Reflecting on a blog

Its no lie, this blog is an assignment for my writing class. I probably would not have ever started writing a blog if I had not taken this class. Since I did have the chance to write I have learned some things about myself and blogging in general.

The first thing I noticed is that I dont take the time to sit down and think about why I do the things I do, and my thought process in general. Putting my thoughts down on a page definitely forced me to think through what I really wanted to say. It let me be introspective, which I really enjoyed.

I think that blogging is beneficial, but it definitely takes something special to affect a large number of people. I am not planning on making a living off of blogging like some people have done, and they all have something that the average person doesnt. Its very interesting to think about what drives us to read and follow and share one persons words over anothers.

Overall I enjoyed writing about my thoughts more than I thought I would. Its been an interesting experience and I would not be surprised if I dedicated more time to writing my thoughts in some capacity from here on out.

Preparing for Marriage

As was very clear right from the beginning of conference, marriage and family is a very important topic to consider right now. While many people will note that I am not married, I have a rather unique situation where I already know who I am going to marry, and when. I have known who and when for just under one year now, and I have just under one year left to prepare. For those of you who dont know, this very long waiting time is due to the fact that before we start our family, someone in Germany needs her to teach them.

Warning: I am waiting for a missionary. Side note: yes I am actually waiting, yes I am sure, no I have not dated anyone else in the time she has been gone and I have not had the desire to.

If we did not feel the importance that she serve at this time, I guarantee we would already be sealed and happily starting our family. I have heard many things during the past nine months or so ranging from admiration that I am dedicated, to indifference, to disbelief, to outright critisism. To all I answer that our first desire is to do the will of our Father, who knows best. She needed to serve and I personally can not wait for the day when on the other side I meet every person she served while she was on her mission, and hear the stories of how they effected one another.

There are many difficult things reguarding waiting and being apart so long, but there are several major blessings I have received. First, I have come to appreciate everything she is to me on a whole new level. They say distance makes the heart grow fonder, and for me that has certainly been the case. Second, I have come to have an appreciation of what the temple sealing really means to me. I have had time to reflect and grow personally. I have had time to better myself and learn what I really want my family to be like. Third, I have had to rely on my Heavenly Father in difficult times. When I have been lonely and wished her home, he has shown me visions of new families being sealed because of her efforts. It has given us the opportunity to every day pray for the well-being of one another, an invaluable habit.

While it may be hard at times to listen to talk after talk, day after day about marriage and family, to see my friends getting engaged and married while I wait, and to watch the clock as every day seems an eternity, I know that when we look back from the eternities at our life, we will see this time as but a small sacrifice compared to the inexplicable joy it will have created.

conference report

I absolutely love general conference! I had a wonderful weekend with some good friends and absolutely zero homework. I got the chance to go to temple square a fair amount this weekend and listen to conference in person. There were a lot of wonderful things and I think it is fairly safe to assume now that a big focus over the next six months is strengthening marriage and family.

While I was sitting in conference I made note of several rhetorical devices. One thing above all else was represented in most every talk. Stories began many a talk, and stories were all throughout the conference. It goes to show that in general conference, pathos is very important. All of the speakers wanted to use relatable examples while teaching what they taught.

As far as things that stood out to me in the doctrinal sense, one brother said that we can have righteous desires that are not in harmony with the will of God. I had never thought about it like that before, but a righteous desire may not be the right thing to do. It was comforting to me personally because I have had what I thought to be righteous desires, and then doubted once I recieved revelation that something else needed to happen. having to stay home from my mission when I wanted to go back out readily comes to mind. I wanted to serve for the right reasons, but he needed me here. That doesnt make my desire to serve again bad, just not the best at this time.

Preparing for conference

I absolutely love General Conference, Ever since my first conference right after I joined the Church. I got to go in person and I still vividly remember how I felt when the Prophet first walked into the room. There really is a special feeling in the air when the Lord's chosen representative is in your presence on his errand.

For this conference I get to meet up with several friends and go to the conference center for the sunday morning session. I have friends that are just back from missions who never thought they would have gone, friends who always knew they would, friends who didnt get to go, friends who are coming back to the church. I am a combination who didnt think I would ever go, then got baptized and had no doubt, then had to come home early.

My favorite part of all of this is that though all of us have had different lives and have made different choices, we all are going to listen to the Lord's will for us this weekend. We all have tread different paths, but we have found the right one and are doing our best to stay on it.

If it werent for all of the wonderful people I am fortunate to call friends, I would not be where I am right now, and they would not be where they are if they hadn't met me. I hope all of you have a wonderful conference.

#becausehelives We can hear his voice through his chosen servants.

Writing a Narrative

In class we had to write a story from our life. This paper was very hard and very easy at the same time. On the one hand it took me like ten days to even think of the story that I wanted to write about. Every time I thought about things that I could write about from my life, they were all very personal. I wasn't comfortable sharing the things that really changed my life. Then I thought a lot about sifferent stories that I would be comfortable sharing, but they didn't have very much substance.

When I finally found a story I liked it seemed so obvious. I have spent more time in my life running than pretty much anything else and it is a huge portion of my high school experience. Once I found the story, it was so easy to write because it is something I am passionate about and something I remember very distinctly. It was weird thinking about a period of four years taken in abstract, but I actually learned more about myself while writing it.

Personal Narrative

Beating the Clock.

                He is getting closer—I take one last deep breath and remind myself that I can do this. I know what I need to do and I have trained for years to get here. He hits the mark and I take off—our handoff is perfect, my feet move faster and faster beneath me, not fast enough. I can hear footsteps behind me, now I can hear only one pair, now nothing. I come around the bend sprinting as fast as I can. Remember what you need to do, it’s time to relax a little and breathe. I’ve done this thousands of times. Each step becomes a little longer. Breathe in, breathe out, don’t let yourself slow down, relax. For a second I allow myself to look up. In front of me there is a giant screen—there is someone running on it. That someone is me! I look for the other runners but I can only see myself. I’m winning. Focus on the race, you won’t be ahead for long if you just keep staring at the screen, I tell myself. I look back at the track. I’m almost at the end of the straight. It’s time to speed up. My mind wanders again, how did I even get here?

                What am I even doing here, I’m a horrible runner, I remind myself as I step up to the starting line. I know that everyone here is faster than me. I shouldn’t have let my friends convince me to run track.

“Hey good luck man,” someone I don’t know says as he shakes out his arms and legs. He looks nervous. What must I look like?

“Yeah good luck to you, too.” I wish that it really worked like that! If only luck could make me faster.

“On your marks.” I just want to leave. “Get set.” Maybe there will be someone that is slow like me and this won’t be as bad as I think it will.

                Bang! I take off willing my legs to move faster, but they don’t cooperate. I’m already behind every other person. Try as I might they keep getting further and further ahead. When the race was over I wanted to go hide in a hole, but instead I went to look at the posted times. As my eyes moved down the list my heart sunk lower and lower as each number read a name other than mine. Finally, the very last name on the list was my own. Was I really the slowest person on my team? There had to be some sort of mistake, I was active and played sports my entire life.

                “Shane, why did you decide to run the hurdles.” My coach always talked to me a lot once everyone else had left the track. I really admired him, even though he was balding. He was six foot three, the perfect height for hurdles. His calves still showed the effects of years of running past. He was so fast! He had told me many times about how he had ran a 39 in the 300 hurdles. I was still running slower than 50 seconds.

“I thought I might like it, and honestly it was the only way I would get to run at the meets.”

“Well you seem to have taken to it! You are always the last one here.”

“Yeah, well I have to do something if I want to get better. I’m going to finish better than last at region, I just know it.”

“You have done great this year,” he said “you have improved more than anyone on the team, but I do have some bad news. Region only allows four runners to compete in varsity so you can go, but you can’t run.”

“Really?” I choked out “Well at least I got to run at all this year.”

“Like I said Shane, you have improved a lot this year. You have gotten faster in every race. Keep working hard, and you will make varsity next year I’m sure.”

“I’ll do it! I know I can make it.”

“But for now go home. I’m hungry and you’re keeping me here.”

“Ha! In that case I think I better stay a while longer.”

                The summer and fall came and passed, and it was time for run-offs again. I approached with anticipation. The race came and went and I wasn’t last overall. I wasn’t even last in my heat! I earned a spot on varsity for the hurdles, but I wasn’t satisfied. I was running in all of the races, but I was finishing in the middle of the pack. I didn’t ever make finals so I only ran one day of the track meets. No matter how fast I ran, or how much my time improved it was not enough, I wanted to be the leader, I wanted to be the best. That year came and passed and I had again improved in every race I ran in. My aspiration of becoming the top of the team was starting to seem possible. I just had to work harder.

                I lined up in front of the hurdle, “just one more, I almost have it perfect.”

“You can get it perfect tomorrow, it’s time for dinner and you need to come home.” She looked too tired for me to argue much today. She always drove by the track on her way home from work, knowing that she would often find me still there.

“Alright I’m leaving right after this one.” I take off towards the hurdle, I jump and I hit my knee. “Alright I’m leaving after THIS one.”

                “You are the pace-setter now.” My coach is talking to me, why is he talking to me?

“I don’t know how to set the pace! What if I run too fast or too slow?”

“You’ll figure it out. Run each 200 in 28 seconds, everyone else is going to base how fast they run off of you.”

“Can’t someone else set the pace? I don’t think I’ll be good at it.”

“You’re the team captain, who better to run at the front?”

As I step onto this track for the first time ever it finally hits me. I’m running in the state track meet! I made it a year before I thought I would too! I had improved so much and not only was I at the state meet, but I was confident I was locked into the finals. I hear those familiar words “On Your Marks.” I’m calm, I know what to do. “Get set.” I tense up, this is what I have been working for. Bang! I take off, a perfect start. Three, Four, Five hurdles down and I’m in first place! Six, Seven, only one more hurdle to go, I almost have it. I feel my foot connect with plastic, the all too familiar ring of plastic and metal fills my ears. The ground comes close, but I barely maintain my balance and stumble across the finish line. Two people passed me. It’s going to be close. Heart pounding I wait by the results board. “I can still make top 9, I had a good finish even if I messed up.” The list is up. I spot my name… next to the number ten. “I got 10^th?” At least I have another race, and it’s my best, the 300 hurdles.

                The gun goes off, and I am paired up against the fastest runner in the state. We take off step for step and I know I have it. As we round the bend for the final 100 meters the gun starts firing bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. “Stop the race, Stop the race.” A man is running towards us waving his arms. We slow down and stop.

“What is going on?” one of the runners asks.

“The timer never started for your heat, you are going to have to run again.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me!” he shouted.

                We walked back to the starting line and the race began again. I ran my hardest, but my body gives out in the last 30 meters of the race. “I don’t know what in the world happened coach, I was just too tired.”

“They shouldn’t have run through that race again until tomorrow, but you ran a decent time. You can still make finals.” My coach was trying to cheer me up, “Just so you know in that first race you were on pace for a 39, you’ll get it in the finals!” The results go up on the board, Shane Miner 10^th place…

                I’m not letting that ever happen again! I think to myself as I bring myself back to the present. I am steps from the end of the straight. I may have started fast, but I know who my competition is. He finished in 6^th place yesterday in the open 400 with a time faster than I have ever run. I pick up my pace, knowing that I am going to have to run the race of my life to beat him. I will my legs to move faster and faster, he still hasn’t caught up to me. I hand the baton off to my teammate and collapse off to the side of the track.

“Shane do you know what you just ran?” my coach is shouting from the crowd. I couldn’t concentrate or reply, it was all I could do to keep from collapsing completely. The race ends and all I can think about is those words, do you know what you just ran. I stumble over to where he is in the crowd and he turns a stopwatch and points it towards my face.

“Are you serious?” The words were out of my mouth before I could think.

“You killed it.”

“Are you sure that was my time?”

“Well it wasn’t my time! Yes I’m sure”

I stared at the screen again, 50.2 seconds! The fastest time that anyone in our school had run that whole year.

Research paper reflective essay

              I know right from the get-go that the biggest thing I have taken away from this paper is a new motivation to learn my family story. I come from a family that didn’t sit down and tell stories all of the time. We spent most of our time in the here and now. I learned about several ancestors I have never heard of before and I loved learning more about them. On that side this paper was really positive for me, but though I enjoyed researching my family stories, I had a considerably hard time writing this paper. I don’t know if it was because of what was going on in my life, if I am just bad at writing research papers, or if I just didn’t find a subject that interested me enough, but I had a bear of a time getting the length I needed. I also felt like I didn’t quite understand the citations, and as always grammar kicks my behind.

              I feel like this paper allowed me to apply a lot of things I have been learning in other classes this semester. I used principles I learned in other classes all throughout this paper and it would have been very different if I had a different schedule. I can see the things I am learning being applied elsewhere and that validates the effort I’ve put in.