Done Again (Mostly)

My second year at the auspicious University of Michigan is coming to an end yet again. As last year, it has left me feeling horribly violated. I don't know if I can stomach any more failure. Also, I'm not sure that they'll even welcome me back, except that I keep paying my tuition. I don't know why I'm so terrible at everything; I study, I do homework, I go to class, yet something seems to be missing when I go to take exams. It's painful.

I am not really one to believe in miracles, and unfortunately I think it will take one for me to pass calculus. Maybe also physics. Probably also physics. Well, I've applied to a community college close to my home, so I'll take what I need to and pray the U lets me come back in the fall. I'll graduate eventually.

It's been quite a while since I've related any of my humorous situations to you so how about a new one? I don't think this one has a really good punchline like "OMG, there's a drunk, faux Irish girl in my bed!" (I didn't actually say OMG(I never say OMG except for comedic effect(seriously))), but it had some good points. Anyway, here goes:

So I went to Thor-Steve's and Jeremey's apartment (The Santure-King Experience!!!) for some good times on Saturday night, 'round about 8pm. First I was introduced to their new centerpiece: a hookah shaped like a fucking tank. Seriously. It's a tank, with the bowl coming up out of the turret, and camouflage patterns made with the gilding. It is probably one of the coolest things I've ever seen. After a few hits we decided to duct tape a lighter on the side of the barrel. We smoked blueberry hashish and drank 40s out of brown paper bags. I should describe that briefly: Jeremey got a bunch of 40 ounces and we decided to drink them out of paper bags as a kind of drinking game; no one was able to tell how much each other had had to drink. I think Thor won, but that's not the point.

H-Dawg and Rober(t) showed up some time after 9pm, and we proceeded to develop smoking "moves." I failed to develop one, of course, but we had some interesting ones. We played Rock Band for a little while, and then Rober(t) and I played Resistance: Fall of Man. Alaina O showed up time before this and then Desiree brought more beer. Exactly what a bunch of drunk people needed. We played more Rock Band. And them some more. H-Dawg and Thor disappeared upstairs for a while, which was fairly suspicious. Now, H-Dawg is fairly religious and has a steady boyfriend, so I'm pretty sure nothing happened, but you can never be sure. She did send a bunch of funny emails and text messages to people though, one of which I did see on Rober(t)'s phone (If you didn't get it yet, the (t) is silent). Eventually, I got a ride back to my dorm from Dez, and spent the next day trying to study.

Well, until next time. Maybe I'll have some complaints for you in the near future.

Update

I was clicking through my bookmarks this evening, avoiding my calculus and physics homework without exactly ignoring it, when I came a across this link. First I thought, "Hey, no one updates this page." Then I realized that it's mine. I have been rather delinquent with it, I confess. Actually, I guess that I've been delinquent with a lot of my tasks lately. Despite my deceleration of intent regarding this semester, things have not been going well. For some reason I still have trouble with calculus and now I have trouble with physics too. It seems that I can only do well in one subject at a time. Currently that subject is programming which doesn't make me altogether happy.

I will admit right away that I am not the most studious student. I hate studying and I can always think of better or more interesting things to do. It's not from lack of motivation; I don't want to work a dead end job for the rest of my life, and even if I did those jobs are quickly disappearing. Even my normal mantras and self motivators don't really seem to help. Or rather, they don't help for very long. My short attention span doesn't help either. Already my thoughts are drifting away from this page and I've only been writing for a few minutes. Sure there are things that can keep my attention for quite a while: good books, games, television, good conversation, and the like, but I still drift easily. During class I look out the windows (when there are windows) and just think about being outside.

Perhaps my best motivation to date has come from a conversation with my father. He was asking me to start trying to locate funds for the next school year. I never really gave thought to how I would pay for college, I guess I just assumed that everything would take care of itself, and largely it has, but the ever present demon Murphy sees fit to rear his ugly head from time to time, usually in the form of medical bills of one kind or another. My sister's medications are ridiculously expensive and she's on so many of them... plus my mother's deteriorating joints, my introduction to the hardships of parkour, and the unrelated costs of sending my little brother to private school. My father indicated that while funds have been set aside for my education over the years, these unforeseen expenses have had somewhat of an impact on the availability of those funds.

It would seem that my new motivation not to fail would be that the cost of my education will soon be coming from my own pocket.

Decisions

Another year and another semester of school are drawing to a close once more. You may recall that at the end of last semester I was at something of an impasse concerning what I wanted to pursue at college. This semester I took and anthropology course because I'm interested in it and because I've had a fairly good experience with a anthropology class in the past. I also re-took calculus because I'm probably going to need it as a basic requirement for just about any class here. Having made it through the semester in both classes, I think that I am prepared to make a decision about my future at U of M and also my future career. Ready? I have decided to continue with engineering. I realized that my frustration with engineering stemmed from my failure in calculus last semester, not with engineering classes or with the College of Engineering. Though, that Aerospace adviser is a jerk. Anyway, I've had a sort of change of heart about calculus and with the exception of a mid-semester hiccup I've been doing pretty well. Next semester I'll be taking more calculus, some physics, and some more computer programming. Perhaps in the spring I'll take another calculus class so that I can start getting caught up with engineering classes, but we'll see what next semester brings before I jump ahead with my grandiose plan for the future.

What's happening in other news? Well, I started doing parkour this fall and broke my wrist in the process. For those of you unfamiliar with parkour, I suggest looking it up on YouTube. I'll see about posting a video of myself doing some freerunning/parkour later on, probably in the spring when I'm out of this damn cast and back up to speed. The group of people here at U of M are fun to be around. They're sort of becoming for me what my Cross Country team was in high school, because I run into them everywhere it seems. We've been going to a gym lately so the more experienced members can teach the rest of us how to do some of the more acrobatic movements such as front and back flips. Tomorrow will be the first time that I've gone to a workout since early November, when I still had an unwieldy splint on. I guess I'll see how that goes.

A Return to the Old Writing Block

A great project has been set into motion this year, one that will result in either catastrophic failure or overwhelming success. This project is so important that God Himself has given it His Blessing, as it portrays His Avatar upon the mortal plane. Failure in such an endeavor can only result in Eternal Damnation in the furthest Pits of Hell, with lots of Brimstone, Hellfire, and Capitalized Nouns. In short, this is the most important project of all Time. It is called simply Indiana Jones 4.

Jesus, of course, looks exactly like Indiana Jones, or vice versa. Except Jesus is generally shinier and more awesome, difficult as that may be to imagine. This is a generally accepted fact, go ask the Pope if you don't believe me. Actually, part of Jesus' message was that fedoras are the most awesome hats in the world, greater even than driving hats, and that one should fear and hate snakes beyond all reason because they are the most evil creatures in existence next to Nazis. It is a little known fact that when Jesus and the Disciples posed for the painting of the Last Supper that they were all wearing fedoras, pistols, and bullwhips, but that the artist was forced to paint over them by the Illuminati, a well known anti-Christian movement within the Catholic Church, which makes little to no sense.

But I digress.

There are several things wrong with this new film chronicling the adventures of the Son of God. Two of them are unavoidable facts: Marcus Brody is dead, and Sean Connery doesn't act anymore. Except when he makes appearances on SNL, which doesn't really count as acting anyway. The other thing is the inclusion of an actor in the cast who I am loathe to even mention. You might know him as the worst part of TRANS-FORMERS. That's right, Shia LeBoeuf, or however his stupid French name is spelled.

From what I can tell of the plot based on the little bits on IMDb including cast members and search words seems to imply that Indy has a son - probably LeBoef - and that Marion Ravenwood is back. Cast pictures include an older Harrison Ford in his Indiana Jones garb, Karen Allen looking like something more of an archaeologist than a barkeep, and LeBoeuf dressed in jeans and black leathers, which implies to me that he's a biker jerk ala John Travolta in Grease. Hopefully Indy will beat the shit out of him at some point by way of discipline.

Anyway, I must now go spend my football free afternoon doing something. Possibly perusing books or the like, maybe spending some time with Miss K if I can get ahold of her.

EDIT: Originally I had said that Indiana Jones looked like God, and then I remembered that it's Dirty Harry who looks like God, and that Indiana Jones looks like Jesus. My mistake.

Wherein Some Things Are Revealed

Now that I've written that title I'm kind of reconsidering revealing anything. Not that anyone reads this anymore. Hello? Anybody out there? See? Nobody reads this. Makes me wonder why I even bother to remember the password. No matter, it's a place to record my rather odd thoughts and observations for future consideration. Take the Crazy Irish Girl entry for instance: that actual occurrence was really strange and uncomfortable when it was happening, but now it's downright hilarious. Of course, that feeling was somewhat tempered when I thought I saw Crazy Irish Girl at the mall a few weeks ago. I really hate malls. I can rarely find what I'm looking for, unless that something is a cigar or video game, and I end up spending money because I don't want the trip to be a total waste.

Now let's see...revelations...um, well I ended up getting that job for the County and I've been happily working with the survey crew for over two months. Most of the time I don't do any actual surveying because there's a lot of drafting work to be done to get all the various jobs prepped and completed. Even at the lowest levels of engineering in our office (meaning me and the four surveyors) I see how engineering principles are used. I've never really liked the thought of working with buildings and bridges so I kind of wrote off civil engineering as a career, but now that I've had a chance to see what it can be about I'm a little more interested in the field.

What elks? Hmm... didja catch that awesome typo? Yeah, I know. Elks are so cool. Anyway. Ahem. I went to a showing of a local production of "Kiss Me Kate".
You have to promise never to tell anyone, but I love musicals. Except for West Side Story. That's a tale for another day though. Anyway, I love musicals. Especially "Spamalot". I saw it in Chicago with my esteemed cousin Mikie, he who is graced with lower than average social skills. The whole point of going to see "Kiss Me Kate" is that Miss Taylor asked me, or rather told me, to see it because she was a member of the chorus. Miss Taylor is somewhat of an enigma to me, but I think that issue can wait until another post. In the mean time, my bed calls to me. And it's long distance, so the bloody call is getting expensive.

ROLLOUT!

I saw "Transformers: The Movie" on the Fourth. No, seriously. It was good. Shut up. Yes I'm a major dork, dweeb, nerd, geek, etcetera. I really liked it. Of course it wasn't true to the cartoon that I watched when I was about six, but I can barely remember that anyway. The way it was presented made it appealing for anybody who watched it; of course there were the in jokes that referenced the original show such as the "More Than Meets the Eye", and the Volkswagen Beetle sitting next to Bumblebee in the used car lot. Things my movie going companions Mr. Smith, Miss Thomas, and Miss Taylor probably missed, but which drew a small chorus of chuckles from the devotees of the Church of Optimus scattered around the theater.

Optimus Prime is going to kick your ass for not watching the
original TRANSFORMERS when you were a kid, but he will do so
with compassion because you were just a kid then and didn't
understand.

As my cousin Ed(pwninginthehood.net) said,"It was either going to rock or suck, and it rocked my socks off." I agree with that sentiment entirely. I was prepared for disappointment and for my favorite childhood show to be forever ruined, but luckily it did rock. It's not all that often that I'm willing to give such an enthusiastic endorsement to a film, especially one that was adapted from something that I love.

I'm actually glad that they changed a few things. Megatron for example. He was a Walther P-38 handgun in the cartoon and he couldn't even fire himself when he was in his gun mode. Starscream had to carry him around and fire him which wasn't all that great since Starscream was always plotting against Megatron. They did maintain his frickin' giant gun albeit in a different way.

Bumblebee probably wouldn't have done very well against Barricade as a Volkswagen so it was a smart move to have him be something larger and more appealing since he was to have such a big part in the film. Originally, Bumblebee was just a scout and messenger and didn't do much fighting.

Overall, I really enjoyed it. If I were Colonel Tigh, I would give it five shots of scotch out of five.

Unemployed

Well, this is the end of my third week home and I'm still unemployed. A good friend of mine, Mr. R, had a job lined up for me with his construction crew, though that ended up falling through by no fault of his. The other job I've been waiting to hear back from has had me on edge for the past week; waiting with baited breath and pricked ears for a phone call telling me that I've got the job because I'm far more qualified than the other applicant, because he's a wet-behind-the-ears high school kid who won't be able to start full time for almost another month, even though he's willing to work for less than I am.

Argh.

I can honestly say that sometimes I dislike being qualified for a specific job and thus being over qualified for most other jobs. The fact that there are next to no jobs in Michigan right now doesn't help matters. I shouldn't say that exactly; farm labor is always called for, though most Michigan youths are too high-and-mighty to spend the summer working in a field. They'd rather let the migrants and illegal immigrants do the work because they're willing to do that sort of hard labor for little pay. I guess that I might seem to be supporting a double standard, ridiculing those who won't do the work while giving the impression that I won't do it either. Truth is, I have worked in the fields. One summer I picked peaches, and that's hot, hard work. Honest work though. When I get right down to it, I would be willing to pick fruit or asparagus this summer.

I'll find something. Hopefully I'll hear something back by tomorrow.