I’m bad at updating

So last weekend our choir went to Chicago. It was okay… the highlight of the trip was going to the top of the Sears tower. Wait…. that was the only thing I did. Besides going to Ed Debevik’s and riding my first taxi-van. A couple of my friends had their SO’s on the trip with them, and I started to think about how much I was missing Amanda, and how much better Chicago would be with her there too. Then on the bus ride home I made a huge personal journal entry which ended up just making me feel worse. Yesterday was just kindof a bummer all around, but I got to laugh at the people swaying on my bus when I crossed Knoll road. More importantly, I talked to Amanda a bunch. Not that we really resolved anything, but I ended up feeling better and getting a good night’s sleep. I’m not grumpy anymore… I guess my current mood is just…. “Meh”

I just flushed my first fish.

It was a little more real than just knowing he’s dead at the bottom of his bowl. Granted, it was kinda creepy when he floated up to the top when I was talking about him online, half a day after he died. But flushing a fish is like burying your dog. Yeah, he was just a fish, and a long-lived-for-such-a-newbie-owner one at that. But it was still my first pet. First thing whose life I was ever responsible for. Gee… I hope my kids last longer than seven months 🙁

Anyway, I could’ve handled that, but I had a really lousy evening of work. And I’m anxious about the career fair tomorrow, not knowing if I really want an internship, or just take classes and work at CyRide this summer. And then a ton of other little things have gone wrong tonight (forgot the book I was engrossed in in my car, the ice cream I was gonna have to cheer me up was frosty, then some of it fell into my brand new keyboard).

I’m just gonna curl up in a little ball and go to sleep. Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day.

(And to think, that I was planning to write an entry this evening about how I’m struggling with the direction of my life…)

CyRide and the like.

Well, there’s one question answered. I’m not going to be a dispatcher. Guess I can see this as better than having to make the decision myself. Though I was rather sumarrily denied the position by a terrible "oral test" score… i.e. I totally failed the interview. Ah well. This way I still get to see Amanda, and I can take that week off this summer. All around I suppose it’ll be easier to get time off. Hmm. Maybe I’ll still get to be an instructor in a month or two. Then I’ll make something like 11.50 while training. Not quite 15, but it’s something :-).

Well, Amanda and I spent the weekend together. Couple rough patches, but overall we had a good time. We went ice skating on Saturday and saw a valentine’s proposal. This guy got down on his knee in the center of the rink while the girl was looking all around. Then he slipped a ring on her finger…. we assumed she said yes ’cause they hugged and skated around together some more… even though she wasn’t really watching where she was going…. more focused on the ring and him. Ahh l’amor. Or whatever that means in french….

Dead fish.

Well, Frankie’s dead. So it’s only fitting for a memorial song…. (and no, I didn’t eat my fish. eew)

Fish heads, fish heads. Roly poly fish heads
Fish heads, fish heads. Eat them up yum.

In the morning laughing happy fish heads; In the evening floating in the soup

Ask a fish head anything you want to; They won’t answer they can’t talk

I took a fish head out to see a movie; Didn’t have to pay to get it in

They can’t play baseball they don’t wear sweaters; They’re not good dancers they don’t play drums

Roly poly fish heads are never seen drinking cappuccino in Italian restaurants with Oriental women … yeah.

Difficult summer decisions

My summer plans are so uncertain. It would be great to get an internship somewhere, but then again, there are one or two classes I would like to take this summer and get out of the way. Not necessarily mutually exclusive, but mutually difficult at best. Thing is, if I don’t take these classes, next year is going to be a nightmare…. Not really something I want to deal with in my senior year.

Then we have my CyRide job. Theoretically it shouldn’t be difficult to get a regular 20-hour work week this summer (unlike last summer where I only got 6-9 because my seniority was so low), and I could probably pick up extra hours all summer. Then again, we have this "dispatcher" complication. I’m hoping to find out in a day or two whether or not I’ve even been offered the job. Probably warrants another CL entry of it’s own I suppose. I guess I could just stay here, take my classes, work at cyride, and maybe volunteer time in some engeineering project.

It’ll cost me $1000 to stay in freddie this summer, and about another $1500 if I take two classes. Driving at 20 hours/week, I’ll JUST break even. Suppose I could always pick up extra hours.

Guess my big decision is… try for internship or stay here, work cyride, and get classes out of the way. Internship would be some good experience in a future career, but volunteer work might be similar too. ARGH. So confusing.

Velcro is such a wierd thing

I’m so glad I dropped my 10am class. No running across campus on a snowy day like today; plus, I get a whole hour to piddle around online and update my websites for all my loyal viewers! … yeah right.

Anyway, not much happening today. Yesterday was pretty stressful, working almost 6 hours and then enduring a 2-hour group meeting for a project. This class requires us to do a semester-long project in a graphical, object-oriented language, with only C++ as a prerequisite. Somehow this seems very wrong. Have a course to teach you a language, and then a course in software engineering… not the other way around. Bleh. Somehow I don’t see another 4.0 happening this semester 😛

I’ve also made a re-commitment this weekend. Nothing that I’ll go into detail on here, but my closest friends know about it, and, though it will probably be very difficult (I’ve already had some trying times in the first two days), I’m pretty confident that I can pull through this with a little bit of Outside Help.

Yay, typical ambiguous Ben there…. yup yup. Anyway…. I’m gonna go play with my website now.

Moved In (Mostly)

Right at the beginning of Christmas break, I got an email saying there was a super-single apartment open, but Alta wanted to know by January 2. Now I liked my old roommates a lot and didn’t really want to ditch them, but I was starting to have way too much stuff in my room. That, coupled with one or two other motives, made me really want to make the move, providing that the new roommate was a semi-decent guy. So I spent most of Christmas break trying to get ahold of SOMEONE who could give me some information. Without delving into a lot of details, I found out that it was 1st floor in my same building, and I finally got to take a look at the apartment, and I was sold.

I spent most of last week moving everything one armful at a time into the new room. By now, most everything is put away save for a small pile in the middle of the room. But it’s so sweet that I can actually MOVE around in the room…. even with that pile there. I have a sink in there with room for my refrigerator next to it. I have my desk, my TV stand, and the frederiksen desk all in a row, and I even have room to keep my keyboard set up permanently. Probably get pictures up on gallery sometime in the next couple days for anyone who’s interested.

I’m sure I’ll miss hanging out with the guys from time to time, though I can always head up there for pizza and a movie on MY dvd player. (It’s still mine, Nick, until you pay me!) Ultimately, I think I’ll enjoy the new room thoroughly, and maybe Tom can even move in next year. Yaay!

Room rearrange…. again

So I have this cool plan….
but I can’t take the desk apart until I take the hutch off,
and I can’t take the hutch off until I move the bed over a foot,
but I can’t move the bed over a foot until I move the computer,
and I can’t move the computer until I move the chest of drawers,
but I can’t move the chest of drawers until I slide the TV into the corner,
and I can’t slide the TV stand until I take apart the desk.

Difficulties…..