A good sign of maturity is being able to delay small short-term gratification for long-term happiness.

Does that quote sound familiar Because to those that read my post, and commented on it, they would recognize that as something that Ryan once wrote. That quote has been in my mind all this week in different times.
It appeared was when my English teacher, Mrs. Plaa, had corrected our novel analysis on A Tale of Two Cities. On Wednesday we got them back. Although I got an A on the paper Mrs. Plaa had specifically asked me if I had cut and paste anything into my analysis. I initially said no but as I sat down I remembered that indeed I had cut and pasted a few things from Sparknotes into my paper. That's when a debate went in my head: Should I confess and get a zero? Or should I say nothing and retain my A? It was at this time I started feeling bad and when the title of this post got into my head. Seeing as how I wanted to prove to myself that I was mature I confessed all to Mrs. Plaa. Surprisingly enough, to me anyway, all she did was laugh and did not give me a zero. Not only did I feel, in the long run, more happy but also I learned a valuable lesson, and still got to keep the A.
In my English class we finished the book "Of Mice and Men" by John Steinbeck. It's an extremely easy read but not one I'd recommend considering all of the bad language and the fact that on almost every line the Lord's name is taken in vain.
For those that haven't heard yet I got A's on my History Finals. I am indeed happy about that and now I know that I'm capable of getting an A in the class, even though my final grade was a solid B.
On Friday and Saturday I participated in the County Honor Choir (CHC). For those that don't know CHC is a 300 voice choir made up of choirs from different schools in the area. As Mom can attest I hated the idea of going but it ended up not being so bad after all. Dad took a lot of pictures and as soon as I get some I might be able to post them onto this blog. Well I'm hanging out at Dad's house, since Mom's been on a date. (For purposes of confidentiality I won't say who, you'll have to ask Mom.)
Before I end this post I have one more thing. After the CHC rehearsal Dad and I went to a lecture at MJC (Modesto Junior College) on Cyberspace. In short, it blew both of us away. It was pretty awesome, the technology behing the virtual world, Second Life, a world whose graphics are stunning. One of the things I got from the lecture was that a virtual world could be anything communicated by words or pictures that you could put yourself in. So bascially the imagination is a virutal world as well as books. Another thing was that there were a lot of kids that were into this cool looking world which reminded me of something on the extended DVD of The Lord of the Rings. Basically this Cyberspace reminded me of the growing relevance on Tolkein's disintrest of technology. Tolkein said that technology was addictive and seductive, and that if something went wrong it went very wrong.
One has to admit he has a point. You'd have to either live in a rock, or in a third world country (which fundamentally is just as good as a rock) to not realize anything about technology or to have never heard of it. IT'S EVERYWHERE! More and more people's lives depend on it everyday, at least in the United States. I'm not saying technology's evil, as Tolkein probably did, I think it's a "neutral" force. By neutral I mean that it could both a good or an evil force. It's a good force because technology has allowed advances in medical science and it saves more lives every day (of course this isn't the only example of technology's good uses; The reader of this post can definitely cite their own examples.) A bad use of technology is pornography, which I will not go into.
Well that's my life recently, I do hope this post will be shown. I Love you all and Ryan's not the only one who's impacted my life, you all have, and I could not have made this far without you. Love,
Grant