Four More Years

Spring Break

2008-03-11T16:58:00.000-07:00

Not doing anything exciting for break, just staying home and relaxing, playing Brawl, watching movies, reading, writing, and a whole lot of sleeping. A whole, whole lot of sleeping.

Sounds Like Somebody has a Case of the Mondays

2008-02-25T12:30:00.001-08:00

I fell asleep around 1:30 this morning while reading a lecture on my laptop. The laptop dies in my arms while I sleep.

I wake up at 6:21am with a call from Scott... I don't remember much other than that I think he said I should take Seth's car and drive over to meet them for coffee. I immediately fell back asleep. I remember answering the phone, and somewhat remember words, but I don't know whether or not I was fully awake.

So, I've missed prayer and men's fraternity -- both of which I'd been hoping to go to before starting this day.

I wake up around 10:51, rush to get ready for Management 301, then realize my laptop won't start. I'm not going into the details. It's broken and won't start.

I try to fix it. No avail. Seth, Davis, Father, Jason, no avail either.

I find out that I cannot use a notecard on my Management exam (which I thought was ridiculous in the first place, it's a college course), but seeing as I'd been expecting to use one because that was the original intent, I have not been back to class since the last exam. So. Not good.

I realize that signups for honors advising were this morning, so I missed those.

I think that's about it for bad news.

I am joyful, though. It's given me an opportunity to be assured that my hope does not rest in the possible idols I thought it did before. There is a good chance I've lost over 15,000 pictures from my laptop, months of writing and searching on the Trinity and Incarnation, thousands of songs, years' worth of files from classes, chat conversations from even before I got my laptop, and a multitude of personal writings and conversations and letters and memories. I am probably going to struggle on this Management exam, and I likely cannot top my grade on the last Finance exam, which means I'm not likely to keep the bar held high. I've missed classes all day today in my attempts to get my laptop fixed because I need to files and notes to study for my Finance/Management exams on Wednesday. I need an honors appointment. Without one, I may not be able to get the schedule I want for all of next semester.

It doesn't matter. I am not phased. Christ is still my Savior, and God will continue to satisfy me. I don't need anything else. Nothing, and it is liberating. I should be stressed beyond belief. I should be upset. I should be worried and panicking. I should not be at peace, joyful, excited about having lost this -- and yet I am.

I am thankful for the opportunity to realize that these are not idols in my heart and that God is all in all.

~Christopher

1-0 Google

2008-02-21T10:42:00.000-08:00

An ice storm came in and canceled classes, shut down UofL pretty much completely. Food is closed on campus, which means all the students have to go off campus to go find something to eat. That was a great call. Let's make sure the handful of employees go home in case the weather gets worse... that way hundreds of students will be out on the roads tonight getting food. Brilliant!

I don't understand. My internet connection is out -- or so it seems. I cannot get on AIM. I cannot load Facebook, or Bible Gateway, or an online lexicon, or any page I've tried to load off of random Google searches, or USA Today, or anything. Still, I can load Google. I can load Gmail. I can load Blogger. I can load YouTube without any problems -- so it's not a bandwidth issue. Wikipedia is the only site outside of Google's empire that I've been able to load. I suppose that makes sense, though. Google hasn't quite won the war against Wikipedia with whatever similar service it is they were hoping to start offering that snagged professionals to write articles.

Internet is apparently out all over campus. Everyone I've talked to can't get online. I still cannot load any web pages other than Google's services. It boggles my mind. Congratulations, Google. You beat the internet. Are you happy? What are you going to do now?

(We're going to Disney World, suckers!)

I think perhaps it's Google's latest feature -- keeping you online, even when you're not.

Either that or they've declared war on the rest of the internet and won.

Either are probably good possibilities.

I'll update about Spain this weekend. I just got all the pictures up on Facebook. Took me forever. There were 543 of them. Overkill? Maybe, but I don't think so.

Classes

2008-02-04T10:46:00.000-08:00

Classes have plagued me as long as I can remember -- as early back as the 2nd grade. Here I am in my 14th grade. It's not the classroom. It's not the learning. It's always been the material. I do not wish to spend three hours studying the various methods for depreciating assets and determining whether or not an asset is going to be used long enough to justify its being depreciated. I'm getting a degree simply because there still exists, at the bottom corners of my heart, an aching conviction that I have to get a practical business degree else my life be ruined. Else God will not provide for me, because I have chosen another route. It's just the "responsible" thing to do, and so I must do it. And so I do it, but I do it poorly. I skip classes. I scrape by with minimum effort. It makes me wonder -- which is worse? To know that I not being the best that I can be as a student, to know that I skip classes and cram for exams? Or to know that I study earnestly for those exams and spend my life over the pages of a textbook studying material used only for my own selfish benefit, geared only toward increasing my personal wealth and financial success and importance, and spend hours upon hours striving to do the best I can in those classes while being taken away from studying the areas in God's Word I want to study -- from praying in the morning longer than I do now -- from enjoying life to the fullest.

Wah? Right? Cry about it, Christopher. Oh no, you have to go to classes. Suck it up. That's life.

Beshear plans to cut KEES funding [imported from Facebook]

2008-02-02T03:03:00.001-08:00

Scholarship plan could be cut 15%

I'm not a fan of handouts from the government, and I'm extremely cautious about any aid that the government gives out even if not being a handout. Education assistance is not often a handout. It CAN be, certainly. There are students here at the University getting paid thousands of dollars every semester because of grants and 'scholarships' based on race or on their parents' income for example. Whether or not I believe that is right, when I would get no scholarship for being white and no financial aid because my father of seven children (four of which have medicals bills as special needs and adoption fees which were paid) is "too rich," is irrelevant to the conversation on the KEES program.

Still, aid for education is a worthy use of the tax dollar. Although I may disagree with how it is allocated, I cannot disagree that it SHOULD be allocated. Funding for education is not a handout. It is an investment. It is an incentive and an aid for citizens to become better educated, and better educated citizens leads to more innovation, a more tolerant culture, better jobs, a stronger economy, and an overall better nation. Even from a strictly financial perspective, someone who gets a college degree is going to be making more money than someone who lacks one (in a majority of cases). This means they will be paying more in income taxes throughout their adult working lives.

Even with all that withstanding. Even if the State should decide that funding education is a waste and they choose to cut funding, they cannot do this. Not ethically at least.

The purpose of the KEES scholarship program is not simply to assist students. If that were the case, the money would go to all students. The qualification is that the student must be attending a school within the state. It is an incentive program.

I, personally, will be absolutely furious with Beshear if my KEES money is reduced by a single dollar. This is an issue of integrity more than anything else.

I had my choice of college. There were a large number of college I could have attended on a full ride scholarship. I was a National Merit Finalist and a Valedictorian. I don't mean to boast of my works, because I don't care much for either -- I mention them simply to bolster the claim that I could have gone out of state to a University more renown and prestigious than the University of Louisville.

The KEES money is meant to keep bright students here in the state. THAT is the main purpose behind it. It rests on the belief that in order for education to improve in the state, those students which have excelled in high school and show promise for excelling in college cannot all be choosing to leave the State. A poor education system is, of itself, the impetus in perpetuating a poor education system. Something must be done to break the cycle. The solution that legislators deemed appropriate in 1998 was the KEES program. I worked for that KEES money in high school. I knew how much I would be getting. When senior year came around and I made the decision to attend UofL, it was in large part because going out of State would mean I lost that money which I had been promised if I chose to pursue my college education within the commonwealth.

I receive a full ride scholarship for my National Merit standing. I receive the full $2,500 in KEES money per year ($1,250 per semester). When making the decision to attend UofL (ignoring the time value of money), that meant a difference of $10,000 by the end of my four years of undergraduate studies.

I chose to stay within the commonwealth because of what I'd been promised for college based on my high school performance. The state pays me, and I am required to maintain a GPA, effectively, I am paid to make Kentucky's education system look better. Any student receiving KEES money is.

This is not a political decision. It is not an economic decision. It is a moral decision.

Should Beshear choose to cut funding for education (and God knows Kentucky is already at the bottom of the barrel as far as education goes in the United States -- anyone else remember when our motto used to be 'where education pays?' haha) -- that is his decision to make and propose to the legislature. The reasons I feel this is a mistake and devastating to the state are irrelevant. The money should be set to be taken out in future years, though. Change the legislation. Tell current high school students that in the coming years, the reward amounts will be smaller. Does that suck for them? You bet it does. Is it going to end up hurting the state's already poor education system? I think so. Still, it is a better solution than robbing those of us already in college. Because college students are more deserving than high school students? No -- because we chose to stay within the state based on the promise of this incentive.

You can bet I'll be furious if I lose this money. Had I simply wanted a full ride, I could have gone to Texas A&M or any number of universities that are actually known throughout the country (the world, even).

Perhaps some of you actually taking the time to read this note don't want to hear it. You are paying for college out of your own pocket. You are going into debt because of the ridiculous cost of tuition and you will be paying off your loans for the next 10-30 years of your life, depending on the career path you end up pursuing. I am already getting a full ride, so you don't want to read about me whining that it's not fair because I want to be getting paid to go to school and a full ride just isn't good enough for me. Look, my heart goes out to anyone working multiple jobs and struggling to keep up with school and life at the same time. It really does. You know what? Some of you doing that put forth a similar amount of time and effort in high school as I did -- and by not much merit of my own, I was simply able to get the grades and test scores because of who I am. That right there is fundamentally unfair. I know this -- but this is not an issue of me complaining about not "getting enough." It is a moral issue pertaining to any student receiving KEES who chose to stay in the state directly because of that promised stipend.

I chose to stay in the state because of the scholarship money. I currently don't work a job, and until I turn 23, I can fly standby for free because my father is a pilot. I attempt to take advantage of this by traveling when I get the chance. Two weeks from now, I hope to be in Madrid again. Were I to lose the KEES money, I'd need to be working a job and wouldn't have the time to hop a plane to Madrid (whine, whine, right?). I'm not arguing that I have a fundamental right to be able to do these things... they're benefits that I don't take for granted and appreciate and attempt to utilize and enjoy while I have them. What I do have a fundamental right to is the money I was promised for choosing to go to UofL over Texas A&M or the University of Cincinnati or any other college outside the state.

To tell someone you will give them a rebate if you purchase their product as opposed to a competitor's product, then refuse to give the rebate, would be illegal, immoral, and reprehensible. To tell a student that he will receive a monetary incentive to choose to attend our colleges instead of those in other states, then take away those promised funds, is a lie. It is theft. It is dishonest. It is absolutely and totally unacceptable. Young or old, republican or democrat, worker or student, man or woman: I don't care who you are or where you stand on the grid of faith and political beliefs. This is an issue of integrity. It is a matter of asking whether the example set at the highest level of our state is going to be one of honesty or one of selfishness and deceit. A real man keeps his word, no matter the cost. When a promise has been made, he follows through. There was once an America where this was accepted and embraced. An honest man and an American man were the same. We fought for honor. If one man was dishonorable and broke his word, the two would duel in the street. Integrity was worth dying for. I'm not saying we should still grab our guns over a lie, but we can at least refrain from grabbing the popcorn and beers and sitting down to cheer and encourage it.

We were promised this money, and it is the very reason we chose to stay within the state for college. The state has benefited by keeping us here, and to continue benefiting while failing to reward us as promised, the state is becoming unjustly enriched and is not only failing to behave responsibly legally, but failing to uphold the integrity and honesty a leadership position demands.

Storm [copied from Facebook]

2008-01-30T09:02:00.000-08:00

So... the Business Elite section of Delta's planes is amazing... and until I turn 23 I get to continue being gratefully spoiled in the partaking of their seats. They each have an individual monitor which can be used to stream movies, select episodes of television shows, and music. The music, I learned on the way home from Madrid, can stream full CDs. One of the selections was the latest Lifehouse release -- the full CD, with all the songs, available to stream... with noise-reducing headphones, no less! I thoroughly enjoyed the entire album. I think the following song stuck out to me the most, though... as such, I'm doing what people do more often than anything else with the notes feature of Facebook... I'm posting lyrics.

Although the accounts in Scripture of Jesus calming the storms and of Peter walking toward him on water are separate incidents, the mental image I get listening to this song mixes the two. Even still, the storms are calmed after Peter walks/falls. The account, however, is separate from when Christ himself rebuked the seas. I see a man walking on water, stepping ever closer to Christ, in the midst of a storm. I see the waves crashing all around him, full of distraction to keep his eyes from staying on his Savior. I see the lightning strike. In the flash, his eyes blink. The thunder roars and he turns his head... if only for a moment... and he finds himself engulfed in the waters, eyes searching frantically, hands flailing, feet kicking. He screams under the water. "Save me!" The words escape in bubbles, distorted, indiscernible, but Christ knows the call for salvation, no matter how it is expressed. He fights. He runs out of air and breathes in... air fills his lungs. His Savior has ever so calmly and easily raised him up and rebuked the storm. They stand on the water, in the midst of an open and calm sea, in silence. No words need be spoken. The tears flow and vanish, mixing with the already salted sea. Turning from tears of sadness at a lack of faith to tears of joy and love at the patience and provision and salvation of our Lord.

Psalm 107:23-32 (NKJV)

23 Those who go down to the sea in ships,
Who do business on great waters,
24 They see the works of the LORD,
And His wonders in the deep.
25 For He commands and raises the stormy wind,
Which lifts up the waves of the sea.
26 They mount up to the heavens,
They go down again to the depths;
Their soul melts because of trouble.
27 They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man,
And are at their wits’ end.
28 Then they cry out to the LORD in their trouble,
And He brings them out of their distresses.
29 He calms the storm,
So that its waves are still.
30 Then they are glad because they are quiet;
So He guides them to their desired haven.
31 Oh, that men would give thanks to the LORD for His goodness,
And for His wonderful works to the children of men!
32 Let them exalt Him also in the assembly of the people,
And praise Him in the company of the elders.

Mark 8:23-27 (NKJV)

23 Now when He got into a boat, His disciples followed Him. 24 And suddenly a great tempest arose on the sea, so that the boat was covered with the waves. But He was asleep. 25 Then His disciples came to Him and awoke Him, saying, “Lord, save us! We are perishing!”
26 But He said to them, “Why are you fearful, O you of little faith?” Then He arose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm. 27 So the men marveled, saying, “Who can this be, that even the winds and the sea obey Him?”

Matthew 14:22-33 (NKJV)

22 Immediately Jesus made His disciples get into the boat and go before Him to the other side, while He sent the multitudes away. 23 And when He had sent the multitudes away, He went up on the mountain by Himself to pray. Now when evening came, He was alone there. 24 But the boat was now in the middle of the sea, tossed by the waves, for the wind was contrary.
25 Now in the fourth watch of the night Jesus went to them, walking on the sea. 26 And when the disciples saw Him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, “It is a ghost!” And they cried out for fear.
27 But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, “Be of good cheer! It is I; do not be afraid.”
28 And Peter answered Him and said, “Lord, if it is You, command me to come to You on the water.”
29 So He said, “Come.” And when Peter had come down out of the boat, he walked on the water to go to Jesus. 30 But when he saw that the wind was boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink he cried out, saying, “Lord, save me!”
31 And immediately Jesus stretched out His hand and caught him, and said to him, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?” 32 And when they got into the boat, the wind ceased.
33 Then those who were in the boat came and worshiped Him, saying, “Truly You are the Son of God.”

---

There is a video on YouTube with the music if you'd like to listen along to it. It's a beautiful song. There is an acoustic version on YouTube as well, but the audio I'm linking to is the album version.

Lifehouse - Storm (audio)

how long have I
been in this storm
so overwhelmed by the ocean's shapeless form
water's getting harder to tread
with these waves crashing over my head

if I could just see you
everything would be all right
if I'd see you
this darkness would turn to light

and I will walk on water
and you will catch me if I fall
and I will get lost into your eyes
I know everything will be all right
I know everything is all right

I know you didn't
bring me out here to drown
so why am I ten feet under and upside down
barely surviving has become my purpose
cause I'm so used to living underneath the surface

if I could just see you
everything will be all right
if I’d see you
this darkness would turn to light

and I will walk on water
and you will catch me if I fall
and I will get lost into your eyes
I know everything will be all right

and I will walk on water
and you will catch me if I fall
and I will get lost into your eyes
I know everything will be all right
I know everything is all right
everything's all right
yeah
everything’s all right

Upper left image and main image both taken from Brigham City, Utah during a summer thunderstorm in either 2003 or 2004.

Cycling on and off

2008-01-30T05:05:00.000-08:00

So... I went to bed around 8pm Monday, woke up at 4:45am, thought I was all patched up. False. Big lie. I haven't been to sleep since then, and it is now 8am Wednesday. I have an exam in 3 hours that I still need to study for, which means I'm likely not going to be sleeping until after that exam.

I wrote a note posted to Facebook which I suppose I should import. I likely will later today when I have more time. The note is in reference to a strong giving the imagery of Christ calming the storms and one's ability to walk on water by staying focused on Christ and not looking away to the distractions of the world... or one of the messages, at least.

Last night there was a terrible storm here. It didn't even last long, but the rain was almost literally coming down in sheets -- blanket after blanket of whole groups of water fell from the sky. The winds were pushing the trees back and forth, almost to breaking point. The power went out in Bettie Johnson and Kurz halls. Bettie Johnson had windows completely break out, glass filling residents' rooms in some places.

Walking over to the BCM for prayer this morning, everything looked a disaster. Twigs and sticks and even whole branches littered the path. Small bits of ice that had either frozen from splattered water droplets or had simply been shattered from their original, larger chunks of ice dotted the pathways and looked like broken glass. One tree outside the entrance to the library completely was broken in two. It's amazing that the winds can do that. The wind, which we cannot even see, can often hardly feel. It tore down a rather large tree!

What's more amazing is that our God is the one who is over the winds, able to rebuke and to them to bring the calm we see after the storm. Oftentimes the calm is not a return to normalcy -- often when God calms the storms in our lives, there is aftermath. We see broken branches and ice/glass shattered along our path. We witness the effects of the storm long after He has calmed it. The good news is that God does not calm the storm and leave us, as if we have received all that we have needed. We need more than simply our storms to be calmed. We need a comforter to adjust to that environment. We need the strength to push through it, the ability to see others wandering in the aftermath. He has said that He will never leave us nor forsake us. He has purposes in storms. He has good purposes in allowing them in our lives. He has good purposes in calming the storms while not cleaning everything up for us immediately. There is beauty even in the wreckage and aftermath of the storms of our lives.

Sleep Cycle

2008-01-28T00:07:00.000-08:00

I have learned that my sleep cycle is finally solidified.

Unfortunately, it has set itself between the hours of 11am and 7pm. That is repeatedly when I fall asleep and wake up. Each day I have the genius plan of just "taking a short nap" around 11am, then waking up to finish the day before going to bed at 'a decent hour.' Each day I do not wake up from this nap until 7pm. Apparently Davis called me today before getting on the plane to fly back to Louisville and I had a conversation with him. I do not remember this, at all. My alarm also went off on my phone. I have decided I need some way of rigging an alarm clock to send an electric shock through my body to shake me awake.

I slept until 8:00 last night, which means I missed the Praise & Prayer evening over at Kurz Hall. That was disappointing, but hopefully by next Sunday I'll be back on a somewhat normal sleep cycle. I think Ryan is coming down next weekend, too. He mentioned skipping school Monday/Tuesday of next week for a "college visit" here to UofL to visit. That should be exciting.

My first Management exam is coming up. I'm hoping it's straightforward. I'll skim over the text and pay attention to all the bold words and the sections that describe them (i.e. which activities belong to which level managers). I'm really hoping the test will be fairly mindless, but I am fully prepared to be most unpleasantly surprised.

People are meeting in the BCM's prayer room in 12 minutes, so I should be headed out. One of these days, I'm actually going to be waking up early for it rather than simply staying up late.

Thrift Shopping!

2008-01-26T06:15:00.000-08:00

I've learned that there is a group of students who meet before classes at 5am each morning to pray, so I joined them Thursday and Friday mornings. It has been amazing, and already, it is amazing to see how those prayers are being answered -- just as if life were a book, carefully written out and planned.

Bryan and I went thrift shopping yesterday. We went to Goodwill, then to St. Vincent DePaul. I spent around $40 today... I'm increasingly afraid I may have to actually get a job again. I wouldn't mind, except that I couldn't simply up and leave to travel if the opportunity arises. Then again, it's a bit hard for the opportunity to arise without an income.

I got a full sky blue suit that looks straight out of the 1970's, a brown old-fashioned looking suit jacket, two shirts to go with the brown jacket (a light blue one and a yellowish-beige one), a shirt to go with the sky blue suit, a shirt to wear by itself which looks as though it came from the same era as the sky-blue suit, a chair, and (to my supreme delight) the most incredible pair of shoes I have ever laid eyes on. Pictures of the shoes are below!

I realize nothing I purchased today would be worn by any of you "fashionably-conscious" consumers. I happen to absolutely love my sky-blue 70's suit, though. I love it, and I am not ashamed to wear it in public. I am a big boy. I get dressed all by myself, and I am the one I dress for. I walked by a black man earlier who thought it necessary to say aloud as he passed me that I looked like a fool. I suppose I can't say much, because I think the same thing to myself when I look at the baggy clothing so many black men wear. I believe the motives are different, because I am clearly not dressing like a pasty white boy from the 70's to make myself fit in and match the dress of my peers. Still, opinions are opinions, and I love that we live in a time when people are encouraged to have them and voice them. I am glad he spoke up today. People should speak their minds more often and be blunt and honest. We pussyfoot around far too often.

I still do not have a sleep cycle. I just end up sleeping whenever I get tired, for varying lengths of time. Perhaps by the end of the weekend I will be back on a normal sleep cycle. Perhaps not?

Food does not open on campus until noon, and I have been awake since 4am waiting for it. I suppose I'll scavenge the room for something to hold me over the last two hours.

The Suits

2008-01-26T06:13:00.000-08:00

Thrift Shopping! (pictures)

2008-01-26T06:04:00.000-08:00

The new chair (left) and old chair (right)

The find of the day!

Beautiful!

I Fail

2008-01-23T02:17:00.000-08:00

I basically fail at keeping this blog updated. I rarely even remember that I keep a blog. Believe it or not, the first blog I started I updated consistently for quite a long time.

Last semester ended well. I think I've got somewhere around a 3.7 GPA.

Winter Break went well. I spent mostly every day up until Christmas searching Scripture to find whether I believe The Bible states that Christ is God or not. By Christmas I had stopped searching and come to a conclusion, but I suppose it's something that pertains to a large number of doctrinal issues, so it's likely to be a point of frequent return.

Christmas was excellent. I told my parents not to get me anything. They are going to go with Ryan and I on a long weekend trip sometime in the spring (perhaps over Ryan's spring break). Ryan and I both told them that we would rather spend time with them than have them purchase something for us.

Mike left for Spain Christmas day. Nathan and I had a Bon Voyage for him around midnight of Christmas morning.

This semester started, and it's been going rather well. I am only taking twelve credit hours, seeing as I signed up so late last semester and most classes were already filled. I have Management 301 Monday and Wednesday, followed by Marketing 301. Monday evenings I have Accounting 301 and Wednesday evenings I have Finance 301.

Management is pointless. I believe the first exam is going to basically be questions off the online study material, pre-tests, and post-test that we are required to take before we discuss the items in class. I don't think anything in class will actually be on the exams. If that is the case (and I find out January 30th), I will likely stop going to class.

Marketing is interesting... but I'm not thinking I'm going to like the tests. I pay close attention and type up extensive notes, but I have a feeling the tests are going to be terrible. We'll see.

Accounting is just as terrible as it was before I dropped it last semester. I'm already ready to be over with it. At least it's only once a week. I'm going to have to get online and do some of the assignments soon. I'm so glad I'll never have to take another Accounting course after this (assuming I change to Finance).

Finance is interesting. I think I'm going to enjoy it. It's going to be a bit more math-based as far as issues such as the present/future value of a dollar, which is good for me. The professor also has a clever wit and dry humor -- I at least think he's entertaining. I've yet to actually get the book for that class. I suppose I'll pick it up sometime tomorrow afternoon.

I left last Friday (the 18th) for Spain. I met a woman on the plane who is doing a program similar to Mike's. She mentioned some of the spiritual background of the city that she'd learned and hopes to be able to show the family and students that she interacts with what a life changed by the gospel really looks like -- to show them that need. A faith much more than simply part of a culture and a history. Something alive.

Mike and I toured the city and stayed out all night Saturday night/morning of Sunday. I still think it's crazy how late Spaniards stay out. 11:30PM and this guy had his little girl on the metro with him, barely older than a toddler. Crazy! I love it, though. I wish people stayed up later in the states. Mike also mentioned how we tend to compartmentalize everything in the States. We have our work, our family, our social lives -- whereas he said all of that seems more intermingled in Spain.

Come Monday morning, the hostels in Madrid were full (over 50 of them were), and I really wasn't sure what I would do if I did stay in a hostel. I could only see Mike part of the days, and I can't speak the language to really communicate with others over there. I just ended up flying home. It made for a really short trip, but I definitely enjoyed it. Nathan and I may go back over my spring break and travel to London then jump over to Madrid for a few more days before coming home.

I was up all night last night, slept from 7am to 7pm, and now am wide awake at 5:40am with class later today. I'll likely sleep through Management, go to Marketing at 1, then take a nap before Finance at 5:30.

Business... as usual

2007-12-06T02:41:00.000-08:00

As of right now, it appears I will continue to pursue a business degree. No, I don't enjoy it. No, I don't want to do it... but I don't see what other choices I have. Communications? I would enjoy it more, but what would it do for me? What would that say when I get out of college? What would I know then that I don't know now? Probably only a marginal amount. The business degree will be an anchor for me... something solid, something to fall back on. I don't have to take a job that I hate, and I should be able to find work with a business degree, assuming I don't come across or discover something new.

So, I've registered for classes. As of right now, my schedule is Marketing, Finance, Management, and Accounting... all 301. All Monday/Wednesday. The good news is, the nice weekends will mean it'll be easier for me to ditch school and fly to Madrid to visit Mike while he's teaching over there. Well, and take other trips... and just generally have four day weekends. It'll be a rough semester. Tonight I feel as if it'll be okay. As if I will be able to stay on top of things and get through next semester. I'm feeling confident about it. Perhaps that won't be the case in a month when classes start. Perhaps it won't be the case when the sun rises and I realize I haven't been to bed yet. Regardless, it's where I stand now. My schedule doesn't define me, and it leaves ample room for me to be the person I want to be. I don't need to have this doomsday melodramatic reasoning that seems to say my life is ruined if I don't enjoy my classes. So what if I don't enjoy my classes? Sure, it'd be nice to enjoy classes and find something to study that I'm passionate about... but the sacrifice of some of my time compared to the lifelong security that a business degree while likely carry is probably something I should be mature enough to recognize.

So... that's where I'm at.

Also, I'm hoping to go to Chicago, Denver, Western Colorado and London before next semester starts.

Christmastime

2007-11-23T01:25:00.000-08:00

I am excited. It is now Christmastime... and will be for more than a month! I am determined to make this Christmas Season exactly as it's supposed to be. We'll see how that plan goes. Seeing as it starts off with two weeks of classes and final exams and a fair amount of work to makeup from the past two weeks... well, it's not exactly going to start out fun... but it's going to start out cheery. It's Christmas!!

Dating Fast

2007-11-21T00:58:00.000-08:00

So... this is pretty much pasted from an email I sent to Julie, and I'm just going to go through and take out bits of it to turn it into a blog post. It's cheating, yeah -- but if I don't cheat, this will never be updated regularly again, haha.

I think that dating fast would have been the best idea of 2007 for me. The year is almost over, but I guess the adage "never late than never" is going to have to be what I make do with. I'm thinking this is going to be what I end up doing. This area of my life has been an idol at many times these last few years. It has been far too important to me, and I have sacrificed far too much of myself in pursuing relationships. I need to take time to specifically not date. I'm finished. I shouldn't be continuing to do this. I'm not in any condition to be pursuing a relationship with anybody. I hope to stay determined to do this. I need it. I don't know how long I need it, that'll take some time to figure out. At least the rest of this year, though. At least through the end of 2007... which I realize now is merely another six weeks or so.

I need to straighten my life up and get it on some sort of path. It's sort of fallen apart, and I've just been playing in all the rubble from its past. I need to quit this relationship business. I need to. It hurts and I am a fool. I am not ready for it. I have felt for some time now that there is something very wrong with me. With my life. I'm not saying this is it and stopping is the solution. This has been a part of it, though, and taking a timeout is at least a step in the right direction toward clarity.

I have fallen behind in courses. I hate college and I have no goals or dreams for my education. I'm here because of my scholarship and for no other reason. If I did not have a scholarship, I would certainly be working this next semester. I don't stand out as a person anymore. I don't think about myself and my life anymore, because every single time I do, I just get depressed. I am in denial. I refuse to think about and accept where my life currently is -- which is why I've not yet registered for classes or declared a major. I know I am in denial, and yet I do nothing about it. I need to change. More than I need a meal tomorrow, I need to change. I am disgusted. I am angry. I am depressed and frustrated. I don't know how exactly to change my life -- but quitting relationships altogether (I shouldn't even be writing about them or thinking about them at all) is a step -- as is hoping to get back into Scripture daily, which I have not been doing. Apart from that, I don't know what to do. At least it's something, though. Perhaps my motives for a dating fast aren't right. Regardless of what they are, it's wrong of me to have had to wait this long and grow this discontent with my life to commit to this.

I have much to think about before I choose to date anyone. I don't know what I'll decide to keep from my past and what I'll deem to have been errors -- but it's time I make a past instead of an ongoing present.

Changes

2007-11-14T00:52:00.000-08:00

Apparently other people occasionally check this. Truth be told, I completely forget about it. There was a time when I was consistent with keeping a blog -- that was a long time ago... not even the same blog. I write often, but I don't seem to publicly collect those writings. I write to friends, to family, and to myself. I write extensively to myself... and I suppose I'm too lazy to retype what I've written, filtering out what I feel is important for others to know, and what I feel should be kept for myself. I'm honestly not even sure how to update with all the time that has passed.

I dropped my Accounting course. Given the post about me drawing Seth's leg in that class, it shouldn't come as much of a surprise. This has, however, left me major-less. I thought about pursuing photography and marketing, double majoring, but I don't think that's the route I'll take. I hate statistics and am not a big fan of marketing, so I really don't want to be a marketing major... and I don't think the photography program here at UofL is really what I'd be most interested in. I am currently leaning towards a communications degree. I'll have to set up an appointment to talk to the professor I had for my communications class first semester to see what type of careers most communications majors go into.

Truth be told, there is a stigma I've always thought existed with communications majors... that it's sort of the easy degree. I'm not sure if that's true or if it's just something I picked up from a book I read two summers ago... but it's a very small reason for why I'd be choosing communications. I have no qualms about speaking in public. I don't claim to be a phenomenal public speaker, but it's something I'm sure I could do well, especially after taking classes and having plenty of opportunities to practice. I enjoy researching and organizing a persuasive argument or informative speech. I love communication as a whole -- the process -- I have a dream to one day tour around to various cities and sit in public places to type/write the conversations I hear going on around me. What people to say to one another in public places, what their conversations are about. The goal would be to collect a large amount of data and try to piece together what common themes our public conversations tend to display not as residents of certain cities alone, but as Americans. As the people living in this nation at this time in history. What does an insight into our communication show us? Who knows? Perhaps I'll come to find out a Communications major would be nothing like I picture it and it'll be a flop... just like accounting and marketing and photography. Right now, it seems like a nice balance between something that would actually be somewhat practical and yet not completely career based.

I am fairly certain I won't be pursuing a major in the college of business -- which means the courses I'm taking this semester will count for nothing, basically. I got a 53% on my last Commercial Law exam, which was in large effect due to not studying much and not having read the material in the textbook as I should have. Had I done that, I estimate I would have gotten around a 75%. Honestly? I only feel bad that I don't feel bad for not caring about that. My goal for the class is to pass. That is all. For the first time in my life, my goal for a class is simply to not fail. I can get a D and assuming I do the work for my other classes, I could have an A in ethics, an A in statistics, and a B in CIS. That would average out to a 3.0 for this semester and give me a cumulative college GPA of 3.5 -- which is well above the 3.0 I need to keep my scholarship and still above the 3.35 I need to stay in the honors program. So... yeah... a D.

My grandmother (step-grandmother, I suppose) passed away this weekend. My grandfather passed away my sophomore year of high school. His ashes are being buried with hers on Thursday... tomorrow, my sophomore year of college. I am currently home... ironically sitting at the very spot at my parents' dining room table I sat at when I created this blog. I am waking up in under four hours to get a haircut, grab my suit, and drive the family to Akron, Ohio. As such, I should be thinking about lying down soon to get some sleep.

Sleeping in (and through) today

2007-08-23T22:42:00.000-07:00

So today was the first day of my first four day weekend this semester. I didn't really do much of anything. I slept in until noon, took a nap in the middle, and am ready to go back to sleep.

Perhaps tomorrow will be a bit more interesting.

Drawing in Accounting 301

2007-08-22T21:17:00.000-07:00

That's Seth's leg.

I found Accounting 301 to be absolutely mind numbingly boring. I don't hold anything against the professor, but she's old... and doesn't really do much to make the already dry topics really stand out much.

As such, I looked to my left and drew the Louisville cap sitting on Seth's knee -- as well as part of his leg.

Seeing as I don't think I've ever really drawn anything before, I was excited that it actually looked somewhat like what it was supposed to be. Seeing as I was terribly bored, I was doubly excited. Excited enough to put it on Facebook.

The full-sized copy can be found here. Some of the graphite made the flash reflect off of it, so some parts come through shimmering and shining.

At least I don't have the class again for a week.

~Christopher

Classes

2007-08-21T20:42:00.000-07:00

My classes Monday went rather well. CIS 100 shouldn't be very difficult, just a moderate amount of work. The software for the class was also nearly $50 as well as multiple books.

Commercial Law will probably be fun, but it'll be quite a bit of reading. Odds are the text won't be completely enthralling, but I'm not dreading it. I met someone today in the bookstore who said he had the class last semester and would let me borrow the book, so I'll get that from him tomorrow before class. It was only going to be $25 used, and I could probably sell it back for $10 -- but hey, fifteen dollars is fifteen dollars.

Business Statistics should be, well -- I'm hoping it'll be a joke. Seth, Isaac, and I are all in the class. There's no attendance. There's only three tests. They're open book. We can use notes. We can use graphing calculators. I hope it doesn't turn out to be surprisingly difficult.

Business Ethics should be fun. The only downside is three hours in a row of the class -- but it's only one day per week. I think I'll enjoy it, and pretty much all the grades are from a journal that we'll be keeping where we comment about what's going on in the class. We're also supposed to read and comment on one Wall Street Journal article per week, so I'll have to get a semester's subscription to that.

Accounting won't be until tomorrow. I'm hoping it'll let out early being the first day.

All in all, I only spent $155 on books. I still have to buy a paperback novel for Business Ethics and pay for a semester of the Wall Street Journal -- but under $200 for books isn't bad. Seth and I are sharing books for three classes, so that helped a ton. I also gave him my Econ textbook for the CIS software.

We'll see how classes go. My weekend starts tomorrow night... that'll make my full day tomorrow worthwhile.

~Christopher

So really, there's just too much...

2007-08-13T21:47:00.000-07:00

Since this blog is about my four years in college, perhaps I could make the excuse that I didn't update it over the summer because I wasn't in college... but I'd be lying. I've just been lazy and pretty much completely forgot that I even kept a blog. So, here is yet another possible beginning, the very last day of my first elongated collegiate summer vacation.

What's this summer been in summary? Hmm... I worked as a bank teller for the first half of the summer, then drove out to Wyoming/Montana fr two weeks with my family to go camping and visit family, came home before flying out to Colorado to be a counselor at Twin Peaks Bible Camp for three weeks, then had two weeks in which I didn't really do anything productive before coming back here yesterday.

I've got my schedule fixed up now (or will, after talking with the honors advisers in the morning) to run from 11AM to 8:15PM with only 135 minutes out of class on Mondays/Wednesdays. Those will be slightly lengthy days, but I'll have Tuesdays off -- as well as Thursday-Sunday, which will leave me open for four day weekends any weekend. Hopefully I take advantage of those and fly around a bit. I'm planning on visiting Julie in Kansas and Glenn/Jonathan in Michigan over two of those, possibly Columbus, too, to see Mike.

Perhaps this is why I don't keep up with a blog. Four months and that's all I've got.

~Christopher

Growing Up

2007-05-05T01:21:00.000-07:00

Growing up means getting a job and working at least as much (if not more than) you sleep during the week. I start work on Monday, and I'm not really sure why. The only real reason I can come up with is because I'm 'supposed to' seeing as it's the adult thing to do and I'd otherwise be considered lazy. The truth of the matter, it's illogical to me. I can't think of a real rational reason I'm working this summer -- and yet for three months (save 2 weeks off to meet up with my family for their camping trip) I've given myself up to work. The thing is, though: I don't really spend money. I purchased an expensive camera last semester half as a gift and half with stipend money from UofL. I'll probably purchase or build a computer over this summer... and that's really it. If I work all of May, June, and July (excluding the 2 weeks with my family), I'll make under $3,000 pre-tax income. I don't need the money now, and I'd rather just have the summer off to spend time with friends and family. I'd thought Dad had a good idea earlier when he told me if I don't need the money now, that I could put it all away into an IRA. Even if that ended up paying 8% for forty years, that only gives me seven times the money I put in. After taxes and adjusted for inflation of 3%, that means by working all summer, I get around $17,000 current purchasing power if I live to retirement. Don't hear me saying I turn my nose at $17,000. It's a sizable portion of money. Will I have thought the $17,000 addition to my retirement worthwhile if I get to retirement? Hopefully my retirement savings is large enough that I don't. How's that for optimism? I'm hoping working all summer will be relatively meaningless. Basically -- if I work all summer and don't spend a dime of it, I can get myself a decent used car when I retire in forty years. Joy!

I guess the only real reason I can think of is this. I'm living under my father's roof and he says if I don't have a job, I don't have a roof... previously I was allowed to live at home throughout college if I was in school and wasn't require to worry about paying rent until I was out of college -- if I chose to live at home after college. I guess it's a good thing I already had a job lined up.

Seeing as I rarely update this and don't know when anyone will read it: don't hear me as complaining or whining. Life is good, and my job as a teller isn't bad. I'm not in debt with student loans as many college students are, I live at home over the summer, and even working a full week, I have few other obligations. Life's not bad, and I'm not complaining. I'm simply thinking aloud at what the actual benefits of sitting at a counter for a large portion of my summer will be.

Grades were pretty much identical to last semester and about what I expected.

Thrice

2007-04-17T00:22:00.000-07:00

Guess this blog's only been updated thrice this semester. Today starts my last week of classes. Archaeology should hold an A- (due only to the fact that random idiotic questions are put on tests simply to trick students or which have little connection to the actual class material). Chemistry I'm only really hoping for a B (which is a story as long as the semester which would anger me to convey at the moment). Accounting will hopefully be an A, but I don't actually remember what I got on all my tests, and I don't know whether or not the homework grades have been pulled off the internet, or if we still have time to finish them and she'll pull a final grade off at the end of the semester. Macro Economics should be an A. I've got A's on the tests, and the final is mainly questions from the tests I already got A's on.

I really just want this semester to be finished with.

On the bright side, I get to take pictures at an event downtown on Wednesday.

I really just want this semester to be finished with.

Not Much

2007-03-08T23:57:00.000-08:00

You haven't missed much. Life stopped spinning and left me suddenly perfectly erect, nauseous. Days blended together. Night and Day melded as life sailed into a sea of perpetual twilight, sleeping whenever my bed called, ignorant of blatant advice from the heavens. A general apathy toward success with a desire to keep from disappointing potential created a cyclical mediocre performance, just above a personal minimum. The flickering light of a computer monitor has become the campfire of this night in the forest: a flame empty of warmth. I lie, hidden from the sun, squinting when forced out of a cave.

But life is good.

And today I woke up knowing today held promise.

What's more, it did.

A perfect day.

Almost.

Spinning

2007-01-10T23:22:00.000-08:00

Classes began yesterday. I'm finished with them for the week tomorrow.

Winding myself up on a swing set always was one of my favorite things to do, but now I've been spinning longer than the swing could hold me. I'm free falling and afraid for the dizziness to sink in when everything stands still.

Everything stands still.

Finished Traveling

2007-01-07T19:20:00.000-08:00

I'm now back down in my dorm room at the University of Louisville, and after flying from Cincinnati to New York City, taking a taxi in NYC, flying to Madrid, taking a bus to Segovia, all that in reverse, and driving a van in the pouring rain down to Louisville, I'm ready to be finished traveling -- for a short while.

I'm too tired to actually unpack everything, so I'll do it all tomorrow, since I don't have any classes starting tomorrow. I think I'll be more relaxed come Thursday evening, once I'm settled in and classes are finished for my first four day weekend.

I'm unsure about this semester -- but we'll see how things go. It could be a great one, that's for sure.

2007
I still miss the only pillow I've ever made.
I still miss waiting on Sunday's laundry.
I still miss the first time I danced.
I still miss having my wallet organized.
I still miss not understanding the language.
I still miss goodnight commas.
I still love.

~Christopher

I woke up at 1am (EST) yesterday to start my day...

2007-01-06T07:32:00.000-08:00

So, since that last post, a lot has happened. I did end up getting my passport. On December 7th (the day after my parents' twentieth wedding anniversary), I flew with my grandmother to New York City and got my passport in a day. I came back and drove to Louisville Thursday night. I ended up staying up until 4:30am (technically Friday morning) to study for my Physics final (which was Friday). I had to basically teach myself an entire fourth of the semester's worth of physics -- most of optics and all of atomics. I guess I pulled it off, since I got an eighty-something -- roughly double the class average score of a low forty. I got my grades back, 3.70 GPA overall. It'll hopefully be better next semester, but I don't have a perfectionists desire or any real motivation for not getting any B's in college -- so maybe I will get another B this semester. Who knows?

Christmas was good (and expensive this year, since I bought so much more than I have in the past), as was New Year's. Working at the Erlanger branch of Advantage as a teller was a good time. It wasn't very busy at all. I played quite a few games of paper football with the head teller, read a digital photography book Kristi got me for Christmas, and (yes) actually did some real work.

I was going to go to Paris at the beginning of break, but I had a terrible headache, so I didn't go. I did, however, get to go to Spain with my father. I just got back yesterday! It was a 48 hour layover. I should have pictures online soon (assuming I don't run out of storage on my Picasa Web Account). There we go, it's finished (Spain!).

I've got to get ready to head back down to Louisville, but I'm not sure if I'm going back tonight or tomorrow. I've got to call Kristi and see if she found out if we were allowed to move in today or not. Our one year anniversary is coming up -- three weeks from yesterday.

For now I'm going to head on down to the shower and get myself cleaned up with some good American water, not the slightly reddish sweet tasting water I strove to keep out of my mouth in Spain.

Blast!

2006-11-23T00:20:00.000-08:00

Kristi was supposed to wake me up at noon today, so she came over and woke me up... but my head was hurting something fierce, so I tried to sleep off and on in this noisy house until 4:15 when my father woke me up to let me know he and mom were back from Germany. I saw the pictures he took, and it looked like they had a really good time. I really need to get my passport soon. Even though I got out of bed at 4:15, by 8:15, I was exhausted and ready to go to bed.

Tonight was the free ice skating night for Fort Mitchell dwellers. A bunch of us college/high school students on break went to that. It was great to see everyone from home again. I'd forgotten how much fun just being together could be even without plans to do anything big. I'll have to go through and put some pictures online. We went ice skating, to Skyline, and over to Mary's house for a few hours.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. Hopefully I'm feeling well and can wait outside Best Buy. My headache is starting to get worse again, and if it's still there in the morning, I'm not sure if I'm going to go or not. I need to find out what Best Buy is going to be selling and see if I'm even going to want anything or not.

Now it's 3:30am, so I think I'm going to head to sleep. I'm leaving to eat Thanksgiving with Kristi's extended family at eleven, and then coming home to eat Thanksgiving dinner with my family.

~Christopher

Break!

2006-11-17T23:09:00.000-08:00

I'm back in Cincinnati and on Thanksgiving Break. Ryan stood in line for around twenty hours to get his Nintendo Wii. The motion sensing technology was probably a good investment for Nintendo. They clearly didn't make a competitive machine as far as the machine itself is concerned, but it looks like they've got some possibilities ahead with the dual motion sensing controllers.

I haven't done much since I was on break... which is what I love about breaks :)

I started up a new game of Oblivion, since Dad's got a PC that can handle it relatively well. Seth and Kristi went back down to UofL because they both had tests on Monday/Tuesday. They're coming home tonight.

It's been nice to see my family again. I'm looking forward to Thanksgiving... mainly because the day after Thanksgiving starts the Christmas season!!

Mom and Dad will be back from Germany tomorrow. I can't wait to see pictures from their trip. I told Dad to be sure to take some.

I'm not sure what I'm going to be getting at the Black Friday sale at Best Buy, but I'm pretty sure I'll be waiting there all night to be first in line again. I might get a computer monitor, since I can use that with the computer I hope to purchase over this next summer -- not sure if there will be any deals on those, though.

~Christopher

Back?

2006-11-11T14:11:00.000-08:00

Everything's started to settle back down. The weather hasn't been too grand here lately, and the rain we had last night has taken the majority of the remaining leaves to the ground. I'll have to get a bit more creative in taking pictures, since generic pictures around campus aren't going to be as easy to take as they were in the fall. The camera is still working well -- my most recent batch of pictures was from a week ago, and the best of the bunch are online with the rest as of last night.

I moved out of Unitas Tower and am now living in Wellness with Seth, which is going really well. The room is nicer (and bigger). We've got the beds bunked, and the floor space seems really large. It's a sad state when a room around 16x7 seems 'massive' even with two wardrobes, desks, and bunked beds in it -- but it's true. I'm very content with it. It's good to be rooming with Seth, too -- especially over my last roommate. Although we never had any problems (as far as I know) with each other, we didn't have anything in common and didn't talk, either.

I've registered for classes for the spring semester, and got exactly what I wanted -- all classes on Tuesday/Thursday. This means I'll have a four day weekend. Every weekend. I'm looking forward to it. I'm going to be taking an archaeology course at 8am. I don't know what to think of that. I'm taking 15 hours, though -- so worst case scenario is it's terrible and I drop it. It counts towards two general education requirements, though -- a "social behavioral" credit as well as a "cultural diversity" credit. It'll be nice to get those knocked out of the way together. 9:30-12:15 I'll be taking an honors accounting course, covering accounting 201 and 202. There won't be many people taking that, which means if I apply myself, I should get a really good feel for accounting and whether or not I'll want to pursue it. I'll have a two hour break to get some lunch and perhaps do some studying/homework before my 2:30-3:45 honors macroeconomics course. My intro to chemistry course will be in the evenings -- 6:00-7:15, perhaps. I don't think the chemistry course is going to be anything to worry about, though. I still have my notes from my high school chemistry course, and they're quite detailed. Judging from the difficulty of one of the two hundred level courses a student living a floor above Seth and I is taking (not too hard), the introductory level general education chemistry course should be a breeze.

I think it'll be nice to have classes all together. It may be hard on days where I have two or more tests in one day, but all in all, I think it'll work rather well. Having Wednesday to relax between classes and study will be nice, and having Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday off every single week sounds absolutely amazing!

Classes this semester are going rather well. I feel I did a good job on my speech Thursday, but I'm have to wait until Tuesday to see what my grade reflects. I took a math and a physics test on Friday. Physics I only need to average around a 73% on this test and my last one, and I think I got a score in the upper eighties. Math I'm not too sure about. I messed up the very beginning of the last problem. If I get partial credit, I can still get an A. If not, I'll have a B, perhaps a C -- which means I won't get an A in there for the semester. Even still, one course with a B and all others with an A will keep me well above my required 3.0 GPA, and give me a decent cushion to start off with. Economics I should get an A in, which means my overall GPA will be comfortable.

Mike and Jan Cummings were down with Allison and one of her friends today for a campus visit, so I showed them around a bit. Seth also came back down today with his girlfriend for a college visit.

Today hasn't been very busy, and likely won't be the rest of the day. I had a migraine yesterday, but it's mostly gone.

The past week was a bad week for losses. Beechwood lost to NewCath last night and Ryan got injured, so he's got to get his hip looked at. Beechwood would have won, had they not had a penalty called at the end of the game on a play they scored a touchdown on. Louisville lost to Rutgers, and would have had a shot at winning had they not had a penalty called at the end of the game when Rutgers missed a field goal attempt. Republicans lost the House and Senate in one of the closest (if not the closest) nationwide election year. They claimed a shift of around 77,000 votes would have given them control of the House, and a shift of 7,000 votes or less in three states would have given them control of the Senate -- minute numbers on the scale of a nation. Hopefully my tests go a little better than the two games and the races -- almost but not quite situations.

Hopefully I'll keep this updated now that I'm settled in again. We'll see.

~Christopher

Sorry

2006-10-21T20:36:00.000-07:00

I'm still distracted by my camera. The laptop's got pictures loaded on it right now... but I figured I needed to take a moment to type up a blog update, since I haven't since I got my camera.

Classes are going well. I think I'm up in the A-range for all of them at the moment. I've got an Econ test Monday that I'll really have to study for... tomorrow after church, I guess. I think everything will be good, though.

I think while it was rainy and we were at the event where the Vice President spoke... oh yeah... since I last posted, I've seen Karl Rove (actually shook his hand), talked with and campaigned for Geoff Davis, and stood less than ten yards from the Vice President of the United States -- with my camera -- while he gave a speech! Anyway... the weather wasn't the best that night, and I think I got something wet onto the inside of my camera... not a lot, just a little spot. It looked sort of like the toothpaste dots that can get on the mirror if someone isn't careful. I was bummed, because my pictures had a little spot on them. I managed to clean it with some distilled water and a handkerchief, though -- so the pictures I took today seem to have turned out all right.

My birthday was Wednesday. When I went to the NHS State Convention at the beginning of this year, we stopped by a mall where I bought Kristi some little gummy penguins. Although they weren't at the same mall, Kristi found them and bought me some of those as well as some gummy candy lips. She also bought me Relient K's Mmhmm CD, because I lost mine :( I still have the case and cover for it (which is signed), so I'll slip the cover out and put the signed cover into the new one she bought me, and it'll be perfect!! She also got me two night shots of Cincinnati -- one of the skyline and one of the old fountain square. The best of all the gifts she got me was an Ansel Adams 2007 Calendar! I'm really excited about hanging it up in January!! The photographs are incredible. Julie called during lunch, but I had to get to some Econ homework, so I talked to her later that night.

Yesterday was my mother's birthday. She turned forty (again), so I called and talked with her last night.

I'm officially registered to vote. I just need to request an absentee ballot (by like Wednesday) or plan on going home just for a night so I can vote.

Kristi and I walked around campus today while I took some pictures. I took quite a few of the fountain near our Fine Arts building. We went to the mall this evening, where we ate at Panera and I waited for Kristi and her friend Tamara to finish looking at clothes... we were in and out of the mall in an hour and a half, and Kristi paid for my Jones Soda, my cherry pastry, and my Dairy Queen blizzard, so I didn't mind waiting outside clothing stores so much!

Tomorrow we're going to bernheim forest early, then going to The Vine for church. Seeing as we're leaving at like 8:30, I need to get to bed. 8:30 has come to seem early to me, so falling asleep now that it's not too far past midnight would be a good idea.

~Christopher

I've Been Gone

2006-10-15T22:07:00.000-07:00

I figured I should give a rather lengthy explanation for why I've not been blogging.

http://picasaweb.google.com/ChristopherAmelung

If a picture's worth 1,000 words, that's about a quarter of a million's worth... lengthy enough for me.

~Christopher

Nikon D50

2006-10-06T22:18:00.000-07:00

so... yeah... I'll maybe make a post this weekend... if I'm waiting for that battery to recharge or something...

Finished?

2006-09-25T22:16:00.000-07:00

Nick Wahle has for some time now used the following away message on AIM:

College is the snooze button on the clock radio of life.

I've read it dozens of times, and yet tonight it really sunk in. It describes college perfectly -- it's just another transitory phase. It's the continuation of senior year, really. I feel like i'm accomplishing so little, and that what I do accomplish is (for the most part) pointless. By the end of this semester, I'll have taken Econ 201 fully -- and I'm learning quite a bit in the class. However, I'll also have finished Speech, Physics, and Finite Math -- all of which I will leave unchanged. Had I taken them or not, I will not be a different person at the end of my first semester of college. What's more, thinking upon opportunity/implicit costs from econ, I can't help but think of the lost benefits had I been able to take some business classes in place of these general ed courses. *sigh* I'm looking forward to a break. It's not because I'm overworked. I have to take two short and easy physics quizzes tomorrow and talk to my physics professor about some items being misgraded -- that's all I have to do tomorrow. It's not a difficult day -- and to be honest, it won't be wasted, because it's our 8-month anniversary, but say it were a normal day -- I'd be wasting so much time.

Testing

2006-09-21T14:33:00.000-07:00

So... tests in college suck. Apparently you're supposed to get them back graded incorrectly. I guess it's like a 'two part test' deal or something. The first test is whether or not you understand the material. The second test is whether or not you're willing to confront the professor when you don't get full credit for a full credit answer.

We got the Physics tests back. I thought I did well, and turns out I got an A. Yeah... great, right? Only thing is, an A ranges from a 79-100 (perhaps even lower now that this test has been graded). I got a 79%! I couldn't understand how this happened. I looked at my test and saw that the very first two parts I didn't get credit for even though I showed everything I needed to show. I compared with the work and answer Dustin showed (which he got full credit for) and I wasn't missing anything... so I have to go across campus one day within this next week and talk to the professor to get my grade fixed. I should have at least gotten an 85% (possibly higher... but 85% for sure).

We got the test back for Econ as well, and it turns out there's a difference between "Quantity demanded" and "demand." That would have been good to know before the test. Half of the multiple choice questions I missed were because of that. Still, we can correct the test for extra credit, and I did well on the essays. I got an 82% -- ten points higher than the mean, and 4th highest in the class. 82 isn't what I'd consider good, but comparatively, it's not too shabby... and the grades will likely be on a curve, so my grade should improve in another week or so.

The communications test was easy enough. I didn't do any of the reading this time. I just skimmed the headings of the sections for the four chapters before class. I think I still did well on the exam, likely 100%. If not, almost definitely an A.

So... tests... that's about all that's new.

I went to a meeting for the Institute of Management Accountants and once again am looking forward to the day when all my classes are in the College of Business and I'm finished with my gen ed classes. Hopefully I'll only have a couple left after this next semester. Business classes make me feel I'm where I belong -- like I understand and am supposed to understand the material -- not just for a test, but for myself, for the rest of my life, for who I want to become.

~Christopher

I Have A Dream?

2006-09-18T00:53:00.000-07:00

Call me "Old Fashioned" but I happen to think both Martin Luther reformers were great men... although I suppose my favorite of the two would be the original, the topic of this post is suited for Martin Luther King Jr. When he gave what is now one of the most well known speeches of all time, he believed in a United States where citizens would be judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character -- that citizen A wouldn't get any benefits that citizen B is denied, simply because they have different skin tones. A man should get what he deserves based upon his work ethic, integrity, and overall character... not just because he's white. Because I believe Dr. King to be a man devoted to a higher cause of justice -- not simply using a logical argument to further a black empowerment -- I believe he would have also been against a man being treated less than another simply because he is white. Here at the University of Louisville, however, this is the case.

Forgive me if this seems racist. I believe in stereotypes, and I believe that many people fit into them. It's a matter of demographics and of facts. What I most certainly do NOT believe in is that it's possible to look at a person, scan through a memory bank of demographics, and completely understand that person -- or even understand him or her to any level of judgment or to be able to make a specific statement against their character.

To get to the matter at hand, I'm talking about an issue nationwide -- not just here at UofL. I speak of UofL only because it prides itself on 'diversity' and it's the university I attend.

Scholarships are given based on skin color. That's the heart of the matter. I'm not making this post to judge, simply to think aloud and question. This seems, at first thought, wrong to me on many levels.

When two men* apply for the University, one may have a decent high school GPA, show involvement in activities in high school, and a decent ACT score. The other may have gotten through high school with perhaps a C average... maybe C+. He didn't score very well on the ACT, but he didn't do terribly. He wasn't in many activities in high school -- played football, maybe joined one of the clubs. He isn't stupid or unintelligent by any means -- an average man -- nothing at all to be ashamed of. One man gets half his tuition paid for and has to foot the rest of the bill himself. The other gets all of his college paid for. The merit-based scholarship goes to the student with the more impressive application. The merit-based scholarship is the one for half tuition. That dream where men are judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character? I'm not sure where we line up with that. Here the content of one man's character got him less than the color of the other's skin.

The defense I have heard most often is that scholarships exist for racial reasons to help give opportunities to men who would otherwise not have them -- to provide the possibility of college in a life where college was not considered. This sounds good, doesn't it? But what is it? What are we saying? Is this the 21st century 'white man's burden?' I don't use the term lightly. Isn't it just as racist to say, "Oh, looking here at your race, you must be from a poor broken urban home. Here, you can have money to go to college so we can help you. You obviously need help that others don't need, just because you're black."

The white man in the example won't get any other scholarships. He's out on his own. He's paying for his college. He's able to take care of himself. Live frugally and take out student loans. A university education is an investment in his future. He's borrowing now to make an exponentially larger sum in later years. If a white man can put himself through college, why do we say another cannot and needs free money based only on his skin to go to college? He's not good enough to put himself through college like a white boy? I don't understand. No matter how you look at it, treating any race differently simply because of their race seems wrong. Even with 'good intentions' it still seems racist to me.

These are my questions... does anyone have the answers?

*representing men or women

Not So Spicy

2006-09-16T23:01:00.000-07:00

So... this isn't the post I was talking about in my last post. I'll finish that one eventually. This is just another update.

I got a 98% on my math exam... I accidentally labeled one of my variables as "number of pounds" and it should have been "price per pound." I got all the answers, right, though... just lost two points there. Hopefully the Physics tests from Friday is graded by Monday. I'm not expecting it, though. That's a lot of tests to grade over the weekend. Still, I want to see how many errors I made on that.

That test in Econ Monday is sort of worrying me, because I didn't even know what to expect when my professor was making the test, and now it's being made by a completely different professor. Uh oh...

I'm really tired.

Matt will be disappointed to hear that I already have three more credit hours than required for History, so I won't be taking any history courses in college. *wince*

Seth's in NKY for the weekend, so Kristi and I are just going to The Vine service tomorrow night after he gets back. We're going for a run in the morning, so I've got to get some sleep.

Not too much new here, I suppose. I think I'm over being sick. I still don't feel great, but I don't think I'm ill anymore.

~Christopher

Update

2006-09-12T21:44:00.000-07:00

I think I'm close to getting 'unsick' after two weeks of feeling under the weather (really, since moving in here at UofL. I didn't feel great the first two weeks... it's just that these second two weeks I've really been sick... not just 'under the weather').

I've got a Physics exam tomorrow... first of the year. So long as I review the formulas for kinetics, remember to use mg(cosx) or mg(sinx) for object on slopes, and get some sleep tonight, I should be fine.

I thought about going home this weekend for the Cov Cath vs. Beechwood game (at Beechwood), and to hang out with Ryan a bit, but Kristi wasn't too keen on me leaving this weekend, and it was short notice for Seth, who already had plans to leave before I finished my Physics exam.

Speech is going well, Finite Math is still easy, Physics shouldn't be too hard with a small dose of studying, and Econ... well... Econ's up in the air right now. Our professor is in the hospital for a few weeks. He's got a high fever, and the doctors aren't sure what's wrong with him. We had a Russian sub on Monday who mentioned currency and international trade after we watched part of an ABC documentary on "Is America Still #1?"

The documentary had some interesting statistics. For instance, when mentioning the statistics for poverty in the US, they also presented the statistics which shocked me -- 97% of Americans 'in poverty' have a color television (this was from 1997, I believe). We then saw poverty of many other nations... India especially.

It was fascinating to learn that 50 years ago Hong Kong looked impoverished, and is now one of the most productive nations in the world. Apparently there are not many government regulations and safeguards. This means anyone can start their own business in a day... even a tourist American. This helps fight poverty, because it's so easy for anyone to apply themselves and become productive.

Back on track... Econ should be interesting. We had an Indian professor on Wednesday who spoke on Elasticity. No one answered his question on slopes at the beginning of class, and after several wrong answers, I gave the right one. I don't typically like piping in with answers, even if I know most of them. I prefer to wait to see if anyone else will give it... and if not, I feel obligated to chime in... which is what happened here. So... I gave the correct answer. He got excited. He basically taught to me the rest of the time we were in class. Awkward. The rest of the class started getting wide-eyed, because he'd walk right over next to me and stare at me and ask me questions. I could answer them and keep up with him, but... I don't know... it was just strange.

I'm going to go brush my teeth, then work on a topical blog post I've wanted to make for awhile... hopefully it doesn't make me seem like a racist. If someone looks at it fairly, it'll actually be about as anti-racist as anything can be... but who knows? People are edgy.

~Christopher

A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis

2006-09-10T12:06:00.000-07:00

I have quite a bit of text here, so if you aren't interested in reading all the quotes, I've gone through and marked my favorite quotes/parts of quotes in red.

The book as a whole is very sobering, but there is something attractive and compelling about the absolute and unabashed honesty within its pages. Some quotes I thought were slightly comedic (although few). Some

No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear... At other times it feels like being mildly drunk, or concussed. There is a sort of invisible blanket between the world and me. I find it hard to take in what anyone says (3).

And no one ever told me about the laziness of grief (5).

I must have some drug, and reading isn’t a strong enough drug now (10).

It is hard to have patience with people who say, ‘There is no death’ or ‘Death doesn’t matter.’ There is death. And whatever is matters. And whatever happens has consequences, and it and they are irrevocable and irreversible (15).

Have I forgotten the moment of bitterness when she cried out, ‘And there was so much to live for (17)’?

Fate (or whatever it is) delights to produce a great capacity and then frustrate it. Beethoven went deaf (17).

What pitiable cant to say, ‘She will live forever in my memory!’ Live? That is exactly what she won’t do (20).
*This line was powerful to me because it reminded me of something I had felt simply from a movie addressing the exact same questions almost a year ago. I actually became irate and furious over the ending of Finding Neverland because... well... I'll just copy what I typed last year. I must first state that I am not as upset about this currently and that the following reflect my emotional state that evening -- very pessimistic.
So Peter is supposed to be encouraged because his mother is really still with him in his imagination!? Like hell he is! She's not with him in his imagination. Imaginations can go to hell. They're tormenting. That's what they are. The imagination is where insatiable dreams and unsatisfied desires can brew. Imagination does not create an alternate reality. No, quite the contrary, it rather creates a temporary illusion, like a dream within a night's sleep or the musings of a drunk. There always comes a time to wake, though: a hangover. It comes sooner than ever anyone wishes, and often the dream of the imagination seems to have faded almost immediately. His mother isn't still with him as long as he "believes" she is with him. No. His mother is dead. Gone forever, for the rest of his entire life. He can remember her. He can keep those memories and learn from her. He can't have her back, though.

Sometimes it is hard not to say, “God forgive God.’ Sometimes it is hard to say so much. But if our faith is true, He didn’t. He crucified Him (28).

[on belief in a cruel God] ...the picture I was building up last night is simply the picture of a man like S.C. – who used to sit next to me at dinner and tell me what he’d been doing to the cats that afternoon. Now a being like S.C., however magnified, couldn’t invent or create or govern anything. He would set traps and try to bait them. But he’d never have thought of baits like love or laughter, or daffodils, or a frosty sunset. He make a universe? He couldn’t make a joke, or a bow, or an apology, or a friend (31).

…there is a spread over everything a vague sense of wrongness, of something amiss... Will there come a time when I no longer ask why the world is like a mean street, because I shall take the squalor as normal? Does grief finally subside into boredom tinged by faint nausea (35)?

Bridge-players tell me that there must be some money on the game ‘or else people won’t take it seriously.’ Apparently it’s like that. Your bid – for God or no God, for a good God or the Cosmic Sadist, for eternal life or nonentity – will not be serious if nothing much is staked on it. And you will never discover how serious it was until the stakes are raised horribly high, until you find that you are playing not for counters or for sixpences but for every penny you have in the world. Nothing less will shake a man – or at any rate a man like me – out of his merely verbal thinking and his merely notional beliefs. He has to be knocked silly before he comes to his senses. Only torture will bring out the truth. Only under torture does he discover it himself (37).

Having got once through death, to come back and then, at some later date, have all her dying to do over again? They call Stephen the first martyr. Hadn’t Lazarus the rawer deal (41)?

The more we believe that God hurts only to heal, the less we can believe that there is any use in begging for tenderness (43).

What do people mean when they say, ‘I am not afraid of God because I know He is good’? Have they never even been to a dentist (43)?

And so, perhaps, with God. I have gradually been coming to feel that the door is no longer shut and bolted. Was it my own frantic need that slammed it in my face? The time when there is nothing at all in your soul except a cry for help may be just the time when God can’t give it: you are like the drowning man who can’t be helped because he clutches and grabs. Perhaps your own reiterated cries deafen you to the voice you hoped to hear (46).

They say, ‘The coward dies many times’; so does the beloved. Didn’t the eagle find a fresh liver to tear in Prometheus every time it dined (57)?

The other end I had in view turns out to have been based on a misunderstanding. I thought I could describe a state; make a map of sorrow. Sorrow, however, turns out to be not a state but a process. It needs not a map but a history… (59)

Did you know, dear, how much you took away with you when you left? You have stripped me even of my past, even of the things we never shared. I was wrong to say the stump was recovering from the pain of the amputation. I was deceived because it has so many ways to hurt me that I discover them only one by one (61).

Five sense; an incurably abstract intellect; a haphazardly selective memory; a set of preconceptions and assumptions so numerous that I can never examine more than a minority of them – never become even conscious of them all. How much of total reality can such an apparatus let through (64)?

I need Christ, not something that resembles Him (65).

If you’re approaching Him not as the goal but as a road, not as the end but as a means, you’re not really approaching Him at all. That’s what was really wrong with all those popular pictures of happy reunions ‘on the further shore’; not the timple-minded and very earthly images, but the fact that they make an End of what we can get only as a by-product of the true End (68).

Can a mortal ask questions which God finds unanswerable? Quite easily, I should think. All nonsense questions are unanswerable. How many hours are there in a mile? Is yellow square or round? Probably half the questions we ask – half our great theological and metaphysical problems – are like that (69).

Didn’t people dispute once whether the final vision of God was more an act of intelligence or of love? That is probably another of the nonsense questions (76).

Feeling Better

2006-09-10T11:24:00.000-07:00

At long last, I believe I am beginning to be rid of this cold. My nose isn't running today, although it is still stuffy. The headache persists... but things are getting better.

I thought I'd include my favorite quotes and passages from C.S. Lewis's A Grief Observed in this post, so those will follow the short entry.

Church went well today. The message was on eternal life, and at one point, Steve mentioned two passages from Scripture in regards to heaven after death.

1. From 2 Corinthians 5

verse 8: We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord.

2. From Luke 23

verse 43: And Jesus said to him, “Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise.”

I had wondered upon Lewis's belief in purgatory/limbo (or rather, his uncertainty of the interim between death and heaven... whether there be one or not), because I hadn't seen anything (other than the parable of the rich man and Lazarus) to bolster that belief from Scripture. However, I realized that I couldn't think of any verses which would support the belief that at death, a Christian would be at once in the presence of God in heaven. These two verses helped answer that question.

I'm really looking forward to going back to The Vine tonight. We haven't been in two weeks, since we were in Northern Kentucky last weekend. After The Vine tonight there is a pig roast and free food! Tasty :)

~Christopher

Better, but... still sick

2006-09-09T22:48:00.000-07:00

My nose is still stuffy, and I still feel like crap. I guess I'm feeling better than last night, though.

I woke up at 12:30 today... got a good eleven hours of sleep. I went to lunch with Kristi, went over to play video games at Seth's dorm, watched a movie with Kristi, played more video games at Seth's, ordered a pizza, went on a walk with Kristi, and came back here... twelve hours, and that's all I did. What a Saturday.

Not much accomplished, and I'm sick... still... that's it for today.

~Christopher

Still So Sick

2006-09-08T22:32:00.000-07:00

I got up early today to go to my Campus 101 class, since I told Kristi we would go to lunch after Physics... and if I didn't get up early, I'd have to go to the class right after Physics. Lunch went well, and all in all I had a good day. I'm really tired, though -- and I keep getting more sickly, so I'm just going to read a little and head to bed.

My nose is running literally like a leaky faucet. I just keeps dripping. At one point, it was flowing down and dripping on the floor... that's how fast it was coming out (ew, disgusting... yes, I know... it was my nose).

That's about it for today... I'm too tired to update if there was anything else that's important.

Goodnight!

~Christopher

Sick

2006-09-07T18:14:00.000-07:00

Today my Speech class was off, which means I didn't have to go to any classes. Unfortunately, I was also ill today... which means I haven't done much of anything. I did manage to get my Physics homework completed. I put down every minute detail I could imagine, so I should be getting a 100% if he collects it (although I doubt he will, since we have a quiz tomorrow). I need to find out where his office is so I can ask him about my first collected homework assignment as well. I double checked the answers that were in the back of the book and they were all correct. I showed work for all the problems, have no signs of anything wrong, yet received an 18/40... perhaps I can get that cleared up tomorrow.

Kristi and I are going to begin reading from My Utmost for His Highest together... we'll each have our own copy, since I have two. She wanted to start a devotion together, and since I have two copies of that, I figured it'd be the best bet... since neither of us ever leave campus to find a different one.

I also sent some messages out to see if there were any guys on campus who would be interested in getting together once a week just to pray -- probably for about half an hour, at least at first. Zac and Dustin both already replied saying they would be interested. Even if there are only five of us, I think it'll be great. I'm not sure where we'll meet, but I'm looking forward to it.

Tomorrow is a Physics quiz, but I don't think I'm going to try to study for it until my Campus class tomorrow morning... since I need something to do to keep me occupied during it.

My throat isn't as sore as it was when I woke up, but it's 1:32 am and it still hurts a little to swallow, so I'm not sure how I'll feel in the morning. We'll see, we'll see. I'm sure it won't be anything a little Starbucks can't fix! I'll just have to get a fix before the quiz. Caffeine is a way better friend to test taking than studying.

~Christopher

Back to Work

2006-09-05T17:27:00.000-07:00

So that's not a truly accurate title, since I don't actually do a whole lot of work anymore... but I'm back to the little I have to do as a college freshman.

Last night I played Sorry with my mother and beat her... after she'd already beaten me. I played (owned) Ryan in Mario Kart 64, so he wanted to play a game of NFL Blitz so he could beat me equally as bad.

I've now read four chapters of Mere Christianity and am very much looking forward to reading the rest of it. I was expecting a book of devotions with little two page snippets about a verse here and a topic there. I was wrong. The chapters I have read so far have been a logical defense for a moral standard -- not only that, but an innate sense of right and wrong within the human heart... proofs led to through reason for the existence of such a standard. He has yet to mention Christianity save perhaps in mentioning "Christian morality versus Nazi morality (the book was originally on BBC radio during the WWII era)" or a passing reference in other contexts. The book has hardly been specifically about Christianity at all yet. I'm intrigued.

My Communications test today has dissuaded me from reading any assigned material anymore. I will simply review the table of contents for each section and the lists provided. That's all the professor gets the questions from. I actually read everything, and I think Seth had a better understanding of the test by simply skimming lists and contents... *sigh* oh well, what are first tests for, eh? I've learned my lesson -- seeing as this method is easier, I'm plenty pleased to learn it.

My Physics Conference was once again a waste of time. All I need to do for this first test is memorize all the formulas I'll need to know. If I just do that, I really think I've got a good shot at a 100%.

I just found out we had econ homework from when I skipped... er... "missed class." I'm lucky Seth Jansen called and asked me about it, because he made a copy for me and we worked on it together. It took me the better part of 90 minutes to figure it out, but I think I've got it. I don't really know if it would have made more sense if I'd been in class, either. It sounded from Seth like the homework assigned was based off of a few comments he made at the very end of class... which I read from his notes. Oh well... we'll see how things go tomorrow. Mondays and Wednesdays are my busiest days... at least there were no Monday classes this week!

I really want to skip Math 107 and Physics 111 tomorrow. Neither will benefit me, and it's likely skipping wouldn't affect my knowledge of the material or my grade... but I'll end up going -- because I don't have any even remotely honest excuse for skipping. Besides, I haven't been to Physics in a week... skipped twice and had Monday off.

I want to go camping this weekend, but I don't know where or with whom, so it will likely be the weekend after. We'll see how those plans go.

I'm really tired, so I'm going to grab my book and jump into bed. Goodnight, moon.

~Christopher

Leaving So Soon?

2006-09-04T17:44:00.000-07:00

The weekend has gone by rather quickly. It's already Monday night. I'm leaving bright and early tomorrow morning, and I should be in Louisville by 10:00 -- even including the traffic we might hit nearing the city.

I haven't done much since I was home... played some games with Ryan, went to McDonald's twice to enjoy discounted McDonald's food (I really wish I could use my meal plan at the McDonald's right across campus), bought Chase a video game... and that's about it.

It was good to have home cooked food again. I really wish I could buy ingredients at cook for myself this year, but I'm required to pay for the on campus meal plan, which also happens to mean I'm required to eat fast food almost every day.

I finished A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis and am starting Mere Christianity. I have some quotes from A Grief Observed, but they're on my laptop. I'll probably make a post about the book once I get back to Louisville. I can't access the wireless here at home for some reason, so I've just used my parents computers to access the internet.

I've got a test in Speech tomorrow. Hopefully it's as easy and straightforward as the professor told us it would be. We'll see how things go... I can study on the way back to Louisville tomorrow.

It was nice to be home, but it'll be nice to be on campus, too -- I'm not sure where I would rather be right now. I suppose I'm content to just come and go... floating back and forth between the two. I'm not sure when I'll be coming home next, though. Late September, maybe.

Matt did put the entire second season of Lost on my computer, so I'll be able to watch that when I get back down to Louisville (Thank, Matt!). He put each of them on his computer as they were aired. His copy of the DVD set of the season should arrive within the next couple days. It's released on the 5th (another three hours).

I did get to go to Grace for church yesterday, but I was feeling rather sick. I left to go lie down in the car, vomited in the parking lot a few times, had a really sensitive headache, an aching throat, burning chest, and gas... I was basically sick all over. I'm not sure what it was from. Some of the symptoms were similar to what will happen if I have dairy products, so it might have been an allergic reaction to something I ate... but all I'd eaten was a glass of grape juice and a pancake with some syrup.

Kristi left to go back to Louisville today with Nick and Jake. I'm not going down until tomorrow with Seth and Gabe. We'll be leaving at 8am, though (which is early as far as I'm concerned).

I'm going to head downstairs and perhaps play a game with Ryan and/or my mother before I lie down to read and sleep for the evening.

~Christopher

Home... question mark?

2006-09-03T08:04:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I didn't update this for a week.

Classes went well last week. Although I will admit that I skipped Physics twice (and econ once). I don't really want to skip econ again, because I enjoy the class. Physics, though -- well, when he's going over basic high school physics (especially when it's the stuff I knew before even taking high school physics), I'm not too inclined to sit in on a 100+ student lecture.

I discovered how to find books in the library (you'd think if I'm smart enough to get paid to attend this school, I'd be smart enough to find books), which took me maybe an hour and some help from one of the librarians. Turns out Out of the Silent Planet wasn't there... but there were four other C.S. Lewis books that I got. I'm going to go finish A Grief Observed after I get off of here. I'm not sure which I'll read next. I have The Problem of Pain, Mere Christianity, and Four Loves.

In my communications class, we were given an assignment to come up with 'interview questions' then pair up and interview a classmate to present to the class. I met really cool guy named Kevin who also happens to live in Unitas. He heard I was from Beechwood and told me 'no hard feelings.' Turns out he's from around here, too. He's a Newport Central Catholic grad. No one was really finished with organizing their notes when the professor requested volunteers to go first. Neither of us were finished, so we just decided to go first and wing it. I think we did rather well, and it was nice to have it over with and know we wouldn't have to do anything the rest of that class or the class on Thursday.

I finally went out and bought GTA: Vice City. Yes, it is a video game where you drive around, steal cars, smash up shop windows, and run a crime 'protection' ring. No, I haven't decided it would be a good idea to go hold up a store. We watch movies like The Godfather or The Untouchables. I'm playing a game... and I know it's a game.

I drove home yesterday with Nick (a friend from Bellarmine). It's different to be home and visiting. I say 'home' but in truth, I am 'home' at Unitas. My room is now Matt's, and it is clean and organized. It looks nice... I remember when I had it looking clean... so very long ago. I sleep on Ryan's bed. He's on the couch... but he sleeps there many nights anyway.

It's nice to be home, but I'm sick today. I left church really early, vomited several times in the parking lot, and fell asleep in the van. My eyes are still really sensitive to light (more so than usual), I've got a headache, my chest hurts, and I've got gas... at least I'm not vomiting now. I'm going to go rest for awhile and hope I'm feeling better before the UK vs. UofL game comes on tonight. I'm not a huge football fanatic, but I'm looking forward to watching Louisville play.

First real weekend

2006-08-27T22:15:00.000-07:00

So... this was the first 'real weekend' of college, meaning the first weekend which was actually an escape from classes rather than simply the weekend before classes begin.

Saturday Mike, Cameron, and Jonathan drove down to visit. I didn't see them much, because Saturday was also Kristi and I's anniversary (seven months), but I'll see them this weekend over Labor Day, so I wasn't too worried about it.

Kristi and I watched Tristan and Isolde yesterday... which was actually a good movie. When she brought in the three choices we had to watch, I was a bit wary -- none of them really looked all that great in my opinion. I enjoyed it, though.

Wendy's is open over the weekends from 12-6, which means I can get food there... but nothing is open on weekend nights, which means if you're hungry, you can't even use the mandatory meal plan. I had to go to McDonald's tonight to get something to eat. It's a shame we can't go grocery shopping and cook our own meals. That reminds me. I need to add the mandatory meal plan to my list of student pet peeves.

Today was a long day, even though I didn't do much. I spent quite a few hours talking on the phone today, and the service at The Vine was excellent again... but that's about it.

Not too much to update on this weekend, I guess. It's going on 1:30, so I'm going to head to bed. I've got to get up a little early for classes so I can do my physics homework before class.

~Christopher

Games and more Games

2006-08-25T23:29:00.000-07:00

Yesterday (Thursday) the only class I had was my communications class, where we went over a "true/false" test which was supposed to spur class discussion. It didn't count for a grade, but the basis of the test was that all the statements boiled down to relativity and "well, it depends on how you define 'telling'" or "what if the man being spoken to is actually deaf and staring at a book, so he doesn't hear you when you tell him something." This is, in my opinion, a waste of time which would be better spent preparing a speech... or simply not taking Comm 111 at all :)

Last night Seth and I went to the SAC to get some Wendy's. We met up with Austen and headed back to Seth's dorm... where the three of us and Kumbi stayed up until around 3am playing video games on our laptop. Walking 9/20 of a mile across campus that early in the morning was enough to have me alert and cautious, but I got back safely.

Today I had math and physics, which were both easy -- and I'd fogotten I need to go to a campus class, so I went to that from 1-2:15 (didn't really learn anything here, either).

After class, I headed over to Kristi's dorm. We watched Supertroopers, a small amount of television, then ended up falling asleep and sleeping until 1:30 when my alarm went off. Exciting, I know. Apparently Steve (Zac's roommate) thought I was 'stumbling in' when I came back around 1:45 -- he thought I'd been out at a party. No worries to any of my family reading here -- there were no parties to be had. No fiesta, merely a siesta.

This is College

2006-08-23T20:17:00.000-07:00

Yeah... I'm not going to lie. This is college. I'm not ashamed to say I'm desperate to hoard free food and drinks. I'll admit that I walked past a vending machine on the first floor of Unitas and saw a Lipton BRISK lemon iced tea sitting at the bottom, unopened. I'll also admit that I took it. I mean... this is college. Still, I must confess. The can was a bit dented and rather sticky. I washed the entire can with soap and water, especially near the tab. I may be desperate, but I don't want a disease or anything. After all... this is college.

So today wasn't too productive, either -- but I had a good day. I got up two hours before my class at eleven. I learned that my Math 107: "Finite Mathematics" course is basically the Algebra II course I took as a freshman in high school four years ago... so it shouldn't pose any problems. An A should be forthcoming so long as I show all my work and take the time to review the stuff I don't know. The physics class will also be review for a little while. I'll have to be sure I do the homework, though... since it will randomly be taken up and graded. Economics was today again -- we only have it twice a week. It will be interesting, and I don't think it should get too difficult. I will have to stay on top of it and review the notes I take, though. I'll have plenty. I try to keep active in the class, and since I've got a laptop, I take notes on everything -- I keep the main important stuff in the regular word folder and random stuff in a wordpad .rtf file, so it won't be a problem going back to study. I'll bet to others in the class I look like some huge overachiever, but the the truth is... I'm just bored ;)

All right, I just opened the can of tea. If you never see another blog post, send someone to Unitas to investigate. Have them check the vending machines for any residue or diseases.

Tomorrow I don't have class until 4:30, but it is the class I dislike the most. I'll have to finish reading the rest of the second chapter. I'm almost finished, though; so I won't worry about it tonight.

After my classes today, I came back to drop my stuff off, then went to meet Kristi for dinner. We then went back and talked with her friend across the hall and her FYG (first year guide) before her roommate left and we went over to her room to watch a movie. We watched Hardball about a man addicted to betting on sports games (and owing money) who starts coaching a team of young black kids from a ghetto neighborhood. It wasn't bad, but I wouldn't go so far as to agree with Kristi and say it was "really good."

After the movie, we were lying down before I left and there was a key in the door. We figured Kayla was back, but didn't guess her mother would be with her. There's no couch or anything, so we'd just been lying down on her bed. When I realized Kayla's mother was there, I sat up... I think mainly to prove that I had pants on and that we weren't do anything in case there were any doubts. We went on a walk after that, and I headed back to my dorm to sit on the computer before going to bed.

Like I said, not a very productive day; but it was good to spend time with Kristi, which I haven't done much of since we got down here. Tomorrow looks wide open for time squandering :)

~Christopher

Communications

2006-08-22T14:58:00.000-07:00

Today wasn't very productive really. I skimmed/read the 55 pages I had to read from my Physics textbook, went to lunch with Kristi and two of her friends, got a PO box, went to the SAC with Seth while he ate his Wendy's, then came back to the dorm for a little while before my communications class.

Communications looks like it'll blow. I don't mind giving a few speeches, but I still am not sure why there is so much to read for an oral communications course. I guess I'll get to work on reading that material here soon. First two chapters have to be read by Thursday.

I've hardly eaten anything the past two days. I couldn't finish my meals either days, and that's all I've eaten. I just haven't had an appetite.

It's only Tuesday and I'm ready for this first week to be over. Oh! I need to sign up for a service event in Louisville this Friday/Saturday. That has to be entered by today. I guess I'll get on that right now.

I went to the Baptist Student Union (BSU)'s TnT (worship service) tonight. It was all right. It wasn't anything amazing, and the worship was a little weak, but I think I'm just spoiled by having really spirited worship at Grace and now The Vine. I'll check out Campus Crusade for Christ on Thursday with Kristi and her friend from across the hall. We'll see how that goes. I'm looking forward to it.

I wasn't feeling very well today, but I went over to Kristi's room and spent about half an hour with her, and that lifted my spirits. I still need to do quite a bit of reading before I go to sleep, though. I've got plenty of time to do it tomorrow... so maybe I will put some of it off... who knows?

I went to Wal-Mart today and bought blank DVDs, CDs, cases, and headphones -- rang up around $45... ouch... oh well, I already watched my checking account drop several hundred dollars thanks to textbooks. At least those should all last me for a long time. I'll store some media files on the DVDs so I can access them easily on my laptop -- save the rest. The CDs should last a long time, since I won't use them often. I just know I'll eventually need them. The headphones will come in very handy so I can listen to music when it's a bit later at night... like now.

I'm off to read from my communications book before heading to sleep... or maybe play Nintendo 64.

~Christopher

Student Pet Peeves

2006-08-22T11:40:00.000-07:00

SPP No. 1
Students who refuse to alter their course on the sidewalk.

I'm not talking about a large upperclassman walking on his right half of the sidewalk. I'm talking about students who are typically small and in a small group who absolutely refuse to move over to the right even a step to allow me to walk past, keeping my feet pressed again the very edge of the sidewalk. Is it not a common courtesy anymore to accommodate our fellow walking beings travel needs on the sidewalks?

SPP No. 2
University "Tolerance"

I'm not saying that UofL is an anti-Christian environment. We've got three decent sized Christian organizations on campus (Campus Crusade for Christ, Baptist Student Union, and the Intervarsity Center). Still, when the very first desk I sit at during my very first class has a cross carved into the face of it with a large circle and a line through it with the f-word written on one of the beams, it's hard for me not to imagine what type of outrage there would have been if rather than a cross, there had been BLACKS carved in big box lettering (I moved to the desk behind me before actually sitting down, by the way).

SPP No. 3
General Education

The ghost of high school past come to haunt me by living in my present is here for at least a year as the single barrier to my enjoyment of my higher education. I quite look forward to the classes I'm set to take in the College of Business. My Economics course this semester will very likely be my favorite, because I will remember and care about what I learn (whereas my physics course will be yet again another time I teach myself material for a test that I throw away and never use again). I know the basics of Physics, and going through all the formulae and process again just to finally forget it forever is not something I'm looking forward to. Oh well, Gen Ed should be finished by third semester.

Classes

2006-08-21T10:58:00.000-07:00

So apparently it's a good thing I didn't get my Finite Mathematics textbook early, because most everyone in the class already had it... and they got the wrong book. Mine is coming in from Gray's warehouse -- it should be in tonight or tomorrow. I got a used copy, but it was still priced $95! Ouch... expensive for a simple algebra/probabilities textbook. *sigh* What a waste of money. At least I'll only end up paying about $200 out of my own pocket for these books. $125 of them will be covered by the minimal amount of scholarship I have left over... no thanks to the $850.00 meal plan. The Math 107 course doesn't seem like it will be too hard. The only grades are the 4 or 5 exams we're taking this semester... so I've got to do well from the start, but it should be fine.

Physics 111-01b is a survey course, so it gives an overview of many field of physics. This is good in the sense that it won't go into very much detail under each section. I should be okay here -- he said he shoots for an average class score of 50% on his exams, and we only need a 79% overall to get an A in the class. The tests will be hard, but I think if I keep up with the class and study a bit each time new material is presented, I should be okay.

I've got my Econ 201 (micro economics) in another twenty minutes. I've got to get going to that now to find out what that'll be like (as well as which textbook I need -- likely another $100 one). Tomorrow we don't have a physics lab/conference, which means my only class is (like Thursday) my oral communications class from 4-5:15. I don't expect that class to be very difficult, but I could be mistaken. Still, everything's looking okay so far.
*****
The Microeconomics class actually seems like the one I'm going to enjoy the most. The book was $75ish dollars used, which wasn't too bad, and I think the topics we discuss in class will interest me. Economics is, as a whole, something I know very little about. Being able to learn about something so practical and new to me is exciting in a sense.

I did check how many pages I'm supposed to read for Physics..... 55 pages of a Physics text book by the day after tomorrow. I guess I'll get started on that soon.

Seth and I went to a Michael W. Smith concert at Cardinal Stadium. It only cost us about $9 each for tickets to the State Fair and parking, which is all we needed to get in. The concert was great. I don't know many of his individual songs, but half of it was worship (maybe a third), which was really cool.

I thought about taking a Greek class after I found out that Kristi is now taking it and realized that UofL actually offers a Greek class. I decided against it, though. I wasn't sure if I would do it or not. I talked to my parents, and they advised to keep this first semester easy, with everything I'm getting plugged in to, so that's what I'm doing.

Tomorrow I don't have class until 4:00, and apparently Seth and I both have the same oral communications class then, so that'll be cool.

Oh! I also convinced Seth to declare a major, too! He's no longer undecided. He's planning on being an Accounting major with a minor in Theatre. We should be taking quite a few classes together starting next semester.

I'm still not sure what to do about the roommate situation. We've got time to think about it, though. Seth and I still might try to room together. We're not sure. I'm excited about having a bunch of free time tomorrow, though. Tuesdays I will usually have a physics lab/conference in the middle of the day, then just the speech class, and Thursdays, all I have is the speech class -- so those will be easy days.

~Christopher

MEGA church (revisited)

2006-08-20T21:00:00.000-07:00

The church service tonight was amazing. I mean, it was really (really) good. There was worship before and after the message which was given. The speaker for tonight gave a sermon on being a Christian meaning being a 'follower.' Christians were originally called followers of Christ, before the name 'Christian' was used -- he went on to talk about different types of allegiance -- we might declare a "Selective Allegiance" where we follow Christ when we feel like doing it -- but not when it's not easy; or perhaps a "Qualified Allegiance" where we feel we bring our own chips to the table to bargain with between God and ourselves... where we agree to do a and b so long as God does x and y (where x and y are outside of the promises God does guarantee us). The worship band is great. The guy who gave the message at the Real Life Cafe (which is the college service's name) is the main singer for the worship band as I'd guessed. He has a great voice and did an excellent job of leading the singing and prayer between/during the songs. The music is loud. It's more like a rock concert. Like a friend said, it's so loud you don't have to worry about not being a good singer. You can belt it without making anyone upset :) At the same time, you can tell that everyone else is singing -- it was more spirited like a service at Grace would be, but also a lot more focused on youth than Grace would be. I liked it a lot.

Kyle (the speaker) made a specific point (a good portion of the message, actually) of stating that if Christ were like the Rabbi's of his day, he wouldn't have done a great job attracting members -- because he kept raising the bar instead of lowering it. He specifically mentioned how some churches today water-down the gospel because they don't want to talk about 'morality' to keep any chuch attenders from leaving. They'll only talk about God's love and acceptance, painting a picture of a loving God who can fit on the side of a coffee mug or maybe a bumper sticker if He's lucky. He's about as powerful as a combination of the tooth fairy and a bouquet of hippy anti-war flowers and peace signs... with a side of WWJD key chains. I was excited to hear this, because it was the very thing I was worried about in looking for a new church now that I'm in Louisville.

The first "floor meeting" was held today. It took about an hour and a half. We didn't really get much information we needed to hear. Basically just don't be an idiot and you're fine. Rules are put in place for a reason. Some can be broken without consequence if you're not stupid about it, and others are absolutely not to be touched. There's no gambling allowed in the building -- but the rule is technically no exchanging money from gambling within the building. Play with chips and divy up the cash outside if you wish... not that I plan on playing much poker, since I've never developed much of an affinity towards it.

I have class at 11:00 tomorrow, so I'm going to shoot for waking up at 10:00 -- should give me time to get dressed and head over to the Humanities building. I don't even know which class it is to be honest. It's either a prep for statistics or an economics class. I don't have either text book because they're both in an honors learning community, and I don't know if we're using the same books as the regular class or not.

We'll see how classes go tomorrow. I'm probably going to a Michael W. Smith concert at Cardinal Stadium tomorrow.

~Christopher

MEGA church

2006-08-20T10:13:00.000-07:00

Glenn Beck (radio talk show host who now has a television show somewhere) once made a joke about the "mega-church" opening somewhere in Texas. It's a good thing it was God's house, because try as they might, no one but Him would be able to count the number of people there. There were places where you could actually buy a seat in the house of God so you would have your own assigned seat when you came to play Christian for a couple hours. I'm being cynical, but that leads into my next point. I've always been judgmental and skeptical of extremely large churches. I suppose this is ironic, since my church at home has grown in the seven years I was with it from around 100 to over 1,000 people. Still, I've always been wary of attending an extremely large church because of my fear that the reason it attracts so many people is because it offers a watered-down gospel and weak "let's-not-hurt-anyone's-feelings" preaching. I admit, I feel I must confess that this bias is unfair and is likely part of a harshness I have towards some sects and denominations of Christianity which are extremely liberal and simply don't take God's Word seriously. The harshness leads me to be less prone to be loving in an atmosphere like that, and is something I have to work on. I went to a very large church today and I think it might work out for me.

Church at SouthEast (yes, that's the name of the church) looks like it'll be good. It's massive, so that will take some getting used to, and I was wary about attending such a large church. I think this is just because of my own personal bias that a large church can't exist which doesn't thrive on a watered down gospel and weak, 'feel-good and just love each other' preaching. The church actually is in the process of transition. They started 2006 off by deciding that they were spreading too thin and had to cut back on some of the programs they were funding and running in order to focus more on what is important. They cut off one hundred programs. The service we went to this morning had five to six thousand people in attendance. That was just the one service. That got over a little after 10:00 (started at 9:00) and the college service (which had maybe 100) started in one of the rooms on the third floor of one of the wings.

The college service was also good (although there wasn't any worship). They are (I believe) the ones who run "The Vine" which is the nightly worship service. The main sanctuary is used for an hour of just worshipping. I'm very glad they have this to supplement the church services, because... well... let's just say the church service this morning was a bit lacking in the 'spirited' aspect. Of the several thousand, I did see one man up in the very top row (by this, I mean the back row of one of the balcony areas) who had his hands raised (perhaps it was a woman, I couldn't quite tell from how far away the hand raiser was). So, it'll be good to be able to worship there tonight.

The college organization also meets at the University here on Wednesdays from 11:45 to 1:30 in the Student Activities Center (the SAC). Because the church is so large, I think I will be able to find everything I'm looking for in a church within it. The church also pushes small groups, which is a very big requirement for me. The college group itself has seven or eight of the groups which will be meeting starting September 11th.

I'm not sure if I'll keep going to the regular 9:00 service or not. I might just go to the college service. Sitting in a sanctuary with 5,000 other people where the worship is half singing and half listening to the performance they have on stage isn't really... well, my cup of tea. I'm hoping the worship tonight goes well. I hear there are a lot more youth at The Vine.

The church did an excellent job of greeting and making guests feel welcome. They do pass the offering bag. I've always liked how the plate isn't passed at Grace Fellowship back home -- not because it's easy to avoid, but because it feels awkward having everyone watch you as you put money (or don't that week) into the collection. I still owe tithe from my summer job. The rest of that will be in at the end of the month. I'll be able to see how much I've made and be able to tithe the rest based on that.

My roommate has now moved in. We're obviously rather different, but I think we'll get along well enough to live together this next year. It would have been nice if UofL hadn't lost Seth's housing application and he'd have been able to room with me -- but it probably won't be worth the hassle of moving around just to switch roommates. Still, walking to and from his dorm to mine is almost a mile (.90 miles)!

I'm working on using Google Earth to place labels on all the buildings here on campus so I have a map on my computer I can use to navigate campus if I ever wonder where a building is (okay, I'll be honest, it's because I'm somewhat of a geek and I thought it would be a cool thing to do).

~Christopher

Wendy's

2006-08-19T19:38:00.000-07:00

I have yet to eat a meal at Wendy's, which is rather disturbing, to be honest. I want to start spending my meal plan money as soon as possible so that I'm not spending money out of pocket. I went to the SAC to say hello to Seth and Gabe, eating Subway (the only restaurant open). I didn't wake up until noon. Around five, there was free food at the Red Barn. I was hungry by then, so I stopped by and got some. Fried chicken, a biscuit, and corn. It wasn't bad.

Seth and I went contra dancing at a place about ten minutes away. The dance wasn't as good as it is back in Wyoming, Ohio -- sort of made us realize how good we have it in Cincinnati. The ratio of men to women was really bad, so about twenty guys were always sitting out due to lack of ladies. Still, I had a good time. There were only two women our age there, but we'll make it our goal to get some of the ladies here at the University to give it a try.

Classes start the day after tomorrow. I'm not even sure which classes I take on Monday. I do know that I never have a class before 11am, though -- which means Sunday is the only day of the week I'll be required to wake up at a reasonable hour.

~Christopher

SoaP

2006-08-18T23:56:00.000-07:00

So... today was Kristi's 18th birthday. I'm not a big birthday person. I suppose that comes from my family never making a big deal out of birthdays. I didn't do anything for my 18th birthday, except head out to buy cigars to smoke with Zac after I'd flown in from Colorado. As such, I didn't really have anything planned. We went to see Snakes on a Plane with Austen and Seth, which was just about exactly what I expected it to be. A stupid movie targetting students as its main audience. We got home and went to Kristi's dorm room. I got to meet her roommate, Kayla, today. I think she and Kayla will have a good year together. All I did for her birthday was just bring a book of poems and the bottle of sparkling white grape juice that was leftover from when we had Valentine's Day in my basement.

There was a 'roof-top party' on top of the Floyd Street garage tonight, but I wasn't hungry at the time, so not even the free food sounded appealing to me. Austen went to it, though. He called me to tell me there was free food, but that was all he mentioned -- didn't really say how good it was.

There was a College of Business reception today. They served ice cream, but I couldn't eat any, because I'm mildly allergic and I'd be regretting it after about five minutes. I did meet the Dean of the College of Business. He seemed like a good guy. The two of us talked long enough for me to hear practically the entire history of his under and post graduate college years from a major/minor standpoint and some of the classes he took.

*sigh* I wish Keira Knightley was in Snakes on a Plane. That would have made it so much better. Um... scratch that.

It's 3:33am, I think I'll get in bed.

Classes start in three days. I purchased my first textbook today. It was used and for a speech class (You need a textbook to learn how to talk???) and still cost me about sixty dollars. I've still got three more to go.

~Christopher
published at 3:35am

College Papers

2006-08-17T21:24:00.000-07:00

[this entire chunk of writing is just to say that our assignment for the following class is a joke -- feel free if you wish to skip it to do so]
The honors campus class went well. I was very glad for it to be over, because it seemed very much like a waste of time. Oh! Here's some good news... the other sections of the class (there were somewhere between 5-8, I believe) were assigned three two page papers to write as well as some sort of library research assignment. All we have to do is write a "strategic plan" by near the end of October. All it is is a list of our beliefs, our goals, our strengths/weakness/opportunities/threats, and how we can best make use of understanding our S/W/O/T. Actually, the professor (Buddy LaForge) told us that we can actually just mark out the introduction. Yeah, it's not really important. Our paper would just be stating the purpose for writing it to begin with, and wouldn't have anything original, so we can just mark it out. Also, the body of the paper we have to write can really be written out in list format, so we can just list our goals, beliefs, and s/w/o/t. Also, the conclusion seemed rather pointless. He told us we don't have to worry about that. Yeah... basically, we just have to make a couple lists for the college of business form of the Honors Campus Culture class. That's it. Our papers wouldn't even be considered papers by most high school teachers I've had. Hmm... not that I'm complaining. I agree with the professor. The point of the assignment is simply to assess ourselves and plan for the rest of college. There's not point in making it into a coherent paper, because we wouldn't gain anything more from the extra work of putting it in to paper. Still, it just sounded odd to hear a teacher tell us everything we don't have to do on a paper.

After the class was over, Seth and I were going to go to Wal-Mart to get some stuff. We were on our way over to Seth's dorm/car when we ran into Austen. He wasn't doing anything, so he went with us. We got into Seth's room so I could set up his wireless connection, and I accidentally turned on his roommate's (Kumbi's) computer on, since they both have the same Dell Inspirion Notebooks. Kumbi walked in right after that, so I explained that I was just an idiot and forgot which side of the room was Seth's. Kumbi wasn't doing anything, either, so he went with us as well.

Seth's driving today was... well... ouch... let's just say he was compared to several other prejudices against driving, both in race and gender. Eeek... let's just say he parked about 500 yards away from Target in the Lowe's parking lot, thinking he was at Target; and he put the car into park while it was still moving, jerking the car around... then looked surprised and said, "What was that?" We need not mention more, but it was probably the worst I've ever seen him drive any vehicle.

We checked in Wal-Mart for Ethernet cables and a power cord for my desktop (which I left at home). We found the power cord, but the cables were all 14' and $15.00, so we went to Target to get those. We only picked up two (Austen and I already had ours). We also stopped by Gamestop, where we just drooled a bit and didn't purchase a thing. While we were in Wal-Mart, Kumbi pointed out Caddyshack for $5.50. I'd never seen it, so that was a must buy. Perhaps I'll start watching it tonight before I go to sleep.

Both my computers are now up and running, although I have to keep moving the internet cable from one to the other, because I'm too cheap to by a device to allow me to switch between the two more efficiently.

I noticed that the UofL library has quite a good number of works by CS Lewis. I'm excited to get my hands on some of those. I haven't read anywhere near as much of Lewis's works as I'd like to. I've read the Chronicles of Narnia, The Great Divorce, and The Screwtape Letters. I believe that's all.

I'm not sure what events are scheduled for tomorrow, but I do know that if any are before noon, I will not be attending them.

Tomorrow (technically today) is Kristi's 18th birthday. I really don't care for birthdays, so thinking of something to do tomorrow will be hard. We probably won't do anything special. I didn't do anything special on my birthday. The day before, I was in Colorado and Julie's mother searched through her entire house for full-length candles to set on her table: eighteen of them! I flew on a plane, got home close to midnight, went out and purchased cigars, smoked them with Zac, then got up early for school the next morning. Nothing big. Nothing fancy. I told her that she didn't do anything for me for my 18th birthday. Apparently "we weren't even dating then" is a viable excuse... I don't really understand that one. I guess she just wins that argument because she's a woman. As if she didn't have to celebrate my birthday just because we weren't dating and "actually weren't even friends then." What does friendship have anything to do with it? I just like free stuff...

I'm really tired, so I'm going to head to bed. If I forgot anything big from today, I'll type it up tomorrow.

~Christopher

The First First Move (of seven)

2006-08-15T23:23:00.000-07:00

Today was the day of the move. I finished packing my belongings together and moved them out to the van. I didn't really realize that I'd be leaving my siblings behind until then. I'd thought for the very first time just days before about how I would be leaving Ryan at home, which sucks, because he's going to be a junior this year, and it really seemed like the two of us were talking more this summer. Still, there are always breaks. It's not like I'm gone completely these four years.

Daria came with Mom and Dad and I to help me move in (actually, she came along because Mom felt guilty leaving her behind for Grandma and Matt to watch, since she's rather a handful).

It didn't take long to move in. I still haven't unpacked everything, but that's also because I need to talk to the people at housing tomorrow to put in a request to change roomates and room with Seth instead of with whomever I will be with for these two weeks.

Mom cried, but not too much. They've done a fine job as my parents. I'm no longer their responsibility, and they don't need worry about me any more than I will be worrying about myself. I'm not a big social person at many times. Yes, I can be a social person when I need to be, and when I'm around close friends, I am very social. I don't just go out and meet new people to party with, though. I recognized two people from Freshman Orientation and talked with them today, Austen and Ryan. I came back at 8:45, though, so I could get to work at straightening out my dorm. I can not access the internet tonight, which means this blog post will have to be made tomorow sometime and updated with today's date.

I'm looking forward to starting my classes on Monday -- not because I'm a geek and want to get my nose in a book (speaking of, I've yet to purchase my textbooks). I picked up a waiver request form for the mandatory meal plan to see if I can get out of paying a full $1700 this year on my food card alone. If I don't use that money by the end of the year, UofL steals it from me. If I don't use my own money on the vendors on their campus, they rob me of my money and refuse to refund it to me or let it rollover to the next year. After this semester, money will roll over to spring, but money will not roll over after the spring semester. For the life of me, I cannot comprehend why I am not allowed to get my money back if I don't spend it. Especially if UofL is requiring me to spend my money on the food.

I've moved away from home and I'm here in an unfamiliar setting completely by myself (at least until Zac, Kristi, and Seth get here tomorrow). I should feel as though a large change has taken place. I don't, though -- not really. Yes, I can comprehend that I won't be sleeping at home anymore, but my home is not based on where I sleep. It's based within. My home is found in whom and what I love. Ulitmately, my home is truly found in Christ, who is always a solid foundation beneath my feet, a friend walking along beside me, a brother behind me to catch me if I fall, a father in front of me leading the way by his light and example, and an insipiration above me guiding my path through his outpouring of Grace! Yes, it is true. The Lord and Savior I cherish so deeply is still at my house near Cincinnati. It is also true that he is here. Now. With me. I am alone, and I am home. I am empty-handed, and I am full. I am poor, and I am just beginning to discover the vast riches I truly have. I am ready to rise to the occasion and be successful in yet another chapter of my life.

I am broken, and I am home.

~Christopher

Last Day

2006-08-15T22:42:00.000-07:00

So, this was my last day at home. I spent most of it packing and getting stuff ready to leave. I'm sure I'll have left items at home or forgotten something rather important, but I'm only going to be ninety minutes away, so I'm not going to worry about it too much. I'm pretty sure I'll be able to get by until Labor Day (at least) without anything I may forget tomorrow.

I was planning on getting finished with everything and getting to bed at a decent hour, but my neighbor, Leo, gave a ticket for two for an early showing of The Illusionist (Edward Norton, Jessica Biel). Seeing as Edward Norton is Kristi's favorite actor, we went to see that.

I stopped by Wal-Mart on the way home to pick up shampoo, toothpaste and stuff.

I've packed almost everything up that I'll be taking with me. The room is looking pretty barren. I've left a few small boxes underneath the stairwell in storage across from my room, and two of the six drawers under my desk still have some items in them (as well as the top drawer of one of the two dressers in here and some leftover clothing in the middle drawer of the other). Mostly, everything is gone.

I'm not really excited about moving out of the house tomorrow. I don't think it'll change my relationship with my parents too much. In fact, being away from them might make me keep in touch with them more often than I have been now, living at home.

I'll miss friends from high school, but I'll see them (some of them) again on Labor Day, and a few are going to UofL with me, so I'm not too worried about that.

I leave in 8.5 hours, so I need to get some sleep. I'll be woken up around 6:30, most likely... so I need to try and catch a good 4.5 hours of sleep. Perhaps I can take a nap after I get moved in tomorrow afternoon before I have to go to my class.

The laptop is working wonderfully. I'm loving it. I installed Halo on it last night just to test the power of the computer. It ran smoothly -- perhaps a little laggy at peak fighting times, but nothing to be ashamed of. I was impressed. I'll have to see how much this laptop can handle once I get down to UofL. It can't handle any new games. That's for sure -- but I need this laptop mostly for classes and communication, so I am more than satisfied with it!

~Christopher

So Well I'm Ill... I'm Swell

2006-08-14T21:34:00.000-07:00

I quit blogging roughly a year ago. Senior year came and went. It was a good year. No, I wouldn't want to have to do it again, but I know that the good memories of being a senior will stay with me. From mulching and planting flowers in the hallway to bringing a toaster into class and making toast during the middle of Physics class just to see if we could get a reaction out of the teacher, senior year will forever hold fond memories. Still, with all the pointless assignments and wasted time, I'm glad to be finished with high school. I'm also glad that as pointless as I believed much of it to be, I still finished senior year well, graduating Valedictorian.

It's 2:22am, and sleeping soon would most likely be in my best interest, but I figured I'd at least get this blog started tonight.

I went out to dinner with my parents tonight. They had a giftcard for a local "chophouse." The food was decent -- I thought the ribs were a little dry, but at half-price they were worth every penny that my parents used of my grandparents' money in that giftcard. It was good to spend some time with just the two of them -- to talk about college and life at home.

I came home and talked with Ryan and Chase. They both said they wouldn't mind if I took the desktop down to college with me so I'd have something that ran a little faster than a laptop. Chase sometimes would play some emulators on it, so after he told me he was okay with it, I told him I'd go out and buy him a game. He wants a remake of Pokemon Red. I was his age (give or take a few months) when I got the original Pokemon Red for my birthday... wow, they're already making remakes.

Dad took me out after I spoke with Ryan and Chase. I have the desktop on 'lease.' I'll just use it for the next two semesters. After next summer, I'll have enough saved up that I can purchase my own desktop if my heart so desires. Because I don't have to worry about having a desktop soon, I went with Dad's recommendation of going with the upper-end laptop. My parents had told me that if I got a full ride to college (which I did), they would purchase a laptop for me as a graduation gift. Dad and I went to Best Buy today... and we got one. It's a nice Gateway with a dual-core 64 bit processor, which means it will be able to run Vista... that is if Microsoft ever releases it. It's nice. It's very nice. I felt sick to my stomach when I took it out of the box and start plugging it in. Pressing the power button and barely even being able to hear its innards whirring and buzzing, I felt so in awe that I literally felt ill. I don't know if I'm through that or if I just don't feel it because I'm so tired.

I will be in Louisville in another thirty-six hours. A day and-a-half until I'm moved out of the house and moved in to my dorm room. Up until last night when I had a dream about leaving, I really hadn't though much about it. I still don't think I'm excited. It's a big change, so what I'm looking forward to most is just getting down there and getting settled in so that I'm not 'in transition' as I've been over this summer. I'm not excited to leave my home, and I'm only mildly excited about starting college. I look forward to being productive again. Being idle these past ten days I don't think has been good for me. I guess I am ready to go, and I'm wanting college to start. I do love my family and have a lot of memories here with friends, so naturally I don't want to just leave all of that. Still, I know once I get settled in down there everything will be okay. I just don't know how long it'll take to settle down. I'm guessing somewhere around labor day... a few weeks.

It's quarter 'til three in the morning, and I've got a big day tomorrow. I'm definitely not prepared to move out of the house. I've still got a fair amount of stuff to sort through and clean. Hopefully I'll keep up with this blog... we'll see. I've been consistent before.