Accountability - four months later

Less than four months ago, I wrote this on my blog:

This past few weeks, I have found that the less I do that is of substantial worth, the less I have to write about on this blog. So, hopefully as I achieve some of these goals, I will be able to unearth new stories to write about on this humble website. Time will only tell.

I detailed in that entry five labels I wanted to "acquire" about myself. These involved going out and discovering things in Provo, community service, becoming a poor, penniless writer, reading more educated books and supporting local independent musicians.

I am not so happy to report that I have failed in these regards miserably.

The Intrepid Explorer label (7/10):

To my credit, Dantzel and I do go out and explore Provo the old fashioned way - on foot. Minus the skins, rafting, living off the land and having an enigmatic Native American girl as our guide, we are like a regular Lewis and Clark, setting off on expeditions around the surrounding environs.

Our most exciting discovery is Demae, a small Japanese resturaunt off of Center Street in Downtown Provo. Every Tuesday and Thursday, they have a special on sushi - $3.50 for any roll on the menu. Because we have classes on Tuesday, we have started a tradition of going every Thursday. We have also been able to recruit many of our friends in joining our raw fish cult - Troy, Kimberly and JiHye accompany us every week, and Tom may be joining us as well. This has been a much rewarded journey.

Another exciting discovery is an old used bookstore (again in downtown Provo) of which I don't remember the name, having only discovered it last Saturday. This is most exciting. Dantzel and I often frequent the local Borders, but it is a) expensive, and b) far away. This store, however, is a) relatively cheap, and b) within walking distance. Wandering through the stacks of old books, I have forgotten how much I miss that musty smell of dust and yellowed pages. Having told Troy about this, he immediately demanded we take him to it this weekend, to, in his own words, "Give some books the love they need." We will be attending this venue frequently.

While we haven't traveled too much out of Provo (because we're both incredibly busy nowadays), we have been doing a bit of traveling in general in our general vicinity. Both a fan of walking, strolling randomly through town is one of our favorite things to do together. And we try to discover new things every week. Most are not really mention worthy, but the effort is there. Of this, I have been doing pretty well in.

Member of the Community label (0/10):

Okay, in this catagory, I seriously tanked. I haven't really done anything service related since then. I haven't even registered to vote so that I could help take down Referandum 1. Shameful, really.

However, I have had my hands full of being a Family Home Evening dad. When I first received this calling, I will admit. I was disappointed and very, very scared. Before this, I could count on my hands the number of times I've attended Family Home Evening in a student ward setting (more times on my mission serving on college campuses than attending BYU).

But I can now say that I absolutely love my family. They are a good bunch of kids - they are a great bunch of humble, sincerely nice people. And with minimal prodding, most show up for it. This may, however, be partially connected to the fact we eat well. Our Family Home Evening committee leaders have asked us to make it more meaningful - to have a lesson that teaches rather than just games and snacks. The only thing I can teach is cooking - unless I wanted to put on an afro wig and set up an easel and teach my kiddies how to paint. So, in the past few days, we've had root beer floats as an introductory snack for the first Monday, then baking bread and today, sushi.

In this sense, I guess you could say we are serving the (incredibly college and small) local community, though I definitely plan on upping it a bit. Christmas season will definetely have us doing more service oriented activities - frosting sugar cookies and giving them to needy people in our community one Monday, providing service at a homeless shelter the next. This is one area I really want to become stronger in, and so it will be an area of focus for the remaining two months of the year.

Starving, Penniless Writer label (2/10):

Unfortunately, the lack of writing classes have sucked a lot of the intellectual out of me. A good writing class for me is like priming the pump - writing begets writing, for the most part. But when I don't have any classes that allow me to write frequently, I often fall out of habit and practice.

However, this doesn't mean I haven't been writing at all. Four articles have been published on Helium. However, I didn't write any papers in time to submit to anything - this will give me a year to write at least one for next year. The paper on "The Green Gospel" is still in the works; I also have been kicking around an idea for a paper called "If God Was on the Earth, He'd Be a Liberal," detailing my feelings that God would be much more sympathetic to programs that help feed the poor, fight war and genocide, pay for children's basic needs, provide jobs for everyone and other progressive social programs than we often think.

And perhaps the most pressing matter - I am planning on submitting a 20 page comic to TokyoPop for their Rising Stars of Manga contest (or whatever it's called). This has a lot of relevance to the topic, since it's writing that's got me stumped at this point in time.

Educated Reader label (3/10):

This commitment started out strong in the beginning. Shortly after making this vow, I read (and thoroughly enjoyed) Earth Odyssey by Mark Hertsgaard. I then read Life of Pi by Yann Martel while in Korea (I think in a day or two). Then, I went a long time without reading a book before finishing the decently mediocore Angels and Demons by Dan Brown. Since then, I haven't read anything, though with my new job working on book accounts, I now have a list of well over 75 books that I want to read. I better start getting cracking.

Some people say that reading three books in less than four months is pretty good. For me, it is kinda sad. Considering I read the last two in less than three days, I could have read a lot more. I am planning on going back to my childhood roots and making reading a hobby again, and not let school ironically choke the fun out of casual reading anymore.

Local Independent Musician Supporter label (4/10):

I went to Acoustic Explosion once. It was terrible.

I did go to a Greek festival in Salt Lake City. Dantzel and I soaked in the atmosphere and listened to their music as traditional Greek dancers performed their craft most eloquently. That was amazing.

After that, last Tuesday, Dantzel and I struggled to decide between skipping class to listen to a really talented girl sing and play in the Wilk or dutifully attending our physical science lecture (the latter finally won out).

Other than that, I haven't really done much except listen to my roommate Jason every now and then jam something out of the guitar or piano. It's pretty cool having him as a roommate sometimes. Every now and then, he plays soft jazz on the piano while Dantzel and I dance, sway and sashay through the kitchen and living room.

I have had plenty of opportunity to complete this requirement, so I have no excuse. There seems to be something going on every weekend, either a festival or fair or something. Last weekend, there was a bluegrass festival! And I didn't go. There was an acoustic guitar festival! And I didn't attend. Granted, this is the season of birthdays for Dantzel's family, so our weekends have been fairly occupied. But I suppose we could try harder in this area.

Total Score: 16/50

So all in all, definitely room for improvement. My most recent blog entries have certainly reflected it. Ever since returning from Korea, there hasn't seem to been much to blog about. Or at least, if there was, no effort was really made to communicate this. In this, I will definitely try better.

There seems to be little accountability in my life - I say I'll do something, and then I'll never do it. So, in the coming weeks, I will try to write about the Mormon movies I had said I would see, as well as try to chronicle the more stranger things going on in my life. Though getting a desk job working in a cubicle doesn't really help with getting the creative juices flowing, or encountering strange things (except the computer programs we use. Talk about sloppy coding). I miss having jobs that usually entail more movement than the occasional swiveling of the chair and typing on the computer. But it certainly pays well!

Gah, I've become one of them.