“I signed you up!”

So far my life can be divided into several discernible chapters. Some of them have a predictable beginning and end, others transfer rather abruptly. My teen years were mediocre. I was involved in Boy Scouts and youth group, those were my primary social outlets because I was homeschooled. When I was 17 my mom said “I signed you up for Running Start, you begin classes in September!” and with that a new chapter was abruptly announced. That was 17 years ago, now I am in a transitional chapter that I hope will end as soon as possible.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/abrupt/

Wasted Years

There are many points in my life that are easy to romanticize about. Some of those points are well defined periods with a definitive beginning and end though often overlap. Notable examples would be my first Boy Scout troop, my second troop, my youth group, and my time at junior college. Each one were great in there own way, but the people of the collective experience move on and it becomes time for me to as well. Sometimes I look back and wish I could go back, but I realize that those days are over and that all there is to it. Besides all of those times had downsides. Honestly the most fulfilling time in my life is right now.

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/salad-days/

Disrupting the Flow

Sometimes I wish I could go back to relive my years in Boy Scouts, not sure whether I would prefer to do that with my first Troop or my second. Those were good times when I always had something to look forward to and I didn’t have any real worries or responsibilities. While sometimes I wish I could go back, I know that I can’t because those days are over. As for things I wish I could change, I have many regrets in life but I would change anything. For one, nothing I have done was so bad that I feel like I need to change it to alter the repercussions. I’m also not aware of anything that I didn’t do that I really, really, should have done; granted I do have a few should-have-could-have-would-haves. Another reason why I have no desire to go back and alter anything is that it could serious screw up the course that time has already taken, and have adverse effects. I know that’s a cliché, but its too true. I’m an ardent believer in chaos theory, so I tend to think anything that happens will have rippling effects whether we can observe them or not.

Here is a good video about chaos theory (embedding was disabled for it): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2014/04/01/prompt-turn-back-time/

It Began At a Boy Scout Meeting

My original troop had dissolved around 2007 so I wasn’t active for a couple years. One day in 2009 decided to check out the other non Mormon troop that was active in town. I met my best friend on that first meeting. It was an unremarkable introduction, but that was the circumstance that we met in. Just like pretty much any other friend I have met. I am often percieved to be shy and even antisocial, but I’m not; it’s just that it can take me a while to open up around people I have just met. After a few meetings we were pretty much friends, and over the next few years we went on many camping trips, hikes, parades, fundraisers, urban outings, video game conventions, and all manner of other activities.

As we aged out of Boy Scouts and our Venture Crew turned out to be a “attend pointless meetings club” we started hanging out less and less. Now we haven’t seen eachother in person for over a year. We still texted fairly often, until around last November when he mysteriously stopped returning my texts. At first I just thought that was odd, but my mind resorted to wild speculation as time went on. Eventually it reached to point where I was wondering if maybe he had died somehow and I had not been informed. That was enough to scare me out of calling his home phone, when I did back in January it turned out his phone broke and he couldn’t get a new one. Now I call him from time to time. Most friends I lose contact with and that’s that, but not with him. In fact, he’s one of the only people I know in real life who actually reads my blog. Every once in a while I will tell people that I have a blog but hardly anyone asks where they can find it, let alone has actually visited it.

Best friend, you know who you are. You’ve been a good friend to me, and that means something.

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2014/03/13/prompt-something-so-strong/

No need for that silliness

For the most part I am totally comfortable with public speaking. All it takes is for me to know what I am going to say ahead of time. Even when put on the spotlight unexpectedly, I will improvize and have faith in my performance. Whatever the circumstance that I am speaking, I have never found it neccessary to picture them naked or any other cheezy ass “method” like that. I earned my Public Speaking merit badge in Boy Scouts, which was probably one of the easiest ones I ever earned; granted I did not earn that many. Every time a do a public speech I am given compliments and often praise for my performance, which is why I am totally at peace when presenting.

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2013/09/18/daily-prompt-public/

The Life and Times of djgarcia94

First of all, let me make it clear that NOBODY (except for maybe some very kind friends and family) would want to watch a movie about my life. My life as I have had it so far, anyway; who knows what may happen down the road. I challenge you to find something that would be film worthy:

I lived in Japan until I was six, which was far too young for me to know the difference between there and America; living on a US Army base especially blurred that. I actually did some modeling for Japanese magazines as they have a big demand for gaijin children so readers will want to get these clothes because Americans supposedly wear them. The first few years following my family’s return to Washington is excrutiatingly dull. After then I was involved with Boy Scouts for several years. My original troop dissolved because my dad was the scoutmaster but he got deployed to Iraq and there was no one to replace him. That was followed by a few years where I was very lonely and depressed much of the time, most of my time was spent playing PC games. Then I joined another troop and while it was very rewarding it would make a horrible movie.

The last few years have been a bit more film worthy. My time at junior college was much like my time in the second troop I was in. I won far more accolades though. I have allready blogged quite a bit about my time in Costa Rica and Montana, so click on those catagories if you want to know more about all that. Here I am now, I have left my Theological literature class and am killing time until my African Civilization class. Every hour seems like a juggle between reading Boethius, Gogol, and the Epic of Sundiata.

If anyone could make a rough concept of adapting any of these events into a film I will be highly impressed.

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2013/08/28/daily-prompt-superstar/

I’m Back

Just returned home a few hours ago. Disneyland was very nice, I’m glad I decided to go (I had had prior arrangements but those didn’t work out). I was sweating for much of the time even though the sun wasn’t too hot, but it was much hotter than I’m used to in Washington. Waiting in line wasn’t as bad as I thought, on the other hand I don’t do rollarcoasters so I didn’t have to wait for Splash Mountain which takes like an hour of waiting. The range of rides I can handle are limited, the fastest thing I could go on was the Pirates of the Caribbean ride which had two or three fast drops. I steered clear of the Tea Cups, I probably would have puked on the Mad Hatter. I went on them at Disneyland Tokyo when my family lived in Japan during the 90’s (no, I don’t speak Japanese), and I can still remember how sick I got. For the rest of the time I went on stuff like It’s A Small World Afterall and the Pinocchio ride. While on the former I played a game of “count the obsolete ethnic stereotypes” and lost track before leaving the first room; taking two Sociology courses makes you do stuff like that. The fez is so pre Mustafa Ataturk.

If there is one thing I am troubled by it is the increase of corporate oligopoly, and no where is it more blatant at Disneyland. For those of you who didn’t hear, Disney purchased LucasArts a couple of months ago, effectively annexing Star Wars and Indiana Jones into the Magic Kingdom. There was always the Star Tours attraction, but now Star Wars merchandising is everywhere and TomorrowLand may as well be called “Galaxy Far, Far Way.” Even more disturbing was a poster for Stark Industries from Iron Man, a quick web search revealed Disney also owns Marvel. But hey, I had a fun time with my family and it’s easy to see how Disney got so damn rich.

We didn’t land in LAX or go through Los Angeles, so we didn’t see that many interesting figures. One that I did see was a guy outside Disneyland with a sign rambling about “sexual perversion” and “corporate greed.” The latter makes perfect sense, but I’m not sure what sexual perversion would be associated with Disney. Most likely the picketeer was one of those people who can look hard enough and find phallic towers in the Little Mermaid and S E X written in the night sky on the Lion King. People will believe anything about Disney: http://www.snopes.com/disney/disney.asp

Overall I had a really good time and it was a great vacation.