BEDA 23- First Day of School

My first day this semester was even more chaotic than the last.

So I came to UMSL in the spring last time. I've never been there during the start of the year in the fall. THERE ARE SO MANY MORE PEOPLE THERE! Parking was 100x worse than I was expecting.

I get to my class on the top floor of the farthest building and sit through that horrible moment where you're not 100% sure you're in the right room. One other guy walks out muttering something about the wrong day. I suddenly see the textbook on the teacher's desk and i'm like ok i'm in the right place.

5 minutes before class starts the teacher goes- ok so this class is intro to astronomy and you need a college algebra and trig pre-requisite. if you're not confident in your abilities to do the math required for this course there is another class with no math that is going on RIGHT NOW. Here's the syllabus for it and the room number.

HALF THE CLASS (including me) GETS UP AND LEAVES.

We all pile into the other lecture hall and confuse the hell out of the teacher.

So 15 minutes into that class I realize that this new class may not fit into my degree requirements. So i freak out and can't pay attention the whole period.

We get out early and I go to the office to check everything. Theres a girl up there with some police because she was yelling at the lady behind the desk. I get sent to another office where they print off a thing. I check the thing and scream (not literally) relief because the class DOES fill the requirement. So the class I WAS in was 1050. The class I switched to is 1001. (hint: higher numbers means harder class). I was in the wrong class to BEGIN with. It was NOT the intro course. My adviser put me in the wrong class because of how it was listed on the sheet. Its difficult to understand but I see how he made the mistake.

Anyway i'm so excited this is all going to work out. I go back to the first office and fill out a form and she tells me that it wont fit because there is a lab that conflicts with one of my other classes. Then she rattles off other classes that all conflict with work. Then she goes, oh no wait that lab is optional you CAN take that class.



Then my second class I walk in and see the guy next to me with the textbook so i'm in the right place. The teacher (who is hot btw) says "this is intro to advertising blah blah blah... and I just want to say.....

WAZAUUUPPPP?!"

and half the class stood up and said

"WAZAUUUPPP?!"

and the second half of the class is like wtf is going on. And the teacher says those who stood up read what she put online for the class and have passed the first assignment.

wow

So my advertising teacher is really animated and uses cool examples of stuff and the class is gonna be awesome.

Then I had work and it was ok but busy.

Tomorrow should go much smoother.

Reading: read some oblivion today. the story i'm on is the greatest.
I havent even listened to music yet today

BEDA 22- The "Real" College Experience

I just got back from hanging out with my little brother's girlfriend at her dorm. She's going to the same school as me WHICH STARTS TOMORROW OMG IM SO NOT READY! But anyway I told her to find all the cool people since she's living there and she's pretty picky with people so I was sure she'd find really cool people.

So I have never been on the south part of campus before so that was cool. And i've never seen the resident halls let alone ever been in one before so it was all an overwhelming experience. Like I thought I knew about it but I had NO IDEA.

My brother had to leave because he didn't have his ID and they wouldn't let him stay without it so It was just me, my bro's gf, and then she called up some people and we hung out.

We talked about harry potter on a level that only someone truly devoted can, and I couldn't believe it was a conversation that was NOT over the internet.

My bro's gf knows so much about what is going on at school that it's kind of scary. Last semester I was there I did my best to be completely unattached to school at all. I just distanced myself from it on purpose.

Tonight made me feel completely different. It was kinda weird to me but it was also exciting. I've decided that I'm going to be more involved this semester because my bro's gf is a way to comfortably ease my way into "real" college life.

There still some more people i'm supposed to meet soon so that will be cool.

First day is tomorrow. 2 classes. I'll be there from 11-2. I have not packed my bookbag yet. I only have 15 minutes in between class so I was gonna get snack stuff to eat but I didn't get any. I am the most unprepared for school I have ever been in my life. Oh well

reading-gonna go now

Last song scrobbled: something by dream theater idk what it was

BEDA 22- Science Be Praised!

Science is some legit stuff. There's nearly a full moon out and it's caused everyone to be crazy today. This literally happens.

I woke up feeling like shit (which i later/before i saw it was a (near) full moon thought that I was having percocet withdrawl or something) and then got into work and one of my coworkers appeared to be sleeping on break. Then i got to the back where I work and literally everyone was there so they sent some people home. and then i was informed that one of my coworkers was having a bad day and I said i was too. and then a different co worker kinda snapped at me.

So myself and everyone that I work with were all snappy and then some of the customers were too!

this guy came in and was yelling at his wife and talking to her like she's a retarded piece of poop and so I gave him some crappy fillets.

some other guy was yelling at his kid

then my least favorite customer came in right when we were about to close and just caused all kinds of shit

I got home and we went to wendy's where these two kids were just screaming their heads off.

no i'm really tired because i had a 5 hour shift w/ no break.

the full moon is an asshole. why do you do this to us!?

reading: about to do a tiny tiny bit but mostly i'm gonna sleep
school in 2 days. tomorrow is my last day of summer and work better not suck
last song scrobbled is something between the buried and me or pantera but i'm not gonna look it up

BEDA 20- Work. and learning

I've been working all day today. just got home and ate. and now i'm about to leave to go to a party so i need to blog for today, and quickly.

work is on my mind at the moment so i'm going to talk about work.

i am very grateful to finally have a job. i like my job. compared to how I think other jobs would be, this one is probably better. its a privately owned business so everything is done however they want it to be which is a great thing. i love the people i work with. we have lots of fun. i like paychecks.

I have learned a lot of things in my 8ish weeks of working. lots of things about different things.

• i've learned about cuts of meat/kinds of varieties of food
• i've learned a lot about food preparation
• i've learned about the physical aspects of working and adapting/healing etc involved
• i've learned that I am very quick on the learning curve and can adapt to new things fast
• i've learned how quickly you can become comfortable with people/get to know them when you are in a work environment with them.
• i've learned a few things about communicating with people
• i've learned lots about dumb people that come into work
• i've learned that I am a hard worker that doesnt fuck around
• i've learned lots of other stuff that is deeper in my conscious that cant really be put to words

its been a crazy experience

have not read today. dont have time to read tonight

no clue what my last song scrobbled was. havent been on my computer all day (this is the family computer)

BEDA 19- Re(re) Evaluating Goblet of Fire

***SPOILERS***

(sorry for any area where this sounds too ranty)

Today I finished reading Goblet of Fire for the third time and then I watched the movie.

The book is excellent. It's definitely my favorite of the series. There are tons of things going on to keep the reader interested. Theres all the mysterious things going on like Bertha Jorkins missing, you've got the world cup, the whole mystery about the dark mark and world cup attack, sirius is saying that things are starting to turn bad again, theres an apparent scandal going on with both ludo bagman and barty crouch that everyone seems to be on the hush about, hermione and the whole S.P.E.W. thing, plus on top of all that you have the triwizard tournament. There was never a time that I was bored in all 733 pages of the book.

The movie, however, is horrible. I still don't know if I would call it the worst one but it's pretty bad. I understand that they had to make cuts to fit the plot into a movie format, i'm ok with that, but they cut out too much. This led to things getting very jumbled up and someone who has not read the book (a considerable amount of people) possibly have no clue what is going on. The entire movie focuses on the triwizard tournament when the things going on in the background are equally important; if not more so because of the way things unfold near the end of the series.

First of all Ludo Bagman is not in the movie at all. Neither is winky, dobby, any of the elves and the entire SPEW thing (which sucks because I was looking forward to seeing the kitchens). I can understand reasons for cutting out anything house elf related for time constraints so no major problems here. Dobby is the one to give harry the gillyweed for the second task, since there is no dobby in the movie neville does it because of the book moody gave him. In the book, moody WANTED neville to tell harry about the gillyweed and that didnt work out so he had to clue dobby to do it. So the fact that there was a part of a plotline missing and they filled the gap with something else that was still in the novel was played off very well.

A major problem with the movie is Barty Crouch. His family plays the ENTIRE role of moody being kidnapped, impersonated, and then getting harry into the tournament in order to get him to where voldemort is. He's supposed to be sick and mysteriously not coming to the events. In the movie he's somehow at the second task and then right after is found dead which basically didnt need to be in the movie AT ALL since in the end they didnt explain ANYTHING about HOW Barty Crouch Jr. was working with voldemort.

Which leads to the horrendous ending to the movie. The whole scene where moody turns back into crouch (david tennant hey that's cool. he plays a good crazy guy)- nothing was explained as it should have been. Granted the clues along the way were not in the movie so what was there really to explain?

Then in the book you have the two scenes that are not in the movie. The first being the scene in dumbledore's office where he tells dumbledore and sirius about everything that happened in the graveyard and they talk things over. Then theres the scene in the hospital wing where harry wakes up to fudge arguing with everyone and saying that voldemort is not back. THIS IS IMPORTANT TO THE STRUCTURE OF THE EVENTS TO FOLLOW! If anything they could have thrown together SOMETHING about fudge not believing voldemort is back. Instead they play it off (badly) in the next film.

Random things I noticed that were dumb for no reason:

• the seats they get at the world cup are laughed about when in the book they are considered good seats
• the world cup scene just not happening at all. HUGE anti climax
• the hungarian horntail was never supposed to break free and chase harry around. this was personified to make a better scene, visually
• this is very picky but it still bugs me that the patil twins (are they twins? i'm not sure) were both in gryffindor when one is supposed to be in ravenclaw.
• The dancing scene with mcgonagall... WHAT WAS THAT?! where did that come from? all that time could have been used to explain other things better
• the band at the yule ball was completely muggle looking/sounding and its my least favorite part of all the HP movies. its just gross
• viktor krum says ONE LINE in the whole movie, at the end, and it's a wisper and lame. fleur pretty much only has one line as well
• Voldemort's eyes are not "catlike" and red. this goes along with the rest of the movies. i just think he'd look a lot more evil if they would have stuck to that.

So the movie was all made for show to be a big hollywood movie and they didnt care that the back stories were important and only focused on the visual aspects of the tournament.

Here are some good things about the film:

• I really started to notice how rupert grint and emma watson are great actors. a lot better than daniel radcliff anyway.
• the dragon was great looking
• the scene from when harry and cedric touch the cup to when they escape back into the quidditch field, everything involving the voldemort scene was PERFECT (except his eyes). All of that was fantastic and great

so there. mysterious things should have happened and the presence of voldemort needed to be a little more dire and fudge could have popped in to say at least ONE thing about how he doesnt believe he's back.

Reading: so totally owned today

Last song scrobbled: idk what it was but it was iwrestledabearonce i can tell you that

BEDA 18 i need a cool title to lure people to read this

So this is late i know but whatever. i couldnt think of anything to write so i'm just gonna go for a free pass and just gun it tonight, as much as i hate doing these type of blogs. i've ha a bit to drink and for some reason when i'm at home, or alone, or in a quiet social setting i tend to do a lot of thinking and get all philosophical.

people hurt. people i care about. it sucks and I dont know what I can do about it.

shits about to get real once school starts because I have a job now. i'm about to be under the busiest/most stressful schedule i've had in my entire life and i dont know how its going to work out/how i'm going to handle it. i can literally only wait and see.

next summer is my last summer. i only have two more years of college left so the next summer will be the last time I am working part time (theoretically) and just waiting for school to start again. because after next summer everything is just work from then on until i retire. that's a scary thought. i dont know if i'm ready for that part of my life. i mean i'm 21 and I still dont do lots of things that people my age do to more towards the grown up parts of life. i've had my time here and it IS time to move on, but I've always liked to stay where I know is comfortable rather than take my chances and see where I can go. This is a bad thing. I'd lie and say its good to be safe and comfortable but where will I ever go if i'm too afraid to to branch out? even the first step of being on your own in college i'm not doing "correctly". i'm living at home while going to college that's 10 minutes from my house. I JUST started paying for my own gas in my car since I got my job. my parents still pay my phone bill. i still live a fairly sheltered life. it sucks but I dont know how I can push myself to get out there to where I should be.


something that I HAVE done on a very mature level the past few years is i've done a LOT of finding myself. trying new ways to get motivated and making different attempts to maintain different levels of things within my life. its all very complex and too vague to be put into words but i've done relentless experimenting and put loads of thought into how I compose myself nowadays.

I analyze some of these things TOO much, i suppose. mostly my social aspects. i AM getting better. having a job puts me in the "public" more often than I normally would be and so I am learning that I can function quite well in a new and changing environment; however novice it may be.

I expect this is what everyone is supposed to do in college though. But i quite like it. i know myself better than I ever have before. i'm able to let things of the past GO for once and learn from where I have messed up.

It's like i'm planning out the way things will unfold for the rest of my life with the way I think, sometimes. Like how I put tons of thought in my plans for living on my own. How I will arrange certain things, make sure I always remember to do other things, set aside time for these other things. Its all happening subconsciously and its kind of strange how its unfolding naturally; as if i've opened up a part of my mind with the press of a button that i've just noticed.

so i think that's enough self reflection for tonight

school in 5 days: bring it on (?)
reading: did some. gonna try to squeeze a bit in tonight so i can finish goblet of fire tomorrow (my truly last day off until winter break unless I happen to get a friday, saturday or sunday off work which is probably not gonna happen)
Last song scrobbled: "Lie"- Dream Theater

BEDA 17-A Letter to David Foster Wallace

Dear Mr. David Foster Wallace,
Let me start off by saying that I know for a fact you are not someone who wants to be immortalized or seen as a kind of celebrity. You said that it was unnecessary for personalities such as authors to be considered something "above society" as a celebrity. Your insight on the subject leads me to assume that you would prefer this letter to be less formal and in a setting where it is intended to commemorate you. However, I must inform you, this is in fact my intention of this letter- to express my appreciation for your "existence" within my life. Notwithstanding, I will attempt to keep it based in reality and fantasize as little as possible.

Dear David,
It is with eagerness that I find myself writing to you today. While your writing is still fairly new to me, it has still created a lasting impact on my life. I was introduced to you last year when an online community I am involved in with some friends partly took place in "Infinite Summer", a recent program where a bunch of people get together to read Infinite Jest over a predetermined period of time. I did not wish to partake in this event because I had heard a few things about how monstrously enormous Infinite Jest is. Near the end of that year I was talking with a few of my friends who were nearly/newly finished with the book. I asked a simple question- "What is it about?" I received mixed answers; which now that I look back on it, an intriguing aspect of the novel was that the "plot" is sort of ambiguous.

The thing that kicked me into wanting to read the novel was that I was told it had lots of drug use and people with messed up personal problems. I'm still not sure why I am fascinated with literature that includes these things but that is when/why I decided to read Infinite Jest.
I finally ordered the book and began researching what I was about to get into. I grew more excited to read it over the weeks prior to starting.

I began reading Infinite Jest 21 January 2010-
http://dailybooth.com/PaulSaysThings/2787230

The first night I read through the second chapter. The second chapter of Infinite Jest is some of my most favorite writing ever. In the middle of reading it I almost screamed at how closely the events and emotions applied directly to my personal life. I later found that this feeling of connectedness through your writing is a reoccurring theme. In all of your different writings I always find at least one line that directly applies to something I have experienced.
I did not have to finish Infinite Jest before considering it one of my favorite novels of all time. I also did not have to wait until after I finished it before deciding that I was going to make it a personal goal to read all of your published works.

8 weeks later I finished Infinite Jest-
http://dailybooth.com/PaulSaysThings/3917227

I was so engrossed at the end of the book that I began to read up to 200 pages per day (with writing that tiny, that's quite impressive). When I finally finished the novel I placed it down, triumphantly, and sat there panting like a dog, in a daze, with my mouth hanging open. This continued for about 20 minutes before I regained consciousness.

I continued to my next steps- i ordered more of your books and began searching the internet for stuff about you. I became entranced with interviews, article, and audio about you as I began to read Brief Interviews with Hideous Men. By now the name David Foster Wallace became analogous with me to the extent that I received a birthday card in the shape of you-
http://dailybooth.com/PaulSaysThings/4205159

I can't remember becoming to rabidly infatuated with something/someone so quickly. This is the part where you might think that my praise of you has become too high and I hold you on a pedestal for irrational or unnecessary reasons. I am currently reading through Oblivion and only have Consider the Lobster left to attain and read through.

Let me explain this by saying that your work has empowered me in many respects.

You have first off written things of high intellectual requirement, however they are written in a way that they can still be understood.As you put it- assuming the reader is smarter than you/they think. This has enabled me to give my thoughts higher power and facilitated my mind to be used as a broader variety of tools.

You have explained things that apply to my personal life in ways that I could not fathom, and you have described things that I am/was too afraid to confront; making those skeletons in the closet come out to face me. Through these mechanisms I am able to re-evaluate aspects of my life and have found ways to embrace, let go, or change them.

You have opened my mind to new ways of thinking and unhinged new areas of my mind, through your way of explaining points of view and being very articulate about miniscule details. You have changed the way I perceive things on a vast scale.

For these reasons and for others that I have not yet grasped in a way that they can be explained through words and expressions I wish to explore ways to express my deep gratitude and affection of you, your mind, your perceptions, your faults, your triumphs, and your experiences, put forth for others to see through the act of writing. I wish to know your place of burial so that I could make a pilgrimage to it just to be in the presence of your remains and bask in the wonders of our sheer proximity. It is probably for this reason, among others, that the location of your grave is hidden, and I respect that.

With all of this I simply wish to say:

Thank you. For everything

Yours respectfully,
Paul D. Huber

(btw i went to http://iwl.me and you can enter something your wrote and it will tell you who you write like. i entered this and it said I write like David Foster Wallace. if that isnt the most perfect thing I dont know what is)
_______________________________
6 days till school.
Reading in a bit here and definitely more tonight
Last song Scrobbled: "A Change of Seasons" Dream Theater