my nose is all plugged up, which means i can't taste anything. so i'm wondering if i should eat really nutritious food that ordinarily tastes like crap because i can't taste it now. why makes me wonder even more that, if we didn't have taste buds, would we eat well all the time? or would we 'snack around' (aka alaska j.) on unhealthy junk food? i wonder if we'd all eat better if we had the time and the money. i certainly hope so. we only eat well when we have to - during my training i ate well, and i know wags has a super-duper diet, etc. i just wish everyone else could have some motivation.
but then again, dang it, the monterey chicken quesadilla from taco bell is just too good to pass up sometimes, y'know? or the monterey ranch chicken sandwich at wendy's. wow, that sucker's good.
enough about food, i'm getting hungry again. i relaxed today, and took not one, but two naps to catch up on sleep and try to knock out this cold. some nyquil will help tonight too, i think. i'm blaming patrick for giving it to me.
so i went to the high school basketball game tonight with skilly, fulch, kathy & mark. we went b/c kathy's brother is on the team, and they ended up winning a close game that gave them their first league title ever. it was a great game to watch. anyway, while we were chillin after the game i found a few trophies that our HS cross country team had one while i ran varsity, so that was cool to see. plus we have a few new additions to the 'all american' lineup, although i don't know if we should count academic all-americans, nor community colleges or club sports. let the othes stand out a bit, i say.
insomnia is a good movie. i'm glad though that ben's here tonight because i don't know if i'd want to sleep by myself after watching it.
********************
thumbs up: two naps a day
thumbs down: another snowstorm tomorrow? give me a break!
quote: "mom, eric's making fun of you." "what? eric would never make fun of me! " - kathy & her mom
cd rotation: further seems forever: how to start a fire
a secret message to garrett coyle: START A BLOG. i'll show you how to do it tomorrow at our 8AM MEETING. ouch. at least we 'won' tonight, since the other team didn't show up. but hey, that means we're 4-0. the highlight of my night was blocking chad. we had fans too, but they left after about 20 minutes, i was kind of offended they didn't watch our 3-on-3 games.
so get this: in my math 441 class, we have homework assigned everyday (5 problems or so) and if you do one on the board during class, you get 3 points. sometimes dr. szeleky will ask questions in class for 5 or even 10 points. well, he asked everyone today how many we have. i had 47, which i learn is the highest in our 9 person class. he says, "ok. whoever has over 40 points doesn't have to take the exam." how cool is that? 3 of us our exempt from taking it! plus, he said, usually everyone gets an 'a' in his class. kind of like, "well, you made it this far, how about we help you out a little?" an emphatic YES is my reply.
in celebration, i bought the new juliana and further seems forever cds. i've only listened to the further cd and it rocks. their lead singer quit the band to lead dashboard confessional full-time, so this is fsf's first cd without him, and it sounds awesome. we'll see if it stands the test of time.
how 'bout those 40 degrees today?!! if we're this excited about 40, how about when it gets 70? spring is so close you can almost taste it.
i decided in my thermodynamics class today (where i argued and got 5 points on my test reinstated, now its a 92) that i'm having a graduation party. you're all invited. how about 3-7pm on the wednesday of finals week? we'll have arby's sandwiches - just like my high school graduation party. please, no gifts. we'll hang out and play badminton or croquet in my backyard that's approximately the size of my refrigerator. it'll be a good time, you can all meet my fantabulous parents and the little bro in case you never have before. then you'll realize they're 5'8" and 5'3" and wonder how this 6'2" guy can be their kid. i do resemble the milkman a little guess...
speaking of milkmen, check out franklin's blog (link on the left).
*********************
thumbs up: the sun & the 40 degrees
thumbs down: a fat lip & a sore throat
quote: "you gots to drop the consanants and speak the vowels to sound like black people yo" - russ
cd rotation: further seems forever: how to start a fire
i know i may not be the best basketball player (to which you say, yes, of course) but i know enough that i can help my team out when we're not playing so well. tonight at our co-rec game a few guys were playing aboslutely horrible, they were guarding some super-quick guys really tight, who would just drive past them for a layup. this happend at least a dozen times. so here's what i say: "play off them a little! who's shooting 5 feet behind the 3 point line? these guys haven't made a basket outside the paint all night!" and what do they do? play more bad defense. and yes, we lost. i'm not bitter, just frustrated that we played so bad, we beat this team by like 20 earlier in the season. and they only had 4 players for the first half. end rant.
you may be pro-war, you may be anti-war. but regardless of your political beliefs, check out this senator's speech. he writes from an anti-war platform, and raises some interesting questions. i don't agree with everything he says, but you don't have to if you want to learn something.
heidi - its sweet you're getting involved in habitat, my older bro used to be the president and i regret that i never really got involved. its awesome you're running the san francisco marathon - makes me want to get another goal in place. my legs still feel weird after a month off, i wonder if they'll be better soon. something i have noticed is that i have a lot less energy at the end of the day, now that i'm not running regularly. i haven't been eating as well nor taking care of my body very much. as soon as school slows down i should have some more time though. and heidi, silence can be very nice sometimes - like on that night run you're talking about.
in the past week i've had two friends apoligize to me for being jerks to me. which makes me think two things: 1) my friends have some incredible character, do you know how hard it is to apologize to someone and say you were wrong? i love these guys, what integrity. and 2) am i doing anything to make my friends into jerks? like, is my attitude crappy (its been really cranky lately)? and i don't know if i'm fostering much encouragement or general friendliness. i think they kind of had a right to be jerks. i'll try to be un-cranky the next time, i guess.
*******************
thumbs up: getting pumped for n. carolina
thumbs down: roommates waking me up from a nap
quote: "wha....?" - russ
cd rotation: the get up kids: eudora
**this was a post from yesterday** - blogger was down.
do you ever have one of those days where everything goes *right*? today was one of those days.
i skipped my toledo class and slept until 10:45, which was great. i haven't slept in in months it seems. when i went to my first class, i found that it was canceled because my professor is stuck in new york. so instead i did some homework, saw joel and keith in the lab and visited a professor. i turned in a project that was due about 2 weeks ago and he said, "very good job," which is sweet.
i spotted marcy and ate lunch with her, and heard that dr. gresser still feels bad for giving me my first 'B' a few months ago. i had a good laugh at that. i also got some mail from osu, saying they submitted my name for a university fellowship. who knows if i'll get one though. that whole process has to be crazy - i applied to 6 schools and am 'interested' in each of them, but maybe i'll get offers for more than one school but not take them - they must have to have all their financial stuff on a rolling scheme or something, in case one person denies admission, then they just move to the next peson. i wonder where i am in the whole shuffle.
so wags has a sweet blog now. his, diana's, and eric's all beat mine hands down. go check them out.
i finished recording the moog today. this thing is one quirky keyboard - it takes 1/2 hour to warm up, some of the knobs work every other time, others have to be pushed back and forth a few times to work out the kinks, the tuning is stable for about 3 steps either way, the pitch wheel goes too far, so its an octave plus 1/2 step, etc. there's still a few knobs that i don't even know what they do. but regardless, "pressin game" is finished as far as instruments go, we only have vocals and mixing to go. its great.
and my cousin, about 40 days older than me, just got engaged! she called me to tell me the details - and she asked me to be in the wedding! honestly, i've not met the groom-to-be yet, but he's cool from what nicole tells me. anyway, she's awesome. i'm so happy for her.
i walked around campus today listening to my newest winter mix. its sweet for the most part, a few songs need to be moved and/or deleted. its fun walking around with headphones on because it feels like you're in a movie, plus its awkward when people try to talk to you and then they realize that you're not listening.
well, here's to a tomorrow that i hope is as good as today. a day that everything works. because it seems like something always goes wrong, you know. and those days that everything goes well stand out - i've needed this for a while. and now, to cap things off, i'm going to bed.
*****************
thumbs up: pinewood recording, nicole, wags & slooks slap-happy, etc.
thumbs down: actually...there was a crappy thing - my picts for the yearbook were ok at best, and i think i deserved a higher grade on my thermo test. but i don't really care about either.
quote: "we look forward to seeing you in september" - osu letter. too bad i want to be out of this state so bad i can taste it!
cd rotation: jimmy eat world: bleed american
& winter mix
i turned down an expenses-paid trip to penn state today (for this weekend) because PSU is about 6 hours away, and I can't really afford to spend the entire weekend away from studying, as sad as that sounds. plus they have over two feet of snow there, so i imagine those 6 hours of driving time are more like 8 or 9. that's not fun. state college, if you've never been there, is in the middle of absolute nowhere. it's a big school with a nice campus and rolling hills in the countryside. its one of my top 3 i'd say, but not my top 1. that spot belongs to colorado at boulder.
i had a dream last night about a girl-it wasn't a sex dream, lets say that right away- but it was a very good dream. basically i only remember a few images, one of them being me sitting next to her on a bench, i put my arm around her, and she snuggles close to me. that's it. that's a very happy feeling, one i've not experienced in a while unfortunately, but a good one nonetheless. i'm smiling even writing about it. this girl is just a friend of mine, and its kind of weird that she actually called later in the day. so i felt like we were tight (since i had the dream) and she just thought i was weird.
thanks for signing my guestbook. i hope some people who have never emailed me will drop a line here or there, because i never really know who reads this blog. i hope you check out some of my friends' blogs' too, if you're just visiting.
you know what satisfaction is? (right mike?) it's spending a lot of time on a math programming assigment, and getting it to work, and getting it to kick butt. i feel like i've accomplished something. go maple. now i can run all sorts of test problems and get the right answer. sweet!
i'm envious of my friends at osu and u.dayton (among other schools) who had school canceled today. i haven't had a class canceled, let alone a whole day! hope you all enjoyed it, maybe you'll get another one tomorrow! i think i'm going to skip my class at UT tomorrow, its a lot of driving that i don't want to do, and so i can sleep in! to all the older bgsu folk: do you remember when the power went out on campus like two years ago, and stuff was canceled because classrooms and buildings had no electricity? i remember going home from conklin computer lab because it didn't really make sense to sit in a power-less computer lab.
one last tidbit: the protest i mentioned yesterday did happen, with some protesters laying on the ground as a "die-in" and others standing in a big circle in silence, enveloping the vocal college republicans. a word to the naive: being anti-war is not anti-american.
********************
thumbs up: walking in the snow
thumbs down: my math prof, seeing me as the only student in class, was going to cancel it, but then two people walked in about 10 minutes late and we had class.
quote: "she had man-hands!" - seinfeld
cd rotation: brandtson: dial in sounds
thanks diana for the nice email. i really like your compliment, describing my blog as 'lucid.' that's a cool word. anyway, i took your advice just now and put up a guestbook link! so sign it sometime, yo!
we started up the recording tonight, i did a few parts of 'pressin game' and i'm looking to be finished by the end of the week. jesse will be finished the week after that, and mixing two weeks after that. so maybe you'll find a copy on your desk a little after spring break. it takes time, people! plus we haven't practiced in like a year so i can't even remember our songs.
here's the scene tomorrow:
the anti-war protestors outside at the union, organized and vocal.
the pro-war rally (headed by the college republicans) outside at the union, calling the protests "anti-american."
preview day, where at least 1000 high school kids & their parents will be on campus to witness it all. i wonder who will think back to vietnam. i hope it gets heated.
speaking of protestors, i was very happy to read in the blade that millions of europeans rallied against the war in most of the major western cities - rome, madrid, paris, and london. the paper also said that 500,000 people were in NYC at the time too. i'm happy that people are standing up for what they believe in, and that the government's desire for war does not go unquestioned. it's a sticky situation, no doubt, with no clear-cut answer, but i still do not see how we can rationalize unprovoked war. let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me.
********************
thumbs up: brett dennison at the recording controls
thumbs down: paper cuts
quote: "that's the worst idea i've heard all day" - brett, when i asked him to go in the bathroom and smell jesse's carnage (sorry i can't remember yours brian)
cd rotation: u2: the joshua tree
today did rule, i did a little part in justin's new film, "crutches" that features a sweet script and some awesome filmwork. thanks lots for having me out today, justin, i had a blast, despite my nice mess-ups (see my 'pelican' line). i really appreciate you asking me to help. and thanks for not telling me i had chocolate on my face during all the filming.
then to top off the afternoon i met up with garrett, justin p., skilly and fulch to watch the falcons lose by two points in a heartbreaking-ly close game. it was a good time though. nothing like the intramural team hanging out on the weekends now!
we played tank-wars at lisa & colleen's house. let me explain if you've never played before: two teams of two (or three) play at a time. the teams are divided into pairs: one person wears a blindfold, the other is their guide. the person in the blindfold must throw paperwads ("bombs") at the other team's blindfolded players, and whoever hits all the other players wins. its hard though, because you can't see where you're throwing and so its a lot of ducking behind walls and rolling on the ground looking for more bombs. we played with the lights out too and it was sweet.
i had a good talk with my parents today, to my surpise. sometimes its hard to talk to my dad, because he gives a lot of advice and i think i get annoyed sometimes (which is pathetic on my part), and my mom who, i'm sure doesn't really want to see me (or my brothers) leave the house, or ohio for that matter. but we talked about the future and about school for a while, and i'm very glad that i did so. they are excited for me and that makes me happy.
yesterday was valentine's day, and i have to say that it was ok, i wasn't pining for anyone or feeling lonely or anything. i'm pretty happy being single and am content with how my life is going. jesse and i watched a lot of stand-up comedy and almost peed our collective pants at a 1980s robin williams and 90s seinfeld. geniuses.
i feel kind of bad for my brother tim, though, he had the 'cominghome' dance tonight at high school, and the girl he's going with had to call in sick. she's ben out all week with bronchitis and stood no chance to go to the dance. so tim, being the guy he is, still went with his friends to have a good time, and his friends are awesome and made sure he still came. tim is awesome, shaved head and all. i was kind of hoping he'd skip out on the dance so we could hang out, but we're gonna try again on monday. what a cool guy. i think sometimes i live vicariously through him, because he's at such a fun part in his life, so i try to give him all this good advice on how to live his senior year next year and how to pass on some traditions that my friends had - like going out to eat before school on fridays and having the cross country team sleep over, etc. tim's awesome because he'll listen to my stories but he still thinks for himself and does his own thing. i almost wish i was in his position, with my current beliefs and personality. i think doing a high school senior year with my best friends would be really fun right now.
but then i also know, as justin points out, 12 weeks until graduation.
tomorrow starts a new week, a new week to be way to busy and absorb myself in the mindless junk that is school. here's to a warmer tomorrow (lifts glass).
********************
thumbs up: crutches
thumbs down: the wind
quote: "like when the pelican eats the bugs off a rhinoceros" - ben not messing up a line in the movie
cd rotation: taking back sunday: "tell all your friends"
