Well, I guess it's about that time to recap the ol' New Year's resolutions before coming up with some new ones.
Last year...last year was not exceptional as resolutions went. Not only did I only come up with 5, I didn't do a particularly good job of accomplishing them, on the whole. And let's see how...
1. I will attempt to make and keep friends in all facets.
Well, how about that. In a bad year for resolution success, I accomplished this old classic. I managed to not only keep my closest friendships from high school, but I also seriously strengthened a few of them, despite the distance. Additionally, I call this one a classic because it was a vague rewording of the usual "Get a Girlfriend" resolution, and I accomplished that one too. I'm disappointed with myself for how I went about some of it, but at least I proved to myself that there isn't some secret agreement to not date me that was signed by all girls ever. Apparently only Wisconsin girls signed said agreement.
2. Be happy with all my decisions.
This sums up how I did with that one. It took me less than one semester to go back on my decision to go to USF, I've changed my class schedule at least 3 times since I built it, and I can't even pick a favorite MLS team. This year, I have changed my mind like a girl changes clothes, to put it in radio-pop terms.
3. Learn to appreciate mornings.
I have...gained a better understanding of the benefits of waking up early. I have not successfully put it into practice. I still stay up late and sleep late. But I guess I do appreciate mornings, just not enough to wake up in time for them.
4. Go to an MLS game.
I straight up failed this one...but I should be able to take care of it next year. I already bought my Chicago Fire shirt, so I guess that's who I'll be cheering for. They're the only team I could feasibly go see anyway.
5. Eat a full-size Mr. Goodbar.
Yeah, for all intents and purposes. While golfing.
So that's...what, 2 for 5? That's not great, but hey, I should have more resolutions for next year. I've already got a few thought up, but I'll come up with a few more in time for New Year's. Perhaps one of my resolutions should be to accomplish at least half of my resolutions.
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Friday, December 12, 2008
Just one more plane ride and it's done
...at least for the rest of this year
4 years of Flight 109...wow. How fitting that it is celebrated on a day which I spend at both of my homes, flying from Tampa back home to Wisconsin. An awful lot has happened in the 4 years since I started this blog because blogging was more popular back then. Back in the pre-facebook era.
I just went back and looked at my only other anniversary post, which was on the 1-year Flight 109 anniversary. For whatever reason, other than that year and the first, December has served as an absolute graveyard for Flight 109 posts, not even being touched in the other years of the ol' 109. But I guess that changes today.
Wow, was the 1-year anniversary post depressing. I mean seriously...cheer up, former me. Back then, I thought my social problems were SUCH a big deal and everyone needed to cheer me up. How wrong I was on all the things I thought...truth was, I just was missing out on the important stuff. Looking back, I had an enormous net of friend support...maybe not quite as good as now, but even then when I was feeling sorry for myself for not having a niche, there were an awful lot of people who really cared for me and showed it. Thanks, guys.
And the thing that got me so down in the first place? A girl. Of course. I have no explanation whatsoever for what got me so enamored with my locker buddy. We were pretty good friends, sure, but I talk to her now (rarely) and I feel nothing in particular. But for whatever reason, hoo boy, I had my heart set on her and myself completely convinced that she was the only person for me. I feel pretty dumb now for thinking that, but now at least I can just look back and laugh. And I often do, seeing that the person I hated most in that overdramatic drama is now my best friend.
But, man, up till then I had never felt that way about anyone, so it effectively dominated my sophomore year...which I look back on and that makes me mad at myself, but all's well that ends well, right? I did a lot of growing.
And that was when Eisenhower began to be established too...good stuff. Katie was the basis of more than a couple Eisenhower songs...well, actually, just a couple, but one was Seattle, so it's a pretty big deal. So it's funny that while that song continues to live on and defines my very status as a musician, I no longer have even a semblance of a feeling for the subject (not to mention that I moved to the East Coast, but not Virginia...and I really didn't leave to escape any pain. But I will remain in Wisconsin, after all. "Fort Atkinson life?" haha. Gotta admit though, I still think the Pacific/Atlantic blue eyes bit was kinda clever.). But the point is that Eisenhower, even by way of the emo song that every high schooler is required to write at some point (Homecoming), was a big, big help during an otherwise worthless year.
I want to digress a bit to talk about some of Eisenhower's songs. There's literally like...1 Eisenhower song that remains even half-relevant to anyone in the band. There are a total of, let's see...I had to go back and calculate this...6 or 7 girls who can claim full or partial inspiration to an Eisenhower song (yeah, because I'm sure they're gonna put that on their resumes...). And only about 2 of them are still close to any of us. And they’re in the same song.
All that goes to show is that we all progress and grow a lot, which was more or less what I had been getting at with this entire anniversary (blogiversary?) post.
I love how in that one-year anniversary post I comment on how much I had changed over the past year. While I’m sure I did, it doesn’t seem like it looking back. At least not compared to now – then I was 13 going on 14 and didn’t understand a thing about life, social and otherwise. Now I’m 10 days from 18…and I still don’t really understand anything about life, but at least I realize that now.
I’ve done and experienced a lot since then. I started a band, I got a job, I got a drivers license, I graduated high school, I lived on my own for 4 months, and I experienced my first relationship in its entirety. Now I’m frighteningly close to being an adult (in age and in responsibility), something that seems so far away from where I was when I started Flight 109. But 4 years is a long time, and I’m thankful they went the way they did. Life in Wisconsin got good enough to come back for…and to have that at any stage in your life is something to be thankful for. I’m still in limbo in a lot of ways, but I have somewhere to come home to. And coming home I am.
And that’s an entirely literal statement. I’m actually on the plane right now. I think we just flew over Atlanta…or some other big city with a large domed stadium that is between Tampa and Milwaukee but closer to Tampa. Being that ATL fits those parameters and most other cities don’t, that’s probably what it was.
The airport experience was once again rocking. Nice work, Tampa International. And I didn’t hear the Brooklyn accent lady this time, but the questionable fellow who talks about “beautiful children” was at it again. I guess that’s proof that it wasn’t a joke and that he’s just sort of creepy. The Tampa airport is now synonymous to blogging for me. A lot of this was written in terminal A.
I love having the window seat. The views are so amazing (and distracting, for that matter). For instance, we were flying over completely clear skies the entire time, but now that we’re in…probably southern Tennessee, there’s impenetrable cloud cover as far as the eye can see in every direction. How that could be the case when the rest of the Southeast was sunny is beyond me. And clouds look so much cooler from up here too, especially when the sun is setting, which is another advantage of this great Tampa to Milwaukee flight – it runs once a day at 3:32, which is perfect timing for the sun to be setting during the flight. So beautiful. There’s a warm orange glow over seemingly endless miles of puffy cotton...sometimes I just love flying. And I very rarely hate it. It completely tires me out, but I find the experience enjoyable. It’s a chance to listen to my music, maybe get some rest, enjoy some great views, and hey, I don’t mind a Sprite and some crummy little airplane pretzels now and then. Of course, the flights back home are always better…so I guess a lot depends on the context too.
And boy, am I ready to be home. The last couple of weeks have been a grind. That really long paper was the bane of my existence for the week I was writing it. In hindsight, of course I could have not put it off to one week, but I’m reasonably proud of myself for doing it over the course of a week instead of waiting for the last night or something. I’m not so sure I could write 15 pages in a night, but I was pleasantly surprised to learn that I could do 8 in one night, seeing that the longest paper I had done until that point was 5 pages.
The moon just came up over the horizon, and it’s huge and orange and I think full. So cool. I’m like a little kid with how much I am astounded by airplane rides. But I digest.
If the paper had been about something really interesting, I probably would have liked it more, but at least the sources were plentiful. I mean, I wouldn’t even want to read a 15 page paper on the 2008 election…much less write one. And if I was getting a good grade in that class, it wouldn’t have caused me so much anxiety. While C’s get degrees, B’s don’t get you into really good grad schools, so I was hoping this paper could bring me up from my between a B and B+ range. And I still don’t know. That professor likes to torture his students by waiting until the very last minute to post grades. And by giving them 15 page papers, for that matter.
The moon is big, bright and round now on my right, and the sun is in its closing stages and creating brilliant colors on my left. This is so picturesque. I want to make it my desktop, but I don’t have a camera…plus it’s panoramic and can’t be done justice by photos anyway. You’re all so jealous. Come fly with me sometime.
But while I was hating my life over my 3.4-ish at midterms, I managed to pull myself up to a somewhat more respectable 3.7 range, by my estimation. We’ll see once I get all my final grades, but I feel a lot better about that second number. And I’d like to add that I always hated grade perfectionists in high school, so I feel ridiculous now, but for some reason, paying lots of money to go to school for two more years is a very important goal for me, and that’s a lot easier to do the better the grades you have. I don’t know how bad those grades will matter once I transfer, but if nothing else, it proves to me that I’m starting to develop a work ethic that matches my potential. There were a lot of nights that I really dug deep, and I’m proud of myself for that. I was such a screw-off in high school. I realize that most people were, but I’m glad that I proved to myself that I am capable of actually working hard. I’m going to need that in the years to come.
But as for now, I am a college student flying home to take a break. I will fill my cup and live it up and catch up with friends. There is a time and place to worry about all those things in the future, but I am not an adult just yet. I’ve got a solid base, I’ve got a bright future, and for the first time in months, I have 3 weeks to go to holiday reunion bashes and just enjoy myself without worry. I’m so excited.
4 years of Flight 109...wow. How fitting that it is celebrated on a day which I spend at both of my homes, flying from Tampa back home to Wisconsin. An awful lot has happened in the 4 years since I started this blog because blogging was more popular back then. Back in the pre-facebook era.
I just went back and looked at my only other anniversary post, which was on the 1-year Flight 109 anniversary. For whatever reason, other than that year and the first, December has served as an absolute graveyard for Flight 109 posts, not even being touched in the other years of the ol' 109. But I guess that changes today.
Wow, was the 1-year anniversary post depressing. I mean seriously...cheer up, former me. Back then, I thought my social problems were SUCH a big deal and everyone needed to cheer me up. How wrong I was on all the things I thought...truth was, I just was missing out on the important stuff. Looking back, I had an enormous net of friend support...maybe not quite as good as now, but even then when I was feeling sorry for myself for not having a niche, there were an awful lot of people who really cared for me and showed it. Thanks, guys.
And the thing that got me so down in the first place? A girl. Of course. I have no explanation whatsoever for what got me so enamored with my locker buddy. We were pretty good friends, sure, but I talk to her now (rarely) and I feel nothing in particular. But for whatever reason, hoo boy, I had my heart set on her and myself completely convinced that she was the only person for me. I feel pretty dumb now for thinking that, but now at least I can just look back and laugh. And I often do, seeing that the person I hated most in that overdramatic drama is now my best friend.
But, man, up till then I had never felt that way about anyone, so it effectively dominated my sophomore year...which I look back on and that makes me mad at myself, but all's well that ends well, right? I did a lot of growing.
And that was when Eisenhower began to be established too...good stuff. Katie was the basis of more than a couple Eisenhower songs...well, actually, just a couple, but one was Seattle, so it's a pretty big deal. So it's funny that while that song continues to live on and defines my very status as a musician, I no longer have even a semblance of a feeling for the subject (not to mention that I moved to the East Coast, but not Virginia...and I really didn't leave to escape any pain. But I will remain in Wisconsin, after all. "Fort Atkinson life?" haha. Gotta admit though, I still think the Pacific/Atlantic blue eyes bit was kinda clever.). But the point is that Eisenhower, even by way of the emo song that every high schooler is required to write at some point (Homecoming), was a big, big help during an otherwise worthless year.
I want to digress a bit to talk about some of Eisenhower's songs. There's literally like...1 Eisenhower song that remains even half-relevant to anyone in the band. There are a total of, let's see...I had to go back and calculate this...6 or 7 girls who can claim full or partial inspiration to an Eisenhower song (yeah, because I'm sure they're gonna put that on their resumes...). And only about 2 of them are still close to any of us. And they’re in the same song.
All that goes to show is that we all progress and grow a lot, which was more or less what I had been getting at with this entire anniversary (blogiversary?) post.
I love how in that one-year anniversary post I comment on how much I had changed over the past year. While I’m sure I did, it doesn’t seem like it looking back. At least not compared to now – then I was 13 going on 14 and didn’t understand a thing about life, social and otherwise. Now I’m 10 days from 18…and I still don’t really understand anything about life, but at least I realize that now.
I’ve done and experienced a lot since then. I started a band, I got a job, I got a drivers license, I graduated high school, I lived on my own for 4 months, and I experienced my first relationship in its entirety. Now I’m frighteningly close to being an adult (in age and in responsibility), something that seems so far away from where I was when I started Flight 109. But 4 years is a long time, and I’m thankful they went the way they did. Life in Wisconsin got good enough to come back for…and to have that at any stage in your life is something to be thankful for. I’m still in limbo in a lot of ways, but I have somewhere to come home to. And coming home I am.
And that’s an entirely literal statement. I’m actually on the plane right now. I think we just flew over Atlanta…or some other big city with a large domed stadium that is between Tampa and Milwaukee but closer to Tampa. Being that ATL fits those parameters and most other cities don’t, that’s probably what it was.
The airport experience was once again rocking. Nice work, Tampa International. And I didn’t hear the Brooklyn accent lady this time, but the questionable fellow who talks about “beautiful children” was at it again. I guess that’s proof that it wasn’t a joke and that he’s just sort of creepy. The Tampa airport is now synonymous to blogging for me. A lot of this was written in terminal A.
I love having the window seat. The views are so amazing (and distracting, for that matter). For instance, we were flying over completely clear skies the entire time, but now that we’re in…probably southern Tennessee, there’s impenetrable cloud cover as far as the eye can see in every direction. How that could be the case when the rest of the Southeast was sunny is beyond me. And clouds look so much cooler from up here too, especially when the sun is setting, which is another advantage of this great Tampa to Milwaukee flight – it runs once a day at 3:32, which is perfect timing for the sun to be setting during the flight. So beautiful. There’s a warm orange glow over seemingly endless miles of puffy cotton...sometimes I just love flying. And I very rarely hate it. It completely tires me out, but I find the experience enjoyable. It’s a chance to listen to my music, maybe get some rest, enjoy some great views, and hey, I don’t mind a Sprite and some crummy little airplane pretzels now and then. Of course, the flights back home are always better…so I guess a lot depends on the context too.
And boy, am I ready to be home. The last couple of weeks have been a grind. That really long paper was the bane of my existence for the week I was writing it. In hindsight, of course I could have not put it off to one week, but I’m reasonably proud of myself for doing it over the course of a week instead of waiting for the last night or something. I’m not so sure I could write 15 pages in a night, but I was pleasantly surprised to learn that I could do 8 in one night, seeing that the longest paper I had done until that point was 5 pages.
The moon just came up over the horizon, and it’s huge and orange and I think full. So cool. I’m like a little kid with how much I am astounded by airplane rides. But I digest.
If the paper had been about something really interesting, I probably would have liked it more, but at least the sources were plentiful. I mean, I wouldn’t even want to read a 15 page paper on the 2008 election…much less write one. And if I was getting a good grade in that class, it wouldn’t have caused me so much anxiety. While C’s get degrees, B’s don’t get you into really good grad schools, so I was hoping this paper could bring me up from my between a B and B+ range. And I still don’t know. That professor likes to torture his students by waiting until the very last minute to post grades. And by giving them 15 page papers, for that matter.
The moon is big, bright and round now on my right, and the sun is in its closing stages and creating brilliant colors on my left. This is so picturesque. I want to make it my desktop, but I don’t have a camera…plus it’s panoramic and can’t be done justice by photos anyway. You’re all so jealous. Come fly with me sometime.
But while I was hating my life over my 3.4-ish at midterms, I managed to pull myself up to a somewhat more respectable 3.7 range, by my estimation. We’ll see once I get all my final grades, but I feel a lot better about that second number. And I’d like to add that I always hated grade perfectionists in high school, so I feel ridiculous now, but for some reason, paying lots of money to go to school for two more years is a very important goal for me, and that’s a lot easier to do the better the grades you have. I don’t know how bad those grades will matter once I transfer, but if nothing else, it proves to me that I’m starting to develop a work ethic that matches my potential. There were a lot of nights that I really dug deep, and I’m proud of myself for that. I was such a screw-off in high school. I realize that most people were, but I’m glad that I proved to myself that I am capable of actually working hard. I’m going to need that in the years to come.
But as for now, I am a college student flying home to take a break. I will fill my cup and live it up and catch up with friends. There is a time and place to worry about all those things in the future, but I am not an adult just yet. I’ve got a solid base, I’ve got a bright future, and for the first time in months, I have 3 weeks to go to holiday reunion bashes and just enjoy myself without worry. I’m so excited.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
I've got my things, I'm good to go
Flight 893 to Milwaukee with a stopover in my mind. And thankfully, not a stopover somewhere tangible. Like Denver.
It's the day before Thanksgiving, and the airport was supposed to be busy. Instead, I got through it quicker than any other time flying, probably because Tampa International is the most rocking airport of all time. There are no lines anywhere, everything is brand new and clean, the internet is free, and I can plug in my laptop all over the place.
Of course, I didn't expect the Tampa airport to be this rocking, so I got here 2 and a half hours early. So I blog.
I've seen some funny stuff already at this airport. It's like every airport worker feels like goofing off today. The guy who checked my ID looked at it, then me, and said really loud "YEP THAT'S YOU!" and then laughed a little. And then he did it for the guy behind me too. And some of the P.A. announcements have been funny. One of the ladies has a Brooklyn accent and said in like 100 different ways that rows 15-25 were boarding.
"15-25 are now boarding, that's rows 15-25. Row 15 through Row 25. That's 15 all the way to 25. Rows 15-25 are all boarding now. Rows 15-25 for JFK. Thank you."
And then there was this really weird one where this guy announced that parents with children could board some flight early. And he said something like "if you have precious children, you can board now. And bring those beautiful children on down." I don't know if he was trying to sound like a pedophile to be funny or just always sounds like a pedophile. Either way, strange things are afoot at TPA. I love airports.
I really do. I love seeing people coming in or going out from all these varied places in the US. I'm kind of a US geography person too, so hearing all these cities coming and going and seeing the people that came from there or are heading there...it's terribly interesting to me.
I'm rocking my designated airport weary traveler look at the moment. I am unshaven and approaching burly lumberjack status. I've got my backpack and old jeans and my Air Force long sleeve on, because I imagine airport people like travelers who support the military. I am also wearing my Tampa Bay Rays hat, which is continuing its fading to gray.
I bought that hat based on a visualization I had of wearing a hat while I fly on my own (because it's easier to be confident with a hat on, I guess?). Tampa Bay, so to not look like a tourist. So today, it serves its purpose. But wow. This hat has quickly become almost moccasin-esque with all the events in my life it's been present for. Since I bought this hat in June, I think I've learned and grown more in these 5 months than any other period of my life. I guess independence does that for you.
Hopefully this hat lasts a while and I don't have to write a funeral post for it anytime in the near future. I never really wore a hat too often before this (except for post-8th grade/pre-freshman year) but it seems to be working out pretty well. I shower at night, so I often need it to cover my bedhead anyway.
And it represents Tampa Bay, which is an area I have truly grown to like and probably always will, regardless of where I end up. If I don't live here, I could definitely see myself becoming one of the thousands of old people who come down here for winters/to die. Or at least I'd like to vacation down here with my family. I have also adopted their baseball team (which I was going to do even if they didn't win all those games/make it to the World Series. I refuse to be accused of fair-weathered fandom), which has to be a sign that, despite my yearning for Wisconsin, there's something I like about this place.
Yep, from Summerfest, Mustard Fest and countless rounds of golf to moving South and my first kiss, this hat has already been through a lot, and I'd like to think it's just getting started.
In 3 or 4 hours time, I will land in the snow of Milwaukee, and I'm more excited than I can even let on. It's only for a few days, and I probably won't see everyone that I want to, but I am coming home and I can't wait.
It's the day before Thanksgiving, and the airport was supposed to be busy. Instead, I got through it quicker than any other time flying, probably because Tampa International is the most rocking airport of all time. There are no lines anywhere, everything is brand new and clean, the internet is free, and I can plug in my laptop all over the place.
Of course, I didn't expect the Tampa airport to be this rocking, so I got here 2 and a half hours early. So I blog.
I've seen some funny stuff already at this airport. It's like every airport worker feels like goofing off today. The guy who checked my ID looked at it, then me, and said really loud "YEP THAT'S YOU!" and then laughed a little. And then he did it for the guy behind me too. And some of the P.A. announcements have been funny. One of the ladies has a Brooklyn accent and said in like 100 different ways that rows 15-25 were boarding.
"15-25 are now boarding, that's rows 15-25. Row 15 through Row 25. That's 15 all the way to 25. Rows 15-25 are all boarding now. Rows 15-25 for JFK. Thank you."
And then there was this really weird one where this guy announced that parents with children could board some flight early. And he said something like "if you have precious children, you can board now. And bring those beautiful children on down." I don't know if he was trying to sound like a pedophile to be funny or just always sounds like a pedophile. Either way, strange things are afoot at TPA. I love airports.
I really do. I love seeing people coming in or going out from all these varied places in the US. I'm kind of a US geography person too, so hearing all these cities coming and going and seeing the people that came from there or are heading there...it's terribly interesting to me.
I'm rocking my designated airport weary traveler look at the moment. I am unshaven and approaching burly lumberjack status. I've got my backpack and old jeans and my Air Force long sleeve on, because I imagine airport people like travelers who support the military. I am also wearing my Tampa Bay Rays hat, which is continuing its fading to gray.
I bought that hat based on a visualization I had of wearing a hat while I fly on my own (because it's easier to be confident with a hat on, I guess?). Tampa Bay, so to not look like a tourist. So today, it serves its purpose. But wow. This hat has quickly become almost moccasin-esque with all the events in my life it's been present for. Since I bought this hat in June, I think I've learned and grown more in these 5 months than any other period of my life. I guess independence does that for you.
Hopefully this hat lasts a while and I don't have to write a funeral post for it anytime in the near future. I never really wore a hat too often before this (except for post-8th grade/pre-freshman year) but it seems to be working out pretty well. I shower at night, so I often need it to cover my bedhead anyway.
And it represents Tampa Bay, which is an area I have truly grown to like and probably always will, regardless of where I end up. If I don't live here, I could definitely see myself becoming one of the thousands of old people who come down here for winters/to die. Or at least I'd like to vacation down here with my family. I have also adopted their baseball team (which I was going to do even if they didn't win all those games/make it to the World Series. I refuse to be accused of fair-weathered fandom), which has to be a sign that, despite my yearning for Wisconsin, there's something I like about this place.
Yep, from Summerfest, Mustard Fest and countless rounds of golf to moving South and my first kiss, this hat has already been through a lot, and I'd like to think it's just getting started.
In 3 or 4 hours time, I will land in the snow of Milwaukee, and I'm more excited than I can even let on. It's only for a few days, and I probably won't see everyone that I want to, but I am coming home and I can't wait.
Tuesday, November 04, 2008
Tom Schoenfeld smothered by hundreds of puppies: A maverick change we can believe in.
With 0% of precincts reporting, I am calling the election coverage dumb.
Although I saw this picture and laughed for a week.
superpoop.com
There are a few people in the floor lounge watching the post-election coverage intently, biting their nails each time a state gets called after about 100 votes have come in. I don't know when CNN will learn about this. Anyone remember "Dewey Defeats Truman"?
Regrettably, I am forced to watch at least a major chunk of the coverage because of my election class, because I'm taking a quiz tomorrow in which I have to remember each of the 50 states and how they voted in this election. I think it's for extra credit, but still. It's college, I could use it.
Being 17, there were a handful of things I could do to help influence the election without voting. We had to support a candidate for our election class, and I supported McCain (devil's advocate, ya know?). I also encouraged my girlfriend to vote when she didn't feel like it, and I got a free McCain-Palin shirt. I also tried to get real informed and attended Joe Biden's speech at USF.
I pretty much did everything I could to be informed, involved, and in touch. And boy howdy, am I glad it will be over.
The election class has been interesting and a real eye-opener, but what I really hate about politics is how everyone thinks they're just so freakin' smart. I don't know how much more I can elaborate on that, but I've seen so many know-it-alls who really want everyone to know how much they know about politics. Oof. Basically, it's good to be involved, but don't be closed-minded and aggressive about it. I look forward to the days when the plaza in front of Cooper Hall stops being a loud, obnoxious political thinktank and returns to just quietly smelling like Subway.
And to think, once I considered being a poli-sci major.
Well, enough political garbage. Y'all've heard enough of it. Bet Y'all'ven't been hit with double or even TRIPLE contractions though. More some other day.
Although I saw this picture and laughed for a week.
superpoop.com
There are a few people in the floor lounge watching the post-election coverage intently, biting their nails each time a state gets called after about 100 votes have come in. I don't know when CNN will learn about this. Anyone remember "Dewey Defeats Truman"?
Regrettably, I am forced to watch at least a major chunk of the coverage because of my election class, because I'm taking a quiz tomorrow in which I have to remember each of the 50 states and how they voted in this election. I think it's for extra credit, but still. It's college, I could use it.
Being 17, there were a handful of things I could do to help influence the election without voting. We had to support a candidate for our election class, and I supported McCain (devil's advocate, ya know?). I also encouraged my girlfriend to vote when she didn't feel like it, and I got a free McCain-Palin shirt. I also tried to get real informed and attended Joe Biden's speech at USF.
I pretty much did everything I could to be informed, involved, and in touch. And boy howdy, am I glad it will be over.
The election class has been interesting and a real eye-opener, but what I really hate about politics is how everyone thinks they're just so freakin' smart. I don't know how much more I can elaborate on that, but I've seen so many know-it-alls who really want everyone to know how much they know about politics. Oof. Basically, it's good to be involved, but don't be closed-minded and aggressive about it. I look forward to the days when the plaza in front of Cooper Hall stops being a loud, obnoxious political thinktank and returns to just quietly smelling like Subway.
And to think, once I considered being a poli-sci major.
Well, enough political garbage. Y'all've heard enough of it. Bet Y'all'ven't been hit with double or even TRIPLE contractions though. More some other day.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
We have great potato salad
I have a big 'ol paper to write for tomorrow, but I wanted to blog update more often, so I'm going to dig up an old draft that never made it to the blog. Not sure why this one never got published, but it's over a year old and chock-full of memories. I think I'll comment throughout. This will be much faster than writing an actual blog and I can get back to my comparison of McCain and Obama's convention speeches. Womp Wommmmmp. I guess I could post that once it's graded, but it'll probably be mad boring. But I digest. Without further ado (and also without Freddy Adu), I give to you...an old unfinished post from June 20th, 2007.
Whoa!
Camp Phillip is crazy.
I recently spent a week and a half up there, and it was quite the experience.
First of all was junior staff training week, which I never can do justice to on a blog. I'm not actually sure I've ever tried to do justice to it, because the majority (or totality, possibly) of my readership was there for it. [On this note, does anyone non-Becca read this anymore? I guess Bethy and Paul read the last one, but...blogging seems to have gone the way of myspace and the dinosaur, I suppose. Oh well, I will work to keep blogging alive.] So I'll say this - C'mere, Sonny.
That isn't actually a reference to anything that happened during training week [Rather, one of the funniest things Kyle Fax has ever said], but there were a lot of fun things that happened, a few highlights, in no particular order
- PM/PM [technically "A.E.P.M" but who likes that name?] after campfire on Wednesday
- Doing our campfire (The sheer enjoyability of working with my group, getting some laughs etc..[and of course, cheating to make sure we all ended up in the same group. So clique-y. But our campfire rocked, so it's okay. "I'm ruined!!"])
- Playing "Bubba ball" with Andrew Lehman, many females, and Pablo the random hispanic boy (I'm pretty sure that was his name, at least the Pablo part)
- Finally having Elliott Kasprzak as a counselor in his last year at Camp
And obviously there are more, those are just four that were on the top of my head. Overall, a fun week as always.
Next after training week was Family Fest (A.K.A. "WELS stock" - actually a pretty good name for it). I didn't really know what to expect for family fest, because I had never been to one before. The only reason I was staying was because I was unexpectedly [of course I was unexpectedly scheduled...is anyone expectedly scheduled for Jr. Staff duty? Put it together, Blake of 15 months ago.] scheduled for pee wees the next week, so it was far easier to just stick around.
Family fest ended up being, through all the activities and attractions, mostly kitchen work. Just as well though, the kitchen has its moments. It all counts as volunteer hours for scholarships, eh? I did get to end up seeing a lot of people I probably would not have seen this summer otherwise, including but not limited to: My host family from Manitowoc day camp, Dan Brunner and Dave Moldenhauer and this girl that came with them who I didn't know but everyone else seemed to for some reason [this was Hannah Brunner. Looking back, I feel dumb for not knowing that at the time], Adam Carruthers (yes!)[Evan told me that during SALT training, Matthew was talking about campfire planning and how when taking camper suggestions for games like Fortunately/Unfortunately, stuff like "Adam Carruthers!" should not be picked, because not everyone would get it. He actually used that example, which I find hilarious, because I think I started the Adam Carruthers at campfire thing.], and Ben Stein, who is getting married.
But essentially, family fest just meant that I was more tired for the half-week of exhaustion also known as pee wees.
For those who don't know (which I doubt is anyone), pee wees is a camp that runs a good portion of the day (but not 24/7) for kids in grades K-2. I'm not sure how much I have to say about the actually counseling portion of the week, because as long as you can imagine me trying to corral 7 very different 6-year-olds during each activity, you have a pretty good idea of how it was [Might I add, this will make me a totally awesome dad. I hope. I would like to be a good dad some day...and also a good uncle, because how sweet are family gatherings going to be when my family convenes with Uncle Evan and his? I'm already looking forward to it.].
But because of the ages of the kids, they're only with us for the day, and they're with their parents for the evening, so we get a lot of time to hang out with our fellow pee wee staff. This week, though, because of the far greater number of female junior staff as compared to the numbers of males, the ratio of junior staff was 7 girls to me.
So that was a little different. If I was going to hang out with anyone, it was going to be with girls (most of them younger than me too, only one of the seven had done Jr. Staff before - a couple of them were campers during the most recent week I junior staffed [I remember looking at the sheet of volunteers and not seeing any names I recognized and then asking Sarah Thurs to volunteer so there would be someone else I knew working pee wees with me. And she obliged, how nice of her. But I actually made pretty good friends with a bunch of the newbie group, which included the likes of Clare Sievert, et al. And now Caleb Schmiege is friends with Clare, and not even directly because of me. Small WELS world.]). Luckily they were a neat bunch, but I was in on more "girl talk" than I think I've ever been in my entire life up to that point. We even had a soul-pouring out reflections, that involved crying.
Well, I wasn't crying, but still. It gives you an idea.
It was fun though, they were a really neat bunch of girls. It was just a totally new experience to me.
So I guess this is why this draft never found its way onto the blog...because I couldn't come up with an ending. I also chuckled at the title when I opened this, because I believe it's from a long-forgotten series of texts and phone conversation(s?) with a certain disgruntled Badger Girl's State attendee (not Allison) and myself. Not sure what else I can comment on in that post that I didn't already cover throughout. But let me just say this: C'mere, Sonny.
Whoa!
Camp Phillip is crazy.
I recently spent a week and a half up there, and it was quite the experience.
First of all was junior staff training week, which I never can do justice to on a blog. I'm not actually sure I've ever tried to do justice to it, because the majority (or totality, possibly) of my readership was there for it. [On this note, does anyone non-Becca read this anymore? I guess Bethy and Paul read the last one, but...blogging seems to have gone the way of myspace and the dinosaur, I suppose. Oh well, I will work to keep blogging alive.] So I'll say this - C'mere, Sonny.
That isn't actually a reference to anything that happened during training week [Rather, one of the funniest things Kyle Fax has ever said], but there were a lot of fun things that happened, a few highlights, in no particular order
- PM/PM [technically "A.E.P.M" but who likes that name?] after campfire on Wednesday
- Doing our campfire (The sheer enjoyability of working with my group, getting some laughs etc..[and of course, cheating to make sure we all ended up in the same group. So clique-y. But our campfire rocked, so it's okay. "I'm ruined!!"])
- Playing "Bubba ball" with Andrew Lehman, many females, and Pablo the random hispanic boy (I'm pretty sure that was his name, at least the Pablo part)
- Finally having Elliott Kasprzak as a counselor in his last year at Camp
And obviously there are more, those are just four that were on the top of my head. Overall, a fun week as always.
Next after training week was Family Fest (A.K.A. "WELS stock" - actually a pretty good name for it). I didn't really know what to expect for family fest, because I had never been to one before. The only reason I was staying was because I was unexpectedly [of course I was unexpectedly scheduled...is anyone expectedly scheduled for Jr. Staff duty? Put it together, Blake of 15 months ago.] scheduled for pee wees the next week, so it was far easier to just stick around.
Family fest ended up being, through all the activities and attractions, mostly kitchen work. Just as well though, the kitchen has its moments. It all counts as volunteer hours for scholarships, eh? I did get to end up seeing a lot of people I probably would not have seen this summer otherwise, including but not limited to: My host family from Manitowoc day camp, Dan Brunner and Dave Moldenhauer and this girl that came with them who I didn't know but everyone else seemed to for some reason [this was Hannah Brunner. Looking back, I feel dumb for not knowing that at the time], Adam Carruthers (yes!)[Evan told me that during SALT training, Matthew was talking about campfire planning and how when taking camper suggestions for games like Fortunately/Unfortunately, stuff like "Adam Carruthers!" should not be picked, because not everyone would get it. He actually used that example, which I find hilarious, because I think I started the Adam Carruthers at campfire thing.], and Ben Stein, who is getting married.
But essentially, family fest just meant that I was more tired for the half-week of exhaustion also known as pee wees.
For those who don't know (which I doubt is anyone), pee wees is a camp that runs a good portion of the day (but not 24/7) for kids in grades K-2. I'm not sure how much I have to say about the actually counseling portion of the week, because as long as you can imagine me trying to corral 7 very different 6-year-olds during each activity, you have a pretty good idea of how it was [Might I add, this will make me a totally awesome dad. I hope. I would like to be a good dad some day...and also a good uncle, because how sweet are family gatherings going to be when my family convenes with Uncle Evan and his? I'm already looking forward to it.].
But because of the ages of the kids, they're only with us for the day, and they're with their parents for the evening, so we get a lot of time to hang out with our fellow pee wee staff. This week, though, because of the far greater number of female junior staff as compared to the numbers of males, the ratio of junior staff was 7 girls to me.
So that was a little different. If I was going to hang out with anyone, it was going to be with girls (most of them younger than me too, only one of the seven had done Jr. Staff before - a couple of them were campers during the most recent week I junior staffed [I remember looking at the sheet of volunteers and not seeing any names I recognized and then asking Sarah Thurs to volunteer so there would be someone else I knew working pee wees with me. And she obliged, how nice of her. But I actually made pretty good friends with a bunch of the newbie group, which included the likes of Clare Sievert, et al. And now Caleb Schmiege is friends with Clare, and not even directly because of me. Small WELS world.]). Luckily they were a neat bunch, but I was in on more "girl talk" than I think I've ever been in my entire life up to that point. We even had a soul-pouring out reflections, that involved crying.
Well, I wasn't crying, but still. It gives you an idea.
It was fun though, they were a really neat bunch of girls. It was just a totally new experience to me.
So I guess this is why this draft never found its way onto the blog...because I couldn't come up with an ending. I also chuckled at the title when I opened this, because I believe it's from a long-forgotten series of texts and phone conversation(s?) with a certain disgruntled Badger Girl's State attendee (not Allison) and myself. Not sure what else I can comment on in that post that I didn't already cover throughout. But let me just say this: C'mere, Sonny.
Sunday, September 07, 2008
I'm a bear, etcetera
- Mike Birbiglia.
So, my life is a vacation with classes.
I live in Tampa, which is more or less a vacation capital for yankees like myself. It's incredible, I'm 30 minutes from Clearwater Beach (widely considered one of the best in the US, and even t-shirt material for Hollister), and I still hear some of my classmates complain about how campus isn't close enough to the beach for their tastes. Might I add, it was 93 degrees today, it will be 93 degrees tomorrow...and it has been over 90 for almost every day I've been here. Come wintertime, it will usually be in the mid-70s to 80s.
Some of you would kill for this. Just a little bit. (just a little bit, you would).
It's pretty ok. I'm also getting a little tan (in relative terms, at least). But life-wise, college has been solid. It's kind of a let-down from my amazing summer, but anything would have been, because my summer was amazing.
But I've met great people. Most of my nights are booked with social activity and there's almost always a group to study with in the dorm lobby. Also, we watch a lot of movies, leading to my 3-day streak of watching a Rachel McAdams movie.
Most people have celebrity crushes, or at least fictional character crushes (I'm looking at you, Edward Cullen. Stop enchanting our teenage girls and go back to vampire-land. I'm gonna carry around my F. Scott short stories anthology and throw it at the next person I see reading "Breaking Dawn"). It's something I've never really given a lot of thought to for myself, but I guess if I had to pick a celebrity crush it would be Rachel McAdams. Partially because I think she's hilarious in Mean Girls, and I like her character in Wedding Crashers. And, well, I think she is pretty, which is why people usually pick Keira Knightley or Jessica Alba. But Rachel McAdams seems pretty chill and like she'd be fun to hang out with. She also attended the MLS all-star game - bonus points!
Although I did dislike her character in the Notebook - that girl was pretty needy. But I have faith that it was just Rachel working her acting magic.
But like I said, it's not like I gave much thought to it. But I never really had an answer to that question of favorite actress, so there ya go. But I digress.
I should be blogging about how school is, moreso, but I don't know what more there is to say. Classes are fine. I already got a blurb out there on how my friends are. My roommate is cool. The food is satisfactory.
It's just kind of surprising to me that this huge change in my life is hardly registering in my mind. I guess I've always been comfortable with changes.
Well, I shouldn't say it's HARDLY registering in my mind, because I often think about home and how great it would be to see all the people back there that I had come to love. But I'm hardly homesick, it just makes me really look forward to Thanksgiving weekend (when I hope everyone is free to get together for a while). But I'm not really lonely here, I just occasionally find my mind wandering back home. Stuck between Drunk Girl and Hurricane, I say. But I'm not too concerned by it. Life is pretty good.
One thing about Tampa life that I feel I should mention is the church I go to. There's only one WELS church in the area, and I have an arrangement with a very nice couple to pick me up and drive me there every Sunday. They also have invited me back to their home for lunch a few times and are doing everything in their power to make me feel comfortable.
Very un-WELS, don'tcha think?
I kid. Sort of. The church itself is very small, and the pastor's a younger guy who seems very excited to serve his Savior. It's so cool to me, that even down here in unfamiliar territory, I can go to church on Sunday and still sing the same 300-year-old German hymns I would back home. It's comforting, in a strange way. You take that stuff for granted when you live next to Lakeside.
Another cool thing, that I already told a bunch o' the MLC kids, is that I got to talking with one of my best friends I've met here so far about faith and church and etcetera, and to make a long story short, I invited her to church and she's going to come with me. We were going to go to church together this morning, but my alarm didn't go off and I overslept. I basically wanted to die, but the pickup couple that I stood up accepted my apology and next week is on. All is well again at Northdale Lutheran.
So, yeah, Tampa is cool. That's pretty much why I'm down here. Because it seems cool. Haha. There's much more to it than that. But I've found that a surprising amount of what I do is an attempt to make myself look "cooler".
I wear a baseball cap
I wear aviator sunglasses
I go to school in Tampa
Yeah, I'm gonna go ahead and admit it now, much of my decision to come down here was because it seemed cool. Yes, it was financially responsible. Yes, I am going to college for free. Yes, I am creating a business network in a major metropolitan area. But an embarassingly large amount of my decision, in hindsight, was because I thought it would make me totally cool.
Which really doesn't invalidate the decision. It changes the way I look at it, but I don't know if I can say that there was a better decision, based on career opportunities and financial management, available.
But there is much more to life than career opportunities and financial management. Whether those other intangibles will prove to be better or worse down here remains to be seen. That's when I can decide whether this was a good decision or not. It is much too early, of course.
But at least I'll be cool.
Maybe someday on the blog I'll talk about the main events that eliminated the college contenders one by one, because I think it's fascinating looking back. But I want to do it in style, with pictures and graphs and music, or something. It would be kind of a big project. I doubt anyone is THIS interested in my life and my little future-planning struggles, but if I feel creative it's something I'd like to do. All I know is that "I'll follow the Sun" by the Beatles would figure importantly in such a presentation. Get it? Florida? Sun? Sunshine State?
Plus the Beatles are just good, so...
Also, I'd use "Seattle" (because I love myself, of course...) and "Driving South" by the Early November. Not sure what else there would be. Also not sure why I'm hypothesizing what songs I'll use for my likely never to be finished project. Maybe I'll have to do some big powerpoint project for Public Speaking or Computers in Business. If I do that, I'll be sure to show it to all "y'all" at home. See, I live in the South now. Gonna go grab some Chick-Fil-A. Drink an iced tea. Drawl. Ya know.
But that's about all I have to say about that. The paper, take us away.
So, my life is a vacation with classes.
I live in Tampa, which is more or less a vacation capital for yankees like myself. It's incredible, I'm 30 minutes from Clearwater Beach (widely considered one of the best in the US, and even t-shirt material for Hollister), and I still hear some of my classmates complain about how campus isn't close enough to the beach for their tastes. Might I add, it was 93 degrees today, it will be 93 degrees tomorrow...and it has been over 90 for almost every day I've been here. Come wintertime, it will usually be in the mid-70s to 80s.
Some of you would kill for this. Just a little bit. (just a little bit, you would).
It's pretty ok. I'm also getting a little tan (in relative terms, at least). But life-wise, college has been solid. It's kind of a let-down from my amazing summer, but anything would have been, because my summer was amazing.
But I've met great people. Most of my nights are booked with social activity and there's almost always a group to study with in the dorm lobby. Also, we watch a lot of movies, leading to my 3-day streak of watching a Rachel McAdams movie.
Most people have celebrity crushes, or at least fictional character crushes (I'm looking at you, Edward Cullen. Stop enchanting our teenage girls and go back to vampire-land. I'm gonna carry around my F. Scott short stories anthology and throw it at the next person I see reading "Breaking Dawn"). It's something I've never really given a lot of thought to for myself, but I guess if I had to pick a celebrity crush it would be Rachel McAdams. Partially because I think she's hilarious in Mean Girls, and I like her character in Wedding Crashers. And, well, I think she is pretty, which is why people usually pick Keira Knightley or Jessica Alba. But Rachel McAdams seems pretty chill and like she'd be fun to hang out with. She also attended the MLS all-star game - bonus points!
Although I did dislike her character in the Notebook - that girl was pretty needy. But I have faith that it was just Rachel working her acting magic.
But like I said, it's not like I gave much thought to it. But I never really had an answer to that question of favorite actress, so there ya go. But I digress.
I should be blogging about how school is, moreso, but I don't know what more there is to say. Classes are fine. I already got a blurb out there on how my friends are. My roommate is cool. The food is satisfactory.
It's just kind of surprising to me that this huge change in my life is hardly registering in my mind. I guess I've always been comfortable with changes.
Well, I shouldn't say it's HARDLY registering in my mind, because I often think about home and how great it would be to see all the people back there that I had come to love. But I'm hardly homesick, it just makes me really look forward to Thanksgiving weekend (when I hope everyone is free to get together for a while). But I'm not really lonely here, I just occasionally find my mind wandering back home. Stuck between Drunk Girl and Hurricane, I say. But I'm not too concerned by it. Life is pretty good.
One thing about Tampa life that I feel I should mention is the church I go to. There's only one WELS church in the area, and I have an arrangement with a very nice couple to pick me up and drive me there every Sunday. They also have invited me back to their home for lunch a few times and are doing everything in their power to make me feel comfortable.
Very un-WELS, don'tcha think?
I kid. Sort of. The church itself is very small, and the pastor's a younger guy who seems very excited to serve his Savior. It's so cool to me, that even down here in unfamiliar territory, I can go to church on Sunday and still sing the same 300-year-old German hymns I would back home. It's comforting, in a strange way. You take that stuff for granted when you live next to Lakeside.
Another cool thing, that I already told a bunch o' the MLC kids, is that I got to talking with one of my best friends I've met here so far about faith and church and etcetera, and to make a long story short, I invited her to church and she's going to come with me. We were going to go to church together this morning, but my alarm didn't go off and I overslept. I basically wanted to die, but the pickup couple that I stood up accepted my apology and next week is on. All is well again at Northdale Lutheran.
So, yeah, Tampa is cool. That's pretty much why I'm down here. Because it seems cool. Haha. There's much more to it than that. But I've found that a surprising amount of what I do is an attempt to make myself look "cooler".
I wear a baseball cap
I wear aviator sunglasses
I go to school in Tampa
Yeah, I'm gonna go ahead and admit it now, much of my decision to come down here was because it seemed cool. Yes, it was financially responsible. Yes, I am going to college for free. Yes, I am creating a business network in a major metropolitan area. But an embarassingly large amount of my decision, in hindsight, was because I thought it would make me totally cool.
Which really doesn't invalidate the decision. It changes the way I look at it, but I don't know if I can say that there was a better decision, based on career opportunities and financial management, available.
But there is much more to life than career opportunities and financial management. Whether those other intangibles will prove to be better or worse down here remains to be seen. That's when I can decide whether this was a good decision or not. It is much too early, of course.
But at least I'll be cool.
Maybe someday on the blog I'll talk about the main events that eliminated the college contenders one by one, because I think it's fascinating looking back. But I want to do it in style, with pictures and graphs and music, or something. It would be kind of a big project. I doubt anyone is THIS interested in my life and my little future-planning struggles, but if I feel creative it's something I'd like to do. All I know is that "I'll follow the Sun" by the Beatles would figure importantly in such a presentation. Get it? Florida? Sun? Sunshine State?
Plus the Beatles are just good, so...
Also, I'd use "Seattle" (because I love myself, of course...) and "Driving South" by the Early November. Not sure what else there would be. Also not sure why I'm hypothesizing what songs I'll use for my likely never to be finished project. Maybe I'll have to do some big powerpoint project for Public Speaking or Computers in Business. If I do that, I'll be sure to show it to all "y'all" at home. See, I live in the South now. Gonna go grab some Chick-Fil-A. Drink an iced tea. Drawl. Ya know.
But that's about all I have to say about that. The paper, take us away.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
And she drifts so far away...
Right now, I can't get "Hurricane" by Something Corporate out of my head, because I'm bunkered down in this hotel room in Tampa because of tropical storm Fay, which they say will become a hurricane. It's crazy. I haven't even formally started living in Tampa, and mother nature is already all like "ROAR GO BACK TO WISCONSIN PASTY ONE". Congratulations, lucky reader(s) of Flight 109, you will be treated to hurricane commentary by me, someone who has not ever been close to one. With my descriptions, you'll feel like you're in the hotel room with me, watching the storm out the window and fringe olympic sports on the TV.
Of course a blog about only a tropical storm (better known by their scientific name, "hurricane wannabes") would be awfully drab, so I'll do a REAL blog, and just highlight real-time Fay updates.
6:40 - There's complete cloud cover, and there has been for most of the day. It's been raining on and off, and right now, it isn't raining. Many area businesses are closed, and some beachfront hotels have evacuated. I'm basically expecting the storm of the century here, but right now, it barely even looks threatening.
Well, I’m only hours away from moving into my dorm room, my home for the next three months. And let me say, it is scary and feels kinda lonely. I’m conflicted on that part, because I realize that lots of people are moving into dorms just like I am, but I also know that if they get truly homesick or lonely, most of them are just a few hours or less from home, or at least have some friends from home nearby (I’m looking at you, MLC kids). But this is the decision I made, and I really have no reason to feel sorry for myself there. I’m going to school in Florida for free. It could be so much worse. I just worry myself.
6:55 - I went out onto the hotel room's balcony. I felt something of a pressure change, but that's about all there is to speak of. Birds are still just hanging out, planes are still taking off, and a guy just walked by. Not a hurricane-hardy master of disaster, but just an honest, no-fooling guy, completely unfazed by the harsh weather (or lack thereof).
Well, the most important thing that you, the reader, can take from this is send me things in the mail. Wait, what?
That's not very life changing advice from me, but I'll give you my mailing address (probably in a Facebook note, which will be a first for me) as soon as I can find it, and I'd love to get mail. For sure.
That was kind of a needy end to the post, but I had to throw it out there. Because if you feel generous, creative, or like becoming my hero, that would be the way to do it. Thanks in advance.
And then, so long from Tampa. Look forward to my first post from my new home.
Of course a blog about only a tropical storm (better known by their scientific name, "hurricane wannabes") would be awfully drab, so I'll do a REAL blog, and just highlight real-time Fay updates.
6:40 - There's complete cloud cover, and there has been for most of the day. It's been raining on and off, and right now, it isn't raining. Many area businesses are closed, and some beachfront hotels have evacuated. I'm basically expecting the storm of the century here, but right now, it barely even looks threatening.
Well, I’m only hours away from moving into my dorm room, my home for the next three months. And let me say, it is scary and feels kinda lonely. I’m conflicted on that part, because I realize that lots of people are moving into dorms just like I am, but I also know that if they get truly homesick or lonely, most of them are just a few hours or less from home, or at least have some friends from home nearby (I’m looking at you, MLC kids). But this is the decision I made, and I really have no reason to feel sorry for myself there. I’m going to school in Florida for free. It could be so much worse. I just worry myself.
6:55 - I went out onto the hotel room's balcony. I felt something of a pressure change, but that's about all there is to speak of. Birds are still just hanging out, planes are still taking off, and a guy just walked by. Not a hurricane-hardy master of disaster, but just an honest, no-fooling guy, completely unfazed by the harsh weather (or lack thereof).
One of the parts that has actually really affected the fact that I feel this way is that I’ve never enjoyed being home as much as I have this summer. I’ve gotten really close to some friends, and as I suggested in the last post, the stuff I’ve been doing this summer has made it the best of my life. When I decided on USF, it’s not as if my friendships were bad or my life wasn’t fun, but I didn’t view it as something worth missing out on this opportunity for. My experience this summer has kind of changed that point of view.
7:22 - My attention from blogging, the hurricane, and fringe olympic sports has been diverted by the start of the Rays game. B.J. Upton, Jason Bartlett, and Nathan's favorite, Gabe Gross just saved a few runs with some brilliant defense. I'm liking my new hometown team, but they're losing now, unfortunately. I'd feel worse about this digression if Fay was doing anything whatsoever.But still, there are things to look forward to at USF. Some of the people I’ve met seem cool. “Cute orientation girl” actually has me pretty excited about moving in, at least in that respect. There are new people to meet. This I understand. The thing that worries me the most is that I never really have that safety valve of surrounding myself with loved ones regardless of how bad it gets. That’s just something I’ll have to get over. God is there.
8:09 - I took a break from blogging for some dinner. The amount of nothingness that the storm is doing here is mind-numbing. Don't play like this, Fay. You can't just threaten to throw your hurricane parts all up over everyone (and make people evacuate their vacation sites) and then not do anything. Those vacationers must be peeved.My other main concern is over the quality of school. I’m sure USF is a decent school in its own right (if it wasn’t, I wouldn’t have picked it), but my other main option was Wisconsin, which is a GREAT school (and closer to home, but that’s already been addressed). The downside is that it isn’t free…but the price difference might be worth it, who knows. Wisconsin is a school that I grew up envisioning myself at, and would be a very good school to graduate from.
8:43 - It's dark outside, but that can be mostly attributed to the sun going down. The winds have picked up quite a bit, but they aren't even beginning approach any category. Cars still driving, planes still flying.The way I look at it now, I’m thinking that a transfer to Wisconsin somewhere along the line is a distinct possibility, and perhaps even probable. I realize I haven’t even started at USF, but part of me feels like life was too good to give up in Wisconsin (for more reasons than just friends) and I’d like to “come home” sooner rather than later. Who knows, maybe I’ll take to life in Tampa like I took to their baseball team (if I get nothing else out of this, I at least have a baseball team to root for…Rays with a big comeback win tonight! What a distraction).
STORM OVER - At least I think so... no rain, barely any wind...nothing at all to speak of. I guess I still don't know what to expect of a true hurricane. Unless THAT was a hurricane. Then I'm pumped.Well, the most important thing that you, the reader, can take from this is send me things in the mail. Wait, what?
That's not very life changing advice from me, but I'll give you my mailing address (probably in a Facebook note, which will be a first for me) as soon as I can find it, and I'd love to get mail. For sure.
That was kind of a needy end to the post, but I had to throw it out there. Because if you feel generous, creative, or like becoming my hero, that would be the way to do it. Thanks in advance.
And then, so long from Tampa. Look forward to my first post from my new home.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
I will now listen to nothing but Ben Folds for this post
...and I would advise the reader to do the same.
Facebook - the greatest known nemesis to blogging.
Since that fateful night of October 25, 2006, when Becca, Danielle Pett, and Ellie Baum christened my facebook with its first ever comments (don't worry, I had to go back and check...), Flight 109 has played a heavily under-appreciated second fiddle to the internet's biggest timesuck.
So tonight, facebook, I will bite my thumb at you. I need to blog for the first time in 6 months (and for only the 3rd time in the past year). I'm overdue like a...book, I guess.
Haha, I just looked back at the post with that title, and in the beginning, I apologize for having not posted in a month. Amusing.
Anyway, now that the requisite apology for failure to post in a timely manner is out of the way...now to the meat and potatoes of this blog post.
See...therein lies the problem. I don't have any meat and potatoes to post.
But when did I ever, really? As John Pauer once mused on his blog, what are blogs for, outside of telling the world whether or not your mom packed a cookie in your lunch for school?
I probably butchered that quote, and took it way out of context, but I can't go back and look at his blog and double-check, because it's sadly lost forever in cyberspace. I enjoyed his blog.
But there have been some things on my mind lately, and there certainly have been a lot of happenings this summer that have been blogworthy.
I'll start by saying that this has probably been the best summer I've ever had. Or, alternately, the best six months ever (being that my last post was about six months ago). So much has happened between then and now. I'll give a quick summary, and if you, collective loyal Flight 109 reader, were there for that memory, perhaps I can elicit a smile.
(although I said I was biting my thumb at facebook, I admit I used my wall's history to remind myself of some of these more obscure references. I nearly forgot some great ones, and when I saw them again, it put me in a pretty good mood. A begrudging thank you, semi-enemy Facebook. You win again.)
January
- I made the decision to not apply for Camp Phillip SALT staff (despite Tyler Shinnick's constant urging). I'm sure it would have been fun and a great experience, but right now I'm glad I didn't. I will seriously consider it for next year, but what with moving away, I think the time I've had at home this summer has been really important. Like I said, I've really enjoyed it.
- I became backup kicker for the Fort Tokyo French Toes. 2 people at most will get this, but one of them will laugh if he ever reads this.
- I, filled with some bitterness toward the Lakeside soccer program, and some of my closest friends banded together to form the powerful indoor soccer team "Royal Westminster FC". We only won once (by forfeit), but we had by far the best jerseys, and I think the most fun, of anyone in that league.
- We celebrated snow day after beautiful snow day by going to Ming's to ruin our digestive tracts by way of Chinese food and watch old pre-CGI Disney movies. Pocahontas, surely you appreciate being watched by a bunch of male high-schoolers (and Nancy).
February
- I watched part of the Super Bowl, and talked on the phone for half of it.
- I found out that I qualified for a full scholarship to USF, where I am going next year, but cautiously. More on that caution later. I'm in for the long haul here.
- Arizona State University bought me a delicious steak. Thanks guys. I'm not going to go to your college, but I suppose I'll cheer for you in sports now.
- I went to a Bon Jovi concert with Kyle Fax and Paul, almost spontaneously. Bon Jovi may be cheesy, but "It's My Life" is a great song. There's no getting around it. The middle aged women in front of us surely agree. Although I think they preferred "Bed of Roses".
- Along with Paul and Jordan, I became part of the biggest JV girls basketball fan group Lakeside has ever seen. I had none ulterior motives.
March
- I got my first ever job, working backline (fryers and bun prep...classy) at Culver's in Johnson Creek.
- I hated my first ever job.
- I enjoyed one of my favorite days of high school ever, the day that we had WSMA solo-ensemble in Poynette. When we were done, the Calebs and I got outta Dodge, went to Wendy's, shared perhaps the funniest car ride I've experienced ("here have some!" and Jackson Pollock's, er...smoothies), went to the Lakeside basketball game, and then hit up Sydnie's for some party.
April
- Jaclyn got mad at me online for no particular reason. I am not the only person this has happened to.
- I went Irish dancing. I rish you could have been there. ha! ha!
- I celebrated Stabby the Green Pepper day. The day went so well (probably entirely uninfluenced by Stabby, but stranger things have happened) that I will almost certainly celebrate next year on April 10th. I haven't deleted that text message.
- Evan and I started the Craftsman F-up series of racing. I won the first race. No one needs to know about what happened in the subsequent races.
- I secretly began to listen to Z104 in the car. Not much a secret NOW is it?
- I won Get on Da Mic, because of my superior knowledge of the song Rubber Band Man. I DO have a 45 in my other hand, thank you for asking.
- I went to WLA's prom with Becca. I had a great time. The dancing was decidedly non-Lakeside, but that isn't really why I enjoyed it.
May
- I went to Lakeside's prom with Becca. I had an okay time. The dancing was decidedly Lakeside, but as I alluded to before, the style of dancing doesn't really change how much I enjoy a dance.
- Sometime around here, Caleb Meyer and I became even better friends (despite the mock hating of each other's guts during the mock trial. You are an evil, evil man, Mr. Doering). Not sure why it came at this point, but it's something that has made this summer really fun.
- I quit my first ever job.
- I graduated high school. This is probably the only thing that will appear noteworthy from this summer looking back 20 years from now, but it seemed quite insignificant while it was happening. Through all the festivities, it seemed like mostly just a rush to get to the next grad party.
June
- Meyer and I set off on our long-awaited trip to Fond du Lac for Becca's and Hannah Sugars' grad parties. Again, probably one of the best weekends of my life. Caleb racing to the mall and driving aimlessly afterwards, "sleeping in the car", and hitting Christmas Kringle before we left...I had such a great time. It surely will be done again.
- I went to Jay Gatsby's fabulous pool party. Went nuts over a soccer game, played closet Mario Party, rid Caleb Schmiege's basement of flood, and bid Tom Mackey and Caleb a fond farewell before they left for Washington. I miss Tom.
- Tornadoes almost killed me...if funnel clouds over your house could kill.
- Steve Pelischek and I Fort Atkinson Youth Center'd with Sy, which mainly consisted of filling sand bags for flood relief. It was actually pretty fun.
- Pablo "El Ocho" Garcia Ingles scored a hat trick to lead West Ham to its first ever Champions League berth. Ecstatic yelling ensued.
- Not sure if it was June, but some time around here I started playing Sun Prairie pickup soccer with a bunch of people, including Sergio, the incredible foreign old guy. Sergio inspires me.
- I had my graduation party, and celebrated by not eating any of my graduation cake. I had some crazy good assists in barefoot backyard soccer, before we got kicked off for being downwind. According to several completely made up sources, my party was "rappin'"
- I made a lyrical reference to my own song "Seattle" because I thought it was fitting. Caleb Meyer did not pick up on it.
- I went to Tampa, Florida for mandatory college orientation. My roommate was pretty sweet, but unfortunately he won't be my full-time roommate. I began to have second thoughts. More on this later, as previously mentioned.
- Fax, Schmiege, and I went to Milwaukee to pick Meyer up from the airport. Contrary to popular belief, we did not buy any Webkinz. We don't really even know what they are. We also learned in the airport museum all about a man whose name is too easy to make fun of.
July (of the dearest sort)
- The Class Prophecy was finally posted on Youtube. I was pleased.
- Instead of watching fireworks, I celebrated July 4th in the company of my friends at Less than Jake's Summerfest concert. It was eventful to the last drop.
- I went to Racine Day camp for a day with Heidi, Bethy, Corrine, and Monica, whom I hadn't really met before. It got me to start considering doing camp next summer.
- I sat down and committed myself to writing a new blog post, which has taken me well over two hours. Good thing I don't have homework or something.
It's 12:34 and 56 seconds right...now. This fills me with second of joy.
I think that's a more than sufficient recap of the past, just instead of doing it in small doses, I went for the gusto. I suppose I'm only hurting myself by doing that, because it only gives you a few comments for all this information. And bloggers love getting comments. It's like...citrus twist tic tacs to us (or to me, at least). The most gallant blog commenters could possibly have a field day on such an action-filled post, but at this point, I'm not even certain I still have a readership.
I almost included a sentence at the end of that paragraph suggesting ways for people who have not read my blog before to find my blog, but then I realized that if they were reading that sentence, they would have found the blog. I must be tired.
I promised earlier that I would elaborate on my thoughts/concerns about college (or the future in general, whatever), but I think I've done enough blogging for tonight. Once I reach a completely un-pre-determined quota of people having read this post, I will deliver the aforementioned college report. Until then, take us away, the paper.
Facebook - the greatest known nemesis to blogging.
Since that fateful night of October 25, 2006, when Becca, Danielle Pett, and Ellie Baum christened my facebook with its first ever comments (don't worry, I had to go back and check...), Flight 109 has played a heavily under-appreciated second fiddle to the internet's biggest timesuck.
So tonight, facebook, I will bite my thumb at you. I need to blog for the first time in 6 months (and for only the 3rd time in the past year). I'm overdue like a...book, I guess.
Haha, I just looked back at the post with that title, and in the beginning, I apologize for having not posted in a month. Amusing.
Anyway, now that the requisite apology for failure to post in a timely manner is out of the way...now to the meat and potatoes of this blog post.
See...therein lies the problem. I don't have any meat and potatoes to post.
But when did I ever, really? As John Pauer once mused on his blog, what are blogs for, outside of telling the world whether or not your mom packed a cookie in your lunch for school?
I probably butchered that quote, and took it way out of context, but I can't go back and look at his blog and double-check, because it's sadly lost forever in cyberspace. I enjoyed his blog.
But there have been some things on my mind lately, and there certainly have been a lot of happenings this summer that have been blogworthy.
I'll start by saying that this has probably been the best summer I've ever had. Or, alternately, the best six months ever (being that my last post was about six months ago). So much has happened between then and now. I'll give a quick summary, and if you, collective loyal Flight 109 reader, were there for that memory, perhaps I can elicit a smile.
(although I said I was biting my thumb at facebook, I admit I used my wall's history to remind myself of some of these more obscure references. I nearly forgot some great ones, and when I saw them again, it put me in a pretty good mood. A begrudging thank you, semi-enemy Facebook. You win again.)
January
- I made the decision to not apply for Camp Phillip SALT staff (despite Tyler Shinnick's constant urging). I'm sure it would have been fun and a great experience, but right now I'm glad I didn't. I will seriously consider it for next year, but what with moving away, I think the time I've had at home this summer has been really important. Like I said, I've really enjoyed it.
- I became backup kicker for the Fort Tokyo French Toes. 2 people at most will get this, but one of them will laugh if he ever reads this.
- I, filled with some bitterness toward the Lakeside soccer program, and some of my closest friends banded together to form the powerful indoor soccer team "Royal Westminster FC". We only won once (by forfeit), but we had by far the best jerseys, and I think the most fun, of anyone in that league.
- We celebrated snow day after beautiful snow day by going to Ming's to ruin our digestive tracts by way of Chinese food and watch old pre-CGI Disney movies. Pocahontas, surely you appreciate being watched by a bunch of male high-schoolers (and Nancy).
February
- I watched part of the Super Bowl, and talked on the phone for half of it.
- I found out that I qualified for a full scholarship to USF, where I am going next year, but cautiously. More on that caution later. I'm in for the long haul here.
- Arizona State University bought me a delicious steak. Thanks guys. I'm not going to go to your college, but I suppose I'll cheer for you in sports now.
- I went to a Bon Jovi concert with Kyle Fax and Paul, almost spontaneously. Bon Jovi may be cheesy, but "It's My Life" is a great song. There's no getting around it. The middle aged women in front of us surely agree. Although I think they preferred "Bed of Roses".
- Along with Paul and Jordan, I became part of the biggest JV girls basketball fan group Lakeside has ever seen. I had none ulterior motives.
March
- I got my first ever job, working backline (fryers and bun prep...classy) at Culver's in Johnson Creek.
- I hated my first ever job.
- I enjoyed one of my favorite days of high school ever, the day that we had WSMA solo-ensemble in Poynette. When we were done, the Calebs and I got outta Dodge, went to Wendy's, shared perhaps the funniest car ride I've experienced ("here have some!" and Jackson Pollock's, er...smoothies), went to the Lakeside basketball game, and then hit up Sydnie's for some party.
April
- Jaclyn got mad at me online for no particular reason. I am not the only person this has happened to.
- I went Irish dancing. I rish you could have been there. ha! ha!
- I celebrated Stabby the Green Pepper day. The day went so well (probably entirely uninfluenced by Stabby, but stranger things have happened) that I will almost certainly celebrate next year on April 10th. I haven't deleted that text message.
- Evan and I started the Craftsman F-up series of racing. I won the first race. No one needs to know about what happened in the subsequent races.
- I secretly began to listen to Z104 in the car. Not much a secret NOW is it?
- I won Get on Da Mic, because of my superior knowledge of the song Rubber Band Man. I DO have a 45 in my other hand, thank you for asking.
- I went to WLA's prom with Becca. I had a great time. The dancing was decidedly non-Lakeside, but that isn't really why I enjoyed it.
May
- I went to Lakeside's prom with Becca. I had an okay time. The dancing was decidedly Lakeside, but as I alluded to before, the style of dancing doesn't really change how much I enjoy a dance.
- Sometime around here, Caleb Meyer and I became even better friends (despite the mock hating of each other's guts during the mock trial. You are an evil, evil man, Mr. Doering). Not sure why it came at this point, but it's something that has made this summer really fun.
- I quit my first ever job.
- I graduated high school. This is probably the only thing that will appear noteworthy from this summer looking back 20 years from now, but it seemed quite insignificant while it was happening. Through all the festivities, it seemed like mostly just a rush to get to the next grad party.
June
- Meyer and I set off on our long-awaited trip to Fond du Lac for Becca's and Hannah Sugars' grad parties. Again, probably one of the best weekends of my life. Caleb racing to the mall and driving aimlessly afterwards, "sleeping in the car", and hitting Christmas Kringle before we left...I had such a great time. It surely will be done again.
- I went to Jay Gatsby's fabulous pool party. Went nuts over a soccer game, played closet Mario Party, rid Caleb Schmiege's basement of flood, and bid Tom Mackey and Caleb a fond farewell before they left for Washington. I miss Tom.
- Tornadoes almost killed me...if funnel clouds over your house could kill.
- Steve Pelischek and I Fort Atkinson Youth Center'd with Sy, which mainly consisted of filling sand bags for flood relief. It was actually pretty fun.
- Pablo "El Ocho" Garcia Ingles scored a hat trick to lead West Ham to its first ever Champions League berth. Ecstatic yelling ensued.
- Not sure if it was June, but some time around here I started playing Sun Prairie pickup soccer with a bunch of people, including Sergio, the incredible foreign old guy. Sergio inspires me.
- I had my graduation party, and celebrated by not eating any of my graduation cake. I had some crazy good assists in barefoot backyard soccer, before we got kicked off for being downwind. According to several completely made up sources, my party was "rappin'"
- I made a lyrical reference to my own song "Seattle" because I thought it was fitting. Caleb Meyer did not pick up on it.
- I went to Tampa, Florida for mandatory college orientation. My roommate was pretty sweet, but unfortunately he won't be my full-time roommate. I began to have second thoughts. More on this later, as previously mentioned.
- Fax, Schmiege, and I went to Milwaukee to pick Meyer up from the airport. Contrary to popular belief, we did not buy any Webkinz. We don't really even know what they are. We also learned in the airport museum all about a man whose name is too easy to make fun of.
July (of the dearest sort)
- The Class Prophecy was finally posted on Youtube. I was pleased.
- Instead of watching fireworks, I celebrated July 4th in the company of my friends at Less than Jake's Summerfest concert. It was eventful to the last drop.
- I went to Racine Day camp for a day with Heidi, Bethy, Corrine, and Monica, whom I hadn't really met before. It got me to start considering doing camp next summer.
- I sat down and committed myself to writing a new blog post, which has taken me well over two hours. Good thing I don't have homework or something.
It's 12:34 and 56 seconds right...now. This fills me with second of joy.
I think that's a more than sufficient recap of the past, just instead of doing it in small doses, I went for the gusto. I suppose I'm only hurting myself by doing that, because it only gives you a few comments for all this information. And bloggers love getting comments. It's like...citrus twist tic tacs to us (or to me, at least). The most gallant blog commenters could possibly have a field day on such an action-filled post, but at this point, I'm not even certain I still have a readership.
I almost included a sentence at the end of that paragraph suggesting ways for people who have not read my blog before to find my blog, but then I realized that if they were reading that sentence, they would have found the blog. I must be tired.
I promised earlier that I would elaborate on my thoughts/concerns about college (or the future in general, whatever), but I think I've done enough blogging for tonight. Once I reach a completely un-pre-determined quota of people having read this post, I will deliver the aforementioned college report. Until then, take us away, the paper.
Friday, January 04, 2008
The Unfair Trade and the Increasing Probability of a New Life in the South
Well, it’s been 4 days since my last post, and before that it had been 6 months. So consider me as inconsistent as Old Faithful…isn’t.
Anyway, it’s been a pretty crazy 8 days, as I’ve been home for about 2 of them, and I’ve been everywhere from Wautoma to Tampa to here in Columbus, Ohio. I suppose that would do well as a segue to the first part of the two-part title that hovers a few lines above this very sentence.
So, to explain the unfair trade, and also why I am in Columbus, Ohio…
The last day of the Camp New Years retreat, I got a call from my mom asking how soon we would be home. I thought it was altogether a little bit strange that she would be calling so early about us coming home, but I didn’t ask about it or think too much of it. Then we dropped off Heidi, Kath, and Ashley, and got home to hear the news.
It turned out that for the second year in a row, one of our relatives had passed away while Evan and I were at the New Years retreat.
This time it was our Aunt Donna, on the other side of the family than the Grandmother whose death inspired the post “I put the ‘I’ in ‘I hate Indiana…etc’”, and this time it was unexpected.
Not to reveal an exceptional amount of personal information, but she was alone at the time of her death and we found out afterwards that she had recently taken herself off of Anti-Depressants without a doctor’s recommendation. This, obviously, can cause someone’s mind to work against them, so that makes her death all the more difficult to work through.
So that would explain why I was not able to go to Mike and Amber’s wedding and why I am currently in Ohio’s largest city. I refer to it as the “unfair trade” because at face value, I’m trading a celebration of two lives and a new beginning with friends for a somber tribute that comes with a funeral of a loved one. It’s far more important to go to my Aunt’s funeral but this weekend went from a happy one to a very sad one in what seemed like a moment. Thusly, the unfair trade.
Aunt Donna was one of my favorite relatives, but I still didn’t know her too well. I’ll miss her, but I’m more so sad for my other family members, especially my mom, what with having lost her sister. I know this death came in one of the cloudiest of fashions, but I also know that God will work it out for the good, and I hope it can help bring my extended family a little closer together.
Now would be a good time to change gears. For those of you following along at home, there were, in fact, two parts to the title, so the second part would hopefully be a little cheerier. In it, I make reference to a “New Life in the South.”
This, of course, is an even further reference to the most recent post, in which I stated that I was fairly likely to post about the events of a campus tour for the University of South Florida. Well here goes.
First of all, even though we were in Florida on the shores on the Gulf of Mexico, Old Man Winter refused to stop hassling us and we had got to experience the one of the 3 days for Florida winter – temperatures resting at about 40. Anyway, once we braved the weather (which had everyone down there freaking out, but was “long sleeve weather” for us), we headed to campus to just walk around. We didn’t expect anything more than that, what with the school on break, but we got considerably more that we bargained for.
When we got there, we found out that we could get a residence hall tour, which was fairly nice, and we got to marvel at how new everything was – nothing built before 1956, and many built 3 years ago.
We talked to someone that looked important, and I guess she was the right person to talk to. Once I introduced myself and explained that I was a Merit Scholar, and she noted that Evan and my dad were wearing Wisconsin sweatshirts, she got all excited.
“We were just talking about you!” she exclaimed as she ushered us into her office. Turns out that they had been speculating, that very day, about the status of a Merit Scholar from Wisconsin, apparently the only one they had ever had and one of two Wisconsin students they had applying from the class of ’08.
I might add, at this point, that one of my gripes with UW-Madison was that their whole admissions process seemed kind of cold and impersonal, and I feared, to, an extent, that USF, a larger college, would be similar. Obviously, though, the fact that they were thrilled to talk to me and get me pumped about their college, allayed that fear and caused a pretty big paradigm shift.
The nice scholarship lady, and her friend, the other nice scholarship lady, then answered all our questions, and tried to arrange an impromptu formal welcome for us. They contacted the Dean of the Honors College, who was on vacation, and got me into his office to talk with the Associate Dean of the Honors College. The associate dean then told me about USF honors (which I would very likely be a part of), which included absolute first priority housing, first priority class selection, all on top of the full tuition, room, board, laptop, and semester abroad (and free pro hockey tickets [and I love hockey…go Tampa Bay Lightning] !) already offered to me if I were to go to this college, which is in a climate averaging highs of 70-80 most of the time.
All of this, in addition to another tour of the beautiful campus given by other nice scholarship lady, was enough to get me a step away from pledging all allegiance to the University of South Florida. I commented to Evan that South Florida made UW look like a “mean old lady” and it’s safe to say that, as of right now, I love how the future looks if I go the Tampa Bay way.
Yes, there are cons – leaving friends behind, 3 hour plane rides, but right now the pros outweigh them and I think it’s the best way for me to grow in a lot of ways. Here’s to the hope that it will all work out and I can properly fulfill New Years Resolution #2.
So it’s been, as I said before, a wild couple of days, and I could use a break…too bad it’s all fast-paced for the foreseeable future. But we’ll try a toast once more – here’s to less tragedy and more excitement in 2008.
So you were born
and that was a good day
Someday you'll die
and that is a shame
But somewhere in the between
is a life of which we all dream
and nothing and no one will ever take that away
- "Somewhere in the Between - Streetlight Manifesto"
Tuesday, January 01, 2008
I got dreadlocks fallin' all over me
Well, here's the new year, so it seems fitting to make a new blog post. I think (I'm not sure about this) that this is the longest blog drought in the history of the ol' Flight 109 (all 3 years of it!). Basically, this site has been pretty worthless, because a lot has happened between July and now. Or has it?
So I'm not really going to try to catch up, but I think it's fair to try to cut my losses and push forward for this new year. Although, to keep a little connection to last year, I may as well conclude the last few New Years Resolutions of 07 and close with a few for next year. As I recall, here were the ones still hanging.
-Get a girlfriend: There's always next year!
-The soccer one: I didn't technically accomplish either goal, but I would hardly call it a failure. I wasn't captain, but that allowed me to have more fun and focus more on self-improvement. Also, I wasn't top 3 in goals, but I was 4th on the team in goals and I was in 3rd until the last game of the season. I also had the top scoring percentage for shots taken, so I was really happy with how the season went.
-Get a job: Not yet, but I do have a pending Walgreen's application, so we'll see what happens with that. I suppose I could live with that sort of job.
-Eat a full-size Mr. Goodbar: I put this one off for too long, and couldn't achieve it at the end of the year due to a full day of travel. How unfortunate, I'll bet it would have tasted really good.
And speaking of this full day of travel on New Years Eve, an explanation of my current surroundings would probably be in order. The family flew to Florida yesterday so I am blogging from Evan's laptop in a Tampa hotel room.
We decided to go to Tampa on vacation for a couple of reasons. For one, the Badgers just had their bowl game at the wonderful Raymond James stadium. Unfortunately, they lost, but it was still a cool experience, just to go to an NFL stadium and see a bowl game.
Ultimately, though, the real driving force of the trip was the fact that I am considering the University of South Florida, which is in Tampa, as a legitimate option. We will be touring the campus tomorrow, and maybe I'll post later with thoughts on that.
It's interesting (to me, at least) that I would be considering South Florida so late in the college decision process. It seems like a pretty crazy, out there college choice, but it has held up this long as a realistic possibility. There's something to be said for staying around and going to Madison, but maybe I would enjoy a drastic change. If not, there's always such a thing as transferring. Who knows, right now it's at about 50/50.
What experiences do I have to gain from going?
What relationships do I get to keep by staying?
It's a lot to think about.
How about some new resolutions then...
1. Girlfriend? If I go to USF, that might be the least of my relationship worries. So I will attempt to make and keep friends in all facets, and if a girlfriend happens, sweet.
2. Be happy with all my decisions. I've got a lot of them to make (not just college), and there is a certain amount of worry that comes with each one that I will make the wrong one. I should know by now that no matter how the decision seems to be going, it will work out for the good, so once I make up my mind, I will try to be satisfied with it.
3. Learn to appreciate mornings. I hate getting up early, or really getting up at any time before I would naturally wake up. To be more productive, it would probably help if I could, if not get up fairly early, be ready for the day when I do wake up.
4. Go to an MLS game. I've always sort of planned to go to a pro soccer game, but it never happened. In addition, I'd like to go see the US national team play again, but that would be pending on if they are playing nearby for any of their games.
5. Eat a full-size Mr. Goodbar. I've got another 366 days to net this one.
I suppose that will be all for now, I'm sure I'll have more goals for the year, but at least I've got something to start with. Here's to a great 2008.
So I'm not really going to try to catch up, but I think it's fair to try to cut my losses and push forward for this new year. Although, to keep a little connection to last year, I may as well conclude the last few New Years Resolutions of 07 and close with a few for next year. As I recall, here were the ones still hanging.
-Get a girlfriend: There's always next year!
-The soccer one: I didn't technically accomplish either goal, but I would hardly call it a failure. I wasn't captain, but that allowed me to have more fun and focus more on self-improvement. Also, I wasn't top 3 in goals, but I was 4th on the team in goals and I was in 3rd until the last game of the season. I also had the top scoring percentage for shots taken, so I was really happy with how the season went.
-Get a job: Not yet, but I do have a pending Walgreen's application, so we'll see what happens with that. I suppose I could live with that sort of job.
-Eat a full-size Mr. Goodbar: I put this one off for too long, and couldn't achieve it at the end of the year due to a full day of travel. How unfortunate, I'll bet it would have tasted really good.
And speaking of this full day of travel on New Years Eve, an explanation of my current surroundings would probably be in order. The family flew to Florida yesterday so I am blogging from Evan's laptop in a Tampa hotel room.
We decided to go to Tampa on vacation for a couple of reasons. For one, the Badgers just had their bowl game at the wonderful Raymond James stadium. Unfortunately, they lost, but it was still a cool experience, just to go to an NFL stadium and see a bowl game.
Ultimately, though, the real driving force of the trip was the fact that I am considering the University of South Florida, which is in Tampa, as a legitimate option. We will be touring the campus tomorrow, and maybe I'll post later with thoughts on that.
It's interesting (to me, at least) that I would be considering South Florida so late in the college decision process. It seems like a pretty crazy, out there college choice, but it has held up this long as a realistic possibility. There's something to be said for staying around and going to Madison, but maybe I would enjoy a drastic change. If not, there's always such a thing as transferring. Who knows, right now it's at about 50/50.
What experiences do I have to gain from going?
What relationships do I get to keep by staying?
It's a lot to think about.
How about some new resolutions then...
1. Girlfriend? If I go to USF, that might be the least of my relationship worries. So I will attempt to make and keep friends in all facets, and if a girlfriend happens, sweet.
2. Be happy with all my decisions. I've got a lot of them to make (not just college), and there is a certain amount of worry that comes with each one that I will make the wrong one. I should know by now that no matter how the decision seems to be going, it will work out for the good, so once I make up my mind, I will try to be satisfied with it.
3. Learn to appreciate mornings. I hate getting up early, or really getting up at any time before I would naturally wake up. To be more productive, it would probably help if I could, if not get up fairly early, be ready for the day when I do wake up.
4. Go to an MLS game. I've always sort of planned to go to a pro soccer game, but it never happened. In addition, I'd like to go see the US national team play again, but that would be pending on if they are playing nearby for any of their games.
5. Eat a full-size Mr. Goodbar. I've got another 366 days to net this one.
I suppose that will be all for now, I'm sure I'll have more goals for the year, but at least I've got something to start with. Here's to a great 2008.
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