Nightmares

Off and on for a couple of years now, I’ve had a recurring dream. A nightmare actually. Not one of those wake up sweaty and breathless nightmares though. It’s more like one of those you can’t really wake up from and you just have to suffer through. The basics may change but the common thread that runs through all of them is that I am living in a house with at least three or four stories. In some rooms I am completely safe. In others I am in danger.

I can walk into one of the rooms that are dangerous and I feel the malevolence around me. It’s like the house is haunted and the spirits within are hunting me when I stray into their territory. As a matter of fact I will detour around these many rooms in any way that I can. It may be a small staircase is dangerous in one area of the house. The attic is totally forbidden as is the basement. They are both too dangerous.

Last night I was trying to stay out of a room and/or seal it away so it could never harm anyone again. I could hear the heartbeat of the house as I did my work, nailing sheetrock into place over the doorframe. I distinctly remember that the entrance to the room was recessed in a sort of niche… perfect to be sealed off. As I worked I could feel thumping coming from inside, feeling the door shake as I furiously worked. It was if the house was angry at me for sealing a part of itself off.

The houses are always very old. Sometimes the layouts are different, sometimes some of the rooms are the same. There’s always a feeling of helplessness and dread pervading every moment. Even when I am in one of the safe rooms.

But one thing always remains the same. The houses are always evil.

Jumbled

There are times that my head is like a cup that is too full. Tea that is quivering at the rim, just waiting to break the surface tension and come spilling over.

I have many thoughts and ideas running through my head in a disorderly arrangement. Sentences that I need to write down but I cannot organize. Stories that I want to write, but in a non-linear sequence that would be senseless and unintelligible.

I find that my concentration drifts in and out. My memories are vague. My attention span a meter in length. If that.

Six weeks to go until I finish school.

Six weeks until a break.

And then?

I have many things that I want to do… that I need to do. I need to get these ideas out of my head and on to paper. I need to write.

I can’t think.

Feh.

Starting on Monday of this week, my job was relocated from downtown Columbus to the northwest side of town. I’m now putting about 100 miles a day on my car round trip. Insert grimace and sour face here. My job is still the same, they just moved our department to a new building. Yay.

The new place isn’t that bad. It’s actually pretty nice. The down side is that I have to drive someplace for lunch if I want something other than the cafeteria or a vending machine. My options are rather limited unless I want fast food or high-end restaurants (read: really expensive). The time I spend on my commute is roughly the same. Maybe five minutes more, if that.

I knew the move was coming maybe a month or two in advance. I spent much of that time seeking jobs that would let me stay downtown, but trying to move around in the company when you don’t know anyone is nigh impossible. I tried to jump to NSC but it didn’t work. So now, here I am out of the loop downtown, out of the parking garage and kind of screwed until I find something better.

Feh.

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Speaking of screwed, chances are I will not get to walk across the stage nor take part in my graduation ceremony. Not unless I want to wait until the next graduation ceremony anyway. It turns out that the University wants me to have my tuition paid in full nearly two weeks before the graduation ceremony, otherwise they won’t let me walk across the stage and get my diploma. This is all well and good, but I am on deferred tuition at the college. Since my employer covers nearly all my educational costs, I have to wait until they pay my bill. Unfortunately they won’t pay my bill until I have my grades and I won’t have those until the end of the term which is too late to pay my tuition on time to graduate.

In theory I could walk across the stage and get my diploma, but it would have to be during the Winter graduation ceremony, which means about a three or four month delay from the time I finish school to the time I get my diploma. Me being in an all-fired rush that isn’t good enough to me so I am going to immaturely stomp and pout and throw a hissy fit and not walk across the stage at graduation. So, once I pay my tuition I can pick up my diploma on my own time. You’d think that the University would be kind enough to understand that us poor (literally) people on deferred tuition want to graduate too and would be OK with it, knowing that as long as I have the grades they will get their money, but nooooooooooooooooooo they have to be ham-handed and tight-fisted and say "Sorry, no diploma till we get our money".

Well #%^@$^ off. Thanks for giving me such a wonderful parting memory of the University. See if you get any money out of me for the Alumni funds and boosters.

Asinine.

Double Feh.

My Little Girl is Growing Up

It seems like only yesterday that we were up with Emma every three
hours, giving her bottles, and encouraging her to crawl hither and yon.
Now she is nearly two years old and running around the house like a
little whirlwind. It’s mind boggling. I’ve pulled together some photos
over the past month or so that show that my little girl is growing up.
From flying a kite to running through a sprinkler to getting ready for
church, these photos show that she is slowly becoming a little lady.

Which Family Guy Character Are You?

Which Family Guy character are you?

Doing what?

I am six weeks into my last semester at college. Three weeks ago I felt that I would not make it. Now I can see light at the end of the tunnel.

In order to graduate I need to perform a real-world senior project, the planning of which had me at my wits end. It is still somewhat stressful as I need to actually write up contracts to state specifically what must be done. This is far from my area of expertise. Last evening found me making an impromptu run to the Columbus Public Library to pick up a textbook on writing an IT contract. I guess when you think about freelancing and doing consulting work, you don’t think about the "little things" like writing proposals, making pitches, and writing contracts. My professor stated at the beginning of the class that he wanted these projects to stretch us to our limits and to "show him what we’ve got". I think that shouldn’t be a problem.

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The advent of Bittorrent technology has been a godsend for me and the way that I watch TV. Especially in terms of watching shows that aren’t available in the states. Over the past week I’ve been able to download about 125 episodes of a Japanese anime called Naruto, the BBC revival of the classic Doctor Who, and (domestically speaking) the entire first seasons of Battlestar Galactica and Cartoon Network’s The Venture Brothers. In case it hasn’t become more obvious, I have a bit more time on my hands now here and there, so I’ve been taking advantage of it on an ah… wholesale level.

I can’t say enough good things about the new Doctor Who series. Christopher Eccleston does a marvelous job portraying the galaxy and time-hopping Doctor. He manages to take personality traits and quirks from all the previous Doctors and embed them into one cohesive whole, while adding his own personality quirks into the mix. You can almost ’see’ the previous Doctors in him while he works. It’s amazing. The same old BBC special effects are at work too. At times believable, at other times cheesily campy and contrived. But at the heart of it are brilliant stories and characters that resonate with you. Or at least me anyway.

Naruto is a good old fashioned Anime from Japan that tells the story of the boy Naruto who is on a quest to become the greatest Ninja in his village. It chronicles everything he goes through as he undergoes his Ninja training. I chuckle every time I see the ‘replacement technique’ and a person disappears, only to be replaced by a log. Trust me, you have to watch it to appreciate it. Think of it as chess with Ninjas and lots of exposition between blows. If you’re not a fan of Anime, you won’t get it, so don’t try and understand it.

You already know how mad I am about Battlestar Galactica, so I’ll save the lather, rinse, and repeat.

Finally, we come to the Venture Brothers. This absolutely has to be the funniest show I’ve seen in awhile. Imagine Jonny Quest only with teenage fraternal twins, a completely dysfunctional family and a "walking Swedish murder machine" as their family bodyguard. Throw in some archenemies like the butterfly-themed "Monarch" or the steel-jawed "Baron Underbite" and trust me, it’s worth the time you spend watching and/or downloading/tivo-ing. It’s totally ludicrous, totally smart, and has enough social and cultural nostalgia factors thrown in to have you laughing while you re-watch episodes to catch everything you missed the first three times through.

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I have decided to not run for the church board this year. I am slowly beginning to disassociate myself with the political and social quagmire that exists there. I feel that in time, we will move on unless things change. I have been examining my faith and my beliefs lately in depth. I still believe in God, and I still believe in Jesus.

I don’t normally take my social and political leanings from bumper stickers, but I saw one the other day that kind of hit my current attitude right on the head. It said: "Personally, I’ve nothing against God, it’s His fan club that I can’t stand."

At the risk of sounding hypocritical, I’ve had it up to here with self-righteous and trumpeting conservatives carrying a supposed banner for the Christian Soldiers. Give me a freaking break. How about we all be a bit more moderate instead people? There’s enough hate, narrow-mindedness, and argument in the world. Maybe if we all shut the hell up long enough to sit down and have some Buffalo Wings together we’d find out that deep down, we all want what everyone else wants. A place to sit down, relax, and raise a family. But of course, it’s pretty darn well impossible to get a million people together and march down to the national mall chanting "be reasonable, be reasonable." (To quote one of my friends).

No, we all have to be righteous, and indignant, and crass, and terse, and intense. And in the shuffle and hoi polloi Jesus is standing there looking at all of us and thinking to himself, "No… this quite isn’t what I had in mind."

Feh.