Week 6 - In the spirit of < 3

Say I love you ~ Mahal kita ~ aishitemasu ~  我爱你 (wo ai ni) ~ Bung Srorlagn Oun ~ Te amo ~ Je t'aime ~ I think this something new is fit to follow Week 5. Also, it falls around the same time as Valentine's Day. So no matter what language, tell someone special to you that you love them and how much they mean to you. Whether it is your significant other, your parents, your grandparents you hardly speak to, sibling, best friend, or just someone you just seem to never get to show your appreciation to. This week's opportunity is to reach out to just one person and say just that you love them. <3 G.D.

Week 5: Live. Laugh. Love.

Ok guys, this is my first blog post ever! I'm not sure what I'm doing but here goes nothing!

I have never been big on writing down my own thoughts which is weird because I always have an internal dialogue constantly going on in my head. I guess my biggest fear is that my thoughts won't make any sense to anyone but me. But since this blog was created as a place where we can document our new "firsts," this would be a great place to start.

So my title is pretty well known, but the inspiration for this post comes from a painting that was done by one of the contributors of this blog site. It's hung in their living room as a regular reminder of how simple life should be. Live. Laugh. Love. I think it's easy to get caught up in the art and not really focus on the message. Yes, the painting was well done and the story behind it is pretty amazing too. It was just an idea that our friend, Adelyn O., discovered as a fun activity to invite some friends to do and try something different and somewhat challenging for her birthday. I was not able to participate; however, now I really wish I had. At first, I thought it was really corny but after seeing the wonderful paintings that everyone did and the pictures of everybody having a great time; I really wish I could have been a part of it.

Anyways, I think as humans we tend to make things a lot more complicated than they should be. I know I do. It must be in our nature. My friend put it this way, "Everyone has the Kanye West complex. We all want it bigger, better, faster, stronger." We can't just be happy with what we got. And we can't just take solace in the simple things in life. We always want more and we want it now! I guess there's nothing wrong with that unless this constant desire for more makes you unhappy. And that has been my problem for most of my life especially the past year. I think one of my biggest flaws is that I complain a lot. Things don't ever meet my expectations. And when I look at my life, I feel like it's one big disappointment. I know....it sounds stupid but I feel like I haven't lived up to everyone's expectations. I do feel like I have accomplished a lot in my life and I know that I am very blessed. It's just that I feel like I don't have the things that people seem to value most in life like a successful career, a nice house, a beautiful wife and kids (the so-called American dream). But sometimes I wonder if this is really what I want. If I took these things out of the equation than I'd be extremely happy. I have great friends and family that love me. I have no debt and money in the bank. I have a nice car with rims and a Harley! I can't do everything that I want to but I still am able to do a lot of things. So why shouldn't I be happy?

So one day while laying in my part time bed/friend's couch while house sitting while they're away somewhere in Asia, I'm looking up at that painting just admiring it and it hit me. Those three simple words. Live. Laugh. Love. Words to live by in 2010 and beyond...... TL

YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm on the boat!! to be continued....

MC

Week 4 - Put Week 3 into Use

Week 4 - SMILE :) SMILE =) SMILE =D

Okay, so in Week 3 we tried to work on smiling for 5 minutes a day with the hopes that smiling will just come more naturally to you. This week let's throw that smile around! The next person you hold a door open for (or holds the door open for you)...give them a smile. The security guard or janitor at your work place, ask how they're doing and throw them a smile. The intimidatingly hot person across the bar YOU THINK is out of your league..try shooting them a smize (def. smile with your eyes). Expect nothing back and just hope practice makes perfect.
-GD

Weeks 1 - 3 Something New

Since we kicked this off late, we can take this week to catch up.

Week 1 - Write down your resolutions. You don't have to publish them here for the world to see, but just write them down. Or if you dare to try something different, try writing down your "personal commandments".

Week 2 - Go somewhere you have never been. I don't know if you could consider this cheating, but two of us actually happened to be in foreign countries (Adelyn in China, myself in the Philippines) which we've never visited at the beginning of the New Year. Now, your "somewhere" doesn't necessarily have to be overseas! It can be a new restaurant or that social networking meeting you've always wanted to check out.

Week 3 - Smile for 5 minutes a day.
This was actually taken from the movie, Love Happens. It also happens to be related to one of the crew's resolutions (smile more). This can be done lying in bed while you're hitting the snooze button (if you're one of those that doesn't JUMP right out of bed), commuting to work, or checking e-mails. Sure people might look at you weird if you do this in public, but who cares?! Ha. The hope with this is that it will eventually get you smiling more naturally, more often..like developing a habit of smiling. Try it!! 

-GD

Intro

I guess this is where we provide the explanation behind the name: GET ON THE BOAT. This phrase comes from a trip taken on the Memorial Day weekend in 2009. Four good friends taking a cruise (for three of us, our FIRST cruise) to the Bahamas. So, all weekend we were on a boat (we even played the song by The Lonely Island over and over...our theme song, if you will). There were no worries on the boat, it was just...us. Anyway, this phrase just stuck. Anytime one of us was being lame we were immediately told to "get on the boat"! If one of us was taking a break from the scene, then we were "off the boat".

Rewind a few years before the trip to back in our college days, the word was "spark1". Spark 1 was used whenever we did something spontaneous (like take a random trip or eat ice cream in a strange place, ha). Combine the two and you get our web address:

spark1ontheboat.blogspot.com

In the beginning of the year, the boat crew made a collective resolution to try something new every week. So, at the end of the year you can say you tried 52 new things in the year! Neat, huh? The intention of this blog is to have a central point of communicating our experiences from trying our something new of the week.

We are approaching the 4th week of the New Year, so we're a little behind (as they say, better late than never...right?!). Here we gooooooo...   


-GD