Today in my museum studies class, we had a very interesting presentation given about the bodies exhibit, which is currently showing in NYC. Basically, this is an exhibit where a guy took a bunch of cadavers, and dissected them in intriguing ways, and then put them on display. The homepage is here and is worth a look. Some of the things this guy did are truly amazing. However, there is the fact that no one really knows where he got the bodies from, and that none of them probably gave permission in life for their bodies to be used like this and displayed. However, the way they are presented is truly extraordinary, and the whole exhibit looks really intense. It brings up a few questions about our society as a whole though - the promotional videos on the site have little kids going to the exhibit for school field trips, and it's a bit disturbing. I really don't know how I feel about the exhibit as a whole.

Along those same lines, check out this flash animation. This is amazing! I envy people who have the talent to do things like this.

The other day, I used Linux for the first time! For those of you who don't know what that is, Linux is an alternative operating system (like Windows or Mac). It is open source, which means anyone can change it if they know how. I downloaded a version of it called Knoppix, which lets me create a bootable CD from which the operating system runs. It's really neat! I used it to help someone get a bunch of stuff off of their computer, since the hard drive was mostly dead, and Windows wasn't booting up right. It was cool!

Overall lately, I haven't been having much fun in life. I mean, yes, there are enjoyable parts, but nothing exciting is going on. School is a drag, I'm not playing music, I'm not really doing any serious sports, I'm playing way too many video games, it just seems so pointless. I dunno. I guess I wish I knew what made me happy. Or what happy actually was. Urg.


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Hokay, so . . .

. . . here's the earth. I hope that everyone (who reads this) knows what that's from. If not, go here and watch. Wonderful flash animation.

I've been really kind of out of it and semi depressed lately. I don't know why either. I've been kind of worried about classes, but can't bring myself to actually do the work for them. It's not good. I mean, I'm actually doing ok (from an academic standpoint). My current GPA is a 2.8, and I'm doing about that in my classes now. That's not bad - not great, but fairly average. However, it's not good enough! I need a 3.0 to keep my scholarship (which accounts for about half of my tuition). I hate stuff like that.

The other day, my roomie told me that one of my good female friends was interested in me as something more. I had kind of gotten that impression from her indirectly, but he just confirmed it. I don't know how I feel about that. I really value our friendship as it is, and I'm afraid that if we date, and things go sour, things will really go to shit in a huge way. I don't want that - many of our friends are similar, we are in a few classes together, we live across the hall from each other, and it's good. I'm not really interested in a relationship with her, but I don't know how to tell her that. Ugh. There is also another girl (another of both of our friends) who I think is interested in me, that again, I don't know how I feel about. I hate situations like this. Why can't things ever be clear?

This past weekend was super stressful. The frats at my school had been on probation for the whole year, and the weekend was when they got their special use permits back (allowing them to have parties). So, of course, my roomie is like "We have to go." One of our friends had a prospective student who was in the overnight program, and brought him along. We played a few games of caffeine pong (which I did pretty well in), and then headed down to one of the frats. After a bit there, the friend with the prospie went to a pizza place downtown, and we headed out shortly thereafter. We came back to my room, and hung out for a bit, and then I went to the lounge on my floor to hang out with a few friends. At 3 (in the morning), my roommate comes into the lounge, freaking out. Apparently, he had fallen asleep on the floor, and been woken up by two security guards and two RA's screaming at him about someone in the hospital, and that they knew he had alcohol, and where was it. Of course, it was sitting right on his dresser. That was good. Luckily, I didn't get in any trouble (since I wasn't in the room). The story came out later - the friend with the overnighter had gone to the pizza place, and apparently some kids from another college had started a fight and beaten up the prospective student (broken nose, later found out possible broken collarbone and ribs). When they were being questioned, the prospective mentioned our room and having shots of rum there. Thus, the security at 3 in the morning. This was Friday night. The rest of the weekend was pretty much spent in recovery.

In other news, one of other friends here found out that I played Magic:The Gathering (geeky card game), and was like "We should totally play!" So we both brought cards back, and have been building decks and getting back into that. I'd forgotten how much fun it is! Strategy, violence, creativity, and social activity all in one. It's wonderful! I also got the game Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War for my computer. That's awesome - good graphics, good play, overall a wonderful time. However, both of these prevent me from doing my homework as well. Shit. Oh, well. It'll all work out - I think if I dedicate a weekend or so to actually getting work done, I can pull out of the downward spiral I'm on (or at least level myself out). The trick is the "actually getting work done" clause. Hahha!

That's all for now!


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And back from the abyss!

I feel like I haven't posted in forever, even though it's only been a week and a half or so. However, I have a valid, or rather semi valid excuse - my school issued laptop died at the beginning of last week. The hard drive decided to give up the ghost, and told me that it couldn't boot up. So, it has spent the last week in the tech service, and I got it back yesterday. During that time, I couldn't use the internet in my room, due to the fact that the school is dumb and we have to have a certain security program installed on the computer for the internet to work. A week without internet on a regular basis was very trying. Luckily, I could use wireless on my other laptop, and it cooperated with me. I was glad.

So, an update from the past week - nothing exciting happened until Monday. Haha! Well, that's not totally true - on Sunday, my roommate broke his toe. That was funny. This was during the semi finals for intramural soccer. He went for the ball, and the girl who challenged him missed, and got his toe instead. He had a very acrobatic fall, and then came limping off the field and was like "I think I have an extra toe." It was very amusing.

On Monday, there was the final game of intramural soccer. My team had to play the professors in the coed intramural league. It was a wonderful game. Good playing, clean overall, and a close match. My team lost 2-3. In the middle of the second half, however, I had to leave the game. I challenged one of the professors (a little bald British man) as he was tearing down the field. He cut the ball one way, and I got my foot on it. However, he thought I was going to move with him as he went down the field. That didn't happen. I work like a wall when someone tries to run through me. Unfortunately, this guy was small enough that his forehead was level with my mouth. That hurt. A lot. My roomie was standing on the sidelines, and said that I didn't move at all when the collision happened. The other guy ended up on the ground. However, we were both ok - he had a cut above his eye from my tooth, and I had a huge gash in my lip, and a rather sore face.

After that, we went up to one of the more secluded parking lots in school (it's dark at this point), and tried to celebrate Guy Faulkes Day, albeit a day late. We had a small pumpkin that we filled with gasoline, and tried to explode. However, there was a small problem - gasoline doesn't explode if it's a liquid, and there was waaay too much liquid in the pumpkin. So, it burned for a while, and then campus security showed up. That was very unnerving. At this point, the asphalt of the parking lot had caught on fire as well. The guard pulled up next to us and was like "So, whatcha doing?" Luckily my roommate kept a cool head, and was like "Just burning a Jack-o-Lantern" Security was like "Why don't you go back to your room and not light anything else on fire" We then took off as fast as possible without looking like we were fleeing. As we were driving off, we saw him kick the pumpkin - which was still full of gas, and had a glowing stem. We booked it after that.

So other than that, not too much interesting has happened - still not getting any action, kind of accepting of that, not having to take care of too many drunk people, which is a bonus. However, that might change soon - the frats at my school just got their special use permits which allows them to throw parties again. We'll see how that turns out.


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