#6 Mountain Air

One of my most favorite smells has to be the fresh, pure, cold mountain air. One of the main reasons I love it is because it is always changing and can be very different depending where you are in the world. Every place, be it ten steps away, ten miles away or more, has its own scent. 

I remember this one place in particular. I was on a scout camping trip in the Uintah Mountains. A couple of us decided one day to take the hatchet and hike around the forest chopping down dead trees. We were young boys and loved the sound they made when they fell. Anyways, I remember we found this HUGE pine tree that had died because of some fungus in the area or something like that. We were taking turns hacking at it and after my turn I decided to walk along the river back. I remember the rich pine tree smell in the cool, damp air mixed in with hints of earth and other plants. The cool air was that perfect temperature that when you took a breath and it filled your lungs, it filled your body with vigor and life. The air untainted by human technology, was just full of clean and pure oxygen fragranced by the mountain. I paused along that river bank, closed my eyes and with every breath I felt more and more at peace. I would like to say I could smell the river mixed in with the pine trees but I don’t know if clean rivers have a smell. I think the river was what made the air that perfect cool temperature. As I was standing there eyes closed, breathing, listening to nature, a breeze blew through and my nose caught a hint of something else. Something fresher that added a little crispness to the air. I moved upwind to see if I could find it and before long I found myself in the middle of it. The air was now filled with not only pine, hints of earth and other plants but MINT. With every breath this scent was rejuvenating as well as amazingly calming.

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#5 A Passion of My Life

I find the subject of a person’s passion very intriguing. I love talking about the many things I am passionate about but I also enjoy listening to other people’s passions. My Favorite part is being able to hear that passion in their voice and seeing it in their eyes. Unfortunately we get neither in a blog post, maybe if we were expert writers… good thing we’re taking English then huh?

I have a lot of passions in my life so this will be hard to pick just one to write about. I’m passionate about Firefighting, about sports, snowboarding, camping, rock climbing. I have a passion for nature, for Italy and the language, music… so many.

As I think about that list I want to try and combine a few. I love rock climbing (outdoors mind you because indoors just isn’t the same) because, from and athletic perspective, it’s just you and the rock. Each route, each cliff is a whole new experience, a new puzzle. When you’re on the cliff there’s no worldly influence, there’s no noise except the wind. The wind as it rushes by the rocks, by you. The wind blowing through the trees, if there are trees where you’re climbing. Maybe the noise from a river or creek. The occasional word or two from a climbing companion but mostly, and the part I love the most, silence. So much silence that you are able to hear the littlest things. You start noticing the sound of your fingers clutching onto a hold or clipping a quickdraw. You start hearing the air pass in and out of your lungs. Your heart beat is now noticeable. The only feeling that settles in is peace.  In those moments when the whole world fades into memory and all you see, all you know is you and the rock… man, not to get too dramatic but I really get a little teary eyed thinking about it.

 I have climbed with some people where getting to the top is like beating that particular route or rock but I have never seen it like a competition. For me when I get to the top all I feel is appreciation for that opportunity to partake in the view of nature. When I don’t reach the top I almost feel like it’s one of those life lessons where all one can say is, “The time is not right. There is still much to learn.”

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#4 Obsession

Well my obsession for a long time has been sports. For the past few years it has been soccer. I am obsessed with Salt Lakes team Real. I have not always liked soccer… truthfully when I was in middle school and high school I always thought it was a sissy sport. I was into football and wrestling, ya know, manly stuff. I won’t go into how I came to love soccer just why I am obsessed with RSL (Real Salt Lake).

After coming home from serving an LDS mission in Northern Italy (I know awesome right?) I made friends with a guy named Randy and he is a huge fan. As our friendship progressed I went to more and more games (he was a season ticket holder), learned the players names, but more importantly learned the coaches name and who he was.

For the longest time I have hated unsportsman like conduct whether it be cheating, “flopping,” embellishing, whining, complaining, trash talking….. is ok though. I have always told family and friends while watching any sporting event that if I coach I will pull players out of the game, or other types of discipline, that display such behaviors.

The coach of RSL, Jason Kris, instilled in the team the philosophy of “The team is the star.” Regardless of how good you are we don’t want people like Kobe, LeBron, Farve, Jeter, or Beckham on our team. The ego does the team no good. Win AS a team NOT because of one or two people on the team. Jason has shown more than once that when a player feels that they are better or deserve more they miss out on a game or two, or in a few cases they are traded away.

Another thing that Jason has brought to the team is playing with class no matter how dirty the other team is and a sense of family. The players not only treat each other as family but they also are very involved with the fans and many of them interact with fans on a daily basis!

Now I am a season ticket holder. I am a fanatic at games, constantly heckling opposing players and cheering on my team with my face painted at every one. I made a twitter account just so I could interact more with the players and have more access to information. I travel to a few away games every year and I have a lot of RSL stuff and keep adding to it! I am proud of my obsession!

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Evilishness

How does work reflect, in some way, the character and skill of both the writer and reader?

   First, in dealing with the writer, their work is an extension of who they are. All the words that they wrote came from their brain. The characters they depict in their writings, good or bad, they invented. The writer develops the characters and so in a way becomes a part of them. The way that each character addresses problems and hard choices is limited by the writer and the ways they can think of to solve them. As the saying goes, there are many paths to the same place. In my work at a treatment center for teenagers I have found that to be true. Every now and then a kid would come to me with a problem that they needed help solving. Instead of giving them answers or telling them what I would do I found it more enjoyable to ask them questions to help them find their own answers. Many times the way they would decide to solve their problem, I would have never thought of, but it worked for them. So I think the writers skill and character would be reflected by how many different ways each character deals with the conflicts presented to them while having the characters remain true to their role in the story. Also, in whether or not obstacles were overcome, lessons learned, character progression (positive or negative), and the overall outcome of the story itself.

  As for the reader, I think it depends what they took away from the story when they're finished reading. Ten different people could read the same story and have ten different opinions on what the true meaning behind it was. Whatever substance the reader takes from a story, whether a mountain, pebble, or nothing, and how they apply that to themselves reflects the character and skill of the reader.

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Was I even speaking english?

   English classes have always been a bit of a struggle for me for a variety of reasons. The biggest issues has always been ADHD (never been diagnosed but there are days when I'm convinced I have it). I'll start something whether it's a paper, book, short story, song, or even poem and then part way through I'll get distracted or bored and move on to something else no matter how stoked I was in the beginning. Then there's the inevitable writers block which leads to getting distracted or bored.

   Way back in high school I had a pink (don't judge) note book that I started writing in. At first it was just short, one or two sentences about how I was feeling at the time. After a while it looked and read a lot like poetry so I started writing more poetry. I might still have that note book somewhere. Anyways, as a junior in high school I took an English class from a great teacher who gave you extra points on the first day of class if you could spell his last name correctly, it was some crazy Russian name with ridiculous spelling. He turned out to be one of my favorite teachers mostly because he was very sarcastic. I learned a bit about responding in a logical, because high schoolers are definitely not logical, manner to questionable situations. As a senior I took a creative writing class which focused mostly on the many different styles of poetry which I enjoyed and was able to really improve some things that were in that note book of mine.

   At UVU I took English 1010 but I ended up not passing due to a personal error of not keeping my stuff in my room and a roommate throwing away a bunch of my stuff that he thought was trash. Gotta love roommates. I liked the class but it was a little odd having a professor only a couple years older than I.

   After writing all this I think the person that had the greatest impact on my writing was my middle school English teacher Mr. Alred. He has written a few books that were more just funny and ridiculous than anything. He showed me that writing could be fun and that it was ok to be sarcastic and ridiculous sometimes in writing. In writing you can really express who you are and sometimes a lot better than talking. You can take your time to find the right words or expressions to convey what you're thinking.

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Why College?

   Why am I in college? Well... why not? I've always enjoyed learning new things and expanding my skills. I'm not by any means saying that college is the only way to learn new things. I have been able to learn many valuable lessons outside the class room but I think there needs to be a balance between book learning and life learning.
   As a junior in high school Stephan, a friend, and I were hanging out with a couple girls who wanted to make smores in one of their back yards. Stephan set out to build the fire and to make a long story short ended up setting a shed on fire. I ran and grabbed a garden hose and proceeded to control the blaze, clean out the shed of valuable/flammable materials before the fire department arrived, and I loved it! I had discovered one of my passions in life... Firefighting! Over the years that has developed into a passion for helping others.
   The few short years I lived in Utah County I attended Utah Valley University for a few semesters and decided that UVU was not the school for me but a dilemma arose when I found that the Utah Fire and Rescue Academy was sponsored by UVU. Luckily I found a volunteer fire department that accepted my application and subsequently was trained for free. Being able to help people in need has been such a blessing for me and helped me on my path to knowing what I want to study. Another opportunity I had while at UVU was to play Lacrosse and also coach a 7th and 8th grade Lacrosse team. I was able to experience the joy of coaching. The joy of helping kids learn how to play an amazing sport and see them progress in their individual skills as well as their team work.
   I am not giving up on the firefighting bit but I want to expand my options for a career because becoming a full-time firefighter is very competitive. While at USU my field of study, at least for now, is coaching and sports medicine.
   Eventually I want to attend the Logan campus of USU but first I have to make up some classes that I didn't do to well in during my time at UVU. What brought me here was one of my longest friends is an Aggie and he showed me around USU, what this college has to offer its students and I was very impressed.
   I look forward to this class because I do enjoy writing and my time at USU. One goal of mine during my stay here is to play soccer (football or futbol if you prefer) for USU.

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