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 )

Dreams.

Wow, everyone has been talking about Dreams a LOT lately.  I think that's sort of a wake up call to me.
See, I don't like trying to figure out exactly what I will do in life, because every time I make a decision, I feel like it closes a million doors, but that's the thing, it does But here's the other thing, it opens a million more!
My main problem is that whenever I have to make life changing decisions I never know what to do, because I don't know where I want to go.  So finally, I'm just going to go for it, this is what I want to do with my life as of right now.

To start off, I don't necessarily want any big PHYSICAL thing.  Like, I'm not looking for a huge house or an awesome lawn. (Though, I wouldn't complain if I were to acquire such) What I do want is a non physical thing.  I want to be famous. There, I said it. I want to be famous for something.
Now, what I would like to be famous for is writing. I would like to be an amazing writer.
I want to write Fantasy or science fiction (Or both) And I want to make people smile. I love making people happy, it's something I'm good at and enjoy.  I love that feeling once I reach the climax of a book and you feel like you want to stand up and cheer, you feel like you could run a million miles!  Like you could beat a dragon or do a years worth of school work in a day. That's the feeling I want to give people. That's what my dream is, that's what I strive for in life.

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. 

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. 

The Final Stand

Well, it's been a long time in coming, but here it is. The beginning of my first true story, The Final Stand. 

I wrote this last semester and it's gone through a few revisions and some grammar editing.  But not THAT much, so if you see anything, just point it out. :D 

Also, I'd love some plot/story feedback as well if you have any. :D
(Also, if it's a bit small, one zoom [Ctrl +] should fix it. )

Chapter one

Jett walked through the forest trail towards the encampment.  He had dark brown hair, blue eyes, and was a tall well-built man.  He’d just been out to the watch perimeter to make sure everything was running smooth. Jett was a very scheduled person; he always had his days completely planed out. Because of this, there wasn’t much change in the routine every day.  So every morning at dawn he would visit a tower or outpost, and would make sure that things were running smoothly.  Of course, he could have sent anyone out to check… but they wouldn’t know exactly how he wanted it, and thus wouldn’t notice small discrepancies and then things might really get bad.  Jett looked around while he walked, the forest was beautiful. Looking up he could see the morning sun shining through the leaves, casting a light green shadow over everything.  Looking down, Jett saw the myriad of roots which crossed the dirt path he walked on.  While looking around, something bothered him; he kept noticing things that weren’t the same as they had been on his way to the tower.  An overturned leaf, a branch that had been across the trail now moved to the side; small things like that.  And then he heard it; the small, but distinct, sound of someone trying to match his footsteps. It could almost have been the wind, but there hasn’t been any sort of wind whatsoever today.  Without changing his stride, Jett listened more carefully and could definitely hear that someone was following him.    He assumed that they bore him ill intentions, since otherwise they would step out and call to him.  Five minutes later, his suspicions were confirmed.  Two men with fully drawn bows stepped out of the brush. The one on the right gave an ultimatum.

“Stop or be stopped.”

Before he had even finished, Jet had started to move.  He pulled out a throwing knife from his belt and threw it at the man talking.  Then he lunged to the side behind trees to avoid the second man’s arrow. Jett rolled out of the lunge and stood up facing backwards with his sword drawn.  A dull thud and a small gasp confirmed the hit.  Three other men were running up the path toward him, about ten feet away.  Jet deflected the first man’s sword with a swipe and dealt him a strong blow to the left shoulder. As the first man collapsed, Jett turned to the next man, caught his sword on the flat of his blade and gave him a kick to the stomach, then a pommel blow to the head.  Since the first bowman was recovering from the surprise of losing three men in about ten seconds, Jett turned so that he was behind a tree for cover. He then picked up a decent sized rock, feinted to the left, then leaned right and nailed the bowman in the head. The bowman’s taunt bowstring launched the arrow ineffectively into the air.  Now that he had taken care of the major threat, Jett turned back to the final man, disarmed him with a twist of his sword, tripped him and as he fell, hit him in the back of the head with his gauntleted hand. Out cold.  Jett jogged the rest of the way back to camp, which was only another 80 yards down the trail.  When he reached the camp, he ordered to some of the soldiers watching the perimeter of the camp,

“Go see to the assassins.  Help those who can be helped and bring them back under armed guard to be questioned. Hurry, they’ll be waking any minute. Two of them are in dire need of medical aid or perhaps they’re already dead, I’m not sure. See to them.”

Once the soldiers left, Jett walked toward the second command tent where there was a meeting of the army generals today. The military camp was nested in a sort of bowl shaped valley.  It was oval shaped and on one side there was a pass that opened down into a large plane.  The entire bowl was heavily wooded. There were three decent sized camps in the bowl.  Each camp was set in a circle with three watch towers around the perimeter. They had to do quite a bit of ground clearing to make space for the camps, but since they had been here for months, it was worth it.  Jett’s camp was the one in the middle, directly in front of the opening to the pass, where Jett had gone to the watchtowers, facing out onto the large plain. The three armies were stationed here as sort of a last line of defense between the invading army and the populated area of the country.  It looked as though they were going to be needed, since messengers coming from the front lines had said that the other armies sent to fight had been practically decimated.  Luckily, when Jett had been out looking, there had been no sign of the enemy army anywhere.  Walking through his camp, Jett noted the straight tent lines and how clean and organized everything was.  The men were doing well. Leaving his middle camp and crossing to the southern camp, Jett also noticed how very unorganized this one was. It wasn’t terrible, but the soldiers obviously didn’t take pride in their work and didn’t care much for the appearance.  Arriving at the command tent and stepping inside Jett saw the other two commanders.  Naphe was a tall man with a tan complexion. He had black hair, deep green eyes and always wore a small golden arm cuff.  Dan was a broad shouldered well-muscled man of average height.  He was as pale as pale could be, no amount of sun could change that. 

“Jett,” Naphe said after he they had all been seated, “what have your watchmen seen?”

“Well,” Jett responded, “I was out thirty minutes ago and I saw no sign of the enemy anywhere.”

“You didn’t have to go out yourself…” Dan said, “That’s why we stationed the watchmen out there in the first place.”

“I just like to see how my men are doing,” Jett said, “they’re all still new.  Many haven’t had much experience.”

Naphe rolled his eyes, “Not this again… Jett, most of these soldiers have been fighting just as long as you have!  Half of them are older than you.”  

“Still…” Dan and Naphe sighed at the same time. “Look,” Jett said, “Soldiers have to be told what to do. They have to be lead along.” Jett stood up. “They don’t do well independently. For instance, look at your camp, Dan.  The men aren’t disciplined enough.  They need to be orderly.  That’s what will make them efficient.”

“Okay,” Dan said resignedly. “We’ll agree to disagree. But even with your opinion in mind, you’re over the top, don’t you think? You go way beyond disciplined and into micromanaging.  Besides, you’ve disciplined them enough; they could walk through a field of cacti without breaking ranks.”

Naphe cleared his throat, “Terribly sorry for interrupting your philosophical debate on leadership, but we have to talk about the very much non-philosophical problem of 70,000 men marching on our position now.”

“Well actually that could be a-” Dan started, Naphe glared at him.

Jett snickered; sometimes Naphe could take things a bit too seriously. A few hours later they had come up with a plan.  Jett was skeptical, but Dan and Naphe liked it; so he was willing to go along.  It involved making their way south by the mountains next to the plain, setting up a group on the hill and trying to hide their numbers.  It had promise.  But Jett was worried that the men wouldn’t be able to do it right. He also worried that with so many men, there could easily be spies mixed in. Dan had suggested that they do random checks to make sure everyone was there.  But even with Jett’s army, which was the most organized and with leadership all the way down to groups of ten and with squad leaders in charge of them, it would take way too long and would miss too many people to be useful.  In the meeting they’d also talked about the assassination attempt, which was the fourth this week and the second on Jett. Dan and Naphe each had faced attempted attacks on them.  They were increasing in number, which meant that the enemy was getting closer.

Finally, after three hours of talking, they ended the meeting and went back to deal with their respective duties.  Jett wished that he could just stop working, eat and sleep. It had been a long day.  But, considering that it was still only midafternoon, he headed back to his command tent to work.  He had just arrived and settled down to work when a messenger came in. “Sir, a man has shown up with five other men and is now waiting to talk to you.”

Jett sighed, “Alright, tell him he can come talk to me.”

“Well, uh,” the messenger hesitated, “He said that he wants you to come talk to him.”

Annoyed, Jett said, “What does he think? That I just sit around all day doing nothing? I don’t have time to wander around looking for him.”

The messenger said, “He, uh, he said that his name is Keth, Keth Seventhor.  He also said that that would change your mind. Uh, sir.”

Jett got up with a sigh, “I suppose I should go talk to him, blasted old man…” Jett stood up, buckled his belt, adjusted his shirt and put on his gilded cloak.

Turning to the messenger he said, “Lead me to him.”

With a salute and a quick, “Yes, sir,” the man left the tent.  Jett followed him to find his old mentor.

And there's the first chapter!  That's about one sixth of the story. 

Also, I think that the formatting got thrown off a bit when copy-pasting. 

Anyways, yeah! If you want the rest I'll be posting it within the week. Or just like tell me and I'll give it to you. But yeah, if you got this far I guess you read it, so thanks for reading! :D

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 Goal

Okay, I don't think that anyone actually reads this... but perhaps sometime people might start to do so... So I'm going to start posting something EVERY DAY. Yep. I'll do this for as long as I can, and it shall be awesomeness.

Of course this means that if the night comes and I haven't posted anything or if I can't think of anything I shall probably be posting pretty random stuff. 
BUT yeah, there will be stuff on here every day.
So for today, all I'm going to post is a really good quote I saw, at least it's an interesting quote. :D

Geek Towel Starwars day.

Well... I'm not actually "Geeky" or perhaps "Nerdy" enough (Is there really a difference? I mean really? ) to know about this, BUT I'm enough so to post about it after seeing it trending on Google Plus and seeing what it is.
Recently I listened to hitchhikers guide to the galaxy (which, by the way, is quite funny and, in my opinion, worth a read.) and so, apparently May twenty fifth (today) Is Towel Day.  So created because it's the anniversary of Douglass Addam's death. (if you don't know he's the writer of aforementioned book) and in this book he talks about towels and some uses of such.  For a few such uses see this picture. Anyways, yes, that's what day it is. BUT if you look at the title of this post it ALSO mentions star wars! Why is that? Because today is ALSO the anniversary of the release of Starwars: A New Hope which released may 25th 1977.  So yeah, according to Wikipedia It's Geek Pride Day . I could also talk about the one other holiday listed... but it's about disk-world, a series which I have yet to read. So I won't.
Anyways, I thought that this day deserved a blog post, because it's awesome. :D
(and if it's not may 25th anymore... then pretend)

Welfare: the poison of America.

Well, I've been doing non-stop school for the past few months, But I finished!! :D
So I'll be able to post some things on here now. :D

(This is an essay I wrote for Extra credit in my world history class, I'll be posting a lot of similar things  for a while, also, in many of them I take a stand and defend it, even though I might not agree with it. for instance, I have two essays that are contradictory, since that was easy and fun to write.)

You read this title and you think one of two things, the first thing might be: “You heartless person!” And the other opposite will be: “YEAH! They didn’t earn it! We’re just enabling them!” Now, I’m obviously generalizing, and exaggerating, perhaps you understand the real problem, and solution.  And if so, I salute you, you already know what I’m going to talk about.  Here’s the thing.  Welfare IS a poison, but, many of these people still do need help!  We can’t just let them starve, jobless!  I have a solution, but first, let us look at an example

Let’s take Rome.  A strong empire indeed, but this is where most republicans get their data.  The roman government gave the people something called, “The dole” which was a daily ration, if they needed it.  So, what did this do to the people? they all stopped working! Free food!  so then the government had to pay them huge amounts to work, and then the government lost money.  but that’s not the point.  The point is that, the dole made them weak, it made them rely on the government! This is one of the big problems republicans have, they don’t want the entire population of America to become reliable on welfare. 

THIS is why it’s a poison! Because it’s true, welfare is a poison but it’s not the kind that immediately kills.  It’s like a drug, it gets you addicted, then, if you try to quit suddenly you get VERY sick and can die.  But we can’t just let them starve.  That would be stupid, heartless, and from a purely economic view, bad for business everywhere, to have a bunch of starving unemployed people wandering the streets.  So, what do we do?  

Well, there are a few things.  Firstly we must wean them off of it, exactly like an addictive drug.  But then we can’t just leave them there, like I said.  We as people must help them!  If there are real people helping them, people who they can see, and have to face then there won’t be those who cheat the system, but the people who actually do need it will get it.  This is the only way to do this, we must help each other to get better, it’s the only way.  IF we keep letting the government poison us then we cannot be free as an economy and grow.  We must help each other and be a better country.

Time to start again.

I made it, I finished this semester with all A's and I had an awesome break.

And Now break is over. I had a three week break from school work. I've been lazy and such, didn't do much of ANYTHING. Now I have to get myself pumped to do school. 'Cause I am NOT feeling it right now. :P
I'm writing a short story, and I'm actually going to finish it, and I'm giving it a deadline. I am going to post it here Sunday before I go to bed, and it will be DONE. It may not be good, I don't know.... But it'll be done. So yeah, that will be cool. I'm going to be uber busy this semester, I'm taking 7 classes this semester. AND IT'LL BE AWESOMENESS. Okay, there, now I'm PUMPED.

~Nathan