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 7,16,03: my laptop and camera, etc etc etc, were suppose to ship today from whatever dell factory. My account status website never registered untill tonight, though i suspected it, that there was a delay and I would have to wait another week further. Oh well. AS long as i eventually get it. I'm working more and more and more at work. I'm the only temp there who has overtime, and i'm thankful for that. I don't mind the work though i might complain to myself at times. It's necessary. You've gotta earn the dough somehow!!! But I really wouldn't want to do something like this forever. That's up to Yahweh though. I just thought as I was typing before that I might be put in some sort of situation like that. Would I balk at a job like this if it were what yahweh had in store? nope. I can't tell the future, so I'll roll with it as it comes. I want to take up boxing, photography, piano playing, and alla :) this school year it gonna be the greatest, furreal. it keeps getting better and better. this comic makes me giggle:  7,9,03: wowsers. another thing that i forgot to mention about the drive home was that i went by the unatego high school, and they've cut down the trees that were on both sides of the finish to their cross country courses. bah :( plus that i've bought a compur,, a lap top! more info later. it should be shipping out or getting here sometime around the seventeenth. 7,8,03: Well there's a lot to say. this past weekend was the weekend of july the fourth, and i went home to see the family, Martha and Eli Green, and a family from East Syracuse that were all riding Binghamton's bus to the city on sunday for the Queens class that Doctor Harris was attending. Friday (the fourth) night, I passed over the family's traditional fireworks-at-the-cottage celebration to go to Jennifer's house to meet her friends and chill. We watched movies, 'twas fun, and i didn't realize how little traffic would be on the road that night (duh). Traveling to see doctor harris preach was beneficial. The weekend with the fam was fun. Plus, as i'd been asking the people at work more and more for extra hours, they're starting to use me! my only problem is one of conscience... i'm not sure if the lady that's giving me these extra things to do realizes that i'm leaving at the end of august. I hope it wouldn't make a difference! Anyways, I'm starting to go 6 in da morn 'till 4:30, and with driving time it's actually a 5:20-5 job. But it counts as ten hours of work a day and hey, i'm not complaining. I'll be loving the extra padding on the check. I don't see zeros on the checks yet, except in the change spot, but maybe just maybe after i leave college and am in the work world :) who knows.  This comic reminded me of my grandmother's reaction to eating things she knows she shouldn't be eating, or is reminding my grandfather that he shouldn't. 
Good ol' Strom. Did you know he gave the longest philabuster ever?! it was something like 16 or 18 hours. 7,1,03: I believe that the last two days at work have been the quickest ever. Today I learned a second spot on the line. II'm close to knowing two more, the two next to me, if only i could understand which numbers at each spot correspond with which numbers on frames. there's only so much i can learn while they're not actually teaching me, while i'm just watching. in other news, i've decided i'm going to borrow once a runner from my coach Robb Munroe and type up the story this summer. is it worth it, typing up a book, you ask? You obviously haven't read it.
oh, and, major advances are being made everyday with the help of erica's uncle. much will be typed and emailed soon. 6,30,03: I've recieved an email back from my philosopher friend :) he's definitely going to help me a lot.  6,29,03, barely after midnight: I just got back to my grandparents from addie's graduation party. My family came up, and there was the whole albany crew as well as much of barbara's and sam's family and some of the crew from queens, malcomb and kuran, karen, malcomb's mother, and another lady i can't remember the name too =-o but anyhoosers, the family is here now in the house :)  
This is definitely not my way of thinking!!! soda bad! though i've had as much in the past 48 hours as i probably have had since my graduation party a year ago. 6,26,03: I have once again joined the ranks of downloaders, not as willing to pay for music. I downloaded Kazaa on my grandparents computer and let things download over night. There was something more I wanted to say! What was it??? *sigh... can't remember...
I've been thinking about my earlier plans to go to binghamton for a year or two and then transfer. I'm thinking about the transfer option again. I know that I was signed up for the initial two classes of music (look at that, i'm already talking about it in the past tense) but I've been thinking about dropping them, letting some lucky person get into them that shouldn't've, and taking an econ course instead. I'll really have to decide on that before i get to college, because I won't want to be second guessing myself. I really really really want to be able to do compositional piano stuff but i can hardly play the piano now. I was thinking about transferring to S.O.M. and that will mean perfection in my classes all year long as well as the proper classes to allow for still being on schedule for an S.O.M. Degree. The thing i'm thinking about transfer is that I can look at colleges in towns/cities with classes, looking at business programs, perhaps even sports psychology. I don't even know anymore :) and of course, the running programs will be a part of it... Arkansas University keeps ringing in the back of my mind.... 6,23,03: I talked to todd, the boss of my boss at work, about getting more time and about staying when my assembly line is getting out early. I really would like to pick up more hours and I let him know that. He said it would be helpful to have me know other spots on the line and so that could work out. I got a card in the mail from jennifer today, a belated birthday card: a picture of george bush with the words saying, hope you get better soon, george :) a pitchfork and horns, as well as a goatee, rollie fingers mustach, and a nose mole were drawn on :) awesome. 6,21,03: seems a few of my friends have confessed to days of nonproductivity. Stop it! You're demeaning me! I did nearly nothing today, and enjoyed every minute of it. I spent a lot of my time playing star trek: deepspace9, dominion wars, and that's fun. I planned some of the music video that I will recreate with some of da fam in the area. My cousin chris will be the main focus of the video and we'll be using the Dave Matthews Band song, where are you going? It will be modeled after the actual music video, where he goes around hugging people. I also picked strawberries, after waking up at noonthirty. and i'm going to be lazy and go to sleep within the next hour and a half, hopefully.
some kick @$$ sites that i've been looking at today:
jill's site
loopology.com and Syntrillium Software's website, where I downloaded trial versions of cool edit 2000 and cool edit pro. With these programs you can fully edit music, create tracks for cds or mp3s, handle incoming feeds etc. It's a recording studio in your computer, as they aptly acclaim.
april's site6,19,03: well well well. the first week of work is going well. the first four days already have gone by. it is an assembly line for windows. My step in the line is the cleaning of the assembled window, so you could say that i'm the last person in line, except i put the windows on carts that are taken to other people who put the windows into bigger frames for sliding windows and various other things. The first two days were stressful because i was holding up some of the people right before me in the line, because i was slow at cleaning them. they gave me a razor and a small towel and i was scraping everything off the windows with a razor. It took me three days to realize that I could put the razor down and just really scrub with the towel, and it'd be a lot quicker. Now I'm faster than everybody else in the line, and we're never behind. If anything, I was today penalized for my efficiency because at three o'clock we were done with everything we had to do and our supervisor, Brian Smith, told us to go home early. That shorts us on the timecard :-/ We've got even less on the schedule to do tomorrow, so i'm thinking that I should go a little bit slower... :) Now, instead of looking at the clock out of worry for when the next break or the end of the day is, I look at the clock out of boredom. 'sall good :) I just can't wait for the paychecks to start rolling in. I've got some debt to make up for... that won't all be caught up 'till 'bout 2020, prolly. 6, 15,03: this fathers' day went by quickly. I need to sleep more often! i was having trouble in class staying awake. Tomorrow is my first day of work...  6,13,03: well whody've thunk'd it, it's friday the thirteenth and i've got a job :) starting monday. it's at pvc in clifton park, making windows. 6,11,03: gah jobsearch continues :(  
i'll probably write about this non-sequiter comic sometime in the days to come. 6,10,03: the mariners just got back from a 12 game road trip. AND WON ELEVEN GAMES! WHAT! coincidentally, there's an article here called Deja Vu: 2003 M's have the look and feel of the 2001 squad. Incidentally, the mariners won 116 games in 2001 tying the record for the most wins in a season, held by the 1906 Chicago Cubs. Hey, have the cubs had a winning season since?  6,9,03: i just haven't felt like there's been a lot to say. I'm anxious about getting a job. it's nearly been a month that i've resided in saratoga and yet i'm still jobless. i won't be homeless :-D but, y'know. that's the cool thing about living with the grandparents :) I really miss everybody everywhere. The running continues as planned. I already feel myself losing a little bit of focus, but i'll have to find a way to keep the adrenaline in it... i'll probably go over and try to do a track workout or something. what i need is the summer meets at colonie's track, but they won't be happening untill july. 
6,7,03: i thought these were particularly entertaining, with my fascination of rhyming/rapping... 
6,4,03: a million thoughts going through the membrane. last night was dinner at lillian's with the whole fam, on broadway next to where garth and becca use to have an apartment. Dinner was good. Then Becca and I walked around, went to the library, and went to the Saratogian where garth works. Seeing some of what he does and where he works was interesting. Then i spent the night at garth's with him and becca. We drove Becca to saracuse u. this morning and looked around the campus a bit. Now i'm off to run on a track, i think, even though it's a fifty minute run, because i just feel like running on a track to see what paces i'm going, and perhaps maybe try to feel what the diff paces are like. In cross country, I've had a harder time with pacing, which requires truer pacing, because you can get use to just going certain speeds on a track whereas there's not the same routine, running in a circle, in cross country. going up and down hills and all the different terrains mess with pacing. well i'm babbling. lata :) the job search still continues. :( 6,1,03: i just got back from a weekend of memories. i'll never do that again in the same manner. all week long i knew that i wanted to go, except for the contrary fact that i was hoping to get a job. i purposefully didn't plan at the beginning of the week since i was planning on getting a job. when, wednesday night after class in menands, I didn't have a job and was staring down the weekend, i planned a trip to poughkeepsie, yorktown, the bronx, and queens in a matter of a few hours, from midnight till two or three when i got off the computer and started packing. I left at eleven that morning and drove down 87south to new paltz, meeting erica there, and we went running at this really awesome place that i've already forgotten the name to. Then we drove back to erica's, showered and ate, went to teren's, chilled and went to ... what was that place? the funky... uhm? funky something... chicken, maybe? i only remember .3% of my waking moments. Brynne played there. I think it was the first time that i heard her sing live, i think. we left about 11:30, amidst the firetrucks. we almost died (twice) on the way home, with the sudden realization that there was a wall in front of us, erica's lightening quick reflexes and an action movie-worthy sideways skid. then we tried to go up an offramp. other than that, 'twas all good :) we went back to teren's house, then an hour north to erica's. we stayed up talking and eating and then went to sleep. i set one of my clock's five alarms ;) for eight thirty since i was suppose to be calling alla at nine. i woke up to turn off the alarm and then lied back down as i always feel the urge to. i awoke to teren knocking on the door, twenty five minutes later. teren, erica, and i lazed around, ate, listened to teren playing the piano, etc etc. then i took teren home. instead of dropping her off at her house, we went just a little bit further so that i coul get to the mall to get money from my card for tolls on the way to the city. We parked the car in the mall parking lot, relatively close since it was a weekday and the mall wasn't filled, and went in. i couldn't find my atm card and figured the last place i'd seen it was in my idmr bag, so we went back to the car to check the bag, which was in the trunk. i was confused not to find it there either, so i checked my wallet again and it was in the cash area. I shook my head, showed the card for teren, put my hand on the trunk and shut it. exactly the moment that i pushed it down, my eyes lingered on the key to the car that was sitting on the bag. i'd locked the key in the trunk and the car was locked. teren called her uncle who had a friend who was a police officer. they went and got this special tool from this other person that they knew, since they couldn't take the tool from the district of the officer (and that was too far anyways), and came down and used it on my car. it consisted of a wedge and another piece of equiptment. they used the wedge to open the door partially and then slid the other tool in, which they could manuver to press the unlock button. thanking them, i went to pull the trunk button to realize that it didn't work. nice. i've only had the car for two weeks, btw, and never before have used the trunk. a feeling of dispair came over me 'till teren said, do the seats come down to get to the trunk? and they did. and then after bringing teren back home, getting the directions from a convo with alla the night before on teren's computer, and explaining to her over the phone that i wasn't dead and that i was leaving for the bronx, i set out. i made it there fine with no mishaps! alla and i went to the beach. the next day we went to the metropolitan musuem of art and walked around central park a tiny bit, but it was raining and that hindered us. It was the first time i'd ever taken the subway :) it was the most fun i'd had at a museum. we talked about the paintings and different things a lot as we looked at them. and i have to remember, monet's painting, the house(s) of parliament! 'twas one that i liked. It was a lot of fun seeing Erica, Teren, and Alla. I've been lonely in saratoga, missing my friends and family :-/ it was awesome getting to meet alla's parents and see her home. and then, i got to go to the queens class, sunday school and the regular session. A.O.K. class was excellent and i can't wait to go back to albany's on wednesday.. 5,29,03, wee hours of the morning: I talked to allison at class tonight. the track meets at the colonie track dont' start 'till july. That's what I figured. And that gives me time to work hard at getting ready for the 3200m... at the first meet that i go to, I'll run a lot of events, five probably. the 400h, the 800, the 1600, the 3200. I'll actually bust the 400h and the 3200m, just running the other two for the sake of mileage... or not running them even. and the point is, i want to crush my high school pr in the 3200m. breaking 60 for the first time in the 400h would be cool, too. ok. the plans for the trip this weekend are much more settled. a few hours ago, i.e. about dinner time wednesday, i wasn't really sure the trip would be happening this weekend. i felt anxious about it and well, hadn't made a single plan. I chose at the beginning of the week to not make any plans for hope that i would get a job and would not be able to go on a trip. i might as well go, though, since I have the time. on tomorrow's agenda: visiting with teren and erica. getting ahold of steffen and leia! 5,28,03: today i ran for 86 minutes. it was raining hard. I thought about a great many things. I spoke outloud. I came up with a title for one of the books I'll write: Relationship by committee. It will be a good way to put many of my ideas about society down on paper, as well as all the different ways our individual lives relate to society around us.
right now i'm trying to plan a last minute trip to poughkeepsie, yorktown, the bronx, and queens. oh my. me driving in the city. the world is going to end... i don't know why i can't see myself doing it. 5,26,03: i've been having fun playing poker with my cousins and a friend of chris's, josh. We were playing dueces wild, and six consecutive hands over the last three games yesterday and the first three games of today were a combined two straights, two three of a kind, and two five of a kind. In one round today, seth and i both had full houses, but mine beat seth's. both he and christopher had gone all in on that round. It's fun playing with chips and pretending that you're betting.
yesterday night, i spent four hours on the grandmother's cell phone. it's free on nights and weekends, and since i'm away from all my friends, i'm planning on making good use of it. last night i talked to alla! and it helped.
some of today's cartoons are good. the boondocks one reflects some of the things i've been thinking about social outcasts, the lowers rising up against the greaters of society, societal consciousness, etc. etc:  ![]()
5,25,03: well that was a fun weekend. keegan came up, i watched the matrix reloaded (again) with marcus and addy (saw the trailer for the third movie, this time), and I just watched some of the prefontaine classic on tv with my grandmother. all good. the first year of college was so social. I'm missing peeps :-/ 5,22,03, second: tonight i played the second best game of basketball in my life. always fun when the shots are dropping. erica is getting back into running and so am i. Erin told me today that ben hebdon is transferring to binghamton... tha'ts the greatest! he and i on the same college team.. who'da thunk'd it. and i'm off to load philo stuff on the website, peace. 5,22,03: class last night at albany was great. I hear the same things and they start to sink in more, make more sense. i know everything'll work out inthe end.
i woke up at noon thirty after staying up so late last night. i really shouldn't, especially since it's the summer and there's no good reason for it.
It's after finishing the introductory book on Marxism, riddled with pictures put there to be funny more often than informative, that I feel like i should take history classes on Lenin, Castro, Mao Zedong, Russia and Cuba, China, in addition to all the economics courses. The funny thing is, I don't see myself being a hardcore Marxist. I understand some of the basic tenements concerning Marxist theory. I understood the idea years ago of workers adding value to a product and the owner/capitalist of the factory being the one getting the money from that added value. I just want to truly understand his theories. I really feel that they're important but that they still can be changed and viewed in new light. Perhaps it's just the idea that I may have found a focus for thought and studies that gives me ideas of creating a Marxist degree. I don't seriously entertain the thought. I do seriously entertain the thought of taking classes that help me understand it better, though. I was talking with Daniel Eisenberg on the phone today. He's going to peru on June second to do some anthropology stuff for the summer. We were talking about it and 'twas funny... the exact quote is, as we were talking about getting a business degree, "It's saying, my goal is money first. I don't have any particular skill." By skill, danno was talking about a marketable quality or idea. He also said that he saw a business degree as putting the cart before the horse, because you have to have an idea or skill and then apply the "business" part of it, the marketing of your idea or skill. I replied saying, an idea isn't necessary because you can get a business degree and work within the realm of someone else's vision. Not every business degree begats an entrepeneur (most don't, i'd guess). I also said that a business degree will not fall out of style in a capitalistic society, so it's an easy choice for me. It'll allow me to work within the system, earn a living, so that i can pursue other things like philosophy and writing, and who knows... maybe even attempting changing the system. 5,21,03, still wee hours of da morn: had to come back to say, check that! four runs in the bottom of the eighth and still going. that's the way, baby... 5, 21,03, the wee hours of the morning: Twenty years. wowsers. I'm no longer a teenager! I didn't run today/yesterday. I did play basketball at Chris's soccer practice and met a few of the locals. I typed up some more philosophy tonight, read marx's intro cartoon book, etc etc. and schemed, mad schemed, for the future :)
plus, the yankees lost to the bosox tonight and the mariners-royals game is just now entering the ninth tied three three... go m's! 5,20,03: ONE MORE DAY TILL ME BIRTHDAY.... and today was productive, so far, though i think the productivity meter will be falling. I dropped off applications at the Gideon Putnam, Longfellows, and The Olde Bryane Inn. All I really care about is getting in at the Gideon Putnam. If that doesn't work out, the other two would be good as well, to work at. I filled the tank with gas on the way home and now feel quite confident about my ability to navigate Saratoga Springs. Oh, that too... the city is Saratoga Springs, while the county is just Saratoga. For some reason I thought that the town was named Saratoga and that's it. I returned the brown shoes for a size smaller and they fit like black leather gloves on oj simpson's hands. Unlike him, however, I'm telling the truth... they fit like butta on bread... and i'm out.
(i've got to remember... Kelley+Robin@the olde bryan inn, Bob@longfellows, laureen sheppard@gideon) 5,19,03, third: when i dropped off applications later in the day, i bought a tie, a jamesbond watch, and the big ring folders that i like. I bought a folder for this summer to put memorys into, the mail, im convos, philosophy, and all the other things that matter for memories. I talked to alla tonight on the phone. that was fun :) and i'm going to spend the rest of the night figuring out how to use the james bond watch to chase her down when she enters campus in the fall. she'll have a long list of grivances by then. Seriously, though, the watch is the coolest. It's got a feature for lap times that i've never even seen before. Not only do I have one hundred lap memory, which i will make use of, but when you press the reset button to put the chrono back at zero it saves the previous splits. You can then go through and look at all the splits in any of the saved races or workouts. When you go back through, recalling lap times to a race or workout, it gives you the total time first, the average lap time next, then the quickest lap, and then goes through the recall. Isn't that the freaking coolest?! As far as wanting a watch for training, this does everything I could want and more. Now, just like my shoes, this better last me a while. With my New Balance 806s and my new watch, I set out to go running for the first day, even though I'd only technically taken eight days off. I ran for a half and hour-well, that was the plan anyways. I went out and ran what I thought would take me half an hour... however, I was flying and new it. It took me 22 minutos (and 8 seconds, my watch says so!) and I've got to measure that shiznit. It has to be three and a half miles, atleast. The fun of running :) 5,19,03: my grandfather and i just got back from the mall. i wanted to get khakis and dress shoes for the applications and meetings with potential employers. score and score. green khakis and brown relaxed dressy shoes that'll last me forever and are muy comfortable. then, the shoes that i was looking at on roadrunnersports.com, the new balance 806s, were ten dollars cheaper so i bought them on the spot. i'll be reimbursed for them in the fall, at school, but i have to cover it for now. It's an all terrain pair of shoes and i hope to do some trail running here in saratoga. I also bought a Matrix Reloaded poster for the dorm room next year ;) and couldn't find a good running watch. i may just end up getting the one i liked of the aforementioned website. it had one hundred lap memory, and with some of the workouts i'm planning on doing later on, I'll need it. can we say the quentin cassidy workout? 5,19,03, wee hours of the morning: alla wished me a happy birthday two days too soon. was quite funny.
sorry to go on a comic rush, all of a sudden. i really do find the mix of pace to be fun. besides, images can say things a lot better than words, sometimes. for example: one of today's comics illustrates perfectly the hypocritical two-sidedness of sexism:  they're absolutely right. if a tiger woods tried to get into the lpga, he would definitely be banned from playing in lpga tournaments and be totally villified in the media. Him taking the women's prize money would be an outrage! So what if the woman isn't one that will totally dominate the men. perhaps you're thinking that the tiger woods metaphor is a bit extreme since he's one of the best guys and the guys are generally more athletically capable than the girls. by putting a woman in the guys league, though, you're saying it's ok, eventually, for a woman to win. eventually a woman will win, if there's a woman in the league! and that will be hailed by many as a victory, a sort of spiteful there! we're clawing our way up to your level and past it! are you kidding me? if we want ERA, the equal rights amendment, lets pass it. If we don't, like they decided so many years ago, then don't cross the lines! for serious. WE americans have a bad problem of always wanting what we want in every instance without considering those items that contradict each other. ERA would mean equal rights, just as civil rights gave blacks and whites equal rights.. you couldn't have separate bathrooms, waterfountains, or spots on the bus for blacks and whites after the civil rights amendments. after era, you'd have the same for males and females... no more separation of bathrooms and locker rooms in high school. The hard part is, you wouldn't be able to descriminate between sex, ever. In considering hiring applicants for a job, you would be legally bound to not considering gender as a positive or negative factor. you just can't do that! since women are capable of bearing children there are many provisions that've been made specifically for them in the instance of childbirth. With ERA, you'd have to give men ALL THE SAME BENEFITS, INCLUDING MATERNITY LEAVE, REGARDLESS OF OCCUPATION. That would probably alleviate the problem of discrimination based on gender when hiring applicants for jobs. But add this spin, and you've got a whole new debate: when ever someone is hired and others aren't, they've all been discriminated upon. Whenever you look at a few different pieces of fruit and choose one, the others and that one have been discriminated. Discrimination can be defined as "The ability or power to see or make fine distinctions; discernment." it also has a negative connotation when people are considered "based on class or category rather than individual merit; partiality or prejudice." 5,18,03: here's another good comic.  his comics that are race centered are sometimes less funny, or just less substantative for either mocking or indicating the current political scene. this one however is just character development. it's interesting to see philo topics at play in real life. seriously, presentation is everything. 5,17,03: today was good. grandma was released from the hospital. she's ok. the pacemaker is working fine. and i helped uncle todd building his front porch. i took a two and half hour nap, though it was not entirely planned. that makes a grand total of ten and a half hours of sleep. wowsers! i can't wait to start running. i'm missing it. the comics were really good today. i hope people don't mind!
here's some contemplation of law:
some mockery of current politics: 
some more mockery of current politics: 
yet more mockery, particularly pertinent: 
this is what it's like playing baseball or wiffleball with my little brother, nearly, as the game wears on: 
and a little humor, actually pertinent to my sleeping patterns: 
5,16,03: well well well. in the past two days i've: finished my first year of college and moved out, moved to saratoga for the summer, watched the matrix reloaded the day before it opened, and seen lots of friends for the last time in a little while. Teren drove up, Will too, to binghamton university wednesday afternoon. Teren, Erica, Keegan, and I then went to the Matrix reloaded that night. Mikey, Alla, Kara, Ilene, and bunches of other people had their macroeconomics final thursday morning so they didn't want to stay up before taking the test. The funny thing is that they stayed up anyways. Since it was the last night before everybody including myself left, i was going to head straight up to onieda. keegan had left things in my room and needed to get them, though, so we emerged from the stairwell at the 4/5 level to find the whole econ-test crew taking pictures in the hallway. oh well! they were having fun and i had fun too. the Matrix reloaded was unbelievably good! totally. The common question is, was it better than the first? I don't know and can't answer that question! It's all one story to me. It was so awesome that it all melded together. for me, it's progression... there's no better or worse. anyways. After class thursday night, keegan came over and brought the bulk of my stuff that we'd all packed into his car earlier in the day. i really didn't feel like going to sleep then. everything was too recent, too vivid in my memory to let go of and drift into sleep. he mentioned while we talked that alla told him it seemed that he was alrady a member of the university, with him being on campus so much, hanging out. That didn't help me want to go to sleep, knowing that he was just moments ago talking to her online. So we went to his house :-D ate ice cream (GAH! FOR THE SECOND TIME SINCE I SAID I WOULDN'T... REALLY, I WON'T ANYMORE! NO MORE THAN ONCE EVERY... TWO WEEKS!), chilled and talked about the times these past few weeks and the past year, and talked online. I'm glad to be able to chill like that with the keegmiester, and i'm glad for all the friends this school year brought. Here's to next year, folks... *clink 5,13,03: well that final wasn't too hard. in fact, the anthro final was cake. tomorrow will be a bit tougher. i'll be home in a few days! this comic below illustrates exactly my sentiments towards a healthily regimented diet (which, btw, I am embarking upon. no, i'm not going to be eating tofu. but tofu is a metaphor for all the healthy stuff that isn't yummy :) )  and of course, the doonesbury comics that capture the irony of education and funding.  5,12,03: well, tomorrow is the anthro final, and then the history one is a day after that. i'm glad it's nearly over, yet as i've said so many times, i'll love the freedom and hate the lonliness of summer. it's about eight thirty right now and keegan is here on campus... we had fun playing raquetball. i had to play left handed because of the fall i took in the steeple this weekend, but keegan had to wear my size eleven shoes because all he had here were his dress shoes. that was fun. it was the first time that either of us had played. i won the first game 21-19, but then the keeg dawg took over. he was up 12-1 during the next game and i fought back but still lost, 21-13. The next game was better: i started to become extremely accurate at times with my kill shot. I had 17 of them. I was trying for them, though, and that's bad becasue then i was taking the mistake prone shots instead of taking easy shots every now and then and giving him a chance to make a mistake. So the short of it is, 17 kills but only 14 points, keeg dawg wins again 21-14. next year is gonna rock, y'all :-D  5,11,03: the track meet yesterday, the albany twilight (or "last chance") meet, was interesting indeed. Steve Reese ran the best 800 of his life, splitting a 1:52.29. He gave up the slightest bit in the last 100m after having made a humongous move from 300m to 100m to go. The qualifying time for IC4A's is 1:52.15. He missed it by 15 hundredths of a second. :( We were all cheering so loud for him. So loud. And in my race, I managed to runa 10:01 despite doing all the things wrong before the race possible, and then taking a hard dive during the race that left few parts of me painless. But oh well! such is the struggle :) it's only fuel for the fire for next year.  5,8,03: mikey and i decided today at lunch that the two of us are going to travel around to a lot of different baseball parks after we retire. fun fun. here's some eye candy ;)  5,8,03: lots of tests hitting ma fellow peeps. i have one wednesday and one tuesday. I wanted to say something about practice yesterday... it was the seniors' last money shot, and that as we were running around the track to complete twenty minutes of warming up, dresser turned and looked at jordy, staring at him. jordy wasn't really paying attention because he'd only been doing it for a moment. then matt burst out singing, dah! dah dah dah! dah dah dah! dah dah dah! (the eye of the tiger theme) and as i sit here typing, i cannot stop chuckling, because of how bad jordy jumped.5,7,03, fourth: i just got out of creative writing 350, the last session of the class for the semester. that was my idea of fun. we had food, sat around chillin', reading poetry and listening to good music. it was the definition of relaxation. I'll miss miss DeerCloud, and she's not teaching any classes this next semester. she will be in the spring of '04, though. oh and might i say, the mariners rocked the yankees last night ;) go m's. ichiro with 3 rbi and the yanks are 5-5 in their last ten. The m's are 7-3, leading the al west. 5,7,03, third: i have a bad feeling about my grades this semester :-/ i pulled a 3.23 first semester, but it's not looking as pretty, and to transfer into SOM you need a 3.5 :-/ 5,7,03, second: we have six male recruits coming in next year as long as five females. our depth will be increased greatly. annette was talking in the team meeting yesterday before practice, and she mentioned that tom williams from arlington, one of the recruits coming here, already asked what he would have to run to get to penn relays. she was exclaiming that that was the type of enthusiasm he has. my thought was, where did that go for me? i become content with running well, with getting pr's and whatnot. that's not a bad thing, but why not push yourself to your limits, y'know? why not? I seriously wanted to put afton on the map for running, in high school. i wanted to put bga on the map for track. i think i succeeded only in the slightest bit, and only in track. cross country wasn't as good a showing in high school. but in my first year here, i've done well... i'm still a no-namer, as far as the conference goes. and i can feel myself settling into position. i don't want to settle for scoring a few points for the team, even if i become pretty darn consistent in doing that. it's not about the points. it's about the total, utter domination, baby. and i don't want to be dominated any more. the buck stops here... well, after my race this saturday at albany in the steeple! :) also, plans are set for going to saratoga. I will watch the matrix reloaded the 15th and go home that same day. we'll come back to the bdilly for idmr that night. the next day, we'll go to albany class (friday the 16th) and then go to my grandparents in saratoga after that. I actually just realized over this past winter break that saratoga was north of albany! and so i'll get to spend a grand total of about 8 straight hours at home before shipping out to saratoga! wowsers! i'll get to see these fellas real soon!  5,7,03, wee hours of the morning: practice today was a little bit nostalgic, for myself, in a current-nostalgia sort of way. A nostalgia in the sense that i know i'll remember these moments later, that they will be nostalgia. we have so many guys graduating that are a great part of the team. well, we're getting 6 recruits, though! the team will be really deep, compared to last year. we are losing our middle distance, however. perhaps i shall train in efforts to be a 1500m/3ksteeple guy next year. We shall see! it starts this summer, if it's going to happen. by the end of the summer, i'll never have another moment of wavering confidence in my training. never. :) 5,5,03: that was the longest track trip of my life. from when we left friday morning to 2:30AM this morning when we got back, the entire trip was 66 hours long. about 18 of those hours were spent riding on the bus, i do believe. there were many great races to remember. i took a few pics. I ran my race valiently, going out with the leaders in third place, right behind the top two. Our first lap was 71 and we proceeded to run a 5:05 mile, but then i started dying. I still held on though and with 600m to go, slammed into a steeple. That wasn't fun, and i ended up not running the five k the next day because of the bruise that it left on my knee. that's fine though. the short of it... 6th place with 9:46.3 for me, a medal in my freshman year... Then there was Joy's race, in which she ran a 2:15~!!! and as coach mike later appropriately put it on the bus, she went from being ranked 20th or something like that to scoring points in the meet. yay! then there was franky. oh my, then there was franky. in the men's open eight reese and franky took off... reese was leading the race as they went through the first lap and the turn, and i have a picture of it to prove it. but as a few guys went by reese, franky went by as well. the thing is, frank hadn't run any races at all outdoors for the 800. he'd been nursing the injury ever since it'd happened, just training and not worrying about racing. he busted a moe foe 1:51!!! and qualified for IC4A'S, which means he gets to miss graduation to run a track meet. And he's all about that!! His mother told him that she wanted to see him walk down the aisle for graduation, and he told her, come see me run! that's the spirit, playa. And I don't believe the 4x800 qualified for IC4A'S. They ran 7:46 and the qualifying time is 7:43. There is the last chance meet though, next weekend. and i really should be off, to do some work and reading and be the best student that i can be. this week is the most influential ever for my grades this semester !! 5,1,03: tomorrow we leave for maine, for the league championships in track. because i'll miss my classes, I attended my first class on a thursday of the entire semester... of course, that entailed getting up before ten for the first time ever... :-D and how i've teased those less fortunate class-on-thursday-goers. I enjoyed the discussion for hist251, though. seroiusly, the class has been a philosophy one just as much as a history one. i came away from the class with three things on my mind, to write down... i already forgot one. the first two were value inherent in everything, and the debilitative forces in groups. There's many facilitative forces as well, but the simple banding of persons is a phenomenon that you can talk about all day long :) and what was the third !! aiee!!! darn it. it's gone. i just sat here for five minutes trying to remember. it's crazy that if i don't write these things down, i very easily lose them. oh bother! :) I had a good conversation about sports and baseball with a fellow, justin, from the baseball team who is a freshman as well. we took psych111 together first semester. and i'm looking forward to doing some chilling and talking later tonight. it'll be a good distraction, before the meet and all :) philosophy abounds. last night was another three hour philosophy conversation, on aim... not the best place for that always, but it's ability to save the conversation and replicate it perfectly is unparalleled.
Meg is dead. She'd been getting more and more sluggish and her breathing was getting worse and worse. Her glands were very swollen. The day after I came back to college from house sitting, wednesday of this week, I talked to my mother on the phone and she relayed the message that she'd gotten from my father. Meg wasn't excited that morning about getting her treat, about going outside... she was very sluggish and had to be helped down the stairs. She died and ... i'm glad i was able to have a few moments with her, during the week of being at home and feeding the animals. :') *sigh.... I'll miss you guys, char and meg. 4,30,03: well, after the debacle of trying to register for classes yesterday, I finally did register today. The funny thing is that in choosing my classes for the next smeseter and the direction that i'm going with the classes, I'm totally disregarding every thought that's bothered me, as far as graduating with a competitive degree. I want to have an education that will allow the employers to want me, not so that I have to try to sell myself to the employers. Anyhoos! I've decided to pursue, then, getting into S.O.M., the School of Management here at Binghamton. Hopefully, I can major in some form of business management in S.O.M. while also majoring in Philosophy, in Harpur. I'm not sure if you can have such a dual major, between schools. You wouldn't think they'd stop you from doing that, but we shall check with the rule book on that one. So while I understand that I have to apply to SOM to initiate the process, it's too late to do that this semester. My classes for the next semester, then, were all chosen in efforts to start the philosophy chain of classes as well as the music sequence. I made it into Mus 215 + 216, which are concurrently taken, and will take 315 and 316 next semester. The two classes together, per semester, are 5 credits, and after you've taken those four classes in the course of a year, you're on your way to taking any music class you want. I want to pursue taking classes on composition and what not, but i should work on my playing skill. Perhaps this summer I shall do that actively :) ok ok ok enough talking. here's the lowdown: Creative writing 250 (simply because I want to continue taking the creative writing classes and they're not the type to give me headaches) starts off mwf at 9:40, followed by Descartes, Hume, and Kant @ 10:50 (that's PHIL 202), and then there's Music Theory I @ 12:00. I may not like having three classes in a row, but i did it first semester and it is not entirely awful. Seriously, the sacrifice you make for athletics is pervasive. I had to immediately tell myself not to consider numerous philosophy classes and ones from other disciplines because they would prevent me from making practice at the normally scheduled times, and the team cohesion is a very strong factor that I enjoy. What little teamwork ever happens on running teams, happens at practice. It's mental. So on tuesdays and thursdays I have Social Outcasts, PHIL 180K, at 8:30 in the morning and then Musicianship I following at 10:05. And that's ma schedule! 17 credits, all in all. I'll probably, if I pull a 3.5 first semester which i should clear like a water pit during the steeplechase, overload and take 20 credits, beginning with the business classes, continuing with the music, and there'll prolly be room for only one philosophy class, if even. We shall see. There's enough electives in the business schedule for a degree that I wouldn't have to stay longer... believe me, if i were staring down a super senior year, I wouldn't be pursuing a double major with a near minor in a third field... Shall be fun :-D I can't wait. and the thing is, summer will be lonely, but I'll be making the money so that i can have a freedom or two later on... all works out in the end. 4,29,03: There's so much to say. As I sit here, it's tuesday the 29th, my first day back living on campus. It didn't start off the coolest with me realizing that i'd forgotten my keycard and key at home, along with my dress shoes. Oh well. The week of driving the car was fun, though I would prefer not to have to commute everyday like that. I will be doing it for class, this summer, though. Anyhoos! the fun stuff. Friday night was da bomb :) I brought S.D.I. (the Strategic Defense Initiative, people! Reagan's Star Wars missle defense plan and my nickname for Mike Reagan, duh!), Ilene, and Alla home to Afton with me. I showed them around the house real quick and we went to play tennis in Bainbridge, though SDI and I took on some brainbridgians in bball (won, of course ;) after two humbling games of 21 for myself). Then we headed back to my house for dinner. Alla was a little bit hungry and kept subtly letting me know that we should go. We had dinner with the keegsinator, and much discussion on how to cook pasta, because even though I knew, i didn't trust myself. but it came out fine :) moving onward, we had lots of ice cream too and played some mario tennis and pool to cap off the night. Driving at night does something wierd to me... I knew that I wanted to stay up all night, that i was in the mood that i would find something to do, instead of going to sleep. so 'twas convinient to stay up and talk philosophically for a while with ilene in the stairwell of our building. I really think i'm going to just be a philosophy and english major. I don't know where else i could be headed, right now. I don't think anything other than philosophy would fulfill what my mind is seeking right now. *shrugs  
4,26,03: yesterday was fun. mike and I listened to ilene's answering machine message while waiting for her at the door yesterday. it's fred flinstone, it's quite the riot! and then alla, mike, ilene, and I turned on the Stevie Wonder and headed towards A-town. We ended up playing tennis and basketball, heading back home then making pasta, playing mario tennis and the piano, and then playing pool. keegan won, killing everybody. i was pretty bad until the end. I had six and then hit three in (playing straight pool) two consecutive turns. It was fun for all. Oh, and How could i forget the ice cream we had? :)
i've never used a subprofile before but checked it out. And now, I have the awaybox.com piece integrated into this (the home computer's) aim, which is very cool. I can do funky stuff with the text and there's a lot more faces to use. Small pleasures, folks. Now we can try to be a little more expressive in aim with all the new faces :) 4,25,03: it's looking like today might be some fun :) pool and ice cream and chillin' for all :) more on that later. I'm going to be a real good student tomorrow, saturday. uh huh uh huh. I need to do some reading, work on my anthro paper, yada yada yada. simply get the work done. Can you believe that it's near the end of the school year, 2002-2003? Wowsers. Time flies. I feel like i'm stupidly talking. maybe that means i should stop. ok. i will then. (i've got the greens. don't give me that look! if i say, i've got the blues, you'd know what i'm saying. I actually feel green spotted with yellow, like the grass out side right now and that flower/weed that i can't even remember the name of in my sleep deprived stupor. I did forget, once, what the word for table was. I'm not proud.) 4,23,03: last night was fun, having keegdawg over to the vacant house for ice cream, the comedy channel, a phone call with erica, and our normal antics as well as the earlier conversation i had with laura as she brought me home from the idmr, and the idmr class as well. all goodness :)
hahah, my two books that are reading material in whatever free time i pretend to have for the next month: imagine there's no women, and one concerning aristotle's discussion of friendship. both are philosophy books. it's cool stuff. (*disclaimer... the imagine ther'es no women book is not sexist stuff, and it was written by a woman. i can hear y'all thinking.) 4,22,03: today marks the beginning of my family's trip to new orleans. I know they'll have lots of fun and can't wait to hear their testimony. It's back to campus today for me, for one class. I have to make the commute everyday because irregardless of classes, I have practice. Should make for an interesting week. My brain has been fried by philosophy this weekend. i've got lots to type up. :) 4,18,03: hello all. 'tis good to be able to sleep in in the morning and not have to get up for classes. 'tis good to be able to sleep in, period. many of the comics today are pertinent to the world scene, and although i usually post only one, i would say that any of these three are more germane than what i usually would put up. I particularly think the one of the french diplomat is funny because once long ago, my roommate was watching the un security council deliberate some things and i praised the french minister as a cool guy because he waved his arms when he talked. since that point, the same french minister brought about a severe change in emotion towards france from americans, and i always thought it was shiesty that france would oppose the war only because of the money they had in iraqui oil development. France pretended to oppose war for all the humanitarian reasons, that war kills and that they should give iraq more time and go the peaceful route, when they were blatantly lying. For France, the war was about oil, totally. You can't 100% say the same for America, if only because of 9/11.  Additionally, the economy and ceo political cartoons never tire with me. I will always see the economy and the dollar being inextricably tied to every part of life as a confounding thing. It confuses many of the drives of society.  Thirdly, it does look as if the president has a dominoe chain of countries he'll attack because of 9/11. Who's to say this is right or wrong? As one person in my history class stated, though, he's declared war on an emotion. Not only is that ludicrous, but that's precedent. And how does a war on an emotion come to a close?  4,16,03, second: Class registration for next semester comes up soon. I'm trying to figure out what I want to do for a career so that I can start focusing my classes now. I don't want to simply continue picking in a nearly random way classes that interest me yet fulfill graduation requirements. Ultimately, that's the best way to do it: decide now and stick with it. However, such an item as Education Administration doesn't really have undergrad classes, and that's one item that doesn't seem to lose enthusiasm when i think about it for a career. That would entail, though, being a teacher for some time. And what would I teach? Not that I couldn't teach or find something to teach, but I'd kind of told myself that wasn't really the route I would turn. Ah well :) When every other idea i've had for a career fades in and out of popularity yet this one remains about the same, it is a definite advantage (although one really really really cool thing about it is that I could major in philosophy and something else before moving on to education administration in grad school). peace, my bruthas and sistas.... I'm going on vacation!!! :)  4,16,03: today (i haven't gone to bed yet) was an excellent day of activity. I said goodbye to Alla probably five or six times, along with the two times from yesterday. The whole crew played basketball the night before, played frisbee today, had lunch together, etc. etc. etc. Too much fun. I'll not look foward to summer vacation, knowing i won't see anybody for months :(
oh, and get this... alla and i were in the onieda fourth floor lounge playing wiffleball and waiting for mikey and everyone else when the building rd came up and begrudgingly told us that we weren't suppose to play wiffleball in the buildings. :( i sat down inbetween a desk against the wall and a couch that alla was sitting on and curled myself into a little ball. alla was amused and tried to poke me with the bat. mikey came through and tried to console me by giving me crackers.
there was another editorial cartoon that made a great point, but it wasn't the main point of the cartoon... there was the quote, whatever is good for the corporation is good for america. but since that was only a tiny side part of the cartoon, no show. i really think that i'm letting people see cartoons that they wouldn't normally, that's the only reason that they're here. if anything, i'm increasing their viewers, and the number of poeple that can recognize the comics. i really like doonesbury and i'm biased towards them because of the doonesbury chronicles that my parents have a book of that i took out and read one time. knowing the history of the cartoon helps. the stuff that they did during vietnam was ... well, very good, pertinent material. it brings up the issues but in a very unique way. i'm too tired to go into detail. in fact, !!! i think that i may just go to bed, though i shouldn't. i still have work to do but i may just skip it =-o  4,15,03: today's weather is great too. vacation starts tomorrow, yet the forecast calls for snow on thursday and i'm tentatively playing tennis at three with keegan. we shall see!!!  4,14,03: the weather is great today. it's very frightening to think, my first year of college is a few mere weeks from being over with, and that 2003 is a third of the way over with.  4,13,02: today was fun. My parents, after class and choir practice, took me to lunch with them on the parkway (only pizza, nothing real special) and then to get a haircut with my brother, Dillon. Now i can wear hats for fun instead of to cover my hair :)
as i sit here typing, i'm keeping track of the seattle-texas mlb matchup. the game is in the thirteenth inning. this wednesday i go on break untill next tuesday, which is when i begin house sitting, because the rest of my family is going to new orleans without me :) oh well.
i played basketball on the courts in front of ciw against three teams, winning the first two games and then having to play against nick billings and other players that were crazy. the funny thing is that i blatantly fouled him at one point, because the teams were so uneven and i didn't expect him to call the foul. he didn't :) we lost to them 11-7, and that's a win in my book, for what the matchups were :)
i suppose i should go work on my paper. yuck! oh yes, AND BRETT BOONE HITS A HOMERUN IN THE BOTTOM OF THE THIRTEENTH, FOLKS! SEATTLE MARINERS WIN! although they're not out to the greatest start this season, i've gotta love'm. i mean, they're the mariners!  4,12,03: I guess the econ test didn't go as well as planned for the crew yesterday, sorry to hear about that folks... last night was fun, chillin' in ilene and amanda's room. got the meet in albany today... should be grand! tty'all later!
and courtesy of steve, here is the link to that anthony gallo article i mentioned...
and, additionally, i've quite cleaned up the editorial and poetry part of the site. I've never kept a running tab of anything i've written, but why not here where it is easily organized where compared to a notebook full of papers. Besides, even though this is the internet, the only people that ever come here know me, so...  4,11,03: today has started out quite entertaining :) i've a paper to do for comparative literature on the movie mulholland drive, for next wednesday, and that's the only material i'm required to complete and hand in before the nice, relaxing vacation sets in. I CANNOT WAIT TILL THIS SATURDAY, BECAUSE I'M GOING TO GET TO RUN THE 5K ON ALBANY'S TRACK, AND VERY POSSIBLY RUN NOT ONLY THE FASTEST 5K OF MY LIFE BY TWENTY SECONDS OR MORE, BUT THE PACING IS SUCH THAT I COULD RUN MY FASTEST TWO MILE EVER EN ROUTE TO SIMPLY FINISHING THE RACE. so yea, and i might get to meet matt, keegan's roomie from the first semester, and ronnie too. alright.
LUCK TO THE ECON CREW, everybody taking the test today.
Jimmo sent me an article in the local press and sun recently about harpursville native Anthony Gallow. I tried searching the web for the same article and have not been able to find it. Sometimes the newspaper websites routinely dump material instead of keeping it up. He was a perenial top-dawg in both athletics and academics at the high school and collegite levels. Now that he's graduated from Geneseo, he's running with the Syracuse Chargers while establishing his medical practice. He's in pursuit of running a four minute mile. He holds the Charger record with 4:06, I believe the article said. Good Luck To him!
I could not help myself but burst out laughing when reading today's boondocks cartoon. usually I don't find it as funny, as they entertain many ethnicity themes. 
also, I do believe that Mr. DeVona's graduation present to myself, a short video clip expertly made, is back up on the web at the afton website. It commemorates my running for the BGA squad :) *sigh... the memories... 4,10,03: i recieved what very clearly seems to be a tax refund check in the mail yesterday, and that's confusing because i didn't pay any taxes. i'm not complaining though! i bought a book i'd wanted to from the small philosophy bookshelf at the bookstore, a book called meditations, by Marcus Aurelius. I know that the movie Gladiator predisposed me to want to get the book... i'd have to say that Gladiator, The Matrix, and Waterboy are my three favorite movies of all time. This is some good stuff. From page 85, n18: "Nothing can happen to any man that nature has not fitted him to endure. YOur neighbor's experiences are no different from your own; yet he, bing either less aware of what has happened or more eager to show his mettle, stands steady and undaunted. For shame, that ignorance andvanity should prove stronger than wisdom!" There were much cooler ones that I found reading through before, but i can't find them now. 
4,9,03, second: wowsers. keegan, we need to play pool. it's amazing the range of emotion that one day, nay, five minutes, can contain. sometimes i'm too nice to people. today was an instance of that, and i hope i can rectify it. sorry for being cryptic, i do that sometimes, but this is a freaking website for crying out loud. the web isn't exactly private, last time i checked (although i've found out a way to have password protected portions of a website. not that i would ever do that for a site like this, that'd be wack!), so if you wanna know, email me, im me, something.
4,9,03: the test in anthropology was 2 easy!!!! HAHAHA! I really think i did an excellent job. but, as always, we'll wait till the grade comes back to do any real celebrating. Erin, Allison, and I had done so much coordinative studying, meeting, and planning (basically fretting) for the test that I was unsure of what the outcome would be. sometimes you've just got to sit back and put it in coast, though. seriously, this confuses me though, since i didn't do more reading and whatnot than the first test, just studying right before the test, and that's contradictory. oh well!
also, i have been internal about it, but there's some things that've been bouncing around in my head for a little while now. things concerning class (as always), women aiee! :]) school, and all that jazz. my my my, i've been caught again.
4,8,03, second: today was very tiring. it felt like i was walking around in a dream. i do believe that my late night exploits, staying up and missing sleep last week, have caught up with me. the meet this saturday in albany will now maybe be moved to the sunday. yay! as if i need to miss another class. :-/
4,8,03: last night was the ncaa championship game, with syracuse leading kansas at the ned of the game 81-78, despite heinrich's last second shot. the game was a good one. syracuse was leading early but kansas caught up, eventually. :) antrho test tomorrow, gotta go study!!
4,7,03: the 20fr.com login page has seriously been down for all this time, not letting erica, teren, or i into our sites. that's old hat though, because here we are, back again :)much has happened in the meantime. I remember a friday night where keegs came up and i managed to find enough people to pack into the car that not only were mike and i sitting in the back, but there were four people in the three person back seat, along with the keegsinator himself and teren in the front seat. on the agenda was dinner at applebees, a little hoops back at the college, and then a movie, "the hunted," which was quite cute btw, and then back at the college for more hoops. All I know was that jill was sitting next to me during the movie and i was starting to feel bad :-/ when she jumped and what not. 'twas graphic, especially at the beginning, but i thought it was a good movie. in the group that went was keegan, of course, teren, jill, mike, alla, kara, ilene, and myself. since then mucho has happened even. we've run many hardcore track workouts, including the last of its kind for the season... our five minute on, four off workout, repeated five times. the idea was to go at five minute mile pace, or 75 second laps, for kellen and pete. pete was hurt and couldn't complete it. sergey has been taking the workouts slow because he's redshirting the season, but it confuses me that he's doing the workouts at all. he should just do long distance so that he can build up for the upcoming seasons, since he doesn't have to compete at all this outdoor season. kellen is probably going to redshirt this season because he will be back next year and will be eligible for indoor and xc, and the fact that the first meet of the incredibly short season was cancelled along with an engineering test that he has to take being the date of the second meet doesn't help any. The season is already short enough as it is. anyways, running on only three hours of sleep that saturday, I completed the workout better than i ever have before, running about 1550m on the first one, with a range of 1520m-1560m for the five sets. I did the last alone. after struggling so hard with these workouts in the past, busting it out, seeing hardcore proof of the progression, is very nice. Another time, we did a workout that consisted of 20 400s. The four of us, Kellen, Pete, Sergey, and I started the workout together, running a four hundred and then taking a minute and a half rest before running the next. i was suppose to run them in 77's, with kellen and pete being at 75 and 76, though i can't remember sergey's time. anyways, we were switchign the lead back and forth as good teammates will do, and so the short of it is that i was running kellen's and pete's paces anyways. we were even quicker than we were suppose to be, however, as we were hitting 74s on every one by the tenth lap. pete stopped at the 9th or eleventh lap, i can't remember which, and thereon out it was just kellen and i. we did 72's for the last half of the workout, busting out a 68 for the last quater of the entire workout. that felt grand. :)
i went to virginia yesterday and saw aaron bryant and doctor harris take the floor at the class that marked the close of the eastern region dean's meeting. i was so tired, though, that i pretty much slept through it. :( i really need to get better sleep. :(
in other news, i will be living in the triangulon next year, 'tis official. housing signups were today. i'll be living with mikey and keegan (hopefully) in teh triple, while james and ian will live in the double. currently, because it was the only way that we could sign in, i am signed up for the double with james, while mikey and ian are signed up for the triple.
and in other news!!!!! WE PLAYED ANOTHER GAME OF WIFFLE BALL, AND CHANGED THE ATMOSPHERE A BIT... we played in oneida, and their lounges are a bit bigger than ours in onandaga. this extremely changed the nature of the game, making pitching much harder, whereas the first two games were entirely pitching duels decided by runs in the ninth inning both times, literally, 3-2, 3-2, both games. the score of this game, however, *flinch was 25-11. as mikey remarked to me while we were on line for the housing placements about an hour ago, "i wouldn't feel bad about losing by two touchdowns. oh, that's right, we weren't palying football!!" you'll get yours mike :) onandaga will come back. (the game was oniedans [mike, teren, and alla] against onandagans [myself, kara, and ilene])
and although i'm sure there's more that i could write, i've got to go run a five k time trial on the track in the snow. bye! :)
Jim's Chess Strategy Page
   
3,15,03: last night was fun. i went and saw "old school," with kim, april, erin, and ma bro sergio. that was a ridiculously funny movie, like water boy. i'm yet again fighting off a cold :-( this winter has not been fun.
3,13,02: my, it has been a while, hasn't it. I'm playing chess on yahoo dot com right now as i sit here, my last night in saratoga over the spring break. i have a large stack of applications, too, that will be filled out and sent to the places at the appropriate time. hopefully i'll work for the late nite dining services for the last half of this semester and what not. if i do get the job at the gideon putnam, i'll make lots of money... they only hire fulltime. I've already kind of got my "foot in the door," because of my grandmother working there and being friends with the head cook, who was my grandparent's nextdoor neighbor for years. The National Golf Course and Longfellow's, an exquisite restaurant right next to it, are both also very nice places. If i need a second job, i'll get a couple hours at a place like dick's sporting goods, or one of two italian restaurants right down the street from my grandparent's home, or the stewart's shop that is right there, too. so no matter how many time i'm rejected, i'll have a job! hmm, is that positive or negative thinking? anyways, this next week at school will be interesting, with the starting of my anthropology paper and with the first test in history.
ah, this is teren's webpage.
3,6,03, second:
3,6,03: well, my two papers are handed in. I believe that they were subpar :( but we'll see, when the grades come back. today is thursday and i've three classes tomorrow and then it's time for my first spring break :) and where am i traveling to? saratoga! :)
3,2,03, second:
3,2,03: ha. now that i've stitches over my right eye, and had stitches when i was much younger over my left, i'm done with them for the rest of my life. hopefully. :) ha, they look hardcore, almost... :-P
just trying to get all my work done for this last week before spring break. I wasn't invited to go with the team to florida, but it's almost as well... i've three more years to do that, and i'll be looking for a summer job in saratoga, then spending some relaxing time at home with the kitten, two cats, dog, and the animals that are my brother and sister :) and some really nice home cooking, and of course the company of mom and pops. ok, enough mushy-ness. :)
2,28,03: I appreciate the sentiments expressed in doonesbury towards education in this country.
2,27,03, second: i'm sorry about all the comics, seriously, they're just... well, they say what i could say, except they're in color :)
2,27,03: i don't think i read political cartoons enough. they really do capture a time period, although it's a given that you're viewing the events through the eyes of the cartoonist...
2,26,03, second: ha, i forgot to mention, ERICA GOT INTO BINGHAMTON! :) coolio. I'm fresh outta class, and there's a couple of things bouncing around in my head. One is the topic of "change," and how that is beginning to take some form in a historical and individual interelations context, not just in the ethereal world of contemplation. The lecture in history today was entitle, The Lost Americans. The lecture was about tories, loyalists to Britian, and their struggle during and after the revolution. A key fact that sparked my mind involved the royal governments that'd been set in place here in the colonies. It was the tendency of all those who held posts in the colonial royal government to stay loyal to the king and mother country. After all, was it not the king's authority that bestowed upon them their power? And was not the British Kingdom the only upon which the sun never set? Britian, England was the leading world power at that time with the number one military force by far, hands down, including naval forces. So from a government official's view, not only would they keep their power by remaining loyal to the crown, but it would increase if they remained loyal through the duration of conflict, 'till England put down the terrorists. They were protecting their power in every way they saw possible.
On a grander scale, England was simply protecting its power through all of its actions towards the colonies. War and other such debts caused them to seek monetary retribution from the colonies, economic support to continue the cycle of power. The acts seeking this money caused conflict. Eventually the number one military in the world was engaging colonists on colonial soil, in enduring effort to never abridge their power. They were use to being the top dog and did not realize the battle would be as difficult as it became.
These and many other difficulties convinced those we affectionately call "the founding forefathers" of the country to protect the future generations from the very possibly overbearing power of government. Such things as standing armies, the cry of "no taxation without representation," proliferation of posts in the ruling royal government that simply drew on the colonist's money, and other injustices were examples of the government's power under monarchy that the forefathers exclusively sought to evade in their designs of the government for independant america. My point, in all of this, was that their reservations towards centralized government and reducing state's powers in anyway were irreplaceably essential in forming the new governments (the articles of confederation, and then finally the american democracy/republic), but that they could not see the future and realize all facets of how the government could become overbearing.
Everyday I try to lead my life with some semblance of humility, and that is easily overridden by a myriad of factors in today's american individualist culture, but that is not the point. Humility allows one unparralleled ability to adapt, to realize mistakes, to rectify them, and to move foward again.
The phenomenon of protecting one's power has never been layed aside in the history of the world. I believe that one would be hard pressed to come up with examples even on an individual basis of this phenomenon, though my hope in spirit is that a few examples could be found. Humility and the practice of protecting one's power are contrary to each other in nature. They cannot be practiced in the same time, unless the power is founded and being protected in humility (and again, said concept has no historical context).
My point is this: the founding forefathers did not build into the new government any principles of humility, of lack of ability to protect the government's power, because then peoples and governments would take advantage of it. Pick any year we have a number for and there is historical evidence for this. Peoples nature is to take advantage of the weak, those that won't fight back. Yet, a government which can protect its power is inherently flawed. If government cannot readily admit and redress wrong, inefficiency, or any such insufficient means towards achieving purpose, it has a level of stagnancy. Stagnancy is contrary to progress.
you know the funny thing? that went through my head in about three minutes during today's lecture, and hey, there was note taking and listening to be done so that was all that i could spare. oh yeah, the funny part... that it takes me forever and a half (longer than the lecture) to describe such things. I really need to go do some reading :)
ha, another thing i almost forgot... how government protecting its power is a form of institutionalized stagnancy. the ideological revolution happened with the colonists in their awakening to the ideas that there was something better than living a life of deference, living a life of patronage in monarchical society. Those peoples who rose against the protection of power were those who effected change. That change is what brings about realization. Contrasting different things makes you realize which is the better; approaching the world the same way all the time is, by definition, then, stagnant.
oh yea, and treason is institutionalized jingoism ;)
2,25,03: well i have quite a few pictures back from being developed, yet since there is no photoshop here on this computer i'll have to wait a day or two before putting them on here :(
2,24,03: i realized a few things today: i'm officially tired of the snow. 2nd, that when i'm tired, emotions aren't concealed and are much more in the open. there isn't concealment of motive, it's a more raw emotion. hence grumpiness. we really do pretend to be nice a lot, i think :-/ i mean, when we're rested, we're much more capable of dealing with problems and what not instead of reacting to them in a base manner. we've conceptualized niceness and apply it when we're rested is what i'm saying. i know i'm babbling but when there's time at a later point for thought i wanna remember this. there was a third thing, but i've forgotten it. and oh yes, this upcoming summer is going to be the best of my life, simply becuase of the concept of contrast. :)
2,24,03: The meet was really cool. I did well, and that's all I could hope for, other than the team doing well. James and I joked about standing up and yelling, yea! But we're smarter than you are! as albany and other teams recieved their awards for the meet. I ran the five k friday night and took it out perfectly, five flat, five o'two, and then slowed majorly to a 5:20 and ran a 15:54. I'm happy to have broken sixteen, but knowing that I was that close to running a 15:35 is quite .. enticing... and in the three k, I went out in 4:47 and then slowed quite a bit to run 8:59.59, the typical kind of race from me. Agressive speed first half and then a really slow second half, followed by a blazing sprint to the finish (which i did knowing that I would be tremendously close to the nine minute barrier). It was a lot of fun. :)
more on that later, and Frank's race.
2,20,03: the meet at boston can be followed at www.americaeast.com, which is the conference website. i'm not sure how often, or if even, they will update the results of events at the meet. it might just be that they compile the results but don't release them 'till the completion of the meet. whateva... all i know is that i'm gonna represent. wish me luck :)
2,19,03, second: i think i'm gonna pay more attention to baseball this year, and be a little more vocal about it. in fact, i'm thinking about having a total average fantasy league of sorts... email me (truevlad@hotmail.com) if you're interested. reccomended reading ;)
2,19,03: I'm here in the reserve library at binghamton university, in the computer lab obviously.
sometimes i wonder what the point of comics are, even though they're funny. well, obviously this one is aimed at the hubub created by all the latest news concerning iraq and possible attacks on the us- seriously, it's like being a hardcore day trader on the stock market. you're gonna go insane sooner or later paying attention to every single detail as it pops up.
2,18,03: Because of the snow, the practice today will be indoors at the west gym track, meaning that since we can't get the track untill six o'clock, i won't be able to go to the IDMR's session tonight. Inadvertantly, I'll be able to catch the guy's intramurals basketball game and play for them, but that's really not consolation, and y'all better not think that's why i'm missing ;) I know where my priorities are at.
lately has been an interesting time for writing, with being tired and all. I seem to have better ideas for writing when i'm tired, yet i'm a better writer when i'm in complete control of my faculties. Ha ;)
2,17,03: cancelling classes in a two-edged sword. the classes get behind schedule, but you don't have class :) classes weren't cancelled today, atleast not for me, but at two o'clock and onward they were officially cancelled. A few were cancelled by the teachers earlier in the day, none of which I was enrolled in, but all my friends were :-P and so it's been fun walking around this snow covered campus.
2,16,03, 2nd: I've got a couple small images that people can use for their desktops if they want. One thing i tend to do in my boredom time with computers is make small designs that look cool when you have them repeat to fill up your desktop. One is of very small yellow smily faces on a white background (but you can easily modify the background to another color by opening the file in the paint program and doing what you please to the picture). Another is just a wierd circles thing.
2,16,03: The meet yesterday was good. I ran the mile and the four by four, setting a pr in the four hundred meters with a 55.62ht. The mile was 4:43 which is ok, actually was perhaps my seventh fastest mile ever, but :) we have our dreams, and my achievements pale in comparison to my dreams sometimes, but :) it was a good hard race. It's always fun running fast. Erica had an awkward experience, running one too many laps in the 5k, not by her fault but by the official's I'm pretty sure. :-/ sorry 'bout that one. I should go get homework done :)
2,14,03, in da day: me gots one thing to say:
2,14,03, in the wee hours: I've never considered any political thought tranversing my mind to be of any worth recording in any medium. I often talk with my friends about thoughts that I have but wouldn't expect the same in written form to have any monumental effect on the political process. For a strange reason beyond my mind's reach, I felt otherwise tonight and wrote some very intial items down. More will follow, to be sure. I wish i had more time to add to the editorial part of the site, but in due time. There have been many thoughts in that direction as of late. Liberty and Corruption
2,13,02: the run today was slow and kinda easy... the girls were going quicker than we were, lol. Anyways, we're preparing for the meets this and next weekend by tapering. Next weekend is the conference championships in Boston, and i'll run the three k one day and the five k the other. It's a two day meet but i'm not sure what day each event is on. This saturday is enough for my mind to focus on ;) it's gonna be like a high school meet, running the mile and the four by four.
well now it's 2,11,03, i'm pretty sure. Everyday is a good day. Today in anthropology we watched a taped version of a lecture by Stephan J. Gould, a prominent anthropologist who's now deceased. I really enjoyed the lecture and realize now some things about the race debate and racism in general that I didn't before. And, ultimately, it lies in the same debate tactic that so many people are good at... confusing the issue, twisting slightly one thing. Unless it's caught, you're doomed to forever argue on a futile topic that Is irresolvable. Forget racism, forget it all. From the overheads in class, "the concept of race began as a way to categorize patterns of human biological difference. It soon was used to categorize individuals by their culture (that is, appearance and behavior). These categories soon were used to justify prejudicial behaviors towards races different from those who made the categories." And from Gould's lecture, "the concept 'race' is a social instrument of prejudice and descrimination." The concept race itself is racist. Stick that in your pipe and smoke it, lol.
I had a conversation yesterday with keegan on someone he saw on television who presented intelligent arguments concerning race. He said that if americans moved en masse towards the border and went into mexico demanding their culture and their rights be instituted into mexican law, they would see it as an invasion and take all preventative measures possible, making it illegal for americans to go into the country. But then why do we entertain any influx of immigrants into our country when they do just that? They come in and take work from americans, are willing to work for less, and yet demand AND RECIEVE attention from the government as far as their rights are concerned. Even further, this man posed the question to Donahue (who's show he was a guest in), name one predominately foriegn-nationality neighborhood that you'd like to live in? One latin neighborhood, one cuban? (i can't think of the exact examples he used that keegan relayed to me in an im yesterday.) He also said, these cities become essentially third world cities.
A convincing argument, no?
When you consider what he's saying in the context of what I learned today, you're taking it up a notch, BAM! as Emeril would say. Much of the lecture was focused on the point that science has been used to back up unconcious prejudice. The problem is that simply using the term race IS A PREJUDICE ACT. I know that this man is not saying that because they are a certain race, they are inferior. He is saying that because they're not of America, they're essentially stealing our resources and debasing our culture by coming here. Here is where my conversation with J. F. last night comes in... A person in her class displayed their view of the interactions of society, relationships, and even raising one's hand to answer a question, saying that it was simply trying to outdo the other guy. He said that raising one's hand is displaying your knowledge, that the other's don't have who didn't answer the question. He said that romantic relationships are only a drive to have the most attractive girl, the smartest, etc. so that you can essentially display them to the world, saying, look what i have and you don't. This is eerily like an economics view of the world, simply in terms of black and white science, viewing everything as a loss or a gain, constantly trying to accumulate gains and to sit on top of the hill in the "king of the hill" game of life.
What this fellow who was on Donahue is saying, then, is that the white/American race has what it has, and it's theirs alone... the viewpoint obviously supported by the fact that we're considered On top of the world... (sorry for this cliche loaded report)... You don't hear third world countries shouting that they don't want any part of the other richer world powers... and he's saying that since we have this large part of the pie, we should defend it from those lesser than us. He's saying the same thing that this poor mistaken fellow in Jennifer's class said but on a more intelligent level in the grander scheme of things. Again, I know he's not using the concept of race, but he's employing an emotion that's nearly the same in that the foriegn peoples are lesser and taint our world.
The only way to get rid of racism issues in this world is to eliminate the word "race" from the world's vocabulary, eliminate the affirmitive action programs, elminate all census questions on race, etc. and let the world go on without this spin of reality that's been engrained in us. There is no way to solve racism. The term itself is racist, implying that there are inherent differences between the different "races" of people, instead of considering them our brothers. The only thing we can do is ignore this problem that people perpetuate and whip up into a fury by giving it their attention.
UHM I'M REALLY CONFUSED AS TO WHAT THE DATE IS. but i'll find out later. the meet did last a really long time. that's ok though. recently i'd been feeling tremendously smooth in my form, and enjoying simply being back running, but the smoothness didn't translate into speed. I ran a 9:33 3k which is ok, equals the time i ran the first time I stepped foot on an indoor track to compete, but definitely leaves something to be desired. Next week I run the 1600m at cornell, and that should be fun ;) Get to do a little speed work.
2,8,03: it's saturday and tomorrow is the meet in syracuse. last night mike and I played a tremendous game of study lounge wiffleball, a full nine innings. It was a pitcher's game from the beginning, even thought there were scares. We'd each loaded the bases in the first inning but left all the runners on base. The top of the fifth, I scored a run, and that was it... entering the top of the ninth, the score was still 1-0. Then, with one out and a man on first base, I hit a homerun. 3-0. I thought the game was over. In the bottom of the ninth, Mike lead off with an interesting bounce of a hit and ended up with a triple while i chased the ball. I delivered the next few pitches and BAM! TWO RUN HOMERUN! all of a sudden, the score was 3-2. He followed it up with another hit, a man on first. I ended up striking'm out twice to end the game ;) 27 strikeouts on the game, averaging 24 per nine innings. 'twas crazy fun :)
2,4,03: Day two back to running, and i'm realizing how hard and how much fun running can be. I already knew yet it's something that you can "realize" again and again and again. There's soo much to it. Some of the basest theoretical sport psychological principles are on my mind constantly, yet the application of them is entirely different than a knowledge of them. Anyways. I'm working on it. The sound class at the Endicott Performing Arts Center is very cool, day two is done there. And i'm just trying to get on top of all the class work that i shoved off 'till now when i was sick. Track meet this sunday in Syracuse and the Saturday after that in Cornell... and Moravian college will be at the latter ;)
2,3,03: I believe I even drew sickness from the superbowl party. One person there (in the house, not really there there) was sick. I attended classes monday but then ended up being sick the rest of the week, shaking it sometime saturday in the am hours. Back on course, attacking the world... and darn was the poolworkout hard this morning...
It's interesting how anthropologists look at the world. I'm in the intro to anthropology class with erin y from groton, an xc and track person. Today the professor was talking about adaptability. That's better than my coli class, which basically seems to be a bunch of women... uhm, well, talking about why women can/can't achieve equality with men. that's what it was today and this was the first class in a week that i've been to. eh.
1,26,03: that football game was wack, yo. when i got back to my dorm room, i seriously considered going outside for a run in the snowy darkness so that i might get hit by a car, making my day a little bit more interesting.
1,25,03: you win some, you lose some. today at the track meet i suffered because of the two days this week that i took off. the five k suffered. the four hundred meters was fun :) but i ran that a little bit slower because of the five k. and truth be known, i didn't run a five k, but a four point eight k. we, sergey and i, ran a lap short. we stopped and nobody told us that we had another lap to go :) oopsie.
56.4 for the four, 15:44 for 24 laps.
1,24,03: they weren't joking when they said the east was in an icy grip.
1,23,03: it's snowing outside, again. as i sign onto my yahoo it says that the temperature in binghamton is nnegative four degrees out. I've taken a nap and had seven hours of sleep last night. i'm about to buy my first three pbj's this semester from the dining hall, all for dinner and a post-class snack when i get back from the IDMR.
1,22,03, second: this weekend I'm going to compete for the team in both the 4x400 and the 5k. that should be fun :) it's encouraging to know that they think i have speed, which i showed at the end of the last 5k, making up a distance to catch second place in the last lap. i told annette when i was getting off the bus in binghamton, that was my kinda race ;) and so i'll have a chance to run a pr in the four hundred and the five k as well. i ran a sixteen flat to begin the xc race at the american east championships in boston, but that was with another 3k coming. then, sunday, it's
THE SUPERBOWL!!!!
not that i really care about the two teams that are there; personally, i wanted the steelers to make it, and their game was thrown out of wack by the officiating at the end of the game.
1,22,03: today was my first day of classes. I know that classes began yesterday here on the Binghamton campus, but my only class on tuesdays is the intro to anthropology discussion, and we hadn't participated in any classes to have anything to discuss. They weren't nice enough to put up a sign saying that there was no discussion though :) My psych in literature class looks like it will be grand fun. Some of the books that we have for the class are very interesting and it's a small class as well. The teacher seems very positive. Oh, and today was the first of five 6:30 in the morning pool sessions at the west gym, for the distance squad of the track team. As I relayed to Erin Y, I've sort of sadistically started to like the morning pool workouts. I was able to do the running in the water for half an hour without ever touching the side once. That's good for me, considering how many times i'd hold myself on the side before. I've got a long way to go to catch my little brother :) The next class after the comparative literature one is intro to anthropology, which should be fun as well. Then at noon was hist 251, on the American Revolution. The professor is wonderfully articulate, but i did notice his habit of saying uhm a lot, and that's distracting amidst his concise statements. The funny thing is that he doesn't say uhm during a lot of the pauses; it was almost as if the uhms were part of the sentence itself, always starting each sentence, and sometimes at other strategic points. It was amusing. Grahm, a guy from my floor, is in the class as well, and jessica h from the xc team and distance squad is taking the comparitive literature course as well. There will be lots of reading this semester for me, and good amounts of writing, but i'll enjoy it I think. Tonight is the creative writing class :)
1,20,03: wow craziness. i ran yesterday on the fastest indoor track in the world located in the bronx, THE ARMORY. The meet i was in was the ninteenth, the great dane classic. i was in the 3k. It was an excellent race because i got out right in the midst of the pack, lost some places as people moved up in the first few laps, and then as they settled in, I made my move to move up to 4th or 5th. Then with six laps to go I made another move and pulled into third. But with two laps to go I allowed the lead three to string out a bit, even though I sprinted the last lap, catching my teammate who'd just passed me and the second place guy as well. Funny to note is that the second place guy is/was chris pierson, someone i competed against in high school track. he ran for chenango valley. he was the section four class b steeplechase champ two years in a row while i was the 3200m champ, and then his graduation was very conviniently timed, because I coincidentally took up the steeplechase my senior year. Anywhoos, that was great fun, and the armory is a beautiful track :)
1,12,03, in da wee hours of the morning: my first track meet was yesterday. in westpoint i competed in the 3k race, running a 9:30 to sergey's 9:26 and pete's 9:28. I was second to last, lapping the last place guy and being double lapped by the first three places. they ran in the 8:30's. erica came to the meet, and that was fun. it's late and i'm tired... aiee.... but i have some ideas for the duct tape campaign. "got duct tape?" do you like it? has a nice ring....
1,10,03: too many things have happened lately to put down. :) teren and erica made their trip to afton, and erica is the true master mind at playing mastermind.... she had my code backwards on the second turn, and had it right on the third. we saw the afton basketball team win their eleventh game. we did a million and seventeen different things, including more snowball fights. ;)
1,8,03: the trip was grand fun. GRAND fun. we ate ice cream. we played wiffleball in the snow. we played the piano. and we made memories :)
1,4,03: well the road trip didn't happen yet because of snow, but 'tis a temporary delay. micah and i shoveled off the roof today, and that's what most of the day was spent doing. since i've been home for the holidays and winter break i've been out of practice typing ... i'm going quite slow :) and jimmo and i tomorrow will embark to yorktown, and along the way we'll discuss his goal of running under five minutes in the mile. this is gonna be tons of fun :)
1,2,02: operation road trip blasts off in T-21 HOURS. and on the menu is stew a la teren's gracious mother, and pumpkin muffins, and a healthy three hour serving of LOTR: THE TWO TOWERS..... again... i already saw it with my family... and there's no other movie, other than the matrix, that i would be so willing to go and see again. except, i never saw the matrix in the theatre once. :( een though i've seen it five hundred million times. :)
1,1,03: this is craziness. '03. who'da thunk'd it. :)
new year's eve was a tuesday this year, and right after class in binghamton, we went to jeff and kathy's house for the hors do'oeure party, and i swear that i'm going to learn to spell that word someday. :)
I'M GONNA GO ON A ROAD TRIP FRIDAY :)
12,19,02: no one is here in the ciw library, and that is cause for celebration in and of itself. A majority of the finals are over! :) Heather, from the floor, went to watch the lord of the rings movie yesterday. I explained to her that I'd wanted to go but that I decided to go with my family sometime next week. Last night was fun because danno warned me that he would be wandering a bit, and that he might stop by my room. We talked a little bit and then ended up going back to his room, and we made pasta in his building and it was quite yummy. Then james, teren, danno, and myself just sat around chillin' till teren and I left at about the same time, two in the morning or so. 'twas fun. :) and I went on a fifty-five minute run yesterday that was probably about nine miles. It's a nice sized loop. I'm thinking I'm going to run it again today and that I'll talk about it another time. Laddo reporting from my last day on the BU campus in my first semester: Lata! :-D
12,18,02: The Second Lord of the Rings movie comes out today! But that's not the point! I had my psyc final on monday and my econ final today, and after i emerged from the famed lecture hall 014, a song started playing in my head... "'cause i'm free... free falling, i'm a, free falling..." And as I neared my home away from home, the College In the Woods community, another song started playing.... "Momma, momma I'm coming home.... I'm coming home..." I like this radio station :-D
12,15,02: as a break from studying, i went to the east gym and played a little bit of bball with da boys. Bobby, Jay, and Sergey were there along with a whole lot of other people. The first game I played with them was the best game of my life. :) 4 for 4, maybe two steals, two rebounds (one offensive and then a falling back jumper to win it), and good d. the next wasn't so grand, but i still was like 2 for 4 with a steal. Good times yo. I can still feel the adrenaline running through my body. And i can't wait for the road trips over vacation!!! :) and i can't wait for the relaxedness over vacation, and the visits with friends. i'm outtie, tell these people something they don't know about me.
12,11,02: 8 page paper being turned in tomorrow for english... should be interesting.... :)
12,10,02: today was interesting. there's only four more classes i need to attend, and then the first semester of my college experience is over. wowsers, who'd a thunk'd it. i can't wait to see all the hometown peeps, and guess what? WE ALL NEED TO GET TOGETHER AND HANG OUT, so contact me somehow. I'd like to get together with some peeps, even if it's only for a snowball fight ;)
12,9,02: the weekend in syracuse with rich was great. i really did learn some things and i'm glad he was kind enough to give me a ride there and back. we stayed up talking after the dinner saturday night, and then went to class the next morning, sunday school and regular session, and then we had lunch and whatnot at rich's house, then stopped by rachel's residence, erin and steve laporte's home. i'd never been there before. then we went to our destination, cindy and mark segroi's home. and briana's too. :) they were so kind to us too. the hospitality was grand. i'd have to say some of the things i learned were: the brain's role in being that old man, that demon. i know doctor kinley would talk about hitting that old man, keeping him down as he got up in the morning, but that's been extrapolated to mean that the old man is always there, following you around. that's not how it is and it's actually internal... the brain. and also i learned about revelations, spirit talking to spirit, and what not. yahweh revealing things to his sons, not necessarily by video tape, by spoken word off the floor, but just internally. And it was talked about how doctor Deby M. talked about adam being in the earth and just coming forth from it, adam within the cloud and coming forth from it, the same night that doctor Harris did in LA. And also, how doctor Aaron Bryant was preaching some of the same things that doctor Harris was, even though he hadn't watched any of the tapes or anything. It's heating up, yo :)
12,6,02: hmm. i just got out of my last psyc112 class. as a gift for the holidays she cancelled next week's class. I was all excited, said that it was a great time and shook the hands of everyone in our group, exclaiming, "I hope to see you again sometime in the future!" Then someone told me that we still have to go to discussion on wednesday :-/ oopsie.
12,5,02: I'm learning more piano music now :) thanks to erica, who made me a duct-tape binder and sent along piano music in it.
I have many people i have to write or talk to that i've let slide lately.... :-/ not a good thing at all.
12,2,02: I studied the hardest i have yet for any test in psyc for the test i took tuesday morning before thanksgiving break, and it was my lowest grade. The lowest test grade in the class is dropped, but this is dissapointing to be sure. That's an understatement. :( I'm starting to bring the book with me everywhere i go when i don't have classes, subsequently. And not having practice lately really has freed up a lot of time in the schedule. I didn't realize how hasty I am during the day while i've got classes and practice, and then class at night. Class! I tremendously enjoyed having the lexington, ky branch in binghamton over the vacation. That was fun. And more than it was fun, I learned things. I really enjoyed Doctor Carr when he got on the floor for the whole two hours on sunday. any questions, ask me...
also, i'm starting to get more sleep, and that's a really good thing. the only bad thing about it is what i've heard in rumor: you are more tired when you start getting more sleep after extended deviance from the optimal levels. the rumor is not the problem, but that it's true. :) but it's better than continuing the cycle. seven and eight hours the past two nights, and last night i went to bed before twelve for the first time in a very long time...
12,2,02: well vacation was fun. and the radio show this morning was fun. i'm actually quite good about not being nervous... or was that simply because i was awake yet... :) and econ discussion was good. learned a thing or two.
11,30,02, in the wee hours of the morning: i'm about to hit the bed very soon but wanted to say that thanksgiving vacation has been grand. the pets are good to visit, oh yea the family too ;) and OH MY GOSH THE FOOD IS GOOD. :) but you knew i would say that. ;)and having the guests here from lexington ky has been fun too, and it's about half over. still got stuff left to do :) and although i do miss the constant camraderie of campus, it's grand to be here, home, and relax. :-D
oh yes, perhaps some photos of the guests shall be entered here soon;) with their permission;)
11,27,02: the meet was awesome yesterday. Frankie and Reese both ran 1:56's, with reese just edging frank. I video taped pretty much the whole thing. And, I had no idea our track coach, Mike Thompson, was such a pole vaulter! :) It was humbling to watch him clear 17'8". My gosh. and everyone's going home for thanksgiving vacation. I've never had so few people online on my buddy list. :)
11,26,02: hello all. It's 9:30 and I just finished the third psych
exam, which i was taking early and at professor Gerhardstein's office
because of my obligation to leave with the track team during the
normally scheduled class time. I started the test and went out good
but then started falling asleep. And the funny thing is, because of
staying up a little later to study, lifting weights last night and
playing floor hockey, i'm so tired that i don't think i'll be able to
stay awake through my econ class in half an hour. I couldn't
reschedule my psych test to the 10:05 timeslot because of my econ
class, yet now that i've gotten up practically two hours earlier to
take the test before econ, i think i should skip econ for sleep
(because i'll sleep through it there at the class anyways). What a
paradox. :) The meet should be fun tonight. We shall see. My bud
justin wood, from walton and now runs for delhi, will be there. Delhi
has become a section IV allstar team. Mike McPherson, Justin Wood,
Josh Griswold, Josh Dumond (although he's only a track guy),
and some other people... i'm just not remembering right now...
11,25,02, second: today's floor hockey game was fun. we had the late time slot at ten, but didn't play like we were tired. in fact, we were so quick that we really outplayed them... we nearly every single time got to the ball before they did, and fought for it just as hard. I know for myself it was a bit easier this week because i'm not dead tired from the weekend and all the running. I'm currently in a two week no-running stretch where i'm letting my ankle, legs, feet, and everything else recooperate. I think we lost 7-3. the score really doesn't reflect how we played though. they had a few individuals, two specifically, that were pretty good with the handling of the puck/ball, and really were the whole opposing team's offense. Oh well. I know i did my best :) and i earned my battle wounds. :)
11,25,02: well the radio show went well today. it was the first day that I, when thinking of the few listeners, didn't feel my heart jumping out of my skin. i ranked on the yankees a bit, said that they were a team of bought allstars, and felt a little better after that. The title of the show was Phish Bush Beck and Weezer, oh my! and last week it was 311 santana and vega, oh my! I think i've got a theme going. ;)
11,24,02: well well well. i always seem to start with something like that, so why not today too. :) lotsa stuff to say, yo :) Saturday morning i was in the bronx for my last cross country meet. I can hardly believe that my first collegite Division one season is already over. And, as with the world and it's many facets, there were many lasts for people on the team at the same time, and even for myself, though i'm new. It was my last cross race with any of the seniors. It's a sobering thought, really... I mean, these guys will be irrplaceable as far as the team stuff-team mentality, team culture... running is running. but buds are something different. they will be missed, of course, and have made my first season here a lot easier. In fact, because thursday was their last practice ever (did i just mention the word sobering?) and it'd been raining for about twenty straight hours, albeit softly, we went on a mud run. It was nearly dark already, but.. i've never had more fun on a run. It was my first day running in a couple of days because i'd twisted my ankle on monday playing floor hockey (stupid... i wasn't anywhere near the play even, just took a step backwards anticipating being on offense in a few moments, and bam) and had been riding a stationary bike. We ran into the nature preserve and were kicking mud up at each other, throwing it, and then sliding through it... wrestling in it... creating the whole "survivor" mentality, developing friendships and alliances as we would gang up on each other with mud :) it was the sweetest, jay and i attacked matt dresser at the same time, yet because of jay approaching him closer and throwing a split second before i did, his attention was diverted... and when i accidentally hit him in the head (ear) with the mud, he went beserko on jay, and i simply got back to the group real quick and laughed to myself for about 5 minutes straight. Bobby, as always, was the premier instigator :) and then came the wrestling on the fields near the west gym. dey was wrasslin, fur sure. :-) we left for the meet friday afternoon at three-thirty. Kate Z. drove our bus, and annette drove the other. and i was in jordy and pete's room. sleeping was interesting, as pete was telling me to wake up at 3:37 because he thought it was 7:30, and then jordy was yelling in his sleep from the cot at the foot of our beds. my my my :) and i'm usually the one talking in my sleep. The meet was good. It really did seem a finalization, though i'm not quite sure why... i have quite the story to tell about that all too but unfortunately time seems to run away faster than i run after it.... :( :)
11,22,02: I'M SITTING HERE IN JAME'S ROOM IN THE COMPANY OF JAMES, TEREN, AND DANNO WHILE TEREN TALKS TO ERICA ON THE PHONE AND I TALK TO HER AND DANNO ON THE COMPUTER AS HE HAS HIS HEADPHONES ON SO IT'S EASIER THAN ME TAPPING HIM ON THE SHOULDER AND HIM TAKING THEM OFF. IT'S FUN RAPPING YO. ok i'll stop yelling. i came up to jame's room about eleven and was hanging out, then called erica about ten of midnight... talked a while... now we're jus chillin... ;)
and i'm still rappin... i'm still new to this, yo.
james has a barn that is red, made of wood, a mini-barn, housing an old decrepit horse. no, not james when he isn't at college... geez, you people are so mean.
11,21,02: well the concert was awesome last night. i didn't get back late like one might think, coming back from a .... concert... well, i guess you hear the word concert and think a bunch of people bouncing up and down to loud rock music, staying up late and everything... that's what i think anyways... it was a different type of concert. I loved the music. and i had a million and one thoughts, but... i need to eat my breakfast :)
11,20,02: Well that was fun. I just got out of my psyc112 discussion. Every week the head ta of our discussioin brings us food. She's too sweet. And she's very innocent, almost, too... She thinks that we dislike her when actually many of us simply dislike the class because it is basically grunt work. Oh well. :) today, my group's research hypothesis was: are paranoid schizophrenics with homicidal narcisistic rage more succeptable to contract stds/the clap? We proposed to study this by a)going to mental institutions and handing out surveys, or, B)going up to people randomly in the student union and touching them and saying that you have some type of std. The ta responded that it was highly unethical and that it went against the principle of informed consent. They concluded that they didn't see any benefits from our study. That's when i piped in. It made them all laugh, didn't it? ;)
11,18,02: here i sit again in the ciw library. It is a monday and we just finished our third intramural floor hockey game. 'twas interesting :) we lost, but i sense us slowly getting better. I was mad at myself because I was extrememly tired from this weekend, and couldn't play defense with any semblance of the past two weeks, but it's ok. I wish i had more stick skills. I can get myself to the right place and i can run around the court all day long, but i just can't hit the ball hard enough when i need to. oh well :) that's why it's intramural and not hardcore.
I have been having a lot of fun lately :) i need more work instead of fun, yo :) and i ran well at the meet this weekend, but i really did get psyched out simply that it was a 10k instead of the normal 8k that i'm use to. Oh well. I went through the first 5k in 16:19 and then slowed a lot, going 18:20 for the next 5k for a 34:39. wahoo. :) i'll simply kick the course's butt next week, in an 8k.. even if it was another 10k thou i'd still kick it.
11,14,02: Hello everybody. Here i sit once again in the computer library of ciw. I've started to separate my m+ms into sobe bottles but i did realize yesterday that I needed another sobe bottle so, eh, here i am drinking another sobe ;)
last night i called erica @moravian and we talked about a great many things, one being "jorge." we decided that we could have a whole college curriculum on jorge. prob is, i would wonder about anyone who would want to major in the program. I guess it wouldn't be a class on education, but more ... sympathy ? *sigh... and we talked of track and various other things, as always. hmm and of my paper and laziness and procrastination... funny that what little work i do is associated with the other two words as well... for now, i'm out, y'all. HERE'S TO TROPICAL FRUIT FLAVORED SOBE WITH A BLEND OF ECHINACEA, ZING & VITAMIN C... THAT'S SHORT FOR THE COCONUT FLAVORED ONE....
11,13,02: My my. hello all. I wrote a slightly poetic thing a few days ago in my first class of the day and just recently found it. ;)
eye lids drooping...
the monotone drone of a professor
who knows
and students who don't but try,
the heat of their bodies
making overly-heavy eyelids struggle to stay up.
The chalkboard shakes as the proffesor
draws a dotted line to the equilibrium.
"It's rise over run. We'll call this slope small s."
he adds something about marginal propensity...
I add a grunt as I slowly drift into sleep.
i'm working on my english paper now SO LEMMME ALONE ALRIGHT! hehehe ... :) tty'all later.
11,12,02: I tried to do work on the site yesterday, but alas!
I'm realizing more and more that this is the most fun i've ever had in my life. And, although this is an extrememly pleasant journey I hope in the future it is a bit more laden with... uhm, .. work... I can't believe i'm saying this... but the past week has been a sabbatical, pretty much. Not that I've had many assignments, or any at all... just, studying is a constant necessity. Nothing to worry about, of course. I'm simply trying to remind myself here that yes, this is a time of opportunity for both enjoyment and work, although as I write this i'm very hesitant because those two words aren't descriptive enough. Enjoyment and work. hmmm. It's not neccesarily enjoyment, but a plethora of more opportunities to expand my abilities in areas I enjoy... running, magic:tg, poetry, and the social aspects... visiting the triangulon, playing floor hockey (which, last night was fun.. but more about that later...), and just spending time with friends... and then they're's work, with it's negative connotations. Grunt work. I've got work to do, as in, I'd rather be doing other things. But it is fun to learn :) i need more balance. And hey, i'm learning some wierd things about sleep along the way too.... lack of it, back to six/seven hours a night... :) strange stuff, peeps. :)
yesterday I'd thought our floor hockey game was to be at ten, but it turned out that it was at eight, and i didn't realize this until it was eight-thirty and i'd just made it back to my room. It was still fun though. I definitely have realized how to use my body more to make up for my deficiencies... as a defender i found myself constantly switching sides of an attacker i was pressuring within a matter of seconds so as to throw them off in their abilities to attack... they would turn with their back towards me sometimes and it really would be like a basketball thing.. I, however, was playing like a basketball defender in the sense that if you impede the player, or so much as touch them with any type of force you could be called for hacking, blocking, etc. etc. etc. I was really doing much more work than I need to. The only problem is, as much fun as floor hockey is, the more physically I play the more physical the opponent's game will be (unless they're caught offguard, and even then only at first will their play be less physical...). So then I increase the risk of injury a 'lil bit... and i'm not really here at binghamton to play floor hockey :) i'm not even here to be a runner, although it is a major part of my time and experiences here... Running is the focus though. I can tell myself that outside of the game though, and when I'm on the court I just want to achieve the goal: to play the best I can. I love competition. I've actually thought that once the next two cross country meets, the last two of the season, are out of the way, i'll go to one or two of the crew team's morning practices to gauge what it's like. I wish i could participate in crew so badly... it's such a team effort and the individual really is diminished. *sigh... :) I'm a sucker for competition. It's so much more than that, but I've done enough elaborating for today.
The yesterday on the radio station I made a few mistakes and also talked of my eng. teacher, prof. deercloud. That was fun. I was given a t-shirt to promote the station as well. I did learn a bit more about radio theatre and what it is, and about the music library. I will start going down there and auditioning music sometime.
Oh and yesterday I had to run on my own... unfortunate sleep thing, i missed practice :( i was not happy at all about that, but i really needed the sleep. I'm not justifying... I'm saying that it was wrong but that I'm a bit healthier today. And I'm also saying that I ran clifton in 32:11, an amazing time considering what it usually takes. Running in the dark is so much fun :) And then I ran a mile on the track, and realized that I was going six minute pace. My pace for the whole run wasn't much slower than what I did on the track. I would guess it was 6:15-6:20. That is slower, but... It's good to know that I can do that. Instead of running like we normally do on these easier days, running so that we don't even breathe the whole time, I was running so that I was always just right over the fringe of having to breathe while running. It felt good :)
And today I've been living a poem. It's been so cool. The air was cooler this morning as I went outside, and there was the lightest sprinkling of water on my skin, as soft as fog. I walked around looking at those proud few with umbrellas. As I emerged from the building of my first class, I was leaving my cave of brick, brushing aside the see-through vines at the entrance that was the glass door. The first drops of rain touched my skin and I felt in my element, a caveman in a green, ribbed sweater, observing all the other humans as I walked through their midst to another cave. I didn't understand their quick-paced jabber, their jaws moving quickly and releasing bird-like noises though not as smooth. They seemed disinterested in the rain and, in fact, carrying small uprooted trees over their heads. There was no judgement in my mind, no disgust at them hiding from mother nature's gift, but just the observance that they hid from the rain. I felt like singing to them in my gutteral caveman voice, to converse with them as they did with themselves, but they all seemed to go the opposite direction or seemed disinterested in the beauty that was a walk in the rain. I watched my feet as I stepped through a puddle, the water surrounding and rushing under my feet as they lifted. I looked up and saw the most curious girl wearing black leather standing next to the cave entrance, my destination. I watched her eyes as I got closer, saw her disinterest too, saw her hand holding a small white twig fall to her side. I was close and my eyes left hers to find the vines i need to push aside when, caught offguard, smoke pervaded my senses, the suffocating fright of a moment of futility. I shouted, "BOOGA BOOGA BOOGA!!" at her with my eyes as I pulled aside the vines, leaving the shelter of the rain, hiding from the evil twig.
11,09,02: well well well... the last few days have been quite interesting. I've gotten hardly any work done, but you have to take some free time every once in a while, i guess... :)
let me just say that it has been massive fun ;)
ok. and before i do get started, i'd also like to say, before I'd thought I hadn't gotten much sleep... now I really know the meaning of the words, "not getting much sleep." It's all good though. You only live once. Aieeeee... cliche.... darn.
Ok, it started like this, see... One night while I was in Jame's and Danno's room, with teren there too, I was the dj for the night. I sat and Jame's computer and chose all the music. After a while I got bored of doing just that and looked on jame's aim, to see if anyone was on that i knew. I don't really remember there being anyone there in particular... Teren, however, told me to im a certain person... I did, and it was a fellow pianist from her home town I guess. That was fun. The fun part was that I was talking in slang to him, just messing around... it wasn't a strange thing, he was joking around too... knew i was a friend of teren's and jame's... and then he left. Then teren told me to im another person and i proceeded to talk to that person too and I gave both people my own im name just in case for some strange reason they would ever want to talk again. And I have been talking to the second person, Erica, a lot... and so, Teren wanted to go and visit her... I thought it would be cool... so we devised a plan. WE were going to draw up a whole legal contract and present it to James, with the jist of it being the simple question, would you like to take a road trip to moravian college? (that's where erica goes to college) We even dressed up all spiffy, myself in tie and suit. We had a witness there as well (mike) and he signed the contract too. It was determined, however, that we shall make the excursion within the next two lunar months, as this weekend wasn't the best of times. Then I was walking around feeling quite tired... I didn't want to move... I listened to lots of music and just lounged whereever I went... eventually james, teren and I went to eat dinner. Then we shot some hoops, but i was lethargic. My shots were so horrible and i was doing nothing of any effort to correct it. I didn't have the energy. I finally decided for about the twentieth time that it was futile and that i should stop. Then we went for a car ride, traveling much of clifton ave, some of the back roads behind campus, down the parkway to route 26 and the observatory. then we headed back along the parkway, passed the campus and drove towards afton on 88, but turned around of course. There's not a whole lot in afton to do (no offense, all) and at that time of night not even our own familys would have been up. WE got back to campus and went to the fourth floor of onieda... teren's and jame's floor. Teren subsequently called erica, and I hopped on the phone shortly after, but with everyone staring... or maybe it was just teren... and people making faces and whatever i left. or maybe it was just because i wanted to be somewhere quieter while i was on the phone. That was mad fun though. I ran the battery out on teren's phone, talking. :) about xc, conspiracy theories, our colleges, our hometown teams, the piano, the night as it'd transpired earlier, a great many things. And Erica and I tried to convince james and teren that i'd swipped jame's keys and took the truck and was on my way to pennsylvania right that minute. It didn't work, however, as james had realized that his keys were still right in his pocket. :) it was fun trying though. and then eventually teh conversation was over. I'd walked all over and james and teren didn't know where i was. Actually, at one point i was on the 2/3 floor split level in the middle there when people got stuck in the elevator. I left because it was causing a commotion... people walking around looking important trying to handle it... it was too much for me and that time of night, and i left, going up past the fourth floor to the 5/6 split on the stairs. I'm a hardcore stairs person :) teren said that her phone's battery had never been used up like that. Then Mike was building a fort with pillows on the top bunk bed. I'd hit him with a pillow at one point and he'd faked being asleep, making us all feel bad :) good one, mike. james left as did i, and teren and i talked for a few minutes a'fore I went to my building twenty steps away. Once I got there I had a bite or two to eat, thinking, if i'm going to sleep in late I might as well eat breakfast now. :) and so I ate. And then I realized, hey, it's four in the morning and I'm still totally not tired. Eh, so i stayed up. I went to dan's room and he was playing warcraft three. That's a sweet game, with the heroes and all. I went in one of the suites that had their door open, not the one next to me but the diagonal suite from me, and wrote. Then I realized how awesome the sky looked and ran to my room, grabbing my camera and sandles, and went outside to take pictures of the sky. That was a pristine moment. After that I went back to my room for good. I still didn't really even feel like i was tired, which is wierd because my eyes were drooping, except i ... didn't... feel tired. Really. It was strange. Oh well. :) and today's a good day too. The workout, though i was being wimpy and thought I wouldn't be able to finish it, was awesome and I actuallly was a lot stronger than I felt. It's amazing, the stores that you have inside of you.
The weather has been great today... i'm gonna go outside and enjoy it more. To all a good day, and to the day, good night!
11,06,02: Last night, while talking on aim to erica, i upgraded the status of my hope and dream of going to vermont to visit the ben and jerrie's headquaters there to the level of a life quest, a sort of "holy grail" thing. :) And I suppose that we all should get ahold of a tent and go camping to take advantage of the fact that we all live in college in THE WOODS... we being triangulon members (and teren, the honorary member? and myself, an honorary member? i'm not sure i have the power to bestow such an honorary title, hence the question marks). Interesante. I should go study now. :)
11,05,02: i should have gotten more sleep last night :) sigh...
11,04,02, second: I'm here in the ciw library once again on this fine monday. I just was eating dinner in the dining hall and was sitting with the cross country team although james, teren, duffy, pete, and one of the running club members whose name I cannot remember were all sitting at the table at my back. I talked with teren for a bit after sitting down. We talked about the upcoming concert and a few other things... trading cds possibly... and we talked about danno dj-ing for whrw, the campus radio station. I mentioned that I was there today with danno helping out and she already knew. She told me that when dan filled out a form at the beginning of the year, he put down myself and herself as possible apprentices. The funny thing is, she's never gone and it was the first time I had. I really do think it would be worth my time to pursue this venture. I'm not the type to just bust out and ... talk over radio waves to who knows how-many-people are listening. I was getting quite the adrenaline rush just speaking. It was fun though. I intro'd to the song Oye Como Va, by Santana, and spoke of how "once upon a time," santana concerts were small. I was hitting on the point that Santana a while ago was not nearly as large as he is now. And midst all that madness ;) i put in a word fo my daddy, saying that he'd gone to a santana concert in Germany (once upon a time... ;) ). ANyways....
about the trip this weekend. Well, I got up early, 6:30, for my drug test at seven but upon waking was like... i'll just lay back down for a few moments. When I next woke up, it was 7:00 on the dot. Nice, huh? I ran down there and was there at 7:05. Had to change too. So after that was done with I went back to my room and prepared for the trip. We left for Boston at nine (well we met then) and stopped for lunch somewhere short of albany. I kept the team late :( because I was waiting for bobby by the door... I'd been paying for my food as he went to get his (so I thought). He'd actually ended up just leaving without getting anyfood. So the short of the story is that they waited a few extra minutes for me :( oh well. it's in de past, as rafiki would say. Then once at boston we went straight to the course and ran around it, doing the loops in an insanely wrong order. :) hey, it's all good... if we'd done the course perfect, THEN it would have been an abnormality. the only thing that matters is that we ran the course right :) (btw, and i hope i remember to tell you this, danno, the course was FRANKLIN PARK.) and we went back to our hotel and had the communal dinner. All the teams were there. We ate our dinner and then were given our team bag with the American East shorts in them. There were many sodas on the tables that they told people to take, so we obliged, or Jordy did atleast. He took the large black garbage bag we'd just gotten all our shorts in and put tons of the small sodas in it. Reese could not stop laughing all the way back to our rooms, and I was hard pressed to stop as well. It was hilarious to watch jordy try to carry the bag :) anyways... then later on, everyone congregated in the room that bobby and I were sharing. They were watching George Carlin and then some other funny stuff on tv. I was trying to study psyc and watch gladiator... but we ended up watching that on the ride home. bobby and i eventually ended up going to bed about 12:30, 1.
because of how in depth i'm getting, I think I'm going to have to continue this at a later time...
11,04,02: today was fun. I came across danno on his way to the basement of the new union to do his radio show. I therefore joined him. I introed to santana :) and shouted out to the bingo-xc team, for what it's worth. I dropped the recruit off at 9:30 w/annette at the east gym (can you see I'm working backwards here?) and had a good time with him. It was fun showing him around. Last night I talked to a pipe dream reporter about the race. They asked how the team did and how we hoped to do in the upcoming year. It wasn't very long or very interesting, in my opinion. That's the problem with articles on running: I truly think they would be much better if they were written by runners, people who understand running, and people who understand what turns of events can come in a race. Why don't more articles talk about the makings of races? I wonder. Rant for the day. Anyways, I'd also like to say that later I'm going to be playing a game of floor hockey. That should be a lot of fun. Also, I'll add more to the site about the weekend, the trip, and the race. Toodles for now!!!
11,03,02: I'm here in the ciw library with the binghamton university recruit, Mike Long. He just ran sectionals on friday... here's the info. Congrats, mike. WE visited the trackhouse today along with playing some bball and visiting the triangulon suite. The race this weekend was crazy... the best race of my life. I ran the course in Boston a minute and a second faster than my fastest 8k to date, and ran the fastest 5k of my life to begin the race. WE went through the first mile in 4:50, bobby and i did :) 'twas crazy, but more 'bout that later. Here's some info 'bout it on the american east website. Men's Results
11,1,02: I'm here in a mall in albany. I took my drug test this morning, packed, got on the bus, and promptly went to sleep after some listening to an old-school cd of dave matthew's band, one of the earlier ones. I'm really looking foward to running tomorrow. it's gonna be hardcore. I really enjoyed class last night and enjoyed being able to hang out with rachel and angelina, and I'm very sorry to angelina that her paper was saved to a bad sector of the disk. :( i mean, how often does that happen? Funny crit is about to go down... this whole week was themost important of all my weeks here at binghamton yet. I took my midterm in macroeconomics and got an a-, although i wasn't exactly pleased. I mean, i was, but i was annoyed because i made a stupid mistake with a formula that caused me to lose 9-10 points on the test, one simple little mistake in my mind. I got an 86.5 and I can argue myself up to an 88.5. In gpa, in the long run, it doesn't affect it too much but I like to look at things often as the culmination of an innumerable amount of small things. I took the second intro to psyc test yesterday as well... in a lecture hall of about 350 people, i was the first one done. I'm not quite sure if that's a good or bad thing. :/ But yeah. It was fun hanging with rach and ange last night, did i mention that yet? :) oh and shouts out go to james and teren... thats a mil teren for the DUCT TAPE WALLET... that's right, y'all heard right... those of you who know my fascination with duct tape will understand the immense value it's become to me. I thought I might mention too that on the bus ride so far, Steve R said something about pain in running because we were talking about that. Uh, don't get your hopes up people, it's not exactly the most inspiring phrase. :) It would be hilarious in a motivational calendar... :) 'cause it'd be out of place.
10,31,02: I'm here in the Watson Engineering building computer lab because i got out of class early. why, do you say? I had a test in psyc today. The class begins at 11:40 and I finished the 60 multiple-guess test about 12:13. I'm guessing we had five minutes or so before we were given the tests, although i'm not sure, and that would mean that it took me about 17 minutes. Let's just say... I was the first one done. The people around me (i checked at the end) were averaging a little better than one question per minute and were surprised by me getting up. I'd decided i wasn't going to let this test stare me down... instead, i was going to attack it like i did in high school with all the social studies tests. we shall see.
last night i went outside and shot some hoops... only hit 25 out of the first 50, but then hit 43 of the next 50, 42 after that, then 39 and 35 for a total of 184/250. The most i'd hit before was 176. I'm showing progress, and that's good... got to get the shot in shape for 5on5 intramurals this spring, with the "funny crit" track team's squad. I'm gonna be point/shooting guard. As dresser might say, or anybody on the team for that matter, got'm....
10,29,02: My first midterm is complete. I really think I did well although I was fretting near the end. Since the class was an hour and a half long that's how long we had for the test. I'd thought beforehand, how hard could it be without a calculator. I've got a calculator in my head. Then, as I was studying some of my notes and formulated an example problem, i realized that it would be absolutely necessary because the time it would take to do all the calculations would be overly annoying. So what did I do? I ran back to my building and borrowed my roommate's calculator because I haven't bought one yet. Last night I was doing a lot of work on my english paper, and I would like to thank James and Teren for their help. And for kimmy's help a while ago, her too.
10,28,02, second: here I am again in the ciw library. fun stuff. I just completed my first review session for a midterm. My first college midterm will be tomorrow at 10:05 sharp. The macroeconomics stuff really isn't hard. It should go well, and I can only hope for a really good curve... after already getting an excellent score. I have the feeling that whatever my gpa may end up as at the end of the semester, it will be macroeconomics leading the way with psyc a far second. As far as english, I'm not sure... at first my only thought about the class was that it was tremendously easy, but that's turning out not to be the case. We shall see though. The essay writing goes well. IT's just a matter of how she, the professor, likes it.
10,28,02: well well well my friends. remember how i was talking about finding some people good for a pillow fight every once in a while? I've found them. :) and some interesting basketball in the cold. LAst night was fun. I thought I'd spend the night in the onieda suite but i realized that they weren't going to bed early, although I wanted to. So I stumbled back to my room, watched the last play of the world series on my way by the 4/5 lounge, and then staggered into my room and slept nine hours in which... might I add... I had the most rem sleep I think I ever have in one sitting, err laying down... I must have had five or six uniquely bizarre dreams. By the time I finally got up I couldn't remember them all. I still do remember some of them though.
Yeah. Such fun, going through more in depth poetry analysis. :) actually, it is fun, I just wish I could do it more relaxed. I don't like doing work feeling tense.
10,27,02: wish me luck on my midterm in two and four days. I just realized that I can't go to the section IV sectional cross country meet because of my test on thursday. :(
10,26,02, third: Check this out ;) wifflemania, your passion this summer has found a home in binghamton...
10,26,02, second: well well. today we had a 3000m time trial that went quite nicely. I ran a 9.47.51, which is quite good considering that I've run 10:08 and 10:22 for that in the past two time trials. Reese, that crazy mongoose, ran a 9:26. Damn. He's got a lot of speed and is one of the team's 800m runners. Kellen went out fast and died... I noticed with about 200m to go that I was the closest I've ever been to kellen at the end of a time trial. I was very close to pete too, but I was ahead of him for 18 laps in the initial 8km time trial before the season began. Today was the first time that I've run normal... uncomfortably hard, but not really caring about the uncomfortable part.
And wiffleball? oh yea, baby, this is gonna last. That was way too much fun to just forget.
10,26,02, in the wee hours of the morning: Hey hey hey. You know what? It is 2:54 in the morning and we've just completed our first underground game of study lounge wiffle ball. After a few moments of discussion with Andrew, I've decided to claim the game in the name of the triangulon--even though they don't know about it yet-- because of a few different reasons. A) Study lounge wiffleball, although a snazzy name, would gender more negative attention from authorities than would "Triangulon Wiffleball'" even if one knew that the game was played explicitly in the study lounge. Then, the focus is not on that fact but on the nickname that's been given to it, which is one of nonsense to most people. I will have to notify the triangulon as soon as possible. Well, I'll give you the details... people were going into the lounge to throw the frisbee around and I decided that wasn't enough. I chimed in, "what about wiffle ball?" They said, hey, that's great, just bring the stuff down to the lounge. I needed no coaxing. I went to my room, grabbed the bat and ball, and the excitement commenced. We decided on a few rules... we set a couch up in front of the pitcher, and the batter had to hit the ball past the couch. it could not go on the ground under or into the couch. Around the sides was fine. It was a lot like normal baseball with there being three outs to each side of the inning, three strikes to a strikeout, four balls to a walk. There are no balks. There is no leading off. My gosh, you can get around the four bases in about 6 seconds or less!!! Anyways... we decided that it should be two on two. That was more a product of our only having four people than anything else, but actually, it is perfect. We've decided that we're going to get teams and everything. This will be soo rad. ok, for the semantics of the first ever exhibition.... here's part of the conversation i've been having while typing this...
prahlad: hey, i got into binghamton on the strength of my wiffleball pitching.
dan: i got in cause of my catching skills.
ok. Here goes. The game started with Andrew and Russ as the Norwich Navigators, with Dan and myself as the Harlem Globecrackers. In the first inning, top of the first (Norwich up to bat) a run was scored. In the bottom of the second, a run was scored to tie it one-one. Strikeouts were racking up at a terrific rate, much faster than they do in mlb baseball, except on historic days. We all knew that Roger Clemens had struck out 21 batters in a game twice, and that's what we were aiming for on both sides, but anyways. The score was two all for quite some time, until the globecrackers pulled up by one. I think that was in the sixth inning, the bottom of the sixth. The game got tense as the batters continually drew full counts against me. I started to walk more batters. But still, we made it all the way to the ninth. I struck one batter out and let one on (the 18th k). Dan, the batter, said, "it's the top of the ninth!"
"So it is," I replied. We both knew what this meant. If they didn't score a run, the game was over, and we wouldn't even go into the bottom of the ninth. My enthusiasm had spoken too soon, though, and I walked the next two batters. Not the greatest thing to do when it is the ninth inning, you're up by one run, and all you want the other team to do is go down one-two-three. So there we are, top of the ninth, the Globecrackers up by one, runner on third, and one out. The next batter rips one, we made the play at first, but the run still scored. Tie game. I struck out the next two batters. twenty strikeouts ...
Then came the bottom of the ninth. I was the leadoff hitter and got a single. Eventually, it ended up being Dan at the plate and I on second, with two outs. Dan ripped one and I touched third and seeing that they were making the play at first went home. The play at first ended up being very close but Dan was safe, so the run scored and we won, 4-3. That was the sweetest game of wiffleball, and most intuitive with setup and the rules, I have ever played in my life.
Jimmo, danno, and everybody else, we've got to keep this thing a-goin!
10,23,02: i'm doing quite the studying session for psychology today. I've also got some economics to do. :) fun fun fun, work work work. I should work on, in the future, setting up my schedule so that it is work fun work fun work fun, not what I just wrote a second ago :) The debate on whether to get a laptop or a desktop for next year continues, and actually as I've gotten further and further into the school year i've entertained the thought more and more of not even getting a computer next year, but simply using the computer labs here all the time. I think that'd save me a nice chunk of change. Most true. In other news, Dan E might be moving out of the triangulon (his suite in onieda). If so, I would be greatly pleased to spend the spring semester with Jimmo. I'm printing out some psych notes right now and thinking of a great many things before I go back to my psych book. After practice today I planned to catch the shopper's special bus to the Town Square Mall to do some shopping, but as Ashley C gave me a ride back to my dorm from practice (she's in mohawk, I in onandaga, both in college in the woods) I told her I didn't need to go to my room, the why and wherefore, and we both went shopping. The trip was much more time efficient that way. In other news, there is a John Mayer concert november 16th in september.... :)
10,23,02: I'm here in the ciw community library once again. I'm here today working on my english essay. I thought I did quite a good job, except for the small fact that I didn't quite do an in-depth analysis of the poem. I worked more on the theme of the poem and what the author meant, with plans to analyze the devices the author used in-depth in the revised essay, because I simply hadn't done it yet. That was basically the critique that I got back too. Ah well! Two tests next week... one for psych, the second, and then a midterm in macroeconomics. Then the final edition of this paper too. I think i'll go shopping today after practice. And I have to do my laundry. Today is a productivity day. ;) more of them should be for me...
I miss having cats:
look at the photos...
interesting breed information
interesting national geographic take on the issue...
and last but not least, cats are from mars.
10,21,02, second: hey hey hey. i'm here agian, from the comfort of el jimmo's chair. this is becoming a habit :) smashing pumpkins it is :) and now, padrino, by smash mouth. you know what? there was an article in the pipe dream about the bells that go off here in campus every once in a while. If I were offered the chance, I might do just what the person in the article suggested. He suggested replacing the bells with a dj. :) i'm yo man, baby!!! :) actually, all the things he said weren't feasible. but it was fun to laugh at the article. and now, it gives me fodder to entertain my simple mind. you know, think the allman brothers are under-appreciated. I would like to get lots of sleep tonight but the music has put me in quite a good mood. o think that my posts here are quite random and hard to follow in comparison to the ones where i am in the ciw library. that's because stuff happens here :) steve, here's one for ya. hope ya like it. Others are free to view it as well. :) i was temporarily removed from my post as dj. our lady peace, my friends.
you know, i think we need to start a community service project. I mean, this is major. We all need to make a contribution. Waaaay too many people are the center of their respective worlds. Waaay too many people, even through friendships, are only looking for what they want. Friendship is not derived of sufficiency, but of a want to make the journey between waking and sleeping a little better for everyone, not just yourself. I think we all should all do our part to lower the percentage of uptight people around here. :)
10,21,02: last night I slept the most I think I have in one straight session since my moving here to binghamton university. i slept from 12:30 to 10:30, and when I woke up at 10:30 it still felt waaaay too early :) last night in jame's and danno's room was fun. I was the dj, as stated below. Jame's computer is awesome. In Imovie, there's a button you can press to make illusions and designs dance onscreen while the music is playing. I reccomended that he download some smashing pumpkins and some suzanne vega (well, some more of mrs. vega... he does already have one song...). I have practice in half an hour or so. I think i'll go down there shortly. I'm studying more lately as the psych and macroeconomics midterms are next week. I've also got an english essay to work on. Actually, as I type this, I'm thinking of announcing my temporary removal from the real world at one of the daily triangulon meetings (triangulon is a representation of the collective community that is dan and jame's entire suite). And last night, I made a contribution to the triangulon fund. I donated ink to james d for his printer. The ink i'd been given by someone else doesn't fit my printer. eh, oh well. And as I played the dj role from the comfort of jim's chair, I surfed the web and talked online to people I knew not of. Two of teren's friends they were. One was a cross country runner from moravian college. I recanted to her the entire story of events from last wednesday's practice. 'twas quite fun. :) what else, what else... oh yes, I do plan to get much more sleep this week too :) and i'm saving tons of money at the dining hall. they have peanut butter and jelly out for free, that you can put on bread, bagels, or whatever your joyful heart desires... The bad thing about the dining halls, in my opinion, is that they are a monopoly. Many major corporations are represented on college campuses throughout the country and all are monopolies in their respective campus. Sodexho is no stranger to this role, but they just happen to be the ones about to recieve a blunt blow from my commentary. Take my role as a freshman here, for example: I had no clue how much money I would be spending in the dining halls this semsester, so i got the plan. Funny thing is, they take of that to run the dining halls, pay for costs and whatever. You then recieve the leftover, in my case it was about , so you know my math is a little off the specifics, and this money goes on your account. on the 11th, the end of the week, I was at about 225 dollars. I've since decided to go about things differently and was only down to 213 at the end of last week, and so far today (two meals) have only spent 66 cents. The thing is, if you take into account the initial costs of running the dining halls, the 650 dollars, along with the prices of the food you're getting, THEY'RE RIPPING YOU OFF BIG TIME!!! One thing that's touted on college tours here, atleast i remember it being said, is that the prices at dining halls are much lower than any where else. And, guess what!!! They are if you're purposefully blind to that . if you take it into account, then that 42 cent doughnut i had this morning actually cost me a dollar. A WHOLE DOLLAR FOR A DOUGHNUT! and if you want a hamburger, that'll be a dollar fifty. I did the math while I was sitting there this morning eating my overly-expensive doughnut. I'm still mad and no, a more expensive doughnut doesn't taste better, or atleast that one.
a bit of the foo for your entertainment:
"Monkey Wrench"
what have we done with innocence
it disappeared with time
it never made much sense
adolescent resident
wasting another night on planning my revenge
one in ten
don't wanna be your monkey wrench
one more indecent accident
I'd rather leave than suffer this
I'll never be your monkey wrench
all this time to make amends
what do you do when all your enemies are friends
now and then I'll try to bend
under pressure
wind up snapping in the end
one in ten
one last thing before I quit
I never wanted any more than I could fit into my head
I still remember every single word you said
and all the shit that somehow came along with it
still there's one thing that comforts me
since I was always caged and now I'm free
don't wanna be your monkey wrench
I think that the foo rocks. no, this song isn't pertinent to me. I just like it. :) shouts out, y'all!
10,20,02: Hello all. :) I'm shouting out from the comfort of jimmo's chair. no, not the new one. ask him if you feel so inclined. :) I'm our dj for tonight. And now playing is "my name is jonas" by weezer. I'm tired but comfortable and there are many wierd things that happen as night sets in and one feels poetic yet slightly removed... as if they're never.. . i'm not sure.I can't think of the right words right now. and it's been this way for a while. not bad. but.... just there :) strangeness. continual dazed-ness. i think i should stop now :) aieeeeeeee!
10,19,02: today was the gary truce invitational. I didn't get to shake his hand beforehand, but oh well. I'll see him quite a few more times :) The race went well, but it was another example of my needing to redefine my psyche and my approach to running. I've thought at times about how the running isn't the most fun, but the competition is. That's not exactly it though. I do have a lot of fun running at times. Those are on the days where there is no pressure at all. Those are the days when we're just a bunch of guys running through the woods, on new trails, and doing unexpected things on campus. The runs where we tell stories back and forth, each one a classic in the storyteller's mind, are the days that become classics in my mind. Today was fun but it had the pressure of being a race. I went out in 6:05, then came back in 6:04. Yep, I was getting faster. Then I took the downhill mile faster anyways, running 5:28. I got 18:04 and 9th place total in the race, but I didn't really sprint at the end. I let someone, a community guy, a former runner for Binghamton University, go by me. And I really didn't care. Josh came and ran, and so did jimmyd (el running club presidente). I was glad that you could make it, jimo. I really enjoy every small bit of camraderie these days. My mother came and watched the race. It was cold, windy, and raining. I wore my normal uniform right down to the shorts. We were supposed to wear the singlet, but I didn't have any better shorts to wear then the matching team-issued ones. I did have some fun running that 5k :) and perhaps I will reach a point where I can relax, put things in perspective, run hard, and enjoy it. We shall see. :)
The afton cross country team today went to weedsport. That's a place very far away that I never went to a meet for. I applaud the coaches for getting them into that meet, and I hope they all did well.
10,18,02, fourth: I'm here in andy, adam, and jin's room. I was playing Civilization III on Andy's computer. He isn't back here yet although i thought he would be long ago. We both went to the magic club meeting, and then there were no magic preffering players there besides us. Actually, I'm not even sure that Andrew prefers magic over Star Wars (decipher). Anyways... I didn't stay nearly as long as he. I went to the running club meeting today. That was fun. They ran the course that will be run tomorrow for the Gary Truce Invitational, which, btw, has always peaked my interest. Why do they name the race after him if he's still alive? I don't mean to be callous, but, the truth is that most races (just like monuments and such) are named in reverance and in memory. We're not remembering Gary Truce. We've got him right here! And, you know what? I think i'll shake his hand before the race. It's not often you'd get that chance, at that person's own honorary 5k. It's gotta be good luck ;) hmmmmm.... what if he didn't even go tomorrow? :)) that'd be hilarious. but he'll be there. Gary Truce, btw, is a professor here at Binghamton University that has been very involved in the running program. He coached the team here for... twenty years? Something like that. Coincidentally, when I was in high school and a member of the ASR course (Authentic Science Research), I called Binghamton and frequently asked him questions on sports psychology and research methods, as that was my topic for the class. He was extremely helpful but was limited in his ability to help me because the research that he'd done was years and years ago. I did talk to many other faculty members at respectable colleges, Ivy league colleges, SUNYs, etc. etc. No one else was nearly as helpful. It was an honor to meet him face to face. (I seem to be long winded tonight ;) ) I had it on my mind, once I arrived here on the campus and classes began, to meet Gary. I finally did by coincidence... he was at an alumni social that the track and cross country programs were putting on. I introduced myself and we talked for the majority of the time that i was even there. This, however, was because of a mishap that resulted in no alumni coming to the social: the information about the social that was included with the papers the specific alumni recieved specified a day and time. A place? A place, you say? Nooooooo, we don't need to tell them where it is... :) but anyways, as we talked he mentioned that he would like it if I would be a TA for the spring semester in a running class he teaches. I simply replied that I'd be very interested, except for the effects it might have on my spring training. I've talked to two people about the difficulty of running in the class, and mulled it over, and I'm pretty sure that no decision will or needs to be made any time soon. But yes. :) Life is good. It's what you make of it, and mine's been particularly kick ass lately. :) am I allowed to say that here?
10,18,02,third: I'm here in James DeVona's and Dan's room. I thought I might study with the mind matters cdrom for my psyc111 class. I dunno. I must have thought it was more of a ... game... thing. I didn't get the greatest grade on the first test, and I thought it was because I was only reading. I need to find some better ways to study. So, we're here watching Charlie's Angels. It was what was on, I dunno. :) There was no practice today so I'm going to run with the running club and then do a sort of a workout on the track. That should be fun. Last night, I was talking with different people and everything, talking about different things such as parties, drinking, making new friends here, and everything else. And then I didn't want to go to sleep. I played around with my magic decks a little bit too. Then, after getting three hours of sleep that... uh... night.... I took a two hour nap after my only class and came here. Oh yea, this morning, before the class, I went to the dining hall to find Teran there. We talked about economics, music, etc. And that was fun. I really can't think of much else to say for now. I've kind of got the headache daze that comes along with sleep deprivation.
10,18,02, second: I decided to give the editorial section a slightly different look. Actually, this was the culmination of some previous doodling that never came to fruition. But if you missed it the first time, here is the editorial section.
10,18,02: hello! i'm here in the ciw library again, and it is only a few minutes past twelve, again. For the first time ever I got into the blackboard section of my intro to psych class. I didn't realize that you had to put hyphens inbetween each of the words. Someone on my floor told me that. Nice of the manufacturers to leave out that small detail. ANYWAYS... English was fun today. It's fun everyday. I dunnno.. there's something that always runs through my head when I'm in english, and that's because I often feel like I'm not learning anything. She's not very strict as far as grammer and everything else. In my two psych classes, intro to psych and the psyc112 "L" one credit class, the professors are often speaking of empirical evidence. And the scientific process... that's what psyc 112 is ALL about. Everything is based on facts and tested theories... you have to do the studies correctly, non-biased, with random assignment... god, the list goes on forever. And every single step is to bring the variance of error down to the absolute minimum we can get it at. This is the whirlwind of science. And then, there's my english class.... The post that I put the other day about it, where I mentioned that I've never had the freedom in a class to weave a common theme through all of my essays, was so true. I'm quite enjoying the freedom. Yet, at the same time, this notion of poetry seems so ethereal. Yet when I'm in the middle of it, examining the notions captured with a poet's words, I'm lost in a bliss that science doesn't concieve. Scientists achieve their own bliss, the bliss of discovery- if you could call it bliss. But poetry is so powerful. It's as if my mind cannot determine what it's stance is on either... I've been very analytical all my life and I know that I understand and live the scientific approach much more keenly, but I do feel so much more... free... when approaching life with a sense of poetry. A smile doesn't bubble to my face when I'm looking at the world "empirically." :)
10,17,02, third: for your reading pleasure: for bu running enthusiasts... and this one for Steve in particular...
10,17,02, second: well, here i am in the computer lab less than 7 and a half hours after they kicked all of us out at one in the 'morn. :) studying hard, right?
10,17,02: actually, it's only 7 minutes after the first post. Now it's 2 minutes past midnight ;) I think I will start to post "editorials" of sorts. Steve began this and I believe it is a quite noteworthy cause. What made me think of this, besides Steve having already done it, was the english papers that I've been pouring my heart and soul into as of late. Well, ok, I really haven't put tons of work into them, but they've come out nice. The class is so free of restrictions that I'm allowed the liberty as a writer to weave a common theme through every essay that I write. Having never had such a fundamental liberty before in my experience with English academia, I can sincerely say that I'm tickled blue about it. Tickled blue... what does that mean? I'm not quite sure, but as you can see, I'm enjoying my liberties...
10,16,02, fourth: I'm still here in the computer lab. It's five minutes to midnight now. I completed my economics work in about an hour to an hour and a half. It actually disappoints me, because i haven't worked very hard in that class at all, and I've waited till one of the preverbial last seconds to do the work, and it's still so easy. Ok ok ok i'm not complaining anymore. Anyways, I changed the bottom of the site a little bit. I wonder, shall anyone notice? :) I actually created that file quite a long time ago, when I recieved the newsletter in the mail from the school. That would mean that it was sometime in the summer of 2001, and I hadn't even entered into my senior year of high school yet. Still, the small bits of work i put into it had a purpose, even though it wasn't achieved till... now... a year and some months later... ok, so i procrastinate a little... haven't we already established that?
10,16,02, third: hmmm. a meaning for my name.
10,16,02, second: I'm still in the CIW library, doing work. Actually I was just typing up an english essay. I've decided to leave my computer off for a couple of days, since it doesn't seem to like me anyways... all it's really good for is aol instant messenger, but I'm not even into that right now... I need to develop more things to say to people before I go back on ;)
I must say, the way that the computer labs work and everything is real nice. Just this very moment I've begun entertaining the thought of not even getting a computer next year.
a list of forums:
Steve's forums
Vlad's forums
Jimmy D's forums
a useful list of sites:
Blackboard (for binghamton students)
Dictionary
Binghamton University Webmail
Hotmail
a cool list of sites:
tRUEvLAD eDITORIALS
BGA PHOTOS
AnoVedweb
Old School (literally) Section IV
StevieKweb
CustomAds
The Onion
MLB.COM
Google
Dilbert
the coolest online game I've ever been shown
10,16,02: hmm. today's run was a fun one. We were supposed to run our practice to the tune of 1500m for the women and 3000m for the guys. Yet, with all the raining it has been doing, we figured we'd take advantage of it. Coach changed the workout that'd been planned to tomorrow, so that works out good. And today? Well, we decided to go on a "mud run." And If you're having trouble figuring out the deep meaning of that one then I'm quite afraid that I'll have more trouble explaining. :) Suffice it to say that there was mud under our feet, mud flying through the air, and many attempts to kick up water onto other parties. Then, as we came back towards the middle of campus and headed back towards the gym, we decided that it was our civil duty, our community service requirement, to make history and run through the fountains to the enjoyment of all passersby. Well, there weren't too many people out and about, with the rain and all, but there were a few witnesses. And I'm sure they'd testify that... well, that... uhm... we're atleast half crazed. It was mad freezing today.
10,15,02: again, it has been quite a while. I'm sorry but it seems that things will be this way for quite some time. I will not buy a new computer untill the next school year and some harcore work-age this summer, so it seems that manipulation of the site from my room will not be happening very often. Ok. Now that we're done with the obvious.
I think that some sites deserve more attention on the web, particularly because way to many people around here are uptight. And when i say around here, i mean the whole darn planet. :) hence, The Onion is one place I'll add a link to. I know that many people know of the site but perhaps it will simply remind them that the site exists. It is rather funny, when you have the time. Their parodies actually do bring up some what if questions sometimes that are interesting to ponder on your own.... In other news, I broke out the civilization game, Civ III, and played it a bit the other night. I was Greece. I've built the Pyramids and the Great Library of Alexander. Oh yea, and I discovered the wheel about 350 b.c. Niiiice... anyways. I simply realized that I hadn't sat down and wasted any time with video games as of late, and decided to do so right away. And yes, it was fruitful because it is a rest from studying.
10,7,02, third: tennis. how can i forget that i played some old skool tennis with corey, rob, and dan? and that i won against dan 1-0. ;) down 30-love, came back to win it. :) that's skill, folks. or should we say luck/chance? :))
10,7,02, second: well well well. today was fun. mr. luttinger wasn't at school, so i couldn't say hello to him and when it came to be band time and i was in the middle of getting something done i felt bad but, oh well, i didn't make it there. I did have fun though. I ran with josh winans at practice. I got to see the new library, the new entrance, and the new hallways. I got to look down into the gym from the suspended hallway. all in all, it was a fun experience for me because i lived all the time of seeing steel beams amongst dirt and various other things... oh wait, that was my whole senior year... and i'm going to see the finished product on down the line. it was fun to see it at another one of the middle stages. anyways, enough rambling. They took out a stairwell to the second floor... added some more doors so that they can lock more doors on their way out everyday. I met the new principal and the new teacher who's replace mr. walls. *sigh. Mr. walls was the greatest teacher that I ever had and that i believe any afton student during his reign ever had. The folks of Vestal have done well to bring him there. Anyways...
I had lunch today at the old school, and actually went through one of the TWO lines they now have. Geez, where were the two lines during all those long waits of my senior year? and all the people having fun trying to skip? anyways, yes, rambling again i know. I saw Mr. G. I saw Sarah and Becky, big S...errr, little s, errrr, Kristina too. and a great many others. :) sigh... i is tired..
oh yes, before i forget. I really hope that josh makes it into binghamton university. that would be so hot. We'd room together, we'd kick ass running together, and by god, we won't be representing afton at all if we don't have the coolest room setup there is. Seriously, mine is cool now, but i think josh and I can rock it if we plan it right. All I have to say is, Binghamton University and everybody there, you ain't seen nothing yet.
10,7,02: i'm here in the afton elementary computer lab, burning cds of my past work here and some other stuff. high class livin. :) mr. luttinger isn't here today. darn.
10,6,02: well well well. i'm home for the time being, on a sunday-monday, to visit. things are going well. :) i can't think of a lot now, my brains hurt.
9,30,02, second: i was just informed by my roommate that i was having a dream last night. when i asked him why he said that, he told me that i was running in my sleep. or, atleast, moving my arms like i was running. that scares me. the list is getting bigger and bigger... i talk in my sleep, have conversations in my sleep (with dillon, atleast), walk (one occasion), and run. anything else? (i hope not.)
9,30,02: ok. so, the result of my sickness is that i cannot train for today or tomorrow. I cannot run for fear of elongating the sickness. This is good in the sense that this is an easy week of practice anyways. There is a 3200m time trial scheduled for wednesday which i will simply run without having run for three days. oh well. And as bobby nicely put it: it's like tapering anyways. i'll be ready for the 3200m run, and ready to set a new personal record, just like that. easy as pie. mmmmm.... pie......
9,29,02, fourth: here are the results of the race yesterday in pdf format.
9,29,02, third: i don't think i've slept more in one day, ever... :( and ... sigh. i really wanted to go today.
9,29,02, second post (but in the daytime): well that wasn't very smart. I said it to keegan myself that i would have gone to bed if they weren't coming. Yet I watched a movie, stayed up, did stuff with the site... that was retarded. Because i woke up today and felt like a ton of bricks had hit me. And i dind't get to go with mike and angelina and caleb and alexis to east syracuse becuase i called them and told them i was sick. :( which is true. but i wish i could have gone without subjecting anyone else to myself, which is impossible. oh well. i miss everybody.
9,29,02, late night: i went to watch a movie. it was "stealing harvard." it wasn't a really bad movie. i would have much rather watched "one hour photo." but oh well. Anyways... i was asked if any other people from my school came here to binghamton, so i told them of james and danno, and then ashley... but that ashley doesn't live on campus. and i told them about how she was offered a full ride scholarship, but that she declined it. i was then asked, if you'd been given a full ride, what would you do with the money that you now didn't have to spend? I realize the incorrect english but it's late and i'm tired. So we talked of all the awesome computers we could make with the money. Then the conversation turned to doughnuts (i'd brought back doughnuts from wegmans when i came back after the movies). So, I figured out that i could spend two thousand dollars on a computer and then three thousand on doughnuts. And at that rate, I could buy about 18,000 doughnuts, and still have 18,000 cents left over (at the price of 1.99 a dozen).
So that'd be another to spend on orange juice to have with the doughnuts. anyways. how was your day? :)
9,28,02:ok. i've literally tried every day for the past five to get into the 20fr site and have not been able to with my computer. aiee! so for now, i'm relegated to using other people's computers, or the school's computers.
today was the paul short invitational in lehigh pennsylvania. The team spent the night there yesterday then ran today and came back. It was the equivalent of a McQuaid sized race. I did see amanda laytham and chris cowan, two old section iv faces from unatego and thomas edison. So that was fun and all. I was dissapointed with my time and race performance. It's the kind of thing when you're running that you say, why aren't you going faster? but it's like there's a button you have to push and it's out of reach. i have been kind of holding back in training as well. I think that is going to change now though. i can't afford to hold back. I've got to go for the gold. I put on my aol instant messanger away message while i was at the meet that, "you have to bet big if you want to win big." that's the ironic part though. I can't say i'm use to the longer distances yet, but i haven't exactly RACED the distances well yet to get use to them. Ok, i'll stop whining now. I'm usually good about not whining.
I'm tired. Darn it, stop whining! :)
I'd like to make it back to afton sometime soon. I would on this monday, except i have to recieve the dreaded results of the first test in psychology class. I'm not sure that i did study enough, but i will be much more... ah.. studious... in the future.
well, keegs is home for the weekend and is coming up tonight. even though this has been a long winded post, it had the makings of a historic length, yet i have to go and meet him. shouts out to my friends... miss y'all... and shouts out to my pillow.. i'll be back soon. peace.
9,23,02: well what a pleasant surprise this is. I've tried many times, daily, to get into the site but practically every time i'm told that the computer is running out of memory. oh well, here i am!!!
One thing that i've wanted to say is that i've now legitimately competed against a kenyan. This past weekend in Syracuse, at the Orange invitational, I endured 8000m to the tune of 27:44.22. Mr. Sitok, however, ran a 24:50something. After the race I talked with him and former beaver river harrier, now running for syracuse, (which now i can't remember his name) when he said that he'd planned to run the first mile in 5:13, but then he realized that would be too slow. my my my. :) i just shok my head and laughed. I was 16th in that race, 4th for binghamton. i am definitely enjoying the ice cream here at binghamton, seeing as every dining hall has an area where you can get ice cream. the only thing i don't like is when there are no strawberries. i'm cleaning my room right now. as far as grades, I'm doing well. I've turned in two homeworks and taken two quizzes. the two quizzes were for psyc 112 (you take an individaul quiz and then take the same quiz as a group) and both were a one hundred. as far as my only homework assignment turned in for psyc 112, i don't know what the grade is because i haven't gotten it back. in economics today i recieved back a homework: it was 24 and one half out of 25, but after talking with the teaching assistant he changed it to a 25. He's a diligent teacher, but it's pretty funny, actually, because i can tell that he equates a teacher with someone boring who writes stuff on the board. There were a few moments where he let his thoughts on this be known, and almost inadvertantly let his personality show. i found it funny becuase he was doing quite a good job at being boring, then he had to go and ruin it. :) cross country is loads of fun as well. i know that it is almost like a job, with the time it takes and everything. I am very glad i am involved, however. The team competes this saturday at the paul short invite in lehigh, the equivalent to a college mcquaid race. ok, now take your imagination of that and make it even harder. you're almost there :) the thing that keeps running through my mind is a quote that's actually on the site about taking risks... about how you have to be willing to take risks at times... it kind of goes along with card game philosophies, that you've got to bet big to win big. i'm kinda feelign like this weekend would be a good time to take a risk. One second in this race will probably mean 4-5 places, considering the times that i've been running lately. sleep has become a personal mission as of late... :) and in the past two nights i've gotten quite a lot, actually. :) 'tis a good thing, and hopefully will only get better. i miss all my friends, and shouts out to you all. i hope to make it back to afton next monday, september 30th. we shall see how it goes. to all a good day, and to the day, good night!
9,19,02: peanut butter and jelly on crackers... oh, how I have missed thee.... :)
today it was only chambers and I at practice. Bobby had the day off because of his knee and other crit, while cullen, sergi, and reese did as well. Kellen had already run earlier in the day. I'm not sure what jordy was doing. but yea, a two person practice. how interesting is that? anyways... bobier didn't wait for pete and i to finish our warmup track stuff, so we ran with ron and Asad. We did the t-spoon loop, 6 miles, in 36:07. That's a 6:01 mile pace... we were simply cruising ;)
9,18,02: today was fun. For track practice, we ran a thirty minute tempo run. That was followed by 4 200m sprints, done at about 4 minute mile pace (30secs). Later on in the day, I went to the peer pride meeting, a student-athlete organization. I had to miss choir practice to do so :( But ah well. I'll make it up. Also, I played some more magic... ;) I recieved packages in the mail today... yes plural. Magic cards again. Where is micah's present?
9,16,02, second: happy birthday micah!!! I called home today. :>) said hi, and everything, talked to micah and dillon. Micah got her permit, getting the same number wrong as I recieved oh so many years ago. One small differece. She already has a car. I don't even yet. Wowsers. I'm happy for her... really, I am.... while as yet jealous... :) s'all good. I wish the best to ya.
In other news... I played my first game of magic in a very long time. It wasn't even with my cards, but with one of the two decks that a person on my floor has- Andrew. I'm going to make a magical resurgence... many people on this floor are former players of magic, and I have a feeling that we're going to start up the fever again. Anyways... I was on my way to womping him during the first game. I played with his white deck and he played with his red and black deck. The main reason that I was going to destroy him was that he was getting mana-hosed. Wasn't drawing any land. So we didn't even finish the game... we picked up the cards and traded decks. We both had land this time, but becuase of one creature he had out I couldn't play many of my cards. He ended up destroying me that game 20-0 because of my ineptitude ... s'all good... :) ... I was waiting until i had the capability to play a card that required three black mana, but one turn from the end of the game I realized that I did have the resources for three black, but by then it was too late. oh well! ;oP see you all later. Oh, btw, I'm going to be in syracuse this weekend at the Orange Invitational. Saweeet... the top seven at this meet will go to the Paul Short Invite at Lehigh... consider it a race with talent akin to a seeded McQuaid race... then consider that it's at the college level. Should we say footlocker regional race? ok ok. don't psych yourself out before you get there. :)
9,16,02: after the wedding on saturday i took some time to rearrange my room, and it is now the sweetest it's ever been. I like the setup a lot. When I'd planned it out, I had no idea where to put the chair that goes along with the desk, but in some of the free space that was created ‰Û÷ set it up. Now, you can walk right in the door, let your bookbag slid down your arm, sit down, and put your feet up. :) Becuase I stayed up very late doing that, I was not very active on sunday. In fact i was heavily sleep deprived already so that probably wasn't very smart. Anyways... I was dropping dead almost at 6 o'clock today, so I layed down on my bed. I figured, sure, i'll try for fifteen hours of sleep. But it actually turned out that I slept six and a half hours to one in the morning, when the antics of people watching a movie in a suite diagonal from me on the floor woke me up. If you can't beat'm, join'm, so I went and watched the rest of the movie with them. I actually feel more awake than I did all of sunday. And everybody else is playing a doom-esque shoot'm up game over the school network :) surround sound video games on my floor, i'm telling ya. i'm just mad i can't get in on that crit. for now though, adios....
oh, and, as far as talking about crit... this is a funny analyzation of a south park movie, with the webpage appropriately named.. "crit"...
9,14,02: Contratulations, steffen and leia... :) you have the rest of your life together to look foward to. :)
9,13,02: tomorrow is steffen and leia's wedding. :) i bought a monopoly board today, so that the big family that is my floor can play it together sometime. i think i might invite other people as well. today in psyc 112, i was very appreciative to be in it. I'm pretty sure it is going to be the easiest class of my tenure here at binghamton. and what's more, it's not just easy, but entertaining! :) Do YOU believe in esp??? I'm going to play some basketball today, i think, for the first time in a while. i'm babying my ankle, and i will today as well when i play. I'll be with another runner, so they'll understand and want as well as I not to go all out. Well, for now... adios...
9,11,02, second: today we did 6 one mile repeats with a minute inbetween each. With the hardness of the workout we did yesterday, and the wind as crazy as it was today, I only did the miles at 6:10 pace or so. It wasn't too hard... actually, it was quite nice. I am feeling my ankle a little more as of late. I hate having to baby it but 'tis necessary. Well i've got laundry to do. :) oh yea, josh winans won his first meet yesterday, and was the first afton cross country runner other than I to win a meet in ... 3 or four years? just had to throw that in there ;) good luck josh, keep up the good work.
9,11,02:well. i've been lazy today. I only had one discussion, for psyc 112, a one credit lab class. The very coolest class i have right now is psyc 111, but that's just me. oh, well, eng 114d is pretty good... a poetry class... as the teacher was taking attendance yesterday, she stopped at my name, and said that my essay was the last that she'd read, and that the last line made her cry. I think that means i'll get a good grade ;) today is much cooler than the last few days. Today for practice we run in the nature preserve, mile repeats, six of them. *sigh. I miss afton, just a 'lil bit. oh well. i'm out.
9,9,02: hello everyone. I'm here in the pods on the ground level of the engineering building. what fun! practice is in about 30 minutes. I'm going to apply for a job with the Sodexho-Marriot, the company that services the dining halls here in binghamton university. Fun fun. It is very hot today.
9,7,02: well, the race went well today. it was at colgate university. It was a 7800m race, so slightly short of 8km, but that's ok. the hills made up for it. At a certain point halfway through, I kept flipflopping back and forth with bobby heytota, passing him on the downhills, and then he would catch back up and pass me on the uphills. eventually i pulled ahead and came in 9th overall, and 3rd on the team, in 28:14. I saw shaun, who runs for leymoyne, and I saw Mrs. Pfohl and sarah's younger sister as well. 'twas lots of fun. now, tonight, is initiation... wahoooo. i'm not so sure about it yet :) i hope it's fun. 117 and 156 murry, 17 florence, and 56 front street... i had to remember them for some reason....
9,2,02: Home sweet home...
I'm going to get a weezer cd soon ;)
9,6,02: wow. you have no clue how many times i've tried to get into the site but not been able to. the running is going well! I've been quite tired but it is worth it. I am the strongest i've ever been in my life. this week i'll end up running about 70 miles. I bought some ice cream from the night owl cafe today. saweet :)
9,1,02: well, i broke by goal for the whole season already. my goal was to run under a 29 minute 8k. :) and i did. yesterday i ran a 27:31.76. That's sweet. it's almost exactly, though the tinniest bit over 5:30 pace. The leaders, Sergi and Kellen, ran a 5:18 pace. That's even sweeter. I went with those two for the first nine laps then started to fall back. They ended up finishing 58 and 47 seconds ahead of me... 26:33 and 26:44. Sergi then kellen.MY family, on they're way home from a trip, are going to pick me up so that's where i'll be tomorrow, labor day. Then, it's off to classes on tuesday... :) saweeet. ok. well. i'm happy to be on the site. the computer has not let me on it in the past 35-38 hours (to edit this webpage). Crazy things are happening.
8,30,02, third: well well well. i've got butterflies. tomorrow morning, at the stroke of nine o'clock, begins a journey through time to the tune of 20 laps... thats 8000 completely wonderful meters. yessssiree folks, my specialty in high school was the 3000m steeple chase, and 3200m run. just think of it as a 3200m race, then another one, and then a 1600 for good measure. :) then it doesn't seem so bad, right?! :) i think i'm going insane.
8,30,02, second, although the one last night shouldn't really count: I went on a campus tour, and while i did witnessed jimo and his father moving in. because the room is kind of dark khyungjun and I bought a lamp. uhm what else. I've got a new school year's resolution: i will keep my room clean, starting with as soon as I get it clean.
8,30,02: I've a couple of things to spout about. one is baseball! why stop the season? why? baseball is such an excellent game. i'm mad it's being disgraced by all these fat men with big wallets and strong men with big egos. am i coming off too hard? i'm here in my room on the internet. yes, my room. i've found that the internet here is quite nice. my only prob is memory. i'm having problems with the random access memory.campus is sweet. i'm learning my way around. i've met some new people! anna and josh and anna's roommate, who's name escapes me.i've met my roommate, and his parents. I've gotten things from the bookstore to aid me in setting up the room. and i've messed with the computer to no end although, with a bit more tinkering, i could be done for a long time. i just need to get my hands on old ram. I think that the classes are going to be very cool. I can't wait. getting mac os 8.6 was an interesting and fun journey, never to be traversed again. I didn't get to play tennis with keegan before he went to albany. i had to sign a check today and waited in line 45 minutes to do so. i wasn't about to wait in many more lines.today the team ran with james oigra. we ran the winding hill road run. it was about ten miles and change, and we ran it in 73.15 (the winding hill run then two laps on the track). Sergi ran a team record for it, 59 and change. kellen was feeling good and ran a 5:48 mile to close it out, on the track. matt and i stopped after running a half-mile.i wonder how the afton xc team is doing. maybe i should check up on that.
8,27,02: I played my first game of midnight basketball here on campus. now i just need to find a tennis partner. keegs, where are you...
8,26,02, second: OH YEA! I BOUGHT A WIFFLE BALL BAT!!!! : ) i'm here at the track house in binghamton. the binghamton xc team really is a frat. A lot of people are here right now. Well, about the bear...
last night everyone was getting ready for bed. we'd made a campfire, and then the girls all left to go to the bathroom. The guys soon followed. there were food lockers (kind of like metal garbage cans turned sideways) attached to the tables. I was sitting by the fire with pete chambers, and matt cohen (cap'n). We heard the food locker being banged around all of a sudden. Matt and pete looked at each other and got up, walking by me, and I glimpsed the bear. the table jerked half a foot. The bear was about four feet away from matt, the closest one. Then as people piled into the van and we turned the lights on, we watched as the bear put it's front paws on the table, and sniffed some of the cups and various items upon it. It turns out that bears like power bars. It ate three of them, and bite into some winterfresh gum, although it left that behind.
I'm learning the true bingo-lingo... crit, muling, busting, etc. etc.
8,26,02: well we're on our way home now. mad stories to tell :) i'll get to this later. :)
8,24,02: I'm here in the Wildwood cafe in old forge, new york. The running goes quite well. Today it has been raining so .. we decided, after the trail running, to go into the town of old forge and hang out. It's been raining, as I said. We decided not to stay at the camp and be bored out of our minds. The funny thing is, i got on the computer here in the coffee shop/internet cafe, and signed on aol instant messenger, and keegan was on. keegan spent his whole summer here working as a life guard. here's some of the great keeg's wisedom: don't go to a tourist town if you don't want to spend lots of money. :)
8,23,02: hey hey hey. it's the wee hours of the 23rd, as I haven't gone to bed yet. The first day, wow. I went to see the "track house" where many tracksters and exc'ers live (upperclassmen). Interesting.
We will be running trails and everything in the adirondacks. the 31st is a time trial in which many people are trying out for the team. Ms. acuff, the coach, said a couple of things about it. It was kind of hard to understand it all, but time is not the only determination of who will be on the team and everything. Bobby heytota, an upperclassman xc'er and trackster, commented that i was the strongest freshman he'd ever seen. And he reaffirmed the thought i've had before... not thinking is the 'just right' amount of thinking for races. i often overthink. you know what? it's late and i'm rambling. leaving my family for the first time.. k i'm being shooed out of the room. i need help connecting the internet in my room!!! aoeuiwweeeeeee!?!?!?!?!??!!!!!aiee!!! yes i'm tired. bye%
8,22,02: Wow. I'm here on campus. Allison Furey, from sherburne-earlville, is as well. After we were all done with practice and walking back to our dorms I turned and said, "well, I know I'm at college now." Practice was 8 miles, then 8 hill sprints afterwards. We go to the adirondacks tomorrow at * in the morn.
My parents have been incredibly helpful and everything. They've often known what I would need, although I've had no clue. We arrived today with all my stuff, then went shopping for more. Oh... we did the 8 miles in 51.07 ... pretty good eh? wowsers. This is the hardcoreness right here.
8,20,02: well, I'm preparing in the ultimate sense... getting all the important things done that haven't been done yet. I found my old baseball gloves (two of them) and two baseballs, so that will make life on campus even more fun. :) up for a game of catch, jimmo or danno?
oh, and, here's a small part of the road map of life... :)
i realize the map is hard to read. it will get better soon.
IÌ»å¢SS‰Û÷SÌSå¢*Ì»***Ì»SÌÓå¢??m going to go to the afton xc practice tomorrow. I couldnÌ»å¢SS‰Û÷SÌSå¢*Ì»***Ì»SÌÓå¢??t drag myself out of bed. IÌ»å¢SS‰Û÷SÌSå¢*Ì»***Ì»SÌÓå¢??d stayed up very late cleaning my room and throwing various things out.
I played more tennis with keegan yesterday and lost 6-3, 6-2, 6-1. I was experimenting and trying out different things, different stances on the court, places to stand, etc. I was practicing the overhand serve, which can be quite challenging, and the score was halfly a result of that. I didnÌ»å¢SS‰Û÷SÌSå¢*Ì»***Ì»SÌÓå¢??t win one of my serving rounds, although I came close many timesÌ»å¢SS‰Û÷SÌSå¢*Ì»***Ì»SÌÓå¢?Ì»å¢SS‰Û÷SÌSå¢Ì»*ÌÓ?Ì»***| I think there was two times that I was already at forty when the score became deuce, and he won, and once or twice I caught up to make it deuce. So on my serves, the collective score was 12-0. ON keeganÌ»å¢SS‰Û÷SÌSå¢*Ì»***Ì»SÌÓå¢??s? 6-6. uh huh. Gotcha. I knew IÌ»å¢SS‰Û÷SÌSå¢*Ì»***Ì»SÌÓå¢??d figure out a way that makes the game seem more even than it was :) you can do amazing things with stats: :)
8.19.02: Yesterday, keegan, corey, tim and I played tennis. Keegan and I were behind in doubles when we switched to singles. Then I lost to corey, 6-4. It was fun anyways! :)
I'm still waiting on the xc coach to contact me with bu's complete schedule, because I want to go to steffen and leia's wedding. I hope Saturday the 14th is clear.
People continue to debate whether afton school will start on time. Alice told me that they are building doorways in the hallways with the french room and computer rooms and the floor above it. That will bottle neck traffic to a standstill! Also, They've taken out the stairway by Mr. Walls' room. Those stairs were already bad enough, too. I'm just kinda happy that I don't have to experience that now...
Some new topics for student government: Maybe that shortening of the lunch thing and adding of time to inbetween classes ? we'd thought of that a long time ago and never acted upon it. Also, every single year the teachers sit in front at graduation. Every single year without fail. They also walk in to pomp and circumstance, before the graduates do. They sit there in their chairs with the best view in the house and watch the same graduation ceremony, with different names and faces, every year, while the PARENTS sit behind them and fight for room to take pictures. Why is it this way. I understand reserved seating for teachers. But should they automatically get the best seats in the house? And in retrospect, should the parents automatically be denied these seats?
8.17.02: I'm here in hornell. I bowled the best and worst that I ever have in my life. first game: 70, wow I was scared to be out there much longer... second: 89, and I was glad I was getting better but still scared. Then I started the third game with marks in the first five frames, 3 strikes and two spares, and ended up with a 156, 3 away from reaching the total of my first two games. I don't know whether that's good or bad :) then, to top it off, I rolled a 68 fourth game. :) we played basketball later at the park. Fun Fun! Oh, and, I got to meet Ginger, and I thought I'd tell you that ange.
8,16,02, third: shall we write a story? Do your best to write a bestseller, to top the NYTimes bestseller list.
8,16,02. second post: I bought a calendar from farmhouse greetings, signed by the artist! Plus, I'm going away for the weekend.
8,16,02: wednesday evening I went to Camp Tuscarora and played two really competitive basketball games. Then I spent the night at April's, and the group slept on her porch in sleeping bags. I got to meet April's cousin Miranda, someone I've heard of before. I got shots in my arm (this was earlier).
The wiffleball game was really fun on wednesday. James D and I ate at henrey's beforehand, did I put that...
I'm noticing that eats seem to be an important topic to me. :)
8,14,02, second: I'm here at april's eating ice cream. I couldn't be happier. Well, yea, y'know. :) I can't wait till next thursday, when I go to binghamton. I am really going to miss my family, and even this crazy place that I call afton. I'm gonna miss everybody going off to college. *sigh
I sound wistful. hmm, wistful, that's a new one. And I have a new goal I proclaimed to Jimmo: I want to go a day without saying the word nostalgic! I've been using a lot lately, I wonder why. :)
8,14,02: psychology is really, in my humble opinion, a cornerstone of the sciences.
I think anyone that gets an english degree should get a psych degree as well: they complement each other heavily. I have some psychology books from when my mother and an older relative on my mother's side of my family were in college. I know that they're not exactly up to date, but they're not necessarily wrong. It still gets the old 'noggin churning. :)
And steve... the comment you made on the chat room yesterday... am I to take it that you parents were successful in finding a bat and ball??
Today I'm getting a PPD test for tuberculosis. 'tis necessary for college, or atleast Binghamton University.
Then I'm going to a going-away party of sorts, for many of my friends who are going off to college.
8,13,02: ok, yesterday was grand fun. We played three-way innings, one out per person. There was a four run limit per inning. Beforehand, I ran to Jame's house while he and steve drove. Then we were playing wiffleball with little joey. :)
8,12,02, second post: steve, james and I were just playing wiffle ball at davie's field. James and i went to sidney to get a wiffle ball bat and then his truck wouldn't start. so we played frisbee with a box of tissues. :)
8,12,02: Keegan and I got to play some tennis before he goes back up to Old Forge. I didn't realize it, but that's one of the places that the BU xc team will be going during their retreat... the exact place that keegan works, the beach. Except Keegan stops working there the 22nd, and I'll be there the 24th. :) oh well.
I got to talk to dani on the phone earlier this week. I'm not sure if I added that... ?
8,9,02, fourth: i didn't realize that binghamton was doing this, but here....
8,9,02, third post: Guess what! Soon to come to this site, Forums! wahooo. Well, everybody has them, so I thought I'd try it too.
8,9,02, second post: HAHA! it works! now there are images for a counter. I was toying with it so i'll probably change them again anyways, I just wanted to make sure I could do it without asking one of my more technologically inclined friends for help.
8,9,02: I've been fighting the demons in my computer, and temporarily I have won. So, HELLO!
WEll. I ran the 7.7mile loop by my house yesterday, bereft of Aaron. I started out slower than when we ran it last week. When we ran it last week, it was in the sweltering heat, and I went out too quick. We were to the top of the killer hill at the end of chase road in 17 minutes, and I was a good full minute, minute and a half by the time I reached that point. I felt incredibly strong and instead of going out to strong was smart... that slower start enable me to get quicker throughout the run, and I ended up running the whole thing 1:46 quicker than before, in 52:48. That works out to a 6:52 average mile pace. Saweeet! I've never worked at this level before. And now that I am, I can feel myself getting stronger daily. College is going to rock this year. :)
I should do something nostalgic with my fellow aftonians before i leave for binghamton. Who knows? Eat @ henrey's maybe?
In an interesting segway, I'm going to have a 'desktops' part of the site where I can make myself feel as if my doodling is accomplishing something. I like to create simple designs that can be used for desktops on pcs, so you (if you like) could use any of them. I think there's only two right now... but that's because I have to upload them and everything... *sigh... i'm lazy.
8,08,02: yesterday when I put the quote on the site about a hill having its own name, my first thought was... maybe it should be a goal of mine to become a really good runner, i mean beyond college and everything, so that some day i can come back to Afton and they'd listen to my request to give the hill at the end of chase road it's own name. anyhoo.
i was looking at the fuelbelt.com website and ... i'm going to purchase one of their belts. They are very useful. In other news... Aaron is taking a trip to plattsburg, so he won't be here untill next wednesday but we probably won't be able to run till thursday. I'm still training on my own, of course!
"I haven't seen too many American distance men on the international scene willing to take risks. I saw some U.S. women in Barcelona willing to risk, more than men. The Kenyans risk. Steve Prefontaine risked. I risked--I went through the first half of the Tokyo race just a second off my best 5000 time."
Billy Mills, gold medal winner of the 10,000 at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics with a 46-second PR
8,7,02, second post: because of a link i was given, i went crazy and added many quotes to the "quotes" part of the site.
the best quote ever (in my humble opinion)? From a Kenyan. I know, how appropriate. :)
maybe i'll start add some here.
thought of the day:
"If the hill has its own name, then it's probably a pretty tough hill." -Marty Stern
8,7,02: Hello. Today is Wednesday, August 7th. And if someone recognizes this as part of a letter that they've recieved that is because.... it is part of a letter they've recieved. :)
I read a book this weekend, "the perks of being a wallflower." I loved every minute. Well, that sentance seems too cliche. I felt every minute.
I sat there, the soft yellow-green colored cover by my hip against the gray of the couch. I saw our relatively new kitten stretching out her paws as she rolled on her back a few feet away, our 16 year old black-lab (she's the elder) watching her as she rested two feet to the right. My father sat in the far corner of the room in his recliner, reading the paper. And I knew what it was to feel infinite. (this is only part of what was written...)
On Monday, August 5th, I ran a race in Oneonta, the tiger 5k. Aaron and I went together. It was the flattest course I think I'll ever see. It's largest "hill" is something you'd never eer even consider an incline. It's an afterthought. "Wow, that was it?" It's a span of about three or four steps. :)
I ran with Mike Rutledge, Shaun Odonnell, Brian Suozzo, and Aaron for the first half to three fourths of a mile. It was only mik rutledge and I together at the mile (5:20) with Aaron third at 5:28 and the other two behind him. I started to fall off Mike's pace, and Aaron caught me later. (He ended up running a 5:03 second mile) HE told me later, after the race, that when he passed me and told me to go with him he'd speeded up so that the chances would be lower that I would do what he said. We're training partners and that intensity between two highly competitive people-whether you're friends or not- is always present. He did leave me and Brian Suozzo caught me as we entered the oneonta tiger stadium. 'twas a very nice finish, really. You enter the stadium and run the whole length of the warning track, from left field to right field, and then run down the first base line, with the finish being right behind home plate. I was timed at 16:59.67 (my watch). The two extra numbers, the tenths of a second, make it more personal. Just like Robb munroe teases me (what were the hundreds of seconds on that mile, prahlad?)
There's always the goodies that come along with a race. :) of course, a t-shirt. THere was also two tickets to the baseball game that night which Aaron and I decided to watch. There was a small towel which was useful to wipe off sweat after the race.
Aaron gave me a watch that he'd won at a triathalon a while ago. He already had one like it so he never used this one. It's very helpful in training because it has the splits and everything.
Yesterday, August 6th, Aaron and I started running from the gas station right in town. We ran out towards and over the bridge towards the highway, taking the right onto back river road instead of getting on the high way, and just kept running. Our plan was to go 45 minutes and then turn back. We did that, running the same distance we'd just traversed in 43:10. That's a 7:10 pace for 6 miles on the way back. After we streched some we got in the car and measured the distance of it. It was exactly six miles to the point that we turned around. That's 441 seconds per mile, or ... a 7:21 pace for the whole run. If we'd run two minutes more we would have been right by the ice cream place there in bainbridge, and then the intersection there right at the bridge. We were that close.
College is in two weeks and a day. 15 days. wowsers.
8,3,03: Wahoo!! I'm going to play some tennis, break in the new racket. I can't wait to get to BU and use their courts.
8,2,02, fourth: Binghamton university has released athletic schedules. Here's the Cross Country one. I'm hoping that there will be more meets than that! It only lists invites. There are duals at the college level, right?!
8,2,02, third post: ok, here's the scoop: dillon and i played a game of monopoly. we started it wednesday night and finished it today, friday. We started the game with three players... dillon, myself, and a stuffed bear with a mean poker face. The bear ended up going bankrupt first. It probably is a better poker player than monopoly player. Anyways... I owned the red, yellow, and green monopolies (All with hotels) and dillon managed to land on one property from each all in a row. His roll to get him out of the greens landed him on short line, and I promptly responded, "that'll be ." He then laughed because I only had 3 railroads, which would make the cost . He told me I was trying to jip him. Then he gave me the . The funny thing is that, and I realized it a few turns later, I didn't even own shortline. Shortline was the only railroad dillon DID own. And he payed me for landing on his own property. In those 15 spaces, from the first red to shortline, he payed me . Sawweeet. I wish I had that much in real life. Cha-ching......
oh, and, might i add, it is thundering like crazy here, although the weather outside is bright and sunny. that confused me for a while. I went up to get the mail and i was squinting because it was so bright out, yet i was hearing thunder. At that point you couldn't see the dark clouds! Far off in the direction of greene/oxford is the dark clouds and the thunder... can see them now...
8,2,02, second post: wahoo! I got an email from my roommate, and i'll be working on a response to that. An item that might be of interest to some is that there is a new Section IV website up and running.
8,2,02: twenty days till I go to Binghamton... I WANT TO GET IN TOUCH WITH SOME OF THE PEOPLE THAT WERE ON MY FLOOR DURING ORIENTATION @BINGHAMTON, EXCEPT I HAVEN'T HEARD FROM ANY OF THEM YET...
EMAIL ME PLEASE!
I am the proud owner of a tennis racket. The running continues. Aaron and I are going to do a relatively flat 5k race in Oneonta on Monday. The course record is 16:11. I don't think either of us are in shape to break that, but, we should be able to run a really good race together.
7,31,02: ok. When I get on campus at Binghamton university, I will be able to update the site all the time. These last couple of weeks beforehand might prove a bit harder though. Yesterday I went running with Aaron at three thirty. It was about 90 degrees out, or darn close to it. Plus we went quicker than before, running the course we'd done in 55:58 in 54:40. Aaron was wearing a heart monitor and it said by the end of the run that his heart rate average was 167 beats per minute, and that his highest was 184. That's crazy. He and I are going to do a run in Oneonta on monday that starts and ends at the minor league baseball field home plate. The race is right before a game, so the crowd is in the stands and everything. Aaron won it last year. The person who wins it gets to throw out the first pitch!!! :) Now that'd be cool. It's a very flat 5k, so we'll see what kind of time I can churn out. I'd planned an 8000m time trial today, but decided against it after the run yesterday... Maybe a week from now.
I miss dani!
I can't wait to move in to binghamton university. not much longer now.
7,29,02:wow. ok, that was the longest hiatus yet from the site. True to my words, this past week was very busy. Orientation was a good taste of campus life (an introductory taste). I ran 7.7m with Aaron on thursday, and played wiffle ball with DeVo. Then I went to camp, for the new york state kids campout (for kids in class). I was a shadow for group number five. I was also a fill in drill instructor. We won 2on2 basketball (how come I'm never on rach's team?). And at the end of the campout, literally as some parents were standing there waiting for their kids, the privates challenged the counselors/drill seargents, captains, generals to a sprint with the losers having to do one hundred pushups. We determined the course and then went to the start line (all 4 of the counselors and 15-20 of the privates that were participating). Angelina, on the start line, said something about giving me more room as she moved away a little bit, and I confessed my fears that i'm not a sprinter. One of the other kids if they just had enough natural speed could, of course, have beaten me. I ended up winning the sprint by a hair over a recruit/private and although everyone agreed on one hundred pushups, when the 15-20 privates got down, we only made them do one. We told them to get in pushup position and then we talked to them for probably 30 seconds. Then we told them to go down, and stay down, not touching the ground. We talked to them for probably another 15 seconds. I yelled to them, "every pushup is going to be this hard!" Bongi yelled, "get on your feet," right after that. Rachel was holding a overly-large piece of paper that said on it, "Yahshua is the 100," except the zeros were crossed out because zero is just a place holder. I don't think i've ever seen those kids happier. :) Classes were saturday night and sunday morning. The choirs were excellent both nights. Tim S. was talking about working to the nth degree, giving for an example two people who lift weights. One person could be lifting 210 pounds and that is his workout, but to another guy who lifts 510 for his workout, 210 is nothing. Working to the point of total fatigue, building the muscle up.... Internal pr, that's what we're doing. Myself as well. I was the fire tender. The first night I stayed up to 3am all by my lonesome to stay with the fire till it was out. It was very windy that night. The next night was till 2:30. Oh, and I almost forgot one of the cooler parts of the campout... not only did I begin to learn a new song on the piano, but I got to climb a sort of rock climbing wall, although it was really the rock handholds attached to wood. And that's that for now. Oh, almost forgot--- there was a get-together at joe and sue's on the way back from the campout. And when I got back to home in afton, I went over to keegan's for a little.
7,24,02, fourth post: ok, I thought of another thing. Just to state this for the record, WIFFLE BALL IS BIGGER THAN AFTON... I just had to say that because of all the lacking enthusiasm displayed when I tried to get everybody together to play. WIFFLE BALL ROCKS. PLAY WIFFLE BALL @ BINGHAMTON UNIVERSITY!!!
7,24,02, third post: well, I left the campus at about 4:45, and made it home by 5:20. forgot that part.
7,24,02, second post: ok. now it is ten minutes to three o'clock and i've already registered for my classes. It turns out that not only is MUS 215 closed out, but 141 (the piano course) as well.
So here's my schedule, in a nut shell: on monday, 8:30 to 9:30, I have Calculus. Then from 12:00 to 1:00, I have economics discussion. 2:20 to 3:20 is Intro to Psych discussion. Tuesday and Thursday are hardcore backpack days, from class to class. If it weren't for Calc, I'd have Wednesdays completely free. Tuesday, 8:30-9:55, is an intro to engineering course through Watson. Ten minutes later begins the next class, 10:05-11:30, Economics. Ten minutes later begins Psych, 11:40-1:05. Ten minutes later begins English 114D, 1:15-2:40. On Wednesdays my only class is Calculus, 8:30-9:30. Thursdays are the same as Tuesdays except I don't kick the day off with wtsn103. The day begins with Economics, and instead of four straight classes, I'll have three. Friday is smitten by calculus @ 8:30 in the morning, even though it is my only class. I'm starting to realize that my schedule would be much nicer without calculus... no class on wed or thurs, and only the psych and econ discussions on monday. If I am overwhelmed with homework and sports, I might have to drop calculus, but I don't really want to plant the seed that it is an easy option. I really only want to drop calculus if I really cannot do it. My schedule is mad crazy. Most people are trying to get out of morning classes, and most definitely don't want this many classes in a row. Yet I'm not afraid to do this because really it was the only way to fit together the classes that I wanted. I want to make myself work.
Oh yes, I almost quite forgot part of the conversation I had today... the topic was alcohol, drugs, and acting wacky ... one person was saying that they don't need those things to act wacky, to feel the buzz or what ever. And I realized that I don't either. Enough sleep and I'm intoxicatedly happy. :) I haven't been sleeping very well the past couple of nights. I'm not saying that i'm not happy! :)
7,24,02: here I am in lovely binghamton, ny, at the college. I'm in a computer lab right now. the computer next to me is searching for itself, its operating system that is. for some reason it says 1962: and then, no operatinng system found. What does 1962 have to do with that?
This morning was a session for student athletes. There are benefits-and drawbacks- to it. We get to register for classes earlier than others. We also cannot take classes during certain times because of practice. Take all the fun that planning a college schedule is, and then try to redo it so that you're never in any class at or after 3:30. There's many a good class that I've had to pass on for that reason.
One of the classes that I wanted to take, Eng 114D (A class on Poetry... not necessarily writing it, but analysis, etc... I can't find the title.), conflicted with Germ 101 (german). German would be more of a personal class, not one that I would take because it would fulfill a degree requirement. It would, but that's not why I want to take it. When you take Germ 101 and 102 you get a certain General Education credit, and I can't remember which off the top of my head.
I've met some new people here at Orientation. Karan, Brian, a Mike from Ro-cha-cha (Rochester), my roommate Arthur, and a trackster that was across the hall from me: Jaime. Some of the games we played were humorous. I did learn that our Orientation Advisor (Gino)'s favorite movie is forrest gump. I was talking with Arthur and some others later on in the day, and we reached consensus that pretty much everyone likes the movie but at the same time nobody thinks of it as their favorite. I had to go to orientation very early on tuesday because my father brought me in on his way to work. I was there at 7:40. I waited around in the University Union, reading my book and thinking. Everything here has been quite distracting; it has drawn my attention away from my ever-analyzing mind, which is a good thing right now. Because I was there early, I was one of the first in line for check in (I was nice and didn't claim a place at the front) and was in my room by... 10:20. After check in I had my photo taken for my id card. I was wearing a hoody for the picture. When I got to my room I found it devoid of human influence, devoid of feeling or personality. Everything seemed... empty. So I'm not sure if I helped that any because I threw my bag on the floor, my pillow on the bed, and went to sleep. I was waiting for my roommate to show up and also for lunch time to roll around. When it was the appropriate time, torrential downpour commenced exactly like it did friday afternoon. I commenced to go back to sleep. I was waiting it out, of course. You don't really expect it to be hard for me to find a reason to sleep, do you? By the time it had stopped raining (hard), it was 12:30, and lunch ended at one. Hmm... many of the first day sessions were boring. At the one right after lunch, it seemed like the m.c. kept stalling things!!! and he was really just ... doing his job, I guess...
ok... but about later on. Later on I arrived at my room to find that my roommate had arrived, and to my delight (and a lot of other people) he'd brought a fan. And, as is very good in a college dorm setting, the fan works great and is small. Many people wanting to feel the breeze in the otherwise warm dorms graced our room with their presence. No, I'm not being sarcastic. I just realized it might sound that way. So there was a group of people in my room talking about a plethora (no clue on spelling) of things, and I just couldn't focus to work on my schedule. I ended up staying up till 5:10 in the morning.
Hmm..... In twenty minutes I have an advisor session to go to.
I'll tell you more about the courses I was looking at... :) Hmm... At first, when I only wanted to take twelve credits in the first semester, my schedule didn't look to focused. Well, I knew that they were three classes that I'd probably never go into. Then I honed it down a little bit and ended up going to the opposite extreme. Instead of having 12 credits, just enough for full-time student status, I had a schedule with 19 credits planned. Now, you're not supposed to take over 18, but I might be able to work it out... there's only one problem, and that's MUS215. MUS215 and 216 are necessarily concurrent courses, followed by the appropriate concurrent courses the second semester. Both 215,16 and the follow-ups are required by the music program for majors and minors. MUS 215 shows as closed on the busi system for now, but i've been advised that when they open up the system for registration later it might change. If the class is closed then I'll have to start the sequence my soph year. Ok, also on the schedule: WTSN 103, ECON 162A (Macroeconomics, I believe... 160 is microeconomics), and PSYCH 111- an inro to psych, pretty much. So that's the schedule for now.
Also is MUS 141, a piano class...
I'm off for now. Dani, my thoughts are with you...
7,22,02: ok. the wiffleball reschedule time will be thursday at two o'clock, if that's good for everyone. I know that it is an hour earlier than we planned last week and I hope that that will be ok.
This week is one of the busiest for myself in a long time. This saturday we had guests from out of state and many friends from Binghamton up to the cottage. Then on Sunday was class. After class my whole family went to the person's house that was hosting the guests and we had dinner there. Today, Monday the 22nd, I am visiting Daniela during the last full day here in America of her year-long trip. Tomorrow orientation begins @ binghamton university, and continues untill 4 maybe on wednesday. On thursday is wiffle ball, painting, and running with Aaron. Friday kicks off the NYState kids campout ;) can't wait. :) :)
7,19,02, second post: HELLO HELLO HELLO
I am mad. Right now I should have been in town playing wiffle ball, except for the fact that we are experiencing gale force winds and monsoon type rains. All of a sudden it became dark and the rain came pouring down. At one point the wind forced the rain so far sideways in it's fall to the ground that my brother and I started running around the house shutting all windows on that side of the house and the front door. So needless to say, all the people that were going to play wiffle ball will have to wait till another time. me too. in fact, that'll probably be wednesday.
Instead, I had James up. We talked about things concerning BU, running, and life in general. I made bannana shakes once again, with no two recipes being exactly the same. We played James Bond 007, Mariokart, and Ready to Rumble boxing, in that order. We talked about issues concerning food and the mass consuption of it while at BU, and how certain costs and meal plans play out... the best laid meal plans...
My parents went to the grassroots festival tonight. Lots of live music and vendors. And what a coincidence, I was just trying to think of the name of the grassroots festival yesterday to talk to someone about it, and i didn't even realize that it was going on right now. Dillon and I went into town, rented a movie, and got some ice cream for real shakes. we also got sprinkles and bannanas... :) wahoo!!!
Aaron and I ran a good workout today. We're in only our second week of training, so the workout (while being a track workout) was not totally ambitious but one more geared towards benefit without much stress. We ran 1000m repeats on the bainbridge track (3:36, 3:31, 3:32, 3:29). We started trying to run 1:26 laps and slowly were doing them faster. This year in the thick of the track season I ran a thousand meter repeat workout with Mr. Munro much faster (all of them 3:27's and under i believe, yet only three of them) and that was right before my mile time spiralled downwards (best ever having been 4:40 from my sophomore year, to a 4:38.5 in a dual at bg, second place 5:10, then a 4:34.4 @ Cooperstown with a 2:14 second half, then 4:28.96 hand timed, the new bga record, @ the Davenport invite. Josh G and I ran a 63 first lap, 66 next (that's a nice 800 time), I ran a 69 third and he was a 66 I believe, then I ran a 71. He was a 70 for the last lap I believe. That was the sweetest race as far as two competitors duking it out that I ran all of my senior year! After the completion of the third lap, with myself 3 seconds behind, i pulled up on his shoulder on the backstretch, so about only 250m to go. He had more left than I... I did kind of give it up at the end. But 'twas a sweet race, and 'tis a sweet memory.
7,19,02: I'm hoping that we can play wiffle ball today. Right now it's raining like crazy. !!!
Yesterday I went kayaking in Guilford Lake, and ended up swimming back. I was with Chris and Toby, and their kayak tipped. I tied their kayak to the back of mine so that I could pull it to shore as it had lots of water in it, but when I tried to maneuver back into the sitting position mine tipped as well. I tried to get back in twice, but since it had the water in it the kayak was even more prone to tip. We ended up swimming and pulling them to shore. Fun fun!!! :)
 
our new cat sashi....
and this is an example of what the difference cloud filter does....
and my grandfather's cat, in the filter.
7,18,02: a new word that keegan and i made up: magnidudeageness. magnitude... dude... an insatiable need to add -age and -ness to everything... and there you have it! Tuesday night after the band practice keegan, corey, kristina and i all drove around hoping to play tennis. Oh wait! It was really dignidudeageness. Sorry. Anyways, we went on a covert mission to reach the afton tennis courts, only to find that the lights weren't on. Then we went to Bainbridge only to find that the lights weren't on. :( so, we all went to dani's house and had some ice cream. :) yum. Then yesterday Keegan, Corey, Rob and I went to play tennis in Bainbridge (during the day this time). We practiced volleying and serving for a while then started playing doubles. Keegan and I won the first game 6-1, and then ended our playing time as we lost the fourth point of the second game to them (3-1). Though, when you think about it, they really didn't put up opposition in the least, because even though I served the least of all (everybody'd gone 3times except me when we stopped) I had to serve twice, and that's two of corey and rob's points that I basically gave them. Put it this way: Out of the ... hmm I'm counting ... the first time, it was 8 consecutive faults to give them the point, and the second I actually served it right twice, but we got the point for it once and they did once, and all the rest were faults... so I had a total of 15 faults over all. Wowsas.
We picked dani up, and later on went to keegan's, had some burgers, swam, etc. We went to the fair and marched... fun fun there. Then went to keegan's, got a sugar rush, watched some tv, went to his uncle's down by the fairgrounds and watched the fireworks and then went back to keeg's house to watch another movie. So fun fun :)
a picture from the senior trip:
7,15,02: aieee... it smarts.... the wisdom tooth that is entering my mouth, that is. i couldn't pass up the chance to put that horrible pun on here. :)
yesterday aaron and shaun ran the boilermaker, and perhaps robb too. i should find out how they all did.
my training continues... a one mile jog when i got up yesterday, and a 5 mile run later on.
7,13,02, second post: i have to decide on my jls form from bu (job locator service) what kind of job i'd prefer. and guess what? my wisdom teeth are coming in. yaaaah!!!! :)
7,13,02: i went to the drive-in theatre iin unadilla last night to see reign of fire and mr. deeds. I like adam sandler movies and i think that waterboy was the funniest, most rediculous movie i've ever seen... but this one, although being funny, was a dud on the sandler-meter.
this is another very cool picture:
cj was banging on my drums so i took out my camera, and i'm hoping that he actually does become a rock star. Then the photo might make more sense... :) I think that option is the coolest filter i've used just yet, though.
ok and some more pics from the softball game last year:
7,12,02: i spent mucho time on the computer this morning doing things with pictures. so i'm going to put some here in a sec...
i had quite the time tilting jimo's head and aligning it just right... but you'll understand soon enough... it's a first, something that human eyes have never seen before, and this site is your only source! ok enough of that crap... it's just a cool pic :)
I was overjoyed to find that our scanner seems to have exorcized whatever demon possessed it and I can use it once again. Actually, this is the best i've ever been able to use it... no problems. So with this encouragement i've taken the liberty of bringing you some more pictures.
here's some more...
this is from softball states in 2001. It's from the first game of the tournament.
this is danielle trying to feed/stuff food into tracy's mouth at our senior barbeque earlier this year... may? was it?...
that's a photo of myself laying on the ground after the xc race at states in utica, 2000.
today aaron and i are running again. wahoo!! bu, and all their competitors, WATCH OUT!!!!!!
7,11,02, second post: i got to talk to mrs. acuff, the binghamton xc coach, today. the dates have been changed. I am going to bu on august 22nd, and leaving for the adirondacks the 23rd. we had a band practice today for the parade at the afton fair next wednesday. i ran with aaron robertson today, and that was a very good thing. neither of us has been training very hard by our selves but we ran (at the least) eight miles today, might've been 8 and a half, in 45:39. Very hilly course we took too, all the way up chase road to the end and then straight on to more hills, only to turn around and do it again. We ran the first half in 24:20 maybe? and so that would make the second half 21:19. Since the elevation that we turned around at was higher than my house, the first half was more up hill than the second half. But the last two miles we ran at under six minute pace. saweeeeeeeeeeet. Oh yea, the conversation with mrs. acuff today... i found out that i'm one of only 8 people she chose to have come for the pre-season. she didn't put it that way :) but i did because that's very encouraging, seeing that my goal is to be a permanent member of the everyday squad. Wahooo!!!
7,11,02: yes, seeing everybody again on tuesday was fun. swimming in the rain. volleyball in the rain. watching monty python. ... etc etc etc :)
i forgot one thing about graduation, forgot about putting it on the site. as all the seniors stood near the library, we chanted "holy shit! holy shit! holy shit!" over and over and over. :) was it by the library? hmmm now i'm second geussing myself...
well.... still painting on the house... writing friends letters :) and stuff like that. i've been reading quite well, not in the past few days, but... and i need to keep moving if i'm to read the whole stack of books that i thought i might read this summer. wiffle ball practice goes well. I employ my younger brother on occasion, asking him to bat. yesterday i batted a little bit actually and it's quite funny because it's hard to control the pitches. that's why, and now i completely agree, there are no walks when you play ultimate wiffle ball. anyways... i should practice the piano a little bit more today... the last time i tried I found that I was able to move a lot quicker than the last time... i should keep practicing.
the dream i had last night was freaky!!! ho hum, anyways....
august 19th draws closer and closer.... :)
i have to call the coach, miss acuff, today. she's tried to reach me with out success (because my family has been hogging the phone line!)
7,9,02, second post: time for some pictures.
  
notice the links above. they are to three very essential sites ;)
7,9,02: Alright. i'll succumb. Not everyone wants to play wiffle ball like i do, i guess. today i get to see chris, toby, and dani again ;) a happy day. the new cat (name=sashi ?! ) is very funny. she's not exactly adjusted to char and willow. char is the most passive animal you'll ever see. Sashi has swatted at char's nose for simply walking near her, and char doesn't retaliate but looks to us as if she's done something wrong. of course we condole her. meg- well, we let them get as close as meg sniffing the cat while my father held her, so that the cat could not attack. and why do i keep saying cat? it's a kitten. ;)
oh, and as a tribute to this whole wiffle ball thing, i'm going to leave a few of my favorite ads on here.
edit: one ad. you no want play wiffle ball? then no funny wiffle ball ads for you. (my god--- i've become the funny wiffle ball ad nazi. and , as another edit: there still will be a game sometime, probably not the 17th but the 15th or 19th. There just aren't enough people responding for the four team idea that i had.)
7,7,02: We've got a new cat now. Yesterday my mother picked one up in norwich, at the spca. It's a skittish little thing. I've been looking at the bu coursebook lately. I talked to james and he might be able to get me a time schedule, which would tell you what time all the classes are. For some reason they don't put the description of the classes in the time schedule, and don't put the times in the course book, so ...
this is one of the pictures that mr. munroe stopped by to drop off.
7,6,02: As neat as my room is right now, the underlying truth is that i've had to hid my things in a big black cabinet near one wall to make it this neat.
I can't believe things are changing so fast. Dani is leaving the 19th. I'll perform my final marching band stint. I konw i've graduated already, but I figured, what the heck? it'll be fun. BEsides, i'm kind of the end of an era, or so it loks now. I was the top drummer, with only three others in the percussion section, last year. If you take me out of the picture (graduation) and the first and third drummers that are left (both quitting the program) and the only one left detests marching band, it's not looking good for the marching band program. I've already run my last racees in an afton or bga uniform. TAken my last regents. spent my last day in school with the same routine... on aim in the math room, and pretty much slacking off... not that i'm proud... but...
And it's coming to a head. college. thirteen years, anoth four, then who knows what. more? a job? geez, i never liked them.
yesterday i played my father in horseshoes... it was a game in stark contrast to the championship game of the tourney at my graduation part. 21-14, but that's a lot closer than 21-1, when my parter and I played my father's team.
7,5,05, second post: corey called me today. he was over at kellystone park and there was going to be a tourney starting at one. the only way that i could get there would be to run or ride my bike. And thats crazy... ride it all the way there, play tennis for hours, and then ride back? crazy...
and now i'm trying to add something to the html of the site so that whenever you move the mouse over it you have a message that follows it, like on the bga site.
i can't get it to work... sigh... :(
a friend is going to ireland! wow. wouldn't it be cool to travel? I'd love to go to different countries some day... tour europe... ;) well, germany at the very least.
7,5,02: looking at what i did yesterday to the site makes me think that what i've done might be considered by some as crazed. i don't care.
wiffle ball research, day one, yielded few results except the knowledge that there really aren't as many varied pitches as i thought. Or maybe i just can't throw them. :) that could be it too.
things i hope to accomplish today: finish all the thank you cards. get stamps to send them out tomorrow. uhmm... run five miles... call staples... etc. etc. etc.
7,4,02, second post: would any other of our budding webmasters like to post this ad on their site?
this link will bring you back to the homepage.
p.s. i think i'm all about these ads, too, but unfortunately i've already nearly exhausted the addesigner.com site, for my needs. it'll be something good to fall back on. but i'll explore some more...
7,4,02: wowsers. have you seen all the madness? i'm all about this wiffle ball thing, but i need people to tell me when they're available those three days! i need to get some sort of a schedule going!!! And teams, we need to set up teams. So far I've gotten nearly enough responses for two teams in the 48 hours, but we need more!!! ok. i should eat something for breakfast.
i need to go into town today to buy stamps for all the thank you cards that i need to send out. yesterday was lots of fun. i worked on the site all morning, till like one in the afternoon, then i went running and etc. etc. Then i went with keegan. I met his family friends, I went swimming, I beat keegan in pool two out of three (and i haven't beat him once since the first time we played a long time ago). and no, all you cynics, i can hear you thinking... it wasn't that keegan was playing really bad.
ok, here's the deal as far as the responses so far... actually, we only have enough for about half of one team. OH MY GOD PEOPLE. ENTHUSIASM!!! C'MON, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!!!
you know, since i've started this whole crusade, i've been asked a couple of times why i'm so into this. And i've thought about it... i love baseball sooo much. so much. and i decided not to continue playing in my freshman year, because i could excell at varsity track or i could play jv baseball for a shaky at best program (no offense... it is). SO i just kind of walked away from this thing that i have so much enthusiasm for. And now some of that, that has been bottled up for years, is coming out now. How's that for analyzation? that's what i do best.
7,3,02: ok well i got a few responses to the email... but only a few! c'mon guys!!! :) i want this to work!!! Okay. I don't have their emails, but i can pretty much count in corey b, and maybe his brother tim. possibly tyler j too. we'll see. if anybody has their emails, give them to me!!!
hopefully i can get more responses in the next few days and we can plan the thing out...
7,2,02, fourth post: ok, i sent the email out to .... 27 email addresses... and i think that a few were doubles... so that means about twenty -twenty five people. add a few more friends and we could have four teams, for a double elimination tournament. that is still not even a lot of games... i know, we could have a sort of a season, which would only consist of twelve games, each team playing the others twice. that would be rankings for the tournament, which would take either 6 or 7 games to determine the champ. wahoo!!! wahoo!!! wahoo!!! this would be so much fun.
7,2,02, thrid post: i'll do all the tournament stuff on here too, like post the teams, etc. so we'll all know before we get there. This will be the official site of summer league wiffle ball '02!!! (am i getting carried away?) seriously though it'll be cool. I haven't been able to satiate my baseball passion at all since quitting after eighth grade...
7,2,02, second post: well, i'm trying to load some pictures. one is from the windsor invitational, the first invite of the season i think, when Stephanie, Sarah, Myself, and Daniela all got in the water of the steeple pit.
this is a copy of the email i'm sending out:
I am thinking about having a big day of wiffle ball fun right in afton ny. A friend from queens taught me this way of playing the game, which is actually used by some official wiffle ball group that somebody he works for is in... don't ask me... i just know the rules that he taught me... it includes a catcher, but they're there just to throw the ball back to the pitcher. you set up a regulation chair, and it'd have to be whatever one we can get our hands on (it's not too hard), and that's the strike zone, regardless of the hieght of the player.
anyways, we'll have to pick a day to meet... i was thinking that we could assemble teams and everything... teams of 6, 7? thoughts on that one??? the batting team can supply the catcher, because there shouldn't be any stealing... but then you have the problem of plays at home plate.
ok well...
who wants in? who has friends that want in? the more the merrier, in my eyes...
so how about this:
SEND ME AN EMAIL WITH THIS SAME SUBJECT IN IT, SO I KNOW IT'S ABOUT THIS
LET ME KNOW IF YOU WANT TO PLAY
AND ANY IDEAS
OF JULY 15TH, 17TH, AND 19TH, WHICH DAYS DO YOU HAVE FREE? WE COULD PLAY ONE, TWO, OR ALL THREE DAYS DEPENDING WHAT PEOPLE WANT. TIMES TOO. I KNOW PEOPLE HAVE JOBS AND SUCH. LET ME KNOW ABOUT THOSE THREE DAYS WHAT TIMES YOU HAVE FREE.
7,2,02: well, at graduation this past friday, I sat in the front row. Men were on the right side and women were on the left. I recieved some awards, including Male leader of the class of 2002 (given by the Board of Education), the John Paige memorial award for sportsmanship and dedication to the athletic program, the John Phillip Sousa award for excellence in Band, and the Jesse Kane memorial award. These were the highlights. Out of all the awards that I recieved, only two gave money as part of the award. And really, I only consider it as one because on is a fifty dollar bond, and you know how bonds can be... you have to wait forever and a year to cash them so that you get the value that they say they are. But I'll tuck it away and pull it out sometime in the future. Dani, Jen, Tyler, Mott, Eli, Mike, Elanore, Sheri, Ken, Sharen, Joe, Sue, Kaitlyn, Beckey, uncle David, uncle Jeff, Aunt Becca, and her fiance Ibon, uncle Garth, and his wife Mary, Seth, Christopher, Grandma and Grandpa Fisher, Grandma Genung all came to the graduation ceremonies. I feel like there is people I'm missing. I also saw there Joel, James, James, James (the three James' -all of which answer to Jim, except nute). It was fun. Afterwards many of the same people came up to my house for snacks and to hang out for a while. The next day was the party!!!! Saturday, June 29th. Kim showed up about noon. Many many many people above and not even aforementioned were there from class. People from rochester, albany, watertown, syracuse, binghamton, queens ny, one couple from new orleans, tyler mott and eli from cleveland, hornell as well. Also friends from afton came, other than kimmie: jimmy d and the whole family. later on, tyler j, corey, and tim. I played wiffle ball with them a bit, then had to leave to play a double header in horseshoes... we were playing the championship of the universe!!! I did really good. My partner was my uncle David. We made it all the way to the championship game, from 16 teams. We lost to my father and eli, 21-1. I guess that the magic just disappeared or something. One throw of mine landed perfect the whole game, as the 1 in 21-1 shows. Nothing else... other friends came too: sarah and kate from earlville? i think , shaun from oneonta. oh, other afton people: alonzo and robbie!!! Keegan and april never made it. neither did sam. i didn't make it to their parties though, so.... my hope was that i could ride back with april to her party for a bit after she'd been to mine.. we'd talked about it going either way but keegan called and it sounded like that's what we would do. but you know how good the plans my friends and i lay are... shaky, flimsy at times.... sometimes things work, more often they don't. oh well. the party was way fun. steffan, from queens, showed me how to play ultimate wiffle ball. That's what gave me the idea to have a wiffle ball game sometime in the future right here in the town of afton, ny. I want to have it downtown at the little league baseball field.
7,1,02: This Is monday. Friday was the graduation ceremony. That was fun. I'd missed graduation practice the day before. but more bout the weekend later. if you want to get in on wiffle ball action, email me! i want to get a hardcore game going sometime with all my buds, in town in afton!!!
6,28,02, second post: i got mail today that was important enough for me to get back on here and write a lil bit. it was from binghamton university. my address next year will be:
Prahlad D. Genung
BU #06640
P.O. Box 6006
Binghamton, NY 13902-6006
and hear this: my room mate is from new jersey. His name?
Kyungjun Chang
Wahoo! I think I'll send him a letter or a ring. :) gotsta make friends.
6,28,02: well i never could get to the computer to type it all up (all the stuff about the trip). Guests are already here from cleveland, they arrived last night, and hanging out with them has been the agenda lately. But right now they're all out shopping and i was only given a few minor chores to do while they were there. so here i sit.
People arrived at the church parking lot where we were boarding the bus before 6,because the goal was to leave at six. MR. Mcnaught, the advisor, was late. We waited for him. well, the bus was a place for everyone to sleep. most of the sleeping over the whole trip, i'd say, was done on the bus. We arrived at the hotel about 4:45, i think. People were handed their tickets as we got off the bus. WE went straight to the rooms (i took the stairs and beat most of the group.. imagine 35 people with luggage waiting for the elevators in a small hallway..... later on in the trip, however, we did manage to fit 18 people in the elevator, well over the limit of 2100 pounds) . People quickly changed and went down into the water for an initial dip. 'twas grand fun riding the waves. The barbeque at the hotel shortly after we got there left something to be desired... then we had the rest of our time that day to ourselves. I went running at night, along the edge of the water. That was one of the most poetic moments I've ever experienced. I could completely focus on the waves, the salt smell, the sound of the waves breaking onto the beach, the white crest of the waves... i could completely forget my body. And I was flying... about 4 and a quater miles in 25 minutes. That's incredibly fast. THe next day, after breakfast, we went to busch gardens. THat was fun. I rode rollar coasters galore. The best one was the last one. JAcob granger and I were hardcore... we went and stood in the line to ride in the very first seat, waiting so long that everyone else we were with were getting on the ride for the second time as we stepped on for our first. but it was worth it. Then a couple of people went to a science museum and imax theatre presentation (i was one of them) while most of the rest went to the beach.The next morning we went to water country usa! after breakfast, one exit farther than busch gardens, which was an hour ride. THat was mad fun too. Lots of water rides... but they're just not the same. Alonzo and I, after riding the second ride, decided that a rollar coaster ride that sprayed water at you would be a lot more fun than these so called "Water rides". Later on in the day was the dinner cruise. I was surprised. THey should have called it a "Snack" cruise, not a dinner cruise, because dinner was slim pickins. ANyways, that could have just been my observation. Then we were dancing to the beat of the dj's music above deck. It was dark by the time we got back. That was fun. Then the next day we left.
MAtt b and albert k were in my room the first night. the next it was the same, except trade justin b for albert k. the next was just myself and matt. The first night matt stayed up all night. I stayed up with him until 3, i think. The plan was that he would get us up before the sunrise so that we could see it. He got me up around quater of five. We sat on the balcony in our 6th floor room, waiting... waiting.... about 5:15 we decided to go down for a swim. There was redness in the sky, and i took a few pictures. WE went down and swam with the boogie boards (small versions of surf boards that you just put your belly on) when all of a sudden I realized that the sun was rising. That was the coolest... watching it from the water, swelling and rising around me, as the light danced on the water. We planned to do the same the next two nights, except matt didn't have enough energy to stay up the whole time each night. and the phone calls didn't wake us up. we just would lay back down and sleep.
we re-arranged our room too. that was the coolest. wE took and put the table that was there out on the balcony. we turned both beds perpendicular to the heads of the bed that actually weren't attached to the beds but to the wall. We took one of them and moved it over to the next so that there was room there incase we decided to set the table up as a poker table, which it was set up as for a time, but we never found the time to break the cards out.
In all, 'twas a grand trip and i can't wait to develope the pictures. I didn't take a lot, but the few i took... the sunrise... kimmy and laurena on a background of leaves at a rest stop on the way back... some funny teddy bear pictures... they should be dynamite.
today is the graduation ceremony. that's going to be awesome as well. I can't wait. 13 yEARS summed up in one night. And I hope that I earn some of their scholarships... to have it all go to keegan and kim would make me sad, even though i'd be happy for them. I'd like them to share the wealth a little bit, y'know. :)
and i'm having some people up afterwards, since they're traveling to see the graduation. we might as well have them up afterwards! then saturday is the whole shebang. !!!!!!!!!!~!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Wowsers. Already. I can't believe it. And i can't wait for college.
6,27,02: hey, i'm gonna get on here later and give a full update of the senior trip. BOy, Was that fun!!! Running along the beach in the dark, listening to the waves and watching what little light there is reflect off the white crests of each wave... swimming 10 minutes after we got off the bus at the hotel!!! :) All the arguments over what movies to watch on the bus... sheesh, we're a bunch of wackos, but we made things fun.
6,22,02: second post: I forgot... one of the most anticipated things is running there... Alonzo and I, in our bare feet, are gonna go jogging on the sand... maybe we can drag some other peeps along :) HEy, go for broke, right!!! Take the camera, whatever. The ocean will make a really great background for pictures.
6,22,02: wow! three letters in the mail today.. well, two are cards (i think... I haven't opened them yet). WHen I walked in the house to drop off all the mail and the day's paper on the table, i saw my brother. I told him: "This is the day I've been waiting for..." I spread out the mail in my hands and showed him that I had more mail than my mother and father together!!! :) I had four things, three being real letters! well, i think that two of the three are cards though. ONe is definitely a letter. And my parents had a subpar day.. only three items ;) am i wierd? don't answer that....
today is bainbridge's graduation. I'd hoped to make it to greene's, but as with many of my last minute plans, it didn't fall through. Oh well! I just wanted to surprise somebody by going.... 'cause I feel bad for not talking to them in so long...
ON my way to bainbridge's (Which is at seven and is outside, i like the graduation being outside) i'll drop off my baggage for the senior trip to VA BEACH!!!!!! at the gym of the baptist church so that people can check it and take the drugs and alcohol out of my bags.... yeah, right....
6,21,02: (second post) Wow. Today I got another letter from bu, this time from the XC coach Annete Acuff. It had a training shedule for the summer and talked about some different things... there is a camp in the adirondacks that the team goes to for a few days (August 20th to 23rd). You show up to campus on the 19th, have an easy training day and a team dinner, then leave the next day for a trip to the adirondacks. I don't think all the regular frosh and upper classmen are allowed to show up on campus, unless they're doing sports, until the 25th. so cool beans!!!
6,21,02: (listening to storyville, "lucky".. good lyrics... ) today is kim's party. i can't go. i'm staining the deck, painting the house, cleaning my room... and if i don't get it all clean by saturday night, because i'm leaving for the senior trip sunday morning, then i'll come back from the trip to find my room cleaned for me.. and that's never good. :(
As i said... staining the deck today. And painting the house seems to be all the rage on my road. We're not the only ones.
I'm all types of excited about the stuff I've gotten from bu recently, and should be getting housing stuff in the mail sometime soon.
i printed off a list of the top ten all time in every event from the web instead of asking the coach for one and having him mail it to me. plus i printed out rosters from the last year so i'll know a 'lil bit about the upper classman atleast.
6,20,02, second post: I'm in my sister's room typing on her computer (it's not hooked up to the internet... i'm just typing this here so that tomorrow i'll cut and paste it all.)
I'm all types of excited because I got a letter in the mail today from Binghamton University. Before i'd even opened it i was more excited than usual because it had on the front of it "department of health, physical education, recreation and athletics" which meant that it was from a coach. I automatically assumed it was a letter from Miss Anette Acuff, the xc coach, but 'twasn't. It is from Mr. Mike Thompson, the head track coach.
Binghamton University was in it's first year of Division One competition this year. They completed the move up and, as anyone would anticipate, all of their sports programs have gotten more agressive at getting talent into their programs (as I thought that i said... well, they haven't been very agressive with me... :( bunch of bums.... ) So a lot of Bu's records are being broken or challenged as they're starting to get better talent on the teams. In the letter from Mr. Thompson was a list of track members who placed on Bu's top ten list of all time in each of their respective events. The list has ... 16 girls that have registered a total of 59 new top ten times/distances/heights, and 20 guys with 34 new times/distances/heights... wow. I just counted the number of events... Kate Zanot, in her first year of graduate school (she redshirted as a freshman) placed on bu's top ten all time lists in eleven events. She is the top all time in four events, and in the top three in seven of the eleven. Wow.
Also in the letter is a list of incoming athletes. I am included, with the 9:59 steeple I ran at states as my credential. There's another incoming frosh with a 9:55 steeple. There's no one in the incoming guys with the mile listed as their credential; and Bu's top 1500m runner, Matt Dresser, is graduating. I'm pretty sure that Kellen Waddach, a premier talent as a senior for Ithaca when I was a freshman for BGA, Is a senior in college this year too... errr, wait... what I just said would mean that he has another year left. Ok. So, my point is, there going to be thinner than usual in the 1500m. Plus (this is where it gets additionally interesting) out of the total 34 new top ten times for the guys that were on the team this year, NOT A ONE was in anything longer than the 1500m. For those of you who don't know, in high school male track events there's a 1600m and a 3200m. Those are the distance events. AT college, it's the 1500m, the 5000m, and the 10000m (or 5k and 10k). So that means that Bu's male team is lacking in that area, comparatively. Plus, with the training I'll be getting there, both I and the other incoming freshman who ran a 9:55 steeple should be running right with (or ahead) of their current steeplechasers. I could focus on training for the 1500m (which would mean speed work for me) which would translate great over to the 3k steeple, 5k, and 10k, because i'm naturally more inclined to the longer events. My endurance at a speed is better than my all out speed.
SO, the short of it is:
I might actually be a factor next year! ;) jk, I won't let myself NOT be.
6,20,02: only a couple more days till my senior trip. Baccalaureate (sp?) is this saturday and then the senior trip we leave for sunday morning. We're going to virginia beach and don't get back till wednesday night!! sweet. THen graduation next friday and the party the next day... then, it's all over....
i've been painting the house lately. Guess what? I'm actually done, just there's a small thing called a second coat that needs to happen :( yuck.
While I paint though, I'll be thinking of sand... the open sea... traveling on a bus for hours with a bunch of crazy people... you know, stuff we wish we could see/do everyday. :/ :))
And, as a note, I wish Steve luck next year with the student government ... And that people work with him, the greatest tool... or even against him, that's better than no work.
oh yeah, I HATE SPAM...
6,19,02: aah, home sweet home, during the summer. much painting and room cleaning is going on here at my house. A lot of prep for the graduation party. THere is going to be mad amounts of people here!!! SO, cool cool. I'm having trouble keeping up with running. It is a lot easier to let it slide when you're not working with someone else, just going out by yourself everyday. I think I'm going to sit down and write out a schedule and everything, plan ahead of time.
6,18,02: yesterday i went to a we've-survived-our-last-day party, and we listened to loud music, ate food, drove fast through trees and mud, and watched movies. That was the most fun. I didn't get home 'till late, but... 'twas worth it, even though sleep is a very valuable commodity.
6,17,02: i'm in the math room for one of the last times that i will ever be here... *sniff sniff... aww, who am I kidding. :)) lol
The 29th is my graduation party, at my house! You're invited! from noon onwards... The graduation ceremony is the previous day, friday the 29th.
6,14,02: hola! my bus driver had a picture of a bear in his front yard to show everyone today as we boarded the bus. Only today, and then one more day of school. Everyone is here in the math room now signing yearbooks in calculus class. fun fun. aiieeee a guy just told me (to scare me) that they were going to write in my book: the sex was fun while it lasted. coincidentally, this is the same person that will call me a litterer or a father raper in the hallway, and the only appropriate response is one of the two phrases that he didn't use. Boy, i'm gonna miss this place and all it's wierdness. I won't miss the place as much as the people.
6,13,02: hmm. the faculty breakfast that student government put on today was fun. bagels and doughnuts for all. last year we had not enough fruit and way too many bagels, but this year we were short on doughnuts (and only had a few remaining dozen bagels, instead of like a dozen dozen from last year). athletic awards banquet tomorrow night! :) and i might see dani in the next couple of days, if anything works out... i hope...
6,12,02, later in the day: boy is it hot all over the school or what. Both computer labs are excellently air conditioned. So this, right now, is nice. having to leave isn't.
i'm thinking about running in the empire state game trials this saturday, in the 5k. If i make it, that'd be sweet. :) and it'd be perfect training for longer college running. no more 3.2k races for me, 5k, and possibly a 10k with some excellent athletes in a pro- team triathalon. that's hardcore. Just thinking about the runner that i might be replacing on this particular team makes me shudder... 'cause he's a hardcore runner. But to excell at college, i've got to take it to a whole new level of hardcoreness. I AM HARDCORE...
maybe if i tell myself that enough,.... ;)
6,12,02: yesterday there was only 7 out of 25 kids present at economics, and that's a class that is comprised nearly wholly by seniors. Coincidentally, I wasn't there either. :)
btw, I took 5th in the state (class B) as it says above, and 16th in all of ny state in the steeplechase, all while accomplishing my goal- sub ten. :)
6,11,02: wow. nice to finally be in the site again. :)
i have typed so much that hasn't shown up... sometimes this thing messes up, and it makes me mad!!!! *sigh. life is good though. i stayed home all day today ;)
i did some work on the photo part today... if you look, you'll find some pictures of the mile race. pretty cool, huh?
6,5,02: I'm in the computer lab. i wish that i could go to sleep.
this makes me mad. i've tried to look at a couple of different web sites so that i could determine what some of the steeplechase times are across the state this year... and of all the web pages that they have on armorytrack.com, i can only get a very select few of them to work. and it makes me angry. what else makes me angry is that i can't find my pillow. :(
6,4,04: hi. hello. things are crazy at school. kids have decided to start a senior video. This is going to be interesting ;) and i'm the whole video's editor. sounds like fun! i love doing the work with the stuff, it just takes so long.... it is fun though. i wish i had a computer at home that could do that kind of stuff. i might in the future too. My uncle, who does advertisements for magazines and everything, might be giving me a mac for graduation... hey, i'm flattered... that's great. another thing that i won't have to buy. That's a big expense! I'd probably just buy more ram and maybe, if i get real ambitious, another hard drive.6,2,02: i still haven't gone to bed. people have reported beaver-monkey sightings in rural Afton, NY
6,1,02, third posting: on second thought,,m,... dude! it's way too late... i'm having enough trouble saying goodbye to peeps... well, i guess it'd be 6,2,02 by now....
6,1,02, second posting: i just found a new fav. site:
http://www.columbia.edu/~sjt59/mr_nice.swf
ok. now that that's out of the way...
details on the meet are on the track page. i'm tired as can possibly be ! :) well that's an exageration, but... y'know. kinda gettin' there. ;)
and you know it's always nice to actually MEET someone that was always there... and nice to know that you have a friend for life in someone. i wonder truly how many people i could say that for, without doubt? shaddup prahlad, trying to get philosophical... :)
6,1,02: remake for the state qualifiers is today. I'm lucky that they delayed the rest of the meet because if i'd had to run the 3200m with that swollen knee... well, i wouldn't have even stepped to the line. And the past two mornings it's been immensely better when i've waken up.. so today will be the day. In ten races so far this season I'm undefeated.... cooperstown champ, davenport champ, sherburne earlville champ, Midstate Athletic conference champ, Section IV class B champ...
and am i going to let some dude from ithaca walk all over me? nope. think nothing of it, friends, for... the best 3200m run of my life will be today.
5,31,02: today is justin burrus' birthday. and today i spent about 1 and a half hours making a 30 second commercial in the communications class, while yesterday i spent 2 and a half hours creating a more complicated commercial with video, text, both at the same time... i had to use two programs, imovie and ... uh... the other one... final cut pro, yea, that's it... switching back and forth between them while trying to do one project is immensely fun (not) :) but atleast i'm showing my teacher that maybe i'm not a simpleton like she thinks all of us are.
and now i'm in the math room...
the state qualifier race yesterday was interesting to say the least! and i don't think i've ever been to a track meet or an xc race that rained more.
5,30,02: my good gosh life is crazy... today was the state qualifier meet in binghamton. and it was on rain delay. i don't think i've seen it rain that hard, that sudden in a very long time. and as i sit here, i'm afraid to move my leg because of the pain :P I won the steeplechase... i lead the race for most every lap... Tom hammer from ithaca passed me with 480m left or so, i went with him, and then beat him in the sprint to the finish. I did run incredibly bad 5th and 6th and 7th laps... i was on pace for way under ten. But I still got a pr by three seconds... 10:04.
And I really do love life. it's just harder to do when faced with the pain and the good at the same time.. but it's more true of a love that way.
addition 5,29,02:I LOVE LIFE... I DON'T KNOW WHY BUT I FELT A SUDDEN URGE TO ADD THAT TO THE SITE
5,29,02: Today we're going to eat at Rosa's for practice today. Pasta dinner! ;)
5,28,02: Sectionals went well. and state qualifiers is going to go even better! I ran a 9:56.3, 1.3 seconds off my best ever and only the second time in my life that i'd run under 10 flat. sweet. First place in the 3200, second in the 1600, and picked up one spot in the 4x800.
5,23,03: today is sectionals in waverly!!! :) I have adrenaline flowing already. The 4x800m, then the 1600m, then the 3200m... as if they can be reduced to mere numbers. My last 1600m race ever (they don't even run the 1600m at college. It's the 1500m), and probably my last 4x800m ever, unless we make state qualifiers.
5,21,02: Yesterday's race went well. Instead of going out incredibly quick and making the rest of the race torture for myself, I went out in pace. If there'd been anyone to push me I might've gone under ten, but I about staggered through the last two water jumps, landing with both feet in the water. The next race is the important one... what the whole season is about for me: the culminating point. I'm at the point now where every race defines my memories for the rest of my life... a sobering thought.
b-day;)
5,20,21: There's an article in today's paper about the graduation ceremony at Binghamton University. Pretty cool. That means that, if I stay at Binghamton all four years, in four years I might recieve a very nice birthday present- a college diploma!
Today is the sectional steeplechase. This should be fun, because there's going to be all of the class a and b guys there today. The top four spots from each class move on to state qualifiers may 30th in Binghamton. Then, on may 30th, the same four duke it out... with the winner, and the winner only, going to states.
5,17,02: Hay was made last night. !!! :) League champ in the 1600m, 3200m, and 3000m steeplechase. Add to that a 2:04 800, and I call that a great meet. The 2:04 was my split in the 4x800 relay, in which (after 9:18 being our fastest time all year long) we ran a 9:00.8. Every one except myself and tyler had never gotten under 2:20 in the 800... then tyler ran a 2:15 and the two others ran under two twenty, and we ran a best. :)
5,16,02: It is definitely may, and it's definitely time to make hay. LEAGUE CHAMPIONSHIPS TONIGHT!!!! This is going to be fun. My senior year... my last hurrah...
5,15,02: No practice today. People get a break before the league meet on thursday. I wonder how many people will jog or stretch out... atleast a little stretching should be done ;)
can't wait. I'm seeded first in the 1600 and 3200 with times of 4:29 and 10:06. Second place in the two are seeded at about 4:43 and 10:25. ;) piece of cake. NEXT WEEK is going to be fun. i'll be running against 4:22 milers and 9:48 two milers. And baby, i like it like that.
5,14,02: Last night we ran the dry-steeplechase for the MAC championships in BG. It, however, wasn't very dry at all. The steady drizzle all day long precipitated (no pun intended) cancelled modified and varsity practices, even though the meet was still on. I went out quick and later died, running 90 second laps for the second and third to last laps, then a sprinted 82 second last lap. hmm. Quite... slow. :) but i'll work on that next week in the sectional steeplechase meet. :) 10:07, new BGA record.
5,13,02: well, the site hasn't been cooperative lately. The last two amendments i've tried to make to the site have not registered. Well, here goes...
at the davenport invite, I carried a BGA uniform across 1600 meters faster than it'd ever seen... 4:29.0 was the time they gave me, but really they rounded up... 4:28.96.
Then, on friday may 10th @ the s-e invite, I won the mile in 4:46 (the wind was horrible on the backstretch and turn into the homestretch) and came from behind, sprinting the last 200m of the 3200m race, to make up the lead that oneonta harrier Brian Toombes had on me, and win by 2 seconds. talk about footspeed, at that point i'm not thinking, you've already run 3000m.... i'm thinking, 200m left, only 200m left.
5,6,02: The cooperstown invite was the best meet of my life! details to come tomorrow... i've only got a sec here. 4:34.9 mile 10:06 3200m 2:06 4x8 split and runner of the meet award.
http://www.thedailystar.com/sports/index.html
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K HERE GOES WHAT I HAVEN'T INADVERTANTLY ERASED
you know what.... i copied a lot of stuff on the front page and then deleted it... i was going to put it here... then i FREEKING copied something else and lost it all... So guess what? I'm missing all the stuf i've typed since the beginning of the site. Oh well. It's only been a month, and I'll have the site a lot longer than that.
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