aloha.

These first couple of days have been very unique from my other visits to the Hawaiian Islands. I've been 3 other times so far, but only to the island of Maui (the second-largest island). I'm on the third-largest island, Oahu – home of the capital of Hawaii, Honolulu, and the memorial of Pearl Harbor.

day 4 (tournament day 1)

Here's the map again.

day 3

DAY 3

day 1 & 2

DAY 1

postponed.

Over the next few days – or weeks, if it takes that long – I'll be detailing my San Diego trip. To save space and prevent your computers from suddenly moving like slugs in tar, I've separated each day (or few days) across pages that can only be accessed inside the original blog post, adventure. I'll update when new days have been added on Twitter, Facebook and Skype.

On a more serious note, though, I will not be leaving for my mission on August 31st. I'll repeat that.

I WILL NOT BE LEAVING ON MY MISSION ON AUGUST 31st.

To sum it up, my bishop feels I need to study and prepare some more. Which is completely correct. I'll update my new departure date when I know what it is.

Right now, I'm not attending UVU for classes. I'll probably sign up for Institute, though. I still work at Trafalga, and I still play D&D. Life is...mellow.

adventure.

From Tuesday, August 9 to Monday, August 15, I went on a grand adventure to San Diego, California with a car full of strangers that slowly became friends. For the most part, anyway. Any pictures can be clicked on for a larger view, and some language may occur in this post. You've been warned.

Here was the party.

another.

I was walking down the street yesterday, staring at the ground as I normally do, and, again, I found another broken dragonfly laying in the middle of a driveway. This one had moss-green spots instead of blue ones. This dragonfly wasn't whole, like the one I had seen earlier that day; this one had half of a wing torn off, probably by a bird attempting to eat it.

I used the same shoe tactic. This guy cooperated much better than the other one, and seemed to accept the fact it could no longer survive. It clung to my shoe desperately, and I left him close to some bushes where he wouldn't be seen or stepped on.

mindless.

I was walking down to my English class this morning, which is in UVU's basement floor. I was staring idly at the patterns in the stairs, while keeping my head down to avoid eye contact with anyone in the halls. On the last step, the pattern was interrupted in the corner of my eye. I looked, adjusting my vision to focus on this discontinuation, and I still had trouble seeing what I was looking at, exactly.

do-re-mi.

I like to sing. I listen to lots of music, and mostly enjoy the ones that I am able to sing. Sometimes it's not even in English, but as long as it's in my vocal range, I don't mind doo-dooing along.

flit.

Right now, in my writing class, we're reading a book called Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, written by Annie Dillard. It's a nature journal, similar to Thoreau's Walden, but in more modern (and for me, understandable) language. I came into writing class this afternoon, and my usual desk-mate came in a few minutes later and sat next to me. He pulled out his book, flipped through a few pages, and said to me, "I do not like this book." I laughed a bit and asked why, and he told me that it was monotonous.

leek.

Been a while since I posted something. Work and school have kept me busy. But this time, I actually have something to talk about, instead of life's goings on.

Did you know the world has a virtual pop idol? It's a crazy thought, something I didn't expect to happen until maybe 2020, but we have one. Right now. In fact, we have more than one pop idol. We have an entire "family" of them.

From left to right: Meiko, Kaito, Megurine Luka, Hastune Miku, Gakupo, Kagamine Rin, Kagaine Len

almost.

I don't think this will be a particularly long post. I think I'm maybe emotion-dumping on this one? Which I hate to do, because I don't want my blog to be like that at all. School and work have absorbed me into a lifestyle I don't particularly enjoy The move hasn't helped much, either. It's been difficult to tell stories or describe something when I'm constantly on the move. All I can do right now is form opinions on things, which is a really jerky thing for me to do.

So, something good, then: Over the weekend, an anime called AnoHana (That's the nickname. The real name is uber long.), which I talked about before, ended its 11-episode run. It was such an incredible and beautiful story. Great animation style, good characters, and probably the most crying I've ever seen. Not in a bad way, though. Words can't express how amazing this show was to me. I'd just recommend it to anyone that's interested, or even not interested. Everyone, go watch it.

fab.

Here is my final project for my 2D Design class. The objective was to make something that had to do with your major. Since mine is graphic design, I decided to make a
 promotional poster for the Beatles' last public concert, for which they told no one about before it happened. It took place on the roof of the Apple Studio, and they sang to many office workers on their lunch breaks. Crowds filled the streets, and the police went up to the roof to stop the production. The Beatles ended up performing the entire concert anyway.

Click for an enlarged version.

similar.

It's about time for an update, and a life-related one, at that.

First off, I've been listening to this new song (Update: Sony's killing anyone that posts this song. It's called Aoi Shiori by Galileo Gailiei) that's played at the intro of an amazing new anime I've been watching. The title's really long, but the nickname for it is AnoHana. The series starts off with a kid that hasn't gone to school for an entire semester. Going into his past, he used to have four other friends, and they formed a small club called the Super Peace Busters. One day, a girl in the group, Menma, dies in a river as the club gets together. From then on, the club slowly disbanded, and everybody grew up separately. From where we pick up in the story, the main character, Jintan, starts seeing Menma's ghost. She looks like she had grown up just as much as all the other members of the Super Peace Busters. Menma remembers that she wanted a certain wish granted by Jintan on the day she died, but she can't remember what it is. Jintan's job is to find out Menma's wish and help grant it. Over the course of his efforts, he reunites with his former friends. Many tears are shed because Menma is still around, reminding everyone of the pain they still feel from that day she died.

kickin'.

It's been a week since my last post, so I feel like it's about update time.

It feels like there's something I've been wanting to talk about today, but nothing's coming to mind, so I'll go with a subject I thought up a couple days ago that I had no time to talk about until now.

I think a big part of being a youth (or youthful) is to go on a few big adventures in your life. A big adventure, to me, is going to a large setting that is unique to your normal lifestyle with some comrades. Your parents aren't there. Maybe a couple of siblings, depending on your relationship. Best case scenario, go with some mere acquaintances. These big adventures are a great way to discover more about yourself, as well as develop great friendships with others. A couple of adult guides are a must, because we are merely youths, and can't get by doing everything by ourselves in the world. We're still knowing simply how to exist in it, let alone mold it into what we want. Anyway, these big adventures have been incredible points in my life.

tangents.

My blog – no, more like my life – has been incredibly low on the social side of things. For the blog, I haven't been receiving any feedback on it, online or otherwise, so it's felt like I've been talking to air for the past month or so. But that's simply a blog, and I don't feel like it's completely important to check up every day. They're simply thoughts, after all. Thoughts of a teenager keeping a record of his small thinks. However, in my everyday life, I feel like everyone's drifting away again. I say again, because the times this has happened before is after I've moved. Only this time, I've been in the same exact place I have been for the past year. Even when I did this last move, I still had friends and such to talk to daily simply because I moved a mere 10 minutes south. But now...

putrid.

So I was working the afternoon shift at Trafalga yesterday. 3 to 11 PM. I was working with my good buddy, Corbin. A family of 3 consisting of a well-built, older, mustached man, his "son" (I think) dressed in a mock police outfit, and another tall "son" (again, not sure) in a blue-and-white striped polo came out to the go-kart track. The latter two gentlemen were mentally handicapped, each in different ways. The blue-and-white striped guy was a bit physically handicapped. There's your setup.

scale.

Just a quick thought I've wanted to put down somewhere.

I work at the Trafalga in Orem. I say that again because people keep asking me where I work, and it's getting annoying. Anyway, as I work there, I've noticed a great amount of people coming and going, all on different levels of the maturity spectrum. It goes something like this:

the.

Yesterday in my humanities course, we began discussing about Japanese art forms. To begin, we first talked about how Japan was basically a replication of China in every political way. And then Buddhism happened. Zen Buddhism, in fact. In 849 AD, Japan broke off from China, and the new Zen Buddhist religion mixed in with the current Japanese Shinto religion (worship of ancestors). Here are the 7 dominating characteristics of Zen Buddhism:

muddled.

Today, I have so many different thoughts that I want to convey all at the same time. This could easily be done by creating several individual posts, since each thought is so individual from the other, but that could create some confusion. Instead, I'll split this single post into several sections. That should make it work out.