RIP

Caleb Steele died today.

I didn't know him, but his parents have helped me in the past. They've opened up their house so many times for bible studies and church parties and people in need of a home.

Pray for the Steele family, especially Cara, his twin sister.

SUHP

So I've been in training for it all week. It's pretty fun. The biggest stressor has been the fact that the chairs don't work well with me if I sit in them for more than 2 hours.

My coworkers are amazing. We're all really getting along this year, which is a ton better. I can't detect any tension between any of the people there. There probably is some, but I can't tell.

I still feel really sad, though.

I haven't done one of these in forever!

YOUR LIFE AS A MOVIE SOUNDTRACK.
Gather up a whole bunch of musics, and click shuffle. The first song goes with the first chapter, and so on and so fourth. Sometimes, the results are quite surprising and creepy!

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Here's mine:

1. Epic Prologue
"Balloon Ride" by Relient K  (awesome)

2. Birth
"Where were you when the world stopped turning" by Alan Jackson (pretty sure that's the one place where we'd actually know where I was.)

3. Childhood
"Oceans from the Rain" by Seventh Day Slumber.  (meh)

4. First Day of High School
"Caring is Creepy" by The Shins (heck yes!)

5. School Bully
"MK 1" by Radiohead (made me laugh ironically)

6. The After School Fight
"I Heard it through the grapevine" by Creedence Clearwater Revival.

7. Graduating High School
"Little Acorns" by The White Stripes

8. New Home
"February Song" by Josh Groban

9. Creepy Neighbors
"Highway to Hell" by ACDC

10. Flashbacks
"Still Hurting" from Last Five Years (possibly the saddest song ever for this.)

11. Mental Breakdown
"Stable Song" by Death cab for Cutie

12. Meeting An Old Friend
"Freeze Ray" from Dr. Horrible.  (okay, this made me smile.)

13. Falling Asleep/Having a Nightmare
"Baby Got Back" by Jonathen Coulten.  (wowwwww)

14. A New Enemy
"Sweet Transvestite" from Rocky Horror (nice.  Still haven't seen that movie)

15. Final Battle
"Play Dead" by Bjork.  (I was wondering when she was going to come into this.)

16. Death of Enemy
"Over the Rainbow" by Celtic Women (when considering who my enemy is, this is a bit funny.)

17.First Day of New Job
"Gatekeeper" by Feist.  

18.Starting College
"Alive" from Jekyll and Hyde.  (special memories)

19.Falling In Love
"If the Brakeman Turns my way" by Bright Eyes 

20.Graduating College
"The Kill" by 30 seconds to mars

21.Facing Your Demons
"One" by Metallica

22.Growing Old
"No one loves me like you" Jars of Clay (aww)

23.Your Funeral
I'm Only Thinking of Him from Man of La Mancha

The most pretentious website. Ever.

http://www.palmdesert.ucr.edu/arts/index.php

The gems:

Under the mission section:

"The multiple challenges confronting the world today compel responsible institutions of higher learning in particular and peoples with diverse skills and experiences to use all the creative and analytical resources at their disposal to think beyond the regimented paradigms that underwrite habitual and predictable inquiries."

The last sentence:

"Even the remotest deserts can, with proper preparation and the right tools, be traversed at a distance even when they remain resolutely off-limits to all but the most intrepid travelers in three-dimensional space."

In the Middle:

"In the same way, the constituent disciplines and disciplinary constellations called upon in any one instance - their signature methodologies, knowledge-generating procedures and truth claims, their effects and affects - are likely to be modified as heterogeneous teams of artists, academics and non-academics interact together in the field and on the artistic stage."

Overheard at work

V: I hate the rip-off Hallmark cards
T: I know, they must cost Hallmark so much money
V: But really, the Hallmark cards are so much better.
T: Higher Quality and All.
V: I know, I always save all my hallmark cards.
T: I don't save all of them, just the ones from my dad, cause, you know.
V: Yeah.
T: Oh right! This weekend is Father's day! I need to get a card for him!
V: umm...
T: Oh Wait, I forgot. He's dead.
V: I was wondering where you were going with that one.

The day of a student web writer

7:40: I get to work. It's cold outside, and not too many people are here.

7:45: I get sent on an errand. Hand deliver the honors web site content to Emily or Deanna. That's fun, it's nice and cold outside so walking around isn't horrible. I hand it to Deanna, she's excited, I stop by the C store and get some caffeine.

8:30: I sit back down in my chair, boss isn't here yet. So I answer email and start writing this.

9:00: Boss comes in, says he'll have something for me in a few minutes. 30 seconds later, I get handed the entire IEP website to proofread.

9:22: I walk to the kitchen to see if there's any free food. none. besides the high sugar Popsicles. Walking back, I hear the boss comment "That was like talking to BORAT!"

9:25: 2nd boss walks by, says "you can ask boss what to do now." I showed her the IEP web site. "What a wienie" she says.

9:38: My phone died. So much for distraction texts.

10:07: I check my blogs. Apparently a police officer anonymity was shattered in a blogging incident. Judge ruled that anonymity was not to be protected by the court. Lovely.

10:19: I start looking at directions for going to big bear for the afternoon. Not this afternoon, possibly thursday, though.

10:27: I go back to proofreading. And IMing

10:44: Friend gets off AIM.

11:01 Eat a nice snack of triscuts and chew gum. While proofreading. Bosses walk by, complaining about morale. press release guy shares way too much about his current knee surgery. Boss walks by and asks if I'm going to survive without my phone. I say I will, my mom might not.

11:07: Mom IMs me to say that someone commented on my facebook profile. I kid you not.

11:14: Mom IMs me saying it was just her trying to start a conversation. Boss found this amusing.

11:48: LUNCH TIME! Walk over to Allen's

1:04: Had Allen give me a ride back to work. now I have an intense craving to do something really social. Like a mass movie night or something. I do NOT feel motivated to proofread.

1:24: Decide to write for a bit to free up the mind, cause gosh darn it am I BORED!

2:02: Someone just ran down the hall saying "YAY IQBAL REMEMBERED!"

2:33: Finished the proofreading. Boss told me to start again from the beginning and read it again.

3:17: Am now researching web structure for MBA websites. It's odd, but a bit interesting.

3:23: Am considering leaving work early.

After yesterday's serious post

Something small and a bit lighter:


You know it's finals week when...

• The guy in front of me at starbucks ordered six shots of espresso and whipped cream.
• You see students sleeping in their cars between tests
• You know one of the students sleeping in their car.
• you get five emails from your professor within ten minutes
• you don't see your science friends and you see your humanities friends a ton.
• you've seen a facebook invitation for a biology and margarita party
• There are bio-chem diagrams on the walls of the bathrooms in Olmstead.
• professors don't even pretend to care, just stare at a framed picture of Hawaii
• Professor's facebook status's are even more desperate than their students.
• There are signs all over the dorms telling you to eat green apples instead of energy drinks
• It's supposed to be 24 hours of quiet time in the dorms, yet there are even more noises of video games coming from the room down the hall.

And lastly...

• the C-Store is out of all viable food, leaving only the dried Asian Pasta, the hardboiled eggs, and the trail mix.
  

In my life

Update time!

I'm done with classes for the quarter, I just have two papers left, one's already mostly done, and the other should be fairly easy. I hope. I already got 5% extra credit on it, and I currently have an A in the class....so yeah.

That leads to something. I feel like I haven't done anything substantial this quarter. I've bs'd around five papers, and a bunch of smaller stuff. The only substantial work I've done is complete the screenplay --and that was mostly winter quarter. I feel like I've been, well, intellectually lazy. I mean, I've had tons of homework and class work to do, but I don't feel like I've been challenged in any way by school this quarter. I've been challenged by everything else, but not school. And that saddens me. I like being challenged by school. I don't like sitting idly wishing I could learn something instead.

I've been challenged in work, though. It's not easy writing websites, not easy at all. And I'll be doing this full time.

That scares me. I've gotten to the place in my life where I have a full time job. A full time desk job. It feels weird. I feel like I'm not mature enough for that. Like I'm diving into something way over my head.

Which leads to another thing. I feel like I'm vastly immature to deal with a lot of what life has thrown at me this year.

• Friends who are radically different.
  
• Friends who I have had problems with and resolved problems with. Problems which were mostly my fault anyways, with me being rather selfish.
  
• Friends who have gone through problems both big and small, and me feeling paralyzed to help them, like I don't know what to say or do.
  
• Two OCD roommates. Those who know me know that I like clutter. That honestly stretched my mind so much more than any film and gender class did.
• The job. Yeah. Already mentioned that.
• Renting (and paying for rent) this summer. This isn't so bad, I'll just be living at Evan's house. And it is cheap for rent, which is great. It's just odd. I'm totally financially independent this summer.
• And then the big one, that I've been somewhat hesitant to write on here for a while. A friend (not a super close friend, but a friend none-the-less) of mine was date-raped this year, and she's now pregnant. So I've had to deal with the guilt of that, the guilt of not being a super close friend to her, the guilt of not knowing what to say, the guilt of not knowing what to do, and the fear that something like this could happen to me. I have an overwhelming urge to help her in some way, but I have no idea how.
• And then add on the feeling that I'm just stalling in place, not doing anything significant...

...And I feel pretty immature for my age.

Being humble has never been my strong point

For the better part of this year, I have been selfish. I mistook the "speaking up for myself" as being "demand to get my own way."

I need to apologize to so many people.