13. Research Papers and More.

As I write these words, I can feel the stress at the back of my mind. I still have several things that I have to complete by next week, but I am putting some of them off. I have to finish my research paper for Political Science, finish revising my English essays, write my summary for the movie Becket that I watched for extra credit in Western Civ, and more. Fortunately, I don't have as much to do as some people do. Otherwise, I'd probably go crazy from it all.

My research paper for Political Science is on the Civil War. Most of my classmates that I talked to are doing their papers on more modern topics, but I wanted to be different. Plus, I had been thinking about the Civil War at that time. When I get bored, I think about many different things. My paper has to be at least 6 pages long, and I just got to the 4th page. It's due on Friday, but I know that I'll have it finished by then. I just have to make myself do it.

Two days ago, one of the three cds that I ordered from Borders finally came in. It was the self-titled first album by Kansas. The other two (Song for America and Masque) haven't come in yet. I listened to it last time. To partly quote Alex from A Clockwork Orange (I've talked about this a lot because I finished reading last week. It's not one of those books that you forget. For one thing, it contains a unique language called Nadsat) "It was bliss, bliss, and heaven." Basically, the early music of Kansas infuses countryish folk rock with classical music. Some songs are written like epics as well. Well, I'm going to probably go play Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion. Have a good day everyone.

12. Reflections on Thanksgiving, Video Games, and A Clockwork Orange

It's that time of year again. The time when all of us look forward to Christmas and the end of the year, and of course, the presents we'll be getting. Christmas is one of my favorite times of the year, and I'm surprised that I'm feeling a bit glum right now. It happens to all of us though. I'm still wishing that it was still Thanksgiving break. I bet everybody's been thinking the same thing for the past few days.

I spent most of my break sitting around the house. I went to work though. I don't want anyone to think that I'm just a couch potato all the time. Loner yes, but not too much of a couch potato. On Saturday, I went to my cousins' house. They live in Bay Springs, MS. They used to live on a chicken farm, but they have a house now. It's still in the country. I played Halo 3 with them, which I haven't played in a couple of months now. I was a bit rusty, but I started doing better. We also played Call of Duty 4, Left 4 Dead, and Bioshock. Left 4 Dead is all about zombies. It's pretty fun. Bioshock was just plain amazing. Scaring at times, but amazing none the less.

I finished A Clockwork Orange yesterday. In all, it took me less than two days to finish reading it. It's a very good book, and I don't really have time or space to go into details. That would take up a whole post by itself. Well, I have to do homework. I have several things due next week, and the stress is starting to rise. I think I can manage it though.

11. Let Love In

Well, we're nearing the end of this week of school. Unfortunately, I can't go home when everyone else can because I have to work in the library. Oh well, I'm getting paid after all. I'm really glad for the break because I've wanted more time off lately. I bet everyone feels the same way.

I know that it sounds sappy, but I encourage all of you to remember why we celebrate Thanksgiving. I know that I will try to think about all that I'm thankful for. I have a better life than some, and I'm thankful for that all the time. Sometimes, we lose track of things like that. I'm a bit of a cynic, so I don't think such happy thoughts as much as some people do. Again, I'd encourage everyone to do a bit of reflecting this week.

I'm going to try and fix my two essays for English class. Also, I have a research paper due in a few weeks that I need to start doing. Hopefully, I won't procrastinate. I just got done listening to the album Axis: Bold as Love by Jimi Hendrix. Jimi is just amazing. I'd recommend that you check him out. I really like his cover of Bob Dylan's All Along the Watchtower. The lyrics are partly inspired by some verses in Isaiah. I can't remember which. Wikipedia knows. The new album by Guns N' Roses is awesome. It's called Chinese Democracy. It's banned in China though. Oh well. I hate it how the Chinese government says they're socialist when they're really not. Communism is a perversion of socialism. I think that I might discuss this kind of stuff some more in another blog. By the way, my title comes from a song of the same name by the Goo Goo Dolls. The album has the say name. They're a great band. Well, I'm going to go now.

10. Christmas Ramble

On Wednesday, I have two exams to take, and I have an essay due Thursday. I'm not too stressed though. I've studied for one essay and have finished the draft of my essay. I just need to study more for both exams and complete my essay. Overall, my week hasn't been too bad. Hopefully, no one has gotten swamped by assignments. That always sucks.

I'm going to steal a bit of Lukas' topic here and talk about Christmas. Mainly, I don't like it how you can go in Wal-Mart and see Christmas decorations hanging up. Hello everyone, it's November. Christmas is more than a month away currently. Of course, we all know why the stores put Christmas decorations up. To sell a bunch of stuff at the end of the year and make money. While that might sound pretty cynical, I believe it. Plus, Christmas is celebrated everywhere in the world. Our American holiday of Thanksgiving just isn't.

Fortunately, I don't feel too lonely right now. I do hate it that we have school on Monday and Tuesday. I think my brothers are off back at their school. Oh well. I need to get back to studying. Hopefully, someone will comment on this post.

9.In Which I Discuss the Election and My Loneliness

As all of you know, last Tuesday Barack Obama became the next President of the United States. I was glad because I voted for Obama after all, but I just don't know why some people have to freak out. Things such as "our country is becoming socialist." Please, the majority of people that I know don't know what socialism actually is. It seems like the Red Scare mentality still exists in the minds of the ignorant. The people have spoken on this one.

Even if you didn't vote for Barack Obama, I'd recommend that everyone trust that he can lead our country. I know that I would have supported McCain if he was elected. I like both Barack Obama and John McCain. They're both good men, and I'm glad that one of them is leading our country. I hope that everyone who voted did so out of their belief on who can best run our country. Values are important, but if you only vote for someone based on values, that's kinda missing the big picture.

I'm not sure exactly why, but I've started to feel lonelier each day the past few weeks. I just hope that it goes away. I think that some of the loneliness might come from the fact that I have several big assignments coming up, but I don't know. I'm not the happiest guy around. Well, I hope all of you have a great day.

8. This Coming Election

I'm going to do things a little bit different and mainly talk about one topic. The topic will be the Presidential election. Election day is now just two days away. This is a historic campaign. Either our next President will be the oldest one we have ever had, or we will finally have a non-white President for the first time. Please remember to vote for the candidate that you think will be best for the job. Voting on the basis of race, gender, political parties, etc. is a stupid thing to base your vote on. People need to vote for the candidate that they think will help fix our country.

Also, don't think about the political ads when you vote. Most of them aren't even true. For one thing, Barack Obama is not a socialist. If he was a socialist, he wouldn't have a chance of being President. Most people don't even know what socialism is. Also, John McCain knows how to use email. He's a senator and has to communicate with many people. Therefore, he would know how to use many different ways to communicate with people.

To get on another point now, I was surprised by our last chapel service. It started off well and ended well, but I didn't like the middle part. Mr. Pratt had to talk about sex again (he can't seem to go a chapel service, except for one, without talking about sex). For one thing, where do you come off saying that girls don't have sexual sin problems as much as guys? That's a chauvinistic and stupid thing to say. I may be a guy, but I think that all human beings are affected the same in certain ways. Dr. Pratt just needs to learn to control what he says. I like how he said that his dad's grave has a motion sensor and talks. I want to do something like that. Instead of good advice, mine would just say weird stuff. I'd try to freak people out. Well, that's all for now. Remember to vote.

7. Laziness, Soulforce, and Chapel (A look at my week)

Well, I hope everyone had a good weekend. Unfortunately, I was lazy and didn't really get to my homework. Therefore, I will fix my essay once I have finished writing this post. I come home on the weekends and work at my job. However, I have lots of free time. I could use some of that time to do my homework, but I decide to wait till today to do it. All of us have things that we'd rather do than homework, but it is still important to do. I will try to do mine earlier from now on, and I would encourage everyone to do the same. If you do a little homework at a time, you'll still have some free time.

On Monday I believe, I saw the organization called Soulforce when I got out of my biology class. I noticed that very few people were talking to them, so I decided that I would say hi to them. I went over and talked to one of the guys for a few minutes and asked for a pamphlet. I only skimmed for a little bit and went to my dorm for a few minutes. I didn't wind up reading for several days. It was pretty interesting though. I'm not going to preach my opinion to you, but I will say that we should be considerate of the Soulforce people. I've heard a few people say that they don't think Soulforce should be allowed on campus. Personally, they seemed pretty nice to me. I would just ask that all of you remember that we need to be nice to everyone. Even if you don't agree with their views, it's not a bad thing to at least say hi to them.

I was going to talk about the chapel service, but I forgot what was said. I only know that I liked this one, and I wasn't offended. Also, I liked the fact that we had a choir come and sing during chapel. I think that we should have things like that happen occasionally. It's a change of pace. I bought the Indiana Jones movie the other day. It's pretty good, but it's not my favorite. If you haven't seen it, you need to. I hope all of you have a great day. I'm going to work on my essay now.

6. In Which I Discuss Iron Man, Homosexuality, and the band Kansas (another juxtaposition of topics).

Hey everyone, I hope all of you had a great weekend. I have so far. I finally bought Iron Man today. I kept wanting to buy it, but I wouldn't let myself for some reason. I haven't seen it since the time I saw it in theaters. But enough about that.

I have to say that I haven't done any work on my essay so far. I need to start writing a draft, but I'm procrastinating right now. To change the subject, I heard that Soulforce will not be coming onto the campus. Instead, they will be somewhere off campus. I'm not really sure where though. I've considered going and listening to what they have to say. Unlike some people, I see little problem with being gay, lesbian, or bisexual. I'd have to say that I think being a transgender is weird, but I don't mind them. Intolerance has never led us anywhere except down a bloody road of bigotry. I would encourage everyone to either go listen to what Soulforce has to say. However, I don't mean to get preachy.

The reason that I'm saying this is because some people hear about people that are gay and they get angry and turn off. Again, I would say that we should not think this way. Jesus told us to love our neighbor as ourselves. Again, I'm sorry for being preachy, but I just wanted to let that out.

Currently, I'm listening to Kansas. They are an amazing band. I only have The Best of Kansas cd though. They're a progressive rock band, which I like because I like Queen as well. I like all kinds of rock, but I like some of it to be complicated and out-there in a way. Well, I am going to get off now. I hope that all of you have a great day.

5. My title juxtaposes service projects, Monty Python, South Park, and chapel.

Well, I guess I should start off by saying that I hope everyone had a good fall break. I know I did. I've listened to music and watched several movies such as Robocop 2, Monty Python's Life of Brian, and South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut. Also, I've starting listening to Nirvana now. Even if you're not a grunge fan (I'm not really), I'd recommend listening to them.

On Saturday I went and helped on the Habitat for Humanity service project on Wood Street. I hammered some boards in and helped put plywood on the roofs. Also, I helped mark chalk lines on certain places for later use. Finally, I cleaned up some of the mess that was lying around. It was a pretty good service project, and I'm glad that I got it out of the way.

The only unfortunate thing about starting school on Wednesday is that we won't go to Freshman Experience. Unlike some people I actually like my leaders and enjoy going to it. The really unfortunate part is that the time we go to chapel is closer than normal. I don't really like going to chapel because I, like some people, get offended at certain sessions. Last time I believe that I heard a statement that basically said that you're not a Christian if you don't minister to a lot of people. I'm not the evangelical type, so I leave that stuff to the people who know what they're doing. I just hope this chapel session isn't too bad.

Well, I'm going to listen to music now. I hope all of you have a great day. I'd recommend that some of you watch Monty Python's Life of Brian sometime. Regardless of what you made have heard, the movie doesn't make fun of Jesus or Christianity. They Pythons satirize aspects of organized religion, Romans, hypocrisy, etc. It's a great movie. The South Park movie is pretty funny too, but it has a lot of profanity. Don't watch it if you're not a fan or bad words make you cringe (if they do, you have some issues). Again, I hope all of you have a great day.

4. I shall now discuss how my day went and mention music and the etymological history of certain words.

My week went pretty good, and a few things of interest happened. While I wasn't as freaked out as some, several other people were apparently freaked out by our latest chapel session. It was certainly unique. I probably don't need to get into detail about what all was said. What surprised me even more though was the fact that Mr. Pratt sent us emails and apologized. The surprising part is the fact that somebody that talks to students during chapel would ever have to apologize for what was said. Oh well.

The other day I bought a game called Gun. It is set in the West back in the 1800's. The Civil War has already ended by the time the main story takes place. I won't give away any plot details though. The game is basically a free-roaming western game. You can ride a horse, serve as a deputy, be a bounty hunter, shoot random people if you feel like it, or you can actually do the main story. I beat it in about 2 days. I also bought several cds again this week. I bought the albums High Voltage and Let There Be Rock by AC/DC. Today, the albums I ordered from Borders came in as well. They are A Night at the Opera by Queen (it's just plain awesome) and Rising Force by Yngwie Malmsteen. Yngwie plays what is known as symphonic metal. Basically think of it as classical music played as heavy metal. He is considered the second fastest guitarist of all time.

I bet some of you wonder when I'm going to discuss the etymological history of certain words. By the way, that means that I'm going to discuss where those words came from. Knife came from the Old Norse word knifr (I can't put the line above the letter i). The word job is from the 1500's or 1600's, I believe. Nobody is really sure what language it comes from.

I could spend a while on this subject, but I don't want to take up your time. All of you probably have better things to do than read a very long blog. I am now going to continue listening to Queen because they're one of my favorite bands. I'd recommend listening to the early albums. They're more complex. After that, I'm going to watch the movie Othello with Laurence Fishburne playing the title character. Have a good day.

3. Biology, Books, and Boring Stuff (don't you just love alliteration)

So far, my time at MC continues to be great with only a few disappointing times. One of these times occurred on Friday. I had finished my biology test and knew that I had not done so well. Thing is though, I studied. We were able to use notes, and I made sure that I had all the information that I thought I needed. The real trouble came from the questions that I did not recognize from the notes. Other than that one incident, the rest of my week was good.

Another thing I did on Friday was go to the library's book bazaar. I bought about $13.00 worth of books. The only book I had to make myself not buy was The Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger by Stephen King. This copy of the book was an older one from the 1980's. In 2003, the book was updated, which was the version I read. I was a little afraid that a bunch of stuff I might want would have already been bought, so I didn't mention the bazaar to many people (even though I work at the library). I also didn't buy some other books because their covers were partly cut-off. I didn't want books that were somewhat damaged looking.

The only other highlights of my week would include playing Rock Band 2, listening to music, starting yet another book, etc. I don't really have much of a life, in case none of you noticed. Well, I should probably stop writing before I start to ramble and look like I'm just writing to fill up space. I hope all of you have a great day.

2. I wish I had an interesting title, but I don't. I guess this one will have to do.

My time at MC has been pretty good so far, but I haven't had many exciting days. I just want the day to end so I can move on to the next one. I get into this apathetic mindset at times, and I don't really like it all that much. I know I'm not the only one who just wants the day to end.

One problem I'm facing is trying to do good on two tests that I have coming up. I have a Western Civilization test on Wednesday, but I'm not really too worried about it. Instead, I'm almost a little frantic about my biology test. I have about 20 pages of notes, and I'm not sure what all could be on the test. I understood the stuff we went over the first two weeks, but I got a little bit lost at times after that. I just hope I do good.

I don't have much planned for the week other than going to classes, reading a few books, and working. Currently, I'm reading Neuromancer by William Gibson, The Terminal Man by Michael Crichton (which is a little boring right now), and when I'm done with those two, I'm going to read The Illuminatus! Trilogy by Robert Shea and Robert Wilson and Xenocide by Orson Scott Card. Well, I'd definitely call that a run-on sentence. Hopefully, I won't have any of those when I have to write something this year. You can get away with it a little bit more in creative writing I bet. Well, if you're the next William Faulkner or James Joyce, you can. I hope anyone who reads this has a good day.

1. When the Levee Doesn't Break

I've only been in college for a few weeks, and already interesting things have happened. For one thing, everybody kept thinking that Hurricane Gustav was going to be "The Big One," that would demolish the coast of Mississippi and New Orleans even more than Katrina did. Fortunately, this was not the case. We got a whole bunch of rain on the campus and had to go to the basement several pointless times to avoid tornadoes, but that was about it.

I'd call this situation a case of when the levee doesn't break. The title of my blog, by the way, alludes to a song called, "When the Levee Breaks." I'm not certain who the original writer was, but Led Zeppelin did a cover on their fourth album. Back in the 1920's, the Great Mississippi Flood destroyed many homes and ravaged the state. People were forced to flee to the Midwest. I have been listening to Led Zeppelin the other day and decided that I needed an interesting title for my first blogpost. I certainly didn't want to name something like, "My first blogpost." But I digress.

One other interesting thing that has happened as of late was when Dr. Randle beat some textbooks during class. Personally, I just thought he was going to drop a book on the desk. Instead, he started beating them. I looked around the room, and I saw the shocked faces of my classmates. I was laughing through out this spectacle. Many things can be said about my Comp 1 class, but boring is not an applicable word. I hope all of you enjoy reading this as much as I did writing it. Have a good day.