Onward, Upward

Check out my new blog, "Onward, Upward." Its basically just an outlet for me to ramble about things I have been doing lately, I am trying to leave the more profound...or at least deeper, stuff for this site. Anyway here's the link: http://jonisonwardupward.blogspot.com/

2007 Review

So as 2007 is at an end, I thought it only appropriate to list some favorites from the past year. (Admittedly, I stole the idea entirely from my friend Nate, but, as they say, emulation is the most sincere form of flattery.) So here it is, may 2008 hold even greater adventures.

Favorite Times (In no particular order)

-Seven-
Airports


This summer I spent more time hanging around and sleeping in airports than I ever had before. I found that the best airports to sleep in are O’Hare and Newark, both have seats that you can fit under or in between, and neither seem to care if you are taking up a huge amount of space as you sleep. I took a few red-eye’s, spent hours on layovers, threw up constantly while in Heathrow (London), I spent a lot of time lost in Newark, and barely made it on time to a few connecting flights. All in all, I came to really enjoy being in airports and dread it at the same time because it meant the end of one adventure and the beginning of another.

-Six-
Getting a tattoo from a shady guy in Budapest


This is one of those experiences I only need to have once. It reads, Ego Sum Via Veritas Et Vita, which, translated from Latin, means “I am the way the truth and the life.” Jesus said it, not me.

-Five-
Toga Riders for Life!


On a whim, rode around Boston in a Toga for six hours with some new international friends. We made a lot of enemies among the drivers we encountered, but had an unforgettable blast.

-Four-
Staying in Boston, in New York City, and at NY cabin




Time at these three locations was crazy and amazing. I made friends I never thought I would and saw beauty in so many ways. The wisdom and goodness of people I met was unforgettable and never ceased to amaze me. Everywhere I went I met good people who offered me whatever they had in return for nothing. I remember with particular fondness a great conversation had on the steps of the chapel in the middle of Harvard’s campus, pancake making in the wee hours of the morning, incredible meals and hospitality in New York along with a great few hours spent with an old friend walking the streets of New York and talking about life, and the sweet and perfect serenity of the cabin and lake in the mountains in New York.

-Three-
Czech Republic


Beautiful country, wonderful people. This trip was one of my all-time favorites.

-Two-
Budapest




From surveying the city to cramming in a phone booth with six other people to enjoying a cup of coffee on the street, Budapest was an incredible place with so much to offer. We took a night cruise down the Danube river that was beautiful and unforgettable. Sitting at the rear of the boat watching the lighted city float by and talking with friends about life; that’s about as perfect as it gets.

-Two-
Sitting, Smoking and Talking on the Fisherman’s Bastion


Also in Budapest, from my perch in the window of one of these spires I could see the entire city of Budapest lit at night, glowing back at me. I would bring my pipe and tobacco to this point every night and quietly smoke while talking with whomever came with me. Again, serene, lasting memories made here.

-One-
Living at West Point


Living, eating, sleeping, and talking with the cadets at West Point was an awesome experience. The beauty of the place combined with the awesome combined intellect of the conference participants produced a really interesting time. I had never lived in a castle(ish) place, and had never been around such a beautiful place during the fall. I wish I had better pictures of this, but I lost every one I took due to a camera mix up...

Climbing

I've been climbing recently. Literally and figuratively, I guess. I once heard someone say that we become the things we do, so, taking that sentiment to heart, I have recently spent some time investing in things that I really want to be a part of my life. I have been painting, songwriting, reading, singing, writing, biking, and now, climbing. Rock climbing is something that I have always wanted to try, but never had the chance to do outside of a gym. So, in the last week I have been twice, once to Queen Creek Canyon and once to the Praying Monk on Camelback Mountain. I will be the first to admit that I have faced easier tasks. Each expedition forced me far from the comfort of my usual thinking chair at home, and each left me with a feeling of elation upon reaching the end of the climb alive. Here are a few pictures of me climbing the cliffs at Queen Creek Canyon:




And here are a couple from the Praying Monk climb:



Sitting atop these peaks its impossible not to marvel at the simple beauty all around. Its strange to think that these rocks have been around for years prior to my existence, and will still be around years after. Every time I reach the top of one such peak, (only three times thus far, I might add) I have a mixed feeling of terror due to the imminent repel back to earth, and freedom at being so high, so untouched by the world and its busyness.

Anyway, life is uncertain. It always has been, but somehow I feel it more now that I am out of school. It's a funny, restless, feeling that I get all the time. Its as if I am itching to leave, to do something that hasn't been done, but at the same time I have so much commitment here, so much holding me to the grindstone. I feel like so much of what I hear is wrong, is unadulterated groupthink, as if it were a traveling salesman asking me to subscribe to some magazine or something. "Just sign on the dotted line and you will get 24 free issues of Status Quo magazine." In other words, I'm afraid that life will become static. The more I am confronted with this the more I realize that my spirit is not conducive to such subverted living.

Graduate

So I graduated today. I took my last final a few days ago, and things went a little different than I had expected. I figured that the last day of college, this wild 4.5 year experiment, would end with some sort of fanfare, or cosmic boom, or at least something climactic. But to my surprise, after I finished my final, nothing happened. No band played. No celestial voice from heaven said, “this is my son, of whom I am well pleased” as I had expected. There was just silence. The weight of what had just happened began to set in, but still nothing happened. I stepped outside, the birds were still chirping, the sun still shone, students still walked from here to there, not one person stopped to say “wow man, you look different, you look like a college grad, an educated man of the world!” So I walked around outside for a minute, and thought out loud, “boy, life sure is a son-of-a-bitch!” I soon tempered myself, and walked back to my car in an uneventful, anticlimactic, bitter huff of sorts. So I began to think, and it helped me to think of life not so much as a series of sudden, life-altering events, but more as a sort of continuous, fluid thing. Like life is just meant to go from one thing to the next without seeming like the death of one thing leads to the life of another. I have this friend, and she has always been kind of crazy, nothing has ever stopped her from doing whatever weird or crazy things she has wanted to do. I just talked to her today after she got back from a trip to Australia, and she was telling me about how excited she was about graduating soon and moving to California where she plans to get married. I told her that I thought it was funny how different our respective ideologies were, about how unnerving the future is for me. Then she just told me, in this super matter-of-fact way, that she loves change, and wouldn’t have it any other way. It makes me wonder what it takes for someone to get into that mindset, to be willing to go anywhere or do anything at a moment’s notice. To, in a way, live without fear. Well there is no doubt about it, this is a new, scary phase of life for me. And now that college is behind me, there is only the future, the distant unknown. Well, here is to the future, whatever it may hold, may they be great things, and may they be things that will light some fire deep within my soul.

Steroid Video

A project for school, supposedly informing students about the dangers of steroids...I'm not sure if we accomplished that, but we did get an A!

The Academy and The Score

Ah, what a few weeks it has been. After waiting three weeks to get my LSAT score back I finally got it, and happily I found that I didn’t do terribly. Turns out I got a 155, which really isn’t as good as I wanted to do, but about as good as I deserved given my relatively short period of studying. But the great thing is that its over, this dark cloud of a thing is gone and can rain on someone else. Hooray. Another great opportunity that came recently into my life was an ASU sponsored trip to West Point Military Academy in New York for a conference on ethics. The invitation came as a surprise to me, and I had to compete against 18 others in an essay-writing contest for the spot, but eventually I got the nod and was on my way to New York for some time with America’s future military leaders. The conference was great, I lived with one of the cadets in one of the barracks in the heart of West Point, which looks just like a giant castle. The amount of discipline in their lives is really incredible to see, as I had the pleasure of waking up with them at 6am to the sound of “reveille” being played on the trumpet outside our window. From there, almost their entire days were planned out, minute-by-minute, with very little time for fun. Needless to say, it was a bit different than my life. Every freshman called me “sir,” which was nice, and we all ate at the same time in a giant 4,000 person dining hall which seemed to be straight from a Harry Potter movie. During the day I attended seminars and talked about everything from economics to business to philanthropy. We heard from military generals, news correspondents, and professional mountain climbers. It really was a good time. Oh, and on a side note, I made a fool of myself in front of ABC news’ Chief White House Correspondent, which wasn’t one of my better moments I will admit.

I suppose what I will most take away from that conference, other than the ideas and good debate that was had, will be the cadets I met at the Academy. Each of the people I got to know well are in their senior year, and each of them will be serving for 15 months as an officer in Iraq within the year. It was riveting to talk with them about how they feel about going to war, about commanding men, and about our country and their duty. It was interesting for me to learn that the most requested position within the cadets at West Point is that of infantryman. When I asked why, my roommate simply shrugged and told me that he and his fellow cadets wanted to prove to themselves that they had what it took, that they could fight for a cause that they didn’t necessarily believe in. Wow, I thought to myself. I told him that I didn’t know how anyone could deal with that amount of pressure, and he just shrugged again and went back to reading his book. So I am glad that there are people who are braver than me, who feel called to serve in hostile places, even if they can’t articulate just why.

So in short, life is good, I am almost out of college, which isn’t my favorite place to be, but I look forward to seeing what will happen next in my unpredictable life.

The day before

Today is the day before the big day, which makes today the day that I hate almost as much as I will hate tomorrow. In a way I dread it and in a way I look forward to it, like the way a man who knows he will be sentenced by a jury just wants to hear the verdict, to get it over with, whether the outcome is favorable or not. Enough waiting, the day of reckoning is here. Ok, maybe I shouldn’t be so dramatic, “reckoning” is a bit much, but still I feel like I am sitting in a courtroom waiting to hear the jury’s verdict, to have them tell me whether or not I add up.

Its ridiculous, I know, to place my worth into a standardized test, to somehow associate my ego with how well I do or don’t do on this thing. I can’t tell you how many times I have told myself that. Either way I am still me, still flesh, bone, spirit. But there is something in me, some subtle beast of a thing that whispers quietly in my ear lies and deceit. Its as if part of me wants to fail just to prove its false point. I find that you can shout truth all you want and not quiet that small voice that whispers lies. But that’s what they are, lies, and I have power over them.

I have spent the better part of the last two and a half months studying for this thing. Countless hours denied to my friends, family, and girlfriend and instead devoted to a test. A stupid test. I don’t mean to sound like I am complaining, I have no problem with working hard for something, in fact, I have enjoyed some aspects of this study because it has forced me to work harder for something that I have done in recent memory. I only say this because I want so badly for it all to pay off. But that’s not my call to make, its God’s, and it is all in his hands now. My future will always be with God, not myself, and I trust him with that. Am I scared? Yeah, terrified. But in 24 hours this thing will be done and I can move on to greener pastures. So glory to God, not to me. Whatever happens I want it to be his will. He has taken me this far, and he will be faithful to take me the rest of the way toward whatever destiny awaits me.