Weekend Awesomeness

Remember that whole thing about me starting a blog and never keeping up with it? Gah! It's happened! C'mon man!

Well, fear not, I have returned for a post. However, I must warn you: this post is more about me wishing to avoid studying rather than the sheer desire of posting. Regardless, I'll give you an update on my life.

Let me say, this past weekend was one of the best I've had in a while.

Sidebar: In order to maintain the integrity of the weekend awesomeness, I'm going to completely disregard all actions involving football. It's only fair considering the Aggies and the Cowboys did the same. (Too harsh?)

The weekend began on Thursday night, because I'm a senior in college and that's just how we roll, with Daily mass, a delicious dinner at Shipwreck grill con mis amigos Erik, Amy (bro), and Jamie, followed by Project Yogurt.

Later that night, we went to the good 'ole Northgate and spent some time at the Dry Bean, Antonios, and a new bar called Rebel Draft House. It's a sweet place with a good selection of beers and cool environment. T'was a very chill night.

Next was Friday. Ohhhhh, Friday. The day to end all days. Woke up at around 11:30 (again, being a senior owns), went golfing with Patrick, Erik and Cliff. I won't divulge to you the score of the round. It would be embarrassing for everyone. Then went to Confession, Mass, and dinner at Chuy's with some Bros. Again, I won't divulge to you the conversation at dinner. It would be embarrassing for everyone. Headed back to the Lighthouse to watch Friday Night Lights, and to pass the time.

"Pass the time? Until what?" You may be thinking. And here is where the night got interesting: when you get a bunch of guys together to prank a house full of girls, the result can be nothing short of epic. I'll let the pictures do the talking:

Why yes. We did build a giant wall in front of there door. 

Totally worth staying up until 5am to do. Well done, men. Well done. 

Saturday rolled around, I watched an undisclosed team of an undisclosed sport get embarrassed, went to work for a few hours, made a fool out of my self attempting to play tennis, discovered the "interrogation room" and had some quality hang out time with my friends. Mass on Sunday, and roommate Nic Berger and I made some kick-ass fajitas for house dinner.

I love college. And I hate Mondays. The end.

Credit to Jaime, Amy Jo, Eva and smartcanucks.ca for the pics

Update

Hey guys,

So I know I've been lame and haven't updated in a few days. I'm going to blame this on a combination of still being sick and having a test coming up. Also, I was supposed to start a new segment today, but alas, the aforementioned things have kept me from doing that. My apologies.

So, in the spirit of laziness, I'm going to post a few of my favorite video clips from the YouTube. Enjoy!

Don't hate, this dance is sick.

I'll try to get a post in after my test this week! Prayers and Good Luck appreciated!

Bad news... I have acute viral rhinopharyngitis...

...also know as: nasopharyngitis, acute coryza, OR (and this one is my favorite)...


the common cold.

Sidebar: Mother, yes, you. I know you're reading this. I don't need to go to the doctor. I'll be fine. Though I know you're still going to text me today asking if I'm ok. Like you always do. Love you.

Fear not for me, I am on a steady dose of cinnamon tea, Vitamin C, Vicks VapoRub, and Wonton soup. Yum. I'll hopefully be able to kick this bug by tomorrow.

Which reminds me: Just why are colds called colds? Who better to ask than Yahoo Answers?

"The discovery of viruses is actually fairly new. Colds have been around much longer than the knowledge that viruses exist. Colds seemed to come around more often during cold seasons, and it used to be believed (and still is by some) that exposure to the cold can cause a cold. Know we know that people concentrating indoors is a much more likely method of spreading colds around. Thus colds are probably called "colds" because they are associated with cold weather."

Voila. Fascinating, right? I thought so.

That's about it for now. Be sure to check up next Tuesday for a new addition to the blog!

Peace, love, good heath, and all that other good stuff.

The Art (and Ache) of Songwriting

No, it ain't just like the movies

That perfect night and summer air

Sometimes you struggle just to find it

Gives your heart it's scars when it's not there

Those, ladies and gents, are the first couple lines of a song I suddenly got the inspiration to write. Being a proficient songwriter is most definitely a gift... and one that I definitely do not possess. Some people just have the ability to flow and crank out a great song in half an hour. Me... probably quadruple that, then add a few more hours the next day, and day after that, until I scrap the entire thing. 

If you have ever written or attempted to write a song, then you know these two truths I'm about to say:

1. Your new song sounds like the greatest thing ever written. Period. Tenacious D ain't got nothin' on you.
2. When you come back and reread your lyrics the next day, they are the worst thing ever written. Period. Friday sounds a hell of a lot better than your crap.

BUT, if you can manage to get past that second day, reevaluate yourself, your lyrics, and that G-D-Em-C chord progression you're using, you may just end up with a half decent song. 

Personally, I like to draw inspiration from the emotions and experiences I've had rather than singing about a type of feeling I've never encountered first hand. I am definitely a very mellow player. Think Ben Rector with a bit of early John Mayer and The Fray.

Most of you know this about me, but I used to play Bass for a band called Texas Riot (Classic Rock meets Texas Country). I left the band in Summer 2010 due to school and other time restraints, but my time in the band was one of the most amazing experiences of my life. I'll definitely have to make a post about the band times. It's probably about as close to being a celebrity as I'll ever come. 

Sidebar: That is, besides being a child model, of course. (Cue Blue Steel)

So, next time you have a really great idea for a song lyric and/or lyrics, don't doubt yourself. Pursuit it. But don't try to hard. If you sit down and tell yourself, "Ok, I want to write a song right now," it's never going to happen. In the words of the late John Lennon, sometimes, "You just take words and you stick them together, and you see if they have any meaning. Some of them do and some of them don't."

Disclaimer: If you happen to write a song and it sounds anything at all like Friday: BURN IT. NEVER LET IT SEE THE LIGHT OF DAY AGAIN.

I'll leave you with a cool, nay, awesome demonstration of just exactly what I'm talking about when I mention those people who can crank out great songs like it's nobody's business. This is Synthetic Muso-Regurgitative Composition:

Theology of the Body and College Football

You may be asking yourself, "How the heck is he going to tie these two together?" Well stay tuned, young Padawan. This post should have a little something for everybody... hopefully.

I think it's (relatively) fair to say that the concept of truth in today's society has become incredulously clouded. It's hard to make out what is pure and good versus what is greedy and all about self fulfillment. I find these two sides are greatly personified in the contexts of Pope John Paul II's study of the Theology of the Body (which will henceforth be known as TOB), and College Football. Don't worry, I'll break down for you ladies and gents exactly what I mean here.

I'll start with college football, which is arguably the greatest sport in America. Now, I must preface that college football is not perfect; just look at Miami, USC, SMU, Baylor, that awful school over there in Austin with their gaudy TV network that no one watches, and others. Without the politics of conference realignment and suing because you don't want to get stuck in Conference-USA (Baylor), I would sum up the game itself in one word: pure. Pure in the sense that the word "team" still means something, and is still worth fighting for when you're backed up to your own endzone and need to make not one, not two, but THREE stops. There is more truth and purity in college football than the NFL, MLB and NBA combined. No one is worrying about multi-year, multi-million dollar deals, there are no lockouts. There is just pure, unadulterated joy in playing the game. It's about striving for perfection, however perfection doesn't mean there's a big fat zero in the losses column of your season record. Perfect is about "you, and your relationship to your family and your friends."  I'm going to let Coach Gaines explain the rest:

Now, for those of you who are not my St. Mary's friends (and for some reason are still reading my blog out of the graciousness of your hearts), TOB is essentially the way of discovering God's purpose for us though our bodies, why we were made the way we are, what this whole crazy "love" thing is about, etc. It seeks to find the truth in what human sexuality is and why it's just so gosh darn appealing to us.

See, when you stop and realize that societal norms have become completely desensitized to sex, especially outside of marriage, pornography, addiction, etc, then the real, earnest truth of why we were created is lost. Whatever fulfillment we find in those empty things becomes our relativistic "truth," often the only thing people come to know.

Living out TOB means we realize that those things are not what we're made for. Some point in the last 2000 years, we've lost sight of what the dignity of the human being is. We are meant to be pure, dignified, and live with clear eyes and a full heart. If Christianity means seeking ultimate perfection, perfection through Christ, then we owe it to ourselves and others to back away from the things that keep us from pure perfection: the metaphorical "steroids" and "contracts" of sin and addiction. Lets go out there and seek the fullness of truth. And lets start by watching some college football.

Amen.


For more information on either of these subjects you can contact any male, or email: therevolutiontob@gmail.com

Oh, Those Texas Nights

Never ever ever take the things you have in life for granted.

I look back a couple months ago and see myself wishing to all hell that I was done and over with college and on to the real world. I was convinced there was nothing left for me here in College Station. My life had decided it was ready to move on and I was stuck here until graduation.

Sidebar: I know this is totes (that's right, I used it) an emo-ish post, but bare with me. I'm in a very pensive mood and am listening to Death Cab for Cutie. I promise not all my posts will be such way.

Now, I look back at those times, especially after the amazing couple of weeks I've been having lately, and I can't believe I ever wished to be out of here. It's nights like tonight, the ones that I talked about in my last post, that you remember forever. The times were your buddies clear out all the furniture in their living room and have an epic dance floor just waiting to be two-stepped, waltzed and dougied on. The 2am Whataburger trips. These are the things we take with us.

A friend once told me to live life without regrets, only lessons and memories. I take that to heart when looking back on these past 4 years of my life. Specifically thinking about the last two years, I feel like there were moments where I wasn't completely grasping at what life was offering me. I'm not saying there weren't some good times, but I know I could have made more of an effort to have much more great times. Living just for the sake of living is dull, and at times I was doing just that.

Do I regret this? No. Not in the slightest. Because it is from these memories and experiences that I am able to really appreciate the wonderful life God is letting me live today. Its so amazing to trace back the course your life has taken, ultimately leading you here, reading this blog. (Poor you...) Every fault, failure, heartbreak, friendship, conversation, prayer has led you here. So I hope you can join me in earnestly thanking God for the life that he has given you. No matter your current situation.

I will always cherish and remember these late Texas nights here in College Station. I'm not saying I'm doing it perfect, but carrying these memories in my heart now helps me live a little bit more for God, for my family and friends, heck, even for school.

Good night, live long and prosper, hasta la vista, au revior, and all those other good ways of saying adios.

Inconsistent Thoughts on Hopeless Romanticism

This is only my second blog post and it's taking me entirely too long to try to think of what to say. So, instead of meticulously thinking out every topic and every word to make me sound ever-so-slightly more intelligent or cultured, I'm just going to write. Write about anything and everything that comes to mind. This could go two ways: It turns out I am as incoherent as I think, or I'm a freaking genius. Here we go.

Do you ever have those moments in your life where you think: "Someone should be filming this because I could totally see myself in a movie right now." Moments like driving along an empty city street in the middle of the night, light rain hitting your windshield as you look out your side window and view the world sleeping in the darkness; a soft song playing on the radio. Or dancing with a beautiful woman in the middle of a parking lot because the dance hall was too crowded with freshman, instead surrounded by your closest friends. Or taking road trips to the beach in the middle of a weeknight just because you can. It is in moments like these that time seemingly stops. We almost have an out of body experience because only experiencing them firsthand is not enough. Those are the moments that stay with us forever. 

And then there are the moments you wish ended up like they were straight out of a movie. The ones you go over 100 times in your head, literally, but never turn out quite the way you had imagined. No matter how hard we try, (and trust me, I've tried), those perfect Jim and Pam, Lloyd and Diane, and Love Actually moments rarely exist in real life.

Sidebar: Yes, all three of those clips are romantic gestures rather than regular life ones. But I feel like those are the most relatable.

Maybe it's the fact that we (I) try to make them happen without just letting them happen. It's a problem that occurs when you try to be too perfect. And you know what? That really sucks. Why can't a guy think of a great way to confess his "undying" love for a woman, actually do it, and have it work the way he sees in his head? (Along with other cool things that don't necessarily have to deal with grandiose romantic gestures).

Because that would be entirely too easy. And if you've ever been in love you know that it's not easy. Hell, sometimes it's just down right hard. But without divulging too far into this crazy little thing called love (that is to be reserved for another time, and will span across many a post), we can suffice it to say that love is a battle. Be warned as well: careful not to build up this image of 24/7 all around awesomeness because all you'll end up with is disappointment, some great, albeit impractical ideas, and time you're not going to get back. I speak from experience. Love won't always, if ever, play itself out like something out of the movies. (Sidebar: notice they never show what happens a couple months/years down the road). And guess what? That's how you know when you have it, it's real. Love is not a feeling. It's a choice. (Again, we'll talk about this more later).

At any rate, here's to you, the hopeless romantics, the ones who end up staying up all night trying to write a love song to no one (cue John Mayer), the over-planners, -thinkers, -dreamers. Stay in the fight. He or she is out there. Unless you're called to consecrated life. Then there's Jesus.

Also, a shout out to Ms. Elise B, follow her blog! How to Lose a Girl in One Date! It's genius!