Life is good again!

It's been a long time coming... but after two long months of pain and suffering, life is good again.

That's right... the Red Sox won tonight and the Orioles lost. First place, at long last.

Add that to the fact that I just polished off 44 ounces of Mountain Dew at 1:39 in the morning, and the fact that I saw Batman tonight, and you can understand me being in quite the jovial mood.

It would be even better if not for all the people leaving town this week. But with all these people leaving me here and heading all over the state, the country, the world, what have you, it makes it so that I can't help but look forward to getting to return the favor.

I just read that sentence I just wrote, and it sounded really awkward. I really should stop writing things in the wee hours of the morning when my brain is elsewhere. I'm sure they don't make any sense. But... oh well, it's too late to stop now. I should just get to the point.

I'm having this sudden realization: college is gonna be awesome. In addition to getting my physical and confirming financial aid awards and all that boring stuff, I'm starting to get into the fun part of the pre-college grind, and oddly enough, that means I'm thinking about school in June, for the first time ever.

I've talked online to a small handful of future classmates, and they all seem really cool. I can't wait to meet all these people I'm spending my next four years with. And, thanks to a letter I received today, I get to meet them three days earlier than I expected. I just got invited to the international students' orientation, which means I get to come three days earlier and meet all sorts of Jumbos from around the globe. It pays to be a prospective international relations major.

The one thing that gets on my nerves is how slowly all these college things are happening... I don't get an email address until August, nor do I get assigned housing. But I'll get over it... probably by looking at the bright side, and realizing that this way, I get a chance to slow down and enjoy summer. School can wait, I suppose.

On summer, and the freedom that it brings

I'd like to start out by addressing the adoring fans who recently asked me to update this blog (yeah, that's right, both of you). You guys are incredibly lucky. Normally, I would have just ignored your requests since both of you, in your own ways, are obnoxious enough not to deserve this kind of treatment. But thanks to the evil that is The Facebook, which won't let me register without a school email address, which I'm not getting for two more months, I've decided to come back to Blogspot and start writing stuff again. I've gotta get my online time-wasting fix somehow, and this, luckily for you, is the next best thing. So anyway... I suppose this is where I start rambling endlessly about the trials and tribulations of my life. Well then...

The summer before going off to college is shaping up to be an interesting one, as well it should. I'm getting a chance to declare my independence, as it were... in several ways.

First of all, there's independence academically. I rounded out the year nicely, if I do say so myself. Translation: I did just well enough to stay admitted to college. The one class I really worried about was calculus, and yet somehow Mr. Cochran ended up defying the mathematically possible and giving me an A for the semester. How? Because when you are the man, as Mr. Cochran most definitely is, you can do anything you want.

So school is finally over, and all that's left is a summer sure to be chock-full of memories, then four more years of grueling work, then the real world.

How about independence financially? Well, the whole "getting a job" thing didn't pan out exactly as I had planned. But that's fine. I can't work for The Man anyway. I'd rather do things my way, which means piecing together a lot of random sources of temporary cashflow. I did a week of babysitting... that, to put a positive spin on things, built character. But if honesty is your thing, then what I really mean is that it taught me how incredibly hellish kids can be. I don't think anyone should be allowed to have a kid until after they've given it a one-week trial run and decided they're still ready for it. That would make the world a better place.

Other random jobs include selling fireworks (everyone needs to do their July 4th shopping at the fireworks stand in front of Sam's Club), feeding pets for neighbors who go on vacation, and moving tons of furniture.

Plus I'm starting to not suck at poker, which is a good way to make money if you know how to go about it. I've made a few hundred bucks online over the past week and a half, which makes for quite the nice addition to the "Who Needs Full Time Work? Not This Guy!" Fund.

Independence can come in yet another way... namely, independence romantically. I sometimes surprise myself with the life-changing decisions I make. One example of such surprises came about two weeks ago.

While doing what I did was by no means it easy, it did leave me feeling relieved. Now, I can go off to college and start my life with a clean slate, without any emotional baggage that could have made the experience quite a painful one. Life, the way it is right now, feels right.

The great thing about being single (for me, at least) is that it brings about a newfound appreciation for friendships. It took me a while to realize just how many cool people I am blessed to have in my life. Really, you're all awesome. Even those of you who mooch rides off of me daily, or crush me at minigolf, or eat Vermonsters for the bananas, or relentlessly call me "Clinchface," or steal my job at Bodo's, or found fan clubs devoted to certain people in my life who shall remain nameless, or insist on making a movie with me but are too lazy to actually go through with it. That's right, I'm talking about you.

I could go on, but this would only get more rambly than it already is. So I'd rather not. Instead, I'll wrap this up and head to bed. It's been fun... I'll do this again sometime.

Sweet home Chicago, part two

Today was quite the bittersweet day, for many reasons...

Today was bitter because a certain neighbor of mine who shall remain nameless (actually... it was Branden Ly) was banging on my door at 7:12 this morning asking for a pair of headphones. I think he knew I was asleep and he was just doing it to piss me off.

Sweet because breakfast at this hotel is an all-you-can-eat buffet and I was HUNGRY. Three plates of bacon, eggs, hash browns, and biscuits with gravy, followed by some strawberries and pineapple for dessert? Count me in.

Bitter because breakfast for six set us back $97.

Sweet because we walked all over our first-round opponents from North Cedar, Iowa.

Bitter because New Trier, Illinois humbled us in the second round.

Sweet because one of the New Trier guys interrupted one question after the first four words, with the answer "syphilis." The reader's response was not "that's correct"; rather, his choice of words was "you know your syphilis." I struggled to control myself.

Bitter because the rest of the morning was an uphill battle, as we struggled to stay in the hunt, and finished at 2-3 at the lunch break.

Sweet because I had swiped two apples from the breakfast buffet, saving myself the arm and leg I would have had to pay for a real lunch.

Bitter because we realized that if you need a winning record to make the playoffs, that meant we needed to win four of our last five to finish 6-4 for the Saturday rounds.

Sweet because we got off to an excellent start toward that goal, winning three straight, and they weren't too close. We were feeling quite respectable at 5-3, only one win away from playing Sunday.

Bitter because Fort Mill, South Carolina's team wasn't about to let us coast into day two. They snapped our winning streak in a hurry.

Sweet because during the break between rounds, one Kenneth W. Jennings III was sitting around in a room right down the hall from ours, and I eventually built up the courage to approach the man and ask for an autograph.

Bitter because he wasn't as cheerful of a guy as he seemed to be on TV... although I suppose that's the result of being surrounded by four hundred nerds like me, all of whom are desperate for an autograph. I got the feeling I wasn't the first one to make the request this weekend.

Sweet because... who cares how nice he is, he's Ken Freaking Jennings and I got his autograph!

Bitter because not even a good luck kiss to my precious autographed NAQT scoresheet gave me the strength to lead the team to victory over Bergen County, New Jersey in the final round. They played well and they deserve to be playing tomorrow, but oh MY, are they annoying.

Sweet because not playing tomorrow means having a day to do some sightseeing around beautiful Chicago.

So yeah... it wasn't too bad of a day. It concluded with some deep dish Chicago pizza (filling, like whoa) and a ton of hilarious stories from Mr. Prather. And now I'm sitting here writing this, listening to all the new music I downloaded with this wicked-fast internet connection, drinking my three-dollar root beer, and preparing for what should be a fun day tomorrow.

Life could be worse.

Sweet home Chicago...

First of all... to anyone who caught the extremely lame Blues Brothers reference in the title of this entry... I apologize. Feel free to exit this window right now; I know I deserve that.

To the rest of you... read on. Exciting tales lie ahead. Well, not really. But they're mildly interesting. Maybe.

Anyway! I'm on my laptop right now, using the internet connection in my hotel room in Chicago, Illinois. Because that is the gloriousness that is the National Academic Quiz Tournaments (NAQT) high school championship.

So for those of you who weren't already aware, I'll be livin' it up in the Windy City (misnomer of the century, by the way) 'til late Sunday night. There's a bunch of preliminary rounds tomorrow, and then playoffs Sunday if we finish tomorrow's festivities with a winning record (which we darn well better). So I'll try and write lots of stuff to keep all the adoring fans posted.

The highlight of my day came at about 7:14 pm Central Time... in the lobby of the O'Hare Crowne Plaza hotel. We were just checking in to our wonderfully luxurious suites, when one of my heroes walks by. A god among men. Well, more like a geek among nerds. But whatever... tie my bow tie and stuff a pocket protector in my shirt, I was ecstatic.

It was the one and only Ken Jennings. Better known to many as simply The Jeopardy Guy. He's made over three million bucks answering trivia questions on TV. Dweeb? Perhaps. The man? Most definitely. My heart skipped about eight beats, and I only barely remained conscious. But I got a good glimpse of the man, the legend, the... you know what, I'm rambling just a little bit, let's stop here. Let's leave it at this... it was awesome.

Anyway... in other news... graduation rehearsal was fun (and on a related note, if anyone is one ticket short, I may be able to help... inquire within). Chicago is wicked expensive... or at least the restaurants in this hotel are... I ended up settling on a $10.60 sandwich-and-chips combo. The internet connection in this hotel is awesome and I am totally getting Limewire on this laptop and downloading every song ever made.

That's about all I have floating around in my head right now. More is to come later this weekend, unless I get distracted with other stuff going on here or I get lazy or I'm in a bad mood. So in other words, don't get your hopes up.

And one last thing... Sarah/Lauren/Betsy/Hannah/Sarah/Tiffany... I'm really sorry I'm here and not at your graduation party. Really, seriously, I wish I could be there, but it's not exactly possible what with this whole Nationals thing to take care of. Deepest of apologies... I'll make it up to you guys somehow.

And now, really, I think that's it for now.

Come on, baby.... don't you wanna go back?
To that same old place... sweet home Chicago?

No? Okay, didn't think so. Good night.