Sorry no post last night... I was at Riddy's, but we'll get to that. I suppose this means I'll have to write my whole weekend in one post. Blast.

Saturday morning I awoke to the sound of nothing. So I got up and did my regular morning activities, plus even a little homework. When that was all done and ready, I got a call from Riddy, who informed me that was getting off the freeway, heading to meet me at the ARC for a game or two of racquetball.

Riddy is very into racquetball. He has several racquets, balls, gloves, glasses, bag, pretty much anything you can think of. The good thing is that he actually knows what he's talking about. It was basically a free, two hour lesson for me. Which wasn't a bad deal.

When we were completely exhausted, we watched the volleyball players for a while. Then we returned our stuff and watched the badminton tournament for a while. Then we left.

Back in my room, we decided it would probably just be easiest if I stayed at his place instead of Riddy having to drive all the way back to Davis to drop me off. So we spent some time packing my stuff, only forgetting my retainers, which was actually pretty good. Then we hopped into his oh-so-masculine newVW Beetle and grabbed some food at In-N-Out.

After driving the distance to his place, we played table tennis for half an hour, then I took a shower while he talked homework with some cute girl in his programming class (I don't really know if she's actually cute, I mean it's a programming class, but I'm just going by what Rids says).

After driving to Folsom, we turned off the car in front of Melanie Gillette's house. Apparantly she grew up with my mother, yet didn't put that together until the end of the night. Anyway, it was fun.

There were maybe a dozen kids there, quiet, but I made it loud. It was fun. Typical Halloween party, with plenty of booze and crazy stuff like that. And by that, I mean Taboo, Scattergories, and hymn sings.

After everyone left, it was just Riddy, myself, and the Gillettes, so we stayed talking for a while. Maybe he knows them. Or maybe he's just friendly. Anyway, it wasn't completely terrible since they sent us away with food. College students will go anywhere if it involves free food.

With seven caramel apples and a bag o' moose munch, we went to Rid's place. Since we were completely exhausted, we stayed up for another two hours listening to music and playing table tennis. Then we slept.

We woke up to get ready at 8:30. For some reason, we all were asleep again though, and I wondered why when I woke up at 9. So including Miguel, who got in later that night, we woke up, ate, and got ready for meeting.

Meeting at the Johnsons was good. There were a few visitors, so that was nice. Afterwards, the Greenways invited us over for lunch, since Troy, his wife Sarah, and Darin and Maria were there. It was really nice. Good food, pretty fancy. I'm not used to formal dinners. Definitely higher quality than the DC. And plus, they had a piano that I could bang on for an hour.

By about 2 or so, I was back at my dorm. After I got settled and everything, I decided to practice my trumpet, because I have to learn Miles Davis' solo by Tuesday. Tony was playing video games up until that point, when he decided to do some reading for homework. So in order to do his homework, he put on some asian music. When I started playing though, he turned up the volume. Now, my homework assignment is to listen to music very carefully, which I cannot do when his music is louder. So I asked him politely to turn it down. To which he asked me to play quieter. Dude, do you know how much of your annoying music, games, tv shows, movies, and aim rings I have to put up with? Give me a break. I'm John Stossell.

So bitterly, I finished playing and left the room for other things. I went to eat. I had a lovely dinner with Doug and Joe. Actually, earlier I watched Donnie Darko with Mohammad, Doug, and Chris. It was good. Back at the DC, Chris was working, and he dressed up as a Japanese person. Fun. Funny.

So now I'm back, from outer space. I'm going to try and get my lab done. Good luck with that. I want to go to bed early tonight, but my clock has yet to pick up the time change signal, so I don't know what to do. I'll set my cell phone to wake me up, that's what I'll do. As for now, I want to see my cute gay puppies.

My mind is definitely off. It feels like a Saturday.

Oddly, I woke up early this Saturday to attend class. Both Chem and Calc were hard to stay awake in. I guess I just didn't sleep enough. Must get more sleep tonight. I think I will retire early.

Not too many unusual things happened today. I ate lunch with Rebecca (506) and her friend, Beck. Two very unique girls. Rebecca has four moms (four moms!) and Beck seems to have lost her gender. Seriously, she claims to be gender queer. Nice girl (thing) though. I think she's being female right now, since she just started going out with their friend Elliott. She told us of the awkward conversation with her mother:

Beck: Mom, I'm going out with Elliott.
Beck's Mom: I thought you were a lesbian.
Beck: Yeah...

Ok, I thought it was funny. And then I found twenty dollars.

The rest of my day was filled with lollygagging and blahdiblahing. Rich (501) seems to be obsessed with IZ's "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," playing it on loop for the past few days. I decided it was my duty as a human being to give him the rest of the cd. Unfortunately, Ashley created a whole story that she wouldn't let me ruin, so we only heard the one song over and over. The story consisted of Bruddah IZ playing the ukulele at night for his daughter, Gabby. At certain times, there would be shooting stars, such as when he says "I love you." I tried my best to ruin it, by telling her that IZ is dead and that Gabby was another deceased ukulele player, but she just kept on making up new stories.

Soon, Doug and I went out to dinner. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't excellent either.

When we were done of that, we let it settle for a while before going to the ARC for out racquetball reservation at 8. We spent 45 minutes lifting, so my arms are really tired right now. Not sore, for that will come tomorrow. It's just really hard to do anything. I feel like Superman after eating a kryptonite burger. Just completely drained. It's hard to talk on the cell phone because it's too heavy. Taking a shower was a pain. Blah blah blah, whine whine.

I've been doing things that don't involve moving since then. Racquetball was pathetic. We were both really tired. It was basically our worst efforts possible. Oh well, Riddy and I are playing tomorrow at noon. Then we're going to a get together in Folsom. We'll see how that turns out. I might be staying at their place too, since it would just be easier. Blah. Must go lie down.

I might say that the last post put me through a lot of trouble. When I tried to publish it for the first time, It yelled at me, saying that it was stupid. So then I had to rewrite everything, except this time much shorter and more bitter, but it wouldn't publish that either. So I went to bed, waiting until morning to publish. Bitterly, I go through everything, but it still won't let me publish. So finally, I check around my posts, and there are both of them, sitting there saved, unpublished. So I finally got the whole thing published. And it was good.

I tried my first Quaker Oatmeal Breakfast Square today. It tasted pretty much like oatmeal, except colder, harder, and more square-like. It tasted pretty bitter, but that was probably because it was 7:30, cold, dark, and my mouth still had retainer taste in it. It did put something in my stomach though. Better than a fruity phallus every day. At least these squares change flavor.

Chem discussion took, as usual, half the allotted time. We pretty much just went over the midterm that was generally terrible.

Back in the dorms, I tried to publish yesterday's post, but to no avail. I then hopped back in bed, only to be yelled at minutes later by my phone, Rebecca on the other end. See, when C. Kiefer wouldn't let me turn in my paper, I bitterly decided that I would edit that thing to death. So I sent it to Rebecca (she offered first), because I figured she would love to grade another paper. She called to tell me that she emailed it back to me with her editing in the margins.

When I woke up from a rather pleasant nap (or rather continuance of sleep), I didn't want to get out of bed, so I decided to do my English reading. That took an hour or so, but it was poetry, so that made it more meaningful. Barf.

After I finally got out of bed, I went to print out Rebecca's editing, but realized my printer does not print color (note to self: get a color ink cartrige. Strike that. Reverse it. Get parents to get a color ink cartrige). So I had to hunt around for a willing soul that would whore out his/her printer for some cheap friendship. I found my victim three doors down. Katie is her name.

With edited paper in hand, I spent the next hour and a half murdering my former paper. Unfortunately, I got so into it, there wasn't enough time for lunch. So for lunch I ate a Balance Bar. Judging my time poorly, I was rushing as fast as I could to get out the door. I started biking at 2:05 as fast as I could, making it to Olsen at 2:10. Luckily C. Kiefer was running (or rather walking nonchalantly) late. He's a Nazi when it comes to tardies, so that would explain my paranoia. I think it was a pretty good paper that I produced though.

I wore my denim blazer. I really like it.

After two hours of nonsensical English, I left for my freedom. It was at that point when I realized I was hungry and that it was not Friday. It felt very much like a Friday.

Instead of heading directly to the DC (it was closed), I went to the bookstore. I played around there for an hour or so, finally buying another $4 poster. Then I did some meaningless fluff until around 6:15 when I saw Doug and went to dinner with him. He was having a pretty terrible day. Poor Doug.

I was supposed to play racquetball with Riddy, but the courts were taked up by PE classes. And tomorrow won't work out either. So we're playing on Saturday. Hopefully Doug and I can play tomorrow.

The rest of my night was just stuff. I went down to the lounge and played piano until some health center interns gave us a lecture on drinking. Now I'm not going to drink. Not because of them though. That was already predetermined. I went back to playing the piano.

Since then, I've just been moseying around, trying to do stuff. I wish I actually sat down and tried to do some homework. That would have been better. Oh well. I should go to sleep. But first I will shower.

I've got some reading to do for English. I probably won't finish before I go to bed.

Today was a pretty good day. I actually woke up in time for Chem. The whole lecture wasn't bad, since she had a bowl of liquid nitrogen she kept on doing stuff with. Except she should have done more exciting things than put balloons in it. Bah.

Math was pretty good. I sat in the front row today. We learned... stuff.

After that, I compiled a list of things I needed to do. Such things were "Get folder (with pockets)," "Get mail," and "Go to TA office hours." I managed to do everything on the list except for read. Well, I did read, just not what I'm supposed to.

One of the things I needed to do was to get the stupid folders. So I went to the bookstore. If you know anything about me and bookstores, I was in there for quite some time. And I went back later as well. I also managed to come back with more than I originally intended, with 5 folders, the winter course catalog, and Harry Harrison's "50 in 50", a book of 50 short stories. I like short stories. I read the first one already. It was good.

When the time came, I went to my math TA's office hours. It made me feel very depressed, seeing the guy sitting in his office alone for an entire hour. I could tell he was disappointed when I only had enough questions to last maybe 10 minutes. I do remember him asking "Is that all?" with a sad tone in his voice. But I learned more math, which is good.

From there, I did stuff until meeting time. I contemplated going to the DC, but decided I didn't have enough time. So I ate a Balance Bar instead. Oh that's right. I got my mail and I had a package. It contained plenty of odd things. I got some money though. That will go to buying... stuff. And plenty of packing peanuts. They're really annoying to dispose of, since when you try and pour them down the rubbish chute, the wind will just shoot them back in your face. So this time I put them into a bag first, then dropped the bag all the way down. It was wonderful.

In the mail, I received several letters from junk, but one letter (mysteriously opened) from Badnarik's campaign headquarters with my bumper sticker. Now it causes me to wonder why on earth it was opened. It was clearly addressed to Jeff Lee and marked clearly that it was pertaining to the Libertarian Party. Perhaps it was the mailman.

I also got a letter from the marines. As a college student, the first thing I saw was the small print that said "free duffel bag." Now I am compelled to send in the form for more junk mail just to get the duffel. With my luck, the bag will be opened already though.

Hungrily, I hopped into the car with Brandon. It was and exciting ride, as usual. We did see a turbo on the way though. I could picture a situation where David was drooling and I was groaning. Probably because that situation has happened several times.

Meeting was good. It was rather large, despite a few missing people. I managed to sneak to the Greenway's piano to play a few hymns afterwards while Brandon talked engineering. All in all, it was good.

After I got back, I decided to go to late night to finally eat. The food was mediocre, except for the cookies. I did manage to have a very enlightening conversation with Chris, an awesome guy that works in the DC. It turns out part of his awesomeness is because he's from the Isle of Man, the reason he sounds so cool. He's here on an exchange program to study music and Japanese, two majors that are apparantly easier when forced to do slave labor. He's a funny guy who pretends to like his job, when secretly has fun by doing whatever he wants to.

Now I am here, still not reading. Oh, I'll just read tomorrow. It's not due for several hours anyway. And I have to get to class by 8. Meh...

I'm tired and I have a bit of a headache.

Today I woke up. By 10, I was in my improv class. It was pretty fun. We played Freddy Freeloader. Now we have to learn the cycle of fifths. That's going to take some work.

After eating lunch, I went back to my room to edit my paper. Finishing at about 1:55, I threw my stuff into my bag, first looking over the list of requirements for the paper. It was then when I noticed I needed all drafts in a folder with horizontal pockets. Having no time to get one, I found a used manila folder and threw everything in there.

Unfortunately, the manila wasn't good enough for C. Kiefer. So it's just as if I didn't do my paper, all because my folder didn't have pockets. I was a little disturbed for the rest of class.

I don't know why, but biking has been more of a chore than it has been before. It feels harder to bike the same distance. Maybe I'm just tired or something, but it's really weird. I have to bike slower than normal.

After that, I did my math homework with the smallest writing possible. I did the entire assignment on one side of one piece of paper. It was small.

Then I went to dinner. Finding nobody else, I ate with Negin (a very nice Persian girl) and some of her friends, none of which I knew. It was surely exciting.

After dinner, I hopped over to Primero Grove to give Margot back her notes from the last Chem lecture that I missed. After that, I went to my math discussion.

As the weeks progress, fewer and fewer people attend the discussion. Most people show up to hand in the homework, then leave. I stay just to mindlessly write down whatever Rich writes on the board so I can be surprised back in the dorms when I realize I already have the answers written down.

With that all out of the way, I've been mindlessly wandering the halls for hours. I need to go to bed.

I feel like crawling into a little hole and dying. Don't bother talking to me about it or I just might.

For that reason, I'll keep this short.

Today, I slept through my Chem lecture. I looked at the clock and it said 8:58. I thought to myself, "I have two minutes to get to class. Or I have 2 hours to sleep." I chose the latter.

Since I woke up late, my whole morning was a little fuzzy. Math was pretty funny because of it.

Lunch was eaten.

I sat with Doug while he explained the Chem lab. Then I went to my Chem lab. We looked through diluted solutions.

At dinner, one of the girls that was dishing up food for me looked at me and asked if I was from Santa Barbara. I replied in the affirmative. She then told me that I was her TA in Mr. Devries' class. It was really weird.

Now I've just been blahing around. I want to go to bed, but I have a paper, math assignment, and plenty of other blah to do. I will pretend to do it.

My body aches like no mother. Like your other. It just hurts.

Waking up an hour before I needed to, I went back to sleep. The end.

No wait, I woke up again, this time actually getting out of bed. An interesting thing about last night's sleep - it wasn't very pleasant. Every night I've been here, I've just been so exhausted, I collapse into bed. But not this time. It's not that I wasn't tired, but that it just didn't feel right. Maybe that's because I showered a few hours before actually going to bed. Or maybe it's because I'm weird. Moving on.

Meeting was good. Most everybody spoke from what we heard at Special Meetings, which isn't by any means a bad thing. It was a small meeting for Davis thought. It turns out Lindsey Paddon is in the meeting though, so that surprised me. I exclaimed, "What are you doing here?" to which she replied, "This is my meeting." It wasn't actually all that interesting.

Afterwards, Brandon and I went out to lunch, my suggestion. Taking a leaf out of Rebecca's book, we went to Pluto's. Luckily, right as we were paying, a huge swarm of people ran through the doorway and Brandon commented, "It looks like we got here at just the right time," to which I replied, "What?" So then he repeated it.

I had the sandwich of the week as Plutos, which actually was delicious. It's a grilled chicken with barbecue sauce and other good things on ciabatta. Good stuff.

After that, Brandon wanted to check out the bargain rack at Gap, which was right next door. So we went in. It was great going shopping with Brandon because unlike all my other guy friends, he did not feel at all awkward or as they would put it, "gay." It was great. I bought a really comfortable denim jacket for $25 from which I have yet to remove the tag because I'm still parading around for every girl I see, since Jayna was not there to supervise my fashion activities. Fortunately, they all concur that it was a good purchase, so I'm feeling pretty suave.

Since I've been really running out of soap for the past week, I decided that instead of just being dirty, I ought to get some body cleansing product. Mentioning that I was going to Rite-Aid, Sarah decided she needed to get some milk (non-fat, of course). So the two of us tra-la-lahed across the street to Rite-Aid. After gettng her milk, I stood hopelessly until she picked up a bottle of Rite-Aid Brand body wash and put it in my hand. I'm pleased with my purchase.

From there, I brought Doug into my room to do my spectroscopy prelab. I should mention that earlier, we all checked our midterm scores online, and out of 100, Doug got 85. Next in line was me, who recieved a noble 36. Then came Rebecca, rounding up the pack with 30. We're all in different classes, so most likely took different tests. In my class, the range was from 20 to 78. The highest grade was a C+. What a moronic class. Or what a freaking hard test.

With my prelab out of the way, I can spend tomorrow just pretending to care, until about an hour before the lab when I cram to finish the lab from last week. How fun.

Doug, Jared, and I went to the ARC to play racquetball at 6:00 pm. At least, that's when I made the reservations. It was awesome. We each took turns playing winner, which meant a lot more actually playing and resting, yet less rallying. I also convinced myself that I need racquetball shoes. They're not that bad. I convinced myself I need these shoes: NFS Game. Of course, with the shoes, I will need a glove, some goggles, and ultimately a racquet, but only one thing at a time, here.

As we were walking out, it was 7:00, time for Brandon and Riddy's game. It was nice, since the MAC has a viewing area right next to our court. We watched them for a while, until we realized we were ravenous and the DC was closing.

The DC was actually really good tonight. They had Banana's Foster. It was delicious. It would have been better with some ice cream though. They should look into soy ice cream. Seriously.

Well, my night has been pretty uneventful. Just me walking up and down the halls, doing nothing, bugging people. There are some pretty loud people in the halls right now. I need to go take a shower. I stink like man.

I am so sore.

Today I slept in until about 10. I actually did some homework then, which is odd. I took the Chem nomenclature quiz and got a 70% on it, which will probably bring up my grade. Go me.

At about noon, I went to the DC for brunch. After eating at the DC for brunch, I've decided that the entire "brunch" concept is completely stupid. Just separate the two meals and eat twice. I don't want to have a cold turkey sandwich with an omelette. That's just stupid.

After that, I decided I needed to play the piano. So I got my backpack o' music on and went down the hall. Unfortunately, Clay's room is right by the stairs and he was watching X-Men 2. So it took 45 minutes or so for me to get to the piano. But it was good.

After the piano, Clay was watching Mean Girls, so I got distracted then as well.

Then I went and practiced my trumpet. When that was done, Doug popped in wondering if I wanted to go play racquetball. I did. So I called up the ARC and reserved a court for 7. We played straight from 7-8:05. It was awesomely tiring. Now I feel like buying racquetball things... like goggles... or a glove... or a racquet.

After showering the sweat off my body, Doug, Jared, and I biked over to Pita Pit. Since it was about 9:30, it was delicious. Mmmmmpita. I had a gyro. It tasted great.

When that was done, Clay was watching Kill Bill. Man, I watched a lot of parts of movies today. Now I am really tired. I go.

Yawn. I am completely exhausted.

After studying nonstop from about 12-12:15 last night, I felt more than ill-prepared for my Chem midterm this morning. It actually didn't turn out so terribly. I knew more than I thought I did, which is always the good direction to be heading. Also, while I was taking the test, I had a sudden pang of understanding how someone could actually enjoy this stuff. Weird, since I hate chemistry.

After Chem, I went to Mrak Hall to get the proof of current full time enrollment sent to the insurance agency. It was exciting.

When that was done, I was walking down the hall to my room, but three doors down, Katie and Doug were casually talking, so I joined them. It turns out I talked with them until I had to go to my next class, never actually making it the thirty extra feet to my room.

Calculus was fun, learning derivatives.

After math and lunching it up, I saw Doug wearing basketball shorts and an undershirt, so I commented how he must be going to the ARC. He confirmed this assumption and told me to go with him. After much deliberation, I changed clothes and we went to the ARC.

The following is the reason I am so tired. First off, we started with curls. As I was struggling with 20 lbs in each arm, Doug was working with 42.5. Then after we were dead from that, we worked our way over to the bench press. After I managed to bench the bar, Doug went on to put 120 lbs more on it. Then we went to the mat to do a series of ridiculous crunches. Now since Doug is officially a runner, we went to the track and ran a mile. When I say we, I mean Doug ran a mile. I ran two laps and then died. After we were dead tired from that, we then went to play racquetball, which I have decided is up there with badminton on the list of awesome sports. So that's why I'm so tired.

After that, I really wanted to take a shower, but realized that I don't have any clean clothes. So I had to do my laundry. It took a while, most of which I sat without a shirt, but I got everything done, then cleansed myself. Speaking of which, I'm out of soap. I need more if I want to continue to get clean.

The whole time after we got back from the ARC, my arms were completely useless. Brandon called me, but even the act of holding up the phone made my arm shake. It was pathetic.

Brandon actually called for a reason though. Riddy invited us over for a get together at their house. There were actually a fair amount of people there, maybe 15 or so. We played around the world ping pong, rook, and the usual types of things you do at parties of that nature (yes, we read comics... Get Fuzzy though, not Archies). It was really fun, but we were all really tired by the end.

So now I'm back (from outer space). And still tired. Must go to bed.

No blog tonight... I'm pretending to study for my Chem midterm, just so I feel better about failing.

I feel blah. I don't think I'm sick physically, perhaps emotionally though.

I can't focus, I can't concentrate. All I feel like doing is napping or banging my head against the wall, both of which I have done several times today.

Speaking of my day...

I woke up to blah, then blahdiddyblah blah. Chem was blah. Blah blah blah.

Between Chem and Math was perhaps the most eventful part of my day. I wrote an email to Don Puffalt. Having that conversation with Larry on Sunday reminded me that I have yet to do that. So I did.

I took my trumpet to Math so I could bike right over to Trumpet Ensemble afterwards. Math itself was pretty normal. Just math.

Trumpet Ensemble was pretty cool. I'm starting to learn more about the other people there. I had a chat with Scott Macomber (the instructor) about the possiblity of lessons. That's pretty cool. I'm still loving it.

After that, I just sat around, trying to do work. I got about 2 sentences of my 1200 word essay done, then had to take a nap. I was planning on going to the Chem TA's office hours to try and learn chemistry. Then after that, I would go to my math TA's office hours to learn math. And somewhere in between, I would go to Mrak Hall to get proof of enrollment. Although none of that happened, I did get a pretty good nap.

Brandon came and picked me up for meeting. Meeting was good, except Riddy wasn't there. I wonder why. Brandon took me home.

I still feel blah. I'm going to blah myself to blahdom.

Today is a miserable day, at least when concerning the weather.

I woke up at 9:15, in time to actually make oatmeal for breakfast. In getting ready for my Improv class, I decided that it was a little nippy out, so I put on a light jacket. Perhaps if I went outside instead of looking out the window, I would have noticed that it was extremely windy and wet. Unfortunately, I did not assess this from my room. I did, however, figure this out when stepping out the door. So in shorts and a light jacket, I biked all the way across campus with my trumpet on my back.

Once there, things were a bit more promising. The class content was really amazing. I'm actually beginning to have an ear for this sort of thing, moreso than others there. I just feel really great. Probably because of the weather, only about a third of the people were there. The smaller setting was a much more cozy feel. I liked it. We worked on the idea of stretching out songs, by playing a song written in four and playing it in three or vice versa. Our homework is to listen to The song Freddy Freeloader on Miles Davis' album Kind of Blue and learn to sing Miles' solo. How awesome.

Now at noon, I decided it was time to go to the DC. I found Jared to go with me. As we were walking in the door, I held out my card for the lady to swipe, but it took her a few moments to finish reading her pamphlet. After she swiped it, I muttered "I could have just swiped it," to which she responded, "Would you like to?" So I got to go behind the counter and swipe Jared's card. It was so awesome.

After getting in, we headed to the spring rolls. Unfortunately, Jared took the last one, so I had to stand around waiting for one. One of the chefs told me that they weren't making any more, but when I asked if he was serious, he smiled and replied in the negative. So while we were waiting, the conversation went as follows:

Me: So Jared... know any good jokes?
Jared: No, not really.
Chef #2: I know a good one. It's kind of bad though.
Jared: Well tell it anyway.
Cheffy: What's the difference between a Jew and a pizza?
Jared: That's terrible.
Chef Boy R.D.: The pizza doesn't scream when you shove it in an oven.

Apparantly he's a quarter Jewish, so he felt he had the right to tell it. I don't care, it was funny nonetheless. So now, instead of telling the joke, I quote him telling the joke. It still has the same effect, yet I get none of the blame.

After putting on pants, I headed to English. Class was as great as ever. This time, he made fun of me for having so much knowledge on literature. Anytime he mentions an outside source, asking if anyone has read it, I usually reply in the positive, to which he responds, "You read too much." Funny how this is an English teacher saying that.

After much deliberation, or actually none at all, I had not started my paper that's due on Thursday. In fact, I had no idea what I would write about. So after class, I was talking to him as he was walking to his car, and actually came up with a pretty good idea. He was getting some coffee, so asked if I wanted any. When I told him I don't drink coffee, he asked about tea. Again, I politely declined. So he bought me a large cup of Constant Comment anyway. Unfortunately, they use boiling water for that stuff, so I burnt my whole tongue. I also had to bike all the way back to the dorms, one hand steering, one hand holding the devil tea. It was like a white elephant. I couldn't dispose of it because it was a gift, yet it was a pain to have. Every tiny bump sent boiling water on my hand or on my leg. How utterly miserable. And after all of that, I had to drink the whole thing, out of obligation. It wasn't bad, probably because I have no feeling in my tongue anyway.

Waiting for Jared so I could check my math homework, I sat around. He finally came back, about 10 minutes before I had to go to class. So after we checked everything over, I put on a second jacket and gloves, then headed out to my bike. Seven o'clock has gotten darker rather quickly. I actually had to use my light on the way to math discussion. It was cool though.

Whatever Rick was talking about went right over my head, as well as everyone elses, since after about 15 minutes of proofs, he said something like, "Well, that's advanced calculus, so you don't really need to know that." Great. It was cool though. I'm glad I stayed anyway. I think I'll go to his office hours tomorrow, since I still don't quite understand the precise definition of a limit.

Getting back to the dorm, I asked around to see if anyone wanted to go to late night at the DC, since I didn't eat dinner. Adam was going, but we had to wait for his friend Julie.

That was the first time I've been to late night. It was cool though. It was like a limited dinner selection with more desserts. The best part was cookies fresh out of the oven. Mmmmmmm. They were delicious.

Shani gave me a few breakfast bars to hold me over until I actually get some. I like the concept of "breakfast bars." It makes me feel like I'm eating breakfast. Now if I get a Balance bar as well, I can have a balanced breakfast.

I think I need to learn Chemistry. That's what Doug is for. Perhaps I should go to Shengshu's office hours. I think I will. But as for now, I need to do something by myself. Like I don't know what.

My day has been so very exciting.

Waking up at roughly 8:00, I opted not to have oatmeal, choosing the banana instead. Bananas aren't the most delicious of of the fruit category, but they do seem to have such a nice shape, useful for making banana guns. I really need to get a better breakfast selection.

With breakfast in my belly, I went to Chem. Professor True is funny, in the way that she just likes to make explosions. So today she lit a piece of magnesium on fire. Unfortunately, with my tired body, I had to shield myself from the blinding light that just wanted to make me go to sleep.

I would have to say the focus of my day was trying to hang out with Amy. It included several phone calls during class breaks to check each other's schedule. The hour between Chem and Math didn't work out, since they were on the other end of campus.

Calculus was as usual. I do enjoy Dr. Hass though. He has that midwestern accent that makes him say things like "idear." He's funny in the math teacher sort of way though. I always laugh at his (pathetic attempts at) jokes, but it rarely seems anyone else does. Too bad. They're really bad jokes anyway.

After math, I put my stuff in my room, then got a message from Amy that they were going to the Segundo DC. Hungry (having only eaten that banana and a cookie I stole from Katie), I rushed down there, bringing Sarah along with me because she suffered from the same problem I did.

We get to the DC, and sure enough, there was Amy, as well as her student guide person. After stealing some food from the people giving it away, I went to sit with them, soon followed by Sarah. Lunch was pretty interesting. There were 6 of us there: Amy and her guide, another runner and his guide, Sarah and me. Apparantly the previous night did not promote sleep. It was funny hearing from Amy about the things that went on since she told it with the utmost naivety. Although, it did seem they put on a special show for the recruits.

Anyway, after lunch, stealing my banana for tomorrow, I followed them to the track for practive. I figured I only had to finish the lab from last week and do the prelab for this week, and I had three hours. I might as well waste some time by seeing what else was going on.

It turns out that the track is in the stadium. Imagine that. Being there was really weird to me because it felt like something I should belong to and feel comfortable at, yet didn't. I guess it's because they didn't have instruments. But still, it just managed to get more and more awkward. So eventually I left. It also turns out that Lorin and Halah (two girls on my floor) are on the team. So I got to say hello to them.

After I got back, I opened up my lab book to pretend to do work. Most of the time I was just walking around the halls, but some of the time I actually went out and copied Doug's work. I really ought to learn the stuff for myself since the midterm is on Friday.

Going to the lab dreading the next few hours, I was pretty miserable. But as soon as we started working, I just got happier and happier. We were working in partners, taking a copper wire, breaking it down, doing a whole bunch of other stuff to it, and then making copper again. Not only was the lab really cool (a whole bunch of awesome reactions and such), but I felt that Matt (my partner) and I really bonded with Shengshu. He's actually a really cool guy, despite the fact that he's teaching us in another language. For the first time, I actually saw him laugh. Somebody spilled their solution and he laughed at them. How awesome is that? Pretty awesome.

For the first time in forever, I felt great when leaving the lab. It was really weird. The euphoria lasted several hours afterwards. It was just so great.

Dinner at the DC wasn't bad, but it was packed. We ate outside because of that, and it was pretty cold. I went back to my room.

I finished my Improv homework, of writing 50 children's songs and their first melodic line. That actually took a full week. It's pretty hard, especially since you have to do it all by ear.

I attempted to do my math homework, but it didn't really work out that well. Fortunately I have all day tomorrow to do it.

Interesting occurrence last night while I was taking a shower. The guy next to me was done, then I heard a slam of something to the ground. I peek around the curtain and see a toothbrush lying on the floor in my stall. I look back and there's a hand reaching and picking it up. I tried to find out who it was, yet nobody knew. I'd like to make an anouncement to the world though. The five-second rule does not apply to toothbrushes.

I think that will be all for today. I'm pretty tired. Bed tonight.

Well. Today has been a long day.

Getting up was sure fun today. Actually, it wasn't that bad. I had some oatmeal for breakfast, so while the water was boiling, I ironed my clothes. I wore my khaki pants with my creme shirt, blue blazer, and bow tie, or as I call it, my "professor's outfit." Brandon picked me up ten minutes late, or in Brandon Time, right on the dot. The directions we were using, emailed to Brandon by Lily, were perhaps the simplest directions that could have been given that still got us to the destination. Lily must have been in a hurry, because the directions said no more than:

Take 80 east
Get off at Sierra College
Sierra College turns into Hazel
Community Center is on your left, Greenback is South

So the marvelous directional duo we are, managed to come up with a list of reasons why we weren't going to get there.

1. Get off at Sierra College- Sierra College is a community college, so therefore it's pretty big. There was one exit that was clearly labeled as an exit for Sierra College, then the next exit was Sierra College Boulevard.

2. Once we got off at Sierra College Boulevard, we needed to know which direction to go. With our clever deductive skills, we decided to turn left.

3. Sierra College turns into Hazel. Usually, when something like this is written, you expect that the street name will change pretty soon. It didn't happen until about 15 minutes down the road. As Brandon put it, "It's like saying, 'Take I-5 to Mexico. I-5 turns into Guadalajara Avenue.'"

4. Orangevale is out of our range of maps. Not surprising, since Davis is as well.

There were probably more, but I just got to distracted from the Guadalajara joke. Finally, Brandon just tells me to check the other cars for professing people. Automatically, my bun radar was set to 'scan.' Sure enough, the car next to us contained the Frandsen couple. As it turns out, they were lost and following more buns too.

So after we got there, Brandon and I quickly threw our stuff down on some empty chairs. Later on, we decided that it would have been better to find some chairs closer to the front, since we were amidst crying babies and deaf old people who's whispers can be more accurately described as 'mild yells.'

What I heard of the meeting was very good. With phrases like "IS THAT JOE ALEXANDER? IT LOOKS LIKE JOE ALEXANDER" being whispered the row back, I managed to correctly asses that it was in fact Joe Alexander. Fortunately for me, even without my glasses, my good eye closed, hey, even with both my eyes closed, I could asses that it was Joe Alexander. No yelling needed.

After Joe, who's thoughts circled around the question "How does the enemy get into our lives?", spoke Larry Taylor. Larry spoke about our focus, or as he put it, "What is the center of our life?" Taking the meeting was Harry Brownlee, who aside from the awesome quote of "So you're a worker? That's great. I don't care." spoke on several topics, among them our friendship with Jesus, humility, and walking.

Lunch was pretty great. As a starving college student, the Greenways had enough foresight to make me a lunch. Real food never ceases to be delicious. Actually, the best part about lunch was the socializing. There happened to be plenty of people there I knew. Besides the normal, expected ones, there was Grandma, Ed and Sheri, Kathy and Rodney, Stan and Moriah, the Shannons, and a whole lot more too. But what was really special was when Larry Blair came up to me telling me that he was meaning to talk to me for a while. It turns out that Sean professed in the same meeting that I did. Also in this conversation did I learn that Ryan Miller professed that meeting too. So afterwards I had to share that with him. Anyway, I could tell that it was really touching to Larry, so it meant a lot to me.

The afternoon meeting was great as well. Among many of the highlights was the kid in front of us drawing a huge swastika in his notebook. It was doubtful he knew what he was doing, since he drew the points in a counterclockwise fashion. But it was still a weird site to see in meeting.

Derra started the meeting with thoughts on the feeding of the five thousand. Following her was Margaret Blair, who spoke about fruit-bearing plants. Walter Pollock took the meeting, speaking about the parent/child relationship as well as sacrifice.

After putting away chairs, Brandon and I were notified that there was a small get together at Shari and Miranda's. After not a whole lot of deliberation, we went over there. Brandon, with a pang of kindness, thought it would be nice to bring something, perhaps to snack on. So while on the freeway, sounding like we're going Mach 7 due to leaky window seals, he calls his mom to see if she can think of anything. Of course, the things his mom thinks of are elaborate desserts, so we end up bringing nothing.

Oh yeah, it rained. Everything is wet.

At Shari and Miranda's were Stephanie and Amanda Hill. Apparantly they stayed the night there, since they made a mess of the bathroom. I don't know, maybe that's just a girl thing. Anyway, we had a pretty good time playing rowdy professing activities, such as spoons and cranium. Around 7 or so, the girls needed to get on the road, so Brandon, Russel and I headed off too.

Back at Brandon's place, not a whole lot was going on. His roommates actually seem pretty cool. They seem like the kind of people I would hang out with if I had the choice. Anyway, they're all on an IM floor hockey team together, and they had a game at 9. So that's why we went to their place instead of just dropping me off. It was cool though, since they have sandwich fixings, whereas I have a banana. And a bottle of water I kept from lunch.

Also, they needed a goalie, so on the way home, Brandon called Riddy to see if he was interested. He jumped on the bandwagon with so much enthusiasm, it could be said he was driving it.

At 8:30 or so, 6 of us hopped into AJ's truck, everybody wearing clothes designed for sweating except for me, still dressed up with my bow tie. They dropped me off at my place first, which is about 4 1/2 seconds away from the ARC, their destination. After getting changed and whatnot, I asked around to see if anyone wanted to watch their game. Sarah wanted to, but was taking too long, so she told me she would meet me there. I never saw her. Apparantly she was walking in as they were walking out though. I'll have to ask Brandon about that.

After watching their exciting floor hockey game (5-4, Puckin Awesome - their team), I went to the fitness center and rowed for 2000 m. I am sore.

Back in my dorm, I'm writing this. I didn't get a chance to hang out with Amy, since she was busy with track stuff and whatnot. It was pretty funny though, since her first night here was spent with the track team, one of the (every single) activities where drinking is more of a sport than anything else. So she seemed to be in a state of shock when she called. But hopefully we can do something tomorrow. That ought to be puckin awesome... wait... I probably shouldn't say that.

Well well well. The week has passed. Today has been good.

I've been meaning to get out to the ARC, but things just kept on piling up. Of course, they were all insignificant things, making for an insignificant pile, but the ARC didn't manage to cram its way in there.

Waking up at around 11, after lying in bed for maybe an hour, contemplating life, I went and brushed my teeth. This was, of course, after getting dressed. Although it really doesn't matter to anyone except for the twelve year old girl next door to me. She's probably not really twelve, but everybody thinks she looks like it and has that level of naivety. Everybody is really okay with anything that goes on, anyway. I mean, nobody would really care if a guy walked through the girls bathroom or vice versa. It's all cool.

So I called Dell today. I'm still bitter. The guy was supposed to call me back two weeks ago, yet never did. So I decided to call them back. That got me nowhere though. The one guy I talked to, after 15 minutes of being on hold, told me that there was nothing he could do, short of having me reformat my hard drive, and he couldn't tell me if they could refund my computer since it was past the 30 day period. So he had me call customer service. As my luck would have it, customer service was even more painful than technical support. By the time I actually started talking to a human, I was on the phone for over an hour, so my patience was no longer existant. I was on the verge of tears, not because of any emotional stress, but because of the sheer annoyance of their staff. So finally speaking to a customer service representative, I told her that I want to return the computer for a refund to upgrade it. After she spent way too long looking up the information, she tells me that it was a business computer and she couldn't do anything about it. So she gave me the number for the business computer support. After she did that, I bitterly exclaimed, "Oh, you mean the same number I called to reach you, and the same number I called to reach technical support?". Well, I was just fed up, so I had her transfer me instead. Of course, the business support isn't open on the weekends, but idiot Indian lady didn't know that (or anything else, for that matter). So in all of my distress, I wrote Dell an email, which their online everything said would be answered in 6 hours or less. It's been about 14 and counting. I hate Dell. If you want a new computer, don't get a Dell.

The whole Dell incident left me rather edgy for the rest of the day. I walked up and down the halls, like normal. I got my sleeping bag back from Sarah (she used it last night for a sorority retreat to Sacramento). I discussed the possibility of going home for Thanksgiving with her. We still have a month.

I decided to get my reading done, so I whipped out Franz Kafka's "The Metamorphosis". This horrendously long novella was about nothing, so I broke it down into four 45 minute intervals. It's torture. I mean, the guy's a bug. Either help him or kill him. Just do something.

I ate dinner with Doug. Doug is really awesome. He's really pretty cool. After dinner, we sat around talking for a few more hours. Just about random stuff. He's had some pretty interesting experiences. He lived in South America for a few years, as well as Costa Rica. He's fluent in Spanish and has one of the most authentic accents I've ever heard. It's cool.

Did a bunch of nothing.

I talked to Amy Robinson on the phone for a while tonight. Too much talking though. My throat is sore. I need some water. Anyway, she wants to go to Davis next year, so I'm basically doing everything possible so that she will. She's taking a tour tomorrow and Wednesday, so I'll show her around a bit on her free time. Awesome.

I'm tired.

It's 10:00 on a Friday night, and I find myself in my room, alone. Somehow, this does not surprise me. Tony took off again for home, although this is the first time he's done that since school has actually started. There are people in the halls discussing the current parties that they are trying to get to. Christie, or "Hootch" as Adam calls her, is announcing that there are two vehicles that can take people. What an exciting night it will be for them.

With my new routine of hitting the snooze button several times then falling back asleep, I found myself waking back up in the Chem lecture. Trying to stay awake and actually learn, this lecture was more boring than normal. I keep on being reminded that our first midterm is next week. Just great. I think it would be wise for me to get some work done this weekend.

Since all I had for breakfast was a banana, I was really hungry when I got back to the dorm. Unfortunately, I didn't have anything else to eat. So I went to math, still hungry.

In math, we learned the precise definition of a limit. How exciting. It was nice though, since people have started skipping the lectures, leaving the hall half empty. That meant that I got to sit in the second row with nobody to my left and nobody to my right. I took the opportunity to stretch.

It was an interesting lecture, where Dr. Hass, in an attempt to be funny, only made it as far as any other mathematician has before. I'm not really sure what went on, but as far as I could tell, he took a pinwheel, placed it up to the fan blade, and cut his hand when it went flying off. But I don't think he really cut his hand, since he didn't seem to be in pain and it stopped bleeding as soon as he wiped it off. Maybe I really should eat breakfast...

After that, my day was done. I called Brandon to see if he wanted to do anything, but he was completely exhausted from playing floor hockey against the cops (he tried explaining it to me... I still don't understand). So I sat around for a while. I tried installing iTunes on this computer, but the thing is just so slow, it got mad at me. I think I'm going to try installing more ram on it, since I only have 256 mb. But my computer at home has less and it's not sad. Oh well. Something else I need to fix.

I went out to lunch with Sarah and one of her sorority sisters. At least I think that was today. Maybe that was yesterday. I don't remember. Anyway, lunch wasn't that bad.

After that, Amy came by to see Sarah. When she finally got there, we spent a while doing nothing together. It turns out Tommy Cantillion's band Holden was playing in Sacramento, so he decided to stop by Davis and see how the Brinker twins were doing. I don't know how that turned out.

I tried a vegan cookie today. It was really good. Oddly, since vegans usually aren't.

In my many hours of boredom, I moved my furniture around in my room. The bed is now perpendicular to where it used to be, up against the window. My desk and bureau are right next to each other, with the bookshelf on top. This way, I can actually see the mirror and get to the other side of the closet. How amazing. I wonder how Tony will react when he comes back.

Anyway, I spent some time with Adam watching Battle Royale. Feeling a bit violent afterwards, we had to go do some controlled activities.

There have been some fires around here. For the past couple of days, the ground has been really orange and the sun red. C. Kiefer said it was the end of the world.

Well, I'm pretty drained. I feel like I need to work out. So I will probably go to sleep. Yawn.

So when I woke up this morning, at 6:45, I hit snooze. Then when it beeped again, at 6:54, I hit snooze again. When it beeped again, at 7:03, I turned it off, convincing myself I would roll out of bed when the clock hit 7:15. When I looked at the clock next, it was 7:18. So then I changed my get-up time to 7:20. Then it was 7:23. Finally, when it hit 7:30, I forced myself to get up. After putting on some pants, shoes, and a shirt, I ate my DC banana. I brushed my teeth, got my bag, and headed out to Chem at 7:48.

Shengsu is getting better. Either that, or I'm just learning to understand him. Or perhaps I'm just ignoring him altogether. He handed us a worksheet with three problems on it, then sat down. All 20 or so of us just sat there, confused. Eventually, we started working on the problems. Quite a while later, he asked us something along the lines of "Is everybody done? Does somebody want to come up and do problem one?" Unfortunately for him, nobody could make out a single word of what he said. So he just assumed we weren't finished and gave us five more mintues before doing the problems in his own language instead. After that, we were pretty much done, so we left.

When I got back to the dorms, Tony was still asleep, so I jumped back in bed. At about 11:30, he gets out of bed and I asked him where he was going. He, being surprised that I was awake, asked if I had class this morning. I replied with the affirmative. Then he asked if I skipped. I thought that was funny. We live only feet away from each other, yet he had no idea I spent 20 mintues getting ready, then was gone for an hour, then came back and got into bed. He must have had a pretty good dream.

I went to the DC a while later for lunch. It wasn't terrible. They've stopped mixing the Caesar salad though. So if you want it, you have to pour the dressing yourself. They were also out of the vegitarian pita, so I just loaded my tray with everything else to help cope with the loss. I ate with Sarah and one of her sorority sisters.

After I got back, I had about an hour to get my English done before class. All it entailed was reading two stories ("What We Talk About When We Talk About Love" and "My Life With the Wave") and writing a page about them. Tony was watching Family Guy, so I put on the big red quietmakers. At 1:14, I went to pick Sarah's laundry out of the dryer, since she was at some unexpected sorority meeting or something to that effect. Speaking of which, she still has my hazardous waste container. I must get that back.

English with C. Kiefer was, as usual, great. This time he told us more stories that ought to get him fired, such as his encounters with sex shops and pornography. This was brought on by, of all things, roll, where a girl named Vilia Vititus was complaining how her name rhymes with "vaginitis." Enough of that topic. After class, I got my paper back, which recieved a 7/10. I wasn't that disappointed, since I didn't spend that much time on it. This next essay will entail a bit more work though. We do have the opportunity to edit them in class, so that's handy.

After I got back, I did a bunch of blahing around. I played the piano some, but stopped because my pinkie muscle in my right hand was really sore. I played some trumpet too, practicing the music we were given yesterday. At dinnertime, Tony and I went out to the DC. Apparantly on Thursday nights they have an open grill, where instead of cooking you a burger inside, they do the exact same thing outside. I'm still puzzled as to why they make this such a big deal. The burger I had wasn't bad, since I put an equal amount of barbecue sauce as I did meat, but it was nowhere near the 5 pieces of pizza I had.

At 6:30, we had a root beer float social that our floor committee put on. It wasn't that exciting for me, since I know everybody on the floor, but for everyone else, there were a few people they had never met. How interesting. It really wasn't though. They tried, and that's all that counts.

I'm sure there were some more interesting things that happened to me, but being lazy, my mind has forgotten them at the moment.

I'm pretty tired. I'm so tired I have a headache. That's pretty tired.

Today went pretty well. I started off by having microwaveable instant oatmeal which was actually desirably good. Banana and pecans, I do believe it was. Only one packet left, so I was particularly hungry for a long while.

Chem lecture was pretty draining, since I happened to be really tired. She did manage to make it a little more interesting with a demonstration, of which, she separated some hydrogen molecules out of water, then lit them on fire. The result wasn't as expected, only small popping noises, although potentially more annoying than David.

After Chem, I went back to the dorm to try and steal food from other people. I managed to get one taquito off of Rebecca. Rebecca is this awesome hippie, raised by lesbian mothers who both divorced and remarried other women. Four moms! Anyway, she's very supportive of the liberal congresswoman Barbara Lee, as shown by a shirt she sometimes wears.

With the taquito and a DC apple in my stomach, I headed over to math. We learned.

Having only 20 minutes until my next class, I hurried back to the dorm to throw down my math stuff and get my trumpet stuff. Still ravenous, I managed to get to the rehearsal room before the instructor, although the last trumpet player there. This was trumpet ensemble, by the way. So after warming up a bit and seeing the egos fight, Scott Macomber, the trumpet instructor comes in and hands out music. The first song was an arrangement he did of the Rocky and Bullwinkle theme which is currently stuck in my head. It kind of reminds me of the Smurfs theme. After sightreading a few songs, which actually sounded really awesome, we moved around a bit, played some different parts and such, then packed up. I think I was the only fresman there. Everybody else seemed to know each other. I'm supposed to get trumpet lessons too, but Scott is busy, so he's asking one of the other trumpets there. I'm not sure how that's going to turn out, but at least I can get to know one person there.

After that was done, I was hungry. So I went back to the dorms and settled back down. I spent a long time not doing anything. I gave Jarrett (the RA) some music, Hilary and Shani some videos, and myself a bunch of no sleep. And I talked to Seneca Black online. Did you know he's no longer working for Lincoln Center? Me neither. But I would assume his word is better than mine.

Dinner at the DC wasn't that bad. Mainly because I stuck to the pizza. Oh well.

Saturday night, I shattered my clock open. It hasn't been able to find reception since. So today I kept resetting it, in hopes it would be happy again. It finally is.

At around 6:35, Brandon came picking me up in the Nightrider. His car is so ghettoly awesome. We then drove our way to Natomas for gospel meeting. Lily asked us to come early to set up chairs, which was funny since most of the extra chair setting up was done after everybody was already sitting.

The meeting was really good. Lily spoke first, then Walt-dog, then Harry Brownlee prayed at the end. It was weird. I could really recognize his voice. I could hear quotes from Milltown.

Apparantly the whole meeting, Grandma was looking for me. Unfortunately, she neglected to look three people to her right, where I was sitting. So we talked for a while and she's really happy that I'm there. I'm going to have to visit her too. Real food is awesome.

I saw the Shannons, but they left before I could find them.

After meeting, Brandon and I went over to Sacramento to Shari and Miranda's place. It amazes me how nice the apartments here are. And they're all relatively priced too. Makes me jealous. Anyway, Darren and Russell were there too. That was pretty fun. Just a few kids hanging out. It's something we decided we need to do more often. Shari, Miranda, and Russell hang out quite a bit, since they live about three miles away. But they're definitely cool enough to see more often.

Brandon seems to have a problem with me referring to him as my heterosexual life-mate. Despite it's exact definition, he seems to feel the phrase is "gay". He also doesn't like to refer to our friendship as our "relationship". What a weird guy.

All for now. Must cleanse myself of old body cells and the likes. Which reminds me. I'm running out of soap. Note to self: get soap. Revision: get Grandma to get soap.

Wow. That last post was really long.

I forgot to mention the most exciting part of my day yesterday. I got hit by a bike. In Davis, at one point or another, you're bound to get hit by a bike. The place is just packed with bikers, many of which are fat, slow, and inept. So I was on the right of one of these particular bikers as we were going around a roundabout (that just sounded so awesome). She decided to make a bigger circle than she needed to, and ended up clipping my side. Her poor biking skills led to a big pile of her and her bike on the ground, while I just kept on going. I turned around to see if she was ok, and except for her pride, she was fine. Moral of the story: Fat girls should walk.

So this morning, I woke up wondering when the improv class would start. I knew it was on Tuesday mornings, but my schedule still says TBA. So at about 9:15, I called the music department, who so kindly told me that I needed to be there in 45 minutes. It turns out the class is awesome. I really feel like I should be there. It's maybe a dozen musicians sitting in a cramped little room, playing three blind mice. It's pretty awesome. They're all at the same level as I am, so it's great. I'm really excited. For homework, I have to make a list of 50 children's songs, then transcribe them solely by ear. So much fun!

After that, I went back to the dorm, trying to figure out lunch before my English class at 2. Jared, an asian guy who reminds me a lot of Mike Kiyoi, invited me to go to Papa John's with a few of his friends (we all have coupons for free individual pizzas). I called them ahead of time so my pizza would be waiting when we got there. The conversation went like this:

Phone: [ring ring]
Papa John's: Hi, thanks for calling Papa John's. Can you hold?
Me: Hi, I'd like a... yeah, sure.
Papa John's: Hi, this is John, and I'd like to tell you about all the great deals we have here at Papa John's. In the Sacramento area, we offer a variety of services...

Five minutes, seventeen seconds later...

Papa John's: ...In the Sacramento area...
Me: [click]
Me: [redial]
Phone: [ring ring]
Papa John's: Hi, thanks for calling Papa John's. Can you hold?
Me: No.
Papa John's: Uh... How may I help you?
Me: I have a coupon for a free pizza.
Papa John's: Your pizza will be ready in an hour.
Papa John's: [click]

I then went to the DC.

English was awesome. Someone's phone rang, one of those polyphonic ring tones, and C. Kiefer jumps up on his chair and starts dancing. He was still dancing, maybe 15 seconds after the ringing stopped. He's pretty weird. We talked about William Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily" and the necrophilia therein. Then we talked about the sexual allusions in Edgar Allen Poe's "A Tell-Tale Heart". Fun stuff.

After procrastinating a week, I finally got around to doing my calculus homework. I'm not sure if I'm a big fan of how the system works. The homework is posted on the site, and it's up to you to look it up and do it. When you go to the discussion, the first thing you do is hand in your homework. Then the rest of class is devoted to answering your questions about the homework. So basically you learn the stuff, but don't get credit for learning it. Theoretically, you could do next week's homework ahead of hand, then ask about that, but honestly, what college student wants to do extra work?

After biking back in the dark (which, by the way, is so awesome), I ran back up the stairs to where I am now. I'm sitting here very excited about the morrow, since the trumpet ensemble meets at noon:ten. Oh, about my chamber music audition. I've been keeping in touch with the director, and after quite a few emails, this is what he said:

"I definitely want you to be in the trumpet ensemble, and, if things work out that way, perhaps we can include in the brass quintet. I'm still working on that group."

How utterly awesome. If the brass quintet thing works out, that means I'll be taking the same amount of music classes as I am taking academic classes. Awesome.

Anyway, this is my life thusfar. Feel free to share the love and pass this blog around. It's time to sit around and do nothing.

I figured the world would probably want to know what's going on with my life, but I, an introverted recluse, don't want to talk to you. So here I've created this handy dandy impersonal way of letting you feel like you know what's going on in my life without me actually spending any of my time away from my precious study environment to talk to you. Plus, my throat hurts when I talk too long anyway. Since I've been here two weeks already, there are a few things you may have missed. I shall summarize.

Sunday, September 26th
I moved in. I didn't do a whole lot, since school hadn't actually started yet. It felt like a camp or something to that effect. The dorm life was something really exciting, just because it was new.

Monday, September 27th
It was a little weird. Everybody was still trying to get to know each other. Learn the names and such. It was around this time I started putting names to faces. In the morning, I walked all around campus, trying to get my bearings, or at least get lost. Sadly, neither actually happened. In the afternoon, I started using my bike. I decided that I had one, I might as well use it. And that's when I learned to love biking. Biking is so amazing. Much faster than walking, and it makes you look cool too, as long as you're not fat and slow. In the evening, we had a mandatory meeting that gained less than half the attendance. In a nutshell: don't drink, call 911. The nightly exercises becoming more and more routine.

Tuesday, September 28th
By this time, I've been eating three meals a day at the DC. This is a bit hazardous to my meal plan, so I've been trying to conserve. Anyway, I think I went to Watermelon Music in the afternoon. That place is amazing. They had at least 8 ukuleles. It just made me so happy. I decided I actually need to learn how to play that thing, so I bought a book on it. So awesome. Before that, I went to the music building with Laura and Rich to sign up for auditions (Laura plays sax, clarinet, flute, and sings, while Rich plays the bassoon). I ended up signing up for a chamber music ensemble, details later. I think I went to the Bike Barn and got a nice light hook up. It's sweet.

Wednesday, September 29th
I think sometime in the morning I met Sarah Brinker. Imagine that, she's on my floor. She would be the Sarah of the Sarah and Laura room. Oddly enough, Laura's last name is Brink. Life went pretty smoothly. I got a call from Brandon about meeting possibilities, so around 6 or so, he was done of the ARC. He took me back to his place. It's actually really nice. It reminds me of a snow cabin, where everything is up on the second floor, only a small entryway when you open the door. After meeting at the Greenway's, Brandon took me back to the dorms. I ran into Sarah again later that night, so I made the wise decision of talking to her about Santa Barbara instead of going to bed early the night before classes. When I say wise decision, I mean it. Around midnight, Patrick (a really amazing blues guitarist) decided to make easy mac without adding water. Apparantly he's used to some other kind that doesn't need water, so he didn't think twice. Anyway, the whole building, around 200 kids, had to be evacuated and standing at least 100 feet away from the building. So Sarah decided to call her twin Amy, who lives in one of the adjacent buildings, to let us hang out with her instead of in the cold. That lasted maybe 15 minutes or so, then we went back after the firemen had left, and went directly to bed.

Thursday, September 30th
Classes begin. I started with my Chem lecture at 8 in the morning. Shengshu Huang, the TA, was harder to understand than his name. After about ten minutes of confusion, we gathered our bags and left. It made a great impression on me. At 2:10 I had English. Such an awesome class. The teacher reminds me of Mitch Hedberg in looks, attitude, and openness about drug use. He's absolutely hilarious. The structure of the class reminds me of my AP English class, pretty much entirely Socratic Dialogues. So amazingly great.

Friday, October 1st
Second day of classes. The first day of my Chem/Math grind. Three days a week, I have Chem lecture, then an hour later, Calculus lecture. Fridays are nice though, since that's all I have. In the afternoon, I went with the Brinker twins to set up bank accounts. They were going to Wells Fargo, so I just went along with them. Their dad (a banker) told them to go there, so it seemed like sound advice. Unfortunately, I just didn't like their service. Everything was slow, slow, slow, and agonizing, drawn out process. Luckily, Riddy invited me over to their place for a night of ping pong and Rook. It was really fun. There were about 10 people there, with such strangers as Darin and Maria, Abe, Miguel, Riddy, and a few actual strangers. As the night started winding down, Riddy and I played ping pong until past midnight. We were playing for a good 4-5 hours. I went home and went to sleep.

Saturday, October 2nd
Some gene must have been formed or something, because I played ping pong for another two hours. Weird.

Sunday, October 3rd
I called the Greenways beforehand, so they came and picked me up at about 7:25. We then went and picked up Darin and Maria, then drove the rest of the way to Chico, making very good time. The meetings were amazing. I'll have to transcribe my notes sometime. They're definitely worthwhile. At lunch, I saw Sarah and her new boyfriend, Peter, which was weird, so I moved on. I saw Miranda and Shari for the first time in California though. They're really nice and not that far away. The second meeting was actually more surprising than the first, seeming how Dick Middleton spoke. After the meeting, I went with Brandon to his home so he could pick up his laundry. We ended up being there for about half an hour, which is by no means a bad thing. I spent most of my time on their antique Steinway and Sons piano. It's by far the most beautiful piano I've ever played. And their house isn't that shabby either. After that, we went to Kermit's for a get together. There were maybe 30 kids there, so it was pretty nice. Afterwards, Brandon and I rode back through the middle of nowhere, into the outskirts, called Davis.

Monday, October 4th
Chem, Math. Then I had my first Chem lab. Three hours stuck in the pit of despair. It's in the basement, so there are no windows. No cell phones get reception. It is seriously the most evil and depressing place ever. Bah.

Tuesday, October 5th
Since my music improv class has yet to be posted, I slept until lunchtime. Life was great. Afterwards, I went to my chamber music audition, which was pretty awkward. I felt out of place with a brass instrument. The instructor didn't really know what to do with me. So he waited until the trombone instructor could listen in as well, since he plays brass. Later on, I worked on my English paper (in response to John Updike's A&P). I already wrote one about the debate earlier too. And then on Thursday I had a presentation due for English. So I made good use of the time given since our English class was cancelled. At night I had math discussion. It's so nice to have a TA that I can actually understand. He seems very knowledgeable too. It's just late at night and you have to be there since he collects the homework.

Wednesday, October 6th
Chem. Math. Being paranoid about Wednesday nights, I left my Wednesdays open from noon on. Pretty relaxing day though. At night, Brandon came and picked me up, the routine.

Thursday, October 7th
Back to the beginning. Shengshu is a little easier to understand when he's not in the lab. Still speaking another language though. The whole day I was dreading my English presentation instead of actually preparing for it. So in the two hours beforehand, I got everything together, made handouts (cost me $3), then prepared myself mentally. When the time came to actually present though, C. Kiefer (the professor, www.christiankiefer.com) kept on interrupting me with half hour tangents on the Cannes Film Festival and the likes. I guess it was just so good he had to give a lecture on it. But afterwards, he asked me for the critical essays I found and highlighted, so I guess he really did like it.

Friday, October 8th
Chem lecture, math lecture. Boring stuff. Then I just goofed around for the rest of the day.

Saturday, October 9th
I wanted to figure out the bike paths, so at about noon, I went down to the Arboretum. That place is really beautiful. It was really windy though, windy enough to make me stop riding. I managed to find myself across the freeway, so then I stopped and went home. I went to the ARC with Tony and Jared to play badminton, which ended up being an awesome sport. Wait, I think that was Friday. Saturday we went back to try and play badminton again, but the courts were full. So we played ping pong for an hour. Then, as I was walking out, I saw Clay in the Fitness Center, and he told me that I need to work out. So he directed me to the rowing maching, where I spent half an hour and rowed 5500 meters. I'm still very sore. Afterwards, I was falling over because I was so tired. And I didn't make it to the DC at all, since the hours are skewed on the weekend. I slept very well.

Sunday, October 10th
At about three am, my hand hit my clock, which then fell to the floor and shattered open. Too tired to fix it, I resumed sleeping. I woke up at about 8:45 to get ready for meeting. Did a bunch of stuff, ironed my pants, ate oatmeal. I went outside at 10 to see the Greenway's car awaiting me. Meeting was at the Johnson's in Woodland. It was a nice meeting, pretty big for what I'm used to. Afterwards, Riddy asked if I wanted to go out to lunch, so I happily accepted. We went to Applebee's, not outstanding food, but much better than the DC. I got the fajitas (I made 5) and cleaned my plate. I then went back to the dorm and worked on the Chem lab I put off since a week prior. At 6, I got a call from Rebecca, that she was outside, awaiting my arrival for our planned dinner. Dinner was lovely. There were a few of her friends there, and Matt, who was on his way back to Tahoe. After dinner, we tried making snickerdoodles, but we used old Crisco, so they ended up tasting like oily wax. I wrapped them up and put "free" on them. They didn't last 5 minutes in the dorm.

Monday, October 11
Today has been a normal Monday. Pretty blah, as usual. I kept on nodding off during the lectures since I'm so tired. I ought to go to bed. Then there was the dreaded lab. I finally finished the lab from last week about 10 minutes before I turned it in. The lab was shorter than the previous one since we had everything figured out. But it was still the pit of despair. It felt like being released from prison as I got out of the building. I called Riddy, who was to pick me up and take me to the Fleck's for dinner (Joe Alexander was there... he's doing fine, which was the same I told him you all were doing). Dinner was a very quiet event. Very different from what I'm used to. It felt like Brandon and I were leading the conversation. I usually eat dinner where there are long periods of silence. I did manage to get those little girls to open up though. I just turned to them and asked if they can talk. That seemed to work. They wouldn't shut up. Kept on going on and on about horses and books about horses and Davis science camp and school and enough already. But I was the one who started these monsters; it was my responsibility to make sure they didn't feel dejected and kill themselves. We left pretty early, like around 9:30. I got back and decided that I need to tell you about my life. So here it is. Oh, and I did laundry for the second time today. I love hot laundry.