reminder

Because I am a watcher from the sidelines:

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.
-Theodore Roosevelt

country mouse

I am enjoying my life in the city. I like the convenience, the way that I can easily plan to enjoy time out with friends, the endless options for activities. But before I go too far in my praise, I have to say that I cherish the country. I would be able to live in cities the rest of my life but I would find myself to be pining for the wide open spaces and beauty of nature only truly available beyond the city limits. Although I was born in this city and only moved out part-way through my childhood, I still feel as though that aspect of my personality is dominant.

Hand in hand with this is my enjoyment of country music. I know those who don't like country seem to have a disgust for the genre and don't see how it can have any merit but I was just listening to Tim Mcgraw's song Where the Green Grass Grows and the words seemed to fit with my mood and inspired this post. So I will write them out here and hopefully they will express what I'm feeling right now better than I can.


Where the Green Grass Grows

Six lanes, tail lights
Red ants marchin' into the night
They disappear to the left and right again
Another supper
From a sack
A 99 cent heart attak
I got a poundin' head and an achin' back
And the camel's standin' in a big straw stack



I'm gonna live where the green grass grows
Watch my corn pop up in rows
Every night be tucked in close to you
Raise our kids where the good Lord's blessed
Point our rockin' chairs towards the west
And plant our dreams where the peaceful river cools
Where the green grass grows



Well I'm from
A map dot
A stop sign on a blacktop
I caught the first bus that I could hop from there
But all o' this glitter is gettin' dark
There's concrete growin' in the city park
I don't know who my neighbors are
And there's bars on the corner and bars on my heart



I'm gonna live where the green grass grows
Watch my corn pop up in rows
Every night be tucked in close to you
Raise our kids where the good Lord's blessed
Point our rockin' chairs towards the west
And plant our dreams where the peaceful river cools
Where the green grass grows

brilliant

Why has it become the way that after I post something that I think I have just thought about, I find it as the subject of the previous post? Is my memory that short?
But to keep up the theme of repeating one's self, I am posting some more pictures from that same day on the beach during a break from work.

satisfaction

I was wondering why this past few months I have not had much desire to write in my blog. I finally realized that my needs to release artistic-ness and to chronicle my life that were previously met in the formation of these posts has been met instead in my photography. So to compromise a bit, I will try to post some of these pictures that have taken the place of posts and in that way (hopefully) benefit both my blog and my photography.




I have come to appreciate rocky beaches not only for their abundance of rocks to skip (or just throw...) but also for their beauty. This beach is located on the property of one of our jobs so several times during breaks we have relaxed there. Ah, the perks of landscaping.

picture this

life has been too full to find time to chronicle other than by camera. I am falling more and more in love with taking pictures even going so far as to take multiple pictures of people (gasp). I am finding that the more I take pictures the more I find little tricks to overcome my camera's shortcomings. I don't know what I would do with a camera that didn't need compensation in one way or another. Interesting thought. It would leave little room for improvement. It is like when I think of how I would like to be rich. Yet at the same time I find certain zest in being flexible and living around shortcomings.

One sad thought is how the summer is coming to a close. I will enjoy the fall also but this has been a wonderful summer. As we were leaving the English conversation group, we noticed that the sky was dark and just from the sun having set, not from any particularly dark clouds. I must say, though, that it put a bit of a dark cloud on our discussion.

Ah, but life moves on. Which happy fact is the moving force behind my newly-found unhappiness with the upcoming school year. I will graduate from my program this year (all things being equal) and I will subsequently have to decide what to do with my life. Well, I know I don't have to plan out my whole future but even the fact that I have to come up with something to occupy myself for at least another year or two (it would be nice to find something for a longer period of time, too) is to be dreaded. I hate making decisions. Ah well, I hear they come up sometimes in life.