Every time, I swear!

Well, the school year is almost over, and I can say I am definitely happy about that. This year has brought some good times and some really frustrating times. This quarter has been especially trying. The Registrar's Office never sounded so good.

The television season is over, and all in all it was pretty good. Veronica Mars had a decent season. Definitely not as good as the first two, and for its last season, it didn't have a very good send off. Lost had the best finale by far. Great storytelling, and finally, after two seasons, it seems like Jack is back in the role of leader. Where he belongs. It blew the Heroes finale out of the water.

Speaking of which, I saw all three "Threes" this May, and Pirates was by far the best. Still not as good as the first, but that climactic scene is one for the books. Definitely worth the three hours spent in the dark. And definitely more entertaining than Shrek or Spider-Man. Only one more "Three" to go, and Jason Bourne has yet to disappoint.

Finally, can someone please explain to me why everytime I fall for a girl, she always ends up being from England! Seriously. But, as they say in Pirates, it can be worth it. Just depends on the one day. And I had two!

I know there should be criteria, but...

I recently read this article online:

Drunken Pirate’ sues school that nixed degree

Woman lost teaching degree over Myspace picture showing her drinking

MILLERSVILLE, Pa. - A woman denied a teaching degree on the eve of graduation because of a MySpace photo has sued the university.

Millersville University instead granted Stacy Snyder a degree in English last year after learning of her Web-published picture, which bore the caption “Drunken Pirate.”

“I dreamed about being a teacher for a long time,” said Snyder, 27, who now works as a nanny.

The photo, taken at a 2005 Halloween party, shows Snyder wearing a pirate hat while drinking from a plastic “Mr. Goodbar” cup. It was posted on her own MySpace site.

Although Snyder apologized, she learned the day before graduation that she would not be awarded an education degree or teaching certificate.

Jane S. Bray, dean of the School of Education, accused Snyder of promoting underage drinking, the suit states.

The federal lawsuit seeks at least $75,000 in damages. Millersville spokeswoman Janet Kacskos referred questions to a state System of Higher Education spokesman, who declined comment.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18372103/

It just makes me a little frustrated at the assumptions some people have. Why would you assume a 27-year-old drinking at a Halloween party would promote underage drinking?

I think she has a case.

I had a dream (sicle).

Last night I had a dream. I'm going to try and remember it all to convey to you. It was one of those random dreams that went from one stream of consciousness to another, with the common thread being...me. And Western.

So, it starts out (that I can remember) with me on campus, specifically south campus by Arntzen Hall. All of a sudden, my friend Heather appears. This is weird, seeing as how she's currently teaching in Japan. Apparently she's returned. Yay! So we converse for a while and everything's dandy, then along comes Dr. Sattler, a professor at Western. They say hi to each other and hug, like they haven't seen each other in a while. Now, as far as I know, they've never actually met, but you wouldn't know it from the way they were getting cozy with each other. Nothing gross, just...more than necessary. Well, it was a little gross considering the fact that he's a prof here. Anyway, moving on...

Next thing I know, Heather and I are in the cafeteria in Arntzen Hall. Which doesn't exist. But there was one in my dream. I'm getting my food, and I notice that my portion of meat sandwich-thing is very small. I decide to complain. I leave Heather to go up to the cash register, which is being manned by some unknown girl, accompanied by Felicia, a girl in the class I just TA'd. As I'm complaining about the small portions of my unknown meat and bread product, I notice that Felicia is holding her eye in pain. She says there is something in it. I offer to check it out. My dream then does a CSI zoom-in to her eye. Very close. I notice a speck, so I try and get it out. As I reach into her eye, more specks appear.

Next thing, I'm walking back to where Heather is sitting with our common friends (totally fake people, since we don't really have any friends in common). Apparently, I gave up on Felicia. As I get back to the table, Unnamed close friend of Heather's says, "Wow, you were loud!" I'm not sure of what to make of this. I thought I kept controlled while I was complaining about my small portion of meat and bread product. She says, "You know, over there. Five minutes ago." Interesting that it was exactly five minutes ago. Anyway, I realize that she is insinuating that Heather and I had been doing something inappropriate in some closet and we were really loud. This confused me, since I had spent the last ten minutes or so complaining about the very small portions in the cafeteria and trying to help Felicia with her eye problem, so there was no way I could have been doing anything inappropriate in a closet with Heather.

And that's when my dream ended. Well, that's all I remember.

Well, that was different.

This weekend rocked.

I headed down to Everett on Saturday for two birthday parties. The first one was at Traxx in Mukilteo. For those of you unfamiliar with Traxx, it's an indoor racing joint where you can race around really fast in tiny go karts. So much fun. The only crappy thing was that we each put down $17.50 to wait around for two hours for our turn, only to have a race that lasted all of five minutes.

But they were five glorious minutes.

Let me say that while I had sweet adrenaline (whoops, I'm in science so I should know better. Sweet epinepherine) running through me the whole time, I sucked. I came in 7th out of 12. But I can blame it on the fact that most of my family and my brother's friends (oh yeah, it was my brother's birthday party) had raced there before. I had not, so it took me a while to get used to it. Also, I was stuck behind someone who I think was my sister for half the time. Argh.
After that, most of us went off the the second party. This one was for my new nephew, Easton. He turned 7, and the party was at the Reptile zoo in Monroe. Crazy and creepy. There was this black mamba (the deadliest snake in the world) that would follow me, just waiting to strike. Even creepier was the anaconda, who just sat there....staring. At me.

Today I went and saw Shooter with my sister and Haley. A decent flick. They had Marky Mark to stare at. I had Kate Mara. We were all happy.

But the craziest thing happened tonight as Haley and I drove home. We stopped by Haggen to get supplies for her April Fool's Day pranks, and let me tell you, we got the mother of all prank items. Now, since she hasn't followed through with the prank yet, I can't say what it was, for fear of ruining the prank, but I assure you, walking through Haggen with it in my hands was quite humorous. And, we got it for free!

School starts on Tuesday. Yay. This means tomorrow will be full of meetings and organizing and getting school stuff. Good times.


PS- I transposed this blog from my Myspace blog that I just finished. But, since no one involved with the prank will read this one, I can tell you: It was a fish head!!!! Oh yes.

Crazy People.

I've had my Myspace profile set on private for the past few months because of the fact that I'm a TA, and it may not be good for my students to read some of the stuff on here. Last week, I took it off private so that someone could check out my profile, and within minutes I started getting all these friend requests from random people I don't know. What the hell?

No. I do not want to check out your webcam.

No. I do not want to check out your nude pics on your website.

No. I'm not interested in becoming friends with a 19-year-old alcoholic guy from Florida.

I'm going back to private right now.

If you have a reasonable doubt, you should find the defendant not guilty.

As I sit here listening to the trial of the State of Washington v. Peter Bennett, I am moved to words. Here they are:

For Lent (even though I am far from a practicing Catholic), I'm going to give up meat. Sort of. I'm going to finish off the meat that I have left (one can of tuna, one can of chili, and one can of salisbury steak stew), then no more! Unless of course, I'm at a family event and there are no alternatives. I'm doing this for health reasons. I couldn't care less about the animals! Ha ha ha! Anyway, this should be fun.

I hate house parties. More specifically, I hate undergrad house parties. They're all the same. Saturday night, Amber and I went to this party. We were there all of one minute before we decided it sucked and got the heck out of there. Something about drunk undergrads getting trashed on Busch Light and gyrating to really loud bass just doesn't do it for me.

I'm still trying to get over the death of Sheriff Lamb on Veronica Mars. Seriously. Did not see that one coming. He will be missed.

I think I might have an idea of what I'm going to do my thesis on. Good times. Now I just have to build up the will to actually research it.

For Good.

This post was supposed to go up 10/1/06:

Friday night I made the trip down to Seattle to see the musical "Wicked."

Oh. My. God.

I knew it would be good, but I didn't realize how great it really is.

For those of you who don't know, "Wicked" is the story of Oz before Dorothy dropped in. The Wicked Witch of the West and the Good Witch of the North were best friends in school, and it's essentially the story of how they meet, become friends and finally how the Wicked Witch becomes, well, Wicked. It's to "The Wizard of Oz" what the latest three episodes of Star Wars are to Eps 4-6. Except about a million times better. Which, to be honest, is not that hard.

From the set design to the music to the songs to the acting, this was definitely the best entertainment (books, music, movies, shows....everything) I've experienced in a long time. Up until now, "Rent" was my favorite show on stage, and "Moulin Rouge" my favorite musical, but this blew them both away. The sheer emotion in the theater house at the end of the first act as the Wicked Witch realizes her power of flight and escapes from the henchmen of Oz was palpable. I kid you not when I tell you the energy from the stage transferred to everyone there.

We were cheering for the slightest things. At least ten times the actors had to wait for the audience to stop cheering to continue. And I'm not talking at the end of songs when the audience usually claps. I'm talking little things. Example: We cheered for almost half a minute when the Wicked Witch gave another character a thumbs up. That minor, but perfect in context. Also, the timing of the word "blonde" caused us to cheer for just as long.

Which brings me to my next cheer: Shoshana Bean, who played Elphaba (the real name of the Wicked Witch) was a force of nature. Anyone who's been in the theater knows how difficult it is to keep interesting when it's just one person on an empty stage, but she did it. I have never, ever seen anyone command the stage as she did during "The Wizard and I." People in the house almost jumped to their feet. In fact (and I can't be sure, since I was in the waaaaaaaaaaay back), but I think she broke character for a second because of all the cheering.

Finally, I almost got choked up during the final song, "For Good." This is a fantastic duet between Elphaba Wicked and Glinda the Good, just as the Wicked Witch is about to meet her fate at the wrong end of a bucket of water by that obnoxious farm girl.

Okay, so this was boring for most of you. But if you ever get the chance, see this show. It was amazing.