Monday, December 19, 2011

All alone in Waco..

It's raining like crazy outside, and its annoying. I think this is God's way of punishing Texans that complain about severe droughts. I think I'd be pretty okay with it, if the rain didn't leak into my kitchen from under my back door. The best part is that I got to walk half a mile in it because of a basketball game.

School's out, so the band members that play at the basketball games get paid $50 a game as incentive to show up. And walk through a down pour. I'm scheduled for 4 games, so I'm making pretty good money just by chilling in Waco and watching basketball games (without having to buy a ticket). Plus, it works out as a great excuse not to go home. Don't get me wrong, I love my parents. It's just easier to love them from a distance.

On the flip side, now that everyone got around to leaving (if they aren't playing at the basketball games for cash), college got boring. No one is here, there's nothing to do. I filled up my Saturday by cleaning and taking care of laundry and dishes and stuff. God knows I could spend another 48 hours straight cleaning this hell hole of an apartment, but whatever. Luckily, tomorrow will be better. Tim and my brother (and anyone else they can get) are coming down to Waco late tomorrow and staying for a day and a half, then we're all booking it home for Christmas.

...but for now, its back to facebook, stumbleupon, netflix, and whatever else the internet has to offer. Merry Christmas everyone.

Monday, December 12, 2011

This has been sitting in a tab for 3 days, forgotten. That's how organized I am right now. Enjoy it for what its worth, I guess.

 ...

Hello, friends. Or not friends. Or whatever our relationship is.

Right, well. It was brought to my attention that I haven't been updating this thing lately.

WELL SORRY GET OVER IT.

uh... maybe I should put this more delicately. I've been busy. It's finals season. I've been dealing with burns. I've been hanging out with that girl I can't have. A lot. And most importantly, I've been actually having a life, and sleeping all the other times.

So you see, this blog, while it's important to me, has taken the back burner lately. Would you like to know what I'm doing with my dead days before finals? TOO BAD I'M TELLING YOU ANYWAY.

So yesterday, I bought pink skinny jeans. Just because I could. It's an interesting conversational piece, if anything, and they make people stare at me awkwardly, which is always fun. Can't wait to see what my parents say when they see me in these things. I was actually in the mall looking for a tacky christmas sweater, since all the goodwills are clean out of them. (ALL of the goodwills. I tried 6.) But I didn't really find a good one, so I have a less good tacky christmas shirt that was veeery cheap (yes, Tim).

After the trip to the mall I went to a rush even with my fraternity and had gut paks (god bless Vitek's), and then I went home and.... I don't remember. Oh wait, then I went to a review session, then tried some more goodwills, then played basketball with some brothers, then went and hung out with some neighbors until some time... the night started getting fuzzy and I don't remember much of it...there was a super nintendo and How I Met Your Mother somewhere in there.

 Then I went home and fell asleep. Pretty successful dead day, if you ask me.

Today won't be as awesome. I need to actually start studying, but I've promised myself to clean the damn apartment and my room before I study. And maybe wash the dog. He needs it. This cleaning thing could very well take all day. Mostly on my room. It's such a disaster. But the kitchen is pretty bad too. I can't really get to my sink...
And while that doesn't look so bad, I've already done a load of dishes prior to that picture. And I haven't gotten the dishes from around the apartment, which may double that pile. That'll take a while.

Not to mention my laundry, which I need to do, since it looks like I'm not going home until the 22nd. That's for a different post though.

Monday, November 7, 2011

yay hospitalization.

Boy do I have a story for you...

I've been wanting something substantial to blog about, but I guess it's one of those be careful what you wish for moments. Yesterday was Sunday. Nice, peaceful Sunday. I slept in till noon, even with the time change (it was homecoming weekend here at Baylor and it was hectic and busy and sleep depriving). I woke up pretty hungry, so I went to the kitchen. Then I got this idea. What would a deep-fried hot dog taste like? Unable to shake the idea, I tried to figure out what I could do to accomplish this. I didn't have the deep fryer I wanted from Walmart, so I had to improvise.

That's where it all went downhill. I started heating some oil, but the burner was up wayyyy too hot, so the pot I was heating it in burst into flames. In my kitchen. Like, a solid foot and a half of flame. I freaked out, naturally, because all I saw was this thing that was going to burn down my apartment. Door. Get it outside. Away from the apartment. Go. I grabbed the handle and got it outside, saving my apartment. But it came at a price... I kinda sacrificed myself in the process, as I splashed boiling oil on my hands, arms, knees, legs, and feet. In addition, when I got it outside, it fireballed right at my face, burning my lips and chin and burnt my hair, eyebrows, eye lashes, and most importantly, my chin stubble. I'm pretty sure I still smell like burnt hair.

So with 2nd degree burns all over me, and with a little convincing from a few friends, I went to the hospital. On the way I called my parents to tell them, and naturally they freaked out, dropped everything, and started the drive down from Dallas. I tried to tell them it really wasn't all that bad, but they didn't believe me. The first time I realized how serious it was was when I got to the hospital. They treat by triage, right? Well the waiting room was packed. Must have been 40 people waiting to get treated. Pretty much as soon as I finished signing in, they called me back. The lack of any wait wasn't a good sign.

The rest was pretty okay though. They cooled me off in a triage room, then stuck me in a real room where they bandaged me up. The best part of this whole experience had to be the irony. The name of my attending doctor just HAD to be Dr. Burns. I'm not kidding at all. It made me laugh for a good 5 minutes. My aunt happened to be driving through Waco, so she stopped by to see how I was doing. My parents showed up a little bit later and paid the $200 copay that happens when you go to the hospital (the reason I was considering not going...) and took me out to dinner and gave me some spending money. Maybe I should get hospitalized more often if I get free food and cash from it.

On top of all that, the doctor gave me Vicodin, with a prescription for even more, so all in all, I'd say it was a pretty successful day, even if it took me twice as long to type this with the bandaged hands. The worst part of this whole thing is that I have to miss the band trip tomorrow. They're going to the state marching contest and we're playing as an exhibition band. Seeing as I can't play because of my burned lips and I can't march because of the burns on my feet, it doesn't make sense to go.

Tuesday I have to go back to the hospital for a follow up appointment anyway... they said it was too soon to tell if some of them were 2nd or 3rd degree burns, so that'll be fun. As for right now though, the drugs make me tired, so I'm gonna go back to sleep.

Sunday, October 30, 2011

home improvement

I'm so proud of myself! This weekend I did my first home improvement project. I guess you'd call it that, anyway. Even though I live in an apartment. And it wasn't really that big of a deal.

Basically our front door sucks. It wouldn't close, it was a bitch to lock... you had to kinda pull up on the handle like you were trying to lift something about as heavy as a refrigerator and use your other hand to lock the door. After I was done with it, it's gotta be the best door on my block. This thing is awesome and I smile every time I use it now, because I fixed it on my own. It closes and stays closed, and locks perfectly.

Plus, I went and bought real screws to rehang my surround sound speakers. Since I put them up, thumb tacks have been holding them in place. The one by the door kept falling down because you had to slam the door to make it close, and we eventually just gave up and laid it on the back of the couch. But that's all in the past now. We have real wood screws in the walls and there's about a zero percent chance they'll fall down now. It's exciting.

I don't know why I get so excited over home improvement stuff. I can't wait to have my own house that I have free reign over. There's only so much you can change about the apartment. I wanted to bust out the wall separating the living room and staircase, and my roommate was just like "..why?" Which is a fair question, I guess. I think it's just something I want to do for fun. To see if I can. I don't know. If I had to pick a legit reason it'd be because it'd make the living room look bigger, it'd look cooler, and just be something different... all the Baylor Plaza apartments are exactly the same layout, for the most part. Largely identical. I think it'd be fun to do something different. It's really just some wood paneling, I think.... how hard could it be?

But that's the question from hell that always bites you in the ass. Regardless, I really like looking at the finished product and being like, yeah, I did that. It's just not the same when you have someone come in and do it for you.

Thursday, October 27, 2011

So happy Halloween week. I love all the old horror movies on TCM that happen around Halloween. It's always fun to watch mystery/murder/horror from the 1950s. So tame. Then you can switch over to amc and they're playing all the more recent scary movies, with the occasional stephen king marathon.

Needless to say, it hasn't been a very productive week. Class is boring me to the point of picking up minesweeper again. I'm way out of practice, and its hard without a mouse, so I have some room for improvement. Right now, the best I can do with the oversized squares and the macbook's touch pad is almost 400. It's pretty pitiful, so I'm working on that during class. As far as homework goes, it doesn't really happen. Most of my classes don't have homework, and the ones that do don't count it for much of a grade, so I spend my time doing all kinds of other things. Like watching movies with friends.

Plus, I had an intramural flag football game last night with KPsi. We lost and I got my jaw bruised really badly, but it's so much fun that it makes up for it. We aren't that bad, honestly. Our record right now is 2-2, and one of those losses was to army ROTC. The one last night was to a church group, and it was a pretty evenly matched game.

Past that, zombies is still going on. The zombies finally outnumber the humans left. I'm still living, though I probably shouldn't be. I keep insisting I narrowly escaped one at the movie theatre, but by 'narrowly escaped' I really mean he got me and I'm denying it. And now I'm one of the last ones left. Then today, one of the zombies caught me off guard at the business building... but he's one of the nice ones. For those that know him, it was Will McKee. Why he was in the business building is beyond me, since it obviously wasn't to hunt.... he came up to me while I was sitting in the hall waiting for the class before mine to let out and had a nice little conversation with me. Then he was like "wait, you aren't dead yet, are you? And its not right before class..." Then he decided he'd leave me alive. Something about wanting my death to be more interesting. Thank god. Or.. thank the undead. Or something.

So that unnamed girl I'm in love with is getting closer to me. She has no idea how much she's torturing me. I'm not giving any sob stories on here, but its turning into a major part of my life, and its my fault, I think. I don't know about her half of things... what she thinks, what she's planning, if anything... I guess time will tell.

Time for lunch. Be back soon :)

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

The best day of the year.

This is beautiful.
You don't understand unless you live in Texas just how wonderful the first day of real fall is. Sure, the 'seasons' have names, but everything works on its own schedule in Texas, and the first day after the hot, still summer where its windy as hell and requires a jacket is maybe the best day of the year. I'm sure it'll get warmer again before it gets cold (Texas cold, not real cold) for good for awhile, but I'll take anything I can get right now. It's absolutely perfect outside. Nice and cool, but sunny, so its just a bit chilly in the shade or during a strong gust, but gloriously warm when the wind dies down for a second in the sun. Warmth is something that hasn't had a good connotation since about February. Okay, March, if you're nice.

This is my perfect weather, anyway. I'm sure some people think its too cold, but they're dumb. This will be the perfect few weeks in Texas, until the day I have to use the heater in the apartment for the first time. Until then, its windows open and let the breeze in.

I can't even think straight because I'm in such a good mood because of this weather. The only thing that could make right now any better was if I had some friends to share it with and if my damn back would stop hurting.

Sunday, October 16, 2011

blah.

You know those nights where you just sit and hit refresh on facebook? I'm there right now. I have two tests to study for, and I'm looking for any excuse not to. But at the same time, I'm feeling too lazy to really do anything at all. I'm just... blah. Yep. That's the best word for how I feel right now. Blah. I'd sleep, but I'm not tired. I could clean my room. I could do laundry. I could take Berk on a walk. I could clean the freaking kitchen. I'm too lazy to do any of that right now though. So I blog.

Despite my reason for coming here, I have things to say still, I suppose. The bears lost this weekend to the farmers down in college station. It was a downright pitiful performance by our defense, and our offense was only mildly better. We should have won, but what are you gonna do? The trip overall was equally depressing. Kick off was 11 in the morning, and we decided to have practice before we left for hell, so we woke up for a 4:30 practice, with KPsi getting there around 3:45. In the morning. So that was fun. I didn't get a lot of sleep, especially since I was in full recovery mode all day Friday on the couch. It was 'fall break' this weekend. I put it in quotations because we only get one day off for the 'break'. It's more like fall pause. Or if you're a Baylor Bear and a fan of the excess of puns, you can always go for 'fall paws'. So anyway, we naturally had a party on Thursday night, and I spent all of Friday, after I woke up around 11, on the couch drifting in and out of sleep and watching tv. So by the time I needed to go to bed, which was ridiculously early anyway, I just couldn't. I got to sleep around 1, which was better than some, I guess, and ended up meaning about 2 hours of sleep.

I know I'm saying too much about it now, but remember that girl I really like? I got to watch her and her guy all day, from 4 in the morning until 6:30 ish that night. That just made it all so much more painful. It's one thing from a distance, and for short periods of time, but this a new level of torture.

Enough about that though, before I forget this is public and available to anyone on the planet. My back also didn't help the trip, since there was practice, which hurt, then a 2 hour bus ride, which hurt more, then standing for the game for about 6 hours, which was awful, then another 2 hour bus ride to top it off. I need 4 asprin just thinking about it.

Then there are all the little things. After the game, we got dinner, but it was 45 minutes late. Our bus watched a movie, but the band staff person brought mediocre movies. Just little stuff like that. Sorry for bitching the whole post so far, really. But I'm gonna do some more, because this is my place to rant.

KPsi is playing zombies again. If you forgot or are new to the blog or whatever, zombies is pretty simple. The moderator assigns an alpha zombie that no one knows, except for the two of them. The alpha zombie attacks players with a zombie weapon (nerf gun, water gun, plastic spoon labeled 'zombie weapon'.... whatever) that's labeled appropriately, and then that player becomes a zombie. Everyone is notified of the zombies after the alpha. Game is on at all times that aren't band or kpsi events. So, between classes, lunch, in your own bed... all fair times and places for zombie kills. It keeps you on edge, but it also means I have nearly no friends for awhile, since any of them could be the alpha zombie. I can't trust any of my closest friends right now or see them outside of band.

And to top it off, the game has been going on since Wednesday night, and alpha has yet to strike. That's 3 full days (Saturday doesn't count at all) to attack someone. I can understand planning out a good kill, but come on. Let's get going, so this pain can end faster. (I know it's not apparent from my bitching, but I LOVE this game. It's so much fun, once it really gets going)

I can't really think of anything else that I can say on here. I guess I should go study or something.

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Perspective.

This is the universe. Or, at least, the "visible universe," so basically what we can see. Please note, if you can see it, the scale, where that little bit is the distance light can travel in a billion years.


In the visible universe there are 350 billion large galaxies and another 7 trillion dwarf ones.
Here's ours:

Ah, the Milky Way Galaxy. Home sweet home. This galaxy only has roughly 200 billion stars that make it up, as opposed to the trillions in neighboring galaxies. The Sun, our faithful star, is pointed out to the picture. You'll note the closeness of Orion, and relate that to what you see in the sky at night. What you see, according to this picture, is orion as it looked about 10,000 years ago. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's still pretty darn far away. Now, our Sun seems pretty miniscule. Here's a picture of that.


So, there's our tiny little sun, with a few rocks going around it. Don't think the Sun is so tiny? I found a nice little video that'll fix that.

 That saves me the time of comparing our little rock to the Sun, too. So there's our planet. Little nothing, pipsqueak Earth.


Here's my not-completely-accurate history of Earth (so don't bother correcting the order or accuracy of these events). Earth formed around 4.5 billion years ago, give or take 500 million years. That's a long time. It took a couple billion to settle down, but then volcanoes and such caused Snowball Earth around 2.3 billion years ago, and that lasted for a few million years, and would have killed everything on the surface, except that there wasn't enough oxygen in the atmosphere to make an ozone layer, so the surface was right near radioactive. Then we warmed up, oxygen levels rose, and suddenly those single cell organisms that survived started growing. Then volcanoes and ice ages killed most of them. Anyway, this continued on for another billion years or so. Then finally around 500 million years ago, about 4 billion years after the Earth formed, the first green plants hit up the surface and shit started crawling out of the ocean. 300 million years ago now, we have insects and primitive sharks and stuff. We're around the Pangea time. Then Earth freaks out again, killing 95% of all life. That last 5% eventually turns into the dinosaurs. They last from about 250 million years ago to 65 million years ago. Now, considering how quickly everyone's been dying so far, they did pretty well. Till the meteor hit the gulf of Mexico. So they died. Mammals take over, and lucky them, they can survive ice ages, because there were a few of those going on. About 12 million years ago we start seeing apes. Early human forms start showing up, but almost go extinct because of a super volcano 75000 years ago (ever heard of Yellow Stone?) Humans as we know them start showing up at around 10,000 years ago, in the tail end of an ice age that peaked around 30,000 years ago. All of humanity, then, prospered in the last few years, as the world is still heating up after the last ice age.


So we fit in this little sliver of time - a fraction of one percent, of Earth's history, which is young compared to the rest of creation. We live on this rock that can fit in the sun 1,300,000 times, and that's a small sun, one of 200 billion in our small galaxy, which is one of several trillion galaxies.


And you're pissed that the lady put too much sugar in your frap. Shut up, tri delt; I'm trying to study.

Thursday, September 29, 2011

sigh

I felt like this needed its own post, instead of being clumped up in one of my novelistic 'life update' rants.

I think I really like a girl.

I debated with myself on that sentence for a lot longer than I wanted to. I almost said 'love,' but that sounds dramatic and I'm not sure I really do. Let's be real - what the hell do I know about love? My dating history says I don't know jack shit, and I've accepted it, but this feels different.

She doesn't know, and it's better that way, as she isn't exactly available... in fact, she and him were together long before I knew either of them existed. Of course, this doesn't stop me from teeming with happiness whenever I see her. I think that's the best way to put it. I can't help but to smile when she's around.

Worse yet, I have reason to believe - from her - that there could have been something, given that her boy never existed. I wish I could go into more detail than this silly 'she and him' and vagueness that surrounds this whole topic, but if the wrong person found this blog, which is painfully public sometimes, this would all be out in seconds, and everyone involved is too close to me. With even the littlest clue, anyone that knows her would be able to tell who it is. So I stay general.

She's not another Ashley, not another Allison, not another Katherine, or Kathy, or Cate, and certainly not another Amanda. Or any other girl I've ever dated. She's so much more.... there's just not even a word for it. The word 'perfect' sounds a little too cheesy and mushy, and the word 'awesome' loses its touch when you start calling things like your new shirt 'awesome'. I don't know. Everything about her is just right. I'd start listing, and I'm certainly capable, but that's too specific for this cautious post.

I'm happy for her, but I can't help to be jealous of him. And while a little part of me is completely sick for wishing they would break up, I know what it would do to her, and moreover, it's not going to happen, and everyone knows it, so somehow I have to deal.

I don't blame him for staying with her. I just wish it were me.

I'm not procrastinating...

So you know that feeling when you're supposed to be doing homework, and the responsible part of you wants to do it, but somewhere inside you just know that you really have no intention of doing it, no matter how many times you say you're planning on starting any moment now?

I stopped lying to myself. I know I'm not going to do it. Screw procrastinating. It's too stressful. I'm just going to not do it. One less thing to worry about. And besides, the time it takes isn't worth such a little percentage of my grade. I made a freaking 97 on the first test in this class - I think that justifies sucking up on homework for a little bit. But this is 3 homework assignments later, and I'm still saying this. Next week I kick up my game. Yep.

All day today felt like a Friday. It was definitely only Wednesday, and every time I thought it was Friday it was depressing to realize it was still only Wednesday. I'm sure Friday will feel like some other day of the week, especially since I have an online quiz to take sometime between 8 and midnight on Friday. Why does school have to get in the way of life so much?

Friday, September 23, 2011

Google vs. Facebook

The great debate is on. Which business strategy is better?

On one hand, we have Google. It started as a search engine. Then added some stuff that people liked. You have a personalized homepage, Google Chrome, Google maps, Google docs... just stuff people like. Now they have Google+ to add to their arsenal. To add to it, if it likes what someone else is doing, they just buy it. Blogspot, for example. Yeah, you need a google account to get a blog on this website. What else? Youtube and Android, to name a few, but in all, Google has acquired 103 different companies to take or incorporate their technology. That costs a lot, but now it's all Google branded, and infinitely more easily managed. They can change whatever they want - they own it.

Facebook, on the other hand, is only a website. It has bought its fair share of stuff too. It has 16 companies and two domain names - facebook.com for $200,000, and fb.com much later for another $8.5 million. All of the things it bought fueled its core website - it brought in talent, and the technology powers everything from the friend finder to the mobile app. But it was still all just facebook.com, as opposed to the dozens of websites Google has under its umbrella. Sounding one sided? Well now facebook wasn't done yet. Instead of flat out buying everything it wants, it has taken a different route. It partnered with other companies. This isn't quite as reliable as buying them out. They are still their own companies. Oh, by the way, facebook just announced a few days ago that they have new partnerships with more than a dozen music platforms, as well as video providers like Netflix, Hulu, and Blockbuster. This provides an interesting opportunity. If facebook plays their cards right, they'll have much more than Hulu and Rhapsody. Their goal is to make facebook a place people never actually have to leave on the internet. Yes, their goal is essentially to become the internet. Or, at least, become an internet browser, but from the other side. It will be the website of websites.

Unlike Google, who seemingly wants to buy the entire internet, company by company, Facebook just intends to use its user base (they have over 800,000,000 users, and recently had over half a billion - with a B - of them log on in a single day) to bait other companies into begging facebook to let them have a presence on facebook. Just think, if you're on facebook and want to watch the most recent episode of Weeds, or South Park, or Glee for that matter, do you really want to go to google, search for it, try to see if Hulu has it, go pirate it somewhere? Not if it's already on facebook. Facebook will have companies lining up to have that kind of advertising. Companies will look at that number of users, which exceeds the US population by a fair margin, and see market potential. They'll line up to try and be the one facebook lets onto their website. They aren't buying companies, oh no. Companies will be paying them instead.

But what happens when facebook's user numbers peak out and decline? All their partnerships fall apart and they're left all alone, just another social networking site that comes second to Google, who probably has the same integrations Facebook does, at this point, but there's a key difference. Google's movie providers, music engines, news, etc. is all OWNED by Google. They can't leave.

So which is the better way to achieving the end goal of owning the internet? To being equated to the internet? To being that company that people someday say, "hold on, lemme get on Google really fast," INSTEAD of saying, "let me get on the internet to check". What if Google's future moves include buying Microsoft? Could there be a Google operating system? Google computers? Google could have it all. Could Facebook do the same?

On a different topic, what I'm envisioning with the Microsoft acquisition is to one day have Google Portal. This creation in my mind is not a program by Google, but a hardware device. Maybe even in public places in addition to hand helds. This thing has one goal: to give you google. Whatever you can do with Google, you can do on this thing. It's a direct connection to the Google internet. But no one will buy that, you say, when you can do all that AND have the rest of the internet with any computer or smart phone. Yes, but what if its a flat rate of a few hundred dollars? What if there aren't any monthly bills? All Google has to do is buy out Verizon, and bam, it can be a phone too. Hell, they could charge a few thousand, and if people thought they could get their money's worth before it broke, it would be a hit.

That's my short little sci fi feature of the night, but back to the original question.... could facebook take google's place in that scenario? They already have that facebook button on the HTC Status; aren't they already closer to the magical device? Either way, I feel one of them will be victorious. I don't know whose side I think will win, but personally, I feel Google has the upper hand. What do you think?

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

back pain.

Top 10 most annoying things to do with god awful lower back pain:

10. Standing still
9. Marching band
8. Dropping anything too big to pick up with your toes.
7. Sleeping
6.. Walking up stairs
5. Standing up
4. Sitting down
2. Putting pants on
1. Sneezing.

Really. Sneezing. Number one worst thing to do with a bad back. I sneezed today and it floored me for 2 hours. So what did I do when I couldn't stand? I had to lay down. Then I had to get up, to go to marching band. And yes, putting pants on made the list. Socks? Shoes? No, you can sit down for those. It's hellish to try and put pants on. Standing, bending over, standing on one foot... just nothing good about it.

Best part of my morning? The moment I feel the advil kicks in. Ugh. I really really hate this back pain shit. I need to get this looked at or something. But that requires walking to the SLC and going up to the clinic, which, of course, is on the second floor of the building. Stairs.

Thursday, September 1, 2011

Oh dear, I've nearly forgotten this website, haven't I?

Okay, well to be fair, school started, now didn't it? Which means, between band, accounting, management, marketing, more band, management info systems, stats, and band, my schedule is pretty full. Not to even mention taking care of the dog and my physical social life (get your mind out of the gutter, I just mean life off the internet)...

Right, well, I've been busy. Really busy. Like, no alone free time busy. In fact, I should be doing homework right now, but the old habit of procrastinating has finally returned, now that the first week's hype is over. Think of it like New Year's resolutions..

Speaking of which, I have a couple new school year's resolutions that I hope work out...
  • a real diet. Not like, dieting, just proper meals. I don't want to fall in the rut of ramen and easy mac on a daily basis. 
  • keep working on organization. I can always put this on my priority list. I need to find something that works, or else I'm gonna be forever lost in my own life. 
  • get my financial shit together. If I'm gonna get out of college and play with stocks for a living, a decent personal portfolio is gonna look pretty good on a resume, and besides, I need money. That means making time for research, which could pose yet another there's-only-24-hours-in-a-day problem.
  • exercise. This one's the typical new years thing, but I mean it. I live 2 blocks from Baylor's free gym. I don't have an excuse at all. It's 3 minutes away, if I walk slowly. I think I can spare 45 minutes or an hour to do SOMETHING. I'm trying to stay realistic. It won't be every day, and I won't be running a marathon by December, but physical activity needs to happen. 
  • expand my social circle into the business school. That whole networking concept. I'm looking into the future a little bit, and it may seem like I'm trying to turn friendship into a greedy personal thing, but that's exactly what I'm doing. I've talked about this before.. I firmly believe that connections are at least 60% of what goes into a job opportunity. Given, you have to be able to do the job well, but to get the chance, you need to know people. People need to know you're out there. 
I think that's most of it. I have a couple other small things, but that's a good start. 

Needless to say, all of those things take even more time away from my blog, which sadly comes second to real life. I have to live to have something to blog about.  Speaking of which... another list! Things I have to blog about. This is more for me, but its a little sneak peak for all of you too, I guess.
  • My classes. It's kinda the major thing I do at school, so I'll tell you guys how that's going. Maybe some of the interesting things I learn can make it on here. 
  • An interesting thing I wrote, forgot about, and found a year and a half later. It's like a time capsule. 
  • Updates on above goals. nuff said.
  • I've been thinking about making an economy/financial blog. Right now it's just a thought in the back of my mind, but I think it could be a good idea. It gives me a reason to do some real research, plus it gives me a place to organize my own thoughts and get input and opinions back from other people.
So that's a look into the future, but for now, I need to go do some MIS homework and make some lunch. I'm thinking some corn dogs and veggies (which I forced myself to buy).

(On a side note, I really like the new interface for blogspot. It's definitely copying wordpress to a degree, but it's much more... I dunno, mature looking I guess. It's nice. If you just read without your own blog, it doesn't mean anything to you, but this is my blog, I'll say what I want. :D)

Thursday, August 4, 2011

pottermania, end of the summer, and thoughts of the future..

Lots of exciting things, though I'm not in the right mood to express it right. I'm absolutely exhausted, though I'm not sure why.. I've only been awake for 13 hours, doing a grand nothing all day (yay off days), bringing it to a happy 2:30 in the morning.

But yes, excitement. See this picture here? Yes, it really is a screen shot from my own computer. It just so happens that I knew that it was in chapter 14 that the Quidditch match between Griffindor and Hufflepuff was canceled. I get to be one of a million people that get to set the stage for Pottermore. Considering how many people are Harry fanatics, I consider myself extremely lucky.

But okay, that's only one thing. The biggest thing is that I go back to college in 4 days. I only have 3 shifts left at amc, so its really down to it now. They didn't schedule me on my last day, so I have to pick up on my free movie watching while I'm not working, since that privilege leaves with my employment. But that Sunday I have off before I go up on Monday is going to be a bittersweet day. No work, so just packing and goodbyes. I already had to say bye to Tim, who left for KU on Tuesday morning.

But we all know, when you say bye to some people you're leaving for somewhere where you can say hello once again to others. I'm pretty excited to go see all my Baylor friends again, and permanently this time. No more 2 days here and there when I have a day or two off. It's the real thing this time, and I'm beyond ready.

On a completely different note, kinda, I've seriously been reconsidering my ambitions. Do I really need to graduate from Baylor? Does it really matter where I get my undergrad? Baylor is just so expensive, especially for undergraduate school for a business major. Anyone in the business world who is somebody has an MBA, and that's really all that employers look at if you have it. But do I even need that? Do I really care that much? Do I need to be somebody in the business world, or am I content with a degree from UNT? (For all you who don't know, University of North Texas is the local-ish state university.... it's not exactly top notch, but it's cheap and it's still a degree.

What brought this on? Well, I was talking to a friend of mine who skipped a year of school after high school and is working at amc (she got me the job), and is going to community college while she keeps working this next year. She's getting a nice little house with a roomie or two and is just getting right along with life. I feel like college is keeping me back more than it's helping me get ahead, especially at Baylor. Don't get me wrong, I love Baylor so much, but I'm starting to think it's for the fun and the friends, instead of the actual establishment. And I know for a fact my family can't afford four years at Baylor. So it's down to loans and scholarships, or a different school. I would miss Baylor so much if I left, but it's an option I'm now seriously considering, just because I don't think my education is that important. It would be if I cared that much about making 6 figure at any point in my life, but I just don't know if it's all that important. I've found, with this summer of amc, that I can be happy with my job even if I don't make that much. In a place like amc, I can work my way up purely on personality and non-educationally based skill. I'm good at my job, and I could have done it without even high school.

I haven't told my parents any of this; I wouldn't want them to have a heart attack when I told them I didn't want to go to grad school at Harvard anymore. Sure, I still feel like I should finish college, somewhere. A college education gets my options much more open. I just don't think that it's essential to go to one of the most expensive schools in Texas to get it. I don't know. It's something I'm gonna be thinking about this year while I hit the business core pretty hard. In the meantime, I'm gonna keep enjoying Baylor, because it's a blast and I love all my friends and brothers there.

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

So its like 2 in the morning and I just got home from work... this job is so easy, just at the wrong times of the day. In reality, it fits my schedule just fine, I just like to bitch. I can't decide if my summer sleep schedule or work schedule came first, but they're in sync now, so I don't really care either way.

Speaking of work, I put in my two weeks notice the other day. I'm actually kinda sad about it. I feel like I just made a whole new group of friends, just in time to ditch. And I guess that's exactly what it is. But hey, guess I have a real career to look forward to, where they'll be around for years, not months. But, yes, the summer is coming to a close (so fast) and I'm going back to college the second week of August. Yeah, that's a bit early. Two weeks before class starts, to be exact. That gives me one week to have summer in Waco, and then band week, and then school. And school. And more school. I'm taking a whole mess of upper level business classes that I don't feel ready for at all, but what's new about college.

I'm a bit worried about the move for Berkley (my dog, for anyone behind the times) because it's going to be a large step down in lifestyle for him. Poor guy has no idea how awesome he has it right now. Food whenever he really wants it, a back yard, a front yard for that matter, people always around, with plenty of time to pay attention to him.... now its gonna be more like two kids with full schedules and potentially away from the small apartment with concrete on both sides of it more often than inside it. I'm sure he'll get used to it, and I hope it does it pretty fast. At least I'll be back on his sleeping schedule when classes start. He'll get breakfast on time and everything. If I can find a way to afford dog food.

I looked for an AMC in Waco, but didn't find one. Google says there's one by the lake, but amctheatres.com is convinced there isn't one. And just to be sure, I drove out to the address Google gave me last time I took stuff down to the apartment, but it's definitely a neighborhood. Great. So now it's back to the drawing board for a job. I don't even know if I have time for one, between dog and KPsi and band and that whole class thing, not to mention homework. If I do get a job, they're gonna have to be okay with a super light schedule. Like... weeknights from 6 to 10. Wonder how many places are okay with that...

Other than that, nothing at all has been going on. Tim is still in Houston (did I tell you my best friend - the person that organizes everything social I go to in the summer - is gone for almost a month?) but only until Wednesday. After he gets back, for whatever short time we're both in the same city again, I'll hopefully have something of interest to report, but for now, job, approaching move...yeaaaaaahhh... that's about it.

And if I'm not working or sleeping, I'm rereading the series, because I'm not ready to let go. Not ever. I've decided words will never be able to justify my thoughts of the end of the era of Harry, so I'm not going to write a post on the last movie. It'll just get jumbled and ramble and -- what? I do that all the time? Well fuck you, I'm not doing it anyway. I can't. But I can go reread the series and look for all the little things I missed the first dozen times. Remember the first book, in the forbidden forest, the centaurs are all "mars is bright tonight"? Well, later on Harry says, "Firenze saved me, but he shouldn't have done so... Bane was furious... he was talking about interfering with what the planets say is going to happen... they must show that Voldemort's coming back... Bane thinks Firenze should have let Voldemort kill me... I suppose that's written in the stars as well." Oh, the little things you do, Jo. You starting hinting at it just a few chapters into your series, and it didn't happen until a couple thousand pages - and several years - later. Thank god for unbelievable, spectacular writers.

Now excuse me, I'm gonna go read a bit more, now that I'm in a Harry Potter mood after looking up that quote.

Friday, July 15, 2011

I have no words. It's all over. And I loved every second of it.
The books will live forever.
The movies can pass on, but let it be known, they did a damn good job with the last book. Spectacular.
Yes, I cried. And that's okay.

Saturday, July 2, 2011

The Typewriter Challenge (?)

Okay so I dunno what to aall (call) this new challenge of mine. But it certainly needs a cool nae. mame. name! Something like the typewriter challenge or something. basically, no backspace. ever. doesnt matter why you want to use it, its offlimits. like it doesn't exist at all. It's actually quite difficult. Soo many things I want to change, already, and I'm just introducing the damn idea. Plus, its just natural to hit backspace when you tih hit a funny letter. but it really exposes your typing stkills . Really, just try it once, I dare you.

I actually got this idea from a long time ago when i ghad this conversation with a friend of mine (but isn't that where all my blog ideas come from?) Anna and I had a whole instandt message conevrsation where the backspace key was off limits and whatever you typed was what got sent. It was interesting to say the least, so why not share thefun. I'm really sad i ddint save that conversation, or else I'd post it here to show you just how bad it can get. But then again... I guess you're witnessing it right now. I also do dumb things like say stupid things or float - scratch that, I mean flat - out type the wrong word, like I just did. It also makes saying something a lot harder, since you can't go back and change your mind.

I thought of typewriter challenge, obviously, because in the good old days you ligitimately didn't have a backspace, or a spell check, obviously... but yeah, its almost like having a conversation, since everyone fucks up when they're talking too. It makes it real time, and just more real in general. No more rereading to make sure everything makes you look like who you want to look like. Just pure you. typos, thoughts, mess ups, everything, all on the page as you typed it. really. try it. best part is, it doesn't even matter what youre talking about. it can be anything at all and i pormiste ...promise... you'll mess it up somewhow. somehow. and find out that you tend to type letter combinations regardless of what word you intended. if you don't get what i'm talking about right now... really. try it.

little disclaimer, sometimes it legitmately looks like drunk texting, but just go with it. :) like right there... who says 'legitmately'. say that outloud. it sounds like its missing a whole syllable. but yeah, that was my thought of the night, and its like 3 am, and i can't really sleep. i messed up my whole sleeping schedule with all this working nonsense. I always uend up at someone's house after I get off, even if i get off at like 1 or 2. and then on my off days, like yesterday, i end up at someone's house, unable to drive for whatever readaon. reason. So last night I didn't get home until 4:30, and it was totally okay, according to my sleep schedule. Then I seleep until noon and life is great.

Only problem with that whole thing is poor Berkley. He likes to twake up at 6, and I can't seem to change his mind about that. So I get up shortly after I go to bed so the silly dog can pee and eat breakfast, then sleep for another 5 and a half ohurs. hours. my foot fell asleep. I don't know why I just typed that.

gahh. so hyper. but so tired. okay. I'm gonna stpo [stop] now and go to bed. or at least try to. this no backspacke thing is so frustrating, you definitely need to try it. nighty night everyone.

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

a new take on friendship

So much busy in my life. Ugh. I wish it left more room to blog, but sadly it doesn't so much anymore. When I'm not working, I'm in class or doing homework for it. When I'm not doing either of those, I'm doing my OCD thing and blazing through seasons of Doctor Who. Yes, I finally caved in to the 4 or 5 people who insisted I start watching, and, for whatever reason, there are over sixty 45 minute episodes on netflix instant. I started season one, episode one with a quick prayer that went something like "god help my social life. amen" and then went on to obsessively blow through 4 seasons. I did the same thing with Dexter. I did the same thing with freaking Full Metal Alchemist. It doesn't matter. If it has multiple seasons and a basic story line, count me out for a few days, at least. I feel like waiting to watch them all in sequence allows you to connect with the characters better, because you don't forget details week to week. It's all there at once.

Anyway, not what this post is about. While I've been at work, I've been making new friends. It kinda got me thinking, along with a conversation with another friend, about friendships in general. Mainly internet friends (oh hi guys) versus the basic, in-person kind. It's an interesting thing to look at. People you know in person, you share something basic with. School friends, you have the same school, maybe the same classes. Work friends you obviously met at work, more often than not. Random friends you met at a party, you share some common friend and like to go to parties. There's always a reason you met them. Something in common in your habits or friends or hobbies. After you meet them in whatever setting, you may trade phone numbers or something like it, and then maybe start talking outside your common setting. Getting something to eat after work, studying together instead of partying together when you realize you both have that awful geology class. That sort of thing. That's when you start to know person. They stop being an associate, a school acquaintance, that guy at that party. They become your friend. Someone you confide in, someone you share memories and thoughts and feelings with. Someone you can count on to have an opinion when it counts. After time, it becomes more than words. You start to hang out more often, sharing more memories and living future memories together, laughing the whole way. Suddenly years have gone by and you're best of friends and have been for years, and it's just normal. Maybe he's in your wedding. Maybe she's your best friend that lives across the street. 

Now, that's how lifelong in person friendships go, I think. Having not had a lifelong anything, I can't say from my 19 year old perspective, but that's kinda how I imagine it happening. Internet friends are a different story. The time line above allows for months of friendly interaction without any real connection. It gives even more time before two people start talking outside of a common situation and begin exchanging pasts and secrets and such. The internet is funny. There is no commonality. How'd you find my blog, if I don't know you physically? (the rest of you, I'm fairly sure I know how you found it) You linked to it from a friend of a friend of a friend one day when you were bored on blogger. You hit that B until you stumbled upon it. Maybe you legitimately StumbledUpon it. Point is, it wasn't intentional. You weren't looking for me. But you found me. Then you read. You skipped months of getting to know me on a basic level and skipped to my thoughts, my past, my ambitions, my plans, my ramblings, and everything in between. You know me on a deeper level than most of the people I communicate with in person. And you're still here.

Does that make you better friends than most of the people I know? I don't know the answer, I'm really asking. Are we friends? You sure know me well enough; I don't hide anything on here. You've got all of me in front of you, just in writing. Hell, it's the internet. Go find my facebook; it's not protected, I don't think. Between that and this, is there any part of my life that's not on the internet?

But then, what's the fun in that? That good old fashioned way of making friends seems so much more meaningful. There's so much more invested in it. So much time and effort, so much connection. When you have those building blocks, you can move forward to create together instead of simply share to each other. That's something that will never happen, probably, between you and me. We, again, probably, I shouldn't ever say never, will probably never meet in person or share memories together. We have separate lives, yet I know you so well, and you me. But is it that special? Where was the effort in getting to know you? Just reading what you write. In person, you know how long it takes to get to peek into someone's personal little journal of rants and scribbles? How long it takes for them to be comfortable enough with you allow that sort of intimacy? The internet is a beautiful and terrible thing. There is no consequence to what I say here (okay, again, not talking to those who I talk to outside of the internet). There's nothing you can do that will have a severe impact on the majority of my life. So I feel no shame sharing everything. Its a great thing, to have all of you here, ready to listen to whatever shit I have to say, whether it makes sense or not. I always have an outlet, someone who cares and will listen and occasionally respond. But let's be real. It didn't take any effort to get you here.

In person relationships, those that took so much effort and consideration, mean more. If I've judged a person to be worthy of all this information, then I've looked into the future and seen the two of us still conversing, still being friends. I have no thoughts of you taking this information and using it against me, or taking any complaint I have and telling me to grow the fuck up. It's part of that 'choose your friends wisely' thing. Here it's just not an issue. But the thought it takes in real life, the actual choosing of my friends makes them all the more special.

I say all of this out of pure interest in the topic of different kinds of friends. I don't want to belittle you who don't see me outside of this website. I think you guys are awesome for putting up with me completely willingly. There's nothing keeping you here except interest of what I have to say, and I think that's freaking awesome. Internet versus physical relationships isn't a contest. They're apples and oranges.

By the way, if you still read this silly ranting nonsense I call a blog, please do comment telling me so, so I know this whole shout out in the last paragraph wasn't all for nothing. Kay? Kay. :)

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

ah, back to the good old stuff

Community college is funny. The teaching style is very nostalgic. Very very nostalgic. It's like being put back in 8th grade English. We have to write papers that are college length, but on one of the 4 topics she gives us, with a structure matching her rubric, with a clearly identifiable thesis and all but labeled evidence. MLA format is about a tenth of the grade, and god help you if you use passive voice. Past the papers, she teaches us like we just left elementary school and have never seen the written language.

Maybe a short anecdote will emphasize my point, as I learned today in class. She's really big on peer review. You know, 3 classmates help you edit your paper so it doesn't suck as much. But she has a rubric for peer review. Beside the point, sorry. We had one of these peer review days, and by the end of it, I felt much more confident about my own paper, mostly by reading three others, but also by the comments left on my own paper:


I've put this on my facebook and everything; I just can't get enough of it. It just epitomizes community college to the fullest. More accurately the typical community college student. Firstly, let's analyze the physical aspects of this masterpiece of a comment. Firstly and most noticeable is the wrong use of 'to', in place of 'too'. As it is written, it appears to be either a direction, or a delivery to Mr. Long. If it is indeed a direction, they failed to tell me where exactly 'long' is, so that I can take my sentence there to get it fixed. Perhaps Long Island, as there are a few publishing companies there that can surely help me. Next, we see the handwriting itself. I can't rag on this too much, as mine is perfectly bad as well. It would seem they haven't taken the time to draw a straight line on their arrow, and in a fourth of an inch have managed to make it wave. Kudos to them, though, as they have spelled "sentence" correctly, as my dad pointed out earlier today. I suppose I wouldn't be surprised at this point for a 'sentense' or 'sintense'. Maybe even 'sin tense'. Maybe that's a stretch. Maybe not. After seeing the misspelling and bad handwriting, we must next delve deeper into the actual content of this peer's note. The sentence in question here was as such:

Knowing his audience, and the accepted mindset, he knew that for them to take him seriously, he would have to present his argument with a logical cool-headed view, and use metaphors to effectively communicate to the average American.
 Now, I will admit, I use commas in excess. This does not make them unnecessary though. Each qualifying phrase stuck between commas has its purpose and is much needed to complete the thought I was getting across. When this individual claimed my sentence was "to long," I will assume he is referring to the length of my sentence, as I don't know a Mr. Long. Yes, it is perhaps a lengthy, 38 word sentence. However, my friendly classmate, the underlying message within the sentence is easy enough to understand - to be taken seriously he needed logic and simple metaphors. But if I say just that, would not the tone of the sentence be lost? Would the true meaning of the statement remain? Could I continue the essay with my audience only knowing half of the story? No, friend, each of these 38 words serves a purpose, and I will write how I damn well please. I only need a C to transfer the credit to Baylor.

(I will take a moment to be bitter. Let me make this sentence 'to long', just for you, student without a high school degree. Knowing his audience of average American people, mainly males, and the accepted mindset of the time period that was pro-America and the American government, with little margin for Anarchy, Henry David Thoreau, who changed his name from David Henry Thoreau, knew that for those American people to take him seriously, he would have to present his argument against the government, and in fact the very opposite of most average Americans' basic values, with a logically planned and cool-headed view, all the while using easy to understand, simple metaphors that most Americans could grasp easily to effectively communicate to those people. There, just for you, a 100 word sentence. I typed this into word and it told me my sentence was long and I should consider revising it. No, it didn't tell me that with my original. I checked. Go fuck yourself.)

Now, referring to the title of this post, you may assume I was referencing the nostalgia of middle school English classes. I was not. It was in fact a reference to using Blogger as a means of procrastination, as I should be working on that damn outline for the second essay right now. It's due in about 14 hours, but I have to sleep and go to class between now and then, at very least, and I am wide awake right now due to excessive amounts of Dr Pepper and Pibb. The Pibb is a sad excuse for Dr Pepper and is a Coca Cola product, which is sadly all the movie theatre serves. I went to Whataburger with a friend after work and conveniently refilled my cup with proper fluids.

Okay, that back there was kinda a lie. I'm not wide awake. I'm balls tired, but there's no way I'll be going to sleep in the next hour.. and given that it's 2:16 currently, I should probably either work on the paper or do my best to sleep, then wake up and keep going before class.

This class is at noon. I was late yesterday because I slept until 11:59. No joke. Work and fun has fucked up my sleeping schedule to the point where I find it hard to fall asleep if it's not in the 3 o'clock hour or later, and then I sleep until 6:30, let my puppy out because he's whiny and needy and has a full bladder and wants breakfast. Silly dog, what do you expect? Food? Psh. Then I go back to sleep for another 5 hours. Eight interrupted hours of sleep isn't quite the same as eight hours of sleep. In any case, I need to go and stop talking about sleeping and get to it.

This post is over a 1000 words, Professor. Do I get an A?

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Absolutely worthless




Let us take apart this picture, piece by piece. First, we notice the dog. Standing. Still, I'll add, though a picture can't really prove it. That's not so bad. Second, we see a cat, laying worthlessly on the bench, without a care in the world. Also not uncommon, until you notice breathing being C, a bird on the left side. This is what the cat is noticing. Or more accurately, trying to ignore. What kind of cat sees a bird and just yells at it a little, then tries to ignore it? Utterly useless.

Sunday, June 12, 2011

oh, yeah, this exists

So hey.. been awhile. I better have something to say, huh?

Last time I wrote, I was about to start a job, and was getting ready for summer. So the past month, I've been working my ass off and getting the utmost out of summer. So much so that I seem to have forgotten my computer really existed.

But before I start about how my summer's been going, lets have a fun little anecdote. Tonight was the first night I legitimately ran from cops. Well... kinda ran. More of a casual walk. Anyway. I was at a party a little out of my comfort zone. There were mostly people I didn't really know, or had only talked to in high school during lunch or whatever - not friends by any means. I knew a handful, but the other 30 I had no idea. It was loud and rowdy, unlike the parties my friend and I have been throwing all summer. Okay, not unlike, but to a new level, I should say. It was pretty much the cliche party. I showed up really late since I had work until 12:15, so everyone was pretty drunk now that they were 2 hours into the party. I made myself a nice, strong drink with hopes of catching up, but made it through about half of it before someone spotted cops. Word got round and before the next person knew, I had carefully let myself out the back. I was casually strolling down the alley, took a right onto the street, and was staring at 2 cop cars. Knowing that if I turned around, it would be a dead give away, I took the only logical course of action and just kept walking. I took another right onto the house's street and saw 3 more cop cars and several flashlights to go with it. Just keep walking. I started to hear a conversation at the door of the house, something like "It's obvious you've been having a party, and it's obvious you've been drinking." "no officer, I swear, I've been drinking coffee all night." So without looking suspicious, I kept walking, glancing curiously over at the cop interrogating a kid trying to get to his car. My car, being only one house over, was off limits. So I kept walking. My friend Tim didn't live terribly far away... maybe 3 or 4 blocks, so I decided that would be a good choice. I called him, and he said he wasn't home, but I could use his house as a safe zone until I could get back to my car. Eventually he got home and drove me back to my car and all was well... by eventually, I mean it was about 2:15, so I was nice and sober, having had only half a drink to begin with. He drove me to my car and I drove off, just like that. Everyone who stayed got consumption tickets, the poor idiots. I guess it was 90% luck that I got away, considering my escape route, but I credit myself to some degree.

So that was my night tonight - 7 hours of working, 15 minutes of partying, and 3 hours of hiding. Not a boring night, at least. Though none of my nights have been boring since summer started. The same friend, Tim, has a house to himself most of the time due to certain parental circumstances, so his house has kinda been home base. That house has seen it all, minus the police. We don't invite the 100% party animals like that party, so we stay under the radar. Any night I'm not working until 2 I show up at his place at least for an hour or two, but it's usually more. We mix it up. Some nights are clean, with video games and cook outs and such, and some nights we party and get plenty of drinks for all. It's been fun. Really fun. I love summer.

But you see why I haven't been here, on the blog. The other reason is my family decided to buy into the smart phone world, so if I need internet, there it is! psh, computers. so big and heavy. I'm sure I could blog from my phone if I really wanted to, but wow... it would take so long, what with the general length of my posts and how slow I still am at that silly touch screen keyboard. The typo-Kyle would come out for all to see. Not good.

In other news, I moved some stuff into my apartment that I have in Waco. It's now furnished with a couch, a bed, and a dresser. And some kitchen things. My dad was with me to move in, and I've only been down there once, so there hasn't been a proper house warming party, but it's on the list. Next on the move in list is my desk and the kitchen table... so probably another Uhaul, which will be a pain, and might include my dad again, sadly. Maybe I can convince him a few friends are plenty to help me move that behemoth of a desk.... the thing is like an executive's desk. It's 3x5 feet on the top, if you can imagine that, and sits about waist high. I'd love to fit that in my car, but we'll see.

What else, what else.... Berkley! You remember my puppy, yes? Well, he's gotten super huge, relatively. He's more than twice the size he was when I put that picture up, and he's about 11 pounds. He hasn't settled down at all either, which makes for a bad combination. I'm too broke to get him a proper kennel, so he's got a little squared off area of my room that constitutes his bed/time out corner. He's getting used to the whole idea of peeing outside, and is happy to use grass when its there, but has yet to realize it's the only place he's allowed to pee. Still working on that. Despite my greatest efforts, he's a spoiled little puppy, thanks to my parents mostly, but I can't blame them completely.. the other night I finally gave in and let him sleep on the bed with me. He's just too adorable. And he's small, so it doesn't really matter.. training is fairly optional.

There's also Taylor. I dunno how much I've talked about her.. I've forgotten because it's been so long! Taylor, if you don't remember/ I haven't told you, is my big sister, fraternally speaking, and also my current romantic interest. Little strange to grasp, but it works. It's not as awkward as you think. We're not dating, mostly because I don't want to start a relationship right after summer started and we're hours apart... I learned that lesson already. But in all other aspects apart from the title, we're basically together. We saw each other nearly every day for the last few months of spring semester, and she's visited once already this summer, and might be here next weekend too, which is rather exciting. The only problem is that I might be working my ass off for 20 hours or so while she's here, which would be a bit of a drag. She'd be coming with her friend, and I'm not the only person she knows in Coppell, so she said she'd be fine, and we could still hang out while I'm not in the AMC prison.

Speaking of which, how is work, you might ask. Well, it's a job. Lots of idiots, lots of poor communication among management, lots of problems, lots of shitty hours. But it works. It's not so bad, really. I don't get paid enough for the shit I go through, but its money, and its nice and time consuming and keeps me out of the house. One of my biggest fears: getting stuck in the house with nothing to do. That's when my mother tightens what little grasp she has on me and makes me do things. Like clean. I'm to the maturity level where I do it anyway, but on my own time. She doesn't quite get this, but it's worked out well enough so far. Sorry, side tracked... work. Yeah. The benefits of working there are why I stay... free movies rule. And employee screenings. The free drinks and popcorn don't count for much, but it's still a nice little perk. Just knowing that I'll see the final installment of Harry before everyone else gets me through the day. So that's a plus.

Did I cover everything? Work, partying at Tim's, running from cops, the puppy.... oh, basketball. Another hobby Tim and I and a few others have been taking to heart. Mav's watch party at Tim's followed by a pick up game at 11 at night: always a good idea. Oh, and if you aren't aware, I'm from Dallas. I support my Mavs. If you're rooting for Miami... well fuck you. You're wrong, and will be sadly disappointed tomorrow night. And that's that. But back to my own basketball skills... they're improving, the more I play (who could have guessed) and its a nice hobby. I'm not terribly serious about it, but it's nice to have some athletic aspect to my life besides marching band. I need to start running or something... I hate to sound so female, but all this bad habit stuff is starting to show, and I hate it. I need to get it gone before it gets bad. Drinking too much, eating too much crap food, not exercising at all.... just a bad combination of things that results in flab. So exercise made the list of things to do when I get around to it. The dog is a nice incentive to start running, since he's getting a little pudgy himself.

I think that's everything. It's now 3 in the morning, and I have work in 11 hours for an 11 hour shift. Better sleep, huh? But it's good to be back, and I'll start catching up with everyone's blogs here shortly, when I get the chance, which may not be for a few days, but we'll see.

Monday, May 9, 2011

end of the year post.

So. Finals. Whew.

Glad those are basically over. They weren't horrible I guess. After all the work I did, I didn't quite get the grades I wanted, but that's okay. I still got B's where I didn't get A's, and that's okay. Better than the D I thought I was gonna get a few weeks ago.

I still have one to go. But it's Health. Multiple choice and fill in the blank with a word bank. And its all common sense. I was seriously a little disappointed in the shit Baylor lets pass as education here. This is hardly worth my money.

Plus, its my ONLY final left, so I had to stay the whole weekend just for freaking health. I guess I didn't mind that either... it was a chill weekend that lacked studying completely. I played some disc golf, had a cookout, played some guitar hero... anything but studying. The hangover was a real bitch though.

Oh, and I'm so glad I'm moving out of this shithole they call a dorm. In the past few days the kids decided its okay to suddenly act like complete assholes. Let me show you rather than just using words. Even a picture can capture the smell.

Sorry it's all sideways... I'm lazy. Earlier, there was a bottle of spoiled milk on the trashcan along with 4 or 5 pickles. I'm pretty sure that milk is all over the floor now. I'm not sure you can see them, but the stall is actually littered with a box of homemade cookies. The trash is overflowing, there's a turd in the urinal, I think something living is in the sink... its just bad.

Then there's the hallway. Someone tried to paint the walls with grape jelly yesterday. Then someone flat out flung purple paint everywhere. Then others are aspiring modern artists....


Again, sorry for the sidewaysness. suck it up. This is a picture of a coat hanger mobile, complete with a plastic bag and a pair of boxers. Adds a nice touch to the dreary hallway, don't you think? There's also chocolate smeared on the wall. The only reasons I know it's chocolate and not shit is because one, it doesn't smell, and two, the rest of the bag of easter chocolate is all over the floor. When you walk right outside, the ground isn't even clean; someone appears to have had a cinder block fight, and it now looks post-zombie-apocalypse-y out there, what with bits of concrete scattered everywhere.

On the flip side, my room is the cleanest its been all year. I'm not sure it was even this clean when I moved in. I swept, for one. That was a disaster. I felt no regret when I just kinda swept it into the hallway. It didn't look out of place, as you can imagine. All my stuff is in my car except for my pillow, blanket, and computer. It's so much bigger without all the crap everywhere.

I'm still having a hard time grasping the fact that I'm a fourth of my way through college already. It feels like I just moved in for band week. (speaking of which, I CAN'T FREAKING WAIT FOR MARCHING BAND. I'm a dork. Whatever. I love band.) Tuesday is KPsi retreat; we're going camping. After that its back home to start my job and start sorting through all my crap, trying to make my room inhabitable again... right now its filled up all the way to the door. I don't think I can actually get INTO my room because there's too much stuff in it. Like all the stuff I moved home already, but also stuff like my parents' old mattress, among other things. My family decided my room got turned into a storage room. I think they're turning it into the music room when I take all of my stuff to my apartment, but I dunno.

Right now, though, I need to stop writing and start sleeping... I have a 9 AM test that can go die. But to all my fellow college readers, happy summer! You didn't die this year! To all my high school friends... sucks to be in school - good luck with tests and such. :D

Sunday, May 1, 2011

oh weekends.

So I got back to Waco, went to formal, went to dinner, went to the afterparty, and now here I sit with a pretty bad headache getting ready to go do a concert band concert. Party.

Formal was as expected. Finger food, pretty dresses, guys that all look the same save the tie, and awards that weren't for me. Maybe someday. It was like any other banquet or formal; we just were cheap and skipped the meal part. Taylor and I went to Pei Wei afterward, and that was yummy and good. It was a bit of treat for her, actually, since she spend her food budget on other things and hasn't had a real meal all week. I gave her my leftovers; I have a meal plan.

Then there was the party. For the first time that I remember, I wasn't the drunkest there. I remember the whole night, too. I'm getting better at this self control thing, so that's a plus. I really don't have much to say about the party. It was fun, everyone had a good time... teh endz?

Today though, I have to go do a concert band concert. We really are so bad. It's like middle school band all over again. In fact, one of our pieces says at the top "Written for [whoever's] junior high school band. I can't remember the school, but the fact that it was actually written for middle school and we're playing it as a college band just made me laugh. It's really not that bad of a piece either - just really easy. And we still screw it up. No one practices at all. It's having every lazy high school student that kinda liked band and putting them into a we-don't-care, no audition college band. It's great, really, but we suck.

After that's over we have KPsi meeting, but that shouldn't take too long. I dunno what I'm gonna do tonight. I should probably start studying. My first exam is Thursday, and that's all fine and dandy, but I have three finals the next day, and they're all cumulative, naturally. So that's a party. We'll see how studying for those goes as the week progresses....I've got nothing better to do except study, so that hypothetically helps, but again.... we'll see.

So I hope you're all having an awesome weekend too, and are planning on an awesome week this next week... even if I'm not.

Thursday, April 28, 2011

jobbbb

forgot to mention!

I GOT THE JOB at the movie theater, so that's gonna be a blast for a joyful $7.25 an hour. It's only kinda for the money. I don't need a lot. I just need an income. It's more so I don't die of boredom in Coppell this summer, and so I can see Haley all the time. I hope it works out for me.

It also means I have to go home AGAIN. for the 4th freaking weekend in a row. I have to fill out paper work and stuff. But it's only for a night. I have to be back in Waco Saturday night for KPsi/TBS formal, and then Sunday for meeting and a band concert. Busy weekend. Again. Oh boy.

Anyway, right now I gotta go to a garden reception 'honoring my academic achievements'.... I need scholarship money, and that's where they'll be, so that's where I'm going.

all and all... not so bad.

So.. finals. They are coming. There's no stopping them.

Last day of class is tomorrow. I can't believe I'm a 4th of the way through those "best years of my life" that everyone talks about.

I think I made the most of this year. I firmly believe that, even though I had some rough patches. I did good in school the first semester, I joined an awesome organization that's going to keep me sane for the next 3 years, I learned a lot about business (as anticipated, I guess), I made awesome friends, and most importantly of all, survived freshman year.

I can say I survived a dorm room for a whole year. I can say I survived freaking BUS1301. I survived pledging. I did so many things that are kinda landmark freshman things that people look back and say "god it was fun, but I'm so glad I don't ever have to do that again."

I'm moving on up in the college world, and I want the rest of it to last as long as it can. I'm sure my near future posts will be "procratsinating.....again", or "finals SUCK SO HARD" and "KILL ME NOW I HATE SCHOOL", and other things that aren't nearly as optimistic as this post, but right now, I'm okay. So... don't worry about my sanity or my well being when I'm typing up my hatred of finals and school and Baylor and life... I'm just gonna be really stressed, then it'll be okay by next, next monday afternoon.

Until then, good luck with finals everyone! (and for you poor high schoolers... good luck with that last 5 weeks of school and THEN finals) Toodles.

Monday, April 18, 2011

looking ahead..

I'm getting pretty excited about this weekend. It's Easter weekend; everyone I know from home will be there. Or at least most of them. And what will a lot of us be doing? Well not Easter things, but I really don't think any of us care. My friend has a dad that flies cargo planes internationally for a living, which means he's not at his house a bunch. Which means Friday night just got a million times more awesome, especially when you add in the fact that I have friends that are over 21 that would be happy to help me out.

Being underage really sucks, but it's only for a few more years, and I've found ways around it pretty easily.

On another note, I only have 7 more days of classes, then finals, then summer! I'm still looking towards that job interview on Thursday, but just to be safe I applied for a local restaurant too. To be really honest, I only applied for a few reasons, the main one being when I went there last Friday, all the waitresses were very attractive. I looked around and said, 'yeah, I could work with this,' and then saw the now hiring sign. Why not. (The other reasons are that it probably pays better and has more reasonable hours than a movie theatre) 

So, question of the day. Which degrading summer job do I want? Waiter or theatre crew?

Friday, April 15, 2011

diadelkyle

So Baylor has a holiday of its own called Diadeloso. For all of you who never managed to take spanish in high school, that's "Day of the Bear" crammed into one word. They cancel class, there's an all day concert, there are competitions between organizations in basketball, tug of war, dodgeball, volleyball, and a million other things. But the most awesome part of Dia is that Baylor, for one day, turns its head away from alcohol and just pretends it doesn't exist. 10th street turns into a madhouse. Any time of the day on Dia you'll find hundreds of drunk people partying on 10th street. I'm talking like, 2 in the afternoon, and they'll all be drunk until they pass out somewhere. The cops just circle around the mob, knowing they can't really do anything. I almost felt bad for them, but ended up laughing at them.

Dia was yesterday. I avoided 10th street for the most part, but stayed inebriated all day just the same with a bunch of friends. This was all after the toga party the night before. I even drank in a dorm room full of people and loud music. Not the smartest idea, but I'm not in jail and I don't have a ticket, so it's all good. Now that it's all said and done, boy did I have a headache this morning. It went away surprisingly fast, but it was definitely there during class. On the bright side, my 8 and 9 am classes were canceled, so I only had my 10:10 class and then I was done.

I'm going home this weekend, but only for a little bit - like, just for Friday night and Saturday. I have to be back at Baylor Sunday afternoon, so I can't just chill at home the whole weekend. I'm going home for a few reasons. One, my brother is having his Eagle Project tomorrow. He's building a bunch of bookshelves for a middle school (unless he changed.. I'm pretty sure that's what he's doing). The other reason is to start moving crap out of my dorm room. The year is winding down, and I don't get to move into my apartment until the 27th of May. So there's this awkward 3 weeks where there's no where to put my stuff in Waco, so I get to drag it all home just to drag it all back 20 days later. But today I'm starting to pack some of it up into my car.... mostly just all the stuff I haven't touched all year. Things like this random Superman Halloween costume, or this hula skirt, or, sadly, my guitar. The guitar gets played some, but I'm just not in my room often enough, and it takes up so much space that it's just gotta go early.

I'm really excited about the next weekend too, because I have summer school to sign up for, but more importantly I have a job interview on Thursday night! Yayyy. Hopefully that goes well and I get a job working with one of my best friends from high school. It'll be an awesome summer if that happens (yes because I'm working with Haley and making money, but also because it means I'll make friends that are 21 and older back home. Always a good idea to have some where ever you go)

The puppy's doing well. It looks like he's staying in Waco until the end of school, because he has to go back to the vet in a few weeks and get another round of shots. Taylor got busted for harboring animal fugitives without paying the pet deposit, so I dunno what's going to happen. Berkley might have to go home early. We'll see.

Yep. That's all the stuff in my life right now. Peace.

*PS, happy 100th post to me. I hope the next hundred happen a lot faster. :D

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Ob-la-di, ob-la-da, life goes on...

So great news! My parents are (however reluctantly) letting me keep Berkley. My dad told me straight up that he doesn't want me to keep him and he will in no way be paying a cent for the dog. My mom loves him and didn't want to give him back. I took him back to waco because he needed to get some health things done, and its super cheap here. Kinda like car inspections. A $40 car inspection in dallas county is $14.50 here, but my dad doesn't really know that, so in a way, he IS paying for Berk's shots.

But yeah, this past weekend was awesome, but really really hard on me, what with a combined 3 hours of sleep over the 2 days and then a bunch of homework and an 8 am class. But I'm much better now, after a good night's sleep and a buttload of coffee. We stayed up all night just talking... and gambling at the casino down the road, but that only lasted until 2 or 3. I only made about 10 bucks, but I consider that a successful night at the casino that's designed to make you poor.

School sucks more and more now that spring fever is really starting to hit hard. I checked my finals schedule and I didn't realize this all year, but I have 3 2 hour finals back to back to back on a friday. So much for fun fun fun fun. That sucks so hard, and I hope there's a way to get at least one of them moved. I guess we'll see.

Speaking of schedules, I know yall don't particularly care, but here's my successful registration results...


That there at the bottom is marching band. I don't know why they always insist on having it during the hottest part of the Texas summer day, but I love it anyway. It actually went really smoothly. This is the second time I got all the classes I asked for, and that doesn't happen a lot here. I competed for one of two spots and got one. Yay dean's list.

So that's life right now. Berkley is chillin at Taylor's for another week, then I'm taking him home next weekend, and I'll be at home to help with my brother's Eagle project that he's FINALLY getting around to. It's only been in the works for about a year and a half now.

I'll be back soon, I do hope. And sorry if my title's been used before... I can't remember if I've used it, but I'm sure someone else has. That song's just been stuck in my head all day, so yeah. See ya.

Thursday, April 7, 2011

baylor is dumb sometimes.

So Baylor signs up for classes by seniority and merit. If you're really smart - like, 3.7 cumulative GPA, you're considered as being on the 'dean's list', and essentially the only good part about that is that you sign up for classes a day earlier than the rest of your class. I brought in a ridiculous amount of credit, so I have enough hours to be considered a sophomore, and I'm on the deans list this semester.

So that means I sign up somewhere in the middle, above the normal sophomores, deans list freshmen, and regular freshmen. Well, a lot of good that does, when you're taking 5 junior level classes. I made the perfect schedule about 3 days ago. Not too early, not too late, a nice lunch break, plenty of time between class and band practice, all the good teachers... it was ideal. Now it's all blown to shit. The juniors just absolutely attacked the selection, and now I have to settle for the "8am class with sporadic breaks, eventually ending at 3:20, with just enough time to book it over to the practice field for band" schedule. If I'm lucky. The new schedule has some classes that only have one or two spots left. This is ridiculous. I thought I was getting a good deal by being on the fucking deans list. It doesn't do shit.

On a brighter note, after I get done with stupid registration, and then a test (complete with essays) at 8 in the freaking morning, and then a couple more classes, I get to go home with a puppy! And then go to convention! It's gonna be a blast. I really hope Berkley behaves himself in front of dad. I'll tell you guys about it in a few days. I don't think I'll have the time to write this weekend. Maybe if I get really bored tomorrow night.... I dunno. Don't expect anything.

I guess I get to go back to studying for a communications test now... sad day.

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

I can't think of a title. gimme a break, its two in the morning

Hey guys, so Taylor's okay. When she fainted, she was too tired to move or talk or anything, she was just kinda rag doll-ish. She was conscious and thinking fine, but she couldn't really express any of that, so they took her to the hospital. They released her around 10 and I kept her company for awhile while she still couldn't lift anything or do much. She's been kinda sick and weak all day today, but she's pretty much better now, which is good. She hasn't been getting lots of sleep because of the puppies; they're kinda like babies... you sleep when they sleep, and they don't sleep all night by any means. But they're still adorable and worth keeping around. The doctors don't really know what's wrong with her. The CT scan and the EKG didn't show anything bad, so that's good, but we still don't know what the heck is up. I really think it'd be a relief to find out what is wrong, even if it's pretty bad. Oh well... episode over for now.

On another topic, I get to go to district convention this weekend for KKΨ! That should be fun and interesting... I don't really know what to expect, having never been before, but everyone in the fraternity that's going is really excited, so my hopes are kinda up for it. I just took a 5 hour car ride to and from Corpus this last weekend, so I'm not really looking forward to the 4 hour road trip to OU, but it'll be fun anyway. I'm leaving in the morning and going home since it's on the way, and some friends that are driving up that night are picking me up on the way. The reason I'm going home for that 10 ish hours is so Berkley (my puppy. yes he has a name now) can come home with me. We'll see how that goes over with the parents, I guess. My new plan if they really really don't want to keep him is to see if I can get Ethan to take him, so he still gets to be in my apartment next year, because that would be so legit.

But yeah, I have class in 6 hours, so I think I should probably try to sleep. That triple grande no whip caramel white mocha at 11 o'clock was probably a bad idea.

ONE OTHER THING. The weather here is nuts. Once again, only in Texas can you find weather this sporadic. Tonight's low is like, 50. In 2 days, the high is in the low 90s. That's just marginally better than the forecast a few days ago. They thought the low tonight would be 33 and the high on Saturday was going to be 96. What kind of place has a possibility of a 60 degree spread in 4 days. I love Texas, but that's just a bit ridiculous. Anyway, rant over. Good night everyone. (Or morning, or afternoon... whenever you're reading this. heh.)

Monday, April 4, 2011

puppies and hospitals.

Hey everyone,
the puppies are doing awesome. They're playing and falling all over themselves like real puppies now. They love to chew on things and play with each other instead of sitting around emotionless and lethargic. So that's good, but it means they need even more attention now.

On the flip side of things, my fraternal big sister, the one watching the puppies, was rushed to the ER a couple hours ago.. she fainted during band and was unresponsive apparently. I haven't heard the whole story, and I don't know what's going on. She's more than my big sister; she's one of the best friends I have here at Baylor, and I'm really worried for her. She's been having weird problems for awhile now and I don't know if this is related, but my gut feeling is that it is, even though the other problems are with her vision. Sometimes she has to stay in bed all day because any light hurts her eyes, she loses vision in one of them every once in awhile... that sort of thing. But this is bad. Like I said, I don't really know what's going on, and I'm relying on her best friend who's at the hospital with her to give me updates.

Since she has two puppies at her apartment, it looks like I get to puppy sit until she gets back, and right now that could be 20 minutes or a few days. I have no idea. So here I sit, taking care of puppies and doing homework in her room. I'll be sure to update you guys, just so you know the end of the story.

Sunday, April 3, 2011

puppies.

So this weekend I went with some friends down to Corpus Christi. Yeah, of course we went to the beach. It's kinda a must if you drive 5 hours to the coast. But more importantly, we were saving puppies.

I really don't have words to describe how adorable these puppies are. They're 6 week old schnauzers. Now there are just two of them, but we started with 3.  My big sister from Tau Beta Sigma has a little sister in TBS who's from Corpus and has a boy friend who still lives there. His family is awful. They are horrible people and I hate them from the deepest part of my heart. They had two full bred schnauzers, and these little guys came from them. After mom and dad doggie shot out dogs, they kicked them out of the house. The guy dog is almost for sure dead, and Silver, the mom, is in really bad shape. She still hangs out around the house, but they don't feed her or anything. She has awful bunches in her fur and has this awful skin disease and sores and we're pretty sure she has heart worms... she'll be dead soon if they don't do anything, and I doubt they will. So these puppies have been living outside since birth, we have no idea what the hell they've been feeding them, if anything at all, and they offed dad and won't let them near their mom. It's horrible. So we saved them. They wanted 50 bucks a piece for these flee-infested, sick puppies with sores and scabs all over their bodies. We decided it was worth the money to save them. We found a home for one of them in Corpus, and my big sister's mom is taking another.

The third one had no home, until I came along. It took a lot of convincing, and some compromising, but I'm not done yet. I wanted that puppy. Because it's the cutest thing I think I've ever seen. My dad did NOT want that puppy. So I didn't talk to him. I talked to mom. I sent her pictures and told her the sob story written above. I got it to the point where they puppy is coming home with me, and then, as far as mom thinks right now, we're finding a home for it in Coppell. Now, if all goes according to my plan, this puppy's cuteness factor with overpower my mother and she won't be able to let go of it. As soon as dad sees it, maybe it'll change his mind too; he's a softy for animals, whether he wants to admit it or not. (In the spirit of optimism, I need puppy name suggestions! Comment, go!)

So I'll keep you updated on how the challenge to gain puppy ownership status goes. If it works, the puppy will be staying at my house for the rest of the school year and summer, then coming with me to my apartment, in a perfect world. My mom may not be okay with that last part, either because she'll be too attached to it or because it's 'too much of a distraction' or something. We'll see. Worst case scenario, we find it an awesome home in Coppell.

Puppy saving, check.