Breaktime

I'm currently sitting in my parent's kitchen with a cup of coffee using a computer with a reliable internet connection. There's snow everywhere in Vancouver. Not as much as in Bellingham, but it's more of a pain in the butt here. In Bellingham, I could walk everywhere and rely on mass transit to get me places in the freezingly-frigid cold. Here, stuff is a ways out. I'm decided to hole up today, if I don't go snowboarding at a local park. Which I really want to do.

Driving home last night, I got a little overzealous trying to drift a corner on my truck and slammed into a curb. Now, my headlights don't work reliably, but my brights do. Which makes sense, but I really don't want to trace the wire back to find out where the connection is bad. And I really don't want to take it someplace. Yeah, sort of in a pickle. So now I can only drive in the daytime until I get it fixed. We'll see what happens; maybe it'll fix itself.

Saturday- And Finals are DONE

Officially done with finals, which is awesome. I spent last night chillin' with some friends in Kappa, and after playing Guitar Hero for a solid two hours (the first time I had played video games for more than ten minutes since before I started Resident Advisor training at the beginning of September,) then hung out for a bit, which means that I got back to my apartment at about 5:00 AM. Yeah, I know. RE-Diculous. Basically only because finals week is over and I knew I had nothing to do today until 3:00 today.



I should note here that I no longer feel compelled to play violent video games. For some reason video games that are designed to



I get to play my bass this weekend. In like two hours, actually. Super stoked.

Finals Week: Thursday Evening

After killing myself with school for the last two weeks and being super tired all the time, I have finally managed to catch up on sleep to some extent. While I have a take-home final due tomorrow at midnight, I knowingly put it off for a day when I woke up this morning to the sun shining. I called up a few friends and arranged for a climbing adventure to Clayton Beach, to which I hadn't been this year. The tide was high, which made things interesting, but the five of us were able to grind our fingers, arms, and legs into hamburger within the two and a half hours of climbing. I finished a route that I had hoped to much to get by the end of last year and failed (I should note here that when I tried to offer advice to my friends who were attempting it, I realized that I had been completely relaxed and had totally forgotten forgotten how I had done it.) I began trying the second half of an overhanging traverse that I had only been able to get the first two moves on last year. Now, I'm one move away from the top-out, which I have no idea how I'm going to do.

Since then, I have done a bit more hanging out, played the bass, and now I'm on campus using the internet. I feel a lot more rested and I'm getting to be myself again; it's amazing (and terrible) what can happen to someone when they don't read their Bible for two weeks.

I'm playing at CTK this weekend having had no Tuesday rehearsal. Which means Saturday is going to be either a mess or amazing. God has a way of working stuff out, so I'm not too worried about it. For once, I crave rehearsal time. It's a chance to play music, that I know I will spend time playing music, rather than having something else fill up the time, because when I get busy it's hard to justify playing the bass when I could be wandering around barefoot in the library looking at really cool documents.

My body is tired, and I'm going back to my apartment now. Maybe laundry tonight. I sure hope so...I worry about how stinky I am.

DEAD WEEK

Forget how many days I've been here. I've missed too many and my brain is too tired to count back.

Drip coffee is 25 cents up here at any of the markets, the last of which closes at midnight. I have one in-class final, one portfolio of papers that I have been doing throughout the quarter to turn in, my final proposal for my senior paper is due next Tuesday, and one take-home final. YAY history. It's a check-list, and really, I have it pretty good compared to some. I should be able to avoid spending any more super late nights, and CERTAINLY no more all-nighters. I am learning to spend days more wisely, which is definitely a plus and much easier to do now that the weather during the day is crappy. My weekend will be spent in the library running around and typing frantically, but as long as I know I can get my stuff done in the times the library is open I'm totally fine with that.

I have spent a good chunk of time at the rock wall in the last few days. I have broken V3. Officially. I'm excited about that

I'm beginning to get sick, and I'm doing everything I can to fight it off. Which means being in bed by midnight tonight. Which means I stop typing now.

Day 72

As has probably been recognized at this point, I've been sort of busy.

I have realized how crappy I am at managing my days, which means that as I write two papers and prepare a proposal for a research project, my days extend from one to the next with me even realizing it. I have yet to go to bed before 1:00 AM, and that day was an exception: most days I go to bed around 2:30 or 3:00 AM. My goal is to get it all done by Wednesday night when I drive south. It won't happen. But I'm trying. I may pull my first all-nighter of the year (or college career) within the next few days. Tonight, I'm forcing a sundown-to-sundown Sabbath on myself, which really defies all logic, but it's happening.

And I was crazy-busy before this week, but I now have another element in my life. Yes. It finally happened. I know I swore it never would, but it did.

I have a girlfriend. Her name's Anna.

And she's AMAZING.

Um...yeah. Hehe.

I'm trying really hard to not get sick, but I feel that there's enough crap growing in this apartment that I'm bound in inhale something destructive at some point. This will probably be my first post before break, and likely until I get back from break. I haven't really kept up on blog stuff, so I apologize. But I've got other priorities.

I Know

How Dare I.

lol

Day 65

Somehow I made it through the week. Tuesday and Wednesday were burly, as predicted, but once I hit the "send" button and emailed my paper off to my professor, I sank down into the swivel chair in the computer lab, decided to skip my class, made my way back to my apartment and fell onto my bed for an hour long nap. Before eating dinner and going to my friend's house to do laundry and waste time. It was incredible.



Thursday I woke up and went to Starbucks in the morning, then called my Grandpa and had a really good conversation. Then, I think I made ramen and went to campus. Yes. Yes I did, because I got on my skateboard for the first time in two months, and my slackline for the first time in two weeks. By the time I was done with that, I had time for about an hour of studying before dinner, after which I went climbing and watched a movie in the library, Triumph of the Will.



Triumph of the Will is a movie made in 1934 in Germany documenting the Sixth Nazi Party Conference (or Congress, I can't remember.) Lots of smiling people, laughing kids, and "Heil Hitlers." It was sort of chilling, really, to watch people get sucked into the whole super-nationalism thing. It was interesting thinking of parallels within the United States, though many of our prejudices are somewhat under the surface (meaning not blatantly obvious) My favorite parts were the ones with the flags. They sing the national anthem, we sing the national anthem. They do the "Heil Hitler," we put our right hand over our hearts. Just something to think about.

This week is finally over. I'm planning on a Sabbath tomorrow, but we'll see how that goes. I know that I need one, but it's a matter of what I feel like doing. I'm working on a question for a history paper and am having a really good time researching. Honestly. I am starting to really like microfilm. I'm SUCH a nerd.

Day 61

I am very tired right now. Nearly everyone I've talked to (or taken the time to talk to) has told me I look it. It's that time of the quarter. Professors are starting to want the papers they've assigned, in addition to the reading they've assigned. I honestly don't remember being this tired and stressed out, and I've realized that when this happens I basically don't want to do anything at all but listen to my music. There are about 6 people with whom I can hold a conversation. Everyone else, more or less, gets ignored.

It was a good call to not take that FedEx job. And my Beta/Gamma RA buddies are reporting ridiculous amounts of work to be done up on the Ridge: One-on-Ones with every resident (at least 32 per RA) to be done by Thanksgiving break. Which, at weeks 8, 9 and 10, is nearly impossible. In fact, I would say that it is. Unless you are taking about six credits of school and your residents respect you fully and do everything you say (and have nothing better to do with their time but meet with you.) In addition, from what I hear, a write up is required to be submitted on each resident reporting on their growth and what they expect out of school.

GROSS. No thanks. They don't get paid enough.

Life is stressful, and I'll hope to be sleeping pretty soon. Tomorrow is a holiday. Which really doesn't mean anything different for me because I don't have school on Tuesdays anyway. So it'll be just another day in the life for me. I've got a ton of work to do. And it's supposed to rain, so I'll be stuck inside anyway.

I'm going to finish my Ramen, make some tea, read some Macho Paradox, and go to sleep. Must... make... it... through... Wednesday...AAAAAAAAARRRRRRGH.