Blogger of Jared

This morning at about nine o’clock, Garrison Keillor reminded me life is made up of little things we come to love. Whether important or trivial, these are the things that, every day, give our lives sparkle and vim. Inspired by his thoughts, I’m going to list some of the little things I’ve come to love about what Mexicans call “la vida cotidiana” (roughly translated: everyday life). Please let me know, what are some of the things that make your lives wonderful?

My partial list:

• The “shuffle” setting on my i-pod. I love the fact that, as I walk to school or drive to the suburbs, I can listen to songs selected randomly from my collection of personal favorites. There is something blissful about the transition from MoTab to Ben Folds—it always leaves me smiling.
• My mousey apartment. I live in West Philadelphia and we have had our struggles with heat, mice, and burglars. Still, there is something about this Spartan little existence I can’t help but enjoy.
• The Philadelphia Orchestra. It’s like a MasterCard commercial—student tickets: $6, listening to Beethoven’s 5th in the Verizon Concert Hall: priceless.
• Finishing tests. There is nothing better than walking home after an exam and knowing I don’t have to study really, really hard for at least another couple of weeks.
• Granola. What can I say, I love granola. And, if I buy it at Trader Joe’s, it only costs $2.69 a box (not to mention the fact that they have mango granola).
• The 39ers. I have a group of six friends who mean the world to me. We have been friends since we were about five and we are now attending business school, law school, medical school, no school, and undecided; we live in Salt Lake, Provo, Russia, Philadelphia, and the Bronx. When we get together, it’s as though we had never been apart.
• Emails from Preethi. Preethi writes approximately the best e-mails ever—they always make me smile.
• Talks by Elder Maxwell. My dad and I used to wait for Elder Maxwell to speak. Sometimes, I still go back and read his best lines over and over again.
• The BYU Singers. They make some of the world’s most beautiful music.
• Zion Canyon. This appropriately named swirl or red and black rock in Southern Utah is about as close as Earth gets to Heaven (outside the Temple, anyway).
• My bike. It’s a gaudy red and blue with shocks on both the front and back. I can cruise over rocky terrain and still not have my teeth knock together.
• My family. It would take a whole post to explain the many reasons why. In short, however, they’re some of my closest confidants and best friends.
• Playing basketball and getting dog-tired. I can’t think of anything I love more than running back and forth, back and forth, battling for the post, and scampering after rebounds for so long I can hardly untie my shoe-laces.
• Rock-climbing. There is something about the repeated fluidity of gliding (ok, I don’t really glide, but some really good rock-climbers do) from hold to hold, until the route in burned into my synapses and memory, that makes me happy.