My mom sent me a few pictures from this summer, when we did one of the always-amusing family photo shoots.





Otherwise, not so much beyond school going on. We started reading Macbeth and hope to finish it tonight. The accents are fun, as is trying to use helium balloons to enliven the witches' voices.

Finally finished my Poetical Books paper. I'm not proud of it, but it's finished, which is a delightful word.

I also started a quality movie from the 1940s about Benjamin Disraeli for my Europe paper. I love the look and feel of old movies when I don't get annoyed with the pacing. They take time to get into the drama right from the start of the movie, without the gratuitous action scene every modern movie has to have.

Zerg and Fargo and I went to Starbucks today. I am still amazed by the regenerative powers of getting off campus for an hour and laughing about random things with a maple macchiato.

I have also enjoyed indulging my inner nerd with Battlefield 2142. Bubbles and Gizmo of Dorm 41 fame got the game and we have been owning n00bz for great justice.

Here they are playing DDR for great justice



Right now? The Rolling Stones and philosophy homework. And chatting with Jordo.

I do not think

I shall ever have to take eighteen hours again

I went to the Spencers' house on Friday night and Andrew and I watched Part One of the Godfather. I'd seen half of it on my flight to Korea but the plane landed before I could finish it.

I made him an offer he couldn't refuse.

Good stuff.

We woke the next morning, went canoeing for several hours on the river just below the dam of Caddo Lake. The river was very still, and generally the time was very quiet. It was nice to just paddle and be quiet.

We came back and made pizzas.



We then watched Dead Poets' Society, which was my first time to see it.

My name is Nerwanda!

The rest of the break was uneventful; I slugged away at a Poetical Books paper.

Last night the Korean students on-campus had a dinner for their host families and friends. The food was delightful. They made a special trip to Dallas and got real kimchi and kimbop and cho ko paie. It was one of the best Korean meals I've had, and afterwards I was privileged to play guitar for them while they sang a goodbye song in Korean.

They played a promotional video for Handong and I recognized a lot of the people, including my roommate Marcellin.

I don't have pictures but maybe soon.

Here's an assignment I did for Poetical Books. We were to write an acrostic (first letters of the sentence A-Z) in the style of Lamentations 3. It refers to my first year at Boy Scout camp.

Muse rocks my world.

Joshua Jones

Poetical Books

Dr. Hummel

Oct. 13, 2006

Genre Assignment: Lamentations 6

All day long, I walked and walked, only to turn around and walk back with the Boy Scouts again.

Believe me, I would not have come to summer camp if I had only known.

College cafeterias put camp food to shame and this is my first time to leave my father's house.

Drought, dust and adolescent drama fill this place; O Lord, have mercy upon us.

Everyone wished they were here yesterday and wants to be back home today.

Forgotten are the weeks of excitement, the days of packing, the tiresome parting with family.

"Goodbye," said my mother; "Good times," said my father; "Good riddance," said my sister.

Hot and dry is this place; we faint because we cannot go in.

Ice and air conditioners are nowhere to be found.

Just like school, we pine everyday, learning of compasses, cougars and cooking.

Kindling a fire and watching it at night reminds me of stories with my youth group.

Looking at the flame, I am comforted and conscious of Your presence.

Many homesick boys cry for their mother, but you, O God, are always with me.

No amount of time, not even an eternal seven days, can age Your love for me.

On a mountain sunset, I cannot complain that You do not care for me.

Please help my tentmate to take a shower tonight.

Quietly I distance myself from him at reveille.

Reeking like a billy goat, he grins and refuses to bathe.

Sometimes I do not understand why we work summers, leave our homes, walk all week.

Talking of rapelling or rafting or rifle shooting does not concern our normal lives.

Under a distant sky, we bake and scheme and live out winter dreams.

Very often, we slap at mosquitoes and curse the heat.

Warriors can become discouraged and lose their resolve; so do we.

Xerxes had his Thermopylae.

Yet, in our sorrowful summer camp blues, we ask not to be forgotten.

Zealous Boy Scouts cannot always be downcast!

Lamentation Characteristics:

1.This lamentation is structured in acrostic form.
2.The description of problems includes more variety (Lamentation genre), lamenting a multitude of problems rather than one specific trouble (lament psalm); examples: the heat, a dirty tentmate, the dust, the uselessness of the camp classes.
3.Hope is featured only in the middle, relating to a campfire experience.
4.The acrostic form, references to classical generals and Boy Scout subject matter implies a more formal lamentation of troubles, involving the common complaints of many people, rather than the private outcry of an individual.
5.This lamentation is about a definite place and time (my first summer camp), a characteristic of Lamentations rather than a lament psalm.

Fall Fest is over and done with. Kelsey, 41's queen from G2, won Fall Fest, for which the whole floor is immensely gratified. Fargo unfortunately did not win but we still love him.

Here's me crowning the new king, Lee Shaver. His theme was Wolverine, from X-Men, so shaking his hand was kinda interesting...



He made a really good Wolverine, by the way.

After the banquet, it was the talent show; it was better than last year and Karen and I were pleased with our performance.

The winner was a guy named William Wall who played this superb Chopin piece.

So today was very soothing.

This afternoon Fargo and Zerg and I studied at Starbucks. It was raining and I tried their new maple syrup macchiato. There was that pleasant balance of study and freetalk. We toured Best Buy and looked at all the nice things we couldn't buy.

After dinner I laid in Spencer's chair; studied Poetical Books and discussed the Big Three: God, gastronomy and girls.

Dozer is behind me lecturing his monitor on the operations of hydroelectricity. I am happy to be a history major.

Today Karen and I rehearsed for the talent show tonight. I hate pre-performance jitters, but we sounded OK. "The Phantom of the Opera" will be during the show's second act. Paige, our pianist, hooked me up with a full-length cape and probably make-up for later tonight.

I'm going to the banquet too, and my ticket is free, which is nice. Fall Fest is always fun but everyone is happy that it is only one week. Grey, my roomie, in particular has put a lot of work into it this week.

This last week, and the one coming, are big testing weeks, but the hope of Fall Break glimmers on the other side. I may just stay here and write papers. Woo.

I've been listening to the new Breaking Benjamin album. The album includes an acoustic version of their lead song "Diary of Jane" which is very very good. Cello and piano fit the song's lyrics much better than heavy rock.

There are so many books I want to read but school never leaves the time or desire to read. I look forward to life after school, when reading and writing can be fun again.

Thursday and Friday were a huge academic push for me, so I pretty much took Friday off after classes. Zerg and Fargo and Frisbee and I played a lot of Warcraft III, which is fun only in small doses.

I do wish I could hear back from UT about my application there. It's a toss-up; in my mind, a 50-50 chance of whether I get in or not, so I'm anxious to hear back.

I got my mail packet about the commencement ceremony in a few months. My thoughts about graduating are rather ambivalent.

weezerity

They dont make stationary like this where I'm from
So fragile so refined
So I sniff and I lick your envelope and fall to little pieces everytime

So it's Fall Fest week again AND midterms. I cannot believe that what looks to be my final semester is already half through. INCONCEIVABLE

My roomies have been busy setting up the "Save Princess Kelsey" Mario theme for this year's Fall Fest. We have people running around dressed as Koopa-Troopas, piranha plants (complete with the green pipe), Bowser, Luigi, the whole gang. Here's a behind-the-scenes pic featuring Zerg the Shroom.



From 41, Fargo got nominated for king and I really hope he gets it. G2 has done a stellar job with a Toy Story theme, so there are some very quality outfits of Army Men, Woody, etc.

I spilled orange juice on my keyboard about a week ago. It makes the right control button very sticky.

I played Acousticafe on Friday night. The opener was with Fjord and Karen, a rendition of the Mariner's Revenge by the Decemberists.



I worked hard on both of my Bible classes yesterday but couldn't make much progress on my Book of Acts abstract. So instead of stressing over it for the evening I went to Andrew's room and we laughed about random inane things for a few hours. He has a French acoustic CD which perhaps explains why I am listening to the four French songs on my computer.

Fjord and I recently welcomed him to 1999 by making him get an AIM account and keeping it open some of the time. Andrew makes me really angry when he just wanders around and can't be contacted. Leashes...

And in world news... I'm glad I'm not in Korea any more.

So this weekend I went canoeing at Caddo Lake. Andrew Spencer and I basically died trying to finish a lot of Poetical Books homework so that we would have the time for this, but we did it.

We spent Friday night at the Spencer's house (ate wonderful homemade pizza!) I also got to play Julie's harp, which is always fun.

The campout itself was fun but not much to write of. We set up camp on an island just inside the Louisiana border (the same place I camped last time with Andrew and Spork.)

We did get up in time for a small "church service" of our own out on the canoes at Sunday sunrise.

School has been insane, but here's a parting shot of our canoeing group. Hoo ray.

Fjord is the man...

me: Thou impertinent beef-witted bladder!
me: Thou mammering fly-bitten miscreant!
me: Thou bawdy guts-griping minnow!
me: Thou paunchy doghearted pumpion!
me: Thou impertinent ill-nurtured death-token!
me: Thou villainous lily-livered wool-sack!
me: Thou ruttish tickle-brained clack-dish!
me: Thou puny milk-livered fustilarian!
me: Thou burly-boned ill-nurtured ratsbane!
me: Thou currish beef-witted gudgeon!
me: Would thou wert clean enough to spit upon!

Fjord: your face sucks
Fjord: pwnd!

me: sorry, doesn't do it for me

Fjord: uh, your mom's face sucks?

Think about this but don't overdo the mental effort. These things take time to sink in... a quote from my philosophy textbook.

"Happiness is much more abstract and elusive than peanut butter."

Man, I am sure glad that they teach me these things for only $300+ a credit hour. I would be so lost.

Just finished the second week of the semester at LeTourneau. It has been really good being back. I miss lots of people that have graduated but it has been very good times with the people here.

I'm taking 18 hours:
Europe, 1789-1914 (interesting stuff... and Kubricht is teaching)

Intro to Fine Arts (stop laughing! Watson is the man)

Poetical Books (I think I really like Dr. Hummel. Sometimes it's just hard to spot him behind his gigantic GPA beat-down stick.)

Book of Acts (insert Dutch joke here. Actually Dr. Hood is cool)

Survey of American Literature I (We watched the Disney Pocahontas in class. Think about that. Actually I'm really glad to have taken another Dr. Coppinger class)

Intro to Philosophy (probably my least favorite class, not because of the material, but because this type of class should be the type of thing you do on a sunny hilltop with a band of good friends, not in the arctic sterility of Heath-Hardwick Hall in the company of 30+ caffeinated freshmen. Sometimes silence really *is* the best option when it clears you of retarded side considerations.)

I'm not working for the university this semester, which is hurting my bank account, but it is very freeing to be able to concentrate only on other stuff.

Pebble unfortunately could not come back this semester, so I'm the undisputed Overlord of the Power Suite. We have numerous names; none of us have girlfriends so we tacked on the name of the Eligible Suite.

On the upside, both of my minions (read: roomies) have cars, which, in classic Overlord style, I have dubbed my chariots. One of them, the Chariot of Destruction, is a '97 Chrysler Concord, but the other...

Well, last night I saw it for the first time and cried out, "What?! My Chariot of War is a stationwagon?!" Ah well, we must make do with what we have.

I lined up all my major semester assignments on Google Calendar and now anytime I want to be depressed I can open it to survey the coming destruction.

Several musical pursuits have also opened up for the semester. I'm working up some material for the next AcoustiCafe, not the least of which will be accompanying Fjord on his lead vocal debut with a very quality song.

Karen and I are also planning to try out again for the Fall Fest talent show with the act that got turned down last year. We shall prevail over the nay-sayers!

And there's a few more projects that I'm not actually at liberty to say. One of them involves *dance*. Yes, quiver in fear.

these can be amusing...

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Your Superhero Name is The Star Prime Your Superpower is Mathematics Your Weakness is Philosophizing Your Weapon is Your Rusty Bazooka Your Mode of Transportation is Sleigh