Dear My Disco,

I had a very enjoyable afternoon and evening today.

After completing my final exam, I got rid of my books and came into a small amount of money as a result. I wandered a bit, trying to locate a driving cap which I have decided will be my hat of choice. Not being able to locate suitable headgear, I journeyed to North Campus and had lunch at the Chinese place one last time before going home. Then I wandered a bit more, trying to find a Spider-Man related birthday present for my little brother Charlie. No success with that unfortunately. Late in the afternoon my pretty lady friend(see earlier post; go find it yourself, I'm lazy) and I got together to finally watch Memento.

This where things started getting fun.

We elected to wander about Ann Arbor instead, having decided that it would be a damn shame to waste such a gorgeous afternoon indoors. We met up with one of her friends after our romp about town and then went to an improv jam and dance session. I just watched, but it was still one of the coolest things I have ever seen. The music was great too, and I think that I will sharpen my improv abilities with my trumpet this summer in hopes of possibly contributing in the fall. After that we went to a local bar and music venue, The Blind Pig, for an EP release party of a local band, My Dear Disco. It was some really cool music. Even my curious lack of rhythm was not hampered by the sheer greatness of the music. We did make it to the party eventually after the show, just in time for it to end.

I had more fun than I thought possible in this sometimes Godforsaken town. The one thing I regret more than classes are the missed opportunities.

Fin!

I know it's little pretentious to use the French version of end, but it's somewhat fitting.

After having my exams worry at me all week, nay all semester, I am finished. The University of Michigan has no hold on me until the fall, when I must return to continue my struggle to overcome that villain, Higher Learning. Tomorrow afternoon, my father will be arriving to help me transport my belongings back to our home in the middle of nowhere. Tonight though, there is a party; my coworkers are gathering for some sort of hullabaloo this evening to celebrate the end of term.

Another update on the state of my studies is forthcoming; stay tuned.

Master and Commander

It is September of 1803 and that vile French dog, Bounaparte, has our forces on the retreat in the Iberian peninsula. Our generals thought to destroy Bounaparte's only stable ally while his forces were engaged against our own allies. The Redcoats and Cavalry are awaiting reinforcement by the elite Lifeguard units, but I fear that they may not last long enough to be supported. The Royal Navy maintains undisputed mastery of the North Atlantic and the Straits of Gibraltar, keeping the French and their Spanish allies in their ports for fear of our gun-crews, but this means little when the French forces need not take to the sea. The situation on the mainland is most discouraging. Our allies have sued for peace with France one after another, and soon it will be only his Majesty's sailors and marines who will be able to stand against Bounaparte.

I'd be scared of the Royal Navy if Russell Crowe were really a captain. He might hit me with a phone or something.

I'm playing the Napoleonic Campaign of CivIII and I'm finding that the French gain this strange advantage when fighting against enemy forces. You see, whenever a military unit attacks them, they gain an amazing +10 billion defense, and whenever they attack another countrie's unit they gain the same amount of attack bonus as defense. This is a very serious concern when attack and defense is normally measured in single digits. Mikie has beaten the campaign as Das Vaterland already, but I am not as ambitious, instead trying my skill with the naval might of Great Britain. I feel the need; the need to read.

Excuse me, I seem to have lost my life...

Would you mind sharing yours with me?

Oh man, that has potential. Sort of a take on the ol' "I've lost my phone number, could I have yours?", but more serious. Hm. Maybe too Emo-ish with the whole death image...

Anyway, a lot of things goin' on right now. Well, not right now. Right now I am wasting my time. Hey, it's not like there's anything better to do at this time of night. But I digress.

Well, it's the end of the last week before Finals, and I'm going to be on pretty shaky ground in most of my classes. German should be fine; I'm enjoying it still, and I'm fairly good at Deutsch sprechen, aber ich bin ein bisschen nervous. Chemistry will require a little studying, but again I'm not terribly worried. Calculus and Programming are different matters entirely. In both I'm confused, and right now I am seriously considering telling my engineering adviser to shove it. Archaeology and Anthropology are looking very nice again, and I really think that I could live with being an archaeologist, even if it never amounts to much.

I'll be moving back home next weekend, back to my comfortable dungeon room(with a view) in the countryside. Oh God, how I miss the country. Dirt roads, trees, corn fields, orchards, fresh air, the stars at night...

Also, a pretty lady friend of mine who I thought was evading my invitation to watch a film together asked me when we were going to watch said film. The only part of this that I find frustrating, other than working with two very different schedules, is that it took until the second to last week of school. Oh well, such is life.

What else is happening? Oh yeah, I'm making a short film for my German class, and making rather heavy use of extras since there's only two people in my group, one of them being me. This is happening tomorrow and also on Saturday. What a weekend it will be.

Until next time, dear friends.

I Am Depressed

Recently I have not been doing very well in my classes. I've been trying to understand my C++ programming class and calculus, but it seems to no avail. This stems from several things:

1. I am a lazy student. Learning has always come very easily; I practically read textbooks by osmosis, but that doesn't always mean that I'm going to understand what I absorb. Because of this, I have never put much effort into practicing things outside of class, rather I refer to examples or wait for the instructor to explain something.

2. I do not ask for help. I am a proud and admittedly somewhat arrogant person, and asking for help would be akin to admitting that I'm wrong, and if you know me, you know that I am never wrong.

3. The University of Michigan has really hard classes. I'm not saying this to scare any of you from later attending "The U", as we fondly call it, I'm merely submitting an observation.

These things considered, I am mad at myself. I'm smarter than this. I am a pretty damn smart person. This has been my failure, and no one else's, and I do not accept failure. I will persevere. The worst part for me, is that I have been complaining to everyone I can and they all seem to have an unshakable faith in me that I obviously do not have in myself. I know why I'm doing; I want pity. I want someone to agree and say, "Yes, you've screwed up." I am making myself sick, both physically with stress and worry, and in the sense that what I'm doing is revolting to me. I don't want your pity.

I don't know what I should do. Yes I do. I should man up and get it over with. If I fail, then I will try again. There's nothing else I can do.

There Was A Drunk Girl In My Bed This Morning

So my friend Rose from high school came to visit my roommate and me for the weekend. Things have been weird. I'm not entirely clear on everything that happened so I'll sum things up and see if I can break it down from there.

First item: There was a really big party in my room consisting of drinking games and general drunkenness. Second: I was being hit on all night by a drunken girl with a pseudo-Irish accent in front of her boyfriend, also drunk. Third: I panicked. Fourth: I kicked ass in Halo. Fifth: drunk girl somehow ended up in my bed halfway through the night, after the party. Sixth: I'm confused. Seventh: I was the only sober person in the room.

Rose and Mike(my roommate) went out on Saturday afternoon after I got back from karate so I bummed around playing video games. Brian from down the hall came down and asked if he could hang around until his friend got back, because his friend had his room key. We decided to play some Halo while we waited and when Brian's friend came down we invited him and his girlfriend to play. There was ownage aplenty, and I emerged victorious by wide margins. When Mike and Rose returned I gave my controller to Rose and just observed. Mike left to visit with his family in Detroit for a few hours. After Halo we played Risk and watched the Ohio State basketball game, and after the game we dispersed.

Now, this is where I think that things started getting weird. Of course, this is where the drinking started too.

Risk and the basketball game took a while of course, so it after 8pm by the time both were over, and Mike was back shortly after that. About that time the Girlfriend, as I shall refer to her, came back down and started chatting with Rose. As I said, this is where the drinking began and the Girlfriend seemed to be more than a little more animated than before and started talking to me and was most definitely flirting. With me, not Rose. While this was an awkward situation in itself, Brian's friend, the Boyfriend(a really nice guy), was in close proximity. The night wore on and the location of the party settled in our room. Girlfriend continued flirting, and I continued being uncomfortable. Boyfriend went back to Brian's room to pass out, and Girlfriend continued to get louder, and more drunk, so I escaped. I got outside, under the pretense of needing to smoke a cigar, and wandered around the park that is a short way from my dorm building. Mike, Rose, Brian and my various other friends from the hall continued playing games, and Mike and Rose more or less covered for me when Girlfriend inquired as to where I had gone.

I came back in after gathering what advice I could, and planted myself in front of my computer. Then I moved to my bed to read; I was more of an observer to the party than an actual participant anyway. Though this move seemed to make sense, it backfired somehow. Apparently drunken Irish girls can climb. So the party started to wind down and we finally got everyone out at about 3am. Mike, Rose and I were all but tucked away into our various accommodations when Girlfriend came back and asked if she could sleep in our room rather than share a bed with her passed out Boyfriend. Being rather gentlemanly fellows, Mike and agreed to let her after trying to convince her that she should go back down to Brian's room, though we didn't have anywhere she could sleep. I offered her my own bed, since I have mad chair sleeping skillz and happened to have a chair handy. She declined, instead wanting to sleep on the floor. My sense of chivalry shut itself off at that point in favor of sleep. However, at some point Girlfriend again proved that inebriated Irish girls can in fact climb and managed to climb into my bunk. I woke up later, apprised the situation and relocated briefly to my chair, and then to the edge of the futon that Rose was sleeping on, figuring that it was better to share a bed with a girl who I have known for years, and who would understand the situation.

Well, in the morning Girlfriend and her Boyfriend left, and Rose left several hours later after we talked about the whole crazy weekend for a while. Not something that I want to repeat.

My most excellent friend Greta, fearing that I would be the subject of stalking, called Girlfriend posing as my girlfriend and attempted to thwart any future stalking. I love her. Greta, I mean. She's such a great person. Even her name is an anagram for great.

Anyway, at the very least I got a humorous story out of everything.