Urban Inland

For all those wondering...

2011-03-01T00:15:00.000-08:00

ALL'S WELL ON THE [pacific north]WESTERN FRONT.

to clarify:
Just finished a concert that went excellently, video/audio to come for those who want it.
School is looking MUCH farther up this term (paying attention in lecture helps your get better grades? Who knew!)
I'm looking for a house to rent for the next two or three years with some friends, starting this June.
On that note, I have decided to stay in Corvallis this summer and work. I'll be back in August for 3 or 4 weeks.
Writing that just made me think of Japan (I'll be touring with the OSU Wind Ensemble in June).
For those who missed it, I joined Kappa Kappa Psi, the Honorary band service coed fraternity this past term. It's exciting, though I'm slowly working through the politics of it as well as the music department in general.

to sum it all up:
all's well on the western front.

//Who can crack my ribs and repair this broken heart?

2010-05-05T21:49:00.000-07:00

Will someone please call a surgeon

Who can crack my ribs and repair this broken heart

That you're deserting for better company?

I can't accept that it's over...

I will block the door like a goalie tending the net

In the third quarter of a tied-game rivalry...

I feel must interject here you're getting carried away feeling sorry for yourself

With these revisions and gaps in history

So let me help you remember.

I've made charts and graphs that should finally make it clear.

I've prepared a lecture on why I have to leave

These are some of the lyrics to The Postal Service's Nothing Better. My roommate and I have been pretty obsessed with this song over the past few weeks, mostly because it's very catchy and gets stuck in your head easily, but also because it plays very well in the background while we study. However, I have slowly come to the realization that these lyrics portray my situation a little better than I would want them to.

Due to some ... interesting text messages, I have lost a friend that I did not really want to lose, but need to get over now that it's over [I feel must interject here you're getting carried away feeling sorry for yourself].

On a different note, here's a little something that I'm writing right now:

Ideals, running through my mind, like ideas and unwritten papers and lyrics to songs I heard in 7th grade,

HEY! Get-get-get-get-get over it!

Let it go, this too shall pass....

I've gotta get a message to you, hold on, hold...

We make a good team, you and me, we do. You can scratch my back, and I'll scratch my back, too!

When we're drivin in the car, it makes my baby seem so far; I need you to be here with me and way over in a bucket seat...

Don't you feed me lines about some idealistic future; your heart won't heal right if you keep tearing out the sutures...

You're my sunshine; and I want you to know; that my feelings are true...

And then worst of all, you never call baby, when you say you will.

Hold you in my arms, I just wanted to hold you in my arms, I just wanted to hold...

A [few] Week(s) In Review...

2010-04-25T16:36:00.000-07:00

This entry is aptly titled as I have not written on here in quite some time, and have heard a lot of complaints on that note, so here goes:

Over the past couple of weeks I have done a lot of things, including:

1. Taken THREE midterms and passed all of them.

2. Set up a new TV in our room with my roommate, which has turned our room into the new hangout room for the floor, which so far has been ok. However, we may need to lay down the law in a bit as we both have some studying to do this week.

3. Played a good amount of Settlers of Catan in the last couple of days, including teaching two new people! This may have been the first time in a while that I have taught two new people and they both caught on well and liked it.

4. Saw my dearest mother, as she came and visited last weekend. Oddly enough, NEXT weekend is the real Mother's Weekend, but that's ok, I still greatly enjoyed seeing another familiar face besides Les's! Besides, she brought a lot of support and advice and clementines to munch on :)

5. Become stronger friends with a few people that I did not expect to.

6. Enjoyed the lovely weather around Corvallis, as well as a newly fixed bike to enjoy it on.

7. Playing Maslanka's 4th Symphony in Wind Ensemble, with a very challenging part for me on the toms. [check it out here]

That's about it.

Camping/Climbing, a DIFFERENT way...

2010-04-11T09:30:00.000-07:00

This past weekend I went camping and climbing down at Smith Rock (for all you people who live out here and know where that is). For all the other folks out there, it's about a three hour car ride through a winding mountain road from Corvallis. Now, I am a very experienced camper, and I have been on many different styles of camping trips, from eating steaks out of a car and having bathrooms with flush toilets and showers to eating granola at 10,000 feet where you have pack out EVERYTHING, including your TP. So, I thought I was ready for this. And that's where I was wrong.The changes started before we even left. One of the guys was packing the back of his truck and brought a grill. Not like a little, small grill, no, a huge, full-sized charcoal grill. He also brought three mountain bikes and a couple other things that will be mentioned later.

Once we got there on Friday night, I noticed something else: While starting the grill, I'm used to using a charcoal chimney with newspaper to start the coals going, but this guy used the ultimate cheating weapon: lighter fluid. This was weird because I grew up being told that lighter fluid is cheating by both my parents and the entire Boy Scout community. But here this guy was using it to start both the fire AND the coals. But enough of that, on to the climbing.

Climbing involved a lot of sitting (or sleeping in my case) waiting for a route to be open and then set up. To climb, someone good (in this case Matt) has to "lead climb" to set up a rope to the top, letting all of us inexperienced climbers do it the easy way. we started out on a pretty "easy" wall, at least in terms of ratings. However, the beginning move was too hard for me and I didn't have the finger strength to do it. The second route that we set up was actually harder, and I belayed a couple people for the beginning, but once again, the beginning was too hard and no one but the two experienced climbers made it up. Finally, the easy wall that we wanted to start on opened up. This route I finally did climb, and I didn't even cheat! This left me feeling at least a little better about myself.

So, general conclusions from the trip: napping in the sun gives you sunburn, the cab of a pickup is NOT comfortable for 4 large guys, Climbing is hard and requires ridiculous finger strength, and charcoal chimney's are the way to go for effective charcoal-starting.

Spring Break, Part ONE

2010-03-21T16:29:00.000-07:00

Day Two of Spring Break bodes well:

I am sitting next to LesUrs on a couch in the townhouse, enjoying the rower gab and amusing TV commercials. We got back from the baseball game (we won, go Beavs!) with a star gymnast sighting as well as the "O" Guy. We are planning a big feast tonight, including Corn Dogs (yesterday was national Corn Dog Day) and some Slushies later. This spring break will be all about relaxation and sleep (a full 9 hours last night and 10 the night before), plus some video games a couple movies last night made for a very relaxed GregUr!

Never fear, ye olde concerned parents! I have SOME productive plans for the week: I am planning on practicing a lot, as the music building stays open, and will go rock climbing a lot as well with my house-mate/host MD. Then, on Thursday, we go up to camp on a private lake with the whole Sackett Gang!

[...] Mode

2010-03-15T16:02:00.000-07:00

I am in partial procrastination mode.

It is finals week, and of course, my room is the cleanest it's been all week.

So far, today, I have cleaned out my closet, reorganized my bookshelf, taken apart my bulletin board, and finished folding my laundry.

In between these things I've been studying for my Communications Final tonight at 6.

So, all in all, I think a productive day, don't you think?

On an another note, I am very excited to see almost all of my family over the next month. I get to see my dearest mother the third weekend of April, my oldest sister and aunt the first week of April and, of course, I always see the older one. Now all that's missing are the father and dearest younger sister...

Late Night Bike Ride

2010-03-12T01:39:00.001-08:00

Exhaling, exerting, expiring, enigmatic and eloquent.

Revolutions of the tires, rolling, riling the blood, riding, resplendent in the dark, cloudy night.

Going, going, gone, guiding, gaps in the pavement.

Bile rising, blowing hard, beginning to fade, back in the saddle, bovine scent.

Tortured legs, tilting away, tantalizingly close, too far to matter.

Stars evade, slight change in direction, seeing nothing, sensing only oneself.

Ominous darkness, ostentatiously waiting, ogling at this pathetic show of strength, oppressive.

Vicious wind, vigorous leg pumping, vainly struggling, valiantly struggling, volatility of gusts.

Quick on the Conversed feet, quotient of exertion matched, quelling all fears and doubts, quaking with exhaustion, quite worth it.

All-inclusive, awe-inspiring, absolutely helpful, awfully painful.

//This is something I wrote after coming back from a late night bike ride (1:30 am). It was windy, and a little wet, and a little chilly.

OK Go (lots of links!)

2010-03-09T12:17:00.001-08:00

OK, so I spent some time on YouTube today just surfing around and came across soe really cool videos, all by the band OK Go. Originally hailing from Chicago (now in LA), this foursome has a very fun feel that I love. They also have a goal to make a music video for all the songs on their new album, Of the Blue Colour of the Sky, which so far they have done some tremendous work. They post all their videos on YouTube, where they have become wildly successful. This is what I'll share with you today.

This Too Shall Pass(Rube Goldberg Edition)

This is one of my favorite videos because of the Rube Goldberg machine involved. They used about 40 engineers and physicists from CalTech and other such smart places to make a "Brain Trust" to come up with ideas, and then did the entire video in one take(not the first(see the paint on their clothes), but still impressive!).

This Too Shall Pass (Marching Band Edition)

This edition of the video I like as much, if not better than the other, mostly because it has a Marching Band in it (Notre Dame). I like the camo, and especially the spelling out the letters in black and white.

Invincible

Things blow up. That's all I have to say.

WTF?

Though the lyrics may be a little racy, the video is VERY cool. It's very similar to the extended exposure shots I do with photography. I especially like their thriftiness in making this one (dollar store for almost all of it. That and gaff tape).

And finally, the video that started it all:

Here It Goes Again

The original favorite, it is now the most favorited video on YoutTube with over 50,000,000 views!

Besides these, they have a couple other videos that I really enjoy, including this one, just because it's so simple.

Enjoy!

[all information on the band was taken from their YouTube page or Wikipedia]

Dead Week [Stuck in Reverse]

2010-03-08T14:36:00.000-08:00

For those of you no longer in college, the week before Finals week is called "Dead Week". Some institutions call it "Read Week," but no matter the name, it still kinda sucks. The teachers are not SUPPOSED to assign anything due, and they are supposed to be no tests or quizzes. However, I know a lot of people where they have all their papers and such due this week and not next. So why call it dead week if it's not really dead and nothing changes?

On a different note, here is a little something I wrote:

Facebook statuses fly

across my screen, flitting like

birds with insignificant wings and

no motives. They are sel-

fish and condescending, hel-

pful and useless, calling

attention to themse-

lves like mating calls, wishing for

attention.

ATTENTION, ATTENTION, ATTENTION:

I AM IMPORTANT!

HEAR ME ROAR!

because everyone cares

about your silly song lyrics, or

how depressed you are and

the things that your friends

did. The inside jokes

are too claustrophobic for me,

and I still-

"Dark blue, dark blue, have you ever been alone in a crowded room, well I'm here-"

"-and safety belts, bucket seats have all got to go. When we're-"

"try your best but you don't succeed. When you get what you want and not what you need-"

stuck in reverse.

"-is sick"

"-is tired"

"-has homework to do"

"-needs a break"

"-LOVES MILK!"

To comment or not to comment, that is the-

stuck in reverse.

A New Roommate and "Chicago-style" pizza

2010-02-25T01:46:00.000-08:00

For all of you out there who have not heard the news, I now have a roommate for next term! This may sound un-exciting, but nonetheless, I am very excited. This new roommate, who we'll call JW, is a pretty cool guy. While chatting on Facebook over the last couple of days it turns out we have a lot of things in common and have yet to run out of things to discuss. So happy day (oh happy day...)!

On a different note, classes are going somewhat well, though Computer Programming will be the death of me.

To continue this post, some musings on life in Oregon vs. life in Chicago:

-It rains here. A lot. And that may sound odd because everyone knows that it rains in the Northwest. But I've realized this as I try and keep my bike dry. Now, once again, this may sound odd, you might say, "It's a bike, who cares?" or, "You live in Oregon, it rains, get used to it!" BUT, that's a little bit difficult because I really do like my bike. Having just received it at the beginning of this school year, I'm still in the "new bike needs to stay shiny," phase, so I try to keep it as dry as possible. I park it under buildings whenever possible, and dry it off as soon as I get back to my dorm after it rains.

-It's warm here. For example, in Chicago the weather right now is 46 degrees, with a low of 35 tomorrow. Here, it is 52 with a high of 60 tomorrow. Needless to say, I will be wearing shorts, and Chicago will be cold.

-I miss Potbelly's. I got a nice wake up call from Jon this morning and he ended by saying he was in Potbelly's and ordering a Dream Bar. This makes me miss those tasty, crunchy, hot subs from that eccentrically decorated restaurant.

[I realized I never mentioned the "Chicago-style" pizza...]

The dining hall was trying to serve "Chicago-style" pizza. Unfortunately, it failed miserably (as you'd expect). They cooked it too fast and too hot, so the bottom burned. And they just double layered everything and didn't make it a true PAN pizza. Oh well, I can't wait till the next time I get TRUE Chicago-style deep dish. :D

Copying my Sister. and film.

2010-01-06T01:13:00.000-08:00

Once again, I find myself opening with "sorry for the long lag time between blogs," but, unfortunately, it's true. After reading LesUr's blog about ME, I decided to I would blog about HER. Well, mostly about what she blogged about. Which, when you look at it, is somewhat cheating or plagiarizing. Oops. My COMM 114 (Argument and Critical Discourse) teacher, MTH 231 (Discreet Mathematics for Computer Science majors) teacher, COMM 180 (Movies and Film Rhetoric) teacher AND ECE 112 (Electrical Engineering, Concepts) teacher would be ashamed (why yes, that is me trying to say that all FOUR of those teachers spent the first half of the first class talking about plagiarism and how it's bad.) And yes, that was me telling you dear attentive readers all about the classes I'm taking this term. Except for Tap I, which is VERY hard to plagiarize in, as it's dance. So you can just say you thought of it on your own, or that copying is the highest form of flattery. And they'll take it, because they're dancers, and dancers crave flattery, right?

On a different note, this film class is very exciting, as

I get to take it with LesUr;
It requires 0% of outside work for me; and
It's actually interesting, and the professor is very good and retiring, which means he doesn't care what he says.

On that note, we watched our first movie tonight, Deliverance.

Now, this 1972 "thriller classic" as Wikipedia says (see, I cited it, no plagiarism!!) was, on most levels, pretty good. The famous "dueling banjos," scene was excellent, though I did not realize that it was actually between a guitar and a banjo, but that's OK, that kid was amazing.

[thinking back, I don't think it was actually the kid playing it. But either way, it looked pretty darn impressive!]

Overall, though, the general tone of the movie was pretty creepy. They mention some pretty heavy stuff, stuff that I did not expect from that film. I had some preconceived notions going into it, but nothing prepared for that all that. However, I think the general rhetoric of the film was excellent. The filmmaker used excellent suspense techniques, as well as an almost lack of soundtrack to create tension on the screen. Ingenious.

So, on to happier topics. M and I are doing well, thank you for asking. Go look at the latest (read: 684) xkcd comic to understand a little something about us.

And yes, I DID just find the little link tool to input links straight into the text. So enjoy the little sites I send you off to, I promise they're worth it.

Except maybe THIS one...

Christmas. How exciting!

2009-12-05T16:08:00.000-08:00

Hello all- I realized I haven't blogged in a while, and so here's an update:

-I met an amazing girl (Megan) who I'm now going out with. She makes me happy, and if you want more details you'll have to wait until you see me next!

-I'm slowly realizing that when the codeword "studying" really means "I'll be on Facebook in my room, pretending to study." However, I am overcoming this and am actually getting work done.

-I cannot wait for thursday, when I get home. So many people to see: my family, first an foremost, and then my friends.

-This is the Christmas season, and I know my mother LOVES this season, meaning our house will be warm and cozy and fully decked out when I get home, as this usually happens the weekend after Thanksgiving.

-Finals are coming up this week. I'm in the library, taking a break from studying. When originally looking for a table to study at I went through three floors of the library before I found one. Here are some fun facts about that little walk:

About 50% of the people I walked past were on Facebook.

1 was watching a "Full House" rerun.

1 was watching an old Pokemon episode.

3 were straight up asleep on their books.

On that note, Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, I'll see you in 6 days!

Learning Experiences

2009-11-16T12:40:00.001-08:00

A couple things I've learned over the last week:

1. Do NOT forget hiking boots when climbing a mountain. Hiking through a foot of snow in Converse is not fun. It's also very chilly on your toes.

2. When you spend two weeks preparing for a musical, you don't care nearly as much as when you spend 3 months on it. I'm in the school's production of Pirates of Penzance (Read the last post about that), and I kinda jumped in at the last minute. This means I didn't actually know how the story ends until the third performance when Les told me how it ended. Also, I don't know any of the cast inside jokes, I wasn't there to see the set go up, I didn't help paint the set or anything. I feel so... outsider-ish. The high school productions, while not as good quality, were a much more personal experience for me, which I miss.

3. Doing laundry at 12 am is so worth it when you have to take up 5 washers. Which I guess is my fault, because I haven't done laundry in 3 weeks. It'll be weird to go back home and have to do laundry one load at a time.

4. I don't really know how to break in cards. No one wants to play with them because they are so new, but then no one will ever want to play with them because they will never be un-stiff-ified.

The musical world is sucking me back in!

2009-11-10T19:00:00.000-08:00

As the title suggests, I am once again involved in a musical. Now, if you didn't know me in high school, anytime between January and April I probably couldn't do anything as I was in the musical. NOw, don't get me wrong, I loved it, it just took up a lot of time. From Anything Goes freshman year to Les Miserables sophomore, then Big River junior (woot woot for House Manager!) and then Into the Woods senior year, I was busy! But I loved it! From our crazy conductor who couldn't keep time to the Skittles and Twizzlers we consumed to crazy 10 hour rehearsals and getting off school all day for the full day, we had good times down there in our little pit world. But then, once Into the Woods was over, I thought I was done. People would be better than me, or professionals would do it, but never me the lowly freshman, non-music major. But, lo and behold, what do I get but an email from the choir director asking for a percussionist for the pit of Pirates of Penzance. there will be two rehearsals, then three days of tech and five performances. Now this I had to see. A pit, put together a week before the show? Madness! We spent MONTHS putting the pit together, and still had trouble come tech week, depending on the show. But, I decided to try it, as I had nothing else important to do on those nights, and the rest of the percussionists all had marching band during the nights of rehearsal, so I was a last resort.

So here I am, sitting in the smallest pit in the world, after only two rehearsals, two days before opening. And boy oh boy is it good to be back.

A Week in Review

2009-11-08T00:34:00.000-08:00

Oh dear, it seems I've left all my faithful readers out there high and dry for the last week, and for that I am truly sorry. However, let me give you a little run down of some exciting (and not so exciting) things that have happened over the last week or so:

1. I made pie with my dearest sister, and watched a charming movie about ballet.

2. My math midterm did not go so well, and I know why and how to fix it.

3. Engineering is getting easier

4. My schedule is getting more full.

5. The internet is WAY too easy to spend a lot of time on.

so, to expound a little on these things:

1. Pie is tasty, but not necessarily when it's made from cans. My mother makes the best pie crust, and I cannot wait for Christmas break, when I will get to have some.

2. I got one point away from a C, and I know exactly how to get a much better score on the final (which she will count twice and drop the midterm if it's better, which it will be).

3. I went to a presentation on the track in Electrical Engineering that I am interested, and it is exactly what I want to do. Originally, when I came to OSU, I thought I would have to do the Energy Systems track, which would leave me somewhat with a lot of extra course work for not the thing I really wanted to do. So, this new track, called Sustainable and Renewable Energy, is exactly what I want to do, and they've created it just in time for me to get on track to take all the right core classes I need to get into the pro school (you apply after your sophomore year to get into the "pro" school, before you're just in the "pre-engineering program").

4. My schedule is getting a little bit more full, now adding Pirates of Penzance (we open on Thursday with only 5 rehearsals from the pit, 3 with actors! This is MUCH different from what I'm used to...) as well as TSA (The Student Abolitionists, a group to raise awareness about human trafficking) and InterVarsity (a small group in my dorm and large-group on Wednesday nights). However, this is not interfering with my homework doing, as I still have the mornings and all day Thursday and a lot of other times to work and keep up.

5. The internet is very easy to waste time on. I have found a site called stumbleupon.com, where it gives me random things, be it a video, a random picture, a game or whatnot just with a single click, something I've found to be quite dangerous as I once wasted about 2 hours on it, so I now avoid that. Also, Google Reader is a very handy invention, but some of my subscriptions update too frequently, so I've removed those so I can spend less time on it.

So, avid fans, that is my week (albeit briefly) in review. There was obviously a lot more that happened, but we'll stick to the important things, like homemade pie, and how amazing God is :)

The TYPICAL Day

2009-10-31T10:19:00.000-07:00

For all those who were worried about my crazy day on Monday, let me just say that that was mislabeled, it should have been UNtypical day. SO, this is a normal day, this past Wednesday:

11 am: wake up after a healthy 10 hours of sleep, first class at 12!

12 pm: head over to my Engineering lab, learn about resistors and started to make a motor, but ran out of time.

1:30 pm: get out of lab and go eat a healthy lunch at West.

2 pm: Go to Chemistry lecture.

3 pm: Head over to math.

4 pm: Band time!

5:30 pm: Food time again! Meet some friends to eat over at West.

7:15 pm: meet to head over to Kidder for Awake, the all campus InterVarsity worship. we share stories of how the past weekend (Fall Conference) effected us.

9 pm: finish up Engineering homework due the next day at 9.

10 pm: go play Nertz and get COMPLETELY smashed at it.

12 am: sleep time!

See, normal, 13 hour day. This is much more typical of my life at college.

Fall Conference

2009-10-27T12:49:00.000-07:00

This past weekend, I went on a retreat with InterVarsity called Vital Faith. It was a collection of all the InterVarsity chapters from Oregon meeting together to meet, play games, worship, and connect with God. It was amazing, and I had a life-changing experience there. The speaker, Doug Schaupp (who is an amazing speaker, by the way) talked about vital faith all weekend, and how we need to have "come and see" moments about God, where we are so excited excited about his love that we want to tell everyone around us. Using a few examples of things like this happening during his college days as an InterVarsity leader, he explained how college evangelism is getting harder as our generation becomes smarter and more skeptical of faith and God (I also bought his book about this, "I Once Was Lost." So far, it's excellent and eye-opening). Oddly enough, the small group that meets in my dorm (go Sackett Crew!!) had already planned a huge event for Monday night, where we'd get a whole bunch of people together for free pizza and cupcakes before our Bible study to bring people in. Some backstory on that:

[As a campus, the thing we're trying is called the "God Experiment," where every week for four weeks we try and bring God into our lives through a different aspect. this week is Curiosity, so we were trying to bring a BUNCH of people into Bible study who might have questions, no matter what their faith. This turned out well, as we were supposed to get together by school at the conference and plan some way we could spread the love of God on campus. And we had already planned this! God was at work, and it was good!]

We had a huge number of people show up to pizza, and had about 15 people stay after for Bible Study, bringing our Bible up to about 30 people. It was exciting!

Back to the conference:

On Saturday night, I realized something. This was like the big moment, when I realized I had gone off the path, and wanted to get back on. God loves me so much, no matter what i do, and I hadn't realized this until right bout then. During the song "How He Loves" by David Crowder, the chorus "he loves us, oh how he loves us, oh how he loves us, oh how he loves" kept repeating in my head, and I realized that he loved us (I know, obvious conclusion from the words, but this was the first time I had truly believed it). At the end of that, there was an option to recommit your life to Christ, and I felt like that was the right choice for me, so I stood up. It felt so good to place my trust in God, and put my life in his hands. I had been lost, but am on my way back to the right path.

Now, I realize that there are more extremes to "being off the path." I've all sorts of testimonies of how people have been in a downward spiral; of drugs, alcohol, and depression and God shown them the light and they are a better person now because of it. I never strayed that far, but I think that what I did was enough to warrant action by God to show me how far off I had been (read my first post about my testimony for more info).

SO, this is my come and see moment, my big event, the "day I'll always remember before and after" from. And it s exciting.

God is Good!

A typical Monday (all 21 hours of it!)

2009-10-27T09:15:00.000-07:00

5 am: get up to get homecoming football tickets vs. UCLA (GO BEAVS!!!)

8 am: the rain begins while we're still in line. My sleeping bag gets soaked

9 am: get tickets (section 113, pretty decent)!

9:15 am: eat chocolate chip pancakes at Mike's house (yum!)

10 am: bike through the rain (again) to get to rehearsal

10:01 am: realize rehearsal doesn't start until 10:30, feel silly, fall asleep on table.

10:24 am: get woken up to an attempted wet willy (gross)

10:30 am: start rehearsal. realize my sight reading skills are still good, and other people's are not...(frustrating from a rehearsal stand point)

11 am: go back to Mike's to play Nertz (ALMOST won, too!)

1:30 pm: realize you have stuff to do besides sit warming your feet in Mike's room, reading Speaker for the Dead, so bike home (in the 1o minutes it was raining, then it stopped)

1:40 pm: shower (MUCH needed)

1:50 pm: go to Chemistry.

2:10 pm: fall asleep in Chem

2:11 pm: Thankfully get woken up by a handy neighbor to pay attention (Thanks Annie!)

2:50 pm: go to Math (yuck)

3:15 pm: realize math goes WAY too slowly.

3:17 pm: fall asleep in math

3:25 pm: FINALLY get woken up by handy neighbor (thanks, slowpoke...) to continue taking excellent notes.

4 pm: go to band

4:35, 4:47, 5:02, and 5:17 pm: almost fall asleep in band (thankfully no missed entrances!)

5:30 pm: go help set up for pizza party in G lounge (tasty!)

6 pm: party away! tell people how amazing Jesus is, and how they should try the God Experiment and come to Bible Study to get cupcakes and answers to those burning questions.

7:30 pm: Bible Study

8:40 pm: get a call from JF about Africa (somewhat disappointed by result, but it was still mind opening, not necessarily in the way I had prayed for, but I'll take what I can get)

9 pm: get a call from LesUr to come fix a housemate's computer (why not?)

10:30 pm: leave LesUr's house after fixing computer and getting into an interesting discussion with M (LesUr's rommate, see UrbanOutland for more details) about Goodwill (she thinks it's gross and unsanitary).

11 pm: start Chem lab report due in exactly 12 hours

11:30 pm: realize the internet is too distracting, so moves to the lounge (no internet), where K and MW are having a nice chat.

11:45 pm: get into a discussion about women in the church and church politics in general(very interesting to hear a different perspective on this)

12:25 am: realize I have yet to do much work on lab report (10:45 hours left!)

12:30 am: talk to MW and MG (THAT was interesting and eye opening)

1 am: MW goes to bed, I go back to my room for internet to research stuff for my lab report.

2 am: a little more progress on lab report, but I am starting to fade (the screen is unfocused and I can't type to save my life)

4 am: wake up with 14 pages of random letters and a nice keyboard print on my face. decide sleep is more important than gibberish, so climb into bed.

8:50 am: roll out of bed to get to Engineering lecture by 9.

9 am: start typing this.

SO, that was a little crazier than expected, and I did get the lab report done, and pretty well, for all you worrisome parents out there who care about that sort of thing. and tonight, I'm going to bed EARLY!

Halloween

2009-10-20T15:26:00.000-07:00

I was recently looking through my dear sister's (TT) pictures on Facebook and came across pictures of her finding pumpkins to carve. This made me think of Halloween at our house in Evanston, and how much I'll miss it this year. And yes, this is somewhat of an add-on to my last post, so i'll keep it short.

Every year for a very long time we would go and find good pumpkins to carve. Finding the perfect pumpkin was a little but more than looking at the first one you saw and saying "THAT'S IT! That's my perfect pumpkin!" You had to have options, three or four choices, eliminate some, think about it. I'm realizing I'll miss this this year. This makes me a little bit sad inside.

Christmas and other thoughts from 2 in the morning

2009-10-19T02:16:00.001-07:00

I have realized that a lot of my posts (read: 4 now) have been in the wee hours of the morning, but no matter, I find this is when I'm motivated to write and have time to.

On that note, I've been thinking a lot about my dearest siblings. I obviously see LesUrs a lot, but I haven't seen TT in a while, nor Em. This makes me sad. We really are quite funny when we're together. Which is another reason why I LOVE Christmas. Actually, I think I'll list the reasons why I LOVE Christmas, as it seems to be too mch for a little inserted bracket ting in a sentence:

1. The obvious, Jesus was born and all that good stuff.

2. COOKIES. I LOVE cookies. And in our house, there are a LOT of them. It makes me happy.

3. Family. Because I don't know a zanier, crazier, more mixed up silly bunch of people than my dearest sisters and my parents. It's true, we have inherited our parents' senses of humor.

4. The general feeling of love and warm thoughts. I know, I know, it sounds mushy and sappy, but it's true, people are generally nicer around the Christmas season than any other time of the year.

OK, so I realize two things: 1. It's WAY too early to be making a Christmas related post, and 2: that these are all generic things that anyone can love. BUT, you have to realize a couple things, too: 1. it's 2:30 in the morning. 2: nope, that about covers it, it's 2:30 in the morning. I think weirder than normal now.

Now, I realize that some people do NOT like the Christmas season. I've actually had a couple discussions with a certain someone to remain unnamed about how Christmas is terrible, but they have their own reasons for that, and I have mine for loving them.

To conclude, I realize this post has been a little bit discombobulated, but bear with me, it is 2:3o in the morning :)

On that note, I think I will retire, but until next time, remember, God is good, and he won't let go, whether in calm weather or stormy weather. (read: Matt Redman song from worship this morning)

From the front to the rear in 8 hours or less...

2009-10-17T01:10:00.000-07:00

Hello all! Just like to send a shoutout to my man Mr. Sanders, who is now a happy father to what I assume to be a beautiful baby girl. Congratulations!

Now, on to me. On Thursday, I went in to get my bike worked on, mostly because my front wheel was out of true from me running into a fence (I'm ok, really). That took about twenty minutes, the bike mechanic guy laughed at me a little and made a couple cracks about fences and stuff and we were good to go. Not eight hours after said tune-up, I break it again. I was biking back REALLY slowly from a dinner with the rest of my wing in my dorm from across campus. I tried to downshift to go slower and I hear this awful crunch and my bike stops. Turns out I had downshifted too hard and had gotten the mechanism on the back wheel that changes gears stuck in the spokes and torqued the metal. So now my BACK wheel is out of true and I have to wheel this thing back into the store and explain once again how I messed my bike up.

Thankfully, I found a very nice friend of mine (St. we'll call her) who has a truck and is willing to rive me to the store and back if iI accompany her to the bank. SO, that problem will hopefully be resolved quickly.

In other news, there is no other news.

Except that God is great, and his wonders know no end.

God is GREAT!

Lost and Found

2009-10-13T10:05:00.000-07:00

More fun things with stuff being lost:

I've been trying to get into the Financial Aid office all weekend to deal with a problem on my bill, and when I finally did talk to someone I found out that I had never actually accepted $4,000 of my aid. Oops! I was somewhat distraught, as you can imagine, and called my parents to chat. They were also somewhat distraught, as you can imagine, so I went back to the office to try and get said money back. I waited in line for a while and finally talked to someone, who said that it was still available, I just wasn't looking in the right place on the website. So, I logged back onto the website and found the site I needed and got my money back! Woohoo!

This has been my weekend for losing and finding things: I lost my keys for two days, and then found them. I lost a lot of money, and then I got it back. Thank the Lord, for He is good! His love endures FOREVER.

God is GOOD. Really good.

2009-10-12T00:27:00.000-07:00

In case you missed all my key drama, here is the full story:

On Friday night, I lost my keys somewhere in my dorm. I searched for a very long time but to no avail. I had to call the security people in my dorm to let me in late at night, and had just come to the realization that I would not be able to get my bike free without a hacksaw or bolt cutters, and that I would have to buy a new lock and get our dorm room door a new lock. This would all kind of stink. On Saturday, there was a football game, so things were closed and I couldn't deal with it. The only side effect was that I couldn't get pants for the football game, so I was a bit chilly, but otherwise, no problems yet. Sunday, I somewhat wanted to bike to church so I could go study with my dearest sister afterward (and save myself walking across campus), but my legs weren't spared and I ended up walking everywhere anyway. After an excellent dinner of omelets (free!), I found a bunch of people to play Catan with (oh, happy day! my first time since coming out here!). after winning whole0heartedly, I went up to the front desk to see if anyone had turned in keys, and lo and behold, someone had! So now I am keyed up and ready for the week, without much pain and suffering. Woot!

God is GREAT!

Thanks mom.

2009-10-08T12:42:00.000-07:00

I just spent 20 minutes cleaning up my VERY messy desk. It is now clean and clutter-free, and I feel much better. I also feel as if my mother would be very happy about it, as she was on me all throughout high school to keep my desk clean. I've learned it now, Mom. Thanks.

Andrew Bird, in the library, with the iPod.

2009-10-08T10:08:00.000-07:00

I'm studying in the library right now.

...

This is an odd thing for me to say, as I almost never study. However, I've decided that I should study for my first test/quiz thing in college yet, a math quiz on the first 5 sections in the chapter.

Another odd thing about this is that I can usually never listen to music when I study or am trying concentrate, as I pay too much attention to it and want to hear it better to analyze it, so I turn it up, but then I can't study. Oops. HOWEVER, I have found the perfect person to listen to while studying: Andrew Bird. His music is slow and soothing enough to drown out the noise of other people, but not enough to distract me... at least for now.

God is Good!

Unplanned Oveflow

2009-10-08T00:26:00.001-07:00

Tonight, I had an EXPERIENCE. Not just a crazy night or anything, but a God experience. One of my new-found friends asked me to "talk about how God has been working in your life since you got here," aka TESTIMONY. NOw, I have an inane fear of that word, as I always associate it with huge, life changing-moments that happen to people who are super Godly and stuff. Never having considered myself one of these people, I was reluctant, but decided to go for it. After 4 or 5 people went ahead of me telling these stories of being in a downward cycle of drugs and drinking, I felt like my little story of how I wasn't going to do InterVarsity, but then it found me, would be insignificant. HOWEVER. as soon as I got up there, I couldn't stop shivering and shaking. Now, I consider myself a decent public speaker and don't normally freak out about these things, but I couldn't stop shaking and almost couldn't get my words out.

I realized, in front of 50 people, that I had fallen away from faith. I had "slept through" church too many times, when really I was avoiding it. I had taken to swearing and lying to the people I loved the most. Standing in front of this crowd of people I had met within the last 3 weeks, or in some cases, 3 hours, I was pouring out my soul in ways I had never imagined. My small little story had turned into a big life changer, though in the way I had ever imagined.

I always thought my "big moment" would happen at a conference or an important worship with people who I had known for a long time. Instead, it was at the second "Awake" event in Oregon, in front of people I barely knew, not at all planned for. Though I guess God doesn't roll that way, does he? He likes to throw you out there and tell you to share the Word in ways you thought impossible.

So, now I'm overflowing with the good news of God, and it's 12:35 am. I want to shout from the rooftop that God is amazing and can change lives, but it's after quiet hours.

I'll try and contain it, but who knows when it will burst out?

God does!

First Post/Explanation

2009-10-06T15:24:00.000-07:00

There are too many people to be talking to on the phone all the time, so I decided to follow the older sister's idea and blog about my experiences and thoughts on life here at the wonderful Oregon State University. Yes, mother, I will try and keep the grammar and spelling mistakes down. Yes, I will try and post at least four times a week. No, I will not be insightful and life-changing every time, but I can try!

So, to start: I am currently sitting in HHS 231. Now, you might think that I'm a terrible person, but it's really all stuff I've learned before, in health in high school. And I can listen halfway and still write. I'm just good like that. Now my other classes are a different story:

I had my first real late night of homework last night while scrambling to finish Chemistry homework by midnight (ah, the wonders of modern technology!) and turn in a complicated engineering thing before the computer lab closed at 2. Thankfully, I was able to leave the lab by 12:08 and be asleep by 12:30 (yay!). At this time, I was VERY thankful for my new and spiffy bike (pics to come), as it made my quick commute even quicker! Unfortunately, it my hands so cold I could barely pick up my bike to take it downstairs to the bike room!

Chemistry is also very easy right now, besides the homework, which is just time consuming. In class we go over the reading (good, as I don't own the book yet, but don't worry, it's coming!), which is all simple stuff I learned in Chemistry in HS.

Math is simple so far, but we'll see how the first quiz goes on Thursday. I've been taking an average of 5 pages of notes a lecture, which will fill up my notebook fast!

On a different note, I need new shoes as my old ones have disappeared. I don't know where, but they were in a lounges and then they weren't. I keep trying to contact my dearest mother, but she won't pick up to pay for them :(

Ah well, on to meet some people to go climbing! Until next time:

UrbanInland