Dinner at dusk.

Hey, everyone! Good day here. You?

I was up late last night studying for a test I had in my 8am class this morning (after finishing theory homework that took longer to complete than expected), but I woke up early enough to make it to class on time. The test itself was actually pretty easy; to study for this exam, all I really had to do was read through my notes once to get the material back in my head, and then I was set. The only issue I had was with the number of acronyms we had to know for this exam. In education, there’s a a lot of legislation that has been passed that has been shortened to various acronyms. It’s a pain to memorize, so I had a little difficulty answering questions with acronyms, but I still expect a high B at the very lowest on this exam.

Theory and history were both a-okay. No problems there. Afterward, I was free for two hours, during which time I picked up the transcripts that I had ordered, rode my bike to Subway across the street for lunch, talked to my mom on the phone, and just hanging out before band at 1. I’d once again like to emphasize how much better my life is without calculus intruding upon it. It’s beautiful.

Band was nothing special (tired of being taught by TAs instead of our band director; whatever), but choir was lots of fun. It warms my heart to know that our concert is still more than two weeks away, but we’re already doing runthroughs of the full program. I love that we’re so on top of things, and we sound awesome. Sure, it kinda sucks that our director cut one of my favorite songs that we were singing, but we’ve still got the best, so it’s no problem. I’m so excited for the concert; I’m really hoping my parents/grandparents/brother (heck, maybe even a friend or two!) can make it to Lubbock to check it out.

After choir, I called the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang theatre director, John, and asked if I could bring him a form for a recommendation letter for a scholarship I’m filling out. I went to his house, gave him the form, and caught up with him for a few minutes, since the last time I had seen him was closing night of CCBB. It was great to see him! I had horn sectionals at 4, and then I ran with Conner and another guy who tagged along with Conner at around 5:30. Since humans vs. zombies is going on this week and Conner was still alive (at the time; RIP, my friend; don’t eat my brains!), we went off campus to run today, going just down Flint to a couple of parks that had tracks. It was the first time we had gone running since the week before spring break, and it was rough, though for different reasons than anticipated. Instead of my endurance failing me, it was my back; for some reason, it started hurting a lot. Maybe it was because of my running posture, who knows, but it was fine as soon as I stopped running. Don’t worry about me; I’ll figure out what I’m doing that’s causing pain, and I’ll make sure I don’t do it.

I came back to the room after running, and Andrew and I decided to treat ourselves to dinner at Chili’s for tonight. I asked Andrew when he wanted to go eat, and he replied with “We will have dinner at dusk.” So we waited until right before sunset and then left for dinner, just for Andrew. It was great to eat a full non-fast food meal for the first time since spring break, especially after living on spicy chicken sandwiches, instant mac and cheese, and cereal.

After dinner, we ran by Walmart to get some more milk for our room, and I also grabbed some Reeses eggs and a couple of packs of gum for snacking purposes. All good decisions. When we got back to the room, we put on the Bourne Ultimatum (we didn’t finish the other day) and watched that. I love the Bourne movies. 🙂 I think that Andrew really enjoyed the trilogy as well. Once the movie was over, we watched only one episode of Fresh Prince before Andrew hit the hay. As for me, I’m typing this up, of course, and then I plan on taking a quick shower and reading for a while. Good times.

Yesterday, the new Back to the Future: The Game episode was released, Episode 3: Citizen Brown. I finished it last night at around 9ish, and I’ve gotta, say, it’s the best one yet. This one connected to me on a more emotional level than the previous two; I can’t say too much without giving away the plot. But it’s fantastic. Again, I’m super excited for the next one! I teased Mom and Granna about how they should buy me the new Jurassic Park game from the same company to help me pass the time while I wait for the next BTTF episode, and maybe even Portal 2 as well, since it’ll probably be out before the next BTTF episode. We’ll see. 🙂

Anyway, that’s all for tonight. Goodnight, everyone! Sleep well!

Chad

P.S. – MercyMe song of the day: “A Million Miles Away”. Undone.

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Studying…

…so no full post tonight. Sorry, but expect a full post tomorrow. Goodnight, everyone!

Chad

P.S. – MercyMe song of the day: “When You Spoke My Name”. Undone.

Just another manic Monday.

Today was a pretty good day. I didn’t have an 8am class this morning for the purpose of “individual study time” in preparation for our test on Wednesday morning, which was nice. I had a lot of trouble getting to sleep last night, lying in bed for an hour after I intended to sleep; it was really hot in our room, and I was sniffly/sneezy (my meds hadn’t kicked in yet). I fell asleep eventually and was able to sleep until about 8:40. Yay sleep!

I made it on time to my theory class at nine and to my music history class at 10, and at 11 I went back to the room and just hung out. I spent some time on the computer and ate some cereal and milk for breakfast, which was great. Band at 1, choir at 2, and then I was back at the room. I grabbed up my dirty clothes and went downstairs to do my laundry, which took a bit more than an hour and a half. During that time, I read some of the Shining and dozed a bit (sometimes both at the same time, which is difficult). When it was done, I came upstairs to find Andrew napping on his bed; I put away my clothes, cleared off my bed, and climbed in. Before I took a nap myself, I texted Andrew’s phone to wake me up whenever he woke up so that maybe we could go eat dinner together, and then I fell asleep. I next woke up at 8:30ish, looked over, and saw that Andrew wasn’t in his bed. Shrugging it off, I went back to sleep. When did I wake up? Midnight. IT’S ALL ANDREW’S FAULT (not really because I set alarms to wake myself up, but it’s just more fun to blame it on him)!

Andrew showed up right after I woke up, and we decided to watch a few episodes of Fresh Prince before going to bed. Good stuff.

That was pretty much my day; nothing else happened. A couple of people complimented me on my awesome Star Wars shirt (the two coolest shirts I own are Star Wars shirts; go figure). That was cool. OH, and the newest episode of Back to the Future: The Game was released today! It took me forever to download on Tech’s Internet, but it is now installed and ready to be played; guess what I’m doing tomorrow! 😉

Anyway, that’s all for tonight. Sleep well, everyone.

Chad

P.S. – MercyMe song of the day: “Homesick”. Undone. This song, along with I Can Only Imagine, was written about Bart’s father, who was lost to cancer (at least, I think that’s what I remember reading). It’s a beautiful song.

P.P.S. – I read my Bible again today. Gonna keep it up!

Out of breath.

I woke up early this morning (in comparison to previous Sundays in Lubbock), at about 9:30, which gave me plenty of time to get ready for church at 10:30 without the feeling of being rushed, as well as time to make my bed and fix a mug of coffee. However, I also woke up with a headache, which was no bueno. I decided to go without any Excedrin at the time since I had coffee (Excedrin has lots of caffeine in it, so mixing that with a drink that has lots of caffeine was a bad idea). Church was nice. Worship was great; we actually sang a few of the older hymns (contemporary-style, of course, though it wasn’t “rock”), which is always fun, and the message wasn’t too bad either. I left the church at around 12 and resolved to eat lunch in the room so that I didn’t spend any money out of my pocket. Lunch consisted of instant Velveeta mac and cheese, which is always delicious, and I just sat around for a while before going to Quidditch practice at 2.

It was our first practice since the A&M tournament three weeks ago, but it wasn’t too rough on me. I played beater, of course, and while I wasn’t stiff or sore from lack of practice, I was definitely exhausted after playing a game of nonstop running back and forth; it was a busy beater day. I did really well, but the air is so dry and we play on a dead grass field with lots of dust, so I always have trouble breathing very deeply for an hour or two afterward, but it’s no big deal. Of course, I’ve been just a little bit sniffly since then also, but that’s also not a big deal. Gonna take some Zyrtec before heading to bed.

I left quidditch early, at around 3, so that I could take a shower before going to a fellow horn player’s junior recital at Hemmle at 4. I got clean, put on what I had worn to church, and went to the music building, picking up a bottle of smart water downstairs on my way (I have yet to feel much smarter; maybe it was defective?). The recital was very good, but I realized something: I much prefer playing solo horn music than listening to it. Don’t get me wrong, he did a fantastic job, but it’s not something that I’d want to sit and listen to for a long time. Of course, I LOVE listening to full band/symphony orchestras play, but solo horn with only piano as accompaniment is not as interesting.

I was back in the room by 4:40, just catching Andrew as he left for church at 5. At this time, I did my music history and theory reading assignments/quizzes, and I just spent some time looking around on the computer. I initially planned on doing laundry tonight, but I decided to hold off until tomorrow; the laundry room will probably be less busy tomorrow night anyway (at least I hope so!). Instead, I just chilled in the room, snacking on some cereal and Poptarts to satiate my hunger until Andrew returned, which he did at about 9:30. We ordered pizza from Papa John’s (his treat, since I bought lots of those instant macaronis for the two of us; came out even for both of us) and ate while watching the Bourne Supremacy on Blu-Ray. I had shown him the Identity a few days ago, so I figured that I’d show him the rest of the trilogy. We started the second one, but he fell asleep pretty early into it, so I stopped it and did my theory workbook assignment. I’m about to pull out my Bible and read a bit from it; I’m really wanting to get back into the habit of reading It everyday. I’ve got a plan that will take me once through the Old Testament, twice through the Psalms, and twice through the New Testament in a year. Awesome. I want to work on having more Scripture memorized by heart, so, as I read along, I plan on writing down the ones that I feel would be best to memorize. Please pray that I stick with this.

After reading the Bible, I think I’ll read a bit of the Shining before hitting the hay; my 8am class in the morning has been canceled, so I get to sleep in a bit. Yay!

Anyway, that’s all for now. Goodnight, world.

Chad

P.S. – MercyMe song of the day: “Unaware”. Undone.

In Brief

I don’t plan on this being a long post, though I’ll try to keep it from being pathetically short.

I woke up this morning at 11 or so, but I continued to lie in bed until 12:30ish. I had decided last night before going to sleep that Chipotle would be a good lunch option, so, once I woke up, I got dressed, got in my car, and went to Chipotle. Delicious. I then proceeded to drive around town, stopping at Walmart, Target, Best Buy, and then a different Target, just looking around. It’s funny; with Best Buy being my favorite store, you’d think I’d know how to get there by now, but I still have to resort to using Google Maps on my iPhone. Go figure.

I came back to the room at around 4 or so (I don’t remember for sure) and continued to read Stephen King’s The Shining. I’m 110 pages/13 chapters into it so far, about to start on part 3. It’s a fascinating read; it’s very much like the book in some respects, but in others they are completely different. For example, King describes Wendy Torrance as being blonde and pretty, whereas in the movie she looks like this:

What a shame.

All in all, I’m loving it, and I’ll be finished with it by the end of this week if I continue at the same pace. It’s quite a bit longer than the Accidental Billionaires is, so it’s taking more than three days.

At around 7:50, I left the room to go to a friend’s birthday party, stopping at Subway to eat a quick dinner first. I got to the party at 8:45ish (fashionably late, of course), and was immediately uncomfortable. There was lots of alcohol around, with a game of beer pong in progress. I held fast to my morals and refused to drink any of it (I used my own #soberstrong hashtag on Twitter), but I resolved to stick around for a while so as not to be rude. Though I was uncomfortable with the alcohol, I was glad to see that nobody was necessarily getting drunk; everyone seemed pretty well composed, which was definitely a relief. Other than the couple of games of beer pong and the one time everyone took a shot, everyone just stood around and talked. I ended up leaving after sticking around for a little more than an hour, and to reward my good behavior, I picked up a large vanilla milkshake from Dairy Queen in lieu of a beer. Yay Chad!

I came back to the room and opened my computer for the first time all day, just wasting time away until the time came when I would pick up the Shining again. However, Conner texted me and asked if I was game to do our long overdue Wall-E movie night, and, wanting some company (Andrew’s been gone doing Chi Ro stuff this weekend), I told him to come on over. I cleaned up our pigsty of a room before he came over, and then we watched Wall-E once he had arrived. It was a great time. After the movie was over, he messed around with my iPad a bit while I pulled out Portal on my XBox (I had resolved to introduce him to it a while back), playing through for the second day in a row. I didn’t time it this time, though. Conner seemed to really enjoy it, staying until about 2:15 when I finished it, despite the fact that I told him he didn’t have to stay and watch.

And here we are now. I’m about to get ready for bed and lie down for a while, maybe read a couple more chapters of the Shining before officially going to sleep. I’ve got church in the morning, but I got plenty of sleep yesterday and this morning, so I’m not worried about waking up on time and staying awake during the service. No worries. Anyway, I’m off to bed. Goodnight, everyone. Sleep well.

Chad

P.S. – MercyMe song of the day: “In the Blink of an Eye”. Undone. Another of one their great songs.

P.P.S. – If you feel the need to comment on this, please do so on WordPress, not on the FB post. I don’t want the people at the party to feel like I’m ratting them out because that’s not my intention. I’d really appreciate it.

MMMMMMCHEESE

/I love Doritos

Today was night. I managed to wake up in time to go to my first class at 8, though I was about 2 minutes late; nothing awful, especially since I had been up so late. My motor skills were failing in my first few classes, which wasn’t terrible since we didn’t really do anything in any of them. When 11am came, instead of going to calculus, I grabbed an early lunch of spicy chicken sandwiches, headed back to the room, and set about 8 or 9 alarms for a nap; I had to make sure that I didn’t sleep through band or choir. I woke up with plenty of time to make it to band, which was boring. I wonder: was our band director on lazy pills all week? I haven’t seen him since Tuesday or Wednesday. The TAs did all the work. Oh well.

After choir had finished, I came back to the room, called the bank to sort something out (it’s getting settled, so no worries), and got back in bed, with the intention of sleeping until I woke up (i.e., no alarms). In all honesty, I wasn’t that tired anymore by this point, but I figured that, since it’s the weekend, why not so I can stay up a little late when it’s quieter in the dorms? So that’s what I did. I didn’t actually lay down until around 5; I woke first at 7ish, went back to sleep, woke up at some other time, and finally actually got up at ten. It was nice. Started at about 11:30 or so, I started playing Portal on my PC, one of the top 5 games I’ve ever played. I had been looking at videos previewing some new features in the sequel coming out next month earlier today, so I was definitely in the Portal mood. Now, I’ve played through Portal multiple times in the past, probably beating it about 12 or 13 times, and it generally takes me two hours per run; however, I don’t normally time myself, so there’s no way to actually tell, but I DID time myself today: an hour and six minutes. Whether I remember my older times or not, I’m pretty sure that this is my personal best. I ❤ Portal.

I realized today how great a year it is for video games. You've got the Back to the Future: The Game episodes still pouring out from Telltale Games, with a new 5-episode Jurassic Park game from the same company being released next month as well. Portal 2 comes out next month, Batman: Arkham City (sequel to Arkham Asylum, which was absolutely fantastic; another top 5 for me) in October, and Uncharted 3 (the first two are also in my top 5) on the PS3 in November, I believe. I'm so excited for ALL of these!

Now that I'm gonna be awake for a couple more hours at least (don't worry, no later than five, and I'll only sleep until noon or so, probably; five is what I call the "point of no return" because, if 5 comes and I'm not in bed, it's an all-nighter), I'm about to put up my computer and really start digging into Stephen King's the Shining, since I finished Ben Mezrich's The Accidental Billionaires yesterday.

Speaking of The Accidental Billionaires, I LOVED it. It was incredible. You don't understand how HUGE Facebook is until you know how it came to be what it is today. It's absolutely mind-boggling to know how much Facebook has revolutionized not only the Internet, but our social lives as well. It's an excellent read, offering much more Facebook backstory than the film that was based on it, the Social Network (though I loved the movie too). I recommend it to all of you, and I'll let you know what I think of The Shining as I work through it.

And that's all for now. Goodnight, Interwebs!

Chad

P.S. – MercyMe song of the day – "Here With Me". Undone. God is ALWAYS with us. ❤

P.P.S. – Enjoy my two favorite commercials right now (not including Old Spice) –
Doritos (title reference):

GEICO – Do Dogs Chase Cats?:

Busy Night

I had a paper to write. It’s late now, so no full post tonight. Sorry, folks!

Anyway, goodnight, everyone. Sleep well.

Chad

P.S. – MercyMe song of the day: “Everything Impossible”. Undone. Always been one of my favorites…my favorite lyrics have gotta be “finding freedom by surrendering”. It’s so clever, and definitely true once you think about it. This song really talks about having faith in God and in what He can do, no matter how impossible it may seem. “I know it all seems so illogical, but that’s okay…”

P.P.S. – NO CALCULUS FOR ME TOMORROW.