Breakthrough Week

That crazy man inside of me is dancing in African fashon while laughing manically.

Anyways,

The most daunting thing that has been looming over me all week has been schoolwork. Not just keeping up with the curricculum, but also maintaining the grades that I want. I have not been taking care of Keenan very well emotionally about this, and I apologize, buddy.

Today was Government crackdown day. The mental image of that sentence just sprung up after typing that... wayyyy too much Les Miserables....

Did a lot of catch up work in the class, and got it all caught up to date! I'm using a new note-taking strategy: Outlining! It's not useful only for essay writing; I realize that the Roman Numberal, Uppercase Letter, Number, Lowercase letter system is useful for just about anything that takes some preparation and organization. And so my Government notes needed to be. I found this technique to be very useful when I did my Biology crackdown yesterday. My past strategy was, I admit, no strategy at all. I am so grateful that God sends me new ways of organizing my terribly chaotic brain now and then.

Another study tip I've learned from experience: you MUST keep the curricculum interesting. Otherwise it's boring. I sometimes try self-psych on myself when I feel mentally distracted. "Come on, Keenan. This is FASCINATING!" And it works, if ya do it right.

I must say, using this new system made the learning experience more fun as well as making it more enriching. The thing that really stumped me after studying all day was that I got an 80% on the test I had been studying for. But instead of stressing out, I felt very calm and peaceful inside. The feeling inside of me, if put into words, would be "Keenan, that's just a grade, be still. You learned more today than you usually do; it's okay, really." It was a very comforting feeling.

I have come upon a scripture that has become a very useful weapon against my chronic inadequacy disorder: "Look unto me in every thought, doubt not, fear not."-D&C 6:36
It's a simple metaphysical sheild that can be used to defend against anything, really. Evil thoughts, physical pain, emotional pain, anger, despair, and honestly any other trial I can think of.
This is my most favorite scripture.

With those most important things down, I will proceed with the journal entries:

Monday (2/14)
Ah yes; Valentine's Day! I sure had a fun time today! We exchanged some cards and ate chocolate in our immediate famliy, but other than that it was a pretty normal day. With the exception of the serenading surprise, that is.

The day before this Monday, mom came up with a wonderful plan. You see, Fa and Carmen don't celebrate Valentine's day in the countries they are from, so she wanted me to do something special for them. She wanted me to call up some guy friends, drive to their house on Valentine's day (they are both residing at the Wright's house), and sing them some classic barbershop tunes!

With the help of Anthony, Jefferson, and Calvin (good ol' Jarvies: can always call on them for just about ANYTHING), we executed mother's plan today. Sister Wright answered the door, and then went to find Carmen and Fa. Once they appeared we initiated our strain of "Falling in Love With You", to which both of them hid behind the door in response. They listened to our song, once in awhile subtly peeking from behind the door. It was like Christmas caroling, only better! I think I may have to make this a tradition... only to do it on a number of girl's houses!

Tuesday (2/15)
More school, stress, and frantically trying to contact William and the rest of the guys concerning Wednesday's activity. Nothing extremely unusual to report other than that. Oh, I really liked Ms. Board's thought for the day today: "If you could carry on for a month without finding fault in others or saying anything negative, could you do it?" I think I'll take on her challenge this coming March; give me a bit of time to practice...

This evening I came to visit the Brinkerhoffs concerning the Music Merit Badge and the Personal Management Merit Badge. We had a great time seeing each other again; I miss seeing Sister Brinkerhoff for morning seminary. I guess I forgot how amazingly sparky-happy-crazy-grandma-y she is. Oh, and Sister Adams! SISTER ADAMS......................... Musically excellent, quiet, short, white haired, blue eyed, bundle of spiritual strength... sometimes wore pink...

Where was I?

Oh yeah, the merit badges. Well, Sister Brinkerhoff signed off the music one, and Brother Brinkerhoff signed off the PM one after I showed him a few things. He's a cool guy, and so is his family! I don't know the rest of his children that well, but I know of his youngest one: Kameron. He is the most intelligent child prodigy I have ever personally known. He's just in his first year of BYU before his mission; has a vision of being a chemical engineer. Kameron's a great role model to me.

They had a Leahona and a Sword of Laban in their living room, which I got to weild! Just a for-fun side note there.

Wednesday (2/16)
This day was filled with more frantic school-stuff and phone calling. Once again, Heavenly Father made everything work out for tonight!

We started our activity by meeting in the hall with the guys. We all brought a little bit of money, and then went to the store. At Albertsons we bought pasta, chicken, cream of chicken, milk, and cheddar. Then we drove to Brother Ledesma's house and turned what we had into a delicious Chicken Tetrazzini. I feel like expressing how yummy it was in Italian, but I don't know any Italian phrases longer than one word off of the top of my head... yet. It was a simple grey-yellow sauce that was served on sphagetti.

As we made and ate the Tetrazzini, I had a great time getting to know the guys in our new Varsity troop better. William, the Assistant Varsity Leader, was the main instructor tonight, and taught all the basics of cooking. With Anthony around, laughter was naturally a big part of the conversation. The most hilarious joke that was the ongoing story of what Jefferson puts in his daily protein shake. "Some milk, protein powder, a handful of nails, a couple of baby birds- I mean eggs!" It got so rediculously extreme that he advanced to say, "he doesn't just get the milk; he blends in the whole cow! Also, he'll throw in a couple of North Valley Knights, AND their horses. AND their armor." (North Valley High School is HV's rival, and where my dad used to work before he was moved to teach at the new alternative center!)

The thing about Anthony's jokes is that he simply DOESN'T STOP. Even as we were driving home he would continue the list of things that were found in Jefferson's protein drink. "A baby kangaroo..."

Good old Calvin; he's a great guy too. Plans on being a Judge someday, and has big dreams of eventually becoming a Professor of Law at BYU. I wish him well, and I'll keep his name in mind when I get into the politics scene...

Thursday
The HV district had a 6-day weekend; Henry and Gretel stayed home today. It snowed this morning, which was a very fun thing to wake up to indeed. I slept in WAY too much; my body clock has been a wreck for these past few days. It's terrible to see what no-seminary does to ya, eh?

I've started a new guitar song called Tears in Heaven by Eric Clapton.

Loughlin Garner (1993-2008) is a cousin of mine who I'm certain is currently working in the spiritual world. This song was sung by my father at his funeral, with a few lyric modifications by Loughlin's mom. Though I only saw him at family reunions, I look back now and realize what an amazing young man he is. I hope that I will have his song mastered by this coming September: his 18th birthday.

Friday (2/18)
Today I slept in again, and was awoken by my mother at 9, asking if I would like to go to the YMCA with her. She left the room, and I prayed whether it would be better for me to sleep more or to go to the YMCA. I was answered with the latter, and so I went.

I have been showing no mercy to my knees at all. Hard jog, hard jog, HARD jog. Today, I used a bike machine instead so I could read 7 Habits while exercising. I haven't been continuing this book for a long time now because of its structure. The first three Habits focus on Personal Victory, or internal conflict resolve. You MUST have your true values defined, goals set, and priorities scheduled in order to achieve optimal success in relationships and teams. When I read these beginning chapters, I could see in myself a lot of room for improvement. And so I put the book down for awhile and tried to work on these core parts of my character. Months later, I now feel like I've come to a slightly higher level of personal development. And so I feel a bit safer about reading on. It was a great workout.

Also on that day I had the chance to job-shadow Uncle Mark partially for my Engineering MB and partially for self-enrichment. He got to give me the grand tour of the small radio company he works for. The main chunk of information I got from the visit is this: radio tech is VERY complicated. But it looked like the sort of thing you could have a ton of fun with if you knew what you were doing. My most favorite part was meeting their graphic designer Dave who made the radio-designs on his computer. The software he was using looked very complicated, while looking like a ton of fun at the same time.

I'm thinking of job shadowing a bureaucrat in our ward next. Might as well get a taste in everything, right?

Saturday (1/19)
Like I said before, today was a Government crackdown day. Oh hang on, let me explain something...

On Wednesday I brought all of my snow-camping gear to Brother Johnson for the routine inspection. Today was Klondike, you see, but I did not go. Why? Well, maybe I didn't pester Johnson enough. He said that the Varsity guys were not paid for to participate in it, and I left it at that. Next time I'll keep on buggin' him about it! Oh, I have a new list, the "Next Time I'll..." List. It's in front of everything else on the planner, and is basically a list of regrets (in positive form) that is supposed to help me remember to never to make those mistakes again. Self-psych! Gotta love it.

Grandma and Grandpa Foster came over all the way from Nyssa Oregon (8 hour drive) today! They're here visiting family in this area, and stopped by for the afternoon. Grandpa Fred is my step-grandpa, and a really great guy! He keeps well informed about current events, and even served in the Navy as an aircraft radio tech guy! He told me a bit about life in the military; been trying to get different people's opinions about it lately. Lots of decisions to make: need to get as much wisdom my inexperienced, young brain can hold from seasoned people.

Sabrina invited Haley (red-haired-crazy-girl) to come over today as well. My mother and father just used their savings to buy a new fancy-smanshy camera! Sabrina has been taking good care of it, and is therefore allowed to use it. She and Haley took some pictures with it outside, then played some board games (Blockus and Dominon), then watched a movie.

This next week is missionary week!