Yesterday, I didn't do much. I went to the church and Andy taught me a couple of tunes to some songs. After that, I came home and hung out. I then decided to finally hook in my antennae to my new CD player I have in my truck. I got it all plugged in right and then I went to get something to eat. I noticed that I had not put the CD player back in right because it was slidding out. So I had to unhook everything, take off the dash, all that crap and play with it some more. I pulled on it a little too hard, I heard a spark and saw a little smoke and my CD player no longer turned on. It sucked. I tried reconnecting the red wire that had come undone, but it still didn't work. And it still sucked. I didn't know what to do, so I went in and called Wing Stop and got a hold of Adam because he was the one who helped me put it in. He told me to come up there so he could look at it. I had everything unhooked; my dash, lights switch, stuff like that; so I had to drive there with just my day lights and it was about 12:00 AM. I got there, and Adam looked through everything. Checked the wires and the fuses. We hooked the radio directly to the car battery and it lit up, so it was still working. After a while we decided to just go see a guy that works at the West Monroe Dominos. This guy is really good with electronics. We went by and he looked at everything too. Finally, he decided to check the fuses himself and found that one had blown. Adam had missed it. So he replaced the fuse..and everything worked fine. During all this, there were about six vehicles surrounding my truck. My truck was the center of attention. Even though all these guys have nicer trucks than I do and better sound systems and have had a lot more work done to them, my truck was the center. I hung out there a little bit after my radio was fixed because I figured it might be a little rude to just get what I needed and jet. I finally got home around 2:30 AM last night. I got in my bed and tried to sleep....but I couldn't. I maybe got 30 minutes of sleep. Around 6:30, I decided to go to Shipley's and get some donuts. I ate them and went to bed at 7:00. I woke back up at about 12:30. Adam finally called me and said that they were ready to meet up and hook up my system. I got there, but the amp hadn't come in yet, so they just put in the wires and the subwoofer and got everything ready so all they would have to do is hook up the amp. They finished up the wiring about 3:15 and I imediatly left so I could get home and get ready for work at 4. Work wasn't so bad at first. Adam and Derek came and put my amp in my truck. I was soooo excited. I think that is why I couldn't go to sleep last night. Peyton and I talked and stuff while he was working. Then around 9:00, he got off and the only people there working was me, Lynn, and Mrs. Pam. It sucked really hard. It was me, one slow, fat guy that takes up most of the free space in the kitchen and doesn't do much, and the owner. Lynn would fry the chicken wings, and put them in the bowls. He hogged the tongs so that I couldn't put the chicken in the sauce bowls, and he is REALLY slow. He's like a steamroller on a race track. I would sauce the wings, put them in the boxes and take them to the customers while keeping fries cooked and cleaning dishes and doing everything else that Lynn wasn't doing. I can't stand that guy. I really wanted to quit, but I figured I could handle it for just a little longer. I don't work again until next Wednesday. I have 20 hours this week and 19 next week. Those hours blow. Then it will be over. Then school starts. I can't wait. After I got off work, I drove over to West Monroe Dominos, because I was sure Derek had said meet him over there. i told him it would be after 1 , but he said come on over. I did, and nobody was there. Made me a little mad. I drove back home listening to my new system. I'm hoping Adam will remember to bring me some tweeters tomorrow to hook up. Well that's my day.
AUGUST 16 OR SO UNTIL SEPTEMBER 25, I GUESS, 2003
I haven't been keeping up with my journals. Basic over view of what went on during this time period. The weekend we were allowed to move back into the dormitories at Tech, I went to Six Flags on Nazerine day with one of my friends, who happens to be a nazerine, and two other guys that I went with. The lines were really short, so I got to ride all the rides I wanted to about 2 or 3 times. It was so much fun. Even the numerous times I got called Carrot Top didn't bother me. That night, after six flags, me and the three friends I was with went to the Whataburger that was near our motel. I got a whatacheeseburger. The next day, we went to some mall and went ice skating. I had never been before. It felt awkward, but at least I didn't look as awkward as Lance did. Neither of us fell, but Lance looked like he was having seizures while skating.
I got back on that Sunday and on Monday, I moved into my dorm. I have a private dorm this year...which has it's ups and downs. The dorm building as a whole is much better than Caruthers. I have more space too. I don't to worry about roommates and their stuff, but then again, I am all by myself. I was really worried that not that many people would come see me. Anyway, I got my room all fixed up. I like all my classes and most of the people in them. Since I was held back a quarter, I am with different people in my engineering classes. I like them better than my old ones. Much better. They are a lot cooler than most of the people in my old engineering classes. Um....I'm a lot more involved at the Wesley Foundation now. I only really go to the BCM for chapel now. Track practice is already sucking. It sucked the first day....much worse than I remember from last year. I had my first real asthma attack after running 10x200s one day. It's a really horrible feeling that I never wish to feel again. The guys next door like playing their music with the bass on high like they are doing right now. So at this moment, I am going to turn the bass up on my speakers to the max and not worry about bothering anybody. One weekend, I went to Pine Cove with the Wesley Foundation. That was a really beautiful camp. Everyone was so excited all the time. It was wierd at first, but I got to liking it.
The first weekend after I got back to school, I went home. That sunday I went to church. It was communion Sunday. During the church service, I had my arms crossed, then I felt something tickling one of them and I look down to find an inch worm on my shirt. I was kinda confused as to how it could have gotten on my shirt. I showed the girl that was sitting next to me, and then I flicked it onto her skirt. She picked it up and just held it. Then the sign in pads came down the row, and I got an idea. I took the worm from her and put it into the pad and shut it, and then passed it down to the guy across the row. He opened it up, and the inch worm looked up at him and he looked down at it and started laughing. I couldn't help but laugh, but I tried to be quiet, because I didn't want the preacher to think I was laughing at him. It's hard to stop laughing when I try to contain it. Anyway, the guy did something with the worm, and I never saw it again. I don't know what he did. Then it came time for communion. We were doing it by intinction (dunking the bread into the juice). I was thinking, "yeah, I'm going to grab a big chunk of bread." So I grabbed a pretty good size piece and stuck it in my mouth. Right at that moment, I remembered I had forgotten to dip it into the grape juice, so I quickly pulled it out, dipped it and then ate it. I don't think anybody saw, except for one of the ladies in the choir. She just smiled at me. Nobody behind me knew any better. Cause I was so smooth.... That night, I came back to school and went to Fusion, which is the kick-off worship service that the Common Ground band plays at.
Jarred, the guy I was suppose to room with, but didn't, doesn't like his roommate. His roommate hardly ever takes showers and their room stinks horribly. He eats all of Jarred food and drinks all his drinks. Jarred put signs up now that say, "don't touch or eat" and "Off Limits". It's kinda funny.
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 2003
I joined the flag football team at the Wesley. I practiced with them for the first time yesterday. James is the quarterback and makes playing offense really complicated. We had our first game today. I didn't get the ball once. All I want to do is get the ball and run down the field at unfathomable speeds and score a touchdown. I, however, did not get that chance. Jarred's roommate was on the other team. He was wearing black socks.... We won the game. I got my calculus test back today that I had taken Friday. I made a 49 out of 100. It sucks. I hate calculus, but both of my majors require it. I am doing pretty good in my physics class. I had signed up for an easy physics class a few days after classes had started. The other people I was taking it with talked me into signing up. They said it was an easy A. I signed up and payed $5. Now I am dropping the class, because I don't want to read Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time. Everyone else I know in the class dropped it too. I hope the teacher doesn't think bad of me for doing that, because he is also my physics 201 teacher. He's pretty cool though. He has an earring....in his left ear.
Tonight after I got back from eating. I walked up to Hutcheson, my dorm, and there was a dog walking around up on the porch next to the entrance. I petted him for a little bit. It looked like he was looking for someone that might be inside. So I let him in Hut. He sniffed around on the second floor for a little bit, then I brought him up to my floor, he sniffed around some more, so I took him to the 4th floor. I then brought him back down to my room. He came in for a little bit and I gave him a yogurt bar. He took it and ran down the hall, but he waited for me next to the stair well. While I was walking down the meet him, a black dude came out of his door and headed towards the stairwell. The dog poked his head around the corner and the black guy was like, "Woah! There's a dog in here," and quickly went back to his room. I thought it was kinda funny. It seems like most black people are really afraid of dogs. Anyway, we went down to the first floor and I took him back outside. I got him to follow me over to Neilson. He got to the door, but wouldn't come in with me. I didn't know why. People were coming in and out and petting him and stuff. I finally got him to come in and go up to the 3rd floor with me. I knocked on Rex's and Joey's room, and they opened up. The dog ran in there and layed down. Rex freaked out and started yelling to get the dog out. The dog wouldn't stand up, so I slid him out into the hall while he was still laying down. I lead him down to Jarred's room, but only his roommate was there, so after the dog sniffed around their room real good, he came back out and I took him down the hall to some other people I knew. They didn't spaz out near as bad as rex did, but they still didn't like him in the room. So I took him back down the stairs and out into the parking lot. He got a little too far away from me and lost me, so I came back to my dorm and that's where I am now.
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 7, 2003
Today, I woke up around 10:45 AM and got ready to go meet Lori at 11:45 at the Wesley foundation so we could go to Soul Food Cafe at the BCM for lunch, because she had never been before. I got there right on time, but she had to go pray for the mission trip to Houston they are going on, so we didn't get going until about 12:10. We went, ate, it was good. I like the band that plays during Soul Food. They are really awesome. After that, I went back to the Wesley hung out. In my rush to get to the Wesley in time, I had forgotten my book bag, so I went back and picked it up for my Engineering class. We got our tests back today. I was one of six people who failed it. I feel so retarded. People say that I am smart, but I don't think a smart person would fail his first calculus test and first engineering test. So after class, I went back to the Wesley and went to the chapel and prayed and meditated and stuff about what I should do if I keep failing. I wouldn't know what major to switch to if I wanted to. I like physics, but I don't know if I want to spend my life being a physicist. I don't really want to be a scientist, I don't think. I was going to double major with Electrical Engineering and Physics, but I think I am going to cancel those plans, and I am going to change my current minor from physics to maybe business. I also thought about what I should do with track. I am the only white person on the entire sprint team this year. I feel like I am not worth that much to the team, except to maybe make the other guys practice harder. I don't think black people really like for a white guy to be ahead of them while running, so they push harder to stay ahead. If I can't do any good this year, I may just not come out next year. And even though all the practices suck and make me feel like crap for a little while, I am probably going to miss it if I quit. My mom said that if I quit, I would probably have to get a job. I don't want a job, I would definatly not have time for that. Um...I'm not talking about my day anymore I don't think.... Anyway, I stayed in the chapel at Wesley for about 45 minutes or so, and then I had to go to track practice at 4:30. Football players were infesting the track area, so the track team went to Ruston Jr. High to run in the fields they have there. The guys were split into two groups, and then me and B. Huck had our own group. We ran a 500, 400, 300, and 200; had a break and then ran another 300, 200, and then ran a 100 at almost full speed. He beat me by about 1.5 to 2 yards. I was disappointed. After track, I came back to my dorm and took a shower and then headed to Common Ground at 7. I try to get there early because the church it is at this year is smaller than the one it was at last year and I like to get a good seat. Common Ground was really awesome tonight. Um...I don't really know what else to say about it. After CG, I went to Johnny's and ate. After that, I went to the Wesley to do some physics and Calculus. As I was driving around, I had put in a techno CD. It smelled like burning wire in my truck. I was guessing that my bass might have been hitting too hard or something. I don't know. I didn't like it though. I hope it has nothing to do with me duck taping my CD player into its harness. So I came back to my dorm and got to typing on my webpage. I'm about to go to bed.
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 24, 2003
Today, I skipped my Political Science class at 8, because I didn't get to bed until 4 last night. I went to physics and calculus then went to eat lunch with Erica and Klay. After that I went to the Wesley for a little bit, but not much was going on there and I couldn't find anybody to drive me back to my dorm that is at the far other corner of campus. So I walked a couple of miles back to my dorm. I pretty much just stayed in there and took a nap before I had to go to track practice at 3:30. When I got to practice, I found out that we were having a little competition. Everyone was going to run a 300. We all did the warm-ups and stuff and that took about 30 or 45 minutes, it seemed. Then we gor ready to run the 300. There were 12 guys split into 3 heats. When there are a lot of people running the same race, they are split up into "heats" and a 300 is 3/4 of a lap around the track for those of you ignant of track terminology. I was in the first heat. I was in the farthest outer lane so that meant I had no one to chase. The starter called out set and then pulled the trigger of the gun, but it didn't go off. Good thing, because I thought he was going to say "ready, set and then pull the trigger." So I got my crap straight now that I knew it was two commands instead of three. He said set again, and then pulled the trigger. The gun went off this time and I took off as fast as I could. I didn't have anyone to chase, so I just run a constant full speed. I stayed about 15 yards ahead of the next guy behind me. He caught up with me a little bit as we came around the second curve and I finished about 7 yards ahead of him. My time was 35.76 seconds. After all the other guys had run, I looked at the time sheet and I had the 5th fastest time. That race felt great. It made me feel like I had more worth to the team now. I had been unsure about my worth to the team for a while. Anyway, most of the other guys were really impressed that I did so well. It was a good feeling. Coach told us to run 3 more 150s and then practice was over. I went back to my dorm and hung out there for a little bit. I didn't really have much to do except to go to the a drama thinggy at the Wesley Foundation at 8:00. I got hungry, so I took a shower and headed to the cafeteria around 7:10 and forgot that it closed at 7 on Fridays, so I left and was on my way to McDonalds when I passed by the Wesley and saw a bunch of people there already. I figured that I had just thought wrong and that it started at 7. I pulled into the parking lot and came in and watched the last half of the play. After it finished, me and Morgan went to McDonalds and I got some food and she got some ice-cream, and we went back to the Wesley to watch a movie with everyone. We watched the Apostle. It was kinda a weird, but interesting movie. After all that, I got back to my dorm around 11 and then went to sleep around 12 or so.