Looking forward to tomorrow

Yep... my date with Ruth is tomorrow, probably around 6 or so (...though we actually only talked about it Wednesday when I asked her, so I should probably bring it up again today and set a definite time at least a little bit ahead of time.)  I'm kind of surprised that I'm not incredibly nervous about the whole thing... actually all the nervousness and frustration from earlier this week pretty much disappeared the moment I managed to ask her (or more likely, the moment she actually said yes. XD)  I guess it's kinda like... I'm not nervous now because the really hard part--actually asking her out in the first place!--is already over with.  Or something like that.  But anyway, I'm really looking forward to the whole thing; this'll be the first time I've ever gone on a date, so I'm not entirely sure what to expect... but I figure there will be a lot of just general talking and being around each other, which is always good!

Speaking of talking, I actually ended up text-messaging her a lot last night since I didn't see her at supper.  Okay, that's not exactly talking (and that 160-character limit per message is really annoying, as is trying to type stuff without an actual keyboard), but still.  I seem to be getting better at typing stuff into the phone, though; it only takes me a couple minutes to type up a 160-or-so character message now, and part of that was going back and trimming the message a bit so it actually fit in 160 letters.  Would probably be easier if I had one of those phones with the little slide-out keyboard thing, but eh, I only just got this one a month and a half ago and it's working pretty well for me... it'd be really silly to just randomly get a new phone already, plus I usually don't do a whole lot of text messaging (last night was literally the first time I ever sent more than two or three in a whole day.)

And kind of a funny thing: pretty much everyone I've told about this has been ridiculously excited about it.  I think one or two may have actually jumped up and down when I mentioned that after three days of not being able to say anything, I finally managed to ask her out.  I guess I'm pretty excited about it too, though I don't quite show it the same way... of course, I have been smiling and laughing a bit more than usual, and I've generally felt pretty good over the last few days despite having a minor sore throat (which seems to be going away, thankfully--it'd really suck to get sick just in time to have to postpone my first date ever...)

Still amazed that, despite all the potential problems, she actually agreed to go on a date with me.  I mean... there's religious differences (she's Mormon, I'm not), a bit of an age gap (she's 18 or so, I'm 25), we've only known each other for a month, and she said in one of her recent DeviantArt posts she wasn't really interested in dating/relationships in general.  I guess she must actually like me, then! Heh...

I'll probably post about the date itself after it happens... though maybe not in great detail since it'd probably be a little creepy to have all these random Russian people (who seem to make up about 90% of my readers) reading about my first date.

...!

Another day, another failed attempt at asking the cute redhead out on a date... looks like there's going to be a pattern here.  I don't know what the problem is... I normally have no problem whatsoever talking to her, and even asking questions about other stuff... but when it comes to actually trying to ask her out, I somehow can never manage to actually get words to come out.  And even worse, this time it was almost like she was giving me ideas on what we could actually do (seriously, one thing that came up when we were talking was "when do you have free time so we can go watch How to Train Your Dragon?"... I haven't seen it, and she really likes it and wants me to see it eventually, along with about a million other movies... and books... and webcomics... and... yeah, there's a lot of "her suggesting new stuff for me to read/watch" whenever we talk, heh), and even then I couldn't actually come out and say anything...


This is extremely frustrating.  Pretty much the first time I've ever even tried to ask a girl out, and... I just can't do it! I almost feel like giving up on the whole thing, but I know that if I did give up it'd just make me feel even worse than I already do.  I'm almost thinking of temporarily giving up on asking this girl out and trying to ask one of the other two that I like, but... one is getting sick and the other has barely talked to me at all in the past week or so.  It's like there's no possible way this can turn out good unless I somehow manage to ask her out (and even then it could still turn out bad...)


EDIT: Ignore all that stuff up there.  I just shattered one of the fundamental laws of the universe into a million pieces with nothing but 20 minutes and a cheap phone from Wal-Mart... which law? The one that says "Eddie will never go on a date or have any sort of relationship with girls," of course!  Let's hope it doesn't get reinstated anytime soon.
I'm not entirely sure how I did it, but... I managed to ask her out (over the phone, actually... seemed kind of odd to me at first, but it worked!) and it's going to happen sometime late-afternoon/early-evening-ish on this Saturday.  Still kind of in shock that this actually happened, but it's been long enough now that I think it's kind of sunk in that it did happen, it wasn't just a dream or a hallucination caused by bonking my head on something or accidentally inhaling some weird fumes.  I think I may actually have a little bit of self-confidence now.

First horribly failed attempt at asking a girl out. Yeah...

...well, actually, it's probably not that bad since I didn't even manage to get any words out (only an "Um..." of attempting to get her attention again as she was heading inside, and I don't think she even heard... so I just said "bye" as usual like nothing was going on at all, heh), and I did kind of walk her all the way back up to the lofts and everything (talking about stuff the whole way, as always... I think this is probably the second or third time I've done that XD)

But hey, at least I tried.  I think I might actually be able to pull it off this time.  Will try again tomorrow!

EDIT: ...and now that I've pretty much decided who I'm going to ask first, I keep feeling kinda bad every time I see one of the other girls I like.  Even more so since I haven't had any chances to really sit down and talk to her for more than a minute or so at a time recently (...actually, same goes with the third... really I've only found opportunities to talk to one of the three much this whole week.)  Well, I guess I can always ask both of them (or all three?) on dates at different times/weeks/etc... I seriously doubt any of them are going to immediately be all "girlfriend/boyfriend" with me as soon as we have our first date, so that'll probably still be a possibility.  And apparently it isn't really considered weird to go on dates with a bunch of different girls in a row here, so...

EDIT EDIT: Nothing much worth mentioning today (September 27th), except that I once again was going to try and ask this girl out... but once again wasn't able to get any words out, and ended up just saying bye to her as usual when she had to go do her homework (after talking to me for more than an hour, and walking back up to the lofts with me, and then talking for another half-hour at least before realizing how late it was and going off to do her homework.)  I don't know why I'm having such a hard time with this... I really like her and we really get along well, and this was pretty much the perfect time to ask... I just couldn't do it for some reason. Gaaahhh....

Assorted weirdness

Got another wrong-number call from a guy attempting to contact his girlfriend but mistakenly putting in my number instead.  And, strangely enough, the girlfriend in question just happened to have the same name as the one from the first random wrong-number text message I got way back when I got the phone!  This guy, however, apparently thought that I had stolen his girlfriend's phone or that I was answering her phone or something, because I got the following text message from him after telling the guy I had no idea who he is...

"I dated her twice and kiss her more than wance i love her if you dont give her the phone i will come from colorado and get you"

I've never seen anyone misspell "once" as "wance." At this point I was thinking "this has got to be some kind of prank."  The guy's name was supposedly "Tristin" which looks like a girl's name to me... and then he actually called rather than just text-messaging, and he sounded a bit like a girl doing a fake guy voice, especially at first.  I don't know if this guy just had a weird voice or if this was some kind of prank, but either way after I explained that I had no idea who he was, I bought the phone from Wal-Mart a little over a month ago (and so it couldn't have randomly been someone else's lost phone!), and so on the call was over.  Really strange.

Did a lot of walking around Buena Vista today.  And some jogging, actually managed to get over a mile (almost 1.5 miles!) in just three days, and that's with my knees still hurting and me not even really trying on one of those days.  Nowhere near the 3.5 I was supposed to have by the end of this week, but definitely better than the zero I had last week when my knees were still really bad.

Also, for some reason every time I talk to certain people about anything dating-related, Kaitlyn always gets mentioned.  Usually by other girls suggesting that I ask her out (and of course, previously there was the time when they were trying to get me to ask her to dance, and before that someone else mentioned her when talking about the possibility of me going to the dance with a girl.)  But... I'm pretty sure she likes some other guy, she was literally talking about how much she liked him right in front of me the other day.  Not talking to me exactly, I was just kind of sitting nearby when she happened to be saying all that to someone else... but I was definitely close enough to overhear it all.  And today I finally asked one of the girls who continuously suggests that I ask Kaitlyn out, and apparently she just has a feeling that Kaitlyn likes me.  I would've asked if this was a "actually backed up by stuff she might have said" feeling or just a feeling-feeling, but I didn't really have time.  Now I'm just kind of confused and it's starting to look like a repeat of that one time in community college when a girl liked me, then lost interest before I asked her out (with one of her friends pestering me to ask her out right up to the end.)  There's even other similarities beyond that... main difference is that Kaitlyn is probably a lot less crazy.

I guess I probably will attempt to ask her out anyway.  I mean, I do like her, and I was kinda thinking of asking her out already (though the overheard conversation a few days ago did discourage me from that a bit), and I've already gotten really close to that (between asking her for her phone number, saying that I'd walk with her if she wanted to go walking in Buena Vista to see what's around sometime, and so on) but... I'm a bit worried about just how horribly wrong it could go, moreso than with either of the other two girls I'm thinking about asking out.  Might just be me being a little paranoid, but... I dunno.

EDIT: ...and now my "who am I going to try asking out first"-o-meter has been shifted back in another direction once again.  At least it's good that I have more than one person in mind, in case whoever I ask first says no, I guess?
And one random hint to any other guys who might just be in a similar situation: don't ask guys for dating advice.  Ever.  If a guy attempts to give you advice about girls, it will either be stupidly obvious ("don't walk up and say 'hey baby'" and other similar things that you probably already know if you're even remotely intelligent) or absolute nonsense.  Pretty much all of the advice I've gotten from girls on this (with a few exceptions occasionally) generally makes sense, while pretty much everything that a guy has butted in with (and yeah, butted in would be the right word since I already knew that guys don't know this stuff at all and I would have to be pretty stupid to actually ask them for advice) has been a combination of the obvious and total BS.  Heck, one of the guys spouting the BS even admitted that he didn't have much luck with girls either... yet somehow they spread it anyway.

...whut?

Just a little while ago, two (out of three) girls I was thinking about asking out had this whole conversation about how hot some other guy was and even arguing over which of them gets to go out with him... while they were standing right there in front of me.  That's definitely a bit discouraging as far as the "actually attempting to ask a girl out" thing goes.

Well... actually, thinking about it again just now I can see one good thing there, which I won't mention because people might actually be reading this.  But for the most part, just a really weird conversation to overhear (it's always creepy to hear people talking about how "hot" someone else is) and a bit of a letdown as far as the "chances of me ever dating a girl before I'm an old man" thing goes.

Wal-Martians

Took the shuttle thing yesterday and went to Wal-Mart in Lexington, along with four girls.  They almost missed it, since they had somehow gotten the idea that it was 7:30 rather than 7:00 and if not for me sending a couple of them a text-message they wouldn't have known until the shuttle had been gone for a while that they had missed it.  Good thing girls keep randomly giving me their phone numbers this year, huh?
This was actually the first time I've been to a store (other than the little dollar store near the school) since I got here... of course I didn't really need anything, but I wanted to buy some video games (I ended up getting Plants vs. Zombies for my computer, and Kingdom Hearts Re:Coded for the DS) and I also grabbed a video game magazine (it had Kirby on the front! and apparently they're coming out with another "real" Kirby game now, rather than just remakes and oddball spinoffs!) and some snack food (cookies and milk.)

Also, in the bathroom at Wal-Mart I found a Chick Tract.  Two actually, but I only grabbed one of them.  This was the first time I've actually ever seen one up close, though of course I'd heard of them over the Internet before.  I had been kinda hoping for one of the way-out-there "Harry Potter and D&D will turn you into a devil-worshiper!" ones, but instead I got a relatively tame one about a guy dying of cancer converting on his deathbed (the only thing really out there was how his personality magically changes to be much nicer after converting and he even says he's glad he's dying of cancer rather than something less... slow and painful.)

Not a whole lot else to say about yesterday.  It'd be a little boring to just repeat the same stuff about classes and talking to people over and over, so I guess I won't do that unless something unusual happens.

Pizza, weird questions, and waaay too much painting

Didn't do a whole lot today, aside from the usual class-related stuff and talking to girls (and some guys, but mostly girls.  As usual, heh.)  Supper wasn't much of anything (some weird rice that was edible but not great, and bread rolls) so later on when I got hungry at around 9:45 I ordered a pizza from Domino's.  Actually pretty good, but expensive... I know some of that's the delivery charge but still, $19.00 for a small pizza and breadsticks seems like a lot.  Guess I won't get all of my extra toppings next time I try that...

Spent a lot of time working on those painting homework assignments today... those things are an enormous pain in the ass.  Well, okay, they're not that bad but they're way too time-consuming... I can't see how some people can just sit down and paint something in hardly any time at all.  It just takes forever, even without lots of colors to worry about (we're doing black-and-white paintings right now.)  I'm not sure how I'll get my color painting done in time for class tomorrow, since I'm not even entirely done with the last of the black-and-white ones yet.

And randomly, some guy mentioned that he saw me talking to a girl earlier (...well, that's not exactly the way he put it at first, he used some weird slang term I wasn't familiar with so eventually someone had to "translate" for me) and asked if she was someone I was going to ask out.  Of course, I had no idea which girl he actually meant, since I talk to a lot of girls... but assuming that it was today, I have a pretty good idea of who he meant.  The guy could've at least given a basic description of her or something (I mean, hair color alone would've narrowed it down a lot!), "a girl" could be pretty much anyone.
I also have a pretty good idea of what the answer to that question would have been if I had any idea which girl he was talking about at the time it was asked... but who knows if that will ever work out at all.  I'm kinda worried that this particular girl just isn't really interesting in dating and that kind of thing at the moment, which is kind of worrying considering that she's one of the two that I'm really looking at as far as the "girls I would potentially ask out if I ever actually became able to ask a girl out" list goes.  And of course, the other top candidate for actually-trying-to-ask-her-out-ness also has several things about her that make me a bit worries about my chances of going on dates and such with her... at least they both actually seem to like talking to me, though.  That's already a huge step up from high school (and most of community college!)

The "bouncing back and forth between good and bad" day

Found out at breakfast that no, I won't be able to sign up for that date auction thing after all.  Turns out there was a deadline and I probably didn't find out that it even existed until right before that deadline... so I won't be able to go to that (and possibly actually go on a date for the first time in my life) after all.  I was pretty pissed off about that at several points throughout the day... not sure why it bothered me that much but it did, I just kept going back to that and getting pissed off all over again and it just got worse every time.  Fortunately, talking to girls for long periods of time seems to really help with that sort of problem, and by the end of the day I can probably consider it more of a "mostly good" day rather than just a crappy day.

Of course, I probably didn't really need the date auction thing to end up on a date, that's probably just me underestimating myself as usual... I'm actually sort of getting a little less convinced that girls just don't like me now, and I might even try to ask a girl out (somehow) within the next week or two once my knees heal up and I get to know people even more than I already do.  It'll probably be really hard to do, of course, but... who knows? I might actually pull it off, and the girls here all seem really nice, so it's entirely possible they might not say no if I did ask! So I guess the really hard part is figuring out who to (attempt to) ask on a date, since there's just so many girls here that seem really nice and (of course!) several that I actually think I might like a bit more than others, heh...

Oh, and now there's yet another picture I drew hanging up on someone's wall.  This time it's a desert scene with skeleton fish, which I drew and colored for Ruth (who is from Texas, and was amazed by the amount of water and fish there are around here.  Which led to the joke about how the only fish in Texas are skeleton fish lying out there in the desert.)  I may end up drawing a birthday cake for another girl (who turned 18 recently and asked me to draw her something, and then suggested a cake) but I'm not sure how that'll work out... not really a lot of experience with drawing cakes.

I think I broke my record

My "getting kinda distracted and talking to a girl for a really long time" record, anyway.  Bumped into someone I knew at supper and ended up talking for... probably close to 3 hours (6:00-ish to around 9:00!)  Previous record was probably somewhere in the range of an hour and 30 minutes to two hours, so... yeah, that's a lot of talking, heh.  And once again I managed to talk to someone about religion without it ever degrading into an argument; ended up not only talking about my own beliefs, but learning a bit more about exactly what Mormons believe in the process. I'm always surprised when this (religious discussions without any rage) happens, but it seems like it's what happens pretty much every time that subject comes up anymore.  I'm sure there are the "angry screaming YER GOIN' TO HELL" type Mormons, but everyone here at least seems really nice.  Especially the girls, heh...
Surprisingly I wasn't bored or lonely at all today, even though there wasn't really anything to do since it's Sunday and there was no fireside tonight.  Just ended up talking to so many people at dinner (and afterward) that I didn't really have time to get bored.  Also didn't have much time to do my Spanish homework or start on my painting, but... that's okay, I've still got some time. XD

Knees seem to be healing up (again) and walking isn't extremely uncomfortable anymore, not even up stairs... at least not when I'm distracted by girls anyway.  I actually saw what the Lofts look like on the inside today--the student lounge area is huge and has about a gazillion couches, a ping-pong table, and drink/snack machines on top of what the guys' dorms have (just a couple couches, a table, and a TV pretty much.)

I've decided I'm definitely going to sign up for that date auction thing... just as soon as I can figure out how to get the signup papers, anyway.  I now have three people (a girl and two guys!) who've said they'd try to get a form for me, so hopefully I'll end up seeing one before this Wednesday when the thing actually happens.  Hopefully the whole thing goes well and I won't be able to say I've never been on a date on my life anymore... and whoever I end up with (if anyone; still slightly worried there) isn't creepy.

Watch out for the harmless spiders!

Yesterday was mostly a really good day (aside from the fact that I slipped on wet grass during Spanish class and re-opened my knee wounds just as they were getting healed up really well... ugh.)  I actually didn't get back to my dorm room until around 2:30 because I ended up walking up to this amphitheater up in the woods behind the lofts (one of the girls' dorms) with some people I sorta-know and sitting around a campfire talking and stuff for a while.  I think that was pretty much the only time in my life that I've ever had anything to do at 2 AM aside from sleep or sit at home bored, heh.  Went pretty well overall; somehow managed to make the walk up that hill even with my knees in the condition they're in, had a s'more while I was up there, did a lot of talking and finally got to see that Youtube video about llamas that all the girls have been talking about for the past few weeks (and despite the minor goriness of it... it was actually kind of funny, albeit very weird.)  Also heard a lot of most-likely-honor-code-violating uncensored rap music and a Dave Chapelle video, both of which nobody really seemed to be too offended by, or at least not enough to do anything more than mention the fact once kind of jokingly (I guess Mormons are not quite as strict about the no-cursing thing as I thought, heh.)

The rest of the day was pretty good too, aside from the further knee injuries.  Finished up the random scene I had been drawing, and talked to a few guys and (of course XD) a lot of girls, including some I hadn't met before.  One I actually ended up talking to for a very long time despite having never met her before, and we actually kinda went a little more in-depth about what I believe in and actually found some similarities between my own afterlife-related beliefs and what the Mormons believe.  It's kind of interesting how most people here seem to focus more on the similarities than they do on the differences when it comes to religious things--I haven't yet had someone just go off and start yelling at me about how wrong I am and that I need to convert or yer goin' to Hell! like the type of loud, angry religious people I always used to run into.

Apparently everyone I've asked on the subject seems pretty convinced that I would have a good chance of actually getting a date if I was able to ask in the first place, and that most girls wouldn't turn me down just because I'm not Mormon since generally it's more important that I seem like a generally decent person rather than what religion I belong to.  I think I'm going to sign up for that date auction thing (despite the slight creepiness about it) and see what that's like, maybe actually going on a date without having to ask the girl myself might make it a little easier for me to try it "for real" later on.  A little bit of a confidence boost, I guess.  Overall I think I am getting a little less nervous about that sort of thing; I'm definitely not having much trouble talking to people that I don't know anymore, and talking to people I do know has gotten to be so easy that it seems weird not to talk to them!  And heck, I've brought up the dating issue so often lately that I'm probably even getting less nervous about talking about that sort of thing.  Maybe all these people I've asked about it are right, and I probably could ask a girl out if I only tried.

Another mostly-good day.

Lots of stuff today.  Had Spanish homework/tutoring (in which I found out how to say "toilet paper" in Spanish) later, hung around in the library talking to random people after that, and before either of those was the travel study program launch thingie (I signed up to get more info on the England, Spain, and Nauvoo, Illinois trips... would have also signed up on the Italy art trip but for some odd reason the sign-up sheet was already gone by the time I got to it.  I guess I spend too much time talking to Kaitlyn, since they were already packing up the stuff for the travel study programs before I got to the last one.)  Did get a free pen, post-it notes, and frozen chocolate cream-puff things out of it, though, in addition to talking to a bunch of people and... sort of offering to go walk with Kaitlyn around Buena Vista if she ever wants to just go walking around to see what stuff is there (she mentioned she wanted to earlier) but didn't want to just go off walking by herself.  I wonder if that's sort of like a date of some sort... well, I didn't actually ask her to go walk with me on some particular day, just kind of mentioned it as a possibility.  So probably not.  But still, "offer to go and do something with a girl" is only a few steps away from actually asking a girl out on a date, right?

Speaking of that, some guys I was talking to in the library mentioned this "date auction" thing they're having next week.  Apparently this is actually something open to everyone, and you sign up for it (which nobody told me up until now, and the fliers advertising it were completely non-informative about... they sort of gave the impression of "this one specific guy is being auctioned off to go on a date with whoever pays the most to charity" rather than "a bunch of guys are going to be there and a bunch of girls will donate to charity to go on dates with them," which is apparently what it actually is.)  Seems slightly creepy, but if it would actually let me go on a date for the first time I could probably tolerate a little creepy.  One of them actually said he'd try to get one of the forms for me so I could sign up, and apparently they were convinced that if I was in this thing that girls would actually pay to go on a date with me.  Seems highly unlikely to me, but... oh well.  Might as well at least try it and see, since I really doubt I'd be able to actually ask a girl on a date the regular way.

Food! They had clam strips, onion rings, shrimp, jalapeño poppers, and burritos all in the same night today.  Needless to say, I had some of all of them (first a burrito--veggies only since it was some kind of beef stuff instead of chicken this time--and clam strips, then shrimp, onion rings, and jalapeño poppers.)  Still kind of amazed by the edible-ness of the food here.

Missionaries showed up again today and I finally managed to actually come out and say that I really wasn't interested in converting to their religion, though I wouldn't mind talking to them and learning some of the history behind it or things like that.  Took forever to figure out how to nicely tell someone that you don't want to convert, since that's the kind of thing that throughout history has usually been said with a spear in the face rather than with words... but I think I finally managed to pull it off.  Didn't seem to have offended them either, which is always good!

Oh, and I got my painting pad thing back today, so no worries about that being lost forever or me not getting it back in time to finish the homework or anything like that.  I still need to get my mailbox number and combination (again) so Mom or Dad can send me stuff in the mail here, but... I guess I'll try to remember that another day.

In Texas, the only fish are skeleton fish lying out in the desert.

Not a direct quote there, but skeletonized fish were mentioned (when talking to a girl from Texas, who mentioned that she was so amazed by the school's koi pond because there are no fish in Texas.  That's when the "skeleton fish in cheesy Old West desert scene with tumbleweeds" sort of image came up.  Which reminds me, I should draw a desert with skeleton fish randomly lying around.)

Anyway, today was mostly good with a little bad (okay, a big bad--my pad of paper for painting class got misplaced and I think someone else in the class accidentally picked it up and took it back with them instead of their own...) and a lot of boring toward the end (not much to do after 8:00 when nothing's going on and you don't have much homework and/or can't do your homework due to not having the materials... especially if you don't have a girlfriend or anything.  Seeing guys and girls walking around together, presumably dating or something, always kind of depresses me for some reason.)
I finally got a water container to use for painting class--the aforementioned girl from Texas, who I've talked to a few times before and am getting to know pretty well, gave me a ride to the dollar store nearby and I bought this huge water bottle and some cheapo styrofoam cups (45 for $1.00!) so I don't have to use my little decorated cup from the '90s dance every time I need one.  Of course, the next time the painting class even meets is next Wednesday, so I won't actually need it for a while... but it'll be good to not have to borrow the HRA's pitcher at least, and this bottle actually has a lid and can be carried long distances without always spilling everywhere.

"Unofficial Spanish tutoring" went really well.  I tend to think of myself as being pretty bad at teaching other people how to do stuff, but I might actually have to reconsider that opinion now... it seemed like I was able to explain stuff pretty well and the girl I was "tutoring" really did seem to be getting better with some of the things she had problems with (conjugating verbs, switching verb forms in a question in order to answer, pronouncing things correctly) by the end of the hour-and-twenty-minutes or so that we were in the library.  On top of that, I actually got to know her pretty well and we talked about all kinds of other random stuff in addition to Spanish.  We actually got to talking about politics at one point, which I had been really worried about but somehow it turned out fine--we actually agreed on a lot of things (two-party system kinda sucks, Democrats and Republicans are a lot more similar than either side wants to admit, Lincoln was a good president, some things that happen during one presidency aren't necessarily "President _____'s fault" just because he was the one in office at the time) and nobody got pissed off at any point, which was pretty different from what I was expecting out of a political discussion.  Makes me slightly less worried about the possibility of asking out that one girl I mentioned before whose political views are probably very, very different from mine... I mean, I've already talked to her about religious differences and we actually seemed to agree pretty well there, so chances of a political discussion spontaneously turning into HULK SMASH!! probably aren't as high as I would normally expect them to be.
We also talked about dating, oddly, and I ended up finding out that she had only been on two dates in her life... so I guess there's a chance that not every girl I meet here is that much more experienced dating-wise than me.  It probably helps that most of them are 5-7 years younger than me (though not all, I've met someone who's 23 and one who may actually be a year or two older than me), but fortunately everyone's still in that range where all ages still look pretty much alike and it's really hard to tell the difference (I was mistaken for a high school senior just last year!)... so even that much of an age difference probably won't seem creepy at all to anyone in their right mind.  I still haven't gotten around to asking any girl about what the fact that I'm not a Mormon might mean for my chances of having any sort of a relationship with the girls here, but... I'll try to get that question in somewhere before the end of the week at least.  I don't really want to ask a guy about that kind of thing because it seems the guys are a little more strict about the little nitpicky rules of their religion than the girls, and plus asking a guy about what girls think is always a pretty stupid idea from what I've seen over the last 10 or so years.
Random thought: I wonder if helping out someone with one of their classes like that qualifies as a service project for the Leader-Servant class.  I mean, it is "something that helps people" (both the person learning Spanish, and anyone she may have to talk to in Spanish in the future!) and it is somewhat time-consuming, though it's essentially just talking so it was the kind of time-consuming where you lose track of time rather than the more boring kind where you keep checking your watch every few minutes.

Knees are healing up (covered in scabs now, not much if any bleeding anymore) so maybe I'll get at least a tiny bit of jogging in this week after all.  Or at least a walk.  I might try to walk down to the Buena Vista public library sometime and see if I can find any of those books Ruth recommended... maybe they might have a bit more of a selection than the school library, at least when it comes to fiction books.  Or if my knees are still not feeling well, maybe I could get her to give me a ride over there.  I wonder if technically asking a girl to go to the library and look for books with you could qualify as a "date"... after seeing so many girls walking around with guys or sort of laying halfway on them in the library couches, I'm getting a little worried that all of the girls I'm starting to like will jump face-first into relationships before I even get a chance to even attempt to ask them out.  Of course, she said she wasn't currently interested in any dating-related stuff on one of her DeviantArt journal posts, but... who knows? Definitely not me, I don't even know for sure if I'll even be able to ask a girl out... let alone actually pick just one to try and ask out (that's a lot harder than you'd think, there's so many cute girls around! And most, if not all, of them are actually nice and don't mind talking to me.)

Late post, with random silliness

Yesterday was a pretty good day (aside from the still-present pain whenever I bend my knees), just not a whole lot to really say about it.  Unless I wanted to go into detail about every single time I talked to a cute girl, in which case I'd have a very, very long blog post since there's so freaking many of them here and most of them actually seem to like talking to me.

Bumped into a few new people yesterday, some of which  I might actually remember the names of today or tomorrow if I see them again.  Finished a painting assignment (clouds and trees--and oddly, the first tree and the last cloud turned out the best, with the two in the middle being mostly "eh"), and then sat in the library literally watching paint dry for a while.
Also looked around in the library for books by Terry Pratchett, since one of the girls I've met reccommended his books to me and having something to read during the "there's nothing going on!" hours would be great... but apparently the school library doesn't have any of them.  Maybe I'll try to get on one of those shuttles that travels to one of the other school libraries in Lexington sometime and see if they have them.

Poked around a bit on Facebook, looking for people's pages who I hadn't seen before, and stumbled upon a few people I knew... which also unfortunately meant stumbling across all of the info they put on their pages, which in one case was a little bit discouraging.  I'm not entirely sure, but from the look of it after a brief glance, one of my friends here is pretty much the polar opposite of me politically... I guess it's a good thing that I've been avoiding the mention of any sort of political stuff.  I'm guessing she's not the rabid political fanatic type at least, since I've talked to her quite a bit and haven't heard anything that would suggest she's like that... but it does kinda make me worry even more about how things would go if I, I dunno, tried to ask her out or something (...which is actually something I've been considering more and more lately.)  Actually, that worries me even more than the problems that the religious differences might cause, since she's a Mormon and I'm something else.  Guh... why is it that I always end up so attracted to girls that are so far away from me on political issues and only find out later? Seriously, this is like the third time this has happened, and it's always the girls I really like...

And now, after that depressing crap, time for the random silliness! During the "meet the student government candidates" thing the guy announcing stuff mis-pronounced something as "waffle;" unfortunately I can't remember what, since I think it was funnier with the rest of the sentence/phrase in place instead of just "waffle" by itself.  Also, I learned that fencers have to cover up every little bit of their skin, so they wear absurdly long socks in order to keep themselves from being sword-poked just below the kneepad (which explains why one of the girls I've met always wears long sleeves, long pants, and long socks even when it's hot out; she fences and has gotten so used to wearing "long everything" that not having the absurd knee-high-or-higher socks feels weird.)

The oddities of website blocking programs...

Yeah, for some reason when I first got here fanfiction.net was blocked by SVU's web content blocker (for pornography and "other") but fictionpress.com was not blocked.  Now, for some bizarre reason, it's been flipped to the other way around... fanfiction.net is allowed, fictionpress.com is blocked for pornography and/or nudity.  Yes, a site with no pictures, which actually kicks people off if they have X-rated avatars, is blocked for nudity... makes no sense.  So now I not only have no way of directing people I know to read the Pugh story, I also have no way of editing my page on the site to add more chapters or remove what's already there (not much point in having it hosted on a site I can't even access, is there?)  The strangest thing is how when I try to access fictionpress.com from the library computers it gives a "website blocked" message, but on my laptop I get a "Internet Explorer cannot open the webpage" error instead.  I wonder what's going on there?
It's pretty messed up, and really makes no sense to me.  Hopefully they'll get the "which sites to block and not block" thing worked out a little better in the future, because at the moment they've made some kind of odd decisions about those and seem to change at the drop of a hat.  Maybe it's an automatic thing that's programmed a little screwy, I don't know.

Today was mostly good overall, though it had its "off" moments (either due to boredom or just feeling out of place/freaking out at moments.)  Classes were pretty good as usual, bumped into some people during meals and talked a bit, I'm getting a bit less frustrated with watercolors (painted a tree today! ...and need to paint another tree and two sky/clouds scenes before Wednesday), and my jogging wounds are starting to heal up a bit (they're scabbing over now, and hopefully not doing much more bleeding, if any.)
Spent a lot of time today talking to various people, some I knew and some I sorta-knew and even a couple I had just met.  Mostly girls, of course (I generally just get along better with girls) but a couple of guys, also... one of which said he should set me up on a date with a girl, after I mentioned I'd never been on a date in my life.  Heh... not sure if I'd really want that or not, I'd kinda rather go on a date with someone I actually know rather than just some random person someone else picked out for me, though of course either way would be an improvement over the usual "no dating ever."  Actually sat outside in the grass and talked to a couple of girls for close to two hours (well, only one for about half of that, since the other left after a while) between Spanish class and dinner, since I just didn't have much else to do and I generally like talking to people.  Introduced her to the idea of cuddly spiders (...she didn't quite agree with me on that one XD), found out a bit more about the Star Trek movie with the whales in it (she was really into Star Trek, we actually talked for a pretty long time about that! and also comparisons between Star Trek and Star Wars, and all sorts of other stuff), and for the first time I actually managed to bring up the topic of dating despite being around a (presumably) single girl.  And I didn't feel weird mentioning it, she actually explained a bit about how Mormons as a whole are sort of obsessed with dating and marriage, which is why you have things like the orientation speech guy actually encouraging people to go on dates and stuff like that.

Also,  I actually met an atheist for the first time today, and she didn't appear to be the loud, obnoxious kind you usually run into on the Internet.  Funnily enough she was actually a visitor on the campus considering coming to school there sometime soon--yeah, an atheist going to a religiously-affiliated school! That's almost even more odd than my situation, though I think she'd probably get along with people pretty well since she seemed nice (though she'd have to take out her lip piercing, the guys who make the rules don't seem to like those much here. XD)

Went to this thing called "family home evening" that the Mormons have every Monday.  I had no idea where to actually go since I missed the part where they split the wards into even smaller groups, so I ended up tagging along with a few people I knew... they were going to go to one meeting where they were playing video games and eating ice cream, but at the last minute (after luring me in with offers of video games and ice cream) they decided they weren't going to that one and instead they were going with some guy to his group's event instead.  It was some weird card game that involved spoons, with everyone sitting in a circle and passing the cards trying to get 4 of a kind, and whenever someone got it they'd go for one of the spoons and then everyone else had to get a spoon or they'd be out.  I actually tried to lose the first two times (because nobody had explained the rules and I was feeling a little lost and confused, as usually happens when someone is just thrown into something without any explanation) but even when I didn't make an attempt to get one of the spoons, I ended up with one anyway--first time I tried to slide my spoon over to someone else but they already had one and slid it back to me, so instead of me being out (what I wanted) one of the only people I actually knew was out.  I would've just passed the spoon over to her if I had realized she didn't already have one.  Next time, I completely ignored the spoons and at the end one girl who had two just handed one to me.  I couldn't lose when I was trying to lose... bleh.  And of course, as soon as I sort of got the hang of it and stopped intentionally trying to lose, I was the one who was out.  It didn't help that I couldn't really move much to get the spoons thanks to the condition my knees were in.
But, after that point it got a lot better, as instead of wasting my time with cards and spoons and games that are too fast and make no sense, I got to talk a little bit and kind of look through a girl's random notes (I'm... not entirely sure why she handed them to me to look through, they seemed like the kind of thing that I wouldn't show people if it was me... nothing really personal or embarrassing, just not anything I'd show other people, either.  Well, except the silly sketches, silly sketches are always good.  Apparently she likes to represent herself as a floating chibi head with arms but no torso or legs, heh.)

Later in the day things kinda slowed down a bit, and I ended up just wandering around campus bored with nothing much to do.  Normally I'd got for a walk or even jog, but with my knees still all smashed up that would probably be extremely uncomfortable even if I went easy on it.  So I ended up talking to random people in and around the library, a couple of which I'd met before and a bunch I hadn't.  One of them happened to be someone I knew from Art History class, who had their book with them (so I managed to get in a good-sized chunk of my reading assignment for that class done, in addition to my Spanish homework.)  Oh, and I also kinda agreed to help out a girl in my Spanish class since she's having a hard time getting the hang of certain things and just going to the regular tutoring session didn't help much... so I guess I'm an unofficial Spanish tutor now, heh.  She wanted to meet up in the library on Wednesday after class, which works out well for me since I never have much of anything to do after Spanish on Wednesdays.

A non-boring Sunday, too!

Yeah... today was the day I decided to actually try going to church just to see what it was like.  The first part (everyone in the big chapel room) was good, sunday school was okay (a little odd with the whole "splitting up into groups and going off to different rooms" thing, but not too bad), but the last part where the guys and girls got separated and sent off on their own was a little uncomfortable.  Seemed like more of a "members only" sort of thing to me, and I felt weird and not quite like I belonged there pretty much the whole time (on top of the uncomfortableness I already had from the whole "crammed into a room full of other people" thing and of course the "no girls" thing.)  But overall it went well; actually stuck around and talked to a couple of people I've met before (and a few I hadn't, and a few I've met once or twice but don't know as well) for a while while they waited to talk to the bishop.
Funny thing: I had been planning on doing my painting homework between church and supper, but as it turned out... there wasn't anything between church and supper.  I ended up talking to some people in the church for a while and then right when I was headed off to eat, I bumped into Kaitlyn (whose name I actually know how to spell now--I had been guessing it was Kaitlin with two I's, rather than an I and a Y) and talked to her for a while... and by the time we finally stopped talking, I only had about 10 minutes to get in there and eat a salad before they closed the dining hall.  Whoops!

Oh, and I actually managed to ask a girl for her phone number for the first time in my life.  Not the first time girls have given me their phone numbers (though, all of those were also within the last couple weeks), but still the first time I ever actually asked for it... and at first she said no! But it turned out that was only a joke (kinda scared me for a second there, I just sort of stood there not saying anything and probably looked pretty freaked out for a moment) and we exhanged numbers shortly afterward.  I was actually kinda surprised that I was even able to ask, since I'm not really very good at asking people things like that... maybe not quite the same as asking a girl out on a date or something, but it's a start I guess?
And speaking of that, I think I finally have an idea of who I would ask out on a date if I ever managed to actually attempt it.  Not going to say who here since, well, people I know might be reading this (okay, they're not... I've had exactly 5 hits on this whole blog since I started, and half of them are from Germany.  But I'm still a little paranoid about that kind of thing.)

Went to the fireside tonight also.  They had free cookies.  Pretty interesting stuff this time, too; one of the Mormons' current twelve apostles (their top church leaders are structured just like Jesus and the twelve apostles, with other larger groups aside from them because the population's way too high now for just thirteen people to cover it all) was the speaker, along with his wife.  He actually talked about how you shouldn't go around nitpicking at other people's beliefs and how a lot of religions have stuff in common that should be focused on more than the little differences, which is a pleasant change from the "you disagree on one tiny issue? YER GOIN' TO HELL!!" type of religious people that I was used to dealing with before I came here.  Basically he talked about tolerance and how you should generally be okay with other people's beliefs and such unless they're doing something horribly wrong (murder, stealing, etc.) as a result of it... which is basically the exact same thing Kaitlyn and I were talking about earlier in the day.  Kind of a weird coincidence there, but definitely not a bad thing.  It's nice to know that people actually agree with me on that kind of thing despite other religious differences.  Makes me feel a little less out-of-place in the 95%-Mormon environment around here (though for the most part I haven't been feeling too out of place, since most people are actually nice... just occasional moments of out-of-place-ness here and there.)

Random silly quotes of the day: "Spraying butt-blood," "You don't want to lick a pirate," (both from the same conversation, oddly enough!) and "SOMEBODY PISSED ALL OVER THE SEAT!" (overheard at 11 AM from some guy who had just gone into the bathroom.)

And now... I need to get that painting homework done.  Or at least started.

A non-boring Saturday??

Despite being part of the weekend, today wasn't all that boring! Did some Spanish homework, jogged a bit, sat around in the library and dining hall and talked to people, talked to people in a few other random places, ate more yummy food (actually got to try both the tortellini and the ravioli for lunch this time), met a couple of new or semi-new people (some I had technically met before since I was in classes with them but just didn't remember, others who were completely new), and directed yet another person toward downloading my games and stuff.

When the topic of dating came up when I was talking to someone earlier, they suggested asking a girl to come to the play with me.  I didn't, of course (...I actually sort of had someone in mind, too, for the first time in a very long time... I just didn't see her at all today, so of course I couldn't have asked her even if I tried)... I'm honestly not sure I'd be able to pull it off, since I've never been on a date in my life and really don't even know what exactly a date is supposed to be.  How do you even ask someone on a date anyway? People make it sound so simple but... it really isn't.  Asking girls to dance at the dances is bad enough as it is (though, then again, I did actually manage to do that a couple times already this year...)
Went to the Wizard of Oz play thing (by myself... well, sort of, I kinda went with a bunch of people that I sorta-almost-know a little bit), and generally enjoyed it once I got past the fact that the room was excessively crowded and the people I sat with (minus one) were making me feel a little... I dunno, sort of out of place or unwanted I guess.  Not sure why.  But anyway, lots of silliness there.  A few moments here and there were a bit too "horribly failed attempt at humor"-ish (bird getting shot randomly during "somewhere over the rainbow"... everyone else laughed their asses off, I sat there silently just looking a little annoyed and feeling like the only sane one again for the first time in a while), and there was one joke I just didn't get in there toward the end, but for the most part it was funny and overall really well done.  A few bits I didn't remember clearly but then again it's been a very long time since I've seen the original Wizard of Oz, so that's not really much of a surprise.

Random observation: Reese's Pieces are nowhere near as good as peanut butter M&M's.  I thought I remembered them being very similar but I was wrong! (They're still good, though... just not as good as the M&M's.)

EDIT: ...tripped over the sidewalk jogging and smashed my knees up pretty bad.  Ouch.  Fortunately, some random married guy and his wife (who were living nearby where I was jogging) happened to see me trip, so they came over to see if I was okay and then brought me into their house so I could get the wounds cleaned up and band-aid'ed.  So it turned out pretty much okay in the end, but still... my knees are really scraped up bad (was bleeding all the way down to my socks before) and I don't know how well I'm going to be able to do my jogging/walking the rest of the week with them like that.

I was right! And/or wrong. But mostly right.

Today I discovered that jalapeño poppers are delicious, and that some people have never had truly bad food in their lives.  Seriously, a couple people were talking about how supposedly bad the food was for supper tonight even though it was good... I mentioned the jalapeño poppers (which I couldn't remember the name of at the time and called "those jalapeño cheese fried things") and some guy sounded kinda grossed out and said something about how he wouldn't trust them "knowing the school's food."  Um, what? This is the only school I've ever been that had edible food... I'm guessing this guy doesn't know how bad cafeteria food can get.  The only problem I've had with the school food so far is the way some people tend to drop random bits of icky stuff (like green beans or peas) into the good food (like jalapeño poppers or black olives) so I have to be extra careful not to accidentally put some of the icky stuff on my plate.

Also found out that my weird feelings that something was up earlier in the week were (for the most part) not just me being paranoid.  One of the girls I've gotten to know pretty well actually has been having some trouble lately because her medication runs out soon and the pharmacy is a good walk away... and also she doesn't have money to pay for it.  She said she'd try to just go without for a while, but I'm not sure that's such a good idea... the last time I knew someone who was supposed to be on meds who decided to go without them for a while, things got really nutty, really fast and I discovered that the "on meds" version was much more pleasant to be around than the meds-less one.  Of course, probably not the same problem here (actually I'm 100% sure it's not the same problem) but still, going without medication for potentially serious conditions just doesn't seem like a good idea to me.

Starting to get more used to doing my Spanish homework on time now.  It's a little easier on weekends, since I've got tons of free time (two days! plus the rest of Friday and early Monday), but I think I'll be able to pull it off on the weekdays now, too.  Painting might be a bit trickier, but since the library's open all day tomorrow (until something like 7:00 anyway) I should be able to figure out which painting I'm going to imitate for the next assignment, get a print-off or two done, and then finish it over the weekend.
Also showed some of my games to more people today, and thankfully nobody seemed offended by Fat Frog (despite Chuck E. Jesus being possibly blasphemous in some people's eyes and "MOVE, BITCH! GET OUT THE WAY!" blaring in the background.)  Of course, the song was kinda inaudible thanks to the loud cafeteria noise all around, but still, nobody seemed to have any issue when I mentioned that there was a rap song in the game with some profanity.  Showing people silly stuff that makes them laugh is always good, too.  Plus, I think I may have directed a few people toward actually downloading and playing my games for themselves, rather than just watching (pointing them toward Slime Salad, of course.)

Oh, and I just noticed that most of the people reading this (which is... not really anyone, heh, I've had five hits total since I started) are from Germany, which is a little odd.  How are German people finding some random guys blog that's not even linked anywhere? A little weird!

Another pretty good day

I think I may be avoiding sitting in my room too much from now on--sitting in the library seems to work just as well if not better, and it's never quite as lonely as an empty dorm room when nobody's around.  Plus hanging around in the library seems to make it easier to bump into new people to talk to (or in some cases people I already know, or in still other cases people I've met once but hadn't really talked to for more than a minute or so before then.)  Plus, if I'm not sitting around in my room all the time, I'll probably be able to avoid any more somewhat uncomfortable encounters with the missionaries.
I seem to be getting better at remembering names, too; I was able to remember the names of everyone I bumped into today (that I'd talked to before), mostly on my first try, and some of them were even people that I didn't know very well yet.  Hopefully I won't need to be asking anyone for their name four times anymore. XD

Spanish tutoring wasn't quite as weird as I expected; it's required for the class but you don't really need to do a whole lot to get credit, just show up and look over your books or do some homework or even just talk about Spanish-related stuff with random people.  So not quite "tutoring" in the "you're doing horribly at this class and need help" sense.

Ended up bumping into and talking to tons of people at supper tonight... I sat at something like three or four tables before the meal was over, though I had finished eating a pretty long time before then and was just drinking some lemonade by the second or third table.  They had both burritos and hotdogs tonight, so no salad for me! Plus I managed to keep my burrito from falling apart by double-wrapping it with another tortilla.  Found out that one of the girls I've gotten to know has actually been to McAffee's Knob before, which I wasn't expecting; I can't remember where she's from (...I want to say Oklahoma, but I can't remember off the top of my head) but I kinda figured nobody who wasn't from around here would know about McAffee's Knob.  I also found out that she's only a little younger than me, not 18/19-ish like I had previously assumed (I guess I was expecting "average college student" ages from everyone, and she really doesn't look any older than the 18/19-year-olds, so...)

Did some more jogging, both in the morning and at night this time.  Only managed three blocks in the morning, but pulled off six of 'em at night, so it evened out to almost as much as I got in last night.  I'm up to about a mile and three quarters now, which means I only have to jog another three-quarters of a mile before I'm done with the two-and-a-half that we need before the end of the week.  Considering that I've been getting 9 or 10 blocks a day when I either jog a lot at once or do it both in the morning and at night, I think I should be able to pull it off before Saturday's over, if not earlier.
The school's doing a Wizard of Oz play on Saturday night, and since I have nothing else to do aside from jogging (which I could do afterward) I'll probably end up going.  Tickets are... 6 dollars, I think, which shouldn't even put a dent in my stash that I brought to school with me, so I shouldn't have any problem going and seeing it.

Getting better at jogging

Jogged 10 city blocks (roughly 80% of a mile in Buena Vista) today.  Looks like I'm getting a lot better at it, since I didn't get nearly as worn out this time and I managed to do three blocks in a row (still my record) without stopping once again.  Celebrated with a hot ham 'n' cheese (the tiny $1 one, all I could afford) and a cup of ice water (again, not enough money with me to buy a "real" drink) from Hardee's afterward, since combined with my three blocks from yesterday morning I've now finished off a full mile.  I think I'm definitely going to manage to get two-and-a-half done before the week's over, especially since I'm not going home over the weekend so I'll have all of Saturday to get some last-minute jogging in if I need it.

Painting went surprisingly well today considering that I... probably didn't even do the assignment right.  Apparently I saw "practice with brush strokes and watercolor techniques" as "practice them by actually painting stuff" while the rest of the class interpreted it as "practice by making squares and squiggles on the paper using the various strokes/techniques."  The teacher didn't seem to mind so much (she actually seemed to like my mushrooms-and-grass painting) but then again, I haven't seen that assignment's grade yet, so... I can't really say for sure how well I did in grading terms.  I'll still have to do that other assignment I didn't get finished, though it won't be for credit--at the end of the class we'll have to do the same thing over again to show how much you've improved, so I'll need the "before" picture to compare to the "after" later.

Got my Book of Mormon for that Institute class today.  Haven't read any of it yet, though I'm sure I'll have a little time tomorrow (maybe during breakfast?) before the class, and the reading assignments don't seem to be especially long in that class.  Also got my Art History book back (again) today, though I may have to trade it back over again tomorrow... unless the girl who's been borrowing it gets hers in the mail, anyway.  She said she had two packages she hadn't checked yet so one of them might be the book.

Had kind of an odd encounter with missionaries today.  Started off just talking and toward the end... kinda started seeming like a conversion attempt.  Problem was that they actually seemed nice, so I couldn't really bring myself to tell them "no, that's okay, I'm not really open for conversions, go away" (and follow up with a door-slam if they insisted) like I could with some of the more aggressive conversion attempts I've run into in the past.  Just couldn't come up with a nice enough way to explain to someone that no, I really am not interested in converting to your religion (or anyone's religion for that matter, I just don't think there's any one religion I fit into)... and I'm doing fine with my own beliefs as they are, so why change? Just to fit in? Hell no.  Fortunately they weren't too converty today, just sort of... tried to get me to start praying, which was kind of odd.  Particularly the "teaching you how to pray" thing... I mean, even if I really believed in prayer actually working (it's one of those few things I'm sort of on the fence about; with most things, I know exactly what I believe, one way or the other... or some other way nobody else thought of), it seems a little odd to define a specific "way to pray."

Also showed some people at dinner Fnrrf Ygm Schnish: Alleghany Hell School and Okédoké! La Leyenda Mexicana.  Kind of had a crowd of people gather around once FYS:AHS really got going, and a few people who stayed around afterward and saw some of Okédoké! too.  Somewhat surprisingly, nobody seemed to be offended by Okédoké; I'm guessing it was because it was only Señor Rialgo who cursed much (and he's intended to be a pretty stupid guy, so that kind of fit) and there were only a few drug/beer references here and there... no sexual stuff or anything like that.

I haaaaaaate watercolors...

That painting class I'm in? Turns out it's nothing but watercolors.  Now, I have not had any halfway-decent experience with watercolors in the past, but I always kinda figured it was because they were the cheapass ones that they always give to little kids, with the little oval things with hard crusty "paint" in them that you can only get to actually go on the paper with excessive amounts of water and even then you barely get any actual color on the page.  Turns out, it's not just the cheap watercolors--all watercolors are terrible and I can't do anything at all with them without things blurring together or just looking awful.


And to make it even worse, that class has the most excessive amounts of homework of any class I've ever been in.  Homework assignment, due tomorrow: not only do I have to paint NINE FREAKIN' PICTURES on a single page using different watercoloring techniques (which, at the moment, basically consists of "flail randomly with paintbrush" and "sorta try to use different brushes and stuff to see if it makes any difference"), I'm also supposed to look up some painter and try to imitate one of their paintings.  WHAT? Come on, that's just way too much.  Either one of those assignments would be almost excessive on its own, but both of them? That's just wrong.  About the only way I would've had any hope of finishing them both is if I had skipped my trip back home over the weekend and instead wasted every last moment of my time painting (or more accurately "making blurry colored garbage all over this really nice paper we have which is way too good to waste on this watercoloring crap.")  It's almost as if the teacher's lesson plan assumes this is the only class we're taking, or something.
The one good thing is that out-of-class projects are apparently only 10% of our grade, but... that honestly bothers me almost as much as watercolors do in general.  Basically it's "here, work your asses off on these horrible torture assignments! but no, you won't hardly get any credit for them, they're just to make your life miserable."  The teacher seems pretty nice most of the time, so I'm really not sure how she could've been the one who thought this up.


I'm seriously considering dropping the class now, it's that bad.  I mean, the class itself is okay, but if we're going to have ridiculous homework assignments like this on a regular basis I will never actually be able to get one done, and even if I do it will still look like crap and I doubt I'll ever get any better at watercoloring.  I wish somebody had bothered to tell me that this class was nothing but freaking watercolors when I decided to drop out of Astronomy so I could take it... at the time I was so worried about having to pay for another book for Astronomy, but I bet if I had heard even the slightest mention of "nothing but watercolors for an entire semester, and waaaay too much homework too" I would've changed my mind in a second and dropped this one instead.  Plus I had to pay for all these useless watercoloring supplies, so I ended up having to pay for extra stuff anyway on top of being forced through watercoloring torture for a full semester... urrrrrgh.

EDIT: Actually, nevermind that bit about dropping the Painting class.  I was just getting really frustrated with the watercolors at first because I really didn't know how to use them all that well and, with a little more practice (and a bit of talking with my roommate and dad to distract me enough that I don't get frustrated too much), I'm sorta feeling like I'm not completely lost when it comes to painting with them.  Still doubt I'll get all nine of my paintings done in time for class (let alone the other assignment...) but I don't think I'll actually drop out now.
...though just realizing that I only just now am halfway done has kind of made me get a little annoyed once again.  It was nine paintings, I mistakenly split my page up into six sections... guess I can try to divide the other two that I haven't done into several smaller ones, or something?

The pain-in-the-ass watercoloring was about the only really bad thing about today, fortunately.  Food was good as usual (had a waffle AND Cap'n Crunch for breakfast), I actually managed to jog three blocks without stopping to rest in between, got to talk to a bunch of people throughout the day, Spanish went pretty well, and I'm now taking an Institute class on the Book of Mormon.  Just because I like learning stuff in general, and since I'm at a school that's 95% Mormons it just kinda makes sense to learn about their religion and culture and stuff like that, rather than just having no idea what people mean when they say certain things.  Another good part: the class is free aside from the books, one of which--the student manual, the "textbook" type book of the class--only cost something like 5 dollars and the other--the Book of Mormon itself--I'm getting for free (borrowing? I'm not 100% sure) from someone I know.  So I can fill up one of my empty slots on Tuesdays and Thursdays without emptying out my wallet and/or bank account any more, which is always good.  Also, there's several people I know in the class, so I'm not going to be lonely in there and I'll probably have a place to sit where I won't feel all crowded by the tons of other people I don't know.

Got a random text message from someone and it turned out it was from the phone number which supposedly was the "sign up for student alerts by sending a message to this number" number.  Turns out it was actually a 10-year-old girl, who is probably very confused now.  I ended up telling her that I had probably gotten the number wrong, and ten minutes later I got another message telling me to "stop contacting this 10-year-old little girl" (I'm assuming from one of her parents or something, the grammar and such seemed better than the other messages.)  Which... I had already done, since I didn't send any more messages after the "sorry, this was probably a wrong number" one and it was 10 minutes or more between that and the possibly-from-the-kid's-parents message.  Weird.  Why would a 10-year-old have a phone, anyway??

Luke, I am your IRS agent.

Thought today might get boring without classes or anything to go to for most of the day, but it managed to stay pretty consistently unboring for the most part (there's always a few dips into boredom here and there, even on really good days.)

Got up obnoxiously early (7:10 again, what's up with that number?) and ate breakfast.  And then went to walk in the Buena Vista parade, which was something I didn't really expect to like doing which turned out better than I was expecting, partly because I realized it was really not much different than a long walk (which I like) and partly because I managed to hang around with people I know most of the time.  Well, all of the time actually, just some of them kinda ended up leaving earlier in a van, so me (and one other person) had to just walk all the way back.  Unlike the van-riding people, though, we stopped in at a burger place and got drinks (or... cups of ice.  I had a drink, anyway, but it also became a cup of ice later.)  Turns out cups of ice cost 17 cents, which makes them pretty much the only thing you can still get for less than a quarter.  Or less than 50 cents, really, unless you want gumballs or something.  And there's 7 and 1 showing up again, for the fourth time (twice I've needed to lend someone exactly 17 cents, and twice I've woken up at 7:10.)  If I was one of those people who thought recurring numbers like that actually had any significance I'd probably be freaking out right now, but fortunately I'm not.

After the parade there wasn't much to do, aside from the walk back to school (also lots of talking.)  Apparently the girl I danced with, who has seemed unusually quiet this whole weekend, is normally pretty quiet and her "extra quiet-ness" this weekend isn't anything out of the ordinary... I'm not so sure, though, something just seems "off" to me.  I mean, I noticed her sitting off by herself at dinner and went over to sit with her, and she just... didn't talk, even when I attempted to talk to her.  The most I got out of her was head shakes and nods, aside from her saying "bye" when leaving.  I mean, I haven't known her long enough to really tell if she isn't like that normally, but she certainly wasn't that quiet for the past week-and-a-half... I don't know exactly what's up but every time I'm around her lately I feel like something is definitely "off" in some way.  I dunno, maybe I'm just being a little paranoid about it (I am related to Mom after all) but I just can't shake off that feeling that something is wrong, and those feelings are usually right.

Rained a lot.  Well, during the parade (when I actually had my raincoat) it didn't rain at all... not until we got back on campus did it actually start raining.  Of course, by then we were roasting and sweaty so the rain actually wasn't bad at all, especially since it wasn't a really hard rain or anything; just enough to drop the temperature a little.  But for the rest of the day, on and off, it was raining pretty much all the time.  I actually broke out the "regular coat" that Mom got me recently (which will probably replace my old gray coat with its falling-apart pockets) and wore that instead of the raincoat, since both are equally warm (in other words, probably too warm for the way the weather is right now) and the raincoat is a bit less comfortable.  I'll still probably use the raincoat instead the next time it gets really rainy, though; the regular coat just wouldn't stop that kind of rain.

And now the obligatory food post.  Had a salami, pepperoni, provolone, Monterey jack, lettuce, and pickle sandwich for lunch today, along with the usual salad.  Very good even though I didn't actually manage to melt the cheese; the bread was lightly toasted though and made the rest seem a bit "warmer."  I'll try and go full-blown panini next time I have a sandwich there, though; I need some melty cheese every once and a while.  Also had Mountain Dew for the first time in two weeks, when we stopped at the burger place during the walk home.  Probably shouldn't do that too often, what with wanting to keep those 30 Mountain Dew-induced pounds of blubber off and not get any more cavities.

Bumped into a guy I knew from Spanish class and talked a bit; talked about what kind of music we like and that sort of thing, and it turns out he likes reggae (I probably could've guessed by the shirt he had on one day, with a dreadlocked guy smoking a massive joint and multi-colored smoke drifting around.)  Joked a bit about how certain country songs and rap songs are so similar--you know the ones, the songs where the singer is just basically bragging about how country (or gangsta) they are and not much else.  "Yo yo yo, I got bling and hoes and drugs!" vs. "Well, I got me a rifle in the back o' my pickup truck..."  Kind of a funny comparison, but very true, there do seem to be a lot of those sorts of songs.  He asked me the most bizarre question I'd ever been asked, though--"When are you planning on getting married?" I mean... what? What!? What kind of question is that, even? Kind of ironic, the guy who's never had a girlfriend or been on a "real" date in his life is getting asked when he plans on getting married, like people actually don't know that I've never even been on a date in my life... wow.

Later I went to a talent show thingie that one of the LDS wards was having.  Just like last Monday, I had been invited to this by two or three separate people, so I figured "why not?" and walked up to the Institute building right around 7:00, managing to get in just before the thing started.  Turns out I had a seat open for me right next to the girl I had walked back from the parade with earlier; I'm unsure if she had saved the seat for me or if it was just coincidentally left open, and I forgot to ask.  Either way, that meant I had a decent seat (on the outside of a row, not crammed in around a bunch of other people) and got to sit near someone I knew, so the crowding wasn't such a problem.  Some people sang, others played instruments, one girl drew an anime-style portrait of a random person from the crowd (which, in his own words, came out looking like Ichigo from Bleach--kind of appropriate, as he was a tallish skinny guy with bright red-orange slightly spiky hair!), and there was some stand-up comedy and a goofy skit featuring Darth Vader, where my quote in the title comes from.  "IRS" in this case was "Imperial Revenue Service," by the way.  Really laughed my ass off at that one, and pretty much everyone who went up and sang/played/etc. was really good.  And afterward (of course!) there was free food--this time root beer and/or cream soda floats, with vanilla ice cream.  Once again, I won't need to dig out the M&M's for a snack later.

Also learned a bit more about the way Mormons work--apparently members from a certain area are split up into "wards," which there are five of in Buena Vista (mostly due to SVU's existence, as I doubt there'd be 750 or so Mormons in one small area otherwise.)  Usually, every Monday those wards get split up even further into "families" (in most areas split up by actual families, I'm guessing with some friends that don't have their entire families there mixed in; in the case of the SVU/Buena Vista area, though, they're just groups of students from a certain ward) and meet up to play games, learn stuff, get to know each other, and so on.  This Monday (and last) the entire wards had big events like the talent show, the barbecue I got invited to by a couple people last Monday, and so on; I'm not sure exactly what the difference is with these few weeks, maybe it's timed for the start of the school year or something.  But yeah, now I know a little more about how stuff works here so I won't get so confused when I hear people mention certain things.

I met another person who draws stuff today! The one who drew the guy who ended up looking like Ichigo, to be specific.  She's got a really unusual name; I honestly can't remember how it's spelled, and I'll have to ask her where the name comes from the next time I see her.  Seemed like a fairly interesting person; I'd actually met her once before but this was during lunch and she didn't talk much (she was a bit more talkative after the talent show, for some reason.)  She draws mostly anime-style stuff, but also Disney characters, and is insanely good at coloring things and shading; I actually couldn't see the "pencil marks" on some of her pictures the first few times I looked, they were colored in that well.  Seemed slightly... "goth-ish" I guess? She was wearing these black fishnet glove-like things that covered her wrist, part of her arm, and most of her hands aside from the fingers, which I don't think I've ever seen before.

And I'll probably be getting my Art History book back tomorrow, just in time for the class.  The girl who borrowed it apparently couldn't even read the chapter, she was so bored she was falling asleep in the middle of it. XD  Yeah... not sure how she's going to get through that class if she can't read the book at all.

Weekend visit back home

Went back home over the weekend (left around 3 Saturday, got back around 5 today) to visit my mom, dad, and little sister, which went pretty well.  The kittens grew a lot while I was gone; Midget is now bigger than Gray-Eyes and Pooter is pretty huge (looks almost like a grown-up cat now!)  Kitties seemed to have missed me almost as much as Mom did--they were all extremely cuddly the whole time I was there, all except for Shy who I didn't see very much (though she did let me take a picture of her and pet her a little once.)
Ate at Victor's yesterday... and forgot to bring my leftover pizza with me back to school.  Oh well, the food here is still very good--had a weird version of a chicken Caesar salad (with Italian dressing instead of Caesar... close enough, I guess?) which was good, and a waffle which was really good.  Yeah, waffles for supper... and I had to make them myself, actually.  Apparently they've had waffle irons out there and batter just waiting to be cooked, but I didn't know about them until today... so now I know that if I want waffles for breakfast someday instead of Cocoa Puffs or something, I can make my own.

Also forgot to bring my walking stick to school with me, so I guess I'll have to ask Mom or Dad to bring it with them sometime (or get it the next time I come up here and visit.)  Talked to some people today at supper and finally gave a couple of girls the pictures they wanted me to draw for them--I had both finished before I left, but didn't see either of them before leaving.  My phone's contacts list is (very slowly) growing, also.  I wonder if anyone will ever actually call me; it'd be nice to just be able to talk to people without actually bumping into them in person, since that only happens occasionally.

The only things I remember are Fruit Roll-Ups and Gushers.

...referring to the "'90s-theme" stuff at the '90s-themed dance, that is.  The only people's clothes that seemed familiar were the ones that didn't actually try to dress up at all... Yeah, I didn't really pay much attention to clothes in the '90s, but I would think some of those things would've stood out a bit more if people where I lived were actually wearing them back then.  I guess this is kind of like what old people feel like when they see those odd exaggerated depictions of the '60s and '70s made by people who weren't alive during the actual years.

But yeah, I went to the dance.  Didn't do quite as much actual dancing this time (well... I guess I technically did more than last time now that I think about it, but it was all during one very long song rather than one-and-a-half shorter ones.)  Turned out mostly good, but I couldn't help but feel kind of weird and lonely by the end... not 100% sure why just yet.  Just sort of seemed not as good as the first one, somehow.  Maybe it was the lack of tables, though later on when only a few people were sitting at them that part didn't seem all that bad... I don't know.
The poor girl I danced with was half asleep at the time; apparently she had promised to stay behind and clean up after the dance was over, so she was pretty sleepy by the time I asked her to dance.  I think.  At one point a couple of other girls were kind of pestering me to dance with her again, apparently denying it when I told them that she was half-asleep and probably didn't feel like dancing, and repeatedly trying to get me to ask her to dance again... they finally stopped after I told them that I had actually danced with her earlier (after they were saying that she hadn't danced at all the whole time.)  I'm not really sure what was going on there.  Were they trying to hint that this girl liked me or something and just... couldn't come out and say it because she was standing 10 feet away (even though, with how loud the volume was, you can barely hear someone 3 feet away?), or something? I don't know.  Girls can be weird sometimes.

Earlier in the day, I had pizza for lunch.  Somewhat later in the day, I went to a luau thing they had at the Institute building (basically church, but they also teach religious classes there) and ate some rice and veggies and cake and stuff like that.  And talked a lot.  Turns out one of the girls I had bumped into last week also likes to draw and come up with storylines and such, and we talked a lot (she gave me book reccommendations, too... guess I'll have something to do on those boring parts of Sundays?)  She ended up asking me if I had a DeviantArt account, so I told her what my name on there is (wrote it down, actually, since it's "FnrrfYgmSchnish" and I doubt many people could remember that.)  Saw her at the dance, too, but I think she left early so I only got to talk to her a little bit.

Also at the dance, I decorated a styrofoam cup (with various weird symbols and critters), ate animal crackers and Gushers (first time I've seen those in a while!) and drew stuff on tables.  Well, lots of people drew stuff on the tables, but I drew Yogurt Snails and K'hyurbhis and Frankfurter the soap-eating eel and stuff like that.  And question marks. Lots and lots of question marks.

Jogging, urgh! Shrimp and clams, yay!

Yeah... I think that jogging class may be a problem.  Jogged a little over half a mile (7 Buena Vista city blocks) earlier today and was much, much more tired afterward than I was when I walked close to 5 miles the other day.  Actually, walking 5 miles, the only thing that wore me out was climbing the stairs at the end... but jogging, I get just as tired from one or two blocks worth as I do from going up those stairs.  But hey, at least this way I'm bound to do better at the end of the semester than I do at the start! Since grades are based on amount of improvement over the semester, and I really suck at it now, I doubt there's much chance of me notting getting major improvement points.  Unless I break my leg trying to jog or something, but I don't think I'm fragile, just... not good at running for any length of time.

On a more positive note, the food is still amazing considering that it's coming out of a school cafeteria.  They had rigatoni, clam strips, and spicy fried shrimp today.  And that's just what I actually ate--they also had onion rings, which I didn't get around to before getting full.  But seriously... freakin' clam strips from a SCHOOL CAFETERIA!! I would have never believed it if I hadn't eaten them myself (just seeing them wouldn't be enough, they could be... some kind of illusion or something.)  And they were actually good, too!  Shrimp were very good also, which makes me wish I would've skipped the salad this time so I could've had more of them.

Actually learned some stuff in Spanish.  Turns out there's a whole other form of pronoun I had never heard of before: vosotros.  Which is rarely used outside of Spain (most everyone else just uses ustedes for all forms of plural "you"), and sounds like the name of an evil wizard.  He's probably related to Quiznos, the evil wizard who makes people fat by magically forcing them to eat too many subs.
Also, nosotros should become nosotras when everyone involved is female (vosotros is the same way.)  Somehow I either didn't know that from my high school Spanish classes, or I had forgotten it over the years since then... I thought it was always just nosotros.  I haven't forgotten everything, though; the more new Spanish I pick up, the more old bits come floating back.  I remembered son and somos before I actually read them in the book, just from seeing the pronouns they go with.

There was a soccer game.  I didn't go, of course.  I sorta thought about it for a very brief period, but by the time 5:00 rolled around, I was much too busy eating shrimp, clam strips, rigatoni, and salad (and talking) to bother with something that was most likely going to end up pretty bad for me anyway.  Food and being around people I like talking to always beat sports (and most likely still would even if I actually liked watching sports.)

Finished The Return of Martin Guerre.  Didn't live up to its "really boring" reputation at all; I thought it was pretty interesting to read, actually.  I was a little bummed out that they pretty much started off the book by giving away the entire plot in the introduction, but the little details of actually reading it weren't spoiled by that little summary without much detail to it at all, so it worked out pretty well in the end anyway.  And we'll be watching the movie version of it tomorrow in class.
While fiddling around in the library after my attempted jog (and short walk), I got a good look at a pretty big chunk of the books in there.  There's one big section with lots of Tolkein, C. S. Lewis, and Orson Scott Card stuff on the upper floor (which means I'll probably end up reading the rest of the Narnia and Ender series while I'm here, along with any Tolkein stuff I haven't read yet; I think there was a book of "lost"/unfinished stories that got released sometime not too long ago?)  On the bottom floor, I spotted one kind of odd-looking yellow-and-black thick paperback book among the religion-related shelves... and sure enough, it was "Mormonism for Dummies."  I had no idea they had "for Dummies" books covering different religions... I had only seen the computer-related ones and a few random others before.

Odd quote of the day: "He's not quite white enough, but..." I am... not entirely sure what I overheard there, I wasn't really paying close attention.
Wasn't actually said today (it was... yesterday, I think?) but still strange/funny enough to mention.