CHRISTMAS PARTIES

Joy to the world, it's time to party.

The Delta-EBB Christmas party is tonight. It should be a ton, or possibly more, of fun. I'm bringing marbles, cards, and dice as a gift. Thanks to Dakotah.

There was a basketball game tonight. Both the girls and guys teams won by like thirty points. That was fun.

I'm thinking about starting an online radio station.

DR. QUIROZ

So, it's 10:00 A.M. on Friday, and I don't have class today. So why the heck am I awake so early? I'll tell you.

Last night was the Choir concert here at Hillsdale. It was actually really good. Afterward, I ran into Dr. Shaw, my Greek professor among many other classes, who told me I was looking sharp. I believe his exact words were "almost dressed up." He then asked me if I wanted to teach his 8:20 Greek I class for him in the morning.

Now, there was no way I was going to turn this down, so I said yes. He informed me the chapter they are going over is the chapter over "liquid verbs" which is just any other verb who's stem happens to end in lambda, mu, nu, or rho. So, I sat down with my old Greek book, brushed up on liquids and hit the proverbial hay.

Four hours later, when my alarm was going off, I must admit I was pretty close to just rolling back over and going straight back to bye bye land. However, I did not. I got up and walked proudly down to the classroom ready to teach. When I got there, Dr. Shaw was slightly surprised to see me, but relinquished the class to me.

Class went very well, and now I am in the library writing this. I hope to be back to sleep within the hour. Night.

A STORY ABOUT...

This week is neat so far.

I've been working on editing the rough cut of the film this week. Monday night I went to the basketball game. We lost. Then I went up to the editing lab and got to work. I worked on it for about four hours that night, I didn't leave until 1:00 A.M..

Tuesday I got up and went to lunch. Barbecue chicken, yum. Then I went straight up to work on the film. I worked on it until 5:30. I went to dinner. Pizza, yum. Then I went right back up and worked on it for about four more hours.

Well anyway, long story short - I finished the rough cut of the film. Wednesday during class we watched the finished product. It was very good. Travis, our teacher, said "that was the best film I've ever seen from beginners." I was pretty happy about that.

After that I went to pay the electric bill with Stacie. Then we went to the dollar tree to get some wrapping paper and such. We had a really good talk about life and death and everything in between.

When I got home I took a nap. But it wasn't one of those awesome naps where you're just out cold for hours. It took forever to fall asleep, and then I kept waking up. But it wasn't so bad.

Mike Dee has been sick for several days now, he's had to miss work and stuff. I felt really bad for him, when I woke up, Dakotah was gone to the store to get some medicine for Mike. Once Dakotah got back we met up with Stacie and Brandon and we headed out to Pizza Shuttle to get some ZZA's.

Everyone was pumped up about the adventures we might have. We all piled in Stacie's VW bug. The tooshie warmers were on, very toasty. We left the school and set out for Norman country.

We were about to get on the highway when it all happened.

A big nasty purple van came tearing around the corner, totally in our lane. Stacie hit the breaks and swerved toward the ditch, she handled it very well. Some how the van still managed to SMASH across the left side of the tiny bug.

We came to a stop and made sure everyone was alright. And just as we are gaining our composure, we look over and lo and behold, the van is driving away.

"Oh screw that! Go go go! Get him!" I start yelling. Everyone agreed, and we turned around and tried to chase the guy down, but by the time we were turned around and on the right path, the van was gone forever into the night. We went back to the scene of the crash and got out and inspected the damage. Stacie's front left fender, hub cap, left door and mirror were all messed up. But the good thing was that everyone was fine.

I called the police to come out, not that they would be able to do ANYTHING, but we called anyway. The nice officer came out and looked at the car and told us what to do and everything and we were on our way. Stacie said "well we're still going to Pizza Shuttle, I'm not gonna let this ruin our night!" What a great philosophy.

So we went and, as always, the Shuttle was a delight. We played pinball and Mrs. Pac-Man as usual. The food was awesome, and it was just exactly what we all needed to get our minds off the wreck. Unfortunately, no one brought a camera, so I've posted pictures from the last time we went, which was exactly a week prior.

The last time was the night after Andrew's funeral. Now that's twice the Shuttle has served us by lightening the mood after a heavy day.

After that we went to Borders and looked at some books and stuff. Brandon showed us this book about 100 interesting American teens or something like that. He had a chance to be in the book, but thought it was a scam so he didn't pursue it. Whoops. Dakotah bought a poetry book and a book by Tolkien. We looked at some design magazines and left. We headed back for the school.

I noticed that all night Brandon had looked just like Marty McFly from Back To The Future. So I did what I usually do, I made a picture about it. And that was basically the conclusion.

I went inside, worked on the pic, watched Batman The Animated Series on DVD, and ate some leftover ZZA. Then I went to bed.

Now I'm awake, writing. I'm going to go get some hot wings for dinner and then take a Systematic Theology test. And then tomorrow night is the Delta-EBB Christmas party, AND Tiffany's birthday party. I'm gonna have to make some tough choices.

Oh my crazy life. Until tomorrow.


Stacie cannot make a mean face to save her life!

Brandon McFly

Going for the high score

Oh those boys of mine!

Pinball

ZZA

GOING HOME

Now and again, we come across chapters in our lives which force us to step back and take a look at things, objectively. These parts, from an outsider's point of view, might seem indistinguishable from any other part in one's life. Yet, you - you are in it - deep within the trenches of life and living, which are surprisingly seldom the same thing.

My friend Andrew died about a week ago. This ongoing chapter is, so far, one of the harder to bare. Though it has been difficult, I find myself growing weary of the sound of my own complaining. I miss him very, very much. The pain is hard to hide.

I am going home for Christmas break in a few weeks. More and more the ever present knowledge that winter is the season for love comes knocking at my door. While, I do keep my mind occupied, it is difficult to ignore that things are always in motion in the winter. Lives are changing. Snow is falling. It is the perfect season to hold a loved one in the falling snow, and share that one perfect moment - or perhaps many. I fear I might be all out of love. Or maybe I'm just scared. Sadly, I find myself not caring anymore. At least for now.