Things must be pretty good...

So yeah, sorry I haven't really posted in a while, but things have been pretty rad for me this week. It seems like I get the urge to post more often when I've got crap that I want to bitch and moan about... I should try to get over that. Although, that's a major part of what this blog is for; an outlet for me to vent. I just haven't really needed to vent about much this week.

Sarah Palin was chosen as the Rep's vice presidential candidate. I can't say I know anything about her. I mentioned her in class today and the response (in my most red class I think) ranged from "I want McCain to die so she can take over" to "She's hot... I'd totally tap that. Even after 5 kids, I'd hit that sideways." Again though, I don't know anything about her excpet her political history in Alaska and that her 17 year old daughter got knocked up. I'm not surprised that everyone can't seem to talk about anything other than the baby mama, but I don't really think its that big a deal. I'm sure it's 'a good story' for today's ignorant celebrety gossip driven American public, but seriously it's not a big deal. I mean, what else is there to do in Alaska but get drunk and screw? Of course teenage girls are gonna get preggers there.

The funniest part about this to me is that all the people who are standing up for Palin, saying that 'this just shows that politicians are regular people too' are the same people who've said something like 'did you hear so and so's daughter went and got herself pregnant? So and so is such a horrible mother, but I'm not too surprised... you know the apple doesn't fall far from the tree' and then so and so doesn't get invited to the church bizaar that year.

Anyways...

This weekend promises to be a pretty good one. It's already started out to be pretty fun. I went shag dancing last night. They had a live band... the lead singer would shout a bunch of unintelligible words between songs, and the keyboard/saxiphone player looked like the little dude from Smokey and Bandit, but the music wasn't too bad. They played more bluesy stuff then beach music, but we still had a really fun time.

The Crowders are in town tonight, so there will be a lesson and dinner. Then a movie afterwards. Then I'm not sure what else, I may hang out with the Nicks tomorrow night. Whatever I do, I think I'm going to enjoy it.

Things are looking up...

Kick Ass Weekend!

This weekend has been pretty darn fan-tab-ulous! It has been jam packed with fun experiences, shared with all sorts of different people. A great reprieve from the depression created by this rainy lonesome week. I won't go into detail of everything that's happened; that would take too long, but I will make a list.

*Babylon AD - terrible Vin Diesel movie, but fun with a group to make fun of it
*Edwards Mill Bar & Grill with the same group
*Reading Neuroscience!
*Flea Market Adventures! - If you're looking for some cast iron topless mermaids, now's your chance!
*Bo Jangles Chicken Biscuit - YUM!
*More Neuroscience!
*DWW Pool Party! - Hot dogs, ka-babs, pool, hot tub, movie, and fun people to share it with!
*Bo Jangles two piece dinner - double yum!
*Even more neuroscience (although I think I've only gotten through about 20 pages total this weekend... so far)
*Mall Ramblings - Didn't find anything, but still a fun trip
*Bicycle Journeys - always fun
*Dr. Horrible's Sing along Blog - I mentioned in my last post, you should totally check it out! Do it, now!
*Farmer's Market Seafood - I ate shrip until I wanted to puke... perfect!
*Farmer's Market - sampled peaches and the first grapes of the season, Nick had never tried one before... also purchased some cacti
*General Hang out time with a buddy

So, I've done a lot of fun stuff. The best part of this weekend is that it's not even over for me yet! I don't have to teach until Wednesday, so I've got another day of weekend! (try not to be too jealous)

Captain Hammer can suck it!

I'm having a totally awesome weekend! I may tell all about it later, but for now... let's talk about Dr. Horrible!!!

This totally made my night last night! If you're a Joss Whedon fan and haven't seen this then you need to. I love the music, I think I need to find the sound track.

Plus its Neil Patrick Harris... kick ass!

NSFW?

This one goes out to my friends who still have strong connections to their middle school sense of humor. You know who you are. Enjoy the shortest Me First song I know of. You have to click PLAY on the right side of the screen. (This might not be safe for work...)

OOH!

I got business cards today! I feel important now. They're just cards for the dance studio, but now I feel more official. Plus, whenever I do volunteer lessons and people ask me where I teach, now I can give them my card and I'll get a lesson out of it. More lessons mean more money, and that's helpful. Plus the more I keep myself busy the better.

don't cry for me

Although I've been having all sorts of sadgasms in my posts of late, don't feel too bad for me. This is just a phase of adjustment. I promise I will bounce back from this eventually. I'll keep my promise, don't keep your distance.

Madonna ft. Me First and the Gimme Gimmes @ Yahoo! Video

This is a pretty cool vid. I really like how the lips sync up. Awesome.

and another thing

It sucks to have my huge, kick ass bed all to myself. I'm so damn lonely in that bed. The worst part about it is that I know the person I want to share my bed with is in bed with another man.

The fact that I'm a little sad right now is compounded by the fact that my EX is so openly happy, and has never been so happy in her life, now that she's with her new man... ugh.

My mood is good.

Right now, at this very instant, my mood is good. For the first time since 1956 our football team has been shut out in back to back games (whoever taught Daniel Evans how to pass deserves a punch in the face), but I feel good. The game was less important than the ability to spend some time with friends who I have not seen in a while.

I've had a rough time of it the last couple of days. That new unavailable girl's boyfriend has moved down, and I have not seen her since. But, you know, I think that's ok. I told my brother about the whole situation, and his response was "Aren't there any single girls in Raleigh?" I'm sure there are bro, but I haven't met many of them yet, or at least I haven't met many that flirt back with me. As I think it about this whole thing I don't think much of it's my fault. I mean I'll take some of the blame. As soon as she told me she had a boyfriend I should have told myself 'Thanks for playing' and moved on to the next girl, but she didn't make it that easy. (Warning: I'm about to bitch for a minute) First, she waited until the end of what seemed to be a pretty fun first date to mention that there was 'some guy back home.' In an attempt to avoid this situation I asked her if she was seeing anyone. Refering to him as 'some guy back home' (home is 1,200 miles away) implied that he wasn't very important and that I had an 'in.' She calls me up a day or so later to see if I want to go out to dinner with her and another girl. I go, and she sits next to me... noticably closer than she needed to, does all the flirty things of bumping and nudging and smiling and everything else. At this point I'm thinking that this super cute girl has a thing for me. Then the next time we were supposed to hang out she blew me off, so I should known right there that this wouldn't work out, but when I see her the next day flirtations continue and tentative plans are made to hang out again. Again I get blown off (and I do something stupid that I'm not going to talk about here). Eventually though we do hang out again... at a pool... and she's in a hot little bikini. This is where I find out that 'some guy' is a boyfriend of three years who is about to move in with her. We've hung out and chatted and FLIRTED over a week and I'm just now learning that there's a live-in boyfriend on the way?! It's too late now, I'm hooked! Boyfriend's not here yet, he hasn't moved down yet, there's a chance he might not move down, I have a chance (the things we tell ourselves...). On the way back to her place we stop for pizza and we walk around campus some in the warm summer night. We both start to look at each other for a little too long, if you know what I mean... but we keep it a short walk. I take her home and help her set up some stuff in the apartment and play with her kittens... and we start to talk about the boyfriend and the conflicting thoughts and feelings that she's having (We agree that we just has what could have been called a great date had she been single and able to call it a date). I get a couple of really great hugs and go home, but we make plans to each other the next day. Of course I get blown off again, this time its for school work, so I'm okay with it, but we end up talking on the phone for an hour and a half. We talk about all sorts of things, and she tells me that she's never talked to guy like this without having dated him for a while first, which is odd to me. Educated conversation just seems like its one of those things you do to learn whether or not you want to date someone. We've gone and started to build a relationship, but we've built it on borrowed time. So we go out for breakfast the next morning. I pick her up and she's in a hot little skirt that she purposely wore to look hot for me. Whether she admits it or not, I know she wanted to look for me. We sit across from one another and often catch ourselves looking at each other. She tells me to quit it, but she's looking at me just as often. In another circumstance we would have torn into each other, but we didn't. We talked, we had fun.... she let me hold her hand for few seconds before she thought better of it. I dropped her off at home, and she was good. Nothing but a hug goodbye and as my hands slid down her arms to leave she caught my hands and gave a little squeeze. The kind of sqeeze that says I really like you. And that was it. The end. I haven't really seen her much since. Now, there were a few meetings here and there that I haven't mentioned, but these were the big ones. These were the ones that strung me along. Not only did she let me do it, but I think she even encouraged it. It's been almost a week since breakfast, and I think I've just about broken free from this spell.

She tells me she want to get together and have more 'deep' philisophical type discussions; she can't have intellegent conversations with 'some guy'. I want to, but I'm not sure I should. This goes back to my whole, if it hurts when you do that then stop doing that thing, maybe I should limit my exposure to her... or maybe I'm a big boy and can just suck it up and get over it. But I know what I don not want to happen. I do not want to become some kind of substitute boyfriend that she can have deep, meaningful converstations with while 'some guy' gets to share a bed with her. That's like dealing with some of the hard parts of having a girlfriend but not getting any of the rewards.

I'm not saying that I'm completely over all this yet, but talking about it here will certainly help me to get over things, or at least deal with things better. I feel like I haven't really had many people to listen to me lately... whether anyone actually reads all of this or not, at least I feel like someone has listened to me.

And yet my mood is still pretty good. The high of fellowship and football :)

It's funny. This is not at all what I thought this post would be about. I thought I'd talk about getting kicked out of the office, or if blissful ignorance is better than love lost, or mention an update on unavailable cute fiesty photographer and how I taught her boyfriend how to dance... I guess I need to post more often to get all this crap out there.

My cat's modest.

This is old but good.

I have one shiny nail...

I went to mall to get a new pair of slacks... and I returned with a new pair of jeans. Oh well. They were on sale, they're made from organic cotton (whoop de doo), and they're in my size (which is always a tough find). Honestly, the primary reason I didn't come back with a pair of slacks is that I couldn't find my size in any that I really wanted. I found one pair at the GAP that I liked and that fit me, but they're brown. I wasn't sure I had shoes that would go with them well enough, plus the last time I got pants that fit from GAP, they shrank in length and the break was too short after the first wash... so I'm a little nervous to get another pair. I really want some Producer pants from Express, but the nice ones are so freakin expensive!

While I was at the mall, an eastern european saleslady pounced on me. I understood very little of what she was saying; her accent was pretty thick. She asked me if I had heard of the dead sea and then scooped up my hand and started to buff my index finger nail. Now it's all shiny and smooth... I told her I don't need any. She tried to convince me my Mom and Grandmother would love me if I bought them some. I left. I hope my Mom and Grandma still love me.

Quote of the day...

"I don't know what they're called; I just pick 'em up and shoot things with 'em."

- A girl in one of my classes today talking about the different guns allowed during different parts of the hunting season.

Hilarious moment in class. She doesn't quite fit the stereotype of a hunter, at least in my mind. So the surprise of it made for enhanced hilarity.

When life is hard you have to change

This was one of the first albums I ever bought with my own money, and this was one of my favorite songs from it. It made so much since in the depressed ages of middle and high school... although I'm not sure I really payed much attention to all of the lyrics then. The video is one big 90's cliche... but the song still has meaning.

Sometimes things are tough, and you look to sky and question if the big cheese has your interests in mind. And sometimes you wonder if life is really worth livin, but you got to keep on dreamin... when you stop you know you're gonna die, and right now I don't wanna die. Move right on to tomorrow. When life is hard you've got to change.

I've heard of four eyes, but four ears?

When we hear 'Mutant' we often think of X-Men and other heroes... but really mutants are just weird little offshoots of the norm that become a new norm. So, you think Yoda here will become a new breed? I wonder how many scientists are asking to clone him...

I've done it again!

I have let something I can't have make me unhappy. The worst thing of this is that I walked right into it with my eyes wide open. I knew what I was getting myself into, but I did it anyway. It's like getting high... you know that you're eventually going to come down and crash hard, but you take the hit anyway. That's one of the reasons I've never done drugs. It's stupid to do something for temporary enjoyment when you know that in the end you'll be worse off than when you began.

I knew very early on that I wouldn't be able to get what I wanted, but I put my blinders on and reveled in the moment of something new. Now the moment has nearly passed, and I am beginning a fast and bumpy descent. A crash is eminent.

Dance Your Cares Away!

Dance your cares away
worry's for another day
Let the music play
Down in Fraggle Rock!



So the Fraggles, who the kids are supposed to like and therefore emulate, are basically cracked out (just look at their eyes) hippies who live in a commune and steal from others for survival...

The other classes, the Doozers and the Gorgs, are the workers and farmers of this society and they're constantly belittled and made fun of. Fraggles don't just destroy the buildings that the Doozers erect, but they consume them. Literally consuming the resources of another culture and thinking little of it. The people that are working hard to build an infrastructure are trivialized and their work is consumed by hippies... there has to be some kind of rhetorical statement being made there. Then, we look at the Gorgs, the rich and agrarian group. They are portrayed as greedy and stupid; always being outsmarted by the agile hippie fraggles who steal their radishes.

No wonder my generation has little respect for the honorable professions of construction and agriculture... we were indoctrinated to believe that those workers are insignificant and ignorant!

PS - This is just based on my memory of the show and is a pretty shallow analysis. I was really just in a sort of bad mood when the theme song played on my Zune. It made me happy so I wanted to share the song... as I was watching the video is when I started thinking about all this other stuff...

can't brag about me, can't forget me

I've been having trouble sleeping lately, which is pretty odd for me. I mean, it's not uncommon that I've had problems falling asleep in my past, but now I can't seem to stay asleep. I keep waking up fairly early. Now when I say early many of you will scoff since I mean about 8:30, and I guess that it won't really be a problem next week when I have to get up at that time to start teaching.

I went to bed last night at 3 AM, and I woke right up at about 6:45 this morning. I went back to sleep, but I had what I guess you'd call a nightmare. It was the first day of class, and I was doing my first day stuff in public speaking, but I was in the wrong room. I think the dream started with me finding out that I had been moved out of the good classroom up stairs and into one of the crappier ones in the basement (which is a true fear I have before classes begin; right now all of my classes are in good rooms, but things can always change), except it wasn't one of the rooms in the basement of Winston, it was one of the rooms in the basement of the 200 building from my old high school. Now, the 200 building was one of the oldest, most run down, and crappiest buildings at good ole WF-R HS. My students were acting just like a bunch of high schoolers act when a new substitute teacher walks in the door. It was insane. Complete disrespect. I began to introduce myself and the class and they started talking to each other, and just like high school the volume slowly increased; as one group talks louder the others get louder to compensate and before you know it there's a roar across the room. Nothing I tried would quit them down (after I woke up I even thought to myself of Y techniques I should have tired but didn't think of in the dream). I seem to remember arguing with them about something... I think grades, or how the class was set up. I was beginning to lose my cool and get irate when my boss, Christi walked in with this look on her face that said, "Dennis, what the hell are you doing in here?!" Then I started telling the class that if they didn't like the way things were set up then they should just drop, and that by tomorrow I'd have 25 more students trying to add the class to take their spots, but when I talked about that Christi tried to counter. Actually, I don't think she ever spoke, instead communicating with me through unhappy and disdainful looks of disapproval. I remember getting the message from her, in some psychic/nonverbal method, "Don't let them drop, the department needs all the money it can get. We really need these crappy students!!" I think it was about that time that I decided I couldn't deal with it and I head for the door. Just like magic, when I walked out the door of the classroom I woke up.

I guess I do still have some latent jitters surrounding the start of new semester. Not so much fears about the students or the types of groups I'll get, but fears about whether or not I'm respected in the department. I've been observed before and I've gotten outstanding marks from my observations, but I'm still afraid that one day someone will walk in and look at me with "What the hell are you doing" written across his or her face.

I need to leave the department. There are very few faculty there who really make me feel welcome. I understand where they're coming from though. The department is growing and they need fewer and fewer lecturers, and as a graduate from the program they want to be able to either brag about me or forget me. I don't think they can brag about me. I didn't go on to some prestigious doctoral program, and I guess working for them as a lecturer isn't a position they feel is good enough to brag about.

At orientation Dr. D said something to the extent of, 'don't get stuck in the busy high school hallway; afraid to move because of all the activity around you. Keep your head down and keep moving.' I felt like she was talking right to me. I'm stuck here in the hallway of NCSU, and I think they want me to move on. Although, the very next thing she said was that this should be our home and we should make ourselves comfortable here.

Honestly, I am very happy with what I do. I'd like to teach something else (and I don't know if I'll ever get that chance in this department), and I'd be happy staying here as long as they'd have a need for me, but I don't think they're happy with me around. They can't just forget me, I'm around all the time, and they can't really brag about me. After all, as a lecturer I get the distinct message of, 'You are replaceable.' The worst part is that I am. Every one's got a master's degree now...

On another note completely, I saw my Ex and her new bough(sp?) together for the first time this week. I'm not sure if they saw me or not... it doesn't really matter if they did. I was actually on what may or may not have been a date (why are things so complicated?) with a cute new girl in the department. We were sitting enjoying a popsicle and fun conversation when I saw them walk by in a very comfortable embrace... much like one I used share with her. Even though I thought that I was pretty good about all of this now, it still knocked the wind out of. It really felt like my heart stopped beating for a few seconds (not in the romantic way as much as the palpitatious way). There's a lot more I can, and kinda want to, say about all of this, but I've already wasted too much of my day on this post.

I'm supposed to go with the new girl to help get new kitten supplies (again not sure if this is a date; I could write a very long post about how this new girl is confusing me). So, that should be fun.

I'll try to have a happier post next time :)

Glory Hole'n...

I haven't posted as much this week. I keep getting wrapped up in the Olympics, and I've gone out a little more that usual.

I went to see Tropic Thunder; Ben Stiller's new movie. It was okay, but it's no Zoolander (I don't think he'll ever top that one for me). Robert Downey Jr, a certain scientologist, and all the cameos are really what make that movie worth watching.

I'll actually keep tonight's post short... mainly because I can't even make fun of what I've embedded below. Seriously Fox, we're actually modeling our new game shows after the Japanese? Japanese game shows are supposed to be overdubbed in a mocking fashion (thank you MXC) not replicated in the US. I saw this commercial tonight, and I tried to find the whole thing, but this was all I could get at the moment. Send me a link if you find the full commercial. Enjoy.

Butter for my Bread (say it fast... its rhythmic)

Much has happened in the past day or so... I'll try to be brief, but I know that's not my forte.

I slept in pretty late Tuesday, thanks to an exorbitantly long and late phone conversation with a certain unavailable, cute, feisty photographer (... who I am very happy being just friends with :p ). Then I proceeded to waste much of the day on my new acquisition Guitar Hero III. I know, I know... I've fallen victim to GH, but it's so much easier to jam with that than it is to find a group to play real music with.

I was inside so long yesterday that I felt a little sick when I left for Inga's, but I still had a good lesson/work out there (except for killer cramp I got in my side). Again the girl I work with said she was going to come, and again she did not. So far she's developing a flaky reputation with me. We shall see if she still want to practice some after our classes tomorrow. BUT, back to Inga's, my bota fogos are not as wrong as I thought the were. Last week she was leaving out the & (pelvic action) on purpose to emphasize the peeling of the foot. This week she came up to Aksel and I specificly and told us we should be putting the & in. So, I was still not rolling through the foot enough, so it's good that I focused on that for a week, but it was a relief to know that I wasn't way off. I feel like I got a lot of good work on my whisks last night too, really getting the pelvic action well. Hard to describe in words as I'm not at that level of understanding yet, but I could probably show it. I always end up partnering with the weird old ladies that are there. It's not fair, Aksel always seems to get some young girl who knows what she's doing. Last night I was with an older woman who kept making eyes at me the whole time. It was really awkward. The more she started to get into the samba action, the more loose she got, and more she was looking at me like a dirty little old woman. She wasn't that old though... reminded me of a librarian, but not the sexy librarian of fantasy. More like the mean librarian in elementary school who always shushes you.Overall it was a good lesson.

Afterwards I met Nick and Nicky at their place and we went to Sushi Blues for HALF PRICE SUSHI!!!! We didn't get as early as we should have, so we had to wait a while to get a table. Not really because there were a lot of people there, but the ones that were weren't leaving. They just sat around watching the Olympics. We got a table though and I pigged out! I ate three rolls all by myself! A rainbow roll, a santana maki, and an across the street carmen roll. I finished them all! We sat and watched the Gymnastics for a while too. I'm sure all those girls are way too young, but one is pretty hot, and she kept making mistakes. It was a bad day for her, but she can take solace in the fact that she's the hottest on the team (UPDATE - I checked and she's almost 21, so I can totally check her out and say she's hot). Really fun time, but it was midnight by the time we were done, so we had to scoot to get Nicky home so she could get up in time for work.

Then I woke up this morning in kind of a gloomy mood; it's a gloomy day. I watched some Olympic swimming and sat around in a haze of gloom. That all dissipated when I met up with Matt for lunch. We talked about everything ranging from the Olympics to Guitar Hero to what our old drummer's up to now and the conflict with Georgia and Russia. I felt in a much better mood after lunch, and I drove out to Jerry's Art-a-rama and got some canvases. They guy gave me like 50% discount since they didn't have the size I wanted.

So I might paint a little today, or maybe I'll play Guitar Hero for a bit, but I'm really looking forward to tonight when I'm going to watch Tropic Thunder! We'll see if it's worth the protesting...

That's Life

This has become my new theme song. I am not gonna let things get me down, my heart won't buy it. Unlike ole blue eyes there, come July, I'm not gonna roll up in a ball and die... I'm gonna wait at least until December :)

Are age and happiness inversely proportional?

For the artist, this is a character with a full back story, that I must admit I have not read. What I find interesting is the expressions. Does this piece say that we lose happiness as we age, or perhaps that giddy excitement is for the youth? My visual rhetoric professor always said that intent is less important than perceptions. So, while the artist is more than welcome to add her two cents, I want to know what you, the readers think. Try to base your thoughts on only the image; create your own meaning for it. I don't want this to be a critique on the drawing itself (remember my BE NICE rule), just the meaning derived from it. This might be something fun, and it can give all my lurkers a chance to come out and say hi :)


Progression II by ~Snicks on deviantART