Addictions Conviction

Ever since a little kid I have been ADDICTED to pop. I loved any type of pop. I didn't care what it tasted like, I just wanted carbonation and caffeine. I'm pretty sure that as a young boy I could not have stopped drinking pop if had tried. I was just that in love with it.

I was in this little town of Grinnell, Iowa putting together the state chapter show which I auditioned for last November. We took one week out of July to put this show together. One of the nights when I was there I was talking to another cast member. She let me know (while holding a coke in her hand) that she is basically addicted to pop, too. She proceeded to let me know that she did research and found out that 1 pop a day equals 15 pounds in a year. FIFTEEN POUNDS!

This was the fact that changed my life. As she was telling me all this I thought to myself. I need to change something in my life. I did not want that extra 15 pounds. I already knew that I was a pop addict (meaning I had and average of 2 pops in one day) and I needed to change that. I decided I would drink less pop. I switched to about 1 pop every other day. That was good enough for me. Until I thought to myself that 7.5 pounds in a year is still a lot of weight.

A life altering moment was about to take place. I decided that I would not let this addiction last any longer. I gave up pop. Well, not just pop, I gave up everything carbonated. I could not believe I was about to attempt to give up something that has been so evident in my life for so long.

I called my friend "Jeepers Creepers" and told her I was going to give up pop. She couldn't believe it. She then said that she had to give it up for the sport she's in and we decided to make it a mutual thing. She will help me rid my addiction and I will make sure she doesn't drink pop do she can improve her performance. We are going to give up pop until the end of the year. At the end of the year we are going to decide what we will do from then on.

I haven't drank pop in 54 days and the results are tremendous. Within that time I feel so much better. I no longer crave pop. And I am fortunate to have lost 10 pounds already in this task. Those of you that know who I am, if you ever catch me trying to drink pop, please stop me. It is extremely hard to give up something you love. Something you are addicted to.

Will you break the addiction?

A Procrastinator's Life

Procrastination is not merely a characteristic of a person. Procrastination is an art of mankind. I am sitting here doing 2 of my blogs for this week. We are assigned at least 3 a week with at least 1200 words. These blogs are due Monday. Today is Sunday. Get the picture? These are EVERY week so you'd think I would have spread these out over the week. Nope! I feel like stressing about them the night before they are due.

When you classify a person that has this so-called art of procrastination, you put them in the class of the ones that don't tend to do well in school or are the slackers. When in turn, this is the complete opposite! Often times when I talk to people they are all in the same boat I am in. I was having a little Twitter conversation with another person in this class and he/she still has 2 posts to go as well.

When you get into the mind of a procrastinator, often times they do not even know they are doing it. They blame it on that they were busy the entire weekend and they just could not get their homework done (that is the excuse I often use), however, they most likely had free time where they chose to watch TV instead.

A huge problem with the procrastinator is that many of them have not developed the skill of "multi-tasking." I have definitely NOT developed this skill. I am attempting to watch NCIS while blogging, but I am failing miserably. I think I just took a 15 minute break from this post just to catch up on what was going on in this episode. I suppose you could call that Attention Deficit Disorder but I call it procrastination.

I have just made the decision to turn OFF the TV. I think that is a nice jump start to finishing this post. I think it has now been about 45 minutes since the time I began writing this post and I have gotten basically nowhere. I will say this, however, I am teaching myself a lesson by writing this post. I am surpassing the stage of denial and I am now moving on to the way to fix this problem of mine.

Here are the steps I am going to take and the steps I think all you procrastinators out there need to take in order to solve this problem.

Step 1: Recognize your problem.

Step 2: Use better time management. This entails deciding when it is appropriate to watch TV and when it is appropriate to do your homework. The proper use of time management would be to do your homework first and do anything else after all is done.

Step 3: Well, I think that step 2 basically wraps everything up. So step 3 would have to be execute step 2 24/7 and you should be okay.

I hope that by writing this post I temporarily prevent my ways of procrastination and I hope that you too can eliminate this burden that is procrastination.

Will you keep procrastinating?

"I don't just jump into bed like an acrobat..."

The life of a theatre junkie is incredibly underestimated. People don't go around comparing the lives of jocks to those of the theatre department. Those people that don't DO theatre don't know what putting a show together entails.

For our upcoming show, we have been rehearsing since August 10th (before school started). At the beginning, the practices weren't incredibly long and weren't strenuous. As time goes on, practices get longer, and longer, and longer. Until this past week we had practices from 330 until 9. That is 5 and a half hours of straight practice right there.

Before that practice begins, you go through hours of memorizing and learning all the music. Not to mention getting all your costumes prepared. When it comes to the week before the show, practices are brutal. You spend most of your time running around backstage and figuring out what costume comes next. You are forced to remain quiet through all of this because you could be heard out in the audience. As you are scrambling around backstage you have to be fully conscious of what is going on onstage because god forbid you miss a cue.

Next comes showtime. You have your nerves all built up and your eagerness to get on stage and show everyone what you have put together. You hope and pray that it will be enjoyed. You hear those famous words said by the director, "Enjoy the show!" and you take your place.

What I am trying to say is, the amount of time you put in just for one show is tremendous and can easily be compared to the life of a jock. The only difference is we (thespians) don't practice on a field. The theatre is our dwelling place, our field if you will. We put in just about the same time for one show as the football players do for 4. Next time you think that theatre isn't that hard. You just remember that 2 months of time went in to that show just for your enjoyment.

Will you enjoy the show?

Follow-Up

Soooo just letting all you readers know that that last post was NOT a suicide note!! I was just upset because I didn't get to say goodbye to my nephews. Just letting you all know :)

It's So Hard to Say Goodbye

Saying good-bye could potentially be one of the hardest thing anyone has to do in there life. Whether it be a good-bye until tomorrow, three months from now, a year, many years, death? Good-bye is the hardest thing to say.

Uttering those words, thinking thinking those words, can be powerful enough to bring someone to tears. My sister and nephews from Colorado are in town and will be leaving Tuesday. I am already dreading the fact that I may not be able to say good-bye. I have play practice and show choir immediately after school until nine on Monday, and then they leave Tuesday night before I get home from play practice. What I am saying is that not being able to say good-bye can hurt way worse.

Luckily, I have not had to deal with the death of someone I know extremely well and I fear for when it happens because I am sure it will not be easy to overcome. What I fear more, however, is that I will not be able to say good-bye.

So I hope and pray that those I love will read this and know that if I am not able to see them and tell them good-bye, that I am there. I say good-bye to you in hopes that in the distant future I will get to say this again and that this is not the last.

Will you be able to say good-bye when the time comes?

Everybody's Doing It...

So I have noticed to main topic of just about everybody's posts...the VMA's. I am going to tell you exactly what I think and I don't care what whoever is reading this thinks. Kanye was right. Yep, I just said that, Kanye was right. What I need to emphasize, however, is that Kanye was definitely not right in his timing.

To win "Best Female Video," your video has to be memorable and one that captures EVERYBODY's attention. If you ever watched Beyonce's video, whether it be online or on MTV or whatever, you did NOT forget it. The sheer simplicity of it caught everyone's eye. Just dancing, SO SIMPLE! But along with that, even if you didn't see the video, if you just did one of the moves, anyone could identify the song in a heartbeat, it was just that popular. What I mean by "captures everyone's attention" is that it doesn't just feed into type of person's liking. Beyonce's "Single Ladies" song did just that. If you are a lady, you loved the message she was conveying about either marry me or get lost type of feel. And if you are a guy, just look at the video, need I say more? Now don't get me wrong, Taylor Swift's "You Belong With Me" was a fantastic video. But when you compare as to what audience this video appeals to, this video is directed to girl teens who are looking for that fantasy guy. That is a small portion of our country.

Kanye West, however, was completely out of line to say (no matter if right or wrong) the things he did on stage at the VMA's. It is just complete B.S. that Kanye would take Taylor's moment to shine. Poor Taylor had to stand up there wondering what the hell as going on and left the stage crying. Kanye should have complemented Beyonce on her video... but at a complete different time (perhaps AFTER the awards?).

The next topic of discussion for the VMA's would be Lady GaGa's performance. For some people (me) Lady GaGa is this fantastic singer and amazing performer. Sure she has an extremely bizarre performing style, but it gets her known! If you watched the VMA's, or even heard about the VMA's, you would know exactly the moment I am talking about, the part where suddenly she is bloody??? At that moment I'm thinking, "What is going on here?!?" But now I realize that I will never forget who she is and I will never forget that performance.

But to others, Lady GaGa flat out SUCKS. I get where people are coming from, but they are just judging her on her appearance/bizarre techniques. You have to have a complete open mind to see the true artist in her. For all I know she actually sang that entire time at the VMA's and to me that creates an amazing artist. It irritates me when celebrities truly do not have a reason to lip sing but still choose to lip sing. I respected Beyonce when she was doing her performance live and just all together stopped singing and let the stereo take over. She didn't move her lips to make it look like she was singing, she just danced and showed us what she was made of.

All in all, despite the little "Kanye moment," I thought that these VMA's were outstanding. Thank you Beyonce for being the true celebrity you are. And thank you Taylor Swift for putting up with Kanye.

Will you let appearance blind true talent?

The Secret Lives of Teenagers

If you are a teenager, have you ever thought that parents may know more than you think? And if you are a parent, have you ever thought about what your teen might not be telling you? This is a serious question in today's world. Today's teenagers are becoming more and more sexually active and experimental with illegal substances (i.e. marijuana, alcohol, etc.). This poses a problem for the parents, because what they know about their teen may not be the truth.

Parents nowadays are setting looser reigns on their teens, allowing them to stay out later, nonexistent curfews. This "lack of boundaries" gives the teenager the ability so essentially do whatever they want. Teenagers tend to choose the more "pushing the limits" types of things. Which refers back to the illegal stuff and the sex. Parents put on the appearance that they are oblivious to these actions, when really I think they are afraid to admit what their teenager is doing.

That leads into a whole other subject for discussion. I have had talks with many parents that did crazy things when they were teens. For sake of making this easier to follow, we'll call the person in this certain incident Mrs. G. Mrs. G was a somewhat rebellious teenager. "I had fun in high school..." she told me. Some of her experiences include the whole experimental drinking and your "run of the mill" (that was a complete understatement) scavenger hunts. But when I asked her what she would do if her daughter called her and was completely wasted, she replied, "Well, I don't really know." My first thought was well, if our parents could do all this stuff when they were teens, what's wrong with it now?

However, I am not saying teenagers should do any of the stuff mentioned above, I am just wondering, whats wrong with it? I can honestly say that I have never done anything of the items listed above and I don't plan to. Simply because I know that my parents' reactions would not be good. I be out of show choir, out of everything I love. So I do not even try to push the limit.

For those teenagers that have all ready done those sorts of things. I do not judge you for such activities. Curiosity is built into our systems. Teenagers are expected to bend and brake rules. Trying new things is the "norm."

Will you give in to the norm?

P.S. Mrs. G, I am sorry for revealing a few of your stories. Luckily not in depth :)