An ode to living life

"Life was meant to be lived, and curiosity must be kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life." Eleanor Roosevelt

Henry David Thoreau moved to Walden Pond to get the most out of his life. For most of us, getting the most out of life is much harder than moving 12 miles down the road. I have therefore decided to make a "bucket list" in order to be sure I will get all that I can out of life.
1. Go on a cross-country road trip. Georgia to California, summer 2010.
2. Camp in the Australian outback. Lie on back and see trillions of stars. Remind self to be humble.
3. Work at the Olympics. Meet the best athletes in the world.
4. Plant a garden. Enjoy the sweet scent of roses.
5. Run a marathon. Prove to self that I can do anything.
6. Travel by train. Just like Ron and Harry!
7. Go to church at Westminster Abbey. Sit by Poet's Corner. Try to soak up awesomeness.
8. Hike the Appalachian Trail. But not at one time.
9. Stand at the foot of Mt. Everest. Be amazed by the wonders of nature.
10. Be in a movie. My life is practically a movie anyway.

To an athlete, dying never

Their names are more recognizable to most Americans than the names of the presidents. Their posters still grace walls, even though the freshness of their feats have passed. They've been called heroes, they've been called winners, but really they all thought of themselves as one thing: athletes.
So, just what makes an athlete great? When do they cross-over that ambiguous line between "good" and "great"? Or between "great" and "greatest"? For Babe Ruth, it was revolutionizing the entire sport of baseball. For Jim Thorpe and Babe Didrikson, it was the ability to perform many sports at an exceptional level. Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, and Nadia Comaneci took the sports basketball, golf, and gymnastics into public notoriety. Ty Cobb and Martina Navratilova hold records that still stand today. Lance Armstrong and Wilma Rudolph overcame career threatening diseases and disabilities. Jackie Robinson and Jesse Owens showed strength and courage in the face of hideous discrimination. The 1980 US Hockey team shocked the world.
Greatness cannot be measured by a formula. How will the athletes of today measure up? Will Michael Phelps be remembered for his glorious record-breaking eight gold medals, or will the scandal of his marijuana partying overshadow his feats, a la "Shoeless" Joe Jackson or O.J. Simpson? Will popular stars Peyton and Eli Manning be remembered? Will the US soccer team's snap of Spain's 34-game winning streak be talked of generations from now? Only time will tell if these athletes have crossed the indeterminable line that separates the good from the great. But at least for now, we will cheer their names as if they were.

The future freaks me out

So, after months of casually sitting back and letting my future take a back seat, I decided to actually do something about it (specifically starting this blog). As I start my third year in college (whoa!), I am beginning to think it may be necessary for me to figure out what I want to do for the rest of my life. Whenever anyone asks me what I am planning on doing with my majors (magazines and history), I give one of the following answers: a) go to grad school, b) work with an international news source, or c) I'm not sure. Lately, my answer has been some form of c) with my newest being "Wherever the wind blows me." Truthfully, I don't really like to think about the future. That's not to say that I don't make lists or plan (I plotted out my entire academic career when I was a freshman), but I've recently had trouble picturing the future. If someone had asked me five years ago where I pictured myself, it would not have been sitting in Athens, writing a blog. It probably would have been designing buildings or something like that. My goal for ten years of my life was to become an architect. I used to draw houses and floor plans; I loved watching home improvement shows. At the end of my junior year of high school, I decided that architecture wasn't the path for me, and ever since then, I stopped looking so much into the future. As Robert Burns said "The best laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft agley" (or "The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry", in case you don't speak Scottish). Maybe one day, I'll know what the future holds for me. I'm just going to go wherever the wind may blow me until I find out.

Peaceful, easy cleaning

At the beginning of every semester, I like to clean my room. Not just dust and vacuum (which I do) but I also like to pull everything out of every drawer, cabinet, and box. I find it a very liberating process. I get rid of all the stuff I don't need (Disney 3-D glasses, anyone?), pack up stuff that I won't use during the semester (notebooks, weather-inappropriate clothing), and discover things I forgot I had (staple-remover, how many times have I needed you throughout last semester? How many times did I wish that I had you? And to think you were hidden under my thousands of post-it notes this whole time!) It's always a nice feeling to look around your room and see everything perfectly lined up and in its place. I like knowing that when I open my drawer my shirts are perfectly color coordinated, my cassettes are in alphabetical order (yes, I still listen to cassettes; the sound of rewinding soothes me), and my staple-remover is sitting beside my neatly stacked post-its. Granted, by tomorrow, when I can't find an envelope or my Career Center shirt, my drawers will be in their typical disastrous state. For tonight, however, my drawers are nice and neat, and my life is perfect.