As my second installment of this series, I decided to up the ante a little...
I am also going to mention at least one thing I will do in the next week to make these things more possible to do. Seminary teachers (and later, mission ZLs and DLs) always talked about things that we want and how they are nothing but dreams until you make a goal that is measurable, achievable, and etc. (SMART is an acronym that comes to mind: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Timely). See President Young, I really was paying attention! I seem to remember an aside comment that President Young tried to find a Spanish-equivalent acronym, but was unable to.
Ahem. That brings to mind in the MTC, my district spent quite the time coming up with "new phrases" in Spanish that we transliterated from popular mormon (and just plain popular) culture. One was SAEVE. It came from SMILE. 2 Ne. 9:39 (Spiritually Minded Is Life Eternal) I think I heard that every other year in seminary as a student devotional (I may have given it myself, come to think of it. You know how it is when you show up on Monday and bam, "How did my name get up there under Devotional?") SAEVE means Ser de Animo Espiritual es Vida Eterna. We even took it so far as to take a picture of each of us representing a different letter in ASL at an MTC District Reunion we had. We actually had everyone but 2 people there, surprisingly. (Both were not in Utah at the time). Yes, I know, it sounds ridiculous, MTC Reunion? But hey, it was fun.
That leads me to what I want to do! I want to learn ASL. I have always loved the thought of talking with my hands. Now for what I am going to do about it. I will sign up for an ASL I class offered this fall at the college where I am doing my Paramedic degree right now. I didn't realize this would be such a complicated process, but it involves returning an overdue library book, paying a late fee, sending an email to request the hold on my account be lifted, and then signing up for the class... whew!
Next, I really want
to hike the Appalachian Trail in its entirety. I am in no shape to do this, I have no time, no money, no supplies, but I still want to do it. I think it would be great to do with one or two close friends and use the time to see really cool things, learn better tolerance for mud, rain, cold weather, etc. Beautiful scenery won't be enough to get me through, so I will need to develop better stamina. Hence, the thing I am doing this week to prepare is to start the beginnings of an exercise lifestyle again. At the moment all I do is pace and worry. Very bad. I plan to start walking this week, starting tomorrow. A few weeks from now, maybe I'll be back up to jogging. For this I will need a new pair of shoes. Man, this is going to take a while, but someday, I'll be in AT shape...That's all for today folks. Another view into my brain.
Have Fun Storming the Castle,
-Dan
