Hope

This post has no structure, I am going to say whatever I feel like at the moment.


Now i'll be very truthful, I rarely follow politics and I am not someone who cares much for politicians. But I feel today is a day that has inspired me.

I just watched Obama's 2004 speech at the Democratic National Convention, and I saw, after filtering through the typical idiot comments found on youtube, a comment that I thought rang so very true.

"It is much more difficult to be for something, than against something"

I think this line exemplifies what Barack Obama is doing for this country.

Barack Obama is FOR hope. He is FOR ideals. He is FOR opportunity and unity and coherent strength among our people. And rather than joining the masses who are so quick to blame others for troubles, instead he is inspiring the people to do something about it.

I don't know what everyone else feels when they watched Obama's inaugural speech today, but i'll tell you what it made me feel. It made me hold back tears. It sent chills down my spine. It made me sit a little bit straighter. And it made me want to be a better person. Isn't that what you want in a leader? Someone who can inspire, tell a story, elicit emotion, and force action simply by talking! Getting people to do things simply by the spoken word. I find it amazing that there are such inspirational people in the world. Just thinking about how much he has inspired me makes me want to be like him. Not because he's famous or because he is in a powerful position. It's because I wish to inspire like he does.

Granted, I'll never be in a position to touch and inspire the billions of people that he does around the world. But inspiration, being a role model, has never been about the number of people you touch. It's about the WAY you change them for the better. It's just like that one quote, "To the world, you may just be one person, but to one person you may be the world". Everyone has to start somewhere, and for someone like me, affecting one person may be the start that I need to take as well.

What Obama will do as president will be great, but that's not what interests me about him. It's what he's already done on his path to being president that does. The way he single handedly unified a nation, because he gave a reason for people to believe in him. He stuck to his guns and his ideals, and people really understand that he is genuine about what he says and what he does, and in a world full of corrupt and deceitful people, it's refreshing to find someone at the top of the world, who got there the way he did.

I was thinking, if they had hidden John McCain and Barack Obama behind curtains so you never knew what they looked like or what color they were throughout their entire campaigns, and you listened solely to what they said, would the people who voted for John McCain simply because he's white and Obama's black have voted differently?

Anyway, today is historical to me. Why? Because a black man is president? No, i don't care what color he is. It's historical to me because a great man is president. Especially in our country, as of now, in order to fill a position that is not considered normal for people of a certain race/sex/faith, I believe that a person has to be transcendent to overcome that. I hope that one day, people will understand this, and that people will look at Obama and not think of him as a black man, but as a great man.

I honestly and truly believe, as Obama said, that the differences among the people of our country is our STRENGTH, not our weakness. We should not allow ourselves to be pigeonholed by single trains of thought, but rather we have many different alternatives, which gives us a right to make an educated choice for ourselves. I've always thought that this was the right way, but I can't say I've always practiced it. Coming to Temple has given me an opportunity to meet people from all walks of life and every race you can imagine, from my classmates to the patients, people on competely different ends of the spectrum. But what you realize when you spend time with these wonderful people, is that when you really get to know them, you look past the differences. You don't even notice it anymore. You don't categorize them based on their race or upbringing, but rather on the strength of their character and the inherent meaning behind their beliefs. You understand that good-spirited people exist everywhere, and it inspires me everyday to have friends who are so good-hearted, and are much better people than I am. It becomes a goal for me to be like them one day. They are my peers, but they are also my role models.

To finish my unorganized rant, I'll leave with these thoughts.

Have the courage to stand for your convictions. You are all role models, whether you want to be or not. Be the inspiration for somebody else, it has much more far reaching consequences than you can imagine.

I've never made New Years Resolutions before. I've always felt that they were just things I should be doing all along the way anyway. I've never felt a resounding need to point out my faults, and then set an actual pathway to rectify them. Well, i'm older now, and since i'm busier and have more studying/work to do, I can't just do whatever the heck i want all the time. Plus, since im older, my body is not nearly as resilient as it once was to all the crap i do to it. So... the theme of my 2009 new years resolutions is... PERSONAL HEALTH!


1) Be overall Heart Healthy! - You always hear these studies about how cardiovascular disease is such a huge disease in older males. Yet us being young males, we never really think too much about it because we're young and invincible... or so we think.

I had an EKG lab today, and while my blood pressure tested the "ideal" 120/80 systole/diastole, my professor told me that 80 diastole is actually not ideal. It's on the high end of ideal. And for someone as young as me to have it already that high, he said its just gonna get consistently higher and higher. Also my standing pulse rate is at 80, and these past few days when i've been sick, its been at a consistent 100 beats per minute, which is just about tachycardic. So needless to say, I have not been taking care of my heart very well for 23 years, and at this rate it definitely will not last me a full life.


2) Maintain a Healthy Weight - According to my BMI(Body mass index) I was in the category Overweight.(Higher than normal but less than obese). I was a consistent 190lbs at school , but after my finals, when i arrived home for winter break, i was an even 180lbs. However! Just because I lost weight doesn't mean I was doing myself a favor. My staple diet consisted mostly of pasta and fried rice, which by no means is an ideal way to be eating well. Also.... after 2 weeks at home, i came back to philly at 195lbs. My goal is to be back at my freshman year of college weight ... 170 lbs!!! (well it was 165, but i like the number 170 more, sounds manlier)


3) Eat Right! - Time to get some salads and diversify the food I eat. And the biggie is.... LESS SALT! I did a nutrition study on an average days meal for me, my calorie intake seemed to be at an average level, but my salt intake was like twice to three times as much as im supposed to have.


4) Consistent exercise - I am consistently put to shame by some of my friends at school who find the time to workout everyday and still get all the rest of the things they want to do done. Gutierrez has a morning workout before class and an afternoon workout AFTER class! And i can't even get in ONE?!?! NO MORE!


5) Live balanced, no excuses - I constantly find myself saying I don't have time to exercise or cook a decent meal or do things needed to maintain a healthy lifestyle all for the sake of "work" and "studying". Well I had a revelation today. So ... let's say i work so hard to get all these things and I have my "dream job" and everything and then I don't even live long or healthy enough to enjoy it. Whats the point of that? So... Balance!

Ok, time to Gamecast the Oklahoma/Florida Championship game. I don't have TV.... And i'll try to make more posts, i was getting frustrated with always trying to post pictures in my posts cause they dont have a straight plug and position format, so i don't like doing that.