The ONLY thing you will see today that has nothing to do with Miley Cyrus

I like disposable cameras.

(*half of the people reading this blog post scoff and mutter, "hipster," before continuing*)

I know, I know, cameras have come a long way since the dinosaurs, and we don't have to pay eight bucks to see our pictures anymore, but disposable cameras are by and large money well spent in my eyes. Not only do they capture the frame right away, but nobody can crowd around after the picture to see what they looked like. Nobody is going to "need to retake it" because their hair was screwed up, or their belt was hanging weird. You just snap the picture, and be on your way.

I think about the things I have actual pictures of-- like Disney World and Macinac Island from when I was a kid-- and how the actual, solid pictures of those events seem to have engrained the memories associated with them in physical form, instead of on a tiny screen, and I can't help but wonder why we stopped doing that. It's like we forgot how much fun it is to reminisce.  Now we just see the picture right away ("Oh hey! Two seconds ago!") and blast it on the internet right then. Is that what memories are now? I mean, seriously, when I'm old and gray, Grampa JJ is NOT going to be sitting at a computer saying, "Hey kids, come gather around the Instagram to see these vintage photos of my childhood!"

I'm proud of the solid pictures I have. They're physical memories of the good times.

And right now? About to start my sophomore year at the University of Michigan, about to be working two jobs ($$), about to go on road trips and snowboard trips and Canada trips with my best friends... These ARE the good times. These are the memories I want to have in a picture book on the coffee table in the family room when I have one. These are the memories I want stuck to my fridge with a little camera magnet.

I'm going to Michigan Adventure tomorrow, moving into my first apartment on Friday, and going to Canada for my 19th birthday on Sunday. Michigan is playing Notre Dame for what may very well be the LAST TIME EVER under the lights next week. Six of my favorite bands are playing at the same concert in a little over a month, and a Macinac Island road trip is looking more and more likely every day.

You can be damn sure I'm gonna have a disposable camera through all of that.

And when all of it is over, and the pictures are developed, there will be a stack of never before seen, brand new photographs to open. You get together with your friends, you sit around with some music, and you open it to the laughter of "Oh God, my hair!" and "What were we even doing in this?" until the pictures become memories and the memories become stories all in the same night.

Best part? The imperfections don't matter. You could have the worst picture of everybody in the room, and it wouldn't matter. Upon opening the pack, every picture is already a fond memory. Every picture is already perfect.

Random Thoughts That Made My Day Much Better

• Every time you pull over to let an ambulance or a firetruck to pass, you're potentially helping save somebody's life.
• In "The Legend of Korra," the main plot is that the "Equalists" are trying to eradicate bending, but the city's power supply depends on firebenders shooting lighting into generators. In giving into their jealousy, they're destroying a perfect, non-polluting, renewable resource. The real victory at the end of the first season is that Korra prevented the ravaging of the world's nonrenewable resources, and, even more importantly, prevented the rise of hardcore environmentalists.
• There's a lot of truth to the statement that you have more privacy with fewer windows. (this thought popped into my head when my mac wouldn't connect to the internet)
• My Econ teacher waited until after people left class during the first break to do a random attendance check. The students who left/didn't show up will lose points. This will help me on the curve.
• You know how people point out clouds that resemble things ("that cloud looks like a flower!)? The same can be done with cotton candy.
• The guy in the 7-11 on south forest avenue and the lady at the 7-11 on morton taylor recognize me.

A Lot Can Happen in 72 Hours

If you're a contributing member of society, or if you're at least contributed to in society, then you probably know that this past weekend was a pretty big deal to the non-orthodox Christian portion of the aforementioned society. Sunday was Easter, the day that we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ with an egg-laying bunny, as well as ham and scalloped potatoes (if you're in the "my immediate family" portion of society). Lemme tell you what that means to me:

Easter is the third day of a Triduum, which begins on Holy Thursday, when Jesus was arrested, and including Good Friday, when Jesus was convicted and then died for our sins (not tragedies). Then, on Easter, Jesus rises from the dead. There's a whole lot about that whole story and everything that happened there and symbolism and other stuff like that, but I don't want to get into all of that because it has nothing to do with what I'm talking about.

All you need to know is this scripture verse:

"Jesus answered them, 'Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.'" - John 2:19

It's a metaphor for Easter, but more importantly, it's a lesson for absolutely everybody, including the non-christian and non-religious portions of society: A LOT CAN HAPPEN IN THREE DAYS.

Now that we're getting into April, we're getting dangerously close to the three year anniversary of the worst day of my life. April 14, 2010 was one of those just plain awful days where everything goes wrong. It was the culmination of a particularly crappy month, and ended up being a snapping point for my mental stability. I hit a low that I've never returned to, and it absolutely wrecked me. It even carried over to the next day. That next day was another AWFUL day, just throwing my emotions all over the place. The day after that was just as bad, and I was beginning to wonder why I was even trying anymore.

The day after that, Saturday, April 17, 2010 was one of the best days I've had in my entire life.

All it took was three days for everything to completely turn around.

That's why, when I was having mental breakdowns three days ago because of how stressful Monday and Tuesday were going to be, I was able to calm down. Because I knew that everything would be better on the third day, Wednesday.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that Jesus just takes 3 days to respond to our emails (but seriously dude, get broadband or something), and I'm not saying that all of your problems are just going to disappear in 3 days. I'm saying that if things are going wrong, the best thing to do is wait. Time has a way of healing you and bringing you back to life.

And for those of us who are religious, just remember: The body has been called a temple of the Holy Spirit. You are a temple. So if you're ever feeling completely destroyed, just remember:

Jesus can rebuild a temple in just three days.

HAPPY 50 DAYS OF EASTER!

A White Christmas, a White New Years, and a White Martin Luther King Day

Al primer, I'm finding it very difficult to think in English right now, as I went to bed thinking in spanish last night and immediately began thinking in spanish this morning when I realized that I had slept through my despertador and only had 15 minutos to get to mi classe de español.

Que fastidioso.

Snow is a horrible, horrible thing. For those of you from the south, I hope you never experience it. For those of you from the south who are currently at the same school as me, wow, that really sucks, but stop complaining because it only makes it worse for the rest of us. For those of you from Canada, you can probably skip this blog because you probably already know what I'm going to say, and y'all have it way worse anyways..

Or you can stay. It's your choice, really.

Things snow is good for:

• A White Christmas and a couple of days around it are acceptable as well.
• Building snowmen, making snow angels, sledding, snowball fights, and the occasional writing of names. cough.
• Snowboarding and skiing, I guess, but... whatever
• ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ELSE

Snow is cold, wet, torture to drive through, capable of causing pain, capable of whiting out your vision (though with no damage to your retinas, that's a nice touch), and did I mention FREEZING, IT'S FROZEN, IT'S COLD FREAKING FROZEN.

Otra vez, QUE FASTIDIOSO

Movies always show snow as these big flakes of soft, powdery-looking material that's fun to jump in and throw around and roll in in jeans and a sweatshirt with a scarf and a hat, and whenever I see one of these movies I'm sitting here like GO TO FREAKING MICHIGAN (or Canada, I respect you guys) AND TRY THAT YOU IGNORANT TWAT. For real, these people don't know what snow is. Do you know what happens when you roll around in snow? you get really, really wet. Especially if you're wearing a sweatshirt. Do you know what happens next? the 10 degree breeze picks up, gives you a wind chill (a phrase which is apparently not taught in California) of like negative thirty, you freeze your balls off and end up with frost bite which never goes away. Or so I've been told.

While, yes, sledding and snowboarding are fun, and there's novelty in snow angels, snowball fights, and snowmen, and skiing, snow really really sucks.

I've used boldface font a lot in this post. wow.

In a perfect world, we would have a nice white christmas, those couple of weeks off of school would be "national snowboarding fortnight," and then we'd return to our nice warm weekends for the other 11 and a half months of the year. But no, we can't have that in Michigan. We get 5 months of snowy desolate wasteland and another 7 of road construction. WE CAN'T WIN!

Basically, this blog post is a petition to God to change weather patterns and give us that "snowboarding fortnight" I was talking about in the last paragraph. And I wanted to complain about snow, even though I explicitly told all of you southerners not to do that. I guess I'm kind of a hypocrite. Oh well.

Number of times I wanted to type "nieve" instead of "snow" in this post: 91480357094123785