A Long Catch-up Post (in a galaxy far far away...)
 | Currently Watching The X-Files - The Complete Second Season David Duchovny, Gillian Anderson, et al. (Episode 2x12: Aubrey) see related |
Amber: I did have a great Christmas, thanks. :-) See you in February!
Other Anonymous: Right now...
Okay, I have to apologize for not posting sooner (as is unfortunately usual), so I'll post everything but the kitchen sink in one go, so I don't leave anyone hanging.
As for catch-up...
When last we found a good blogging time, I was off to work, which continued to go well through Christmas break. After the dinner in the small gym (where I ended up working the soda fountain, the first time I had been on the serving end), everyone who works in the cafeteria - student, full-time employee, weekend worker, whatever - went to the dining hall to clean up the faculty banquet. It didn't take that long, so then, I was off to production night!!
I think my first semester counts as a productive one on the journalistic front. I had 12 articles published (that's an average of two per issue), and was offered the position of Assistant Section Editor by Nic and Alaina (for Arts & Entertainment). Woohoo!! I had one more three-article issue, for the last one of the semester, and then came finals week.
Just before finals, however, starting the day the paper came out, came the student-directed one-act plays. They all went really well, and our director was very pleased with us. "The Case of the Crushed Petunias" was a lot of fun, and both performances seemed to go really well. I also got to watch all five of the other shows being performed (ours was first, so I got to hang out in the audience afterwards), and they were all quite good, too.
Finals seemed to go well. The math one was not as hard as I thought it might be, and history, though it was a little tougher than the other tests we had had, was actually fun to take (I'm apparently hopeless for liking history tests, which is why I'm declaring a second major in history). I ended up staying in the dorms Thursday night (as did Jon and Derek, so it wasn't a big deal for our room to be open), after finals were over, and Jonathan Chapman gave me a ride to the bus station the next morning (thanks again, Jonathan). I left my key with my neighbor/new RA, so all should be set for my brief return to campus on Sunday evening.
The bus ride home was uneventful; thanks to David Kartzinel for letting me borrow "Men at Arms" (another Terry Pratchett Discworld novel, a sequel of sorts to the book I borrowed for the ride home on Thanksgiving, "Guards! Guards!") to pass the time. Dad once again picked me up at the station, but, apparently, they've added buses to the schedule, so this time, I'll be taking the Greyhound back to Jackson, too. I got to spend a little time at home, then we drove out to Grandpa's house for Christmas. We weren't there very long, but we got all the Christmas stuff done, and it was nice when the family was together for Christmas dinner. (Plus -- and I don't mean to sound materialistic, but some things are just really cool -- I got some great presents for Christmas, including money for my mission trip to Thailand, a digital tape recorder, lots of DVDs, and an iPod Mini.)
After we got home from Ohio, we had a nice, uneventful week. Uncle Mike dropped by on HIS way home from Grandpa's house, and he and his dog stayed with us overnight, which was a nice visit. New Year's Eve came and 2005 came in without much ado, which is typical for our happy quiet family, and everybody just enjoyed being home.
Now, I'm getting ready to head back to Jackson on my way to Thailand for my GO Trip. We've been making sure I'll be set to go, both in terms of funds and of clothes I'll need (we're being asked to bring dress shirts, slacks, and neckties). I'm also going to call Julie, our team leader, to see if she could give me a ride back to the dorms on Sunday, since I'm taking the bus and she lives right off-campus. Our original plan for the trip was to visit a large university in Bangkok, get to know some of the students, and serve as conversation partners for those learning English. We will probably still be doing that some, but as Bangkok is rapidly becoming one of the main centers for distributing disaster relief to South Asia in the wake of the Dec. 26 tsunamis, we may be helping with that, as well. We leave Union at 5:00 am Monday morning to drive to Memphis; from there, we fly to Detroit, then to Tokyo, and finally to Bangkok. Thankfully, I have Christmas books to read on the plane, and I don't have trouble getting to sleep. ;-)
I think that about covers the catch-up. On to some more posting...
Maybe some real journal-type stuff?
The first semester of college has gone by WAY too fast. While I'm glad to be moving on to some different classes, it's almost depressing to think that 1/8th of the traditional four-year college education is already over. Mom keeps mentioning that she's glad I'm home, and I keep telling her that I've missed everybody at college, and every time, she guesses correctly that now that I'm here in Oklahoma, I'm missing college. It's strange how quickly college has become "home" for me. When I posted the Thanksgiving list, I knew it sounded cliché to put "adopted family" on there, but, as a label, it's entirely true.
I especially love the fact that so many people "get" things the way I do.
Okay, looking at that last sentence, it looks like I'm going to go into your typical teenage diatribe about how "people just don't get me. Most people just don't understand." I'm sorry if it looks that way to you, too. That's not where I'm going. For one, I think people who actually post that are, at least in a lot of cases, not nearly as mysterious as they'd like to be, and even given that, I'm pretty easy to understand, comparatively. I'm about as close as you can get to an open book. Something tells me that someone like Blake Pennington, with whom I've shared one class, probably has a pretty good grasp on what I'm like. Someone like Amber Roberts, with whom I've had a grand total of two conversations, probably understands me pretty well. I'm also not going to go down your typical teenage road of "My friends understand better than my parents." For one, I don't care if they don't agree, parents know their children - they've lived with them for YEARS. For another, I have a great relationship with my parents, and I would say that if there were only one person on the face of this entire planet who really and truly understands me, that person, hands-down, no question, would have to be my mom (I love you, Mom!).
That said, though, I do love the way people at Union seem to "get it" (to use a vague pronoun that I suppose refers to "the things I like/am impressed by/etc"). There are all sorts of people interested in all sorts of things, but, at least in the circles of people I know, we're all like-minded, to a point (I guess that's why we all ended up at Union), so there's somebody I can talk to for every interest, curiousity, or mood. I can get people to laugh without breaking open my big collection of jokes (which is good, since so many of them are just plain corny), but I also know people who enjoy really corny jokes, so there's an outlet, too.
Then there's the rare case of someone who thinks so much like you that it stops becoming surprising that you agree on something, and reactions in those cases are amazing. For example, earlier this fall, after the Andrew Peterson concert at Bubba's Bagels (during which he sang my current favorite song, as-yet-unreleased on CD, which contains a lot of lyrical references to Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia series), I was talking to Abby Carpenter and David Kartzinel, and we started talking about Lewis' books, and I asked if either had ever read the Space Trilogy (great, great books). David had, though he didn't remember them very well. The second book of the trilogy, Perelandra, contains one passage in Chapter 11 that constitutes my favorite piece of writing, perhaps of all time. When I first read it after getting the trilogy for Christmas a few years ago, I had to stop and look over it a few times; when the final line of the passage hits, it honestly hits you in a way that you stop to look over it again. Doing my meager best to describe the passage in brief, I got to the final line, and David physically staggered backwards, with the lone comment of "Wow." If he ever gets some time for extracurricular reading, I'll have to loan him my copies of those to thank him for loaning me some of his Discworld novels.
Of course, even when I'm such an open book, there are comments that still surprise me. Zach Pendergrass made the remark to me a few weeks ago that "Everybody likes Tyler, but if they really got to know you, then everybody'd love you." Wow... that's one of the greatest compliments I've ever received, right up there with the one I got on my first trip to Russia ("You can tell a lot about the way a person was raised by the way he acts, and you must have great parents"). No wonder I love my friends so much. ;-)
How about something else I'm likely to put on here, like some brief movie reviews?
Since I've been home, I've been to the theater twice, both times with my mom and sister, once with Uncle Mike while he was here, and once with Dad on New Year's Day. Both movies were pretty good, and I just love going to movies anyway, so that was a lot of fun.
While Uncle Mike was here, we saw Spanglish...
I hadn't heard a lot about this movie, except for a commercial or two. I thought those looked kind of sweet, and Téa Leoni is a good actress, so when we found a good showtime for it, I was wanting to see it, rather than something else. It did turn out to be a sweet movie, and I enjoyed it, though there were a few things kind of distracting about it (Adam Sandler's poofy hair, for instance).
The main focus of the story, that of the Mexican maid who comes to work for Sandler and Leoni's characters, developed really well (and was also REALLY believable, which isn't quite as surprising, though all the more impressive, when you learn that Paz Vega, the actress, spoke almost no English when filming started and learned along with her character). Given the time, however, that they devoted to the story of her employers' marriage, it seemed to have a serious plot hole by leaving that substory completely unresolved in the end.
One of the smaller characters stole the show anyway. Cloris Leachman, who played Téa Leoni's mother, had one of those really great movie characters that are hard not to like.
On New Year's Day, we saw Meet the Fockers. With a name like that, you're just asking for trouble, but Meet the Parents was good, so it was a pretty safe bet that Meet the Fockers would be pretty standard Ben Stiller fare.
It didn't disappoint.
There were some moments that were really funny (I laughed out loud, at least, but, then, I laugh out loud at a lot of things), and then some that were absolutely horrifying. It averaged out as "pretty funny," which is really what you'd expect. Nothing intellectually stimulating, but it was a fun way to spend a mindless afternoon when you just want to go to the movies.
Both were pretty good, so the reviews aren't nearly as long as a rant against a movie, but this isn't an article I have to write with a minimum number of words, so I'm fine, I think. ;-)
I also saw a preview for Phantom of the Opera, which was really unfortunate. The whole look of it was really cool, and I still want to see it - kind of - but when the clip started having singing... ugh. You'd think they'd actually look for a singer when casting such a part.
Okay, I think that does it for movies...
Okay, here are some more random Blog/Xanga-related things, just so I've truly posted enough to get everything I had to say out for people to read. Now, I'm probably over-blogging, honestly, but I had to do a lot, since I haven't posted in a month...
These were made up on Go-quiz.com, after seeing the road sign on Julie Palmer's Xanga and the mix directions on Sarah McMenomy's... They all seem to be pretty accurate, so they're probably worth a laugh, at least.
| ||||||||||||||
From Go-Quiz.com
| UCAUTION |
| IN THE INTEREST OF SAFETY IT IS ADVISABLE TO KEEP TYLER WHETSTONE AWAY FROM FIRE AND FLAMES. |
From Go-Quiz.com
| How to make a Tyler Whetstone |
| Ingredients: 3 parts intelligence 3 parts silliness 1 part instinct |
| Method: Combine in a tall glass half filled with crushed ice. Add a little cocktail umbrella and a dash of wisdom |
Personality cocktail
From Go-Quiz.com
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Blogging Degree
From Go-Quiz.com
From Quizilla.Com, a quiz made up specifically for Unionites by Ben Bailey:
You are Watters Commons:
You are outgoing and athletic. You like concerts.
You live in the ghetto. A bugle sounds from
your building every night. You can easily get
to where you are going in life. Homie.
Which Union Residence Commons Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla
I'm not sure how accurate the little description is, but, hey, he got my Residence Complex right...
Just for a first-semester wrap-up, here are the links to my Cardinal & Cream articles on-line (just a warning, though: while there are occasionally errors that show up in print because articles have been moved around once production night was declared over and I went home, they are more rare than the on-line copies, which always seem to add a few extra typoes...).
Local businesses brighten job outlook for Union students
Union gives students a reason to stay here
Baucham returns for second year as 'Faith in Practice' leader
Students battle insomnia: Student schedules, habits may cause sleep disorders
Day of Fire releases first album on Essential
Students provide demonstrations during National Chemistry Week
Burke looks back on first 18 years
Christians respond to Depression's effects on other believers
Film Festival reels in features
English, art department team up for study abroad program
J-term renter policy offered to students working off-campus
One-acts end year with pictures by my roommate, Jon Blair
Okay, that's good for now.
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