Wednesday, November 24, 2004
St. Joe isn't good for a whole lot else, however
Last time I ice skated was at Skate and Create, a little almost day-care program run by the City of Fort Collins over at the EPIC Center (don't ask what EPIC stands for, I can't remember). EPIC had, among things, a skating rink, and I can remember learning to do the basics with a bunch of other little kidds. After we moved, I pretty much stopped ice skating all together. Until last
Sunday, that is.
Benedictine put on this ice skating thing, and for like five bucks you could rent crappy skates at this rink in St. Joseph (St. Joe is this medium-sized town in Missouri like half an hour from campus). So, not having much else do to, me and a bunch of friends piled into a few cars and rode off.
Once I touched the ice, it immeadiately became appearent to me how long it had been since I had done this. I couldn't remember how to do a thing. I could stand, but that was about it. And to make matters worse, pretty much everyone else in the rink knew what they were doing. So there I was, the only newbie in the entire rink.
My friends were great about it, though, helping me along during the entire night. Eventually I became proficient enough that I could move on my own without being held the whole time. I was making good progress, appearently, but I still felt stupid going a long at the molassas pace I was going.
Fortunately, Jimmy arrived a little bit later. Jimmy was only a little bit more seasoned than I was, so we were able to keep each other's slow company as we went around the rink. It was fun.
The rink closed around midnight, so after that we all went to Perkins. Lemmie tell ya, milkshakes taste that much better after murdering your ankles in rentals trying to learn how to gracefully move on ice. Mmmm strawberry.
Sunday, that is.
Benedictine put on this ice skating thing, and for like five bucks you could rent crappy skates at this rink in St. Joseph (St. Joe is this medium-sized town in Missouri like half an hour from campus). So, not having much else do to, me and a bunch of friends piled into a few cars and rode off.
Once I touched the ice, it immeadiately became appearent to me how long it had been since I had done this. I couldn't remember how to do a thing. I could stand, but that was about it. And to make matters worse, pretty much everyone else in the rink knew what they were doing. So there I was, the only newbie in the entire rink.
My friends were great about it, though, helping me along during the entire night. Eventually I became proficient enough that I could move on my own without being held the whole time. I was making good progress, appearently, but I still felt stupid going a long at the molassas pace I was going.
Fortunately, Jimmy arrived a little bit later. Jimmy was only a little bit more seasoned than I was, so we were able to keep each other's slow company as we went around the rink. It was fun.
The rink closed around midnight, so after that we all went to Perkins. Lemmie tell ya, milkshakes taste that much better after murdering your ankles in rentals trying to learn how to gracefully move on ice. Mmmm strawberry.
Friday, November 19, 2004
My memory's like swiss cheese, I swear
As many of you know, I tend to be kinda... forgetful. I have a habit of forgetting dates and information, loosing random things I need, or not remembering to set my alarm clock. Well, my good ol' forgetfulness struck once again last Tuesday: I lost my backpack.
Of all the things I could loose, my backpack is probabally the worst. It has all my books, all my noteboooks, and all my assignments. I loose that, and I'm in trouble. I mean, yeah, misplacing my jacket is pretty stupid, but that just means I have to use my winter jacket instead; loosing my phone would be a real expensive mistake, but I can always replace that one, too. Replacing my World Civ notes, however, wouldn't be so easy.
The fact that I had actually lost my backpack wasn't fully revealed to me until around Tuesday night, when I had decided to start doing some homework. I went into my room to take my homework over to the roost, when I realized my packpack wasn't actually in my room! "Odd", I said to myself. "Where the heck did I put it?"
I looked in Bobby's room to no avail. Jimmy and Joe didn't have it, either. Where was it? I mentally attempted to through my day, to try to remember where I last had it: I remembered waking up, taking a shower, and grabbing my backpack to head off to Greek. I remember setting my backpack down in 402 for my hour-long Greek lab. I remember going off to the caf for lunch, carrying my Greek textbook.
Wait a second- lunch... I wasn't carrying my backpack! I'd left it in the Admin building! Of course, by the time I had come to this revelation, it was locked up, so I couldn't do anything about it. "No problem," I said to myself. "I'll just get it tomorrow morning during Greek."
Well, the night soon ended, and morning came. Much to my dismay, however, no bookbag of mine was present in 402 over in Admin the next day. Okay, now I was a little bit worried. The caf didn't have it, either. Where the heck had my backpack gone?!
Another day passed with me backpackless. I checked over my and my friends' rooms multiple times after classes, but still that stupid backpack failed to appear. I was still worrying about it when I was sending Rob off to Texas after lunch today. A group of us was standing in the Bishop Fink parking lot, waiting for one of Rob's Texas buddies on campus to pull over in his car. Among the group waitng was Katie J., who had just come back from getting her work study assignment from Operations.
"Paul!"
I looked over. "Yeah, Katie?"
"I checked with Operations, and they have your backpack. Some security guard picked it up at a classroom in Admin after you lost it."
"I'm saved! My backpack! Now I can... do homework.. yay..."
A lesson well learned, folks. Never loose things that are important, like homework. Now I kinda wish I had actually managed to loose it...
Of all the things I could loose, my backpack is probabally the worst. It has all my books, all my noteboooks, and all my assignments. I loose that, and I'm in trouble. I mean, yeah, misplacing my jacket is pretty stupid, but that just means I have to use my winter jacket instead; loosing my phone would be a real expensive mistake, but I can always replace that one, too. Replacing my World Civ notes, however, wouldn't be so easy.
The fact that I had actually lost my backpack wasn't fully revealed to me until around Tuesday night, when I had decided to start doing some homework. I went into my room to take my homework over to the roost, when I realized my packpack wasn't actually in my room! "Odd", I said to myself. "Where the heck did I put it?"
I looked in Bobby's room to no avail. Jimmy and Joe didn't have it, either. Where was it? I mentally attempted to through my day, to try to remember where I last had it: I remembered waking up, taking a shower, and grabbing my backpack to head off to Greek. I remember setting my backpack down in 402 for my hour-long Greek lab. I remember going off to the caf for lunch, carrying my Greek textbook.
Wait a second- lunch... I wasn't carrying my backpack! I'd left it in the Admin building! Of course, by the time I had come to this revelation, it was locked up, so I couldn't do anything about it. "No problem," I said to myself. "I'll just get it tomorrow morning during Greek."
Well, the night soon ended, and morning came. Much to my dismay, however, no bookbag of mine was present in 402 over in Admin the next day. Okay, now I was a little bit worried. The caf didn't have it, either. Where the heck had my backpack gone?!
Another day passed with me backpackless. I checked over my and my friends' rooms multiple times after classes, but still that stupid backpack failed to appear. I was still worrying about it when I was sending Rob off to Texas after lunch today. A group of us was standing in the Bishop Fink parking lot, waiting for one of Rob's Texas buddies on campus to pull over in his car. Among the group waitng was Katie J., who had just come back from getting her work study assignment from Operations.
"Paul!"
I looked over. "Yeah, Katie?"
"I checked with Operations, and they have your backpack. Some security guard picked it up at a classroom in Admin after you lost it."
"I'm saved! My backpack! Now I can... do homework.. yay..."
A lesson well learned, folks. Never loose things that are important, like homework. Now I kinda wish I had actually managed to loose it...
Friday, November 12, 2004
We usually end up frying one of the turkeys
Okay, first I wanna apologize for not posting in more than a week. There's this huge Greek test I'm freaking out about, so I've been diligently studying all week. Don't worry, though, the test is gone and done as we speak, so things should return to normal soon here.
So I spent the weekend in Omaha with my family and some friends, and guys, it was great! I miss the place a lot, and it was fun to stay at my house for a weekend like I did. See, last Saturday was the date for "Cabaret Cafe", Skutt's music department fundraiser. It was a lot of fun; I got to see the show choir, the girls show choir, and the band do the pieces they've been practicing for various events. My sister, always the overachiever, was in all three, so she was pretty busy during the performances.
Although going to Cabaret Cafe was fun, it's also kinda depressing. Seeing everyone at home made me wish I was at Skutt again, driving me and my little sister to school at 7 am so she could go to show choir practice. Even though I was only there for one year, it was a great time, and I wouldn't trade it for anything. Just to be a senior again, walking through the halls, arguing about whatever with Joe B, or discussing computer science stuff with Ben... high school, I've decided, isn't so bad, even when you have to move right near the end of it.
Ah well, times change. Luckily, though, I'll be stopping back home for Thanksgiving break in a few weeks, and then not only will I get to see my family and Omaha again, but a great big chunk of my extended family. It's gonna be crazy. When our family gathers together under one house for thanksgiving, we have to cook two or more turkeys just so we can have enough for leftovers. Lefovers, of course, being one of the best parts of Thanksgiving.
There's a group of people going to the Kansas City Opera to watch "Of Mice and Men", and I'm considering going. On the other hand, though, there's a movie being shown in the Tower Classroom tonight, too- "Arsenic and Old Lace". I saw a play production of it, and it was a riot. So now all I have to do is decide which one to go to...
Decisions, decisions. Later everyone.
So I spent the weekend in Omaha with my family and some friends, and guys, it was great! I miss the place a lot, and it was fun to stay at my house for a weekend like I did. See, last Saturday was the date for "Cabaret Cafe", Skutt's music department fundraiser. It was a lot of fun; I got to see the show choir, the girls show choir, and the band do the pieces they've been practicing for various events. My sister, always the overachiever, was in all three, so she was pretty busy during the performances.
Although going to Cabaret Cafe was fun, it's also kinda depressing. Seeing everyone at home made me wish I was at Skutt again, driving me and my little sister to school at 7 am so she could go to show choir practice. Even though I was only there for one year, it was a great time, and I wouldn't trade it for anything. Just to be a senior again, walking through the halls, arguing about whatever with Joe B, or discussing computer science stuff with Ben... high school, I've decided, isn't so bad, even when you have to move right near the end of it.
Ah well, times change. Luckily, though, I'll be stopping back home for Thanksgiving break in a few weeks, and then not only will I get to see my family and Omaha again, but a great big chunk of my extended family. It's gonna be crazy. When our family gathers together under one house for thanksgiving, we have to cook two or more turkeys just so we can have enough for leftovers. Lefovers, of course, being one of the best parts of Thanksgiving.
There's a group of people going to the Kansas City Opera to watch "Of Mice and Men", and I'm considering going. On the other hand, though, there's a movie being shown in the Tower Classroom tonight, too- "Arsenic and Old Lace". I saw a play production of it, and it was a riot. So now all I have to do is decide which one to go to...
Decisions, decisions. Later everyone.
Tuesday, November 02, 2004
There goes twelve bucks
Homecoming wasn't really anything big in high school; there were special theme dress days and maybe a dance at the end of the week. All in all, it wasn't that exciting.
Enter college. Homecoming week around here was amazing! Bonfires, bed races, parades... there was all kinds of stuff going on! It was great. I missed some of the stuff because of the radio play, but still got to catch the parade and the dance, so yeah. The dance was pretty cool, and since it was close to haloween we all dressed up. My costume really only consisted of a pirate hat and an eyepatch, but hey, what can I say, I'm lazy.
The radio play ended last weekend, too, and I'm glad I got to participate in it. It was cool to see everything come together like it did in the end, and people who watched it said they enjoyed it. The only bad thing that came out of it was the extra pair of black pants I have, but I'll survive. Chuck had told us, you see, that we needed to dress in black for this performacne; me, thinking I didn't own any black pants, went off to Wal-Mart to buy a pair on Saturday. Picture the scene: there I am, putting these slacks on before the performance, when my eyes wander over to my clothes. Things seem perfectly normal, except for the darn pair of black pants I appearently already had sitting underneath some jeans. I couldn't believe it. It might have been a good idea to actually check to see if I hadn't brought any black pants instead of just asumming, huh? I'll remember that next time.
Oh, and National Novel Writing Month officially started yesterday (http://www.NaNoWriMo.org for more info). I've only cranked out like 500 or so words, so I need to get crakin'. I'll tell you all more about my novel later, but for now I think I'll take a nap.
Enter college. Homecoming week around here was amazing! Bonfires, bed races, parades... there was all kinds of stuff going on! It was great. I missed some of the stuff because of the radio play, but still got to catch the parade and the dance, so yeah. The dance was pretty cool, and since it was close to haloween we all dressed up. My costume really only consisted of a pirate hat and an eyepatch, but hey, what can I say, I'm lazy.
The radio play ended last weekend, too, and I'm glad I got to participate in it. It was cool to see everything come together like it did in the end, and people who watched it said they enjoyed it. The only bad thing that came out of it was the extra pair of black pants I have, but I'll survive. Chuck had told us, you see, that we needed to dress in black for this performacne; me, thinking I didn't own any black pants, went off to Wal-Mart to buy a pair on Saturday. Picture the scene: there I am, putting these slacks on before the performance, when my eyes wander over to my clothes. Things seem perfectly normal, except for the darn pair of black pants I appearently already had sitting underneath some jeans. I couldn't believe it. It might have been a good idea to actually check to see if I hadn't brought any black pants instead of just asumming, huh? I'll remember that next time.
Oh, and National Novel Writing Month officially started yesterday (http://www.NaNoWriMo.org for more info). I've only cranked out like 500 or so words, so I need to get crakin'. I'll tell you all more about my novel later, but for now I think I'll take a nap.
