An Ode To Existence

squirrels

are everywhere. and they aren't acting normal, if there is such a thing for squirrels. so i'm up at 6 this morning to start/finish a paper that was due today. thankfully, i got an extension on the bigger one so i have until friday to finish it, but that's another story. so i'm chillin at the comp, trying to break the writer's block that i always have until 12 hours before the deadline, when i hear this rattling at my window. i look over, and this squirrel is flyin all over the place on my screen, doin that thing where they're spread eagle, but head facing the ground and tail straight up in the air. weird stuff. probly woulda been a sweet picture if i had a camera handy....or if i just had a camera period. and last week i was walkin on east when i saw another squirrel doing the same thing, but this one was making the the ugliest noise i've ever heard come out of a squirrel. it was like a cross between a bird call and growling cat. never seen or heard anything like that in my life, and i wouldn't mind going the rest of the way without it either. some girls thought it was pregnant and giving birth, but i'm thinkin that hanging off the side of a tree isn't exactly the ideal place for the little ones to pop out, lest gravity take it's toll and they all come tumbling down. i could be wrong though....

nickel creek concert is tomorrow, or today actually. i'm excited :) going with dorsey and colleen, and then kells and this dude jeff from state will be there as well, so we can all hang together on the ampitheater lawn, jammin to some funky bluegrass. fun times galore!

oh yeh, go angels! down with the yankees! two more games baby. i'm outtro, God bless.

sounds: kenny chesney - the good stuff
food for thought: the babylonian captivity of the church - martin luther

i like meat

like, a lot! love it! love it! love it! in fact, if i could only eat one thing for the rest of my life, i would choose meat. just thought you should know. pz out and God bless.

sounds: alison krauss & union station - so long, so wrong
food for thought: trade and civilization in the indian ocean - k. n. chaudhuri

and this is for e...

cuz she is just that cool. she too made a request for more reading material, and who am i to deny someone personal happiness? too bad i didn't actually get to talk to her when she imed me. of course i was in another room reading. do i have the worst timing or what e? for reals! :P

anyway, things are looking up ever so slowly. met with my prof about that russian paper and it went well enough. got a topic, and now i have a semi-flexible deadline of wednesday to write it. i could ostensibly turn it in friday, but i don't want to let myself think that, or i'll put it off even more. the schedule is looking a bit less intimidating now, with the two papers wednesday, and the compsci one moved back to friday. God may get me to graduate yet ;)

i skipped two classes to have lunch with walsh and do some research for the russian paper, and then went to that class to cap the day. after class, i sat with jc at the bus stop for the usual 30 minutes watching freshmen cram themselves like sardines onto the bus, only to have it break down, forcing them all to spill off the bus and fight for position on the next bus that came. i probably shouldn't laugh at them, but it's so hard not to. if you can picture the scene, i'm sure you're as highly amused by it as i was.

man, i read the funniest news article a couple weeks ago about a while jumping out of the ocean and landing on a boat killing this guy. it's not funny that the dude died, but man, what a way to go. honestly, when you get into a boat, do you worry that a whale is going to jump on top of it? i sure don't. i guess if it ever happens, you know it's your time to go.

speaking of going, i really should get crackin on these papers. don't hesitate to interrupt :) ciao and God bless.

sounds: jennifer knapp - charity
food for thought: the holy fool in russian culture - ewa thompson

this one is for kells...

cuz she requested that i get off my lazy butt and make an addition to this so that she'd have more procrastination material. so here i am, doing my own form of procrastination by making entries here instead of doing the massive amounts of reading i really need to get done like last week. now all i have is a couple hundred pages left and two papers to write by wednesday, one of which requires quite a bit of research. but it's all bueno, cuz it'll work out, right?

dang, it's really been a long time since i've done this. i feel a bit rusty, if that's possible. so what's been going on? well.....

i got that add/drop thing taken care of after no small amount of red tape and university beuracracy. i'm enjoying the course and learning a lot about luther and the reformation, but i can't really tell how it's going. every week, i do the reading my prof assigns, and every week he asks me these intricate questions that are probably simple for him, after which i stare blankly for about 15 seconds before he suggests i read them again (in the nicest way a 70 year old german can say it).

can someone explain to me why my reading assignments forever include the dryest, most boring material known to exist on the face of this planet? it's not all so bad. in fact, most of the stuff i have to read is fairly enjoyable and interesting. but for whatever reason, the longest ones are always full of these phd words that mean absolutely nothing to me, and when i finish, i realize that it gave me no useful information, and i pretty much just wasted the time i spent trying to figure out what it was trying to say. wow, is that a whiny rant or what? i need to get away from school more often.

how about some happy thoughts jason? ok. the weekend has actually been pretty good. friday after computer science i went with kat and phil to this technology expo in raleigh and interviewed some people there to write this extra credit paper (for the computer science class). yeh, we definitely felt like the biggest nerds on earth walking into that place. it was like a star trek convention, but worse. i've never seen people more excited about computer stuff in my life. this wasn't the 'hey look, the fastest, most powerful computer in the world' kinda deal. it was like education software, user-groups that get unclassified government information about threats to our security, and a dude dressed in all black leather, and lady all decked out in silver, including the hair and the shiny chrome top, reminiscent of madonna in 'like a virgin' [shiver]. not that i ever saw that video. the whole thing costs $64 to get in for the entire weekend. we got in for free because we were students, but the thought that there are people out there who would pay that much to attend this event is more than a little frightening.

back on track....after that we went to krispy kreme, and as we drove past meredith, i was inspired to call kelly, cuz i hadn't seen her in forever. she came and joined us for about 15 minutes, and phil told us about his dream of riding around the conveyer belt and being covered in the glaze like a 'hot fresh' donut. definitely one of those afternoons that will live forever in infamy.

that night we had a gathering at my house for all the cru guys. cooked wings in a giant vat of oil (yum!), grilled some burgers, hung out, played video games, and had an all around good time. jw showed me how to spray the butane of a lighter into my hand so that i can hold a flame, and morgan taught us this slovak card game called 'caesar, king, baker, cleaner' which is baiscally a simplified version of war with four people and fewer cards. good for late nights when you just want to talk and not have to think too much about the game.

saturday was a good day by some standards, and a complete waste by others. had breakfast with katy p. at elmo's diner cuz i haven't seen her in a while and i haven't been there in even longer. i love the juevos rancheros there. it's got a bit of that mexican flavor....kinda reminds me of the food back in cali. after that, i fully intended to go back home and work all day on the aforementioned reading i've wasted so much bandwidth talking about. instead, i ended up playing football on east for two hours, watching more football on tv back home, and playing a bit more on playstation. before i knew it, it was 1 am and i had done about 20 minutes of work. good thing i'm not one of those motivated over-achievers. i might have had a heart attack, hehe.

welps, jay just got back from d.c., so i'm gonna see what's up with him. i think gwen is gonna sleep on our couch.....hope that does freak wes in the morning, hehe. pz out wodie! God bless.

sounds: enter the worship circle - i cannot hide my love
food for thought: a history of ukraine - paul magosci