Friends

This weekend I had the fortune of having a gaming extravaganza with almost all my friends. I hadn't seen many of them in a while, and it was good to have time away from work and visit my friends again. This get together was hosted by best friend Dustin, and we were able to throw together several televisions and XBoxs for some massive games. The main games of this event were Gears of War 2 and Left 4 Dead 2, letting us play as one team our against each other. It had been a while since I had participated in multi-player like this, and it was nice to see it come back so easily. We had some excellent games, and I hope that soon there will be many more.

Safe travels, and see you soon.

Most of us take for granted the friends and family we have around us. How many of us have actually been in a situation where we were forced to leave those that we cared for or cared for us behind? A few of us probably experienced it as a child when we moved; I was in that situation myself. However, as children we are quick to make new friends and our social experience is ever changing, causing the pain to quickly fade away. Recently, one of my friends, the best friend of one of my friends, and the girlfriend of one of my friends was put in a situation that is forcing her to move a thousand miles away. Knowing what those around me mean to me, I can't imagine how difficult it must be for her to be torn away from all that she is familiar with.
I have only really 'known' her for about four months now, but I am very good friends with her best friend. To me, a friendship extends not only to a friend them self, but to those the friend cares about as well. So from that I send this message, a reminder that no matter where you are, your friends will never really be far away. We will miss you, and await your return. Since goodbye has such finality attached to it, I'll end with this. Safe travels, and see you soon.

My second week

So. NaNo. NaNoWriMo. National Novel Writer's Month. It is the trial that all aspiring writers must pass, and the one in which all aspiring writers will ultimately fail. NaNo takes place during the entire month of November, and is a competition to see if a writer can write 50,000 words in the thirty days. At first glance, you may think that 50,000 words is not many at all. I mean, it is only 1,667 words a day which can equate to about 3 to 4 hours of writing. Even with a full time job, a committed person could do that. The hardship doesn't come from writing the words in one day, it comes from writing the words every day (trust me, I know).
This is my first year participating in Nano, and my first week went well. I wrote every day after coming home from work, and was able to top the 1,667 goal by a couple hundred every day. Of course, then came the weekend. All of a sudden I felt myself not wanting to write. I had practically worked continuously for the whole week, and I just wanted a bit of relaxation. And thus began my infamous second week. I wrote very little during my second week, adding a few hundred words here, and a few hundred there. It was difficult to muster up the motivation, and I feared that I would not actually reach the 50,000 goal. I tried to force myself to write, even if the words were meaningless, but this only pushed the work further away. What was I do?
Luckily for me I have friends participating in NaNo as well. And with friends comes competition. I set a challenge to two of my friends, I would surpass their word count by the end of the weekend! I sat down at the computer and found words flowing out of me like they had before. Scenes that I would find boring and difficult to write before now seemed easy to push past. I was enjoying my story once again.
By the end of the weekend I was unable to surpass either of their word counts much to my chagrin, but I had pushed myself to just below the current daily word goal. That was just yesterday, and I still have half a month left, but I am hopeful for the future. I conquered my second week, and next, the whole month!

I like to move it move it

I was thinking about putting a post up about an activity that I am participating this month. It is known to many as NaNo, and to others as Hell. However, I have decided that I will blog about that in a different post, and devote this blog to an activity that I am not participating in. Dance. I have always been fascinated by people who perform such complicated and intensive dances. They have so much control over their body, able to make it move in such a precise way. They move in ways that make it seem as if there are no limits, as if the body could flow like water to take any form. Not only have I been fascinated by it, but I envy it as well. Whenever I get the opportunity or whenever I find a video demonstrating such dance moves I like to watch it, hoping that eventually it will inspire me to do more than just envy it. So I'm dedicating this post to anyone that dances. It doesn't matter how good you think you are, it doesn't matter if you do it for yourself or other people. Just keep on dancing. Keep on moving.

Returning to the fold

So, it's been a while since I've posted anything on this blog. Not that I ever posted much to begin with. However, I believe that should change. My main goal for this blog was to try to get all my thoughts written down in the hope that I would refine them better. This is still my intention, so I'm setting a goal for myself right now; post something on this blog at least once a week. Hopefully that will get me to post on the blog more, but won't overwhelm me as I try out this experiment.