| First order of business: should I divide this by subject matter? Are people interested primarily in my running going to want to look at stuff pertaining to school, social life or singing? Hmmm. Second order of business: get a cookie while I think this over. Its a good cookie. Generally I refrain from buying things I can just take from the caf in Ziploc bags from free, but John has been buying some variety of Keebler cookies that simply does it for me, so I might have to start purchasing said cookie. That said, back to work here...Third order of business: decide that I need to make a decision. All I can think about is how good that cookie was. Fourth order of business: get another cookie. Fifth order of business: enjoy cookie. If this was a paper for class, the next order of business would definitely be: check every away message on my buddy list. But it's not so I guess I'll just commit to one main page, divided by entry, rather than having a running column, etc. I also guess I'll just dive in now. Big weekend coming up: Erin and Kevin Walsh are coming up here to cheer on Papa Walsh in the NYC Marathon, so I will (hopefully) get to see them. Also, I have the Atlantic 10 Conference Championship Cross Country Meet on Saturday in Philadelphia. This is the reason I have no option of going home to see X's cross team run at the state meet, which is very disappointing, but A-10s is good shit too. Speaking of which, I got my A-10 gift today: a fleece. Not too bad. It's no camp chair, but it's better than the CD wallets they gave out the year before I came here. So, today was one of the worst days I've had this school year, and you know why? Because of money, that's why. We, The Ramblers, my singing group, applied for money to travel to St. Louis to sing with Mike McGrath's group, the Bare Naked Statues. Obviously you know by this point that we didn't get the money, or else this wouldn't be a sad day. You just gotta love how something that might be fairly minor can take on giant emotional proportions based on the rest of all that stuff that fills your life. For instance, this afternoon I get the first half of my screenplay back from my Screenwriting teacher, and he has some encouraging comments for me regarding it, and its relatively free of format errors. And did I mention that was my only class of the day? And I just knew that today would be the A-10 gift day, and shore-nuff....the fleeces appear as if manna from the sky. No kidding there. So I return to my room and find out that we did not get approved for the trip, but hey! here's your consolation prize! Take 4 members of your group and go to St. Louis even though you can't sing with just four people! Hooray! Since the appeal hearing regarding our submission had gone pretty well that afternoon, I had been fairly confident that we'd get the money, so the shattering of that confidence, heaped upon that good first part of the day really knocked me down a bit. Also, the fact that the trip was close to my heart, being a chance to sing with one of my best friends, see my brother and his fiance/one of my other extremely close friends, as well as the fact that I did research on airfare, found a chaperone when all hope seemed lost, and helped draft the appeal with what I thought was some of my better writing... well you get the idea: I had to take it personally. So I felt extremely angry first, then dumbfounded, then kinda hungry, then just kinda hollow, and then I finally just felt like I'd been kicked in the stomach, combining all those prior emotions into a stunned, angry and generally abstract ball of hollowness. Right now I'm just kinda feeling oxymoronic. But I'm over it by this late hour. And I've learned my lesson: always have a few extra thou laying around for next time you wanna go to St. Louis. Night, all. |
| October 28, 2003 |
| Thanksgiving was nice, and I was glad to see everyone I could, but coming back to school for 3 weeks of hell is, well, not so nice. So much for Thanksgiving being a chance to recharge for the last push of the semester. We had our first indoor (track) meet of the year last night - I ran the mile, finished 4th in 4:34, 2nd on our team. That time is just 5 seconds off my personal best, and is 7 seconds faster than I ran in this meet last year: good signs all. The bad sign is the lingering pain I've had in my heel for the past freaking month. I never went to our trainer in November about it because I figured he'd just tell me to ice (which I was already doing) and get on the bike or in the pool, and I figured I could just run through it for the last couple meets, rather than risk losing my sharpness for some of our bigger meets. Well I thought I might have plantar fascitis but when I told Vinny (the trainer) where the pain was, he said, "Hmm...that might be a heel bruise. With plantar fascitis it usually hurts right here," placing pressure on a different, but nearby spot, and drawing a wince and yelp out of me. It hurt there, too. Hopefully I can rest it a bit over the holidays and maybe get orthodics and clear this up for good, because I can no longer remember what it feels like to finish a run and just feel fine - no aches, or unnatural pains...no need to ice 3 different spots on my legs or feet. I might throw an update up during finals week, because I figure I'll have some more free-time then. Unless I'm consumed with studying and Christmas shopping. So maybe I will....maybe I won't.... if not, here's the good word for those of you that are interested: I come home December 19th in the early evening, and will fly back here on January 6. In between then, I'm looking forward to Christmas (duh) and especially to seeing my brother, Pete, who was remiss (I'm kidding) in his familial obligations (visting over Thanksgiving) because he had to tend to his academic obligations in St. Louis. And, of course, I'm looking forward to seeing as many of you as I can. If you will be in town, and want to hang out, drop me an e-mail ([email protected]) or call me once I'm home. Also, if you didn't know, Scot and I have a band called Forgotten Thanks, and we finally have our CD (full-length) completed and ready for sale (just $8). Visit our site for more on that. |
| December 6, 2003 |
| Christmas has passed. New Year's has passed. Still nothing terribly exciting has happened to me over break. I learned on my very first time back home from school, last Thanksgiving, that there is no sense in having expectation because the will only inhibit the fun you could be having. So, considering the craziness of this past semester, the low-keyness of the break has been OK. But at the same time, you can't help wanting to really have some nights to remember when you go back to school. Also, low-key wouldn't be so bad if it were a productive break. By this time last break I had already read something like 4 books. I'm about 70 pages into The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera, about half that far into Catcher in the Rye, by Scot Ehrhardt, and have read the first two accounts in JRR Tolkien's The Silmarillion. If I don't finish at least two of those, my life will have been a waste. I am doing better on movies...what I have seen: Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King - go see it. Bull Durham - see it. Bottle Rocket - see it. The Outsiders - don't see it. you can read the book in the time it takes to watch the movie, and the book is much, much better. I refuse to believe that the man who made The Godfather I & II, made this film as well. Finding Nemo - see it, though I didn't feel it lived up to the hype. In America - see it. This, Return of the King, and Bottle Rocket are the best I've seen over break. That's just about it. I'm going back to the Bronx January 6, where I will live the life of a professional runner. My heel pain has been curbed, and I'm excited to start training again, plus Pete Horan will be in NYC, and if I can find excitement in New York City with Pete Horan, then I will know something's wrong with ME. |
| January 2, 2003 |
| This thing is kind of like a blog, only without all of the Mr. Fancy-Pants, well....fancy pants. Because I don't need 'em! |
| Well, I'm back at school: classes start tomorrow. Thus, tonight's was my last movie of the break. I just thought I'd recap the rest of the films I saw since that last update... North By Northwest - see it. Not Hitchcock's best, but still very cool. The Talented Mr. Ripley - see it. The same guy did The English Patient and Cold Mountain, neither of which interested me...until now. Monster - see it. (But be warned, some of it is pretty disturbing) He Got Game (A Spike Lee Joint) - don't see it. Man this one sucked. Not Lee's best joint. Risky Business - see it. Why hadn't I seen this movie til now? Seven - see it. (Again, disturbing scenes, be warned) Empire Records - eh. Kids my age will probably love it, but its not that great. Pretty self-indulgent. Ocean's Eleven - see it. Very very very fun movie. I think that wraps it up. I also read Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck (read it) and read The Hobbit again. Plus I read Sub-4:00 by Chris Lear, a running book that I found interesting... because I'm a runner. Also, my "aunt" and godmother died this past weekend. She was a great woman and your prayers would be appreciated by myself and my family, both immediate and extended. |
| January 19, 2003 |