I’ve heard a number of my friends and other people talk about “meeting someone” or “finding an eternal companion.”

These phrases seem a little odd to me.  They always seem to allude that the particular someone special is a person we haven’t met yet.  I think it may be unfair to think this way.  There are always possibilities that we will marry someone we have already met, but haven’t yet dated.

I think single people should keep an open mind about who they might eventually marry, and not limit their potential companions to those they haven’t yet met.

Furthermore, if singles put themselves in the mind-frame that they will marry someone they haven’t yet met, then they risk creating a habit of always looking for the next person, whom they will never actually find.

Seven years ago during my freshman year at BYU, I lived in the dorms in V-Hall. Recently, V and W halls have been torn down. I stopped by the site yesterday to see what was left. I’m not sure if I’m happy or sad to see it go. Maybe a little of both.

I had a lot of time to think today driving from Oregon to Utah. I found that I have a lot of questions about myself, and about life in general. Here are a few of them:

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Tonight I was putting just enough gas in my car to get through Christmas. As I was leaving the gas station, I noticed this cop parked in the shadows. Not a big deal because I wasn’t going to do anything wrong. But I was waiting for a few cars to pass by so I could safely get out in traffic. These cars were turning right at the red light. I notice that the last one raced around the corner without stopping, and I looked at the light, and it was still red. It was obvious enough for me to think, “He just technically ran the red light. I wonder if the cop is going to pull him over. Then I saw the cop pull out of the parking lot right behind me. I made sure to stay in the right lane so that the cop could pass me on the left. And then I just kind of followed slowly and watched the cop race after the car and then pull it over.

I’m not sure if there is any point to this story other than, please don’t be an idiot when driving.

I’ll keep this short. I’m moving again. This time back to Utah. I really don’t like moving for many reasons. Packing and unpacking is such a chore. But more internally, I feel like every time I move, I leave a piece of myself behind.

Some of the feelings of a procrastinator are, “there is always time to do this tomorrow.” I think procrastinators especially hate moving because there are many things which cannot be done tomorrow, because tomorrow I won’t be here any more.

Other people hate moving just because they will miss what they’re leaving behind.

I have a long car ride ahead of me tomorrow, so I’ll have plenty of time to think about all of this. Maybe I will have further insights into the psychology of moving.

(Arriving in Provo hopefully around 7 or 8 on Friday)

Today I thought up a troubling question; troubling only because I have yet to find an answer.

Do people in pre-arranged marriages need to date? If you were in a pre-arranged marriage, do you date and get to know your arranged fiance?

On one hand, dating can be a stressful activity, and one that could be avoided completely in a pre-arranged marriage situation. Not only that, but eliminating dating could be financially beneficial.

On the other hand, dating can be a fun activity where the couple can get to know each other. Even in a pre-arranged marriage, learning about the other person in various situations, including pre-marital and dating situations, could prove to be helpful later when married. Not only that, but the beginning stages of marriage can be difficult time merging two lives into a companionship, and dating before marriage could alleviate the difficulties during that phase.

Fortunately, this question doesn’t really need to be answered.

Just to be straight up clear: the title is a verb phrase, not an intention.

It is however a verb phrase that I’m contemplating.

I found out my grades for fall term, and they were ok. I was kind of hoping for a little higher, but I guess I would always hope for a little higher unless they were all As. But it put me in a mind set of looking forward to being at BYU and taking classes again.

2007 will definitely be a difficult year. There will be lots of change in my life. For one, I’m fully planning on graduating this year. What happens after that point, I don’t know yet. But there will be a lot of things different about my life twelve months from now. That is going to create a lot of stress as I adapt to the changes which I will find along my way.

One thing for sure, is I need to make sure that I’m an incredible student this studentupcoming semester. I’ve been thinking about what things I might need to do to promote academic success, and one of the things which crossed my mind was to give up blogging. I’m not yet sold on the idea, but I’m not going to discount it yet either. I guess I’m thinking out loud (in writing) about it here.

On one hand, I get this great sense of accomplishment from the one or two thousand people who read from my blog every month. This is well over double what it was a year ago, and I’ve learned a lot about what it takes to write for an audience. I also think that writing has helped keep my mind keen and fresh.

One the other hand, blogging can be a big distraction, especially the constant urge to continually check to see if there is a new comment. It is a further distraction if you include “reading other’s blogs” with the whole blogging verb. It takes time too. I think I average about 20 posts a month. If each post takes half an hour to write, then I’m spending 10 hours a month writing. An extra 10 hours a month spent on some of my classes sure would have helped.

On the first hand again, blogging could be viewed as a constructive way to blow off stress. It is relaxing, reflexive, and fun. I’m sure someone could even come up with an argument saying that blogging is healthy, but I don’t know that I would go that far. Not only that, but it is possible that I help other people when they read some of the things I have to say.

On the other hand again, if I were to compare blogging to other activities such as hiking, talking with friends, or watching a basketball game, blogging would lose. It definitely does not seem like a priority.

So as I finish my exploration through the various advantages and disadvantages of blogging, I’m still not quite sure what I should do. Obviously if I could keep the advantages while discarding the disadvantages then I would surely be better off.

Do you suppose praying about blogging is even appropriate?

I was reading various blogs this evening, and I saw that Google has released version 3 of their toolbar for Firefox.  I immediately thought, “Cool.”  So I went to my extensions menu in Firefox and selected “Find updates.”  Nothing happened.  I expected it to come back to me and say that there were some new updates available, but nope.  Not for any of my extensions which is kind of weird.  Maybe it is because I’m using a Mac.

Update: About 10 minutes later, I’m re-reading this, and I realize that I could have actually read the Google blog post.  They released the version 3 beta of the toolbar. That would certainly explain why it isn’t automatically updating in Firefox.  I guess I got over excited about it and posted before thinking.  How embarrassing.