Open Field

   Let me start out with what has to be the quote of the day. Not that today hasn't been filled with some excellent quotations, but I've got this one within easy copy/paste reach, and it's applicable to the topic at hand (being how, it's been quite a bit longer than two years, but, I received my two-year degree yesterday and am now I suppose a graduate of more than just compulsory education.) Here, plucked from the heart of correspondence with old companions still on the mission, it is for you now:

   The open expanse of life sits before you with no limits or bounds, and opportunity around every turn, except I already called it an open expanse didn't I? Not too many turns in a flat field... well, opportunities all over the place then. You'll just have to build something to turn by for them to be around. That way life will be more interesting than a field. 

   It kind of reads like the back of a Dominion box, doesn't it? My goodness. It would probably be more powerful imagery just keeping the first... two, sentences, but the remainder is pretty crucial too, and, anyway! Yes. That gem is from Elder Rose there. I've tried to respect the identities of people on the mission, refraining from naming names except in specific cases like all the blogs I linked to where it's a matter of public record anyway.* Mentioning Elder Rose by name is unavoidable, however, considering, reasons. Expect more from (and with!) him in the future...
 
   It was almost a month ago, but still just a couple of posts at press time, that I was explaining how now that I had 1,000 posts and wasn't holding myself back internally from posting, I could get on more blogging of things I'm thinking about anyway, being barred only by external, um, entities. Quite a few of those lately with finals and all, but that's all over. I just kept thinking Sunday evening how there were no online discussions that I needed to respond to on selected assigned readings...

   There are still a few things I'd really rather like to get done before cranking out polished backlog hardcore... What is on this list? In no particular order:

1. Ward membership clerk duties.
2. Application for further educational pursuit.
3. Journal backlog (non-blog.)

   Those are larger, more major goals. Clerk duties are most important to the present; college application is most important to my future; journaling is most important to my past. All of them need to be done. Probably set aside a day to work on them, or find a few hours in a day to make some major chipping away at them. Big obstacle: procrastination. If these things can be done at basically any time, why not just keep them on one's chest indefinitely? On top of those, there are the things I try (and generally succeed) to make time for everyday anyway:

1. Scripture study.
2. Piano practice.
3. Copious amounts of television watching.

   Why am I so successful at these things and not the longer-term stuff? I can see how I manage to fit watching cartoons into my day, even if it is for hours at a time, but, the other two? I think it's because those can be in chunks as large or small as I want, and so they don't require much apparent commitment to do them. Which isn't how I view blogging, or journaling, or clerking, to my detriment.

   It's been a pretty big post so far, so I think I'll wrap it up here, right before recapitulating the main theme in a satisfying way and/or getting to the meat of the issue, as I am maddeningly wont to do...

*A lot of my time recently has been tracking down the internet activity and screennames of a certain friend and apartmentmate from the mission, which is really quite fascinating and would make excellent blogfodder, but I'm not going to get into anything more specific than what I just mentioned for precisely this reason.