January 7, 2014

After posting my last journal entry, Trevor said that he initially had no intention to develop a romantic relationship in Bolivia, but a good friendship turned romantic before he knew it, confirming nothing was hidden from me and he has full trust in me. His spontaneity is not my style, and he knows that.

Anyhow… (That is a made up word that my mom says.) Today is special because I had my first day, practicing AutoCAD. Learning AutoCAD is my new year's resolution. I am surprised how many people don't know what AutoCAD is. It is a 3D modeling program for used in many professions. The holidays were hectic for me, so I finally got to it today. I have been attempting to read an article for a couple weeks now. They first advised me to practicing navigating the 3D space. Practicing without an actual sample project was completely different, but I learned the basics. After getting used to it, I downloaded a condominium model and navigated around it. That was just as difficult as the previous practice; then, I was advised to experiment and learn the tools in making things. I made a cube with twelve lines, and that was easy. Using the command line is interesting. I was trying to put a dome on a side of my cube with arcing lines, but I could not make them attach to opposite corners diagonal from each other. I was feeling tired, so I took a break from that, preparing for a jog.

One thing about me that I would like the family and friends of mine that read this to know about me is that I am a long distance runner. Last year about May, I tried to run track, for I did in high school. I got injured before the end of the second week of the season. I realized that I got injured because I was an avid blogger, following the world news very closely on Twitter and retweeting every development that I can. The investment of time was hours a day to publish daily tweets at ReadtheStoryoftheWorld.blogspot.com. Sitting and laying around each day to keep up with the news made me weak to my knee injury that I found myself with. I blogged the story of the world for more than two years, but I had to quit. I attend Brigham Young University in Idaho, and, seeing that the cross country championship times of the school were slow, I knew that I could win. This was a new goal in my life. I trained over the summer, overcoming my injury, and I won the championship race of Brigham Young University Idaho's 2013 cross country. My goal now is to continue my high school goal to break the 10 minute barrier in the two mile. I focused on the two mile in high school. My friends are scared to train with me now that I win 5Ks in Rexburg, the small town that has little competition.

I tell them that I even went on a run with my mother a couple weeks ago, and we had a good time. I have been running for about ten years, and mom finally started running on her own will this past year. She worked up to running about 30 minutes on the treadmill and was confident enough to run with me. That moment a couple weeks ago was the first time that we ran together. She may have gone out too fast. If you don't know running lingo, that means she started the run too fast. I thought that she was not use to running on the road because she just runs on the treadmill, not being used to propelling herself forward. We jogged for a good 10 minutes, and walked the last 20 minutes. We had a good time, talking.

Last week was also fun because I watched a movie while I was preparing for a jog. It takes about an hour after eating before I feel good to run. Looking for a good animated film, I found The Girl Who Leapt Through Time. After watching that movie, I was so inspired that I decided that it is my favorite movie, and I am not one to have a favorite movie. The story is so good. The characters are well developed, and the fun is not the usual stuff. The main character's attribute to travel into the unknown inspired me to run in a way that I have never done.

On my run I felt like running in the opposite ways of my intentions. I am from Santa Cruz, California, and my first direction was towards Pleasure Point. Since that run would be to short, I turned to run to the Capitola Village. There was traffic in the road, so for an odd reason I ran in the road next to the cars outside of the biking lane. Running through the village, I usually just go straight up the hill out of it, but I ran up the stairs and around towards the New Brighton beach. I usually run this direction, so I went down a trail, going down to the railroad. I thought that I could run on the beach. I have not done that in years. At the New Brighton beach, I saw a trail that said no trespassing, so I didn't go through. Running along the beach on a dirt road, I saw some stairs, going up to the campgrounds, which was a good hill to run up. I explored the grounds and found a road, leading to a neighborhood. The streets had the railroad tracks, which lead to a state park that I never seen or heard of before. I even checked on Google, and they don't have much information on it. It has a plaque dedicated to Senator Henry J. Mello and Vicki Powell for preserving the land. I explored those trails until I returned to the street that I began at. I didn't want to run on roads or train tracks, so I found a trail going through the woods. The trail was nice. I even saw a deer, and I have not seen a deer on one of my runs for years. This trail got iffy, but it existed. There were many trails in the woods. One led to a fallen tree that I crossed. I wondered if they were drug trafficking trails. I felt like I might get lost in the trails. I was led to a den type area. Homeless people might live there. I saw two tunnel like trails that I didn't want to crawl through. I thought that animals may live here too. I felt a little lost and that it was time to go home, so I found a trail that led me to the railroad, which goes toward my home. My friend's mother saw me, walking on the side of the street, so she drove me home. I was picking at a sliver in my neck, and my shirt was scraped, which I thought were signs of a good adventure. I checked out the trail of my adventure today, finding some more trails to explore tomorrow.

Our family received a new Brazilian foreign English student last Friday. A friend of mine, which I should identify, Jossy Reyes, thought that she may be trouble. We never hosted a teenage girl, nor did we ever have any sisters in my family. We were a little worried, but we are down for whatever she brings though. Her name is Nathalia. 

I joked that Jossy thought that she was trouble because her Facebook cover photo is of her laying on the beach with two parrots, standing on her feet and head. She is super cool like all the other Brazilians that I met, and she is more fragile than expected, having Asthma. We played Pokemon Monopoly on Sunday night. We decide that the houses of the orange property should cost double because, if you have them you are almost guaranteed to win. The game was never completed. Since I was having bad luck, I had to play more aggressively, and dad was worth the most, winning the game. Nathalia likes hanging out and exploring the town until late, so we miss her at dinner.