not too much time to talk. my day was a pretty good monday. i studied for a test that i ended up not having today, but i did loose my music business folder. hopefully that will turn up because we have a test in there on friday, and all my study notes are in that folder. next semester rooming is coming up. i'm a bit confused as to what to do, but i'm sure it's just because i'm not praying enough or spending enough time in silence. i did take a nice cold shower tonight where God inspired me to write another song. it was basically a summary of my state of being right now, but i'll record it asap. that's on the backburner for priorities though. i've got much to do yet before i get settled down. i'm going to go to bed now in order that i might not become a slave to exaustion. got that lovely eight o'clock psych class tomorrow. but i've got this lovely little program for my computer that has nature sounds that lull me to sleep. right now it's playing a light rain and a distant thunderstorm along with some cicadas and a distant bird here or there. i love thunderstorms... and this is so peaceful. anyways, peace and love my pretties.

once again, just as we thought it was gone and we got so comfortable, here it is again; semester quarterlies. and not just semester quarterlies, but midterms at that. yes, this week we will be preparing for the second most stressful part of the year next to finals. some of the classes are going head first into midterms early. for instance, i just remembered that we are having a test in history tomorrow. i'm not extrememly worried because i always have done decent in history, but it was a rude awakening for how busy i'm going to be for the next two weeks. it's funny. now when i say two weeks, it doesn't seem like that much time. if i were to have said two weeks last summer, i would have been quite comfortable with such a deadline. here, however, i have been emersed in the microwave culture. so i've been studying and studying trying to hide myself away from all outward communication. i was having a great sunday because i was able to prepare early for the week. i got my part of the room cleaned up, and i did my laundry. that always just makes me feel less stressed knowing that i have that much less to worry about tomorrow morning when i wake up. spring break is coming though. it will be here before we know it, and it is one of my few motivations right now. for all you who are still in high school back home, if you have senioritis and you think college will solve all of that, you are sadly mistaken as i was. i know you probably won't believe me, but i'm just getting that out of the way. motivation is hard to come by here. i learn so much just by experience of being here. sure the classes are a bit more interesting than those from high school. in fact, i don't really even remember high school class all that well. maybe it's because i never payed attention. who knows. anyways, spring break is heavy on everyone's mind. i'm excited because i'm going to disney world with some of my frat bros. i haven't been since i was like eight years old! and hey, i know i don't like roller coasters. infact i think i've only gotten on one "thriller" ride in my entire life and i was freaked out. i did it under pressure though. there was just no way i could have backed out of that. now, however, i shall take a giant leap into manhood and take a small step onto a rollercoaster... and not just one, but all of the ones my peers will be going on. i don't get sick on them, and i'm not afraid of flying out of em, but for some reason it's always been hard for me to breath on them. that is what i shall overcome. for now though, i will simply try to focus on getting through midterms and getting through them successfully. psychology has really got me freaked out, but i'm not going to let it get the best of me. i suppose it's good that i'm freaked because that will only motivate me further to do well. i don't think i've ever failed a class before, so in the long term i'm not too worried, but maybe i should be. there's always a first for everything as i've been finding out in several different instances this week.

hello and good friday morning to everyone. i have returned from vanderbilt hospital and i have many stories to tell. i also learned alot about myself as far as my health is concerned, so listen up. first, i had to leave to get there yesterday morning at about 6:30am to get ready for the 12hr test. matt drove me over there which was nice because i was planning on walking. once i got there though, they ran me through a bit of paper work and commenced with plugging me in. first i got two iv's, one in each arm, and then they started taking blood, and by that i mean more blood than i have ever given (this is an equation that will play in later). before i got there though, i had only gotten four hours of sleep, and i had also not eaten in 14 hours, so my blood sugar was low. well, after they gave me the infusion of the medication i was receiving, they let me rest for about an hour. that's when i fell into a deep sleep. shortly after they woke me up and immediately walked me over to a chair on the other side of the room, then they started taking more blood. it was then that i felt very dizzy, and was thinking about how weird it was. the next thing i remember, i was having this marvelous dream, and someone touched me on the hand. i was in such a deep sleep i forgot where i was. i thought i was going to wake up in my dorm room, but then i remembered that i was at the hospital and that they were probably just waking me up to do another test. then i felt with my head that i wasn't laying on a bed at all, and immediately opened my eyes to see what was going on. so my eyes open and i see a bright light and a bunch of faces all circled around me staring down at me. the first thing i said was "i just had the most pleasant dream" then they asked me my name and i answered, then the date, and i answered again just as quickly. they then told me i passed out cold and then some more folks ran into the room with the defibulator (heart schocker). i was amaized because i've never passed out before, and it felt very weird though it didn't hurt at all. i did regain consciousness in a pool of my own sweat though, and my left fist was tightly clenched. also one of the nurses who put me on the floor so i could get more blood flow to the brain hurt her back and was pretty shaken up about the whole deal, so she went home. i on the other hand, thought it was pretty neat, and carried on the rest of the day normally. i was, however, moved from group two that takes more medication and gives blood, to group one that gives no blood and takes only the infusion. i'm still getting payed the $900 though, as i would be in group one. for the rest of the day it was pretty much sleeping and test taking. on the occasion i would flick on the tv, but not very much was on to watch. anyways, the thing i learned about my health was this. apparently my heart has extremely emphesized reflexes meaning that whenever i move a muscle or take a breath, stand up, or sit down, my heart immediatly reacts to that change. from what the doctor said, that is a very healthy thing that most folks my age have, except it was way more emphesized in me than in anyone else he's examined. the only down side is that when exaustion and low blood sugar come in to the equation, i can become more sesceptible to passing out. i though that was really neat. being that i had about nine wires hooked up to me, i got to see how my body reacts to lots of different things. the EKG monitor was what showed the voltage of my heart and that's what also displayed my heart rate. i have an incredibly low heart rate at 48bpm. at one point it even got down into the upper thirties. average people have a resting heart rate of 60 bpm. when i stand up though, my heart rate immediately jumps to 120 bpm from 48 to cope with the changes in distribution of my blood due to gravity. it sounds a little wild, but he swore that it was very healthy. anyways, i just thought i'd share that with y'all. now i'm gunna go wash all of this hospital stank off of me in the shower. oh yeah, and the worst part about my visit was when they had to take off all of the 11 EKG pads off of my body. those things have about the same adhesiveness as super glue and about ripped my skin off. we won't even discuss my poor chest hair (singular). have a great weekend everybody. peace and love!

i'm not getting enough sleep. that's just how it is. this morning i realized at 9:45 that i had set my alarm not for 7:25 am, but for 7:25 pm. that's not a good move. i missed my eight o'clock psychology class, which i really needed to go to. as suspected though, this week has been ultra stressful in that i just have to keep on working through my priorities because i could be doing so much right now, but i can only allow my self to do a certain amount. for me cutting fun time has to be one of the hardest things to do. at work i'm working on new stuff which is good. my boss wrote a computer program for class registration and my job is to go through the thing and run scenarios on it and find all of the bugs. it's not that bad, but i'd probably still rather be sailing in the bahamas. in fraternity, i might be elected rush chair. it's not really the position that i want, but i will do my best at it if it comes to me. well, finally when i get away from people and life in general, i try to write songs. today i wrote some very good music that i could do lots with, but i always struggle with words, but i know they will come to me when they are ment to. i almost have an entire album of songs together that would fit in to one catagory of music which is very exciting. in other news my medical testing starts thursday morning at 7:00am. in order to get there though, i have to wake up at 6:00am and walk over. that's not going to be extraordinarily fun being that it's going to be freezing cold and the distance is over a mile, but i really just don't feel like waking anyone up to get me there. tomorrow i still need to get some scheduling issues delt with for the next testing, but as far as this thursday's testing is concerned, i'm in the green light. spiritually, i've been attempting to devote more time to quiet meditation on scripture. it really does make a huge difference in my life when i spend time in the word, and it is especially important here as most professors have a tendancy to bring their grudges against Christianity out in thier teachings. that alone can be very trying, but then when you add dorm life, lack of sleep, and just the busy schedule in general, it makes for very poor soil for spiritual growth. as for now, i shall try to go to sleep. there is alot of loud conversation in the hall now that i'll have to cope with, but i'm probably not going to say anything because i know on any other regular day i would be out there with em. i'm just way too tired right now. ttyl folks. peace and love.

i will be brief tonight because i have eight o'clock psychology tomorrow, but today was quite evenful. though my mind wasn't quite in the class room, i did manage to get some good stuff done. the biggest thing i guess that happened was that i sold myself as a volunteer to vanderbilt medical studies for $900! that's really an answer to prayer because i have been struggling monetarily for a long time now. what i'll be doing is setting aside two days to go in to this clinic and stay over night. they are going to test a drug on me that assists other drugs, in this case immodium, in getting into the brain. in short... they're going to get me high, study me, and then pay me $900. doesn't sound too bad for me, and don't worry, i'm being cautious. there's no danger involved. part of the money is going to my spring break. i'm going to orlando and disney world with some of my frat brothers, but the rest is going towards my tuition and living expenses. other than that though, i didn't stop moving from eight am to eight pm. at that time, i took a two hour nap, which felt like heaven. i love it when i have good dreams and i don't sleep long enough to deserve them. the only thing lately is that sometimes i wake up and sleep walk in the middle of my dreems partly due to my exaustion. i really should get more sleep, but it's hard to settle down when everyone else is still active. bible study after my nap was good too, but it was very long. i didn't go in to it with good feelings at all. it was really the last place i wanted to be, but now i feel alot better about where i am and where i'm going right now. i've really been involved in a sort of battle for the past six months. it's not a battle that i can loose, but there are still casualties here and there on both my good side and bad, and casualties hurt. i however now realize that someday this battle will end and i will be stronger from it. i just have to keep perservering. christmas break was a good reminder to me of who i am. it's easy to forget here when nobody else knows who you are. i have friends who are trying to learn, but they don't really know very much about my past. well, i'm going to leap into my bed now and try to get at least six hours of solid sleep before tomorrow. it's going to be a hard week this week. i start my medical study this thursday, so keep me in your prayers on that one. untill we chat again though, peace and love.

well, i know i said i wasn't going to write a journal this weekend, but it's valentines day and i just can't see myself NOT saying anything about it. don't worry, i'm not going to rip it apart at the seams, even though it is my least favorite of holidays, but i will say both positive and negative things about it. single awareness day, or valentines day as some may call it, is one of those holidays that i was indifferent to until this year. it seems that so many people have placed emphasis on it this particular year that i couldn't help but be draged in in some small way. for me, valentines is an elementary school holiday, simply meaning that i only remember celibrating it in elementary school when i got my fingers all sticky with glue and glitter making a heart valentines card and little pink decorations to go on my valentines shoe box. this is where the cards/candy from everyone in the class would go the next morning. the competition was to simply have the coolest cards, and to write an extra word in the card for the girl that you liked. i always remember doing that, but it seemed like i never got a card back from that girl, and come to mention it, i think that must be why i have such an inferiority complex when it come to women. i was scarred at an early age. after the fourth grade though, no more cupcakes, no more cards and shoe boxes, and no more necco sweethearts (i LOVE those thigs, i buy em every week and am gunna stock up on em on clearance sale). all we really did after that was stand back and admire the hanging decorations from the cafeteria celing. that was the end of valentines day for me. from then on, it was only celibrated by couples who just happened to be dating that week, and then the girl would usually break up with the guy or whatever. for the most part, i really don't think most guys are fond of valentines day. it is an excuse to buy a girl flowers, and thus purchase the key to her admiration, but money doesn't buy happiness therefore that admiration is very superficial. now a-days, those silly little decorations still hang out in the cafeteria, and today new couples were walking around all over the place. i was still observing from affar the phanominon that is valentines day... here are the events of this day. i woke up at about noon and haveing camped out in the quad with some guys in my new tent, proceeded to put it away and come inside to take a shower and warm my feet. my feet got cold cause i went barefoot like an idiot the last night, and they never warmed up untill my 30 minute shower. after that i suppose i layed around for a while and wandered from room to room seeing what all my other single brethren were doing. seeing as they were doing the same as i, i just returned to my room and slept until dinner. at dinner i went to the caf with clayton. we noticed that the lights had been dimmed and they were serving a special fattening meal with live music. as i glanced around the room, i noticed that most people were unhappy and alone, possibly clinging to their social group of all guys or all girls, and eating as much as they could to, i suppose, eat away their sorrow. after that i went to work. i watched field of dreams, and total recal. i suppose the television stations understood my pain, as they offered what every single guy wants on valentines day... night... low budget blood and gore. i did get to talk to a girl back home about dating, where we've been and where we are going in life. that was nice and relaxing and helped me sort through . i also got a valentines card from someone else back home who knows who they are, as well as i do because of the mail stamp. anyways, thankyou very much. it helped part the clouds on this gloomy holiday. when i got off of work, i watched a depressing movie with some of the guys. it was called the hours and was pretty much about death and suicide. that was uplifting in every way shape and form (strong sarcasm), but i don't recomend you see it if you wish to feel good about yourself. i suppose this leads me up to now. i am sitting here writing about valentines day and am about to go play cards with the fellas. did i say i was going to talk equally in a positive sense about valentines day? i can't remember... oh well, all you ladies back home know i love you and look out for you the best i can. i know that sometimes my actions towards you don't portray that in the best way, but i want you all to know that all of you are my girls and if i could have i would have sent each and every one of you a dozen roses and chocolates. peace and love...

what to say, what to say. today was a good day and i got alot done. at work i finished the project i have been working on for almost six months today. i'm very glad about that. also, i took two two hour naps, so i feel very well rested. as for money. i just made an appointment with vanderbilt pharmocology testing to make $3-500 easy ones. that's good because i'm running out of spending money and i really can't dip in to my federal work study funds this semester like i did last semester. i'm learning how to get things done though. from being here at college i've learned the art of frugality, and the art of making quick money, which are two very handy skills. as for this weekend. i don't know if i will be keeping my journal posted. i don't really have any plans, but i'd like to just do nothing if at all possible. well... i take that back. i'd probably like to get some good recording done, but other than that, i probably won't be doing anything else. time sure does fly though. it seems like the superbowl was yesterday. maybe it's only my memory. maybe my memory is improving as i go. as for now, i think i'm going to work on a song i wrote at work today before i go off to bed, so this journal is going to remain rather short. hope everyone has a lovely weekend, and happy valentines day, if you're in to that kind of stuff. peace and love

i have so many things to say, but none of it is important. this has been a common theme throughout my life and has yet to shed off of my person via the college experience. i'm not totaly weird though. i don't talk to strangers excessively, but if i know you, chances are you've heard me ramble on for long periods of time. today was my nap day. tomorrow it's death work day again and i'm not to excited about that. i went to all of my classes and thankfully they offered a little break to our weariness because we just finished semester quarterlies. my day started off by me almost getting hit by a golf cart after looking both ways before crossing the street. see, i took that as a good omen. i though that meant my day was going to be full of excitement and stupid adventure. that, however, was not the case at all... well, i kinda take that back. i did have a little fun and excitement here and there. in my music business class my prof. picked me out in private to act as a music publisher in class. he literally said i had to "act like a real a@s" some kids came with their songs and sat down and played them for me, and i was really heartless and mean to them, like they would in the record company. deep down i felt really bad about the whole thing and i hoped they would understand, but when i want to act, i can act really well, and i felt like i wanted to act today. a guy came up to me after class and said "gee! you make a really good a@s h*le". i said "thanks... i think..." after that i had to finish my history project. i got it done and turned it in an hour later. in that class, i sit next to a girl who's ... kinda pretty. we talk about class and stuff, and today she had come to class almost in tears because she was typing her paper and her computer crashed and she lost it. i gave her some instructions on how to fix it... AND... i gave her my number... i think she called, but in the excitement of giving an attractive girl my phone number, i forgot to tell her that i'm usually never home. i did learn a few things about getting a girl to ask you your phone number though. it's really quite clever. see, what i did was i told this pretty girl at lunch a riddle... and then i just walked away. she begged and pleaded for me to stay (which i enjoyed emmensly) and after i continued to leave, she asked me for my phone number. i was so amaized that she asked, i forgot to give it to her, but it's ok... i've got plenty of riddles to go around. now if you don't think i'm pathetic after reading that, then how bout this. i took a two hour nap when i got home from that class and then went to dinner. the only real meal i ate today which still wasn't very real... none of the food at the caf is. after that i came back and did some recording, but didn't really get anything productive done on the present song i'm working on. i did play guitar long enough to develop a bruise (don't check the spelling on that one cuz i'm pretty sure it's wrong) though, so i stopped. then i just hung out with the viking for the rest of the night. we watched some tv on his computer that he just got a cable for so he can now hook the monitor immage up to his tv screen (confused yet?). and we played (i'm a big dork) videogames for a while. it's supposed to snow tonight too, but it's still forty degrees and i doubt it will. after growing up back home i've learned alot about being able to tell how and when snow will come and stay. as for me, i think i'm just going to go to bed now. i don't really have anything else important to say, but maybe some day i shall. untill we chat again, peace.

well here it is. i promise this journal will have a bit more construction than the last. i was just really dog tired. not that i'm any more awake now, but i guess i'm just numb to the feeling. i bombed that psychology test tomorrow which was no fun, but now atleast i know how he gives tests. that's my greatest strength when it comes to test taking. anyways, i was going to tell you a story last night, but i just got too tired. i went to a meeting with michael w. smith yesterday. i'm in a club that gets to do stuff like that. it's called CMS. but before i went in to hear him, my frat brother scott and i went to use the bathroom. we walked over to the urinals and there was another guy in there. i started making wise crack bathroom jokes that had to do with releiving one's self and song writing. scott, on the other hand, seemed quite embarrassed because he didn't like involving strangers in jokes i guess. but anyways, when we went in to hear mr. smith, in walks the stranger bathroom dude that was using the urinal next to me. yeah, it was definitaly micael w. smith, and needless to say, i turned a few shades past red. anyways, he played the piano for us and did some songs that he hadn't released yet. he's a really nice and cool guy. did you know he has five kids, the oldest being 20? i knew he wasn't a young fella, but he just doesn't look that old! today was a different pace though. i managed to get through it and rewarded myself at the end by working on one of my recording projects. i also was dressed formally all day because one of my frat brothers had a death in the family and we dressed up out of respect. we also went to the memorial service that night, and it was the first open cascet service i had ever attended. i felt a little werid. i had never seen a dead body before, but i was there to support a friend, and that i did. after we got back to school, we had a formal frat meeting and then went to mafiaozas. it's a great little sit down restauraunt that we go to after our meetings. the food is good and cheap, sorta like la hacienda back home, except with italian food instead of cheese quesadillas. i just got home at 1 though and got out of my suit a.s.a.p. cause MAN those socks squeeze the life out of my legs, and they rub my leg hair. as for tomorrow, i don't expect it to be as hard. i'm coming out of the storm which was semester quarterlies. i have one more paper to finish and turn in tomorrow in history class and then i'm done with all that stress. i shall then proceed to take a nap, and speaking of which, my pillows are driving me crazy just layin there and lookin all lonely and sad. i think i shall go and keep them company with my skull. peace to all.

it is late. i have a psychology test tomorrow morning at eight. they are notoriously hard. i have to be dressed up all day tomorrow. i have to work four hours after my test. i won't get to take a nap. i'm going to be very irritable. no time to talk anymore. must get sleep. each minute counts. peace.

yep... there it is again. my next door neighbor caughing and the sound carrying itself to my ears as if there were no walls between us. mice? yeah, i think i have another one. i'm really getting tired of killing these things, but they have no place in my room, nor in this building. just as usual, it's very late. i'm seein two o'clock... there's that caughing again... yeah, two o'clock. tomorrow morning at nine, i have a speach to give on bob hope. yeah, i definitily wrote that speach tonight and i haven't even practiced it yet. i should be fine though, just as long as i don't think too hard about it... ah, and the sound of a mouse in my celing just broke the silence. well, maybe not silence. there's still the slight hissing of my radiator. i turned it on today just to get a small feel of summer. i also adjusted all of the pictures of my friends on my wall because they were getting all bent up from the constantly fluctuating temperature. productivity is my thing on sunday night. i like for things to be perfect the next morning when i wake up so that i can have no blame on myself if my monday turns stale. that means that i do my laundry (wash, dry, fold, put away) and i straighten up my room... wow, i forgot what cold dr. k tastes like. i usually don't keep my drinks in the fridge, but down by my feet. i really am that pathetically lazy as to where i won't even walk to steps behind me to my fridge for a drink. that's pretty sad, but that's also life right now. i'm busy. i don't really have much recoup time now. there's always the video games with the fellas, and the brief nap times, but i just want to be completely alone for a while. that's something i miss about being home. i could just get in my car and drive with the music on loud. no one would ever complain about it, no one would ever interrupt me, and i was never in one place for more than a fraction of a second, unless i was stopped at a light. finding alternate ways to blow steam isn't easy around here. i don't really even have time to record, let alone any creativity spuring out of the mental hell that is college. so there's that and with the high calabur food served at our lovely cafeteria, the body couldn't be happier (strong sacrasm). i guess i'm just a little ticked cause the weekend went by so fast. i can't complain really. i mean the weeks have been flying by too, but just for a while, i'd like to be able to pick a time that would stand still so i could enjoy it for just a brief second more. two things that i have come to cope with since i've been here are this. life will never be the same and i can never go back to the way things were before i came here, and time only gets faster. at this rate, by the time i'm eighty, a year will seem like a fart would seem now. very fast and unpredictable. maybe that's why the elderly drive so slow. they feel like they can control time in their car. or maybe with time going so fast for them, they in actuallity feel like they are going too fast. these are two pathetic questions that i hope i can never answer, because if i ever can that will only tell me that i've spent way too much time thinking about time instead of using it. right now i think i'm going to finish my dr. k. and practice my speech, then i'm going to go to sleep and pray for a deep one because i really would rather not have any dreams tonight.

peace

today was one of those days where you just wish it wouldn't end quite as quickly as it did. i woke up at 11:30 and then went to a computer show at the fair grounds with the fellas. there wasn't much there that caught my eye except for some cd-r's that i needed. they were very good name brand and very cheap. after that, it was pretty much dinner then work. work on weekends isn't much to talk about, cause i don't really do anything. if i didn't tell you before, on the weekends i work the desk down at the school recording studio. that consits of answering the door with a button if needed and answering the phone. other than that, i can watch tv, talk/surf on the web, or do homework for four hours. it really is a great job. after that though, we had a video game dorkfest back at the dorm. i'm not ashamed to say it, but yes, I STILL play videogames, and participated tonight in a video game tournament. it was fun, but didn't last too long. after that, i was going to wind down in my room by myself. i had my guitar out, and i was trying to record a song when all of the sudden i heard a rustling in my trash can. i was confused for a while as to what it was, so i went to check it out when what did my eyes behold, but a mouse. he was standing on his haunches looking me straight in the eye and testing the air with his nose. i looked back at him and gave him the name figaro, as the letter f was what we were up to on the hurricane mouse watch. i told figaro that he was cute, BUT... i was going to have to kill him. you see, he was stuck in my trash can, and at hearing my last words, he immediately ran under my trash, as if he was trying to run for his life from me and my threat. it was then that i went to gather all the other guys on the hall into my room to watch as i placed a trap set with a marshmellow (the favorite) in the center of all the trash. it wasn't long before figaro came out and started nibbling away at the marshmellow, but then WAIT! another mouse came out and joined him! we named this mouse galileo. figero's personality was very chipper, but galileo was rather... well he was just dumb and lathargic. well, at first the trap didn't work. they were both standing on the trigger and it didn't seem to go off, so i got some pliers and took the trap back out and made it more sensative. then i took all the trash out of the can and put a piece of paper down to make them more visible. that's when figaro snapped. he went jumping all over the place trying to get out of the trap when all of the sudden... SNAP!!! it seemed that poor figaro had jumped up, but tragically landed on the marshmellow which in an instant turned from a diliciouse morsal best served with hot chocolate to a tool of his demise. we gave him a proper burrial at sea (or in the toilet) and then returned for galileo. he was just sitting there as if he didn't have a care in the world, so i pushed the trap closer to him untill he was standing on top of it. since it seemed that he wasn't going to go for the marshmellow, i dropped a cracker on the trap and though for sure that i would kill him just as quickly. that would have been the case, but what came from that was a despairing squeek of pain because the trap had only snagged poor dumb galileo's leg. he was still not to clever though because he then started trying to eat the marshmellow. i felt bad that i had not killed him instantly, so i went into my room to fetch my hammer. my purpose was to put him out of his pain, but instead i think i just made things worse. i think i gave him five forcefull blows to the head before one of his eyeballs popped out and he started bleading out of his ears. that was the end of poor poor galileo. he shall be remembered always. and a great lesson has been learned. and by the way... my spelling is atrocious!!!

valentines day is a funny day. it has to be my least favorite holiday for numerous reasons. first off theres the one where girls all the sudden start flirting with guys around this wonderful day. why? simply because they want something to do on valentines day. it doesn't mean that they actually like you. second of all, if you already have a girlfriend, valentines day can cost quite a fortune unless you are one of those rare creative types that can grow and harvest their own roses and coco bean plants to then process them into chocolates... then again... sorry guys, it's just gunna cost you money. the reason that this all came up is because one of my friends asked out a girl who was writing in her blog about how much she wanted a boyfriend, especially since hallow... i mean valentines day is coming up. so my friend got the guts to ask her out and she said no and then wrote on how much she didn't want a boyfriend. all of that tom foolery got me thinking. he then wrote back in his blog a form of what i like to call "blog-fu". blog-fu is when you know that a certain someone is reading your journal among many. you then will proceede to tell a story that all of your readers will get something out of, but the one that it is specifically aimed towards will know exactly what you're talking about. i know it sounds a bit childish, but it really is quite effective. anyways i'm done talking for now, but i might have something else to say later tonight. peace

okay, well this week has almost drawn to a close, and i've gotten more done that last week i suppose. i got my RA application filled out and turned in a whole two days early! that's pretty impressive for my work ethic... oops... i just realized that the ranch dressing i bought says "refrigerate after opening"... i've left it out for about a week now... oh well. back to the topic! i'm really just trying to get back into some sort of disciplined groove. it's hard, but i'll get there eventually. another cool thing about this week, but more specifically today, was that a few of us guys on the hall started a bible study. it is nice to finally have some accountability around here because not having it was beginning to ware on me just a bit. anyways, it's supposed to snow here tonight and a little bit in the morning. i doubt it will enough to cause any sort of stagnation in my schedule tomorrow, but who cares, it's friday! i don't really know what i'm going to do this weekend. the fraternity is going to be holding a table in the curb atrium and we're going to be singing, so that should be fun. i love singing with my fraternity. i suppose i'll also do a bit more recording over the weekend too. i really need to practice that stuff cause so far i've only put out one decent song. it really really is a new artform. the more i do it, the more i realize that truth. oh well... another thing i need to work on is going to bed a little earlier, so i'm off. i know it was a little shorter than usual, but not much has really happened lately. i'll see what i can get myself in to though... you know... to make the journal reading a little more interesting. see, i think i've lost some readers which doesn't really bother me too much, cause i'm mostly doing this to organize my thoughts, but still, i like to please those who still do read it. atleast i know my mom still does. thanks mom.
goodnight!

i suppose it is a good thing for me to take a moment out of my week and put my thoughts down in writing. of course, these thoughts are still selective primarily due to the fact that everyone in the world could read them if they wanted to, and i enjoy some means of privacy. it really does make me think, as well as put a worth on my day, as to what is important enough to note. today was pretty nice. i only had two classes cause my last one was canceled for who knows why. because of that i got to do a little bit of recording on my new home studio, which was great. i ended up putting four hours into it today, only to trash the whole project. i'm just very picky, and this is the kind of art where pickyness is ok. so far i've only recorded one song that i really like, but it is a new artform for me. it's really fun, even though i'm not that good at it now. i figure it's worth it though being that i will be doing this for the rest of my life... or atleast i want to. i know it's been a while since i wrote my last journal (about weight training), but that's just because i've been soar... extreemely soar. part of it is due to sunday early morning. yeah, some guy pulled the fire alarm at five am sunday morning and i had to go running outside in the 35 degree pouring rain wearing NOTHING but my pajama bottoms and wait untill they let us back in. the cold made all my muscles tense up and i had a massive muscle cramp all over my entire body all the next day. on top of that, today was arm and chest workout again, and these were my most soar muscles. so far i'm doing okay, but a night sleep tends to bring out the worst in things. another interesting happening today was chubb's birthday. chubbs is my RD and we all love him. we love him enough to get cowboy to walk in to his apartment at midnight with a boom box and start acting like a male stripper... don't worry, it was just acting... but it was hillarious! right now i must go to bed. it's supposed to snow today and tomorrow here (about time) but it's still 45 degrees, so i'm not counting on any cancelations tomorrow... i mean it was 60 degrees today here, and that's normal! there's six inches of snow on the ground at home, and it's 60 here?!? oh well, i'm just a little flustered, but i'll survive. g-night.

i'm finally back in to my spring time work out groove. see, i've been working out every day of the spring semester for the past three years just to keep physically fit and not quite as skrawny. the disadvantage i have though is that i can never look incredibly big as i have both a small bone structure, and hyper metabolism. i'm serious, i can't even digest animal fat, so no matter what i can't gain wait. this poses a problem in that fat is one of the key components in building muscle, so i don't have much muscle mass. also, since i cannot gain any body fat, though i get cut very quickly, my muscles also are eaten much quicker than most people's. this is called muscular atrophy, and it happens when the muscles aren't continually worked out. the only difference for me is that my hyper metabolism, when not having body fat to eat, eats on my muscles. this is why i enjoy working out. i just feel better about most everything. and though i may not be the strongest guys on the block, i can lift my body weight which is above average. enough about working out though... anyways, i'm extra soar tonight so i'm gunna have to cut this thing short so i can get a good night sleep. here's a secret you might like to know... i have no laundry detergent. this means that i've been wearing the same cloths for almost two weeks now, and the cologne i'm wearing is starting to loose the battle against the stinky that i wish to hide. i think i'm gunna borrow some from my neighbors tomorrow to get the essentials washed, but i should be going to the store this weekend. also, as far as my diet is concerned, i am cutting back on the caf. all i am going to allow myself to eat from now on is salads, soups, and cerial. the reason being is that i, and many other of my fellow dorm mates, have come down with pretty stubborn illnesses that we connect to the caf. why? because when we went home for christmas break, we were fine, but a few days after we got back... BAM!!! we were sick again. this has called for drastic measures. i'm thinking about even starting a club that might petition the school's food distribution. after all, i pay lots of money to go here. atleast serve me something BESIDES ecoli for breakfast and hep a for dinner! so far though, the diet is working. i feel stronger and more alert and, along with my vitamins, more prepared to take on the day... which is in just a few hours so i must be off to bed. tootles all.

okay, today... good day. not much to recap on. slept till noon, hung out with the fellas, got prepared for classes tomorrow... all that good stuff. it wasn't as productive as i thought it would have been, but that's just the procrastinating side of me, which i consider to be my more adventurous side. as for that mouse i was talking about last night... well... he seems to be more illusive than i originally thought. he hasn't touched that twizzler yet, so i'm thinking about moving to a more enticing bait. something like say... chocolate. enough about the mouse though. i sold my digital guitar amp over christmas break and have used the money from that to order a recording studio for my room. i know that doesn't sound that spectacular. after all, i wasn't able to spend that much money on it. i'm a college student remember? you'd be suprised at the kind of quality you can pull out of a computerized home studio if you put a little elbow greese in to it though. what have i been thinking about lately? (sorry, i'm sidetracking) you know, to be quite honest, i haven't really had any astounding thoughts lately, which is different for me. most of the time i'm working on some new theory to prove... in my head that is. i don't really have to time for experiments, unless they can get me away from books for a while. back to the previous topic. i'm really excited about that recording studio getting here. i have so many ideas to put together. i also just want a chance to practice at it so that when i actually get into a real studio, i'll have a better idea of what i'm doing. it's just the kind of fun i like... ya know, i just thought of a thought that i've been having lately. all the stuff that i was doing before break just doesn't seem that fun anymore. i play videogames with my hall buds alot like a dork, and it's fun at first, but after a while, it just doesn't seem to entertain me anymore. i think i just need to give being here some time. i haven't really had any real work yet, but all of that will come tomorrow. i also think i'm going to take up reading as a hoby. in the past, i've always hated reading, but over christmas break i read my first novel cover to cover for fun. it wasn't that bad. infact, i kinda enjoyed it, so i think i'm gunna start doing more of it. as for now, i'm going to do a bit of reading and then i'm going to bed. hope you all are doing well and take care.

ah, today was a fine day, even though i didn't really do anything productive. i've left all of that for tomorrow. i woke up this morning for church, which i re-found out that it starts at 10:30. it was a good sermon about how we don't find Jesus, but Jesus finds us. anyways, if you recall my previous journal, i was briefly discussing how all the guys i know have been a bit girl conscious lately, including myself. today i got the bright idea to try to socialize with some of them. i found a girl at church who i thought would be nice to talk to, and usually church girls are fairly safe. my objective was by no means to ask this girl out on a date. that would be out of the question. instead, my motives were to simply introduce myself, find out a bit of information about her, maybe throw in a bit of "clever" nathan wit, and then leave with a feeling of manly pride, as if i had been on a hunt and had bagged a large woodland creature with my bare hands. as i headed towards her though, my subconscious awoke and took control. immediately i kicked in to rationality mode and i was stopped in my tracks by myself and all the logic that i bombarded myself with in attempts to prove that what i was doing could proove to be one of the most stupid things i have ever done. by that moment i was just about next to her and i began to fidget a bit. as a gazel down wind of a lion, she sensed my lack of confidence and she fled for the door and disappeared. i had prooved to be a wuss once more and i went back to the dorm, head hung low. fortunately i have been blessed with short term memory and i forgot about it in time to watch the panthers/mcnabb game which was beasty. carolina totally laid waste to the mcnabb team, as i call them, by laying out their star quarterback mcnabb. then i watched band of brothers with the guys on my side of the hall and went back to my room to write a bit of music. after that, i watched some tv, had some tea, and now i'm about to go to bed. i plan on sleeping in tomorrow until about twelve or so before i commence to complete the many tasks layed before me by my own procrastination. ... oh yeah, and also, i have this mouse in my room. he and i are having an understood battle right now. my wit vs his. see he was stealing some of my twizzler wrapping paper when i noticed him, so i put a mouse trap near his hiding place. in that mouse trap i put a bit of twizzler being that he must have aquired a taste for it while making home in my lovely little room. he will be mine by morning i should suspect, but he seems to be one of those higher education college mice. he isn't caught quite as easily as some small town mediocre high school student mouse. no no, he is enrolled in mice university. he could probably disassemble the trap that i have placed faster than i could set it. oh well... we will see just how clever this cute little guy is when i find him severed in two in the morning. i'm already anticipating that peircing SNAP about an hour after i turn off my lights... this is getting me excited... and tired... bye bye y'all.

so this weekend has been pretty neat. my room mate is on tour which is pretty cool, and i have the room all to myself this weekend which is pretty cool too. quite frankly though, i've been very tired lately. i slept for ten hours last night, went to eat lunch, came back and then took another nap three hours later. the only reason i didn't get twelve hours of sleep is because some guy below me was practicing double bass on his drums before practice hours. i don't know how he got away with that, but if he does it again... i don't know what i'll do, but he'll know he shouldn't have done it again. all this tiredness is simply a result of my lifestyle here at school though. i don't get very much sleep during the week, so i have to make it all up on the weekends. that's just the way it works. i don't really mind it that much. sleep is entertainment for me. anyways, this fake spring weather that we have been having must be taking its toll on the guys. all of the fellas i know have been extra consumed by thoughts of young ladies lately. we even got one who's gone as far as getting himself involved with one. i must admit... even i have been doing a little bit of thinking here and there. see, i know alot about girls. i know enough about them though to know that i have not even scratched the surface. that is why i, and most the guys i know, are still scared to death of them. i'm not going to get too involved in that topic though. that is dangerous grounds to walk on, especially at three o'clock in the morning, but what can i tell you that might interest you? i don't really know. oh yeah, i did get my books this semester for under $100. do you know how amaizing that is? it's incredible! my classes are also looking pretty good so far. i don't know how the work load is going to turn out comparatively to last semester, but we'll just have to wait and see on that one. as for now, i'm going to bed. i have to wake up in time for church tomorrow, and i can't exactly remember when it starts, so that's a problem. christmas break has done alot of things to my brain, but God will see to it that i make it through all of this stuff one way or another. i'll talk to you all later when i can find something noteworthy to report. later!

well well well... could it be that i have started a new semester? yes it is true. i had a wonderful break at home doin all sorts of stuff, but in short i suppose that mainly included working and hanging out. now i'm back to school. i have to try my hardest to take things seriously again this semester, but i'm sure i'll be interested in most of my classes. brian boggs drove me back today. the ride was long as usual, but we made it intact. everything was clean when i got here, which was exactly opposite of the way it was when i left, so that was refreshing. also, my bamboo survived my absence. i think it may have even thrived while i was gone the ungreatful little weed (i speak disgruntled because it was dying while i was here). anyways, at home got to see all of my friends. they were good times except for a bit of chilling information that i caught ahold of from some sources. seems that one of my friends doesn't care to see/talk to me anymore. i must admit that it wasn't really nice to be the last person to know about it. i was also stumped for the longest time as to what i did wrong. for the most part i treat all of my friends equally. i call for them or show up at their door, and if they aren't there i call until they are. i talked to one of them about this and they said that that's what they expect me to do, cause that's what i've always done. when i hang out with my friends, i discuss just about anything that comes to mind, and have never really had a problem with it, so i know it's not that. i guess i have just been missunderstood. i guess that's just the while life flows. it's funny though. i think people get this initial idea of who you are, and no matter what you do, it can never improve, though it can always get worse. i wonder if this is human nature, or a characteristic that we develope on our own. reguardless, i haven't given up on mankind yet. though this is a loss, it is also a lesson on self conduct or maybe the conduct of others... though i'm still trying to find out which, i know the answer is there somewhere. i suppose this opens up a new discussion on who i am. i find great respect for people who are courageous enough to, when they have controversy with someone, meet them face to face and tell them of their situation. i suppose cowardice is a trait that is engrained in all of us at one point or another. i'm not the biggest fan of controversy, but some people are consumed by cowardice. they cannot say no when they should, nor can they say yes. they flea from controversy because they fear pain. unfortunately pain is inevitable in life, though some are more prepared to triumph over it than others. and why do i speak as if i had knowledge of such things? it's because i was there at dead bottom of the courage meter once. i know that fear and how damaging it can be. well, i hope everyone has a wonderful week. oh and by the way, i'm not mad. it takes alot to make me mad, though i am a bit dumbfounded. God bless.