Post in three minutes!

Okay, so I'm spending too much time posting things. I'll just spend at most 3 minutes on this post, here goes:
Good:
Energy from nowhere
PG rehearsal tomorrow (and my first show friday?)
251 and psych (hard and easy respectively) done
Ice cream for beej's birthday
Beej's brand of "or" humor (see below)

Bad:
Voted off S'n'S survivor :(
Everyone is sick and injured and dying
I'm a little sick, just sniffly really
211 and combinatorics and PMS still to go

Whoa time's up, Have a good day, (or get eaten by an angry crocodile!)

I feel like a little kid

Just wanting to run around outside, shouting nonsense... I'm all simultaneously happy and nostalgic and sad, for no reasons. Entirely energetic, loving everything! And so sad, listening to Death Cab's "Photobooth," thinking how the year's almost over. But it's not yet! Hah! EEEeeeeee...

Okay, this is your 8th-grade-girl post of the year. I've posted too many times in the last n hours, I've mentioned a song (by death cab, no less!), I've talked about a lot of vague generalities, all I need to do now is gossip about people's boyfriends/girlfriends. Well shut up!

Too much emotions. You know what that means. Yep, time for CS HOMEWORK! Suck away every feeling like a big Hoover, leaving me with an inner core made from sheet metal and bolts, a big CPU, err, brain up at the top! Let's go 251!

So... church

Yep, it's Easter. Happy Easter!

And therefore, time for the semiannual Church Visit, accompanied by my wonderful family. We went to a Catholic church. My dad is only nominally Catholic, my mom and sister are clearly Protestant, although my sister may soon enough hit the atheism or apathy that strikes us all come college time. Or at least struck me.

The cathedral was traditionally cruciform, the stained glass and stone were beautiful, the organ music was loud and jarring, the responsorial phrases were cultlike, the homily was processed enriched and bleached, the "long stand" beginning the Liturgy of the Eucharist was tiring, the kneel during communion was interminable, the donation was appreciated, the mass was left early because I had to get to Wiz practice. All in all, your average mass. Hey Dan, here's a vase, it's made of JADED!

While I'm being atheistic and emo in my blog, can I just say "I love the Shins!!!~!" ... I hope the rumor about them coming to CMU for carnival is true. Because after all, listen to them, they'll change your life.

All in all though, I'm still happy... enjoy your week!

I love this band

If you want to hear possibly the happiest song I've heard in a while, check out
Winners

Or, if you're Connor and/or Joe and it's St. Patrick's Day, check out
First Drink of the Day

Either way, it's ska awesomeness, plus animations from the same guy who brought you those Quizno's commercials. Woo!

Loosen up!

... is what I need to do. I'm always so distant from people. Oh wah wah emo blast. But really, man, why can't I just kinda open up, talk more, have more fun? I feel like an outside observer, watching a fun party. I pull aside the drapes, take a look inside, it's like something out of a bad movie, like the hungry kid looking inside the bakery window. Then they see me, invite me in, and I nod sure, but then I don't go up to the door. Or else I shout a few jokes in the window, it's a bizarre scene, the kid looking in the window says funny things, but never comes inside to really talk to people. Why not? Why do I just retreat into my little "snail shell", if you will?

So apologies, folks, if I seem distant. I'm not trying to be. I overanalyze every moment, maybe it's some ENTJ thing or something. But as time goes on, I'll try to be more of an active person and less of a shell of a presence standing around.

In other news, happy sweet *ahem* thursday! Somehow I feel like I'm stomping all over religion. But I think spending time with friends is more important than something I don't really believe anyway.

I am posting to the INTERNET at 4:30 AM!!!

Hah, but it's okay. Because I wasn't doing homework, I was having fun. Alex A. is very cool, as are Ram, Aaron, and Granger. Hooray college, hooray life... I hope I'm still staying up with friends until 4:30 AM on weeknights when I'm 40.

What else is on my mind? A lot, I dunno. All crazy stuff. Lyrics to "The Dark of the Matinee" running through my head, for appropriate reasons, which I will leave cryptically vague, so I guess that last statement doesn't serve any purpose for any readers... well screw you! It's my blog!

Yeah. um. Parents coming into town this weekend, that's cool I guess, hey Easter. Other than that, a simple game "Waiting" (the corollary to "Bob Barry" and "Cornflakes") comes to mind, except not involving 3rd world dictators.

What? I'm like a broken penny mint (Denver or Philadelphia?)... I'm not making any cents. Or sense. Puns... (punches self in face.) Sleep!

Your regularly scheduled weekly whine

Well, another week, another dollar, except instead of a dollar, it's my parents PAYING THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS. Oh college. This week, I:
did really well on a math test
did not so great on a programming assignment
... uh, did the rest of my homework...

Man, whatever. Here's the important thing that I did this week:
got invited to/went to an improv PG (performing group) rehearsal... which means I guess I'm actually getting better at improv, which is something I enjoy doing, so there you go! *That* is life, not this programming typing computing garbage!

Hey, it's been a good week, all in all. And this weekend's been fun. I've really got not much to complain about. But hey, hopefully I'll turn next week into more awesome and less average. Here's hoping.

Ever feel like your life is the Truman Show?

I had two such experiences today:

1. I was walking in the UC, in front of a couple kids, one of them was holding a few things, and they had a conversation that went like this:
A: Can you juggle?
B: No... haha, I can juggle 2.
A: Wow, remember when there was a juggler in that talent show? When was that... end of orientation week I guess.
B: Yeah, that's right, he was really good.
A: And at the end, he juggled swords too!
...something like that. So thank you, St. Ignatius Circus Company.

2. So music warm-ups during Wiz rehearsal. We did "Sing-aah" and "Many mumbling mice" ... the usuals. Then Adam Jaffe says "Okay, this next warm up, we sing 'Dan Tasse, Dan Tasse, Dan Tasse...'" That was pretty funny too.

So Truman Show watchers, if you're out there, hope you're really getting a kick out of me posting this stuff in my blog.

Wisdom from Wesley Willis

"Batman beat the hell out of me and knocked me to the floor.
I got back up and knocked him to the floor.
He was being such a jackoff.
I whupped Batman's ass."

Truer words may have been said, but never with quite that same brutishly beautiful flair, that majestically blunt eloquence.

I am having a week that is excellent, I'd rate it a 9 with an extraordinary factor of maybe 3. I mean, no new love interest, no travel to marvelous locales, no "bank error in your favor, collect $200", no skiing. Nothing extraordinary. But definitely a great week. If life were Batman, I'd say I am knocking Batman to the floor. (Not that I was especially down to begin with, but just for the sake of fitting in with the song.)

Hope your week is a 9/3, or at least maybe a 7/2. See you later!

... miles to go before I sleep

Well not really. It's an easy paper and there are only 2-3 pages left. So more like "maybe a half mile to go before I sleep."

Very little news on the Western front. Wiz rehearsals, they're all right. Singing and dancing, meh... just acting's better. But I'll stop curmudgeoning now. High points of today include riding the dark elevator in Morewood with Julie, Marshall, and Matt; drawing cartoons in 251 and making perhaps the worst hate-free statement ever (there have been many worse statements than this one, but they probably all included hate); and ultimate frisbee, although we could not complete a pass worth beans.

Some varieties of beans:
Kidney
Green
Soy
Lima
Mr.
Black
Refried
Pinto
Baked
Coffee
Cocoa
Jelly
Mexican Jumping

Yeah... I didn't even consult Google for that one. Any good ones I missed?

Well, whatever deity you believe in, may He (not he/she, because just "he" is grammatically correct, not being chauvinist or anything, it's just true, don't give me any of this newfangled can't-offend-anyone crap) bless your week. And for the atheists out there, guess I can't offer you any blessings, but here's this: http://www.spamusement.com

Phew...

Whoa, that was long. Here's a shorter post for today:

Greyhound is good... 2.5 hours, $25, Cleveland to Pittsburgh. Thanks for the tip, Connor.

So is catching up with old friends.

That's all I've got for now. Have a good one!

Haha, posting away!

Yeah... programming. Criminy, either I'm slow or this assignment is a near-Sisyphusian effort. And I'm doing this all on a Mac (All together now, CS majors cringe, everyone else kinda shrug and wonder why the CS majors are cringing. A couple hippies let out whoops of Mac-loving joy).

So... I suppose it's time to make a big "This was my break" post. Okay. Here goes:

Friday: visited Adam at John Carroll with Kemal. That was fun, we went to the Cheesecake Factory, which surprisingly isn't immensely overrated. A little overpriced, but hey, it's in Legacy Village, (Pittsburghers: it's like the Waterfront, only yuppier) what do you expect. JCU was cool, we kept running into various people we knew. Hey, St. Ignatius Part 2.

Saturday: Talked to Erik, it's cool to hear what he's up to. Very different experiences, I guess, with him at American U. learning about Communications, Law, Ethics, and Politics. Or something like that. Hey, that and CMU both have their ups and downs. But it's great talking to Erik, even though we think differently on a lot of stuff, it's fun to compare what's going on, and thoughts about this and that.

Sunday: drove to Michigan with Kemal. That was a cool place, pretty big. Ate at Noodles, which was very good. Hung around w/ some of his friends there, then they started talking about their ridiculous Cancun vacations and smoking pot, so we left.

Monday: lifted weights w/Kemal, which was very cool because he knows much more about it than me. Learned many new fings. (Among them: hey, I can do chin-ups/pull-ups (plural) now! As opposed to say, a couple years ago.) Lunched, drove to Chicago. Chicago was very big and gothic! How cool! Got to Chicago an hour earlier than I thought I would (hey time change!), hung around with Dave, dined at his dining hall which is much better than CMU's... (they don't have blocks! it doesn't expire every 2 weeks! it tastes better!) Coincidentally enough, lifted weights again. That was cool too... I was sore for two days afterwards though. Played Mafia, of which I am now a fan. Such intrigue and trickiness, in a game that doesn't require anything but 8 people! We lost though, the quiet kids, Steven and Anna, tricked us.

Tuesday: went to Dave's "Hume" (sorta general humanities) class, they were reading the Tempest, teacher was a crazy old man. See: Interp. Midday: watched Kill Bill. Good movie, I had never seen it before. Went to the Snail for dinner, a Thai place. Wow I love Thai food. Played Mafia again, it's still good. We won... it came down to the last vote, I successfully killed Jonah, Dave's roommate, to win. Hooray!

Wednesday: Drove home. I kinda like driving. Having 10 new CDs for the drive helped. Props to the Fiery Furnaces, Radiohead, Broken Social Scene, Decemberists, and of course the Arcade Fire. Slops to the Walkmen (waah I'm whining to death!) and Neutral Milk Hotel (I'm still whining to death... although not as badly!) Undecided: Pretty Girls Make Graves (by the time I got to "P", I was kinda tuning the music out)

But driving is better than just music... inventive food/coffee stops (That Starbucks Frappucino stuff is good because it tastes like melted coffee ice cream... which is excellent. Also Fazoli's is good if you have 10 minutes to sit down and eat pasta. Whoa, fast food pasta, what a concept. Their salads are tasteless as Post-it notes though.) and hey, just time to think.

I guess I did think a lot. Mostly I'm optimistic, CMU's getting better all the time. Thanks almost entirely to S'n'S people; specifically mainly "WASP" people. (I'm not racist, I'm talking about the play! Course, if you're reading this, you probably already know that) And improv people too, although I only see them during improv mostly, which is too bad. Dunno why I didn't get involved more with S'n'S earlier... didn't think I'd like it I guess. No thanks to a few people of a certain fraternity, but we won't go into that here. No thanks to classwork, which, like I've said, makes me feel somewhat robotic. You'll notice I cut off on Wednesday, because Thursday and Friday have been "work on programming all day." It's kinda sad.

And oh, the family. Being in college gives you a sort of outsider's perspective. Mom's been working a lot, she's never home for dinner any more I guess. Bah. And Dad's still mostly the same, somewhat curmudgeonly sometimes. Still does his daily "call home at about 4:30, give a bunch of chores to whomever is unfortunate enough to answer the phone." Still mad that Mom's not home enough, which doesn't help. Cheryl's cool still; she's been having tough times with swimming and school and such; Dad responds by trying to get her to swim all year, or get outside tutoring, or whatever. I dunno, she's 16, old enough to make her own decisions I'd say.

I love them all, my family's great. But there's some day-to-day friction that happens. Dad wants things done his way, and if they're not, why not? Mom acquiesces, and mostly feels guilty about working so much I guess. Dad doesn't know what's going on with Cheryl. Dad wants me to work hard to I can make $17 grand. Or maybe $17 million. Whoa, did I just stumble into a WASP reference? Yeah, guess I did. There's a lot there. There are big differences though, I'm not saying my family's anywhere near as screwed up as that one. My sister and mom are a lot more sane. Dad kinda knows he doesn't have to teach me stuff like "what a luxury item is" anymore. We kids don't fight. But I gotta wonder if Dad ever calls out to the voices. And if I'm going to turn out the same way.

Whoa... if that all sounds really grim, sorry about that. Make Alan Greenspan proud, get out that irrational exuberance, and joyfully romp through your next day or week or whatever.

Nyaah! I lied!

Sorry, this entire day was eaten up by a monumental programming assignment. Monumental in the sense of big, not in the sense of glorious at all. THEREFORE, nothing much today:

Today: made some excellent hamburgers for the family. Whoa, hamburgers. It's not easy being a gourmet, let me tell you.

Tomorrow: Programming exam at Hyland Software, where I hope to work.

Also appearing tomorrow: more work on programming assignment. My posterior is so saddened by the prospect of sitting in this chair for that much longer that it may become emo.

Coming soon to a semester near you: easier classes. Granted, I'm really only taking three classes right now, but they're hard... I'm thinking maybe 2 real classes next semester, and 3 fun ones. Hey, I only have to take 12 classes for my major over the next 6 semesters. Nice. I'm just looking for a break, so I can do some other stuff, not just program all the time. I feel like I'll be sitting in front of a computer for the next 60 years. And talking to my dad, he seems to think that's just fine, because I will make a heap of money. It's like WASP all over again, except now my dad is playing himself, and nobody's acting. But more on that later.

Whoa, three days ago: my grandpa had surgery to remove his lung cancer. Wholly cow. Hey kids, get out your rubber stamps, and stamp a big "entirely insignificant" on those previous few paragraphs. I guess he's doing really well, joking around and stuff, in good spirits, which is awesome. That's where my mom was while I was in Michigan and Chicago. He's great, I guess it was not too tricky an operation because they caught it early, but all the same, it's good to know that he's doing okay.

So hey, there's your bright spot for the day. Enjoy your last Friday of break, or if you're not on break, then hooray, it's Friday!

First Post!

Whoa hey, I've got a blog! Now I can express my deep inner feelings and share my most profound unique thoughts.

Just like everyone else.

Okay, here's the real reason: vanity. I could easily type everything into a little file on my computer and leave it there, giving me an equally secure storage place for all of my memories, or shoot, even write it down. But I, like any other blogger, have decided to throw it all on the INTERNET, in the vague hope that someone might enjoy it and drop a proverbial coin into the piggy bank of my self-esteem. So this is really the Online Dan Ego Orgy, and disgusting as that sounds, look at your own blog; it probably is too. But leave your two cents, I appreciate it.

Or if you want to be lighthearted about it, this is a place I can put funny stuff, and people can read it, and we'll all chortle and frolic among the computerized daisies.

At any rate, hey, this should be fun, and maybe provide me with a bit of a creative outlet before CMU turns me into a robot, like King Midas whispering promises of starting six-figure incomes in my ear while patting me on the back with his poisonous hand, except instead of gold, I turn into steel, with little silicon microchips in there somewhere.

Posts with actual content will start tomorrow. Now it's time to sleep.