and try to decide how we should spend it. I think that wether you believe in an afterlife or not, we can all agree that our time here on Earth is precious, and that we should use it as wisely as we should. I am not implying that I (or any one of us for that matter) knows what the true meaning of life is, but I think that between my blog and your comments we may be able to pick out a few of the more important points.

As a senior in high school I have spent the last several years of my life preparing for “the rest of my life.” Of course that is not all I’ve done. Along the way I’ve made many unforgettable friends, participated in sports and clubs, developed several hobbies, and had a lot of fun. So if I were forced to look at my life thus far as if it were my entire time here, I would have to ask myself if I had lived it to the best of my ability. And I think that the answer would be no, as it would be with the majority of people my age. The reason for this is not a bad thing though. I have not lived my life to it’s fullest because I have spent a good portion of my time bored in my classes, and frustrated over homework. Certainly being bored and frusterated is not the meaning of life. But these are things I have done because I believe (most of the time) that they will help me to live a more productive life in the future. So if my life ended tommorrow I would say that I have wasted a great deal of time studying and preparing for nothing. The chances of my life ending tomorrow however are slim, and no one should spend their time thinking about how their life could end at any minuuite; that is most definately not the purpose of our lives.

So now we need to establish what a productive life is. According to my mormon faith I think that the biggest purpose of our lives is to serve God, and most religions would agree with that. But I will make this as unbiased as possible. This serving of God is broken down into several other things that most all of us including many agnostics and atheists would quite possibly also agree with. These are things like helping people who are less fortunate and the giving to the poor etc. that you hear all the time. But they are also things like making yourself feel good. I don’t mean that in a hedonistic, party-hardy kind of way. I mean we should do things like hang out with our friends, and enjoy watching movies and reading books, and working hard to acheive goals that we have set for ourselves. Of course watching movies, and reading can’t be all we do, as we also need to feed ourselves, and clean ourselves in order to continue surviving. In our country doind these things is really a matter of being able to afford food, and water, and clothing. Now this means for most of us getting a job.

So this bring me to the point of working. It is in most cases necessary to work, or have a business, or some means of income, or even to hunt and fish and make clothing in order to survive. Whichever scenario you belong to, doing the aforementioned things is probably not the way you prefer to spend your time. And if this is how you spend most of your time, you may want to rethink your life. Afterall no one ever lied on his death bed wishing that he had spent more time at the office.

So a few of the ways to spend our time include having fun, surviving, and preparing for the future. But what about working toward goals. A good example for me personally is my cross-country training. I spent months running nearly every day, and I feel that it was well worth it because I had a certain amout of sucess. But this raises the question: what if I hadn’t had any sucess? What if no matter how hard I trained I just couldn’t be fast? Would that mean that I wasted my time training? I think that the answer to this question would be different for every person. Additionally I think it would depend greatly on wether or not I got anything else out of the training. It is quite possible that even spending time working at something that didn’t end up working out could still be worthwhile. Following my example, I also got a great sence of stisfaction from the fact that I could bring myself to run everyday.

Another thing that I’ve often wondered about is relaxation. Sometimes I just feel like laying around. This is probably a good thing as it would be very stressful to be constantly working at fulfilling the meaning of life. But relaxing, and sitting around idle all the time would not be a very meaningful thing to do would it?

What then have we established? Well to be quite honest: nothing. We are left with all of the same questions we had before this blog. Perhaps in a slightly more organized fashion. How much of our time should we spend preparing for the future? How much of it should we spend with our friends? How much relaxing? Should we let our jobs dictate our schedules? How much should we work? How much of what we earn at work should we give to the less fortunate? Should we spend our time working hard at our goals to get a great sense of satisfaction when we acheive them, or should we be content to take pleasure in more simple things like good company? Is it worth spending our time working toward goals that we may never reach? Most importantly will we ever know if there is a correct answer to these questions?

All that being said, please post any thoughts or ideas as comments. Hopefully this will get the quality responses that the NHS blog did.

love, Joshy Woshy

2011 Commentary

When I imported my old blogs into my drupal site in 2011, I made some updated commentary on them.

This may surprise everyone, but I actually still haven’t figured out what the meaning of life is. I have, however, figured out how to use a spell-checker, so at least something productive has happened in the past five years :) This blog post was kind of rambling, but I guess its hard not to be on a subject like that. I pretty much still have the same questions I did at the time, although I am in a later phase of life so I can do a little reflecting. The time that is spent preparing for the rest of life is not just preparing. Looking back on high school and college I see that awesome memories were being made the entire time. Including when I was stressed over last minute assignments, or dying of boredom in studyhall. And one thing that I never would have guessed when I wrote the original post is that it’s okay to waste a little time, and slow down. Daydreaming is important! I recommend it to anyone.

So maybe you all can provide some insight in the comments.

love, Joshy Woshy

It Pok

Mon, 13 Feb 2006 00:00:00 +0000

This blog post was originally written on 13 February 2006. It is reproduced here for archival purposes and your reading pleasure. It is reproduced as accurately as possible with no style, mechanical, or spelling corrections whatsoever.

Original 2006 Post

Current mood: stressed Well we are putting the finishing touches on the album. It has been quite a lot of work. Some of the recordings are pretty rough, as we didn’t havfe the best equipment in the world, and the vocals aren’t that great either, but overall I think it is a very solid album. Lots of frustrations involved in the release, and I’m not sure if I’ll continue to be with the band after the album comes out. But anyway the purpose of bloging this is to inform you all that my regular bloging will begin again tomorrow. Sorry to leave you all hanging for so long.

Not sure if this will generate any thoughts or ideas, but if it does, feel free to post them as comments.

love, Joshy Woshy

Currently listening to: It Pok, Burning Down the Zorphanage

2011 Commentary

When I imported my old blogs into my drupal site in 2011, I made some updated commentary on them.

The review of that album is pretty accurate, and I still largely agree with it. Most people who heard the album were unimpressed and let us know it. I can totally understand why. There are lots of rookie mechanical mistakes including not balancing tracks, and constant peaking, as well as some errors in the musicianship. But I really still believe that the songs are rock solid. Those songs will always have a really special place in my heart.
I did end up staying with the band for over a year until we went our separate ways, although we never did much more. In the weeks before we ultimately broke up, we wrote two awesome songs, “Home at Last” and, “Everyday Song” which were later recorded by Halfway to Mediocrity and can be heard on my music page. In the time since we broke up, I’ve graduated college, lived in China, and moved to California to pursue a music career with other bands. Sarah is about to get a bachelor’s degree and start working toward a phd. Tyler recently got married and is joining the military.

It’s crazy the directions that life pulls us all in. Despite the thousands of miles between us and different phases of life that we are in, I still (and probably always will) have a teeny tiny hope inside that someday It Pok will be reunited. I guess that means I still have a little of that childish optimism left. That must be good.

love, Joshy Woshy

The Draft

Wed, 08 Feb 2006 00:00:00 +0000

This blog post was originally written on 8 February 2006. It is reproduced here for archival purposes and your reading pleasure. It is reproduced as accurately as possible with no style, mechanical, or spelling corrections whatsoever.

Original 2006 Post

Current mood: lazy I’m really getting sick of categorizing my blog topics under ‘News and Politics’ so starting as soon as I finish writing this one, I will make an effort to find better topics. Thanks to all of you who have subscribed to my blog.

Tonights topic: The Draft Is it Necessary, and is it Fair?

I recently celebrated my 18th birthday. Since I am now officially an “adult” I am required by law to register for the draft. This means that whenever it is deemed necessary to actively recruit soldiers for the armed forces, I (and countless others) could be called against my will to serve. To some, registering for the draft is something that any citizen should be willing to do as a way of showing your appreciation for living in a aountry where you are safe. To others serving in the military is something that should only be done if one feels moved to do so. Those who support the draft make a valid point saying that since others faught and died so that we could be free, shouldn’t we be willing to do the same for future generations. Those who oppose the draft say that dying for a cause is something that should only be done by those who truly support the cause, and they add that there is no way of being able to tell why our country could go to war. Some extremists (myself included) often quote the bible saying “thou shall not kill” and feel that war is wrong at all times.

Secondly, is the draft fair? Is it right that only young men should have to register for the draft? These are the poeple who still have their whole lives ahead of them. They just graduated high school. for the past 12 years they have been preparing for “the rest of their lives” and I assure you that for the majority of them “the rest of their lives” was not meant to be dying on foreign soil a year after graduation. Also why is it that Homosexuals are not allowed in the army. (Keep in mind that gay rights is not the purpose of this blog) Don’t they live in a safe home just the same as the rest of us do? Shouldn’t they have to fight for freedom.

Thirdly, equal rights for men and women was a hot topic less than a century ago. Acording to the 14th ammendment women have the same rights as men (most notablye the right to vote) so shouldn’t they have to fight for our freedom as well. If a woman can vote for politicians who will lead our country into war, should they not have to fight the war the same as the men? Wether you feel we are debating the right to serve our country, or the right to not die, shouldn’t women and men have that right equally?

Well tahts it for this time. For now let us hope and pray that the draft is not reinstated so that this can remain a hypothetical topic. Please post any thoughts or ideas as comments.

love, Joshy Woshy

P.S. Has anyone noticed that We haven’t been able to post what we are listening to / reading / watching lately

2011 Commentary

When I imported my old blogs into my drupal site in 2011, I made some updated commentary on them.

I have to say that I'm impressed with how objective I presented the issue in that first paragraph. The truth is that I hate the idea of the draft and of war in general, and I pretty sure I felt the same way at the original time or writing. I think I'm still pretty good at listening patiently to opposing points of view, but I'm not so sure that I could still hold my tongue about my own ideas. Maybe there is a time and place to hold my tongue, and another time and place to speak freely. Reflecting on these old blog entries helps me notice personality changes and see things that I can work on.
I also can’t help but notice my appeal to the Bible to defend my pacifistic point of view. As I mentioned a few posts ago, I no longer believe in the Bible as an infallible source of wisdom, but my ideas about war and violence remain the same. I’ll also point out for the sake of Christians and non-Christians alike that pacifism can be Biblically defended on a much broader basis than my reference to the ten commandments. For example, check out the first several chapters of Matthew. Pacifism was also the sole position of the early church on war and violence for several generations. Of course all that had changed by the time of Constantine and the rise of Christendom.

When I first posted this article it got a lot of comments and sparked some pretty heated debate. The ideas presented ranged from intelligent to asinine. One of my favorites suggested that women shouldn’t be included in the draft because after being together for too long their menstrual cycles would align which would require lots of chocolate to be shipped to deployed troops. And of course shipping such a quantity of chocolate abroad would be impractical with the military’s current resources. I think the ridiculous claims in that line of thinking are self-evident, so I won’t say anymore.

Fell free to post your own thoughts and ideas as comments, and I’ll try really hard not to make fun of them. But if they are like the one I just mentioned, then I can’t make any promises ;-)

love, Joshy Woshy

Professional Athletes in the Olympics

Tue, 07 Feb 2006 00:00:00 +0000

This blog post was originally written on 7 February 2006. It is reproduced here for archival purposes and your reading pleasure. It is reproduced as accurately as possible with no style, mechanical, or spelling corrections whatsoever.

Original 2006 Post

Current mood: nostalgic

Thanks to all of you who actually did decide to subscribe to my blog. I apologize for the many spelling and grammar mistakes that appear throughout them, but in all honesty I tend to write in the middle of the night, and by the time I am done, I am usually to tired to proofread. Anyway without further ado.

Tonights topic: Professional Athletes in the Olympics Better Competition, or Commercialization of a Pastime?

For thousands of years the Olympic games have been an international competition tradition. The worlds greatest athletes would gather and compete on an equal playing field. In the ancient times the games were used to settle international conflicts. They felt that running, jumping, and throwing faster, farther, and higher than your enemy was a practical alternative to war. After all the Olympic motto is Citius, Altius, Fortius which means Faster, Higher, Stronger. In modern times the games have continued many of the traditions on which they were founded. Men and Women from all around the globe watch the Olympics and imagine what it would be like to compete against the greatest competition in the world. Perhaps the greatest thing of all was that anyone who was willing to work hard enough and long enough could compete in the Olympics. Ordinary people dreamed of competing in the Olympics, and the dreams spurred athletic activity everywhere.

Unfortunately in very recent years this has all changed. Today Olympians are professional athletes. They don’t have jobs of any kind except to train. They no longer compete for the pure joy of the sport. They don’t train because ofter it is over they know that they have done something special that only a few others have done before. They don’t practice endless hours because they know that they could do what no one has ever done before. Today Athletes compete in the Olympics because they are paid to do so.

Or do they? It is true that today athletes are vastly professionals, but is it true that the money is the reason they are Olympians? The professionals still have to train as hard as the amateurs did in the past. Possibly even harder to face the steeper competition that professionalism has brought with it.

As a high school student I am surrounded by athletes of all times: from football players to golfers to cheerleaders. All of these athletes are amateurs and compete purely out of love of their respective sports. Many of them dream of going on the be professionals. The very vast majority of professional athletes today started in high school or college where professionalism is strictly prohibited. This means that even the pros began competing because they loved the game. So if the pros also love the game what is the problem with letting them into the Olympics. After all there is no rule prohibiting an amateur from competing in modern Olympic games.

The issue is whether the athletes care about the sport above all (or nearly all) other aspects of their lives. In the days before professional Olympians an competitor had to find time and money to support their training. Many of them had families, jobs, or academic careers to tend to in addition to their training. For someone to be willing to train hard enough to compete against the best in the world as well as have a life outside of their sport is amazing.

Let me use an example to illustrate this point. The movie ‘Miracle’ is about the 1980 Olympic Hockey team. This was set six years before professionals were allowed to compete in the Olympics. The team was composed of college athletes from all over the country. One scene in the film shows the players doing drills to the point where they are unable to remain on their feet. This captures the essence of what Olympic training is. Today Olympians are paid to train, and compete. They have the most expensive equipment provided free of charge.

Many of you are probably thinking: So even if the modern Olympians do have it a bit easier, what is the problem. After all they still compete on the same if not a higher level as the amateurs did two decades ago. Most of us are probably too young to remember the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. Michael Jordan and the “Dream Team” considered boycotting the medal presentation because they were sponsored by Nike, and the podium displayed the Reebok emblem. This is certainly not what the Olympics should be.

So the question is has corporate influence ruined the Olympic spirit? Was allowing professional Athletes to compete a mistake? Or… Did the sponsorship of Olympians lead to better competition?

Thats all for now. Please post any thoughts or ideas as comments.

love, Joshy Woshy

2011 Commentary

When I imported my old blogs into my drupal site in 2011, I made some updated commentary on them.

I was hesitant to reproduce this entry here, but for the sake of completeness, I decided I would. I'm not too proud of this blog because it is at least partially plagiarised from another internet source which I'm unable to find at the moment. I also don't feel nearly as strongly about the issue as I did at the time of posting, and I'm actually kind of agnostic about the whole thing. Shortly after I wrote the article my friend Tyler said to me, "It is supposed to be a competition between the best athletes in the world" and our swim coach replied, "Is it; is that what the olympics are about?" I almost instinctively answered that in fact that is what the olympics are about, but held my tongue realizing at the last minute that by answering I would completely discredit my argument. So let me now appeal to Ralph Waldo Emerson who said that "a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds," and admit, that if I had to take a side now, it would be to agree with Tyler's point.
post your thoughts and ideas as comments.

love, Joshy Woshy

NHS

Sun, 05 Feb 2006 00:00:00 +0000

This blog post was originally written on 5 February 2006. It is reproduced here for archival purposes and your reading pleasure. It is reproduced as accurately as possible with no style, mechanical, or spelling corrections whatsoever.

Original 2006 Post

Current mood: irritated Well sorry you all had to wait so long for this one the hit the web, but It Pok has been very busy this weekend as the debut album comes out next week.

Tonights topic: National Honor Society Group for Hard-Working Students, or Hoity-Toity Resume Enhancer?

First let me say that this blog has nothing to do with news, but politics was not a topic on its own.

As the name implies the National Honor Society (hereafter NHS) is a group that is established nation-wide. Acording to the official constitution it is designed to “create enthusiasm for scholarship, to stimulate a desire to render service, to promote leadership, and to develop character in the students of secondary schools.” This is an exclusive group which has specific requirements outlined in the aforementioned constitution. While the specifecs are not only unimportant but also uninteresting, I will not outline them here. (for anyone interested the complete constitution can be found at http://www.nhs.us/s_nhs/sec.asp?CID=135&DID=5290). The general Idea behind the requirements is “based on outstanding scholarship, character, leadership, and service.” Additionally, “Once selected, members have the responsibility to continue to demonstrate these qualities.” And that is where my little blog begins.

The purpose of this essay is to compare and contrast the organization outlined in this constitution to the actual body organized in our high school. In Huron High School the practical requirements for being inducted into NHS are being a junior or senior, and having a GPA at or above 3.5 based on a 4 point scale. As far as I know (and I may be wrong, but I’m probably not) any student in the high school who meets the two above requirements is accepted into the NHS. So exactly what happens once a student is part of NHS? Do they continue to demonstrate “outstanding scholarship, character, leadership, and service”? Perhaps. We all know that several times a year the NHS sets up a blood drive in the school gym. This is obviously an excelent example of character. But many of the members go above and beyond setting up the blood drive. Many members are willing to miss their classes to work the blood drive.

In addition to the blood drive the NHS is also responsible for organizing fundraisers throughout the year. The fundraisers are often (maybe always not really sure) for charity, supportiung things like the rebuilding effort after hurrican katrina hit new orleans.

So we have proven that NHS members display service, character, and scholorship. Now lets take a look at why a student would want to join the NHS is the first place. The NHS was doubtlessly created with the intention of giving students an opportunity to show the school and community that they are hard-working dedicated citizens, who are also successful in their academic careers. But there are a few extra perks that go along with joining NHS. For example with a reputation of displaying character, leadership etc. being a member of this club would certainly look good on a college application. It would also look good on anapplication for financial aid to help pay for college. And being surrounded by people who are also dedicated and hard-working would be great for socializing. All of these things are well-deserved by a student who is willing to give their time to attend regular NHS meetings, and acheive good grades, and help organize fundraisers for the less fortunate.

Now lets look at the NHS from a different point of view. Immagine being an high school junior/senior who is soon going to be applying for college. It would be great to have an impressive resume so as to get accepted in to your college of choice. It would also be nice if you could score a little cash to help pay for college. And I think we would all agree that joining the NHS would make both of those things a closer reality.

But obviously not just anyone can join the NHS. It is an exclusive club. However there are plenty of students who can maintain a 3.5 or higher just by doing(or faking) homework, and coming to class most days. So it is infact less than impossible for someone who does not show leadership or character to get into the NHS. Once a student is in the NHS though he has to do things like go to the meetings, and work the blood drive. Or does he? I’ve been told by several members of the NHS that if we were to look at the attendance records from the past few months we would be less than impressed. But what about planning the fundraisers, and blood drive? Well if a member isn’t at the meetings how can he help plan the activities? that is a good question indeed. Somehow though these members remain members. How is that? That is a good question indeed.

Now let us examine the government of our local chapter of the NHS. It is supposed to be a democracy, where all of the members are equal. There is some sort of point system in effect and members must get a certain number of points by the end of the school year. This would ensure that the members came to the meetings, so it seems to be a logical idea. The members however don’t like the point system. When one of the members asked our NHS president what would hapopen if we took a vote to keep or abolish the point system, she replied “If you vote it down that’s fine; we won’t use it anymore.” At the next meeting they had a vote, and the point system was abolished. But by the next week the point system was reestablished. It turns out that the faculty administrator said something to the effect that the local NHS is keeping the point system and that is final. So who is in the wrong now. If NHS is a democracy then how can the faculty admin. override a vote. On the other hand she was probably protecting the integrity of the society. Of coure if a member attended most meetings, and some activities he would easily have enough points to fulfill the requirement. So why then would they want to vote the point system down? That would mean sacrificed integrity. If the students are selected based on nationally established requirements, why then would they want to compromise the integrity of the society? Are the requiremants incompetent? Or are they just not enforced well enough? After all getting a 3.5 doesn’t show leadership or character.

So our dilemma is: Are members of NHS in it to show character, leadership, etc. or are they in it to make their resume just a little sweeter. The answer is probably different for every member.

I’d love to hear what you think and I’d especially like some feedback from NHS members. So as usual please post any thoughts or Ideas as comments.

This is probably my most conroversial blog. Let it be known that I have no intention of offending anyone, and if I did I’m not sorry.

Next Topic: Professional Athletes in the Olympics

2011 Commentary

When I imported my old blogs into my drupal site in 2011, I made some updated commentary on them.

I don't have a lot to add to that one. My writing style was a little sloppy, but the main points still come across nicely. It is unfortunate that the NHS attracts some members for the sole purpose of looking good on paper, but that's how it is. The points system seems on the surface like it shouldn't be necessary, but without it, the problem of reputation moochers would be even worse. Oh, and if you're looking for a working link to the current NHS constitution, there you go.
I have to say there are two catchphrases in there that I particularly like:

I may be wrong, but I'm probably not

I have no intention of offending anyone, and if I did I'm not sorry

How's that for confidence. I love the way how I used to be comfortable saying exactly what I meant.
Feel free to post your thoughts or ideas as comments.

love, Joshy Woshy

Mooning

Wed, 01 Feb 2006 00:00:00 +0000

This blog post was originally written on 1 February 2006. It is reproduced here for archival purposes and your reading pleasure. It is reproduced as accurately as possible with no style, mechanical, or spelling corrections whatsoever.

Original 2006 Post

Current mood: thirsty

I kind of like this blog thing so I think I’ll do it more often. I’ll try to type one at least every other night witch is perfect for all of my fans who can;t get enough of me. (I’m fairly certain that I don’t have any fans) Anyway Some subscriptions to my blog would be great so if you feel so inclined click on the subscribe button. If you don’t feel so inclined pleas don’t feel obligated. I’m stable enough mentally that I can handle it if no one subscribes.

Tonights topic: Mooning When is it and when isn't it apropriate?

Well as many of you know I recently mooned the swim bus on the way to swim practice. All of the kids on the bus thought it was funny, as I’m sure most of you would too. But the bus driver felt she had to report me to Mr. Bloget head of transportation. I was then told by Randy (The swimming coach) that I may get in trouble for it. However to date I have not recieved any punishment. This could be for one of two reasons:

The administration in their infinate wisdom forgot about the incident.
The administration (or at least a few select members of it) thought that it was all in good fun and decided to let it slide.

So the matter at hand is: Is mooning funny and harmless or sexually explicit and crude? Allow me to give a few situations for you to consider. While driving down the street a teen-aged kid shows his white butt tho a few teen-aged friends while playing basketball. Most of us would say that this is acceptable citing that kids will be kids. Now example two. A 35 year old is walking through the park when he hears some young (ages 7 - 11) girls making fun of his thinning hair. In response to the ridicule the man drops his draws and show his butt to the girls. I think that most parents (and kids for that matter) would find the mooning in the second scenario to be completly tasteless.

So If an adult moons a kid it is wrong but what if a kid moons an adult? What if, for example, I moon my friends mom? What if I moon my own parents? What if one of my parents moon me?

Well I’d love to hear what you think about the issue so as usual please post any thoughts or Ideas as comments.

I realize that this blog was not very well thought out, but it is late and I am tired, so I promise that the next one will be better.

Next Topic: NHS

2011 Commentary

When I imported my old blogs into my drupal site in 2011, I made some updated commentary on them.

Yep, that wasn't very well thought out. I still think mooning is funny, but as I get older, I have fewer opportunities to do it tastefully. Especially now that I'm a teacher. I'm also increasingly sympathetic with the logic that the line has to be somewhere and the only objective place to draw it is at one of the extremes, which in this case of course has to be the conservative extreme. I really miss the sentiment that I had at the time of writing of the original post, that it's easy to tell what is in good fun versus what is gross and that people should lighten up. I hope it never gets to a point where an innocent teen-to-teen mooning isn't tolerated.
Please post your thoughts and ideas as comments.

love, Joshy Woshy

Bess and Internet Censorship

Tue, 31 Jan 2006 00:00:00 +0000

This blog post was originally written on 31 January 2006. It is reproduced here for archival purposes and your reading pleasure. It is reproduced as accurately as possible with no style, mechanical, or spelling corrections whatsoever.

Original 2006 Post

Current mood: amused

Recently Dom Camella posted a series of blogs on his myspace (www.myspace.com/arevolvingonob) discussing the addition of Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.org) to NOECA’s Global Block List. This has inspired me to discuss my feeling on internet censorship. This will not be the usual teenaged whining about how mainstream rappers can’t say the F word on mtv. I will use two main examples throughout this blog: Wikipedia and Goatse. (As a side note for anyone who is looking a good goatse mirror can be found at http://goatse.ragingfist.net/)

OK. I think the internet is a place where people should be able to communicate any information that they want provided it is in a nonassertive manner. What I mean by that is a person should be able to post whatever she wants on the internet as long as other people are not forced to view it. A perfect example is Goatse. The vast majority of people in this world would say that goatse is disgusting. (If you don’t know what goatse is please check out the link above before continuing.) However I feel it should be allowed on the internet because noone is forced into looking at it. It is true that someone could easily be tricked into looking at it (as many of you probably just were), but that is an entirely different matter.

I think that most people would agree with this point of view, so the quetion is why are websites like goatse shut down. The answer lies in the very nature of web hosting. If any ultraconservative homophobic Holyer-than-thou types catches a gimpse of goatse the first place they go to whine is the person who is hosting the website. Eventually the host caves under pressure and shuts down the site. Luckily the good people in this world are always working to create mirrors, and the likes in order to keep the internet a place of free expression.

As I said earlier a totally uncensored internet would be perfect so long as it isn’t overly-assertive. Unfortunately that is not always the case. As many of us know there are plenty of viruses and spyware and miscellaneous malwares going around the internet. No one wants to be in the middle of visiting her church’s website, and all of a sudden see a porn site pop up in front of her browser. There are sollutions to this like having a quality browser, and antispyware software, but that isn’t the point of this blog. A much better sollution would be to not have these things be issues in the first place. I am now officially casting shame on anyone who has ever designe a virus, malware, or pop-up ad of any kind. (And I’m sure that they are all very affected my shame casting)

Anyway, there are obviously times and places where looking at goatse would be inapropriate. Some examples would be at a public library or at school, or on a computer at church. These situations are when it is necessary to have web filtering. It is obvious why we can’t look at goatse at school, and I think that other than a few anarchist, negative-nancy types you all would agree with me. However I see no reason why it would be inaprpopriate to visit Wikipedia at shool or church. After all Wikipedia by its very nature is an excelent research device.

All of this raises the question ‘who is to decide what is apropriate and what is not?’ Unfortunately, There is no good answer to that question. One would think that it would suffice to have some kind of administrative democratic board that is large enough and, more importantly, realistic enough to make fair decisions as to what is apropriate and what is not. But that doesn’t work. And with that being said I really don’t have a solid suggestion for how to solve this problem. All we can do is fight each battle individually. If you haven’t yet looked at Dom’s blog about the wikipedia issue I encourage you to do so. And also to send his proposed E-mail (the first one, not the stupid one.)

Well that’s about all I have to say. As always please post any thoughts or ideas as comments.

OK. Now that I have written all of that I have to confess that a large part of why I wrote it was to trick you into looking at goatse, but also I think I made some good points.

2011 Commentary

When I imported my old blogs into my drupal site in 2011, I made some updated commentary on them.

Reading this one five years later, I'm much less impressed with my prose than I was previously with the Mormon blog. I appear to have been in a rush while writing, and I got off topic several times. But as for the content, I still feel largely the same way. I don't believe that general internet censorship is ever appropriate, whether it be for sites as trivial as goatse, or as influential as wikileaks. And to perfectly honest, censoring wikipedia out of a public highschool is probably the worst thing that ever happened to the American public schools. The wealth of knowledge that can be found on wikipedia, is more complete, rigorous, and up-to-date than any textbook I had in all of high school. And the volunteer authors that write, proof, and fact-check the articles are more competent than many of my teachers.
Edit 23 August 2012: The mirror mentioned above finally died this week. They all die eventually. Here is a new mirror.

Feel free to post any thoughts or ideas in the comments. love, Joshy Woshy

Am I a mormon

Sun, 29 Jan 2006 00:00:00 +0000

This blog post was originally written on 29 January 2006. It is reproduced here for archival purposes and your reading pleasure. It is reproduced as accurately as possible with no style, mechanical, or spelling corrections whatsoever.

Original 2006 Post

Current mood: hopeful

Well as many of you know, I am considering becoming a mormon. Am I a mormon now? No. well, I don't think so. Let me first clear a few things up. Neither myself, nor any other present day mormons practice polygamy. I don't know if the book of mormon is true. Idon't know for sure its origin, and honostly I have read a very unimpressive seven chapters of it. My biggest exposure to mormonism is through two friends I met on a cruise, and hung out with for about a week. I also have read several encyclopedia articles about the subject. I have taken particular interest in the reorganized church of Jesus Christ of latter-day saints. I don't believe in evolutionary diety, and I'm not really sure how that became associated with the church of jesus christ of latter-day saints.

That being said, you are probably wondering what it is that is making me consider being a mormon. Well there are a few thinngs that draw me toward it. First the mormon religion strictly prohibits drinking, smoking, and using drugs of any knid. These are all things that I have been opposed to as long as I can remember. Also I like the thought that Jesus came and preached to the natives in the new world. I have no Idea wether it's true or not, and I really don't think that it is that important. One very important part of mormonism is that humans in general aren't responsible for origional sin (that is, the sins of Adam ans Eve). I like the way that they call all of us spirit children of God. They (or we) believe that all of us have been around since the begining of the world, and have spent eternity with God. They believe that our time here on earth is a probation period. A time when we are exposed to evil ideas, and people. It is something of a test to see if we will remain faithful.

One final thing to point out is that wether or not I actually am a mormon, saying that I am helps me to talk about my religion in general with people who, and at times when I normally wouldn't talk about it.

OK. Hope that prevents any of you from Hazing me any further. Please feel free (actuall feel encouraged) to post any thoughts or suggestions as comments. Please don't post links to any websites that try to archeologically disprove the book of mormon as I have admittedly not read very much of it.

2011 Commentary

When I imported my old blogs into my drupal site in 2011, I made some updated commentary on them.

So how do I feel about this post five years later? Well, I'm impressed with my writing style, and composition skills for one thing. I think I did a good job pointing out what I did and didn't know at the time, and not being biased one way or the other. But, I'm no longer considering becoming a Mormon or a member of any other church. After some serious consideration, and reading (including notably Shane Claiborne's The Irresistible Revolution, and Richard Dawkins's The God Delusion) I have decided that I don't believe in any kind of religion anymore. That shift in belief affected some of my principles, but not others. For example, the aforementioned belief that drinking, smoking, and drug use is somehow objectively wrong is all but completely gone. And, for counterexample, all of my humanistic beliefs including doing good to others at all times, and following the golden rule (yes the one that appears in the Bible) are still perfectly in tact.
Giving up religion has not in any sense caused me to be more pessimistic, and in fact quite the opposite is true. Believing in people and love alone allows room for practical hope and optimism – room that was previously used on observing ancient holiness codes, and trying to please an invisible deity that never really made her will known to begin with.

Having grown up in the Church, and even attended a religious college, I certainly don’t have any kind of disdain for religious people in general. And I won’t be giving unsolicited speeches to innocent passers-by who would rather keep believing. I just personally don’t believe anymore, and if anyone is actually interested in knowing why, I would be happy to give a detailed account of exactly what I believe and why.

As with the original post, feel free to post any thoughts or ideas as comments.

love, Joshy Woshy

for more information about the Mormon church, see http://www.lds.org/?lang=eng The A-Z index is particularly useful.