FALL SEMESTER 2: ELECTRIC BOOGALOO
Monday, August 25th 2003 (First official day of classes)
Well here I am again, back at NMU for another fun filled semester of ridiculous antics and tomfoolery...oh and I suppose a class or two thrown in here and there as well. I've got a new roommate this year, the infraggable Dylan Pitrone, and believe me, we're gonna have a HELL of a lotta fun!
The first day of classes went off pretty much like I expected it to. In EN 303 (Technical Writing) all the good Dr. Lehmberg threw at us was an engrish lecture (she's chinese) and a syllabus. Dr. Goodrich of LB 295 (Tolkien's Middle Earth) threw a whole lecture at us along with a big honkin' syllabus as well. No sweat. EN 205 is a different story. Dr. Schiffer is the head of the English Department here at NMU and his classes are notoriously difficult. Oh well. Not like I don't have the free time to get this stuff done. I start every day at 10:00am with EN 303 and go right till noon before I have a break until usually 6:00pm. I have a late night class every day of the week except Fridays. Fridays once again signal a three day weekend for me this year, but this timne around I'm going to put my free time into a part-time job. I messed my finances up something awful this summer due to my spending habits, and I really need to recover some ground. I can do it...actually I have to do it. I have no choice at this point.
Things I plan to accomplish this semester:
At LEAST a 3.0 GPA
Perfect attendance in ALL classes
Part time job somewhere in the Marquette area.
Make $500 exclusively for books BEFORE Xmas break.
Update this damned website and journal as much as I can!
Oh, also I'm back in my room at 161 Halverson Hall! BOOYA. Looney Bin for LIFE!...or at least until next year. :)
That's all I've got for now. I guess I'll add more tomorrow after I buy some books and get to one of my as-yet-unvisited classes. PEACE Y'ALL
Wednesday, August 27th 2003- Wicky Wicky Wednesday
Today was probably one of the most uneventful days I've had yet to date. EN 303 is probably my current-most trying class, as it involves a lot of moronic group work and such. The Tolkien class is also proving itself to be quite frustrating right now, but meh. I'll live. Maybe I should actually READ the assigned books. Freakin' stupid professor Goodrich. WHY CAN'T YOU MAKE THIS MORE INTERESTING?
I also had my first session of EN 400 this evening as well. This looks to be probably my new favorite class of all time. Professor Hanson kicks copious amounts of ass and the sheer content of the class itself looks to be a lot of fun, much like my EN 215 Creative Writing class was LAST semester.
My current financial situation looks a little bit better as of right now due to the fact that I only had to spend about $165.00 total on books this semester. After I purchase my parking permit when I get my car back, I should have a total of about $50 left in my checking, which I will HORDE LIKE A MOFO until I can get myself a freaking job somewhere around here. Stupid Wal-Mart. Why the hell didn't that place hire me? The owner is supposed to be biased towards Bessemer people! CRAP! Oh well. I'll scrape dishes if I have to, but DAMN.
This weekend I'm traveling back to Bessemer for the completion of this years' Marty's Goldenaires season. What a great year for Marty's this was man. Seriously. I'm already getting excited for next year, but it's so very far away. Oh well. It was fun while it lasted, and it'll be fun again next year! I swear I will one day wear the whites and put all the naysayers down for good.
Well that's all I've got here for today. OH! THERE WERE NO CHICKEN STRIPS AT THE CAFETERIA TONIGHT! TO ARMS MY COMRADES IN POULTRY! Peace out!
Early Morning Friday, August 29th 2003
Well I didn't leave for home after class Thursday night obviously, and now I'm crashing all by myself in my dorm room because the damned art class made me feel tired/sick to my stomach. The stupid art exercise tonight was designed to purposely make us feel disoriented by disabling the left part of our brain by tricking the right half into thinking it was the dominant half. It involved staring CLOSELY at my left hand, tracing out its shape and its wrinkles with my right hand, which was gripping a pencil pressed to my paper. Easy right? Well no, there's a catch to be had here as per usual. That being that I was under no circumstances at all allowed to look at either the paper, OR my right hand. Basically it was like drawing with horse blinders on. My drawings were pretty awful too. Jagged lines all over the freaking place. But it does allow you to think with the less dominant side of your brain though. Ten minutes flashed by in an instant, and through the whole thing I felt pretty relaxed, save for the horrible case of stump ass I was getting from the damned wooden art benches. About five minutes after we wrapped the class up, I started feeling kind of nauseous and I started to get a headache. Professor Hamilton warned us that it might happen, but DAMN was I pissed that it actually did. I wanted to drive home right after that class, but with my head pounding and the less than super feeling in my guts, I felt it would be better for me to just stay one more night here.
I got my first REAL homework assignments of the year today. Nothing much to them really. I should be able to rattle them off without giving them much thought at all. Other than the art class...today was actually pretty uneventful. I just kind of breezed through it without much effort. The coolest part about today though was there were CHICKEN STRIPS AT THE MARKETPLACE FOR LUNCH! YAY! But supper was God-awful again, with nothing but fried fish patties and dried up pizza burgers on the main buffet. Assholes. I had to get a Captain Jack's pasty just to satisfy my hunger. Oh well...there's a long year ahead. I hope those pasties stay as good as they are now.
PEACE OUT FOR NOW!
UPDATE: FRIDAY NOVEMBER 7TH 2003
Wow, an actual update on this frickin' thing. Whoda thought? It's been so long since I've even given this website any thought at all, mostly because I've been megasuperfuckedinthehead busy all damn semester. EN 303 has taught me one important lesson: DO NOT TAKE EN 303. It sucks. My best class is going to end up being my creative writing class...AGAIN. I think it's finally time to take a cue and bow out of this technical writing bullshit I've been putting up with. This proposal project has eaten my soul. I was very close to dropping the class at one point, but I just can't drop anything anymore. I'm too far into school right now to drop anything else. I NEED to graduate unless I want to be a damned five year senior.
I also notice that a lot has changed since my last entry. I have a job now. READ: Bagging groceries at a Super One. It sucks. I stand there for six to seven hours at a time and just bag groceries. That's all. It bites more than anything that has ever bitten before. I'd rather be back at the Dairy Queen slinging soft serve than do this shit. Blah.
This semester has had its nifty little triumphs, though. My EN 400 class has yielded probably some of my best writing to date, including the second chapter in the "Rescue Ricky" anthology I'm working on. That's right...anthology. The initial story has grown since its inception, and I think I could develop this into a series of short stories. Keep an eye on my website main page should I ever get up the gumption to make a booklet. OH! I've been forgetting to put up a link to my online store. You can find it in the links section should you feel so inclined. Pick up a bucktoothed cow t-shirt should you feel so inclined. It's just a CafePress store, but it's pretty nifty. They're the ones who'll put out the booklet once I finish it. All I have to do is upload the document files and BAM. You can buy my book! YAY.
Well I just cracked a nice cold beer, and now I think it's time to sign off for the night to watch some movies and hang with my friends. I'll hopefully see you all at Thanksgiving and that we'll have a chance to hang out for a little while.
Later days!
Brownie
UPDATE: Early Monday Morning, November 10th, 2003
I have come to the conclusion that Andrew WK is probably one of the best musicians I've ever heard in my entire life. A few weeks ago I picked up his latest album, "The Wolf" and it's crazy awesome. I mean so crazy awesome that I know most of the words to the entire CD. It's friggin' ridiculous. "I Love Music" is probably the best track on the CD in my opinion, but I'm biased because I like it all.
This was yet another really crappy weekend of bagging groceries at work. They told me not to come in on Friday so the check is going to be smaller this week, which is super crappy because I need the money really bad. I hope books don't destroy my finances next semester like they have in the past. I have to come up with $160 like mega soon too because I'm supposed to go to a Packer's game in December with Mark Hill. Maybe I can just sell my ticket on eBay or something. Who knows. Not like it really matters that much. I'm too tired these days to care much about anything.
I started on the third installment of my Rescue Ricky series today. And by "started" I mean "came up with a title I like." It's going to be called "Rescue Ricky III: Skies of Vengeance," and it will follow the three original characters on their continuing quest to rescue Ricky, this time from the combined forces of ninjas AND air pirates. All I need is the free time to get it started.
That's all I've got for now. I think I may actually go to bed at a decent hour tonight. AMAZING. So with that said, I'm off to sleepy fun happy time.
PS: Mark Hill Rules
UPDATE: Tuesday, November 11th 2003- 2:20am
Okay I'll admit now that I'm really nervous about how my classes are going to work out for the year. I have to revise so much stuff and come up with new content with existing stuff in so little time that it's starting to make my poor little head spin. I guess I'll have to do A LOT of catch up over Thanksgiving break. Today was a semi-lazy day. I should have worked on stuff, but I was waiting for one of my buddies to email me a manuscript of this paper he's been working on so I can revise it. It dropped into my inbox about half hour ago and it wasn't sent as an attachment, but as just text copied and pasted into an email :/ That is a not good thing because it means I'm going to have to spend mucho time reformatting it so i can actually hunker down and get to work. Plus, he said that he's fallen 800 words short of his goal, and he needs me to come up with an ending for him as well. Grr. This paper is about a history of anesthesia...if I knew anything about that...I WOULDN'T BE A GODDAMN ENGLISH MAJOR! Oh well. It'll work out I guess.
Today I also started working on a new section of my website dedicated to my "Rescue Ricky" series. It should go up in the links section by early next week. It won't be anything much, just a quick synopsis of each story as I finish it, and how far along it is in development. Here are the stories that I've written so far and what i've got coming out next:
Story #1: Operation: Rescue Ricky (70% Completed)
Story #2: Rescue Ricky II: Wrath of Manface (95% Completed)
Story #3: Rescue Ricky III: Skies of Vengeance (0% Completed)
Story #4: Rescue Ricky IV: (In development)
Story #5: Rescue Ricky V: (In development)
Story #6: Rescue Ricky VI: (In development)
That's all I've got so far. It's pretty rough right now, and I don't expect it to exceed six short stories, but we'll see. I also don't have working titles for all the stories yet, but they usually come out of things that happen either during the current story, OR events that occured in the previous edition. I probabl won't start writing the main body of the third story until I can actually get some of my school related work done, so just keep an eye on this spot, and the coming Rescue Ricky page as well. But for right now, I'm a sleepy Ryan. The damned Packers lost, so now I'm pissed as all hell. Plus I have to be up for Tolkien class tomorrow at 11:00am. Damn that class...DAMN IT TO HELL.
Peace!
UPDATE: Thursday, November 13th 2003- 12:31am
WTF! Consecutive updates? Now that's just crazy talk! Today (Wednesday) was a good/sucky day. It was good that once again, my EN 303 class did not meet because of conferences, but bad in the fact that I probably failed a quiz today, and tomorrow I have to be up at the regular time to GO to EN 303. Boooooo! I really do hate this class with all my heart. It stinks something awful. Oh crap...I have to work early on Friday morning too! XP Noooooo! I don't wanna! I just gotta keep telling myself that it's only two weeks until Thanksgiving Vacation. I REALLY just want to get away from here for a few days and just chill at home with my family. I REALLY miss my dog right now. My mom and dad came up last weekend and said that he misses me something awful, and that makes me feel kinda sad.
Mark Hill called me yesterday about the money I owe him for Packers tickets, which is cool. I don't blame him for wanting the money I promised him, but I really can't afford it right now. I'm probably going to end up just taking the tickets and selling them on eBay. If Mark has anything to say about that, he can just kiss my ass. My books for next semester are my number one priority right now and I have to take that into consideration. $160 for a ticket to a football game...WTF was I thinking? It's not really my fault, though. All Mark said was "Hey Ry, if I can get tickets, you wanna go to a Packer game with me?" Of course I agreed, never thinking he could actually GET the damned tickets. But sure enough, Mark goes and gets tickets...THROUGH A GODDAMN BROKER. $160 for a set of tickets that my DAD could probably have gotten to FREE. ARGH! >:| When is that kid finally gonna grow some freaking common sense? FUCK. My new plan is to try and make as much money as possible at Tacconelli's over Christmas break in order to be able to pay for books. I still have about $250 as backup in my savings account, but fuck it all if that ain't gonna last long. Shit.
Well I've pissed myself off thinking about Mark now, so I think I'll just call it good there for tonight. I'll probably be back tomorrow. Same Brown time, same Brown channel.
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Fall 2002 Semester Journal
