Books Books and More Books!!!... Oh Yeah Let's Not Forget Bikes and Music Too!

So last weeks book was a complete and total failure on my part. I read MAYBE a third of it; wish I had been able to read more but sadly I had the hardest time sitting still for more then five minutes at one go (I've never really had this problem before but last week really was my WORST week ever, performance wise since I've been at Evergreen).

So this week I resolved to do much better, and I think I am. I was late getting the book for many reasons that really only boil down to I'm a dumbass and didn't take care of the things I should have before going down to Portland last weekend. I feel I've got a good handle on the reading so far and am very impressed with what the author has to say. It's hard to really write about because I've not formalized what I'm thinking just yet. I think what I'll do is post my paper when I'm done with it on Thursday night. That should be interesting for ya'll to see what I do every week. The papers themselves aren't really that hard or strenuous to write; it's a two page (single spaced) paper that summarizes the authors points. The hard part is keeping to the two page limit.

Last quarter was a little different, we had a four page paper that was two pages devoted to the conclusions of the author and two pages responding to the work. I was happier with that format but they have said that we can respond to the work if we so wish. I'd like to do that with this book so what I think I'll do is after the study group meeting tomorrow night, I'll start working on the paper and seeing if I can't get some of the ideas outta my head and on to the metaphorical paper.

Also in other news, my rear light died today which made for a mildly spooky ride home from work, but thanks to the fact we've pasted the winter solstice, the days are getting longer and it has stopped getting dark at 4 PM here. It now waits till 4:45 PM. Which if I leave work at 5 doesn't help much but if I leave a little early, say around 4:30 I get home with enough sunlight to not worry too much.

Again I forgot to say that I've been going in earlier to work lately. On Monday's and Tuesdays when I don't have class, I've gone in at around 9 AM. Thanks to my being in Salt Lick Shitty for almost three weeks there was an enormous backlog of filing to be done, I've almost finished it and hope to have it 95% done by Friday.

In music related news, Chris and I have started work on our Grind project entitled U.S. Marine Corpse. Chris wrote, and totally finished our first song, and we started polishing it up last week. We've also wanted to start a stoner/drone band in addition to the doom/noise/drone that is Breaker of Men. Creatively I've got a lot on my plate what with school, BoM, U.S. Marine Corps and our as yet untitled stoner band, but I'm happier playing music then I am working so I figure it's a trade off. Spend the 30 or so bucks a week to drive down to Portland on Friday and jam then drive home Sunday and still have my homework done for the coming week. Playing music and hanging out with my friends really does make my week all worth it.

Looking for an Apartment...

So after much hand wringing (not really) and careful planing (not really) I've decided that I kinda fucking hate living the in dorms. It's not for me, really, REALLY not for me. I searched craigslist.org (yay yet another reason why I like them) and emailed some other Greeners that had posted an ad looking for a roommate. It's cheep, about 175 a month and I should have a loan check coming in soon (if not I'm moving back to Salt Lake as I don't have the money for next quarter) and that will help with any deposits that I need to make.

In other CL news, I posted an ad looking for people to play in a stoner/drone band and got a response from a drummer. I emailed him back and hope to start playing in another (the 3rd to be completely truthful) band shortly.

I can't really think of anything else worthy of blog time. Besides I'm swamped with homework (but what else is new). Wow I really love parentheses (see I told you).

You Take Your Car to Work and I'll Take my Bike

The new quarter is upon me, I've once again been immersed in the scholarly duties of being a student. Yet today finds me listless and unable to sit still for more then a few minutes at a time, which when you're in class from 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM can be a problem. I think part of it might be the fact that yesterday found me riding my bike more then I have in the last four months.

I took my fixed gear to work after class which is about a 4 mile ride, then back to campus from work for an EARN meeting (again another 4 mile ride), then downtown for a study group (which had I read the book more I would have been more useful to the others. Oh yeah that's about 6 miles, for a grand total of 14 miles which is about what I used to ride in Shit Lick every day.). Sadly my ride back to campus was not to happen as the rear tire (yet again, fuck that pisses me off) was flat. After 8:00 PM the buses only run every hour so I had about half of that to kill before I could get back to my house. It was raining as well...

Taking the bus ended up being good because once we got close to campus it started snowing. I laughed a little then cried when I remembered that I had done so because my fucking tire was flat... AGAIN.

So now I'm in the midst of writing a paper about Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq, and I'm having trouble writing it. I've got a little over half of it done but really I'm fighting tooth and nail to get it down and done.

Going back to class earlier today, we did a workshop review of the fall quarter at the end of which we were to make an artistic representation of what Colonialism means to us. I drew a picture of the Earth on fire. My new faculty asked me about it and I explained that I see Colonialism, Imperialism and Globalization not as problems unto themselves but as examples of a larger problem. When she asked me what I simply told her civilization is the problem. As I've not fully explored this idea I fumbled with it a little but was able to get her to understand my idea for which she told me she wanted me to do that as my final project. I'm excited about it and need to start working on it.

Oh yeah, because of all the riding, which included a very large hill in the rain on a bike with no brake, my ass hurts. Looks like it's time to hit the gym.

If you want to have a good time check craigslist

So one thing I left out about my trip home from Portland Yesterday was the fact I did a rideshare. For those of you who don't know what this means is I checked Craigslist.org for people who wanted to leave Portland on the same day I did and who wanted to go to Oly. Well I found a person.

It was really nice, I had someone to talk to the way back to Oly and she chipped in on gas (the real reason I did this). All in all it was good, we discussed dogs, cats, shitty roommates, and bad movies. I hope that it will work out in a similar fashion next time.

I'm kinda in love with craigslist at this point. For one I found my current job and two, I got a cool traveling companion outta it.

Oh yeah, so the whole reason I wrote the above is that the person who drove back with me talked about doing a travel log. She talked about driving across the States and writing a book about it. I'm thinking about riding my bike from Oly to Pasadena soon. I thought it could be cool to write about it and maybe try and get it published (as she suggested I do), or just write about it here. We'll see.

For now I'm thinking I'll just ride my happy ass down to Portland in the summer. It's only about 100 miles, which I did no problem last summer. The only thing is last summer I had ridden all year and really didn't take any time off from riding. This year (school year is what I guess I mean) has been more then a little different. So if I want to ride to P-town I need to really start riding more and riding longer. It's just hard to find time what with work and school and tons of homework. Oh well I'll work something out.

Olympia an't just a cheep beer.

So I got back in to oly about two hours ago. I unloaded all my shit, put my bike back together and took a shower. I left Salt Lake on the 2nd rather then the 3rd because as much as I liked seeing all my friends and family, it was very much time to leave. Marleigh and I left Hate-01 at about 9:30 AM and tore ass across Idaho and eastern Oregon. It was as boring as it sounds until we hit Baker City. In Baker we were blasted by high winds and icy roads and did not have a break from that until we hit Le Grand. From Le Grand to Portland it was rainy but not too bad.

We rolled in to Portland around 11 PM and started drinking with all the lovely people we well, love in Portland. I don't think there was one night while I was in Portland that I wasn't drunk, and one of the first things I did was hug Chris and Lacy and tell them how good it was to be home.

All in all the trip was good, I saw Peter, Charlotte, Cassie, Neda, my Family and got to eat some good food I missed.

I love you all.

Salt Lake City an't just the title of a Dwarves song anymore.

That's right kids, I'm flying home tomorrow night. I leave Sea-Tac airport at 4:50 PM and arrive in Shit Lick at 7:50. I'll be there until the 3rd when I drive back to Oly via Portland. Classes start on the 7th and much like last quarter I'm very much looking forward to next quarter. Also I've decided to go to Law School and will start to study for the LSAT this break which I will be taking in the spring.

The three schools I'm looking at are Fordam (thanks Scotty for giving me the idea), Loyola and Seattle University. Fordam and Loyola are both outside of Washington State, Fordam is in New York (Not too excited to go to New York), Loyola is in L.A. (another city I'm not too keen on), and as I'm sure you can tell where Seattle University is. All three are Jesuit schools with a strong social justice program. The really cool part about Evergreen is that 85-90% of the grads get in to their first choice for grad school. So no matter where I decide to go I've got a good chance to get in if I do well on the LSAT's. I'm not too worried about the LSAT because I know if I study for it and take a practice test I've gained a lot of the skills I need to do well on it already, it's just a matter of further developing those skills.

So here I sit for all intents and purpose, with my thumb up my ass.

That's right, I said it, I've got that wonderful digit that allowed us to use keyboards (see type type type type, I'm using them now) shoved up my ass. What does that mean? Well, now that the quarter has come to an end, I have nothing really to do between the hours of 8 AM, when I generally wake up, and twelve thirty when I go to work, and six PM and one AM when I get home and before I go to bed. Let us not even mention the weekends...

I've been reading On the Road, see, and diggin' it man, diggin' it hard. Damn beat writers. I've been thinking about a lot of things as of late, one of which is how fucking, sexist, racist, classiest, and heterocenterist that book is. Among other things, I've been thinking about growth. I had my Eval on Monday and my Faculty had only good things to say about me and how I did this quarter. My disability did show up to play a little but in the end it played nice and was able to get along well with others. I think the best thing I ever did was come here. I've grown a lot in the way I think about things and how my actions and the actions of other have played in to the condition of the world today.

I got my happy ass on face book and found some long lost friends (and ex's) and it got me thinking more and more about the above. The whole beautiful thing has me reeling and rocking in pure joy and punch drunk with hap-penis.

I'm getting more comfortable with English and I'm starting to play around with sounds a little bit.

Oh yeah, speaking of sounds I got the new Saul Williams album yesterday. For those of you that read this (Cassie) I down loaded it off his website for five bones. It's great and he's coming to Washington in February so Chris, Lacy and I are going to see him. It will be berry berry good.