We've come to an end...sort of

As I write this, I have just finished watching the season finale of season 2 of Lost. Hence the fact that my brother an I have come to an end...sort of. We'll probably start season 3 in a few days. Several things about this season made me think though. The whole season encompassed a vast variety of things, but everything revolved in some way around the hatch. For non Lost fans, the hatch is basically an enigmatic metal thing in the ground that opened up to reveal an apartment/bomb shelter/secret agent station thing that nobody really understands. There was one purpose for the hatch, at least one known purpose. Every 108 minutes, someone had to enter the code (4 8 15 16 23 42) or presumably the world would explode. No one knew what would happen, or if anything would happen, but they pressed the numbers and then "execute" on this ancient little computer every 108 minutes, without fail. Which brings me to what I think this season was all about. Faith. Specifically, Locke's faith, Jack's lack of faith, Ecko's growing faith, and Locke's loss of faith. In the beginning, the man who lived inside the hatch told Locke everything he needed to know to press the button, then ran away. Because of many previous factors, Locke already had some serious faith in the island, but now he had a choice. Enter the code, or experience the possibly non-existent consequences. Locke believed in the hatch, so he pressed the button. Enter Jack, who hears all this information and thinks that it can't be for real. They shouldn't enter the code, they should just ignore it. This led to a major confrontation between Jack and Locke, which resulted in Jack caving and entering the numbers. As the season progressed, I don't think Jack ever really developed faith as much as he did caution. Whenever the code needed to be input, Jack never really rushed to get it done if something else was more important. He put the numbers in when he had to, but more often than not someone else did it. I think he thought "better safe than sorry", but I don't think he really believed anything would happen. Mr. Ecko is a Nigerian priest (sort of ) who came onto the scene much later, but after having a dream he through himself at Locke and the hatch with a reverent passion. He and Locke went traipsing through the woods and discovered another hatch. This one was an observation station, overlooking their hatch. The orientation video for that hatch told them that their own hatch was just a psychological experiment. At this point, Locke's faith crumbled, and Mr. Ecko's soared. Skipping forward, Locke ended up locking himself in the room with the computer, determined to let the countdown run out and prove that nothing would happen. Mr. Ecko was certain this would be the death of them all, but ultimately he was unable to stop Locke. A bunch of loose ends were left hanging at the end of the episode, which is how all season finales ought to be, I suppose.

After that long winded explanation, let me get to my point. Everybody has faith in something. I don't mean just religion. Even atheists have faith. We have faith in people, who let us down. We have faith in things, which fade. We have faith in UFOs, who may or may not even be out there. Those of us who have faith in God often struggle with that faith. I would compare it this way. A lot of Americans are like Jack. Those like Jack think, "God's probably not real, but I'd better be prepared just in case." We have a "Christian nation" made up of a lot of people who don't really believe. A lot of Christians are like Locke. They believe strongly for years, then something happens to shake their foundation and they crumble. They lose their faith and they can't find anything to rebuild upon. I think we should be like Mr. Ecko. When that foundation shakes, we should grab on to God with all our might and our faith should increase ten fold. We shouldn't lose our faith when the foundation shakes, we should grab the one thing that will never shake. 

Forgive me if my Lost analogy is a little out of whack. I tried my best in my tired addle-brained state. For those of you who suffer through my Lost posts, I promise to make the next one strictly non-Lost. Oh, and I might get around to posting part 2 of my rant soon.

Since last I wrote

I'm really bad at this whole blogging thing, aren't I? Well, I'm more consistent than I am with my journal at least. So I spent a week in Colorado, visiting all three of my grandparents, seven aunts and uncles, eleven cousins, ten family friends, plus various other people. It was quite busy, but good. We took my grandparents to see Voyage of the Dawn Treader, which I loved both times I saw it. My mum's mother enjoyed it but found many faults with the movie, as she is a self proclaimed "Narnia purist". I like accuracy, but bizarrely book-to-film is one of the few areas of my life where I'm not a perfectionist. I can be satisfied with just about any book-to-film adaption. I mean, I loved Stormbreaker and that was a terrible representation of it's book. One of my grandmother's main points with Dawn Treader was that instead of redeeming the lords who were asleep at the table, the swords had to be collected and placed together to break the hold of the Dark Island. Her point was that originally it was a representation of salvation, but adding the sword thing made it seem like we had to earn our redemption. I can see her point, but I don't agree. Even after she explained it, nothing about that aspect of the plot struck me in that way. I understand, but I don't think that was something that was intended/altered whatever to achieve or remove that particular theological ideal. Speaking of movies, I also so TRON: Legacy a second time, which is a pretty awesome movie. I don't think I need to see it again for awhile, but its one I really enjoyed. And seeing it in IMAX was very impressive. One of the last things I did in Colorado was drink a Strawberry Tsunami at Jamba Juice. That's heaven in a styrofoam cup. If you haven't the foggiest what I'm talking about, they renamed it to Strawberry Surfrider because they thought "Tsunami" was insensitive after that big tsunami however many years ago. Its an amazing drink under any name though. I did come home with a nasty cold, but I'm more or less over it, and I'm planning to go deliver food to the homeless tomorrow, so that should be good.

Colorado

As of yesterday afternoon, I'm in Colorado. I'm here to visit family, starting with my mother's parents. Today we're having lunch at Panera Bread with all three of my grandparents, going to see Voyage of the Dawn Treader again with all of them, and then going to my aunt and uncle's house tonight. We're only here for a week, but its going to be a busy week with all the visiting!

And I'm off on a rant (Part 1!)

Shame on me, second day of the new year and I'm already off on a rant! And part one of a rant as well! I have another part of this rant, on the same thought wave, but I'll save that for another day. Anyway, this is something I stew over a lot, and I need to hash it out, so here goes. Teenagers are idiots. I know I'm making a rash generalization, but its true. Seriously, they choose to love or hate things based on public opinion and celebrity endorsement. Who cares if its quality or not, right? Now, I'm going to go a bit more specific here and talk about one thing in particular.

High School Musical. Don't you dare run away now, if you automatically decide not to keep reading after I mentioned HSM, then you need to hear this. I'm talking to you. HSM is a perfect example of something good (not phenomenal or earth-shattering, but good) was turned into a leper by teenagers. It's not "cool" to like HSM, so no teenager does, or if they do they won't admit it. I'm not making this up either, it's ridiculous. I'm surrounded by people who hate things for no good reason. Let me recap for you a conversation I repeated over and over with many of the girls I asked about HSM. We'll call these girls "Amy".

Me: "So, do you like High School Musical?"
Amy: "Ugh, no!"
Me: "Why not?"
Amy: "It's lame."
Me: "What makes it lame?"
Amy: "Well, it's just not very good."
Me: "Specifically, why don't you like it?"
Amy: "Well, the first one was ok..."
Me: "So why is it lame?"
Amy: "I dunno."
Me: "Ok, what about the second one?"
Amy: "Oh, I didn't like the second one."
Me: "Well, the story wasn't as good, but the music was still really good."
Amy: "Yeah, that's true."
Me: "What about the third?"
Amy: "Oh, I didn't see the third."
Me: "Why not?"
Amy: "Cause the first two were so lame."

That's the point of the conversation where I went hunting for a brick wall to hit my head on. If you don't see any problems with that conversation, then I can't help you. For those of you who identified the screwy logic, let me assure you that I've had that conversation nearly verbatim with at least four girls, and similar conversations with several more. This really bugs me, and here's why. HSM is a very wholesome trilogy Disney released that includes lovable characters, great morals, catchy music, and a fun time. If you just don't like musicals, you're exempt from this rant. Somebody somewhere decided it wasn't cool to like HSM, since apparently all Disney shows/movies on the Disney Channel are for little kids. Therefore, you're not allowed to like HSM (or Hannah Montana, or Jonas, etc.). When we take something wholesome in its values and declare it to be uncool, we're sending a message to Hollywood, Disney, whoever, that they need to feed us more cursing, more violence, more sex, because that's what's cool. I don't know about you, but that's not the message I want to broadcast.

In The New Year

I made this in Photoshop because when I
googled 2011 all I got were pictures of cars.

Today is January 1st, 2011. Outside my window is the wide expanse of space, and my flying car is parked just outside ready to take me wherever in the universe I wish to go. Oops, I forgot. We aren't there yet! Remember watching cartoons as a kid? Every time a future featuring flying cars and other such tech was portrayed, it was always sometimes between 2010 and 2020, wasn't it? Sometimes later than that, but I always thought I'd at least have my own jetpack right now. Although I'd much prefer a teleport so I could easily visit everyone who doesn't live near me. Anyway, It's a new year and all over the world people have made resolutions. I don't usually make resolutions on New Years. I'm not against the concept, I just never really thought about it. What I do think about is what I'm looking forward to. So, for those interested parties, here is a list of 15 things I'm looking forward to in the order they occurred to me, so not chronological by any means. And more important things might occur to me later.

1. Dad coming home.
2. Turning 18.
3. Series 6 of Doctor Who.
4. Series 2 of Sherlock.
5. Visiting family in Colorado.
6. Graduating high school.
7. Finding out when/if I have to move.
8. The Secret of the Unicorn in December.
9. Hopefully seeing my best friend Ariel in December.
10. The next Bryan Davis book coming out.
11. The next Alex Rider series book coming out.
12. Meeting new people.
13. Going to Summit for camp in the summer.
14. The new Hawk Nelson album.
15. Finishing my afghan. Maybe.

Happy New Year!