Ta-da! Another year gone by. It is wild to me that this is the end of the decade as well. I remember the dumb Y2K craze well enough as well as a bunch of events from the past 10 years. Highlighted themes of the decade seemed to be: terrorism, healthcare, immigration, oil, and real estate. I also turned 10, got my driver’s license, graduated as the first valedictorian of Faith Lutheran, and began attending Concordia. Half my life was spent in this decade and I consider it to be the formative time for me though the 90s were still an important part of my childhood. Music was often crappy but the decade was the best for movies yet. In 2009 I had highlights such as getting a sister-in-law (welcome to the fam Dana), turning in my exegetical, running a 5k race as well as lowlights: illness of Grandpa and Uncle Allen’s death, too much drama b/t family or friends, challenges in my faith. So now I look to the future of 2010 and a new decade including: a new semester, turning 20, the redesign of the penny and quarters starting the America the Beautiful program, the Winter Olympics in Vancouver and February as well as the FIFA World Cup in South Africa are definitely sporting moments I’m very eager for, midterm US elections, completion of the world’s tallest structure Burj Dubai and individual and personal hopes/dreams. Happy New Year to you and may we all keep our resolutions firmly.

Cousin Rebekah wrote a post the other day about one of her favorite advertisements. I too like some ads. I don’t watch much tv anymore, but when I do I’m not one of those people that finds it impossible to keep it on a channel during commercials because sometimes there are good ones. Here’s my all-time favorite commercial from Dow Chemical:

Finals are entirely too stressing. I’ve got two history ones on Monday, Lifetime Wellness and Old Testament on Tuesday, and Intro to Ed on Wednesday. I’m definitely taking it a day at a time. I’m mostly just looking forward to Friday and the wedding though. Today I and a few other students from my Latin American history class went to the prof’s house for lunch and just stayed and conversed for a few hours which was a great release from studying. Later tonight there is a candlelight advent service at St. John’s and then a pancake feed given by the President and his wife but none of this can keep off the impending doom and excitement.

Flesh everywhere.

Each torso was bared along with the rest of the body but for each of us wearing a pair of shorts or boxers. Husky, skinny, muscular, old, young, hairy, athlete, musician, clean, fair, tan, and excited each of us waited for the signal. We stood in the hallway waiting for others to arrive before the signal was to be given. Occasional chants, clapping, and cheering grew as we drew closer to the time. At the back of the hall a handful of girls wore shorts and tops prepared to join us in our manly venture. Several of them were wandering through our tightly packed bodies to take pictures. Outside beyond the double glass doors, we could see the snow increasingly fall through the dark night sky. Once the last few members joined our ranks our leader issued the instructions and finally, the command.

The doors opened and rank upon rank of first us men and following behind the girls burst outward towards the frigid night. We break apart once outside and sprint towards our target. Running between cars in the parking lot we trek through the ever mounting snow. Some of us quickly overtake others as we arrive at the quad to see a small crowd of people standing on our destination. The paparazzi was certainly ready for us. We choose our positions surrounding the fully Naked Man.

Once the last of us and the girls arrive around the statue our leader shouts the words, “Down!” We all fall to the ground on our backs. The chill of the snow immediately conflicts with our flesh. We spread out our legs and arms in the familiar motion to create snow angels all throughout the ground. We wonder how much longer it will be before the call. After firmly creating the figure we hear the order, “Up!” We quickly rise and immediately retreat back towards the haven not stopping to admire our work. We sprint quickly between the cars to return to the warmth of the building. Several people are holding the doors open for us as we arrive in the heat even as our bodies continue to be shocked by the chill of the snow. Our leader high-fives us at the door as we quickly filter back in beginning another war chant as we have conquered the cold. Each of us still covered with snow on our backs, legs, and shorts returns with a sense of victory.

We are men and we defeated nature.

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

-really, I do. The problem is that I’m just so darned good at it. There’s so much stuff I could/should be doing but instead I’m caught up in entirely unimportant stuff, yes like this. It drives me nuts how good I am at putting important stuff off for useless junk.

Happy December! I’m really in the mood to love this month. Over the past few years I’ve really come to like the holiday season even more than I previously did. This year there seems to be more than the usual amount of stuff I’m looking forward to. There’s just 2 weeks left of school, finals week and then the wedding and then Christmas then New Years. Yep, I can’t wait even though I have to. I suppose I can enjoy the wait though it is a little bit difficult. I always seem to be looking a little bit too far ahead instead of focusing on the present whether that makes me an optimist, a dreamer, or just plain stupid is probably dependent on the situation.

I broke my own rule. Call me a hypocrite, but today I listened voluntarily to a Christmas song outside of the designated listening period. Several years ago I came up with a schedule for when my mom in particular, and everybody else in general, is permitted to listen to Christmas music. Due to the overplaying of music, I quickly become sick of the music, as good as it is, long before Christmas leading to the following schedule.  July: 2 weeks are permitted; The first two weeks of November; The day after Thanksgiving until about mid-January. Those three periods are the only time that I permit people around me to listen to Christmas music, but tonight I was on YouTube and saw White Christmas and had to listen to it. That’s all. But seriously, I’m kinda eager for the holidays!

Ooooops, I did it again.

That’s right, this Reformation Day/Halloween I pulled the prank again. After watching a few movies (Sleepy Hollow & some of Sweeney Todd) I went to a lounge just before midnight to join a NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) party. Over the course of November I will attempt to write a 50,000 word novel. I’m pretty sure I’ll fail like most of the 120,000+ participants, but the idea is that it gets me writing. NaNoWriMo focuses on quantity not quality with the idea that writing badly but a lot is better than not writing at all, which is what I normally do. After writing some at the party I left to go pull off a good Lutheran prank. This year Connie and I were joined by freshmen Caitlin and Andy as we drove to the Catholic side of town across the train tracks. We again parked at the motel parking lot a few hundred feet across a field form the Catholic seminary. Naturally there had to be a full moon so we were having fun sneaking and acting like James Bond. When we got to the pillars around the corner from the main door, our target, we saw that the building was dark instead of busy and lit up like last year. Of course going at 1:00am Sunday morning instead of 10:30pm Friday night probably made a difference. We only had six sheets of paper that we pre-taped together. A quick dash and we were at the doors where we placed the papers right on the glass using some tape. Then we turned around and Sprinted all the way back to the car to get back to the safety of the Lutheran side of town. I think we made Marty Luther proud. Mission accomplished.

Sorry but it’s not me Matt, but a different one. It’s not really about the music this week but the sweet dance that got this guy a free trip around the world from Stride gum (the lucky duck).