I can't believe the semester is very rapidly drawing to a close. This semester has definitely flown by. Freshman year seemed to almost drag on, but since the onset of Sophomore year, the semesters have gone by increasingly faster. Anywho, in some regards I'm glad classes are ending and whatnot, but otherwise I still enjoy the school environment. I'm not exactly looking forward to going home and working at the Radisson for a week or two until Christmas. Hopefully, though, I will be able to work every day from the time I get home til Christmas, so I can take my mom''s suggestion of only working until Christmas so I don't work New Year's and get dicked over in pay like last year and so I can hang out with Clabaugh since he's not often in the area. Then, after New Year's I'm absolutely not going to want to work on or around my birthday. I may work a couple days after my birthday until we come back to school, but we'll see.

Anyway,

This last weekend was a fun time. Caitie wanted to get her drunk on, so after dinner on Friday, Brooke, Katie Ruch, Caitie, and I drove to the "adult candy store" (aka, liquor store) to pick up some goods, then to Weis to grab some snacks and lemons/limes and whatnot. I was in a cracked out mood, so I was in retard-mode the entire time we were in the car, and while we were in Weis. I had everyone practically peeing themselves. Heh, I get so into "character" with the whole retarded thing, it's kinda scary. After we returned from getting supplies, we each took a shot of 99 apples (well, I took two in a row because Katie Ruch had no one to take a shot with), then went to Bitler's recital. I was still silly, so a bit of my retarded side came out during the breaks of the recital, and of course I amused some more people in turn. After the recital we gathered up the goods and came over to my room. Caitie, Brooke, and I took a few Citron shots followed by biting into sugared lemons. After a few, we went downstairs to join everyone in Ryan's room watching Wizard of Oz while playing Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon album. I think we were all feeling pretty good by that point, eating Honey Wheat pretzels and drinking those oh-so tasty Khalua Mudslides. After the CD finished, we didn't stick around to finish the movie; we instead came back up to my room and decided to play Kings. Brooke made some Vodka tonics for the three of us, and I put on some Sigur Ros to provide nice, ambient background music. Man, we were all nicely drunk at least by halfway through the game, if not somewhat before we even began. Heh, thanks to my rule semi-late in the game, the three of us all ended up in our underwear, so that lead to funny moments when we'd leave the room to converse with the people over in Yorty and Kara's room. It ended up being a ridiculously silly, fun night.

Saturday started off with everyone's favorite thing to do--rehearsal for the Masterworks concert. Once that was done--come 4pm--we hung out for a bit, then hit up dinner, then I almost blew off practicing with Yorty for her recital piece, but she kindly reminded me at dinner. So, after practicing, I went over to Sass. and a whole group of us (me, Brooke, Caitie, Katie Ruch, Jeff, Lindsay, her friend, and Andy) drove over to Sunbury to go ice skating. Heh, once again, since we were in the car, I guess, I was back in retard mode, cracking everyone up. I had never been ice skating before, but I used to be all about inline skating and whatnot, so I picked up on it pretty quickly. Of course we were all being silly and being American at times, so it was fun times indeed. Afterwards, we came back and kinda hung around for a little, then came back to the SPAA house to have some hot chocolate and tea and hang out in the common room since we hadn't at all all semester. Jon Masters and eventually Yorty ended up joining us for a bit. It was a nice, relaxing time.

Sunday was sleeping in fairly late (relatively, of course, since "sleeping in" this semester amounts to maybe 9 if you're lucky), then waking up and getting ready for the Masterworks concert. The concert went really well. It was filmed by WVIA, etc., blah blah. Heh, the Messiah portion was first, and I arrogantly sat in the back and read a book for the entire thing. After the intermission, I went up to play the Holiday Poops portion. Afterwards, I was a good section leader and helped moved the equipment back over to Heilman. After that was done, I met up with Brooke and we found her parents and went out to Applebee's. Man, I love the Chicken Parm. they have there. It's fuckin' huge! It was a nice change of pace to have real food. After dinner, Brooke parents dropped us back at Sass, where we basically hung around for the rest of the night.

Tonight's the Caf Christmas dinner (which isn't too exciting, just buffet-style whatnot), with the Candlelight service later on. Tomorrow night's gonna be awesome--George Carlin and Dennis Blair, from the 2nd row. What's even better is that I get to go backstage (hopefully). Crossley's comin up for the show, then stayin over, so I'm sure hilarity will ensue. I'm kinda excited about being asked to play for the SU Valley Chorale, since it's a paid gig. There are two rehearsals (thurs. and fri.) and two concerts (sat. night and sunday afternoon), and I'll be paid $28.50/rehearsal and $32.50/concert. So, I'll be making some much needed cash.

There's more I could continue writing about, but I'm gonna head to dinner and start the evening of whatnot. So, until next time...

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PANDA BEAR fucked his fifth ex furry hot Grandmom while jerking his Nephew's enormous throbbing pink gopher after licking diarrhea from oozing pulpous smelly vaginal secretions until vomiting profusely on himself and smiling because bacon isn't kosher enough for Israelites native to Guam, which therefore kidneys aren't carrying amphibious neckties belonging to geriatric southern incontinent irresponsible female phallic voluptuous kit-kats, contrary to Brian's left nipple bag hanging from penii of unemployed sedated darkies stealing your only anal floatation device.

That, my friends is what happens when Brian Crossley and I get into the sentences part of Kings. For those who haven't played Kings, I believe it was the Jack we used for either the sentence game or categories. The person who drew the card says the first word, then the next person repeats the first word and adds another, then the next person repeats from the beginning and adds a word onto that, etc. Well, we played the sentence game, and what you see above (up to the word "kidneys") was what we came up with the night we were down in Lancaster, drinking and playing Kings at John and Eric's. Beyond that is what Brian and I came up with in the car yesterday and today. There was also a nice sentence that started with "Vagisil Cannibals...", but I'm feeling too lazy to write that one out.

So, Thanksgiving break was a nice break from the rigors of school. I went home tuesday night and did a ton of laundry and farted around with the computer (had to wipe a hard drive yet again). Wednesday was basically just more of the same. I really enjoyed sitting around being lazy as hell and chillaxing. I talked to Dave for a while online, and we ended up making plans for him and Kat to come down to Williamsport for the evening. So, they came down and Dave and I drank like fiends, mostly because I brought home 15 bottles of Yuengling, plus some Jager, cherry rum, and vodka and wanted to get rid of it before headed back, but also just for shits and giggles. We got pretty silly, and ended up going to Sheetz to satisfy our hunger. After that drunken escapade, we get back to the house and devour our food, then head back upstairs to watch some Aqua Teen, then Dave and Kat headed home. It was definitely a silly, fun night. I'm glad I got to hang out with them since I haven't since summer.

Thursday was the big turkey day, and we had my aunt Laura, cousin Jackie, niece Kiera, nephew Zach, and Larry's parents to our house for it. It was ok, but quite oddly I really didn't enjoy the meal all that much. In fact, the thing of which I ate the most was the green bean casserole that Larry's parents brought. After the meal we (read: my mom and I) tore everything down and cleaned up, then my aunt and cousin and little hellions went over to my aunt Pam's house, so I went upstairs and slept. I ended up sleeping a good 4 hours or so. They came back, then I packed up my stuff and left with them to go down to Brian's house. He met us near Millerstown, then we went back to his house and since I hadn't eaten dinner, his mom was awesome and heated up a plate of their thanksgiving leftovers. Man, was it damn good. The best part, aside from the heavenly biscuits, was the little pudding pies she made. I ate a butterscotch one, and it was orgasmic. Brian and I just hung out and hooked up my computer, ate, played video games, etc.--the usual.

Brian worked Friday til noon, but I was a lazy fuck and slept til about 11. We hit up Taco Bell for lunch (naturally), then played more games and transferred files between computers then eventually headed down to Lancaster to John and Eric's to play Halo 2, Magic, eat a ton of food and end up dirnking and playing Kings when Brian's sister Jenn got there. We stayed til almost 3, so we didn't get back to Harrisburg til about 4am. We both played around on our computers for a short bit, then passed out.

Saturday morning we were woken up around 9 to go and get Christmas trees. I had the pleasure of being around more of Brian's extended family. They're definitely crazy, so it was an interesting time. Before we went to the tree farm, we stopped and the Old Country Buffet for breakfast. Everyone knows I can eat enough for a small family, but I was still so damn full from the night before. I had eaten one of the two chicken cordon bleu things, a microwaved fajita, a 1-lb. hot pocket, then later on I ate probably a good 2' of Italian sub that Jenn had brought down with her. So, I managed to eat part of a biscuit and a cinnamon bun for breakfast. After breakfast we went to the tree farm and I experienced some crazy Crossleys. They all got their trees, then loaded them in the truck, so Brian and I drove around to drop them off. After we got done with the deliveries, we came back and I showered then Brian drove me down to Brooke's house. Brooke and I watched some Family Guy, then hung out for a little until dinner was ready. By this point I was ready to eat, so I had a massive plate of spaghetti and meatballs which was excellent. After dinner we hopped in the car and drove around to Barnes & Noble, Circuit City, and the mall before we returned to be lazy and sit and watch tv until 11:30 or so.

I was woken up this morning and had some pancakes for breakfast, then showered and Brooke drove me back to Harrisburg. She stayed for a bit and hung out with Brian and me and had a few laughs and a few shudders of "fuckin'...GROSS" when Brian showed her an example of bukakke (because he played the "I love bukakke" song and Brooke didn't know what bukakke was). Altogether though, it was a good time, naturally. She headed out, then Brian and I played games for a bit until we packed up the car and headed out for good old Selinsgrove. We finished the Panda Bear sentence, then played some Magic and ate Easy Mac when we got here. After that Brian headed out and I came up here to unpack and clean/arrange and all that fun stuff. So, I definitely had a good Thanksgiving break. I don't want to go to class tomorrow, but I have the comfort of knowing we only have a few weeks left.

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Man, it has been forever since I've last updated my journal. The past few weeks have been an intense ride, with tonight being the culmination of the weeks of stress/lack of sleep/sacrifice of health/fun/happiness/awesome experience and whatnot. I definitely gave my all throughout my pledging process, and wanted to be where I was more and more as I got more and more into the fraternity. You know, I wanted to pledge last semester but my GPA was a shitty 2/100ths of a point below the minimum requirement. However, when I look at it, I'm in a totally different place with my life right now, speaking generally and speaking in any specific context, and I sincerely feel that everything happens for a reason. I'm definitely glad that I went through this process now, because I feel that I've gotten so much out of it, and I'm to a point where I feel I've gotten the most I could get out of it, definitely more than I could have last semester even. I'm completely happy with the choices I've made, and the dedication I put into the process, and that I am where I am right now. It's awesome.

So, yes...long time no entries. Depending on how you look at it, you could sadly or in a kind of cool way summarize my life in the past few weeks as an almost regimented lifestyle that consisted of rather meticulously planning out most every hour of each day. The pledging process, with the effort I wanted to put into it, would amount to a challenging 4 credit class (aka, not Ken Burns teaches you Jazz via Rislow, but something more along the lines of MRB). Outside of my various Phi Mu Alpha activities, I've spent considerable amounts of time on school work, most recently being my recording tech II project (which I think it's turning out pretty awesome). Sadly, I've gotten somewhat lax with some things, like really studying and absorbing the new material in New Testament Greek. I love learning languages and exploring true meaning and whatnot, but I was full-on devoting myself to my big projects, pledging being a primary, of course. Obviously I'm gonna pick up the slack from here on, and thankfull I'm aware enough of how I'm doing in all areas to not let things go. And outside of Phi Mu Alpha and schoolwork, I have been spending time with Brooke of course. She's been very cool and supportive of me throughout the process, which I appreciate, especially since she definitely had her doubts and concerns about me getting into. I just enjoy that we're total retards about 95% of the time. It keeps the collegiate life fresh, and free of the mundane familiarities of the drama and stress that seems to pervail most other students' lives. I am more than thankful to have her input and inspiration for such things and building the fort, arrogantly mimicking Caboose, arrogantly drinking in the common room, blending the use of both wit and childish behavior to retaliate against the staunch republican asshole(s), going to hell for all too often acting/speaking/etc. retarded, and so on.

I'll be honest, I'm certainly not saying I didn't enjoy and get a lot out of the process, but I'm glad it's over. I'm looking forward to having the time to relax and just pick up a Dan Brown book for a couple hours or something. Or better yet, have the time to sit around and update my journal, listen to music for a while, etc. I'm glad Thanksgiving break's coming up, cuz I could definitely use the down time. And, since I just read his journal, I think I need to go down to Crossley's if he's goin into the Army. I was planning on going to at least Harrisburg over break anyway, so I'm sure something will be quasi-planned there. Anyway, it's already past 5am, so it'd probably be best to sleep. I feel less like this is a journal entry than it being kind of an update e-mail or something to whomever reads my journal. Well, regardless, I'm alive and well, and I'm very happy with how things are right now. I'll soon have some time on my hands, and I plan on getting back to some of the little things I like to do.

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Overall, this fall break was awesome. After Jazz class let out a good 40 minutes early, I came back and packed up my shite for a weekend down in Harrisburg. I called Crossley to make sure he would be around/if it was still cool for me to come for the weekend, then Brooke and I headed out around 3 or 4. We arrived in the ghetto and Brooke hung out for a little bit before she had to head home, then Crossley and I headed out for some much needed Taco Bell. Afterwards we went to see Team America World Police...let me just say that that movie is ridiculously funny. Also, I have to agree with Brian in saying that it has the best monologue, which consists of an amazing analogy comparing all people to dicks, pussies, and assholes. It rocks. After the movie, Crossley and I drove down to Lancaster to hang out with Jon and Eric (aka, sit around and play Magic for a few hours and nurse some drinks). It was a fun, silly time. Naturally, my pants were off upon entering the door, and were off for a couple games. It happens. We ended up leaving close to 3, so by the time we got back and were hittin the hay, it was 4am.

We got up and around by noon, then grabbed some lunch (aka, Taco Bell once again) and ran some errands to Best Buy, Home Depot, etc. I talked to Brooke and she invited me to come for dinner and meet the rents, so Brian drove me down to Mount Joy and dropped me off. Man, her house is freakin sweet. I'm jealous. We sat and conversed with her mom for a while, then went and ran an errand to CVS, then picked up pizzas to bring back. That pizza was very good, I'm a fan. After dinner, we watched tv for a bit, enjoyed some Mad TV, then the rents went to watch the baseball game and we stayed downstairs and watched Family Guy. Oh how I love that show, it's so freakin' hilarious. It was a nice afternoon/evening visit, and naturally I thanked her parents for havin me over, etc., then she drove me back to the Burg. We never make plans (since they always fell through in the past), but there was a notion of gathering the crew for a later night diner excursion, but when I had gotten back and talked to Cara, she had gone back to school. So, we made plans to hang out the next day in Millersville. It was only a little after midnight, and Brian and I were in 4am mode, so we were looking for something to do, so I called Princess Padme (aka, Adam Crego). I haven't talked to/hung out with Adam in a long-ass time. He was hanging out with Colon and bored (naturally), so Brian and I drove over to pick him up. It was close to 1 by the time we got there, so we weren't going to go knock on the door/ring the doorbell and wake up Colin's parents, so I call Adam's cell phone twice, and he doesn't pick up. Eventually Colin pulls up in his VW and parks right in front of us, blinding us with the headlights--fucker--then he gets out of his car and some anti-trendy trendy chick gets out as well. He walks over to Brian's side of the car and drops his keys, sutmbles like he was all cool and drinking or something. We think (aka, know) he's the kind of guy that has a sip of alcohol and walks around pretending he's wasted and so cool cuz he drank. Anyway, we go inside his house and basically it's just Brian, Adam, and me talking, since Colin and his floor model chica are boring as hell. So, the three of us leave to maybe go to a diner or drive around, whatever. As we're nearing the front door, both Brian and I spotted the iPod laying there, and both had half the notion to just swipe it since Colin's a douche, and since his parents are filthy rich and he'd get a new one the next day anyway (it wouldn't be an issue if the kid ever worked a day in his life). Anyway, we leave and decide we don't feel like spending money/really eating anything, so we end up driving to sheetz and getting slushies, then going back to Adam's house and hanging out there for a while. Meghan happened to be home this weekend, and I haven't seen her in a good two years or so, so we went up to harass her for a while. We all chilled and talked and laughed and acted like morons for a while, then left around 3 and called it a night.

Sunday we get up and around by 11, then fart around playing video games for hours on end (suprise, suprise). Our hunger was getting the best of us, so we went out to Giant and picked up these awesome frozen chicken cordon bleu things, and I grabbed a bag of frozen bean burritos. We take the food back to the house and play even more video games while we wait for our food to cook in the oven. After we finish eating and whatnot, we head out to go down to Millersville to hang out with Cara. We brought along the movie Underworld since I had never seen it. We get there and we're all hungry and haven't eaten dinner yet, so we order some pizza from House of Pizza (aka, "Ho Pie"), which was very good. The movie was also very good. I must say, Kate Beckinsale (sp?) is so damn hott in that movie, like whoa. Afterwards we hang out for a bit, and naturally Brian busts out the camera and wants to explore the video recording function, so by the time he has it figured out, he has Cara film Brian and me acting out the joke of the weekend, which is as follows:

Brian: Hey, are you goin to the party tonight?
Me: What party?
Brian: The party in your mouth, everyone's coming!

It turned out absolutely hilarious, and I made sure to e-mail myself the video as soon as he uploaded it. We left around midnight or so, and I talked to Brooke on the way back to figure out the plans for Monday. Shortly after we got back, Brian did the usual last five round of Tetris Attack before calling it a night.

Monday I get up a little confused because of hearing Brian's alarm, and having woken up/fallen asleep numerous times throughout the night cuz I was cold. I finally got up around 11:30, and hopped in the shower. By the time I was done and dressed, Brian was home from work and shortly after that Brooke got there. Brian needed a Chinese fix, so we went to get Chinese food for lunch. As we get to the plaza and hit up the ATM, the antics start (well, they started well beforehand, but still). We were all amused by a random envelope laying in the parking lot that had "Kick me hard plz" written on it, and naturally Brian took a picture of it. After our initial amusement there, we headed over to the Chinese place and got some lunch to take back to Brian's and eat while watching Futurama. On the way back to the car though, we had to stop to make yet another video where Brooke turns in disgust towards me and says "What are you, a retard trapped in a fucktard's body?!". It was most excellent. I need Crossley to e-mail that one to me, as well as the banana phone mp3. Haha, oh man, that freaking song is nuts/horrible/awesome all at the same time. The flash animation isn't all that great, but check it out at ebaum's world if you would like to experience the joys of banana phone. Anyway, after we finished eating mass amounts of Chinese food and watching Futurama, Brooke and I hit the road to head back to SU. Upon our return, we commenced being absolutely fat and lazy. I think we've watched a total of 5 movies or so since yesterday, and have eaten things ranging from easy mac, to sheetz nachos, to dunking donuts, to taco bell, and so on. It's been awesome to just sit around and do absolutely nothing productive. It has been a good break where I've totally been able to forget about all the stress of school and just be my silly self for a weekend. Good times indeed, kids.

Whew, that's quite a massive update. However, really, had I taken the time to update about all the events of the past few weeks since I updated, it would fill the entire browser page. Let's just say school is insanely busy/stressful because of the amount of work, however I'm enjoying classes and what I'm doing and still managing to get good grades. Being a PM of Phi Mu Alpha is really cool as well, especially now that I have chosen a big brother, and said big brother is none other than Jon Work. I definitely feel I made the right choice there, since we have a lot of things in common. It'll be good times all around, once the weight of all the school work/projects/things I have to do is lifted.

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I haven't fallen off the face of the Earth. There's certainly been a ton of stuff that has happened since I last updated, and with that, I promise to find the time to properly update this journal.

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It's been a good half a week since I updated, so it's about time to fill in the spaces. I dunno if I'm just slowly losing my mind or if I'm waking up to something better than reality, but my life feels surreal--like a movie. The really cool thing has been various forms of art I've recently been exposed to that have made an impact on me. The first example is the movie Garden State. The watered-down gist of the movie is Largeman coming home, after escaping for years, and realizing that he is numb to the world, so he spends time with his friends and a girl that he meets and discovers life/what it is to be alive. Such a good movie (and amazing soundtrack). On the music front, I'm still in the process of ripping my CDs to my computer to rebuild my library, but I've gotten that surreal feeling from listening to a lot of choral works (primarily Eric Whitacre). So far, these elements have made me feel like my life is like a movie, but the most intense connection has been reading the graphic novel Blankets. The novel is autobiographical about the author's childhood and his first love and his struggles with religion, so naturally that's grounds for my interest. As I read through the book, I was weirded out by how similar what I was reading is to my life and who I am. There are definite portions of the novel that would be in my biography, practically word-for-word. It gave me the most surreal feeling, but not in a bad way, rather, it gave me a kind of reassurance that what I've experienced/am experiencing is life. Someone else I've never met has had essentially the same experience(s) that I have, and has felt the same way about it. There's just something about that that comforts me.

The other day was the first time in years that I sat down and drew something. I used to draw all the time when I was younger, but my art fell by the wayside as I picked up music. I guess my art just changed forms. Anyway, I had the strong urge to draw, so I grabbed a pencil and my notepad and mused about what I wanted to create. The idea came that I wanted to create a symbol (not too surprising, since I love symbols and meanings, so on). I wanted to create a self-defining philosophical symbol with an inherent religious meaning. For those who haven't read about/talked to me about my religious/philosophical debates with Dave and my own soul-searching whatnot, it'd take so long to bring you up to par, but a summary will suffice to let you understand. Out of a lot of debating and thinking and what have you, I really tried to decide/define/etc. my beliefs. There are still many things I have not defined, but I doubt I'll ever cover everything. Anyway, to summarize, I believe that "God" is both perfect and infinite. I also believe that, in essence, God is balance. I believe that the moments in life where we "feel God's presence"/"experience God"/etc. are moments where we experience balance--the surreal feeling of not being within the world, but also not detached from the world (i.e. suspended, or transcending "reality"). Those are the major ones, so I thought a lot about them, and about what symbols with which to associate them. I brainstormed for a while until I finally created my symbol. I started the drawing with a circle, with the circle representing perfection. Inside the circle I drew a pentacle with the five points touching the circle, then I drew a second, smaller pentacle in the opposite direction. The two intertwined, reciprocal pentacles/stars represent balance. To finish the symbol, in the space on the very center inside the circle and pentacles, I drew a moebius strip to represent infinity. I don't know that my description does the symbol justice, but I absolutely love how it turned out. I had forgotten how much I love that feeling of losing yourself in the creation of art. I'm fairly positive that this symbol is going to be my next tattoo.

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