Hello…hello, hello, hello….

Posted in Blog by Joe on Wednesday, September 13, 2006 at 2:13 am

It’s been well over a month since I’ve updated…that has to be some sort of record. Actually probably not, but it’s fun to think so. In the time between then and now (all of August, in fact, which consisted of nothing that I can remember in the least) I started college. Not without making a few sacrifices, though — quitting Kumon was a tear-jerker (okay fine, maybe not, but I think I got a little upset about leaving, knowing that I was being replaced). And uh…I guess that was the only real sacrifice I had to make. Oh, and not bringing the PC to college — my dual-monitor-esque days are over until I decide to screw the valuable, limited living space I have in my dorm room and lug in the huge PC + monitor. Maybe I’ll bring it for the winter, so as to warm up the room a bit. Too far ahead to even think about now though.

I just got finished listening to a Moody Blues album that reminded me of being in 5th grade — actually to really pinpoint it, the album (Days of Future Passed for the two of you that are interested) REALLY sends me to Patrick McCoy’s sleep over party in 5th grade, during which everyone thought Larry ran away when he was actually just hiding under the table, and only I knew, and Larry didn’t want me to tell anyone, for reasons I don’t even know to this day. I eventually told everyone where Larry was hiding. We also played Crazy Bones like no tomorrow, and watched Lethal Weapon 4, Austin Powers, and Merlin. Sense memory that’s crazyyy.

Oh, so, right, school. I love the whole idea of not doing homework at night and worrying about having every single class every day. I feel so comfortable just going to the library and sitting in one of those comfy chairs (on the 4th floor, of course) and studying for hours. That’s what I plan on doing tomorrow, anyway.

I’m trying the music major thing for now. I guess it was a good idea to pick up the viola last year, even if it was as a joke — it’s the only way I got into the orchestra, I think. The TCNJ orchestra has, now, including me, 3 viola players. So, they were pretty desperate. As long as I’m there…it doesn’t matter I guess. I have to play for the violin|viola private teacher sometime this week (which I’m not looking forward to at all) because I’ve apparently been placed into a quintet (playing the Schumann quintet), since I am one of three in the orchestra who play the freaking viola. I just hope I can keep up with all the hardcore practice-for-16-hours-a-day people. I certainly shall see.

All other classes are going fairly well, I am happy to report. Psychology is a once a week thing, lots of reading, but it’s all really interesting stuff. My Latin teacher is relatively sane (for a Latin teacher), as far as I can tell, anyway, so I may actually end up learning some Latin this semester. I’m excited! What else…oh, Music Theory, of course…ugh well the only class I could get into was the 8 AM slot on MONDAYS and Thursdays….waking up at 7 is less-than fun, but oh well…I have a test on Thursday that I really want to do well on (well, obviously) so I have to study like crazy for that tomorrow.

Oh, yes, my FSP class on….DEATH. It’s all rooted in philosophy which is really really interesting and the class makes you think so much, about things you otherwise wouldn’t think about — we discuss whether or not a person can be harmed after they die, whether death is a harm to the one who dies, fatalism vs. determinism (which we also discussed in psychology interestingly enough), and whether a person is harmed or not if they are not aware of someone doing something that thwarts their interests, i.e. their well being etc. It’s not very uplifting but it’s interesting nonetheless. I have to write the second exegetical paper for death tomorrow…and it has to be better than last week’s travesty…

I swear, I think all Monday nights I’m going to be speaking with some variant of a British accent - I have DEATH with James Stacy Taylor who has the really thick accent, and he talks for most of the two hours of the seminar so I’m so inclined to pick it up then…and then I have orchestra for 3 hours with Dr. Tate, who also has such a thick British accent and he also talks a lot throughout rehearsal…talk about a British Invasion. And, little known fact, I actually began first talking with a British accent because I watched Shining Time Station all the time, which had Ringo Starr as the conductor guy who narrated all the Thomas the Tank Engine stories. So, it’s fair for me to say that Ringo Starr taught me how to speak. Then Sesame Street came in and taught me how to count to ten in Spanish. I picked up American English somewhere along the way.

That’s about it for the beginning-of-college round up. So far, so good.