Life is Time, Time is Money

           Life, college, work, studies, family, friends, socializing, travelling, partying, sleeping, reading, eating, moving, living, surviving. There are so many things we do every single day. There are too many things to do that sometimes I wonder why our heads don’t explode. We are a culture of fast-paced, never-ending, multi-tasking habits. Only doing one thing at a time takes too much out of our time. Time is precious, time is money. We’d be wasting a lot of time just doing nothing, so we do many things at one time to effectively use the limited time we have even when we don’t think we are. Time, time, time.

We plan, we act, and we conquer. If it wasn’t for planning, I would have no idea what to do with my life. I work by a list, a schedule to check off what I have completed and to know what I have to get done. Right now, this walking journal is on a list of many things that need to get done this weekend. For example, my plans and goals for today are to get my argumentative essay done, apply for a job, go to the UNR vs. San Diego State game (GO Pack!), finish applying to a scholarship, and hopefully get some workouts done in between. Life is a schedule, but it is never boring.

I like to stay busy, but there are also different kinds of busy. School busy is my least favorite; I am not too big a fan of lots of homework because I feel as if it detracts from my ability to enjoy other things. I enjoy being work busy. I never have an excuse to just sit down; I love being on the move doing things, learning things, experiencing things. Honestly, I like to have a mix of everything in my life knowing that I am doing something productive because, again, time is money.

            Now, I did not come up with this phrase: Time is money. I actually heard this being used when I was listening to a motivational speech on the wonders of life and the future. The speaker gave us five rules, but I can only ever remember this one. It is the base from which everything stems out. It is how well you use the time that you have that will have the biggest impact on your life.

Hope you enjoyed my stream-of-consciousness!

Bringing Back Sophistication

           The architecture of my neighborhood is very elegant as it is themed after classical homes made of stucco. The houses are spacious and the designers took keen attention to the classical blueprint of these houses. Before I begin to describe the design of my neighborhood, I first need to explain the change in construction that happened in the past year. A few years back, the neighborhood that I live in used to be known as the Remuda Collection. There were three different houses you could choose from: the Morgan, the Friesian, and the Dartmouth; the first two being a one-story home and the last was a two-story. Our neighborhood lies right next to the collection called the Stagecoach Collection which is almost like Remuda but a little larger in size with four other house designs. Now, because of the economy and such, the Remuda Collection and the Stagecoach Collection were combined, but both share the quality of elegance and classical design (which is probably another reason why they were combined years later).

Arches are very prevalent in the blueprints of all of the houses in the Remuda/ Stagecoach Collections. They reflect on the classical design of the past centuries and the stucco gives the houses the authentic, rustic look. In addition, the colors used for the houses are very earthy and natural which also keep up the classical theme. The ceilings are all quite high which gives these houses the modern, classic twist. Also, the roof tiles represent an almost Italian look making the houses mirror the period of Renaissance.

 

These collections are quite different from the collections elsewhere. Other houses are made out of an exterior of boarded pieces of wood as opposed to stucco which gives them a different look that appears less elegant, one could argue. I guess this look is more reminiscent of the typical “American” houses that were built decades ago. It is an older, aged design but not like the classical European design of today’s new architecture for housing.

Architecture, at least in my neighborhood, has seemed to bring back elegance of the classical European design. The blueprints almost seem to reflect back upon the Renaissance, the rejuvenation of the arts mirroring back on values of creativity and elegance. Elegance and grace are coming back. Values are being revived, a step back to sophistication.

 

 

The Wetlands

           The history of my neighborhood brings back the beauty of nature. Before the Damonte Foothills became the residential uproar that it is now (or used to be before the housing crisis), it used to be a wetland. Covered in marshes and filled with wildlife. Ranging from the aquatic creatures like fish and frogs to the little mammals that dwelled there, to the birds who floated on the watery land. Then there were the mustangs who roamed all over feeding on the grasses and drinking from the ponds all around along with the coyotes that came from out of the hills.

What a site it must have been. Natural, picturesque, free. No buildings, no houses, no construction, no garbage. There wasn’t any human interference. The mustangs weren’t forced to move upward towards the mountain sides. The coyotes weren’t kept from crying out their childish cheers. The wetlands weren’t cut down to the size they are now so that more houses could be developed.

It is hard to imagine this is how it used to be for decades until the Damonte Foothills came to be what they are now. Although there are still glimpses of what used to be, sections of wetlands still preserved, the remaining wildlife that lives on, the survival of nature, it is still difficult to register the true nature of the land with all that there is now: houses, the high school, tractors, trash that litters around construction sites. It is amazing to see what kind of influence we, as a society, have on the land that we call ours; how we are able to change the very makeup of nature by removing what used to be.

 

 

 

 

Here are two very different images of the Damonte Foothills. The first is more beautiful (in my opinion) and almost untouched by urbanism. The second is the modern view of the remaining wetlands with the housing development in the background.