What to do, what to do...
My free time at work just started to accumulate, so why not
create a page for daily observations and ponderings on life so I can occupy said
free time! What a great a idea, I think I just will...
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed within this column are those of the writer and the writer only, and do not necessarily reflect those of HSU. If something offends you then read the rules of this site. Regardless, just sit and enjoy these ramblings and realize that the writer is only digging himself deeper and deeper into a hole...
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February 5, 2003 - Confuzzled
Have you ever just felt like walking into a building with a
hammer and a screwdriver and then later walking out of the building carrying a
door? I know I sure have. In fact last Friday that's exactly what I
did. As anyone who has been paying attention to this site knows, last year
was my dorm's final year in existence and the residents were giving free reign
on everything inside. Some people painted their walls funky colors, other
just knocked holes in the walls for bunk bed support. I on the other hand
painted murals on my
walls and
door .
While this was all well and good it did have one major setback: at the end of
the year all my hard-earned work would be annihilated. Luckily,
thanks to the procrastination and bureaucracy of the University, the dorm still
stands abandoned outside our new dorm. Since it's days are numbered, I
took it upon myself to retrieve my wonderful pieces of art. Last Friday, I
walked into the doom with a few tools and 20 minutes later walked out with a new
door in hand. I received quite a few looks too, because it's not every day
you see someone walking around campus carrying a large wooden door with a
painting on it. The reply given to anyone who asked was "What? You
haven't seen a guy walking with a door from a condemned building before?!?".
Of course once the door was in my room I had to abuse it, because it's not
everyday you get to have your own personal door. I wish I could see the
faces of my roommates and visitors when they opened our suite door only to find
another door right behind it. Or the confused looks of people
passing by my room who see a fully painted anime door sitting where a standard
dorm door is supposed to be. I actually got quite a few comments on my
door at 6:30 AM on Saturday, but more on that later. As of right now my
door is in the back of my room acting like every other piece of art I have.
I had to stop putting it in doorways due to some "fire hazard" rules, but at
least I had fun while I had the chance. I'm still trying to figure out how
to take down a whole wall so I can complete my Oaks paint collection, but
that's a story for another day.
February 4, 2003 - Overworked
I'm still waiting for the time during the spring semester
where I have alot of free time and no projects to work on. Last year
around this time I had so much free time that I was able to write daily to this
page and concoct long, interesting stories about my daily life. Now I'm
lucky if I have time to write a sentence a week. It's sad, the semester
has barely begun and I already feel like I am behind on all of my projects.
From the looks of it, by the end of the semester I'll probably be old, gray, and
feeble from all the work I'm doing. Well, I might as well make the most of
it and write what I can while I have a chance...
First of all, my classes are going quite well. Regardless of how
much work they are making do, I am actually happy in each of my classes.
I'm taking a broader range of classes this semester, with classes ranging from
art related to computer programming to computer-art to art history to
Physics to brass band courses. Already each class has given my a large
project to work on over the course of the semester, and this time I plan on
starting each of them sometime before the day of the final. The last thing
I want to is have another all night writing session like I did last
semester.
Not only do I have my class work to do, but I also have to complete
numerous other side projects that I somehow volunteered for: I need to
create some screen prints to fix an "i" I received last year, matte 24 prints
for the dorm, create a webpage for the school academic magazine, work on a 3-D
modeling project with a group of friends, develop film for the yearbook, and
draw and color the comic each and every week. It's going to be a long semester.
But enough of that, you didn't come here to read about what I
should be doing, you came here to be entertained by my whimsical adventure.... I
think.
Last I week I had some interesting adventures. First of all,
I finally went to Louisiana to visit my sister at her college. She showed
my around the town and introduced me to her friends. We had some good times
watching movies and just playing around like and group of college students
would. Overall it was a good time. And during the 3 hour drive I also picked up
a hobby I hadn't touched in a while: reading. I finally re-started a book
I hadn't read in 6 months and luckily I remembered exactly what was going on in
the book (or else I would have been completely lost).
For the most part the week went by just like any other. I
went to class against my will, learned algorithms and techniques that I'll
probably forget at the end of the year, went back to the room and had
conversations with the roommates + girlfriends. Thursday was a little
different though. For some odd reason I actually had a good day considering
everything that happened. On Thursday I had to attend 5 meetings outside of
class for each of the groups which I am a member. I left my room at 7:30
AM and literally didn't come back until 12:00 AM, and yet I had fun the entire
day. And to make things better Caddo actually cooked delicious food, which
is a first. My Phi Mu Alpha (informational) meeting was awesome because we joked
around and had an overall wonderful time with the prospective members.
Then at the actual meeting we... well that's confidential. And to top it
all off I had a meeting with a group of people from my 3-D modeling class where
we decided on a group project we are going to work on over the next few
months/years. What the project is I can't actually say, but it's going to
be big...
January 9, 2003 - Procrastination (updated)
Okay so I'm a little behind in my journal, sue me. Actual
don't, I'm broke as it is... "So what has happened these past 2 months?"
you ask. Well, for those of you keep track, I had multiple
projects due at the end of
the semester that nearly drove me insane. For the most part that's why I
didn't post anything to this site. But I still remember the important
events that happened, such as Thanksgiving and Christmas, and of course, my
birthday. So here's a quick rundown of the last few weeks:
November -It wasn't cold. I was freaking out about writing two 15
page papers along with my other projects. I left the room a few times, and
I completed most of my projects. Beyond tha,t there's not much to say.
Thanksgiving - My Thanksgiving was spent at home with my family.
My grandfather ate with us, which is the first time in my entire life he's done
that. I took pictures for a photo project, and then lounged about.
The day after Thanksgiving the family went to a lake house to visit
relatives I've never seen before. I think Thanksgiving is now
"Discover-lost-relatives" day since last year we did the exact same thing. This
year the lucky relatives were my grandmother's cousin's children and
grandchildren. What that makes them to me is...3rd cousins? 2nd cousins
once removed? I have no idea, but somewhere on our family tree they have a
branch which means I visit them on Thanksgiving. The experience wasn't
really bad, I enjoyed the lake house and had fund exploring the surrounding
area. The only problem was I was the oldest "kid" there. I spent
most of my time sitting with the "grown-ups" listening to them talk, and I was
completely content with it. I found the stories they shared to be
extremely interesting and entertaining, but the entire time they kept asking me
to go and "play" with the other kids who were quite a bit younger than me.
Not exactly a bad thing but I was happy with where I was. I ended up
playing Trivial Pursuit Millennium Edition with them, which I had an advantage
since the questions dealt with issues from the last 20 years and most of the
"kids" haven't been alive nearly that long. After that my sister and I
checked out earlier and went Christmas shopping in Little Rock. We picked
up presents for our parents and then got stuck in horrible traffic on the way
home. As it turns out, there was a major college football game occurring
down the street from the mall and the game finished right when we were
leaving so we were trapped for a while. After that the rest of Thanksgiving was
pretty ho-hum. Nothing really happened and on Sunday I went back to school ready
to finish the semester.
End of the semester - The next two weeks went by
both fast and slow at the same time. I had fun with my friends and
accomplished many of my goals, but I always had the weight of my impending
projects crushing me. Most of the two weekends were spent in the
Photography lab printing off the
photos I took during
Thanksgiving. The Friday before semester exams I threw a "Suite
Birthday/Christmas party" at my house. Each one of my roommates (
all 6 of them) went to my hose for food galore and Christmas/Birthday presents.
It just so happens 6 out of 7 of us have December birthdays so we decided
to celebrate them all together. Each person received a single gift from
the entire group that the group deemed necessary (some of them as a joke), and
then one of the girls decided to buy presents for everyone out of the goodness
of her heart. In the end each person received about 3-5 gifts and we had
the best time ever.
The following Monday (Dec 16) was actually my 21st birthday,
but it didn't seem like it. Instead of having a party or anything I spent
most of the day studying for a major exam in Art History and preparing (matting)
nine pictures for my Photography
presentation. When I finally had some free time I drove home and received
a few gifts from my parents (a new suit and a bottle of wine given to my parents
the day I was born). After a small ceremony I went back to my room and
studied for the next few hours for my Comp Sci test the next day. Overall
the day felt like any other day, in fact it probably would have been classified
as a bad day if I wasn't so darn happy that it was my birthday (one of those
mental things I guess). My suitemate's girlfriend did surprise me in the
morning by putting a "woman" made out of a cardboard tube outside my door saying
"Happy Birthday..." and something about her being my woman. It was
another one of those reminders that my suitemates like to jokingly give me about
not having a girlfriend, something that I am used to from them and don't worry
about. And that was my 21st birthday. The sad thing is I broke the norm
and didn't even have a single drink on my birthday, I was too bogged down with
work.
Tuesday was a big day for me because it was my last exam of
the semester, but it was also the most important. My entire college career
rested on me passing my Comp Sci exam. If I flunked the test then I would lose
my scholarship. Oddly enough this was due to a technicality more than
anything else. My GPA is actually quite high, I could conceivably flunk an
entire semester and still have a high enough GPA to keep my scholarship. But due
to a new rule the school adopted, I had to complete 14 hours during the semester
to keep my scholarship. Since I had already dropped one class due to time
constraints I had to receive a passing grade in all my other classes to get 14
hours. Normally this is not a problem, but in Foundations 2 of
Computer Science earning a passing grade is tougher than one would think.
Out of twenty people in the class only 6 or 7 of us passed, the rest of the
class is retaking the course for the second (or third) time. Overall the test
wasn't too bad, it was just very long with multiple trick questions. After
I finished the test I celebrated by passing out in my room and that's where the
rest of the day becomes hazy. Tuesday night I restarted work on my 15 page
paper for Non-Western art history, and from 10 PM until 8 AM I was writing
everything I could about Diego Rivera and his influences among painters of the
early 20th century.
Wednesday's activities are meshed with the previous paragraph
because the first 8 hours of Wednesday were spent writing a very important
paper. When I finished the paper, I bought breakfast (or a very very
late dinner since I hadn't slept) at the Garrison and walked around the campus
is awe of the world. Not sleeping for 36 hours will sometimes do that to a
person. They say after you've been awake for 24 hours you IQ halves,
and I believe it. After a few quick chats with random passersby's I went
back to my room and slept until mid-afternoon. I woke up in a happy mood
since as of that moment I was finished with the semester. I had no
projects due, no homework to complete, and nothing hanging over my head. I
could also finally celebrate my 21st birthday to it's fullest. My parents
took my out to a nice restaurant and treated me to my first margarita, and then
we all went to see the new Lord of the Rings movie. Of course the movie was over
3 hours long so that pretty much took up the entire night. Afterwards, I
went back to my room and said goodbye to my suitemates who were moving back home
for the Christmas break. Also, one of my friends just GAVE me a TV twice as
large my current one because she said it wasn't working anymore. I
accepted it without delay and made it my project to work on over the break.
As for my Thursday, most of my time was spent packing and moving all my
important equipment to my house for a well-deserved break.
Christmas Break
The first week of my break was actually pretty
ho-hum. I didn't do much, and I enjoyed every bit of it. I drew a
new comic for this site after a month hiatus. I read each night (something
I haven't done in... well... forever I guess). I played a few computer
games online. I even socialized with my family. The one thing I didn't do
was leave my house, at least not with my car. My parents also bought
digital cable while I was home which was really nice since it also came with 50+
movie channels for me to waste time with. And the digital cable looked
especially nice on my new larger TV which I fixed up over the break...
On Christmas day my family did the usual
opening-presents thing and we all received items that would get us out of each
others hair for the break. My dad received the Band of Brothers DVD
collection and the 24 DVD collection, which when put together totals to about 36
hours of DVDs to watch. I received a couple of games, art supplies, books,
clothes, and random stuff that I could use in my room in peace. I felt
sorry for my younger sister because most of her presents were dish and kitchen
supplies for her new trailer she's moving in to. I don't think she got anything
she actually asked for, she made the mistake of telling my mother she was moving
out of the dorm and into her own place over the Christmas break. This gave my
mother the crazy idea that she didn't need to buy my sister anything on her
Christmas list but instead buy her supplies.