Chattanoogie
After the trek through the woods, I returned to Chattanooga for a lazy weekend. As I recall, nothing too eventful happened aside from visits with Glenn and Patrick. Glenn and I visited the bookstore, where I picked up a few C.S. Lewis books, and afterwards had a good discussion about theology over dinner. Interestingly, Glenn revealed that over the past two years he's come to be a Calvinist. More on that at a later date. My visit with Patrick was also somewhat surprising. Turns out, Patrick's got a girlfriend. It's not that Patrick's not a great guy…it's just that a lot of girls don't always understand him, so I think it's great that he's found a girl that does.

Let me add that the longer I stay away from this city and the more time that passes, the less I have that connects me here. Now that Alex and Evan have graduated and left, my options in this town are further limited. I enjoy hanging out with the rest of the guys that are still here, but I'm always struggling for ideas of what to do, and I can't really think of any girls that are here to hang out with.

SIMUN XXX
Ending my sojourn in Nooga, I headed back to Auburn for an action-packed week. There wasn't much in the way of school-work. Instead, I threw myself into SIMUN XXX (30th Southeastern Invitational Model United Nations conference). Just to clarify, that's pronounced ‘Simon'. Anyway, the conference opened in bizarrely. Last year, we had an acclaimed UN diplomat as our opening speaker. This year, we had the treasurer for Alabama…an older southern lady. Unfortunately, she seemed to have no idea what conference she was at. There was cursory talk of bringing peace to the world, but then she launched into a rousing show of patriotism. She kept going on about how the US was the greatest nation in the history of the world. Now, some of us might agree with that, but it wasn't the appropriate place for a speech like that. She also emphasized the importance of voting and donating money to the political candidates that you prefer. I guess she's looking to get re-elected. At one particularly surreal moment, she forced everyone to get up and say the Pledge of Allegiance…twice (the first time wasn't good enough). At that point, I couldn't help but laugh to myself at how awful it was (for a UN speech). Unfortunately, this prompted the UGA delegation to walk out. I hoped they were just playing their nation (China) but no such luck. She continued for quite some time. By the end, all she had to do was say something along the lines of "And America should use its freedom and power to promote peace in the world." She didn't do it. Early into the conference, Win went around and gave a post-disclaimer in lieu of a direct apology.

If this weren't enough, we also ran into problems with pissy college delegations. Apparently, UGA and some of the other universities were upset that there were high schools at the conference. They felt that they'd been duped. We'd always promoted it as an intergenerational conference, but they eventually left, citing the "immaturity" of the high-schoolers. Instead of coming in, showing them how it's done, and winning all the awards, they decided that they'd leave. There's irony there.

Last year, I was responsible for monitoring the pages (the middle-schoolers that carry notes)…basically babysitting - which I quite enjoy. However, in addition to that, I got roped into being an associate chair. I wasn't fond of the added responsibility (which was basically a glorified secretary), but it turned out well. Some of the pages were veterans, so I didn't have to keep as close of a watch. Since we were a bit shorthanded, Daniel (the chair) became a delegate for a short while, and I took over as chair. The committee was lively, so it was always pretty interesting as we discussed Palestinian refugees and the Western Sahara. Yes, at times I'm a geopolitical geek. As for being a kid wrangler, I mostly hung out with them at lunch and took them on a couple of excursions to WEGL and the arcade. I remember going to an arcade on a school day at that point in my life…it was awesome. I mean, your classmates are sitting in a desk studying, and you're playing video games. Was there anything better?

Home of the Braves
That Friday night, I hopped in the car and headed to Atlanta for the Braves game. Jordan had road tripped down from Chicago with his girlfriend and some friends in order to see the Cubs play the Braves. David W and some other friends of his were there also. The game was a pretty decent pitching duel. Heading into the top of the 9th, Andruw Jones' solo homer was the only run. The Braves handed the ball to renowned closer John Smoltz. Lights out, right? One out, two outs…home run. Crap. The Cubs stayed alive. As I was late to the game, I welcomed extra innings. They add a lot of intensity. Unfortunately, the rest of the Braves fans abandoned me and I was surrounded by Cubs fans. As the night wore on, the Braves loaded the bases on a couple of occasions, but just couldn't push across the winning run. Five hours in, during the 15th inning, the Cubs broke through with a sacrifice fly. They went on to win when the Braves couldn‘t tie in the bottom of the inning. T'was quite frustrating, but a good game nonetheless.

Since then, the Braves have mostly hovered around .500. However, due to injuries, recent weeks have been pretty awful. They lost three series in a row for the first time since 1990. Fortunately, they look as though they're regaining form, and I hope that they'll sit atop the standings again once the season is over. It won't be a cakewalk like last year, but I believe that they can do it.

Mobile Home
The next event of note: the trip to Mobile. Kevin, D, Cat, Natalie, Leigh, and I decided to head down for a weekend. On the way, we played a heated game of cow p-game (count the cows on your side of the car). The first evening, we watched Cat's sister in a dance recital in Niceville. While some of the ballet was a bit unusual and grating, it was enjoyable for the most part. I particularly appreciated the skill involved despite commenting to Kevin about the ease of standing on one's toes. That's a joke, folks. Though it does remind me of my uncanny ability to turn my feet a great deal backwards. I'd always assumed that everyone could do it, but it seems to be a special talent. Maybe I'll take a picture at some point.

From Niceville, we headed to Mobile to Cat's house and stayed up late watching Wings and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. The next day, we slept in and lazed around the pool during the afternoon. Leigh attempted to set some sort of record for doing flips - she must've done 30-40 in the span of an hour. At one point, she tried my suggestion of an ill-fated flip with a twist. It was amusing to watch at least.

After picking up D and Kevin from Kevin's place, we set out for Fairhope. We arrived a bit late though and all of the shops were closed. Undeterred, we walked down to the pier and had fun posing for pictures and watching the sunset. All in all, the atmosphere was very peaceful. The only particularly odd part was an elderly drunk man with a deep voice that was fishing from the pier. I didn't witness it, but apparently, he decided he needed to relieve himself. Instead of walking a short distance to the bathroom, he unzipped his fly and proceeded to try to urinate off the pier. Unfortunately, either the distance wasn't there or the wind was wrong and he ended up leaving a puddle next to himself. I think I'm happy that I didn't witness the event, though I can account for the puddle. With that in mind, look at these lovely pictures.

Me admiring the sunset. (more)

We ate at Cat's favorite diner that night, and the girls got into a gigglefest. It got to the point that Natalie spit food all over Cat. Oh…I should mention the prevalence of the girls' phrase ‘Oh'. The repetition was overwhelming. Eventually, I started adding letters of the alphabet (boh, coh, doh, etc). I managed to get through the alphabet a couple of times before Natalie picked up that it was amusing to say the word just to induce me to say one of the nonsense words.

After dinner, we headed back to Cat's and visited with Devin and some others for a while. Leigh and Natalie were flabbergasted by Devin, Cat, and me being able to discuss Family Guy references for half an hour. After everyone went to bed, I caught a special on Animal Planet called "The Future is Wild". It's a pseudo-documentary about predicted future creatures featuring CG. The names were a bit cheesy (flish, sharkopath, etc), but needless to say, it was really cool. That reminds me that I saw another special. This one was on the world's best resorts. The number one resort was a fascinating, extremely expensive place called Necker Island. It'd be really fun to take people there one day.

The next day, we went to a gigantic church. I don't feel particularly comfortable at huge churches, though I thought the pastor was engaging. Afterwards, we grabbed some seafood before making our way back to Auburn.

Class-ick
After the trip, the semester waned. Classes weren't particularly challenging, despite the fact that motivating myself to write my Spanish papers was extremely painful. Procrastination runs through my veins. Let's just say that it's a good thing that I got them done before the semester ended.

I suppose that it might be appropriate to recount my worst/best story about procrastination at this point. It occurred just before I began this journal. I'd taken Aesthetics as an elective. The course consisted of three papers. At the end of the semester, I was having trouble motivating myself to write the third. I was determined to stay in Auburn until I finished it. However, my professor told me that I could e-mail it. This left me free to return home. I planned to write it that week, but it just didn't happen. Then, I headed to Australia. When I finally found an internet café, I found that my professor sent me an e-mail saying that he had to have it the next day. The e-mail was a day old. Thus, a couple of weeks after the semester, I sat down on the other side of the world at an internet terminal in the hotel lobby at 2am and hammered out a paper. Sad? Yes. One good random anecdote deserves another…

One day towards the end of the semester, Ray and I were walking to the theatre building to prepare for our final scene. As we walked up a hill, we noted that a somewhat large turtle was plodding along in the sidewalk and getting ready to cross the street. Unusually, the turtle had a large tail. I realized that it was likely a snapping turtle and my suspicions were confirmed once we got closer. Conveniently, my brother was carrying golf clubs (for the scene) and I was able to help mister turtle across the street safely. I've always been under the impression that snapping turtles were fond of water, but I couldn't think of any water in the area.

Anyway, the scene went quite well. We're both in the habit of missing lines, but we got through the whole things quite smoothly without missing anything of import. Both of us kept in mind that our professor was always telling us that we were being too polite. The scene was from "True West" and revolved around two jealous brothers. Thus, we tried to bring an angry and jealous energy to the parts. I thought that we were fairly successful. That said, Ray was a bit frustrated that his final grade was lower than mine. I think that he had a harder part though.

As for Concepts of Science, I don't really have anything further to add other than the fact that it was quite easy. I'm hesitant to dismiss it as completely useless. I suppose it further cemented a few scientific concepts in my head, but having taken Physics and Chemistry, it definitely wasn't one of the most difficult classes that I've taken.

The State of the Apartment
With all these random weekends away, the regular Saturday night thing has fallen into disrepair. Part of it is that knowing the randomness of the schedule, I haven't done a very good job in promoting. I've relied on the fact that there are certain regulars that will show up. Once summer and fall hit, I figure they should pick back up a bit. Another problem that we're running into is that there's a certain stubbornness that limits the games that we play. We've exhausted so many in the course of the years. Once I get back to Auburn, I'll make a list.

A couple of random games hit me that we haven't played though: Four Square and Battleball. Of course, these aren't apartment games, but I do wish I could get people together to play them. I remember Four Square fondly from camp. Scrambled eggs, slams, shoe shiners, air dribbles, around the world, and all that good stuff. Perhaps we could draw a court out in the parking lot. As for Battleball, it was my favorite PE game through all the years. At camp, it was known as Slaughterball. Most people know it as Dodgeball. The equipment and place to play would be a bit harder to arrange, but it'd be cool if it could be pulled together.

Moving Pictures
Facing difficult odds, Jasmine remains in the running for American Idol. Sure, LaToya didn't deserve to go. In fact, I was actually going to go for her if Jasmine got kicked off. However, I'd much prefer Jasmine to Fantasia or Diana. She has the range. She just needs to work on her control a bit. She's certainly as good as most of the pop stars currently out there.

Since I last wrote about movies, I've seen quite a few. So, in roughly chronological order, here's the quick rundown…though I might elaborate on a number of them.

I tried another back-to-back movie deal, but I wasn't as satisfied as last time. "Johnson Family Vacation" is funny, but mediocre for the most part. It's an imitation of "Vacation", but the characters and circumstances aren't nearly as humorous. Oh, and Steve Harvey really annoys me off for some reason. "Dawn of the Dead" was a bit better. It was well done, freaky, and engaging, but ultimately, it felt pointless. Don't read the next two sentences if you plan to see it and want to be surprised. You get invested in the characters, get your hopes up, and then everybody dies. I mean, I like to be entertained, but I also like for my movies to have some sort of point.

Not long after, I watched a couple of movies that I've been meaning to see for a long time: "The Firm" and "Planes, Trains, and Automobiles". I watched the Grisham novel under protest (I wanted to watch a comedy), but I knew that I'd probably like it. Despite being quite long, it was probably one of the best courtroom/drama/thriller movies. As for the Candy/Martin vehicle, there were some really hilarious parts ("First son came out sideways. She didn't even scream."), but I just didn't like Candy nearly as much as I do in his other films. The ending was meant to make it bittersweet, but it just felt contrived.

Not long after, the thriller lovers finally got us to watch "Runaway Jury" with John Cusack. Again, like "The Firm" I figured that I'd like it, and I always like Cusack, but it's just not in one of my favorite genres. Regardless, it was well-acted, engaging, and somewhat surprising.

A new place in Auburn called Video Warehouse was running a deal of $1 rentals, so I loaded up a couple of weeks ago with "Cheaper by the Dozen", "Stuck on You", and "Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star". I like indulging in family comedies every now and then, so I appreciated "Cheaper". The only bad part of the film was the atrocious acting of Hilary Duff. "Stuck on You" had an under whelming response from others, but I thought it was funny. Then again, I'm a sucker for movies by the Farrelly Brothers. As for "Dickie Roberts", it's not quite in the same league as Spade's stuff with Farley, but like "Lost & Found", it's a pleasant comedy nonetheless. I also rented "Sinbad" since I've been back in Chattanooga. Like "Atlantis" and "Treasure Planet", this one was destined to bomb, but I really like action animation films. I'd actually rank it ahead of those other two.

In theaters, I recently saw "Envy" and "Van Helsing". Stiller, Black, and Walken won't go down as having a great comedy with "Envy", but if you ignore the lack of story, there can be some funny moments. Most people seem to feel that Walken saves the movie. As for "Van Helsing", a lot of people feel that it's a stinker. And yeah, the dialogue was a bit hokey, and I'm surprised the writers sold anyone on the contrived premise, but it's still got a lot of fun monsters. And isn't that what we all want from movies? Isn't it?

I'll wrap up with the best movie(s) that I've seen recently: "Kill Bill". I've seen volume one a number of times in recent weeks. I appreciate the style and music in the film. I was a bit worried that it'd be a straightforward revenge film, but Tarantino adds enough turns to keep it interesting. The second volume adds a lot more to the story, but I was a little under whelmed with the lack of action. Taking the two as one complete film though, it's excellent and certainly my favorite film by Tarantino. "Pulp Fiction" and "Reservoir Dogs" were clever and creative, but I just didn't enjoy the stories. "Kill Bill" was much more engaging and interesting.

Closing Thoughts
I'll leave you with a random musing on the consistency of food. I dislike food with nuts, I dislike crunchy peanut butter, and I dislike jello with bits of fruit. I always chalked it up to a desire for consistency in my food. However, I like cookies and cream ice cream, I like Sonic slushes with fruit, and I like strawberry yogurt with bits of strawberry. Apparently, my taste tastes are a bit more complex than I originally thought.

I still want to talk theology, but this entry has gone on quite long enough, so I'll have to leave it for another entry.