A Christmas Story

Well, Santa came through at the last moment this year and got me my own “Red Ryder BB gun.” But while this gift is a pretty mean shot, I don’t think I’m in too much danger of shooting my eye out. No, the “Red Ryder” for the 20-year old version of myself was a Nikon D3100 digital SLR camera. I had been asking for a while, and with my upcoming European adventure, it seemed the best way to capture my time abroad, seeing as pictures rather than words are my preferred means of expression. Photography has always been a small hobby of mine, aided by my trusty point and shoot digital camera (I suppose “cameras” would be a more appropriate term since I may have gone through one or two… or three… in the last couple years). They say a picture is worth a thousand words? Well I’m hoping that with this new camera I can fit a couple hundred more words into each shot. I’ve spent the last couple days reading manuals and trying to understand camera jargon like “shutter speed,” “aperture,” and “ISO settings,” but I’ve found the best way to learn is to just start shooting. Lucky for me, I have 7 convenient models around the house to help me out (4 humans, 3 adorable canines).

I’ve decided this blog will be more of a picture blog than anything else and hopefully, in time, the quality of each shot will improve as I take more pictures. But for now, here are some amateur shots of some of the people (and creatures) I love the most, at one of the places I love the most.

P.S. I wasn’t totally kidding about the Red Ryder… Santa did bring us our very own Red Rider BB guns about six Christmases ago. We had just finished opening all of our gifts when my father noticed “something” behind a chair in the living room. And the rest is history.

There are countless quotes and sayings out there about the great “journey” that is life. “The road of life twists and turns and no two directions are ever the same. Yet our lessons come from the journey, not the destination” (Don Williams, Jr.), “A journey is best measured in friends rather than miles” (Tim Cahill), or the classic “The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step” (Lao Tzu). And they’re all right.

This blog is not so much for others than it is for myself, so that I can record at least in part my own journey. Too often do I find myself living for the weekend or the next big “event.” The problem is that every Sunday night, without fail, I complain about how fast the weekend went by and start wishing for the next. School is the same. Being a seasoned procrastinator, I usually wait until the few days before (or on occasion the day before) an exam or project deadline, and then spend all time leading up to said exam/project stressing out and studying. But what happens to the time in between? I’ve lost count of the times I’ve promised myself to start appreciating the small things, to slow down and “smell the roses.” Hopefully (fingers crossed) this blog will help. I’m by no means a good writer, and have never exactly forthcoming with my feelings, so this might be a challenge. But hey, it’s a start. Lao Tzu would be proud.