BUT WAIT...There's One More

All right!  Last post, second funny moment story.

I was chilling with some friends.  We had no idea what we really wanted to do so we ended up going to Wal-Mart, for the heck of it.  After all, anything is fun if you’re with fun people.

So there we were, in Wal-Mart walking around for no reason whatsoever.  And when you do that in Wal-Mart, well you’re bound to pick up some Mountain Dew and maybe a few donuts to boot.  We decided to dispense with the “we don’t really need this stuff” phase and just buy the goods.  Once the goods were bought we went back to the car—there were only four of us so we all fit in one—and piled in.  Then we debated for a while about where to go next. 

We eventually decided that, even with the donuts, we were hungry, and as I was the one driving I directed our path to the nearest Applebee’s.  It being late at night and all of us being rather high on caffeine, I punched the accelerator as I entered the parking lot, roaring down the somewhat straight stretch.  Then this dude walks out right in front of me.  I have no idea where he came from or how he got there but he was there and I hit him, dead on, at a fairly high speed.  He bounced off the bumper, hit the windshield, and thumped onto the roof before hitting the ground.

I slammed on the brakes, screeching to a halt, and we all sat in silence for at least thirty seconds.  Then, and I know how horrible this sounds, I started to laugh.  I have no idea why.  I mean, I just hit a dude with my car, and for some reason it struck me as hilarious, and as I began to laugh, everyone else did too. It was like our moral compasses had been temporarily turned off so that we could laugh at the fact that I possibly killed a guy.  We weren’t even in the laughter phase of shock or anything, this was genuine laughter and we even started imitating how the guy looked when he bounced off the bumper, which made us laugh even harder.

As I think back on it now, I have no idea how we found any humor in the situation.  Yeah, everyone laughs at the fail videos when people get hit in the crotch, head, stomach, or pretty much any part of their bodies, but that’s watching it from a distance.  It doesn’t matter there because we don’t know the people.  But come on, that’s not supposed to mean that we laugh at serious things like potentially killing a guy.  Yet that’s what we did.  Even as we got out of the car to go check the dude we were still laughing.  Seeing his body sprawled out all crooked on the pavement sobered us up, but there were still a few chuckles going around.  

Those died completely, though, when I checked his pulse and told my friends to call an ambulance.

Now as I hope you were able to tell, the story above is entirely fictitious.  If you were not able to tell, I apologize for any undue trauma I may have caused you.  It’s just that when I got to these blog posts, I was having trouble knowing what to write.  Not because I haven’t been laughing with my friends, because I have been laughing plenty.  But I haven’t had one of those gut wrenching, laughing so hard I’m crying incidents in quite a while, and it’s kind of depressing.  So I made something up. 

Although, thinking about it, if this type of thing did ever happen to me, late at night when I’m with my friends, I honestly think my first reaction would be laughter.

Oh Wait...

What’s that?  You thought I was finished?  Done?  Gone from your life forever?

Well sorry to disappoint, cause I’m back.  As you have no doubted deduced by the fact that you are reading this. 

Why am I back though?  Why would anyone wish to come back to this desolate place?  It’s not by choice, believe me.  I would much rather be kicking back, sipping SunnyD and slaying monsters on my Nintendo DS.  Sounds awesome, right?  Instead, though, I get to write you this post.  All about an incident that will be completely boring to you.  Because this is the post where I deal with an instance in which my friends and I collapse in helpless gales of laughter.  Wait, you might say, that sounds somewhat entertaining.  

Did you know that Neil Armstrong used to make lame jokes about the moon and then sigh and say “I guess you had to be there?”

The above is an example of a joke made funny through the value of pain and truth.  The pain is that no one gets the joke while the truth is that in many such cases you really do have to be there to understand.  Such, I believe, is the case for most, if not all, of such stories as the one I’m about to tell.  It is funny to me, it is funny to my friends, to you I anticipate, at most, slightly amusing.

Now, having set it up so that you are dreading the coming tale (or eagerly anticipating it, depending on how you take things) I shall begin. 

For it to make sense, I have to begin the day before the incident.  It was Thanksgiving, dinner was cooking and football was on.  My older brother vacated his spot on the couch to grab a snack and I walked in and took his place. As you can no doubt imagine, this sparked a wrestling match in which there was much grunting, head locking, and arm twisting.  This lasted for some time and was ended when the Cowboys made a touchdown.

Approximately thirty minutes after, and this is the important part, I lost my voice.  Poof gone.  That was surprising, for I was not sick in any way.  After making completely sure that I was not sick I came to the conclusion that somewhere in the wrestling match something had happened to kill my voice, at which point I simply hoped that it was not permanent (spoiler, it wasn’t). 

Anyway, after that we had a wonderful Thanksgiving and blah blah blah.  The next day is when the incident actually occurred.  As you know, the day after Thanksgiving is known as Black Friday.  So on Friday one of my friends—who was coming over that night—called and said he was going to Wal-Mart with some buddies because they could and wanted to know if I wanted to come.  Obviously I said yes.  The annoying part was that my voice was not nothing more than a whisper, something I had to explain to my friend, and then again to his friends (and every single person I met after that).

It’s late and we’re in Wal-Mart.  I’m with everyone and they all want to go one way while I want to go the other so I just start walking the way I wanna go.  My friend shouts after me, asking where I’m going and so I turn around and tell him.  In my whisper of a voice.  From twenty feet away.  That produced a chorus of “what did he say?” And that made me laugh, although with the rest of them.  It wasn’t a gut-wrenching, can’t breathe, about to die type of laugh.  It was a quiet chuckle that stuck around for the rest of the evening and still comes to me now as I think back on it.  It was one of those laughs that never goes away and you don’t forget, not because anything was particularly funny, simply because it happened when it happened where it happened.

That night we did plenty of other interesting things, among which was a Chinese fire drill, a three liter diet coke mixed with Mementos, and much Mountain Dew.  But it was that one incident that I will remember, retell, and laugh.

Well that and the Chinese fire drill.

Tis Finished

The end has come. No more shall I meet with the one called Amber, for our time is finished. So let me regale you with a tale of our final meeting.

It was nothing special.  In fact, it was a rather bland, normal event.  The obvious topics for conversation were the holidays fast approaching.  For Thanksgiving she, unfortunately, does not get to go home.  Instead she shall be making her own feast with supplies from our local Kroger, a happy, jolly place.  However it simply increases her excitement for Christmas, which she is really looking forward to because then she’ll be back in China and won’t have to speak English anymore.  And we all know how big of a pain English is.

English and Christmas and Thanksgiving aside, we also talked about the looming finals and what pains those are too.  We’re both worried about the tests that have no method of practice for them except to read the material over and over.  Those are both the most boring to study for and the hardest, a deadly combination if there ever was one. 

Once we got off those mainstream topics we delved into deeper and more important things.  Like seeing people you know around campus.  Especially when you see them but they don’t see you.  Then you can stare at them creepily and freak everybody around you out.  After a few seconds of the creepy stare you go up behind them quietly and stand behind them, just staring.  When they finally turn around, that’s when it’s really hilarious.

Of course, I don’t do that.  Other people do.  Not me.  I would never.

Moving on, we went into even deeper discussions.   Like, erm, the value of skimmed milk over 2%?  Well, okay, maybe we didn’t talk about that, but we did touch upon cowboys!  Turns out she’s taking a field trip to one of the Fort Worth tourism spots.  I have no idea which one because I know about as much as she does when it comes to what’s around here outside of campus.  Once she takes the field trip though, she’ll probably know more than me.  Ah well, such is life. 

I have no idea why I said that.  Somehow it seemed appropriate.

Anyhow, let’s move on to the final farewell.  It was a deeply moving event.  With many tears shed, it was drawn out far longer than necessary.  Amber couldn’t let go, couldn’t move on with her life. I told it her it wasn’t her, it was me, but she didn’t know how to cope with life here without me.  When I told her we could stay in touch and still be friends, she slapped me and walked away.

The above paragraph is the dramatized version.  In reality we said goodbye, gave each other an awkwardish hug, and went our separate ways.  The dramatized version was so much more interesting.

All in all, I quite enjoyed my time with Amber.  It made me broaden my horizons past what I knew and was familiar with into the great unknown of China.  And I actually learned a good amount therein.

So yup, cool experience.  Thank you and goodnight. 

What is This?

There are several things I could do with this post. 

For one, I could recount the exact details of my latest meeting with Amber, all the way down to where we sat and what we were wearing.

For another, I could dance all around the subject, weaseling in just enough references to the meeting to be able to call this post a conversational partner post.

For a third, I could begin the post with several options for how to continue the post—just to procrastinate and jack up the word count—and then move into the real body of the post which will cover the conversation I had with Amber, but in such a way as to not recount the conversation with Amber whatsoever.

Hm.  This is a tough choice.  All three of those options are ever so enticing.  If you hadn’t noticed, though, I’ve already done the first and second options.  So really, there’s only one option, which would be the third one.  But then, you already knew that, didn’t you?  You’re a smart one like that.

Let us move from the pretense and begin the story, shall we? 

The BLUU is as good of a place to start as any.  It’s a good place to start because, well, that’s where I was.  Now I know what you’re thinking.  You’re thinking that I was at the BLUU to meet with Amber, and also that I said I was going to not recount the conversation with Amber whatsoever.  You’re wrong.  Well, kind of.  So keep those smart-aleck thoughts to yourself as I continue, if you would be so kind.

Now, I was in the BLUU, right?  Yes, of course I was.  Because I was hungry, and when I’m hungry I go to the BLUU.  Unless of course I’m avoiding people.  In this is case, however, I was not avoiding people, so I was in the BLUU.  When I entered the BLUU, it was pretty empty.  There were a couple workers at Union Grounds, a few people tucked in the back corner talking over coffee, and then, empty. 

As I was surveying the area, I was approached by a girl of Asian descent who happened to be wearing a bright yellow sweater with a hood.  It looked very comfortable.  This girl greeted me, and I returned the courtesy gesture.  It was at this point that we sat down, and for no particular reason, began to converse about random subjects of little importance. 

I would like, at this point, to stress the fact that this random Asian girl in the yellow sweater with a hood was a complete stranger.  Now that I have stressed that fact, I shall return to the story.

Where was I?  Ah yes, little importance.  To continue on that note, at some point I inquired to see if the girl was hungry.  She made mention to the fact that she was refraining from eating dinner in order to maintain the same weight and shape as she had at the beginning of the semester so that she will not receive any comments on it from her parents when she goes back home.  Thus we remained seated by Union Grounds, and I internally debated whether or not I should purchase a caffeinated beverage. 

It was around this point, I believe, that we were approached by several other international students.  In the end our motley group contained America, China, the Netherlands, and Denmark.  These others came for coffee and then stayed for no palpable reason.  Our conversation then inevitably delved into native languages and the differences therein.

From there we moved to trampolines.  The transition to get on that subject is a rather fuzzy memory and may or may not have involved alcohol.  Whatever the case may have been, we got there, and it developed that the Netherlands and Denmark were venturing out to a building with a floor of trampolines.  For whatever reason I decided to add America to their mix, a suggestion with which they were delighted.  I said farewell to my Asian acquaintance and departed.

Postscript:  I lied.  Where, when, and why are for you to decide.

A Fond and Frank Farewell

This, my friends, is the last reflection you shall be reading for the class of Dr. Dan Williams.

That, however, does not mean it will be great or innovative in any way.  In fact, this will probably be one of the more boring ones, for in this one I am going to take the theme of reflection and learning seriously.  How shall I do that?  Thank you for asking.  Today I’m going to look at what I’ve learned in college so far, and how I have changed in the three months I’ve been here.

The answer to that latter question would have to be not much.  Not much at all.  I am still the same person as when I left home.  I haven’t changed the slightest.  That may or may not be a good thing.  I guess it would depend on who you’re asking.  Personally I think there’s nothing wrong with that, because I was happy with who I was when I came here and I’m still happy with that person.  I could be better, sure.  We can always be better. The thing is that I could be a heck of a lot worse.  I could be on drugs and failing all my classes, but I’m not. 

Having established that I’m not any worse than before, it now begs the question of whether or not I’m any better.  I am somewhat more knowledgeable, and I use the word somewhat with a purpose.  This being first semester and all, my classes are intros and beginnings.  Merely a step past common sense (except math, math just isn’t common sense at all).  The things I’m learning are basically fine-tuning what I already know about these subjects, not to mention giving me bigger and more sophisticated words with which to describe these topics to everyone back home. That isn’t to say that it’s not interesting, just that I haven’t made any enormous leaps in my education this semester.  Except with humor.  My knowledge on that subject has skyrocketed and I’ve been so very fascinated with it (I still hate Morreall).  I also have greater appreciation for Canada (well, as much as you can for Canada).  However dismissive I might sound, though, these classes have given me a solid foundation for next semester, something I very much needed.

So in knowledge we have improvement, how about other areas?  As a person am I better?  The same?  Maybe even a tad worse?  What has this experience shown me?

I have discovered that I am much more of a loner than I had thought.  I would have to say that it is a side effect of my homeschooling, because the only other option is that I’m a natural recluse.  While I don’t deny that, for it may be true, I prefer to consider it a conditioning rather than a natural born tendency.  Either way, it is there.  I avoid people. 

Not to the point where I don’t leave my room except for classes, but there have been more than a few times when I have not gone to the BLUU simply because I did not want to come in contact with people.  Many times I have sat down with a book or TV show rather than go out amongst the masses.

Sometimes I don’t know why I’m like that.  It’s not that I hate people.  Quite the opposite.  I thoroughly enjoy hanging out with my friends and meeting new ones.  Most of the time.  Then something happens and socializing sounds like the most unappealing thing in the world.

If I take a good, long, honest look at myself, I can find why that is, and it is a self-centered reason.  People have problems.  People talk about their problems.  People unrealistically represent their problems and shift the fault to everyone except themselves.  That’s what friendship is for.  To have people who will listen to your problems.  And there are times I simply have zero desire to listen to those problems.

What about going to the BLUU though?  There’s no direct contact needed there, right?  Well, to put it bluntly, I am so very arrogant.  You may not be able to tell right off, if ever, but I am.  I see the world differently than most people, and I have a low tolerance for those who cannot see.  People talk about their problems and I see the solutions.  Almost always it is directly in front of their faces.  It isn’t a problem with someone or something else, it is a problem with the way the complainer acts and/or lives daily.  Whatever it is, it is clashing with something else in my troubled friend’s life, causing his (or her) problem and he (screw gender correctness) is unable to humble himself enough to acknowledge this and fix it.  Nothing I say will help, for the last thing anyone wants to do after complaining about a problem and berating all those involved is to admit that they were the problem in the beginning. 

Thus I nod.  I smile.  I say the appropriately sympathetic things.  For I know that if I say what I am thinking, it won’t be received.  So I live on in silence, convinced that I am, overall, more intelligent that the majority of those I meet, young and old alike and only proven wrong in a few rare cases.  This was something I had suspected about myself earlier, but my college experience has confirmed it for me. 

Now I shall bid you adieu.  From my reflections, at least.  I hope you enjoyed them, for I have been remarkably frank herein.  

Another Day, Another Meet

Good evening.  Or morning, or afternoon, or whenever you happen to read this.

Yesterday I met yet again with my conversational partner, known to you as Amber.  Some of the first words out of her mouth this time were “Okay, tell me if this is common in America”.  That got my interest right away.

Turns out Amber has been having some trouble with her roommate.  Roommate has been doing some things that are not cool with Amber, and when Amber asks about it and/or outright says “not cool”, roommate replies with “it common in America” (her roommate is from China too, I might add) and continues to do her own thing. 

So I told Amber that while it wasn’t unnecessarily an uncommon thing here, it was definitely considered not courtesy if it made your roommate uncomfortable.  That got us onto when and how to switch rooms and whatnot because it was making Amber uncomfortable and she wanted to switch as soon as possible.

Once that serious stuff was out of the way, we went on to more frivolous subjects, such as school.  I have found that Amber has what sounds like the most awesome class ever.  It’s a lunchtime class, and what they do is each day the professor takes them out somewhere in the area for exploration and whatnot, and then they go eat lunch out and about somewhere before coming back.  That sounds like a pretty sweet deal to me.  Exploring the area and eating off campus?  I’m thinking yes.

Then we went to the opposite spectrum of our boring classes, which for me is definitely math.  She agreed with that, laughing at the fact that she breaks the stereotype of Asians being good at math.

At some point she asked me if I knew how to drive and I said yes, which seemed to surprise her a bit so I asked about it.  Turns out that in China you can’t drive at all until you turn eighteen.  No permits or any type of preparation like that.  Once you’re eighteen there, you go in, take a class or something and get your license.  Simple as that.  The drinking age of twenty-one here also surprised her, because there is no real set age in China.  She only found out that there was even a limit here when she was at the store with her friends and they tried to buy some alcohol.  We seem to be finding new cultural differences like that each time we talk.

When we talked about free time it brought us to the subject of movies.  For Amber there aren’t many options in that area here in the States.  She doesn’t like to watch our movies very much, because they’re hard to understand without subtitles and you can’t get subtitled movies online easily.  So she only really watches Chinese movies, which poses a whole new problem in that most Chinese movies won’t stream in the States.  It’ll just give her the “unavailable for streaming in this country” error (which is really annoying if I do say so myself).

It was somewhere around this point that I had to rush off to another appointment (aka ping pong playin’ with a buddy), so we said goodbye.

And that, my friends, is the tale of my Idon’tknowwhatnumberth meeting with Amber.

The Return to the Meet

Today was a dramatically important day filled with very important happenstances. 

Actually, it was more like just a normal day in which I met with Amber.  But that in itself is pretty important considering that we haven’t met for several weeks now.  Communication was slow, then there was fall break, then I was like “holy crap semester’s almost over” and so I texted her and she texted me back and I texted her back and she texted me back and I said cool and then we met up today.

So yeah, that’s how that happened.  We met up in the BLUU once again.  I got there a few minutes early, and when Amber arrived she snuck up behind me and scared me.  She has a good sense of humor.  Haha.  Hilarious.  

Seeing as how Halloween was last night we started off on that topic.  She was very disappointed in me for not doing anything and that in turn made me pretty disappointed in myself.  She, on the other hand, had a very active Halloween, doing stuff around campus and then going to a haunted house with some friends and dinner afterward.  The haunted house scared her pretty bad because in China the haunted houses don’t have real people walking around, just machines and stuff.  Thus the people popping out gave her serious scares.

Then we got into school.  Just love talking about school.  Found that her classes and whether she moves forward in the program or not is dependant more on a continual status, rather than test grades and whatnot.  Which sounds kinda nice, but also like it would be a lot more pressure day to day.  I think I’ll stick with tests.  That way I at least have the opportunity to cram and fail rather than continually fail day after day.  Something that I am most certainly not doing.  Why would you think such a thing?  I would never cram and fail!  Cram and succeed, now that’s an entirely different story.  Keep in mind though that so long as I do succeed, that’s what really matters.

The schoolwork took us back to the topic of Watership Down which I had given to her on our last meet, if you so happen to remember the last post concerning this event.  It being a pretty long book, she was unable to begin it as she has to read a new book each four weeks.  Actually turns out that there is a movie for the book, an animated one.  I was not aware of this fact, so now I gotta watch the movie to see how much they butchered it.  Anyhow, books brought us to Tarzan and at first she didn’t know what I was talking about.  Then I got to the part where it was a Disney movie and the light bulb went off over her head.  The book is an amazing work, I might add here, for all you ignorant people who also were not aware that the movie is based off a book.  The movie is nothing like the book, and the only reason that is in any way acceptable is because it was made by Disney.  If a serious movie was made following the book, it would have to be R if any degree of authenticity was desired.

Anyway, back on topic.  Somehow books turned into weather and we discovered that China went by Celsius rather than Fahrenheit.  So I was talking about how it was going to be sixty degrees for the game tomorrow and she was rather disbelieving.  We compared phone weather apps and hers said around 10 degrees tomorrow.  Metric system, Celsius, bleh.

Then a guy walked by dressed like he was going on a safari or something and he was carrying was look like a pellet rifle.  That surprised Amber a bit, because in China no guns whatsoever are allowed.  If they find even a few bullets on you it’s jail time for a year or two.  Five years if you have an actual firearm.  And then each extra count (two guns, three guns, etc) doubles the sentence.  So when I told her that most Texans own at least one gun and that it is legal to carry them around in cars and whatnot she was even more surprised.  She had heard from someone that if there was a burglar in your house you were legally excused for shooting that person, so we discussed that a bit.  It was a foreign concept to her all around, while I couldn’t imagine not being able to play with guns.

It was at that point that I had to get to work.  We set up our next meet there so that we wouldn’t have another three week gap and then said our farewells.

14 CHILDREN DEAD IN TERRIBLE ACCIDENT

There was last week, then there was fall break, and now there’s now.  Where did the time go?  Feels like my last post was just yesterday.  That’s the wrong way to look at it, though.  Two down, two to go, and then there will be one and none.  I’m sure you will all be terribly saddened over the loss of my ever insightful thoughts.

Oh yeah, I guess I should explain the title.  It has absolutely no bearing on this post.  I named it that for the sole purpose of making you click on the link.  See?  I’m a nice guy.  I tell you right up front when I lie to you and betray your trust.  So you can now be all hurt and sad and leave, or—and this is the much better option—you can continue to read and be entertained in a different manner.  How, you might ask?  Why by reading all about my life experiences as a college student, of course. 

For those of you who did not know, I am a freshman.  I was also homeschooled my entire life up to this point.  And that means that this is all entirely new, to a level that is beyond newness for most freshmen.  I mean, having a bunch of people doing the same schoolwork in the same classes as me?  What’s that about?  A bunch of random strangers living with me instead of my siblings?  Who do I mercilessly tease when I’m bored? 

That brings up the socialization I’m being forced into.  Seriously, I don’t know you and you don’t know me.  Unless we’re going to talk about something other than school, go away.  How many times do I have to say it?  You don’t know me!  You don’t know my life or my story!  The worst part is that there are no corners to crawl into and cry in.  Can I get some privacy?  Maybe just a few seconds alone?  Can’t even eat in peace.  There’s always people talking, talking, talking, endless talking, and when I think I’m done with it, more freakin’ talking. 

Why?  Why won’t you let me be the peaceful loner I’ve always been?  It’s not that I hate you.  It’s that I don’t care about you.  Not to be offensive or anything, but you’re people.  There are far too many people here.  Too many people that don’t get me and my razor sharp wit.  It’s so sharp I cut myself sometimes, and it hurts.  You people completely miss it though.  The concepts aren’t hard to grasp, the thought processes aren’t difficult to run through, yet all I get are blank, uncomprehending stares.  It’s not that hard to understand sarcasm.  I know I have incredible deadpan delivery, but come on!  Most of what I say is so far beyond plausibility.  Put a little effort into it, guys. 

Have I mentioned that there is this uncanny desire prevalent all over campus to get utterly wasted on the weekends?  What’s that about?  Why would you do that?  Why would you ever do that?  Life is short already.  I do not need to be missing my memory on three nights out of each week.  That is at least one whole day out of each week gone, depending on the level of drunk you get.  Never getting’ it back.  That means you’re losing 50 days of your life a year, if not more.  If you do that for all four years of college, that’s a spectacular 200 days of your life that you flushed down the drain, right along with the contents of your stomach.  I’m talking minimums here too.  Take a second, think it over, and if you can give me one good reason for that blatant abuse of what we call life—especially what is supposed to be the four best years therein—I will go out and join your debauchery. 

For now, though, I am quite content to have a few bros over and crack open a case of beer.  Root beer, to be precise.  Because you can get plenty high on the stuff, and still retain complete memory of what you did while you were high.  That makes a lot more sense to me.  I like knowing what I did so that I can proudly claim it as my own. 

To recap, college life is far too much work and inconvenience.  I have to deal with not only school, but also people, work, food, and money.  Not cool, guys, not cool at all.  This is far more trouble than it is worth, therefore you must excuse me.  I am going to go make a pillow fort and catch up with my real friends (they are too real!).  You can’t come.  Cause you don’t know the secret code. 

So there. 

Alone?

The boy is alone.

The group is full of laughter and everyone is enjoying it, even the boy, yet he is alone.  He doesn’t know it. He would never admit if he did know.  Because no one wants to be alone.

So as the group laughs in its game of late night Apples to Apples, the boy joins in.  He accepts the general feelings of inclusion and well being as his own.  As the game continues, he plays with grace and good will, always friendly, always eager to join the jokes.  It seems to work.  He laughs and they laugh with him.  Companionship is acknowledged with no real connection.  The feelings are all on the surface, prepared to blow away with the slightest gust.  That gust turns out to be the end of the game. 

Goodbyes are said, people head to their rooms, the group splits. The boy sits in his place, smiling and waving as they leave until he is the last.  Still he sits there with a smile on his face.  A smile of good times remembered, for now that is all he has.

He doesn’t stay for long.  Tomorrow is family day and his will be spending the whole day with him.  They will arrive early, so he needs a few hours of sleep, at least.

His room is dark, lit only by the streetlamp shining through the blinds.  He lies in bed, staring at the ceiling, waiting for slumber.  The moments before sleep are the clearest moments of life.  It is the time he sees everything in his life, good and bad, and cannot escape it.  The naked truth is difficult to accept.  The truth he sees now is the truth he refused to see before.  He is alone.  Terribly alone.  And even now he will not accept it.  He pushes it away and reasons that is natural for this time, that there is nothing wrong. This allows him to drop into sleep.

He wakes the next morning, refreshed and reassured.  As he heads to the shower, life looks much brighter than it had the previous night.  Why shouldn’t it?  His family is coming today.  In fact, they will arrive in a mere hour. 

After the shower, he eats breakfast, taking his time and enjoying the warm and pleasant morning.  His phone vibrates with a message informing him that his family has arrived.  He meets them in the parking lot with much joy, for what is better than reuniting with family after months of separation?  Not much, the boy realizes, not much.

They spend the day wandering the campus, enjoying each other’s company.  The boy teases his younger sister and jokes with his older.  He staves off the many questions of his mother and attempts to reassure her on countless issues, smiling all the while.  For what was once annoying has become something that simply displays affection.  He smiles, content with those he loves.

The day passes quickly.  Conversation, lunch, games, and time all slip by.  It ends too soon.  His family must return home—to his home, the place of his childhood that will always be home.  And he must stay behind.  He walks with them back to the car, quietly reflecting.  When they arrive, he hugs each of them, perhaps a little longer than usual.  They climb into the car, pull out, and drive away.

He watches the car until it is out of his view and trudges back to his dorm.  Night has come again and it is dark.  The brightness is gone.  He reaches his dorm, pauses outside the door and looks up at the black sky.  It is then that he truly realizes it.  It is then that he accepts it.

The boy is alone.

Is this you?  Is it me?  I don't know.  Do you?  Perhaps, when you read this, all you can think is "how can anyone be alone here?"  If that is your thought, I'm happy for you.  Continue, enjoy, have fun.  On the other hand, if you read this and found yourself nodding, I'm still happy for you.  You are self-aware.  This can be a good thing, as long as you want it to be.  Your worst enemy is yourself, so be a friend instead.

Me?  Well, it's up to you to decide what I am.  If, by reading this and other posts by me, you can decide who I am, feel free.  The conclusions you reach may be accurate, or wildly off target.  I honestly cannot tell you what conclusion you might reach, or even if you reach the correct ones.  Life is constantly changing, and I constantly change with it.  All I can tell you is that I am not the same person as when I came.  Nor, I would hope, are you.

Enjoy your time.  You aren't getting it back.

Read and You'll Find Something

Tonight is one of those nights.  You know, the kind of night where you feel like writing about absolutely nothing with no point whatsoever and sounding ever so sophisticated in the process.  I’m sure you’ve had the feeling.  It’s universal, right? 

Whether it’s universal or not is, however, beside the sophisticated point I’m making.  A point that has great importance to the topic at hand.  I mentioned a topic, didn’t I?  I didn’t?  Oh dear.  If I’ve already written this much without a specified topic, the rest of this post is in grave danger. 

Oh wait, I remember.  I do have a have a topic, and don’t worry, it is a very sophisticated and intelligent and economically ethical topic.  I have no idea where those last two descriptive words came from, but I thought of them as I was preparing to put the period on the end of the sentence, so I included them in order to make it sound better, while in reality it simply lengthened the sentence that had no need of being lengthened any more than it already was. 

Pretty sure I made a couple comma splices—or some other fancy term relating to commas and full sentences—in that last sentence. But nobody cares about that right now.  Why?  Because topic!  That’s right, I have one!  You wanna guess what it is?  No, of course you don’t.  You’re the reader.  I’m supposed to tell you everything right off the bat.  There’s not supposed to be all this indecision and inner author dialogue between me and myself. 

This, however, is a special post indeed.  It is a post in which I shall do whatever the crap I want because I can.  And I will do it in such a way that it sounds intelligent and not at all like some rambling lunatic with a keyboard.  Because if you could hear the music I’m listening to right now, that’s exactly what you would think.  It’s probably what you think anyway, but then I can’t tell you what you’re thinking because I’m simply the writer of this post.  I don’t know what you’re thinking, nor do I know what I’m thinking.  Thoughts are coming and going rather quickly at the moment, so it’s a bit mixed up in this brain.  In a couple minutes it’ll probably explode in a bright and colorful display of shimmering glory.  Because brains are glorious and filled with glitter.  Well, that one vampire from that one lame book series has a brain full of glitter, but nowhere near as full a brain as his girl’s brain.

I am not going to tarnish this post with any further mention of those two individuals.  They disgust me and should be abolished from what is considered literature.  In fact, in my definition of what is literature that series does not qualify.  Therefore, it is not literature. 

Wow.  Okay then.  That was a lot easier than everyone made it out to be.  They’re always complaining and saying the books should be burned and blah blah blah, when the solution has been in front of their noses the whole time.  I’m a genius.  I always knew it, but it’s nice to have it reinforced every now and then.  You’re welcome.

Oh hey, guess what?  You don’t want to guess?  Gosh darn it, you aren’t a cooperative reader.  I mean seriously, it’s not nice.  You should take a class in manners, because your mother clearly skipped over that part of your education.  Why yes, I did just go there.  What are you gonna do about it?  Oh, okay, well, if you’re going to get nasty I’ll take it back.  That’s right.  I’m a nice guy and want to prevent our world from succumbing to…dang it.  I lost my train of thought.  I couldn’t spell the word succumb and it took a few minutes before I could get it close enough for spell check to be able to find the right word.  I hate it when that happens.  It was a really good point too.  Stupid spell check needs to be smarter and more tech savvy, whatever that means.

Dude.  Check it out.  I have discovered the topic/purpose/point/slash of this post.  You want to know?  That one was rhetorical, shut up. 

The point of this post is to demonstrate that I have discovered the fact that I can begin a post with no point or purpose and continue to write two partially coherent pages, even though they may be completely useless.  This constitutes as something I have learned as an experience outside of the classroom.  It is a most valuable experience that will serve me well throughout the rest of my living days. 

Thank you for your time, your patience, and your cooperation.  Or lack thereof. 

Many More Words Than Necessary to Describe the Events Contained Within the Post Below

And then there were two.

Meetings that is.  With Amber.  What else would I mean? 

So this second meeting started much smoother than the first.  As in, I did not spend thirty minutes wandering around pointlessly.  We sat in the same spot, in the little ring of chairs at the bottom of the stairs in the BLUU and discussed many things of multiple levels of deepness and not to mention of some depth also (please note the way in which I invoke the same words in differing manners in order to lengthen sentences that would otherwise be short and to the point—something I am making special note of so that it is not attributed to mere laziness, seeing as how I have elevated this practice to an art of sophistication that has never before been reached).  

Things like school.  And tests.  And vacation.  The many varieties of depth contained within these topics fascinate the scholar, and bore the writer.  Guess which one I am?  That’s right.  Not the scholar.  Thus I searched for a topic that would prove to be more interesting.  This took the next twenty minutes or so, in which time I did not find that topic.  Conversation was slow, jerky (not the beefy good kind), and full of awkward pauses. 

It was at this point that my conversational partner, Amber, the person with whom I was engaging in the act of exchanging verbal communication, mentioned books.  Or rather, the fact that part of one of her classes involved reading a book in English.  She had recently finished a work known as Animal Farm, by that one author guy who wrote that other book 1984.  In fact, I’m pretty sure she had read 1984 also.  She was not a big fan of either books, upon which I agreed with her sound judgment.  Much too depressing, those were.

It was at this point, which is completely different from the aforementioned point, that she inquired as to which book I might recommend for her to read next.  Being the avid reader that I am, and obviously must be considering my chosen field of education and enlightenment, I had a bevy of choices to, well, choose from.  The question now was which one, which one?  Oops, better hurry, I’m expecting company.

We interrupt your previously scheduled broadcast to bring you this breaking news.  AKA, my apologies.  I will restrain my impulse to insert random quotations into the middle of nonrelated discourses.  We will now return you to your previously scheduled program.

The Book:  Watership Down.  The Author: Richard Adams.  The premise: Bunny rabbits in search of a new home.

Yes, I am being dead serious.  And any of you who have read the aforementioned book will know exactly how serious I am.  For this is my single favorite book.  I use the word “single” with specific purpose for I have many other favorites, but those are all series of books and I am unable to single out one book from a series without defeating the purpose of the series.  Let me repeat the word “series” and series of times more in order to seriously drive the point home.  Yes, I do know serious is not the same as series, but they sound close enough so it works.

All that being said, let’s return to the amazing book known as Watership Down.  My favorite single book.  Except, it does happen to have a sequel which is most interesting.  But the merit contained in the sequel is derived completely from the first book.  Without the first, the sequel would be pointless.  Come to think of it, that’s probably the case for pretty much every sequel in existence.  So it kind of invalidates the point and purpose of this entire paragraph.  However, I like this paragraph, so I will keep it for it now holds a special place in my heart.

Now, the end point of all of this is that I told Amber that Watership Down is the most amazing book ever and she absolutely must read it.  After having said that I offered her a copy of the book that I happened to have back at my dorm.  Directly following that offer we followed the yellow brick road (I said I’d stop quotes, not references) all the way to my room where I snagged the book, handed it to Amber.  Then we scheduled our next meet and then bid each other a fond adieu. 

The Beginning of a Beautiful Friendship

First contact was made through email and was very slow.  As in, a new email every other day.  Thus, setting up a meeting time took almost as long as getting in contact with Amber in the first place (Amber, if you haven’t already assumed so, is my conversation partner). 

Eventually we got a time pinned down.  Monday night, 8:30, in the BLUU.  To make sure we had some way of finding each other once there, I emailed her my phone number. 

Now directly before that time I had Quidditch practice out in the Commons, so after practice I rushed back to the dorm to get a shower and I ended up getting to Market Square almost ten minutes late.  

Amber had not replied to my last email before I had to leave, so I wandered around up there for a good five minutes, with no idea where she was.  Eventually I grabbed a glass of apple juice, because I wasn’t hungry, and sat down to watch football.  I did this for around the next fifteen minutes, hoping that she would either call or text me.  Once I had finished my apple juice and seen the Broncos score a couple touchdowns, I made a few more laps around the Square before deciding to head back to the dorm. 

When I got back I opened up my email on my laptop, because for some reason it won’t work on my phone.  At that point I saw two emails from Amber sitting in my inbox, informing me that I had given her the wrong phone number.  I had put a five instead of a six.  Most unfortunate. 

Now equipped with her number, I ran back to the BLUU—because, surprisingly she was still there thirty minutes after our scheduled meeting time—back up the stairs to Market Square and made a few more laps around.  Still couldn’t find her.  So I called her and found out that she was downstairs.  In the BLUU.  Not Market Square.  The BLUU.  In which Market Square happens to reside on the second floor.  For some reason my brain decided to make the BLUU mean Market Square, creating a lot of unnecessary confusion on my part.

Having finally resolved this issue, I found Amber sitting outside Union Grounds and we sat down for our chat.

Over the next hour we covered pretty much all the basic topics for a first meeting.  Names, obviously, family, cultural differences, likes, hobbies, all that good junk.  I learned about China’s policy on the number of children in families while Amber learned the term “jet lag”—by which I also found out that China is thirteen hours ahead of Texas.  We also found we shared a mutual enjoyment of Harry Potter, although that’s about all we shared as far as movies and television went.

Amber’s English was very good.  She could make herself clearly understood in most instances and I think she could understand what I was saying.  Of course, she may have simply been extremely polite and made it seem like she understood it all.  In that case though, she would have to be a very good guesser on some of our topics. 

Either way it was a most interesting discussion and I am glad I was able to find her, even though it took me far longer than it should have.  I enjoyed the glass of apple juice though. 

Reflections on the Game of Ping Pong

Yes, I do believe I’m going to write a reflective post on the valuable things that ping pong has taught me.

Why ping pong? Well, mainly because I like ping pong. Ping pong is fun. I am saying ping pong far too much for the first fifty words of this post.

So this game—y’know, the one that involves a net, paddles, two players, and a ball—it has taught me things. Like if you serve the ball low you get a lot more speed and can skim the net much closer. Also I suck at returning lobs.

However, on the more touchy feely side, when I took the time to consider something other than the way I was hitting the ball, it opened the door to my opponent’s soul. Well maybe not that deep, but you would be surprised how much you can learn about other people during a good match of ping pong.

There are intense players who don’t say much, then the polar opposites who vocalize every emotion. There are the people who make excuses when they mess up a point, then the ones who degrade themselves (usually in fun) for screwing up. There are the people who insult you when they’re winning and insult you even more when they’re losing, then the people who compliment you on your shots, good or bad.

Each type gives insight into that person’s character. Nothing absolute, of course. I would not presume to make any major judgment calls based on a game of ping pong. But windows are most definitely opened.

Take the intense players. They are generally the highly competitive ones who are playing to win and win alone. The people who are yell, win or lose, still want to win (everyone wants to win) but they are more inclined to have fun with it.

The excuse makers are the ones who have trouble acknowledging their own flaws in competitive settings. The self-degraders call their own shortcomings so that others do not, but also, to an extent, in order to justify their mistake.

The insulters, even if they’re “joking”, are not that fun to play with because of the mindset that if they’re not on top, no one should be on top. But those who compliment are, obviously, awesome, because they care more about keeping the game fun than dominating every aspect.

Looking at these I would place myself as a mix of self-degrading and complimenting. I am extremely competitive, but I want to have fun with the game and the person I’m playing. When I make mistakes, especially the same ones over and over, I tend to bash myself. In fun. I’m not a masochist. If you score one on me I’ll like as not say good on ya mate (because I am Australian).

Now these are not the only types of ping pong players out there. Each person brings a different aspect to the game. These were simply a few general types that I’ve encountered in my time playing.

I suppose the moral of this story, the life lesson, is that who we are comes out in pretty much everything we do. Whether it be ping pong, a job or even one of those two minute conversations with random strangers. People can come away with darn accurate first impressions, and those stick.

So check yourself. See what type of person you think you are, and what type of person you might be acting like.

You really should do it. And not just because I’m telling you, but because I’m telling you and I’m Australian.

I am.

            Honest.           

Day Nine

There is a building on this fair campus known as the Rec.  This is the building that all students refer to quite often.  It is, apparently, a magical place. 

Now, of course, I myself have not seen any of this magic.  I have only heard of it from others.  They use it as if mere mention of this building has meaning beyond what is normally invested in a building.

It’s used by guys: “Yeah.  I’ve been going to the Rec.” Also generally accompanied by a flex.

It’s used by girls: “Just got back from the Rec! #fitness #workingout #abs”

It’s even used by squirrels. “Squeekatisqueek squeek squeekers.”  (Yes, I do speak squirrel)

What is the power of this mention?  How is it that if the recipient to this phrase cannot also say he, or she, or it, has been to the Rec, there is a feeling of failure and possible weakness?

To investigate this phenomenon, I decided to venture into this legen—wait for it—dary building myself.

Upon immediate entry, nothing outstanding met my eyes.  But then this was only the lobby.  One could not expect anything more than a few sweaty guys with bulging arm muscles.

I move on into the weight room.  Nothing spectacular there either.  A lot of machines, a lot of dudes, a few girls.  There was a commotion over by one of the bench presses, so I made my way over.  It was a rather large fellow pressing, or rather attempting to press, 500 pounds.  He completed one, much to the delight of his friends.  I reached over, did the same with one hand and walked away.  As I said, nothing spectacular to see there.

I then made my way into the gym where there were numerous games of basketball going on.  I thought that perhaps there might be something extraordinary here, however I was disappointed.  So I slammed a few in and continued on my way.

Upstairs I found a track.  There were a few runners going around and I joined them.  Again they were sadly lacking.  I lapped each of them at least five times before leaving.  Also upstairs I found a few racquet ball courts.  I grabbed a racquet and proceeded to demolish a player in a game, 15-0. 

I had begun to notice a silence that followed me every time I left an area, but nothing else in any way stood up to the reputation of this place. 

Downstairs in the basement I found the game room with pool, shuffle board, foosball, and ping pong.  All wonderful games that apparently no one other than myself had any skill at. It took me all of five minutes to defeat any comers. 

I left the building feeling completely justified in my opinion.  The Rec has no magical properties and the activities contained therein, while entertaining, serve no practical purpose.

Humor

Day Two

I find the method of social interactions for this beginning stage to be most interesting.  Here is a short example of how these conversations generally go.  I shall be using a student of the same gender for this example.

I approach. “Greetings, I am Michael.”

He turns with a grin. “Oh hey!  I’m James.”

We proceed to shake hands.

I instigate conversation. “Where are you from, James?”

James replies with enthusiasm. “I’m from California.”

I make note of the difference in geography. “Oh.  Then this is a rather large change for you, yes?”

He agrees and notes the change of weather. “Yeah.  We get into the hundreds in California, but not regularly like this.”

Short pause.

He attempts to keep the conversation alive. “So where you from?”

I attempt to assist his attempt. “I am from a small town, approximately an hour and a half from here.”

He is running out of ideas. “Okay, cool.  What’s your major?”

I reply. “I am studying Creative Writing.”

He has no interest in the subject.  “Really?  That’s pretty cool. Haven’t heard that one yet.”

I reply with the expected question. “What are you studying?”

He returns with the average answer. “I’m in business.”

I attempt to compliment it. “Very nice.”

He is out of ideas. “Yeah.”

Long pause.

He finds a way to escape the conversation. “Oh hey!  There’s some other person I’ve never met before.  Gotta go.  Nice meeting you.”

That is what is considered to be correct conversation at this stage in the “college experience”, as it is called, and that is the majority of all conversation.  However, if one is very lucky, one might find a kindred spirit with whom one has enough in common to strike up a relationship.  And I believe that it is a saying that it is not the quantity, but the quality that matters.

Day One

I have arrived in a strange new world. 

This is, as I understand, considered the next phase of life in this culture.  The next step in a great journey.  However, it almost appears to be a step backward in the evolutionary cycle.  For this place could be mistaken as an advanced incubator.  Advanced in the fact that all who come here are given the illusion of independence, when really they are still closely monitored, directed, and overall controlled.  These inhabitants—called “students” to further the deception—accept it all.  They even pay to be here and most extravagantly at that.

As far as I can tell, the student is in a constant state of dependence.  From the moment it—I shall use “it” in order to maintain an unbiased distance from the observed—leaves the womb it is utterly helpless.  For the first four or five years of its life it remains attached to its mother, creating the most horrific noise if separated from her for any lengthy period of time.  Then it is taken and placed in a controlled environment with others of its kind in order to develop its mental faculties.

 For the next ten years or so it floats through various levels of “education”, apparently climbing higher on the ladder, until it is thrown into a vicious arena full of its peers ready to tear its identity apart.  If, by some miracle, it survives that pot of broiling hormones, it is graced with the title of “adult”.  This title boosts its self-esteem, but in reality means nothing at all. 

At this point it is given a choice.  It can continue in blissful ignorance along the path of education, or it may be thrust without preparation into a harsh world that waits to feast on its flesh.  It chooses the path of ignorance in order to be better prepared for its inevitable doom. 

It is what I am thrown in with now.  I must adapt.  I must become like it in order to survive.  This will be a perilous journey, fraught with many assaults on my intellect and identity, however I will preserve. 

I have entered College, and you are reading the chronicles of my journey therein.