Todo Tiene Su Como-Se-Llama

Road Trip!

Yes, we did leave LeTourneau at 2:00 instead of 1:00. I kinda figured we would, even while hoping we wouldn't. Ran into traffic about 30 miles out of town and we were crawling along for almost half an hour. So that sucked. As a result, we hit Dallas in the height of rush hour, which was all kinds of fun.

Creepy thing: I'm driving along in Dallas and I look in the rearview mirror. There's a white van with an . . . "overweight" Hispanic guy driving. He drops back about a carlength or so, and then suddenly, an identical white van cuts in right in front of him . . . right behind me. And the guy driving could easily have been the other's twin brother. It was way trippy.

We stopped in Abilene to eat at Dairy Queen for supper, but I didn't get to get myself a Blizzard for dessert because a whole bunch of people came in while we were eating and we had to leave. Suck, again. By the time we finished it was 8:00. We were at my grandparents' house by 10:15.

I was gonna go to bed relatively early, especially I heard that the bloody cover for the bed of my pickup was supposed to be put on the next morning, and I had to get to the north side of Lubbock by 10:30. Except I didn't go to bed, of course. I caught sight of a book I had left behind for my grandparents to read (they did) and picked it up again. It was only 143 pages long, but it took a bit of time to reread it, and I picked it up at about 12:15. The book is Good Old Boy by Willie Morris, and it is highly amusing.

So, today, (to make a long story short) there was Thanksgiving dinner, and it was good. And it was followed by games, and they were good. And they were followed by more eating, and that was good too. And right now we are watching a rather . . . interesting version of The Hound of the Baskervilles that PBS did last year. I don't particularly care for the style, but it's faithful enough to what I remember of the book. I liked the Jeremy Brett version better.

And now I'm going to write an English journal. I hope everyone else is enjoying their Thanksgiving break.

Wheeler is Concerned

People are looking for love in all the wrong places. Literally. The top search hits on my blog are currently "love" and "cookie." Other interesting hits include: tragical, chili, accents, matrix, coppinger, faustus, unknit, and friends. I don't remember using half of those words . . .

The Week That Rocked

Twelve days since I made a substantial post. Bleah. The longer I put it off, the more there is to write. Of course, it's not like this is some kind of chore, but it takes time. But I have no time to digress . . . ummm . . . more than I normally digress.

I finished War in Heaven . . . obviously, I kind of had to. It was really great, but not quite as good as Many Dimensions, I thought. That's purely a personal preference concerning subject matter, though. I wouldn't recommend one over the other. I was pleased to discover that the LeTourneau library has a copy of All Hallow's Eve. Seriously, I'm not making that up. I'll definitely have to look into this situation at a later date, when my reading slate is a little bit cleaner. I have moved on now to Descent into Hell, and since I'm just that slow these days (I'll elaborate in a bit) I am now truly reading three books related to Hell.

On Sunday night . . . and by Sunday night, for clarity, I mean last Sunday night (we're starting at the beginning here), I went to see Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World. I and, I believe, the rest of us who were there, were quite "wowed" by the quality of this movie. It was most excellent in just about every respect. I'd go into deeper detail, but I've hashed through it so thoroughly so many times with people since that . . . I'd rather not write it all down at this point. I meant to write a complete review a week ago, but I was too busy and it didn't happen. In any case, it was good, well-acted, well-paced, generally worthwhile, etc. Go see it. It's strange. I never actually went to a movie in this town at all during my first year (barring The Two Towers in January, and that doesn't really count) and then suddenly I go to four movies in a two week span. Odd.

Monday was spent finishing War in Heaven and writing my reading summary for it. These activities were not equally proportioned at all. I finished the book approximately 50 minutes before class, and then did the summary. I finished printing out and stapling my 2nd draft at the moment when Michael walked into the computer lab to get me. I rode with him to Dr. Olson's house (we had class there, for the second time this semester). The atmosphere is mostly very conducive to the class in general. The main problem is focus and getting everyone together. We didn't start until about 45 minutes late, and ended up running 20 minutes over. Dr. Olson's dogs were . . . less than well-behaved this time around, periodically banging loudly on the door of the room they were in (which happened to be less than 10 feet away from me). Aside from this, it was a fun class. Of course, I ended up getting back to my room after 11:00. And I had genre reports to work on for Bib Lit and a speech to write for the next day.

Wilson helped me brainstorm a topic and I got to work on that. I had hoped to finish the genre reports in time to send them in to Owlet, because it's worth an extra quiz grade to do so. However, as the night wore on and the thing refused to progress with any sort of speed, it became apparent that this would not be taking place. Long story short, I stayed up all night.

The next day wasn't anywhere near as fun as my last all-nighter, not by half. Not enough caffeine, you see. I zonked in Woodring's class, and fully expected to zonk in Kubricht's. Fortunately, he was showing a video. Even more fortunately, he failed to bring the right video, realized that he'd actually thrown away the right video, and cancelled class. So I got off easy on that one. Speech, of course, was a breeze. Go in, sit through speeches, make your speech, leave. Yeah, I got picked on to do mine . . . no lucky breaks for me, yet again. Payton sure made up for that first speech where I actually got to go last. Which sucks because that was the only one where I was fully prepared to go first.

Anyway, this was a special occasion speech, and I gave a before-dinner address to the 7th Annual Gulf Coast Purity League Book Roast and Fish Fry. I, for one, was quite entertained, and I think my classmates were as well, generally. I brought along several books to "burn" and pulled them out to show everyone. I had the Harry Potter series ("I know I burned them last year, but I figured I'd just go ahead and do it again."), a couple of Dungeons and Dragons books that I bummed off someone, a Stephen King book, Dante's Inferno, Lord of Chaos (Wheel of Time, book 6 by Robert Jordan . . . the title was the main thing, and the fact that I happened to have it in my pocket), and the Complete Works of Shakespeare. That last one may sound a little odd, but while doing "research" the night before I discovered that it had met that doom at a few church book burnings in recent months, so it passed.

After that I went over to Best Buy with Scholl and Uncle Doug in my new truck, my first official use of it really, to get myself a copy of The Two Towers: Extended Edition (43 minutes of extra scenes . . . oh, yeah!). And, of course, since we were in the area we stopped by Books-a-Million to check out the scene. I was tempted to buy a few things, but I have too much to read as it is.

We returned to my room and Martinez and Wilson showed up as we watched through most of the new stuff. We broke for supper halfway through, and Moore joined us for the second half. It was all kinds of fun, and there are so many great new scenes! I won't go into it here, there's no point. If you haven't seen them yet, you get a hearty reprimand from me, and . . . you should go see them now . . . or something. By the time we finished, it was about 7:00. Everybody left, my computer screen started getting really blurry, and I decided that my bed was . . . looking . . . particularly . . . zzzzzzzzzzzzz. Yeah, I went to bed at about 7:30, so I got 13 hours of sleep. Crazy. And lucky as well, because I ended up pulling another all-nighter on Wednesday in order to finish those dang-blasted genre reports. Bleah. All kinds of bleah. I got some other stuff done in there, too.

So, Thursday wasn't any more fun that Tuesday. The only real difference was that I didn't have to give a speech, and I didn't get to skip Western Civ. I crashed at about 9:00 and slept through chapel on Friday, so I got 14 hours of sleep there . . . all in all my average for the week was better than it has been many times in the past. That's really sad.

I spent a sizable portion of Friday playing Freedom Force, a really fun computer game (the first I've played in a couple of months, too) wherein you take control of a team of up to four superheroes. The style of play is similar to Baldur's Gate . . . squad-based, real-time strategy that you can pause whenever to issue orders to your guys, with a heavy role-playing element in terms of advancing your heroes, and figuring damage, etc. It's very retro, done in 60's comics style . . . even if you've only ever watched the old Batman TV show, this game will crack you up with how dead on it is. Very well done voice acting, perfectly melodramatic and so on. The narrator is especially good. And the gameplay is just awesome . . . so many cool powers, so many cool heroes, so little time!

Friday night was the usual (Bible study), Saturday was the usual for the most part. I went to Waffle Shoppe with the crew at 1:00 in the morning, and that was fun. Randomly going out and eating pancakes with a bunch of people at all hours is the very essence of college life. And they were really good pancakes, too (at only $1.79 for 10!). Sunday afternoon was spent finishing my paper so people could hack at it. It still needs more hacks, but there was a bit of commentary forthcoming this evening. Of course the big activity was a supper of sandwiches, chips and Oreos in preparation for the full showing of The Two Towers on the big screen in Barry Auditorium. Four hours is a truly epic amount of time to spend watching a movie . . . it was loads of fun. "He was twitching because he's got mah axe buried in his nervous system!" Classic.

Jeepers! It's after 2:00! I'm not doing anything like what I did last week, no way, no how. I'm going to bed. I need to continue to catch up on sleep, I have a lot of driving to do on Wednesday. Uncle Doug and I will traveling to Lubbock to visit my family (extended, not immediate) for Thanksgiving Break. Should be fun . . . it will be interesting at the very least. Good night, y'all.

Three Disturbing Quizzes

Be afraid. And take the quizzes, if you dare. (As always, I am not responsible for content, etc. But feel free to blame me. Because you were going to anyway.)


Which Genocidal Maniac Are You?
Brought to you by Rum and Monkey


Take the Affliction Test Today!


Which Famous Homosexual are you?
Brought to you by Rum and Monkey

"Wheeler in Hell," or "Charles Williams is the Man!"

Wilfred Bohun: "How do you know all this? Are you a devil?"

Father Brown: "I am a man, and therefore have all devils in my heart."

That quote has nothing to do with anything. It just struck me, so it's there. In other book-related news:

I finished Many Dimensions earlier this week. What an incredible book . . . I only have to read two of the novels from The Charles Williams Reader, but I'll certainly be reading all three. As far as the premise of the book goes, amazon.com has a pretty good summary:

"Imagine Raiders of the Lost Ark set in 20th-century London, and then imagine it written by a man steeped not in Hollywood movies but in Dante and the things of the spirit, and you might begin to get a picture of Charles Williams's novel Many Dimensions. The plot turns on the discovery of the magical Stone of Solomon, through which one can move at will through space, time, and thought. Those who think they can manipulate the stone to serve their own ends, however, find to their horror that, as Jesus once ironically said, "they have their reward." While the story clearly deals with the extraordinary, through his humorous and loving depiction of his British characters Williams more deeply shows us the spiritual reality that lies inside the ordinary."

Williams requires that his readers be very well-read if they want to understand all of the layers of his work. I'm not, in all probability, well-read enough to catch everything, but the most important (and most humorous) references he makes are chiefly Biblical. The final piece of dialogue requires a familiarity with Ecclesiastes, for instance. The book was a very fun and reasonably easy read for the first 240 pages or so. I had to slow down quite a bit for the last thirty pages. This was not because of any decrease in quality, quite the opposite, rather I found it necessary to read slowly, and re-read a few passages in order to fully understand everything that was taking place.

Random quote that made me laugh: "'I'm not going to let that woman out of my sight,' Sheldrake said. 'Where she goes I go.'
'Her people shall be thy people and her gods thy gods,' Oliver murmured. 'Sudden conversion of a millionaire. The call of the old home. Way down on the Swanee River. O Dixie, my Dixie, our fearful trip is done.'
'O, go to the devil!'" *The greedy millionaire is merely pursuing his own gain, but Oliver hilariously finishes his sentence with a quote from Ruth and then launches into a hymn, twisting the meaning in an entirely different direction. The millionaire is not amused.*

Random quote that made me stop and think: "He said, in a voice shaken beyond his wont, 'Do you know what you must do?'
She looked at him with a docile content. 'I have nothing at all to do,' she said, and the Hajji cried suddenly aloud, 'Blessed for ever be the Resignation of the elect.'" *A shocking, arresting, impossible-to-ignore Calvinistic reference, which I hadn't expected at all, and coming from a Muslim fanatic, which I expected even less.*

My one word review: "Transcendent."

I have begun (and am now a good way into) the second book I am reading by Williams: War in Heaven. It's a modern-day Grail quest (or Graal, as Williams spells it). It's quite good so far. The guy wrote deep Indiana Jones stories. Only he did it first, and he did it better.

A thought occured to me last night. I am currently reading seven books. That may seem a bit ridiculous to some of you. It seems ridiculous enough to me. I didn't plan it that way, it has simply happened. I have been unable to put off the reading of certain books, and I have been unable to clear out some the old books fast enough to make room for the new. I hope to have wittled it down by at least one over the course of the weekend.

The thing that struck me, though, was the fact that of the books I am reading, three of them are for the moment (or soon will be) chiefly concerned with Hell. I am in the midst of Dante's Inferno (yes, still) crawling desperately through the Malebolges (the 8th level of Hell, reserved for the fraudulent and the malicious). At the same time I am working my way through Milton's Paradise Lost. I've just begun that one fairly recently. At the moment, Satan (the star of the show, in many ways) is rallying his troops in the depths of Hell after they have been hurled down from Heaven. And, as soon as I finish War in Heaven (which needs to be done by Monday), I'll be reading Williams's Descent into Hell. The Hell in that novel is mostly figurative, but no less real or terrifying.

So, half of the books I'm reading are set in Hell, and all of those happen to be books I'm reading in relation to schoolwork (though not for any specific class . . . I'm going beyond the requirements in each case). I wonder what I ought to do to balance out the inordinate amount of time I'm spending on the wrong side of the theological tracks. Reading Father Brown mysteries helps, certainly. And racing pell-mell through the Bible in a semester for Bib Lit should lend some extra weight to the proper side, I suppose. Besides, none of the Hell books is particularly obsessed with Hell, as I'm sure you'll recognize. We'll just have to see that I don't get obsessed with it due to the heavy dosage . . . Meanwhile, I'm having loads of fun and reading loads of good books. And on that note, I think I'll go read some more, because I have lots to do. Farewell for now.

Acquisitions, Movies, and Wilde (is a genius)

Well, craziness this weekend . . . more so concerning what didn't get done as opposed to what did. I'll still finish everything I need to finish, and I'll get it done on time, too. But I haven't done much of it yet. My dad was here this weekend, so I did stuff. We saw a few movies, and that was cool. To make a long story as short as possible, the only activities which will be of any interest to you to read about (I say this without knowing for sure, of course), and of any interest to me to write about, are the movie reviews.

Well, that and the fact that he drove my new pickup over from Lubbock. Nissan Frontier, 1998, red, manual . . . etc. I drove it here and there the past few days and I'm just generally pleased with it. And, of course, it must have a name, just because I can. I believe "Errant Venture" will do nicely. It has just enough levels of meaning, although the one I'm thinking of in particular is "Straying from the proper course on an undertaking of 'uncertain' outcome." For you Star Wars fans out there, I didn't pick it specifically because of the SW connection (Booster Terrik's Star Destroyer). Rather, the name occured to me because I heard it there and liked it on its own merits.

Anyway, on Friday night I went to see Runaway Jury. I thoroughly enjoyed it, pretty much throughout. If you like Grisham, and you liked the book the movie was based on, then you'll probably enjoy it. A suspenseful two hours of watching people manipulate each other . . . yay! They made some very interesting changes from the book, but overall it was a surprisingly faithful adaptation (especially considering the sheer number of events in the book). The trial here was over gun control instead of smoking, which was . . . odd. I'm not sure what all the reasons were for that choice. Personally, I suspect it has to do with how much more relevant and highly-charged the gun control issue is right now. The biggest change, to my mind, was in the ending, but it fit nicely with the direction they had been taking things all along. It annoyed me, but only slightly. The casting was excellent as well.

On Saturday night we saw Radio. I still have two opinions about this movie . . . I can't quite decide. I've been watching the previews for months, and during the first half-hour my original assessment seemed to have been confirmed. This movie is Forrest Gump meets Remember the Titans. As such, the whole thing is terribly cliché. If you liked either of those movies, particularly the latter, then you're going to like this movie. After the football season ended fairly early on, I realized that this wasn't going to be a total rehash of Titans, at least. Then, when the movie hits its "low point" I suddenly woke up and started examining what had happened so far. The movie was rather blatantly attempting to manipulate the emotions of the audience, and it seemed that that was as far as it went. This didn't come as a surprise or anything, I just suddenly noticed it. You were made to like Radio and feel happy for him, and then the movie would do something really crappy to him. And then he'd be back on top again. But after this "low point" it stopped doing that as well. The end was what clinched it, pretty much. The movie was based on a true story, and the main character is still alive. They ended with a voice-over and footage of Radio at recent games. That helped put the movie in perspective and allowed to feel more connected with what I had just seen (thinking of it as real rather than utterly contrived, as I had been tempted to think earlier). It also resonated because of the setting . . . a small, Southern town. Throughout the movie I kept thinking "Well, I've been there!" and "I know that person!" Cuba Gooding, Jr. did an incredible acting job. I've seen him in other movies, and this is obviously as much of a departure for him as Forrest Gump was for Tom Hanks. Ultimately it comes down to this. The movie does not require you to suspend your disbelief in order for you to enjoy it. Rather, you must suspend your cynicism. This makes it more apparent than ever that there are two of me. Because I still have my two opinions about this freaking movie!!!

Finally, tonight (my dad having returned to Guatemala today) we watched The Importance of Being Earnest. I thoroughly enjoyed it because . . . well, Oscar Wilde is a freaking genius. But you knew that. It's great because it works well for both of my personalities. Few things work as well comedically as the classic screwed-up love story. Take two men, both in love, both in the habit of using the same alias with their loved ones. Add two stereotyped Victorian women capable of swinging wildly from hyper-romantic naivete to cold, clammy propriety in the blink of an eye. Throw in a few random plot devices like the materialistic, social-climbing guardian whose consent is required for marriage, and the foundling origins of the main character. Season with the biting satirical wit of Oscar Wilde (a man equally comfortable with the sniper rifle and the sawed-off shotgun when it comes to satire) directed at skewering his society. Shake well. Hilarity ensues. Anyway, it was loads and loads of fun. I'm just kind of scratching the surface here, because that's all I really want to do. I'll leave you with some quotes from the play (unfortunately, it is impossible for me to judge how funny they are taken out of context), and then I'm off to bed.

"I think it is high time that Mr. Bunbury made up his mind whether he was going to live or to die. Shilly-shallying with the question is absurd."

"The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what fiction means."

"To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness."

"I do not approve of anything that tampers with natural ignorance. Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone. The whole theory of modern education is radically unsound. Fortunately in England, at any rate, education produces no effect whatsoever. If it did, it would prove a serious danger to the upper classes, and probably lead to acts of violence in Grosvenor Square."

"The truth is rarely pure and never simple. Modern life would be very tedious if it were either, and modern literature a complete impossibility!"

"I have always been of opinion that a man who desires to get married should know either everything or nothing."

"All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That's his."

"The only way to behave to a woman is to make love to her, if she is pretty, and to some one else, if she is plain."

"It is awfully hard work doing nothing. However, I don't mind hard work where there is no definite object of any kind."

"Oh, I don't think I would care to catch a sensible man. I shouldn't know what to talk to him about."

"Relations are simply a tedious pack of people, who haven't got the remotest knowledge of how to live, nor the smallest instinct about when to die."

"Women only call each other sister when they have called each other a lot of other things first."

What? Can't You See the Resemblance?

A likeable character with a lust for life, you do what gets you by while continually pursuing your own interests.

"Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father, prepare to die."

That "Matrix" Thing

Well, I really did it this time. Yup, I really did it. Oh, it was nothing bad, depending on your definition of bad. I went to see The Matrix Revolutions.

My assessment: "Eye candy . . . yummmmmmmmm." *Said with large eyes, suitably glazed over, and a large, happy smile on your face.*

No spoilers . . . not because I don't want to spoil it for you, but because there's just no point. You'll see it, or not. You'll like it, or not. Or, like me, you'll recognize what it is and just generally be entertained. My favorite quote from the movie:

"Cookies need love, just like everything else."

Heck, yeah! I want all of you, right now, wherever you are, to share the love. Eat a cookie. I was reminded of Senator's speech yesterday on the many and varied benefits of eating a cookie. Good stuff.

Well, in a surprising turn of events, more stuff happened to me today, and I did more stuff as well . . . Kinda like everyday. I'm just the kind of person that stuff happens to, and that does stuff. I guess some would call it my defining characteristic. But probably not, since it's kind of common for that to be the case with just about everyone. Actually, today's stuff isn't worth staying up and writing about. Unless you just want me to so that I won't get any sleep so that the last post can have a sequel . . . Not gonna do it. Not . . . gonna . . . do it.

Good night, y'all.

The Day of Caffeine

Hi. Hihihihihihihi. Even as I type this I am bouncing in my chair and snapping my fingers in machine-gun tempo every time I stop typing. Why am I doing this? Now that, friend, is an excellent question indeed. Why am I doing . . . Wait . . . with a supreme effort of will I will attempt to stay on task in spite of my intensely wired state at the moment. Hey! I just used two definitions of will, one right after the other! Sweet! No! Must . . . stay . . . on . . . topic!

It all started . . . aw, nuts. I don't know where to start it. I suppose we could start with birth (mine), but that would be relatively pointless. Well, since the chief purpose of this post is so I can look back at *paused for extended twitching spell* the condition I'm in and remember why I'm going to try and never do this again. With this in mind, let's just begin with my sinking spell in Inklings last night. As much crazy fun as that class is (more than any class has any actual right to be) I was very tired (at least, I thought I was . . . I pretty much scoff at that at this point).

So, as I just said, there was a sinking spell and I spent a sizeable chunk of the class with my head on my arms, staring sideways at Woodring and occasionally swiveling to see Olsen (who was sitting right next to me). During the break at around 8:50 I kind of came alive again and made it downstairs to bum a Pibb Xtra off of the vending machine. By bum I mean, of course, that I fed my little quarters into the slot. Somehow, bum just seemed to describe the way I did it. I also snagged a pack of Starbursts. The candy was gone in five minutes, the soda was gone in ten. I was awake for the rest of the class, but it REALLY hit me at about 9:45, fifteen minutes after class ended.

I go back to my room and Uncle Doug is playing Medal of Honor in an attempt to forget that he had an exegesis paper due the next day which he had started on two hours before. I suddenly remembered that I had to renew three books at the library, so I pelted off that way. While I was there I banged out a Bible journal on Luke chapter two. Call me dense, but after referring to it in my opening line as the best-known Bible story in Christendom, I proceeded to notice two details that had theretofore escaped me about the thing. First, I had never actually realized that Mary and Joseph still aren't married when Jesus is born. And I also had never notice that Jesus isn't born. The Child is born. Jesus is circumcised. For the first eight days of his life, even though the angel had dropped the name months before, Jesus wasn't named. Yeah, I know it was custom, and all that jazz, it just never burrowed into my brain before. It certainly didn't burrow like the nasty headache I feel coming on.

So I got back to my room and Doug was still on, but was getting off. Stupid Uncle Doug. Not that I cared, but he had an exegesis . . . more on that later. I sit down and notice that Sindy is on, so I get on and chat with her for a bit while I'm pulling random research for my speech. Oh, yeah. Due to the homework I had to get done for Inklings, I had not yet started work on my speech . . . the one I presented today. So I started pulling random statistics for that off of the Internet as I'm talking to Sindy.

So then, Wilson gets on and happens to mention that Scholl and Moore are in his room. This is always a bad sign (no exceptions). We go back and forth briefly until Moore decides to break out the Spanish and bring up the "monkeys of love." This is neither the time nor the place to explain the monkeys of love, but suffice it to say that after a bit of witty repartee, I managed to zing him well enough that he decided it would be a good idea to bumrush my room. As soon as he exited Wilson's room, Wilson informs me of this and says to slip out and come over.

I've seen a Moore bumrush before, and I decided that it would be a good time to stroll over to Wilson's and see what was cooking. Of course, in the scramble of leaping to my feet, grabbing my jacket, and generally continuing to experience the sugar rush, I totally forgot that Sindy was still talking to me. I stand directly outside my door until I hear the south door slam downstairs, then I take off for the north door and sprint across the courtyard to Wilson's building. I arrive precisely five seconds after the security monkey had locked the nearest door, but I leap-frogged him and entered the other door before he locked it. I arrived in Wilson's room to find him chatting with Moore, who was plotting evil things to do to my computer just to prove that I hadn't really just generally given all of his plans a good going over.

I decided it would be a good time to return to my room. Passed Moore on the way, but I needed to tell Sindy what was going on. Except that Moore had decided to hijack my trackball . . . cute. I turned around and sprinted back out, shedding the bulky jacket on the stairs as I busted out the door. They said I was back in Wilson's room less than six seconds after Moore arrived. To make a long story short, which I generally try to do (riiight) Wilson was studying his Psychology at the time.

*Brief segue into a related topic* Wilson and I, being fuzzy, actually have fun with our reading assignments and we find something(s) generally amusing to share with the group on an extremely regular basis. This instance was no exception.

He was reading the chapter on "Motivation" . . . the chapter was chiefly concerned with sex.

Actual quote from a member of the company who shall remain anonymous (because it was me): "What other kinds are there?"

Anyway, we probably had more fun with that chapter than human beings are technically allowed to have with anything at anytime in any fashion or manner whatsoever by any stretch of the imagination. But I'm not going there. It was funny to watch Moore alternating wildly between laughing insanely and writhing on the floor in agony though . . .

At this point I started feeling very hungry, and I just generally had an urge to get back to work on my speech. So I told everyone to come over to my room so we could eat Cheerios and write me a speech. When we got to my room we simplified the plan a bit . . . and just ate Cheerios. And jammed with the rockingest Christmas music ever.

No, I got a bit of work done. Then Scholl left, and I got even more work done. Then Moore fell asleep on my bed while reading Charles Williams, and Wilson finished his reading and went back to his room to write things and I got still more work done. And the work continued, and I wasn't tired, and Moore slept on, and I decided that sleep would not be on my menu . . . just to see what would happen. The speech got done and corrected at about 3:30. So I read more Williams. And I read stuff for Bib Lit. And I read stuff for English Lit. And Moore slept on. I guess it was about 5:45 when he woke up enough to realize two important things. First, he was not in his own bed. Second, it was 5:45 in the freaking morning. He left (if you can call it that . . . he was more sort of just not there anymore).

And the band played on. Finally, I noticed that Martinez was up, and I bade him a good morning (because any morning is good when I haven't had to get up). And he bade me a morning back. We went to breakfast at the usual 7:15. Wilson was already there. I could easily tell on the walk over that things were looking bad for my chances at mantaining a semblence of the spark of life within me during the course of the day. I wasn't quite dead, but I didn't want to have to keep reassuring people of that fact.

So I downed a tall glass and a half of Mr. Pibb at breakfast. And bought myself another Pibb Xtra at that same vending machine from the night before and drank nearly half of it as fast as I could. By the time it was 10 minutes before class, I was . . . hmmm . . . What goes beyond wired? Martinez sat there, watching my wonderful performance, and decided that I wasn't allowed to sleep anymore. The little act was far too entertaining.

I sat on the table in the back of the room during Bib Lit, pretty much bouncing up and down and swinging my legs the whole time. I was the most visible person in the room to Woodring, but no one else could see me without turning around. And Woodring already knows about me . . . I'm still not sure whether he actually likes it when I'm awake in Bib Lit, because I generally end up answering all of his questions. Today was no exception, but my answers had the special, sugar-induced flair to them as well. And I was really holding back. I stopped myself leaping out of my seat and yelling every five seconds (that was rough). I refrained from a lively chorus of "Tradition!" when he talked about the role of tradition in Jewish law beginning in the Intertestamental period (that was the roughest). I glanced at Martinez every now and then, but he was doing his best "nodding off" impression, and just generally avoided looking my way. If Woodring noticed anything unusual, he didn't say anything. Must be getting used to me . . . I'll just have to come up with something even more weird.

I finished the rest of my Pibb Xtra in Western Civ and managed to keep from nodding until there were only twenty minutes left . . . a new record! Does that mean I remember a word he said? No. Except for a few choice quotes on chili, that is:

Dr. K: "Dr. Watson won our chili cook-off last year. Apparently he almost killed his dog, and wound up in the hospital himself. We had this year's cook-off on Saturday, and I think his chili is responsible for the loss of the cap on my molar. If Dr. Watson ever invites you over for dinner, find out if he's serving chili before you go." The image of Dr. K trying Dr. W's chili . . . the look on his face after he choked it down (along with a molar cap) . . . and the subsequent expression of mischevious glee on Dr. Watson's face combined effectively to completely crack me up for a good five minutes. I tried to be quiet, and I think I was generally successful.

Then there was lunch (more Mr. Pibb! I am sooo drinking chocolate milk at supper) followed by Speech. I was accompanied to Speech by another 20 oz. of Coke. Plus, the first speaker gave out chocolate chip cookies. And everyone could tell that I was acting funny. I didn't stop twitching at all the entire time and I was pacing the back of the room like crazy right up until class started. There were a lot of enjoyable speeches, including an excellent one about Harry Potter. It was very well presented . . . I'd like a copy of his Power Point presentation.

I was sure I'd gotten off easy this time when he said we only had time for one more and started feeling around amongst the five blue cases in the center of the row (I don't suppose I mentioned that the order we spoke in was determined by random selection of your video tape, mine being in a purple and black case). Then suddenly his hand strays a little far to the left and he snags mine. Suck.

My Disclaimer (delivered as I took the podium): "I haven't slept in 26 hours and I'm running completely on sugar and caffeine right now, soI'mtryingrealhardtotalkslower."

Payton: "Well, it's a wonder we got you up out of your seat then."

Me: "Yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyup!" *Turn slightly towards him, widen eyes a little TOO much, suck air in loudly through gritted teeth and lips parted in a grin, and slap palms of hands together, rubbing together faster and faster until the noise is reasonably audible.*

I think it was probably at that point that the rest of the class realized just how special my speech was going to be. And it was very special. But you had to have been there, and I'm not in the mood to bore anyone (like myself) by putting down the details. It has been 36 hours since my head touched a pillow, and I'm going to bed. Good night, y'all.