Comics

So I've been on this reading kick of trying to average reading a book a week for this entire year but I don't know how I'm going to count comics in here. I think that some, like Black Hole , should count for sure. Others like the Fables series I'm not too sure about. And still others like Questionable Content are even more ambiguous. Any suggestions?

Rachel just sent me a few lists of top moderns books, top movies, and the like and I really want to go through the entire lists. Even the books that I have read and the movies I have seen before. There are so many books that I've read that I don't remember well and the like with movies. I'd just like to go through them.

Back to comics for a minute, or more specifically questionable content. This comic has really struck a cord with me and I definitely went through they're entire archives in a couple of days. It's way too funny for it's own good, as well as way to real for it's own good. I just see myself in it so many times. I like it. It's full of all kinds of indie references but don't let that deter you as it's still beyond hilarious if you know nothing about the indie music scene, so says my musically inept girl. (Strictly in a knowledge of different bands and whatnot sense that is.) Either way look and laugh and get addicted to it.

I've been listening to an absolute ton of Colin Meloy / Decemberists recently and I just cannot seem to get enough. I'm really falling in love with the poppy folkish kind of sound right now. It just sounds so true and bare and revealing and lovely.

Here's a question for you. Why was I so gifted in the sciences yet have this incomparable love for the arts? Not to say that I don't love the sciences either but, at least at this point in my life, the arts rule my heart. I guess that's weird coming from someone who goes to an engineering school but that's where I'm at. I would much rather listen to music and study it than do physics. I would much rather read a novel and look at it critically than figure out the percentage of pearlite in a microstructure. And on and on... Not to say that I'm upset with my current career choice, because I'm not. My passions just lie outside of that now. I don't know.

I can say one thing though... I love life.

Currently Listening to... Calexico | Iron and Wine - Live on NPR

Currently Reading... The Magician's Nephew

Someone's got a case of the Mondays....

Luckily it's not me.

So, I had to work again this last Sunday night, but it wasn't horrible. That might be because I did absolutely nothing. I sat around, watched football, and had a few beers. Talk about a hard night's work, right? Either way Jen and Adam showed up at the bar so I ended up staying once I was done and catching up a little bit with them. I hadn't seen Jen since sometime this summer so it was real nice to catch up with her and see how her life, post graduation, is going. As for Adam, the last time that I saw him was at a senior barrel last semester where we complained about materials science and how we need to just get out of it and we ended up playing the fun game called stuff as many things into the freezer as possible at someone's house we didn't know too well. Well as you know I switched it up into econ, and as I found out, Adam added Business Administration to his repertoire. Ah, the plight of those who rock at math and science and don't want to be engineers.

Anyways we got on to the topic of books because Adam was loaning The Kite Runner to Jen and I've read it, and would recommend it. So, he mentioned that he was reading A Million Little Pieces and that he is only halfway through it but is really enjoying it. So, I'm going to borrow it from him once he has finished it. I looked it up on Amazon and it looks like it has some very polarizing opinions so, I'm looking forward to it.

I was finally able to play in my first broomball game yesterday as well, and we lit up FYE 10 to 2. I had a goal, three or four assists and about a plus 7, so altogether you could say that I was kind of a big deal.

On Saturday I saw The Weather Man. It's a movie with Nicholas Cage and Michael Caine about their relationship as father and son, and Cage's role as an estranged father. It was a really good movie and I'll say that Michael Caine's character should be up for top movie father ever. It was a dramedy that really just worked... I don't really know how to put it other than that I was laughing hard at the same time as I really felt for the characters and what they were going through. Altogether a good movie.

I really need to do this more often so that I (a) don't' forget things and (b) don't just ramble on like this...

Currently Listening to... a bunch of random unreleased Page France songs.
Currently Reading... The Silver Chair by C. S. Lewis

Flyin' through books

So my last post said that I just finished Prince Caspian... and now I just finished The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. I absolutely loved the end of it. I won't give it away for anyone who has yet to read it, but I will suggest that you do. I'm really pleased that I'm doing alot of reading this semester. I'd like to keep up with it.

School just feels weird right now. I'm worried that I'm not doing enough in my classes because I really haven't had much homework yet. It's like a feeling that once assignments and whatnot do come that it's going to hit me like a load of bricks. I figure that if I catch up on my reading fully, (I know who reads their textbooks right?), that I might feel a little bit better about where I'm at. Because in all actuallity I'm not really behind in anything. Oh well. I just turned in my first assignment of the year and I have a quiz tomorrow so maybe I'll feel like I've done something once I've done that.

Work is annoying. They keep on scheduling me for days that I have tried to tell them that I can't work. For example, I'm scheduled tonight and tonight is praise band practice. I talked to Tom and he's not going to be scheduling me on Wednesdays anymore, but it does look like I'm going to get shafted with Sunday nights. Oh well, it's just more annoying than anything.

I'll be starting up a radio show on Wednesdays beginning next week from 2:00 to 5:00 PM. I'm pretty excited about this, as it will be my best time slot yet and it'll be my first weekly three hour show.

That's my life...

Currently listening to... Pixel Revolt by John Vanderslice
Currently reading... The Silver Chair by C. S. Lewis

Hurray for the Lazy Day...

So I think that I'm going to really enjoy Tuesdays and Thursdays. I wake up around 9 and then get to be lazy until 3:30, my first class. Like today, I woke up and lounged around and finished Prince Caspian, which I had only read part of before and really enjoyed. I've listened to some music that I've had for a while and just hadn't gotten around to listening to yet, Cat Power's The Greatest and Rufus Wainwright's self-titled album. It's been nice.

It's the first TNT for the new year tonight and though I didn't practice with the band yesterday, stupid work, I'm extremely excited to sing tonight. I don't know who is talking, what they are talking about, or any of the other details, but I'm really looking forward to it. As for my walk, well I've been distant from God since I've come back to Tech. It really has a lot to do with me just not putting in any effort in that area which is, well, sad. I need to start back on doing daily devotionals slash bible readings to get myself back into the swing of things. I also need to be praying more. Why can we find it so easy to ignore the one thing that means the most to us?

Classes are going well, and I truly feel that I'm going to do really well this semester. I'm excited about school and am staying on top of my studies which is beyond awesome.

I still haven't gotten back on the exercising kick yet, but that is not due to a lack of desire so much as a lack of shoes fit for exercising in. Hopefully I'll be able to find some this weekend and get up on it.

The beard grows long and still gets to go unkempt for another month, so it's pretty excited.

Currently Listening to... We are Scientists - With Love and Squalor
Currently Reading... The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

Confused?

It's Tuesday night and I'm not working... I don't know what to do with myself. I went over to the Keweenaw Coop with Jake and picked up a Pinot and and pretty good beer . Talked with Steve for a little bit. Started up on Prince Caspian. Was bored. Oh well, the night is young and so am I. I'll figure out something.

Currently Listening to... Plus Minus - You Are Here
Currently Reading... C.S. Lewis - Prince Caspian

First Day of School

I feel like I need a killer backpack that has the Cubs on it or something cool like that with a matching lunchbox to boot. Well, I am excited and this will be my first semester as an economics major. I have high hopes and expectations for this coming semester, nothing but good vibes. Waking up early, (i.e. before the alarm), this morning was a great way to start things and hopefully it'll be all good from here. This is my most busy day of the week, so I'll have the proverbial, "It's all downhill from here" after the day is out. I have a night class from 7 to 9:30 so we'll see how that goes, but I don't mind it too much so that's good. My room is probably cleaner than it has been all year, with plans to make it cleaner. The word of the day is apprehension.

Currently reading... TLTWTW
Currently listening to... Camera Obscura's Underachievers Please Try Harder
(And yes I get the irony of listening to this on the first day of classes.)

So I was reading Scoops new column...

... and I come across this...

KG and Oprah
How do you make Mother Moses cry? In a year when ball players were getting press for "str8 stupidness" it seemed strange that Kevin Garnett's written appearance on the Oprah Winfrey Show went notice-free.


He wrote her a letter. They gave her the letter on-air as a surprise. In the letter, he said he wanted to donate something to her Angel Network, which was building houses for those who lost their homes in Hurricane Katrina. His pledge: To build one house per month for the next two years. That's 24 homes! Two seasons of "Extreme Makeover." Financially funded by one person … with no commercial return on his donation. A gesture that should have landed him on the cover of Time alongside Bill and Melinda Gates and Bono as Persons of The Year. A gesture that made Oprah -- read it again, Oprah -- break down.


But still, no member of the media wrote a story about it. USA Today scripted a blurb; ESPN.com made a mention. But overall -- nada.


Now, let Kevin Garnett or any other athlete run a stop light; let them miss a practice unexcused; let them miss a child support payment -- Bam! Lead story on "SportsCenter," forum discussion on "Rome Is Burning," breaking news on CNN.


In an era when it is too often publicly asked: "Where are our kids' role models?"; in a society that is starved for areas of positiveness to come from our professional athletes; in a world where we have been conditioned to believe that every one of these young superstars is unappreciative, ungrateful, undeserving and a void soul, a situation arose that could have shifted the entire perception of their existence. What Kevin Garnett did was just that big.


But guess who dropped the ball? Us. The media, for not saying anything about it, and the public, for not demanding that we do.


The moral of this story: How do you make the media not pay attention to you when you are a superstar athlete? Do something humane.


I've just this year begun reading Scoop's columns and I'm thankful that I have. He covers the topic of racism in the sports world in a way that makes itnoticeablee. Did you hear about the KG thing? If you did I bet it was brief. This is incredible and it renews my faith that sports superstars can be role models and should be. This act of charity is simply stunning and I don't want it to go unannounced. Thanks Kevin.

YAY!!!

Quick news. My parents will co-sign on a loan for me, and I'll be able to afford next semester's tuition now! I'm maybe a little happy.

Listening to... Pixel Revolt by John Vanderslice

Reading... Narnia's TLTWTW

Sigh

Well I'm back from Rachel's, (I went to her place last Wednesday and left today), and it sucks. Don't get me wrong I love being back with my friends and all, but I miss her like crazy. That and she won't get off the phone so that I can call her, what a jerk!

Anyways, we had our Christmas and it was great. We exchanged gifts and she liked what I got her, so there's a plus. I just have to figure out how to shop for clothing for her and I'll be set. Speaking of clothing, guess what I got from her. Wait for it... wait for it... CLOTHING! I kinda needed some new clothes so that was great. She also got me the boxed set color illustrated Chronicles of Narnia, which will be a blast to read. That and I'll finally finish the entire thing.

New year's Eve at Rachel's was also fun and I got to see Jon and Jake, partake of some New Year's spirits, and kiss my love at midnight. So take that. I'm really excited about this year and I have a few resolutions that I want to adhere to. I want to get back into regularly excercising. I want to make sure that I see Rachel at least once a month. I want to read more. And there were a couple more that I can't remember right now so that doesn't bode as well.

Movie-wise I saw a couple with Rachel over my mini-vacation. We went and saw Munich and King Kong and they were both incredible movies. Munich was especially good and had a social commentary that is very worth hearing. My favorite part of it was the bomb dismantler that can't go on with the assassinations and gives a speach about how Jews are supposed to be righteous and not sink to the level of their enemies. It was phenominal. And King Kong was one of those movies that I didn't know if they should remake but I'm glad that they did and I'm happier that I got to see it on the big screen.

Well I'm off to see if PSU or FSU can finally put the other away...

Listening to... K-Fed's new single, (it's the single most atrocious thing that I think I've ever heard

Reading... Orthodoxy and The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe