You'll Never Walk Alone

So, I was cleaning the house this morning, trying to get it ready to show to prospective tenants, and I decided to read the Gainesville Sun, my favorite local newspaper that I grew up with. Of course, this was the online version. And in it, I found a link to a very impressive tradition. I'm a pretty decent soccer fan, for an American--I grew up playing it, I watch the World Cup and the occasional friendly on TV. The link brought me to a video of the fans of Liverpool before a match against Barcelona--apparently, before every match all the fans sing the song from Carousel, "You'll Never Walk Alone." Any time you can get 70,000+ people to sing a song like that together is very inspiring. Here's the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7xvegPH_Lw
On a side note, it also reminded me of high school choir--my director, Mrs. Harris, would always sing that song to the seniors at the end of the year concert. :) Good times.
So, check out that video, and see the passion for soccer that just doesn't exist here in the States.

Exciting Events of the Weekend

So, last night Erin and I were sitting around, doing homework, and watching an older movie that we borrowed from the Provo Library (see previous post). Things had been kind of odd the past 24 hours, the internet had stopped working and it seemed like the entire router downstairs had blown out. Also, the heat hadn't been on in the past day or so. But that is nothing new. Since we live in basically a redone garage, the guys upstairs have control over the heating, and often they feel warm when we feel cold. So, life was going on, when about 11 oclock we got a knock on the door. The weird thing was, the night before we thought we got a knock on the door late at night, but when I got to the door no one was there. Anyways, I answer the door, and who is it but one of our upstairs neighbors with some news for us! As it turns out, there are two circuits of electricity running through our house. One goes through our apartment and through the couple's apartment downstairs while the other goes through the laundry room and guy's apartment upstairs. The guy's circuit for some reason decided to go kaput on them yesterday. So they have no electricity on their circuit anywhere. This explained all our weird experiences—the death of the circuit caused the router to go kaput and die, since the router was hooked up in the laundry room. Also, they no longer had control of the heating, so we felt the chilly aftereffects. We knew nothing of this, because of course our electricity and everything was working fine! So we talked for a while, we brought them hot chocolate and put some of their perishable food in our fridge. Granted this threw quite a loop into today's activities. It was supposed to be our Saturday laundry day, but with no power in the laundry room, the washers and dryers were effectively ineffective. So, we ended up taking our 3 or 4 loads of laundry to both of Erin's grandparents, spent a lot of time in the afternoon doing the loads, and carrying them back and forth, and it was a great adventure! Then tonight we visited Erin's cousin Mark and his new wife Amber. Don't worry, 1^st wife, and they'll have been married one month on Tuesday. Yay for newlyweds! Fun times! Ok I'm done.

Shameless plug for Old Movies

One of the things that Erin and I like to do together are watch movies. We like to borrow them from the Provo library, because, well, they're free there. And you can borrow up to 4 at a time for a 3 week period. That adds up to a lot of free dates! (Being college students, the word free is *almost* as important as the word date) Anyhow, what I'm trying to get at is that while the movies at the Provo library are free, they're not exactly full of new releases. So we've been trying lots of different kinds of movies. And I came to this realization--old movies are REALLY good!!! Granted, I knew this growing up, as Arsenic and Old Lace has always been one of my favorite movies, just because of how funny it is! But we've tried lots of older movies (When I say older, I mean pre-1980s...some people may disagree with this definition, but hey, it's my blog!) and have been disappointed with none of them! Among them are Casablanca, Twelve Angry Men (never has so much been done with so little, in terms of scenery and location), Murder on the Orient Express, a great murder mystery, And Then There Were None (another great murder mystery...the theme song is so haunting...). I also saw a James Bond movie for the first time through this movie-borrowing kick. And besides all the unnecessary womanizing of Mr. Bond, it wasn't that bad either. But the reason I brought up these old movies was because last night I saw for the first time the classic Jaws. Of course I'd heard the music before--they play it at every Gator game, and I attended my fair share back in my Gainesville days--but to hear it in the movie, when you know the killer shark is coming...I was very impressed with what I believe was only the 2nd of Steven Spielberg's productions. So, anyway, if you ever have free time, or want a cheap date, go to your local library, find an old classic, and enjoy!

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

So I was thinking about the upcoming holiday, and thought to myself, "Why is MLK Day in particular a holiday?" I mean, there have been many cases of people fighting for equality. People have fought for gender equality, like Susan B. Anthony, and yet she doesn't have a holiday. People have fought for religious tolerance, and yet they do not have holidays either. What made Dr. King and the message he fought for so noteworthy? Maybe it's because there are so many African-Americans in the country that his efforts touched the largest amount of people. Maybe it's because African-Americans had to overcome such a history of being mistreated, starting with slavery, then indentured servitude, then separate but equal, and then finally integration and equal rights. Maybe it's the ideal American story of fighting against the odds for something that is virtuous, right, and praiseworthy, and even though it seemed impossible, they kept on fighting, and eventually they prevailed. When I was in elementary school, I attended a school that was predominantly African-American, and I remember clearly learning an African-American spiritual in school, entitled "We Shall Overcome." The lyrics were simple, yet its message powerful: We shall overcome. We shall overcome someday. Deep in my heart, I do believe, We shall overcome someday. And this is true for all of us. No matter what struggles we are facing in our own personal lives, we can overcome them, if we believe, and work to achieve our goal. Isn't that the American dream? Faith in our own potential, and working to achieve it?