What's going on with me?

3-30-05 - This week and last week have been so incredibly stressful with school and Drama and the like. Bah! Haughie, even! I have just over 5 weeks until graduation. I'll be in Knoxville two months from now. Everything's moving quite quickly.

Speaking of Drama Troupe, this semester's show has kinda gone back and forth in my mind. At first I was a little disappointed with myself about sticking with it because I realized it would make things incredibly tough on me during the time I'd be rehearsing and stuff, but so far it hasn't been too bad. At first, I didn't think there was a way that the show would work, but tonight's rehearsal surprised the crap out of me at how productive it actually was. It doesn't seem to have as many laugh out loud moments, and it's relatively short, but I think it'll still be somewhat entertaining. I feel quite nerdy and dorky and geeky all at the same time for some of what I have to do, but it's been surprisingly fun rehearsing for it, despite the fact that we're using crappy plastic toys. There's also a little filler that I'll be doing by myself that I'm muchly excited to do. The skit that I wrote didn't seem to me like it would work at all, but it's coming together and I don't really think it's all that funny, but others are laughing at it here and there and so who knows?

Last night, I had a long overdue conversation with a friend of mine. I feel bad about having waited so long and I told her, but now that it's all done with, I feel great. It's nice to know people that are understanding. Regardless, I still feel terrible. Oh, well. Life sucks sometimes, huh?

Ok, so on this page in the entry for the 28th, I discussed my shoelace dilemma. It's been five or six weeks since I started tying my left shoelace like I do now and today is the first time it came untied. I wasn't paying attention to how it happened, though, so I don't know if it just loosened itself like before or if I stepped on it or what. The only thing that I do know is that it was tied like it should've been, because I remembered doing it. Oh, well. I'll find out in due time. I'm dumb for discussing my shoelaces in my bloggy thingy...and you're even dumber for reading about them. At least you're not entertained by it...are you?

The sound of rain is very soothing, and having Ben Folds playing along with it just sets the perfect "I'm alone and I'm fine with being alone" mood.

3-27-05 - I have no reason to put this in here other than I was thinking about it last night when I was coming back up here and it was raining a lot: don't use cruise control when the road is wet or icy. I'm sure most of you know this, but it never hurts to have it reinforced. I might as well prevent injuries to friends, colleagues, allies, acquaintances, and buddies if I can help it.

I just realized how little I've written this month as compared to the past couple months. Hmmm...I'm sorry to both of you who find this section of my site interesting.

I saw a little mousey running around in my dorm room a few days ago, but I haven't seen him or heard him since. Hopefully I scared him away. I don't need any mouse poop lying in my shoe on a morning I might be late for class.

Today is the first day this year that I've worn shorts. Ah, I love this day every year. It's about time I changed my pants, too. I wore them suckers for at least 3 weeks.

I didn't do a whole lot this weekend, but I did have lots of fun. I watched Napoleon Dynamite four times this weekend. I got to see Melissa yesterday, which was great. I hadn't seen her since late August or the very beginning of September, so I was quite excited :-)

Most of my weekend was spent with Sarah, Lenny, and Carrie. Mucho fun was had by all. They kept having me say various quotes from the aforementioned movie, cuz they claim I can sound like just about any character from it. I don't really think I'm that close, but whatever :-) Not only was I having to do various quotes, but they wanted me to do a couple scenes by myself. Goodness. I'm such a loser.

Last night was Karen's going away party. I've never really talked to her all that much, but I'll miss her presence. She's cool. We watched a couple videos from when Lenny and I (two years later then him) auditioned for our respective senior plays. 'Twas quite humorous to look back like that. Lenny had wanted to see a couple scenes from Anything Goes when that was done at my high school my junior year, so we watched them. It was quite odd when Sandy was trying to find a certain scene and when she stopped fast forwarding and pressed play to see where she was, it was a scene in which the only two people on the stage are now dead. It was quite saddening :-(

Sandy, who threw the party, had little contests in which we had to do things that Karen will have to do when she goes to the Navy. The first was situps, which I sat out of. I should've tried, cuz I think I might've been able to have it, but it was all good. The second one was a pushup contest. I figured this was the time for me to put my money where my mouth was since I'm always talking about my triceps. (I've never had muscles before, so leave me alone :-P) Whoever did the most pushups in a minute would get a Navy stress ball. I and 3 or 4 other people got on the floor and when she said go, I just went crazy. I think I got tired at about 18...really tired. I can't remember if I stopped at 22 or 24. I think it was the latter. Anyway, I am now squeezing my brand new Navy stress ball.

School is severely pissing me off this semester. Everyone is loading crap on all of us and it's quite irritating. When will it all end?!?! Oh, wait - May 7. Awesome!

I can't believe that my videos are still gaining popularity. Whenever I say that to someone, the response is always "It's because they're freaking hilarious!" Well, yeah. I guess that's true, but come on! You'd think that the growth would stop at some point. How many new audiences can this junk find?

3-23-05 - Wow, I had three completely different, completely emotional conversations with three gals tonight. The first was completely unexpected and kinda saddening, though it should've been happy. I just can't bring myself to be happy about it yet. The second one just plain sucked. I really feel for that girl. People are terrible sometimes and I hope she feels better soon. The third was a complete shock and I love the conversation, though it's kinda saddening to an extent.

I talked to my new Knoxville friend for around an hour online this morning. It's almost scary how alike we are. I'm excited about getting the heck out of here and starting life anew in Knoxville. I've already got my friend base started and I can't wait to see where things go from here. I got my cap and gown today, so I know that this whole new aspect of life is getting very close.

3-22-05 - Well, today the next stage of my government clearance took place. Some guy came and interviewed me and talked to some of my friends to get a background check on me. Thank you very much to Perry, David, Allison, Patrick, Jodie, Julianne, and Florin for helping me out with this. What really upset me about this whole thing, though, is that the guy was such a perv. I'm not gonna get into it on here, but if you wanna hear about it, ask me and I'll probably tell you some of it. That guy really irritated me. For the couple people that feel they deserve it (and I've already told them this to their faces), I'm very sorry you had to put up with that sicko. But, as one of you said, yeah...it's over. Let's just put it behind us.

I called Sunchase apartments in West Knoxville and they said that what I want should be available when I want it. I just need to call them some time at the beginning of May (barely a month away) to remind them. Yay me.

3-20-05 - If any of you have been to The Face Book site, you know that there is a huge list of colleges on that site. For some reason, Tech isn't good enough to get on that site, so people made one specifically for Tech - a TTU Face Book, if you will.

For those of you that don't know what the face book is, it's just a version of Friendster for colleges. (If you don't know what Friendster is, then venture to their site and find out for yourself.) Anyway, I just joined that site a couple days ago (it's only been around for a week or so) and much to my surprise, I've already made a friend on there :-) Yay for me. I've talked to her a couple times before, but that was that. She's gonna come over and play DDR tomorrow, so that'll be fun.

Speaking of DDR, there's been a DDR party in here pretty much every night since spring break ended. I've been getting a lot of exercise with this and I'm feeling good :-) Heck, there's a bunch of people in here right now and I'm sweating like a pig. Yippee skippy. I can do "Maxx Unlimited" on double on light. It's a 6 out of 10 difficulty and I've only tried it twice and I passed it twice...with a B on the second try! Woo-hoo! I know this means nothing to many of you, but it's kinda impressive.

I've had a few people comment on how weird I am about what I wrote in yesterday's entry, but you know what? Who cares? I sent her an e-mail and she cheerfully responded. So there :-P

Well, it's almost my turn. I'm done writing for now.

3-19-05 - Ah, it's so good to see friends after not having seen them for so long. I got to my friend Anna's apartment after making a couple wrong turns (because I, apparently, can't follow my own directions). I met some of her friends and we played Balderdash and ate cake and all that good stuff.

I had a good day today. I met so many people today, most of whom I'll never keep in touch with, but they brightened my day a bit (as cheesy as it sounds) and I hope I did the same to them. Anna and I looked at 4 or 5 apartments. I'm probably gonna go with a place called Sunchase because it's only like 12 miles from where I'll be working and it's such a nice, easy drive. A large one bedroom, one bathroom apartment is $530/month with water and sewage included. They are so nice, though. I really like the area and I didn't see a whole lot of it.

So I just now did something completely dumb (right before I started writing this). Well, it made me feel dumb, but I laughed about it, Jasmine (who's that?) laughed about it, and Anna will probably laugh about it. So after looking at apartments, and after we went to the guitar center for Anna to blow her tax refund, we went to Macaroni Grill. We both got chicken paresean, yummy. So Jasmine, our waitress, comes up and all three of us, it seems, are in a really talky mood. It usually bugs me when servers talk to you, but she was especially cool, as far as the both of us were concerned. Every time she came by, we talked to her for a couple minutes and had some good laughs. I love the movie Napoleon Dynamite. I've started talking to a bunch of people because of that movie, for some reason or another. At the time for the usual "Are you going to have dessert?" part of the meal, she asked us and we both said no. She then said something about their lemon something-or-other dessert and how it was the best dessert in the world. I, like an idiot, replied with "Like anyone could know anything like that, gosh!" I know it's not exactly what Kip says, but it got the point across. Anna laughed and Jasmine kinda chuckled. Jasmine then said something else and I felt kinda dumb, cuz I said it in Napoleon's voice, so I clarified that it was a reference from the movie and she said, "I know! I love that movie! We always quote it around here!" So we all talked about the movie for a while and had a good ole time. Anna and I both left high tips. I left what was most likely the highest tip I've ever left anyone. She was such a great server, probably the best I've ever had. I told her that she thoroughly entertained both of us and she reciprocated emphatically. I asked her if she was gonna be around in the summer, since that's when I'd be moving up here, and she said she would. I told her we'd come by and see her whenever that happened.

A few minutes after we left and we were on our way to Oak Ridge (just to see how the drive is), we realized that we should've asked for her e-mail address. I joked about calling her at Macaroni Grill and asking for it and Anna said "Go for it." I didn't think I would, and I fought myself on it for a while after I got back here, but I did. She just kinda laughed and I again said that we just liked her and she said the same thing back. So, surprisingly enough, she gave it to me. I'm glad she didn't think we were freaks or that I was a stalker or anything. And I know that all of this writing about someone who I don't even know and that I've only talked to for like 10 or 15 minutes total may seem obsessive or might make it seem like I wanna get with her, but I'll clear that up right now: it's neither. She's just a genuinely cool person...and she has a boyfriend anyway :-P

3-17-05 - I hate that I'm not able to put as much time into my site as I want as of late. Luckily I don't have that much going on in my life to write about. I'm just insanely busy with school and it looks like it'll be that way until graduation...which is only 1 1/2 months away!!!

This weekend I'm heading up to Knoxville to look at apartments. I'm going up Friday night and hanging out with my friend Anna whom I haven't seen in around 2 years. I'm so very excited! I'll be staying at her apartment for the night and then we're gonna go roaming around west Knoxville to look at different places for me to see what we can come up with.

I don't know what brought this thought about, but it's been close to a year since the Peep Movie was made. Lordy...speaking of movies, I added another video to the movie page. I'm very white. We'll just leave it at that.

I would like to wish a happy birthday to my man, Billy Corgan. I love you, hoss! I will abstain from wearing green today. I was supposedly supposed to go rolling with someone tonight. Something tells me that those plans were nixed almost a month ago when I started being ignored by that person, for whatever reason.

It is past the middle of March. Spring break has come and gone (granted, it was only 3/4 of the way through winter and not actually in spring). Why the heck is there a thick layer of snow on all of the cars outside with a fairly dense snow still falling? Riddle me that.

3-13-05 - Man, the past few days have been insanely busy! All of my time, for the most part, from the point I got back up here through yesterday at 9 pm was spent doing Odyssey of the Mind stuff. Friday night was the first time I've ever had to come close to pulling an all-nighter for school-related stuff. I got 45 minutes of sleep and then yesterday, I got a bit of sleep on the bus ride to and from Jasper. Yeah, it sucked having to put all that time into it, but we had so much fun doing it. I took an insane amount of pictures and I'm very happy with them, though I do wish I had taken more of everyone involved. We had a great group.

Our run at the competition yesterday could've gone a lot better, but that's why we went yesterday...to learn something. As a college team, we automatically get to go to the world competition, so we didn't have to go yesterday, but since other college teams probably don't go to their state competitions, we're going to have a leg up on them, so we have a great chance of being the world champions. How cool is that? Being the only college team there, though, in a massive group of middle schoolers, though, brought great expectations. I think that our skit and performance were received very well. There was a very large crowd there when we performed and when we came close to popping the balloons with our vehicles (and, holy crap, when we did pop the one on the Banana Trail course - and on the first try, no less) the place went nuts. It really hurt my ears from all the cheering. That, my friend, along with all of the middle schoolers coming up to us and asking us questions about what we were going to do, and having them look up to us and all that good stuff is what made all the time spent with this worth it.

At the AIChE conference (chemical engineering thing) a couple days ago, the people from Tech won the ChemE car competition (the big contest they hold every year - our team placed 2nd nationally last year), they won the poster competition, and Robyn's paper presentation got second place. All of this is just for the southeast, but it's amazing that they all did so well. I'm happy to be associated with these people and I'm upset that I wasn't able to go see it, but it's all good.

Other than that, not a whole lot is going on in my life. I'm less than two months away from graduation. I think I might try to go to Knoxville this weekend to look for apartments. I guess I'd better call Anna and see if she'll be around this weekend...

3-10-05 - Wow, it's been over a week. Sorry to both of you who read this. Speaking of that, I recently found out that someone I went to high school with and have only talked to a handful of times reads this sporadically. That's pretty cool :-)

I got my DDR pads on Friday and Gus and I spent all weekend playing on them. We even sucked Beppy into playing with us. She had a blast. I have problems with both pads (one more than the other), but they've both been resolved. It was odd how I went about fixing one of them, but it works and it works well, so I'm not gonna complain. Eating 4 or 5 slices of pizza and then playing like crazy on standard right away is a bad idea...take my word for it.

I had an awkward conversation today. Don't those always suck? Oh, well. I ended it before it got too incredibly awkward.

I spent 10 hours with the Odyssey of the Mind team today. Samantha, Caitlin, and I went to GoodWill to get my costume for the skit and I tell you what: it is atrocious, but it's supposed to be. I'll have to post a picture of it after Saturday, which is competition day. I'm excited :-)

I finished reading Kevin Archer's short story thing a couple days ago and I must say, I'm honestly nothing short of impressed. I figured I would be, anyway.

Spring Break so far has been great. Isn't it nice to expect nothing exciting at all to happen to you on a weekend or a break, but then something that's not p-p-planned happens and makes you happy? Yay for friends. I saw lots of them (the usuals) for the few days I was home and they made me feel really good. Lenny was upset at the fact that I'm moving to Knoxville so soon and someone else (she will remain nameless) gave me a hug and whispered, "Please come back," which surprised that crap out of me. Big smiles all around.

I got a video capture card from an online friend today. That's so freaking cool! I installed it today and tested it out and so far, everything's working out nicely. I can't wait to use it. He's been quite impressed with my video skills so far, so he sent this (since he had it and didn't need/use it) so I could make more.

Speaking of my videos, the second secret page contains links to most of my videos. Here is the page. Enjoy! Let me know what you think!

3-1-05 - Ah...a new month, a new oddball, what-the-heck-was-he-thinking, borderline-gay color scheme. Not a sentece, like this one. Easter colors? That one too...and this one.

Yesterday I said "Tomorrow we'll see..." Well, I saw. I didn't have to do what I didn't wanna do. Good for me. Still not toally happy with everything about it, but I'll live.

So the other day, I e-mailed my friend Kevin and told him I'd probably be heading to Denver towards the end of May and that I hoped to get together with him and get luch or something. He said that would work as long as he was in town (he travels with his work a lot, apparently), so I'm looking forward to that. I'm probably gonna be going with the Odyssey of the Mind, in case you're wondering. In his reply, though, he told me that he'd thought of me that morning because he had just recently finished the manuscript to his new literary work (not sure how to classify it...short story?). I got his last one two years ago and though I hate reading and I'm a slow reader, I tore through the roughly 120 pages very quickly and we had a few good discussions about it. I look forward to the same thing happening with this one.

So today, I planned on going to class 30 minutes early so I could have a little bit of time to read and take notes on the book. I left my room at the time I wanted to leave (yeah, weird...I know) but I ran into Julianne and Lauren (not literally) outside their room. They told me about this thing that was going on in the UC until 4pm where you could pick a song and make a music video and get a copy of it, all for free. I decided that since I had plenty of time, I'd go with them. We didn't have much time to look for a good song, so we ended up doing "Wannabe" by the Spice Girls. I have a tape of it. 'Tis kinda funny. I went to class and on my way there, during it, and on my way back, I was wanting to go back to that place and do "Gangsta's Paradise."

I went back and looked for that song and I didn't find it, but I did see "Hey, Ya!" I told the woman that I wanted to do that one, so she wrote it down and I went to the costume place to find something Andre 3000-esque. While I was standing there, three chicks I didn't know were getting ready to do "Say My Name." They asked me if I wanted to be in it with them and so I did cuz I'm a ham. I think it probably turned out quite well and was probably kinda funny. All four of us knew what we were doing and despite not knowing each other, we all played off each other beautifully. Unfortunately, I didn't get a copy of that one.

Next was mine and though I made a huge fool of myself, I'm very happy with it. It's kinda funny in and of itself, but then just thinking of me dancing (which I can't do) and lip-synching to that song is hilarious. I finished mine, and the woman that worked there asked me if I'd done anything like that before to which I said "No." She was laughing most of the way through it, so I guess she thought I did a good job. As I was about to leave, some other guy asked if I wanted to be in his. He did "Without Me" by Eminem. He didn't know the words, so it didn't turn out very well. I have a copy and I wish I'd gotten a copy of the other instead, but oh, well. I tried not to take over the spotlight from him, but when he's not even trying to sing and he's just acting like an idiot, it's hard to not try to make the thing better. I think I did a decent job of restraining myself.

That's the story of my day.

I love Ben Folds. At any given point in time, at least one of his songs has a line or verse or something that just hits me so well. The one that's been playing a whole lot the past week is "Fair." For the record, the reason has nothing to do with love. Along with a few other lines here and there, the second verse is great! Yay, Ben!