The Oscar contest is up!

Hey everybody, just wanted to let you all know that my Oscar contest is up and running! Click on the link below or on the sidebar to go to the page, and just post a comment with all of your picks for the winners in each category. It costs nothing to enter, thus you win nothing but satisfaction.

THE OSCAR CONTEST

Beyond that, this week is going to go insanely fast, I can already feel it, especailly since I leave on Friday morning to spend a week in Florida! It's gonna rock, I'm so pumped for it, you have no idea. Stinkin amazing!

Does anyone else think the Olympics weren't the greatest this year? Pretty weak overall, I think. I mean, I wouldn't have minded not having new episodes of The Office for these past two weeks if the events that had replaced it were at least interesting or exciting. But nope, that wasn't really the case. I think the most fun I had with the Olympics was watching a curling match between the US women and Great Britain. We lost, but roommate Kurt couldn't take his eyes off the TV, mainly due to Cassie Johnson, the skip for team USA. I think it was really beacuse of Rhona Martin, but thats another matter.

Where would you go to look up Djibouti?

Sorry, there are so many jokes that can be made with Djibouti, it's really an endless supply.

OK, now that that's out of the way, I realize I have been absent from the blogging community for 9 days, and for that I apologize. It couldn't be helped. Actually, that's a lie, I'm just lazy.

But now I'm at work, listening to Copeland's "Beneath Medicine Tree", and I should be studying for my Jesus in the Gospels and Film final tomorrow night. So I figured this is a perfect time to post.

I've got 10 days until I'm in Florida for spring break, and that is ridiculous to think about. I mean, seriously, I have so much homework to do between now and next Thursday night, it's just wrong. So very wrong. I keep feeling like I should always be working on some paper or studying for some test, and then I realize that I should be, but instead I'm listening to MuteMath and playing Sudoku or watching season 3 of Alias.

I hate when I have to contemplate unknowns. And as much as I should tell people what I'm thinking, I'm always annoyed when they ask. And then I lie or forget the things I'm spending the most time thinking about. There are so many times when I just want to say something and I subconcsiously switch to boring/uneventful self and the moment passes. Frick.

I feel like there are all these things I'm supposed to do and go to this weekend, and then I can't remember most of them. I hate that.

So much hate in one post? I must be a terrible person. Here, to balance it out, I'm including an article from the Belmont Vision school newspaper. The paper generally gets some decent article ideas, but the writing is less than stellar, so I was pleasantly surprised to see this piece in the most recent issue. Enjoy!

Are you looking for love in all the wrong mammals?

The fervor of Valentine’s Day has faded some. The flowers have begun to wilt, the candy has gone a little stale and our wallets are slightly thinner. But one fact remains: love is not a badger.

Initially this might seem to be an obvious enough proposition. After all, love is not a mammal, nor does love make a habit of dining on earthworms. Wisconsin does not have a prominent university whose mascot is love, and people certainly do not daydream about falling in badger. Someone possessing a more abstract mind than mine might be persuaded to point out some similarities, but, at least for now, we will assume that the differences outweigh the commonalities.

Badgers do not take kindly to being poked. I encourage you to fashion yourself a stout walking stick and go searching the hills and forests of America looking for a badger. I don’t care how tired he is when you come upon him, if you take that staff and give him an enthusiastic jab in the side, he will respond. I do not say this as an expert on badger behavior, but as a person who knows that most things with claws don’t take kindly to being prodded. When that perturbed creature realizes that you are on the other end of the stick, I can only hope that you are wearing chain mail.

Love, on the other hand, is not so responsive. Whack it with a cane, shout at it, shower it with gifts, and still it might ignore you.

Badgers can also be put in cages. This tragedy is a grievous distinction, but true nonetheless. If, after you have sufficiently irritated the animal with your badger-poking device, you have on hand a metal enclosure and very good reflexes, you could feasibly catch him.

He probably won’t be happy about this. If you keep him in there long enough, he might grow depressed and cease eating, waste away from a majestic specimen of nature to a shadow of his former self. You might even earn the unmitigated wrath of this column’s readership, you badger-trapping rascal.

But, try as he might, that poor creature will not dissipate and slip through the bars. If there’s a badger in there when the sun goes down, it will not be a pear tree when the sun comes up.

Not so with love. If you can even trick it into your box in the first place, it may well slip away once it realizes what has happened. And if you cage it up too long, it may transform into something else entirely.

Now that you’ve hiked through miles of dense underbrush to find a badger, nudged him soundly, and trapped him in a cage, there’s only one thing left to do: wrestle him. Gird up your loins, open the door and do your best to pin that irate beast to the ground.

Perhaps you are detecting a hint of absurdity here.

Badger wrestling? Have I taken you on this convoluted second person journey only to end with badger wrestling? That is probably the single most ridiculous thing you (or I) have ever heard. Lost in the middle of a forest, searching for a creature you aren’t even certain of finding, only to take any necessary measure to gain its attention so that you can attempt to hold it down for a 10- count, after which you will presumably evacuate the premises as quickly as possible to save yourself from being scratched to pieces?

It’s preposterous. If you tell anyone, they’ll think that you’re completely out of your mind.

And that, my friends, is why love might just be a little like badger wrestling.

Sometime I'd like to get away from this maddening shroud

You ever notice that people typically seem really happy when they post on Monday? Maybe its just me.

I think I'll be one of those people. I'm optimistic that this week will be much better than last. It has to be, I'm not going to let it not be.

So Dick Cheney shot a guy? That may be the funniest thing I've read in a long time. Especially cuz the guy was 78 and got shot in the face and chest with birdshot. So he's gonna be ok, and I get a good laugh. Everyone wins (mostly).

My classes are beginning to intensify at this point, which means homework. I have my first finance exam tomorrow, and I think I'll do fine on it, I just need to go over how I would get the answer without the calculator so I can get those questions right. Beyond that, I have a minor project due in there on Thursday, I've got a small project due in Wellness and Nutrition tomorrow, and a big research paper that I need to start and finish by next Tuesday for Third Year Writing. I only have 3 classes left of my 8-week Jesus in the Gospel and Film: Junior Cornerstone edition, which is ridiculous. My group still needs to watch at least 3 movies after knocking out two yesterday: Jesus of Montreal (an r-rated Canadian film in French with English subtitles that was weird and had several awkward moments that made me happy I was watching it with two guys) and Jesus Christ Superstar (decent enough, so much better than Godspell, but still odd and ended rather hopelessly).

My accounting II teacher told she may "get frisky with us" on a test question last Thursday. Ryan, Bojangles, and I couldn't hold it in. It was ridiculous.

Ben and I look to embark on the journey that is Alias season 3 this evening. I keep hearing its nothing close to season 2, but I can always hope.

I've decided the winter olympics aren't as fun to watch as the summer. Especially because it seems that this year's American team is sucking it up. I'll still follow it and all, but just not with the same intensity as if I cared.

Saturday night brought my first experience with PF Chang's, and I have to say it was rather good. I'm not sure I can justify paying that much for sweet and sour chicken again, but it was excellent nonetheless.

Do I pay 16.50 for MuteMath's album online now or wait 6 weeks and buy it at their show, for probably 10 or 12? Decisions.

I needed to know

And now I do.

I woke up with a sore throat this morning. At 7:15. Gotee from 10-4, and now I'm sitting here alone at Reverb for the next 5 hours.

I'm not a fan of today.

Exams, Animals, and Tuition

One test down, one to go. I think my marketing test went ok. I guess I'll find out on Tuesday. I'm gonna chill a bit now in between classes, then finance, then I NEED to sit down and study for a few hours before this essay test tonight or it's gonna kick my butt. Hard.

So my 8 AM class, third-year writing, is taught by a very friendly, nice woman who is slightly absent-minded, most notably, as to when class ends. Tues-Thurs classes go for an hour and 15 minutes, always have. Yet she forgets that it's that way and, out of the 5 times I've been to the class, has been prepared to let us go after 50 minutes, the usual time schedule for M/W/F classes, even go so far as to apologize for keeping us late when letting us out at 8:54. Well, the second time she did this, one girl in the class pointed out to her that we still had another 25 mintues. I would have been with this if she had had something she wanted to discuss during that time, but no, she sat there and listened as everyone else struggled to find another 25 minutes worth of class discussion on the book we're reading. Lame.

Then, today, she was gonna let us go early yet again, and again, that girl spoke up. And you know what she did this time? Nothing, just like before. So, rather than getting out of class 25 minutes early, the rest of us had to suffer through a lengthy discussion on pets and interesting situations people in the class have been in with animals, which has a sum total of nothing to do with the book we're reading, a fiction book by Norman Menea that criticizes the socialist Romanian government of the 1980s. I seriously thought someone in the class was going to cut that girl. I know I was tempted to.

And that gets me thinking about whether I'm paying for the education or the degree. And honestly, its the degree. If given the option of getting out of class early or finishing on time, I would take early every time. Some people talk about how they've paid for the full length of class and don't want to get jipped on their purchase. I see it as I'm paying for the credits rather than the knowledge. Is that wrong?

Now I have a half hour before finance starts, and I seriously have no idea what I want to do with this time. I think it might be a Sudoku moment. In fact, maybe I'll challenge anyone who reads this to go to www.websudoku.com and do medium puzzle #2206, and we'll see who get's the best time. Wow, I lead an exciting existence.

I'm really scatterbrained tonight (not a good sign)

Things I should be doing:
1. Studying for my marketing test tomorrow
2. Studying for my Jesus in the Gospel and Film mid-term tomorrow
3. Working on any number of things

What I've actually done since getting to work at 6:
1. Went to a music business seminar
2. Listened to the new Dave Barnes album at least 3 times
3. Studied a little for marketing
4. Read about 4 pages for JIGAF
5. Facebook

You know how I was gonna go to the Dave Barnes/Andy Davis show last Saturday? Yeah, it was sold out. Super lame. And even more lame is I had to wait in line for an hour anyway because I had to get a box of the new CD for Reverb, which involved an awkward plea on my part with the bouncer to try and get him to just let me talk to Dave's manager. Fun.

Sometimes I sit and think about how ridiculous it is that I'm in Nashville. I love it here, things have gone so much better than I could possibly have imagined going in to it. Sure, fall semester of freshman year blew really hard, but since then it has been amazing. I was randomly put in a dorm room with a great guy and great friend, who had a brother with friends who had siblings that were cool too. The aforementioned roommate's brother hooked me and said roommate up with an amazing church, where I met some of the best friends I could ask for. Every time some major decision seems to come up, I've always gone in one direction, and never really thought about what would happen if it didn't work out. Going to Belmont, working at Reverb, interning at Gotee. These weren't just my first choices, they were really the only options I considered. And each one has been great. I don't know if that's just me having amazingly stupid luck or God guiding me and giving me peace about the direction my life is taking (it's probably a bit of both), but I love the way it's working out!

Sarah comes down on Friday, which was finalized a few hours ago after her friend backed out on driving down, so she's now flying in around 3:30 and leaving Monday evening. We're going to the Wild Horse Friday night, which I am excited about cuz it will be a blast, no matter what any of the guys say.

My pick for the Super Bowl? Steelers 27-24. I hope it's a good game anyway.

I'm probably gonna do an Oscar prediction game again, much like last year's. Look for that in the near future.

Gotee was interesting today, as I think one of my supervisors was fired earlier this week or something. Oh, if only I were a senior instead of a junior, I'd have a shot at it. But, I would imagine that I will be given a bit more responsibility for the time being to help with his lost work load. I definitely like being at Gotee, I'm really glad that they chose me for this semester. I just have to decide if I want to try and keep interning there for the next year in hopes of getting a job upon graduation or if I switch to another company to gain a more diverse experience. Things I should think about sometime, but not now.

Because I have a midterm tomorrow evening.

Frick.