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this post is specifically dedicated Sunday April 28
this post is specifically dedicated to theresa winters:
yes, i will be studying abroad this summer at the kanazawa institute of technology in kanazawa, japan. i depart champaign shortly after finals for new york city, where my brother, michael, lives. he speaks japanese fluently; i plan to brush up on him before i leave for osaka on june 2nd. from there, i will be involved with the program until july 17th, whereat i have one week to explore japan; anywhere i want to go. then, i will fly back to the states for some more time in nyc, followed by a brief jaunt to phoenix to visit jon hutcheson, and then i'll return to champaign for the fall.
i am required to do a "write-up" on my experience, and i chose to create a website, so you will most likely see the results of this summer in the fall. i plan to journal on the blog and keep this website updated from afar. complete with pictures, later.
let's start this post off
let's start this post off with a quote i heard from a girl named heather tonight (no, not my ex-girlfriend.): "i'm not promiscuous, i just enjoy sex."
all right, that said, i can begin to spin the tail of an odd evening at quite possibly the largest party i've been to in my collegiate career. on the corner of first and gregory, all the way down to first and armory, there was a block party hosted by three different fraternities. which ones, i could care less, but tyler and todd invited me to join them; since i had no plans after waking up from a nice, disorienting nap, i was up for anything. therefore, i joined todd and tyler to a long walk over to the pi lambda phi house. tyler knew a guy, so we got in all right.
in my estimation, there were over one thousand people between these three yards, but we're not really into the whole crowded-loud-thing, so we went into andrew's (the guy we know) room and chilled. and we met his sister. never, in my life, do i think i will ever meet a girl like this. truly, i know nothing really of her personality, but after walking away from her the first time, todd motions to me and says: "she's only sixteen."
ack.
i did not think it was possible, but a sixteen-year-old girl made me feel inadequate as a male in general. someone three years younger than i could still intimidate todd, tyler, and i. go figure. we stayed at this house for about an hour or two, and then decided to return to allen. i kind of wanted to stay, but i'm glad i didn't. it was like shooting fish in a barrel, honesty -- tyler informed us that if anyone asked, we were pi lambda phis from missouri state university, delta chapter, up visiting. i was in the line for the bathroom with tyler when someone asked us what house we were in, and he broke in with this response. instantly, we were very popular individuals...but seriously, fish in a barrel. i like the chase, i like the challenge, and these women present no challenge whatsoever. it's just pick-and-go-home...what's the fun in that? as if i would want that in the first place...so we left. okay, i can't lie. all guys want that, just most of us know better.
todd and i stayed up most of the night as bachelors and talked about the end of the school year, the summer, fall plans, and life.
an interesting quote courtesy of Friday April 26
an interesting quote courtesy of lauren: love is for fools that fall behind. i guess that's one perspective.
stephanie, this is what it Wednesday April 24
stephanie, this is what it means: MisBond008: what is that supposed to mean??? watch out what I say to you??? don't worry, it says that for every screen name, not just yours.
alright, so it's been a
alright, so it's been a rough evening for both todd and i. him, far more so; my trials dealt solely with the fact that i do know what i don't believe, but i often don't know what i do believe. and i believe that it is impossible for me to proceed as planned. oh well, it was a fun idea, todd.
someone's mom once said to Monday April 22
someone's mom once said to me (and him consequently) - "nothing good ever happens after midnight"... go figure.
staying up late on a
staying up late on a sunday night is somehow defiantly poetic, as if you're looking the monday ahead and the entire week in the face and scowling...i really did not intend for last night to be one of those late times, but you can never really plan these things. as a result: a frame-by-frame synopsis:
9:45pm: charlotte informs me that she's coming over to study japanese.
9:48pm: stephanie informs me that she's ready to come over and study japanese.
9:56pm: charlotte arrives.
10:03pm: stephanie arrives.
10:08pm: ameya comes downstairs to tell me about the rest of the ece project. he remains for fifteen minutes, there are five people in the room.
10:25pm: ameya leaves, charlotte and stephanie and i attempt to start on our japanese.
10:35pm: stephanie's friend needs to be picked up from the train station. it seems i'm the only one who really knows how to get there from allen.
10:43pm: we roll up to the terminal, snag her friend, and do the drop-off at synder.
10:52pm: back inside allen, we set out a second time to finish japanese. stephanie begins to lose consciousness, she received six hours of sleep over the weekend.
11:10pm: hell has officially broken loose. todd, charlotte, and i are talking about life, not japanese. stephanie's using a pillow to lean against my bed while sitting on todd's because she's going to pass out. we're not getting any farther on the japanese.
12:38am: eventually, we get enough gusto to finally "finish", if you can call it that. still, they remain to continue talking with todd and i.
12:45am: the game is afoot, and that is all i'll say about that.
1:10am: they leave.
1:12am: todd has a cigarette, we discuss the evening, and return to the room to begin (a) my ece lab report and (b) his cgi comment script that is currently unimplemented.
1:24am: the phone rings, and i remember todd distinctly saying, "it's 1 something...who's calling?"; this event is rather unusual for us.
1:25am: stephanie informs me that her car will not turn off. yes, that is correct -- the key is stuck in the ignition.
1:26am: i cue up sublime's what i got as my "go" music, and slap on the rollerblades to head out to E14 and be the guy (along with todd) who takes care of it.
1:41am: i arrive in the E14 parking lot to find, yes, no one. no lights on. no cars running. todd and i check all over to find nothing. we return.
1:55am: we leave polite messages on both charlotte and stephanie's machines asking what happened; figuring they figured it out and left.
2:00am: the phone rings; charlotte wants to know why we're not out there. so this time, she takes her car (she and stephanie had driven separately) and picks us up.
2:06am: we determine that the reason we could not see their car is because they had neglected to leave the taillights or headlights on. apparently, a dome light was not enough.
2:10am: initial checks. yes, the ignition is stuck. the engine is running. how do we fix this? brute strength? intelligence? the force? these questions remained to be answered. we needed to turn the car off.
2:14am: john baggoire, my high school autoshop teacher, rings into the back of my noggin. "mark, this is a ford. fords have a fuel shut-off switch in the trunk. turn that switch. kill the fuel. that kills the engine. yay."
2:16am: i cut myself on todd's leatherman. jon, that's for you.
2:21am: todd and i realize that this fuel reset switch is a one-way switch, and there is no way to trigger it off without hitting the car very hard. we tried anyway. failure ensued.
2:30am: we popped the hood, snagged a flashlight from charlotte's trunk, and determined how the hell we were going to do it.
2:39am: the car shuts down as todd and i disconnect the control harness from the ignition coils. engine dies, battery still connected.
2:45am: todd and i find the right arrangement of sockets and bits in charlotte's toolbox (thank god for that) to disconnect the ground wire from the battery. no more juice.
2:46am: the bastard car is defeated. off, and powerless.
2:51am: we drop off stephanie at synder, she was gone.
3:00am: todd, charlotte, and i roll into merry ann's for food and discussion. awww yeah.
3:45am: coffee and food later, charlotte takes us back.
4:42am: the last time i remember seeing the clock.
it's all in a day's work, you know? as i said to stephanie, the most interesting things in life happen after midnight.
...or perhaps it's a little Friday April 19
...or perhaps it's a little more like a wilco song - were you just "trying to break [her] heart"?
as far as ex's go, it's either one extreme or another you don't talk at all and never look back or you stay friends and then still kind of sort-of remain physically involved for a bit (or off and on until one of you gets engaged, married, or something), it seems as though this is taking the route of plan b, although you're missing out on the key part of that angle.
read the last post and Thursday April 18
read the last post and note my glee. at the concert, guster was wrapping up their 15th song or so (short set, you know?) and they announced that they were going to be doing an encore in their usual style without even going offstage. it amuses me to no end that they do such encores, but i was running out of room on the minidisc that was recording the show. they never left the stage, and then adam began talking about playing a song for "all the old fans". i knew parachute was coming, and i tried to change minidiscs really fast. as i did so, the batteries fell out -- before the table of contents track listing was ever written to the disc. result? a minidisc chock full of high quality guster bootleg, and it's 100% inaccessible. go figure. i'm looking into alternatives for ripping that data off -- we'll see.
that story is indicative of how the evening went in general: planned with good intentions, but lacking in the execution department. heather was continuously bothered by two aspects: one, my ability to go on as friends and act normal even though we are now split, and two, that she was going to this show with me, but not with me. there was a lot of silence in the car, some conversation too -- and i think we both know where the other stands now. however, the open dialog doesn't change what i think: a couple can't break up one day and then not see each other for a year and hope to remain friends. i hope to remain friends -- so i ended it early. h, if you ever read this, i am sorry. it is never my desire to hurt the ones i care for -- sometimes, though -- circumstances suck, and you realize later on that it was the right thing. or maybe you realize it was not; either way, you have learned something from the deal. and that's all i ever really want; to learn, to grow.
i got a call back Tuesday April 16
i got a call back from the indiana university union board; the guster bootleg is a-o-k with them. as long as i don't have to plug in, they say, it's alright. little do they know the power of two sm57s and a minidisc recorder -- i will publish it all when i record it and master it...probably by the weekend. stick around and look for it.
the fairer sex Monday April 15
jh is correct. i have indeed dropped off the face of the earth yet again, this time only because i was tied up (no, not literally) in delicately handling affairs with the fairer sex. however, it seems that said affairs have been mostly resolved, so i'm sure the posts will continue in a little while.
i walked home from physics Tuesday April 9
i walked home from physics lab this afternoon to discover a backhoe/jackhammerish device tearing up sidewalk outside of allen. this time it's gone too far.
first, the boneyard creek construction. it doesn't really affect us. good for you. second, the siebel center construction. again, have a cookie. third, you closed gregory from goodwin to sixth, and we all dealt. the 22 came outside allen, we all thought that was cool, and life was okay after we got used to the 21 not being outside anymore. fourth, you allowed bankier apartments to build a n-story building on the corner of second and green. that closed a lane for a block. fifth, you tore up all of green street from the union to fourth street, switched every single traffic pattern known to man, and didn't even help make any more parking. sixth, you tore up a block in front of busey-evans on nevada. today a firetruck got called over and busey-evans had to evacuate because you accidentally hit a gas line.
and now, out of all of this, you bastards think you're going to come outside of my dorm and jackhammer concrete for the fun of it? well, what can i do? if you even step close to my room trying to tell me my heater is leaking or my pipes need replacing or one of my windows needs fixing...i will kill you. with a chopstick in each eye. i've already dreamed about how much fun it'll be.
after returning from the shower Monday April 8
after returning from the shower this morning, i checked the weather online and noticed the forecasted high of 59 degrees. however, i neglected to see the rain outside or on the screen, so i slapped my sandals on and went to breakfast. when i left for class, i realized i did not have enough time to return to my room to change.
so it was going to be a wet feet day, all right.
outside of smith memorial hall on the way to japanese class, three girls noticed my footwear and commented to one another, "not a good choice..." "what?" said one of the others. "sandals..." she trailed off. i'm sure they thought i could not hear them, or at least, they did not care either way; given that i was wearing sandals when it was raining probably immediately tipped them off that concealing their opinion was not important. however, it affected me in two ways: one, i am probably the only person who went to class today who chose the open-toed-shoe variety, and two, it's becoming more obvious how much this climate is not suitable for my footwear preference. jon is right, i would prefer arizona's climate; here, however, we have my life. i guess i'll just go visit.
somehow i managed to go to computer science class today, where the following occurred:
(a) i sat down, (b) i heard lecture begin, (c) i put my head down on the desk, (d) i woke up twenty minutes later, (e) the professor was still covering the same material.
and i'm in college?
i sat at the urbana Friday April 5
i sat at the urbana espresso royale yesterday distributing the ben folds cds i had produced, finally earning back some of the money i spent producing them in the first place. however, only one individual came, and that leaves me with five delinquent individuals who owe me three dollars a piece. folks, at the collegiate level, $15 is enough to kill for. regardless, while at espresso, i continued reading a book entitled a widow for a year that nathan gave me; it's been a very long time since i've read any books other than school texts. as a result, i've become stupid. without constant stimulation from reading, my mind has recessed to quickly solving physics and ece problems such that i can continue having fun with my friends and life. not such a bad thing, but now and then i read something and remember a vocabulary word i used to know and love and use, and now i would have never thought of it in writing or conversation. i'd like to get back to where i used to be, part of that is going to be making a more dedicated effort to post actual content with some length on this medium. i'll get back to you when something strikes me.
ever since i posted the Wednesday April 3
ever since i posted the socks-with-sandals quiz a few days ago, nathan was consistently winning by about twice the number of votes i had. i checked it this morning and i was losing seven to fourteen; i'm beginning to accept de-feet (heh heh) and realize that y'all think i'm a fashion taboo.
something awful happened today, though. i checked the scores, and someone had voted for sandals-with-socks over 45 times single-handedly. while i appreciate this support, we can't go fixing the results. empirical evidence is true data. i can see it now: "phooze fixes own survey" "phooze indicted in sock-sandal scandal" ... and so it will go. i'm ruined.
thanks to the center for
thanks to the center for east asian and pacific studies, i have been awarded a scholarship that will cover my expenses in japan this summer. i don't really know what to say, i must thank all that wrote a recommendation letter for me. :) i can't believe it. i guess that leaves one thing to do -- have a big party and invite everyone i know.
