No Time to Write

so I'll just post a poem. Pathetic.

Just Kidding!

Looking forward to Easter. I have a test Friday, and I have to cover a shift for the person who covered my Thursday night shift so I could hang out with Ann and the SDSU Navs. It was so much fun. Here is funny story...

On Friday, my friend Daniel De La Huerta and I were studying together (Bible) in the University of Arizona library. Now the Arizona library connects through an underground tunnel to the Integrated Learning Center. This is featured prominently on the Arizona Ambassador's Tour that prospective students take. The tour actually passes right by where Danny and I were studying.

Down in the Lab, there are these study rooms that are completely enclosed in glass, and have network hubs, dry erase boards, markers, and other helpful things for group meetings, that kind of thing. Fridays are busy days for the tours, and a large group of students and parents would pass by about every ten minutes. We noticed that each time they walked by our glass enclosed study room, the tour guide would make a gesture towards us and everyone would turn and look. It was probably something like, "Here are students utilizing one of our great group study rooms, etc."

Now, as often happens, a funny thought occurred to me. I had an image of us jumping around like monkeys, and the tour guide saying something like "Here are some of our favorite students, the monkey students." Ordinarily, I might have chuckled, and gone back to my work. But Danny was there with me, and I had to tell him about it. Also, I figured, he would be the one guy who would actually be willing to do it with me.

He laughed alright. We immediately came up with several other ideas. What if we got into a fight? What if we were practicing opera? What if we both fell off our chairs?

We went back to our Bibles. Several minutes later, another group walks by, and I look at Danny. He grins. We immediately grab everything we can find and start tossing it into the air, jumping around on the tables and chairs, and making loud monkey noises.

The parents and students looked completely confused, then some started to smile.

Whatever

Jane's comments are wholly unfounded. I write with a greater frequency then her anyways, and I don't have posts that are 95% pictures either.

That said, here is an update...

1. I hung out with the SDSU Navs down at our church this past weekend, seeing my good friend Ann Pauloski. Ann is intense and passionate about the gospel. She does nothing halfway. In this regard, we are very similar.

2. Pray for SDSU navs during their time there. I honestly think that the Mexican church is in a better state than the American one. If I were a missionary, I would feel them ministering to me. There is a greater spiritual darkness in our country then in Mexico.

3. Sunday night, I had gnocchi and italian sausages (along with a Trader Joe's chardonnay) at my friend Michael's house. Reminded again of the joys of conversation with good friends.

4. Work today.

A motion

On behalf of my entire family, I move that David write in his blog at least once every two days. All in favor?

The Joys of Skipping Class

Today I had five classes. I went to two of them. Senioritis hits hardest in the third senior year.

But it is hard to get worried. I never missed a class during my freshman and sophomore year of college. Then, I took a class called 16th-century counterpoint. It was the must stultifyingly dull class I have ever had. One week I was sick, and missed three days. I went up to the professor to ask him if I had missed anything. He didn't know who I was (class size--11). I began to consistently skip Fridays, then Mondays as well. I got an A. Nothing fuels wrong behavior like a lack of consequences.

This began a nasty trend. School is so consistently boring for me, that a class I don't feel like going to, I simply won't go to. But classes that are interesting, I never miss. For example, I have not missed my Music Theory lecture a single time this semester. The TA run discussion of the same class? I have gone to four times this entire semester, all of them on test days. Yet my grade sits at a high B.

Here is where it gets ridiculous. I attended two lectures of a ten lecture set, read the notes of a friend once, sat the test, and got a 94.

However, if a cautionary tale is needed, last semester, I attended my Biochemistry class three times. I failed it.

Here are the rules, therefore, for skipping class:

1. The class must be boring.
2. The professor must not know you by name.
3. You must have a GPA of at least 3.5.
4. You must not be in danger of failing the class.

There you have it. Don't skip class.

Confirmation

It is official. I received my confirmation email today from the Navs. I am going on Edgecorp next year.

Killing a Dog

The dog had been sitting in the same spot for over 28 hours when I first noticed it. Most likely, it had fallen off the ridge next to the church, breaking its back and leaving it paralyzed. In the first hours, it had yelped and screamed, disturbing the sleep already hindered by the fact that I was sharing two sleeping bags amongst three people.

"You have to kill it," Bryce said. But he had left that afternoon, and the dog, no longer yelping, was forgotten. When I noticed it, it was sitting in a pool of water left by a broken pipe, eagerly lapping up the water. From my position, the dog looked comically as if it were sitting with its legs hanging into a pool or hot-tub, and my first reaction was to chuckle. I turned away, forgetting about the dog.

It was Neil that brought the dog's true situation to my attention. By this time the pool had dried up, and the dog was becoming badly dehydrated. Its death, when it inevitably came, would be slow and painful. For now, the dog sat undisturbed, brought by a lack of water and understanding to an apparent stoicism regarding its fate.

"We have to kill it," said Neil. I agreed, though with more hesitation, not having grown up on a farm. We continued to repeat this to each other throughout the workday, each unwilling to take the first active step.

Around five, I grew impatient. The dog was now obviously suffering. I grabbed Neil, and encouraged by his sister Layne, grabbed three utensils, not usually associated with killing a dog, but nevertheless useful for such a task. Two shovels, and a massive metal bender, for backup. Neil after all is a massive guy, capable in my estimation of dispatching a dog.

We cleared out the area, guarded by several with knowledge of what we were doing. The plan was simple. Neil would knock the dog unconscious with a shovel. Then we would finish him off with a hefty blow to the head with the metal bender. I stood poised with my shovel, on the off-chance that Neil failed to knock him unconscious with the first strike. This seemed unlikely. It would be quiet, quick, and as painless as possible under the circumstances (for both the ignorant women and for the dog itself).

My stomach quivered slightly as Neil prepared for the blow, shovel extended far above his head. With all force, he swung his shovel down, landing squarely on the dog's head. Immediately the dog began to cry with almost human tones, loud enough to inform any within a half-mile radius that violence was being done upon it. I looked at Neil horrified. Quickly I dispatched a powerful blow myself, with strength that I deemed hard enough to sever the dog's head from its body. The dog merely continued to yelp, louder if possible. Neil struck again. I again made eye contact, and read his anguish, and panic. It was the same as mine. I leveled another blow.

Still, the dog stubbornly yelped, speaking clearly of the injustice it felt was being served. It was not a scream of anger, but of fear and pain.

It was at this precise moment that half of our group drove up the driveway of the church, heads turned towards us, crammed as they were in the back of a truck. It would have been amusing, in a comedy of errors type way, if not for the crunch of metal on bone, and the blood which seeped slowly out of a small spot on the dog's head.

At this point, we had a full audience, among whom stood both men giddy at the violence, and women staring with worried eyes. Not exactly what we had envisioned. The dog had proven to have more life in him then we though, or at least a strangely thick skull. In fact, it was still breathing, the chest visibly rising as it lay, long past reviving. We grabbed three plastic trashbags, stuffing the dog (how it smelled!) into them one-by-one. Even then, it took another ten mintues for the dog to die, the last ragged breaths coming at almost thirty second intervals.

We buried him near the road.

Spring Break

Just so you all know, I will be in Mexico over Spring Break, until next Friday. Hope you all have a great week.

And by you all, I mean the five or so people that read this.

TGIF

Never go to TGIF, ever. Crappy, crappy food, annoying service, horrible ambience. It is a piece of junk. I went there for happy hour and got the Buffalo wings. Worst meal ever. And it was expensive, even with the discount.

I hate those ugly places. Food should be individualized. I think I'll never go to another restaurant which exists in more then one copy. I mean restaurant mind you, not general food place. No more going to crappy, over-priced, un-fun sit-down restaurants with pathetically peppy servers and a bunch of random stuff on the walls.

I am listening to Dmitri Shostakovitch's Third Symphony right now, based on a mass killing of Jews during WWII by a group of Russian soldiers. Of course it is post-Stalin.

It corresponds nicely with the book I am reading, another gift of my sister. It is called "Europe Central," and it won the 2005 National Book Award. More or less, it is a massive collection of inter-connected short stories, envisioned as a coherant whole. The stories all deal with the Communist Russia and Nazi Germany.

I love it so far.

Another Meaningless Acheivement

Which means, of course, that I'm secretly proud of it.

We had our oral presentations in Spanish class this week. The vast majority of the students in the class speak horrendous Spanish, and routinely make simple grammatical errors. The class itself, though competently taught, is hampered by a rigid syllabus that relies more on teaching students the merits of various social systems than on how to correctly use the subjunctif.

It is within this context that I tell you about my own presentation (within my group of five).

The usual habit is for groups to cook some dish from a hispanic country, and then take turns describing what they made and a little bit about the culture of their chosen country. Two of the three groups did this. Because we wanted to do even less work then that, we decided to choose various Hispanic notables, and incorporate them into a dating game-style show. We each wrote parts of the script, and then met once to hash out how it woiuld go. I was the host, and played Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

Being the only group that actually acted, and also the only group that attempted to make jokes, and the only group that relied on something other then memorizing a few facts and repeating them mindlessly in a monotone voice, with a horrific accent, we of course were by far the best group. Some highlights:

1. I would make terrible jokes referencing Gabriel Garcia Marquez books (Ex. El esta buscando por el amor, pero yo creo que no "El Amor en Tiempe de Cholera"), which of course no one caught except the teacher. At that point I would cue a recorded laugh track.

Actually, that's the only highlight. At any rate, the teacher said before hand that we would vote at the end on "Best Actor," and the winner would get five extra points. So of course I won. But trust me, the competition was far from fierce.

Enough of That Crap

Here are the percentages for the six assignments I have had in Chemistry...

1. 42%
2. 71%
3. 82% (Test 1)
4. 84%
5. 93%
6. 98% (Test 2)

That's what I would call a positive trend. It would probably impossible for it to continue. Also keep in mind that my test scores are not raw, but curve-adjusted. Still, I got the highest undergrad score in the class, and managed not to brag about it.

So, yeah, thanks for your prayers. Things are really going well.

The Bonfire of the Vanities

This is such a great title. And unlike the previous two, I actually deeply enjoy the material behind this title.

I am not a Faulkner man.

The Sound and the Fury

This, of course, is another in my series celebrating my favorite titles of things. This is a book by William Faulkner, but the title is taken from Shakespeare. If you can tell me what play it's from, I'll give you a dollar, next time I see you. Seriously.

Two dollars if you can recite more of the speech, and tell me the context of the speech.

An Idyll for the Misbegotten

In celebration of figuring out how to title my posts, I'm going to do a series of posts in which the titles feature some of my favorite titles of things of all time! If that doesn't confuse you, try watching Mulholland Drive. That will really confuse you. But it doesn't have an evocative title. And on second thought, don't watch it. Unless you have a remote control.

This title is from a George Crumb piece. George Crumb is known for writing beautiful scores. Not beautiful SOUNDING scores, mind you, but rather beautiful LOOKING scores. In fact, there have been art shows which just feature his scores. This particular piece is for two percussionists, two pianists, and a singer. I think. At any rate, I like the title. The piece, mmmm, not so much. I'm not a big George Crumb guy.