The College Years

Trying to keep up

2008-02-21T20:40:00.000-08:00

I just can't seem to keep up with this thing! The night is the best time to post because I've just finished the day and its fresh in my mind, but it's also the worst because I'm so dog tired all I want to do is go to sleep. So I'm afraid that this is going to be a continuing pattern. :(

Last weekend I went home so Kaitlynn and I could celebrate Valentine's Day. We ate dinner at the Breadline and exchanged gifts. Check out what she made me! :) While we were at the restaurant there was a group of kids (I'd say in the 13-14 year old range) that were goofing off. I first ran into them in the men's room. They ended every sentence with "please."
-Hi please.
-Hi.
-How's it goin please.
-I'm doing well you?
-Good please.
-etc.

They kept at it for quite awhile while I was waiting for Kaitlynn so we could hit the bread bar. Then they even visited us at our table... twice! hahaha Kids are so funny. Then at the end of the meal a new couple got seated across from us with a - we later found out - 15 month old son. A second mother in the restaurant was following her toddling 13 month old son. The second toddler discovered the first toddler in his high chair. It was a very cute episode.

After dinner I hung out at Kaitlynn's house till 10:30pm and then went to Poker at Michael's. He was back in town for a few days on break from school at the University of Utah. Out of the nine of us I got 5th, so no winnings for Ian, but I was mostly there for the socialization.

Sunday I lounged around the house, installed the new wireless router (which I now believe did not need replacing, but oh well), fixed the internet twice, and then grudgingly returned to Spokane. I was not looking forward to the coming week seeing was the previous one had been like.

The week so far has not been as bad as the previous, but I still wouldn't call it a good week. The homework was less, the Physics lab ended 10 minutes early (instead of an hour late), and I feel good about the Spanish test I took. However, I completely spaced one of my homework assignments. 0_o Good thing its Calculus and there are tons of them to make up for it. On Tuesday I had my first Live Lab. It's the lab associated with my Spanish class and is a half-hour each week where you just get together and do fun/interesting things and converse in Spanish. This semester there are only 3 people in the lab (including me) and the lab leader. She's a really nice gal, a Spanish major in her Senior year. We introduced ourselves and listened to some music and sang along. :P It's going to be a lot of fun I think.

Wednesday I went to JB's. When I got out of my car at her apartment I realized I had forgotten her birthday present at my dorm. lol Kelsie had to work that evening, so JB and I watched Donnie Darko... What a movie! While watching it I wasn't sure if I was going to like it or not, but at the end it all came together nicely and now I love it. After the movie she followed me back to campus, I introduced her to my roomies, and gave her her present. It was a My Little Pony doll. :P She loved it. hahahaha

Last Week

2008-02-17T10:22:00.000-08:00

Last week was pretty stressful. None of my classes are hard and none of them homework is hard, its just trying to squeeze everything into the day that can be difficult. For some reason all the little things bothered me last week. Plus, my IT band and hipflexors are preventing me from enjoying my running.

Monday decided to run outside and headed down to the track. However, I forgot that it takes exponentially more energy to run outside as opposed to on a treadmill and overdid it a bit. By the time I finished my half an hour I felt like I was going soooo slow, but in actuality averaged 7:37/mile over the workout. Afterwards all I wanted to do was go to sleep (after dinner of course) but then remembered I had band until 9:30. Luckily we got out a little early, but I was out like a light before my head hit the pillow.

Tuesday I had to rush to get several homework assignments done and then relaxed the rest of the afternoon. I decided that I would do an easy, long and slow workout on the exercise bike in the gym, nurse my IT band, and catch up on some reading. About a half an hour in though, I remembered that I had Physics Lab to go to. I barely made it, and in the process missed dinner. The damn lab was 4 hours long, so I couldn't go eat until 10:30pm. The cafeteria was closed by then so I went out to Jack in the Box. I was not a happy camper.

Wednesday was fine. There was a quiz in my Calculus class which I thought I did really well on. That afternoon I did a repeat exercise at the gym, this time actually achieving the hour mark with ease. I almost finished my book. Its really good.

Thursday was nice too. I discovered that two homework assignments that I thought were due before the end of the week were now postponed until next week. :D After two days on the bike I thought I would try running outside again. I know from experience that the best way to make running pains go away is to run. (Of course you could always overdo it and injure yourself.) As I was heading down to the track I noticed that some hurdles were set up and a group of people in shorts were standing around. I figured it was the track team and didn't want to get in their way, so I decided to see what the roads were like off-campus. (On campus they were all rather nice.) Parts of them were runnable and others were not. Thanks to my handy-dandy Christmas gift though I was able to mozy through some residential areas and run on the plowed streets without really keeping track of were I was going until my Nike+ told me to turn around. :D I was sore while running, but I kept my pace down (remembering Monday). When I got back to campus I stretched really well and hoped that would make me feel better tomorrow. I was wrong. Friday's run was a disaster. I accomplished a mile before giving up. Now my shins hurt too. I took the weekend off. UGH!

On Friday I got my quiz back, 49/50. The only point I lost was on a pair of numbers I dyslexicized. But then after yoga was an example of one of those little things that kept bothering me last week. The class is held in the dance loft of the Fieldhouse (read: basketball stadium). After yoga I have ten minute to walk to the other side of campus to get to Spanish and on Wednesday I had been a little late, so I was in a bit of a rush. On the way to the stairs there was a gaggle of girls conversing and matching my pace. I looked over to the lead girl to see which one of use would go first. She didn't look back so I figured she would pause and I would go first. However, she just kept walking so I ended up cutting her off. I murmured an "excuse me," but she didn't say anything. So then I was mad the whole way to Spanish because I had just made an ass of myself. Something which normally wouldn't have happened if I hadn't been in a rush. The weekend was a nice break for sure!

On the way out of town I grabbed some Jack in the Box and went a little out of my way for a giant Jamba Juice comfort smoothy. :P The Reardan on to Wilbur there were giant snow flakes falling, I hope Spokane didn't get much. On the road I talked with Drew and Darrick to keep me awake and was relieved to find that Drew is finally getting over being sick.

Last Weekend

2008-02-14T15:08:00.000-08:00

So I've finally found time to catch you all up on whats been going on.

Last weekend ... jeez I hope I can remember what happened! Saturday I went to the caucus. It was very crazy. There were about 20 precincts all meeting in a middle school cafeteria each with 30+ people, several with 50+. Ours was the largest with 80 or so; I'd say over half were from campus. We had 5 delegates from our precinct, 4 went for Obama and 1 for Hillary. Of our 4 delegate we sent for Obama two were adults and two were college kids, 2 men and 2 women. I think it was a fair representation of our precinct and I don't think any of them will be changing their vote. The county caucus if I remember correctly is the 2nd weekend in April.

I knew that the caucus system was cockamainy, but actually being involved in it really ground the fact that it really freaking sucks! Politics can make me feel so sick! Thats the main reason I voted for Obama. When compared with Hillary he's not so much of a politician as a devoted civil servant. I learned a cool term last month "servant leadership." A servant leader really wants to serve his community and realizes that he can best do so through leading others. While I don't doubt that Hillary would do a good job as President (and wouldn't it be awesome for her to break that gender barrier?) I think that Obama would change more of the things I want changed: in this example namely screwy politics. And hey, he would break the racial barrier, a real win-win.

Saturday evening I went to the gym to work out on the bike. Friday's exercise had really messed up my IT band and hip flexors. After 30 minutes or so on the bike some other guys from my hall asked I wanted to join them in "8 Minute Abs." I agreed... Doing ab exercises for 8 minutes straight wasn't bad since I'd been doing a lot of them during Weight Training in January, but the specific exercises we were doing were "old school?" (i.e. curls, sit-ups, reach-throughs, obliques crunches, etc.) and they really worked my neck. When I finished I couldn't twist it. So I stretched it out to the point of having full range of motion back (albeit it sore motion), cursing myself thinking I would wake up tomorrow in soooooooooooo much pain. It wasn't what I thought it would be. Maybe it's because I did such a good job stretching it out, but the next morning I still had full motion. It was very sore, but at least I could move it. It has continued to get better over the past few days, but today it still hurts to stretch out to limits of my range of motion. I think I'll do that workout again next week, this time mindful of my neck, to help strengthen it some more. But really, I can do much better ab workouts on the roman chair.

Not much went happened Sunday during the day. The gym's not open on Sunday so I took a recovery day. If I remember right the sun was shining so I opened up the blinds (not a common occurrence this winter) and turned off the overhead lights. One of the fluorescent bulbs has been on the blinks for about a month now. I probably should put in a work order for that... Anyway my roommate had left Thursday for a ultimate frisbee tournament in Las Vegas, so I took the opportunity to rearrange some furniture.

Now that I have math homework to do I once again lamented my lack of desk space. My laptop takes up half of it and I have various papers, books, magazines, a lamp, a tea pot, etc, on the other half. So I pulled my dresser out from under the bed (putting my tiny bookcase in its place) and put it next to my desk doubling the available area. So I now have space to put an open text book or space to write at. Now all I need is a REAL bookcase and a comfortable desk chair and I'll be perfect! :D

Sunday night I decided to try Halo 3 on Legendary (hardest difficulty setting) to see how far I would get... Lets put it this way: I started around 6pm and went to bed at 1:30am after beating only the first two levels. Normally I could beat the game twice in that amount of time. Oh, and a fire alarm went off around 8pm. Luckily it wasn't during an intense fire fight because it made me jump. :P I grabbed my coat and headed outside. Jeff had been hanging out down in the lobby and only had a pair of shorts on, no shirt, no socks, no shoes. Someone loaned him a coat and kicked off a shoe for him to stand on, while they stood on the other. Stupid fire drill. :P

so... tired...

2008-02-12T22:39:00.000-08:00

will... post... later...

The Weekend Is Here!

2008-02-08T23:07:00.000-08:00

And I am so ready for it!

I had my first yoga class today, I really liked it. I could feel that it was working my muscles and stretching things out and it ended up being very relaxing. :) The prof is really knowledgeable about not only yoga, but physiology as well. She kept pointing out the wrong way to do things and why they're bad for you, so we can avoid them. So no worrying allowed from mommy dearest.

After Spanish I went to the gym and decided to just do another easy three miles. I figured that the yoga had subtly tired my muscles behind my back, I was correct. Also, after several previous treadmill sessions my knees were a little sore. So I started out at 7:41 pace, but at two miles decided to finish strong and bumped it up to 7:30 pace with the intention of running the last lap on the highest setting - 6:00 minutes/mile. (That is actually really frustrating! Only 6:00 min/mi? Its infuriating to have a machine slow me down.) Anyway, I decided that to accompany my finish I would turn my iPod to Through The Fire And The Flames by DragonForce - a very fast paced (~200bpm), guitar lick intensive (hardest song on Guitar Hero III), lyrically inspiring song by a British power metal band.

Tonight we fly ever free
We're free before the thunderstorm
On towards the wilderness our quest carries on
Far beyond the sundown, far beyond the moonlight
Deep inside our hearts and all our souls

So far away we wait for the day
For the light source so wasted and gone
We feel the pain of a lifetime lost in a thousand days
Through the fire and the flames we carry on
(full lyrics)

It inspired me to continue past my three mile mark, still on the highest setting, for an additional half a mile. :D I was so high on endorphins when I finished I decided to go the gym and lift weights! (Truthfully that had been my intention beginning the workout, but given the amount of effort I ended up putting in to it... maybe not my brightest.) So I did a bunch of work with dumbbells and situps & backups on the roman chair. After that, still high as a kite I walked over to the track for reasons not really clear to me. Perhaps it was the track team I saw assembling at the gym that jarred my subconscious to wonder what kind of workouts they were doing. Anyway, to my great wonderment and excitement THE DAMN THING WAS PLOWED! All eight lanes! That really pushed me over the edge... I ran all the way back to my dorm.

Tonight was another Star Trek night. The group of people watching keeps growing. We also were informed that the school technically isn't supposed to rent their rooms out to non-school sanctioned clubs. So we talked about becoming official. There was enough consent to get the ball rolling, which I think will be loads of fun. As a school club we get something on the order of $100 a year for activities, plus we get to fundraise and host events. We watched Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.

P.S. As of writing this my back muscles feel tight from the back ups and my shoulders are sore from the arm movement from running, but no real pain... Ask me again tomorrow though! Maybe I'll take my own advice and do an EASY workout tomorrow.

New Post is New ... and Late

2008-02-08T09:57:00.000-08:00

Man I'm behind again!

Wednesday I had the first session of some more of my classes: Physics II and Spanish. The Physics prof is really cool. He's Indian and is a rocket scientist! How cool is that? I think I might do some research with him one summer, we talked about it the possibility last semester when I was enrolling. Speaking of research my Calculus professor has also offered to get me involved in some Mathematica research. Mathematica is a Computer Algebra System, that means its a really smart math computer program. I think that would be fun, but I'm taking 17 credits (more info on that in a second) so I told him I want to wait a week to see how the stress load is going to be from my homework and running.

When I went to go to my Spanish class I accidentally went to the wrong building. I had looked at my schedule to see what building and room number I was supposed to go to and saw: Hawthorne, but read: Hendrick. Hendrick was were it was last semester.... this semester it is The French Revolution... Luckily someone else had done a similar thing. He also went to where it was last semester, but knew the name of the building he was supposed to go to was Hawthorne. So we realized our mistake and walked over to class. It was a pretty lame first session. We talked a little bit with our table-mates and then went of the syllabus before we were excused. We were only there for 20 minutes tops. O well, I know the work will come... Speaking of which I still need to do my homework for that class! lol

Sometime Wednesday (I can't remember exactly when) I went to the Registrar's Office to pick up my $75 check for getting third at the talent show and while I was there I checked to see which scholarships had come in. Only the Senior Citizen's one had been added. So I called Doug Sklar to see what the deal was with the Rotary Scholarship. He put me in touch with the club treasurer who assured me the check had been mailed last Friday. So I wasn't worried about that (the Registrar's Office is kinda slow). However, I wasn't able to get a hold of Donna Howe to get the number for the Booster Club Treasurer. I guess I'll handle that today.

After Spanish I didn't go to the gym as per my Spring plan because I was so tired! When I went to JB's that night we decided not to go ice skating either, but to stay and watch a movie instead. We watch 50 First Dates, which is a great movie! It reaches two audiences really, the high school idiot comedy and the helpless romantic. I wish they had settled on making it just a romance movie (or a romantic comedy) and left out all the middle school humor. I'm talking about the things that "yeah, that's funny," but it makes no sense in the plot line and/or dialog and its something no one would actually do or its something that actually wouldn't exist. *sigh* Overall though the movie was well worth watching, it just could have been better.

On Thursday I almost didn't wake up in time! I had set my alarm on my computer for an hour before class (which is an hour later than M T W F) and had turned off my duplicate alarm on my cell phone because its harder to change and I didn't want to hassle with changing it back for Friday. Of course I did this on the day when the duplicate alarm was needed! I turned off the first and rolled over (I actually had to get out of bed, turn it off, and get back in, but whatever I "rolled over"). Luckily it had woken me up to enough to jar some synapse into slow fire mode. I woke up half an hour later when my brain had finally connected all the dots in its groggy state, saying "OH SH..!" But as I said I still had half an hour. Whew!

The best part about Thursday was the sun! It shined all day long! I didn't even miss my sweatshirt! (I generally wear a sweatshirt and a jacket.) The grounds crew was using the opportunity to chip up some of the crap on the roads, since it was loosened by the heat. They seemed to stop around 1pm, which made no sense because the sun was still shining, things were loosening up even more, and there was lots of crap left to be removed! Ugh! What were they thinking? Its just going to freeze again tonight and then who knows when they'll be able to remove it! I did freeze again by the way. So know there is lots of ice from the melt off... *grumble, grumble*

After my Ethics class there was Convocation before my Career and Vocational Studies class. So I took the opportunity to head to the gym thinking there wouldn't be very many people there. Lots of people ended up having that idea. I got the last open treadmill (which had been Out of Order on Tuesday). I was able to run at a faster clip thanks to the day of rest (and probably because I'm getting my body back in the habit), it felt good knowing I'm quickly returning to my previous level of fitness. I did 3 miles in 22:08.

I had my last chiropractic appointment today that was covered by my insurance for the fender bender. So know I'll just be in monthly to maintain my alignment.

Thursday evening I got an email from the registrar. Saying I had been enrolled in my wait-listed class, Yoga. It was the only class I wanted to take I wasn't able to get into and the wait-list had been pretty long, but now I'm in. Hurray!

Thursday did not end as well as it started. Dinner at the cafeteria was some special event they had planned to "celebrate" Holywood. The food was really good, they had Mongolian beef or chicken and California rolls with lots of wasabi. :) But the lines were sooooooooooooo long (I think everyone came at the same time to dinner). They were also doing movie trivia where they would say a line from a movie and the first person to get the name of the movie would get a prize. The quote was: "Hasta la vista baby." Which wasn't from The Terminator as the first person guessed, but from Terminator 2. So I got a t-shirt. Sadly though, they played rap music the whole rest of the time. I find rap frustratingly intolerable. Not only do I hate it, but the beat is so strong I can't help but tap my foot sometimes. AH! No, that's not worthy of foot-tapping!

Then I came back to my room played a round of Halo 3 and then watched Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune and then headed to the library to do some Calculus III homework. Part of the course is learning to use Mathematica (see above) so we get regular pen-and-paper homework and Mathematica homework. The professor wants us to use the latest version (understandable) which is currently only on the library computers. It will be much easier for me to do once it gets put on the Computer Science lab computers. So I went to the library, got on a computer, downloaded the assignment, and... it referred me to pages in my textbook - which was back in my dorm room. UGH! So I walked back, got my textbook, went BACK to the library, and did the FOUR questions in less time than it took to walk there originally. Then when I got back to my dorm room I realized I had forgotten to email it myself... I was so frustrated. I said "screw it, I'll go back and print it in the morning." While lying in bed though I remembered that now that my network connection works properly I could probably access my folder on the server and print it from my dorm room. Cha-ching! Thank you cybertechnology! And I was able to sleep peacefully... after I got that crappy rap music out of my head.

Spring Semester

2008-02-05T22:34:00.000-08:00

Spring Semester has begun!

Monday I drove back to Spokane after spending some time visiting with my grandparents. Samantha rode back with me. That night evening classes began and I went to the first band rehearsal. Should prove to be just like last semester. :D I got a guy from down the hall to join. He plays trumpet.

Today day classes started. This semester I am taking:

Calculus III
Physics II
Advanced Spanish Grammar and Composition through Literature
Social and Ethical Issues in Computer Science
Career and Vocational Studies
Concert Band
(update) and now Yoga!

Today I had Calculus and Ethics. They both went well. My calculus teacher is the same from last semester, so I know exactly how the class is going to go. I really like him. And my ethics teacher is a great guy too. I went and listened to him talk about his dissertation one time last semester. He worked at Microsoft for 8 years before becoming a prof. He's a pretty funny guy.

On Monday night at dinner I went to check my mailbox and was surprised to find so much mail! Two letters from Kaitlynn, one from Nana, a statement of interested earnings from my bank, two Time magazines, and THREE package slips. Jeez! I left the package slips because the post office was closed, but today I went back and collected them. Two of the three slips were for meds that had come and the other was my TI-89! Hurray shiny new calculator! I sure did miss a good 'ol 89 last semester. The prescription company or Family Health Centers screwed up big time. :P They were only supposed to send me one bottle of allergy meds, they sent two. And they weren't even identical! One was 180 pills with 3 refils and the other was 60 pills with 5 refils. When taking the number I still have left over in my old bottle, that gives me almost 9 months of medication! Guess I would be refilling that prescription anytime soon. :P

At 3pm I went to the gym for a run in what I plan on making a daily habit. However, that gym was packed! Every single machine was occupied except for 2 old school stationary bikes, the kind with the resistance pads. So I did that for 10 minutes until a treadmill opened up. This could prove to be problematic if the gym continues to be packed at 3pm. Although, I do plan on using the old gym (read: basketball court) to start doing sprints probably next week.

Oh yeah... it snowed again... /wrists

Polar Bear

2008-02-03T10:44:00.000-08:00

Friday I got up and perused the net till noon at which point I realized I should pack for Polar Bear Camp. So I rushed to shower and get everything ready so I could get into town in time to run (I did 3 miles in 20:58) and meet the Scouts at the church at 4:15pm. I was 2 minutes early! :D But just barely. lol

I bought gas and dinner and then headed up the hill. Polar Bear this year was well attended! 5 troops totaling about 50 people! It was great! Sadly, not every troop stayed the second night (pansies). I got to see Matt Slagle again though! He's a friend of mine from Bonaparte. His troop, Troop 61, ran Polar Bear this year and he was the head honcho. I helped out by running the fire building program. I also got to see Dustin, another friend from Bonaparte and from school. Dustin is from the LDS Troop 52 out of Omak and is going to also join Troop 60. 52 is a nice troop and he wants to stay involved for religious reasons, but they don't do as much camping as 60 does or as he would like. So he's going to join 60 for the camping and the fun! :D

Friday night I was pretty uncomfortable. Not that I was cold, I have a great sleeping bag, but I slept in the back of my car. I didn't bring a tent and I'm not allowed to share a tent with the boys now that I'm 18. The back seats in my car fold down to extend the cargo area, but they don't fold flat. So I was sleeping on a weird angle and tossed and turned all night. James and his dad had made a snow cave. It was huge! It probably could have slept four. They made it in about four hours too, not bad time. The snow conditions were perfect. Some of the best snow we've had at Polar Bear.

Breakfast as always was served in the lodge by Gus and Wayne and was the traditional Jimmy Dean sausage and biscuit sandwiches with hashbrowns and cocoa. The fire building program I ran went pretty well. I built a second fire out in front of our camp site and cleared a spot for the troops to build theres. Their goal was to build a fire from all natural material (no accelerants, paper, or dryer lint, etc), but they could use wood pilfered from their campsites and use knives and axes to make smaller pieces. Every troop except for the first succeeded. The first troop was a bunch of young guys. They had some great material, including a bird's nest which made for great tinder, but they lacked the knowledge to put it together properly. I think their Scoutmasters planned a fire building workshop for later. :P

Being an adult in the troop sure has its perks! I get fed the good food! and cookies! I didn't have to cook or do KP either. Although I did end up cooking the boy's dinner on Saturday. Kielbasa and ramen noodles. I didn't get as much reading in as I had hoped, but I did finish one Time magazine.

After dinner was the skit competition. Troop 60 decided to not do their cool Action 60 Scouter (a motion variation on the original) (probably because they're lazy), and instead did the He Followed the Tracks skit. Needless to say we lost. Troop 61 took the Snowball Award (the best skit) and Troop 24 took the Polar Bear Award (best program points).

At first when I got up to camp I wasn't optimistic about how much fun I would have, seeing as almost none of my old crew was there, but it ended up being a lot of fun. More proof that change isn't all bad. :D

Thursday

2008-01-31T21:00:00.000-08:00

Today was pretty short, or at least it felt so. I woke up at 11:30am and browsed the net for most of the afternoon. At 3pm I picked Ryan up from school and brought him home. On the way we stopped by Arby's to grab dinner for Ryan since Mom wouldn't be home till around 6 o'clock. Joel was working the window, he almost didn't recognize me because I was wearing sunglasses. :P After dropping Ryan off I turned back around and headed back into town to meet Kaitlynn for a run.

We went to East Side Park and did 3 miles. I used the opportunity to calibrate my Nike+ sensor. After the run we went back to her house and stretched before we went to Arby's for dinner. Joel was still working and got off work right after we got our food. He sat in the booth in front of us and chatted. At first I was annoyed because I wanted to just be with Kaitlynn, but it was nice to catch up with him. I'll have other dinners to spend with Kaitlynn.

After dinner we went back to her house and played some more Rock Band. Woo hoo! That game is so awesome. The last time I was home Kaitlynn and I had started our own band and were playing through career mode, but Brian deleted it to save space on his memory card. Yesterday when we played we started another one which was still there today. We've pleaded with Brian not to delete this one as we're getting well along on it. I think I'm going to buy a small memory card for the Xbox 360 so that our band doesn't take up space on his. Plus, that will give our data security. :P

I saw a GameFly commercial today advertising $8 per month membership fees. I thought, hey thats a pretty inexpensive way to get some fun games to play. But on further investigation, the $8 deal is only for the first month. Its $15 after that, making just buying games cheaper. I'm really tempted to buy Guitar Hero III because I love the game so much, but I don't own a game console. I could buy it and play it off of my quad mate's Xbox 360, but that only gives me gaming security till the end of the year. What if next year none of my roomies have a 360? Then I'm out $100 with no way to play. *sigh*

All of this would be simpler if I had enough money to justify spending it on an Xbox 360 or a Wii... but I don't. Money may not bring happiness, but it sure would help. Thank god for a college education and double earning power! :D

Ian Tries Snowboarding - Hilarity Ensues

2008-01-31T11:58:00.000-08:00

Tuesday:

The last day of Jan Term! Weight Lifting was standard. I've realized that working out has really helped my back pain. So I plan on continuing to lift weights, except I'll do it twice a week instead of every day. :P In Marriage, Sex, and Gender we listened to the last group's presentation (on Domestic Abuse and the Church) and took our last test. We got out early at around 3:00pm. I then proceeded to finish packing, brush more snow off of my car, and pack everything in while trying leave enough room for two other peoples' stuff. Jeez! Will it ever stop snowing! There must be almost 2.5 feet on the ground already and its expected to snow everyday till Sunday!

Samantha and her friend Erin (from Pateros) rode back with me. We left Spokane at 4:30pm and arrived in Omak at 9:00pm. It was such a LONG drive! There was fog all the way from Reardan to Grand Coulee that I couldn't drive more than 30mph in. Plus, the inside of my car has developed a nasty habit of collecting moisture on the windows and freezing! So we stopped in Davenport for some deicer (and some munchies). We were in line at the check out stand and were reading the backside of the deicer can, because we were going to be using it in close proximity to ourselves. We discovered that it causes: blindness, cancer, birth defects, and death without warning... OK so no way are we going to be using that inside the car... The solution? Windex! Apparently it prevents ice from forming. It did a pretty decent job too. :P

Wednesday:

Doug was heading to the Loup and offered to teach me how to snowboard. I've never boarded before so I thought I would give it a try. Its a lot harder than it looks and a lot harder than skiing. After four or five runs on the rope tow (it took me 3 shots to make it up the rope tow in the first place) we headed over to the poma. It also took me 3 tries to get all the way up. :P I fell a bunch and bruised myself a bunch and by lunch time was starting to get the hang of some basic turns. The hardest thing to get used to (I never did fully) is putting most of your weight forward and using your forward foot to initiate most of the turns. I'm right footed which for some stupid reason means I should have my left foot forward! Oh well, I had fun (painful, wet fun). After lunch I switched in my board for some skiis and Doug and I went up the mountain for eight or ten runs before calling it a day. They gave me some new fangled shaped skiis which are a lot nicer than my old pair. They're shorter so they were much easier to maneuver around. I really want a pair like that. I asked Dustin how much they ran for and he said around $400 with the boots. So I guess I'll look into that again when I get a job. :P

After spending the day on the hill I showered at Doug' house (Doug doesn't own a comb! So I had to use a lady's hair brush that was in one of the drawers) and spent the evening with Kaitlynn. We played Rock Band for awhile and then then her family fed me dinner (spaghetti). I helped make the garlic toast. It needed a lot more time in the oven than we anticipated.

The Wonder That Was My Snow Day

2008-01-28T23:34:00.000-08:00

Hurray for snow! 13 inches is apparently the magic number for shutting down campus. My professor sent out an email this morning saying he was unable to plow his 1/2 mile driveway, so even if the school hadn't have been closed there was no way he was going to make it in. :P

I pondered going back to bed, but instead grabbed some breakfast and started in on the essays. Proud? I was! ^_^ Well I finally got them all done, with lots of help from my mother! I wasn't able to make it to the bookstore for a document mailer before it closed, but they'll be in the mail first thing tomorrow morning.
After lunch, and after dorking around on the internet for awhile, I headed to Wally World to get my oil changed before the drive home tomorrow. It was an adventure finding it. I knew where it was (one block from the Y) and that it was easiest to access from the road paralleling Division, but couldn't remember the name of the road. So I thought if I drove and watched the street signs I would remember. Well when I hit the cross road for Northtown Mall (Wellesley) I knew I had gone WAY to far. So I took Wellesley to Division and attacked the problem from the opposite direction, taking the Y like a normal person. At least I know what the name of the road is now, Holland. hahaha

Originally I had planned to ride with Samantha home this go-around, but then found out that the Rose-Witt's Marti Gras party was on Saturday. Well in that case I would need my car to drive from Summit Lake to the party on Saturday (I'll be at Polar Bear Friday night and Saturday day). So Samantha said that she would also need a car, so we decided to not carpool. Well today Samantha calls and because of the snow doesn't trust her two-wheel drive compact, so now we ARE carpooling (and another girl is coming with us). :P

I'm now halfway through Again To Carthage by John L. Parker, Jr. Its the sequel to Once A Runner, a cult classic of the running community. Its a pretty good book, but has a much different feel from the original and explores a lot of different areas of human life (lots of death so far). So far my favorite quote from the book is where the main character, Quenton Cassidy, and his friend/mentor, Bruce Denton, are getting together at a restaurant.

"Not to be trite, banal, and hackneyed, but what's good here?" Cassidy asked.
"Not to mention repetitious. Well, it's a Mexican restaurant in North Carolina, so it doesn't really matter what you order, you're going to get basically the same meal. The different numbers for the combinations platters just designation the way the items are arranged on the plate. But what you can count on is your guacamole, your Spanish rice, your refried beans, and some kind of grilled meat rolled up in some kind of starchy shell."
"Bruce, you picked the restaurant."

Snow Day!!!

2008-01-28T07:54:00.000-08:00

I wake up this morning, get dressed, head to the bathroom, and am greeted in the hallways the wonderful news that there are no classes today! Its a snow day! Woohoo! Upon checking my email this fact is confirmed, the Whitworth campus is closed with no morning or evening classes. An e-mail from my professor reveals he has 13" of snow on his 1/2 mile driveway, both of his snowblowers have given up, and his neighbor's tractor isn't big enough to plow the heavy, wet snow. Jeez! There isn't that much snow on campus, but it seems other parts of the county always get more snow than here!

Yesterday wasn't very exciting. I wrote some essays... Two of them turned out great and I'm rather pleased with them, but the third... It asks me to state and show examples of my general character. Come on! Isn't that what the letter of recommendation is for? *sigh* I pounded out half an essay before hitting the sack. Hopefully that will get finished and refined today and then mailed tomorrow.

DotA

2008-01-26T12:15:00.000-08:00

Wow, no post since Wednesday. I'm way behind!

Thursday:
Nothing really special happened, which is why I didn't post. Just an ordinary run of the mill day.

Friday:
We had another test in Marriage, Sex, and Gender today. It's weird having tests to close together (the previous one had been on Tuesday). We got our last test back right after taking this one. Another "A" for me. Unfortunately, my friend didn't do well again. He's really discouraged. He says he studied a lot and worked with the professor even. He doesn't understand how he can feel like he's prepared and feel confident and then bomb the test. It's the multiple choice thats killing him. :(

After class I had my chiropractic appointment. Realized during the massage just how tight my hip flexors, IT band, and hamstrings are. I find it so difficult to stretch when I'm not running. After runs I always stretch like crazy, I wish I could bring myself to do that everyday. My low back has been doing a lot better since I started Weight Lifting. I think I'm going to continue to do it after the class, but say twice a week instead of every day. :P

Then after dinner, I wrote the second Personal Response Essay for Marriage, Sex, and Gender. I wrote this one on the Five Languages of Love. I had completely forgotten we had a second PRE until the professor mentioned it was due at midnight in class. hahaha Good thing it only had to be one page and that it wasn't an essay per se, but more of a response in essay-similar format. I pounded it out in under an hour. And that was while multitasking on MSN Messenger. :P

At nine o'clock there was another StarTrek movie showing. It was the next in line, StarTrek V: The Final Frontier; theme: Captain Kirk vs. God. This time it was in the Science Lecture Hall. I think someone found out about the conference room last time. hehe This rime we were legit and used to the room on permission.

After the movie I came back to the dorm room, called up Brandon from MSG, and we played DotA till three in the morning. That is such an intense game! And very open ended, there are tons of good strategies for playing! The problem is a character that you like and discovering a strategy that works well with that character. So we only won 1 out of the 4 games we played and I was never higher than 6th place, but hey I'm learning. I think I'm going to download a map with AI so I can play by myself to learn with out pissing other players off. They get really upitty! They have no tolerance for noobs. Normally I would understand that if there were opportunities for new players to learn, (i.e. rookie games and pro games) but they only offer cut throat matches.

John Denver

2008-01-23T23:38:00.000-08:00

My John Denver discography finished downloading today. So I was using Wikipedia to make sure all his albums were accounted for (he has a lot of them!) and all the song names were correct, only to discover eleven missing albums! Jeez! Don't seed an incomplete discographies people, thats just bad manners! That frustration aside I'm really glad to have all this great music now. Sunshine On My Shoulders is one of my favorite songs of his. :D

Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy
Sunshine in my eyes can make me cry
Sunshine on the water looks so lovely
Sunshine almost always makes me high

If I had a day that I could give you
I'd give to you a day just like today
If I had a song that I could sing for you
I'd sing a song to make you feel this way

Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy
Sunshine in my eyes can make me cry
Sunshine on the water looks so lovely
Sunshine almost always makes me high

If I had a tale that I could tell you
I'd tell a tale sure to make you smile
If I had a wish that I could wish for you
I'd make a wish for sunshine all the while

Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy
Sunshine in my eyes can make me cry
Sunshine on the water looks so lovely
Sunshine almost always makes me high
Sunshine almost all the time makes me high
Sunshine almost always

I absolutely love this song! It paints a picture of a perfect summer day with a man hiking alongside a lake. It describes exactly what I feel out on those nice summer days, just lazing along in nature. I can't wait for summer now!

Also went ice skating again today with JB and Kelsey. I'm starting to get pretty good I think. Not to the point of jumps or spins or anything crazy like that (probably never will lol), but I can circle the rink at a decent clip without losing my balance. It was really cold out tonight. My feet froze (almost literally). After an hour I had to stop because my feet (which had been numb since 10 minutes on the ice) had begun to tingle. When I took off my skates and warmed my feet with my hands they felt like tiny ice cubes. Eeek! Then they swelled and made walking uncomfortable, but now they are back to almost normal (3 hours later :P ).

Halo 3

2008-01-22T23:08:00.000-08:00

Nothing super special happened today. I lifted this morning, ate, ate again, went to class, and took exam #2. After class I headed to Brandon's room in Warren and we played some DotA for awhile. Now that I have my internet functioning properly and am connected via ethernet AND have a working copy of Frozen Throne, sounds like we'll be having some killer fun on Battlenet this weekend.

After diner we played some Righteous Ball. Its pretty much the coolest pool game ever. Its for any number of players greater than three. You use the 8 ball and another ball of your choice (not the cue). You line up all the players and establish a circular order (1 to 2 to 3 to 4 to 1 ... etc). The first player "serves" and then play passes to the next person. The object of the game is to hit the 8 ball from the opposite end of the pool table with the other ball before the 8 ball stops moving. Once you accomplish that it is the next person in lines turn. Essentially you are trying to keep the 8 ball moving. If the 8 ball stops moving before you hit it you get a point or if the 8 ball goes in a pocket before you hit it you get a point, 3 points your out. Its harrowing at times as players rush from side to side (you must be on the opposite end of the table from the 8 ball for your hit to count).

Then some of use came upstairs and played Halo 3. Quite an awesome game. It takes a little getting used to when coming from Halo 2. They've changed the button layout a little bit. The right and left bumpers now control gun pickup, dual wielding, and reloading. It really is a much better system, just takes a little practice. They've also added a bunch of new content to the combat. In addition to a few new weapons, there are items you can pick up like: a radar jammer, force field, stealth pack, giant bomb thing, etc. Earlier in the day Matt Brown had bested two other players teamed up against him, so we decided to try three against Matt Brown... He still won all three matches. Although we came really close (25 to 24) on the 2nd match.

Oh I finally followed through on the urgings of my friends and watched the follow up videos to OMG Shoes. Let Me Borrow That Top and Text Message Breakup are further examples of the genius of Liam Sullivan. The three afore mentioned videos are must sees for all internet lurkers. Um... Oh yeah, disclaimer: Thesevideoscontainadultcontentandmaturelanguageandarenotrecommendedforchildrenundertheageof16pleaseconsultyourparentsbeforeviewingRyanthatmeansyou.

Two hours, fifty-three minutes

2008-01-21T23:33:00.000-08:00

Last night when I got home the internet wasn't working so I'll start off with yesterday.

I got up early and met Kaitlynn at 8:45am for breakfast. When I got to her house Brian answered the door (normally she does when I get there on early mornings) and she wasn't in the living room either. Her dad said she was still in bed (I was shocked and beginning to wonder what I should do until she wakes up), but I think he meant in her bedroom because he proceeded to say she had been up and run already. lol We went and ate at Magoo's like we always do. I had eggs benedict; which were quite good.

As we were leaving her dad asked what restaurant we were going to because they were planning on going out too. While we were eating we saw their truck go by so we thought they were going somewhere else, but as we were leaving they were arriving. So I think they might have gone and killed time waiting for us to finish. Rather considerate of them I must say.

Once we were done eating we couldn't think of anything interesting and new to go do (if only we had been in Spokane, there are so many things to do!) so we went back to her house. We convinced Brian to let us start our own band on Garage Band, so we did some career play for an hour or so. At 2:45pm Kaitlynn had to go to work, so I went to meet Jaime Dienst for some coffee.

After I picked her up from her house I backed out of her driveway. Its not that long, maybe a hundred meters, but apparently that was quite a feat. ^_^ We had planned on going to Novel Delights for coffee, but it was closed. I was starving by this time (not having eaten lunch) so we walked across the street to Rancho Chico. As is always the case when I eat Mexican food, I ate too much... I just love Mexican food so much! It was rather comical though when the waiter brought us the check. He thought Jaime and I were on a date! lol I was half worried they might think that. :P

After lunch I had nothing to do until Kaitlynn got off work at 7:15pm so I headed home. For some reason I had originally thought she only worked until 5pm in which case I was just going to bum around town, but waiting until seven would have been ridiculous. At home I organized some more music and then proceeded to prune my program list and my start menu. The chair I had been sitting it was hurting my back so I moved the whole operation to the floor, where, while restarting my computer, I fell asleep with my head resting on my hands. I had meant to only lie there for a few minutes, but I guess I was pretty tired. (I had stayed up till 2am last night) I woke up an hour later with a nasty tingle in my arms... stupid blood loss. So I migrated to the bedroom and slept another hour till I headed back into town.

Kaitlynn and I had planned on catching a late dinner after her work (good thing too since I ate a huge lunch at 2pm), but the Breadline is closed on Sundays and we really didn't feel like going anywhere else. Since I still wasn't very hungry we played a game of Life to pass the time. She won. She got some very lucky spins and collected a lot of Life tokens. Plus she stole my $100,000 salary and ended up with 3 kids (I only had 1). She also got the Technician career which meant she got $50,000 every time the spinner derailed, which happened at least a dozen times! Once we (read: I) were finally hungry we upstairs and I cooked us some hamburgers her parents had set out for us.

After diner we went back downstairs and played with Legos for the next 2-3 hours. I hadn't played with Legos in so long! It was lots of fun. I originally was going to make a car of some sort, but after Kaitlynn dumped out the box (a big one) I saw a boat chase and said, "Forget a car I'm building a boat!" Kaitlynn built a house. :P Not once while we were downstairs did her parents come and check on us. I was surprised (shocked almost?), yet pleased.

Today I slept in! What a nice thing to do. Even though I set my alarm for 10am, I ignored it and slept till noon. Then I got up and diligently went to work on the essays I had been procrastinating. Thanks to my mom's help I now have two of them perfected and once almost there. Dad wasn't home this weekend. He had been working in Ephrata on the Ivy house. I left not long after he got home. When I cam upstairs for the first time after he got home I was carrying all my stuff to load into my car and said, "Hi dad. Bye dad." He laughed. After filling up on gas I hit the road at precisely 8pm. When I walked in my dorm room door I looked my watch and it read: 10:53. So Kaitlynn, thats how long it takes I guess. :P

This Is Delicious Ca- ... Brownies?

2008-01-20T01:20:00.000-08:00

Today I finished the reading required for my Marriage, Sex, and Gender class. I worked on some scholarships. I organized a bunch of songs in my iTunes library (biggest accomplishment). I learned about the history of the Washington State primary and about the Democratic National Convention. But most importantly, I walked across the street to borrow some eggs. The only eggs at our house were out in the fridge in the trailer... and had frozen solid. You can't make brownies with froze eggs! Hence the street... and the walking... and the borrowing... AND THE BROWNIES! yum

Ryan has downloaded a cool make-your-own-RPG program and has spent a lot of time making a pretty sweet looking game. The game creation engine is pretty versatile and comes with a bunch of preset stuff for you to mess with, but gives you the option of customizing just about anything. I played through part of what he has made so far. Its pretty amazing. Almost makes me feel like I'm beta testing (a rather short) GBA RPG. What an awesome job he'd do at that for a career!

The other day (I forgot to mention) I finished reading 8-bit Theater. Over 900 comic strips in two weeks! Man I'm good. The only sad thing is now I have to wait for him to draw more! Before the next comic, the next bit of story, the next progression of the madness was just a click away... Now I have to wait for every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. /cry Darrick, I nedz more comics plex. How I finded URLz?

27 Dresses

2008-01-19T10:29:00.001-08:00

Yesterday I got the results back from the first exam in my sociology class: 93%. I'm pretty excited. Unfortunately, a new friend of mine didn't do very well on the test. :( The next exam is Tuesday. Jan Term sure goes fast!

At 4pm when class got out I went back to my dorm room to pack up to come home. It only took about 20 minutes, so I was off campus by 4:30. I didn't hit the freeway until 5:10! The traffic in Spokane was horrible!

When I was coming up on Grand Coulee, coming down the hill I noticed I was going a little too fast just as I passed a police office going the other way. I'm pretty sure he turned around, but he never put on his lights. So as soon as I got into the city I took a right and meandered through the residential section above the dam for a while. Hee hee.

I didn't want to use my debit card in Spokane to fill up on gas because I wasn't sure how much money I had in my account, so I ended up using what ever cash and coin I had on me ($12). This only got me to Elmer City before my gas light came on. So I decided to fill up on the Reservation. The first station was close to $3.50! Jeez, so I continued on to Nespelem hoping that gas there was cheaper. It was! $3.07 :P So another $8 and half an hour later I was in Omak. I proceeded to leech off the library's internet till 9:15pm rolled around and Kaitlynn and I went to see 27 Dresses. The movie turned out all right at the end, but at the beginning of the movie I wasn't sure if I liked it or not. Overall I think it was a good movie, but the beginning sure was rocky.

Sleep

2008-01-17T22:27:00.000-08:00

I accidentally slept in this morning... and consequently missed Weight Lifting. I was glad to catch up on my sleep though and let my sore muscles heal some more. :P I got my textbook in the mail finally today. I think it arrived yesterday, but I forgot to check my mail box before class so didn't bother until today. I also got a letter from Kaitlynn and one from my grandfather with newspaper clippings.

I'm very happy to be going home this weekend. a) I forgot my ethernet cable at the house and have been running (very slowly) off wireless and b) I really miss Kaitlynn. Next year will be worse I know, but at this point I'm pretty committed to our relationship. This evening I talked myself into a lot of self-doubt, blame, and worry. Luckily while brainstorming ways to fix my perceived problems, I proceeded to talk myself back out of them. One of my brainstorms was to transfer to St. Martins... Why I hadn't thought of that before I don't know. I hope it doesn't come to that. I couldn't have timed taking this Marriage, Sex, and Gender class better. While the questions, concerns, controversies, and things-I-really-didn't-want-to-hear it creates are hard on me, I think they are really helping me form a better idea in my mind of who I am and what I stand for. Plus, I feel that confronting these issues now will prevent hardships from having to confront them later.

Wait.... What?

2008-01-17T00:49:00.000-08:00

Darnit! There was something amazing/awesome/insightful/interesting that I know I wanted to post tonight, but now I can't remember what it was!

This morning started out like any other with Weight Lifting. My legs were sore from the squats the day before (still are) and we did more leg workouts today. At least I know that all this work is doing something. Although it is deterring me from running/biking.

After breakfast I got together with the rest of the sex survey group and we looked at the data, cross-tabulated some interesting questions, and created a PowerPoint presentation for Friday (we thought it was Thursday, but it's been pushed back). OH! OH! I remember now! I remember what I wanted to talk about. Sadly its not very amazing or awesome. Its very sad... but interesting. We watched the Frontline documentary The Lost Children of Rockdale County in class today. Wow. Its shocking and heartbreaking. Not only do I feel for the kids, I'm incredulous at the parents! Jimminy Christmas.

After class I headed over to JB's for some more ice skating fun! On the way I was instructed to pick up an onion (she was feeding me dinner too). Two blocks from Wellesly Ave by Northtown Mall she calls and tells me to turn on that street in order to hit a Safeway on the way to her apartment. Well... Since it couldn't change lanes in the horrible traffic soon enough, that turned into quite an adventure of "No left hand turns." I eventually made it to Safeway without getting lost, though I took a rather complicated route (stupid traffic regulations). Purchased said onion and... what do I find? JAMBA JUICE! If I hadn't been near other people I'm sure I would have proceeded to mumble "ohmygodohmygodohmygod" repeatedly. I freakin' love Jamba Juice and I thought they were only in Southern California. Mmmm... Peach Pleasure. Yummy!

Leaving the parking lot was another ordeal... (more no left hand turns). I ended up leaving and re-entering the parking lot to exit the only way I knew 100% would lead me to where I was going... and ended up heading down the same road I exited on earlier. But oh well, I made it to the apartment alive, without ever having gotten lost, with onion and Jamba Juice in hand!

The ice skating was better this time around I think. I was excited to save $4 on college night (having only to rent shoes $3), only to discover that the rink closed twice as early. So yes I was saving half the costs... but receiving half the goods. Those tricky sons-of-guns. While we were skating around JB almost lost her balance and said "man that was a slick spot." I gave her the stare for awhile after that. However, not soon after Kelsey commented "Man I feel a fall coming on." After which I proceeded to fulfill her prophecy. My third fall (the skates where bad OK! no ankle support, they flopped around everywhere. I didn't fall at all last time I went) included a perfect execution of the splits. JB immediately wanted to know if I was still capable of producing children - she didn't want to be denied "aunt-hood."

After skating we headed to Sonics again. We didn't have the same server though... That would have been precious! Then we went back to the apartment and watched Hellboy.

And now I am going to bed!

Oh The Disappointment

2008-01-15T20:20:00.000-08:00

Oh the disappointment! Do you know what season we are in? Yes winter, but what sport season? Basketball! Good job. Do you know where they play basketball at Whitworth? In the Fieldhouse very good! Now what else is in the Fieldhouse. Yes, the indoor track is in the Fieldhouse... WITH THE BASKETBALL COURT ON TOP OF IT!!! Grrrr...

On a positive note I discovered I can squat a hundred and ten pounds. Hurray! That's more than I weigh! :P

We had our first test in Marriage, Sex, and Gender today. It was really easy. Half of it was multiple choice/true-false and the other half was a set of three non-essay explanations. Everything came right out of the texts or lectures. Its a good thing I went and read the chapters from my missing text book at the library or I would have been SOL on some of the questions. Luckily the text should arrive tomorrow and alleviate any future problems.

Also we got the sex surveys back today. The data is interesting to read although there aren't very many surprises. It's supposed to be confidential so I don't think I can really share with you the specifics of the survey. I made an excel spread sheet that I plugged all the data into. That should make it really easy to make graphs/charts for our presentation.

Whitworth Unplugged

2008-01-14T22:37:00.000-08:00

Tonight I performed at Whitworth Unplugged. It was a talent show with some prize money involved. I read some of my poems while others did musical numbers (one other person read poetry too). I was the first act - which is always the hardest - but I thought it went well. That sentiment was later reinforced when I took 3rd place! Woohoo! $75 come to papa! Too bad they can't give cash prizes... It gets debited to my Whitworth account, but hey, that's $75 I won't have to pay for tuition!

Other than that today was a pretty normal day. Although, we did have a dorm diner at 5pm. Stewart (my dorm) took up four whole tables in the cafeteria. :P I also found out today that Whitworth DOES have an indoor track that is available for use! I'm so excited. I'm totally going RUNNING tomorrow!!!

I've decided not to post the survey I promised in my previous post. There wouldn't really be any point in it since I doubt enough (any?) of you would send me data and I can't share data from the class survey due to confidentiality issues. So why spend the time typing it up? If you really, really want to see it I suppose I could email you a copy. [Requests: 0]

Sex Survey

2008-01-13T23:43:00.000-08:00

Well after arriving back on campus from JB's apartment I proceeded to do the three loads of laundry that had accumulated over the last week. I don't know why I had so many clothes! Normally I can get by doing just one really big load... This time I did separate my whites and darks though because now I have bleach! Hurray!

In the advancement of my college career I prepped and mailed the necessary information to receive my Rotary scholarship and worked a little on the Whitworth Endowed scholarship form. Then at 8pm I headed to the library to meet with my group from my Marriage, Sex, and Gender class. Our appointed task was to create a sex survey to give the class to take tomorrow. I'm afraid I'm remiss and forgot to snag a copy for myself, so I'll post it tomorrow for you all to take. :P I wish we had a large sample pool (i.e. the whole campus) for this survey. Looking at the real numbers for this survey would be so interesting. It will be very hard to draw actually conclusions from our class of 20 people. Especially since there are only six guys!

I can't wait for the roads to be ready to run on! I'm itching to actually run again. The stationary bike is beginning to be old hat after only one week! I'm going to ask my Weight Lifting instructor tomorrow if there is an indoor track on campus. I hadn't even thought of that! If there is I will be very excited. That means I could start real running again much sooner than I thought and more importantly it means I could start doing my speed work in February as desired regardless of the weather!

Tomorrow I will be performing at Whitworth Unplugged at 8pm for anyone on campus who reads this. We'll be in the HUB at Mind and Hearth. I will be reading some of my poetry and competing for a $250 first prize. Wouldn't that be great! I have 15 minutes to perform and I started looking today at what I want to read. I have a couple I'll read for sure, but I'm not sure about filling the rest of the time. I didn't realize before how personal a couple of my poems are. Well nobody will know who or what I'm talking about anyway, so what the hell. Besides poems are supposed to reflect the poet anyway and will anyone actually critically analyze them? I think not. Wish me luck!

Any interested parties can read the majority of my poems here. Just type in "Ian" and "Thompson" in the search boxes. I'm listed under "Thompson Ian Joseph" and have seven poems under my name compared to one for all the rest, so you should have no problems finding them.

Night at JB's

2008-01-13T15:37:00.000-08:00

Yesterday Katy to Spokane to celebrate her birthday (which was Friday) with JB. Jake and I were kindly allowed to join in the festivities. :P We hung around JB's apartment next to Spokane Community until JB's roommate Kelsey got off work from Hastings. We watched the Postman to pass the time. Katy also brought birthday cake and leftover spaghetti. Yum! After Kelsey got home and had eaten, we headed down to Riverfront Park for some ice skating. Katy even talked Jake's roommate Kyle into coming. The place was packed! We almost decided to go find something else to do, but Katy really wanted to skate. It was hard maneuvering around all the little kiddies. Those guys zip by you like it's nobodies business.

At 10pm when the rink closed we headed out to get some food! We went to Sonic on Division. What fun! The cool thing about Sonic is that it's an old style drive-up joint. There are a bunch of stations that you park in where you order your food and then they bring it out to you. Some guys were even on roller skates. So the guy that took our orders name was Brian, but we all heard Ryan. We also made things difficult by ordering on three different checks. :P So when the guy came out to bring us our food we thought it was Ryan (Brian) and Kelsey said, "Thanks Ryan."
-"Actually my name's Parker."
-"Oh, sorry thanks Barker."
We laughed at Kelsey so hard for that! Then while we were eating we kept joking about pushing the button again just to talk to Ryan (Brian) and Parker. :P So Katy decided to push and ask if they had any birthday specials. Brian asked if we were serious and could prove it via ID. So Katy came clean and said that actually her birthday was yesterday, but we were celebrating it today. Brian came out (we still thought his name was Ryan) and talked to Katy and said that he get her a hot fudge sundae. So Katy said, "Thanks, I love you Ryan." However, we had all noticed that his name tag read "Brian." Which led to another great laugh fest. Oh man, such fun!

After that we went back to JB's apartment and changed into swimsuits to go hot tubing at Kyle's. Kelsey had to loan me a pair of shorts that I absolutely swam in! (hahaha swam in? hot tubing? get it?) Kyle has a nice hot tub! Or rather his dad does, but whatever. There is a cool jet on the bottom of the tub that makes the water well up in a crown in the center and it has cool LED lights. These lights come in flashing and non-flashing versions. I could only take the flashing ones for so long though! :P

By the time we were finished and back at JB's it was 2am, but Katy and I were up for a movie. So JB and Kelsey went to bed, while we watched The Chronicles of Riddick. Katy is so funny. She hates scary/suspenseful movies, but she made it through alright. ;)

Then in the morning (err... 11am) JB made us potatoes and eggs for breakfast and we watched Monk. At one point Kelsey was trying to remember the name of a song that she wanted to download. All she could remember was that it had a rose in it, it was a slow song, and she called it "the Batman" song. Apparently it had something to do with Batman. Well the only song (in English) that I could think of that had a rose in it was Kiss From a Rose by Seal. So we downloaded it and it turned out to be the song Kelsey was looking for! So then she asked if she was crazy for calling this the Batman song and we all heartedly agreed. However, she was sure this song had been connected to Batman somehow. So I Googled the song and sure enough, on the Wikipedia article on the song, in the first sentence, mentioned it had played during the credits of Batman Forever. Now who was crazy?

Oh man that was such a fun night! While we were at the skating rink we found out that Wednesday is college night and you don't have to pay if you show you college ID. So JB and I are going to be skating on Wednesdays!

Star Trek IV

2008-01-11T23:29:00.000-08:00

"Captain, there be whales here!" Oh man I do love my Star Trek. We watched Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home tonight in one of the HUB conference rooms. But shhh!!! *whispers* It never happened! ;)

This morning I actually made it to breakfast before weight lifting. Of course I didn't want to eat too much before working out so it was only some fruit and OJ, but it did prevent me from starving to death while exercising. However I was famished by lunch. Previously though I'd been eating breakfast after working out (around 10:30am or so) and then wasn't hungry before my 1pm class making me absolutely dead hungry by dinner. So perhaps the solution is second breakfast. Of course that would be just one more piece of evidence that John would use to support his argument that I am a hobbit.

After the movie watching, Ben showed me a humorous youtube video which you can view here. Following which Ryan showed us screen captures from Backstroke of the West - the English re-translation of the Chinese translation of StarWars III: The Revenge of the Sith. As you may guess it was very lulzworthy... err funny. It also explained the origin of the famous "do not want" meme. At the end of the movie where Anakin yells NOOOO!!!! The translation of the translation is "do not want." (screenshot and explanation).

iPod

2008-01-10T23:29:00.000-08:00

My iPod came in the mail today! Woohoo! I'm going to make deadly sure to keep this one in my sights at all time this go around... Nothing of importance really happened today besides that. I went to class per normalcy and they went well. I biked for 60 minutes today, I don't think I would have made it through without the iPod. It was quite an ordeal that the music helped to distract me from. I really think that running is easier... except not on treadmills which explains the bike!

For Prime Time (aka nightly RA planned activity) we played Battle of the Sexes. The players fluctuated, but at all times there were double the number of males. So, one guy switched teams periodically to help the girls... who won by the way.

-Other than a depository for medicine, what is a pill box?
-A bunker?
-No, a hat.
-A hat?!?! Its a freakin' bunker! You shoot people from it! With guns!

Late Night Nap

2008-01-10T00:15:00.000-08:00

I just woke up from what I thought was my night's rest, but apparently was nothing more than a late night nap. At 7pm I just couldn't keep my eyes open any longer so I popped into bed. Well I was already in bed... but I put my book down, took my pants off, and turned the light out.

Today in weight lifting I'm really glad we didn't do any more lunges. :P Today was more focused on the upper body, which I'm OK with seeing as I work my legs well enough on my own. Tomorrow is the last day of his pre-planned workouts and then we'll start into more individualized regimens.

Marriage, Sex, and Gender was fascinating once again. I'm so glad I took this class! Today we began our introduction to the Sex part of the class. The professor as a nice ice breaker to the course had us (if we wanted to) go up to the board and right all the different scientific/formal terms, polite euphemisms, and slang terms we could think of for "it." There are some pretty funny ways of saying it! Then we discussed why there were so many slang terms as opposed to scientific/formal terms, the connotation of the slang terms, how most of them are from the male perspective, and how many have violent undertones.

After that we began discussing the four aspects of sexuality: 1) Natal sex (your physiological sex), 2) Sexual identity (what gender you perceive yourself to be), 3) Gender role (gender role you fulfill as defined by your culture), and 4) Sexual orientation (what you derive sexual pleasure from). We concluded the class with an 80's video on transsexuals. Very interesting!

Hyperlinks and Marriage

2008-01-08T23:39:00.000-08:00

Last night after my post I went hyperlink crazy... As you can plainly see. Yes I did link you to a Wikipedia article on feta cheese. I love feta cheese! I'm pretty sure that's what they put on my philly cheese steak sub today at dinner... but I'm not complaining, it was delicious!

Today in Weight Training we began ... well training! :P I really should have stretched out before hand. We did a rotating circuit of 12 exercises. It was the lunges I think that got me... Stupid hip-flexors you're gettin' good and stretched tomorrow. I wish there was a way for me to link you to my exercise log, but the website I used got bought by a bigger conglomerate and the new interface has a lot of cool features, but lacks a way to post the data elsewhere. I did 40 minutes of stationary bike after lifting, but it seemed shorter than the 30 minutes I did yesterday.

I can tell I am really going to like my Sociology class. Today's lecture was awesome. Too bad I my eyes kept filling with sand! Those 3 hour classes will sure get to you. Luckily I had brought along a Hershey's bar which got me through the class. Today we discussed marriage from a Christian standpoint. One of the textbook's we're using is Authentic Human Sexuality: An Integrated Christian Approach by Judith and Jack Balswick. I really like this book, while it uses the Bible and Christian allegory to help substantiate the material, the material could stand on its own and I find it full of truth. The authors state that there are four aspects to an authentic sexual relationship: 1) Convenantal Commitment (love), 2) Grace (forgiveness), 3) Empowering (service), and 4) Intimacy (knowing).

After listening to the lecture I know understand what people are talking (or trying to?) about when they say the sanctity of marriage. According to the authors a marriage is an unconditional covenant that you stick through even after passion and romance have burnt out. There's something to be said about having that solidarity in life. What I don't agree with when people begin throwing the sanctity of marriage line around is how that is an argument against gay marriage. A homosexual couple could just as easily form and benefit from this bond as a heterosexual couple. On the other end of the spectrum (which we briefly discussed yesterday) is polyamory [Greek: many loves]. A polyamorous person is constantly seeking the romance and the passion and forsaking the binding covenant. And there is something to be said of that as well. I'll let you know when I've formed a more complete opinion! :P

Samantha took her car battery in to Les Schwab today to get it charged and discovered it was dead dead. So she bought a new one... and asked me to install it. No problem I took it out I can put it back. And that's exactly what happened. lol It was so much easier putting it back in. I even remembered what size ratchet I needed (1/2" if anyone cares). She paid me in cookies. YUM! (Writing that reminded me to take the cookies out of my coat pocket.)

It snowed all day today. Literally ALL day... I call it the frozen equivalent of a drizzle. It's really fine and comes down almost in a mist - which makes for wet clothes and slushy walkways. Anyway its supposed to continue snowing all through the rest of the week and possibly into the weekend. I'm just glad I don't have to shovel it! Hurray!

Classes Begin

2008-01-07T22:47:00.000-08:00

I awoke early in order to make it to my 8am Weight Training class only to talk about the syllabus for 10 minutes and be released... *sigh* Oh well, I proceeded to the Scotford Fitness Center and got in my workout for the day so it wasn't a complete waste of a morning. (Though I still would have preferred sleeping in.) Since my last attempt at getting back into a training regimen ended up making my knee really sore (treadmills are vicious!), I'm easing back into my training this time through the stationary bike. Genius I know! :P

I spent most of the morning playing oGame and cruising the web. oGame a browser based sci-fi style strategy game. You have a planet (and can eventually get up to 9) on which you build mines (that generate your resources) and other buildings to build fleets of ships with which to attack other players and steal their resources to further your own ambitions. They great thing about it is you can give some instructions (build this, attack them, etc) and then it takes several hours to complete the task so you have the freedom to walk away and still live a normal life. Of course there are those who just sit in front of the screen all day long anyway. But its a fun game and I only let it consume me when there is nothing else pressing to do. ^_^

Then after lunch at 1pm I headed to my sociology class. When I walked into the room I was the second male in a room full of girls, but by the time everyone had arrived the ratio had evened out to about 1 to 5. 'Tis be expected, but that first glance around the room was a little intimidation I must say. :P I can tell this class is going to be great. The professor is really cool and reminds me a lot of Mr. Achamire. At one point during his lecture he was telling us that in 2030 we are all going to have teenagers of our own and then he clapped his hands together real fast right after the punch line and gave a little laugh that was textbook Achamire... It was surreal.

Around 5 o'clock Samantha called and asked me if I knew how to remove a battery from a car. "Well, I've never done it, but I'm a man so I'm going to pretend I know what I'm doing and come have a looksee." ... After which I walked back to my room to grab my tools... ^_^ Some man I guess. As I suspected removing the battery was simple, just unscrew the connections to the terminals, remove the bolt that holds the battery in place, and yank! The satisfaction of fulfilling my masculine role in front a female wasn't even the best part... finally using those tools I've been carrying around the back of my car was! OK so thats a lie... but it did make me feel rather Scout-ish (Be Prepared you know).

Diner tonight was chicken fried steak, which Saga does an excellent job at I might add. Their gravy actually tastes like gravy! I sat with a guy I'd seen around the CS Lab, his roommate, and his cousin. Proved to be a good choice, they were a nice bunch of guys and I'm trying to expand my acquaintance-base. The evening was filled with more oGame and 8-bit Theater . I found a guy in the solar system next to me with little defensive measures who was hoarding a huge amount of resources... sucker got jacked! ... Twice! MUAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

Spokane

2008-01-06T19:23:00.000-08:00

I'm back to Spokane now. I spent the morning with Kaitlynn and left around 2pm with Erin Dienst. She switched cars in Reardan on her way to WSU. It was really nice to have the company on the drive. It made it seem much shorter and much more enjoyable. We had some great conversations; most notably on religion. Its a touchy subject to talk about for some people and so I normally avoid it, but it didn't seem awkward at all for us, which was great! I like talking about things I am struggling with - it makes things come into focus and brings light to new aspects of the topic. Its kinda like a jump start for my neurons; kicks my consciousness in to gear so to speak. My dad also had some good points in regards to the way I go about deciding where my faith lies.

I've decided that Christianity isn't for me. Its very easy for me to feel, but hard to explain. The religion seems paper-thin, artificial; little makes sense. I love the values presented in the religion, but that's not really the religion is it? I'm much too logical of a thinker to just accept the religion presented to me by the happenstance of my birth. There are so many religions out there, how can I justify that this one is the one true belief system? I also don't like all the symbolism and ritual practice, I feel you should be able to believe without all that crap clouding your mind. I feel like many people call themselves Christians without really giving any thought to the notion and I don't want to be one of them.

As for the Christian god, I see no evidence of him the world. If such an all-powerful, all-loving, all-compassionate deity did exist, why does his religion present him as such in a world so obviously full of suffering. Either a) he does exist but leaves us to our own devices while in this state of existence, or b) he doesn't exist at all. Either way this leads me to doubt his existence and most seriously his religion. However I do see evidence of a creating force. I believe in evolution, but the probability of the proper sequence of amino acids running into one another to form proteins, that also just happen to form near one another to make a one cell organism, that just happens to find an environment suitable to life, and just happens to endure for billions of years until, viola humanity... is just WOW! I like the analogy of the probability of evolution from primordial sludge to finding a perfectly formed and functioning watch washed to shore by the ocean. The ocean contains all of the elements necessary to create such a piece of matter, but to find it so configured without an outside force involved is infinitesimally small. So it is logical to me that there was an unknown force(s) at work acting as a catalyst(s).

These are some of the reasons I have been drawn to want to learn more about Buddhism. There is no deity and no dogma! (Though I still believe in a supreme being/force of some sort.) Buddha was a historical man, a very wise man, but a man. Buddhism is more of a philosophy than a religion, they leave many personal beliefs up to the practitioner. And everything that you are taught you are asked to question. Everything is deserving of scrutiny and only those lessons/aspects that you find true and fitting are to be implemented. Buddhism teaches that everything is connected, which is rather fitting with my force theory {think the Force, Star Wars style [minus the midi-chlorians you geeks! (though I'm one too obviously. I love using these multiple brackets! Did you notice I followed standard math notation instead of common English notation?)]}. Plus the values and lifestyle of Buddhism are very appealing - the removal of negative thoughts, emotions, actions, and misconceptions through intense contemplation upon yourself, the nature of the universe, and the wisdom presented in the dharma (but only that which you find applicable).

Wow, that turned out to be a lot more explaining than I had intended, but just as talking helps me think things through so does writing and explaining. Like I said earlier, I'm back in Spokane and it sure feels good to be back on campus again. I was wondering how long it was going to take for me to identify Whitworth as home and now I know its happened. Jan Term starts tomorrow. I'm taking Weight Training and Marriage, Sex, and Gender (a sociology class).

Hungry

2008-01-06T00:49:00.000-08:00

I'm so very hungry right now (1:09am) and I can't find the stuffed bell peppers dad cooked tonight. It's very frustrating, especially since I know there is one with my name on it and its filled with feta cheese! I love feta cheese! Today Ryan and I woke up early and went and helped the Kiwanis fill sandbags. Señor Smith forgot the bags and had to go back to his house to get them, leaving us to stand around for half an hour. Talking to Mr. Schroeder about all the cool things in the works for the troop is making me even more excited for the backpack trip I am planning to organize this August. I also am beginning to get stoked for camp!

Around noon we quit the work party and headed home. I proceeded to beat two of the three Guitar Hero songs I have been working on, but Raining Blood by Slayer still eludes me. I also got halfway through the game on Expert. Too bad I'll be returning it to Brian tomorrow, it's such fun! Ryan has said that he is considering buying it though... ^_^ Around three Kaitlynn called, which came as a surprise since she was supposed to have been at work. Apparently her boss had pulled her from the schedule that day and neglected to tell her... So we made movie plans and watched National Treasure! Earlier in the day she had cashed in on a Christmas present and gotten a manicure and a pedicure and now has pretty purple nails. :P

Hard Song is Hard

2008-01-04T22:24:00.000-08:00

So remember that 3 inches of snow that was just waiting to be shoveled whilst I slept? Well I woke up to it snowing again! And then, after that, it started raining! Which made the snow quite heavy and hard to maneuver. *sigh* I of course also put off shoveling until the last possible moment. When I was finished and about to head into town to see Kaitlynn (I had already started my car to warm up) she called and notified me that it probably wouldn't be a good idea for me to come in today. Talk about timing! Her parents had decided to take the family out to diner to celebrate Kaitlynn's scholarships she had just won. She'll be going to St. Martin's near Olympia next year and got both an academic and athletic scholarship from the school. I'm quite excited for her.

I also progressed further on Guitar Hero today. I now only have three more songs to beat on Hard to get to the final boss: Raining Blood by Slayer, Number of the Beast by Iron Maiden, and One by Metallica. Those songs are nuts! The majority of the song I can get through no problem, but then come the insane fast solos! My fingers just don't move that fast! So after working on them for an hour I decided to try Through The Fire And The Flames by Dragonforce (the hardest song in the game) on Medium (something I couldn't achieve before beginning the Hard career) I got halfway through the song when Kaitlynn called and then dad went to bed so that killed that. But tomorrow I'll give it another whirl and then maybe start the Expert career to see if that tones up my skills enough to beat Hard. That seems a bit paradoxical to me, but oh well.

A Lazy, Snowy Day

2008-01-03T23:23:00.000-08:00

Not too much went on today. I slept in until 11:30am and no one was home but Wilson when I did (Ryan went back to school today). I did some laundry, shoveled some snow, worked on some scholarships, and checked some email before 3:30pm when I headed into town to see Kaitlynn. It snowed a lot again today. There were about 2-3 inches on the ground when I woke up (which got shoveled) and it immediately began snowing again right after I finished. UGH! The weather was nasty on the road into town, but had cleared up by the time I returned home. The second snowing left another good 3 inches that will be awaiting me in the morning. *sigh* I love snow, but I hate shoveling it all the time. It's a great thing dad has such an awesome snow shoveling device. It's pretty much a giant dust pan for snow! You just push the stuff around instead of having to break your back lifting and throwing it. That basically means different muscles hurt, but I'd rather my arms be sore than my back. ^_^

Dream

2008-01-03T11:22:00.000-08:00

I very rarely remember my dreams, so on this special occasion I think I'll share it with you. The dream was in two parts. In the first part I was on the grass in front of "my" house. That is to say in my dream I recognized it as my residence, but it in no way resembled my actual house. It was in a suburban environment and kinda reminded me of the Ivy house in Ephrata (my Mom's second residence so that she doesn't have to commute Omak to Moses Lake everyday). I was sitting on the lawn playing with these three new mice Dad had just bought me, a white one, a black one, and a brown one. They were all crawling around and under this stump looking for grubs. When I tried to pull the brown one out because I was afraid it would escape, its tail came off!

In part two, I was going to the hospital for some reason. The triage nurse (I don't know why they were implementing triage, but it was weird triage anyway, they asked a lot of off topic questions and documented all of them on the computer) was doing a very poor job and then had a mental breakdown, so I took over. I knew I could do a better job, but I didn't understand their methodology or how to work their database so some other nurse was grudgingly teaching me. Then I got a package in the mail that had a wireless mouse in it an a bunch of other electrical components, but it was the wrong one. So then the company sent a second mouse that arrived minutes later. Then a supervisor came and told me I was being visited by some important people. They were a husband and wife presidential team of some Latin American country, the wife reminded me of the newly elected president of Chile but her husband was just some Bolivian looking dude. When they walked in the room I recognized the wife as being the sister of my Spanish professor, so I greeted her in Spanish and then she danced with me... And then the husband did the same and handed me a note. Then the wife handed me a note. But just before I could read them I woke up.

History Channel I Will Miss You

2008-01-02T22:06:00.000-08:00

Today Kaitlynn and I went up to the Loup for a half-day of skiing. I woke up the earliest I have all break, 6:30am. :P I also prepared myself a lunch before I remember we were only going up for a half-day... I still can't believe that a half-day pass was $24! Jeez! But I guess it was worth it, skiing was a lot of fun. I was beginning to worry I wasn't going to get any skiing in this year. On one run, just before reaching the lift my skis crossed and I lost my balance. It was just a small tumble that I recovered from quickly, but Kaitlynn was in front of me and had not noticed my fall. This made me laugh knowing that she would have teased me if she had. Of course she did notice my big smile once we got on the lift and wriggled the story out of me... and proceeded to tease me anyway. XD

At about noon we left the hill and headed back into Omak for Jamie Dienst's DDR party. That was a lot of fun. In addition we also did some karaoke. I'm quite the singer I must say... On "Sweet Home Alabama" I sang just about every note 1/2 step below what I should have.

I have noticed lately that the History Channel has started to go downhill. They keep adding sensationalism programming to their lineup. It has gravitated away from the great history programming it used to provide. This really saddens me. Have they just run out of history to talk about? I doubt it. Their ratings must have been sagging from all their "dry" programs that I love so much. Just one more reason I'm glad I don't have a TV, there is little of value left on it.

A Sunless Day

2008-01-01T23:59:00.000-08:00

Today wasn't a very long day. Yesterday I attended the Rose-Witt's New Year's Party. It certainly lived up to my expectations set by last year's event. The house was packed and the food was great! I ended up sticking around till 3am! :P What you expected me to leave with Guitar Hero around? Oh no, I stuck it out till my eyes started drooping. It was really great to see everybody. I have found it so terribly difficult being separated from all my friends from high school. Leaving Omak at three in the morning equated to a 4:30am bed time ... and subsequently a 5pm wakeup. What can I say, I love to sleep. Interestingly enough, this meant I slept through all vestiges of sunlight today.

After coming up the stairs my father referred to me as the walking dead, I hadn't even set a record though! :P My parents and brother where in the midst of watching the special features off of Harry Potter 5: The Order of the Phoenix. We all noticed that they paled in comparison to the Appendices from the Lord of the Rings that I received for Christmas, and not just in length either (there are six discs). After scrounging breakfast? dinner? I headed back down stairs for some quality Guitar Hero III time. I'm sure glad Brian loaned that to me, its very fun! I proceeded to beat the game on Medium (having mastered Easy two days prior) and immediately began working on the Hard difficulty setting. Medium adds the fourth blue button and Hard adds the fifth orange button. Having only four fingers this means that you can't just keep your hand stationary anymore. The first three songs or so were pretty rocky as I worked out the mechanics of moving my fingers around, but after that I had no problems getting through 18 of the 42 songs. I didn't set any records by any stretch of the imagination, but I only had to replay one song once. At this point I would have continued on if not for Ryan needing to go to bed (the Wii is in his room).

I topped off the day will a dinner of ham and beans and meatloaf, some UCTV, and more of my Buddhism For Dummies book. A rather protein heavy diet my father commented. He's been picking on my diet ever since my carbohydrate binge the week before (I ate nothing my carbs all day). What can I say? I eat what I hunger for. I'm lucky I have the metabolism that I do.

In Buddhism they stress that essentially there is no "self," everything (people, animals, books, mountains, etc) are just different expressions of an underlying consciousness. Which leads me to ask this parting questions: What is that consciousness? Obviously we humans have individualities, so this consciousness must be pretty massive to encompass all of our differences in addition to, oh... the whole rest of the universe!

2008

2008-01-01T23:58:00.000-08:00

Nothing like a new year for resolutions, eh? How bout a new blog? Rather appropriately named this blog will cover my college experience. I would have started it last semester when I began my post-secondary education... but I didn't think of it until now! Here you will find recapitulations of what is happening with me at Whitworth University, random ramblings to be sure, and perhaps a little bit of insight. Truth be told, I've been jealous of Jaime Dienst's ability to share her experiences and emotions through her blog. So I think I'll give it whirl. I really do like sharing what is going in in my life, I just sometimes find it hard/awkward to do so. This will certainly also relieve me of any responsibility I feel to notify my friends and family of my going-ons. Feel free to share this URL with anyone you think would be interested.