I believe in the Loch Ness Monster.

It's about to get personal up in this blog.
I will probably go on for a while, so I'm going to put the music up top. Under normal circumstances, from here on out I will include some music to spread the gospel that is my taste. Only I intend to put it at the end, like a dessert.


It's trance, so it's repetitive.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sssyDl5Xjdc


If you don't like it, this is my favorite Rise Against song.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94vo6NzQD5c


I put up a Rise Against song because they're all hardline.


I live my life according to what I see as being in accord with God's will. Mostly I struggle with knowing what that will is, or how I ultimately fit into it.
Hardline is a term I hadn't heard until I wikipedia'd rise against because I liked their music. Apparently its a stricter offshoot of Straight Edge, which seems to be living what seems to be a logical and upstanding life. No drugs, no alcohol, no promiscuity. The whole hardline/straightedge scene looked really punk/emo to me. So I don't label myself, besides, I hate labels.


If anything, it's good to know people outside Christianity can appreciate morality. It is surprising how many people, most of an age with myself, have little to no sense of it. Hedonistic bohemian pleasure-seekers. Epicureanism (Eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we die) is borderline rampant, and there's little to no way to refute something like that without spirituality. I'm glad that some people are good for goodness' sake. It's something I strongly believe in, only my justification is primarily obedience.


However, I respect and sympathize with a lifestyle centered around morality, and, I imagine, even were I not a christian I would still hold this view. It's something I've tried to base my life entirely on, and is something that is seldom, and I may argue never, rewarded.
I guess, what I'm getting at is that it was cool to find out that there was a name for something that I was a part of without really knowing.


Now, I'm going to reveal something I wrote.. a month or so ago.
I get in ruts consistently and try to verbally cathart (there's my made up word again) my way out of them.
So I was dealing with my life's direction and this is what came out:


I am 21. I graduate College with a B.A. in History Education this May.
I would like to teach at a Middle School, grade 6~8, (~American) History.
I would like to pursue my master’s degree while I taught school over 3 years.
At some point between now and the end of those three years…
I would like to fall in Love, but it is not a requirement.
I would like to continue teaching for an undisclosed period of time. 
I would like to get a doctoral degree, perhaps through taking summer classes over that length of time.
I would like to eventually teach at the collegiate level. Perhaps in a purely historical field, or perhaps in the field of education.
I would like to die before I become feeble.
I would like to have at least one daughter. And an undefined amount of grandchildren.
I would like to have written at least one book. Its being popular is not a requirement.
I would like to have been mostly happy.


There we go.
It gets selfish around the last third, but basically I wanted to outline what I was aiming for in my future.
Points of interest:
I'd like to fall in love.
I want as much education as conceivably possible.
I am (detrimentally?) introspective.


It seems simple to me, but maybe it's more complex than I think, which is why it's so difficult.


I was listening to Keane today. Aside from a lot of their lyrics having atheistic tones, I like almost everything about them. They play without a guitarist, they play with a pianist, and their lyrics resonate with me the more I listen to them.


The first time I heard their album Hopes and Fears, I immediately knew it was one of my favorites. Over time different songs became my favorite on the album, its hard not to love 'Somewhere Only We Know', but I particularly like 'She Has No Time', and 'Bedshaped'. Perhaps next blog I will feature some Keane, in fact, that's a promise. Along with a big blurb about why that song rocks.


As I mentioned, Keane songs resonate within me. In high school I took the lyrics way different than I do now. The lyrics to 'Somewhere Only We Know' seem, now, to be more about the remorselessness of time.


Time for a poem.


It was your laugh.
You had such a serious face
But when you smiled
It was as bright as an angel's

Im no older than I was then.
But I know, more than before
That you complete my soul.

It may be naïve to believe
In the beauty that was we.
But were true love veracity
Then you, were meant for me.




Not my most eloquent, but it has a flow and tone I guess I like.