Despair, courage, love, right and wrong.

Despite all of the things that have happened recently I have oft been pondering some things that hopefully I can get some feedback from whoever reads this.

For those that don't know, one of the presents that Dad got me was the book to the left. That right J.R.R Tolkein Author of the Century by Tom Shippey. It's really good and it brings good insights to the Lord of the Rings and I recommend it to Aunt Merrilyn and Kate. A reason I bring up that book is that one of the things it talks about that has impressed me was how it talked about fighting and resisting despair. To be honest I have been thinking quite a bit about despair, not despairing but of the fact that there's a lot of things that are very hard in life, and sometimes one feels like quitting. My message, if I have one, is that whenever times are hard and you feel like quitting (on things like teaching the gospel or just doing the right thing when nobody else,not even family members, are doing it) DON'T GIVE UP!

This reminds me of a Josh Groban song on his new album Awake, which is why I have the picture on top. The song is called You are Loved (Don't Give Up) It's a great song, really it is. Another thing I have thought about is what people define as courage. What does it mean to be courageous? Tolkein points out that you don't actually need courage to be courageous. What do you think courage is?

I have named the e-mail in honor of the book that I have just finished reading, A Tale of Two Cities. It's a good book, but it takes time to read because the print is small and it also has a large vocabulary. I say that because one of my assignments was to create a vocab list consisting of one word for every page in the book (which has over 300 pages.). I had to define 354 vocab words, which can take awhile (no I am not complaining). Also, I know that I had majorly procrastinated on assignments, homework etc. and I vow (and hope to be able to keep this vow) that I will not procrastinate another assignment nor project.

Another thing to think about is that of the two forces which one is stronger? Good or evil? I've read a few texts (one of them being J.R.R. Tolkein: Author of the Century) that have stated that evil is more powerful than good. I think good is more powerful but why is it more powerful? Well that's another post for you. Love again from, Grant

The tale of my life...

Wow! It has been far too long since I last made up a post! I better start remembering to do this every week. Wow! Christmas and New Years were great, although they could have been better with Ryan and Garit home (which will happen this year! Yea!!!!). This past week was the dreaded week of finals!!!!!!!! Finals aren't all bad though, there's no seminary nor track practice (which now is a bad thing since I love running.) so at least I get to sleep in. It was not fun trying to study for those things at all! Our history test was by far the longest, 180 questions, the first 100 of them were straight from the book while the other 80 questions were a mishmash of other questions used from prior AP tests. Thank goodness the math final was easier than I expected, although for my standards it was still difficult.

I once had made a joke that High School Track & Field was an old Greek translation for "run until you die," but now I don't feel nor think that. Now I love running and I like running for long periods of time, much to the dismay of my coach, Fig (His real name is Figorora, but we call him Fig for short) who has me running for about 30-35 minutes. For those that don't know I am in our new Track & Field team as a long distance runner, whose events shall be the one mile and the two mile.

Also in the past week I got the opportunity to see Dream Girls and Freedom Writers. And now is the time for the G.B and Ebert section where we review movies.

Dream Girls: I give it 1 1/2 stars. I didn't think it was all that spectular, at least not enough to get three golden globe awards. The acting was good, the costumes looked real but the movie severely lacked a plot. Jennifer Hudson has elephant lungs because she was very loud! The movie was a musical, but most of the singing wasn't that special and there was a ton of sexual movements whenever most characters were dancing. Rated PG-13

Freedom Writers: I give it 3 stars. Hillary Swank is a darn good actress who played a teacher who was trying to get a bunch of gangsters to actually read and write. Based on a true story too. The movie was pretty bloody from all of the gang fighting, but it is full of hope, and it's inspirational too; At least that's what Grandma, Mom, and I got from the movie. Well that's me catching up. Love, Grant