Tuesday, November 23, 2004

epispde 3: the moment of truth... realized!

hey, i did it! i smashed abernathy's test! i didn't get the highest grade in the class, like last time, but i was only two points away. i had a 96. not much to complain about there. at least, not for me. abernathy announced to us today that some of the kids in the class thought that the test was unfair and went and complained to the dean, saying they studied hard and that abernathy didn't help us prepare.

that's sucha lie. i'm not just saying that because i got a good grade, even my friends who got bad grades say that abernathy helps us study more than any other teacher at tech... i hope the dean doesn't listen to them.

but i suppose that's the best expected end to the trilogy, completely proving my point... studying more equals lower grades. remember that one.

Friday, November 12, 2004

girl anger, i guess

what's up with this notion that people have that girls are wimpy? even if a person never admits to it, they think it. i really makes me mad. we hear it everywhere.... "don't be such a girl." it means quit acting like a wuss. "that's a girly sport." it means it's easy. and my favorite is the football coach who tries to motovate his team by calling them ladies. don't people know that girls are going to hear these things? what if someone used your name to insult people? would it offend you?

the funny thing is, most people don't notice. most girls don't even notice.

i'm still trying to understand the whole chivalry thing. there's nothing that makes me more mad than hearing a guy say, "i respect women. i would never fight a girl." it's a complete contridiction. but i won't get into that one, it's too controversial.

Thursday, November 11, 2004

interpretation, please?

i had the weirdest dream last night.

first of all, a little bit about last night. jess was reading in bed and i was reading on the couch. i really wanted to finish the chapter, but my eyes were getting really heavy and i thought that i'd just rest them for a minute. i never thought i could fall asleep on that little tiny couch. i woke up about seven hours later because jess had rolled over and knocked something on the floor. i was shocked, really shocked to find myself still on that little couch, with the light still on, the book still on my lap, and my finger still marking my page, no less! this is very unusual because i am not a very sound sleeper. jess was telling me today that she hadn't slept so well in a long time... maybe it was something in the air.

it was after i actually got into bed that i had the dream. i went to a little christian high school, and we'd have like mini-church services in the middle of the week. i dreamed i was practicing a skit for one of those. in the skit one older person was paired with a kid, and i was paired with this cute little black girl named ruby. ruby does not actually exist, as far as i know. my little brother was in it too, and his partner was mike. in the skit, the older person would be like a voice in the kid's head, telling him or her to do something bad like steal a cookie or tell a lie. of course the voice starts to win over, until the kid prays for strength. then the voice sounds like, "blah blah blah blah...." and the kid has no trouble doing the right thing. cute, huh?

and suddenly it wasn't a skit anymore, and we were outside, standing on a really steep, rocky hill. instead of a skit it was a movie, and we had to make sure we were standing in the same place in every shot. i remember that everybody was wearing really nice running shoes except for my little brother, who got himself onto some part of the hill that he couldn't get down from and was scared. while mike and the camera guys were trying to help him, i started running down the hill and sliding on the rocks. i really remember this part well. i would slide on my feet, and slow myself down by sticking my foot further into the gravel i was sliding on. it felt like i was surfing. i was thinking, wow, all my life i thought this was so dangerous, but it's really easy. ruby said that i looked cool, and she wished that she could do it. there was some other guy there too, that said i was really cool because i wasn't worried about falling. so i climbed up the hill and did it again. i wanted my brother to see so he wouldn't be scared. this time, when i got to the bottom, i just kept running. my shoes really were nice.

i went to an underground tunnel that was halfway full of water. it wasn't dark, and the tunnel was perfectly rectangular and the walls were white. it had arms branching off to the sides, like a hallway. i had been there before and i knew i was afraid of the place. i think i was afraid that it would fill all the way and i would drown, but i had to go in anyway. i was swimming and looking at things under the water. i saw a shark about as big as a dog at one of the branches, and i didn't know what to do. i stared at it for a long time, and then i realized that it was dead. i looked ahead in the hallway and there were more dead sharks, more than i could count, and they were all moving with the water. i thought they had drowned, and that i was going to drown too. and then i remember that we were all on an island, and that we all came on a boat and that we were trying to get away from the sharks and they died in the tunnel, but we got away.

all this time the tunnel was shrinking in both directions. everytime i noticed it, the height and the width were shorter. the water was coming infrom the end of the hallway and that's where the most sharks were. the water was rough there, and i knew i had to go over there and do something that i was afraid of.

and then this guy showed up! the one that was on the hill. he had followed me, and he was asking me why i was afraid of the hallway but i wasn't afraid to slide down the mountain. and he was saying that it was really hard to get to the island in the boats and how all the sharks almost killed us. he wanted to leave, because he didn't want me to be scared, so i said that i would go with him. i was thinking in my head that i would just come back when he wasn't around, because there was something i really needed to do. the tunnel was so little now that there was no room to stand up. we swam up out of the tunnel, and then i recognized the guy! i've seen him on tv, he's on a show i watch a lot. and then i woke up.

isn't that bizarre? the whole dream i was really calm. i don't think i had any emotions at all. and sometime at the end of the dream i was thinking that ruby was my daughter, and that her name was ruby joy, and that i taught her how to spell her name.

i think i should send this into a psychiatrist. how mind-boggling.

test day episode 3: the moment of truth.... trailer 1

i took the test today... and i'm stumped. it's a complete cliffhanger. i have no idea how i did.

josh thinks he bombed it. jon didn't say so, because he never really says so, but i think he's not very happy with the test. no one finished, abernathy had us turn in the tests when class was over. some people walked out of there looking like they had just found out that their dog had died. on the other hand, i heard a couple people as they were leaving says, "that test was f***ing easy!" (by the way, i am so sick of hearing the f-word. it's everywhere! can't people think of something more intelligent, or at any rate less offensive to say? they think it makes them sound cool or adult, but in reality, they sound like total idiots. i'm not above chewing any of them out.)

there were five problems on the test. i got answers for all the problems except a part b. i don't think anyone got that one, and i heard a rumor from josh that abernathy didn't give us enough information to figure it out, so he might not count it. that's fine by me! none of my answers really seemed like shots in the dark, but i wasn't completely comfident in any of them either. i'm particularly concerned about the last two problems, because they were about concepts that i didn't quite grasp in class, and they just seemed to make sense on the test. that's pretty suspicious, if you ask me, and i wouldn't be surprized if i got them wrong. but i wouldn't be surprized if i got them right either.

like i said, i have no idea how this is going to end. tune in next week for the heart-stopping conclusion of episode 3.... the moment of truth!!!

Wednesday, November 10, 2004

test day episode 2: the therory continues

i think i need a cigar. i don't smoke cigars, but maybe i should.

well, my theroy of tests and studying seems to hold true. this semester, the more i study for a test, the worse i do. or rather, the less i study, the better i do.

my first thermo test, i studied my butt off and got a 57. the second, i hardly studied at all and got a 95. first dynamics test, didn't study, 98. first fluids test, studied, 81. second fluids test, didn't study, forgot that the test was even in the same week, got a 100. first econ test, studied, got a "c". second, didn't study, slept though half of it, got an "a".

this is really a weird trend that's going on here. i don't know what's wrong....

i guess the moment of truth will be tomorrow's second dynamics test. i plan on not studying. we'll see what happens.

Monday, November 08, 2004

another x-child?

i watch good morning america just about every day. no, i don't seek this show out, it's what's playing every morning in the cafeteria at breakfast, and i am a breakfast person. it's not that bad... yesterday they hosted the myth-busters, some good interesting nerdy fellows that i enjoy. what you should really avoid is regis and kelly. kelly is the dumbest woman in the world. she makes me ashamed to be a female. i really have to wonder if she's really that stupid or if she fakes it because she thinks it's cute. either way, she's an insult to female intelligence and really shouldn't be on television.

anyway, i saw something interesting on gma today. they had a story about a little girl who couldn't feel pain. of course this is not a new disease, and of course it is very dangerous for her because she could be rubbing off skin, for example, and not feeling it. but, heartlessly, i have to wonder what kind of mutant power that would be, what her nickname would be, what her outfit would look like... and with every mutant power there is a mutant weakness. in this case that one is easy. she just wouldn't know when she's really getting injured. i spent breakfast pondering what kind of painful (painless?) situations she could be in without actually really doing damage to her body, instead of working on my fluids homework. lucky for me, it was really hard and nobody else did it, so dr. reilley gave us an extension. yeah.... i'd better get to that fluids homework now, and stop turning poor little girls with weird deseases into mutant freaks.

questions of the day

does every orange/lemon/lime/grapefruit have the same concentration of citric acid? does it matter how ripe they are?

what does xenophobia mean?

how many nerd ropes are sold daily? yearly? who came up with that anyway? (interesting... google search nerd ropes.)

adam told me that a person who peels the label off a jar or bottle is sexually frustrated. how are those two events related? what does sexually frustrated mean? who desided that peeling labels had anything to do with that? is there a one-to-one correlation?

how the heck does ketsup get in the packets? think about it... why is the logo off-center virtically, but never horizontally? my best guess is a long tube full of ketsup that is pinched and heat-sealed and cut, but there is not dried ketsup in the folds, so i'm stumped.

if you have any information about any of these above questions (especially the ketsup one), help me out. actually, i think i could figure out the xenophobia one myself, but other than that...

Sunday, November 07, 2004

options!

i'm really excited!

i have been wanting to move off-campus for a long time, and as of today i have two possible choices for doing so. neither has actually told me for sure that i can move in, but i'm very hopeful.

option #1: the colemans
kim was my last roommate, remember her? she graduated last semester with a degree in tehnical communications, but then came back to school for a degree in civil because she just couldn't find anything else to do. i'm glad, because she's SO fun. she and i get along great, almost too great, because we tend to talk to each other when we should be doing other things. right now she lives with her sister jenny near the plaza, and she told me that it would be tight, but dirt cheap for all three of us to live there. coooool!

option #2: the val verde girls
sounds like salloon girls or hookers or something, but it's quite the opposite. there are currently three girls in this house, nicole, kc, and ronnie, and they all work at the val verde. nicki, kc and i have been friends for a few years, and ronnie is totally cool. if i moved in here i would be sharing a room with nicki and it would probably be just as cheap. and nicki and kc run a bible study on sunday nights for girls at school and iv and work. i think it would be so great to live with them!

don't get me wrong here... jessica is probably the coolest girl in this whole building. she's awesome. but i finally figured out what adam realized when we were freshmen: if i move off-campus with the scholarship i have, i will get paid to go to school here.

also, i think not having a christian roommate is affecting me again, like the semester that i lived with theresita. it wouldn't be so bad if carmen was here this semester, but sometimes i really need a girl to dish with, and as great as jessica is, we're just not close like that. i don't think people realize what an influence it is to live with people who share your faith. maybe it makes me weak, but i really need that influence.

cross your fingers!

Wednesday, November 03, 2004

lame

last night we had a bible study with some friends. we read the first eight verses of acts 3.

Acts 3:1 Now Peter and John were going up to the temple at the hour of prayer, the ninth hour. And a man lame from birth was being carried, whom they laid daily at that gate of the temple which is called Beautiful to ask alms of those who entered the temple. Seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple, he asked for alms. And Peter directed his gaze at him, with John, and said, "Look at us." And he fixed his attention upon them, expecting to receive something from them. But Peter said, "I have no silver and gold, but I give you what I have; in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk." And he took him by the right hand and raised him up; and immediately his feet and ankles were made strong. And leaping up he stood and walked and entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God

there were a lot of us, and everybody was talking about "what they got" out of the passage or something. i thought it was interesting that peter and john had no money, and they couldn't get the beggar out of his situation by themselves. the poor helped the poor. telling people about JESUS isn't supposed to be condescending. it's one beggar showing another where to find life. everyone else was saying all this stuff about how we should reach out to people and how we should take time to help people and have faith in ourselves to do good works or whatever.

here's what i was thinking. everyone else at the place was putting themselves in peter and john's shoes. they were taking the example of the deciples and applying it to their lives. but what if we are supposed to relate to the beggar? he went and sat outside the temple to look for money. what if we go to church looking for something that we want, instead of something that we need, and GOD sees our need and heals us? sometimes we aren't crippled men, but we have depression or bitterness or sin that is just as hindering that we need to be rid of. and GOD can heal anything. i think sometimes we need to be the lame man. how else would we grow?

the important part is that after GOD has blessed us beyond what we could even hope for or ask for, we walk and leap and bring glory to his name. we take advantage of our new blessings and tell others that GOD is responsible.

i know right now i feel pretty lame. that sounds funny, but i wish someone would see what i need and help me out. i feel crippled.