not dead

It has been quite the hectic few weeks, and I'm taking a slight pause on both this blog and the music websites in order to take care of some small administrative tasks. Like what, you ask?

• Submitting music to a particular publisher for wider distribution.
• Beginning my last semester of undergraduate classes before student teaching.
• Tangling in red tape while trying to apply to student teach.
• Fiddling around with the mandolin.
• Replacing my hard drive and trying to find all the information it contained in other, non-crashed places.
• Rubbing my wife's back while she prepares to write her honors thesis. Very important.
• Getting another job, this time at the library, where I will sit behind the circulation desk during hours when nobody comes to the library.
• Directing the Institute Choir in Stake Conference. By the way, I love them. They sang very well after a grand total of one hour of rehearsal on the song we performed.
• Preparing extra work for the time off I take in February for the Church Music Festival.
• Trying to organize time off in April to sing in Columbia.
• Organizing and hosting an invitational speech and debate tournament this weekend with 21 high schools currently registered.
• Reading and writing submissions for the writing contest held at my university.
• A secret project I cannot currently divulge, but which is very important.

So if you don't read much from me in the next few weeks, it is not for lack of noteworthy activity - it is for lack of time and energy to report.

optimism

Everything is about to go very well.

(Important note: This is not an election night commentary. This is not a political commentary. Although I appreciate the democratic process and I am grateful to have been born in a country where I can vote, my current cheerful mood has little to do with the early returns that are just coming in.)

From time to time, I just have to believe that good will come of what is happening in my own life and in the world around me. I have just recommitted to be a better optimist. I have added it to my 43 things. I have started keeping better track of the motions of my mind.

It strikes me once in a while, this unshakeable idea that I have every reason to be thrilled with life. When I have this feeling, good things generally happen. Do they happen because I feel this way and expect them, or can I somehow sense good times in advance? This is an interesting philosophical question which I will continue to ponder.

As for right now, I am completely thrilled about gratemusic.com and LDSmusic.us and what we are doing there. I am optimistic about my family and my personal financial situation. I am thrilled about our marriage. I am excited about my education. I don't believe that I will live without inconvenience or difficulty, but I feel that the good will completely override the effect of whatever problems arise.

Perhaps the election does have something to do with my focus on this subject of optimism. All the analysts and the different parties and candidates are talking about the future. On the radio in the morning, there will be many prognositcations about how our next two years will be in America. There are many doomsday voices. There are many who say that our new leaders will fix everything. Neither side is accurate. Some laws and policies have noticeable effect in the lives of the governed, but generally our happiness and our life situations are governed primarily by our thoughts and desires and how we go about realizing them in the framework of God's plan. This new political season ought to be a new season of optimism and new commitment to make life good for ourselves and those around us.

friendship

Recently, I have been thinking about the idea of friendship and how I want to develop it as an attribute in my life. I added as one of my 43 Things "Be a friend like the ones who have changed my life." Here are my thoughts on that:

I do not forward cheesy e-mails that talk about true friendship and threaten certain death if not sent on within ten minutes. I don’t do “just thinking of you, Friend” greeting cards. I want to be a friend of the caliber of those who have found me in my dark times and helped me identify the light I was seeking.

• I would be a friend like those I have had who made work a joy and sorrow a short affair.
  
• I would be a friend who understands that the welfare of a soul is worth far more than a few extra minutes of sleep or a few extra dollars in the bank.
  
• I would be a friend who does not change people, but liberates them to change themselves for the better.
  
• I would become a friend by accident to hundreds of people one by one – standing in line at the grocery store, waiting for a bus, browsing at the library.
  
• I would be a friend to those who blatantly disagree with me. I would be a friend to those who are too much like me. These may be the same.
  
• I would be a lifelong friend, even if not in the sense of face-to-face contact. I would be the friend that old friends could call after ten years of silence and pick up the conversation as if we had never parted.

This is the friendship I would develop as a portion of my character.

a long rant about something completely unimportant

My newest 43 Things goal is to finish the cinnamon toothpaste. I shall explain:

I bought a tube of cinnamon toothpaste a few moths before we were married, so I suppose it's been at least 9 months. It's a very big tube - family size or something. My wife hates it, so she uses another type of toothpaste that she doesn't like but also needs to finish. If we could just throw perfectly good things away, all would be well in our medicine cabinet, but as it is, we have two full-size toothpaste tubes, each about half full, slowly being emptied. They take up a lot of space in our little apartment with very little storage space. I suppose it doesn't help that I only use a small amount when brushing.

I didn't even get to the cinnamon one until a few months ago, because I was finishing a different toothpaste she also didn't like. It was one of those with two different pastes in a boxy plastic pump, and she (and I) didn't like how it's almost impossible to get equal amounts of both sides. The cinnamon tastes good, but the logistics of tube space sharing are too complicated. Toothpaste problems can put an undue strain on an otherwise harmonious and exciting marriage.

I think we may have to throw a party at our home when I finally finish the cinnamon toothpaste and we can be united as a couple in our choice of dental care products. Imagine - only one tube of some sensible mint toothpaste neatly placed in the cabinet! Some day, it will be a reality for us.