Fall '08

I've got a little less than a month left of vacation, so now's the time to start prepping the fall semester. Here's a look at my schedule:

(click to enlarge)

I'm trying something new this semester - as you can see, I've put nearly all of my units on a single day (Tuesday.) This means I have a nearly 12 hour day on Tuesday, but I'm out of class by 10am on Mondays and Wednesdays, and Noon on Thursday. This frees up almost the entire day on those three days of the week, leaving me free to work or just have the whole day off. We'll see how well this works out.

My classes include Spanish, a liberal studies class called Technology and Social Change, Performance Art, and something called Generating Narrative in Video and New Media. Of course, whenever the title of a class is more than three words I typically have no idea what the course is about (and often still don't at the end of the semester.) Should be an interesting line up.

Since that's all taken care of and paid for, I now turn to figuring out some of the things I wrote about last time, and just enjoying the rest of the summer in general. Recently I've climbed Candy Mountain (Lake Calaveras to most people), played dodgeball, broke my dance mat, got two new ones in the mail, and gone to Comicon.

I had a lot more fun at the con this year since I was a bit more prepared and saw a lot more cool panel discussions this time around. I met/shook hands with/got an autograph from Jordan Mechner, creator of the Prince of Persia video game series (and screenwriter for the upcoming Disney/Bruckheimer Prince of Persia movie), and attended many different panel discussions including ones with the cast and crew of Family Guy, Judd Apatow, Zach Snyder, Frank Miller, and Kevin Smith with the cast/crew of Zack and Miri Make a Porno. I also went to some miscellaneous Star Wars panels and something called "Worst Cartoons Ever" which was amusing.

That's all for now I guess. I'm gonna eat some macaroni and cheese now.

Internal Conflict and all that good stuff...

I had two very pleasant, back to back dreams on Saturday night. As noted before, my dreams aren't typically "nice dreams" or "nightmares" - usually, they just don't make any sense (and the few times they aren't simply nonsensical, they're usually nightmares.) I'm not sure why this happened.

I was Harry Potter in the first dream, flying on a broom (geeky I know... it shouldn't surprise anyone though.) Another oddity, as I've only had maybe 2 other HP related dreams, and only one of them was I actually in the story (the other was where I discovered that Deathly Hallows ended with Harry and friends getting killed by Voldemort and JK Rowling preaching Christianity and anti-witchcraft messages.) In this one, there was nothing out of the ordinary; I was simply flying in a Quidditch match, chasing the snitch. The feeling of flight in my dream was one of the most vivid and realistic of feelings I've ever had while dreaming - the broom seemed to instantly recognize my every hand gesture, and the feeling of ascending and descending over the grass and feeling the wind on my face was like no other. At the end, I caught the snitch, won the game, and knew what it felt like to be loved by everyone.

There wasn't a whole lot to the second dream - I won $30,000 on a slot machine at Pechanga. I woke up just as I was beginning to decide how I was going to spend it.


Since then, most of my dreams have been more like hallucinations, where I keep believing that I'm Two-Face from The Dark Knight. This is likely due to several reasons, such as how I've seen The Dark Knight four times already (yes, it's THAT good...), or because I caught a cold on Sunday which is just now starting to subside, and being sick always makes me have weird dreams. But I'd like to think that there is a more interesting reason behind this - mainly that I feel like two different parts of me are at war with each other this week. I, once again, am finding myself at a crossroads, and have most inconveniently forgotten to bring my 'nocs, yet again (see the blog post "Crossroads" if you don't get the reference.)


It feels like every choice I've made this year has been the wrong one. As a result, I find myself second guessing everything I do and every thought I think, making my behavior and feelings maddeningly inconsistent. I hate that. I know what I ultimately want, but I don't know if I'm yet ready to be the person that is required of me to reach that. I know that, given a little bit of time, I definitely can be ready, but I don't know if I have that time to spare. If I take the time to mature enough to be able to take on said responsibilities, the opportunity may pass me by forever. And then, well, for lack of a better term, I'm fucked. It's an important decision, one that needs to be made soon, and I'm in the worst possible state for decision making; I have zero trust in myself, and absolutely despise myself for it. So what do I do? Do I go after what I want now, potentially unprepared, or do I grow up a bit first and wait until the time is right and risk losing my chance forever? It's driving me insane, and I can't stop changing my mind or second guessing myself. It's a classic case of the brain versus the heart; love versus logic. So maybe Two-Face isn't a good analogy; this is a problem that I know a simple coin-toss cannot decide. I wish it were as easy for me as it is for Two-Face; of course if it were that simple, then I'd be criminally insane, and that would be an even bigger problem...


On an entirely unrelated note, I think I'm going to take up bodyboarding again, at least for the remainder of the summer. I'm also thinking of buying a bicycle. I've now lost 31 lbs since the beginning of my diet, and expanding on my outdoor activities is probably a good direction to head next. Of course, I'm still playing the DDR - it's my new best friend.

Wizard People, Dear Readers

From the man-god Brad Neely, the guy responsible for The Professor Brothers (as seen and referenced on this site on occasion), comes "Wizard People, Dear Readers." It is a retelling of Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone, presented in an "audio book" format, designed to be synced with the DVD to provide an alternate audio track. The results are pretty freaking hilarious; above is a sample. The rest can be found at this link.

http://www.creasedcomics.com/wpdr.php

I'm Still Alive (I suppose...)

Blogs have been sparse (read: not happening at all) lately, as I and my three loyal readers are aware. This is a result of feeling like I simultaneously have everything and nothing to write about. I'm sure that make sense only to me, but I think I'm okay with that.

My personal life has taken a turn for the worst, which makes me feel like I don't want to get out of bed in the morning, while at the same time makes me feel challenged, like I want to conquer this and say that I'm that much stronger than the average person. I am a walking paradox. On that front, I'm going to leave the details at that. The people closest to me already know what I'm talking about.

That's not to say I've been I haven't been getting out of bed, mind you. While I may be experiencing a period of momentary devastation, the past two weeks have been very eye opening on many fronts. I feel like, if my life were to be divided into chronicles of a book series, this week was the close of one book, and I'm just now starting to unravel the opening chapters of the next. Several loose plot points have wrapped up, with many new emerging for the next story. Or, as I like to say, I'm sitting on the edge of my seat, waiting to find out what will happen on the other side of this season finale's cliffhanger.

Shifting gears, I wanted to comment on the loose ends I left with in my last post. The fair and Weird Al never happened; instead, I found myself along with Liz (who was down visiting for a few days) and Ryan riding in the trunk of a car, leading us to an abandoned mansion to watch a super secret, super underground concert. I'll spare all the incriminating details, but this was definitely a summer story for the books (and, strangely enough, I've been running from the cops more this summer than any other...)

Disneyland and the DCI show both happened as planned. I had a great time hanging out with Amy and Alex at the park, and got a chance to hit everything I wanted (save the Aladdin show) before my long Disneyland drought which will last until at least September. I will probably not remember the DCI show with very fond memories, but I did get to see a few good performances.

I had to work the 4th of July, which turned out okay since the theater was dead and I got to watch the fireworks from the roof of the building. If I ever get fired from this job, it may very well the first time they every have to fire someone for "miscellaneous roof activities".

I've spent this whole week house sitting the Davis house with Vince and John. It's been good bonding time; the closest I've ever had to a roommate type situation, so I will be sad to see it end (though glad that the Davis' will be returning.)

When I start feeling better, I'll try to start updating as frequently as I used to. Until then, I'm going to take this opportunity to rework and add to many sections of this unfinished website. For now, here is an excerpt that John wrote on Lona's face book wall, which I will end this post on:

chewy, vince and i have divided the house into our own nation-states, vince has the entertainment room, chewy has the kitchen (duh) and living room, i just went through a pretty sizeable conquest and have all of the bedrooms.

the fridge is empty except for bones and carrion. the spa has frozen over in the winter wind and a ship is trapped in the ice. the television is trapped on the porn channel thanks to vince. the cacti has overtaken the entire front yard, cars have been smashed in and are the caverns of local homeless people

the real ruler is the cat, who has started a feral cat colony in the attic. they attack at night, when no one is watching. i have lost a leg ... and my dignity