| The Chronicles | The Return Of The Swing (Of Things) | ||||||
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 Artsy, eh? =) Alright...I'm tired of this...I have to update even if it means no sleep. Don't think for a second that I don't feel guilty every day for not having a recent update, particularly when you guys are kind enough to keep reading and commenting. I hate trying to sum up a month. My trip to Arizona seems so long ago. Where'd I leave off... Arizona (her brief take) Ah yes. So, I went through the tough security at Birmingham's airport, had a short layover in Dallas (or was it Houston?), played my GameBoy games a bit to pass the time, and arrived in Phoenix. It's always weird right when I get back there, because I have reassociate the real physical Sands with the mental Sands. It's a good weird though...always refreshing. Upon leaving the airport, the warmish weather was quite nice, having come from a pretty cold southeast. I brought Vince a game and Sands the second season of Friends for Christmas. She gave me this fun game called Mad Gab. I think she's a lot better at it than me though. Anyway, we did the usual hanging out and watching movies most of the time. I recall playing a special Lord Of The Rings version of Risk with her family either the first or second night. It was really strange...there were all sorts of new rules...hence I lost miserably. On Tuesday night, we went to a New Year's Eve party thrown by Liesel. Liesel has the interesting dilemma of being in a long distance relationship that's sort of on a break, while also having a "dating" friend at home. Funnily enough, their names are Tom and Jerry. Both happened to be at the party and were getting along well enough. Tom and I had some good conversations. I don't know if it was just the fact that we were the only two college students in a house of highschoolers, but we seemed to have some stuff in common. Mostly we talked about football (lots of bowls going on at the time) and Europe. At some point my mom called. I felt a little bad. It was the first time I hadn't been home for New Year's, but being in a different time zone offered the opportunity of several celebrations. At least, that's what I tried to convince Sandy. ;) Soon after midnight, we went home. Apparently her family has a small celebration each year where they have a special meal/snack and give a gift to the kids. They gave each $20, including me...I felt pretty flattered and privileged. I mean, they really didn't have to include me like that. Anyway, I thanked them and remembered I needed to get a gift for her family. Later that week I ended up picking them up a game called Scotland Yard that after playing, they seemed to like a lot (they've played a few times since my visit). The gist of the game is one person is Mister X and they're a fugitive in London. Everyone else is a detective and attempting to catch Mister X. He moves secretly most of the time but has to surface regularly. Both he and the detectives use passes (bus, underground, or taxi) to move around the board. It may not sound like a whole lot from my description, but it's really quite fun. I need to find a copy for myself. One night we went to the zoo for ZooLights. It really contrasted with our last visit there in the summer...it was cool, jam-packed, and there weren't really any animals to see. The lights were neat I suppose, and it was something to do. Probably one of the best things was finally finding a stuffed anteater for Marit. I've always checked out the gift shops at zoos since I met her, and hadn't seen one before. Only once I got back did I find out that she already has two. Eh well...I really ought to mail it soon. Though, she does kind of owe me a picture first. As I mentioned before, we have this habit of watching a whole lot of good movies and this time wasn't different. We watched part of "Spider-Man" which I'd seen quite a few times before. I can't recall if I mentioned this anecdote before, but back when it was in theaters, I was hanging out with the Davids in Chattanooga. We happened to run into a girl we graduated with named Jessica. She mentioned that she was going to see "Spider-Man" at which point I blurted out that I'd seen it three times. Immediately after saying it, I realized my embarrassment. I mean, it was kind of hard to explain that all three times I'd been invited by other people after the fact. Yeah so, anyway...I got to use the "What are you gay?!" heckle at the end for the first time though, so that was kind of amusing. We also watched "Lilo & Stitch" (I got it for Christmas) and Mrs. Povio liked it a lot. I finally got Sandy to watch the much maligned "A Life Less Ordinary". Personally, it ranks third on my list of favorite movies. Scotty and Kevin think it's horrible (despite the fact that Kevin's only seen twenty minutes of it). She got me to watch "Life As A House" which was quite excellent. I really like Kevin Kline's ability to make any story poignant. "Two Weeks Notice" was a pretty decent romantic comedy...Sands is a big Sandra Bullock fan. I normally don't like Hugh Grant that much, but he did quite well in his role. "Adaptation." was as great as I thought it'd be. I knew it'd be clever, but it had more humor than I expected. The last thirty minutes, as many people have mentioned, are kind of weird. I kept wonderng how much of it was true. "Catch Me If You Can" was a caper that I really related to a lot...I've always wanted to not necessarily impersonate, but go and "be" a bunch of different professions for a while. "'Til There Was You" and "The Very Thought Of You" were my old stand-by non-mainstream romantic comedies. And, "The Mating Habits Of An Earthbound Human" and "Love Stinks" were my old stand-by quirky, dark, non-mainstream romantic comedies. I think one of the last movies I saw had to be one of the most horrible films I've seen. You might've heard of it..."Ballistic: Ecks Vs. Sever"...Antonio Banderas and Lucy Liu. Really, the whole thing was a mess. It was trite and attempting to be clever, but failing on so many levels. It had some okay action sequences but nothing that hadn't been done before. The reason I watched it was that she was busy with her mom and her dad and brother wanted to see it. So, yeah...I'd advocate you guys see everything except that last movie there. So, that's pretty much the visit. Now, we're currently in the middle of a long two and a half months where we won't get to see eachother. My next trip out is for Spring Break in late March. Her family offered to pay for my flight this time as I've been out there three times. I declined at first, but eventually at my dad's urging accepted. Back To The Auburn I got back in town a few days before class started. Hmm...which reminds me...let me diverge for a moment. The words 'couple', 'few', and 'several' as applied to amounts. Those are ranges, aren't they? 'A couple' is two people. However, 'a couple of something' implies to me 2-3 things. 'A few' implies to me 3-5. And, 'several' seems to imply a range higher than that. Now, Sandy and I differ on this. She prefers a more concrete couple=2, few=3. I understand the reasoning, but I don't see the value in the words. If you mean two minutes, it seems like you'd say two minutes. If you're not sure, it seems like it'd be nice to have a word to suggest a range. The practical application of this is that I can't really say 'a couple of minutes' or 'a few minutes' to imply anything longer than three. It's not that big of a deal once we figured out that we have different definitions. Now, we can more clearly understand what the other means. Okay, so back on track...classes started up and they're going fairly well. I've only got five...which I think may the fewest I've taken in a full semester. Here's my schedule in case anyone needs it. Electromagnetics isn't too difficult. Linear Signals & Systems (which I dropped last semester and was the only class I've ever dropped) is much better with a nicer teacher. Elementary French 2 is a bit tedious at times, but interesting for the most part. Great Books 1 seems to have some interesting reading material. Finally, Spanish Syntax is easy peasy. After a few weeks, I've got at least one guy in everything except GB1 that I can talk with regularly. What else has been going on? Kev, Ros, Michael, Matt and I have started up a study on "Wild At Heart" that's going pretty well. I think we're getting some insight into the nature of man. We've watched a couple good films along with it. I hadn't seen "Braveheart" or "Legends Of The Fall" all the way through before, but they were quite good. "Legends Of The Fall" was weird because it wasn't that any of the characters were necessarily likeable. Pretty much all of them had some sort of glaring flaw. However, it made them that much more complex and made the movie feel much longer than its running time. Two weekends ago, I went back to Chattanooga since DavidW was going up and bringing his...well, we'll say "lady friend". Actually, I really shouldn't imply stuff, or he'll get mad at me. "They're just friends." I don't know why, but it's hard to believe him when he says that. She seems really nice and I don't think it'd be bad if they did eventually end up together. It had snowed that week (snowing out Homecoming, the reason we were going in the first place). It made for an interesting visit though. With Alex's help, I somehow managed to coax my car up this big frozen hill at the beginning of our mile long driveway. It didn't want to go after a few tries. Eventually, I pulled it back onto the street, and gave it a speedy try. I managed to gain enough momentum to make it. And, I also got a nice walk through the snowy woods the next day with the two Davids and DavidW's friend. The next weekend, Kevin and I went on a Navs men's retreat at a state park in Georgia which has a claim to fame of having West Georgia's longest beach. Take a minute to think about that if you need to. In actuality, it did have a pretty decent beach along a large partially frozen lake. Kevin accidentally threw a frisbee out on the ice (which was not thick enough to step on). After several attempts we managed to get it back. More detail and pictures will be forthcoming. I got to know some really good guys on the retreat and I look forward to hanging out with them over this next semester. Finally, this past weekend, I held a Saturday Night Mafia for the first time this year. It went quite well. I think we had 20 people at one point. Had some people not been out of town or more able to make it...it could've easily been 30. Guess we'll have to see this next weekend. Right now, I really should be doing homework seeing as it's due in six hours. I'd also like some sleep, but I figured it was important that I get this done. If you're interested, Sandy has recently put up some of the comics that she and a friend make...I get the feeling that there are a good many inside jokes, but some of the humor applies more broadly...The Adventures of Burpie & Slurpie. | |||||||
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