Normally I am not that into things like American Idol, but last night after work I caught the very end of it and was blown away by David Archuleta’s performance of “Imagine” by John Lennon.

It was really powerful.

I’m still sick.  It has been one week, and I am still sick.  And I can’t afford to be sick anymore.  It’s not fun.  Especially since I have no more Heroes episodes to watch.  (I watched all 23 hours of the first season while I was stuck in bed last weekend).  That is all.  (I just needed to complain a little before going to bed).

What a weekend.  I’m really sad that its over cause I feel like I missed it.  I’ve been sick with the flu for almost a week now.  Not fun.  I went to the doctor yesterday.  Apparently they have new anti-viral medicine that will knock out a flu, but they won’t give it to you unless you go to the doctor right away- like day 1 or 2 of being sick.  I waited too long.  Seriously, though, who goes to the doctor after being sick for one day?  Oh well.  Today I started feeling like I am getting better–enough to go to classes, but not enough to go to work.  I hope the rest of you enjoyed your weekend.  All of my big plans had to be postponed.  This does not make me happy.

I also hope you had a good Valentine’s Day.  I had a bunch of my friends who don’t have girlfriends over at my apartment.  We all celebrated our anti-girl attitudes while eating the authentic Chicago pizza that I made and watching Down With Love.  Good times.

Well, I should be paying attention to my Sociology lecture right now.  I just wanted to give a quick update.

Tonight I have a fallen in love.  I can’t hide it.  I can’t suppress it.  I can’t deny it.  I can’t shove it aside and try to live a life without it.  I have to shout it to the world.  I’m in love!  I’m in love!  We met at Maestro’s Gelato Cafe on center street in Provo.  It was love the moment I tasted it.  So dark.  So bitter.  So thick.  Yes, I am in love with European Drinking Chocolate.

“There’s only us; there’s only this. Forget regret, or life is yours to miss. No other road. No other way. No day but today.”

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I figured I was about due for another update.  Life is good.  I am back into the swing of things and have a routine again.  I started a job.  4:15 to 8:15 Monday through Friday.  I’m a custodian.  Hey, it pays the rent.  (well, it will start paying the rent in the spring).

A lot of people are blogging about politics.  I fear that the race for president has become a popularity contest and we will never have a capable president again.  I’m so jaded with President Bush, but I don’t think Kerry would have done any better.  Or Al’Gore.

I don’t like any of our candidates.  According to some research I’ve done, I actually agree most often with Mitt Romney’s platform, although it is the few points that I disagree with that are the most important issues to me right now.  People complain that he flip flopped.  I do too, although not because I think flip flopping is  wrong (I have changed my mind, and I hope politicians can change theirs too.  In fact, I think Ron Paul’s scariest flaw is his lack of change).  I complain because I liked him better before he flip-flopped.  I liked him better as a moderate who was slightly liberal on social issues and slightly conservative on fiscal issues.  I do not like the new conservative bigot Mitt.

None of the other Republican candidates do anything for me either, so that leaves me liking Hilary Clinton as my second choice.  She is better on those issues that I differ from Mitt on, although my biggest fear with Hilary is having more of the same Presidential families in the white house.  So far we’ve had 12 years with the Bush family, and 8 with the Clinton family.  Do we really want 24 years of having the same 2 families in the Oval Office?  That’s where Obama is nice, but he scares me because I don’t think he has any experience.  He sure is a nice talker, something that is a must have in my book after GW, but he’s never run an organization.  I don’t want a committee man as a President.

So if you don’t hear me blogging about politics over the next 10 months, it is because I am too fed up with all of our politicians.  I want them all to loose.  Maybe we should revolt and dissolve the office.  And the judicial system while we’re at it.  Reorganize the government!  Now that is something I could get passionate about.  Let’s start a revolution.

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“There’s only now; there’s only here.  Give in to love, or live in fear.  No other path.  No other way.  No day but today.”

I know I promised I would write the other day, but I ended up not being in a blogging mood.  Now, however, I am.  I was planning on tell you all about my awesome New Years, including a trip downtown to see Wicked with my dad.  It was amazing.  But now I just want to let you know about a good movie I saw tonight.  I saw Dan in Real Life.  It was such a good movie.  I loved how real it was.  It was hilarious, but so real.  None of the actors were incredibly hot or diva-ish.  Their interactions were so real I couldn’t believe how good the acting was.  Most of all, the protagonist was a jerk!  The protagonist was so real he did cruel things to people.  That’s the way it is in real life.  We are all jerks.  And I liked watching a movie where the protagonist is as bad as I am.

I have SO much to tell you.  I promise to write tomorrow.

“I’m staring out into the night, trying to hide the pain.  I’m going to the place where love and feeling good don’t ever cost a thing–and the pain you feel’s a different kind of pain” (Daughtry).

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Home doesn’t refer to what I might have thought it referred to, but this is a great song that seems to fit my mood right now.

Winter break is more than half way over now.  I have finally figured out my class schedule for next semester, and am looking at a few campus job openings that I will apply for tomorrow.  I have also decided that I will be sticking around BYU for the spring and summer terms.  Hopefully that will allow me to knock out a bunch of GE’s so I can focus on my art in the fall and graduate with a BFA in December of 2009.  I’m planning big and looking at masters programs after that.  I’m pretty excited about my future.

So, my public blogging has sucked lately, and perhaps this should go on my private blog, but I’ve been thinking about happiness.  We talk a lot about trying to find happiness and pursuing happiness and all that, but what is happiness?  It’s such an abstract concept I think we don’t even know what it is we are pursuing half the time.  I mean, when someone tickles me, I laugh and smile–even to the point of tears–but I’m really kinda irked.  So though I may look and seem happy, it’s not happiness, it’s just being tickled.  On the other hand, sometimes I am just sitting alone, or with a friend, thinking, and though I may be straight-faced or sleepy or pensive, I am happy.

For me, happiness is self-contentment, and it isn’t dependent on any external force.  If you are happy, then you don’t feel a need to prove your happiness to others.  In that sense it is very closely tied to security and self-esteem.  I also think that if you are happy you are happy regardless of what others do or say around you.  This is maybe what betrays most of the world.  I think too often we make our happiness conditional on others–a feeling of “I will be happy if or as long as so-and-so chooses this or that.”  Only you should be able to determine the things that make you happy.  Obviously there are things beyond our control that will make us sad.  A loved one dies or does something that hurts us.  But if we are truly happy, then we will be able to be happy in the long term independent of others.

I haven’t mastered the happiness game, but I can say that I’m happier now than I have ever been.  To some of the informed, that is too hard to believe.  Fine.  I don’t need to prove it to them, and I hope they will develop their own happiness despite me.  But don’t tell me that I don’t know what happiness is, because I do, now.  To be honest, sometimes I wonder why anyone wouldn’t want me to be feeling what I’m feeling because of how happy it makes me.  The question is, does happiness vindicate me?  (I just wanted to use that word because it’s so awesome).

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“I’m going home, back to the place where I belong, and where your love has always been enough for me.  I’m not running from–No, I think you got me all wrong.  I don’t regret this life I chose for me. But these places and these faces are getting old, So I’m going home” (Daughtry).

“Don’t know much about your life.  Don’t know much about your world, but don’t want to be alone tonight on this planet they call earth. . .”

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Merry Christmas neglected xangans!  I’m sorry I’ve been so scarce here on xanga.  I have just been involved in other things I guess.  I can’t believe a whole semester has passed since I got home from my mission.  I finally feel acclimated.  In some ways I have really changed a lot, but in other ways I am very much the same.  In any event, I am happy to be home for the holidays, even if only for 2 weeks.

Well, I hope this brief note finds you all doing well . . .

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“You don’t know about my past, and I don’t have a future figured out.  And maybe this is going too fast.  Maybe it’s not meant to last, but what do you say to taking chances?  What do you say to jumping off the edge?  Never knowing if there’s solid ground below, or hand to hold, or hell to pay, what do you say?  What do you say?” (Celine Dion).

Despite all the work I’ve had to do, I’ve been having a pretty good week.  Yesterday was great.  But this morning I had to wake up early again, and I was just so tired I didn’t want to get out of bed.  But I did.  And I skipped the shower to get a seat in my accounting lecture near an outlet for my laptop.  All the way to accounting I have been grumbling about how much I don’t want to be awake and going to accounting.  But then, just as my despair hightened and the Tanner Building loomed in my view, I saw a little table with free hot chocolate- complete with whipped cream.  It lifted my poor, tired, heavy heart and I felt a small glimpse of heaven.  I gained a little skip to my step.  I got my cup and to my surprise and pleasure the hot chocolate was perfect- not watery at all.  Of course the cream helped.  Now I am sitting in my lecture, enjoying a warm cup of cocoa and knowing that today is going to be a great day.

Thank you to Microsoft for providing the chocolate.  Maybe if this becomes a pattern I will rescind all the nasty things I have said about you.