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

Alright, here's the next chapter if anyone so wishes to read it. :D

Chapter 2

After about ten minutes of walking they arrived at one of the squad campfires.  The men were all listening to someone speaking to them, giving the occasional comment and laughing uproariously every couple minutes.  This was just like Keth…  Watching this for about five minutes Jett stepped into the circle. All of the men stood up immediately and saluted.

The man who had been telling the story looked up from the campfire, “Hello Jett, It has been a while.” Keth was not a young man, he looked to be around 70, though he had aged very well.  He had short white hair.  He was wearing light leather armor and had a beautiful walking stick set across his lap.

Jet turned to his men, “At ease, men.” He then turned to the visitor, “Hello Mr. Seventhor, what did you want to tell me so much that you were sent all the way out here from the capital?”

“Oh, I was just dropping in to say hello.” Keth said.

“Oh, I’m sure…” Jet said while walking over to talk to him, “Why don’t we go back and talk in the command tent.”

“But,” Keth said, “I was just going to tell these fine men another story!” He winked at the men in the squad, “Ahh well, I suppose I best follow you.  Have a good evening.” He nodded formally to the men and a couple of them snickered. Keth smiled, then walked off following Jett.   Jett chuckled to himself. Knowing Keth; everyone in the camp would probably know him personally within the week… 

After chatting for a while, Keth said, “Jett, I’ve been talking to your soldiers.  They all respect you, but they wish that you would let them actually do things that are challenging for them.” 

Confused Jett said, “What, do they want more work?”

“No, they have plenty of work, but most of it doesn’t take skill.  It’s just manual labor.  They joined this army because it’s the most elite. You train some of the most skilled fighters this country has, but they haven’t seen any of that.  They haven’t seen any brilliant leadership; just control.  They want you to believe in them enough to let them actually be productive.”

“…Okay,” Jett said, “But I’m not going to risk their necks just because they’re bored.”

Keth sighed, “Jett, this is why I was sent. You have the most skilled troops ANYWHERE, but you have to make use of them or they are not going to be of any use.”

“Right,” Jett said, “I’ll think on that.  We should probably get some sleep.  It’s late.” Earlier, Jett told a few men to set up a tent for Keth.  Now, he led Keth there and told him where everything in the camp was, then walked back to the tent.  “Ahhhh,” He sighed, “It’s been a long day.”  He undressed and went to sleep.

The next morning Jett woke up early, as he always did.  The sun was still hours from coming up… It didn’t rise until around 9:30, because of the mountains. Jett walked out and began to inspect the men and see what they were up too.  He then went around and checked on each of the things that he had assigned the other day; a new watch tower, a supply of grain coming into the camp from the capital and some new hidden bunkers in the pass. He could have waited for the reports, but it was better this way. He could tweak some things. He really expected the men would mess up from time to time and there was a certain way one had to do these sorts of things.

The sun came up over the mountains just as Jett got back to camp and the view was breathtaking. The green mountains still had traces of fog on them, though it would be a totally clear day.   There was a nice breeze blowing. On the way back to the camp, Jett had met Dan.   When he saw Keth he said, “You’ve been micromanaging again, haven’t you.”

“You like that word way too much…” Keth said, “Besides, it’s not micromanaging, it’s called ‘giving them instructions and knowing what’s going on.’ ”

“…Right.” Dan said, obviously not convinced, “Alright them, did you hear any news from the towers?”

“Oh! Right…” Jett said, “You distracted me… It looks as if there’s an advance force of men coming to test out our defenses. They should be here in maybe four to five hours.”

“What?” Dan said, “How many men are there?”

“They were too far away to really tell.” Jett said, “But it looked like there were close to five hundred. My men will send a message once they find out how many there are.”

“Alright,” Dan said, nodding, “I’ll tell my men then and get them ready.”

A few hours later, they were marching out of the pass, each with three hundred men.  They had received word that the advance force had 400 men.  So they had sent overwhelming force.  Anymore and it would have just been inefficient.  It was kind of confusing as to why there were so few men, the enemy had to have some idea of the number of forces they were against, it seemed like a suicide mission. Regardless, they would have to stop them, or else they’d just start killing, this way would result in a lot less casualties.  They entered the plane at around two in the afternoon. Jett rode a horse, for while it made him a more obvious target, the ability to communicate quickly outweighed any disadvantage like that. They got in a triangular formation with each man having a ten foot long spear.  While these weren’t as long as SOME which were used, they were long enough to work.

Sometime later, after having waited at the mouth of the pass for a while, they saw the enemy crest a hill in front of them. While there may have only been around four hundred men, it seemed like thousands, they were screaming, waiving swords, spears and bows in the air, it was an unorganized mess of bodies waiving sharp deadly objects.  Jett raised a certain colored flag from the front of his small army. They all straightened up, rolled their shoulders, and in general got ready to move. Jett waited for one more minute, he wanted his men to have to run as short of a distance as possible. Finally, he dropped the flag, his men rushed forward in a spear of sharp steel while the other two armies went at the approaching force at an angle from each side of him.  The enemy line, such as it was, was instantly broken.  Jett noted that this force was nothing like the trained, ruthless, brutally efficient force that he had been expecting. In fact, he couldn’t figure out how an army like this broke through the front lines...  Suddenly a shout from behind him made Jett turn around.  There were hundreds of men running up the slope behind him! Jett rode to the back of his military formation and shouted, at the top of his lungs, “company two, turn about enemies in the rear!!!” The back third turned around to engage the enemy and while they were outnumbered they should have been able to take this force, it was only perhaps two hundred men… But what if they couldn’t, they hadn’t been in a battle for months… There were just too many things that could go wrong.  Jett pulled out the white and red striped flag, waving it in the air signaled that his men were to make an orderly retreat.  Jett figured that he could draw the attacking men away while retreating letting the other armies deal with the big one. 

His men pulled back while still fighting. They pulled about two thirds of the rear attacking force back but the other third attacked Dan’s army, inflicting some casualties, though not many, since he had seen them in time.  Jett then realized, if this had been a Major battle, that could have lost the entire thing, that one move right there… “Oh, blast it…” Jet muttered.  A few more minutes passing by was enough to finish the battle, after the enemy had all ran off or were killed Jett’s army searched the battleground for the living, once all those had been found and helped they gathered all their dead soldiers and carried them back to their camp, the enemy soldiers were all put in a pile and burned, it would have been nice to bury them… but It’s hard to spend days on end working to honor someone who died trying to kill you. 

Story done!

I feel like I've finally made a huge step in my journey for light to which this blog is dedicated.  I have finally written an entire story.  Now, I'd written some before, but I hadn't ever ended one.

This took quite a while, it wasn't very long, but it takes way more work than one would think to actually write down a story.
Anyhow, it's going to start being edited so perhaps I'll start posting chapters on here! (there are only like 5 chapters)
Also, it's called: Final Stand.

New Years Resolutions

So, I realized what I just did. I just spent the last half an hour reading scriptures, Listening to music, and while doing that I was thinking about this semester. I think I'm ready, but from past experience, unless I write it down and have it exact goals. So I came up with some that I will follow. In other words, for the first time ever, I have made some new years resolutions that I am writing down and will follow without fail.

#1 Read scriptures at 7:30 for at least ten minutes. This is something that I CAN do I will never have classes that early, and I should almost never go anywhere during that time. The only thing I'd be cutting into would be my sleeping time.

#2 Check chickens right before doing scriptures, give them new water, check eggs, the like.

#3 Wear a white shirt and tie to every class and for much of the day while I'm doing school. I've heard and experienced that when you wear different things, it has different effects on you. A white shirt and tie will help me focus, I can take it off when I'm DONE with whatever assignments I need to do on the computer that day.

#4 Pray every morning and night. I have done Scriptures every day without fail for the last year, maybe longer. But I almost never say prayers at morning and night.

#5 Get every single World history assignment done before class. NEVER EVER EVER not do an assignment unless there is nothing I can do.

#6 Follow these things. I will look at them, and I will follow them, It WILL change me, it'll be a huge change. But I need this type of discipline in my life. I am WAY to undisciplined. My Yellow (carefree funloving) personality had recantly compleatly overrun my red (determined strong forceful) personality. But, if I give myself these types of goals, super specific, my super determined personality should take over, and I should soar. So no more of the super determined yet never-follows-through person. I will now, finally, stand and throw off the bonds of laziness.
I'll keep you posted.
~Nathan Owens

Work.

Well, almost done with the biology study guide, its nice to just have an entire day that I can just WORK straight.
I like to think that if everyday was like this then I could actually get some work done.... as it is I have to drive into the highschool every day and waste half my day doing choir. :/
And I LOVE choir! its so fun!! but I'm thinking about not doing it next semester so I can really do some awesome school stuff.
But yeah! :D
at the moment I'm reading a Tale of two cities. I've read about half of it before.... and it was okay, I read a summary and think that it SHOULD be awesome.... but he's so long winded :P