March On Out

     Another week down.
     It featured a tornado warning, drowning in an ocean of homework, no one having any idea of what's going on in Media Law, a classroom of white people analyzing a novel about Harlem blacks in the Great Depression, something like four fire alarms in three days, sleep schedule thrown all out of whack, and a lot of Netflixing Parks and Rec. 

     So the first storm of spring came to northeastern Oklahoma on Wednesday night. That wasn't exactly good, especially not for the folks with damaged property in Sand Springs, but it means spring is officially here. It's a weird part of the fabric of living here. If I ever live someplace without such varied weather, I'll probably miss it, for some reason. Anyway, everyone around RSU ran into the basement of the dining hall. It was a good time for people-watching. Some folks were studying, others playing cards or tracking the weather. Ran into Skylar; so that was one person I recognized. The NSU BCM storm crew had a blast tracking/chasing the storms.

     Jacob texted me on Monday afternoon to ask if I could film the SWAT show that night at Impact, which I totally would have done if I could have gotten to Tahlequah. It was good to catch up, though. And the show apparently went well.

     This week's novel-for-study was called Go Tell It On the Mountain, by a guy named James Baldwin, which didn't really feature the song itself at all. It was tiresome and confounding; more of a character study than anything else; there wasn't much plot. And it felt kind of wrong somehow for a classroom of white people try to dissect everything in the book, which is about blacks in 1935 New York City. And there was a lot of Pentecostalism in there, too; so that added to the difficulty in understanding it. And it didn't really improve much the second or third times through, either.

     Video production classes are a great example of Murphy's Law: If it can possibly by any wild stretch of the imagination go wrong, it pretty definitely will. So it's sort of a never-ending task of improvisation to whip something together to turn in by deadline. At the moment in the middle of patching together a short film due late next week.

     There's been way too many fire alarms this week. I was taking a shower when the first one went off Wednesday afternoon, so I grabbed a shirt and pajama pants from the dresser and flew down the stairs. And then there was the tornado warning a couple hours later once nerves had been slightly less jangled, and an hour after the storm left ANOTHER FIRE ALARM went off. And it was still raining. And then Friday morning AT 2 A.M. ANOTHER ALARM went off. So I got woken up out of a one-hour sleep by that to race out the door. And then I woke up at 9:50 this morning. And I have a class at 10. By 9:57 I was in my seat, and then a confusing pop-quiz on libel was being taken. There'll be a test in Media Law next week, and also a test for Interpersonal Communication on Thursday. Enrollment for fall is also sometime next week, maybe Tuesday.

     In SGYC news, it's now that much closer to July. Also, Derek got married. I've seriously lost track of the amount of people I know that's happened to... Amanda's baby is due just about any week; that's exciting.

     Parks and Rec is really addictive. And I kind of either hate or love almost every character. It's a very high-emotional-investment type of show. And if I was still at NSU, now I could totally jump into the BCM office debates over all things Parks-related.

     Kevin Durant's officially out for the rest of the season, so....there's that, too. It's been a ridiculous season; I think literally every single player on the roster has gotten hurt at least once. And yet still somehow we're three games ahead of Phoenix for the last playoff spot with ten to go. Bill Elliott's son Chase is racing this weekend for the first time in Sprint Cup, so that's kind of neat. Baseball season starts next week, so Josh and Mrs. Boyer are really excited for that. And the Drillers are sharing their new field with a soccer team, the Roughnecks, starting this year.

     Thursday was Dad's birthday. And it was also ten years ago that Mimi died. Which is almost half my life ago; I was eleven. That's a little odd.

     I really ought to try to find some new songs to learn to play. Out of ideas for good ones, though.

     It's been a very long week. And this weekend's full of more homework. Yay.

Spring Break 2015

     Spring break was last week, so there's about six or so weeks left of this semester.

     Other people went places or did cool things. I went to the urgent-care clinic with a bad ear infection. And did lots of homework(but not probably enough). And babysat Amy. And petted the cats and dogs.

     That's really about it. Watched a little basketball. It was nice to be at GBC two weeks in a row.

How To Pick Your Bracket

     The NCAA tournament is begins this week, which means there will likely be very little work done over the next couple weeks, a lot of pizza will be eaten due to constant exposure to Pizza Hut ads, and there will be a lot of basketball analysis delivered by people who know next to nothing about sports. Everyone is an expert. So all their opinions are important and likely accurate. Which, in reality, means this: Nobody knows anything. And because nobody knows anything, anyone can pick the winners right. That guy in marketing. Your clueless-about-sports aunt. The guy from that psychology class. Your sister's best friend's boyfriend. Your cat. ANYBODY.

     So there are plenty of ways to choose your bracket. You could take any of these options, or some that I haven't thought of.

     The Rational Approach - This person studies records, average point differential, compares head-to-head results, debates strength of the various conferences....basically everyone at ESPN. Most ordinary people hate these types of people.

     The Underdog - This person picks little tiny schools frequently and loves upsets. They probably grew up with a steady diet of Hoosiers, The Big Green, The Mighty Ducks, Air Bud and Rudy. Usually there are several double-digit-seeded teams winning in the first round of these people's brackets.

     The Alpha Dog - They might like upsets as much as the underdog(who doesn't?!), but they pick the big-name schools to win because they're the big schools - Duke, Kansas, North Carolina, Villanova, Arizona, UCLA.

     The Fashion Police - This person picks teams to win by school colors or jersey design. Basically everyone in the U.S. during weird Olympic sports like soccer or skeleton, or while watching horse racing. If you truly don't care, this is a pretty good measuring stick.

     "I've Been There!"  - If you went there, obviously you should pick that school. Or if you know someone who's went there, or it's the alma mater of your spouse/significant other. Or if you've been to that state sometime in your lifetime.

     The Eccentric Nicknamer - You know the ones, where you scratch your head and wonder, "How did that even...?" Names like Anteaters, Boilermakers, Colonials, Crimson, Friars, Hawkeyes, Hoyas, Hoosiers, Jayhawks, Lumberjacks and Tar Heels. Those named creatively get advanced, because imagination is awesome.

     The Audubon Society Member - Like the Eccentric Nicknamer, this person picks solely off of mascots. Birds always win. So, that's good news for the Cardinals, Chanticleers(a rooster from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales), Ducks, Eagles and Ospreys.

     The Cat Person - They probably love everything related to Grumpy Cat. And can seriously detail the pros and cons of every type of kitty litter. And know how many other ways it can be used. Anyway, if you aren't the Cougars, Leopards, Tigers, Panthers or Wildcats, too bad. "NO."

     The Dog Lover - You can be both a Cat Person and a Dog Lover at the same time, but it's unusual. Anyway, this year there are Bulldogs, Great Danes, Huskies and Terriers to cheer on.

    The Batman Villain - There's this Batman dude named Harvey Dent, also known as Two-Face. He flips a coin to decide whether to do something good or evil. That's the same kind of methodology used to fill out a bracket.

    "They went here? GO TEAM!" - A famous person went to school somewhere, which is a good enough reason to root for them. Plus, it helps on Jeopardy questions sometimes. Keep in mind that the schools Bing Crosby (Gonzaga), Steven Curtis Chapman and Brad Paisley (both Belmont), Woodrow Wilson (Davidson), and Dan Fouts( Oregon) went to are all in the tournament this year. Harvard has a huge list of famous people that were former students; a partial list includes John and John Quincy Adams, George W. Bush, Matt Damon, Teddy Roosevelt and Natalie Portman. Tommy Lee Jones and Al Gore were roommates there.

     The Single Guy in the Sports Bar - "Let's see....which team has the hotter cheerleaders?"

March Forward....Somehow

      Ugh.
      One of the hardest semesters yet is about halfway over, so....yay? I need to sleep now. And I think I'm both stress-sick and caught whatever's been going around.

     There's been an inhuman amount of homework and projects last week and this week; I guess they figured that the Skye's the limit. (Bad S.H.I.E.LD. puns twice in the same sentence...I don't really care. Too tired.) Anyway, Agents is back from the Carter break and is the usual nerve-wracking spectacular show we viewers expect. That can be really painful at times, though....it's weird, if you think about it, how it's almost like following the Thunder or something. Speaking of which, Russell Westbrook is pulling off stats literally not seen since Michael Jordan, so that's pretty cool. And the never-ending parade of injuries keeps on going, so that not so much. There's still a large amount of "Okay, we're playing Ibaka, Collison, and....who are all these other guys?!"

     That's all for now. Maybe I can write better in a couple hours after (more) homework and when I can't sleep.