I did promise (Sort of)

Going to see Ben Folds at U Maine Orono tomorrow. Should be a good show. Basically, I can't wait to hear songs from his latest album live. Next week I may be going to see The Thermals in Portland, but I'm not sure yet. Definitely going to see a SeaDogs game (AA baseball FTW) next Friday. School is almost over, which is freaking me out. In between now and next Friday, which is the last day of classes, I have an O-chem exam, a Roman History paper, an Immunology presentation, an O-chem lab report and a Roman Myth and Legends test. Not to mention two Chorale concerts, a student government double meeting (both at the same time!), and various other little things to be taken care of (for instance, packing all my crap up and schlepping it to Portland).

On the bright side, the summer is looking pretty solid. I have a job all lined up (assuming I ever hear from HR in Atlanta), my evenings and weekends will finally be free of worry, and most importantly I won't be working for WalMart this summer. I have a great room with a great roommate to look forward to next year, and assuming I get the classes I want (two of them are overbooked!), a pretty good schedule. Not only that, but I can (have to, actually, because of school work-study rules) cut down on my hours at the campus bookstore, since I got hired as a music director at the radio station. Now I get paid to listen to country and folk music and write blurbs for it!

Listening to Ben Folds to get in the mood for the concert, and wondering what he'll do about "You Don't Know Me," since Regina Spektor is such a big part of the song. Hm...anyway, bed for now. More later.

Much, much later...

Spring break was marvelous, and I'm going to use recovering from it as an excuse for not blogging for about a month. Honestly, though, my routine has been thrown off lately. I don't know why. Maybe it's because I've started using Google Chrome interchangeably with Firefox. I haven't personalized Chrome to the extent that I have Firefox - it has none of my RSS feeds, bookmarks, etc...which means that I've fallen out of the habits that Firefox kept me in line with...checking RSS feeds chief among those habits. That may say something to the non-necessary nature of these habits, but I honestly do feel a little guilty when I realize that I haven't checked my RSS feeds...I'm sure that using Chrome constantly would free me of a lot of my webcomics, but because I still rely on Firefox for much of my browsing, I still check them fairly often. Other habits, however, such as blogging, have suffered more.

Nevertheless, it is late in the night, and I am caffeinated and writing a paper for Immunology, so I return to this key habit. Updates, both big and small: there is an alarmingly short time between now and the end of school. Classes are done May 8th; between now and then I have exams, presentations and performances, but before you and I know it I'll be back in Cincinnati. I've obtained a summer job which promises to not only be interesting and engaging, but also will pay well...and given my history with jobs and salaries, I'm quite happy about it. I got a raise at the campus bookstore as well this year, and will get another one in the fall, which enables me to do things like buy a new baseball glove. I splurged a little bit, but it was worth it; I now have a brand new Rawlings glove that will probably be my glove until I hand it off to a child, possibly my own. Not that I have any real plans for that, it's just an expression of how I think that this is probably the last baseball glove I will buy myself. It's also the first, but that doesn't matter as much.

I saw Vampire Weekend in concert over the past weekend, and it was a free outdoor concert. It was wonderful. I am looking forward to four things musical this summer: an Avett Brothers concert and new CD, and a Wilco concert and new CD. Exciting times.

The stream of consciousness will continue (in this post) after I finish graphing some ELISA results. Be back soon.

Okay, I lied. Sorry, but I checked my main RSS feeds (if you're interested, they're IDTMI and You Heard me!), and from there I followed links to the dictionary.com daily crossword puzzle. It uses the same engine as the LA Times online crossword puzzle, which I do daily. I might add this to my daily routine of crosswords: NYT and LAT, and occasionally the Globe. In the past year and a half or so I've progressed from a sad fellow who could barely handle a Monday puzzle to become a person who can often manage the Thursday puzzle, and every so often a Friday puzzle too. Saturday and Sunday are mysteries to me, since I can't get free copies of the Times then, but I do fairly well on the LAT puzzles on the weekend. Just another part of my day: wake up, go to class, get paper and do puzzle. Sometimes (Tuesdays and Thursdays) it's wake up, get paper, go to work, go to class, do puzzle. Not during the actual class, of course, just before and after.

And now I really will do some work. If I'm still awake when I'm done, I'll return. This is a habit that I've missed: late night stream of consciousness logorrhea.

Well, I'm done with the Immunology, at least. It's going to be a rough week, what with BMR being in hell week (performances this Thursday, Friday and Saturday) and an organic chemistry lab report to write up still...along with various other things.

Course selection for the fall opens up later this morning, and I'm basically clear on what I'll be taking: Advanced Immunology, Physics, Plant Physiology and Greek History. For the first time in a year I'll have afternoons free, even if it comes at the expense of starting at 9:30 in the morning on Tuesdays and Thursdays (Greek History) rather than at 11 (Advanced Immuno). It should be a fun semester. And now I'm going to bed, I swear. Alarm goes off in five and a half hours. Hooray for sleep deprivation...after all, it is college. This is the kind of thing that causes me to wonder why a t-test is showing my results as non-significant even when they clearly are, only to realize a half hour later that the t-test is showing a significant difference, and that I'm just ignoring a zero in the decimal. That kind of fun stuff. Which is why I'll be carefully reading over my paper before lunch tomorrow, just to make sure that none of it slipped through and made it into the paper.

BED! I swear. No more music, no more ranting, no more Facebook. Just me and my pillow, and the possibility of switching on the lamp and reading until I pass out. And maybe I'll post again before a month passes.

Time is marching on

The most alarming thing about the beginning of the week is not only that it's the beginning of a new week of class and lab and work, but that it's already the beginning of a new week. What happened to last week? We're already almost a month into the spring semester, and in a little over three weeks I'll be in Argentina. After which I'll wonder how a week in Argentina passed so quickly. At least during the weekend I'm expecting to feel cheated of time by Sunday evening. But on a Monday? I dread the drag of a full week. And yet somehow at the end of the long haul it feels somehow shorter. And once two weeks have gone by, that first week seems practically nonexistent. At this rate I'll be home before I know it. And then I'll be halfway through college. Now there's a scary thought. I'm going to stop typing now and go enjoy the time I have left. There's about two feet of snow on the ground, so my enjoyment is going to be limited to winter activities. Snowshoeing this weekend for sure.

And time is still marching on.

Student Film

Spent a Saturday doing this. Hooray student film projects! Enjoy...


Encounters from Powder and Wig on Vimeo.

January continues

Went skiing for the first time ever today. Had worked out in the gym with a friend on Thursday, and my shoulders were (and are) killing me. Now my left knee is sore too. Those issues aside, however, skiing was amazing. It was a gorgeous day, and after a few runs on the bunny hill I was able to ski pretty decently (in my opinion) without too many falls. I did attempt the biggest hill on the mountain, which in retrospect was a mistake, because I couldn't slow myself down effectively and so went down a fairly steep slope going extremely fast. Suffice it to say, that fall hurt a little. Still, by the end of the day I was skiing without falling and I will go again. The mountain where we went, Titcomb (heh heh heh) only charges $18 for a day pass and $18 more for equipment rental, so to go once every month or so isn't extremely prohibitive. It was also not especially crowded. A good day, and a skill acquired. Hoorah!

Winter Fun

With a full foot of snow on the ground (it just tonight became perfect packing snow, too), the radiator in my room quit. No heat all weekend, but luckily the physical plant sent a guy over when I called, and now my room is a comfortable 80 degrees. There's no balance here.

Went snowshoeing on Sunday, and will be going again next Sunday. It's a great way to take advantage of the snow, and a lot of fun to boot. On Sunday the temp was below ten; it's warmed up since then (actually, it's above freezing as I type this), but the cold should set in by Thursday or Friday. At least I've got a working radiator now.

In other news related to me, the department production of Much Ado About Nothing is progressing nicely; I have the role of Don Pedro, played by Denzel Washington in the Kenneth Branagh version of the play. The Branagh version, incidentally, is fantastic, and deserves a viewing.

Jim Rice is in the Hall of Fame; this almost makes up for the Giants' loss in the playoffs, but it was tough to see another team go down in the second round of playoffs. Hopefully the Red Sox will have a good season; the lineup and pitching rotation should combine to produce lots of wins. Hopefully.

Anyway, just a quick update. More when I'm bored at 2 AM again.

It's been a while

For which I apologize. Internet access has become spastic, what with the whole trouble of going and using the neighbors' wireless, and before that was final exams. On the bright side, I have all of January to relax (when I'm not in rehearsal, that is). I have to say, whoever thought of creating a program in which students take one class for an entire month is a hero.

So for the month of January I will be acting in a production of Much Ado About Nothing, and in my off hours (anytime not between 9-5 on a weekday) I will be reading, sleeping, snowshoeing, eating, etc. And possibly blogging.

The year is nearly over. Yay. I wonder how long it will be before I remember to put 09 at the end of all my dates. I seem to recall listing some achievements at the end of last year. It's past midnight, and I don't have the energy to do that this year.

So I'll just say that my New Year's Resolution (all caps for emphasis) is to Do Better. More emphasis.

And more later. Now, bed.