Friday, January 22, 2010

*sigh* Comments

Hi everyone,
It is with great regret that I am announcing COMMENT MODERATION. Due to a large amount of icky spammers posting spam comments on my blog, I've decided to add a word verification box when you post a comment, and I will also be "moderating" comments. So when you submit one, it won't show up until I've reviewed it. Sorry about this. :( It's just that I'm getting tired of fake users posting links to stupid spammy websites. But don't let this stop you from posting comments! If it's really a problem, let me know, and maybe I'll revert it to it's former glory.

Spammers begone!

Thursday, January 21, 2010

Hi everyone, sorry for the lack of posts/comment responses lately. I have lots on my plate right now.

Thursday, January 14, 2010

Dentists and blood

I went today for my annual teeth cleaning and general tooth check-up at the dentist, and was quickly reminded of why I don't like going to the dentist. It's bloody painful. Oops, I mean bloody and painful. You see, I, um, don't floss. And so my gums are really sensitive and are rather prone to bursting and spewing forth lots of blood. When I brush my teeth every day, it's rare to have a day that they don't bleed. As both of my parental units told me today, if only I flossed, my mouth wouldn't bleed as much. In fact, my dad even gave me a stirring speech about how not flossing would cause bacteria to infiltrate my gums and make my teeth rot from the root up. Anyway, it was very painful having my teeth cleaned, and all I could think of as I was lying there bleeding on the dentist was, "gosh, do I really have to do this every year for the rest of my life?". Nice thought. I think I probably lost about 2-3 tablespoons of blood (I'm serious). By the time I got out of the chair, my teeth and gums felt like they had been stabbed, poked, prodded, scraped and gouged, (which, incidentally, they had been). So, I guess my new New Year's resolution is to floss. I flossed tonight and bled more.

Which brings me to another thought. I think I've said this before, but as I was staring at all the blood on my finger, I was thinking about how much I love the colour of my blood. Is that weird? Maybe it is. But it's such a beautiful, rich, bright red! I love it.

Hmm, what else? This has been kind of a rambling little post. Hey, actually, what do you think about this kind of post? Do you like the random little posts about my cool (read: weird) life, or do you like the more formalized posts?

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Um...-insert lame title here-

Last night, I was thinking about what I do for fun. Obviously, the first things that crossed my mind were music and theatre. And then, as I was thinking about it, I considered whether I actually completely do them for fun. Clichéd as it sounds, they are more of a necessity to me, rather than pure entertainment. When you truly have a passion or a calling for something, it's not necessarily always a fun thing, but you just have to do it, because it's something that is essential to you.


A random note- I apologize for the lame titles of these posts. I can write posts, but I can never name them. It's almost comical.

Thursday, January 7, 2010

Brainwashing

Well. After the overwhelming response to my last post, I can only guess that people don't like answering questions. Or don't like thinking about them (goodness, I hope it ain't so!). And that, my jolly friends, is precisely the topic of my post today. In my opinion, we don't think about big questions enough. We accept things too easily and move on to the next thing. After all, that's what our society teaches us to do. Fast food, disposable technology and and our whole obsession with "fast results" teach us to zoom through things without really taking notice about them. It's the same with ideas. We often don't think about them, and take them for granted, without putting them to a test and thinking for them for ourselves.  There are so many issues out there that people have opinions on, without really thinking through them and often without having researched for themselves. They've just heard them passed down from passed down from parents, friends, leaders etc. and never questioned them. Which is how brainwashing happens. Yay for our generation.

Think.

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

What's the issue?

What, in your opinion, is the biggest issue that is dividing people today?

Post your comments below (anonymous if you like)

Monday, January 4, 2010

Five Love Languages

Have you ever heard of the five love languages? There's a book about it by Gary Chapman, which I actually haven't read. But you can do a quick test on the official website. You can take it here
Basically, Gary Chapman says that there are five basic ways that we express love. Each of us has a primary way (or maybe two) that we use the most. The five are:

1. Words of Affirmation
2. Quality Time
3. Receiving Gifts
4. Acts of Service
5. Physical Touch

It's interesting to know what your primary one is and the primary ones of those around you, so that you can best show your love in the way that matters most to them. 

I just took the test and these were my results.

Your Scores (Out of 30 questions)

10 Words of Affirmation
8 Quality Time
0 Receiving Gifts
5 Acts of Service
7 Physical Touch

Interpreting and Using Your Profile Score

The highest score indicates your primary love language (the highest score is 12). It’s not uncommon to have two high scores, although one language does have a slight edge for most people. That just means two languages are important to you.

The lower scores indicate those languages you seldom use to communicate love and which probably don’t affect you very much on an emotional level.

So as you can see, my primary love language is Words of Affirmation, followed closely by Quality Time and Physical Touch. And check out my score for Receiving Gifts. Ha. Now these scores obviously don't mean that you don't use that language at all, it's just not your primary love language.

You can read more about the languages here.

Anyway, I strongly encourage that you check it out, take the "test" and encourage your family/friends to take it too.

Oh, and if you're comfortable, post your results in the comments below! I'm interested in knowing. (But no pressure)

Sunday, January 3, 2010

About the name of this blog

I don't think that I've ever posted about why this blog is entitled Musings of a Liber Boy. 

Liber is a Latin word that means free. It originates from the name for tree bark which was used in ancient times for writing on. Those who were free (and not slaves) were usually fortunate enough to be able to read and write, and so the "educated", or free folk were called liber.
I feel so fortunate to be truly free, both in mind and body, and so I put that in the title as a reminder to myself of what a blessing it is to be a free person.

The other part of the title is simply what this blog is about: musings. It's a place for me to write my thoughts, and my musings for other people to read. They might be just a couple thoughts, or they might be some formalized paragraphs, but they are always musings from a free, young guy (that's me).

Enjoy!

January 2nd, new year's resolutions, etc.

Today is January 2, the second day of the new calendar year. Of course, the year doesn't begin just because we say it does. You could really start the year at any point in the Earth's rotation around the sun. Regardless, the New Year is seen as a kind of "new beginning". People make all sorts of New Year's resolutions, which usually crash in the first month or two.

I think the reason for this is that although people get really excited about the idea of starting over, they simply aren't willing to change their behaviour, or they don't realise that they have to.

Our culture is so in love with the idea that "this year is going to be different". As if the change between December 31, 2009 and January 1, 2010 makes a difference at all! We should be making goals and "resolutions" the moment we think of them, rather than waiting for the New Year to change us. 

In my opinion, the way to change behaviour is a day by day thing. Instead of focusing on this year, (which is a pretty long stretch), we should focus instead on this week, or today. It's much more practical and much more achievable.

By all means, set yearly goals, but then don't just expect that you're going to achieve them unless you plan and work towards them on a day by day (or week by week) basis.

Anyway, all that said, here are my goals for 2010.

  1. Increase the quality of this blog. I'd like to improve my writing, and delve "deeper" into topics of interest. Maybe this year, I'll do some writing about politics, religion, faith, etc.
  2. Continue exercising regularly. In 2009, I got into a habit of using our Elliptical for an hour every second day at an increasing difficulty, and so I'm keeping that up. 
  3. Begin writing a musical. I'm planning to write the script+lyrics/libretto during Script Frenzy in April, and then work on composing the music during the summer. I'm theoretically working on plot outlines now (actually, I do have ideas). I'm excited.
Okay, written down, those don't look particularly spectacular. Ha. I have more, but I'm not going to bother you with them.

In 2010, other milestones that will come up for me is that I'm doing my final Suzuki Piano recital (a solo recital!) on February 13. I'm majorly excited for that!

Also, on September 22, I turn 18, which means that in Canada, I will no longer be a minor and I will have all the legal rights, which include drinking (not applicable), smoking (not applicable), and voting (YES!!). Crazy. This year, people!!

Happy New Year!

Friday, January 1, 2010

On playing Bach and Mozart

I adore playing the music of Bach and Mozart (especially the Bach! It's glorious!), but at the same time, it makes me feel so inferior as a pianist. You see the wonderful thing, and the thing that makes it so difficult to play well is that it's so transparent. If you make one wrong note, or misplace the weight of your finger by an tiny degree, it stands out, and it sounds wrong. In short, you have to play it perfectly. When you're playing something really Romantic, like Chopin, you can get away (if you have to) with a slip, here or there, and most people won't notice. Not so with Bach. You have to be precise. And that precision, is precisely what makes it so wonderful to listen.

*sigh* I'm not there yet.