Wit & Whim

Sick. I hate the phenomenon and it happens seldom enough that I have difficulty coping with the inactivity and mandatory stupidity. There are some things that help me cope. Oddly enough, books do not help me very much when I am actually sick. I can read, but retention and comprehension are minimal. I read the prologue to some interesting non-fiction last night, but my head hurt by the time I had finished an introduction to the commonalities between Epaminondas, Sherman, and Patton, and I went distinctly foggy. In dire straits like these television is actually of some small use to me. But greater still, video games. My stupidity is enough to render my strategy games a challenge, but not impossible. The best games for these deathbed moments are FPS and action type games, one in particular standing out. Portal. I find myself chuckling at the promises of cake and other "enhanced truths" told to you by your little guide. It has to be the most innovative game I've ever played. ...

I think that reading is the thing I miss most about pre-college life. I really notice it now that I'm back to my several book a week regimen. And I really don't think that I gained more from that English class than I do from my normal 14 weeks of reading and writing. At least a couple of my classes this semester will be using real books for our materials. While one could certainly argue that some of my reading is much more substantial, it is not necessarily the substantial reading that gives the greatest benefit. I think that I gain a lot more as a writer from good books which capture my interests and emotions than great literature which bores me. *coughbrontecough* The Hunger Games was well written and absolutely gripping. One of those books that made me laugh and cry and caused my dry tongue to cleave to the roof of my mouth in some of the more intense portions. Her varied tempo with the sentence structure is excellent and she manages to make it feel like natural human though...

Finished Hunger Games a few minutes ago. Will blog more about it later. Aside from being very well written, it was also an emotional reaming.

One might think that having oodles of extra time would be conducive to increased blog traffic. One would be quite mistaken. During school my blog is more valuable as a repository for any thoughts which won't stop flitting around my brain. When I am home and totally relaxed I do not need such a device quite so much. I think today I found the greatest factor. These last few days have been tremendously lazy; consumed by books, movies, and shopping. Today, however, I stayed home and cleaned like a little maniac. Suddenly, after the last sweet phrase of my third album, I felt the burning need to write something. It can then be assumed that I write more when I am busy. Activity provides food for my brain, which makes sense because I think better when moving. You are free to assume that, if I have not blogged for a few days, I am acting the part of the lazy little layabout. Moving on... I went back and read Oliver Twist. Horridly depressing, as I expected. The facetious irony was good for...

I didn't think that I had garnered any -A or any such thing. But confirmation is always nice. Three A's and a couple +A's. Now I can really rest. Will post about Christmas with the Harris family when I feel like writing.

English was a cinch. Nowhere near as difficult as I thought...and I really did think it would be easy. German is my last final, and it is not a question of whether I do well, but whether my score is as high as the other boy wonder in the class, J.D. He consistently scores a little higher than I do, and since most of my errors are carelessness, not ignorance, I think I might do it this time! *Rapid shift of thought and Topic* I must be careful about using this facebook thing again. I realize that it is winter and that outside is not exactly the place to be. But I need to be sure I don't cut into my constructive time with that brain eating cancer of a social networking site. Alright. Time to go find people.

Every morning I face the same challenge; a veritable dance of death. When I stumble my way down the hall--rather in the manner of a stunned moose--toward the shower, I do so with the constant company of danger. As I go down the hall I wonder exactly how my end will come? Will my end come from a sideways tumble down the stairs? Perhaps a sudden heart attack? Maybe it will just cut off my legs and maul me? No matter where they were three minutes before, there is almost always a cat sprinting to position itself beneath my raised foot. I say: there is danger in the morning. As surely as there are cats; there is danger.

You cannot understand the present unless you understand the past. The present is only the momentary continuation of the past and is part and parcel with the same. So why is it that when American history is discussed, be it in schools or books, that we seem to skip from the freeing of the slaves right to the beginning of the first World War? One would almost think that slavery ended with the end of the civil war. It did not. It might have ended in name, but it was not over in reality. The 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments were obeyed in the south only because the union troops, underneath the command of the brutal but efficient Sherman, ensured it with force. The black populace voted for the republicans; the party of the abolition. Republican power during this short span was greater than it ever was and will ever be again. And the black populace enjoyed greater civil rights than they would until the mid twentieth century. 1866 saw the formation of the KKK; the, evil, white trash, scrub bas...

Girding my loins for tonight's final, I feel no stress. This is history; it comes so naturally and makes perfect sense. None of it is purposeless. It is a million threads which wind together to create a breathtaking tapestry of humanity. No thread hangs alone and none is without its purpose and meaning in the tapestry. This final is going to be fun. It is the same way for my other finals that lie ahead. German will be difficult; a puzzle. But it will be an enjoyable puzzle. English will be English, which is to say, second nature and totally comfortable. My only tedious final is already behind me. Now my greatest source of anxiety is those late library books that I need to return tonight. I hope I don't get one of the surly librarians. Now, I must finish up with this and go practice disarming smiles.

I have always wondered when university transferred its mission from education for educations sake to career orientation and training. When did their focus morph from creating thinkers and refining minds into creating employees and glorified merchants? I think I found part of the answer earlier. After WWII we passed a GI bill that allowed American veterans to go to college free of charge. The rates of student graduation plummeted into the low 40% area and it never made it back to the previous rates in the 80-90% range. We are now hovering just below 60%, which is about 10% lower than our rate in the 70s. The GI bill permanently changed the nature of the American university system. The young veterans of WWII were not there to study human nature or the course and formation of history. They were there because they thought it was the way to get ahead in life, and the system, led by the enticement of doubled and tripled budgets, changed to accommodate them. Only about 25% of the WWII GIs eve...

There I was, gloomy, tired, and downcast, no inspiration daring enough to venture into the presence of my melancholy. My research paper just wasn't coming along. I needed to find certain statistics, not flattering to the current administrators of the university system. I did not lose faith, the fact that the opposition had published no statistics in favour of their position on the issue heartened me. But the total lack of evidence from the opposition did not necessarily mean that my needs would be fulfilled; the haughty poobahs of the arcane tower do not publish their research if it does not agree with that which they hoped to find. But... Even arcane poobahs slip up. I caught a series of inconsistencies and hypocrisies that lend me all the munitions I require. I can finish my piece much stronger than I hoped to this morning. Funny enough... This revelation, this majestic Whim of Wit which shattered my uncertainty and gloom, struck me after hours of fruitless toil. Why did it wait ...

There are multitudinous bonuses to having a brilliant and gorgeous older Sister. The bonus we are concerned with in this entry is food. Namely, the worldly lawyers throw feasts and I get invited for no other reason than the Shewoof's goodness and generosity toward lesser beings, like me. So, this night, I joined in the revelry of her office Christmas party at Chops. I feasted. I will sleep soundly with the remembered taste of lamb chop and creme brulee tickling the tip of my tongue. Tonight, I am the Moocher King.

I woke up this morning to a morbid reality of taupe and white. The soft pall of white announces this land as dead and covers over all the grass that would try to say different. The flowers wither and everything takes on a stillness. The world is in mourning. But even as we pass into winter, we do so in the knowledge that spring is coming. Light and color will return to the world. The white pall will be cast aside and the grass and flowers with burst forth more splendid than when last we saw them. Song will return to the air and our mourning will at last be over. Winter has come. It is not a happy thought. However. Be of good cheer. Spring is coming.

I almost feel guilty when I hear about the daunting mountain of homework that Win is laboring under. Almost. Self study for the final is not exactly difficult. Two or three hours of my time, at my leisure and good pleasure, seems easier than the hour and fifteen minutes spent in the company of the professor. Here I have endless supplies of coffee. I may stretch and walk around when I please. I can even listen to my music while I am working. It is an easy schedule and I find myself unwinding very nicely from all accumulated stress that I collected during my research process. However, not being in the presence of the professor does make it difficult to drag feedback out of them. I am still waiting for a certain professor's feedback, in light of which I was supposed to begin my revision on a certain paper. While there is oodles of time before I really need this info, it is usually my preference to get all this nonsense out of the war early. I dislike last minute jobs. Having finishe...

I do not know why it is that I so love the sight of them. There is something about the bleary, radiant, veiled quality of that light that I love. Better even than the sight of them; walking on a dark rainy night with said orbs as the only illumination on the path and that tangy worm-smell in the air. And also, the soft caress of rain, even if bitter cold, I have always found so soothing. It is like the drops, which roll off of my face, carry my worries and stress away with them. Even after the longest days, the rain always makes me feel light again. With the darkness and the solitude and the steady, measured, and ceaseless patter of the rain, the smallest spark of imagination or breath of a whim leads to the most wondrous realms of thought. It really is a pity that it is so late and I have class tomorrow; I should love a little walk in the rain. Or better yet: a long walk.

Basketball, every single class, someone says we should face the IPFW women players. Everyone would then agree that this was crazy talk and that the individual needs be institutionalized. We would be destroyed. Today, three intrepid teammates and I put that assertion to the test. I had already been working out since eight, as had the other three, yet we were the only ones from the class who had the energy to play the girls. We were easily the strongest physical specimens. We would have to see how it went. Playing to fifteen by ones and twos, we took them best two out of three in 2 sets. We went ahead and played the third, but they beat us at that one, partially because it was half-court and cut down on our speed advantage. Still, for not having played basketball in a long time, winning that match against legit college players felt good. If only I could play as well during class as I did in those matches. More suspicious free food today. The grilled cheese turned out to be edible. I did ...

The front page of the Journal Gazette Metro section sickened me. There were two stories at the top. One of the stories was about a pizza delivery man who was murdered, the thieves apparently killed him in order to take his pizzas. The second story was about a man who had a twelve foot blue spruce in his front yard; had is the operative word. Someone cut it down and stole it during the night. What the hell is wrong with people. Murder for pizza. How can you look your children in the eyes as you decorate a tree that you stole from someone's front yard? Sickening

This evening I got on blackboard and received a notice and while I did not disagree with some of the content therein, it delivered the content in a rather pernicious manner and included ad hominem traits. This was posted by the same person who was talking about the evils of ad hominem argument when last I saw her. These university people are just as arbitrary and reactionary as any of the undergrads they deal with. While I was mentally eviscerating the duality in this situation a thought struck me. In a whirlwind of ADD perfection--a constant flood of totally disconnected and random thought made whole--details of my research were brought to the forefront of my mind and the realization of the arbitrariness of the system permeated my thoughts, conveniently connecting it all in a twisted web of fuzzy logic. Thinking forward to some of the general ed requirements that I must complete, I feel a new sympathy for the poor saps who consider themselves stuck in my history class. The vast majori...

Days that begin in total darkness are always so very long. The greatest evil that comes of working out and playing basketball at ungodly hours of the morning is that I have very recently imbibed large amounts of caffeine. Anyone who has tried this knows why it is not a good idea. The near impossibility of staying hydrated, coupled with the acidic substance in an empty belly, does not make for the most comfortable exercise. Don't get me wrong, this is not an excuse to slack. The old soccer rule still stands, I keep running until I am pulled off by coach or carried off by stretcher. But it certainly doesn't help matters, especially with the increasing violence and intensity of our morning matches. Today we were outnumbered, out sized, and--to be truthful--had a definite talent disparity; this is what happens when both of your best shooters are AWOL. As the smallest, and gutsiest, member of our team it is my job to collect all the rebounds and elbows, which I do beautifully. I hav...

After a solid month and a half of research, topic changes, and torturous perusal of melba toast grade ruminations on the state of education, written by people who take themselves, very, very, seriously, I completed my rough draft and am not so displeased with it as I thought I would be. Now I have a German exam tomorrow, but that should be my last serious work before finals. On the bookish front. I am reading the novel New York by Edward Rutherford and enjoying it greatly. Now I am going to rest and get away from the computer. I'm afraid that I overused it again in the last couple days, largely because my crazy ADD head decided it needed to alter topic again. I'm going to have to work something out with the little brain gremlins and whims that are always up there making mischief, of one kind...and another. If I had to guess, I think they would probably be assuaged by the rereading of Calvin and Hobbes. Just need to find time....

Today started well. By well, I mean after 7:00. I spent this morning making one last pass over the homework I finished last night. All was well on that front. I spent what was left of the morning listening to my music too loud and messing with the Dogmeat. A most gratifying use of my time. One negative thing. Pandora has instated a maximum on the number of hours you can listen for free. You can imagine my consternation when my music stopped playing and I found a message from the creators trying to shake me down. The issue is that there is nothing to shake out. I am going to have to find another method for augmenting my music supply. H'anyway. German was excellent today, as always, and we ended by filling out our evaluations. Dr.Roberts is getting some excellent reviews. The group is really great. We have no whiners, and the few who have whiner potential are smart enough that they have nothing to whine about. Lee is, in my humble and correct opinion, an excellent teacher and makes t...

When I wake up after a few hours of restless sleep, I am not usually expecting a marvelous day. But for the lack of sleep and the 2 1/2 hours of continuous exercise, for the exhaustion, both physical and mental, which I am currently experiencing, I feel good. The Exhaustion is the kind that comes with accomplishment, and so, comes with a measure of satisfaction. My homework is all done until December first and I held a solid run for longer than I have managed in a couple years. I have one last long day left before thanksgiving and after that I am close to next semester, for which I have a more interesting schedule. And, and, and... no Comp. After this I am to be assumed English language competent. Yays. I would put together something longer, but getting all my homework has involved some intensive computer work, which has definitely taken its toll on my eyes.

I have, as a good homeschooler, always been in on the secret that we learn and apply best those things which we enjoy. Why should I be surprised that my five weeks of preparation on a topic which I did not care for has caused me to loath said topic? I need to be able to accomplish unpleasant tasks quickly. This minute baby step by baby step process that the Moore has put me through has turned this paper from an easy task which I could have realized in a week, to a month and a half torture show of academic coddling and over preparation. This last assignment which made me re-reread part of the textbook and a bunch of my sources, only to make me write another little three page assignment talking about the six to eight page paper. It translated to hours of re-reading for some 25 minutes of writing. I am reminded of the Pointy-Haired Boss assigning progress reports every fifteen minutes until the engineers catch up on their work. And I am now exceedingly cranky.

I know some excellent Muslims. I hang out with a pair of them pretty regularly at school. Ahmed and Jasmina are perfectly normal. Jasmina is trying to talk me into political science and Ahmed has given up on talking me into Biology. There are good Muslims, maybe the vast majority of Muslims are good? I have been party to sample of the good ones and have never seen a bad one. But it is not the water in the northern regions of Africa that causes genocide. It is not the food which allows women no rights in the Middle East. It is not the trees which tell men to strap on bombs and kill the Jews. Orthodox Islam is corrosive. It eats away empathy and turns the noblest elements of the human will, self sacrifice, bravery, loyalty, and devotion, to a twisted cause. Do I wish there was no Islam? Yes, I wish that. But there is Islam, so we live with it and try to get along. Should we profile Muslims. No. We are Americans and that is not how we roll. We deal with each person according to their acti...

*Warning: Bitter Satire Ahead* In their eternal wisdom the federal Illuminati have discovered the secret to lower rates of fatality by breast cancer; we will now treat cancer by appeasement. After holding long diplomatic talks with the cancers, a Federal panel became convinced that the breast cancer would leave us alone if only we would stop fighting it. "The vast majority of breast cancers are benign and the rest might be as well if we would only stop persecuting them, they would leave us alone" said one official. These words come on the heels of recent findings that attempts at breast cancer prevention were actually counter productive. The official continued on to say that breast cancer was actually a "cancer of peace" that has long been inflamed by US medical intervention. The Panel found that current measures taken by the US medical professionals were "too expensive" and "came at the cost of too many innocent cancers that were not any danger to an...

Every so often I divert my attention back to the French Revolution. It asks one of those questions that has never been answered to my satisfaction. As good Christians, we are supposed to uphold and obey government, but what happens when the government is a mere tool which the powerful use to abuse and take advantage of the weak? What happens when a government's justice is become rancid and corrupt, when there is no justice? What happens when there is no means for peaceable reformation? Should good men sit there and watch as their fellows are trampled? I have heard the revolution is always a sin. Is it not also a sin to watch your neighbor defrauded of his life and property? And what if he is defrauded in the name of the law? What if government is rigged to allow some men to rape, defraud, and murder without tasting the consequences? Such was the case with the French. The peasants only had one answer for that oligarchy of worms. Don't get me wrong. The murder of the French arist...

This morning I could not sit still for bible study. I ended up wandering into James nearly empty class for the last five minutes of the lesson. James teaches bible study with the zeal of a caffeinated baptist minister. If today was any barometer, I imagine the chilluns are getting a much better Sunday-school education than any normally received by American crumb-crunchers. Next I will have to invade the She-woof's classroom. After all, who is making sure that the teaching is up to Corp standards? Later, about the time that everyone starts going into church, I realized that I was abandoned and alone. In the course of seeing to the effective deployment of acolytes in our weekly campaign against the forces of darkness, I again missed out on any chance of joining the choir; that, coupled with my mother being ill, reduced me to the sad situation of having to sit by myself. Very sad... Aha! But that was not to be. For some of the magnanimous members of my church family had seen my wretc...

Military Science and Leadership-101-class number two. That is when we dealt, however briefly, with responsibilities in the military chain of command. As a general rule, a commander is directly accountable for every man under his authority. Abu Ghraib was the commander's fault. So also, when you send one of your men back home dead, that is your fault and responsibility as well. A commander should feel every single loss, because they are on him. It is not pretty, but it is something you accept if you choose to command. Nine months, indecision, and shout-outs. Can anyone tell me what those three have in common? To me they are evidence that our Commander-in-Chief does not understand and comprehend the enormity of his office. Every life that the President of the United States spends is on him. His primary duty has nothing to do with our global image, climate change, health-care, or even diplomacy. Commander is not a title given because the founders thought it sounded cool; it is a char...

When I got into the Shewoof's car yesterday evening, I was greeted by the usually chipper and irreverent Roe Conn. However, his tone was not what I was used to. That is because he was talking about the shooting at Fort Hood. I was not shocked, later, when I found out that the shooters name was Nidal Malik Hassan; I had expected something along those lines. Mr. Conn apparently made roughly the same connection, which does not really surprise me. The connection isn't too hard when the shooter screamed "allahu akbar" as he shots his victims. But the members of the American media are now going out of their way to keep Islamic extremism out of the picture. I was amused by how the New York times was explaining it. Just go to their website and search "Fort hood." Compassion Fatigue and Pre-Post Traumatic Stress Disorder are the early diagnoses given by the American media. His shouts of "allahu akbar" obviously had nothing to do with it. The fact that he h...

It's a gorgeous day out and my short-military short-hair feels most excellent in the breeze. I might miss the old stuff at some point, but not right now. Now I am enjoying that incredible, light, floaty, feeling that comes on the heels of losing half a pound of weight off my head. Have you ever had a really annoying and catchy song stuck, really, really, stuck, in your head? I will assume the answer is yes and then I will tell you that for me, today, that song is Bat Country. I do not even get the pleasure of having the guitar solo stuck in my head. No, i have the odd and quirky and completely weird chorus bouncing around my cranium. Also, German was canceled today, so I ordered a bunch of stuff from IUCAT...It's totally free. I will now make it my mission in life to make sure the people down at the IU library have something to do all the time. I started with about 10 books today, tomorrow, who knows. ;-p And now I need to get ready for comp. Shouldn't be bad.

I have recently begun playing basketball on Monday and Wednesday mornings before class, an activity for which they give me credit. Hooray for me. Basketball is a sport I have always enjoyed. However, there is an issue! My head would fit nicely beneath the armpits of several of the other gentlemen on the court. Easily. Not only do these players dwarf me, they also have lots of highschool basketball experience. I am going to need to develop some solutions to this problem...like kicking shins when the boss isn't looking. At least I like my team that I'm set with. These pre-dawn wake-ups are threatening to steal what little is left of my sanity. I think they are conpiring with The Moore. Today, this morning, I did something totally uncharacteristic. I went out of my way to avoid the people I know. I was tired , cranky, and in no mood to talk to anyone. I just wanted a massive cup of coffee -a massive caraf!- and a note saying my comp teacher recanted her intention to have us put o...

Tonight is Halloween. Tonight is one of those nights that almost everyone has a blog post about, a little slice of what they did, are doing, or intend to do. Oddly enough, I intend to use my Halloween post to talk about last night. It began very nicely, with sizable portions of good, rich, Italian food, closely accompanied by a couple glasses of something deep and smooth. Happy and stuffed, I sat down to a movie with the Old Flesh-and-Blood. I had no idea what I was in for. The movie was piercingly sad, with ongoing themes of depression and hopelessness that continued on as it progressed toward an impending suicide. You learn from the beginning that the main character is going to kill himself, but you do not learn why until later. I honestly loved this movie. It hurt. But the love, the pain, and the sacrifice that were at the core of everything were poignant and powerful like I have never seen in a movie before. I honestly have not cried like that in months. After that I needed a walk....

Tonight we attended a most excellent Daughtry concert. It began with a trip across town to grab Emma, from which point we proceeded to the Coliseum. Walking through the parking lot I caught an odd and unpleasant perfume, my untrained nostrils did not recognize it for the marijuana that it was. Thank goodness I had family there to clear up that mystery. Once we made it into the Coliseum proper I had some proper time to observe--mentally eviscerate--the patrons, who were in their most horrid garb. Lot's of tight clothing. Nothing terribly amusing presented itself for my pleasure until the advent of a fat, incredibly genial, and somewhat inebriated man who was, at least for a moment, to be my neighbor to the left. He immediately introduced himself, his group, and launched into conversation. After some ten minutes of conversation, and upon finding out that my last concert had been a rush concert, he was decided that I was infinitely better for his daughter than her current boyfriend. A...

Rehashing American history (again) has proved an interesting exercise. I catch a lot of the evil, sneakiness, and treachery, that I missed in previous examinations. I make connections and see political deals and the sacrifice of principle for personal gain or power. So many people--our local afternoon talk-show host included-- live under the delusion that there was a time when politics and politicians were civilized. When there was a dignified exchange of idea, not the personal attacks and nastiness of today. Would Burr-Hamilton count as a civilized exchange? Perhaps the Alien and Sedition Act? It only jailed all the dissenting journalists and newspaper men, what's wrong with that? Even Abraham Lincoln jailed dissenting congressmen when they spoke against the war. Politics have never been civilized, they will never be civilized. The floor of the senate is the natural habitat of the power hungry and the corrupt, liars, thieves, cheats, gamblers, and feckless beggars in fine clothi...

Presentation is now past, and it was definitely the best shown during that class and the only one that ran on time. In fact, ours was the only presentation that did not run twice as long as it should, and that was with our presentation covering more and having twice as many slides as the next. Also--yes I'm a braggart--those were some excellent slides in our presentation. We were the only duo who operated without a script and we were good. I got to stay home this morning and early afternoon. I had to miss the first part of our movie in German two days ago and I didn't see the point of watching the second half of the movie, and since English will not meet for at least two weeks, I had the liberty of staying home until History at four-thirty. This is the first time in...well over a week that I got a morning at home, let alone a morning and an early afternoon both. That hasn't happened in a while. A very relaxing day.

When working on joint project, it is wise to check email more than once every three days, lest your partner beat you and leave you in the downstairs janitorial closet of the Classroom Medical Building. - Ancient Proverb I do not like joint projects. I also had all my hopes for an interesting content for the duration of my comp class shattered, annihilated. My poor hopes, already pitted and scored from agonizing boredom in a class where I was learning little, have been murdered by the mocking notice on which my choices for research topic were penned. More navel gazing and evaluation of my education experience at IPFW...I AM NOT AT COLLEGE TO TELL THEM HOW THEY ARE DOING. *Harrumph-ahem* You can imagine my distress when I received this directive. The High Command must be crazy. I stare out at the vast intellectual wasteland of self-obsession and gratification, and I can only shake my head. I was excited to get the topic choices for this paper, we would finally--I thought-- be getting int...

I just finished over half of my remaining German homework in about two hours. There is little else that I can effectively do right now. And my limit on foreign language facts that I can cram into my head with one sitting is not far removed from the eight workbook pages I just finished. I am taking a break. The Sims will help me.

My mother's highschool classmates made for excellent people watching. In fact, they were almost as good for dissection as the two, pasty, mustachioed, pre-neolithic, and almost certainly un-bathed, baristas who ruined my espresso this morning. The little dears were walking around with their mouths hanging open and shoulders slouched terribly. I could only conclude that they never had mothers. My mother's highscool comrades were of a more pleasant caste than the above mentioned paragons of the human race. But some of them clearly needed to quit bleaching their hair. The company was decent. The food was tasty. There was a dilapidated little playground and skate park in a grove of trees near the building where the rendezvous was held. And as I walked--you know that I was choreographing an emo music video--I was struck, figuratively (almost literally), by the slow rain of walnuts onto the black tire rubber that served as the ground beneath the dilapidated playground. Needless to sa...

Yesterday was a very short day for me. I will let my clever readers guess why. However, short does not mean bad. I worked on German, read my excruciatingly dull history and Comp text books, and got some laundry done. The fun, most satisfying, part of yesterday came later. At approximately 6:20 we set off in quest of food, and then, of dance. We somehow managed to find both. I relearned some of the steps I had forgotten, finally had the music and step click for the East Coast Swing, learned some new moves for the foxtrot, and did not step on my partners foot Once. Imagine that I took my lessons four years ago when I was fifteen. Boy+fifteen+awkward= partner's poor red foot. And today it is sunny!!! Bright and crisp, the sun warms the skin faster than the breeze can cool it, the wind invigorates, the coffee tastes better than ever, and everything smells so good!

All week I've been wishing there were more hours in the day. Today, the steel gray clouds, le blegh headache, and chilly wind that carrys little flecks of icy sky spittle, all served as a neat little call to repentence. Why are days so long? Oh yeah, I decided that I really hate Alexander Hamilton. I think he never met his full potential, thank God, as the petty dictator he might have been. Washinton is lauded-rightly so-for immediately shooting down any thought that he would be king. I think Hamilton would have taken it. Brilliant, great, effective, but those qualities are no guarantee of goodness. Also. Between my tiring of the negative cash flow and the sudden total ebb in difficulty of class, perhaps total adjustment(?), employment is once again desirable. And I am so, so, so tired of my comp classmates. However, I am warming toward my history classmates. This phenomenon might be effected by the surprising depth of the Histy tribe-depth found only on closer acquaintance- and th...

Ok. I just finished dressing my soccer metaphor in such a way that it might be easily metabolized by a younger audience, and I am not allowed to prepare it for the young people I know. I need to aim at the average. It's like trying to hunt an animal I have never seen before. I do not know what it looks like, but I am supposed to shoot one. The result is me stumbling around in an intellectual forest, firing at random into the foliage. Eventually I managed to hit something. I like it less than the work I captured alive, but it should be age appropriate. We can't have the children handling anything with life left in it. Thankfully, this should be the last piece on which I am required to rein in my vocabulary and sentence structure. After I hand this paper in, I am going to have to get medieval to make up for lost complexity. Tomorrow I meet with my partner to begin work on my ROTC presentation. We have to put together a short report on Fort Leavenworth. Our presentation needs to h...

I'm writing my short story from the point of view of the Black King that sits in the gigantic chess piece cabinet on the IPFW campus. The issue with my topic is the amount of work it takes to write such a piece. I can't just sit down and write this one. I need to sit, write, play some chess, get back to writing, and repeat. Laying out the conflict and devising a personality for a chess piece is harder than I thought it would be. Don't get me wrong, fun, but harder than schoolwork. Dinner beckons. A summons I dare not refuse.

Yesterday was spent in the company of family at Mounds State Park. Aside from the obligatory trip to the emergency room, all went very nicely. Cooking over an open fire, slowly assuming the same aroma as said fire, and hiking in the woods definitely all count as good fun. Today, however, I am back to drudgery. It's almost all writing that I have and the greatest task is not actually from one of my college professors. My short story requires something that I really need work on, Dialog. Also, I am concerned about the format of book discussion. This concern came about as I was doing my English midterm. Part of the midterm was an essay form self examination and an examination of the way the class is going in general. In comparing large and small group discussion, it hit me that all insightful/useful commentary that I hear is from the small discussion. People are much more likely to venture a criticism or strong opinion when in a smaller group. Book discussion has ballooned and lost a ...

I love the fall. Brisk temperatures, crisp smells, and dead spiders and wasps. Nature throwing one last opulent soiree before it slides into dormancy. Excellent sleeping weather too, you know. I can now wear a shirt for hours on end without breaking into a sweat. Better still, I now get to bring out my comfortable and flattering fall wardrobe. Sweaters, turtlenecks, jackets, hmm, yes, fall is good. Had school today as usual, except that my comp was canceled because my prof had a sick kiddo. Other than that little blip, I think it all went well today. Really need to get my butt into gear with my short story, but inspiration is yet to strike. Now I just need to slap together a presentation on Fort Leavenworth. That'll be a cinch. An interactive presentation that includes handouts and powerpoint and amuses the wiseguy sergeant. Sgt. Seitz is pretty decent though.

I feel much better now that I have my first history exam out of the way. I do not think that I will get better than a B on this exam, but I now know what I'm in for with successive tests and just what I'll need to do. There is a comfort that comes with getting that first experience out of the way. It is not as though I had no time for blogging, it was just the restlessness of an impending challenge that drove me from my blog. Now that I have faced the challenge, have it's measure, I feel that I can really master the next one. German made more sense today than it has in a week. Suspect coffee and sleep levels may be involved. Will have team do research on this. Composition...Professor Moore is required to teach grammar during at least one class per semester. It turns out that I am one of a couple people in her class who has used even a single semicolon in their work thus far. I received my first first journal grade that was not a 10/10. At the same time, she also said that m...

This day is a good day. I got my graded worksheets from my German exam; thereon, in the blood red scrawl of an editors ink I see a number. 94. Does not the sun shine brighter than it did this morning?

I know the last thing I really need is an ego massage, but I take immense satisfaction from the recent trends I've noticed in my History class and in my composition and German classes. My professors have this odd tendency of asking the class questions, not always simple questions. My classmates have been responding to the professors' troubling habits by adopting the approach of staring at the floor, or sometimes even their textbooks. There is now a little routine that has developed, my professors will ask their question and then, after 10-15 seconds of pregnant pause, turn and ask me directly. I admit, I revel in the opportunity to show off without sounding like an insufferable know-it-all. I get the satisfaction of answering all the questions without having to dance around with my hand in the air; this is because my previous intelligent answers now ensure that the questions come to me. I manage a reputation for being the smartest and I maintain universal popularity amongst my ...

In composition class my professor assigned a literacy narrative, a brief telling of an event, or series of events, that shaped the way we looked at and dealt with the English language. I wrote about the first book I ever read, Harry Potter. My verbiages in that draft contain greater eloquence than will ever issue forth from my lips. I was incredibly pleased with it because, though it has a few copy errors here and there, it is good and it is mine. I will admit, even in a rough draft I demand that segments of my phrasing be just so. Though the whole process was relatively short I was always careful to use the right word, or the right phrase, the wrong word simply would not do. I placed a considerable piece of myself into that piece, which is only fitting in a piece I write about me. But now there is an issue. For the final draft I am supposed to do some pretty radical revision. It is not that my piece was not good, on the contrary, my peers and professor loved it. But the second half of...

There was no difficulty naming my blog because the name is the force that inspired me to create the blog. The warm sun baking my skin, Dostoevsky forgotten for a moment, I allowed my mind to wander and it wasted no time ushering in my daydreams, which slowly wended their way into memory. As I sat up, licking my dry lips, it struck me just how fast Whims can run away with you and all the odd little places they have the power to take you. This is not a new revelation; I have long since come to terms with the knowledge that whims are the most powerful creatures in the world. But their strength and prowess astound me anew each time that I encounter them. It is as Jonathan and I documented some long time ago; Wit and Whim may often be complimentary forces, but Whim holds the mastery. Whim is easily my favorite word and holds fountains of meaning for me. But how did Wit come into all this? Is this boy so arrogant that he should declare himself a Wit? Probably. But Wit does not enter this pic...