"This Is Totally Going In My Blog!"

Happy New Year 2012

2012-01-01T23:04:00.001-06:00

Wow, I went an entire semester without updating my blog! Well, for one of my 2012 resolutions, looks like I should try and be more active on journaling my adventures, because so much has happened in the past semester! Not to mention, I'm currently in Australia! Who would've seen that coming, right? I'll fill you in on more of the details, but first, here's some footage from last nights New Years fireworks that kicked off 2012. It was amazing to see the fireworks going off above the Sydney Harbor Bridge & the Sydney Opera House.

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So like I said, I'm currently in Australia, with my parents, in an area near Sydney. They're here for a total of two years, having started over the summer, so I believe they're about six months here now. I came down for Christmas and I've got the whole winter break off from work, so I'm just hanging around down under for a bit. Did I mention that it's currently summer here, and I spent Christmas day on the beach? I'm not complaining. Some of the other things we've done apart from the beaches and fireworks include hitting some of the zoos & aquariums, we went to the Harry Potter Exhibition which had items from the movies on display, and we took an awesome jet boat ride and got soaking wet. I've still got over a week here, and we've barely even left the Sydney area! I have to say, I love this country! I mean, who wouldn't want to wake up to sights like this every day?

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Granted, there are a few flaws. The entire time I've been here, I can't find a single place that sells Mountain Dew. Along with that, the Internet isn't the greatest, and I cannot access Netflix OR Hulu. But they do play a lot of How I Met Your Mother & Big Bang Theory here, so it's not all bad.

All-in-all, Australia makes a great home away from home! I'll update more on the rest of my adventures here later on, as well as give my annual recap of the past year!

Happy 2012!

Back to School 2011

2011-08-27T12:07:00.004-05:00

So this past week kicked off another semester of college. My senior year, actually, which just thinking about the fact that it feels like I was just a freshman not long ago kind of freaks me out. But anyway, the past week was exhausting. It was probably just the jump from doing nothing all day, every day, during the summer to suddenly have a full daily schedule, but it's never been this rough in the past.
I started the week off by teaching my EUE recitation first thing Monday morning. It's weird knowing that I'm one of the first college instructors that a lot of my students had, since it's a 9:30AM class. The rest of my classes seem kind of boring, for the most part, and I'm already behind on reading for pretty much, oh, you know... Every. Single. Class. Hopefully not working both weekend days this semester will help with keeping up on reading.
Luckily I have a lot of time each day to walk home to check in on the dogs and such. Our new place is so close to campus, it's awesome. Also close to Aggieville, which you can't beat. Especially after our back-to-school "Black Out or Back Out" that we had last Saturday before the semester started. So many shots. All I remember of Aggieville was going to Fats, which was the first bar we hit after pre-gaming, then it was lights out for a while. Damn Fishbowls. I do remember a random chunk of the night, where Jon and I were boxing in the MCC parking lot. It was on the way home, and I'm not sure of why we decided to do it (drunk logic, probably), but it was just for fun. I do still have some bruises to show for it, though, but I'm no longer sore like I was on Sunday (which made work suck, btw). I kinda enjoyed it, though, despite being more beat up on than Jon. He's a pretty big dude, so I think I held my own pretty well.
Anyway, it's going to be a long, long semester, and I kinda can't wait for it to be over already. Must be a case of Senioritis.

EDIT:
I forgot to mention what we did Friday before the semester started! It seems pretty blog-worthy.
Since my parents moved to Australia a while back, my Mom had a set of tickets to a Keith Urban concert in Kansas City that she couldn't use anymore. Sad, really, since he's basically her favorite country music singer. Of all time. But anyway, she gave them to me, so I went with Jon and one of his friends who was letting us stay at her place for the night, since we wanted to hit the bar scene in KC, too. Plus, her 21st birthday was that night, too, so it seemed only fitting to give her a free ticket.
The concert was awesome, and the seats were great. Keith Urban is insane. He played a couple songs from the middle of the arena, and during one song he walked all the way through the crowd to the side of the arena opposite the stage, and just played up in the middle of the crowd. It was great. He also had some people come up on stage and sing along with him.
The KC bar scene is a little lame, though. Apparently it's not like Aggieville, where you hit up a few bars throughout the night. You just chill at one bar. For hours. It sucked, because we lost track of Jon's friend, who disappeared with some of her friends. After a while of wandering around in the EXTREMELY crowded bar, we went outside and sat, and then it started pouring down rain. Cats and dogs kind of rain. Ridiculous. So there we were, stuck in pouring rain, in an unknown area, missing a crucial member of our group (she had the keys to her car, and knew the directions to her house), plus both of our phones were dying, and she wasn't answering Jon's calls. Just great.
Finally around 3AM we found them, and were able to make our way back to the house. Jon's friend was pretty drunk, as one should be on their 21st, but we kind of missed out on all the action.

Post 6.28.2011

2011-06-28T23:53:00.002-05:00

I've basically been on vacation for the past couple of weeks. A weekend ago was a family wedding, so my parents and I traveled up to North Dakota. Being in the small town sure made me sleepy, and I even took a four or five hour-long nap on one of the days we were there... Guess when there's not much to do, why not get caught up on sleep? But most nights I went to bed early and woke up with the sun, so my sleep schedule was all sorts of messed up. Getting caught up with family was pretty good though. Might even be getting a new little addition to my personal family unit by taking in one of my grandma's wiener dog puppies. The pups were still pretty young, so I couldn't bring him back with me yet, but I'm excited to get him here around August, after all the moving is done and I don't have a non-pet-friendly landlord. Technically my new place in August only allows for one dog, and I'll already have our older labrador, but I figure a dachshund is pretty easy to cover up, and sometimes it's better to ask forgiveness than permission, right? Plus I don't know what I'd do without my dachshund fix, since my parents' dachshunds, Addy and Fletcher, are going to Australia with them for a couple years.

This past weekend went fast, since it was Country Stampede. It was probably one of the best Stampede's I've been to, mostly because my friends and I camped out this year, and I think that changed the entire experience. Next year though we're going to make sure no one has to work, because we had to come in to town almost every day for one reason or another. Of the four nights, Saturday was by far the best. Jerrod Niemann, Blake Shelton, and Brad Paisley made up the Saturday night line-up, and it was excellent. But another reason Saturday night was so great was the partyin' in the campground afterward... Long story short, I woke up in my own camp (thankfully) with no recollection of how I ended up there. Especially mysterious since the last I remembered was wandering around the dark campsites by myself around 3AM. Also, as a result of Stampede Weekend, I now have an iPhone 4. My friends and I awoke on Sunday to find my iPhone swimming in the ice cooler. How sad for my phone, but at the same time, it was three years old and I'd been wanting a new one for months anyway. Too bad it just couldn't wait like, three more months for the new iPhone 5 to come out, since that was the main reason I hadn't upgraded to the 4 yet. But whatever, it's nice to have a new phone, and a hilarious memory (and somewhat lack-thereof) of Country Stampede 2011. We're definitely all stoked to do it again next year, but we'll be better at it, 'cause we know what to do (and what not to do, like put phones in water for several hours).

A Week in the Life of Charlie Sheen

2011-05-23T01:02:00.005-05:00

This past week has been pretty insane and entertaining... And it's only the first week of summer vacation!! Basically every night has been pretty fun, even the nights I didn't really want to go out. I bet this is what Charlie Sheen's life is like, partying every night... Here's a recap of what went down this past week.

Sunday 5/15 - It started with a Sunday night trip out to the bars, for what I initially thought was just hanging out with some co-workers, but it was apparently a pub crawl in honor of another co-worker who had to spend some time in jail for some DUI charges, I think... It was weird, so whatever...

Monday 5/16 - Night two was another one spent in everyone's favorite Aggieville, celebrating our friend Brittany's "21st Birthday." She'd been 21 for a month or two by this point, but as a member of a college athletic team, she had been in "dry season" during the semester and couldn't drink until the semester ended. She made it to her 21 shots, and then some, I believe, before having to be taken home. Another great ending to a 21st birthday, of course.

Tuesday 5/17 - Eh, I don't really remember Tuesday night that well, which is fast becoming a weekly tradition. Perhaps Taco Tuesday, followed by our "World Beer Toursday" nights at Old Chicago, followed by a night in Aggieville is a bit too much...

Wednesday 5/18 - My very first trip to a strip club! It seemed like a bad idea, since it was in Junction City, the less than ideal town nearby, as well as it was "amateur night." But it was my roommate's going away party, since he decided for some reason that he needed to join the National Guard, so his summer will be spent in basic training stuff. But whatever. What started as a night that seemed like a bad idea actually turned out to be pretty fun. Our group was huge, consisting of a lot of my roommate's co-workers, as well as some other friends. Over half our group was girls, and I'm pretty sure they may have had more fun than us. The best part of the night, though, is that I can now say my roommate has been slapped by strippers. That was an awesome sight.

Thursday 5/19 - We went back to the strip club, mostly because, hey, we had fun the night before, plus Thursday was going to be dollar night, so why not? But it wasn't as fun as the night before, and we learned that a lot of strippers are going through divorces (supposedly). It was odd to make small talk. I already don't know what to say to people on a regular basis, let alone a stripper. Anyway, I think a back-to-back night was enough, so probably won't be going back for a while.

Friday 5/20 - Took it easy on Friday by going to Jon's house, where I hung out with him and my other future roommate, Mike. It was mostly a game night, playing cards and drinking, just with a few of us. Eventually it took a turn, and the alcohol kicked it, turning Mike into a very entertaining individual. We spent the rest of the evening trying to keep him under control, but it was a fun look into what might happen in the fall when we're all living together.

Saturday 5/21 - Saturday night we made sure to have a video camera with us, just in case things got a little crazy and we wanted to have evidence of what happened. Jon was the one to have some fun this night, but it wasn't too much. Just enough where having it on camera helped. Can't wait to see that video on Facebook.

Sunday 5/22 - Finally on Sunday, we kept it simple, had some people over, and played the new Mortal Kombat at my house, which was a good end to the week. It was basically a really good start to summer vacation.

Dead Week

2011-05-08T00:30:00.004-05:00

The past week was Dead Week, the time during the semester when everyone's wrapping up lessons and prepping for finals. But before entering into Dead Week, I went on a mini-vacation to New Mexico to see my dad. It was a good trip, following an exhausting all-nighter to write an entire research paper from start to finish for the third time this semester. Should really avoid the procrastination next semester, but I also shouldn't take so many classes requiring semester term papers. But anyway, on the trip to New Mexico, we did some cool stuff. Played in sand, went to a wine festival, wandered a casino, and then drove all the way back to Kansas. Oh, but history was also made while we were there. Sunday, May 1st, while my parents and I sat in a hotel room eating pizza, President Obama announced that the terrorist figurehead, Osama Bin Laden, had been killed. Facebook pretty much blew up with status updates, most happy, some complaining that we shouldn't be celebrating someone's death. There were a lot of mixed reactions. Kinda sucked to be sitting in a hotel room at the time, when it would've been more awesome to be in Aggieville, because it sounded like it was exciting.

The week itself was fun itself, too. Tuesday night, instead of our usual tacos at Bobby T's, we went to a co-workers for dinner, followed by fire and s'mores over at Jon's, followed by the commencement of Star Wars day at my place at midnight. Star Wars day, BTW, happens on May 4th (May the 4th Be With You), so this year we pulled an all-nighter and watched the original trilogy. It was an interesting night. Our group of four probably only made it through the first one together, before a couple either went to bed or passed out mid-Episode V. I had to eventually get Jon to bed during V because he had spent the night drinking all but five of the bottles in his box of beer. So I watched the last movie solo, fading in and out of consciousness near the end. I spent most of my focus during the third movie playing Portal 2 and finishing that up. But by far the best portion of the night was the FB status conversation that lasted almost 800 posts within the first couple hours. It catalogues some of the night, as well as Jon's descent into drunkenness. Thankfully, I saved myself a PDF version.

The next highlight of the week would have to be Thursday, more formally known this time of year as Cinco de Mayo! Also the birthday for two co-workers, one of them turning 21! Jon and I made them special birthday garbs, of ponchos and sombreros. It was a fail, but fun. We went out and had a wild night, the end of which I had to be filled in on the next day. Some things that resulted of Cinco de Mayo: I had to ask around to locate my phone, which ended up being at Jon's neighbors' house. Apparently we had to pretty much carry Champ, one of his neighbors, home, and I ended up leaving it there. Wondering if I left my hat there, too... I also fell at some point, bruising my foot. Ended up limping everywhere the next day, but it's mostly healed now a couple days later. Also, apparently I was still BO the next morning when talking to a maintenance man that came to fix the AC at my house. Awkward. The day was pretty much spent piecing the night together.

As for today, I spent most of my day lounging around in bed, watching Hulu, mostly season 2 of Glee. Then I finally decided to leave my room around 8PM, and went to the theater to meet up with Jess and Jon to view 'Thor', the latest in the Marvel Universe line of movies. Thor's not really one of my favorite Marvel heroes, but the movie was pretty awesome. Next on my list of must-see movies this summer is gonna be 'Captain America' and 'Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows Pt II'. So exciting.

Now all that's left of this semester is finals week. Hopefully I can get out this semester with decent grades. Better start studyin', studyin'.

I've Never Been So Glad for the Weekend to Be Over

2011-04-11T09:56:00.004-05:00

These past couple weekends have been pretty insane, courtesy of Aggieville. A couple weekends ago, my buddy/future roommate, Jon, and I had plans to head to the bars after work. Well, he was off work before me, so by the time we met up at the bars, he was already pretty drunk. Like, a whole 'nother level. So basically I spent the night following him around as he had us meet girls and other random things. I was not comfortable with all of that, 'cause I was way too sober and unprepared for the night. Eventually the night was coming to an end, and I drove him back to his house so he could go pass out.

This past weekend, however, takes the cake. I ended up going out Thursday night, Friday night, Saturday night, AND Sunday night. All to celebrate four friends' birthdays, three of which were turning 21. Here's the run-down:
Thursday night was simple. We didn't go out until about midnight because my friend Brittany L. couldn't get in until then anyway. It was pretty low-key because she couldn't drink due to her contract with the rowing team. But it was a good start to the weekend.
Friday night was the most insane night. We held a house-party over at Jon's, for celebrating Brittany and Max's 21st birthdays, as well at one of my managers' birthdays. A lot of people were there and we all got pretty drunk just at the party before going out to Aggieville around midnight. The night is pretty much a blur, but it was pretty fun. This time Jon was the one who babysat me, and I woke up on a couch in his house the next morning. I don't know if it's sad or not that I didn't find it weird to be waking up on his couch. Maybe it's just because I've been over there enough times where it wasn't a completely unfamiliar environment...
Saturday night was another simple night, because we awaited midnight for Max to be legally able to enter the bars, and then took it pretty easy that night, just because he had his parents to deal with the next day and wanted to be functional. But we did end up going to IHOP around 3AM.
But Sunday night, we went all out. Max made it through around twenty-something shots throughout the night before we had to get someone to give him a lift home around 1:20-ish. So all-in-all, a good weekend for everyone involved, but like I state in the title, I've never been so glad for the weekend to be over. Celebrating that many landmark birthdays with groups of eight to twelve is EXPENSIVE! I pulled about four or five receipts out of my pockets from using my card at the bar (two of which I don't remember at all). But now we've got a little bit of rest before another couple 21st birthdays in the next two weeks, but they should be pretty low-key, 'cause they occur mid-week, so that might limit the drunken escapades a bit, but we'll see... I mean, Max, his girlfriend, and I did just walk back from dinner at like, 7:30PM because we each had around four glasses of Long Island Iced Tea...

But also some sad news today... My favorite teacher from high school, Pippy Engstrom, died, apparently from a brain tumor, as far as I know. She was the photography teacher, and apart from cross country, her class is where most of the best memories of high school occurred. All of my friends who knew her are pretty sad, and I am too, considering the last time I went to visit her was probably Freshman year of college. But it's interesting, and almost cliche, how her passing has gotten several of us to communicate again, after having not talked for a while. Very classic. But anyway, I re-posted all the 'Adventures in Photo 3' videos that we made during our final semester of high school, which documents only a handful of the fun we all had in that class. We can only hope that Pippy Rests In Peace, or at leasts haunts the school photo room, because we wouldn't be surprised. She was there at lot as it was, so why not now? Anyway, thanks for all the great memories, Pippy. We all miss you!

Fake Patty's Day 2011

2011-03-14T01:14:00.003-05:00

This past Saturday was host to one of the most epic events to hit good ol' Manhattan, Kansas. It's known as Fake Patty's Day, an "alcoholiday" started by K-State students some many years ago. Typically, St. Patrick's Day falls over Spring Break, but since most students are gone during break, everyone needed a day to celebrate early. Thus, Fake Patty's Day came about, and it is awesome.
My roommates and I started our day early, around 7:30am - earlier than any school day all semester! We made a breakfast feast, consisting of biscuits and gravy, sausage, french toast, hash browns. So delicious. After breakfast we went to our friends party... Keep in mind it was only about 9 am at this point. We had some fun there before heading out to Aggieville, passing many yard parties and students dressed from head to toe in green. It was some awesome scenery, I must say. In Aggieville, though, there were lines to get into almost every single bar, it was insane. One of the easier places to maneuver was a place called Fat's, where one of my buddies works the door. We made our way in, basically just chilled with him for a while, and drank some green beer before trying to find some other friends in Aggieville.
After hanging with some other people, and seeing the sights of Aggieville (including some drunk girls flashing an entire crowd from a balcony above Kites), a couple of us went to Old Chicago for lunch, even though it was way outside of Aggieville. After a meal, it was time for a nap, so I returned home and passed out on the couch for about four hours.
By evening when I woke up, I was slightly hungover already. Enough to the point where when we went out to a house party later in the evening, I couldn't stomach another drink. However, I met up with another friend in Aggieville, and got a Fishbowl at Fat's, which tasted better than just beer. Finally around one am, and after a good thirteen-ish hours of partying, I called it a night. It was definitely one of those memorable college experiences, and everyone's already counting down to next Fake Patty's Day: March 10th, 2012.

In other news, I've finally secured a house and signed a lease for next year. I'll be living with a couple buddies, which is a great relief. For the longest time I was stuck looking for a single bedroom place that would take in pets, and my biggest worry was being stuck alone, because I'm sure that it would be the end of me, in a sense. Without an immediate social network, I'm worried I would revert back to who I used to be Freshman year, especially with my parents both leaving for Australia in the fall. But that's no longer a worry, since everything has come together and I'll be in a place with friends and pets.

P.S.
Here's a video I took with my phone while at Fat's on Saturday night. You just gotta love the bar atmosphere...

Wild Weekend

2011-02-08T11:56:00.002-06:00

So this past week and weekend were pretty wild. Sunday night last week we got hit pretty hard by a snowstorm (aka Snowpocalypse 2011) which resulted in a very rare snow day for K-State, the first of my college career. So that day, I pretty much just slept in and then the roommates and I went out to Bobby T's for their Monday buffalo wing special, and a game of Bingo! Then we went home and watched tv and such... And then the next day, I awoke to another surprise... Snow day, part two! Rare enough to have one snow day, but to have two... Wow! We spent yet another day hanging out and playing drinking games. We also had wings yet again, at Buffalo Wild Wings. Very delicious. We had hoped for another snow day on Wednesday, but sadly, it was a lost cause.

Then the week picked up again, when Thursday night came around. Friday was my buddy's 21st birthday, so we went out at midnight on Thursday for a light start to the weekend. Friday night was round two, and also included the company Christmas party (a couple months late, but whatever...). The party was pretty fun, perhaps not as much as last year, but still good. Then we went out to Aggieville afterward. It was a pretty low intensity birthday party, with several of us out. We didn't get my buddy too gone, mostly because only two of us were really buying him drinks and ran out of money after a couple hours. And then some other friends showed up, and then the night went south (cognitively speaking). I woke up the next morning on the couch, with a Burger King wrapper in my pocket... Turned out half of the burger was still sitting on the bathroom sink where I left it...
Fast forward to Saturday night. We were hosting a party, for another person's birthday. They just needed a location, so we provided it. The night started off slow, but then picked up fast, resulting in a packed house with no room to move your elbows. So then I left with my recently-turned-21 buddy and went to Aggieville again. Had a few drinks, went back to the house party, which had died down, and then yet again, round three ended in another night I had to hear about from others. Three shots of Fireball and an undetermined amount of root beer schnapps later, and then the roommates and I apparently went for a run... In boxers... In the snow and cold. Like our Polar Bear run that we did once, only extremely drunk. Awesome.
Sunday I expected life to return to normal, and went to work. Then I got a text around 10:30pm, telling me to go out to Fat's Bar, because another buddy was working one of his first nights as a doorman. So after work, I made a split-second decision and decided to stop by, and played pool for a couple hours before finally going home and ending a four-night party...

And now I'm currently sitting around trying to prep for next semester by finding somewhere to live where I can take a dog... It's actually a very hard process...

A Look Back at 2010

2011-01-13T15:10:00.003-06:00

Once again, it's been a while, and I probably could've gotten around to this a few weeks ago, but here we are. Time for me to do my yearly review of my life.

In January 2010, I started off the year with a hangover, and spent most of that sleeping in the backseat of my parents car as we drove up to Minnesota.

In April 2010, it was yet another spring break, keeping with tradition.

In April 2010, KU lost early on in basketball, ruining everyone's brackets for the games. It was awesome.

In April 2010, my roommates and I attempted to take on P90X. That lasted for about a week. P90X is hardcore.

In April 2010, my roommates and I went to see Joel McHale, a comedian and tv show host/actor who had an amazingly funny show.

In April 2010, we had a spontaneous slip-n-slide day with our neighbors. Wish we had done more of those...

In April 2010, we celebrated Max and Tayler's 20th birthday's with an epic party.

In May 2010, Iron Man 2 came out, and it improved upon the first movie by a lot. And the first movie was pretty great, so you're basically just improving upon greatness.

In May 2010, my mom and I went out and saw the Professional Bull Riders who were out in Wichita. It was a pretty awesome experience, and I'd like to go again someday. Maybe to the championship tournament out in Vegas...

In June 2010, I went to Country Stampede. That was also the weekend we had a lot of drama going on around da2075. Stuff that still bugs me to this day. But at least Stampede was awesome.

In July 2010, there were fireworks. Lots of fireworks. BOOM! Explosive fireworks.

In August 2010, I started a job as a student teacher, helping teach Freshmen the ways of college life. It was a fun experience, and I might be doing it again this fall, but we'll see where things go from now.

In October 2010, I was promoted to a cash accountability position at work. Basically I count out the registers after people use them. It's a pretty good job, and pays well.

In October 2010, I decided to go ahead and buy an iPad. It's the most magical device known to man. Trust me. I use it to play games, to read, and to keep tabs on documents. It's also a great study companion when I need to read some articles for classes.

In October 2010, we had a Halloween party that got busted due to noise complaints. It was still pretty fun, though.

In November 2010, I hit a rough patch, and went to the school counselor for a few sessions. It helped a little, but I've still debated if I need to go back...

In December 2010, life was super busy at work, due to the holiday season.

In December 2010, I turned 21, and had a pretty memorable birthday weekend, even if some, or a lot, of details are sketchy. A week later was also Jess' 21st birthday. That pretty much ended in the same manner.

In December 2010, Christmas was more of a 'buy-for-yourself' type thing. It was easier than trying to figure out what each other wanted or would be interested in, so... I got a cool 3D camera, and some DVDs... Y'know, I basically just buy stuff for myself whenever anyway...

Back

2010-12-12T12:35:00.002-06:00

I've been out of it for too long, so I think it's about time I start getting back into posting, especially with my 21st birthday coming up in one week! I'll definitely be back with many adventures, but here's a peek at what's been going on lately.

The semester is coming to an end. Tomorrow is the official start of finals, even though several of my classes have already been finished up. I've got to focus on Cultural Anthropology for Monday and Experimental Methods in Psych for Tuesday, then I have to grade final projects from my students over the semester, as well as finish up a paper for my Methods lab by Friday. AND THEN IT'S MY 21ST BIRTHDAY ON THE 19TH. Do I sound excited? Because I am. Mostly because I'll always have somewhere to go when it's a boring Friday night, unlike this past year where there've been nights where I sat around alone... This could either be a really good thing for me, or a horrible thing. Time will tell. But I've got an entire month of winter break to get situated into a new 21-year-old lifestyle. I'll try and keep everyone up to date,

Chase
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Brookway Dr,Manhattan,United States

A New Post! What?

2010-10-08T06:32:00.002-05:00

What's up, readers? It's been a few months since my last update, and quite a bit has happened since then! We had a pretty epic party at da2075, a few weeks after my last post. Also prior to the fall semester starting, I was promoted at work. I'm making $9/hr, but the downside is working 'till 11pm or later on most shifts. That really interferes with school and other jobs, sometimes. One of my other jobs, by the way, is being a peer instructor at Kansas State. Basically I'm an instructor to Freshmen, and teach them all about how to succeed at a college level. So far so good. Between those two jobs and cleaning up at the vet, I'm making over $1,000 a month, essentially. Which is why I'm writing this post via iPad!!
The iPad is a magical device, and I very much do not regret it. My favorite feature is actually iBooks, which gives me a library of books in one compact reader. There's also Netflix and spreadsheets and I've even gotten an app that allows me to remote access my laptop or desktop from virtually anywhere. Love it!!
But as for now, I'm up at 6:30am, and have been awake since 8:30am yesterday. An all-nighter, I'm afraid. But I've spent most of it watching tv shows online and Netflix stuff, too. This night seems to go forever... I just have to make it past 1:20pm today, and then I'll probably pass out for several hours... I'm feeling very sleep deprived... Later people, I'll try to be more interesting. Look forward to a Halloween story or two here in the near future. Also, 72 days left until my 21st birthday!!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:College View Rd,Manhattan,United States

A Weekend to Remember

2010-06-28T08:10:00.005-05:00

So it's been well over a month since I've last shared some of my exploits, but basically all I've really done in the last month is work, and go to my public speaking and biology summer classes. But this past weekend was a big event, the 15th annual Country Stampede up at the lake here in Manhattan. This was a very interesting weekend, both at Stampede, and what transpired outside of it...

Country Stampede started on Thursday, and my roommate and his girlfriend and I headed up there around 3pm or so when the gates opened. Thursday was a learning day, because after that day we had decided where the best possible seating was, and we knew where certain vendors were, and all that stuff. It was a pretty good lineup, too. Started with a few people I hadn't heard of, Kate & Kacey and LoCash Cowboys, but they were pretty good. Then there was Luke Bryan, one of my top favorite country artists, as well as Miranda Lambert. When we left for the night, I unfortunately had to go back to studying for my Friday test in my Biology class.

Friday was another good day, and we got to sit in a better spot than the day before. We went later in the afternoon, so some of the artists had already performed, but we were able to catch Tracy Lawrence, Darius Rucker, and the best of night, Keith Urban.
Finally we left for the night, making it home around midnight from the lake, and prepared to go out to our friends apartment for her little social gathering of a party. It was going well until we decided to call it a night around 3am, because our friend really needed to get some sleep, seeing as how she had to work at 7am and was fairly drunk. Blackout drunk, actually, as she told us the next day, showing up at work still drunk (although on time.)
But basically, as we were heading home, long story short, my roommate and his girlfriend got into an argument, which led to us having a guys night out. We went down to the gas station and bought some snacks, then went exploring through some woods behind my old high school. We decided after a while that it was really dark (probably because it was 4:30am), so we did the next logical thing: went grocery shopping. Nothing like wandering around the grocery store at 5am. So finally we made it home around 6am, and I gladly called it a night after putting the groceries away.

I woke up around 11am or so, and we again prepared for another day of Stampede, with the previous nights argument totally in the past. Saturday's line-up was pretty good. We got to see Eli Young Band, Craig Morgan, Billy Currington, and Montgomery Gentry. Eli Young was okay, and Billy Currington, although I like his songs, was fairly boring. He didn't interact or move that much from one spot, so it wasn't very impressive. Luckily, though, Craig Morgan put on an excellent show with some great songs, and Montgomery Gentry was put on one of the best shows I've seen. I would totally go see both of them again if given the chance.
That night we went back to my friends house again, for yet more fun. The fun was short-lived though. Yet again, the night ended with an argument, this time between myself and one roommate against our other roommate. He sparked it, angry at us for a reason we still don't fully understand yet. The roommate who was on my side had already gone home, and most of the arguing was through texts between each other. Lucky for me, I was the one who got pulled aside to get questioned by the roommate who was pissed at us. After some discussion, mostly on his part about why he seemed to be so pissed, I started walking home leaving him to go back to the party. When I got home, I vented to my roommate about a multitude of things, stuff that I'd pretty much been keeping to myself for quite some time. It felt good, and it sobered me up by about 4:30am, so I decided it was a good time to head to Candlewood since Stampede had kept me from getting my cleaning done up to this point. After I finished that, I made it back home as the sun was rising, and finally fell into bed at 6am for the second night in a row.

The fourth and final day of Stampede started around noon again. We were still missing our pissed off roommate, who apparently never came home during the night, but since we were pissed off too, we didn't really care, and took off for the day to Stampede. The fact that he hadn't been going with us was finally a good thing, since we didn't really want to deal with him that day.
But the final day of Stampede was pretty entertaining, though probably not the most exciting: Gloriana, Jake Owen, Little Big Town. Not really my favorites, but good nonetheless. Plus, our group had a couple extra members, our friends from the party the nights before. We pretty much spent most of the day venting about how ridiculous our roommate was being, and also making fun of drunken dancers. Max and I also tried an oxygen bar, which honestly, not that great. Flavor for you nostrils, basically, but I probably wouldn't do it again. We finished off the night and headed home from Stampede for the final time.

All-in-all, it was a great weekend, with a few big speed bumps - but it's definitely memorable, at least. As exhausting as Stampede was, we're excited for next year, when we can all camp out and drink during the concerts, and we'll be the ones people make fun of, because honestly, sitting around in the sun all day was only really rewarding when the drunks came out in the early evening...

Ups & Downs

2010-05-11T21:40:00.000-05:00

Welcome to the emotional roller coaster of my life. It's upsetting because where once I stressed and freaked about classes and grades, lately I'm hung up on these feelings of being alone. It's happened very consistently for the past three weekends, probably because being around people in classes was enough of a distraction until I was left to deal with my roommates at home. But here's the story that's been a real kicker this week:

So about a week ago I found out about a girl who recently broke up with her boyfriend. Now, she's the roommate of a friend of mine, so I'd met her a few times before. Since I knew she had a boyfriend and had met him a couple times before, she had never been on my radar. But then she became single and suddenly there's a spark of interest.
So early this week I invited my friend over to celebrate Cinco de Mayo, since it's something to do apart from all the boredom of the collegiate "dead week" and told her she should bring her roommates.
So we hung out for the night, over at their place instead. And then it turns out the next day that my roommate and said girl apparently hit it off, and long story short, I was in a depressed mood for the third week in a row. I think I was more mad at the situation and how it panned out rather than some of the specifics.

The weekend wasn't too bad, mostly because I spent a lot of time away from the house in order to be away from my roommate while he talked about how excited he was for his date. Instead of being around that, I spend Saturday with my mom, and we went to Wichita where we first saw Iron Man 2 at an awesome movie theater they have. It was quite epic, and I would love to see it again and again. Afterward, we went to the main attraction of the night, the Professional Bull Riders event. I'd never been to a bull riding event other than the fair rodeo, but this was awesome. Like Iron Man 2, it was full of non-stop action and comedy.
The next day I spent several hours at work, and then had dinner with my mom again.

And since then, it's been finals week here at K-State, so I've been studying and working on that. Tomorrow I don't have any finals, but I'll be spending a bit of the day prepping for my kinesiology final on Thursday and preparing to take my online american literature final. Overall I'm not too worried about this week, but it'll be nice when it's over.

Here's Some Words!

2010-04-30T14:41:00.001-05:00

Hello again! It's been a while since I wrote, so let's pick up where I left off.

When last we saw our brave adventurer, it was a day well spent. A roommate's parent's were visiting for the day, a picnic table was built, and the night was filled with the comedic spiels of Joel McHale followed by a viewing of the movie, Brothers, which was quite interesting...

The next day, we hung out with our neighbors. Some time ago we finally become friends rather than the neighbors who pull pranks on them, and it's been good. We had a picnic on the new table Max and his father built, in honor of Sunday Funday! Later, our neighbors surprised us with a spontaneous slip & slide in their front yard. The next couple hours were lots of fun. The neighbors even convinced guys from across the street to come over (They were here to visit the guys who live across the street, but I don't think they actually made it in the house before being called over to slide). After a while I had to slip away (haha, pun) so I could go study. After trying to focus in my room while hearing laughter coming from outside next door, I decided to bail and head for campus for a bit instead. Otherwise it had been a moderately decent weekend.

The next weekend was even better because it was host to Max & Tayler's combined birthday party. The fact that I remember the night is remarkable. Max was out relatively quickly, having done countless numbers of shots with guests. A friend and I even had to clean up a mess he made, shattering pretty much an entire bottle on the floor. The night went on for a while, until eventually Jess had to be put to bed. Tayler and I were the last to go to bed, sleeping on the couches in the living room because we had passed off our beds to friends who called it a night before the party ended, and who were in no condition to drive home.

So all together it was an epic night.

But now a couple weeks later, I'm just wrapping another week of classes. Next week everything pretty much comes to a conclusion, and then the week after is finals. So there probably won't be a lot of adventures, but we'll see. Life seems to happen un-according to plan.

True Story.

An Eventful Week

2010-04-11T00:04:00.002-05:00

The past week has been an interesting one, with some ups and downs. Last Friday I had some fun over at Chasady's house, with her and her roommate's friends, because she refused to let me sit at home as a third wheel to Max and his girlfriend. Then the next day was her 21st birthday, so there was a big group dinner. I was there with my roommate Max and his girlfriend, and we had an interesting departure. Upon leaving, it was announced there was going to be cake at somebody's house, so people were to get into their cars and follow the person if they wanted to join. Well, we decided we were just going to head home, but unfortunately, a couple of the people assumed we were a car that knew where we were going, and they followed us. When we realized this, we decided to keep driving in an effort to lose them. We ended up cruising through campus before the followers finally turned around, and it was pretty funny. Later I went to Chasady's for her 21st birthday fun, and she was pretty out of it. She was also fairly mad when I had to leave at midnight so I could get to bed for a 6am shift at work. Couldn't have a repeat of the last time that happened…

Or maybe I could have. I woke up the next morning, bitter about it being 5am and that I had agreed to a shift that I never really wanted in the first place, but I'm stupid in that I agree to things before I process how it'll affect me. I arrive and say what shift I'm there to do, and then I'm informed that I was never written in, so they had called someone else to cover what I was supposed to do. I stressed out for at least 2 days about this shift, and then not only did I not have to be there for it, but I missed out on a good friend's 21st birthday party.

The week was also interesting because the weather was fairly nice. And since it was so nice out, I've finally gotten back into running, which I haven't done consistently for about 4 months now. But it feels good to be getting it back. That, along with my roommates' sudden interest in working out to P90X, is going to lead to me (hopefully) getting into shape for the summer. I actually feel rather determined this time, too, and I've organized a full schedule for working out into my school and work day. I'm probably going to buy a pull-up bar to attach to a door and some resistance bands to help with the process.

Speaking of buying things, I finally bought my first Blu-Ray movie, even though I've had a PS3 for several months now. Sherlock Holmes was the lucky film to be the first Blu-Ray in my collection, but it's main sell-point was that it also includes a DVD copy AND a digital copy. So this way I can enjoy some Blu-Ray, but at least I don't have to move my PS3 out into the living room if we all want to watch it at some point.

Today was a pretty good day, as well. It was Max's birthday, so his parents were here. Max and his dad built a picnic table for our front porch area while the rest of us, which included myself, two roommates, Max's mom, his girlfriend, his brother, and then two other friends of ours, sat around and watched. So that's how we spent our day. Then in the evening, Jess, Tayler and I went to see Joel McHale perform on campus. He's the host of E!'s The Soup and on NBC's show, Community. He's a pretty hilarious guy, and the show was well worth seeing.

As for right now as I type this, I'm watching the movie, Brothers, which my mom bought and loaned to me. It's quite interesting, and a very good movie, so I should probably go back to paying attention to it. But I'll leave you with an thoughtful quote I found on some other blog I stumbled upon the other day. It basically says how the important events in our lives happen unexpectedly, and we are shaped by how we react to them, and I just like the way it sounds:

"Critical moments in our lives and relationships show up with no notice, no plan, and no place to hide."

Spring Break and Then Some...

2010-04-02T02:32:00.001-05:00

"Spring Break rocks!"

That's what I wish I could have said, perhaps somewhere sunny on a beach. But instead my spring break was spent in Manhattan, Kansas, just like it's been for the past few years now. Basically all I really did last week was sleep in late, wake up to watch some TV, then go in to work. One night, I even ended up staying at work for an extra three hours to help out, simply because I didn't have anything better to do. But then one simply delightful* thing I found out that night was that there was a leak in my brake fluid in my Jeep. How does one find that out? Um, well, when your brakes stop working on your way home from work, it's a pretty good sign that something is seriously wrong. It cost about $722 to fix up, so yay for all those extra hours at work.

But apart from that, I kept with the traditional plan-to-do-homework-over-break idea, but didn't touch a single textbook.

The high point of break was probably the basketball games. KU lost their 2nd round game, thus destroying brackets across America. Meanwhile, K-State won their game, and move on to the Sweet Sixteen. In their next game it was led into a nerve-wrenching double overtime, but again K-State pulled through and went to the Elite Eight! You could walk out your front door and literally hear the city cheering for a solid couple of hours. But then a couple days later they fell flat, unfortunately, and Final Four thoughts were gone.

Otherwise, these past couple weeks back in classes have been relatively uneventful, although I did enroll today, so I'm definitely excited for next semester. Actually, I'm even excited for the two classes I'll be taking during the summer, Speech and Intro Biology.

Up All Night

2010-01-30T00:36:00.003-06:00

I awoke to my friend Chasady staring into my room. My laptop sat near my head, playing songs off my iTunes, while my tv played some show that I can't recall. I wiped the drool from my mouth and sat up, looking to my clock. It read 9:50pm. Still slightly tired, but also refreshed, I rolled out of bed to join the group in the living room to watch I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell.

Apparently I had passed out sometime around 8:30pm or so. I should've known that was going to happen, too, the minute I laid down on my bed...

The day prior I had spent a busy day going to classes and them almost immediately following with work up to 10:30pm. After that, I returned home to take on a book report, over four short Faulkner stories, that was due the next day and had yet to been started, apart from the required reading of said stories.
I spent most time writing out the basic answers to the questions asked of us, before finally beginning on actually typing out the report. Meanwhile, I called upon my faithful friend, Hulu, to provide me with some company for the long assignment.
It was mostly complete by sunrise, but it was time to call for a break. Luckily the assignment would not be due until midnight, but it was good to get most of it out of the way, even if it did cost me my slumber. But it wasn't like I could fall asleep anyway.

So I carried on with my day, going to my class and then back home. I wanted so bad to nap, but worried that an hour would turn into something longer, and I'd be late for my 2pm shift at work. So I powered through a four and a half hour shift with no sleep. Made it home to go to eat at Arby's with the guys, then came home. Shortly thereafter is where you guys came in. And thus was the result of my first all-nighter of the spring semester of 2010.

Speaking of Spring semester, I don't believe I ever shared with you my current schedule. So here it is:

ENGL270 - (Gothic) American Literature [MWF 9:30am]
PSYCH280 - Psychology of Childhood and Adolescence [MWF 10:30am]
STAT325 - Intro to Statistics [MW 5:30pm]
KIN220 - BioBehavioral Basis of Physical Activity [Tu/Th 11:30am] w/Lab [W 12:30pm]
PSYCH564 - Psychology of Organizations [Tu/Th 2:30pm]

It's actually a pretty good schedule, and I don't hate the classes (yet). I got really lucky getting into a STAT325 class, which is necessary for my major, because I enrolled in that only a few days before the start of the semester. Dad said I needed to take at least 15 credit hours per semester since I'm basically getting full tuition through his GI Bill, and it only lasts for so many semesters. But whatever. Sixteen credit hours doesn't seem like it'll be too hard, and I look forward to the rest of the semester.

Reflections of 2009

2010-01-07T00:28:00.002-06:00

It’s fun to look back on all the posts of the past year, and see how the year has treated me.

Looking through January posts, it’s interesting to see how opposite my New Year’s Eve was compared to this year. Where last year I didn’t even bother going to a party or even stay awake long enough to welcome in the new year, this year I had a memorable adventure. Although it seems that the beginning of the year saw more video adventures (videoventures) than the start of my sophomore year…

In 2009, it seems that I spent a lot of the year staying up late into the night, doing a lot of nothing, and sometimes a lot of everything. I’ve also got a lot more random postings, not just about myself, but of funny stuff I’ve found online. I should really try and do more of that this year.

In 2009, I went through RA interviews, and perhaps NOT getting that job is one of the best things to happen to me. Yeah, I would’ve liked it, and it would’ve been a great leadership position, but then I would not be living with some great roommates.

In 2009, after missing the RA position, I looked into a Disney internship. I probably would’ve taken it, had it only been for the summer and didn’t spill over into the semester. I just didn’t feel ready to devote that much time away from school, and I still don’t. I’m probably a person who wouldn’t do well on a semester abroad.

In 2009, I got to see Brad Paisley and Dierks Bentley, live. It was awesome. Also awesome was the double-feature at the movie theater, where Megan and I saw both ‘My Bloody Valentine 3D’ and ‘Underworld 3’ all in one day, spending about 5 total hours at the movie theater. Expensive, but totally worth it.

In 2009, I doubted art as a major. After much thought and consideration, I changed to psychology, and so far, I don’t think I could be happier. All thanks to the constant flurry of thoughts going through my head, especially those in the middle of the night…

In 2009, spring break was a lot similar to high school spring breaks – not a lot going on. At least, not a lot in the college sense of spring break. I spent mine running, watching movies (the main movie of note that week was ‘Watchmen’) with friends or family, reading, Frisbee with friends... I guess I did go on a sort of road trip: Hazel, Megan, and myself went to the Salina Zoo for a day, just to do something different. It was there that we witnessed gay giraffe rape. Awkward.

In 2009, I went through the LEAD program, sponsored through the dorms. It was pretty cool, and very fun.

In 2009, I played Fugitive for the first time, and it was pretty enjoyable.

In 2009, swine flu was a major epidemic, and I almost certainly had a near-minor case of it in the fall. Around da2075 (which is the name for the house that my roommates and I rent), I was diagnosed with a swinus infection, after my trip to Lafene health center at which I learned of my respiratory infection that I had at the time.

In 2009, I ran a 5K race in Minnesota. It was epic, the amount of people that were involved, since it’s a pretty well-known event for breast cancer awareness/research.
In 2009, I made it through Freshman year of college, and 19 years of my life, without ever giving in to the peer pressure of alcohol. Sophomore year would not see the same results, which would result in an increase in interesting stories on my part…

In 2009, hatred was born for an artist known as “Lady Gaga.”

In summer of 2009, I applied for a job at the new PetCo, but I did not get it. Instead I would end up working at the new grocery store, Hy-Vee, and today I remain a valuable employee, having even moved up from a mere courtesy clerk (fancy name for bag-boy), to a cashier. Maybe someday I’ll be even more awesome, but it’s really quite hard to improve upon how awesome I already am.

In the summer of 2009, I set out to learn some basic cooking skills, and I think I did all right with it, for the most part. I’ve got quite a few cook books to work from now, too.

In summer of 2009, Michael Jackson died, and everyone was talking about it for quite some time afterward.

In the summer of 2009, Transformers 2 came out. Yet another awesome event.

In the summer of 2009, I went on a trip with my family to the Black Hills area of South Dakota, and had a lot of adventures – in caves, in forest areas, and around the Mount Rushmore area.

In the summer of 2009, I attended a summer course, General Psychology, so that I could get a little caught up with my new major. Came out alive and with an A for the course.

In the summer of 2009, my friends and I had another one of our lake bar-b-ques. It was fun, but it had lost some of it’s excitement, which was probably a result of all of us having spent the past year in separate colleges, rather than together in high school as we had once been. Even today I can tell how a lot of my past relationships have changed since being in college. While with some I’ve grown farther apart, others I’ve grown closer to, and some of my newer friends that I’ve made in just the past semester are almost closer to me than some of my friends ever were in high school.

Near the end of summer 2009, I finally obtained a PS3, which I had been wanting for quite some time. Only a week or so after buying mine, the new, slimmer version came out – but mine looks better and more awesome anyway.

As I said before, in 2009, my sobriety ended, and I finally began to embrace the traditional college pastime of drinking after moving into my new house with new roommates. While I had tried my best to not give in to something as petty as peer pressure, during Freshman year I had begun to feel like an outsider and a loner, and that I needed to let loose. Thankfully, my roommates knew all about where to find parties and the like, and next thing you know, I’ve blacked out at a party, with four hours before a morning shift at Hy-Vee – and I did not make it in on time. But also, I didn’t get into any trouble, and I did end up working a full 6-hour shift, with a hangover.
Since that time, I’ve only blacked out once more, at a party we had at da2075. The hangover the following day resulted in my throwing up the pizza we had for breakfast/lunch an hour before a shift, so I called in that day. But otherwise, this lifestyle has not been a total problem.

In 2009, I spent small amounts of time thinking about what to do with my life within psychology – I got nowhere.

In 2009, I had a much more eventful Halloween than in 2008. Apparently, alcohol does make life more fun. But also scarier, because Halloween ’09, while fun, was also the night we had to take care of a friend who was drunk and had a panic attack. Helping out in a situation like that can sober you up fast.

In 2009, I had another emotional meltdown, due to stress and some other small factors – but bottling a lot of other thoughts and feelings inside for so long had probably not helped it. The strangest part was that the exact same situation occurred almost exactly a year prior. Stressing from maintaining 2 jobs, going to school, trying to have a social life, and train for a marathon all came crashing down on me at once.

In 2009, I had a Thanksgiving that I really wouldn’t find memorable had I not written it down. I spent a portion of Thanksgiving working, the rest of it feeling sick, and went to bed at 7pm just to wake up early the next morning to work Black Friday at Hy-Vee. I’ve had better.

In 2009, I ran a marathon. Not just any marathon, but a marathon in Las Vegas. I was ill-prepared and hadn’t trained, but I’m not one to back down from something like that. I came out with some injuries, and I finished in about 4 hours and 15 minutes, but I probably won’t ever do another marathon – they’re just too long and I have a short attention span. I’ll totally take another trip to Las Vegas, though, once I’m 21. There’s not much to do there unless you’re 21 anyway…

In 2009, I survived Fall semester and passed finals with 3 A’s and 2 B’s, despite some doubts I may have had.

In 2009, I turned 20. I got a sweet 32-inch LCD television, but otherwise, it wasn’t one of the more memorable birthdays.

In 2009, the weather and work-conditions around Christmastime were epic, and resulted in me spending a night at the parents house rather than brave the weather again.

In 2009, I had a lot of fun on New Year’s Eve. Much better than 2008, and probably better than any ever before. A result of the life of a college student.

Even though in 2009 I feel that I have developed and changed a lot, I know that there’s still so much for me to work on. I strive to be not just a good person, but a great person, and sometimes that gets me in over my head. That’s part of the reason I need to let myself just relax more often, and not stress out about simple things like what other people might think. It’s my own life, and I want to do it right.

As for this year, I can only hope for it to be more legendary than the last, and for there to be many more true stories to share.

Happy New Year everyone!!

The Holiday Season, Concluded

2010-01-03T20:24:00.002-06:00

Greetings, all! A belated Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you! Like I did at the conclusion of last year, I want to reflect on my year and the various stories I’ve collected. But first, I need to finish up the stories of 2009 by telling you about my birthday and Christmas this year.

On December 19th, I turned 20. It wasn’t a bad birthday, but I really can’t say that it was memorable. The day started off with me waking up and going to Candlewood to work, and then returning home for a while before going across town to my parents house. We hung out, I opened some presents (which included a few requested DVD’s and an unexpected fondue pot!), went out to eat, and then I dragged them to Best Buy to show them the sudden addition to my wish list: a 32-ince LCD television. Originally I had been looking at a Panasonic television that had special iPod features, but upon comparing picture quality between it and an LG television, I opted to get the better-looking (and cheaper) of the two. A very special gift indeed! But that was pretty much my birthday – no exceptional parties or escapades to mention.

A few days later, I was working at Hy-Vee on Christmas Eve. The store was only open until 6pm that day, but it was still kind of a bummer to be there, even though there wasn’t much else to do. My roommates had already gone home for a few days over the holiday, so I had been spending time alone at the house – mostly playing video games.
The reason it was such a pain to be at Hy-Vee on Christmas Eve was because we were being hit by an epic snowstorm. If you’ve ever seen the movie ‘The Day After Tomorrow,” imagine pushing carts out in the snow storm they had to trek through. Or perhaps a more known example would be comparing the weather to the ice planet of Hoth (yes, I’m kind of a Star Wars geek). Thankfully, the store managers were gracious enough to give the two of us that were out pushing carts around some hot chocolate when we came back inside, our faces red from the bitter winds.
When I finally made it out of the store at 6pm, while driving back to my place, the slick snow and blinding flurries led me to decide that I would not be making this trip more than necessary tonight, so when I got home I packed an overnight bag to take with me to my parents, where I was going to eat dinner. It seemed a better idea just to stay on the couch than try and navigate back across town though the blizzard, especially if I were just going back to their house in the morning. The next day was a nice, snowed-in Christmas, the kind where you just enjoy the day inside watching DVD’s – I have both of my parents hooked on one of my favorite shows, Greek, so we spent some time finishing up the first season. A few days later, we also ended up attending a showing of Sherlock Holmes, which was quite excellent. I highly recommend seeing it, because it will not let you down.

I’m going to fast-forward to New Year’s Eve, but first I would like to share the results of my semester with you: I received a total of 3 A’s, and 2 B’s. The B’s are the resulting grades from my expository writing course, and my philosophy class. I couldn’t be more pleased with my philosophy grade, considering I did not do the optional paper, and my grade (which, since I did not do the optional paper, could not be higher than a B) was based only on the midterm and final. But on to New Year’s Eve.

I spent part of the evening working at Hy-Vee, until 9pm, and then hurried over to Candlewood to take care of that before the night really began. I made it home around 10pm, with time to shower and change clothes. Then two of my roommates and I headed out to the Thackery house, otherwise known as the place where I had the first blackout. Now, it’s an oddly familiar story here – we were at the place where I had a blackout night of drinking, the time when I had to be up at 6am to be at work. This time, I had to be up yet again at 6am, only instead of work, it was to road trip to Minnesota with parents to visit family. You see the parallel, I’m sure.
This time, I remember making it home. I left with Tayler around 2, maybe 3am. The walk home was chilly, but not altogether bad (except I did land flat on my back, not out of drunkenness, but misstep on an icy street – I was able to laugh it off). Max, who didn’t’ go out for the night (he had to work in the morning, but did not have to be up as early as Tayler, who also had to work, or myself, and is therefore lame), was still up, and about to head out to pick up his brother and his buddies who were out in Aggieville, so I opted to go along (because really, Max isn’t lame – he’s awesome). We were out and back in a fairly short amount of time, and with multiple alarms set around my room, I went to bed, with fairly little trouble.

My blaring alarm, stationed across the room, did quite a good job getting me out of bed. All I wanted was for that sound to stop. Other alarms went off at varied intervals, and it was pretty much the worst trap I could’ve set for myself. After showering and getting dressed, I sat waiting for my parents to show up so I could crawl into the backseat and pass out. The 15 minutes or so of doing nothing but wait were horrible. I couldn’t lie down, out of fear of falling asleep, but neurons in my brain were firing like crazy, making my head a vortex of pain. Finally they showed up and it wasn’t long before I was fast asleep in the backseat, completely covered in a warm blanket from head to toe. Obviously, years of finding comfortable sleeping positions in the backseat during long car trips was going to be paying off today.
I woke up 4 or 5 hours later, just in time for us to get some food. I was awake for a while, eating chicken nuggets from McDonalds and checking messages on my phone before passing out again, and waking up about 5 minutes away from our destination. This was quite possibly the easiest and fastest trip I’ve ever been passenger to, haha.
We spent the evening visiting with my uncles and aunt, and the new addition to the family, little baby Max (not to be confused with my roommate, Max). Now here’s where this story turns into an interesting, if not weird, sort of parallel:
So my mom is holding baby Max, and I’m sure she was probably thinking back to when I was a baby – and it was kind of like if I were looking from another perspective of myself, 20-ish years ago. Meanwhile, I’m sitting next to my dad, on the first day of the new year, drinking a beer with family for the first time, after having spent the last 7 to 8 hours sleeping off a hangover from the night before. It was an interesting view of how far I’ve come, not only in the last year, but from the very beginning. Add in a viewing of the new Star Wars Family Guy, “Something, Something, Something Darkside,” and watching “The Hangover” (January 1st was National Hangover Day, y’know – I celebrated it right), and I came to the conclusion that 2010 was going to be a good year.
The next day, we all had breakfast at IHOP, made a short trip to the Mall of America, then also a trip to Cabella’s before finally hitting the road, which is where I typed most of this from because the 8- or 9-hour ride back is not as easy when awake and sober, and I needed something to fill the time in the dark, since I couldn’t read my book nor play my DS (the battery ran out of juice).

Coming up next, 2009: A Year in Review.

Rock 'n' Roll Las Vegas; End of Semester

2009-12-15T12:35:00.002-06:00

So the Vegas trip a couple weekends ago was pretty interesting. Our early flights on Friday got us there early and gave us the opportunity to explore the Vegas strip a little. Then Saturday we went to the Rock 'n' Roll expo, which was just as awesome, if not more so, than the Virginia Beach expo last year. Got some pretty cool swag, including a sweet Rock 'n' Roll Vegas jacket with removable sleeves, so it's also a vest. After that, my parents and I spent the rest of the day shopping around the strip, and that night we went to see the Terry Fator show. He's a pretty awesome ventriloquist, and super funny. A lot of his show is based on singing, which is pretty cool for ventriloquism.
Sunday was race day, and I was started in the first corral, for people expecting to finish around 3 hours. Ha. The race began and boy was it long and painful. Around mile 12 or so, I stopped to walk and open up an energy snack. While walking on the sidewalk to keep out of the way of other runners, I stepped in a puddle and straight up slipped and fell flat on my back, hitting my head on the ground. Okay, ow. Some spectators across the street ran over and checked on me, and a couple of bike medics stopped by and asked if I was okay. I decided to just walk a bit before continuing on with running.
After a while I started up running again, slowly. Around 2 hours of the marathon, I was already bored - I don't think I have the attention span to run longer than a half-marathon. And from around this point, I couldn't run longer than a mile without my leg muscles having spasms, and had to walk it off a bit. Ultimately I ended up finishing at 4 hours and 15 minutes, a little bit off my goal. But not too bad, I suppose, considering I hadn't actually done much to train in the past 3 months, especially this past month leading up to the race.
For the rest of the day I was pretty sore, so we didn't do much stuff that required walking. Monday was a little better, which was helpful since we traveled home that day. The flights all went smoothly, but the hardest part was Mom and I driving home through a pretty epic snowstorm. I finally got back to my house at around midnight.
The Vegas trip definitely left me wanting to make another trip, mostly because a lot of the fun stuff in that city has age requirements. So maybe I'll make a go at Las Vegas again in a couple years.

Since that weekend, it's pretty much mostly been focusing on school, since I'm currently in "Finals Week." We did have a Polar Party on Friday night, during which several of us guys went for a short run out in the cold while wearing only shoes and shorts. The weather here really isn't that bad unless the wind gusts attack you.
But anyway, I'm finished with two of my finals, and I'm especially thankful for being done with the philosophy one. That's the only grade I'm really concerned about since the midterm, final, and an optional paper are the only grades in that course. Since I opted not to do the paper (because that was more stress than I wanted to deal with), the best I can get is a B, assuming I did excellent on the final, which I feel I did.
But as for today, I have nothing to concern myself with - no classes, no finals, no work. It's pretty nice. Slept in until 11am. So delightful. The only other final I have this week is on Thursday, and should be a piece o' cake. And then on Saturday I'm officially 20 years old, and next week is Christmas. Wow. Lots of stuff going on.

Recap of Thanksgiving Break

2009-12-04T01:24:00.002-06:00

Once again I've fallen behind on posting. How was your Thanksgiving?

Mine was probably the worst I've experienced in my lifetime.
I felt sick most of break.
I worked on Thanksgiving day, until 3pm - And then still feeling sick, I didn't get much enjoyment out of the turkey feast. Went to bed around 7pm that night...
Also ended up working Black Friday, early at 7am. Felt worthless, 'cause it wasn't really that busy to require my attention until about 10am...
The only really good part of break was finally getting trained on the cash registers at Hy-Vee. It's a much more entertaining position, especially since it keeps me inside when it's cold so I don't have to go get carts...

But as for currently, it's 1:30 in the morning. I'm only awake because I found it pointless to go to sleep when I got home around 10:30pm, and then had to finish a paper, then I have to be up around 4am anyway to prep to hit the road so my mom and I can catch our plane. It was supposed to be later in the afternoon, after my classes, but due to weather, it got rescheduled. So, in only a few hours, the trip to Vegas begins, and I'll be running 26.2 miles on Sunday morning. Don't worry though, I'm sure I'll be more apt to post about that afterward. Talk to you then!

Update on Life

2009-11-18T05:35:00.002-06:00

The weekend before last we had another party here at da2075. Pretty epic, and we had jungle juice. Got pretty bad. I don't even know when I went to bed, but I guess I was pretty out of it. I pretty much hated Saturday because it was another depressive day, since pretty much everyone I knew was out at the K-State/KU football game, and I was upset I hadn't acquired a ticket. It didn't help when everyone came back proclaiming we won, either - plus everyone bringing it up at the party that night. It was easier just to zone out...

That Sunday was also bad, but surprisingly not as bad as how I felt emotionally on Saturday. Sunday was more physical. I woke up with my stomach feeling weird, and a horrible headache (and I expected that). I didn't expect to throw up my lunch an hour before I was scheduled to work, however. I called in and told them I wouldn't be able to make it in, then went and laid out on the couch for pretty much the rest of the day. Ironically I watched "Ferris Bueller's Day Off."

Another key point of last week was that I opted just to not go to classes on Tuesday, proclaiming it a personal day off. It was very helpful, just taking a day to rest up.

This past weekend was not as eventful. But it did involve coloring books, watching the movie "Up!" as well as "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen." All-in-all a good weekend. Oh, plus I spent 48 hours addicted to ice for a psychology assignment. Pretty interesting experiment.

Currently I'm reaching the new morning after an all-nighter with my roommates. Jess and I kept Max company during his late night studio work, where we spent our time coloring. Then afterward we went to Wal-Mart looking for a game, but I located a sweet 20" touchscreen desktop computer that I might be purchasing later today, because it's awesome. I've been wanting a desktop computer for various reasons, so I may as well get an epic one. I'm super excited for it, despite it being a $900 drop in my wallet.

Stressing

2009-11-05T23:59:00.004-06:00

Well lately it seems I've been getting more hours at work, which is a good thing, considering most of the employees are still trying to scrounge up hours themselves. But then again, it's really starting to stress me out to a breaking point. I'm trying to manage being a student, holding two jobs, and train for a marathon, but it's just taking up a lot of my life. It feels like people don't understand where I'm coming from, because they're just like, "Oh, that's how life is," and all that blah blah blah. Yeah, maybe it is. But does that mean I can't stress about it?

Yesterday I worked from 5:15 to 10pm, arriving at work already exhausted from the day of classes and the workout from the day before. It was a long night, especially since it was so slow. But while my original intention was to go home and get to bed, we ended up at the neighbors house after reading their various status updates on Facebook...

And then for today, work wasn't as bad. I actually spent the first two hours up on the computer doing training for moving up to a cashier position. Then the rest of the night, it was like everyone who hadn't gone shopping in over a month decided today was the day. There were a few families who came through with two or more carts of groceries. But a few people tonight that I helped genuinely said "Thank you" to me, not just in some passing goodbye. But despite this, later cleaning at Candlewood, I broke. They say ignorance is bliss, but when I'm alone with my thoughts at Candlewood, I think about a lot, and tonight I couldn't take it. It took me about a half hour longer than usual, because I ended up crying and couldn't focus. The last time this happened, in fact, was almost exactly one year ago, on a Thursday in November, coincidentally. This might be an annual thing, apparently.
But whatever. I had people trying to tell me it's just life, and it will get better, but I think that wasn't what I needed, and it just added to my frustration. The last time I let go like this was, as I said, a year ago, so I think I've been bottling everything stressful and such since then.
After I finished at Candlewood, I opted to go to up to Top of the World, a nice outlook spot of the city of Manhattan. I sat on top of my Jeep in the cold night air and just breathed for a while, and I think that was what I needed. No obligations, no one to please. Just me.

Halloween 2009

2009-11-02T13:54:00.005-06:00

This Halloween weekend, despite its ups and downs, was probably one of the better Halloweens I've had in a while, and definitely more exciting than last year. It all started with Friday night...

Friday night, Jess, Tayler and I went to a party over at the University Crossing apartment complex. That is when I learned that you can fit a whole bunch of people into not a whole lot of space... It was a tight fit, trying to get through the crowd, but eventually we ended up at the pong table and Jess and Tayler got their turn. Then someone else needed a partner so I helped 'em out and, mostly due to his skills, we made it through two games before going down in the third. That was pretty much the high point of the night, and after some more socializing, Tayler went off with someone else, and Jess and I went home and made some pizza in the oven. Om nom nom.

Saturday I had to spend a portion of the afternoon working, but after that I was able to have a Happy Halloween. Had to Chasady up at her house, since she was going to party with us that night (and it get's pretty intense, having her tag along) and a few days prior she had her license taken away because, long story short, she had some outstanding tickets. Not "Oh, that's awesome" outstanding, but "Oops, you failed to pay these on time" outstanding... So yeah, anyway... We ended up taking a trip to Wal-Mart to get her some stuff for her bike, 'cause she's gonna be using that a lot for quite some time.
The party for Halloween night was at the Thurston duplex, a regular in the party circuit. We arrived early enough where it was unusually small, compared to prior parties there, but it picked up over the course of the night. And then long story short yet again, Tayler and I ended up walking Chasady back to our place after some guy gave her some whiskey and she ended up having a panic attack outside. I gotta say, my roommates are awesome, 'cause we had a pretty good attack force. Max pretty much immediately got Chasady away from the guy with the flask, and then of course we Tayler, Jess and I were getting jackets out of the car and trying to keep Chasady calm.
After Tayler and I got Chasady back home, he went out to meet up with some other people and Chasady went and passed out in Max's bed, since he was planning on staying with his girlfriend for the night (but they ended up back at home later, for reasons I'm not gonna talk about; we'll just say not all roommates are as great as mine). Anyway, with Chasady probably having some pretty deep sleep, Jess made it home a while later, while I sat out in the living room completely sobered up after the evening thus far. We ultimately opted to make a quick trip to visit a friend at a party only a couple blocks away, because she's from out of town and only stops in occasionally... Which is pretty much every weekend. Jess and I, sober and drinking Mountain Dew, sat around for a while watching everyone else. Actually, quite entertaining.

So after the eventful nights, Sunday was pretty blah. Had a visit from some out of town friends, then later ended up at work. It was actually a pretty quick four and a half hour shift, since the entire time I pretty much stocked stuff from the back. But now the holiday weekend is over, and I'm stuck back in classes for a while longer...

P.S.
Chasady is fine, FYI...

Midterms

2009-10-26T00:21:00.004-05:00

Again, I'm backed up on blogging. But in my defense, the past two weeks have been full of midterms. A couple weeks ago I had to deal with studying for my Philosophy midterm, which everyone was freaking out about because there are only three grades over the course of that class, so passing the midterm was important. I ended up getting a 97 on the exam, which was awesome and unexpected. Then that Friday I had to turn in my midterm and revision papers for Expository Writing 2, so I'm concerned about those still because we've yet to get them back. All this was stressed by the fact that I spent another several days watching the dogs at home while my mom went to New Mexico to visit my dad. Between work, midterms, and taking care of the pets, I was way beyond stressed out, working late into the night to prep for exams and then waking up around 6am to feed the dogs. Bleh. It's not that I don't love the dogs, but they don't understand the concept of college and sleeping beyond sunrise...

This past week I had the Sociology midterm and Psychology midterm. Both went well. But my worse day by far this week was probably Thursday in Philosophy. For no reason other than because I could, I stayed up all night, and went to class after being awake for about 25 straight hours. BAD PLAN. I might as well have not even gone to that class, because I couldn't really tell you what we talked about except that the main concept has to do with political philosophy. At one point I wrote something about France, yet I'm certain France had not been mentioned at all during lecture...

Around today I woke up about 10am, and just laid in bed for what felt like a good two or three hours, only to look at my clock and see that it was now 11am. The rest of the day was fairly similar, with time passing soooooooooooo slooooooooooow. It wasn't bad, 'cause it felt like I had plenty of time to study my Drugs and Behavior chapters, which for some reason led to me thinking about graduate school, despite the fact I'm still only a sophomore. But as far as I know, if I do decide to get a PhD, it's probably going to be at K-State or UCLA. I think what I want to do is focus on personality development, but I just need to figure out which one is the better school for such a program. UCLA is more recognized, of course, but at the same time it depends on whether I would want to finally branch out from Manhattan. Or, I could just stop for a while and get back to the present, and instead focus on watching endless hours of Hulu.

[EDIT:

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Things I've Been Up To

2009-10-11T11:33:00.003-05:00

I haven't posted for quite some time now, but I do have some stuff that I'd written the past few weekends. Here's something I have typed up from the time frame of August 24th to September 13th:

I really can't recall way back, but as for this weekend, it was pretty awesome-ish.

Friday night we didn't do much. Two of the roommates were out and about, so Jess and I sat around wondering what to do, mostly trying to get people to come over and hang out with us. This went on 'til 2 or 3 in the morning before I finally went to bed 'cause I had to work an 8 hour shift at 10am. Yay.

Oh but hey wait, backtrack! For a few days leading up to about Thursday night, I was feeling horrible. Then Thursday night my head was pounding, I had coughs and a sniffly nose… I was almost certain I had a case of H1N1, the dreaded 'SWINE FLU!" The next morning I opted to not go to my morning class, instead going to Lafene, the student health center, to get a diagnosis. I got to wear a mask, to prevent spread of my mystery infection. Turns out, I guess, that I had an upper respiratory infection, and they told me to pick up some meds, so I did. And then later, despite being told I was good to go to classes, I opted to take a sick day and just hang around the house with Jess, playing Rock Band 2, which has pretty much become the non-stop entertainment of the house… This brings us back to Friday night, as mentioned in the prior paragraph. So we'll move on to Saturday!

Work, work, work. I hate the 8-hour shifts. I hate working weekends. Grar. I'm going to change my schedule as soon as I possibly can. But after work I came home, did some various homework assignments, and we pretty much just hung out most of the night before heading out to a party for a few hours before calling it a night.

Next day worked a shorter 6-hour shift before going home to our now weekly Sunday cleaning day. We did a quick clean-up of the community areas (living room, kitchen, dinner table) just to make the place look spiffy.

Yeah, so that bug that I had sucked. Jess even had it later on.

From the weekend of September 26th to 28th:

I haven't decided yet if I just haven't really done anything noteworthy lately, or if I haven't had time to just sit down and write freely... I blame the four papers I have due in the upcoming weeks, and all the studying I've been trying to do lately.

But thankfully there was Friday night! Our household held it's first party and it was pretty sweet. It was a good way to break in our new Pong-A-Long table, too. I even contributed to a winning team for a couple of games. I also set up the music playlist for it, too, so I did something to help! Yay!

I had an early lunch on Saturday with Hazel and Megan at Chili's. It was delicious. But then at 2pm I had to go in to work, and missed out on all the football fun that everyone else got to do. The one beautiful day that I would've loved to have hung out with friends at a football game, I'm stuck at work, and the team actually did well for once this season. Saturdays at work suck.

So anyway, now on to current events. The past weekend we had our fall break, so we pretty much just had fun for a few days. I had to work a little bit every day, though, so that sucked. Monday, however, was only a short 3-hour shift, and I made it out in time for a trip to the movies with the roommates.

We went to see 'I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell', based off the book by Tucker Max. It was hilarious, but you have to know what you're getting yourself into before you go see it. It's R-rated for some very obvious reasons.

Most of this past week I've focused on only one class, because I had two papers due and our group presentation, all happening for my leadership class on Wednesday. Tuesday during my free time I had to scavenge the city for one movie, 'Mississippi Masala' just to watch to write about it for one paper. Luckily found it at Digital Shelf after hitting several other spots. Then in my Sociology class that day I wrote the other paper, and then watched the movie and wrote the paper later that night, staying up late.

This weekend has been the first time in a while that I haven't been on the work schedule for Hy-Vee. So Saturday the roommates and I ended up going over to Max's brothers' place to help paint and watch the game on his bigscreen. That was fun for a while until his landlord showed up and helped for about an hour or so. It was either awkward silence or awkward conversation...

The game that night kind of sucked, without K-State making a single score before halftime. Instead of staying to watch the rest of the failure, we called it quits and went home to take showers and get the paint and dust out of our hair and off our skin.

Later we went to parties. We showed up at one that was a black light party, and ended up walking in to a group of people all in white undershirts, while we... well, we were not. Between the small apartment, and the loud music that the host couldn't make up his mind what song to play, we decided it wasn't worth it and headed out to another. It didn't end up being that great either. It had a theme: redneck. We couldn't figure out what was with the theme parties last night, but seriously. We went back home and just hung out for the night before calling it quits.

As for my plans today, probably just gonna sit around, try to be warm, and get some homework done... There are two tests on Thursday that I am NOT excited for...

Worse Case Scenario, You've Got a Story to Tell...

2009-08-24T22:25:00.005-05:00

So my 19 year streak of being the overly responsible good kid has finally hit the wall. Not that I'm not still a responsible guy, but this past weekend definitely where the streak ends... Some poor choices were made, but I regret little. Where do I even begin?

How 'bout with some form of a disclaimer?

Anyone that knows me will probably be a little shocked at the following catalog of events. The only reason I'm sharing this for all to read is because I know people will be asking me what I've been up to, and these stories are too entertaining to me to not write them down for my own personal records. Admonish me if you must, but I'm allowed my mistakes and the lessons learned from them...

I once read that any time you're given the option of doing something or not doing it, you should do it. Because worst case scenario, you're left with a story to tell... You have been warned.

So in the past month I've started to embrace the traditional college lifestyle. Here are some recent events:

Thursday night the roommates and I made it out to a party across town and had us some fun. What was more fun was walking all the way back home across campus because all of us were relatively buzzed. I even ran into a bush, and just got the thorn out of my thumb finally...

Friday I went in to work a shift that I had picked up for someone. It was only supposed to last until 10pm, but the sheet all the managers had said I was scheduled to 11pm. I found this unacceptable, because for once I had plans for the night. Normally I would easily work overtime a bit just because I was in a pretty good mood. But upon finding out the scheduling issue, I was most certainly NOT in a good mood.
The whole irony of the situation? I was so upset about working late because I wanted to make it to another party that night. But then when I finally got off work, I was so pissed off at pretty much all humanity (due to people's disrespectful and lazy treatment of carts) that I didn't want to be around people and just went to bed.

Saturday is where the real fun begins. Worked a short 4-hour shift, then sat around the house. The outside world was busy, because Saturday was dorm move-in day, of course...And since everyone was moving back to town, what else to do on a Saturday night before the semester starts other than party? I tell ya, in the past month alone I've probably attended more parties than the whole of last school year. It's pretty fun, this college lifestyle, and these awesome roommates of mine.

But anyway, the party... Yeah... So I was supposed to work a 6-hour shift the next morning, starting at 6 a.m. Well, I most certainly did not intend to get legitimately drunk. The last thing I remember from the night is partnering with someone to help finish a game of beer pong (after consuming multiple beers and even doing a couple shots prior), and then suddenly I woke up in bed, saw my clock said 10:10 a.m. and literally within a minute I was dressed for work, out the door, and driving down the road.
It's a good thing I had already established myself as an excellent worker, because my managers were completely understanding when I came in flipping out about "my alarm clocks not going off", practically hyperventilating. I basically still worked a 6-hour shift, I just started 4 and 1/2 hours late, and had a hangover... Trust me, lesson learned. No more wild parties on nights before work (or school, now that that's started). But the only thing I really regretted about everything that had happened? Not taking a moment to brush my teeth before leaving the house. Bleckh.
And despite the hangover and feeling of fuzzy teeth, I still had a better workday than Friday night. Perhaps the mystery of how the hell I got home kept me occupied until break when I could contact Jess. Turns out we walked home, since it was just a block or two away, with one of our friends leading the way. BEST STORY EVER.

So even though my little booze cruise hit a giant ice burg of fail and sunk, I gotta say, it's pretty sweet to have a story as epic as this. My friends definitely got a kick out of it... Don't know how my family will react, however, considering that one month ago I didn't even drink, a few weeks ago I could barely finish one can of beer without gagging, and now here I am getting way-past buzzed straight into blackout mode...
But like I said, now that I've had that experience, no drinking on school nights or nights before early shifts at work. I'm not stupid, I just had one night that got a little out of control. It happened, it's over, and it won't happen again (at least not prior to work). Sorry this is probably the way a lot of the family had to find out, but I'm not a little boy any more...

So now on to the less entertaining (but more responsible) news...
Classes started today!!
But first, our morning started with watching some Star Wars special on History Channel for about 20 minutes, before Tayler and I trekked off to the Psych 202 (Drugs and Behavior) class that we share. I'm pretty sure it's going to be my most favorite class this semester, because the teacher seems pretty awesome. Then I had Engl 200 (Expository Writing 2) and ran into one of the guys from my dorm floor last year. It seems like it'll be an okay class. Then I had a three-hour break in my day, so I walked back home and chilled, watched an episode of True Blood online, then went back to campus around 2pm for my Edlst 350 (Culture and Context in Leadership). I don't know how I feel about it yet, because the teacher doesn't really excite me that much, but we'll see.
Walking back I ran into Mike from the dorms last year, and he ended up giving me a ride up the hill to my house, where I gave him the quick tour, and then I went over to check out his place across town...
And now finally, after going to clean at Candlewood, came back and had dinner with my roommates, then we finished watching Star Wars Episode 1 which was on Spike, and now we're mostly through watching Episode 2 on DVD... All because we saw a special historical analysis this morning on tv this morning. History can be so motivating, haha...

Tomorrow Tayler and I share Philo 100 (Intro to Philosophical Thought) in the morning, and then I get to sit around for about 3 hours again before going to Socio 211 (Intro to Sociology) in the afternoon. During my break I'll probably head to Best Buy so I can purchase the new Batman PS3 game, Arkham Asylum, which comes out tomorrow.

Hy-Vee: The Story Begins

2009-08-16T21:41:00.003-05:00

So Hy-Vee opened Tuesday, and apparently it was pretty epic. Third biggest opening in company history, is what I heard... But alas, I didn't work until Thursday. But it was probably for the best, because I wouldn't want to have dealt with the grand opening crowd. But over the course of four days working, I've been learning a lot. Yesterday even directed people around, telling them how to do a job that I barely even know how to do myself. I'm just that awesome.
As far as working, for the most part I've been doing carts. Generally it's what they put me on right away, or else only five minutes after I work bagging. Do you think it's because I'm awesome at carts? Because I do. In fact, today I worked 20 minutes over-time to help out with bringing a 45-cart train back to the store. Definitely a new store record. Aside from carts, I've gotten to do quite a bit of bagging, which is kind of like a fun puzzle. Plus I've gotten to do some other smaller tasks: shelving bread, replacing items to the shelves, helping people find stuff (which is an adventure, since I don't know the whole store layout myself). Overall, it's quite fun, and it's kind of nice to have a job that is constantly something new, and I'm usually pretty energized by the time I clock out. I was especially excited after leaving the store Friday with the first paycheck in hand!!
But as for tomorrow, I finally have a day off. I'll probably spend the day playing video games or something highly unproductive. After all, school is only a week away, and my lazy way of life must soon come to an end...

Da 2075

2009-08-09T16:50:00.001-05:00

So I've been living in the new house for over a week now. We didn't have cable or Internet until just last Friday, though, so it was a long week sitting around doing nothing for me and my roommates. Most of our entertainment was all of us sitting around watching one person (usually Jess) play inFamous on the PS3. Other time-filling activities included mandatory Hy-Vee meetings, and various trips to Wal-Mart and other such places for essentials to place in our awesome house. Despite the lack of cable, we'd kept entertained fairly well, and I have yet to make it to bed before midnight since living here. Can't decide if that's a good or bad thing...

Spent most of Saturday with my parents, since Dad was home from New Mexico for the weekend, specifically to help move the large trailer that contained our house's kitchen table and some of our living room furniture. We also saw 'A Perfect Getaway' which is a pretty awesome movie, if you're looking for something with an unexpected story twist...

Then Saturday night went out with my roommates to a "rave" party. It was interesting, what with the glow sticks and all that. Made it back home around 2am. Then surprisingly this morning I woke up fairly early, and for the first time in a while I made it out the door for a run. Did two loops around campus for a out and back distance of just over 5 miles. Then today pretty much was just a lazy day. Went and hung out with Megan for a while before my limited amount of sleep caught up with me and I wanted to go home and lay down... I've yet to nap, but spreading out off my feet felt pretty good. And now I'm organizing my iTunes, which seems to be a never-ending battle, in my opinion...

"Money can't buy happiness, but it can buy video games, and that's pretty much the same thing..."

2009-07-31T23:32:00.005-05:00

So first off, I guess that last post was numero 150. Cool.

Today was the final day of my general psych class. An entire semester compressed into a single month, and it's finally complete. My final grade after a total of 4 tests is 95.5%, which is awesome.
So, since I studied so hard for the past month, I decided I was finally set to get a PS3. Would've picked one up earlier in the month, but well... Then I probably wouldn't have focused on studying as much as I did... But now I've got a few weeks to obsess over games before school starts up again.
Along with the PS3, I got four games (two of which were actually bundled with the PS3). It came with Metal Gear Solid 4 and Killzone 2, and I probably wouldn't have bought those games otherwise, but hey, two games with a regularly priced PS3, so why not? I also picked two games I've been wanting, inFamous, and Dead Space. InFamous is pretty awesome; you play a guy, Cole, who's gained electricity powers after a huge incident which puts the entire city into panic and gang members try and take over. Throughout the game you make choices, which affect your reputation - so you'll either end up good or evil. And that's always fun. The other game, Dead Space, is pretty scary, actually. I ended up playing it while the sun was still shining, and even then some stuff freaked me out. The alien creatures just come out of nowhere!! Plus there's awesome music and sounds that are kind of freaky, and then there's the times when the spaceship's power goes out momentarily, and you're left in a dark hallway, with only a flashlight on your gun... I don't know if I dare play in the dark.
So overall, the PS3 is AWESOME. So glad I finally picked one up.

Fifteen hours, and 46 minutes left until check-in time for moving in to a house with my roommates. I am indeed excited. Indeed, indeed.

I Finally Did Stuff Worth Talking About!!

2009-07-26T18:24:00.004-05:00

Yeah, so I haven't written anything in quite some time. Been hearing a lot about it from both my family and my friends. But basically, I haven't had a very productive July, so didn't have much to say. All I've been doing in the past three weeks is going to my Psychology class every day for two hours, and it's going pretty well, despite having to read about a chapter every single night to stay up to speed. And then of course I've had eight days worth of Hy-Vee training sessions, with two more coming up this week. I'm excited for finally getting to work, because I've already met some great people. And those past three sentences are all I would've had to say, had it not been for this weekend of adventures. Read on!

So sometime earlier in the week, I talked Hazel and Megan into taking a road trip all the way to Topeka, specifically 'cause I was bored and wanted to visit a functioning Hy-Vee. So we took my Jeep on an adventure, and got to test out my newly-installed stereo (my old one had water damage from all the rain we'd had) and my new TomTom GPS unit, who I call Homer, because I downloaded the Homer Simpson voice as my navigator. It works pretty well, if you don't start arguing with him because you have no sense of distance and take turns too early... But you have no proof that I did that...
So we made it Hy-Vee intact, mostly. A little sweaty and couldn't exactly hear after an hour of wind-flapped plastic-ish rooftop, but we made it. We ate some Chinese food and wandered the store, then went to the mall. After all, driving an hour away just to eat Chinese food would've been ridiculous.
We made it home okay, as well, obviously. Then later Mom and I went to the Riley county fair to see the animals, and the little piglets that were born that morning.

Saturday morning was the annual wiener-dog races. The 8th annual, I believe. It was pretty entertaining, and Mom and I took Fletcher and Addy out to watch, so they got to have some fun, too. Last year we entered Addy in a race, and she probably would've run had she not gotten bored half-way down the lane and decided to turn around... But maybe next year we'll enter Fletcher when he's a little older.
That afternoon we also went to watch Fair Factor, which is an awesome team competition they do every year. And every year I've said I want to make a team, but always forget. Next year, most definitely. It's hilarious. I didn't get any footage this year, but I have some clips from last year that I'll have to dig up to share.
Then later at night I met up with Kris and Hazel for hanging out and going on rides. At some point we actually ended up at the mall, though, because we felt crowded, and went back later with a couple more companions in tow. We rode some rides, my favorite being the giant spinning bears. I don't know why I love them so, but I do.

And then just a while ago, I returned home from our lake BBQ. It's basically become an annual thing, having started last year as kind of a wrap up of our last summer before college, and now I guess it's just to finish off the summer with an excuse to get a bunch of us together, since it's hard to get all of us together at once without planning well in advance.
So yes, we had several of us together, enjoying hot dogs, a game of Apples-to-Apples, playing marshmallow badminton, with occasionally hot dog chunks added in to the mix for some reason. We also had frisbee and some other random stuff.
It was fun while it lasted, but it kind of felt off as I drove home. I dunno why, but I suddenly didn't exactly feel like I fit with my friends any more. Our BBQ was fun, but it wasn't AS fun as last year. Have we spent so little time together this summer that we haven't realized how much we might have been drifting apart since going to college? Hmm.

In other news, I'm less than seven days away from moving. It's only across town, but I'm definitely up for a change. With having my dad be in the military, I've kind of come to hate moving all the time, but this is different. This is one of those "college moves" where you get to be on your own, essentially, and even though moving kind of bites, I guess I can't help but have a constant desire for change of scenery...

Back From the Black Hills

2009-07-07T22:17:00.004-05:00

Actually I've been back for a couple days, just been too busy to blog.

The vacation to the Black Hills area of South Dakota was pretty cool. I've got tons of photos and video clips to go through. I'm gonna actually have to clear some of my hard drive of old files to make room for everything.

We saw a lot of cool stuff, and did a bunch of cool things. Some of my favorite things include the Cosmos Mystery Area, which is a place that pretty much messes with your mind with it's optical illusions, and the Black Hills Maze was pretty awesome, too, even though my team didn't win. But the thing that I do NOT recommend going to is Thunderhead Falls. It's supposed to be a cool underground waterfall. But it's not. Just go to Rushmore Cave instead. Much, much better.

As for the 4th of July, didn't really go too well. They had fireworks on the 3rd over Mount Rushmore, but it was so crowded that people were parking down in Keystone, the town that's several miles down from Rushmore. So we decided not to do that and went to play blacklight mini-golf instead. My team lost again, unfortunately... By the time we left the place, there was such a thick fog that we didn't expect them to do the fireworks anyway, so lucky us for making the right choice. We watched on TV to see what they did, and I guess they decided to go ahead and play with their explosives, because we watched about half an hour of colored fog. Oooh.

Anyway, my parents and I got back Sunday night, and then I had to get up early the next morning to take my dad all the way to Kansas City for his flight back to New Mexico, then head back to Manhattan in time for my first day of Psych class. So far it's been going pretty good. But I did end up getting a $50 parking ticket because I was parked in a lot without a valid permit (since I had driven my mom's car because it had GPS). Lame.

And now here I am, two days of class down, 18 to go. Next week I start job training for Hy-Vee... And I need to figure out if I'm going to be able to move on August 1st or not, due to vehicular issues... Stay tuned!

Post 6.27.2009

2009-06-27T22:17:00.006-05:00

So as I'm sure it's been heard by now. Thursday, Michael Jackson died of cardiac arrest. It was very surreal and unexpected. The first way I found out was by way of a Facebook status, then of course I had to check the news, because it seemed like some sort of joke. Next thing I know, the next several hours were non-stop Michael Jackson coverage. He never really had much good press in the past several years, but the way people reacted to his death made me realize how much of an influence he'd been on so many musical artists.

But enough about that. I was glad Thursday night to finally get away from the whole Jackson hysteria to go see Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. It was awesome. So awesome, that I've kind of been wanting to go see it again, especially whenever a commercial for it comes on. I really don't know how to describe it, but as far as I know, those so-called movie critics are lame. It was a pretty entertaining story, with funny characters, some intense giant robot fighting, and of course, Megan Fox. Transformers 2 was pretty much 10x better than the first, at least. Now, enjoy New Divide, the new single by Linkin Park, basically the main song for Transformers, and my current ringtone.

And finally, tomorrow morning my parents and I embark on our week vacation to South Dakota. It'll be so good to get away from Manhattan for a while, plus we'll also be hanging out with several family members, too. I plan on using my video camera quite a bit, so there will definitely be some epic footage compiled together later on.

Blah Blahbity Blah..

2009-06-24T17:27:00.003-05:00

Summer can be really boring when you have a life as mundane as mine. Pretty much all I've been doing is the same old stuff I've already talked about: running and... actually, that's pretty much all I've done in the past week. I do believe the lake was involved last Wednesday for a birthday gathering for a friend, because I'm still peeling from the resulting sunburn. But I got to go in a canoe, so yah!!

The current topic of anyone living in Kansas, or essentially anywhere in the mid-west, would be our lovely weather right now. It's been like hell, mostly due to the humidity. Even going running after 10pm, I've still ended up with my running shirt soaked. I ended up going running this morning around 8am and it actually felt better than the previous few nights that I went out late...
But relating to the subject of hell, I've decided to work on a list of what it must be like there. So far the list includes the current Kansas weather, and Lady Gaga songs. I hate her so much. So much!!!

Luckily, I'm close to making an escape from the heat. In a few days my parents and I will be out of town for a week-long trip to South Dakota. Huzzah! Which is good, because lately I've just wanted to do something new, to the point where I've wanted to just pack up and go drive the highway as far as I can go before the gas hits zero. But it's been hot, and the Jeep lacks air conditioning, and warm air coming in the windows is just as bad as the weather itself. Plus, the whole idea is pretty intimidating in itself. But someday it'll happen, someday when there aren't so many things that keep me rooted to where I am.

Up Late? Update...

2009-06-16T23:46:00.006-05:00

I know, I know, I haven't posted in a week. I've been keeping busy. I'm not going to get into too much details, but here's what's been going on, mostly: Running (lots of running), working out at the rec center, got a job at Hy-Vee for this fall, went to Salina to see a craft show that was awesome, went out to the lake, been hanging out with friends...

Yesterday I was hanging out with some friends. It took us probably a good hour, hour and a half to decide where to eat. We started at the mall, then went to Dillons for potential variety food, then ended up at a Chinese buffet. Then we took another couple hours to figure out what to do next, until we finally settled on something summery and outside - swimming in a creek! Boy, was that an adventure. A video of that will surface sometime soon. Then only a couple hours after that adventure we were hit by a crazy storm with 70mph winds. I was trapped at work for a time, the rain falling sideways...

But today I woke around 11 a.m., the storm far out of my mind. A lot of the damage was mostly just downed tree limbs, except for our patio shade thing which was pretty much mangled. Anyway, today did laundry, then found out Max, roommate of the future, was in town with his girlfriend who was interviewing for Hy-Vee (it's a popular place). Met up with them after they were done with that, hung out for a bit, then they had to trek back home, so I went to Wal-Mart to acquire ingredients to make some chicken fajitas for dinner. They were good.

Now I'm here waiting at 11:56p.m. I want to see if I can obtain the new iPhone 3.0 software update that comes out on the 17th (which is in a few minutes, hopefully). I'm a super geek like that. Gotta have it first. If not, I pretty much just stayed up late and watched the recent episode of Greek (which was awesome, btw. If you aren't watching that show, you're missing out). Plus, I've got a video to share with you! Not my own, but vastly more entertaining. I think I'm going to the wrong school, if this is what they're doing at UCLA.

Tired. So tired.

2009-06-09T19:06:00.004-05:00

I don't know why I'm tired. Maybe it has to do with the fact that all I did today was workout and then sit on the couch watching a 'House' marathon. In fact, I used my video camera to record a particularly interesting clip.

The poor lady hasn't seen Jeopardy in a month!!

Anyway.
Yesterday was pretty cool. Was lazy until about 2 p.m. and then I went to the bank to deposit a check, stopped by and bought my Psychology book for my class next month, and then went and applied for a job at Hy-Vee. My interview is on Thursday. Yay! So if I get a job with them, I'll be doing that and my janitor work for as long as possible. But I figure if school comes around and it's too much of a work load, the janitor work would be the job to drop. It's still a decent job, but if I had to choose between two jobs, I'd want the one that has a more social atmosphere, and a little more variety than just going through the motions of wipe, vacuum, mop, rinse. Seriously, that about sums up my job right there.
But hey, I haven't even hit the main point of entertainment!
Misti and I met up at the mall after I finished up my job application, and we went to Mr. P's Party store down the street to look around. We ended up leaving with some very interesting items. I had a green clown wig, an inflatable sword, and a plastic seashell bra, while she had a rainbow clown wig, an inflatable sword, and a cheap-o cowboy vest. Then we went to City Park where we had an EPIC CLOWN DUAL while we waited for Megan to show up. Then after we attacked her, we ditched the clown gear and went to the new playground, which is surprisingly enjoyable. But that didn't stop us from complaining about it, and talking about how much better they were back in the day.

Well, that's all I have to talk about today. 'Cept maybe that I'm super sore from using weights today. There. Now I'm done, I guess...

Whirlwind Weekend

2009-06-06T22:26:00.002-05:00

I feel like it's been a pretty whirlwind weekend, and Saturday isn't even over yet...

Yesterday was exhausting. I woke up and rolled out of bed around 8-ish, after learning several facts from the radio:
- Ants will not cross a line of baby powder.
- Dryer sheets work as mosquito repellent (I think that's what they said...)
- Chap stick can help with stuck zippers and with minor cuts.
- Cover a sunburn with cool whip to help with healing.

Anyway, 9:30 I went to the Rec center for about an hour, then left to meet Chasady and Richard at City Park by 11 for a run down to the mall and back. After that, I had barely been home long enough to shower and eat lunch before Megan wanted me to join her for a day of adventure (and by adventure, I mean 'getting tags for her car'). But long story short, we ended up at Pillsbury Crossing, along with her sister, baby nephew, and our friend Sarah. I'd have a video, but it doesn't seem to want to upload to the blog at the moment...

We were going to go swimming at the pool by Megan's house, but decided to admit defeat, for exhaustion had won... After I was dropped off at home, I changed out of my soaked clothes (I hadn't really planned on going in more than ankle-deep water, so I was in t-shirt and regular shorts, but ended up getting WATERFALLED!), took a shower, and had dinner. Then I decided to take a quick trip to Best Buy, and picked up a 320GB external hard drive. I've been needing a decent backup system for my computer, since the wireless device we have at home doesn't do the job... So with this thing, I can not only plug in directly to my computer, but I'll be able to take it with me when I move. It's like, practically wallet-sized, and has more storage capacity than my laptop... That makes me and my 5000+ iTunes songs happy. The only thing is that it's been running for almost 24 hours so far, because I've got it set to back up my entire hard drive of my laptop, which according to the status bar, consists of... 139,483 items to be copied.

Last night I had a weird dream, at least from the portion of the night which I spent sleeping. The light emitted by my external hard drive reflected in a very annoying fashion, keeping me up most of the night... But my dream! I had this dream where I was just sitting, basically, hanging out. Then my dad comes up behind me with hair clippers and buzzes the back of my head. I think I saw that happen on that show, 'Jackass', once... But anyway, at first I was annoyed, then figured I might as well just shave my head. So I took the clippers and made two buzzes straight through the middle of my hair and then... the battery died. Damn. That's about the time I woke up...

Today was kind of a slow start, but through the morning I did some more organization of my room. Still got short of two months to live here, might as well get it figured out. The highlight of my cleaning was organizing my video games in my entertainment center drawer, as well as figuring out a method of organizing my books and DVD's on my bookcase. They still need some sense of categorization, but at least I know what to do with 'em...

Then around 3 I went out to meet Chasady out at Konza prairie, where we attempted to run the 6 mile trail. Attempted. We managed to spend only about 40 minutes running it, and probably about half an hour walking. Running a trail without water in about 90 degree weather was not our best idea. But we remedied that by going out to Pillsbury (yet again), because Chasady had never been out there. Today it was much more crowded than yesterday. Today was also Saturday, though, which makes sense...

So that's my weekend so far. I need to work on organizing my book/DVD shelf. I can't have 'The Lion King' sitting over by 'Wanted', or have 'The Dark Crystal' wedged between 'Spider-Man 3' and my 'Star Wars' DVD's... It's just not right, no matter who you are...

Post 6.4.2009

2009-06-04T21:46:00.008-05:00

So yeah, not much going on lately. As I figured, summer would see a decline in adventures... Which is strange, considering I should be having more time to do more activities... But these days they don't feel worth it. I guess I haven't earned the fun time. It's not like I've gone to a days worth of classes or work and then feel like I need something to relax... Relaxing is all I do right now! And who would've guessed, there can be too much of a good thing. I need a job. Correction: I need a second job. I have my one-hour night life as a janitor, but that leaves me empty-handed from 9 to 6, left only to stare blankly at my computer screen. Wow, I think I just had a grim realization of a potential future... I need to get out more... Plenty of time to sit in a box and tap away at my computer and complain about the whereabouts and ownership of a stapler later in life...
Kudos if you got that reference.

I did do something fun, though, yesterday. My mom and I went to see the new Pixar movie, Up!

Man, that was a fantastic movie! And it was in 3D!! Pixar is awesome. It's definitely a movie that I would see more than once in theaters, and I don't say that about a lot of movies... Although I think if I was to spend money on theater movies, I would still want to see Star Trek or Wolverine, since I haven't made it to see them, yet... But 'Up' was hilarious! Seeing the audience that was there at the 5:05 Wednesday showing was also interesting. We had two college age guys sitting in front of us, and then a few rows down there was an old guy that probably could've been the animated character in the movie...

Oh, and speaking of movies! I found an awesome program that converts movie files! Perfect, considering I've been having issues with the movie formats that my Panasonic camcorder makes, because they won't open on my Macbook. But with the handy Prism program I got for free, it's not an issue at all anymore! The fact that everything finally worked out after stressing about several potential and complicated solutions pretty much made me happy to the tenth power. Here's the video I put together today:

I would seriously consider going to Hollywood to be a movie editor if this whole psychology/leadership thing doesn't work out at college...

Post 5.31.2009

2009-05-31T20:06:00.003-05:00

So I can't really remember the full week, but I'll tell you what I do remember.

Wednesday I went and hung out with Sarah at the mall, and ended up buying "The Healthy College Cookbook." Cooking is on my list of summer objectives, one of the skills I plan on being adequate at by this fall... It's a pretty good, basic cookbook, and I've already made some smoothies, Mexican lasagna, French toast, and Ramen noodle stir-fry. So far, the lasagna was by far the best I've done, but I've made notes on how I could possibly improve the others. I'm enjoying this new skill, but of course, I've pretty much always enjoyed seeing pieces come together, be they Lego's, puzzles, or food.

The new PetCo store opened up the other day, so Mom and I went to check it out yesterday. I asked if they still were hiring, even though I'd applied a few weeks prior to the opening, but no luck. I haven't really applied anywhere else, but I really need a day job, because I'm starting to get bored sitting around all day until I can go to work for an hour at night. Plus I could use more personal income...
Last night I pretty much divided my room into two sections: What's coming with me to the new house, and what's staying stored at home or tossed out. Basically, I'm pretty much ready to move out. But alas, two months still, until the lease begins... Again, I need something to occupy my time. A job, perhaps... Or my class in July...

As for today, I've pretty much exhausted myself. Slept in 'til like... 10 a.m. Went to the lake before noon, where I ran about 12 minutes and then swam 4 laps in the swim area, which made me sore. But that didn't stop me from going to the Rec center for about 45 minutes this afternoon, so now I'm definitely sore. So begins week 2 of Operation Vegas 26.2... Because that's what I'm calling it from now on...

Random note: I found this awesome website, ProfQuotes, which is basically compiled of funny quotes from professors, and is something that I'm likely to use in future semesters, seeing how I already shared professor quotes with some of my friends...

I wonder what I'm gonna do tomorrow...

Post 5.25.2009

2009-05-25T22:00:00.003-05:00

So I woke up early this morning (as has been the norm, lately) to someone yelling at me. "I thought I told you to get the fuck out!" I laid in bed for a moment, disoriented and kind of scared, before I realized it was coming from my iPod radio, playing the Fall Out Boy/Timbaland song, One and Only. The part where he's yelling is kind of annoying, but otherwise I like the song (But it's apparently bad to wake up to).

After I woke up, I continued with my workout schedule, today only covering a little over 3 miles, and doing some basic strength exercises. I was thoroughly exhausted by the end, and had one of those days where you continue to sweat even after taking a shower.

Other than that, I spent the rest of Memorial Day lounging, as I'm sure most everyone did. Watched some movies, took a nap in the hammock, had some text conversations... Pretty much a good day. I was also going to meet up with some friends, but that fell through horribly. We made plans to head to city park, kind of last minute, though. I ended up waiting alone at the park for 20 minutes or so, because the other people I was supposed to meet with were having some weird issues, and eventually just decided it wasn't worth it. If I wanted to sit alone in the dark, I could do that at home.

And now I'm bored and downing ice cream bars. But it's okay. I weighed myself today and I'm apparently 5lbs beneath normal BMI. I can eat all kinds of stuff no worries (kind of like I do anyway). But maybe my weights training over the summer will help with some muscle mass and bring my weight up.

Today was fun. True Story.

2009-05-24T22:14:00.003-05:00

First off, you may have noticed the title change of the blog. It's inspired by one of my favorite characters, Barney Stinson, of the show, "How I Met Your Mother."
I just felt like I needed something fresh after the past several months. It's been that way a lot the past few days, and I just have this extreme drive to change up my environment and activities. There's just not as much to do when the college crowd's left the town essentially empty.

This morning I went for a bike ride, the kick-off of my marathon training schedule. It was a good 40 minutes, up to linear trail and through neighborhoods. I had forgotten how good it feels just to go for a bike ride.

I pretty much spent the rest of the day hanging out with Megan and Hazel, first out at a BBQ that Megan invited us to, and then at my house where we attempted to play Rock Band. I say 'attempted' not because we're horrible at it, but because my PS2 was acting up and not reading the disks. It's an old model, so it's probably due for an upgrade. I want to get a PS3, but as far as I'm aware, current models don't support backwards compatability with PS2 games, and that would suck. So since we had technical difficulties, we played some Wii instead, watched some YouTube, ate some food, and watched a bit of television before calling it a day. But we've already got plans set for tomorrow. Let the summer fun continue!

OH OH OH, I almost forgot the funny story of the day!!
While out at the lake BBQ, it started to rain, just a slight drizzle that was barely noticeable. Well, I currently have the top off of the Jeep, since it's been so nice out lately. I didn't think the light rain was a big deal, so we continued to chat and hang out. Well, then after a while the thunder started sounding bad, so I figured I should get home before it gets bad, so we made plans just to meet at my house to play video games. Well, the ride home was almost alright. But as soon as I turned onto the street off of the highway, the downpour hit, and I'm being hit from all sides by rain. I couldn't see out the front, I was getting wet. But damn it, I was laughing all the way down the street.

Post 5.23.2009

2009-05-23T21:39:00.004-05:00

Today I pretty much did nothing. It was a boring day, but also a good day, I suppose. But I definitely don't think I can do this whole "nothing" thing for much longer.

I did just go out and drive, today, though, the weather being so nice. It was kind of fun just cruising around town listening to music. Of course, it definitely helps to have an awesome Jeep, sans top.

I also probably spent about half an hour or more designing a 28-week training schedule to prepare for the marathon I'm running in December. It involves biking, running, swimming, weights, and even some weekly yoga. Will it work? Ask me how I feel in 28 weeks, after I travel 26.2 miles in what I hope is 3 hours or less.
Why do I plan on doing this, you ask?
Because I'm awesome.

In other news, need a movie to watch? I recommend "Never Back Down". It's a fighting movie with a kind of Karate Kid feel to it. Good music, good action, and a pretty good story, too. I watched it off DVR today, but I think I might go pick up a copy sometime...

Another Long Post

2009-05-22T11:59:00.014-05:00

So once again I waited too long to do an update, and about a weeks worth of adventures have piled up... Now that's I'm on Summer break, you can probably expect fewer adventures since I'm no longer in a community housing arrangement. But I'm sure my old high school friends and I will have some good one's to talk about.

So like I said, I'm on break now. Last week was finals week, and I spent a lot of time doing a whole lot of nothing. In between the nothingness, I spent some time moving stuff out of the dorm room, and I even managed to do some studying, and took a couple finals during the week, too. In case you're wondering, I did great on the finals. My final grades for the semester include 5 A's and a B (in Art History, of course - my least favorite of classes).

Thursday night, lying in bed, I had a little personal realization. I made it through my first year of college completely sober. And surprising to myself, I'm not sure how I feel about that. Yeah, I guess that's impressive in it's own right, and not many can say that about themselves. But also, I think of all the times people told me about parties they were heading out to, while I spent my Friday or Saturday night hanging out on Facebook for countless hours. It's not like the opportunity presented itself too often for me. And yes, while I have written about all the fun times I had the past year, I've also had plenty of nights bored out of my skull and wouldn't have minded a few parties.

I wasn't sure if I wanted to write about this, because I know a lot of my family reads the blog, and I'm never really been one to express interest in alcohol. But years of being the predictable "good kid" gets old, and I'd be lying if I said that the college environment wasn't changing the way I thought. If I can't bring myself to speak my mind, I should at least write it...
Plus after hanging out with friends yesterday, I came to the conclusion that Aggieville is and has been fairly boring, and will remain that way for the next year and a half. Then I can finally utilize the majority of it's establishments...

Sparked by these thoughts, I also came across a personal issue of mine. It has to do with my sense of acceptance. Not in the sense like, "Hey, I accept you," but in the sense that it's very rare for me to accept something anyone offers to me, like a soda or some type of snack. I can't explain it, but I also feel out of place using someone else's resources. When I do, I either hesitate before saying yes, or I accept a small, single portion. It varies depending on the relationship with the person offering, to extents, but I'm not in the mood to get that in depth at the moment.
Another thing I thought of was the fact that I've got a conscience the size of a watermelon that prevents me from doing anything, probably because I'm so afraid of making mistakes and ruining the image I put forth, again falling into the role of the "good kid who gets the grades." I think if I were to stick a song to this, as I occasionally do, I would go with It's So Easy, by Plain White T's.:

Tell me what you want from me and I will do my best to please, pleasing's all I ever do, 'cause they all expect me to; and everybody thinks I'm strong, but they don't know what's going on, they don't know what's on my mind. I fall behind...

Tell me to be what they want me to be, everybody thinks that it's so easy. Sometimes it seems like there's two sides of me, everybody thinks that it's so easy being me...

But anyway, Friday involved two finals, me spending two hours taking my loft down on my own (because I was super bored with pretty much everyone else gone already, and also because I'm just plain super awesome), some video games, and a couple episodes of The Office on Hulu... Saturday I did some final cleaning and my parents came to help move the loft lumber out of the dorm room. Then I spent the day dealing with this:

Saturday night I watched the last 6 episodes of the recent season of Heroes, staying up until 4 a.m. just because I wanted to finish off the season even though I was growing tired around 2 a.m. But seriously, holy crap! They killed off several characters, revealed some cool stuff, and the season finale had a FREAKIN' AWESOME PLOT TWIST!!!! I was starting to think Heroes was getting blah during the first few episodes of the season, but after those 6 hours, I'm super excited about what the next season might bring...

Sunday through Wednesday were either spent on a 10 hour road trip with my dad to or from Cooperstown, North Dakota, or spending time in said town. We went for a short visit, and to get some furniture from my grandma that I'll be using when I move into the house in August. I'm sure I've said it before, but again, I wouldn't mind bypassing summer for once... It was a pretty fun trip, but 10 hours in the car is way too much time to listen to the Top 20 channel. I never want to hear Lady Gaga or her song Pokerface EVER AGAIN! I hate it. Seriously.

And then of course, yesterday as I mentioned, I spent time with friends. First Megan, Misti and I went to the high school to visit teachers before their school year ended, and then we were joined by several others when we ventured to Aggieville for a sober afternoon. (Don't get me wrong, hanging with my friends is fun, but I can only tolerate certain stores for so long, and Aggieville's variety of non-bar places is limited.)

Inspired by the boredom that is my summer vacation thus far, in a moment of spontanaiety this morning, I did some rearrangement of my bedroom, rotating my bed by 90 degrees so that the head and side are by the walls. It really opens up the floor space, aside from the junk still sitting around from my moving back home... Oh, and by request, some photos of my 3D Design projects from the semester:

Project 1: Abstract Vessel Initial design based on a 2D project I did first semester, and add in a little touch of Tremors...

Project 2: Akari Lamp Design based on a Jenga tower.

Project 3: Memphis Clock Random design, fairly uncreative compared to others done in the class.

Project 4: Assemblage on Wheels The Dewfish, made up of way too many Mountain Dew cans...

BONUS PHOTO:
My new room layout.

Long Post

2009-05-12T12:46:00.003-05:00

Here's something I wrote in the car on Saturday:

So I figured I better update on the week, and there’s not much to do in the car. Currently, my Mom and I are en route to Minnesota to visit family, just for a quick weekend trip, which will involve a road race, too. We left about 7 a.m. this morning, and it’s almost 2 p.m. now, so shouldn’t be much longer. Aaaaaaaaaaaand… we just crossed the state line to Minnesota. But until this weekend is over, the real story of the day needs a rewind.
So this was essentially the last week of classes. Monday and Tuesday weren’t much, but I finally turned in my portfolio for Drawing 1 on Wednesday, and I’m kind of glad to be done with that. Thursday I went to Mass Communications, and he finished early. Since it was such a nice day and I didn’t have anything else to do, I sat in the grass and read a book for about half an hour. It was great, if I don’t think of how annoying the bugs all were.
Took a quick trip home to see if my package finally arrived. I had pre-ordered the new No More Kings CD, And the Flying Boombox. By pre-ordering it, they sent it so I would get it a week prior to its official release. And as a bonus, they threw in a second copy of their CD for me to give to someone and spread the music (plus I’ve got a letter signed by the lead singer]. So far I definitely like their single, Obey the Groove, but I also like Paper Airplane. No More Kings is a pretty fun band, so if you haven’t heard them, I suggest checking them out. Here are music videos from their first album:

Then Thursday afternoon I went and turned in my “Dew Fish” for 3D. That was pretty much the result of my drinking an entire twelve pack (and then some) of Mountain Dew over the course of a week. But I got a perfect grade on it, so… Yeah! I’m kind of going to miss art classes in the general sense that they’re a better social environment since you’re not confined to just sitting in a seat like in lecture halls and stuff, but I think one of the main reasons I liked them so much in high school was the break they caused in an otherwise long and boring day. In college they just became a too-long break in an otherwise relaxing day. But no regrets! I look forward to delving in the world of psychology starting this summer!
Thursday night I helped Mike chalk for Fugitive again. It’s a good way to develop impressive chalking techniques. We had some pretty good stuff going on. Then afterward I went to work, and when I came back I went with Mike to a bonfire his Navigators group had to finish off the year. It was pretty cool – good location, fairly hidden; marshmallows and s’mores; a couple activities… Ultimately it came to an end though when someone got injured during a 30 second wrestling match. It’s all fun and games ‘til someone gets hurt, right? Mike had to drive him back into town to the hospital, and it was probably a horrible trip back, considering how bumpy the road was, and too much movement was too good on the other guy. I ended up catching a ride back with some other Haymaker people, and found out the next morning it was a confirmed broken collarbone. Yowch.
My only Friday class had been canceled pretty much a week in advance, so I was able to sleep in late after being out all night (Not today, though). Aside from a trip to the mall to get some cards for my graduating high-school friends, and a trip home to drop off some junk from the dorms, a lot of my waking hours were pretty much spent with Mike, Nathan, and Scott. I had to go to work at 6, though, since (a) I’d be gone all weekend, and (b) I had more late night plans ahead. After I got back, I took a nap for about an hour or so, up until 9 p.m. Then I headed out for another night of Fugitive. This time was pretty good, especially with the special event we held in Aggieville. I don’t even know how to begin to describe it… Imagine you’re hanging out in the late night bar scene of a college town, and suddenly someone comes running down the street being chased by someone… And then random bystanders join in on the chase! Of course, the runners were all in on it, but it had to be quite a sight for all the people who had been out drinking on a Friday night… It was epic. After that, we played one more round before calling it a night around 12 a.m., and I had the joy of waking up at 6 a.m. to go on an 8 hour road trip and now here I am typing this up to be posted later when I have internet service…

Anyway, had a 5K race on Sunday morning. Didn't do so great, but can't really complain considering I was in a crowd of thousands of people! Came in about 25 minutes even, having taken 10 minutes just to get through the crowded first mile. But it was pretty cool, and I'm glad my Uncle gave it a go, too.

Got back home around 11 o'clock on Sunday night, and I slept at home, and slept in Monday morning. Yay. Had my mom drive me back to campus on her lunch break so I could go to a info session about a potential summer internship that I received a phone call about while I was napping in the car on the way home. So now I'm gonna talk about that...

It sounds like a great internship. Students go and sell education books and make about 40% off each sale... People come back after the summer with like, $8000. Sounds good, right?
But I'm also trying to think about all my other plans I had this summer...
A week-long family trip. A psych class in July. Try and get a job at PetCo. Start training for a December marathon...
The job sounds fun, but they work from like, 9 in the morning to 9 at night, six days a week. I dunno if that much money is really worth it... I mean, logically, it'd be a good idea to have this great experience in a working world, but at the same time... In a few more years, I won't be having any more summer vacations... But then, this opportunity is great on the resume, and a lot of the Alumni of the program have formed their own businesses and gone on to be in political positions.

It's a lot to think about during finals week, and I haven't even gotten selected for the program yet... Grr...

SWINE FLU

2009-05-01T20:43:00.005-05:00

I just like saying swine flu, and diagnosing anyone who sneezes or complains about any small thing like stubbing their toe with swine flu... Quite fun. "Ugh, I just got a paper cut." "Ooh, yep. Must be swine flu."

But seriously. It's gonna get out of control, and we're going to die. It's the start of the zombie apocalypse, people...

But no, seriously. I don't really care about it. It'll remain a running joke for a while, until something new strikes terror to the globe. But now on to what I really wanted to say:

Nothing says "Fun Friday night" like me and a friend watching "How It's Made" on the Science channel.

But actually, the stuff they made was pretty cool. Like hammers. And watercolor pencils. Pretty sweet.

So the past few days have been pretty weird, at least as far as my sleeping habits. I just can't seem to sleep in, and it sucks. I want to just be asleep until 8am when my alarm goes off, but it's useless... I'm probably going to bed too early... Is midnight too early? Doesn't feel like it, after these long days of learning and such... I'm surprised I'm ready to go to bed around that time, anyway, considering the amount of Mountain Dew I've been drinking the past few days.
I'm working on my final 3D project and decided to use an all Mountain Dew theme, so I'm working my way through an entire case worth of a few different flavors... Actually, thanks to today, got through quite a few, having gotten a friend to drink a couple, too.
I would probably keep working on my project for a while, but I ran out of super glue, which I need in order to adhere many, many pop tabs to a plastic bottle. Hopefully I get back into "super motivated" mode again later this weekend, after I get some more glue. Probably won't get to it until Sunday though, because tomorrow should be busy...

In the morning I'm probably going to attempt my first 5K in a while. Most likely not at regular race-pace, though, just a fun run with some friends. Maybe. I don't know if I'll be able to hold back. But it's early in the morning... Maybe my getting up early lately will be useful... But my intake of Mountain Dew might be, uh... Bad.
Then pretty much almost immediately after the race, I'm meeting up with two of the three guys I'm living with next year for a trip out to Fort Riley for their post-wide yard sale. We're hoping to find a couple couches we can use next year in the house.
I'd like to be done with that by about 1pm, though, because I want to check out the FREE Luke Bryan concert that's going on before the spring game tomorrow. It'll be cool if I can make it, 'cause then I'd have no need or desire to go to Country Stampede to see him.
After the Luke Bryan concert, I should be able to relax for the rest of the day. That, or maybe go work on my drawing assignment at home, so I can get that out of the way...

But for now, I think I'm going to maybe watch some Doogie Howser on Hulu, since there appears to be nothing of interest on television right now. That, or go to bed... 'Tis tired. Three cans of Mountain Dew does nothing for me!

Later, all!

(PS: I've only got 4 more days of class! Then it's Finals week, which essentially is one test on Tuesday and two on Friday! In about 14 days, I will have successfully completed Freshman year.)

Let's Talk About My Weekend!

2009-04-27T22:36:00.003-05:00

It had its moments of fun, that's to be sure.

Friday, after my morning class, I went home to visit the dogs and let them outside to play and go potty. Took a nap with Fletcher on the couch for a bit before heading back to the dorm because I was bored. Mike caught me walking back to my room and he, Scott, and I ended up going to Sonic for Happy Hour! Three guys getting large drinks for only $3 isn't too bad. After that I had to head out around 4:30 to get to Cico Park to help support MHS varsity track. It was like I never left high school, because I went by to see coach over at the finish line and got put to work being a timer for some races. Yep, good times. I left early, around 8pm, to get a Whopper from Burger King. Again, Mike caught me on the way to my room and pretty much demanded I come play Fugitive that night. I agreed, but looking back I now know NOT to eat a Whopper half an hour before that game.
Anyway, Fugitive is a pretty cool game. Mike's been hosting it all school year, but Friday night was my first time playing. It's basically a group of people trying to get from point A to point B without getting caught by the "cops" team. Super night-time hide-and-seek fun, essentially. I look forward to the next session, which will be the final game of the semester. But it's going to have a little extra surprise, which I'll hold off on revealing.
After the game, we went and got slushies from the gas station, and back to the dorm to hang out in the lobby. Keep in mind it's now 1:30 in the morning. We had quite the conversation going with some other people, mostly planning the extra surprise to go with the final Fugitve game of the semester. After a while, headed to bed, finally falling asleep around 3 a.m. or so, and slept in 'til 11 a.m., which I haven't done in a long time.

Saturday was pretty much that. Sleeping in, not doing much, and going back to bed. But Sunday I had to go home and work on a 3-hour still life. I did it at home because it has to stay set up for a week or so, because it's a total 6-hour drawing, but we had to have half of it done this week for class. So yay for that I guess.
But Sunday was pretty stormy, too. And there's nothing like driving back to the dorms during a rainstorm. I hit a HUGE puddle going about 20 - 25mph and it created a 6-7 foot WALL OF WATER that engulfed my Jeep. I couldn't see for a good couple of seconds. It was the most terrifying and epically thrilling few seconds of my life.
Okay, well that's probably an exaggeration, but still.
I was soaked by the time I walked across the parking lot back to my dorm.

Today I didn't have my first class of the morning, but I got up at 8a.m. like usual anyway. I decided to go to Hobby Lobby to find trinkets and doo-dads for my final 3D project, but didn't have much luck, except for finding a doorknob thing... But I also got some paint canvas' because I had an idea spark up while designing my last piece, the Memphis clock. We'll see how that turns out.

(Someone outside just now obviously just sped down the road. I could hear their tires squealing quite loudly. Whenever that happens, I wait a moment to see if I hear a crash.)

So that's about it up to this point in time... Only 9 more school days, then it's... Finals Week!! *cue scary music*
Ugh, then I have to deal with summer. Not that I don't want summer vacation to get here soon, it's just that my summer are... well, they're mostly boring. Frankly, I look forward to chapter 2 of my college story. I forecast that next year will have a definite high chance of random.

(Yes, I did just end this blog entry with puns relating to the title of my blog. I am indeed lame.)

How Many MPG Does Your Body Get?

2009-04-25T19:19:00.000-05:00

34.5 miles per gallon

Created by The Car Connection

So Today Was Pretty Nice

2009-04-23T21:14:00.005-05:00

The weather is killer, though. Seriously, we went from Winter to Summer, with practically no Spring in between. And I think I may already have a sunburn on my neck. Damn.

This morning my Mass Communications class had a pretty cool discussion panel, with three professionals in various fields. We talked about the ethics of media, and how to look at whether or not to post a picture on a newspaper or run a video on the news. Pretty interesting.

Then I basically went through my routine of going to the dorm, waiting 'til noon to go get lunch with the guys. We're getting a pretty good basis of group relationship set up before living together next year, and I think it's going to work out mighty well next year. After that I went back to the room and upon reading my e-mail, I discovered that my 3-hour studio was canceled today! Cool! So I went and got a haircut. Because that makes sense, doesn't it? Class canceled = haircut. Yes, exactly.

After I got back from that, ended up getting back with the guys and just hung out for a bit before I had to head out to meet some others for a run. Did a couple laps around City Park, followed up by an interesting conversation about Harry Potter characters, the guy who plays Edward in Twilight, and Megan Fox. Obviously our conversation was very movie-based. And look! Megan Fox!

I look forward to Transformers 2.

After that, Richard and I split from the girls of the group, with plans to go to the natatorium to swim. But that never happened. He biked and I drove, and we couldn't find each other, even though we had set a spot. After 20 minutes of searching, I had to head out to work, so I just sent him a text (even though I had called him several times with no success).

Got back to the dorm, showered, snagged some food (a rather poor combination of it, I might add), and went to work. Then came back about an hour or so later. And here I am. Today was alright, and tomorrow's looking pretty good, too.

ColorQuiz.com

2009-04-23T08:52:00.001-05:00

Chase took the free ColorQuiz.com personality test!

"Is extremely determined to make his presence known..."

Click here to read the rest of the results.

Post 4/22/09

2009-04-22T21:11:00.005-05:00

So I guess it's been over a week since I last logged an entry. Hrmm... We're gonna try and SparkNote this entry...

Wednesday:
I can't recall much...

Thursday: Got my video camera in the mail. It's pretty awesome... 'Cept the video files don't upload properly to my Mac, so I have to go through a lengthy process to install Windows onto a division of my hard drive so I can use the video program of my camera... That bites, 'cause I really like iMovie on my Mac. I'll resolve it at some point...

Friday: Went to class, cleaned my room afterward out of the usual Friday boredom... Hung out with Megan for pretty much the rest of the day, having random fun, as usual. I would have videos to upload, but well... You've probably read the previous paragraph.

Saturday: I spent a lot of time sitting in the dorm working on my Memphis clock for 3D. I had the place to myself since my roommate left Friday afternoon for the weekend... After a while I got bored and went to wander campus, for it was Open House day!! It was pretty cool, and I got to hear the a capella group sing... Then I hung out with Mike at the front desk and helped make balloon animals... If you could call them animals...

Sunday: Took laundry home, went to work while it was going through the wash, watched some television... I think I got caught up on the past few weeks of this season of Greek. Had dinner at home before heading back to the dorm.

Monday: Pretty bland, as far as I recall... Ooh, but it was 4/20, and I got an e-mail titled, "pot sale," which is funny if you know the 4/20 story... It was for pottery, but still... ha ha.

Tuesday: Turned in Memphis clock, finally! Had dinner with Ashley, and totally embarrassed her. She told me it's my job to find her a "hot guy," but apparently I have bad taste in guys, because anyone I suggest, she doesn't like 'em. So she was telling me a list of qualities, and so I pointed at a guy passing by and asked her, "What about him?" She, of course, thought it was a random guy, who happened to notice me pointing at him, and got really embarrassed that I would just try and call random people over to us. Of course, it was Scott from my floor, which I told her later. I thought it was pretty funny. At night I met up with Mike and some others to go do some chalk ads for his Fugitive game, then afterward Mike and I took a trip to Wal-Mart (at like, 10pm, which apparently ever college student was doing that night), and then just cruised around town before calling it a night.

Today: Did the whole "go-to-class" thing this morning, then sat outside for a mostly enjoyable 10 minutes (it's actually getting really hot). Sat in the dorm 'til my later classes, then after my 3 hour studio (which I will NOT miss next semester), Robbie caught me in time for dinner, so I went with him and we joined up with Scott and Nathan. Then we proceeded to play a Monopoly-type game called "The Farming Game" for a while, but then that got boring. After that, Robbie and I played Battleship, and I won, and then we decided it was dark and cool enough to go for a run, so that happened... Got back, showered, and wrote this. And now we're back into the current flow of the time stream...

Life is Good

2009-04-14T22:19:00.002-05:00

Birds flying high, you know how I feel. Sun in the sky, you know how I feel. Reeds driftin' on by, you know how I feel.
It's a new dawn, it's a new day, it's a new life, for me.
And I'm feeling good.

Seriously, every since Friday, or even Thursday when I got my major and minor sorted out... With that taken care of, and my schedule for next semester complete, nothing has brought me down since, and things seem to be going my way for once. Yesterday, I forgot that I was supposed to have my pads of paper for Drawing 1, because we were going to the zoo to draw, but I had left them in the classroom since we didn't have any weekend drawing homework. Luckily, the locker for all our art pads hadn't been locked, and I was able to retrieve them. Awesome.
And then today, our group finished our physics lab over half an hour early. Awesome again. The only thing that kind of hits hard is that I've unexpectedly got a test coming up in Mass Communications this Thursday. But that's nothing big, just got to get caught up on some reading and then re-cover my notes. My grades for pretty much every class are quite good, so no worries.
But the other awesome thing of the day: My clock project for 3D that was supposed to be due on Thursday... Now it's due next Tuesday! Third awesome!!

Life is good.

"Feeling Way Too Damn Good"

2009-04-10T22:42:00.007-05:00

So today, I was happier than a bird with a french fry. But it all started yesterday.

[mentally insert flashback noise here]

So last week, I finally went through with changing my major from Art to Psychology. But a week later, it still hadn't changed over on isis, the KSU web program for students to manage, well... stuff. So I went to ask about it, and the forms hadn't made it back from the Psychology department office. Well yesterday was the day my enrollment accessibility would open, so I needed to meet with the Psychology adviser. And what luck! She was able to get me an appointment as early as 9 a.m. this morning! Otherwise I would have to wait for a couple weeks. So after I got that all settled out, I met up with Megan for a bit (she gets a 4-day weekend for Easter from Highland). So we hung out for about an hour, probably less, at the mall, and then I had to get back to campus to stop in on my 3D class. The instructor has been out this week, so basically we've just been going to use the wood shop down the hall (we're making clocks). I just decided to sign in and leave, because I was on a roll yesterday...
Hrm, to make a story that's becoming ever longer short, by the end of the day I had a major in Psychology and a minor in Leadership Studies. That's right. Extreme change. Go from one major to another, and add a minor. Rock on.

As for why I was in such a good mood today...
I woke up and told myself, "Today is going to be a good day." I did this because one of the first things I thought of when I woke up this morning was this, which I had read to Megan yesterday when we were hanging out. I just went with it, and I felt pretty good.
I had my adviser appointment at 9 a.m. I really like the adviser, as far as comparing first impressions between her and the art adviser. Last semester going through my art advising appointment it felt like a pretty static environment, but today the appointment was pretty decent and casual.
Anyway, I got that done and went to my Physical World class. But I didn't really bother paying attention. I was too busy filling out my enrollment online, and I got a really awesome schedule! If I was still sticking with art, I would have such a limited range of selectable courses (I received several e-mails each listing a half-dozen or so courses that were already filled and wait-listed).

Here's the schedule I got hooked up with:

I wanted to try and block my classes together each day, so I wouldn't have to sit around on campus too much between them, since I'll be living off campus next year. But I think I can deal with the daily three-hour gap. It'll be good study/lunch/relax time. I think the best part is just the fact that I won't be stuck in any classes that end at 5:20 every day. That, and it's pretty cool that one of my future roommates shares two classes with me.
Oh, and I'm taking a class this summer, General Psychology, which allows me to get into some upper-level Psych courses, like 202: Drugs and Behavior.

So getting this done was like, the biggest stress relief EVER. You don't even know. I was so pumped, after class I went for a run. After all, I couldn't waste my energy high.

Then I met with Megan for lunch at the Chinese buffet, and afterward we hit Best Buy, to browse. But I ended up spending about, oh... $587.
Don't panic. It's not like I bought up a bunch of video games, DVD's and CD's... I bought a video camera that I'd been looking at for a while (plus the specialty sales feature). They didn't actually have it in stock, so it'll be shipped home around next week. I figured I should just go ahead and order it since I've been planning on it anyway... I don't even want to begin to describe the whole ordeal of that going on at the store though. All I can say is that it was mildly hilarious, in a sense. Some might find it mildly frustrating, but I had been feeling pretty good all day, and didn't want it to bring me down. Ironically, "Feeling Way Too Damn Good" by Nickelback, was playing on my iPod as I pulled in to park. To quote the lyrics I heard before shutting off my car, "Something's gotta go wrong 'cause I'm feeling way too damn good." Ha ha....

After the hour and a half spent at Best Buy (new record!), Megan and I went to my house (or parent's house, technically) to watch some movies. Yesterday I bought 'Yes Man' and 'Bolt,' so we had planned to watch them. We went through 'Yes Man,' sadly sans Red Bull, though. But it was for the best. Then I had brought some other DVD's with, and figured Megan needed to see 'Role Models', for it is awesome.
Then we just watched Attack of the Show on the G4 channel, and watched most of 'Underdog' on Starz. Then I had to go to work. Because seriously, look at how much money I spend. I gotta make it somewhere, right?

And now here I am, writing to you, while 'Hakuna Matata' plays conveniently on my iTunes to set the mood for my day. Oh, and before I leave you so I can get to bed, check out this crazy/awesome video, and have a great Easter weekend.

Post 4.7.2009

2009-04-07T20:45:00.005-05:00

Not much going on in the past few days, apart from class. Spent the weekend mostly watching movies like Bolt, Fight Club, The Number 23, Cloverfield, and some random movie about a guy who likes this girl, but hates dogs, but comes to love her dog more than her. I can't recall the name, though...

Ooh, and last Thursday I submitted the forms to transfer to the Psychology major. I've just been waiting for everything to change on my isis account so I can figure out who I gotta go talk to about classes. I've already got a decent list of plenty of courses to keep me occupied the next 3 years, and it was much easier to pick them out than finding art courses that I'm interested in. So I can't wait to get everything done!

Went to the dentist today for a cleaning. Went better than I expected, and mighty quick, too...
Just now I finished up a drawing assignment that's due tomorrow. It was supposed to be a 3-hour portrait, but I finished it up in about half the time. Because I'm awesome. Now I should really be studying for my two tests I have tomorrow: Physics and History of Art. Not really excited for either of them, but not horribly worried. I'll probably just go over my Physics tonight, and then after that, I'll have an hour or so to study tomorrow before my History of Art exam... But for now, it's time to waste some time!!

But before I go, I leave you with a couple songs by Deuce. He's a member of that band I've mentioned previously, Hollywood Undead, and he did some solo work before the band became big. I made some ringtones out of these songs with myxer.com

Post 4.1.2009

2009-04-01T21:01:00.004-05:00

So, I'm thinking by now, maybe you checked out my last post, where I ranted somewhat in the middle of the night. Well, anyway, today I was reading some Psychology blogs while in my Art History class and I found a couple articles that I found particularly interesting.

This one is essentially talking about the basic idea I tried to get across, comparing whether people think they have free will or whether they think they have a pre-determined destiny. Apparently, based off some of the comments, I inadvertently discussed the "principle of alternative possibilities." Oh, the things that happen when I can't sleep. If only I had been born long ago, I could've been a fascinating person with new ideas instead of a person who only thinks of things that are already invented...

This other article totally defends my choice to give up on worrying about finding a career.

I think it's cool that only a day or so after I had my own little brainstorm, I find articles defending my thoughts. In fact, there's a term for a scenario like this, and we can thank StumbleUpon for locating it long ago. And now I get to finally use it!!

It's called the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon, which, as defined by Wikipedia, "occurs when a person, after having learned some (usually obscure) fact, word, phrase, or other item for the first time, encounters that item again, perhaps several times, shortly after having learned it."

I'm sure we've all experienced it, yes?

In other news, tonight was the LEAD graduation. Now I have nothing fun to do on Wednesday nights. But we had a cool ceremony, Pat Bosco was there to speak, and we got cool gift sacks with a water bottle, t-shirt, and our certificate of graduation.
Oh, and it's April Fool's Day, too!! I was going along unpranked until I picked up a copy of the Collegian and looked at a page with an event calendar. I was so upset that I had missed the monster truck rally on the second level of the parking garage this morning... But then I read through the rest of the calendar and saw that K-State suspiciously had a lot of big-name bands coming to perform this month... Then it hit me. And then I realized there were a lot of other fake articles, too. From the unfinished parking garage being changed into a water park, the campus declaring open-season on the squirrel population, and the best of all... An article declaring that Pat Bosco, the most K-State individual on campus (probably even more than our mascot, Willie), was accepting a job at KU and painting his K-State purple Jeep a Jayhawk Blue or Red.
Ah, fun day.

Thoughts at Midnight

2009-03-31T00:31:00.005-05:00

It's 12:30 in the morning, and strangely, right now I feel more awake than I have at any given point in the past few days. Anyway, maybe part of it is because I've been thinking about some stuff today, several various thoughts about life. It's been on my mind so much that I don't even think I have any recollection of what actually happened in my Art History lecture class... And the only reason I'm writing now is because my mind wouldn't let me wait until morning, and I actually had to get out of bed to write this up right now... So on to the actual thoughts that have been mulling in my brain through the day.

Now, I'm not religious, but I do believe there is something bigger going on. I kind of feel like there is a scripted destiny, at least for myself. Something has already written my life. The reason I say this is because I've been thinking about how amazing our ability to make decisions is, but then maybe it's already determined what we do, and we're just going through the motions of our life story. I mean, think of a couple points in your life. It's just amazing how every choice we make has it's own consequence. If you could chart every possible action and result of every possible choice you've had since birth, imagine how may branches would stem from a single point. And it even begins before us, with the choices our parents make, and the choices their parents make. It's really quite interesting to think about.

For instance, I think back as far as the start of college. I've had choices to meet people, or seclude myself. Each of those actions has had consequences. In fact, these two choices have been critical in my entire life, and I feel that had I been destined to meet someone, it would have happened. Maybe there's someone that I walk past on campus all the time, that I don't even know. But maybe someday, some occurrence, whether it be meeting them in a class, or maybe in an elevator... If it's supposed to happen, it will. But I think I'm getting off topic, maybe?

The point is, what I came to realize while I stared up at the ceiling tile in my room, is that stuff happens for reasons. When I leave my room, I'm enacting one part of my story. If I instead decide to leave one minute later, suddenly my story has completely changed. Maybe in the first scenario, I get hit by a car, or a bicyclist. In the second scenario, the entire web is changed.

So, as anyone who regularly reads my blog, you might know that I'm currently struggling with the topic of changing majors. I've pretty much determined that it will happen, I'm just working out the 'when' of the situation. And every second, minute, hour, day, week, month that goes by is changing the web. This story, our life stories... Perhaps they're more like those 'Choose your own adventure' books, in their own way. You pick one page, the story finishes up happily ever after. Another, you get eaten by a mutant grasshopper. Sometimes picking one page would ultimately lead you back to the choice of picking a previously available page. Maybe everything is already written for us. We just have to pick the page, and turn to it.

Ugh, I'm sorry, getting off topic again. Choices. Choosing a major. I think soon I should make the decision. My main concern is the fact that I thought what I was here for was to find out where I would fit in to a career. But thinking about this web thing, maybe these choices I make in college, maybe I'm not here to find a career, whether it be in art or psychology, or whatever! Maybe I'm really here to find myself. So what if I get through four years of college and still have no clue what I really want to do with my life. I'll still have so many experiences to draw from. I worry about these things now, but I feel like it'll all work itself out in the end. And to quote an unknown source, "Everything will be okay in the end. If it's not okay, it's not the end."

I don't know if anything I said made sense to anyone else, but I said what I wanted to get out.

Attention: Tonight I Will Attempt...

2009-03-26T20:15:00.005-05:00

...to travel back in time and change history. You'll know I've succeeded if Germany loses World War II and Wednesday comes after Tuesday...

So anyway, this week is going by pretty quick. Zoom zoom zoom.

So what's new with me this week, though, hm? Well... I'm already bored with classes again... We're making wooden clocks in 3D Design, which I guess isn't sooooo bad, but still, not super-thrilling. Next week in Drawing 1, I have 18 facial sketches due... DAAH!

Today I had lunch with Max and Jess, two of the guys I'll be living with starting in August. I still had about an hour or so until 3D, so I joined them in their room for some game-playing. We played some pirate game, called Age of Booty (ha ha). Once we figured it out, it was pretty awesome. I can tell it's gonna be a fun environment.

Today I also read two internet articles. Well, actually, I probably read several articles today, but two recent ones I found particularly interesting. One was about a woman who is 130 YEARS OLD! Oldest person, right now! Born the same year as Einstein! Has three living children in their 90's!!

The other one was about a kid who spent 41 straight hours of his spring break LIVING IN WAL-MART as part of a personal sociology project. He'd buy the food he needed, spent time watching movies playing in the electronics section, sleep in the bathrooms or lawn & garden section (the lighting was best there, and it was the only place not monitored for a couple hours at night). He only lasted 41 hours before they started getting suspicious, so he bailed out before shit hit the fan. That sounds like such a sweet project.

And now, to finish up, a cool video I found using StumbleUpon (which is also how I found those two articles mentioned above)...

Make A Hollow Penny! - A funny movie is a click away

[EDIT: Another epic video I found whilst Stumbling...

Watch Rapping Flight Attendant and more funny videos on CollegeHumor

]

Spring Break: Thursday 19th - Sunday 22nd

2009-03-22T22:35:00.003-05:00

So today marks the end of spring break, and tomorrow I'll be back to my usual routine of college. Several more weeks of Freshman year...

...Yeah...

Anyway, recap of the past few days.

Thursday, Friday, and Saturday
Pretty much just sat around doing nothing. Dad came home Friday night, after Mom and I finished watching Without a Paddle: Nature's Calling. Saturday ran errands with the parents, had some good food at Chili's, then watched Eagle Eye, which is another really good movie that everyone should see...

Sunday
Today I pretty much slept in until about 11am, then worked on packing up clothes and such. Around 2:45 I transported stuff back to the dorms, then went back home around 4:15 so Dad and I could catch the 5pm Watchmen. I liked it, but I'm definitely glad I read through the comic beforehand. The ending was different, which I guess as far as the story played out, was okay, but I really would've liked to see the "alien" from the comic. And woo, that was certainly a long movie.

And now I'm bored.
Yay college.

Spring Break: Wednesday 18th

2009-03-18T21:34:00.004-05:00

Gay giraffe rape.

There.
Now that I have your attention, read on...

Today me and a couple friends (Megan and Hazel) took a road trip to Rolling Hills zoo, which is a little over an hour away from Manhattan, near Salina. Note: Taking a Jeep on the Interstate, trying to go 70mph while the winds are out there beating against the side... Not a brilliant idea.

Anyway... We saw wolves, and a couple lions, some big cats, crazy reptiles... Zoo stuff. Oh, and we saw a male giraffe try to get some action with another male giraffe. But the other giraffe wasn't too interested in that idea, and they basically fought using their necks as... I dunno... Clubs? It was definitely quite, um... Awkward? Yeah...

The trip back seemed much worse than the trip to the zoo. We were tired, the wind seemed worse, I couldn't get the Jeep past 60mph, a giant semi almost ran us off the road (because I couldn't go fast enough to get out of his freakin' blind spot), and one of the Velcro-zipper windows came undone so we had to make a stop to fix it...

Road trips definitely make me realize how much I prefer being home.

Spring Break 2009: Sunday 15th - Tuesday 17th

2009-03-17T14:30:00.010-05:00

So I just read some other blogs about the new iPhone operating system update. Sounds exciting, but I have to wait until summer for it to be released... Dang...

Anyway, a recap of the past few days of spring break.

Sunday
Basically, Sunday was quite a waste. I'm glad I'm on break, otherwise I would've been mad at myself. I woke up, sat around for a while, went in to work, came home, and sometime around early afternoon I fell asleep, and woke up around 4 or 5 on Monday morning. Not that I don't enjoy catching some sleep, but if it had been during a school week, I can think of other things I would rather do with my weekend... So luckily I still have the rest of the week to do random stuff...

Monday
Like I said, I woke up early. I believe it was after I had a really weird dream, in which I was sitting in my dorm room doing homework. My roommate, Ethan, was there, but there was also a third random person sitting at a desk by the window. Anyway, I look out the window and see something yellow flash by. I go up to the window and see a big airplane flying in from the right (which would be impossible based on the building design), and it flies over a second airplane, which starts moving down, and ends up crashing into the lower levels of the dorm building. I felt the entire building shake before I woke up.
Needless to say, it was weird.
I went and looked up a couple "dream interpretation" signs:

Airplane Crash
To dream that a plane crashes, suggests that you have set overly high and unrealistic goals for yourself. Your goals may be too high and are impossible to realize. You are in danger of having it come crashing down. Alternatively, your lack of confidence, self-defeating attitude and self-doubt toward the goals you have set for yourself is represented by the crashing airplane; you do not believe in your ability to attain those goals. Loss of power and uncertainty in achieving your goals are also signified.

Dormitory
To dream that you are in a dormitory, represents the value you place on knowledge and education. You believe that you are always learning and not just in the classroom. If you are currently a college student who live in a dormitory, then this symbol may just be a reflection of your current surroundings and hold similar meaning as a house.

Moving on... Continuing on in my day, I watched Lakeview Terrace in the morning (since I slept through it the night before when Mom watched it because it was a 2-day rental), and it was a pretty good movie. After that I took the movie to Blockbuster and met up with Megan at the mall... Long story short, several of us ended up at City Park playing frisbee since it was such a great day outside. Even got to take the top off the Jeep. I remember a few years ago having to shovel snow on spring break, so this is definitely a nice change of pace.
We also wandered Aggieville and Varney's was having a used-textbook sale. I bought 5 various psychology and sociology books for only $12.

Tuesday
Today I'm just sitting at home, enjoying some free time sitting around the house, and it's yet another beautiful weather day. I hope it stays fairly nice through tomorrow, since my friends and I are going on a road trip to the Salina zoo! Yay, an out-of-town spring break adventure!
But yeah, so my day is pretty much just gonna be sitting around at home doing various stuff... As usual, I guess.

Oh, and Happy St. Patrick's Day!

EDIT: [5:55 p.m.]
I just finished reading the Watchmen graphic novel. Holy crap. I'm now officially super epic excited to go see the movie this weekend. I highly recommend everyone going out and reading the Watchmen comic. It's a supreme story and extremely visually appealing. I stared at some of the pages for quite some time, looking at tiny details... That's something I've never done with any other comic. Watchmen = SUPER A++

Spring Break 2009: Friday 13th - Saturday 14th

2009-03-14T19:50:00.006-05:00

Happy Pi Day everyone! Get it? March 14th. 3/14... Pi is roughly equal to 3.14...
Yeah, I'm a dork, I know... I remember math teachers in high school always making a big deal out of it, and I just realized what day it was a few minutes ago and thought I'd bring it up.

Now to something more relevant to my life: I'm now on spring break, my first college spring break... Strangely familiar to high school break, what with the sitting at home and doing random stuff like watch tv, listen to music, or mess around on the internet...

I guess officially it started yesterday. Could've started Thursday afternoon, had I opted to skip my Friday class, but... Well, I live in the same town where I attend college, so really... Where am I in a rush to go? So I went to my physics class on Friday morning at 9:30 (after being up since like, 5 a.m. for some reason). It actually wasn't bad considering the following: It only lasted 15 minutes instead of an hour, he just showed us some cool physics experiments (and we didn't have to take notes), and those of us that showed up (38 out of the usual 100+ (I counted)) got extra credit. So not bad at all. But then after that I went back to the dorms and made the 5 minute trip home.
Later in the afternoon I went out running with the K-State Running Club. It was pretty small, just three of us. Most people had probably already ditched town. It was kind of cool though, because the track team was practicing out at the stadium where we meet up, so I got to talk with some people I hadn't seen in a while. Coach Melgares even told me that I was used as an example at the beginning of the track season... That's kind of cool.
Anyway, fast forward to night. Mom and I were looking for something to do, so I offered to go to Wal-Mart to pick up the dvd, Role Models. Well, long story short, it's awkward to buy an unrated movie at the self-checkout, because they have to come and check your ID and take the time to enter a code and what-not... Oh well.

Today I slept in 'til about 10:30 or so. Haven't done that in a long time. There was the Saint Patrick's Day Road Race today in Aggieville, but I didn't fell too interested this time, so I went with Mom to run errands, and I even got some cool stuff: A Rorschach* t-shirt, a Hollywood Undead t-shirt, an awesome werewolf poster, and a couple plain white craft masks. Plus I downloaded a butt-load of music off iTunes today, too...

*For those who don't know, Rorschach is one of the main characters of the 'Watchmen' comic and movie. I just wanted to make a comment to people about the movie, because I'm sick of the reviews. Now, I haven't seen the movie yet, but I AM reading the comic book, unlike a lot of these critics. First off, it's rated 'R' for a reason. There's nudity and violence and gore. They're in the comic too. Everyone keeps warning me about how graphic it is. I'm aware of what I'll be going to see, thank you. A lot of people who have been fans of the comic since the '80s seem to think it's a pretty decent film. I'm pretty excited to see it, but it seems like everyone that's talking about it just complain. In fact, not many have said much praise about it, except a few people in the college paper defending it against the critic's review...

But enough about that, for now. I'll have my own opinion after next weekend when my dad and I go see it. But right now I'm watching The Skeleton Key with my mom, and I should start paying attention, because she says it can get pretty confusing... Later!

Post 3.11.2009

2009-03-11T22:43:00.005-05:00

Hey, all. So not much has really been going on with me lately. Just a busy week or so with classes. Everyone's trying to get stuff wrapped up to certain points before Spring Break, so I've had to complete projects and prepare for tests over the past few days. The weekend was probably the worst, because I had to finish up my Akari lamp project for 3D Design. Sunday alone I spent an estimated NINE hours working on it almost non-stop, while watching the entire second season of Doogie Howser, M.D. off Hulu.com... I finally got it done around Monday night, but I definitely wanted to throw it at the wall, kick it, and then burn it, in that order. Once I get the grade, I just might do that... But I'll probably have cooled down by then...
But anyway, only a couple more days and I'm a week off from school. Then I've only got 8 more weeks of being a college freshman... Wow. It all goes so fast. As my friend said today at dinner, "Soon you'll be dead." It may have been direct to the point, but it's true. It's just a shame that concept isn't kept in the back of my mind because maybe I would work to do more with my life every day, instead of just going through the motions of school and work...
Enough with the deep thought, for now, though...

Tonight I went to my weekly LEAD program. Only one more session coming up after spring break, and then it's program graduation! Tonight's lesson was about diversity, and we were supposed to have a speaker come to our group, but instead, the speaker asked us to come see somebody else speak. His name's Matt Glowacki, and he was awesome and funny. He came to talk about diversity using Family Guy and South Park clips as examples of lessons to hit his main points. Oh, and did I mention he has no legs?
Matt was born without legs, so he was in a wheelchair for his lecture. But the coolest thing was the fact that he hasn't let the fact he has no legs stop him from living his life. He's rather successful, in fact, with three jobs: he owns a dee-jay company (or something along those lines), he's builds custom wheelchairs for specific needs of customers, and of course, he travels the country giving lectures. It was also cool that he joked about himself, thus breaking the tension in the room. After all, as he pointed out, people don't tend to know how to react around people in wheelchairs...
I didn't realize the lessons that you can actually take from stuff like Family Guy and South Park, but they are there, in their own, particularly humorous way... I was glad the group decided to go to that, because I was kind of interested in it beforehand, only I had my LEAD program to go to tonight at the same time. But I guess it all worked out...

On the way back, going through the Derby center, I stopped by The Bakery to get a snack, more specifically, a rice krispie treat. There was only one left in the pan, but the girl who was working decided it was fairly small, so she went and got a fresh pan and got me a nice big chunk AND gave me the smaller piece from the other pan as well, all for my single dollar. That kind of made my entire day, right there.

Then for about an hour I studied for my Mass Comm. test that I have tomorrow morning, and I'm not looking forward to it. The past few chapters are pretty boring...

Now to top off the post, I found a band recently, Hollywood Undead, and I've pretty much been listening to their album, Swan Songs, since I downloaded it. I like pretty much all their songs, but here's one of my most favorite, Everywhere I Go. They don't have a music video for it, though, so it's just audio. But FYI, some of the lyrics are explicit, so... yeah...

Aw, just for the heck of it, another one... No. 5. This is their "pre-official" video, I believe. But it's not censored, so I'm gonna go with this one.

3/03

2009-03-03T22:03:00.003-06:00

So the past few days I've been thinking. And generally when I do that, it gets me into personal predicaments that I would rather not be in...

But the situation is this: What do you do when, after four years in high school having thought you knew what you wanted to do with your life, suddenly you don't feel it's right for you?

Whenever someone asked what I wanted to do, I always thought I wanted to be an artist and create things. But I think I'm coming to realize that in high school I was limiting my interest in the world to what is, basically, a hobby for me. I mean, thinking about it, I can hardly remember when I last made something artistic outside of a class project in the past several months of college. The most I've gotten done is a bunch of tiny, incomplete doodles on class notes... The only art I ever do, it seems, is if something is assigned to me. And that included photography. The only time I ever do that these days is when I'm hanging out with friends on the weekend, and even then the pics are only snapshots. The more decorative photos have generally been taken on vacations, when I can look at things I haven't seen before.
Photography isn't always that interesting in Manhattan.

Basically what I'm saying is that I'm reconsidering my major. In fact, I probably would never have left Open Options if I hadn't had to make the change just to move forward to Photography.
But now I don't see why I should spend all this time and money to learn to take a photo and do a couple computer editing tricks.

So I checked out some other majors listed on the K-State site, and limited it down to English, Sociology, and Psychology. I've pretty much eliminated English as a major, because really I'm only interested in the Creative Writing class, which I can take from any major, I believe. So now it's whether I would want to focus on society as a group, or the individual mind... I've been reading some social science books lately, and that's why I've had an increased interest in these subjects. But I also know that I definitely want to do the Leadership Studies minor, and I think something like Psychology or Sociology would be a much more suitable major to co-relate with Leadership Studies (especially since there are several credits for Leadership that fall under the Psychology category).

So I need to think through all this mush. I need to sign up to talk with my adviser soon, too, to plan for my next semester in art... The one thing I absolutely abhor about college is the fact that you constantly have to be thinking ahead to the next year. I don't even know what I'm going to wear tomorrow, and I need to plan my life for the next 3 years?

I guess part of my frustration has to do with the fact that all my other friends already seem to have a grasp on what they want to do with their lives...

Post 2.26.2009

2009-02-26T20:46:00.002-06:00

Today was mostly just another day, so I'm just going to do a quick run-down of it...

8:00 a.m. - Woke up, showered.
9:30 a.m. - Mass Communications in Society class... Technical difficulties... Canceled within 5 minutes of class.
10:00 a.m. - Went to Hobby Lobby, then Hastings. At Hastings, ran into Kris, who I hadn't seen for a while. Proceeded to waste more time than planned at Hastings.
11:30 a.m. - Stopped at home for some leftovers for lunch and to watch some DVR.
1:45 p.m. - Went back to dorm to grab art supplies.
2:30 p.m. - 3D Design... Actually got some work done today.
4:50 p.m. - Got to leave class half an hour early.
6:00 p.m. - Ate dinner. Noodles in a cup. Cheesy noodles in a cup. Not that great.
6:30 p.m. - Went to work.
7:45 p.m. - Got back to dorm.
8:45 p.m. - Decided to write in blog...
8:52 p.m. - Finished this list...

So yeah, general day. Kind of feels like in between classes I'm just sitting and waiting for the next class a few hours later. It sucks having everyone I hang out with off in different places...

Weekend Recap

2009-02-22T19:51:00.004-06:00

First off...

That pretty much is just awesome.

Anyway... When did I last post? Thursday? Right?... Yeah, okay.
So Friday then.
Let's see.
Woke up. Went to Physics. Beautiful weather, by the way. Sat around the dorm for a while. Went to lunch with my friend Ashley. Sat in the dorm for a while. Then Tayler and I finally went to check out our possible future residence. It kind of had an initial 'Eh...' about it, walking around and checking it out. I was just listening to what the landlord (or is landlady a real term? I'm unsure.) had to say, but Tayler was right on with the questions. She seemed really nice, and the property is in a pretty decent location. Not too far from campus, but not too close to be an area of a lot of disturbances. She told us that Monday she'd be showing two more groups the house, so we had to decide quickly. So we went back to the dorms wondering what to do. It almost seemed to easy to pick out the first place we found, but considering the other two guys we'd be living with had already checked out some other places, it couldn't be too bad. The more I thought about it throughout the day, the more I liked it.

Saturday...
I spent Saturday doing a lot of random stuff. I started up cleaning some of the dorm, then got bored with that so I went to True Value to get some stuff for 3D Design, then to Wal-Mart for some food. Other stuff I bought Saturday in other places: Buy-Ology, a book about why people are drawn to buying certain items. I had a coupon for 40% off anything at the bookstore... I also had to go to Best Buy Saturday night to get some printer ink and a new battery pack for my camera. I had no clue what exactly I was looking for, so thankfully I had my iPhone. What's with all the different black ink cartridges? 35, 40, 50? I'm lucky I wrote down my printer type so I could Google it... And I had brought my camera, otherwise I wouldn't be sure what battery to buy...
But enough about my spending money. I also spent $310 on a house deposit. Yep. We decided to go for it, and we signed the lease. Plus, I finally got to meet the other guys I'd be living with. Nothing like meeting 15 minutes before signing a lease for a house. Actually Max and Jess seem like fun guys, and I trust Tayler's judgment in people. So we've got a place, and now I'm excited. We don't get to move in until August 1st, though, so I'm like... Grar.
Anyway, finished off the night watching The Dark Crystal (and learning that a sequel is in the works for 2011, surprisingly) before crawling into bed before 10pm even hit...

Sunday. Aka, today.
Not much. Sat around this morning before finally deciding that I was low on socks and underwear for the week, so I grabbed some laundry to take home and did that for a while... Afterward, came back to the dorm, worked on homework, which eventually led to Facebook... Then I went back home for some potatoes and gravy dinner. Mmm. Plus we watched Unaccompanied Minors, which is actually a Christmas movie, but it was funny. And now here I am, blogging and listening to music. I should work on some more homework. I'm done what needs to be done for tomorrow, but, y'know... In college, that's just never enough, right?

But real quick, before I go. I'm sure you're wondering about that Disney thing, right? No worries, it's settled. And I feel great. Like I've said before, it's nice to have things definite. Once I signed the lease, and once I had confirmed cancellation with the Disney people, everything felt much easier. A year or two down the line, I might try it again. But for now, I'm only a Freshman. I have at least three more years to figure this whole college thing out...

Road Less Travled?

2009-02-19T19:29:00.006-06:00

Two posts in a single day!? Read on!

ROAD LESS TRAVELED

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth

Then took the other as just as fair
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet, knowing how way leads onto way
I doubted if I should ever come back

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence
Two roads diverged in a wood
And I took the one less traveled by
And that has made all the difference

- Robert Frost

I'm not sure if I'm up to taking the road less traveled. Not yet.

What are you even talking about? I'm sure you're asking... Well, wait one moment and allow me to explain.

On one road, I could spend an entire semester working, living, and learning at Disneyland in California. I went to the Disney College Internship info session today, and it looks really fun, and a great experience for networking, enhancing my resume, and having an amazing semester. At the info session, they already got everyone hooked up for phone interviews, so I get to expect a phone call from California on Sunday. That's really kind of cool.

The other road... Tomorrow I'm going with Tayler to look at the house we're planning on living in, and I'm really excited about the whole experience... Renting my own place (sort of), living with someone awesome who is essentially one of my best friends at K-State, and I know that it'd be a fun year.

But I can't do both. I can't rent a place in Manhattan if I'm not even going to be here for a semester. So I've been spending like, the past six hours trying to figure out what to do, and I may have come to a conclusion...

Originally, I went into the info session thinking it would be a summer internship thing, not a semester. I even mentioned it that way a few posts back. Frankly, I'm not sure why I set up an interview when I know I would rather be on campus next semester. I feel like I've been making impromptu decisions lately... But while I've known about this Disney thing for a while, I only really decided to check it out a couple days ago. This living situation has been on my mind for a couple weeks, ever since the RA plan fell through.
So I think what I'll do is, Sunday morning, I'll go through the interview, with my main question being whether or not declining an invitation would affect my chances of apply the next year. That's even if I get an invitation though. students from all across America, and even all over the world, are applying for these internships. And while they might have lots of jobs at Disneyland, they can't accept everyone. I know I should be optimistic, but I should also be logical. That's why I kind of feel like I should just stick with checking out the house this year. In the past school year, I've applied for two things: to be an RA, and to be a member of Silver Key, a philanthropy organization on campus. Both rejected. Right now I just feel like I want something definite. I know that the house is a sure thing, but I can't guarantee a spot at Disney, and I won't know whether or not I even get an invite for a month or so after the interview, but we're looking to sign the lease soon.
So my options are: sign a lease, and possibly get an invite to work at Disneyland, thus having to decline it; OR I could back out of living with Tayler and friends, possibly NOT get an invite to work at Disneyland, thus having both plans shot down...

And to make things worse, I'm doubting being an Art major, because I don't really know if I'm up to a career in art... I just don't know what I could possibly want to do. I like aspects of several various majors, but not really enough to want to devote myself to them... If I can find a career in blog writing, I'd be set...

Life is confusing.

For how it all feels lately...

Post 2.19.09

2009-02-19T08:37:00.003-06:00

Well, I finally got to sleep in today, after a week of waking up to whining dogs at 6:30 in the morning. It's good to be back at the dorms.

Last night I had my weekly LEAD session. We learned about service-learning volunteering, and then went to an event called 'Tunnel of Oppression.' We walked through the darkened basement of some fraternity house, and they had various skits displaying things such as people being bullied about their appearance, sexual orientation, gender, race... It really did start to feel uncomfortable, because they did such of good job of presenting the material. It wasn't like watching a movie, where you see it happening, but since people today are so desensitized, it doesn't affect you. Physically being in the room where these different things are shown and acted out made everything much more real...

After LEAD, I went back to the dorm for the night, and hung out with my pal, and future roommate, Tayler. We're going tomorrow to check out a house. Exciting! But anyway, last night we hung out in Tayler's room and watched 'Super High Me', a movie done as a parody from 'Supersize Me', except instead of 30 days of McDonalds, it was 30 days of a guy smoking weed. It was hilarious. Living with Tayler's going be fun.

I'm Lame

2009-02-14T01:26:00.003-06:00

It's true.

Today (or technically, yesterday), I only had one class, and it was for my test in Physics. Which I probably did horrible on. But anyway, I'd been up since like, 6:30, with dogs staring at me until I finally crawled out of bed. Then went to class, took the test, and came right back home. And I took naps. Several, throughout the day. Various offers for activities came up, but too tired was I. But then of course, due to my varied naps throughout the day, I'm awake now at 1:29a.m. And I just got back from work 10 minutes ago. That's right. I'm that bored that I went to work in the middle of the night to clean. But it's done, so yay for weekend... I guess.

One thing I thought about today was, I always thought it'd be great to be a dog. Sleep, eat... Basically the only thing they have to do. But it sucks. They probably only do that because they can't do anything else. Maybe somedays it's great to be a dog, but really, they have a boring life.

Another thing I pondered today: Spontaneously deciding to apply for the Disney Summer Internship thing. I kind of just thought of it today, and I was like, hey, I don't have to stick around for summer to go through RA training. So why pass up an entire summer in Disney World, right? The info meeting is next Thursday, and if I get this, then missing out on the RA thing won't be so bad. Not having to deal with that also means I can do the Virginia Beach Half-Marathon again on Labor Day Weekend again! Woo!

So, I'm just watching Heroes now... Not that tired, but I know when I go to bed, the dogs won't be letting me sleep in, so...

Oh, and don't forget: K-State vs KU Basketball today. Boo KU!

Random Midnight Ramblings

2009-02-12T00:20:00.004-06:00

So it's like, 12:20 in the morning. Huh, that sounds like a good radio show. "Good morning, good morning. Welcome to 1220 IN the MORNING!"

Actually that doesn't sound so great anymore.

Anyway, I'm at home. Mom's away, so I'm here for the doggies. They, currently, are sleeping. Because they're smart. But I... I am studying. Because I want to be smart. I'm studying and making pizza and I've downed a Coke and I'm drinking V8 and I'm not tired but somewhat I am.

But yeah, test coming up in Mass Communications, and then Friday I've got a physics test... So I've got some stuff to work on... Plus art over the weekend. And then prep for my next physics lab.

But other than studying for tests, I'm also deep in looking for a place to live next year. Well, I've already been circling some stuff in the Collegian classifieds, but I need to team up with the other guys that I'm looking with to talk, because there is definitely no way I can live alone. I'm already bored, and I've had the house to myself for all of like, 4 hours now... We're all just so busy, though, so planning won't get out until next weekend. But I certainly am excited, already. I've pretty much already gotten over the RA thing, my attention now diverted to a new task...

But I should really get back to my current task of studying. Later.

"...that is why I succeed."

2009-02-10T20:13:00.005-06:00

I quite like today's quote on my little sidebar thing...

"I've failed over and over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed." - Michael Jordan

It kind of fits the fact that I failed to get the RA job. But hey, if I didn't get it, then just imagine how awesome the people that did get the job must be. Wow.

Anyway, after I opened the letter last night, it really set me into a down mood. I guess that's a given, considering it's kind of hard to feel upbeat and peppy when you get a rejection letter for something that has encapsulated your mind for the past few weeks... But then I had to start thinking about what this meant for me for next year. I mean, I'm still in the line-up for RA if someone decides to drop, but I won't hold my breath.
But do I want to stay in the dorms another year and apply again? Sure, I wanted the job, but should that be the sole reason for wanting to inhabit the dorms another year? I mean, it's a great way to meet new people, and the location is great for campus, and the food... Well, food isn't on my lists of Pros for living in the dorm.
My other option is to go out and find a place off campus. Maybe not getting the job is a good thing, and I'll be able to branch out and become even more independent. But I don't know anything about renting an apartment, and who am I gonna get to live with me? I like the community of the dorms, and it'd suck to go back to having no one around.
These are thoughts that ran through my head last night as I tried to sleep.

Today I made the spontaneous decision to go for the off-campus living. I'm already searching newspaper classifieds for places, and I've talked to a few people about looking with me. So really now it's just a matter of finding a spot and going for it. Yeah, I won't be able to go for the RA job again next year, but I also don't want to sit around and wait for a second chance. I'll just have to find some other way to be awesome around campus.

The RA Job

2009-02-09T22:08:00.001-06:00

I didn't get it.

Enough said.

It's Been a Double-Feature Friday

2009-02-06T22:53:00.005-06:00

Hello blog, how are you? It's been a long day for me, that's for sure. Today I woke up around 8a.m. and took a shower. Oh, but what's this? No class today? Seems like a good day to do a whole lot of NOTHING! But actually, I think I did quite a bit, just nothing truly productive.
Around 10:30 this morning, went running with Richard and Chasady, about 40 minutes long. That's about twice as long as I usually feel like going on my own. Afterward I went back to the dorm, showered, put on my bright pink "badasswolftee" and met up with Megan for food at the Union. Yay for Chinese food. Then we opted for the mall, as usual, where I narrowly avoided purchasing a hoodie/vest thing from Hot Topic. I might get it eventually, though...
After the mall, we took a stop on campus to grab my art project to make sure I had it, and then we went to the movie theater. Where we stayed for FIVE HOURS!

Yes, that's right. Five hours. We had a Double-Feature Friday and saw two movies. We went for large popcorn, and large soda. And it actually lasted even beyond our entire time there. But anyway. We saw two movies: Underworld 3: Rise of the Lycans, and My Bloody Valentine 3D.
Both were awesome. Valentine was even better than I had anticipated. We only wanted to see it because it was 3D, but it was quite excellent. Very startling, and I just might be having nightmares tonight...

So we finally left around 9p.m. and made a stop at Hastings (again, as usual) just because we were more energetic after leaving the movies, then called it a night a while later, and here I am writing. And some really weird zombie-type movie is playing on the television...

Gotta do laundry tomorrow, starting to run out of socks and underpants...

Post 2.5.09

2009-02-05T21:02:00.002-06:00

Seems like blogging has been slowing down lately, but at the same time, not much new has really been happening. All you would here is me worrying about getting the RA job, pretty much. Less than two weeks until I know for sure whether it's a done deal or not...

Anyway, figured I'd share some stuff today.
Tomorrow I don't have any classes! Yes! My only class, Physical World, has been canceled since Monday, so I basically get a full 3-day weekend. I'm planning (and I use that word loosely) on getting caught up on some artwork and notes. We'll see how it all works out.
Also, my art project for 3D, which was originally due next Tuesday. But she decided to push it back to Thursday. Then she forgot we had other plans for Thursday, so we have until the NEXT Tuesday to get it completed and turned in. AWESOME. I was scheduling everything I'd have to do this weekend, but this opens up a little free time for me, woo!

Today, I learned something interesting. Not relevant to anything that I may ever NEED to know, but definitely interesting. I found out that if you rotate that little metal pad on a stapler base, you can make it so your staples push outward instead of closing in. It was totally random, and I've never heard about it until today. It fascinates me.

In other news... That's about it... Counting down the days to finding out the RA-thing, only thirteen or less.

Feelin' That Fire With the Paisley Party

2009-02-01T12:29:00.005-06:00

So last night was AWESOME. But before it was awesome, some of it was weird.

So I woke up around 8 a.m. yesterday, as usual. Did stuff on the computer, cleaned up the room a bit, and then shoved some homework books in my backpack and headed down the stairs. Something about yesterday was just more exciting than usual. Perhaps the fact that the huge weight of the RA interviews, which I had been anticipating for weeks, was finally off of me. Of course, Saturday was the remaining 6 time slots throughout the day, and my buddy Tayler was going through it, so I stopped by the front desk on my way out to chat with him. I was surprised to see him freaking about it, because he's pretty smooth, and has a good network with a lot of the current RAs and stuff, so I couldn't imagine him doing poorly during the interviews. I expect him to get the job, for sure.

At home, I grabbed some food for lunch, and then around 3 p.m. Mom and I hit the road. The weirdness started in that after only about 20 minutes of being on the road, we had already seen about a 4-5 police offers, not even counting the large group that was attending to some sort of forest fire type thing... That just made for a weird encounter. But otherwise, the ride to Omaha was smooth, and we got to Red Lobster around 6, had to wait for like, half an hour, rushed to acquire and consume our food, and then dashed off to the concert (which started at 7:30, and we had left at about 7:20 from the restaurant).

We had such good luck. We found decent parking, got in easily. It was dark, inside, though, because the concert had already started, but it was just the opener, Darius Rucker, so we didn't really worry about that. Then after him, and a few minutes break, Dierks Bentley came on stage and sang. It was a better performance than the last time we saw him a few years ago (back before he got the hair-cut that shocked everyone) in Manhattan.

Then when they did intermission, we dashed out to check out the t-shirts, and we each got a couple. I'm wearing the Brad Paisley one right now, since I didn't bring any clothes over from the dorm for the weekend, and what better to wear than the new t-shirt. I'll save the Dierks Bentley shirt for Tuesday, when his new album is out.
Anyway, we got back just in time because only about a minute after seating, the lights went out again and Brad Paisley started.

Wow. I can't even really describe in words how awesome it was. He performed for like, two straight hours, covering pretty much every song he's done as a music video (which was cool, because they incorporated the videos into the background on the big screen), and they even did some random stuff, and a really cool performance from his newest album, Play. It was a thrilling show of sights, lights, and sounds.

A few things I don't understand about concerts, though:
- I don't see why people really needed to stand up. I mean, all you did was stand up, it wasn't like they were dancing a little. The people a few rows down got up, blocked the view of those behind them, so they had to get up, and so on. We had pretty good seats, and I could see fine sitting down. I saw no purpose in standing through several songs. It's not like you stand when you watch a really good movie in a theater...
- I also think it's weird that people seem to get overly excited because the singer changes a lyric and makes reference to the city or state they're in. I'm pretty sure they do it anywhere they go.
- Also, weird mister drunk guy two rows down... I was enjoying the concert, too. But I don't see why you had to raise your bottle of beer to every song, every 10 seconds. Seriously.

Anyway, it was an awesome concert. Then, on the way back... EPIC TRAUMA!

Well, not really. But Mom did hit a coyote-beast-creature-thing. It all happened so fast, but also so slow. She slowed down because something ran across the road one way, but then next thing we knew a big mass was coming from the opposite direction and it clunked under the tires of the car.
Woo.

Got home around 2:30-3 a.m. but I was still up for a few hours on the computer doing random stuff before getting into bed and then waking up today around 10:30, and with no real plans to watch the Super Bowl. Maybe I'll watch for commercials. I dunno.

So that was my night. How was yours?

The Hard Part's Over

2009-01-30T20:14:00.006-06:00

I just got back from my RA interviews about 25 minutes ago. I think it went well, considering the nerves that were hitting me all day. I couldn't even eat my dinner because I was so nervous, and ended up throwing half of my spicy chicken sandwich and my delicious onion rings in the trash. In hindsight, onion rings were a bad idea, but it's okay, I brushed my teeth before the interview.
It was cool. I was kind of surprised with myself at how comfortable I really felt, despite the undershirt, long-sleeve shirt, and jacket I wore. My mouth may have suggested otherwise, however; it was so dry, and made talking awkward, even though I knew what I wanted to say, for the most part. I had been reviewing questions I had received from the mock-interviews I went to on Wednesday, and that really helped, too. The only thing upsetting is the stuff you think of after it's over. But I'm so glad it's now over, and I just want to go out and do something now.
But it's not really over yet. We won't know whether we've gotten in or not until about February 18th, and even after that there's still a chance of people dropping for various reasons. I've heard that there's about 80 spots, but about 50 are already taken by returning RA's. And considering a total of 32 interviewed tonight, and who knows how many are going tomorrow... Wow, tough.

Speaking of tomorrow, I get to go see Brad Paisley and Dierks Bentley perform. Awesome. I spent today listening to Dierks' new album on his MySpace page. I like the new album, and can't wait to get it downloaded on Tuesday.

In other random news, I found this cool thing which works like Google. You can use your search, with a theme of your choice of several popular musicians, and gain points for your search to use to get cool prizes. I went with The Plain White T's, and I think it's cool, because I'll be able to get some stuff with my searches.

Long Day

2009-01-27T22:31:00.006-06:00

Mm, once again, another particularly boring few days at college. Last night I did hang out with some Chinese students down in our dorm basement, having a party for the Chinese New Year. It was pretty cool, and I even learned how to say 'Happy New Year' in Chinese, though I doubt I could properly recite it at this moment...

Anyway, today was a long day. I've been up since about 6:45 this morning, because today was the start of my weekly Physics lab, which sadly occurs at 7:30 in the morning. After that I only have 10 minutes to get across campus to my Mass Comm. class (which was fun today, btw; we talked about video games), and I used them all. Add to that my art studio, and an info meeting about the K-State Silver Key group (I don't really feel like going into the details of that right now), plus going to work and avoiding a snot-shooting cat, it's been a long, exhausting day. At least tomorrow will be pretty chill, but I'm not looking forward to Drawing 1 class. It's not very entertaining. 3D Design is pretty cool, though. I would rather have that four days a week rather than two days of that, and two days of Drawing 1. Oh well, at least I'll get it out of the way. But overall, I just want to get through the week and on with my RA interview, this Friday! I'm nervous and excited, all at once!

In other news, I'm featured on www.looptblog.com for my use of the Loopt Journal Widget (which you can view at the bottom of my blog). I feel very awesome and famous!
LooptBlog: Chase's Cool Journal Widget

Post 1.24.2009

2009-01-24T12:38:00.005-06:00

So Friday... Friday's are pretty blah, in a sense. I mean, yeah, the week is over, time for a break. But my only class on Friday is done by 10:20, and when everyone else is out learning, where does that leave me?

Well, I went out buying. That's right. Buying. Shopping basically is looking at stuff and determining what you do and do not need. Buying is... buying. I went out and bought stuff. Mainly I went out to go buy supplies for my art studios next week. I had to get two giant paper pads from the Union store, and then when they didn't have the other things I needed, I went to Varney's in Aggieville where I found pretty much everything else needed for 2D (except for one set of charcoal). I still need some 3D things from True Value though, so I need to head there before Tuesday...

So then I went to the mall to get a haircut since I finally have my RA interview in less that a week now... Awesome. After that I wandered some of the mall and bought a new shirt that I've been wanting for a while. The K-State store at the mall was having a clearance sale, to make room for all the new spring items I guess, so the shirt that I've been wanting for a while was now $15 cheaper, so I bought it and I'm wearing it right now. They may be expensive, but K-State definitely sells some comfortable clothes. At the mall I also bought a delicious smoothie, then went to Hastings to look for a book, which I found. Then back to the dorm to sit around and do nothing (though I did go to eat dinner with a couple guys from my floor).

Around... 7pm? 8pm? I dunno, Mike came to my room and asked if I wanted to go to Goodnow Hall to play some games, so I said yeah, cause I didn't really have anything else to do.
I gotta say, 6th floor Goodnow is a fun place. They're a much more social hall than mine is, and I liked their environment. I think only twice has 6th floor Haymaker been even close to being that active as a whole, even though Goodnow does have a larger population, so that helps them.

Anyway, we played a game called "Signs". I sat out and watched for a bit, 'cause I'd never even heard of it before. But after some people dropped out, I took a place, and it is a really, really fun game. Basically, if you've never played before, every person picks a personal sign to use... Something like a thumbs up, or pulling on their ear. Then, one person stands in the middle of the large circle, eyes closed and counts to ten. Then, one person of the circle starts the game by "throwing" a sign to someone else. The sign thrown has to be the sign of the person it's going to. Then they flash their sign to show it's been received. Then they "throw" a sign to someone else, who responds likewise. Anyway, after ten seconds, the person in the middle of the circle opens their eyes and trys to figure out who the "holder" is, and you want to keep trying to pass around the circle when the center person isn't looking to keep mixing it up. The center person can ask anyone if they have the sign, and if the person does, they become the new center, and the person who was just center begins the next game. And that's basically it. A few other things though... Anyone in the circle can flash the centers sign to throw them off guard with the movement. Also, once you start throwing a sign at someone, you can't change who the recipient is, even if they don't see. You just have to keep them as the target until they receive. I think that's it, but it's probably better described here. You should get a group and give a try.

After that, there was a break during which a lot of varied conversations took place between the smaller groups that formed, but then we started a game of Apples to Apples which went for a while, and then I decided to call it a night and walked back to Haymaker around 11:30 p.m. and went to bed around midnight.

Now today?
I'm at home, doing laundry. It needed to be done.
I'm also watching 'Fight Club' which I can't believe I've never seen before, because it's quite awesome.
But otherwise, that's all so far. I still need to go in to work later, and get some homework done, but I'm just chill right now...

Go watch Fight Club.

Ooh, almost forgot. I wanted to add this AWESOME video I found while using StumbleUpon.

Star Wars: Retold (by someone who hasn't seen it) from Joe Nicolosi on Vimeo.

Hans?
Solo.
Hans?
Hans Solo.
Han.
Solo.
Han. Solo.
Han'se. Han S.
H-A-N.
Right, whatever.

Post 1.20.2009

2009-01-20T07:35:00.002-06:00

So I had a really weird night. I went to bed at around 10:30 p.m. and I felt like I went out pretty easily. But next thing I know I wake up sweating, and I can hear people out in the hall, the light on outside. At first I thought it was already morning, so I looked up at my clock... It was only 11:30 p.m. I laid in bed and eventually went back to sleep, to wake up again and again sporadically throughout the night. All I can recall really is that during my sleep segments, a lot of them involved a crashing plane, and it was really strange. It was like I was inside the plane, but I was only observing, like in a movie or something. It was one of those dreams where you can kind of get right back into it if you go right back to sleep after waking up, so it lasted up until about 6:30 a.m. and then I just listened to some radio for a bit before taking a shower. And now I'm just waiting for another 20 minutes or so before I can head downstairs to get a time slot for interviews.

And now due to that last commercial, I really want some classic red kool-aid. Also, enjoy this day of history in politics.

27

2009-01-19T22:08:00.003-06:00

So I was up for about 27 hours straight, since 10 a.m. yesterday. I just didn't feel tired lying in bed at 1 a.m., so I played Tetris on my phone, and wondered at what point I should just give up on trying to sleep. Apparently that point was about 3:15 a.m. because by 3:30 a.m. I was out running a 2.5 mile loop in the cold, dark night. Then I got back and surfed some internet while living off Mountain Dew. Then I went to the house to watch some DVR and try to stay awake. Unfortunately around 1 p.m. I started dozing off and ended up taking a nap until about 5 p.m. It gave me a little more energy, but I hope not too much so I can get to sleep tonight. I have to get up a little earlier tomorrow so I can get a good slot for my interview while also being able to keep Saturday open for the Dierks Bentley / Brad Paisley concert. So I should probably focus on getting to sleep in the next several minutes or so... I have to say, though, that if I could, and if more stuff was open at night, I would much prefer living a night life, because the streets are practically abandoned, and I loved it while running.

A Carrot, An Egg and a Cup of Coffee

2009-01-18T17:00:00.002-06:00

I read this on a site that I came across using Stumble, an awesome toolbar button I have that directs me to random pages when I click it, which I usually do to eliminate boredom. Anyway, this story is pretty good, especially with how college feels right now since I have a lot of things that are going to be going on soon, once everything really starts up after this long weekend...

A young woman went to her mother and told her about her life and how things were so hard for her. She did not know how she was going to make it and wanted to give up. She was tired of fighting and struggling. It seemed as one problem was solved, a new one arose.

Her mother took her to the kitchen. She filled three pots with water and placed each on a high fire. Soon the pots came to boil. In the first she placed carrots, in the second she placed eggs, and in the last she placed ground coffee beans. She let them sit and boil, without saying a word.

In about twenty minutes she turned off the burners.

She fished the carrots out and placed them in a bowl.

She pulled the eggs out and placed them in a bowl.

Then she ladled the coffee out and placed it in a bowl.

Turning to her daughter, she asked, "Tell me, what you see?"

"Carrots, eggs, and coffee," she replied. Her mother brought her closer and asked her to feel the carrots.

She did and noted that they were soft. The mother then asked the daughter to take an egg and break it.

After pulling off the shell, she observed the hard boiled egg. Finally, the mother asked the daughter to sip the coffee. The daughter smiled as she tasted its rich aroma. The daughter then asked, "What does it mean, mother?"

Her mother explained that each of these objects had faced the same adversity ... boiling water. Each reacted differently. The carrot went in strong, hard, and unrelenting. However, after being subjected to the boiling water, it softened and became weak. The egg had been fragile. Its thin outer shell had protected its liquid interior, but after sitting through the boiling water, its inside became hardened.

The ground coffee beans were unique, however. After they were in the boiling water, they had changed the water.

"Which are you?" she asked her daughter. "When adversity knocks on your door, how do you respond?

Are you a carrot, an egg or a coffee bean?"

Think of this: Which am I? Am I the carrot that seems strong, but with pain and adversity do I wilt and become soft and lose my strength? Am I the egg that starts with a malleable heart, but changes with the heat? Did I have a fluid spirit, but after a death, a breakup, a financial hardship or some other trial, have I become hardened and stiff? Does my shell look the same, but on the inside am I bitter and tough with a stiff spirit and hardened heart?

Or am I like the coffee bean? The bean actually changes the hot water, the very circumstance that brings the pain. When the water gets hot, it releases the fragrance and flavor. If you are like the bean, when things are at their worst, you get better and change the situation around you. When the hour is the darkest and trials are their greatest, do you elevate yourself to another level? How do you handle adversity? Are you a carrot, an egg or a coffee bean?

I'm not really sure which I fall under, but I'll let everyone know once I figure it out myself. I'll probably know once I take on the challenges of this month...

Real 100th.

2009-01-17T21:11:00.003-06:00

So I just realized that yesterday WASN'T the 100th post... I had an unpublished draft in my blog listing, but it counted as a post... So today is the REAL 100TH POST! Huzzah, same thing I said yesterday, blah, blah, blah.

I'm bored. I've been bored for quite some time now. About 4 hours. Yeah. It's sad that I'm anticipating getting homework next week, just so I can be like, "Ugh, I don't want to do this homework," and easily find a way to procrastinate. But when there's nothing to do, then... procrastination isn't really valid, nor is it enjoyable...

I bought a bunch of movies today. Technically, I bought 14. But they came in wonderful combo packages, so I only actually bought 4 things: I got a Tremors 4-pack, The Karate Kid 4-pack, the original Superman movies 4-pack, and a Teen Wolf/Teen Wolf Too double feature. So I got all those movies for about the price of like, two and a half new releases... I also got a big DVD folder, so I could stash a bunch of my discs in the dorm without the mass amound of DVD cases. Although, I personally think that the display of cases is like a real-life version of Facebook's "Favorite Movies" box, and gives a decent representation of a person... That's right. I judge you based on your favorite movies. Take that.

So yeah. Still bored, but the typing occupied a few moments of my life. It's only 9:20 at the moment, but I'm thinking it's almost bed time. Today was just one of those days where it's

MOSTLY BORING.

Happy 100th!

2009-01-16T22:18:00.005-06:00

Yep yep, this is the 100TH POST on Mostly Boring. How exciting, that in such a short time, I've already amassed a collection of adventures and ramblings.

But anyways. the semester started up yesterday, and I only had a couple classes: Mass Communications in Society, which I think'll be an interesting class, and the 3D Design, which I look forward to as well. And then today I just had one class, Physical World, which I think is also going to be very entertaining. The man shot a ping-pong ball through the sides of a cardboard box using the power of INERTIA! Ha ha, it was awesome, 'cause no one expected the sudden sound of a ping-pong ball blasting through cardboard. He also did that trick where you pull the sheet from under the dishes and such on the table. Quite impressive.

In other news, yesterday I ordered a cool t-shirt that was on sale. Here's a pic of what will be on the shirt:

Ha, it's an entirely bright pink shirt, but something just compelled me to buy it. I can't wait 'til it comes in a few days...

I've got the RA interview thing going on at the end of the month, so I'm still a little nervous building up to that, but I've also been invited to take part in a 7-week evening leadership course called LEAD. That should be interesting, but also probably time-consuming, since I've already got several full days on my plate as far as classes and homework will probably go.

Mm, what else... Spent some of my free time today with Megan... Like, an hour and a half just sitting at Burger King chatting and random stuff like using our cell phone reflections on the ceiling to have a weird... fight... thing. But yeah.

But that's about it for the past couple days. With the 3-day weekend we've got, it's a slow start to the new semester, so we'll see where it goes from here.

Break's Over

2009-01-13T21:14:00.004-06:00

Tomorrow (Wednesday the 14th) is the last day of Winter Break, and I'll be working on moving back into the dorm. While lounging around the house wasn't horrible, I am ready to get back to having stuff to do everyday. If only that everyday stuff wasn't such a complicated schedule.

I guess it's not really complicated, but I'm concerned. I've got a lab, two 3-hour art studios, and three lectures. Sixteen credit hours. My schedule is going to confuse me, though, 'cause every day is rather similar. Five days a week I have two alternating lectures that are in the same time slot, and same goes with my art studios. Tuesdays I'm not so thrilled about because I have a 7:30 a.m. Physics Lab. I can't remember the last time since I graduated high school that I was up before 8 a.m. That's something I'll definitely have to work on, I guess. The best news, though, I guess, is the fact that my 9:30 a.m. - 10:20 a.m. class on Friday is my only thing of the day, so it'll be like always having 3-day weekends... Sort of. All my free time is probably going to go to keeping up with two art studios. Ah, free time. How I loved it so. Over break I was able to finish reading a novel, start and finish two more, and I've got a couple chapters to read before I finish another book off tonight. So many things accomplished. Ah, well. More to come later. As for now, enjoy my schedule:

Chase's Schedule, Freshman Year, Spring '09
ART190 - Drawing 1 [2:30pm-5:20pm] M/W
ART196 - History of Art 2 [12:30pm-1:45pm] M/W
ART200 - 3D Design [2:30pm-5:20pm] Tu/Th
MC110 - Mass Communications in Society [9:30am-10:45am] Tu/Th
PHYS101 - Physical World 1 [9:30am-10:20am] M/W/F
PHYS103 - Physical World Lab [7:30am-9:20am] Tu

Another Adventure-ful Day

2009-01-10T21:32:00.003-06:00

So, break is nearing an end. I've less than a week before classes start, and a lot of the people I hang out with are packing to head back to their colleges in the next couple days. But that doesn't mean we didn't have an awesome time today!! We went to Aggieville to chill and wander. I bought a button!

And, of course, we made a video. Enjoy!

Bad. Idea.

2009-01-09T21:22:00.002-06:00

So today was just a sit-around-the-house day, 'cept for one trip to the bank to make a deposit. Several checks had piled up since Christmas and needed to be added to my diminishing total. But during the time I went to the bank, the weather was b-e-a-utiful (I just watched the end of Bruce Almighty). But then, a couple hours later, I decided to go for a run. I've been trying to time it somehow to avoid having to deal with the middle-school students down the road, so I either go before 2:30 or after 3:30. Well, by 4:30 (I got caught up watching some TBS), it was bitter cold outside. Actually, it wouldn't have been bad. Thermometer said 40 degrees. What it didn't say was 20mph wind. Those two miles were the worst 15 and a half minutes EVER! Maybe if I was better dressed. It never fails, I always misjudge the weather. Warm days I overdress, cold days I under-dress. I just can't win. I knew I should of just used the treadmill today, but my mind was still focused on the 2pm weather. Nobody told me Jack Frost would be out biting today...

First Post of '09

2009-01-08T21:43:00.009-06:00

That's right, I'm back to blogging. How's the new year treating you? Good, I hope. Any resolutions that you made (and most likely won't keep)? I basically just opted to try and get back into running regularly, and so far I've been doing okay, 'cept for today, since I was hanging out with people all day. But apart from today, I don't have much to talk about concerning the new year, but I do want to jump back to New Year's Day...

[insert trippy flashback music]

So, New Year's Eve, I just wasn't feeling like doing anything special. I decided not to go to Aggieville for the free concert, 'cause really, I only liked one of their songs, and it would be full of drunkies anyway... And then I got another offer for a party thing, but again, too tired. So I was in bed early, probably 11, 'cause we watched Wall-E, which I missed the last part, falling asleep, but don't worry, I finished watching it later.
So New Year's Day, what a way to start off the new year. First, I was an HOUR late to the one event I had planned that day, the Annual New Year's Run with my friends. My invite said 1pm, so that's when I got there. But no, it was supposed to say noon. Damn. And then later, when Dad and I wanted to watch Wanted, it turned out that the DVD (which we had yet to open) was lacking a disc, a mysterious slit in the side. So we had a Wal-Mart adventure to get a new copy. Happy New Year.

[return to present]

Today's adventures were pretty great. Megan, Hazel, and I met up today just to wander the K-State campus. Went to check out the art exhibits, ate Subway at the Union, recovered my lost artwork from a classroom (and that very much so enhanced my happiness, that it was still there after all this time), and then we went to the library. Where the real fun began.

So we're showing Hazel the stacks, the crowded, confusing levels of books that are kept on half-floors, essentially. It's basically like, 10 small floors packed into a 5 story library. But anyway, we decided, let's make us a creepy movie about how scary the stacks are. So we started filming, since I had my camera. Well, as Hazel goes to investigate a mysterious noise up above on the next level... The fire alarm goes off, scaring us all like crazy. Maybe I should just show off some video footage:

Then after all that fun, we went to the high school to do some visits, and then to my house to rock out for a bit at Rock Band (but my PS2 seems to be having some issues lately. Perhaps time to get a PS3, yes?), and then some Wii. I think the most exciting part was the Force Unleashed duels, ha! I have videos of that, too, but maybe some other time...

Well, that's about all for tonight, I guess.

P.S.
It's Elvis' B-Day!

It's the End of the World... or the Year.

2008-12-31T10:19:00.007-06:00

First off, I found this video off another blog, happy mundane. I found it funny and creative.

But now, I just want to go through some of the highlights of my year.

I started this blog back in March this year, my first post being a kind of "review" of Super Smash Bros. Brawl which had just came out. But really, it didn't get started until August, when I decided to start writing about beginning college and my first day of classes. Unfortunately I had missed out on one of the biggest parts of my year, graduating from Manhattan High School. But with the start of college came the true start of my blogging, and it's definitely evolved since then. There's on-the-go blogging with my iPhone, and I've added some little touches to the side menu.

Another major event this year: I participated in a 1/2 marathon in Virginia Beach. It was a three day adventure that I'll never forget. Because I wrote it down in my blog of course. I will eventually work my way back up to another 1/2 marathon, and hopefully a full marathon one day.

I also had my first college-based road trip to Lawrence, KS to visit a friend.

And with the freedom of college, my friends and I began looking for new ways to keep entertained in Manhattan. So what better way than hanging out at IHOP at midnight!? It was so fun, we did it again.

I've also had my fair share of campus adventures. I've gotten lost in the library, almost survived a day of "Gotcha", and had to endure the alarming results of burnt popcorn.

This year we also got our 3rd dog, another dachshund who is now named Fletcher. He was introduced as Tate in my 50th blog, but we decided to change his name. He gets along great with Diamond and Addy.

I think my family's traveled more this year then any other, due to the fact that I'm not as interested in the closer races. We took a trip to Denver for a Gorilla Run 5K. It was fun, but didn't go as I had planned, 'cause I know I could've done better. It was a four part blog adventure.

Another first this year: I voted! The election was quite interesting, and I'll attribute part of that to the fact that they used holograms... Congrats to Obama, though.

When I entered the school year, I didn't know what to do. I was undecided in major, but that all changed when I decided to go for art, which I probably would've done from the beginning anyway... We'll see if I can stand it.

As for the holidays of the past few months... Halloween wasn't the best, Thanksgiving was pretty fun, with some entertaining side effects, and Christmas was, well... It was okay, but it really does seem to have lost its magic.

But, I made it through first semester, and so far I've survived on Earth for 19 years. I'll call that a win. I've had so much fun blogging and recording all these events makes me realize how awesome my 2008 really was. After all, with things like this and Jeff Dunham, how could '08 not be epic?

So long, '08. It's been fun.

Post 12.30.2008

2008-12-30T07:22:00.004-06:00

Good morning! As usual the past few days, I've been up for a couple hours already, listening to music and reading Eclipse. I've also been pondering the plot for my own story, Wolf Moon, which I've been thinking a lot about lately. Hopefully I'll eventually get started on the full story.

Anyway, I'd forgotten about it for a while, but I didn't know what else to check, website-wise, so I looked up my isis account for K-State to see how my class schedule is for next semester. I'm in! I've gotten into 3D Design! Yay for being first on the waitlist. So now I'm at 13 credit hours, and I could probably fit in another 3, I just don't know what... I'll think about it. But now I've got two studio classes and that is enough to strike fear in the hearts of artists everywhere...

In other news, I've got a new bed! Well, in a way. We have it, but I'm currently lying in the drained carcass of a water bed. We've yet to move things around, because it's going to be a full process of clearing out most of my room in order to shampoo the carpet, and THEN we get the new bed in. It's a twin xl, so it's much smaller than my queen-sized bed, but more like my dorm bed. It's a regular mattress, too, so not so... Jiggly. It'll open up some space in my room for like, a chair, or something. More space to Rock Band, too, ha ha... I'm still not sure how I want to lay it out, but once the room is empty it'll be easier to see. Ah, furniture re-arrangement is so much easier in Animal Crossing...

2008 is slowly dying out. I'm sure I'll be back tomorrow with my thoughts and one final blog for '08. Later!

"The only time I feel alive is in the dead of night."

2008-12-28T04:45:00.005-06:00

That title's from All Black, a song from Good Charlotte, and I've taken to listening to it a lot lately, just 'cause it's a good song. It's currently #5 on my Songs of the Moment list. I also have a remix version as well. I figured it was a good line, because lately the night seems to be more in my company than usual. My schedule's going to be all fucked up when I go back to school...

But anyway, I was going to wait to post my rant about Jeff Dunham until I woke up, but you can't wake up unless you go to sleep, and I'm obviously awake for a while. I just watched some Doogie Howser, M.D. off of Hulu to pass some time, and before that I read the first few chapters in Eclipse, the third installment in the Twilight Saga. I finished off New Moon on the car ride to Kansas City, so woo-hoo!

When we got to Kansas City, it was still early afternoon, so we hit Nebraska Furniture Mart, which is like, the biggest store EVER! It has practically everything you could want. Bedroom furniture, kitchen furniture, computers, games, movies, cameras, televisions, sound systems. I think they're even maps you can pick up near the entrance. Maps! For a store!! It covers a massive ground space, AND it's two stories high. Even though we've made several trips to Nebraska Furniture Mart, I just can't get over how enormous it is!!
Question though: Nebraska Furniture Mart. In Kansas? Wouldn't it be the Kansas Furniture Mart?

Next, we went to browse Cabela's, which is like a hunting, outdoorsy place. It has epic displays of animals set up. There's the giant mountain centerpiece that's nearly two stories high, with dozens of varied wildlife that one might hunt, such as mountain goats, elk, wolves (sadness), prairie dogs (that's a damn good shot), and even... polar bears? Yep. Polar bears. Then there's also the African display, with lions and elephants, alligators, zebras. And there's also a gallery purely devoted to the deer.

After that, we went to eat. I can't remember the name of the place, but oh how I will remember the meal. I had some delicious chicken, on special. Oh, from the first bite I was in love. I wasn't as hungry as the serving size of the plate, but there was no way I was going to leave any piece of that delicious cheesy chicken over rice with the heavenly sauce on that plate.

Our next stop was to locate a sporting goods store, in search of a bike rack to add to my Jeep, as part of a bonus, unreceived Christmas present from my parents. The store we found turned out to only be like, clothes and stuff, so we just bypassed it and headed for the stadium.

Around 6:45pm we awaited entrance to the stadium, a crowd of people standing in the cold and snow. Finally at 7pm the doors opened and, in usual crowd fashion, everyone tried to squeeze inside as quickly as possible. We found our seats easily enough, pretty far up, but they had a pretty good screen set up to see Jeff and friends. So since it was only about 7-ish, and the show didn't start until around 8pm, I went out to locate souvenirs, and around, oh, half hour later I returned with an Achmed shirt for me (I keel you!) and a Walter shirt for my dad (Shut the hell up!). Then we sat, and mostly googled things on my iPhone.

Shortly after 8pm, the show began, with the opening act being Brian Haner, aka Guitar Guy! He came out, played some guitar while telling jokes and about his life (like, he's the father of one of the members of Avenged Sevenfold; I did not know that). I wasn't aware he was that funny, because he never talks when playing sidekick to Jeff onstage, but he's hilarious too. I'm thinking about downloading his musical comedy CD off iTunes...

After Guitar Guy finished, it was a 15 minute break before Jeff was up to bat. The show stared with a video of Achmed played on screen, addressing the "infidels" in the audience in a serious manner. That is, of course, until Bubba J, Peanut, and Walter all barged in and eventually Achmed exploded thanks to a bomb, of course... And then Jeff came onstage! I wish my camera was more awesome, but from our distance, I didn't get many good shots or videos, so that's kinda annoying. But still, I was there. Awesome!

He opened with Walter, as usual. Some jokes were new, but most were ones heard before, but still funny! Especially when he adjusted jokes to make them relevant to either Kansas City or just to change 'em up. For instance, "badonkadonk chick" from the Christmas special was, in this case, "porno chick." Oh, how awesome it would've been to sit up front. So, Walter did his spiel, then next, my favorite: Achmed! It was a lot of similar material, but again, still funny. I was disappointed, but also thought it was a great change-up, that he didn't use the poliosis joke. Well, he did, but instead of poliosis, Achmed was distraught over his "lack of boner-ness" or LOB, as he called it. More like LOL! Ha! Following Achmed was Peanut, who was later assisted by Jose (the Jalepeno on a Stick), and then finished by assisting Jeff in a reading of 'Twas the Night Before Christmas. But then, when we thought it was all over, Dunham made an encore by bringing out Bubba J. He said it'd been a while since he'd used him in his act, so he needed his cheat sheet. Eventually, he heard people saying Bubba's lines in the crowd and was like, "Well, maybe the crowd can help you with the jokes" and then on the next one, the stadium rumbled as people responded together with Bubba's line. Awkward pause by Jeff, followed by next joke, which again was met with a rumble'd quote from the crowd. Bubba J made a comment about how it was like a really awkward version of church, and Jeff eventually said, "This is officially the weirdest show we've done in a while." He probably says that to all the crowds, but I'll take it as a win.
To end the night, we brought out his t-shirt cannons and shot some into the crowds as we filed out and went to our cars. I hope we didn't miss out on autograph signings or something, though, 'cause that would've been sweet!

Well, that about wraps it up, and I'm still feeling awake, just a little bit heavy on the eyelids. I'll probably watch some DVR, as I'm still behind on the final 2 episodes of this seasons Heroes (le gasp). I did toy around with the option of just going in to work to clean up since nothing's going on anyway, but I can't, because I realized the Jeep is in the garage, and blocking it in is Mom's car... Oh well.

Until my next adventure...

SILENCE! I keel you.

Jeff Dunham (Teaser Post)

2008-12-27T23:02:00.001-06:00

So, we're sitting in this traffic cluster in the parking lot. Jeff Dunham's show let a several minutes ago.

It. Was. AWESOME!

I'll go into more detail once we get home, but even Jeff said "This is officially the weirdest show we've done in a while." But I'll explain that later, when typing isn't so touchy. Ha.

We just got out of the lot, finally! Later!

I keel you!

:D

Geolocate this post.

Posted with LifeCast

Post 12.26.2008

2008-12-26T04:21:00.006-06:00

So another Christmas has come and gone. It's weird how so little real value it has. It's weeks of anticipation and holiday-themed shows and movies, to be capped off with an hour or so of presents and a larger than usual meal. But other than that, Christmas was pretty much over around 1p.m. So really, I guess, Christmas in this day and age is more about December, and not just the day. I'm sure it holds more value to religious people, but to everyone else it's just a commercialized excuse for (most) everyone to get a day off work. But I think I'm fine with that, because it at least means family time.

One of the things we did for our Christmas day was go see Marley & Me, which just came out. I gotta say, it's funny, but also really sad. I hadn't read the book, so I wasn't really prepared for everything, and it made me think too much about our own Labrador, Diamond. She's old, but at the same time, still acts young. But watching Marley & Me made me think about it, and even though she's probably got a good several years in her, I don't think I'll ever be ready when her time comes. I guess I'll worry about that when we get there...

But now something different. The Spirit looks like a pretty good movie, and I'd like to see that after a while, once it's initial opening hype dies down. It just looks funny, adventurous, and visually stunning. Same goes for The Watchmen coming out in a few months... Dad says I should also check out Sin City, which I've anticipated, but it never appealed to me, but maybe I will.

Anyway, when we got back from Marley & Me, I had a headache, but my parents wanted to watch House Bunny since it's due back tomorrow. I fell asleep during that, mostly by choice because I wasn't going to fight it. It seems like since I've been home for break, sleep hasn't been a very good friend to me. That's why I'm up now at a quarter to five watching College Road Trip off my DVR and writing these words. It's probably because I'm not up all day taking in knowledge, 'cause at school I can easily call it quits by midnight on any given night. But here I'm just up late with nothing to do except surf the web or watch tv. Even when I'm tired, my eyes refuse to give in to sleep.

So, in an effort to keep occupied, what else can I write about? Well, how about my presents?

I got three games, two of them for Wii, one for PS2. Super Mario Galaxy I've played before, but it's a pretty fun game. Mario usually knows how to find adventure. Star Wars: The Force Unleashed is an awesome Wii game, and great if you want to feel like a Jedi (or in this case, a Sith). You actually push your hand forward to execute a force push, and swing the Wiimote to weild your lightsaber. I would be playing it right now if I didn't feel like just lying in bed, typing. The other game, Guitar Hero World Tour, I haven't played yet. The PS2 has been in the living room for the week, and it was either busy out there, or we weren't home.

I also got a Jeep calendar, a daily doodle desk calendar, Wall-E DVD, Star Wars Original Trilogy DVD set, a nice blanket, some fudge, a neat wolf sculpture candle to add to my collection, some hot cocoa mixes, and cool Nike running headphones. Plus, of course, various gift cards and cash. I can't really think if I'm leaving anything out...

As for right now, I don't know what I'm going to do, besides finish this up. It's five o'clock, so I may just stay awake for the day, watch some more DVR. If I stay up all day, maybe eventually I'll get this sleeping thing down at some point. Then New Year will just mess everything up, especially if I make it out to the Eve 6 concert in Aggieville. That reminds me, I need to check on the info for that...

Thirty-nine hours 'til Jeff Dunham!!

P.S.

"Calm down, it's frickin' Christmas!" - Mom

Ha ha, the story behind that: We were having some issues with the television and main DVR. Dad wasn't too pleased and was talking with an operator person about it, right before we were about to open presents of course...

Merry Christmas

2008-12-25T00:00:00.004-06:00

Yes, it's now officially Christmas! I haven't been to bed yet, so I figured I could wait a few more minutes for Christmas Day.

So our Christmas Eve was rather nontraditional, I suppose. We slept in (always good), lazed around (also good), and then I went to Blockbuster and got some movies. We spent the remainder of the day watching them. We started with Burn After Reading. It wasn't that great, but I do think the plot was decent. It was just pretty scattered. Then we watched Step Brothers, which I thought was just as cheesy, but way better than our first movie. Next up, we ate tacos (Christmas-y, I know), and watched Spider-Man 3 since it was on tv and Dad hadn't seen it yet. Luckily it had basically just started! Then after that we watched Death Race, which I think was the best movie of the night! Nice and action-packed. I recommend it, very much so. Turns out, it's a remake of a 1975 movie, Death Race 2000. I want to see that version now, too.

We've still got House Bunny to watch, but that'll have to wait until morning, 'cause it's time to hit the sack, 'cause Santa's making his rounds!

Merry Christmas!

"Ho, ho, ho, and jingle jingle, bells are ringing all around!
Snowflakes fall and lights adorn our very merry Tinsel Town!

Ho, ho, ho, and jingle jingle, grown-ups seem to go berserk!
Why are parents so wigged-out, when Santa Claus does all the work?
La, la, ya la, la, ya, la - Berserk!"

- snippet from Ho Ho Ho, by Alvin and the Chipmunks

It's Over

2008-12-19T21:49:00.011-06:00

It's over. I made it through my first semester in college. So, I had my finals yesterday, and after I finished up those, I decided to pack up and start my Winter Break at home. After several trips to my Jeep, I had pretty much everything I needed (except for the fact that today I had to go back to snag my camera charger and cord - glad I live in the same town as my dorm). So I came home last night and my room has been a mess ever since (as if it hadn't been a tornado before hand, ha).
Then today I got my grades in for those two finals. I got an 80 on my History of Art final, so that kept my total grade at 83.3%. As for my Age of Dinosaurs final, I pulled through with 84.7%, which kept my total grade in B-range with a 82.1%. All that time with my dinosaur note cards paid off.
I also sold my 4 textbooks back today at Varney's, making a nice $82. Granted, I paid WAY more than that, but still, it's $82 I didn't have before today...

While I might never use what I learned in Age of Dinosaurs ever again, I think I had a successful semester. After all, I did learn to do my own laundry, as well as how to make an awesome looking resume. Next semester I'm looking forward to trying to be more involved on campus and within leadership positions. The RA interviews are at the end of January, so I'm looking forward to that, because I really want to get through it and know whether or not I get the job. But other than that stuff, I'm free of education until about mid-January...

In other news... Today was my 19th birthday! I wasn't really planning to have a big day, but whatever. Being lazy around the house is one thing I can enjoy. Of course, I have received the barrage of Facebook "Happy Birthdays" and the like. But 19 really isn't that great. It's no milestone, other than the fact that this is the last year I can call myself a teenager. After this year, it's over. Sigh. But whatever. I did have one really awesome thing happen today. Check out my gift:

Yep. Next weekend my parents are taking me to see Jeff Dunham!! I'm super excited! I want to go out and get that Achmed shirt from Hastings now so I can get it signed or something... I'm pretty much wanted to bypass Christmas right now and go straight to next Saturday, 8p.m.

"I have a big head, and little arms."

2008-12-16T19:22:00.004-06:00

I'm currently studying for Age of Dinosaurs final, and I've come to think that the class would've been much more interesting had it not been so boring... But yeah, I've become sidetracked, and found one of my favorite dinosaur clips on another blog... Enjoy!

But anyway, today was interesting. Woke up to snow. Actually, woke up to a text from my dad, which said, "CHASE going 2 shovel?" Yeah, got that around 7:23 a.m. Even if I had class today, I still wouldn't have been up that early...
But then I got up and iTunes'd. I just verbed that right there. I downloaded Folie a Deux finally, and I also got When the World Comes Down by The All-American Rejects. Other than that, didn't have much on my plate for the day. So I guess I might as well go shovel.
So I get all bundled up, and grab my bag of stuff that I want to drop off at home, and head downstairs and I see Mike working the front desk, as usual on Tuesday mornings... He asked what I was doing, and I told him I was heading home to do some shoveling and drop some stuff off. So he offered to help (and on his birthday, too!), if I was willing to wait around until his shift ended. So, we talked about various stuff, and this. Ha ha.

Then we went over to the house, traversing the treacherous trail of tread lines... Alliteration! Mike sure enjoys driving in the snow. Dangerously so. Anyway, got that done, came back... Sat around until Tansly texted about going to the Rec center again, so we went and now I'll probably be sore again...

And then since then, well.. Just been sitting around, then started to write note cards about dinosaurs and such. Better get back to it, I suppose.

Another Long Day

2008-12-15T21:45:00.003-06:00

So I've been keeping busier than expected the past few days. My only finals are on Thursday, so I figured, "I'm not going to be studying all this time. I'm going to be bored out of my MIND!"

But today I decided today that I needed to work on getting back into running as long as I'll have all kinds of free time during this thing called 'Winter Break'. So first thing's first in this, our coldest of times... I needed some warm gear. So I went out to the Manhattan Running Company store to see what they had in the line of running tights, and found a decent pair. Then, ironically, I went to Burger King right afterward. There, I received a text from Megan, about going to Wal-Mart, as per usual. So since she wanted to do that later, I figured I'll go home rather than park back at the dorms and walk a mile to get inside...

At home I ate my Whopper, and then made some spontaneous Burger King-themed artwork out of stuff like my Whopper wrapper and a cup lid... Then I went off to Varney's to meet with Megan. She needed to sell back some books, but they wouldn't take all of them, so I led her down the street to where I'd seen some people buying back books. They took one book, but the other just doesn't seem to be a good sell back... Then we went to Wal-Mart to do some Christmas shopping for Megan. It would've gone easier if she just would've accepted my suggestions, but apparently I don't know what guys might like for Christmas. I still think LEGO's is an acceptable answer.

Then we went to Target, to continue our search for gifts, and then to the mall, where we ran into several people we know, and had food all together, and we were quite a rowdy group. After the mall adventure, I went to work, then back to the dorms to finish off the night. And now I'm bored... If I wasn't so bored, I'd probably try and stay awake until midnight, so I could get Fall Out Boy album, Folie a Deux, finally... Comes out in a couple of hours, but I'll probably be asleep by then.

Ha Ha!

2008-12-15T08:57:00.003-06:00

This thing is called a blobfish. I found out about it today. I find it hilariously disgusting...

Oops & One Down

2008-12-12T14:21:00.005-06:00

I started writing up this blog this morning, wanting to kind of do a reflection on my semester... But now I need to say this.

So Tansly and I went to the Rec center this afternoon, and I drove. We went there, did some work-outs, and came back. Fine. Talked with some people in the lobby of Haymaker for several minutes. Fine. That conversation led us to desire little spherical shaped bottles of Coke, sold at Wal-Mart. So we went to my vehicle.

As I was pulling out of the stall, which was conveniently in the front lot, I was trying to not hit the three girls who were walking along behind my vehicle. Then of course, my turn wasn't that great, and I ended up bumping into the car next to me. I didn't notice any damage, and Tansly didn't even notice that I had hit it. The girls did though... Thanks for laughing...

So I pulled back into the stall and proceeded to write a short note which I left on their windshield. There wasn't any real damage, so I think it's good, but I still feel uncomfortable... We'll see if I get an angry visit or phone call from someone later... At least I have Tansly as a witness...

Anyway, back to what I had been writing earlier, but didn't finish so just saved as a draft...

Well, except for my two exams next Thursday, this semester is done for me. Had my last day of classes today, and I was a little upset, actually, because today was the one day in Age of Dinosaurs that I was most interested in. The theories of how dinosaurs went extinct are really kind of interesting, more so than learning about individual dinosaur groups and such... Then all I did for Expository Writing today was turn in my final portfolio, and I was so glad to be finished with it.

Then after that class, I went over to the high school, because I wanted to talk to a couple teachers and get their contact info for my reference sheet. Then I came back to the dorms to finish up my RA application and get it submitted on time. I'm glad to be finished with that, too. I spent so much time trying to make it awesome, so I can't wait until the January interviews... At first I didn't think I'd want the job too much, but after starting the application, I got really invested in perfecting my resume and trying to represent myself as best as possible. Hopefully they utilize my references, because I spent a lot of time compiling that list and contacting people... I hope I didn't overdo it, but I wanted to make sure the knew I was taking this seriously. I even wrote a cover letter...

But now, I've basically got nothing to do until next Thursday, other than study at various intervals. I'm not too concerned about my finals, because they're basically just like the other tests I've taken in my classes, and only cover what we've talked about since the last tests.

All-in-all, this semester's been pretty good. I had a good schedule that didn't give me too much grief. Most of my classes were pretty fun, like Intro to Leadership or 2D Design. I need to get my schedule settled out for next semester, so hopefully it's just as fun like this was, and not so hectic. But we'll see...

Post 12.9.2008

2008-12-09T18:02:00.004-06:00

So I was up until 4 a.m. working on an art project. For some obscure reason, I decided to do my final in colored pencils. But it looks totally sweet. I wasn't finished at 4, but my hand hurt so much from using pencils that I opted for a few hours of sleep so I could at least try and function later. So then I woke up at 8 a.m. and, after taking a shower, went to work on the thing. My finger still hurts. But anyway, while I was doing that, I got a text from Chasady, a friend from cross country. She decided she didn't like college in the... East coast, I believe? So she's transferring back to K-State in Spring. She wanted to meet up today, but I was like, "Gotta make art." But then I finished around 11 a.m., so first I went to the Candlewood office, because I needed to drop off a recommendation sheet to be filled out so I can hopefully get an interview to be an RA next year. Then after that I met up with Chasady at Quizno's for lunch, and we chatted about various stuff before I had to get back to type up a paper and go to my 2D class. We did presentations today, and I was just glad to get it out of the way finally...

But anyway, so now I'm trying to figure out my "resume" because I don't have a clue what to put. I haven't needed one for a while, and haven't made one since like, Sophomore year in high school... I'm thinking I might go home and boot up the old computer to see if any old files might still exist on there... That, or keep looking stuff up on Google, like I've been doing for a while now... All I've grasped so far is: Don't just settle for a Word template; don't be over-creative; write a page detailing why you think you deserve the job. If all else fails... I'm pretty sure I saw Hastings has a nice array of Idiot's Guides...

"Fletcher, stop that!"

2008-12-06T18:15:00.005-06:00

That's the phrase of the day here at the Therkelsen household...

Mom's out of town, so since Wednesday night, I've been staying at home. This has taught me a couple things. First, living on campus was an excellent idea. Driving to campus, parking, and then walking about a mile to class is a horrible thing. Second, I'm thinking I want a dog less and less... At least not until I have a job that requires me to wake up at 6a.m. It's especially unwanted to wake up before the sun on the weekends. Thanks dogs.

So other than living around the house, watching the dogs, and going to class, I haven't really done much this week. I did go to a RA info meeting last night, to see about possibly applying for an RA position next year, and the application is due next Friday... But I can't decide if I want to do that or find an apartment with some friends just off campus... I hate having to plan my life half a year ahead. Stupid college...

Things One Can Have in College

2008-12-04T07:36:00.001-06:00

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