wasted days

Well. Summer. How… similar. Today just felt like a normal Saturday. Either the concept of it being summer vacation hasn’t sunken in yet, or I just don’t care. Each is equally likely, I suppose.

I feel a little guilty, because I haven’t been writing anything of substance here lately. And I won’t for a while, either, because I’m going on a short excursion out of town (camping) tomorrow and Monday, and then Thursday I’m leaving for Greece for two weeks. After that I’ll go to New Jersey, and Luxembourg, and England, and won’t return to faithful Champaign Urbana until August 15th or so. I’m looking forward to all the traveling, but my blog is going to have to lessen its posting frequency considerably. I’ll write when I can, but how often that will be remains yet to be determined. While in Greece, though, it will certainly be nothing. Once I return from all of my various adventures, though, I promise things will be much, much better.

background noise: “New Noise” Refused

Well, today was a good last day of school. Last final in the morning, over by 10:00. Hung out at the Green Street Coffeehouse with some people, then spent some time being confused as to what was going to happen next. Eventually I went to the disorientation picnic, then Espresso Royal for two hours, then Ben’s house, then Zoë’s house. And now, it’s 11:29, and I’m back home. A nice day, really. Lots of time hanging out with friends and having fun, with the minor exception of the two hours of French final in the morning. But, it’s a tradeoff that’s more than fair. And now, no more school. Let the good times roll.

background noise: “Gone Away” Offspring

Well hooray. I’ve now gotten down 4 finals. One left. French, here I come. What fun. In theory I’m studying verb conjugations tonight. However, I’m not sure exactly when I plan to do this, since in 15 minutes I’m going to eat and then go to the Greece trip meeting. Ah, whatever.

It’s a good thing I’ve resolved not to stress out about all of this. It’s paying off.

I promise I’ll write something real one of these days, just you wait. Also, I’m making a new template. It’s fun. My work-in-progress can be found here.

background noise: “Tonight is the Night I Fell Asleep at the Wheel” Barenaked Ladies

FINALS!

What fun, yes? But I’m feeling like writing about them would be exceedingly mundane, and very teenager-with-a-blog-and-nothing-better-to-do-like, so I’m going to forgo it entirely.

After school I hung at with Annie “studying” for the Chem final tomorrow. May not have accomplished much, but at least now I’m sufficiently prepared for it in terms of attitude. Specifically, I’m not worried, since I’ve accepted the fact that I can fuck up and it doesn’t really matter.

All right, that’s it.

background noise:

I was just outside. It’s peaceful, this early in the morning. I can’t sleep. I’ve been up since 3:30. I’m not really tired, although I know I will be later. The cat heard me moving around and is yowling to get out of the basement. I think I’ll leave her there for another half an hour or so, for fear that she’ll wake the rest of my family up if let out. I hope I don’t wake them up, as I doubt they’d like it. Well, whatever.

Just watched Better Luck Tomorrow. What a great movie. It’s really impressive, the way it managed to capture so well so many aspects of suppressed suburban high school society. Granted, it was something of a charicature, but still, I was amazed at how powerful it was. Or, maybe not powerful so much as just gripping, and strangely appealing with its violence.

It was definitely better than The Matrix: Reloaded, which I saw last night. It wasn’t anything special at all. Some good action, but the acting was terrible, and either I couldn’t follow the story (which is possible), or there just wasn’t one. I was hoping for more, but as it turned out even in my state of anticipation the movie wasn’t so impressive.

background noise: “angel” sarah mclachlan (dusted remix)

Going to the movies tonight, in a little less than an hour. Seeing The Matrix. Should be fun, I hope.

So this morning I went over to Meadowbrook and removed some of those invasive species from the prairie. I thought it’d be just pulling weeds, but it turns out it was a little more large-scale. We removed honeysuckle bushes and olive trees with saws and hedge clippers. It was great fun. I haven’t done any work outside like that in a while; I never really thought I liked it, but it was rather satisfying. It’s fun to cut stuff down.

background noise: “Du Hast” Rammstein

I went to dinner at Zoë’s house tonight. It was fun. Tomorrow I’m going to help remove invasive plant species from Meadowbrook Park. Pulling weeds for a couple hours, essentially. But, whatever, I haven’t done anything good for the community/environment in a long time, so I’m happy to do it. For now, though, I’m going to go to sleep.

So today I went for a bike ride after school. Cruised around the neighborhood for a little while, nothing special. Decided to do something I hadn’t in a while, and went to the gas station for some candy and a drink. Took it over to the playground and watched some Little-Leaguers warming up. Just as I’m laying the hillside, doing nothing, thinking how nice it was when this is what I did all summer and how nice it was to finally be laying on a hill again, who should walk by but Mark! So we walked back to his house, where I left my bike and he got a snack, then we went back to watch the kids play baseball. It was fun, half because they were so terrible and half because it reminded me of part of my childhood that I had kinda forgotten about. So, today was a day for thinking about being a kid. It’s not a bad thing to spend an afternoon thinking about.

background noise: “Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima (1959-61)” Krzysztof Penderecki (yes, that’s his name)

Today, while waiting for the bus, this guy got off. In typical weird-guy fashion, he started talking to me and asking about me.

him: “Hey, what’s your name?”
me: “Tom”
him: “Hey Tom, I’m Steve” [shake hands]
me: “You go to school here?”
him: “Yea” “What’s your major?”
me: “Actually, I’m still in high school”
him: “Oh really? What school do you go to?”
me: “Uni High, right over there” [pointing]
him: “Ah, ok, I go to Park, Parkland” (it took him a couple tries to get it right)
me: “What’s your major?”
him: “Computer Science”
me: “You like it?”
him: “Yea, but I’m glad it’s over”
me: [laughing] “Yea.”
him: “What grade are you going to be in next fall?”
me: “I’ll be a sophomore.”
him: “With a deep voice like that? Oooo”
me: [thinking this is a little weird] “Heh, yea…”

I think there were some other things said, but I don’t remember what they were. I think he left at this point. So, there’s that. It was a little weird, and yet made me kinda laugh at the same time. He seemed harmless enough, just sorta oddly polite or something. Or maybe he’s crazy, whatever. It made my day more interesting.

background noise: “What a Good Boy” Barenaked Ladies