Who wouldn't want to be me?

I've moved into my dorm room. This morning while going on my run, I met my RA, who is from the same state I am, and I found out we don't have a curfew in the dorms (that is a lot more exciting than it sounds, trust me). My roommate is awesome. I don't have to hike up a mountain on Saturday. The new season of Doctor Who has started. I get to see my dad, who I haven't seen in three months. I got to go to a new city and ate at a fabulous Mexican restaurant. I get to go to the fair on Monday (haven't gone in years because of tennis). AND the absolute icing on the cake is my big brother is getting married tomorrow.

I don't want to jinx anything, but life's going good for me right now. And I have time to focus on studying theatre techniques.

I'm excited to be in college. The world has so many possibilities all of a sudden. If you can dream it, you can do it. We're all human and we all naturally have things we want. Please don't give up on your dreams, no matter how impossible they seem. Be the eternal optimist and have faith that it will work out as you continue to work on what you want.

Toyota Yaris L 5-dr 2014

College is figuratively staring me in the face at this point, even though it's more in-your-face to ALL OF MY FRIENDS BECAUSE THEY ALL START A WEEK BEFORE I DO. Ahem. And I want to talk about cars. A Top Gear thing is premiering Monday (very excited for that) and so I've been trying to watch some of that on top of trying to watch Doctor Who. Let's just say that that's been very... complicated. Anywho, I love hatchbacks. Big, small, in between (I'm looking at you, crossovers). I just think they are the most adorable things ever. I know that part of that is my experience with my aunt's SUV. I have some good memories of that car, along with some...not so good ones. I actually would much like to get either a Hyundai Tucson or Santa Fe. Thinking maybe the Santa Fe because it's bigger. Or the Santa Fe SE, which is bigger than the Tucson and smaller than the Santa Fe.
But as you can see, that car (and I love that color on cars) shown above is not a Santa Fe. It's not even a Hyundai. That, friends, is a Toyota Yaris. And the reason why I want to talk about this rather plain, ordinary car is because I'm going to college. See, I'm going to be inheriting my grandpa's red Geo Metro. I love that little bugger. I really do. It reminds me of an old race horse. It does what you want it to, it just takes longer to do it and it can't go as fast as it used to. But it does try to please. The only problem with it is it doesn't like to go above 65 mph. Well, I say doesn't like to. I amend that statement to can't really go above 65 mph and can't maintain that speed for longer than about an hour. So as much as I love the Metro, I'm going to have to eventually obtain something that can go freeway speeds so that it doesn't take me two days to go down to LA when my life takes me there.
Now, I'm going to bring up Top Gear briefly. The blokes on the BBC version (the good one) maintain that the Yaris is the car you want for a small, compact car. Good car, great mpg's, and fairly cheap. Perfect for a college student, yes? Have some stats. The 2014 Yaris has 37 highway mpg. It's got a GRAND total of..! 106 horsepower. Compared to some of the stuff I've posted up here, that seems almost laughable. To add to the laughing comparison, it's got a buzzy 1.5, straight 4 engine. That one up there is the 5-door L edition. Which means it's an automatic (and also apparently dated). The 3-door L has manual transmission, which is apparently better than the automatic. I'm totally cool with that anyway because I like stick shifts better than automatics. And all the reviews say that the manual is far better than the automatic. Which means that to get the good one, you're stuck with the 3-door or the most expensive 5-door. The SE gives better handling and stuff so you'd probably want to go with that one anyway. It's still under $20,000.
So, yeah. That's the car I'm looking at for my upgrade when I start travelling. You can get cheap used ones of previous years. You just have to know how to look.

Reason and Feeling

Anger burns, bright and dark, red as the fires of passion. It joins with love and lust in the primal feelings. We spend so much time distancing ourselves from emotion and ourselves yet despite our enlightenment, we still have them. They are as much a part of us as the softer tenderer side of the spectrum and the darker, destructive side. We do not find ourselves by hiding. We must live to find ourselves. Mistakes must be made and all those raw emotions that we have been programmed by society to fear must be felt. We may be capable of thought and reason, but so too are we capable of intuition and things which cannot be explained.
Feel the emotions you fear. Know the mind you have.

"I choose not to think of my life as surviving, but coping."/ "Passion is energy. Feel the power that comes from focusing on what excites you."

Another death in the family in less than six months. This one, unlike the other, was unexpected and the police is treating it as a suspicious death. So we won't know anything for a while. I'm...I'm not good at expressing grief. So, there you have it. That'll be pretty much that until the funeral, whenever that happens.

Ummm, yeah. Oh, so you know how Series 8 of Doctor Who is happening in less than two weeks. Or you possibly don't That's a thing that's happening that I'm very excited for and because of it, I've been watching a lot of interviews and stuff with the actors. There's just something about interacting with people, complete strangers, who enjoy your work. I don't feel the same fascination with athletes or politicians. Politicians because I don't believe what comes out of their mouths and athletes because... I don't know. I was going to pursue a career in tennis, you know. But I decided to put my focus on school instead and I'm glad I did because I'm getting to go to the school of my dreams. Is it wrong of me to want to be in a position where I'll have people know my name, even if I don't know them? If I ever become well-known, and I do hope I do, I want to be one of the actors that is constantly interacting with fans and people. I don't want to be one of those that you only ever see on screen and is a hermit otherwise. I don't want to be one of those people that you see just going to work and then hiding at home anyway. As introverted as part of me is, I want to interact with people, random people. I'll never say that I'm not proud with a bit of a vain little peacock, just enough to enjoy the spotlight sometimes, but not enough to be a drama queen. Tennis matches, I thrive under the attention, even when it's negative. I have no problems with public speaking. When I was on stage with Barry Manilow performing in his show with part of my choir, the added challenge of having that large of an audience just made me enjoy myself more.
But I don't like receiving recognition for what I do. Well, that's not entirely true. I'm a big fan of working on it, performing (whether it be in sports, music, or whatever) and then finding a new project. If I get recognition, I want it done quietly with minimal fuss. No big fanfare unless you want me embarrassed and clammed up emotionally. I get nervous and defensive when I get scolded, reprimanded or critiqued in front of others. I'll do my absolute best to try to fix whatever was wrong (unless you go about it the wrong way, which is pretty difficult), but privately and then I'll show the new/refined skill once I've got it down well enough to have a touch of adrenaline to keep me on my toes. I don't like making mistakes, which is why I have a tendency to put exorbitant amounts of time into something until I've got it at a level where I don't make mistakes often. But that practicing will be alone or with very few people.
So I get to straddle the world between introvert and extrovert, living in the grey area when I would much prefer to be on one side or the other even though I exist easily in both.
Actually, I think I'm going to be done now. I don't want this post to just become a verbal vomit of...I'm not even sure. I think I just needed to get this off my chest. And I just ranted extensively about X-Men: Days of Future Past at one of my friends. I don't think most people realize how strongly I feel about movies and TV shows. They're my only true obsession, books come a close second because I like seeing to imagine. I can do it almost as easily with literature but...
Wow, no seriously. I'm going to stop.

2014 McLaren P1/ LDS Mission

I'm not going to write a review for a car. Simply because I couldn't be able to convey the delight and vwoom that that car, just on description, made me feel. (903 HORSEPOWER!!) Gorgeous piece of machinery.
Anyway, here's a link. 2014 McLaren P1.
Lordy, that's a nice car. And that guy is so funny.
I'm pretty sure that I want to...not marry a mechanic (not that I have anything against mechanics, my grandpa was one) but marry someone who is very good with cars because one of my favorite smells, no joke, is the smell of new tires.

My cousin is having his farewell tomorrow. He's going on his mission to Tempe, Arizona. And all I can say is he has NO idea what he's in for. I've lived down in that sort of heat. He never has. So, it'll be very interesting to see him handle that. The only thing is I've never seen any sort of enthusiasm from him for it. So I'm not sure how he's going to react to it. I'm willing to cut him some slack because he's from small-town Idaho and doesn't know any better. I've done all three. Small town, medium city, and big city. Different cultures and opinions don't shock me anymore. But he could also surprise me and be able to handle this well. We'll just have to see.

Saved for Later

You know what's strange? The feeling like you are unbelievably important in minor ways. It's not just how you influence the people you know. You always hear stories about that and frankly, those stories irritate me. They make me feel uncomfortable because I'm of the opinion that I don't want to hear about the good effects of what I do. Tell me what I do wrong so that I can correct it. But I don't want to be praised for when I do good in front of me. I don't want to know. Because then I feel like I have something to prove. I would rather just continue living my life oblivious to the good I do. If I do something brave or heroic, I would rather just go back to my quiet life.
Sorry, that was more than a little bit off topic. But what I really wanted to talk about how you can influence someone's life just by being where you are when you are. By you being on the road you're on, when you are, you might cause someone to be late for a meeting or an appointment. But because they're late for the meeting, they meet someone that they would never have met otherwise. That other person could become their best friend, the love of their life. Or they could further influence more lives by being the best friend of one of your friends or the love of their life. By being in front of someone on the street, you could cause them to hit a red light. But because you did that, they didn't end up in a car accident. You can influence people without knowing them and without doing anything special or different than just doing what you do. You can also influence their lives without actually interacting with them. Some people might say that those are just a series of coincidences. Me, I don't believe in coincidences. And not just because I believe that God (or whatever higher being you happen to believe in) has a subtle hand in everything. It's because simple choices are the most powerful and we can never know the results of those simple little choices. They could be as small as the intertwining of two lives for all time or as large as bringing a smile to someone who needs it. We're all important. And don't you dare let anyone tell you differently, because you don't need someone like that trying to break you or bring you down. You are stronger than that. You are better than that. And trust me, if you don't believe that, then you just need to trust me. Trust this faceless, voiceless... random person that wrote this. Sometimes that's easier than trusting family members or friends. Because how or why could they know? Us faceless people on the internet have no ulterior motives. Normally. Then there are the trolls but I try to avoid those people. They irritate me. But other than the trolls, most people just genuinely want people to be happy.

Somehow, I feel like I'm going to need this later on. Sigh... That'll be one of those moments when I just hate people.

Faces to a Coin

Two sides to every coin. Hidden and revealed simultaneously. Is the face shown heads or tails, private or public? Surprise is felt when the other face is seen. Who am I? The question that should always be asked for the answer always changes. Sometimes the private face becomes public and the public face is reconciled with the personal yet what never changes is what is both. Energetic and sensitive, two halves of a whole. Humanity condemns two faces even though they exist naturally and this is exemplified in Harvey Dent of DC Comics. When he became horribly scarred, he became the villain Two-Face. There is some subliminal messaging there because he can no longer hide his private and public lives and this knowledge drives him insane. We are two yet one in purpose and we should be the two we are.