The story What We Talk about When We Talk about Love by Raymond Carver, is obviously about love. It’s about really getting down to “nitty gritty” of what “true love” is. Let me paint the picture for you. Two couples are sitting around at a kitchen table sipping on gin. All four of them are pretty much debating what they feel true love is. As do most debaters, they all had different opinions and arguments to go along with their persuasion. The sides that each character take, are all well worth the argument; but which one is right? Referring back to an earlier blog posting of mine; Love is an amazing thing. So many times people throw the word love, or the phrase I love you around. Love is not meant for that; love is a very powerful word that goes much deeper then just saying it.

Terri, one of the characters in the story thinks that her ex-husband displayed “true love”. He went on a rampage one night and tried to kill Terri, but ultimately wound up killing himself. Now I don’t know about you but I find it very hard to find the “true love” in that circumstance; maybe obsessed or insane, but not love. Terri’s current husband Mel had a story as well. He had a much different approach to what true love is. He told a story of an older couple who had gotten into a horrible car wreck and almost lost their lives. Many hours of surgery later, both of them pulled through and were expected to recover just fine. For the time being though, both were covered from head to toe with bandages, and weren’t able to move their extremities. Now heres the crazy part; although they were both expected to survive the older man was still very depressed. When Mel asked him why he was depressed, the old man told him, because he couldn’t turn his head and look at his beautiful bride. Now that’s love! That man loved his wife, even though she was laid up in a hospital bed not really looking so beautiful according to the world’s standards. Love is a crazy thing, and sometimes it makes people do crazy things. But I think true love is simple, yet so deep.

I think true love is, no matter what, no matter what the circumstance, you love that person as if everything was perfect. True love is, when everyone else turns their back on them, you are there with open arms. It’s almost impossible to describe, because love can be on so many levels. You can say “I love my dog”, but who is really going to die for their dog. You can say “I love pizza” but would you want pizza laying in the hospital bed next to you, while you’re fighting for your life. Do you see what I’m getting at here? There is only one kind of true love though. To me, that’s loving someone so much that you are willing to die for them; you are willing to go to the ends of the earth for them. Jesus Christ is the perfect example. To me beyond the shadow of any doubt, the most amazing, PERFECT display of true love. Now I’m not writing this to preach to you, but to me, not only was Jesus dieing on the cross for our sins, but he was showing us what TRUE LOVE is. I’m not trying to say that dieing for someone is the only way you can really tell if it was true love. But what I’m trying to say is that it’s the actions more then the words.
I found this quote that I really thought summed true love up very well, it’s by Honore de Balzac, “True love is eternal, infinite, and always like itself. It is equal and pure, without violent demonstrations: it is seen with white hairs and is always young in the heart.” That old man wanted to see his beautiful wife, regardless of what she looked like. Even though he was bruised and broken himself. At that point he was putting him self aside and his true love in front. It speaks volumes to people when you put their needs a head of yours. I keep thinking of my father, and the countless times he bought clothes or something for my brothers, sister and myself, when he needed something himself. Or how my mom took care of me when I was sick and highly contagious and no one else wanted to be near me. She was their though, taking care of me. Hollywood does an amazing job sometimes at giving us a horrible perception of what true love is

I feel that my interpretation of this story matters, to me as well as whoever is ready this. I think that our minds are skewed sometimes as to what true love really is; but in all actuality true love is simple I hope and pray that you take as much out of this story as I did. We all want to find true love, and we all want to be truly loved. I can personally say that when someone else puts me before their own needs, it makes me feel loved. Just know that true love is not just something you say or write, but its something displayed in the good times, and the bad times, in sickness and in health. True Love never fails.

I had an awesome thanksgiving break! How was yours? Well I went back to New York for my break and spent it with my family. Its funny because, well my mom likes to decorate the house according to the holiday or season, and she likes to bring out decorations that me and my siblings might of made back when we were in Elementary school. A couple of the things she put out on display were little writings we wrote about, like thanksgiving and the pilgrims and Indians. There was a piece of literature that I wrote; it was about what I think thanksgiving is all about haha. I thought alot different back then; because then I thought it was just all about the good food, but now being away from home I see that its more about being with family and really giving thanks for your loved ones.
My break was eventful to say the least. Right off the bat, about a few hours after I arrived home on the plane, my dad got my jeep stuck in a ditch! I saw my whole family just about every night, which was awesome. My dad, my brothers and I went hunting a bunch of times. Its kind of become a tradition to go out in the woods thanksgiving morning, usually my uncle goes out too. If we don't get anything, at least it makes for a good/funny conversation around the dinner table that night. Later that night, a bunch of my extended family came over, which made things ten times louder. But I wouldn't have it any other way. My old high school basketball team was starting there season, so on the days I wasn't eating to much, I went and helped out my old coach with the guys. All and all break was good, but now its time to strap down and get ready for finals! I hope you all enjoyed your breaks just as much as I did!

Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.

Dreams
by Langston Hughes

I was looking around on the Internet for a poem I could possibly do my blog on. I came across this poem and liked it; it was short and sweet. I think the first three lines of the poem are the most powerful. "Life is a broken winged bird", that stands out to me a lot; you could so easily picture a bird with a hurt wing hobbling around. Well that’s kind of how we are in life without dreams.
Dreams are such a good thing to have, even if the more then likely will not ever come true. Dreams change along the way for a lot of people. For instance, when you're a little child you dream of being an astronaught, but when you're older you dream of having a wife and kids or visa versa. I think I mentioned something about dreams in an earlier blog; imagine if no one had dreams, nothing would ever come to be. Martin Luther King would have just been a man. Someone like Thomas Edison would have never discovered the light bulb.
Dream big! Don't sell yourself short for something God can take and make HUGE! God knows your dreams better then you do. Personally I can think of so many times where I thought to myself “oh wow, that’s impossible” and God totally proves me wrong and makes a dream/fantasy a reality. He knows what your desires are. Pursue them with God! Don't set off to accomplish this great dream on your own. God intended our relationship to be a partnership; you’ll never have to do anything on your own. I was just thinking; I bet God has dreams too, I bet his dreams are to see the whole world get saved or to at least see every person hear the gospel of Jesus Christ.

This weekend was a very busy and crazy weekend. Our baseball team here at Southeastern volunteered to work the mens and women's soccer nationals along with women's volleyball nationals. I had to miss class on Friday and again on Monday. It was hectic to say the least. I was actually able to go to a church service Sunday night in Aburndale; it was a very good service! Very relaxed, but nothing was hidden. Sometimes is bugs me when the church has a hidden agenda; it just seems fake and planned, which it probably is.
I guess how I'm kind of relating this to class, is through the readings we did. We read out of Ezekiel; I don't quite remember the exact verse off the top of my head. It was a story about a man, who God was trying to show him how to go deeper in his relationship with him. He used a river to get his point across. The man said "Lord I want to go deeper", so god told him to step into the river. Soon the man's feet were submerged in the water. Then he said "but Lord I want to go deeper!", so God told him to walk out further into the river, soon enough the man was up to his knees in the river. I think you get the point by now, as to what God was teaching this man.
God in a sense is like the water, and once you "lay down" in the water in let it overflow your body, is when God can completely take control and use you to your maximum potential. I think its cool to see how God used circumstances like this in his "literature". I forget what they call it, I know there is a literary term for giving something life like qualities even though it isn't living. That might not make sense, but I'm trying to remember back to seventh grade English haha.

Ok so, when I first read the assingment for class on tuesday I was kind of scared. I didn't really know what to expect because I'm not really the type of guy that watches musicals. I was rudely mistaken; "Dr. Horrible" sing along blog was very funny. The actor who plays Dr. Horrible, I've seen before on other television comedys, so I knew he was going to be funny.
It started off kind of weird. I wasn't really sure if Dr. Horrible was a joke, or if he really was Dr. Horrible. I thought maybe he was just playing a goofy part as a joke. But as the show progressed I realized that he indeed was "Dr. Horrible". The whole show he was trying to accepted in to some kind of a hero league of some sort. He only had to do one though first... kill someone!
I think you can take a valuable lesson out of this. Sometimes we are so blinded by our long term goals, that we tend to ignore the stuff in between that help us get there. Usually we end up falling flat on our face. In this case, Dr. Horrible didn't kill who intended on, in fact he killed a girl who he adored very much. All because he was so caught up in the dream of his. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying dreams are bad by any means. I'm just saying that sometimes you need to stop and smell the flowers along the way. Dreams start small and eventually get big. There are alot of little stuff we need to do before that dream can become a reality.
If I was to go out tomorrow and say my dream is to be a proffesional baseball player and expect it to happen that next day, then I'm on something. I would have to put many hours in the weight room, eat a well balanced diet, run and throw every day and not be affraid of failure. Thats how dreams come true!

When I first pulled up to Lake Bonny I was surprised and a little bit relieved. I didn’t realize how close it was to school. I didn’t know what to really expect as Mark and myself drove around for a minute trying to find some parking. I was a little confused at first because I expected to pull up to an area that was heavily wooded, but instead there were lots of athletic fields and sports teams from the area practicing.
We eventually found a parking spot and the pathway that Professor Corrigan was talking about. Right away I noticed the colors and sounds of the woods. It was evening when we went, so the birds were pretty quiet, but wind was howling and making the trees sway back and forth. We started down the path and I immediately noticed flowers to the left. I didn’t know if they were wild flowers or not. I continued down the trail and crossed the bridge that was displayed on Professor Corrigan’s blog. I came out on the other side only to find that the bridge continued out over the water. It was a pretty cool site to see. This is where I stood and was just quiet for a few moments. The sky was getting dark but it was just light enough to see some fish jump in the water. After a little while we actually came across two older men that told us about a ten foot alligator that they just took out of the area. That thought kind of made me a little bit un-easy so we started to head back.
I’m glad I went to Lake Bonny. I’ve heard of it up to this point but I never actually saw it. It was a lot different than I thought it was going to be.

To be honest with you, I don't really know what to blog about tonight. So I'm just going to wing it and see where it goes! Three weeks till thanksgiving break, and things are starting to wind down around campus and in the classroom. Its a little weird to me, because I'm from New York and the weather is still in the 80's. I'm used to having to wear a hat and gloves by now. I mean don't get me wrong, I love the warm weather; I just miss home too.

Right now it makes me think about the writers and authors we've read in class and where they called home. Home for most of us made us who we are today, and I'm sure the writers we've read were influenced to write by where they were from or how they were brought up. Like me for instance; I was brought up in a household where we loved baseball. My brother player, my two older sister played softball. It was all around. Now look at me, I play baseball here at Southeastern University.

Makes me think about the works we've read where, the story is a little gloomy or sad. Maybe that author wasn't brought up in the best of conditions and writing was the way he or she expressed her feelings.