one upped

I brought my film camera to a party last weekend... so did Dean.

the work of a true artist

God must have spent a little extra time creating this city

Now that I've actually seen a decent portion of this planet (at least of the northern hemisphere), I feel like I'm actually at a place where I can say that Santa Barbara is truly one of the most beautiful cities in the world! I am unbelievably blessed to live and learn here!

at least we think we're cool

God bless them

keeping santa barbara safe and not aflame on a daily basis

remembering

The Star Spangled Banner flying below a blue French sky but above green American soil

This Memorial Day, I reflect on one of the most somber days of my life. On the morning of August 30, 2011 I stepped off of French soil and onto the sacred ground of Normandy American Cemetery. Below my feet rested the almost 10,000 Americans that gave their lives protecting their far away homeland. Walking the endless rows crosses and Stars of David, I could hear the eternal crashing of the waves on nearby Omaha Beach where so many of these men gave their lives. While walking, I was overcome with grief and humility. Sorrowfully aware that I was standing over ten thousand of my American brothers, the victorious dead. Humbly knowing that it was for this very ability for me to stand there as a free man that they risked and ultimately gave their lives on those near by beaches. 

Today I remember not only the brave Americans who have given their lives to protect my freedom in previous generations, but also those who risk and give their lives today in the name of our liberty. I was ten years old when the twin towers were attacked, and I have only ever really known this nation at war. I am fully aware that at 20 years old, I am of average enlisting age. I like to think that if things had been different, if I didn't have this chronic pain, I would have already enlisted. But things aren't different, and I have to find another way to serve my country. I have taken JFK's words to heart and have sought only to serve my country and not ask for anything in return. 

A simple 'thank you' doesn't even come close to what I would like to express to our men and women in uniform. My challenge for you and for myself is to find a way to show our above and beyond gratitude to our veterans and active soldiers. These men and women are America's finnest, and they deserve to be treated as such! Similarly, our gallant dead deserve respect, gratitude and honor. In our everyday lives, we can honor and remember our fallen heros by never taking for granted the liberty that they died for. We must remember that freedom has never been free. Taking it for granted would be an insult to the memory of those who died for it.

video pro

Fil capturing the eclipse 

guess who came to visit last week...

Number 4, Privet Drive

this is why I like film

I thought I alined these a little better, but you still get the point. There's just something special about the frist one with. 

post script: I realize I post a lot of black and white on here, but I'm waiting for a roll of color to be developed right now that should brighten up this blog!

"No I'm not colorblind, I know the world is black and white." jm

these two don't need a post title

he's alive!

After being out of commission from back surgery for a few weeks, Scott has officially walked out of his house and is indeed alive and well!

paint

The abandoned paint from my grandpas model airplane obsession 

eclipse

crescent moon or giant ball of fire? It took three separate pairs of sunglasses to get it this clear

more black and whites

I added two more rolls to my black and white portraits and am now at a grand total of 78! I'm stoked on this project, next I gotta figure out something creative to do with 78 portraits of people I love from Westmont (and Brandon). Any suggestions? I'll probably post them all on facebook sometime today or tonight, but I thought I'd put some on here as a 'fist look' sort of thing. Here are six amazing people!

ode to my mommy

Thank you for being my mother, you’ve done a hell of a job

Thank you for loving me, especially when I was difficult to love

Thank you for letting me walk the footprints alone, sorry I didn't want you to join

Thank you for nurturing me, despite my desire to grow up too fast

Thank you for being there for me, when I need anything or needed everything

Thank you for showing me how great God is when you trust in Him

Thank you for teaching me how to treat and respect women

Thank you for accompanying me to a thousand and one doctor appointments

Thank you for giving me your Italian blood and the passion that comes along with it

Thank you for taking my picture every fifteen seconds as I was growing up

Thank you for living a life I can (and do) admire and strive to live like

Thank you for holding me hand during the bad times

Thank you for crying with me during the sad times

Thank you for praying with me during the scary times

Thank you for celebrating with me during the good times

Thank you for putting my needs ahead of yours (expect for that one laser tag party I missed)

Thank you for pushing me to be the best I could be, despite me wanting to give up

Thank you for making those thousands of meals, especially for the ones I never thanked you for   

Thank you for loving me, day in and day out

Thank you for being my mommy, 20 successful years and counting

oh the random old objects I find in this ancient house

call me RapunzDRY

So I'm living in a tower. I've come to think of myself as a red haired dude rapunzel or something.

what do you call dutch shoes again?

yeah ok, it's another number of days since something happened: 300

Preface: I know I've been getting all nostalgic on this blog thing. I haven't really said much here since I got home but to be honest, being away is a good 70% of what I think about. Yes, I know that's not healthy but it is what it is. I never really got a chance to process my fall semester abroad, I was just thrown back into everyday American life and was expected to deal with it. Within days, it became the ever repeated joke at Westmont that 'the poor poor Euro Sem students can't adjust to life back at school, boo hoo. Can't handle dorms over 5star hotels?' I know it seems crazy, but you try having absolutely no identity of who you are because you're a new person in a new place every four days. So if you don't want to hear about my nostalgia, just look at the pretty pictures and smile.

The rest: Damn. 300 days since I got that plane that began the best experience of my life thus far. When I started this post about 10 seconds ago I thought this was going to be a "omg I can't believe it's been that long, it feel like just yesterday I was having beer #1 of 1000" post, but honestly it doesn't feel like yesterday. It feels just about as long as it's been, about a year. I still remember the best part about that day was the feeling of total and complete independence that carried on through the entire semester. I was flying alone, I had to figure out where the hell to go on my own. I met up with my sister on day one, but to be real she can't navigate to save her life. How she gets around San Francisco day in and day out is beyond me. (But I have to stress how awesome she was as a travel partner... slowest walker in the history of the world, I literally watched snails outpace here - not joking. But it forced me to slow down and take everything in and I am eternally grateful to her for that.) 

I truly miss those days of complete independence, when nobody thought they had to tell me what to do - I just did it because nobody was there to tell me what the hell to do! I got back here and I'm treated like a child, not just by my family but by perfect strangers! I'm 20 years old and you'd think I was 16 by the way strangers treat me sometimes. Nobody does that in Europe, if anything kids are treated too much like adults and not the other way around. That's probably one of the reasons I hate shaving my beard, I'm better respected by adults when I have it. It's really weird talking about adults that way seeing as I'm just a few months away from being regarded as one here (age wise).

I've missed living on my own, I'm so excited to have the opportunity to do it again right now while living at my grandpa's house for May term. Seeing as he wakes up before me (and I get up at 7), is taking his hours long afternoon nap by the time I get back from class, then is in bed before 8 - I'm usually alone, and I love it. I better start getting used to it, two years and I get thrown out onto the streets.

sun or moon?

Just so you don't try and call me out at misusing photoshop, I didn't edit this picture one bit (with the exception of straightening it). I took this long exposure shot of the so called 'super moon' last week somewhere around 8pm. It was well past dark, but the flipping super moon lit up the sky and ocean. I wish I got home sooner so I could have captured it closer to the horizon.

20.0 sec at f/ 4.0, ISO 100

152 days

It's been 5 months to the day since I left the old city of Jerusalem and boarded a plane flying into the West. Coincidentally, Wesmont's Istambul semester team is embarking on that exact same journey from Jerusalem to Los Angeles today. I read Keaton Hudson's latest blog entry "ITS OVER" today and he describes the almost identical feeling I had the night I left Jerusalem. It was a simply surreal emotion, and it still is.

How has it been 5 months since I left? I can still hear the daily calls to prayer and smell the incense burning in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher like I was there yesterday. A part of me feels like I never truly left while the other part of me doubts it ever happened. Did I really spend almost 5 months in Europe then another month in Israel/Palestine? How did I do that? Why? There are days I cannot seem to bring myself to admit that it happened because in doing so I have to characterize it in the past tense. It did happen, emphasis on the did, done, finished, gone. Admitting the fact that I was in the Holy Land is simultaneously admitting my guilt in leaving. Guilt - that's an interesting way to put it... I consider myself culpable in my leaving as if it was a crime. But I remember that feeling, and I pray that I never forget it, as I was the very last student standing on the curb outside the city walls wile the rest of my peers were already on the bus that would eventually drag me to the airport. I stood there alone, unbeknownst to anyone around me, struggling with a violent internal battle: every fiber in my being was urging me to run - stay in Jerusalem and never look back, but responsibility convinced me to get on that wretched bus and leave. Did I really leave thought? I think about Jerusalem every day. The moment I close my eyes I can see the old city walls. I can hear the shouting, laughing, singing and crying in Hebrew and in Arabic. The chaos and commotion of the city that I can only relive in my dreams calms and drives me. Maybe it's because I'd give anything to be back, or maybe it's because I'd give anything to not be here. Either way, I lust for Jerusalem. I am the first to admit that I do not remotely comprehend the longing the Jews had for Jerusalem during the exile, but I can't help but feel a connection with them at this moment.   

The fact that I have never been able to fully accept that I'm back in California must be a result of my yearning to be somewhere else. Could my constant temptation to dream of being back in Jerusalem simply be a product of my desire to be anywhere but here? I can't put my finger on the reason why I don't want to be in this place. I have an amazing life in this state. I have a family that loves me and cares for me more than anything else. I am surrounded by wonderful friends while I attend one of the most prestigious Christian colleges in the country. Hell, just the fact that I live next the beach with constantly perfect weather should be enough of a reason for me to want to be here shouldn't it!? Why then do I crave the narrow stone streets in my memory. Why do I crave a landlocked city in the middle of the desert/wilderness? Why do I crave a place that is continually scarred by conflict and violence? Why do I crave what I haven't laid eyes upon in 152 days. These aren't rhetorical questions... WHY? 

As I sit here on my couch I'm wondering what the heck I'm doing with my life? It's almost midnight, I have an Old Testament final in the morning and all I can do is sit and write this. As I do, I'm suffering yet another violent internal battle: all I want to do is flee, drop everything and run far away from here leaving all worries and responsibilities in my dust. I'm a twenty year old without a career or family of my own holding me down, why shouldn't I escape - vanish to another part of the globe where no one can find me and remind me of what I gave up. I don't know where I'd go, but I bet you could guess where my first choice destination would be. Then I'm reminded by that annoyingly responsible side of me what that flight would entail. Would I really choose to be a college drop out? With what money am I planning this great evasion? Why would I desert everything I have for emptiness? I am in a constant wrestling match between my childish desire to be free from responsibility and my irritatingly strong adherence to my education and future. 

While I've been writing this I have slowly come to admit what I have known all along. The (ir)rationality for my freaking out and dreaming about disappearing is because of the fact that in three days I will be half way done with college. I've just declared my major and started applying for internships that will start to concretely shape the course of my foreseeable future. This is not something I need to be having a mental breakdown about, and yet it's happening. Why do I worry so much about this? The truth is that I really don't know. I guess I'm just scared...

I actually do need to go to bed now. It's past 1am and I'm going to pay for this in the morning. Per usual I'm excited to fall asleep and momentarily escape these challenges in blissful dreams. I wonder where my imagination is going to take me tonight: