Adventures in Illinois

Well, I should be finishing off the section of my project that my professor wanted a couple days ago, but since it's 3:30 in the morning, I'll update my blog, instead. The weekend was a fun one, though peculiar.

The first thought is that CJ owes me something fierce. Gilford. Paxton. In fact, we made a tour of the whole greater-Rantoul metro area. I probably should've done work and slept, but I figured that I could afford to play wingman for the night. It was an amusing night out with the yokels. Small town folks are fun to watch. As long as you have beer.

Wasted Motion

Of course, the whole night led to an interesting introspective question. I've been pondering the lack of interest in any particular girl at this point. And it carried over on Friday night. There was this girl that was out with us. Reasonably cute. Very nice body. Very flirty/drunk. The interesting part was that she actually showed some interest, but for whatever reason, I didn't reciprocate. Does the concept of wasted motion apply legitimately here? My reasoning for not really returning any interest was twofold. First, I'm not into making girls feel good about themselves. But more importantly, the second reason was that I didn't want to waste any motion. The thought was that I wasn't going take her home, and that I wasn't going to ever call her, so that there wasn't a need to work the game at all. Instead, I just sort of sat back and enjoyed the show. I don't know if this is a good path to go down. There's a fine line between being stoic/bad ass and just being too proud to deviate from your plan. I'm curious as to where I am right now.

"Where's Professor Xavier?"

A lot of the old crew was down on Saturday. Curran was in from Waco, Westy came down from up north, and even Olson came in from his current stint in Dayton. We had a couple no-shows from Mikey and C-Lauff, but it was still a quorum. I've been swamped with work and sort of sick for a few days now, so I skipped out on the Illini game (happily), and just caught up with the crew afterwards. Olthoff brought Laura out, and we caught some dinner out at Firehaus and went out to Guido's to get a beer. We had a drunken bachelorette party sitting next to us. It wasn't hot, but it was very amusing. I believe that Olson's line was, "... this is a mutant bachelorette party. Where's Professor Xavier?" And I think that he was being kind. Imagine a table of 11 large, loud, and mildly mentally retarded women and one gay dude. And then add alcohol. And headgear with penis attachments. At one point, they were asking guys in the bar for condoms. My response? "Good luck with that."

Anyway, it's back to work. A little more to go before I can get it sent off to my professor. Still a couple more sections that need to get taken care of this week. But it's getting there.

-Chairman

Making the Leap

Things move quickly once you get into high gear. It's like making the leap from All-American to Heisman mode in a NCAA football video game. It's just bloody hard.

Things are moving in high gear right now. Sleep is at a premium, and my brain is more or less fried. My goal is to keep the body strong while we go, and if we need to slow down the pace elsewhere, we'll do so. But I've discovered that health is non-negotiable. I tried to do that last year, with disastrous results. I need to get rest, and I need to keep working myself at the gym.
I'm wrapping up a paper for Wednesday - an annotated bibliography and review paper. And then I'm going to churn out a section of my project for my advisor, as well. Hopefully, that will get to him on Friday. Should've been ready to send out by Tuesday morning, but hey... things move a little slower than you think sometimes.

I just need to survive these next few weeks, after which my semester opens up. Let's keep the head up, the eye on the ball, and the fingers crossed.

-Chairman

Barren Wastelands

Normally, there's some girl that I've got some sort of interest in. In a moment of reflection, after a whiskey on the rocks and a glass of wine, prior to getting late night, after-bar eats, I realized that it's been a while since I've been interested in anyone. Maybe a little over a year? The last girl that I was interested in was T. And that pretty much died off when I got busy with PhD last fall. I fell off of the radar, and didn't have the time or energy to chase a girl. And that's too bad, really, because she's excessively gorgeous and would've been fun to chase.

Anyway, I came to the realization that right now, I just don't know many women and that I don't really get out much. So even if I wanted to, dating wasn't exactly an easy option. So how does one solve that problem?

I'm glad that you asked.

Two words. Internet dating. I think that these dating services are on to something. I mean, there have to be intelligent, attractive women who just don't have enough guys hanging around them that they have no dating pool and would be desperate enough to turn to the internet for dates. I mean, that's foolproof, isn't it? It's not like a law that every attractive woman is already attached, is it? Oh. It is. Wait. Nevermind.

I'm pretty sure that attractive, single women are either 1) entirely insane and not dateable, or 2) just off of a rebound. I think think that I'm accepting that all women are a little bit nuts. I'm pretty sure that all guys are a little nuts in their own way, too. So there's an acceptable level of insanity that's allowable. I think that I just want to make sure that I avoid the ones that boil pets. As for option 2)? Well, that's like getting a rent controlled apartment in New York City. You just have to be around when someone dies.

Oh well. I'm actually pretty happy with life right now. I'm getting my body back going again. I like the new apartment. I'm playing great poker. I like my classes. Life is good. I think that I'm owning my shit. Now I just need to make sure that I'm hitting on soft 17's. And more importantly, I need to make sure that I'm aware that I'm looking at soft 17s. There's nothing worse than not noticing your environment. I need to notice my environment a little more so that I'm not missing out on soft 17's or the rest of life as it's moving on.

-Chairman

Good Thing No One Reads This

"So how's Mardi Gras going to be this year?"
"A little watered down."

Happily, no one really reads this or cares about what I say, so there weren't any death threats regarding my indifference towards New Orleans. That isn't to say that I don't feel awful for the people who were affected. And for the record, I atually can't take credit for that joke. That would have to go to Chad, earlier tonight.

The week has cruised by. School is school and work is work. My TA gig is going relatively smoothly, though the course that I'm working for is not. Nothing really works, yet. It's pretty amusing. Of course, this leads to more work for me, but it isn't bad. Just replying with apologetic e-mails and walking students through technical issues in office hours. Pretty par for the course.

The current item at the top of the agenda is my proposal re-write and literature review for my project. Need to get a move on. It's going to be a working weekend. Probably a solid 5 hours on Saturday and another few hours on Sunday. But that's alright. I think that I can churn out some decent stuff this weekend, and start sending stuff out to my advisor next week.

Lifting has been good. I've actually got CJ going out to the gym with me. And you know what? For a skinny, little, white kid, he's a trooper. He doesn't lift a whole lot of weight, but he goes through the entire workout with me with no complaints. As for myself, I like the progress. I've gotten a little stronger over the past 2 weeks. I'm able to push myself through sets at the end of my workout a little easier. And I've actually gotten back on the bench press for the first time in a few years. Nothing spectacular, but I was able to put up 225 pounds four times at the very end of my workout the other day, after I had already done 3 sets of increasing weight. I used to be able to do sets of 10 at 225. I think that I'll be back there pretty soon, if I want to be.

Right now the most intriguing, and perhaps the most difficult, thing for me is my re-entry into the church community. I've been back to I-Team twice now. It feels strange. I'm definitely an outsider right now, and I'm not sure how badly I want back in. I think that I can show up an go through the motions, but I don't know what it is that I really want. And until I figure that out, it'll be less than ideal.

-Chairman

Lack of Remorse

Hmmm... Hurricane Katrina... makes me think about our Sugar Bowl experience down there a few years ago. And you know what? I think that New Orleans is a dirty little river town that's made it's fortune on the vices of man. Is it okay to root against the folks at Pere Antoine that completely screwed with us? Is it okay to root against what you think is a rather dismal society that's sucked in the poor and uneducated? I'm not sure. It's like being sad that a drug dealer was shot. Or that Jeffrey Dahmer was murdered in prision. We're always sad (and rightfully so) about the bad things that happen to good people. But do we need to be sad when bad things happen to bad people? I mean, the loss of any life can be seen as tragic. But where do we draw the line between something that's truly tragic and something that's almost karma or cosmic justice?

It's probably wrong, but I'm not quite as broken up about New Orleans as I am about the other parts of the region. If there was ever a modern day Sodom and Gemorrah...

-Chairman