Flame swords!

So, yeah, I admit it, I was bored. I have this fascination with all things fire, I've done fire staff, torches, burned Chinese symbols into the ground, created flaming walls of fire, monster bonfires, and a filled bowls with camp fuel and set them on fire to name but a few. (this summer I plan on getting some fire poi, that'll be fun!) Sure, there have been accidents, one involving me stupidly pouring gasoline on a small forge fire that I was using to heat wire, but that's another story.
Back to flame swords, coolest things ever and super easy to make. I used metal golf shafts, rags for a wick and wire wrapped around the rags to hold them in place.
My brother and I spent about forty-five minutes working out a routine with non-flaming swords which was pretty impressive, not to toot my own horn or anything. But as soon as we let 'em up we realized that there was no way it was going to work! So we just had a short little sparring match until his sword burnt out, which was really fun and looked kind of cool. There are some cool fire sword videos out there for those who look for them, maybe you'll find the one that was my inspiration!
Next time we'll be more prepared, so stay tuned for awesomeness!
Oh yeah, I'm thinking fire whips would be fun sometime... at this rate something really bad is going to happen :P
Cheers!

Library Time.

The library is a nice place, it has lots of things I love in it: books, tables, quiet, books, people studying while I am studying, books, movies (some of them) and books. I love books.
I'm currently reading the books the books by R.A. Salvator, notably the Drizzt books. They are about a black skinned elf from underground who has left the Underdark and come to the surface to find a better life, he finds that as well as adventures aplenty. Drizzt is a master swordsman and a parkour practitioner. Both of which I enjoy :). The library is a great place for peace and quiet, studying, drawing, reading or writing this blog post! It's also a good place to people watch, you get to see the kind of people who come to library, some of whom I couldn't really see ever checking out a book. Then there are the creepy old men who sit on the other side of the room and stare at magazines with one eye and stare at you with the other.
Well, I had better hurry up, I need to go to work in few hours and since most of the snow has melted it looks like we'll be fairly busy tonight :P.
I think I'll find a thick book or two or three to take home. :)

Rows and rows of shelves
they line the rooms 
like a labyrinth
with 
rows and rows of books
that fill the shelves, 
with stories
trapped between the pages,
waiting for someone
waiting for you 
to set them free
waiting to paint
a picture 
with a thousand words.

Snow Again!

It's back! After about a week of bitter cold, meaning around ten degrees outside, it finally warmed up enough to snow. Sound weird? That's what I thought when I first heard it, but, yes, it can be too cold and dry to snow. There you go! If you didn't already know that then you have learned something today! Good job!
Anyway, as I've said before; I love snow, I looks beautiful coming down and when it blankets the earth in a layer of downy fluff, plus it makes dirty streets and sidewalks look clean for a while. Another nice feature is it's use in snow sculptures, if enough comes down,  I plan on making Slender Man 2.0 in my front yard. And yes Mei-Jing, I'll send you a picture of me kissing this one too.
But for all that my current favorite feature of snow is that it muffles everything. Less cars, less people and less noise! It's like the world is going to sleep under the soft embrace of a snow blanket.

drifting downwards, towards my face
snow flakes, sparkling as they drift through space
falling as quietly as a whisper
they cover the ground in gleaming white
shining in the moon's pale light
as I walk through the trees 
my breath fogs as I watch it freeze
the end of summer fall and spring
winter snow,
it blankets the ground under it's downy wings.
as I walk through the trees
through a blanket of white,
I'm happy to know
I'm not alone,
this silent, snowy, night.

Narnia!!!

I was watching Prince Caspian today, for those of you who haven't seen it I would advise that you do or you probably won't understand anything I'm about to say.
In the beginning of the movie there's the bit with Peter and Edmund fighting with these two random school boys back in real life some time after the first movie. Afterwards, he rants about how he's tired of being treated like a kid, and that it's been a year since they've been to Narnia where he used to be a king. Then Susan says that it's time to accept that they live where they do.
I think that I could fill the role of Peter very well :P, He left a place that he enjoyed very much and had wonderful experiences as well as ones that helped him to grow, then he left and came back to reality. Sound familiar anyone? Susan could be played by my parents; saying that Utopia is over and that it's time to get our heads out of the clouds and return to reality.
Of course right after that scene they do get back to Narnia...and omen maybe? My fingers are crossed!
Another weird parallel between the world of Narnia and my life is that in The Voyage of The Dawn Treader,  Peter and Susan (aka: me) stay in reality while Edmund and Lucy, their younger siblings (aka: my brother) go back to Narnia and have and epic adventure...
I'm sure that Peter wasn't in the least bit jealous, nope, not at all ;)

Swimming

I love the YMCA, I go there every Wednesday and take a half hour of semi-redundant swim lessons then my brother and I get to swim for a few hours until the rest of my siblings have finished their lessons. I love to swim, when I'm underwater I can fly for as long as I can hold my breath, feeling my body twisting and turning as little silver bubbles race past my eyes and vanish into the light at the surface. Yesterday we played ricochet tag, basically the only way you can move is by pushing off the walls, no swimming around. It gets really intense and the exhilaration is only augmented by the lack of oxygen getting to your brain. :P I think that swimming and flying are the closest that we as human being can be to complete freedom, (as long as the airplane is a good one!)
Another advantage of swimming is that you get buff, never a bad thing in my book since I'm about as skinny as they come. Ah well...

Let's Change The Tune!

So I've looked back on my short list of previous posts I realized that in general they are pretty depressing. So from now on I'm going to try to talk about the good stuff more :P To start with I had a really great Youth activity last night for the 16-17 year old youth of my church. We talked about preparing for a mission, had dinner and then had a great dance afterwards! The dance was my favorite part because I got to be with people who I enjoy being with and even though there were a lot less people there because the 14-15 year old's weren't there. It was nice to just have the 'experienced' people there because they actually dance! That's my pet peeve; people who don't dance, and guys who don't ask girls to dance especially if nobody's asked them yet! Sometimes I think that some guys are blind. I had my traditional competition to see who could pick up the most garbage and lost again... :)
Sometime in the future I'm going to buy throwing knives, a regular pocket knife doesn't work that well.
Well, cheers everybody!

Sleepless Nights...

Have you ever missed people so much that you lay awake at night thinking about them and can't go to sleep until three AM in the morning? It sucks. When you miss them so much that you can almost feel them next to you. Can almost hear them telling you to "shut up" with a slight upward twist of their lips that shows that they don't really mean it. When you can almost feel their hand in yours and the spaces between your fingers feel cold and empty. It's amazing how fast you can go from sitting three feet apart and talking about trivial things such as school and the weather, to laying next to each other as you stare up at the stars and talking about the meaning of life. Becoming so close that you can confide your faults and your feelings (even if some of them laugh :) So close that you can feel them next to you as you doze off. Going through tough times together and having Mei-Jing push us to do what we had to. I miss you guys so much...

There needs to be a way to just teleport around the world, because saving up for a plane ticket really stinks, not to mention that certain aircraft give me the very unsafe feeling of being stuck inside a pressurized soda pop can and being towed through the air by a set of flamethrowers while sitting on couple hundred gallons of jet fuel, (shudder). Driving is tedious and that pretty much leaves walking, so, yeah. We could always go around on dragon back...except that there are no dragons... darn! Yes, I'm a dragon geek, why aren't you?
I could really use a TARDIS right now. Well, I guess I have another sleepless night ahead of me....

those we've left behind
they're never really gone
you never see their face
but you can talk
on the phone, 
or email, skype, chat, tweet, facebook
or even snail mail.
but it's not the same as face to face
when the slightest twitch 
can load a word with meaning
and emotions can be shared.
but now we're far apart
and there's a hole inside me...
right here.
and I hope that, someday,
we'll see each other again.

what is wrong with the world?!?

Seriously, when I left for Conserve I didn't really have a direction, I was just doing what my parents said would be a good idea and then left home and learned some things about the world and met people who are amazing and being with them for a few short months has really screwed my head on straight. It just seems that my straight is different than other people's straight. It seems like there are only a few people left who I really click with, and they all live farther away than I would like. I miss my Conserve friends, and trying to figure out a way that we can all get together is like searching for the proverbial needle in a haystack.
(continue rant.....yadda yadda.....)

Other than my usual frustrations life is pretty good; I've been visiting my friend in an Amish community -tangent, the Amish are awesome. Really; they're so easy to talk to, and they are SO nice. Plus, I love how the little 8-12 year olds drive a bulldozer to get wood from the wood pile. - the drive time is a little up there but it's so worth it. I've also been spending a lot of time with a kid who has autism, I really don't get why people think less off them, they're so nice and they love everyone. Every time I see him he's always so happy to see me and he just makes everything around him glow. People just don't understand what they have to offer, for me, he offers a chance to let down my walls and to just be myself. People like him don't judge.

Last night I could not go to sleep and for a while I could not figure out why, but after a while I realized that I not being with people form Conserve anymore has left a hole inside me that I'm not sure how I'll fill.
Argh!!! The world is messed up... sigh.