one last post!

Over Thanksgiving I was playing Malarky with my brother and others over for the holiday. I had never played it before, it was a very interesting game. The concept is that a question is asked to all the players, such as, "Why is there both dark and light meat in only turkeys and chickens, but not in other fowl?" Then cards are past out and one player has the real answer, while everyone else has to make up whatever they can think of. After all explinations are given, all the players vote for who was right.

I was personally very impressed with how creative the answers were. People drew from all knooks and crannies in their brians to pull out any related fact to reinforce their proposed reason.

I only voted for the real answer about 70% of the time, which is an attest to how creative the answers were.

What's the drive?

I'll try as much as I can to avoid the dear diary aspects of this entry, and focus on the psychological aspects instead. But I'm trying to work through and find the reasoning, or motivation or logic behind my pursuit of dating the same person after 4 attempts and failures. It seems we simply do not have the ability to effectively communicate. But after taking a step back, I'm seeing that it hardly about the person anymore, and now just about the game. It has become a challenge. And, the biggest part is that it is a challenge that all odds point to my success. Yet, time and time again there is little progress, and eventually only failure. It turns out that after nearly a year, we still know very little about each other. At this point I am trying to answer why, why come back to square one again? Unfortunately I believe my drive for ultimate success has overhauled my actual attraction to this relationship. Now it's like an experiment. I hypothesize why the last test did not work, and change the approach and test again. It is mostly the problem solving. At this point, I just simply need to find out why can we not put together this puzzle to solve the problem? Ultimately, I see a 5th attempt in the future, because still, questions must be answered!

celebration of lights

Celebration of lights was a very wonderful start to the Holiday Season ahead. As I was headed to Hughes Trigg for cookies and hot chocolate afterwards, I passed a large group of students yelling excitedly for Kwanzaa. And it brought to my attention how Christmas oriented the Celebration was. I am in a debate with my self going over why and why not Celebration of Lights should encompass more than just Christmas. Obviously we are founded with Methodist beliefs, thats a big one for. But we are so big on attempting to be diverse and all, why not acknowledge other celebrations? If Celebration of lights were to encompass other Holidays, I feel like I wouldn't mind, but I would question why. Why include it in this Celebration for Christmas? They have every right to celebrate any Holiday they wish and arrange it together.

A few years ago I got into a debate about the greeting, "Happy Holidays." Why can't I say, "Merry Christmas", my father asked. It quite surprisingly turned into quite the heated debate about this being AMERICA and CHRISTIAN! And I have the feeling that most Christian students that attend here have the same notion regarding SMU and Christmas.

A loss

A year ago today I lost my friend Jake Stiles. It is truly hard to believe it has been a whole year. A small gathering of his close friends was held earlier today at the flag pole. It was wonderful to see so many people attend. We brought flowers and laid them down next to his picture. I wrote a letter to Jake and left it under the flowers. It is hard to comprehend still that Jake is no longer here. Last year I spoke at his service. It was very hard because I was not very familiar with Jake's friends, and from speaking I sat next to President Turner and his SAE brothers. It was hard to allow myself to grieve fully in that situation. But in the last year I have met so many great people who also share in the loss of Jake. It's wonderful how you can meet people like that just out of the blue. Its amazing how far a person's reach spreads.
The most memorable quote I took away about Jake that people shared was, "He never met a stranger." What a wonderful thing, and how fitting. That is something to aspire to be said about all of us.

Ogilvy

My sister works at Ogilvy in Chicago. She just sent me some very neat things. Including, the book "Ogilvy on Advertising", and "The Creative Companion." Ogilvy's book seems to be his personal bible to successful Advertising, and the Companion is written by David Fowler. Each page gives at most 2 paragraphs of a guide or insight into creating advertising. I am terribly excited to read these.

almost there

This Slam Poet has a lot to offer.
"There’s a hundred ways to do it right
And none to do it wrong
Cuz you’re starting out with what’s already been given up upon.
You can’t DO ANY WORSE."

This is one of my favorite poems. It has so many metaphors so well polished. It takes some time to really study it. Just take a look and a listen and see what you pull out of it. I read that its about giving children tomorrow and aiding their hope.