Things I Can Do To Smarten Up (A Bit)

I think summer is that time of year when one’s sole existence is dedicated to sleeping until noon and obliterating all useful information you’ve learned the past school year. But while that sounds like a capital idea, I’m tired of being completely useless around the house.

1. Read/research on Romeo and Juliet.
   

   I really don’t know anything about these two epic lovebirds except that they ended up dying “because of their eternal love each other” (How disgustingly romantic) and that their families were the biggest of mortal enemies. Then what?

   (What is up with their names? Juliet Capulet? Romeo Montague? It’s like naming me Kia Banana.)

2. Read the newspaper. Bask in the warmth of current events.
   

   My mom nags like the plague. She thinks I don’t know who the president of the United States is. I’m perfectly aware that it’s Oprah.

   No?

3. Take up an instrument – any instrument.
4. Watch Discovery Channel for a change.
   

   My brother and I watched this documentary called Man vs Wild. It’s about learning to survive when you find yourself in a rut away from the comforts of home and a decent bathroom. The guy ate goat testicles, drank elephant dung juice (He squeezed the water out of elephant droppings) and  jumped into a bog (which he said smelled and tasted like a thousand cities worth of sewage) voluntarily. What say you?

5. Research on the holocaust. Get a decent WWII movie while you’re at it.
   

   Would it be totally inappropriate if I said I loved that part of history? What I mean to say is that I like reading or watching films about the second world war. Hitler’s anti-Semitism movement and supremacy propaganda were the most inhuman undertakings the world has seen. At what point does a man lose all sense of compassion and humanity?

6. Learn more about photography.
   

   I started taking up lomography last year and have become a proud lomo junkie. It’s costing me a fortune, but as I always say: It’s worth every penny.

   I’m still dreaming of an SLR though. I’m thinking a couple years of starvation will do it. My parents are having trouble swallowing the amount of dough it will cost to buy me one. But I’m keeping my hopes up.

7. Listen to tunes aside from rock music. It doesn’t even have to be classical.
8. Learn to cook. Dumping leftovers in a pan does not count.
9. Get some exercise. I’m serious.
   

   Okay. I’m getting miserably bloated. All I do is look forward to the next meal. I’m starting to miss volleyball practices. I even miss being sore from all the running and crawling.

10. Get some sleep. You look like the walking dead. It’s unbecoming. Stop sleeping after midnight.

To my first list, Folks. Wish me luck.

The Moppet Lists (An Introduction)

Remember that off-the-hook idea I was talking about a couple of days ago about making lists? Well, I decided to power through with it. This is an introduction to the experiment which will be known from then on as:

The Moppet Lists (A Social Experiment)

I plagiarized this from the movie The Bucket List (starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman) with a few quirky changes. I’ve watched it four times in the last two weeks and have become hopelessly addicted (It has been recently awarded a spot in my Fab Movies Hall of Fame). The concept is more or less the same.

Rules

1. I will make lists of the things I plan to do, need to do, want to do, etc.
2. In this experiment, nothing has to make perfect sense.
3. Also, I am not compelled to follow the list.
4. However, it is preferred that I do.
5. This is purely recreational. No one (the author and the reader) is allowed to get a hemorrhage over it.

Etymology

• The Bucket List

• Did you know that the word moppet means young child?

• I read The Story of Miss Moppet (by Beatrix Potter, the author who wrote The Tale of Peter Rabbit) on the internet.

Miss Moppet is a cat trying to catch a mouse. She hits her head on a cupboard and ties a duster in her head. The curious mouse comes near a hurt-looking Miss Moppet. But apparently, that was all a ruse. Miss Moppet wraps the duster over the mouse and tosses it like a ball. But there is a hole in the duster! The mouse wriggles its way free, and does a jig on top of the cupboard.

(I don’t know how to explain to you the relevance of this story. In fact, I think it’s best we not think about it at all)

Stay tuned.