Happy Birthday, Blog

     I created this blog on this day in 2012. I'd been thinking about it for a year or two, and it was the middle of a boring day in February with nothing else much to do. (Also, Facebook was going through one of its redesigns, and there was a rumor that the then-popular Notes section would be deleted, so I wanted to keep my favorites.) Mom was visiting with Trinnica, and everybody else was playing some kind of war game in the backyard with Jonathan.
     Sometimes people wonder about how it got titled this way; so I put out an explanation of the title right up front. It's a Princess Bride quote, from the novel, not the movie.

     The series finale of Parks and Rec, "One Last Ride," aired on this day in 2015. It's one of the most perfect series finales ever. I watched season 7 live, even though I hadn't really met anyone in Pawnee yet, because it was a way to stay connected with everybody at the NSU BCM. (Stephen, Elizabeth, Susan, Bucky and Daniel were especially fans of the show.) I'd just moved to Claremore and RSU, and the humor was a welcome distraction from the roughness of that semester. (There's good people there, but I'm not really a fan of the city of Claremore.) And it was good homework in studying camera angles and shot placement.
      Speaking of NSU ministries, Tom Tucker finally completely retired from leading CCF a couple months ago. And Ryan Galdemez became the pastor of Grace Baptist after Geoff Brown left.

     It's been raining and raining and raining some more all week - cold and gray and drenching weather is hard to be productive in. But at least there wasn't an ice storm, like it seemed there would be earlier in the week. 

     Mom, Amy, Trevor and I went to the Gilcrease Art Museum in Tulsa Friday night because there was a traveling exhibit of Norman Rockwell original art, behind-the-scenes photographs, sketches, and the actual Saturday Evening Post covers themselves. It was amazing.
     The afternoon was spent running errands in Okmulgee, which was useful. 

      Being book hunters, once we heard about the Oklahoma City Library System's annual book sale at the state fairgrounds, Mom and I decided we needed to go. It was spectacular. I found some Faulkner, and a history of Broadway for Susan, and a handful of Shakespeare that matched good copies we already had. Mom found Peterson field guides and I don't know what all else. I found a lot of guides for writing different genres in the Fine Arts section; hopefully some of them will be helpful.
      It was awesome. People were very polite; always apologizing after running into each other due to the intense focus of finding good titles. Going to Oklahoma City always feels a very long way away, when it's only about two hours west. Probably feels that way because the landscape changes a lot. 
     Caleb accidentally locked himself out of the truck while at a photoshoot with a friend, so we drove back home through Henryetta so he could get himself unstuck. That's the usual way to get to OKC, it seems like. Nice to drive through Henryetta again; felt like we should be driving back from a Knights ballgame. High school basketball playoffs started last week; it's a little weird to not be actively covering them. 

   Songs of the Day this week include Bowling for Soup's "1985" and Dustin Lynch's "Cowboys and Angels."

     It's the final day of competition for the 2018 PeyongChang Winter Olympics. NBC's overage seemed a little lacking, mostly because there wasn't many of the inspirational stories shown, and because Bob Costas retired. Mike Tirico did better than I expected, but it still felt wrong. The Russian figure skaters had an epic battle in the ladies' event, and the Americans were all entirely without personality or talent. Snowboard cross was awesome, as usual, and snowboard halfpipe and the speed skating events. The commercials were amazingly inspirational. And the U.S. women's hockey team beat Canada in a shootout in the gold medal game, which is great. 

   The production of Texaco Mornings will be in two weeks. That's exciting, but also completely terrifying. It felt a little strange to write your own press release talking about your own play, though. But the Okmulgee Times people were happy to run it, and hopefully it will draw some more people to come see it.
     Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. will be back from the Olympic break this Friday, and it will air their 100th episode March 9. It's been fun to follow their Instagram and Twitter for memories. American Idol returns for its 16th season March 11; I'm predicting Luke Bryan will be my favorite judge this season.

This Scene Is a Rerun

     Stop me if I've written this scene before: Wes is wide-awake while the rest of the world is asleep, listening to Spotify while working on a blog post trying to figure out what's on his mind, because he is an INFJ, and that's part of INFJ-ness. It's cold, and it's been a frustrating though semi-productive day, following another difficult weekend where all his nerves stood on end and howled.
      Restless, sad, lonely, hopeless and pissed off at something unidentifiable, that's usual territory. 
      Taylor Swift's "Never Grow Up" is the current song playing, and he's hoping his nieces are doing well, while trying to not to remember that he and Sam were at one point going to record a cover of that song.
   
     The Olympics have been watched a lot, both actually-watched and background-noise-while-reading. This hasn't been a very good month for reading, though I did dive back through Much Ado because it'd been too long since I'd read Shakespeare. Catcher in the Rye was just as stupid as Crick and Beatrix thought it was - I should've listened to them. Smart characters. I wonder pretty often what happened to them, if the dude who wrote Tent City knows what happened to them.
     RSU Theater's Original Recipe shows are running this weekend. They should be good.
     Fiction just isn't happening, I think because just the mundaneity of everyday survival is taking too much energy. Texaco Mornings will run in early March, if things go right, and I still want to explore those characters deeper by translating the script into prose, but again, that would be fiction. Susan likes the characters, though, so that's good.

      My laptop battery is mostly dead, so I'm waiting on the new one to arrive. This will be the third time I've replaced it, I think. And I've replaced the keyboard twice. It was roughly a year old when I got it.
     The internet has been sporadically working lately, including an hours-long stretch this afternoon, which meant I barely made deadline for my Frontstretch column running tomorrow morning.
     I've kind of given up on job hunting because of the deafening silence in response to emails and questionnaires 

     The Eagles' "Desperado" has been a Song of the Day, as has Garth Brooks' "What She's Doing Now."

May Sunday

     It was a hot early-summer Sunday. Or maybe that's late-spring Sunday? It's Oklahoma, hard to know the seasons sometimes. Anyway, woke up about 8 a.m. and walked down to the Claremore Assembly of God. Sat in with the Discover the Word-ish old people again, the three women and two men, they were all glad to see me come back, which was nice. "Can we adopt him?" someone asked, meaning me. "That's a good idea," "Let's!" other folks agreed. Snippet of conversation, which is why I love hanging around older folks: "Hey, Stranger," one of the ladies greets another. "'Stranger'?! Who you callin' a stranger?" "Well, I ain't seen you in a week, so...."
     The sermon was from the youth pastor, since they were recognizing the high school and college graduates today. It was fine, in a bland prepackaged way, full of the usual things that are said to Christian soon-to-be-college-students. Got me to thinking about the paths my generation of the GBC youth group and SGYC campers have gone down over the years.

     Lot of Songs of the Day chasing themselves around today - woke up with the Booth Brothers' "He Saw It All" playing, quickly followed by the Cluster Pluckers' "Weapon of Prayer." Those are gospel, which makes sense, at least - it's Sunday, so I tuned the radio into Big Country's gospel show while getting ready. They weren't playing today, but they often do. Grandpa liked listening to the gospel show, and he and Robbie always watched Gaither specials anytime they were on. Others were Rhett Akins' "Katy Brought My Guitar Back Today," Taylor Swift's "Forever and Always," "Words By Heart" from Billy Ray Cyrus, both versions of Swift's "Enchanted" and Nichole Nordeman's "Legacy."

     After church let out I was ambushed by a middle-aged couple named Jim and Jodie who invited me to have lunch with them. I'm fairly certain they were trying to decide whether to set me up with their daughter the Southwest Baptist nursing major, but it wasn't terribly awkward. They're missionaries in eastern Asia on furlough, and we talked for a while about books, particularly speculating on which modern-day theologians could write passable mystery fiction, in the vein of G.K. Chesterton and Dorothy Sayers. We nominated Phillip Yancey and John Piper as candidates who ought to try it, and maybe R.C. Sproul and Ravi Zacharias.

     I accidentally locked myself out of my apartment earlier tonight, which is extremely embarrassing.

Middle of April

     Classes are going okay. Had to draw a four-panel scene from a comic strip for yesterday's Pop Market, it was heavily inspired by Peanuts, both in tone and appearance, because I can't draw very well. (Though I also never remember to practice, so that's kind of my own fault.) Mostly been researching for an essay - probably on southern gothic storytelling - due next week, so that means reading a lot of Flannery O'Connor. She makes my brain hurt sometimes, cause she was so deep, but it's interesting.
     Helped some people from the Psychology Department on a research project they're doing on cognition, it was about mentally doing math as quickly as possible. The presentations for the Psychology of the Criminal Mind started this afternoon, and I already have two examples to look further into to use in some way, maybe. Ran into Cody as he was getting out of class, and we ran by McDonald's before rehearsal, then killed time until it started by running lines with Keirstine.

     Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s latest episode was another really great one, with everyone playing the Framework versions of themselves. Iain de Caesticker can play a very jarringly evil Fitz. And we got to meet Mack's daughter Hope.
     Recent Songs of the Day... Woke up this morning with Alan Jackson's "Drive (For Daddy Gene)" playing, and for most of the night it's been the AJ part from the Zac Brown Band-Alan Jackson collaboration "As She's Walkin' Away." Think I'm going to start a weekly cover video series like Jon used to do, so I started with Diamond Rio's "Meet in the Middle" yesterday afternoon. It's not a great cover, but you have to start somewhere....besides, that's one that needs drums, and so one guitar can only do so much. And then a lot of impressions: Brad Paisley, Keith Urban, Miranda Lambert, Billy Ray Cyrus, Scotty McCreery, Josh Turner, Brett Eldredge, Blake Shelton, Garth Brooks, Collin Raye, Jason Aldean and Luke Bryan. Not exactly meaning to do impressions, although that's fun, but it's kind of an unconscious thing that I pick up unconsciously.
     Rehearsals for Tom Sawyer are going about as well as expected. Our assistant director Brittany keeps having to remind me to project more and to aim my dialogue at the audience, but that are always the things I need to work on. At some point during a break David (our director) was talking to somebody and I just caught the word "marriage," pronounced, of course, as "Mehwaage," because everyone loves The Princess Bride. So I teleport across the stage and launch into the full monologue of the Impressive Clergyman, because I have to do that if anything related to The Princess Bride comes up. And I got a lot of compliments on my impression, which was cool.

     The NHL playoffs have begun, so that's pretty exciting. The first game of the Blues-Wild series is on in the living room right now, and the San Jose-Edmonton game is on the other channel. Also, Russell Westbrook just broke Oscar Robertson's record for most triple-doubles in one season, which is also pretty awesome.

Capstone

     Just sent in my completed Capstone project and portfolio ten minutes ago. I think I may throw up or cry now from the strain of final assembly/repairing/tinkering with it basically nonstop all weekend* (yes, I know it's technically early Wednesday morning). It's as polished and academic-sounding as I could make it, and deadline was roughly ten later this morning. So I beat the deadline. And now I anxiously wait for two or three weeks before hearing the verdict of the Capstone Committee.

     The topic was country music as poetry, and 92 songs were mentioned in about 35 pages. That was just scratching the surface, though, because I had to assume readers aren't familiar with the genre. Nineteen more songs were mentioned/alluded to in a seven-page short story supplement. (It's not a good story, but it's adequate.)
     Nine songs were from Brad Paisley, and I could have included way more from him. Keith Urban, Taylor Swift, Kenny Chesney and Garth Brooks, too (only four examples from each of them).

     In other news, it was a very stormy Oklahoma spring day, full of hail, so it seemed entirely appropriate that "The Thunder Rolls" and "Blown Away" were Songs of the Day.

*Facebook status from Sunday night - "Type type type, worry type worry, pace around apartment, tap tap tappity tap worry, get snack, go for walk, type, delete most of what has been written, worry, go for another walk, type some more...." Except for the excessive worrying due to the stress because Capstone is IMPORTANT, this is a pretty typical work pattern for a writer. 

Good Music Videos and Songs of the Day

     It's been a while since I talked about Songs of the Day. Today, I woke up with the Keith Urban song "For You" from the Act of Valor soundtrack playing. Here's the link. This is a great music video, particularly those close-up shots of the fretboard. And the background explosions. This was played all the time on TCN (The Country Network) during my senior year of high school.
     Right after waking up, the next song to play incessantly was Jamey Johnson's "In Color." That's a good music video, too. (Also first seen on TCN.)
     And then for some reason Big Mama's song "Appreciate the Lady" from The Fox and the Hound was another Song of the Day. It's weird, the songs that get stuck in your head.

    I really like the way this acoustic version of The Band Perry's "Independence" was filmed. And I love the way it sounds.
     Another all-the-time-shown-on-TCN video (and a fantastic story song) is Brett Eldredge's "Raymond." This was the first video we ever saw on that channel, actually. I thought of it while walking through Arlington National Cemetery on Youth Tour.
     Another TCN story song is "The Call" from Matt Kennon. And the Eli Young Band songs "Even If It Breaks Your Heart" (which is a great one to play) and "Crazy Girl" were played over and over, too. "Crazy Girl" was a case where the video is actually better than the song itself, but the lyrics grew on me through sheer repetition.

     I talked some about music in "Guitars" and "Story Songs," I guess. The picture in "Guitars" was of Sam's acoustic/electric Steve. He and Abby Lee worked pretty well together, though she and I learned during a jam session at the Grahams' Fourth of July picnic that practicing outside in the middle of summer will burn your fingers off.

     Keith Urban's "Days Go By" was one of the first songs that I really got down once I'd learned how to play from Dale. Also, Keith's hair is awesome in this video. "Kiss a Girl"s video drove me nuts, with the cartoon background behind the band and everything, but it was another of those first songs I mastered to the point where Mom and siblings would be like, "Wait - that wasn't the CD?" And I liked the production elements showcased in the "Put You In a Song" video. (TCN played a lot of Keith Urban videos...) Besides, it's a good tune. They also played Craig Morgan's "That What I Love About Sunday" a lot. I love the song, and the lighting and editing - particularly the fade transitions - of this video are amazing. (And I thought the brown-haired girl in this video was pretty.)

     Keith and Brad Paisley's "Start a Band" is one of my favorite collaborations of all time, and the video is awesome, too. It was on CMT all the time while living in Tahlequah for most of 2009. Other great songs/videos that were playing then were Brad's "Welcome to the Future" (which I parodied after YT), Josh Turner's "Would You Go With Me?" and Justin Moore's "Small Town USA" (which was Trevor's All-Time Favorite Country Song for forever). Brad's "Water" was a tune that the Okmulgee homeschool group loved, though I was horrified by the opening shot of the blue guitar floating in the pool.

     TCN played Brad's videos for "Old Alabama," "Southern Comfort Zone" and "Beat This Summer" a lot, too. I first heard "Old Alabama" on the radio, and from the first listen to the intro guitar riff I knew it was a Brad/Alabama team-up. They use very distinctive effects pedals. Plus it's cool that Jeff Gordon is in the video.
     "Southern Comfort Zone" and "Beat This Summer" both came out during my freshman year of college, and "Beat This Summer" is another one of the rare "video story is better than the lyrics" examples. "Southern Comfort Zone" was one of the OFTEN played tunes, on the radio and on Abby Lee. (So was "Independence." They both fit the situation well.) Taylor Swift's "Ours" was one of the first songs I learned to fingerpick, and Taylor's soldier boyfriend is played by Matt Saracen from Friday Night Lights. And FNL's Lyla Garrity is the girl in Jason Aldean's "Tattoos On This Town." Those were also TCN videos and are both great songs to play. The Owl City/Carly Rae Jepsen duet "Good Time" also was playing everywhere freshman year, and as a video it's fine. Not the level of "Fireflies" or "Deer in the Headlights" or "Vanilla Twlight" or "When Can I See You Again?", but still pretty good. And Carly Rae stole another summer in 2015 with "I Really Like You," first because the song is so catchy, but then because the music video is almost entirely TOM HANKS LIP-SYNCING THE WHOLE THING, which is too hysterical. And if Carly Rae Jepsen comes up, so does "Call Me Maybe," of course. And as Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz pointed out, it's physiologically impossible not to like the song. But that instantly brings to mind (for Thunder fans) this parody made in preparation for the 2012 NBA Finals with the Heat. (What a fantastic season that was.)

     This turned out longer to be a longer post than I expected.

A Tough Week

     We're about a third of the way through this semester. That's plenty enough to be exhausted. The second verse's line "and lately I've been too confused to think" from Collin Raye's "I Can Still Feel You" has been stuck in my head all week, which certainly qualifies as a Song of the Day. I found this picture of Snoopy Monday night while replying to one of Susan's tweets, but it also applied well to the way this week has gone.

     The psychology test Monday afternoon went about how I expected - I scored an 83. That's not great, but considering it was mostly identifying parts of the brain and what side effects behaviorally would occur when sections were injured, it's probably better than I should have scored. But the really strange part - that was tied for fourth place out of about twenty students, the high was 90, followed by an 85 and 84. About half the class scored 70 or lower, someone managed a 36. How do I know these scores? Wednesday the professor created a PowerPoint comparing our scores to the previous class, since it was the same test. Part of the slides were scoreboards of totals recorded, so that Dr. Marrero can keep accurate statistics. He then proceeded to give a wonderful reminder that tests don't matter in the long run, and that he only gives them because the school requires it. "It's what you do, who you are, that matters. Not what your grades were." That's about as close to preaching as you can expect in a college classroom, and it isn't the first time he's come close to that boundary, dropping hints here and there that he probably sees the world from a Christian perspective.
     We then watched a clip of an interview James Dobson had with serial killer Ted Bundy the day before he was executed. It was interesting to see Dobson the psychologist at work, as compared to the author, counselor or radio host. Bundy seemed incredibly manipulative, which fit what we've studied so far about psychopaths (the course is Psychology of the Criminal Mind).

     It's been a long week. Besides Agents, the TV's been on hockey and Thunder basketball for background noise, but none of those are exactly non-stressful forms of relaxation, as I noted in a post three years ago. The Daytona 500 is next Sunday, which is exciting, but also adrenaline-filled, too.

     Valentine's Day was a regular Tuesday, which was fine with me. It was filled with homework in Pop Market, like crafting a character description and recording our impressions to the (largely terrible) thriller flashfiction written last week. Dr. Dial-Driver ranted about the state of public education, so I got yelled at a bit for disagreeing with her too vehemently, but that was mainly for starting a debate over Steve Rogers and the degradation of values and morals in American society since World War II.
     In Gothic Film and Lit that afternoon, neither me or McKenzie understood very well what was going on in Henry James's ghost story The Turn of the Screw, and Dr. Mackie didn't have many answers, either. It's that kind of book.
     Dropped by the Chi Alpha meeting, which was fine. Kept tripping over the trash can while playing ping pong on the Centennial Center rec room's hideously-warped table, which played a big part in why I kept losing repeatedly.
     Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. overdid the pop-cultural references this week, and when I say that.... the episode ended on a terrifying cliffhanger which will be interesting to follow - FitzSimmons is trapped yet again, is all I'll say for now.

     Finished the Nicholas Sparks (The Longest Ride) I found for a dollar last week, it wasn't A Walk to Remember or The Notebook, but the ending was well done. Dialogue was strong throughout, and that indefinable caring-about-these-characters that all great authors have was there again. He used an intertwined structure throughout, switching from a delirious 91-year-old WWII veteran remembering his life and marriage in first-person to a third-person romance between a professional bull rider and a Wake Forest art history major, bouncing between their perspectives before going back to the old man. The way he brought those storylines together was really inventive.
     Also reread through J.D. Vance's memoir Hillbilly Elegy for school, which is wonderfully written and extremely painful to read through. I'm not quite sure how I can work his insights into my capstone paper, but I'm sure there is a way, because the people he writes about are most of the main audience of country music.
     This week's Gothic Film and Literature reading is called Rosemary's Baby, by a guy named Ira Levin. This stood out because the old guy in The Longest Ride was named Ira Levinson. Anyway, after a quick internet research, this book is apparently to blame for all the vampire-and-goodness-knows-what-all other crap that's been published since, which was exactly the opposite of what the author wanted, since he was trying to prove that all that stuff was stupid. (It's a horror story about a group of Satanist witches kidnapping a newborn. Besides that awful plot, it was poorly written.) Anyway, this guy Ira Levin also wrote the play No Time for Sergeants, which started Andy Griffith's career, and a novel called The Stepford Wives, which William Goldman (yep, the thriller author best known for The Princess Bride) wrote the screenplay for during the movie adaptation. (There is a large chunk of Goldman's nonfiction Adventures in the Screen Trade dedicated to the lessons learned from this experience.)

     Got about five hours of sleep last night, the kind where you wake up every twenty minutes bolt upright on High Alert Mode.
     Sage - she and her husband work as office assistants in the English department - got out of Shakespeare just as I was about to go to Capstone, when she spins around in the hallway. "Can I take your picture, Wes? You are like, THE image of 'A Distraught College Student' right now." She meant it as a joke, and I thought it was a funny quote, because if it wasn't humorous then it would just be way too true. Especially after I looked up the definition of distraught: "Deeply upset and agitated." So I posted it to Facebook, and a lot of people - mainly other students - also thought it was funny/sad/applicable.
     Capstone was difficult because of the material we were reading, mostly centered around the split between how children and adults see the world through Peter Pan and a terrific Robert Louis Stevenson essay I had never heard of called "Child's Play," which seems like it would fit extremely well with G.K. Chesterton's "Ethics of Elfland" and Anthony Esolen's Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child. More than usual had read the novel before seeing the Disney movie, and so found it quite lacking. A discussion of Disney villains commenced here, and I was again chided for not having seen The Lion King in its entirety (but if you know the songs, isn't that enough?). Then the rest of the other readings we were looking at were about caring for the elderly, death and mortality. This led to a lot of discussion about the everyday glory and burden of caring for elderly relatives as they grow frailer, and while it was a great discussion, the material was really painful.
     One interesting fact learned today: Dr. Dial-Driver says that Lady and the Tramp was originally a book! Since her specialty is children's lit, I'll take her word for it. (The novel of Bambi was also mentioned today, which brought to mind that The Fox and the Hound was a novel first, too, but there's no way that I will ever read that - the Wikipedia plot summary is far more depressing that the movie, and the movie is appropriately realistic enough in its open-ended unresolvedness.)  

     I don't think I'm actually sick, but I feel like I've been just dragging through the last couple days. Found a Spotify playlist of classical covers of rock and pop songs, which has been interesting to listen to while writing this post. (Jed and Miss Kathy would approve.)
     Discovered that Screen Rant, a movie-news website I usually find useful, is taking applications for a list writer, so I might apply for that. It would only be part time - all of their content comes from freelancers - but it would be something, and they're a pretty good-sized site in terms of traffic. That would look good in a portfolio of writing samples. And lists are usually easy. And since it's freelance work, I wouldn't have to move to California or anything.

     UPDATE SATURDAY MORNING - Whether because of stress or sickness germs going around, I was up most of Thursday night throwing up. Did nothing all day yesterday, I'll probably be fine in a couple days.

Monday Night Blogging

     Last night was rough. Eventually I fell asleep, though. (Why don't "rough" and "though" rhyme?)

     Rags was really happy I was visiting home for the weekend. And Last Holiday wasn't as depressing as I thought.

     Brad Paisley's "No" is a Song of the Day. I've never liked it much, because it's always felt like a weak imitation of Garth's "Unanswered Prayers." Also, Randy Newman's "You've Got a Friend in Me" from Toy Story has been another that's been stuck in my head, possibly because there's been a cool video going viral of a dad and his daughter singing it together. (Hey, they also did "Tale as Old as Time" from Beauty and the Beast!) I hate the idea that that's being remade in live-action, but Emma Watson is a perfect Belle. The Fox and the Hound could never be remade in live-action (for one thing, it's too depressing), but if it ever was, I vote that Queen Latifah voices Big Mama the owl.

     Brent Musberger is retiring tomorrow - all the sports voices of my childhood seem like they're doing that lately, in one way or another. It's sad. John Saunders died last year, and Vin Scully and Verne Lundquist both shut off their microphones for the final time last fall. At least Bob Costas and Al Michaels are still around.
     The Pro Bowl still exists, apparently - it was on mute for a bit last night. And the Monday Night Football theme song still exists, though Hank Williams Jr. doesn't do "All My Rowdy Friends" anymore, which is frustrating, because he was fired after criticizing Obama. Read a book from the campus library called The Game's Not Over: In Defense of Football, by Gregg Easterbrook, which is one criticism against the NFL. That wasn't the best book ever, mostly stuff repurposed from his Tuesday Morning Quarterback column, but it was good to see somebody criticizing the NFL. I'm not sure I can like football again, but it's such a part of our culture that it can't really be ignored. Worked on a post a couple years ago from the frozen tundra of Lambeau Field Ross Hall, trying to explain my attitude as a grownup towards the game.

     I really should be working on homework, but I need to get something typed out first to get a good rhythm going. It'd be better if it were fiction of some type or destined-for-Kindle nonfiction, but those projects will have to be shoved onto the back burner for now while finishing this semester.
     Poked my nose into the RSU BCM meeting tonight, which was a bad idea - they're incredibly depressing and saddening, even more so than CCF at NSU. I think it has to do with the utter lack of anything approaching the gospel or biblical teaching whatsoever. Makes me very thankful Bob and Deb are doing such a good job leading in Tahlequah.

     January is already in the books. That's strange.

September Recap

      The month of September didn't exactly speed by, but it's almost in the rearview mirror. Trevor finally got that surgery to fix his meniscus, and we spent around $90 at the Okmulgee library's annual book sale.

     Classes aren't great, but I'm surviving, more or less. And Dylan, Jessica and Ashland are all having a rough time with school, too. Daniel's sister Emily just got engaged, and Jacob got married.

     In sports, the Rams began their tenure in Los Angeles, which is weird. Tim Tebow decided to try playing pro baseball with the Mets, which is also weird. Kevin Durant is now wearing a Warriors jersey, which hurts a lot more than I thought it would. The Paralympics were astonishing to watch, making me grateful for all I can do on a daily basis. Lots more arguments about politics on all TV channels, which is frustrating. Even sports channels, due to 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick's protests during the National Anthem.

     Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s fourth season is off to a "meh" start, given that the character of the Ghost Rider has been introduced. That's making it kind of Buffy-like, which is difficult to understand what my reaction ought to be to it. (Is Buffy a well-written show? Yes, definitely. But the supernatural aspects of the vampires make me kind of uncomfortable, so I don't watch unless I have to.) I haven't decided my take on this season of Agents yet. Since it will probably be the final season, I'll likely stick with it, at least until we learn how they're going to explain how a mechanic like Robbie Reyes can transform into a flaming skull vengeance demon creature with an amazing '69 Dodge Charger.

     Why is September such a popular month when it comes to lyrics? Daughtry's "September," Green Day's "Wake Me Up (When September Ends)," Taylor Swift's "Tim McGraw"... I'm sure there's others, too, but those were the ones that have been stuck in my head recently.

Hymn-Filled Weekend

     The weekend got a little better. Mom wanted to see Ben-Hur, so me, Courtney, Caleb and Trevor all came along. Morgan Freeman played a rich Arab guy, and he was the best part of the movie. It was all right, but not like my favorite movie ever or anything. It really tanked at the box office, though - out of a $100 million dollar budget, the opening weekend earnings was only about $11 million. Ouch. 

     Rags was very glad that I was home again for a bit, and so was I. 

     The Olympics ended Sunday night, with the US winning the most medals, 121 of them. China was next with 70, Great Britain in third had 67, Australia was eighth with 29, and Canada was tenth with 22. Altogether, there were 88 countries who won medals, out of something like 200 total. PluggedIn's blog had a good recap. 

      We tried to keep up with it as much as we could, with the disappointing result that we witnessed far more water polo and men's diving than anyone should witness. But the abundance of volleyball is a plus. 

     My stomach's been really upset today, but that just happens sometimes. Still don't know anything, really, about my roommate. There's only been one fire alarm so far, and a weather drill was tonight. That was only moderately nerve-jangling, as opposed to a fire alarm.

     There was an interesting article I read on the Art of Manliness blog about the history of the feminization of Christianity, which touched on a lot of points I have trouble with in the modern church generally. For example, the sissification of worship music. 

     I wished I could have made the Saturday morning sermon on glorifying God in depression, since the Gundersens are spending three months in Jasper starting last night. They'll be very much missed by everyone, but hopefully it will be a productive and useful resting time for both of them. 

     Church was really good yesterday morning. Most of the service was given to Matt Ferguson as he gave his testimony, and then he was baptized afterwards. Mrs. Rusco said to somebody while we were all assembling in the parking lot, "I love how plain our baptisms are. It's just - water, and you. That's all you need, really; there's not really any need for fancy stuff." Josh and Sara were there visiting, because of course they couldn't have missed this, and neither could the Grahams. And then Josh finally found an internship, which is more great news. It was one of those times that's hard to put into words, but cheers the spirit somehow. 

     Texted Ashland and Dylan this morning, it was good to hear from them. They're both hanging in here so far this semester, which is good. And knowing that everybody else is struggling, too, makes things a lot easier to deal with. Still trying to get used to my new phone. Mostly finished the SGYC wrapup post last night, I just need to do some tweaking here and there. Steven and Amanda have both provided encouragement, too, which is always helpful. 

     Songs of the Day were "Trust and Obey," "What a Friend We Have in Jesus" and Relient K's "For the Moments I Feel Faint". Most of the day was spent studying; took care of sending the needed documents where they needed to go for financial aid, so I'm sort of proud of myself for getting that out of the way so early. About came unglued several times this morning in Children's Lit when the subjects of homeschooling and classical education were trashed, but I didn't snap anyone's head off, so that's something. Last night was one of those rough nights that are good for prayer, which are to be preferred to the rough nights that aren't. Didn't sleep well at all last night; waking up about once every fifteen minutes for four hours, then getting a handful of real sleep, which came during the time I was going to study. And then I tried to take a nap, which didn't work, either. So I'm just blogging with Pandora tuned to my "Decent Christian Music" station, trying to wind down some. I might find something on Netflix in a minute, if this doesn't work. 

Middle of February

     It's the middle of that impossible-to-spell month of February. What's been happening? Quite a bit of homework, which hasn't turned out how I've hoped most of it would. Catching up on American Idol clips on YouTube, and wondering why it seems so important to keep writing recaps if nobody's reading them. Lots of staring into space at the cream-colored walls of the apartment and wondering why it feels so empty. Occasionally walking to Taco Bell when I can't stand cafeteria food any longer. Picking up groceries from the scruffy gas station within walking distance. (It seems like a law that there must be at least one endearingly-scruffy gas station within walking distance of a college campus.) There's been too much analyzing of story structure from four different perspectives simultaneously to enjoy any stories, whether books or movies, which seems entirely wrong.
     I have plowed through several more of J.K. Rowling's books, so I just have the last one left to have conquered that whole series. (It's required pop-culture knowledge for living in the 21st century....especially if you're an English major. Sigh.)

      Dad finished his Master's degree, which is exciting. Amy is trying to get over pinkeye, which isn't. Grandpa's hanging in there. Everybody was glad I could drop by over the weekend; Trevor, Rags and Banjo especially.
      News of friends: Dylan is enjoying school in Stillwater, Scotty dropped by GBC for a visit yesterday morning, Susan's play just wrapped up, and Ashland got a guinea pig.

     Songs of the Day recently: Brad Paisley's "Letter To Me," the National Anthem, the sort-of-SGYC song "Jesus I Come," Garth Brooks' "What She's Doing Now" and the "Down By the Creek Bank" theme, among others.

     The Broncos won the Super Bowl 24-10 over the Panthers a couple weeks ago, and Denny Hamlin just barely won the Daytona 500 yesterday, beating Martin Truex Jr. by something like six inches.  

Ain't Eight Semesters Enough?

     The first week of my eighth semester of college is about halfway over. It'll be a long one, I think. There will be some good parts, but also a lot of screaming silently at the walls as I try to hammer out another sentence of an essay. (But it isn't like I don't have lots of practice with that, right?) Fiction Writing will likely be the best course. Topics of Advanced Comp will be difficult, but hopefully it won't be too bad. I'm not sure what to expect out of Studies in Poetry; it's basically everyone from Poetry Writing in fall, plus some other people. Scriptwriting will be informative, if nothing else... Also, this is the third semester in a row without a lunch break on Tuesday/Thursdays.
     Anyway, by next spring (I hope) I'll have graduated....
   
     Woke up this morning to Kenny Chesney's "Living in Fast Forward" playing as a Song of the Day, after waking up at least eight times the night before.

     I guess Alabama won the college football championship last night; I didn't pay any attention to the game because I was working on homework. Didn't pay any attention to Obama's State of the Union speech, either; though I considered counting the verbal missteps like Nano used to. Hopefully there'll be a parody of it on Saturday Night Live. 

     Also, the Rams are moving back to Los Angeles, which makes sense from a historical perspective, considering they were the first team out in California and stayed there for fifty years. But from another perspective, the idea of a pro football team in LA just sounds crazy. Facebook posts from St. Louis aren't too happy with this plan.

I Can't Christmas

     I can't even Christmas this year. Don't know why. Just....hasn't felt holiday-like at all. Not even Thanksgiving really did, even. The closest I came to feeling Christmassy was while the congregation was singing carols at church during the annual Christmas special Sunday night, but even then it wasn't much. It's just too weird an atmosphere to be around. I don't have a place to serve or a role to play. And given the mass exodus of basically everyone over the past couple years, I'm the only one of the core part of the youth group(of our generation) who's still around. Dylan's transferring to Stillwater in January, Sam and Marie fell off the planet, Josh is going to some Presbyterian church with his girlfriend, I think, and Suzanna's at JBU.

     Trying to process that this will likely be Grandpa's last Christmas, which isn't really computing all that well.

     Sometimes it just feels like I'm trapped in a no-man's-land, no longer a kid and part of life around the house, really, but not anywhere near having a family of my own. So it's weird seeing Facebook say that once a week someone is getting engaged or married or is pregnant or whatever. And all the jewelry commercials this year are terribly stupid, which is disappointing, since they're the second-best ads generally, after the beer commercials.

     Songs of the Day  from this morning are Love Handel's "You Snuck Your Way Right Into My Heart", Mouse Rat's "5000 Candles in the Wind" and Taylor Swift's "Mine". Which are all good songs, but it's unusual to wake up with them playing on the mental radio station.

     While Courtney, Caleb and Trevor were skating with the youth group last night, Mom and Amy went shopping, so I had the house to myself, which made for some nice quietness. The dogs kept barking at random things and wanting outside, only to decide they were cold three minutes later. Anyway, I spent some of that time sitting quietly and staring at the Christmas tree, which is very calming. (I wrote more about them a couple years ago.) That was nice. And then I watched some episodes of Phineas and Ferb and Parks and Rec. That was good, too.

Life in a Deep Freeze

     It is REALLY COLD OUTSIDE. And inside. Even more so than usual, and so the chorus of complaints is louder than ever. Like, seriously, when I checked the temp a couple hours ago it was 18 degrees with a wind chill of 3 degrees. High of 22 expected, low of somewhere between 2-5 degrees. And we're talking Fahrenheit, not Celsius!
     And my Kit Kats have been frozen rock-solid. That's not quite so bad as stone-hard Snickers, or fossilized Reese's, but it's still not exactly enjoyable. (Welll...okay, it's chocolate, so obviously it's enjoyable. I just mean that it would've been a little better if it could warm up to maybe room-temperature a bit or something.)

     Classes are going...taking everyone a while to get up to speed, it seems. Media Management and Planning(MMP) might go a little easier than we expected. (Note the might.) Somebody said before class Tuesday, as we were all frantically trying to prepare for a quiz over the syllabus, "Why does this feel like we're taking a final and it's only the second week of class?" Lecture was on the importance of proper product placement in advertising, pretty interesting and easy to grasp. Talked to this older guy who sits next to me named Ron for a while about photography after class let out.

     Monday was a study-day, because of no classes scheduled for some reason because of Martin Luther King Jr. Day. It really came at an odd time this year, because we started so late. We don't need a break after one week of school! Why couldn't it come in February or something instead?
     Quiz in Comm/speech yesterday, which was somewhat nerve-wracking, and a short little report to whip up for tomorrow.
     Latin is going pretty well, a little faster than we'd probably like, but it's all right. I was able to read(and understand!) what the extra-credit sentence said yesterday even before we'd begun dissecting it. (It was the Vulgate translation of Matthew 5:3, if you were wondering.) That was awesome.

     Finally used some of the high school graduation gift certificate from GBC to Grace and Truth Books, it's only taken like nineteen months, haha. (Just wanted to make the best use of whatever I purchased, y'know?) And I still have half of it left! Got a book by Paul David Tripp called War of Words, a gospel-centered look at communication issues. It's fantastic, was studying a couple chapters last night because I couldn't sleep.
     It was good to visit home for the weekend, lots of homework and cat-petting and video games, in about that order.

     Super Bowl is next week...and then the Olympics. And I should hopefully get my braces off February 6. Besides the Daytona 500, those are all the highlights, most likely, from next month. Other than that it'll just be cold gray skies, rain, maybe a little snow, tests and group projects and mountains of homework and wild-eyed students close to snapping from stress and anxiety.

     Songs of the Day this week: All weekend long I had the theme song from Friends running through my head. (But at least I figured out that opening guitar riff, which is like one of the songbites of the 90s.) And Brad Paisley on Tuesday; "Two People Fell in Love", "Letter To Me" and snippets from several others. "Jesus Paid It All" and "Be Thou My Vision" have often been running through my head here the last few weeks. This morning it was a handful of Eli songs.
     Quote of the Week would go to Maria von Trapp(Julie Andrews' portrayal, not the actual lady) from The Sound of Music, from the "I Have Confidence" scene when she finally comes up to the gate of the von Trapp estate: "...Oh, help."  (Still annoyed about that song getting cut from the Carrie Underwood play version...Side note, it seems like everyone is doing that play this semester; it's been about the only thing on my Facebook news feed this week.)

     Trying to study today, in addition to just staying warm. And watched several episodes of Full House. Back to the textbooks I go....

     (After studying a little more, I listened to two David Platt sermons on angels and demons and spiritual warfare. And as for the cold, my cousin Logan said the high temp in his slice of Illinois was 5 today, with a bunch of snow. Probably worse up along the Minnesota/Canada border, I'd have to ask Jessica about that, though.)

Songs of the Day

   Every once in a while, there's a song that gets stuck in your head. And it just keeps playing over and over until either it gets replaced by a new song, or it just finally kills itself to death and suffocates. These(as named by my cousins and spread through our AI discussions) are known as "Songs of the Day". Had a lot more than normal today.

   Last night is when the school week begins, really. And thankfully, it wasn't a "Never Grow Up" kind of night, as Sundays usually are, endless loops of Taylor and Carrie. Instead, it was another great song, that's still not all that great to live out: "I'm In A Hurry", the Alabama classic.

   This morning began with Rascal Flatts' "What Hurts The Most". Then it was Tim McGraw's "Something Like That", that bridge just lodges itself into your cranium and won't let you go without examining it. And by then I'd eaten breakfast and was waiting for my first class to start, my mouth was kinda hurting a bit from the orthodonist appointment last week. So the Owl City song "Dental Care" was next on the mind-radio's playlist. And for some random reason I found myself singing Jason Aldean's "Tattoos On This Town", too.
   Isaiah 43 is another of those songs that's been often sung and thought about in here, too, as has Come Thou Fount, Great Is Thy Faithfulness, and Mercies Anew.

   Found out I got a B on my history test last Friday(it's a very hard class), I was happy with that. Then, with the curve put onto it, I got an A, Comp I was uneventful, and Strat went all right. And the lunch food in the caf was pretty good today. Then, I get some mail from my friend(and quote, "adopted sister", it's kinda complicated, lol) Amanda, and MassComm was crazy. Disorganized, but creative. All that, the song I was reminded of was Keith Urban's "God's Been Good To Me" and FFH's "It's A Good Day". And He has, and it was. Flag-football practice went pretty well, made a couple decent plays, starting to jell as a team, hopefully we'll do okay once the season starts later this week. Then there was a picnic type of thing with some people from CCF, it was a little spoiled by an attack of giant mosquitoes and bees. But then there was VOLLEYBALL No specific songs for that, but just good camp memories. (And side note, but why is it that the sports I'm best at are the really out-of-the-ordinary ones? Volleyball, ping pong, soccer?) So that was a great way to end a good day, a good beginning to the week.
    And, I've almost survived half a semester of college so far.

   Now to get started on all the projects and things that need to get done tomorrow...