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. 

April Firsts

     Another April Fool's Day with no tricks played on anyone. Rats. I did finish the first 5K race I ever entered this morning, so that's something, though. There were 92 entrants total, and I finished 39th overall with a time of 38:17. That was sixth out of seven in my division, and I mainly walked most of the way (I'm a sprinter; and terrible at anything resembling distance.) Maybe because I walk everywhere that was why I finished midpack? I'm used to traveling on foot, so I've learned to be more efficient? I don't know. I'm pretty sure most 5K's aren't run with a soundtrack of poetry playing in your mind, though. Snatches of Rudyard Kipling's "If" were narrated by Plato the Buffalo from Adventures From the Book of Virtues. (I know he recites it during an episode, but can't find that clip at the moment.) My goal was just to finish, and I did that, so next time I'll have a time to aim to beat.

     In other news....let's see. I donated blood for the first time two weeks ago, and I survived. I was afraid it was going to be like Ashland's horror story of the first time she tried donating blood (which won a Random Status of the Week Award). Like her, I also apparently have small veins. Unlike her story, there was no blood spurting everywhere. Three nurses looked at my arm before deciding they found one big enough - but I'm blaming this on their being exhausted from working all day. (It was like 4:45 on a Wednesday afternoon.) Once they found a vein the right size, it took about three minutes to finish filling the little bag, which they said was a lot faster than normal. My arm didn't bruise or anything, but the pricked finger they tested my iron levels on hurt for a couple days, and it was hard to type. (Your middle finger on the left hand is used often in typing - and so I couldn't play guitar for a while, either.)

     This week's movie in Gothic Film and Lit was a 1991 mystery directed by Kenneth Branagh called Dead Again. The plot was incredibly complicated, but it was a good movie. And well-constructed. (On rereading Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lived in the Castle, it was much better, because I could look at the mechanics of how she built the plot and notice all the foreshadowing.) Robin Williams played a serious role as a homeless psychiatrist, and Wayne Knight (Stan from Space Jam, Dennis Nedry in Jurassic Park) was in it, too.

     In not-for-school-but-for-sanity reading, I just finished Billie Letts's novel Where the Heart Is, which was full of thoroughly weird but incredibly real characters. I liked it. (It was made into a movie starring Natalie Portman.) And a biography of Agatha Christie (titled plainly Agatha Christie: A Biography) by Janet Morgan had some good parts, though it was somewhat dense and the pace was glacially slow. It would have been better if it were read concurrently with her autobiography.

     Capstone is due Wednesday, so all the seniors in the English Department are kind of freaking out. I have to (try to) tame my nemesis, ACADEMIC TONE IN WRITING, enough to pass the Committee's judgment. I think I can, I think I can...just keep swimming.... Dr. Mackie and Dr. Dial-Driver will both do their best to argue for me, so that's something.

     There've been at least three fire alarms in the last 36 hours, much to my annoyance.

     The beginning of April means that it's also the start of Stupid Profile Picture Week, and something like the sixth year it's been held. This is what my hair looks like after I get out of the shower. It tends to fall straight over my face.

Stormy Weekend

     It's been a stormy weekend; not violent, just there, enough to remind you that you live in Oklahoma, and ponder curiously how much the weather plays a role in our daily lives (even if we aren't storm-crazy, like Stephen, Justin and Ashleigh from the BCM.) Speaking of which, Justin and Ashleigh just started a photography business, so that's cool.
     So I've stood outside in the light misty rain and watched a lot of enormous lightning, which has been followed by the sizzling type of thunder.

     Spent most of the weekend retyping old essays, I still like the one from Comp II about fairy tales. The 2002 Spider-Man is on for background noise at the moment. The Manchurian Candidate, a 1962 suspense movie starring Frank Sinatra, was the OETA Movie of the Week, and it was really good. Also interesting was the 2001 movie The Others, starring Nicole Kidman as a paranoid overprotective mother in post-WWII England. It was this week's movie in Gothic Film and Lit, and it was a terrific ghost story.

     At the start of Wednesday's psych class, knowing most of the class was freaked out by the test on Monday afternoon, Dr. Marrero sits down on a stool and looks at us gravely. "What do you guys know about buffalo?" he asks. (I thought, though I didn't say, "DON"T PET THEM!" SGYC reference. Still no word about a 2017 edition.) Silence in room. "Well, what do you know about cows?" More silence. "When there's a storm, cows will go crazy, running this way and that. They try to avoid a storm when it's on the way. But buffalo are smart. When buffalo see a storm coming, they run through the storm, because they know they'll get out of it quicker that way." (Here my eyes light up and I figure out the point of this rousing inspirational speech, delivered quietly in a pleasant monotone.) "When you see an obstacle, just push back against it as best you can and try to move forward through it. I don't know, you guys might not think this stuff is interesting, but I enjoy learning about animals. Specially buffalo. And horses!" So, BE LIKE RUMBLE.

     Dr. Marrero's speech reminded me of what Professor Semrow said once. I'm using one of my essays for her Intro to Lit course as a Capstone artifact.
     I need to write a short story and rewrite my main Capstone essay and reflective paper, but other than that I don't think there's much homework at the moment.

     With it being the start of another month on Saturday, the list of stuff on Netflix changes. In April, almost all of the Whedonverse will disappear, which I am not too thrilled about. (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is still safe, as part of the MCU.) I don't care about Angel, or at least haven't seen it, because I'm not a huge Buffy fan. (Though a Whedon-led show about a private investigator does sound good when you just hear that sentence.) And Buffy is really useful as resource material when you're an English major, due to the coming-of-age and Gothic aspects. And the impact on pop culture. Firefly is a bizarre mashup of Western and sci-fi, and it works brilliantly, particularly when it comes to snappy dialogue or character development. Dollhouse is fascinating because most episodes the main characters play several wildly-divergent roles at a time, so it's interesting to study from an acting perspective. (Also, most of the cast was either from Buffy or Firefly, or would be reused in Agents.)

A Difficult Week

     It's been exactly five years since the CVS Scotch Tape Incident. Feels like much longer. Sunday is the twelfth anniversary of the night Mimi died. That is always difficult. When I started this blog there was a post about it.
     She died when I was eleven, and so now she's been gone longer than I knew her. That is especially hard to understand.

     Just found this Bear Grylls article on grief in my Facebook newsfeed. Sure, I made fun of Man Vs. Wild, but it's that kind of show. Running Wild is interesting, and I enjoyed his memoir Mud, Sweat and Tears, at least what I heard of the audiobook version. He's a really interesting person. This was a good article, I thought. And it rereading it out loud gave me a chance for voiceover practice on doing his accent.
     In July 2013, Sunny died, and so I wrote about that. It was hard to deal with. Then in November 2013 Copper was hit by a car. That was bad, too. About a year after that Nano died late fall 2014, which has been hard to process, even though she was more than ready. Maybe that's why.  And Grandpa's cancer won three days before my birthday last May. I definitely haven't understood that yet.

     All of my stories for the last year or so seem to involve death of some sort, and it's the same way with classmates Brian and Lauren's stories, too. One of those jokes around the English Department. I kind of specialized in murder ballads in poetry classes, along the lines of Garth Brooks's "The Thunder Rolls" or Carrie Underwood's "Blown Away," "Choctaw County Affair" and "Two Black Cadillacs." Maybe it's an Oklahoma thing.
     Sure, most English majors employ the rule of thumb that when in doubt, you throw a murder into the plot, but even if we aren't trying to include it, characters still die. Brian's best stories from Fiction Writing were a Western revenge tale and one about a lonely, slowing-perishing baseball-loving widower. Lauren is a master of William Goldman-style suspense thrillers who loves Stephen King, and it shows - in a good way. Two weeks ago the couple's dog was put down in one of my flashfiction stories for Pop Market, and a novel I'm in the early stages of working on features a woman with terminal cancer as one of the main characters, while a minor character was a dog who was run over.
   
     Most of the weekend will be spent retyping old essays for the portfolio portion of Capstone, I think. Caleb gets back from Mexico Sunday night.

Anxiousness Isn't Fun

     There's a San Jose-Minnesota hockey game on quietly for background noise, but this just isn't a productive day. At all. I'm not sure why. The storyboard presentation this morning for Pop Market went fairly well, considering that I can't draw very well, and don't especially like speaking in public. (Acting is different - that's great.) It was for a short story that was due a couple weeks back.
     Tried to take a nap this afternoon, but that didn't work. Got four hours sleep Sunday night, and then overslept this morning (on six hours), waking up at 8:13 for an 8:30 class. Lots of aimless walking just to be doing something.

     The Thunder were destroyed by the Monstars Warriors last night, which didn't help yesterday, either. There was a fight, and lots of "accidental" bodychecking on our players. Which made Twitter more entertaining, at least, seeing Elizabeth and Daniel P. both going berserk. Yesterday was maybe worse than today. It's hard to tell, it's just been a very bad stretch of days.
     I think I bombed yesterday's psych test on theories of criminology. (Update: just found the grade - 82, which is frustrating because most of my wrong answers were just stupid mistakes.)

     The capstone project is due in like two weeks and it's not going very well at all. I was talking to Lauren in the hallway this morning, and we agreed that Capstone feels like that point in working on a novel where everything looks far too crappy to bother with finishing, but where you're too far into the project to give up completely. That's not a good place to find your writing in. But it's where all of mine seems to be, more or less, for the last roughly six months or so. And so your confidence is shattered all to pieces, which continues everything else schoolwise into a downward spiral. Writing is what English majors do. So if that's not working....uh, anxiety spikes up even more than usual.
     It seems like I've been flickering between "extremely stressed/exhausted/despondent but still capable of decent work" and "unable to function" all of college, really, but more so as time's gone by, and since coming to Eagleton Claremore this year. More especially this semester.

     Of Gothic Film and Lit stuff, I think the only things I'll probably ever come back to are Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca and Stephen King's Shining, because they're both written extremely well. (An occasional dose of King is helpful when studying how to put sentences and paragraphs together, and looking at how word choice give insight into characters, because while the man has a twisted imagination, yes, he knows his craft extremely well.) This week's book is Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lived in the Castle, which has that Shirley-Jackson-sense-of-indefinite-wrongness for sure. And there is a house fire that is described far too well - that was unpleasant. Panic attacks aren't fun.
     Been rereading L.M. Montgomery's The Story Girl to counteract school stress. I don't like it all that much, but almost any Montgomery is well-done and has noteworthy quotable passages. Also, The Golden Road is the sequel to The Story Girl, and I'm probably going to reread The Golden Road before graduation, because it's that kind of book. And it's one of my three favorite Mongomerys ever.

     Speaking of some of my favorite authors, the RSU Theater Program's play this semester is a fairly-accurate adaptation of Tom Sawyer. Even secondhand and distilled, Mark Twain humor still works very well. I have my doubts about how well it will actually be performed, though - it runs in about three weeks and there haven't been any rehearsals yet, and no one has any details on them, either. They were supposed to start yesterday, and at least a quarter of the original cast has dropped out.
     Mingo Valley is doing The Wizard of Oz this semester, which will be fantastic. Not sure if I'll be able to see it, but Paige plays the Wicked Witch, which sounds like a great role.

     No word of SGYC news, though GBC-Tulsa leaders are scouting possible locations for a new youth camp beginning in 2018. Don't know if I'd even be available to help this year at SGYC, because I don't know if I'll get a summer internship with the Creek Nation. But other than that I don't really have many options available work-wise. Been revising/editing fiction to maybe release on Kindle, and batting around a couple also-for-Kindle nonfiction projects, but that won't make a living, though it would be a place to start from.

     On the plus side, saw Doctor Strange last week (FINALLY), so I'm current on MCU movies. It was weird, but worthy. There was almost no humor, and what there was was excessively deadpan or physical comedy. Trevor loved it, said it was the most hilarious MCU movie yet. (He's wrong. That's Guardians.) Seeing Benedict Cumberbatch use an American accent was very unsettling. Rachel McAdams plays the love interest, which was a good casting choice. There was a ton of Eastern spiritualism, of course, but there were also - maybe more so than any other MCU movie yet - lots of Christian messages, because the director is a very outspoken Christian. PluggedIn has lots to say on this matter in this post. So overall, it feels a lot like most of the books we've studied in classes - "some good, some bad, a little of both," to paraphrase Peter Quill. And lots of room for discernment. (That link talks a lot about Buffy, whose series finale was viewing for Gothic Film and Lit a couple weeks ago. It was a very good way to end the show, though I'm still not totally comfortable with it overall.) 
     The newest MCU Netflix show, Iron Fist, sounds like a horrible idea from Dad's description, and reviews don't particularly care for it at all. I'll probably skip it. Daredevil I liked aspects of, but barely managed to trudge through the first season due to the excessive violence and glacial pace. (One of the highlights in this very bleak and dark tale of a blind lawyer ninja - the villain makes and eats breakfast in one scene. It's almost as terrifying as Jurassic Park dinosaurs. Other highlights: Thought-provoking quotes on vision, and Fulton from The Mighty Ducks is the best friend.) Jessica Jones is a very interesting character, but I've only watched a couple episodes, and haven't seen Luke Cage, either.
     I think I'm going to watch Spider-Man now - it's inspiring and happy. And maybe The Princess Bride or While You Were Sleeping. Or Parks and Rec. Still TWO MORE WEEKS until the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. return, and I want to know what's going on inside the world of the Framework!!!!!

Being a Glad You Ate, Part Two

     In April 2012, while still trying to get a handle of how blogging worked, one of the posts was called "Being a Glad You Ate." I had tried on the graduation gown that Mom found off Craigslist from someone who graduated from ORU, if I remember right. The original tassel (from 1997) was yellow-gold, so if not ORU then probably Broken Arrow.  (The tassel I used was black and orange, because when you're homeschooled, you can choose whatever school colors you want - and those are good Morris Eagle colors. Also, technically we live within Preston school limits, and they're the colors of the Pirates, too. And of the Dewar Dragons, whose softball and occasional basketball I covered for a couple seasons.)
     Anyway, the experience reminded me of a passage from one of my favorite books of children's literature, Bill Wallace's Upchuck and the Rotten Willy. It's narrated by a cat named Chuck, and things are rough: His best friend Tom moves away, not long after their other best friend, Louie, got smushed on the highway. And there's a huge dog the size of a house that moves in next door, and then his Katie leaves for somewhere called "College." It's one of my favorite books in all the world.

     Here's an excerpt -
     "My Katie had left before. I had come to live with her when I was just a kitten. Almost every day she had left for a place called school. She told me she was a Senior and that "seniors are really cool." I didn't know what a senior was, but being one made my Katie happy - so I was happy, too.
     Going to school had been okay. When my Katie had come home, she played with me. She dragged an old sock round and round on her bed while I chased it. She hugged me and petted me and rubbed behind my ears. At night I slept on her pillow next to her. Then, after a few months, my Katie told me she was a "Glad You Ate." Now, I had no idea what a Glad You Ate was. My Katie told me she was happy to be one - only us cats don't just listen with our ears. We watch and feel and smell. My Katie made mouth noises that said she was happy, only the feel she gave off was happy and sad and worried, all rolled together. She smelled confused and uncertain - like maybe being a senior had been more fun than being a glad you ate - only she didn't know for sure."
     I quoted more paragraphs in the earlier post.

     This soon-to-be Glad You Ate went to a career fair this morning, which wasn't very helpful. They just aren't designed for English majors. But I got some free pens, and talked to the people from Cox Media Group (K95, Mix 96, KRMG), Griffin Communications (KOTV Tulsa/KWTV OKC) and the general manager of the Tulsa Athletics minor-league soccer team, and handed out a couple resumes. Also took grad-school promotional material from NSU, Pitt State, and Arkansas, because it makes the people feel useful if their fliers disappear by the end of the day. (I've helped Dad do these before when he worked for the co-op.) I think I still have the grad-school promo material from Missouri State and a couple other places from last year's career fair.

     Today's bookstore sale find was a photo essay book called A Letter to My Cat, which, though the letters themselves are a little gushy and awkward, wasn't bad for three dollars, because the pictures are amazing. The concept was terrific, which was why I bought it - there are so many nooks of nonfiction possibilities out there, if you just followed your nose and chased them...still working on that. Have to get through this semester first. And while at the bookstore I got my college cap and gown, since they had finally been stocked. They were arranged by height, so I found the right size on the second try. This tassel is red, since that's the main color of Hillcats.

     Before today's Psychology of the Criminal Mind class today, I noticed a girl wearing a Youth Tour T-shirt, so I asked if she'd been part of the trip. She went to D.C. the year after I did, and so we talked for a bit about common sights and "Did y'all go here to this cool place?" Their group went to the Pentagon - on the wrong day. So that sounded like an interesting memory. I told about how our bus broke down, leaving us stranded on the side of the highway in the rain. (We spent most of the waiting time playing Ninja.) We both felt sorry for all the kids who don't get to have Spike Mama as their tour guide.

     The other day I finished a book on philosophy (which I then realized wasn't a category on Tim Challies's reading challenge) called The Virtues of Captain America. It wasn't bad, though all the academic jargon was hard to follow at points.
     Also reread S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders the other day, because I wanted to see if there were Gothic elements in it (there were a few, but not enough that it could be labeled Gothic). Also, the mid-60's are one of those chronological canyons that histories don't cover in much detail, so that is part of what makes it so interesting, especially since it's set in Tulsa. And Pony's narration is something else. You can tell that a girl wrote it, but still, she was in high school! You can also clearly tell that the publishers edited out most of the swear words, which I can understand in that it would be better for sales, but given the setting, that feels necessary to leave intact for authenticity purposes.

     Edited a classmate's terribly-written adventure story for Pop Market; but hopefully it will help make the tale stronger. I might have been a little biased when it came to the genre, though - last night I was rereading mine and Ashland's Two For the Treasure, trying to find ways to unobtrusively throw in backstory details without disrupting the flow of the action. For my Pop Market story this week, it was a hybrid between Bill Wallace, Matt Christopher and Philip Gulley. Not expecting good feedback from the guy assigned to edit it, so I emailed it to the writing friends I know are good editors, hoping to get some information on what worked and what didn't.

     Rags is a good cat. She'll be glad that spring break is next week, even if I do have a massive amount of homework to do.

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.

Friday Night Thoughts

     Week after next will be spring break (which I doubt will be much of a break). But still, that's a pause from classes for a bit, which is kind of nice. The Thunder are losing to the Suns in Phoenix right now on the almost-silent TV, and Pandora is running in another window. I got a short story finished that's due next week, and a good chunk of another assignment mapped out. It's been a pretty usual Friday night - sort of productive, a little lonely, but with some effort at following a routine to give things some structure - that's why I'm typing this blog post, and why the game is on.

     Overall, this week was pretty average; last week was rough. Uploaded some overdue stuff to the writing projects blog, which I'd been meaning to do for a while. I need to work on the book-review blog, too.

     Texted Dylan and Jon earlier today, it was good to hear from them. They're both doing all right. Jon had some good advice, which is helpful. Ashland and I are counting down until Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 releases in early May.  Her classes are going "fairly easily" this semester, she said last week, so that's good. No news about SGYC 2017 yet - if I can, I think I'd like to help out again.

     Trevor had surgery on his shunt Monday morning, and that went well. Caleb got Dad's old phone, so Courtney and I taught him how to use Spotify. That was fun.

     The MCU is currently at 14 movies (and an ever-widening array of TV shows) since 2008. That's amazing. I think it was right at the end of 2011 that we got into sucked into it. Anyway, Iron Man 3 released at the start of finals week my freshman year, which was a really great motivator.

     Capstone is extremely depressing. Which is slightly better than feeling depressed, anxious AND extremely pissed off, which was how I felt after every Seminar class let out last semester. We've been talking a lot about philosophy for some inexplicable reason, and most English majors don't understand philosophy, so our eyes glaze over while three people out of fifteen say anything. And so far the overarching topic during the immediate coursework has been Death. So if religion can't be used (and it can't, because this is a classroom), how else can you talk about or argue your way around its inevitability? Everything becomes a foolish waste of time.
     The highlight of yesterday was finishing a crossword puzzle in one sitting, which doesn't happen often. But it sounds pathetic that that was the highlight. I'm frustrated by my Pop Market stuff this week, considering that it was one my teaching weeks and the topic was sports. I could have whipped out a really good sports scene in no time, so why did I go with nonfiction, straightforwardly reconstructing myself at five watching Monday Night Football? And the discussion Tuesday morning didn't go too well, either - except for Brian (who was also teaching this week) everybody is pretty apathetic towards them. So their sports-set inclass assignments were full of really obvious errors; that drove me crazy. (I'm really persnickety when it comes to writing well, especially when it's about sports.) Still, there was at least some praiseworthy scrap from almost everyone's piece.
     There are a couple novels that I'll probably come back to from Gothic Film and Lit, but I've pretty much hated every single movie.
     Psych is going fine, and it's interesting, but you can only contemplate serial killers for so long before wanting to just wail at the evilness of their actions, and of sin in general.

     I really miss relatives at night. Grandpa, Mimi, Nano... I'd call Robbie to see how she's doing, but I lost her number when my old phone died. Mom was asking if I was going to order graduation announcements, but I don't think I will. Are college grad announcements a thing people do? And if they are, where would I send them? Almost all the extended family who would be proud is gone, and it would be weird to send them to non-relatives.
     Also missing the NSU BCM and having a place where I fit; where you knew where friends were hanging out and where you knew you were doing something useful, however small. The SWAT antics on the road and during practices, and the wonderful intensity of basketball/volleyball practices. Playing worship music with Daniel P., James Hoover, Ja Li Si and Annie. The Friday Lunch Bunch get-togethers. Praying collectively with other believers. If I could have stayed in Tahlequah I'm pretty sure Grace Baptist would be my home church by now. (I miss the Galdamezes, too.)

     Steven and Jamie are having another murder mystery tomorrow night, which should be amazing for those attending. I wish we could have done more of those during my generation's time in the youth group. GBC is a great church still when it comes to teaching and all, it's just....not so great when you're a single college student in a church full of older people and young families. And the downside of attending the same church for 14 years is that you remember so much. Too many ghosts in the hallway.

     Tried to shoot some baskets this afternoon, to take advantage of the nice weather, but that didn't go very well. Missed about 85% of my shots, a mix of not practiced in forever, it being a really windy day, and the clear-Plexiglass backboard. Those are always really hard to play on, because there aren't any spatial clues about where the backboard is - it just looks like it's hovering in space, which is really unsettling.
    Last night I played Abby Lee for about an hour, mostly playing along with my 90's Spotify playlist. (NSYNC does not work on an acoustic guitar, FYI. Jars of Clay, however, sounds excellent that way.) It didn't go great, but at least it was playing. Usually here lately there's a desperate run through my hymnal/worship-music-songbook about once a week, because it's hard to know what words to pray a lot of the time.
     Missing Rags, too. And Sport. Creek and Firefly and Klipsey and Shadow, Rocky and Swifty. Sunny, and Copper.  There are a lot of animals.

     A classmate named Cody was presenting a reading of his capstone screenplay Tuesday night, so I read a minor role as the minions of the school bully. Hopefully he'll get a good grade on the project.

     Kurt Busch won the Daytona 500 last Sunday, which was good. The college basketball conference tournaments are starting, which has a flickering excitement to it.

     Been flipping through old posts this week. I started this blog one February afternoon as a high school senior, and in December 2014 I wrote a long post about honesty in social media. When it comes to writing, I'm not sure how much truth and honesty are intertwined, though I kind of think they are separate things. It's a muddy area. But mostly I think I've kind of glossed over what this college experience has been like, mainly because of the monotony - at some point there aren't any more ways of saying "I went to class, I did homework, I wish this were over and I had a clear idea of what happens next." I don't know how much I'll post here once the summer comes, but I'll probably keep writing in some way or another.

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.

Sunday Night in February

    The Patriots won Super Bowl LI over the Atlanta Falcons in overtime, 34-28. It was the first time the game was tied after regulation, and the best commercial was the preview for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, which looks fantastic, but that doesn't say much for the actual ads.
     Bob Costas is being replaced as host of the Olympics, starting in Korea next February. This is extremely saddening.
     Kevin Durant and the Warriors were back in Oklahoma City last night. It was rough to watch. Facebook was full of angry fan posts all day leading up to tipoff. And we lost, but we hung in there for most of the game. But like Russell Westbrook said in an interview, sometimes you just have to move on with life as best you can. A PBS special on Mary Tyler Moore made for a good antidote when I got too frustrated with the game.

     Psychology test tomorrow afternoon, not sure how that will go, so I've been studying most of the night. Capstone is going okay, better than Seminar was, that's for sure. Starting to get a better idea of what Gothic stories aren't, so that's something. Pop Market is going well so far, so far we've written flashfiction romances, Westerns and suspense/thrillers. (Flashfiction is generally capped at a thousand words, so not much room to tell a story, which makes it very difficult, but a fun challenge.)
     In general, things this semester are not good, though not quite as bad as last semester was. I just have to get through to May.

     Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is going well, though the last couple episodes have been a little slow in setting up the next section of the plot. AIDA is a wonderfully-awful character, and there's been lots of interesting multiple roles being played lately with the L.M.D.s.
     Ashland and I have been teasing Mrs. Boyer about her lack of keeping up with MCU news (though that's our job). Guardians Vol. 2 (much-anticipated) comes out on May 5, Spider-Man: Homecoming (also much-anticipated) on July 7, and Thor: Ragnarok (meh) on November 3. They just started production on Avengers: Infinity War, which is exciting. And Doctor Strange (also meh) comes to DVD in a couple weeks, so I can catch up on it, and then I'll be current on all fourteen chapters of the story so far.
     DC, obviously, but The LEGO Batman Movie looks funny. And I'm excited for Cars 3 in July, of course.

     Auditions for the RSU Theater Program's adaptation of Tom Sawyer were the week before last; the cast hasn't been revealed yet. So of course I galloped through the novel, because any excuse to read Mark Twain is a good one. (And besides, a change of pace was needed after depressing/frightening Gothic stories.) The adaptation was written by a lady named Laura Eason, who apparently is a producer or something of the huge Netflix show House of Cards.  (I haven't seen it, though of course I know about it - violent political thrillers aren't my wheelhouse. Robin Wright plays the First Lady.)
     Also reread Wendell Berry's Jayber Crow, which was probably better the second time, because it's one of those kinds of books. There's always more to dig out than can be noticed all at once.
     A Walk to Remember was on TV the other night, and I'd never seen it, so I watched because it was a good time for a break from studying. It stars Mandy Moore, and it worked pretty well, though I liked The Notebook better when it comes to the first two movie adaptations of Nicholas Sparks novels. This sets the tale up in the late 90's, which wouldn't have worked at all in print, but telling the movie version of the story in the 50's would have been equally awful structurally, so I was fine with that change. The Longest Ride, a newish book, sounded like an interesting story when the movie came out about a year ago, and the campus bookstore had it on sale for a dollar, so I scooped it up. A dollar isn't much to waste if it's not worth rereading. And I also got a William Faulkner novel called Light in August, also for a dollar. I've been meaning to read him for a while, because I think I'd really like him if I could slowly explore through Yoknapatawpha County, based on short stories of his that I've read. And Faulkner is like one of the great writers of Southern fiction, inspiring Wendell Berry, Harper Lee, Jan Karon, and I don't know who all else.

Wesley's Favorite TV Couples

     Yeah, so I don't like Valentine's Day all that much. But I can't sleep, because I'm too worried and scattered to work on homework, so I figured it was a good time for a blog post. This won't be ranked numerically, but instead will just be a list of my favorite couples I can remember from TV shows. Since viewers get to understand characters so much more deeply in television compared to movies, that allows for deeper depth to character interactions. And so they work better, when they work.

Jesse Cochran-Katsopolis and Becky Donaldson-Katsopolis, Full House (and Fuller House)

     So, most people know that before Becky was part of the Katsopoli branch of the Tanner clan, she was Rebecca Donaldson, who grew up on a Nebraska farm with three hockey-loving brothers, and was introduced to the show as Danny's cohost on Wake Up, San Franscisco. But in the first season, Jesse's last name wasn't Katsopolis, either - it was Cochran. (So we don't actually know what Pamela's - Danny's wife, the girls' mother, and Jesse's sister - maiden name was.)
     Becky adds a much-need dose of common sense to the household, which balances nicely with Jesse's creativity, irresponsibility and vanity. Their actual kids didn't turn out all that great, their parenting advice was well-intended but sometimes off, and they may not have had a perfect marriage - why did they live in the attic for eight years? - but hey, they care about each other, and they're still together, ready for whatever adventures might come along.

Joe Talbot and Sam Kepler - Wishbone

     The show never made that much of a big deal that Sam was always hanging out with Joe and David, but the books hinted that there might be something between them.

Mal Reynolds and Inara Serra, Firefly (and Serenity)

     Because Serenity was a movie that was a sequel to a TV show, this bends my criteria a little, but it can stay. And technically they weren't ever together, since they loathed each others' careers so much. So that led to tons of insult-hurling matches (because snark is their love language) and cold-shouldering, but over and over they - somewhat unwillingly - showed that they cared about one another deeply. They would just never, NEVER admit that. To anyone. Especially each other.

Clint Cassidy and Nancy Nichols, Doc

     Montana cowboy-doctor and Manhattan nurse. It was just weird enough to work.

Nate and Beverly Jackson, Doc

     Clint's landlord and his wife didn't have a huge role on the show, but they played a big part of what we saw of life outside the clinic, eventually adopting Raul. Their marriage was another example of a couple sticking together through whatever rough patches of life inevitably occurred. Plus they were always there to listen if one of their friends needed to talk.

Cory Matthews and Topanga Lawrence-Matthews, Boy Meets World (and Girl Meets World)

     I never got into BMW, because I was just a little too young generationally, Sabrina and 7th Heaven were more interesting, and Cory drove me nuts, but somehow I got pulled into occasionally watching the sequel series following the adventures of their daughter Riley. But it just seemed like a list like this list wouldn't be complete without Cory and Topanga because of their standing in 90's pop culture. So that's why they are included. Also, it's kind of cool that Cory followed in Mr. Feeny's footsteps to become a teacher, I guess.

Phineas Flynn and Isabella Garcia-Shapiro, Phineas and Ferb

     Until the next-to-last episode of the show (a flashforward to all the gang leaving for college), this was another couple didn't technically exist....but it totally did. (Didn't realize they had this many kissing scenes during the show's run.) Isabella's Jupiter-sized crush (and Phineas's inability to recognize that) were one/two of the many, many running jokes on P&F, and it's just a FANTASTIC show. Maybe Parks and Rec-level, and that's saying something.

Steve Rogers and Peggy Carter, Marvel Cinematic Universe (more specifically Captain America: The First Avenger; Agent Carter, The Avengers, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Captain America: Civil War)

     Why? Because they're both amazing characters. Because these movies are amazing.  Because the MCU works like a television series, given the enormous scope of the storylines (and Agent Carter was a TV show). And because they were both waiting for the right partner. (This is a fantastic edit.)

Andy Dwyer and April Ludgate-Dwyer, Parks and Recreation

     They're the best. Even stupid BuzzFeed posts about them are sort of not awful. They don't always make sense, but the show would have missed a lot if they hadn't been around. (And who doesn't use Frisbees as plates? C'mon, Ben, get with the program!) And their wedding was one of the highest of many highlights from Pawnee. I mean, the vows - "I guess I kind of seem to hate most things, but I never really seemed to hate you. So I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Is that cool?" "Yes, that's cool! And I am the luckiest man in the galaxy." (See, I knew keeping track of Parks quotes would be useful later on.)

Leslie Knope and Ben Wyatt, Parks and Recreation

     Leslie is....she's Leslie Knope. And Ben Wyatt is....really, really boring. But they work really, really, really well together. Like waffles and whipped cream. Have I mentioned before how much I love this show?

Ann Perkins and Chris Traeger, Parks and Recreation

     LITERALLY, one of the BEST couples EVER from Parks and Rec. (Literally.) Dude. Seriously.

Matt Saracen and Julie Taylor, Friday Night Lights

     Matt was just a good guy. Julie was, at least at first, a female version of his best friend Landry - in other words, perfect for him. Plus, her family accepted Matt (sort of) into their lives, giving him that stable structure he didn't have. And sure, she went a little off the deep end, but she was redeemed by the time the show ended.

Eric and Tami Taylor, Friday Night Lights

     I think Coach and Tami have the best marriage that I've seen on TV, ever. They routinely put each others' needs above their own, even to the point where both have sacrificed their jobs when the other had a better career opportunity. They try their best to parent their daughters the right way and steer them in the right direction. They offer advice (and sometimes tough love) to the teenagers in their lives, routinely going well out of their way to improve the kids' lives if they can. Most of all, they're rock-solid loyal, even when opportunities arise to not be that way.

 Leopold Fitz and Jemma Simmons, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.  

     FitzSimmons is (almost) inseparable, even if that means being stranded, desparately lonely at the academy; being marooned on different planets due to alien technology, or trapped in a box in the bottom of the ocean thanks to the betrayal of a former friend. They've survived gunshots, undercover assignments, explosions, ghost attacks, killer viruses, and major brain damage, among other things. They've witnessed their makeshift S.H.I.E.L.D. family fall apart and rebuild itself, only to fall apart again, and more than one close friend has died in horrific ways. But they've kept the group together as much as possible, serving as the glue of the team. And they aren't just science lab rats anymore, either - they're full-out field agents who have shot people, which is pretty much all in a day's work when you're part of a television-show spy agency.

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.

Mid-January Blah

     The first week of my final semester was survived. Too early to know what the rest of this semester will be like. Was brushed off by bureaucracy when I asked about doing more volunteer voicetracking at the radio station, which figures. The weather has been rainy and coldish all week, but not cold-cold, which contributes to a general feeling of blahness generally.

     Read through Daphne de Maurier's 1938 novel Rebecca for school; she was a contemporary of Agatha Christie's, and Flavia's sister Daffy reads one of her books in Thrice the Brindled Cat Hath Mew'd. Also checked out Wendell Berry's Jayber Crow and Dodie Smith's The Hundred and One Dalmatians again from the campus library, because those are lighter. Sure, Rebecca was a well-written novel, but it's set in western England, which is so bleak....it was exhausting to read. The movie was probably more exhausting to watch, due to the pacing of movies in the 1940's. I discovered that I was the last person to check out The Hundred and One Dalmatians, two years ago. That's really sad, because without it, the world would have never known to count Cruella de Vil among the ranks of Worst Villains Ever.

     In football, Atlanta destroyed the Packers in the NFC championship game, so the Falcons will play in Super Bowl LI in two weeks. The only other time the Falcons made the Super Bowl was the 1998 season, losing to the John Elway-Terrell Davis Broncos by a 34-19 score on January 31, 1999. That was the second Super Bowl that I can remember watching; I was five, and we would move to Morris that summer. Atlanta will be playing New England, since the Patriots annihilated Pittsburgh, so that'll be, like, their eighty-seventh Super Bowl appearance in the last twenty years. (Actually their eighth, and their ninth overall.)

     Ashland told me about this article she'd read called "Body Ritual among the Nacirema," by Horace Miner, which was a sociological satire written in 1953. So I had to look it up, since she liked it so much. It's making fun of our tendencies to be obsessed with healthiness and cleanliness, and it was really funny. Satire usually is, though, if it's done well.
   
     Disagreed with most of Aziz Ansari's points in his Saturday Night Live monologue, but he expressed them well. And the Weekend Update jokes about Trump's inauguration were hilarious.

Inauguration Day

     Man, "Inauguration" is a terrible word to spell. And it reminds me of Tolkien's dragon Smaug. Anyway, Donald Trump officially became the 45th President of the U.S. late this morning. I watched the swearing-in ceremony for the same reason that I watched the results on election night - because that's what you're supposed to do, because it's respectful.
     Do I think he'll be a very good president? No. But Hilary would've been worse. I watched on CBS since that seemed like the most legitimate of the networks, occasionally flipping to CNN.

     When Obama was inaugurated in 2009, we'd been in Grandpa's trailer for about a month after the fire, and we were in the middle of clearing out the house, sorting through what could be salvaged and what couldn't. While watching George W. Bush exit and Obama enter, I was reminded of a line from the tail end of Star Wars: Episode III: Revenge of the Sith: "So this is how liberty dies - with thunderous applause." (I remember this from the novelization, which I think has Bail Organa saying it. The movie has Padme Amidala saying this line. Doesn't matter who said it, it still worked well. Also, Star Wars movies have REALLY long titles.)
     When Obama was re-elected in 2012, I was reminded again of this line, and again saddened. NSU, or at least the freshmen I knew slightly from classes, were extremely vocal about their liberal tendencies. Not being very experienced with dealing with this, it was one more factor to deal with in making that first semester so hard. RSU is more extremely liberal in the overall atmospheric viewpoint, but at least NSU allows differing views to be presented for consideration, thus "liberal" in this case being occasionally positive in the sense of "open to new ideas." RSU has more of a "If you disagree with this, keep your #$%ing mouth shut" vibe.
     Anyway, back to January 2009. It was raining, and I hadn't started college anywhere yet, because it was the middle of my freshman year of high school. I was fifteen, and the Okmulgee County homeschool drama group had just wrapped up a musical re-imagining of the story of Joseph as a This Is Your Life-style talk show. Cody was the host, and I played Joseph the interviewee in the present day. (Most of our best improvised lines in rehearsals were cut for not passing audience standards.) Roy played Joseph in flashbacks. Quinton played my assistant Stew.  While a bunch of us guys were playing basketball in the gym during the wrap party, I was on defense when a pass deflected off my hand, breaking my left pinky. It was almost healed a month later while watching the Obama inauguration, which I remember mainly because we were watching the CNN feed, and the Tahlequah Cable people had just installed the equipment earlier that morning. Having cable was An Event, since we never had it before or since. (As a family, I mean, that I can remember. In Missouri when I was a toddler we had it, and then in Tquah and Claremore I've had it while at college.) But I'm rambling again.
     Things that hadn't happened yet: Marie's incessant pestering finally convinced me to create a Facebook account four months later. I didn't know Jed or Jon, though I'd met them. I hadn't met Jessica or Amanda, and Josh and Marie were about the only people I felt safe hanging out with from church, since the Soukups had quit (the older guys in the youth group seemed to enjoy making our lives miserable, though I think part of that was just us overthinking.) Dylan hadn't moved to Tulsa yet, and neither had Samara. I hadn't yet been to Washington, D.C., though occasionally I would spend a couple days in Westville taking care of Nano. Sport and Sunny were still alive, and Sunny's daughter Eclipse had just died. I was just starting to dabble with guitar, figuring that it would be a good way to keep myself busy during the downtime (ha!) of the remodeling.

     But being in Tahlequah meant that I couldn't be part of the Okmulgee County spring drama production, The Hysterical Account of the Trojan War. It was really weird to watch as a member of the audience, sitting in the balcony of the First Baptist-Okmulgee sanctuary with Quinton, Alton and Brenna. There was a new girl named Jessica who moved from Florida who joined the group that semester, and to tell them apart Jessica Ashley became Little Jessica while new-girl Jessica became JB. She was best friends with Annette (they would write a play together called Tinker & Bell and the Fight for Neverworld) and eventually Alton and JB fell in love, becoming the target of many jokes, and they got married a couple years ago at Trinity Baptist in Morris.

     The Boy Meets World sequel series Girl Meets World had its series finale tonight. Just like Alton-JB were the couple of our Okmulgee homeschool clique, Cory Matthews and Topanga Lawrence were the couple of late-90's TV, which I knew well, being the child of youth pastors during the late 90's. I was more a fan of Sabrina the Teenage Witch and 7th Heaven, so I never really got into BMW, and not having cable, couldn't catch reruns to get into it. (I discovered MacGyver when I was about 13 and Full House in college, so that covers all of the 90's between all those shows mentioned.)
     But one day, while sick, I flipped the TV onto the Disney Channel (ack!) and a Girl Meets World episode was on. It wasn't good, but it was better than most Disney Channel shows are. So I would occasionally watch whenever there wasn't anything else to do. It was horribly written, and not realistic at all, but there was something that it did really, really well - and I never could quite put my finger on it.  The plot features the adventures of Cory and Topanga's daughter Riley, her best friend Maya and their friends, with occasional appearances by Shawn, Eric, Mr. Feeny, and pretty much everybody else who ever had an important role on BMW. These adventures reminded me a little of what me, Sam, Dylan, Marie, Jed, Jon and Manda got into during high school.
     Did the Tanners of Full House do a better job of parenting than the Matthews? Probably, but sitcom parenting is a little iffy at the best of times. (I would vote Nate and Beverly Jackson from Doc as the Best Parents on TV, though the Camdens of 7th Heaven and the Taylors of Friday Night Lights are also good candidates.) Is it as well-written as Parks and Rec? Certainly not. But GMW has that "....Well, whatever IT is, you've got a lot of it" (to quote Michael Jordan in Space Jam) stuff that both of those shows do. All these shows may be ridiculous, but viewers care about those characters. So, it kind of worked.

     Will Friedle played Cory's older brother Eric in both BMW and GMW, but there was also an ABC Saturday-night TV movie he was in called My Date With the President's Daughter. He played the pretty-average-but-quick-witted teenager Duncan. At the mall, when he meets and awkwardly asks out a pretty girl named Hallie, she asks if he's into sports. "Oh, yeah," he nods. "What kinds?" "The usual - bungee jumping....karate....rock climbing. Y'know, the basics." It was part of the Wonderful World of Disney that created such not-exactly-classics-but-they-sure-stick-in-my-mind-that-way as the Tony Danza-led Trash Pickin', Field Goal Kickin' Philadelphia Phenomenon; Slam Dunk Ernest; Angels in the End Zone (starring David Gallagher - Simon from 7th Heaven - and Matthew Lawrence, who played Jack on BMW); Angels in the Infield, the 1999 version of Annie (which is the best) and the 1997 reboot of The Love Bug (which stars John Hannah - Radcliffe on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. - as the villain.) There was also a movie called H-E Double Hockey Sticks that also starred Friedle that I really wanted to see, but we had to go somewhere that night, and so until I learned the title just now it's bugged me forever, since I didn't know how to search for it. (Update: Found it on YouTube!)
     Anyway, between those two events, they reminded me of My Date With the President's Daughter, and it seemed like a great time to rewatch it. (Plus I didn't feel like studying.) The verdict? This movie is ridiculous, but it's supposed to be, and the writing and acting isn't top-notch, but it gets the job done. And it unfortunately could never happen now, because of social media and cell phones. And it is much, much funnier now than it was when I was five. Dabney Coleman(WarGames, Principal Prickly in Recess) is the President, and basically everything that could possibly go wrong on his daughter's first date does. Coleman makes a good fictional President.
      The next Monday at school, Duncan's friends give him a hard time about missing a dance, asking what he did instead. "Saturday night....I had a date with the President's daughter, got chased all night by the Secret Service, my dad's car was stolen, got into a brawl at a dance club, put on a magic show at a biker bar - that was pretty cool - uh....was on television, and oh, right - I kicked Steve Ellenger's butt!" That pretty much sums up the plot.

     I've pretty much tried to stay off of the internet, given all the tension and stress about the inauguration and all. Unfortunately I can't completely hide from people in general, but that level of tension is pretty thick around campus, too. Also, the power went out all across campus this afternoon, which happens with some regularity, just like in Morris. That didn't help anyone's mood. I had some time to plot out a fiction project a little more, and work on this post once the power came back on. Maybe tomorrow will go easier.

Getting Set for the Last Lap

     It's been raining all day/night, and there is a foggy haze coating everything. That's what the weather looks like outside. Inside, I've been taking amoxocillin and ibeprofen to get over whatever sickness I caught a little bit ago. The people at the urgent care were like, "Well, it's not strep, but we have no idea."

      Pandora is tuned into my country station, the current song playing right now is Rodney Atkins's "If You're Going Through Hell." That was one of the ones I included in my freshman year playlist, so it seems appropriate, given that this is the first post of my final semester of college.
     "It feels like you've been in school for forever!" Ashland texted me one spring weekend night sophomore year. I was walking back from finishing an order of onion rings at Boomerang, because that was a very welcoming creative environment, not to mention an amazing restaurant. That was also the day that she'd learned she was accepted to the Missouri State honors program, which is why she texted me in the first place. It did feel like that, though. And it really does now, too.

     The Master's Hardware building collapsed last night, according to the Tahlequah Daily Press. Master's Hardware finally closed up shop last year, which is sad. Bob and Deb are on a mission trip to Haiti right now. Susan will be graduating this semester, too.

     Read through At Home in Mitford again because Mitford's a good place to be. And add the North Carolina Appalachians to the places I'd like to see. Courtney will hopefully be working there over the summer at Snowbird, doing the same stuff that Laura did last summer.  
     Bennett went back to Fayetteville yesterday, so his dog Bullet is asking for cuddles from everybody else, according to Facebook. Also in the "Sad Pets" category: When Rags saw all the boxes being used for packing stuff, she just wilted in disappointment.

     Agents of S.H.I.I.E.L.D. started up again Tuesday night, and while tweeting reactions (which I usually do), Elizabeth Henstridge favorited and retweeted one of them. That was wild, but cool.   

     My classes this semester will be Capstone, Creative Writing for the Popular Market (genre fiction), Gothic Film and Literature and Psychology of the Criminal Mind (there weren't many choices to pick from, and I needed one more class).  Not sure how this will go, but it's only four months. I mean, I've done it this long.

     What comes next? No idea. Please stop asking. Maybe grad school comes later on in the future, I don't know. But it doesn't right now, because there's no way I could handle the stress - I've barely handled the stress right now.

     Carl Edwards retired from NASCAR, which was unexpected but not unwelcome. He always seemed too much like Leave It To Beaver's Eddie Haskell to be a fan of. The Chargers are moving back to Los Angeles, where they started in 1960. And the Raiders are moving to Las Vegas in the near future. The Super Bowl will be the winners of Steelers-Patriots and Packers-Falcons, none of which I care about.

    That's all, for now.