Stand Up.

This is the time.  

This is when everyone either pushes through and becomes a champion or when they curl up and hope they survive to the end of the fight. Which will you be? a dying soldier who made a fatal slip and gave up? Or the one who slipped, but then got up and kept fighting?

  'Cause that's the difference.  Picking yourself up.  If you can't get up and keep going then you will lose. Simple as that.  Heck, you might still lose! But, going with the soldier analogy: 

Dying in a blaze of glory, fighting your hardest, breaking a way for the rest of the army to get though... That's not a loss. That's a win. That's something that will be told of for thousands of years, written of in epics and used as inspiration for struggling men everywhere. 

So which will you be?  A statistic? Just one of the 7000 wounded?

 Or will you be the Hero? The one who lead the charge and helped win the fight? 

As for me, I don't know if I 'll "live" per say, but dang it, I'm going to go down fighting. 

From here: http://sebadorn.deviantart.com/art/Kneeling-Knight-Colored-141746435
found it on a Google image search...  (The guy is super talented. :D )

A Life of Performance.

Two weeks ago I finished a run of a play, Much Ado About Nothing.  It was amazing and fantastic and I enjoyed myself a lot!

Acting is what I love to do, it's part of me and I've done it since before I can remember. This year is my last year in high school, after this I will move on, go to college, go on a proselyting mission for my church, and whatnot. 

Anyhow, this will be my last year to be in a play for at least three years.  This year there is a large musical being put on and I was DYING to try out. The problem was that I had just been in a play (Much ado) and had been in one last semester and I was (And still am) very very behind in school..

  So I had to make a decision, I had to give up something so that I could catch up in school. So rather than give up acting, which I loved, I decided that I would have to give up the funness of the internet.  So as of right now I have decided a few things: I'm only aloud to use YouTube during classes or via class Modules, I'm not aloud on Facebook except for on Sundays. I can't listen to podcasts on my computer (Though, If I'm exercising and it;s on a mp3 player it's fine) and I can't play any games on my computer.  All of these are in hopes that I'd be able to catch up WHILE being in a play. 

It was interesting because I had to actually go through and decide, what is most important to me. I had to look at what my dream in life is. As Dallin Ward said over in the Williamsburg community,          

"Everyone needs a dream. That is how all great things have been done." (If you have time go read his entire thing, it's good, and then go to Wesleigh Smith's post and read all of those responses, they're beautiful. )  So I looked at my life and decided where I wanted to go.  I found that that path didn't involve wasting days on end on the internet, however fun that may seem to me at the time. MY path to awesome involved me being committed to getting work done and to being free of the distracting influence of the internet. 

This is now the second week I've been doing this and it's fantastic how much has changed.  I've been able to focus on school work and I have started to catch up, it's been great. 

It hasn't been easy.  For instance, there are some days when I don't get very much done because I am simply spending the time fighting the part of me that wants to just quit and go to YouTube and waste away the afternoon. I'm used to being able to just distract myself and I'm used to just having fun.  I believe that the carefree, "Do nothing" mindset is just as much of an addiction as anything else is, and I obviously must have got myself hooked to it. It's just weird, some days I will literally have to argue part of myself that wants to go play, I have to literally convince it that what I'm working on is more important. It's basically my Red/Yellow personality if you're at all familiar with the color code.  I used to be really red, I was focused and I was very leadership oriented and stuff, but then over the years on the internet my yellow personality has taken over and I'm can be very uncommitted and lazy and just like having fun. So basically I'm trying to exercise that redness that I know I have. I'm trying to get back the determination and drive that I used to have.  It's crazy, but it's awesome that I am finally able to sit down and work and get things done. 

So, look at your priorities see what you WANT and then organize you time well.  You will never have more time than you have now, something will always be taking up your time, whether it be school work, other school, children, you will never have more time, you will just have to prioritize. 

So find that path and follow it to the end. The path is straight and narrow, the path is hard and filled with brambles, but in the end, it will be worth it. 

Accountability, day one.

Here I am, at the low.  Just like I was last year at this time.  But LAST year I just sort of fell over and died until the last week when I got up and brushed past with barely a "B" and a couple of A's (Most pretty much undeserved. )
So, this year I'm not going to do that, I have made a set of commitments and I'm sticking to them, they are requirements.
It's going to be hard, but it'll be doable.
Along with that I'm going to try to give an update of how I did each day. I'll publish it each night.  Here is today's: (Tuesday's)

So, today I did four Aleks topics (Right along schedule)
And I did one Study guide.
This is  in 6 1/2 hours.
I could have done better... But that's acceptable for today.

Also, AHHHHHHHHUUUUGGGGG!!!!
I'm trying out for Aida the musical and I'm so worried!!! I don't know what I'm going to get!! And I won't know until Thursday...

Also, if you want to read Final Stand in it's entirety, here it is
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1FU6cs1d9uq5poaO08_gm_KPbWEfdj6uWKMAnG9rPrBs/edit?usp=sharing

Determination

This summer I'm doing a chemistry class.  It's actually really pretty fun, but it takes me a long time to get through.  So, today I'm going to make my self do it.
I'm kind of odd; I can force myself to do things, but ONLY if I give myself STRICT guidelines, and an endpoint. So, my guidelines are, do set amount of chemistry (already decided) BEFORE getting on any social media. and if I make myself do that, it should work, since for some reason it does...

Now if I said, "do Chemistry for an hour" that wouldn't work since I would just get on Facebook or G+ and tell myself, "I'll work extra hard later in the hour"

So be determined and set exact goals, at least that's what I have to do for myself.

"A determined soul will do more with a rusty monkey wrench than a loafer will accomplish with all the tools in a machine shop." Robert Hughes

And another good quote that also ties into what I said yesterday:
"A failure establishes only this, that our determination to succeed was not strong enough."
John Christian Bovee  

Perfection

Today I was thinking about something.
Perfection

In most religions, including mine, the final goal is perfection.  Because if you are perfect then you can always be at your happiest and so will everyone else because THEY are all perfect and so on.
Anyways, what I was thinking, everyone always says, "Don't worry about it, no one is perfect!" And that's what we think about our entire life, but you know what? Why on earth do we say that?!?!  Why should we try, if we have already decided that we can't be perfect? Well, that why I'd like to say: Be perfect!! Don't strive for near perfection, strive for perfection, be perfect! And if you have a day when you aren't perfect, the that's sad, you failed.  But that doesn't mean you can't get up and try again.If you EXPECT failure it will happen no matter what.  but if you expect perfection then IT will happen no matter what. So go, try!
 We can not expect to become perfect, if that is not our goal.


"Advance, and never halt, for advancing is perfection."
~Khalil Gibran 

"Aim at perfection in everything, though in most things it is unattainable. However, they who aim at it, and persevere, will come much nearer to it than those whose laziness and despondency make them give it up as unattainable. "
Lord Chesterfield

BE PERFECT