Sawblade's speeches

I'm not sure what time the blog says this entry will be posted, because it's always wrong. Right now it's about 11:45 PM on the 29th. Why am I writing right now? I'm not really sure, probably the main reason is that I've been working on a research proposal for my climatology class for a while, and I'm going to be working on it well into the night. (It's even more fun w/o a computer. I've gone between Clark and Clemons libraries several times tonight, as my computer is still not in working order. My new hard drive is supposedly in the mail but it got misdelivered, so DHL will try again tomorrow!)
Had it not been for a math test I had this morning I probably would have spent more time on it last night. Nevertheless, today (and tomorrow morning for that matter) is just hump day(s).
As I keep trying to dig deep down to harness whatever strength I have to get this proposal done, I think about the Wesley community meeting we had the other night. Actually, it was last night; it just feels like it was several nights ago. It was probably the first time that we all met as a community since the community retreat. Alex had given us orange slips of paper with a specific task to do before the next meeting, most of them related to maintaining the spiritual well-being of the community. For the most part I think we were successful in our tasks. Thinking about our tasks made me think about the community retreat, when Ashlee convinced me to write text from right to left, and then I wrote right-to-left messages that no one could figure out. And then later on, at the activities fair, getting bopped on the head by a girl when I wrote right-to-left that I thought she was cute (she obviously figured it out)
Back to the community retreat, we talked about our tasks and then talked about what was going on in our lives, and I think we all realize that it's getting to the point in the semester where school really kicks into high gear. David has a biology test (he actually has to take a biology class for a bio-ethics minor), Ashlee was talking about a nasty bio test she just had, and Coley is studying for the GREs. Andrew, meanwhile, is still looking for a job. Keelah and I realize how time-intensive band has been. Geoff's dealing with ENWR, Spanish, and political science stuff, along with his own share of computer problems. I hope that God will be with us all as we fight through "hump #1" of the semester....
I feel like I'm back in the fast-lane school-wise.... I had a test last friday, Monday, today, and I have 2 more next Tuesday. In addition, band is fun, but it's a huge time commitment. On the plus side, no football game this weekend! Yay! That means we actually only practice 3 days this week. Next Thursday should be a lot of fun when we perform with the Temptations (yes, that is what I said!) .
Andrew says that at some point during your college career that you eventually stop caring about getting everything done, and just being able to relax is more important. It's strange, the first few weeks of the semester I actually embraced that; although now I think I'm probably back to one of my old selves, the one from first semester last year. I didn't anticipate having this much of a time commitment with only 16 credits, where 3 are band. Well, I guess it happens when you're taking abstract math and a climatology course, both of which are cross-listed as graduate classes!
And as I dredge along with this annotated bibliography, all I want to do is think about the weekend. No, it's not sleep (well, some of it might be). I just keep thinking about the weekend... if all goes according to plan, it'll involve an overnight backpacking trip on Friday/Saturday with the outdoors club, and then a 5K on Sunday with Ashlee. That's a big IF all goes according to plan (when does that ever happen?). I wish I knew why I have such an ambitious weekend planned, but I don't. Well, if I were to be really ambitious I'd go skydiving this weekend, although I doubt I'll be doing it this semester since I can't risk breaking my legs during band season. (Yeah yeah, I know, and I COULD risk breaking them when it's not band season?)
Ah, the old 5K, something I haven't done in a while. It reminds me of the 10 miler from last year, and it reminds me how much I miss ol' Gampy (for those of you who don't know, that's Brian Lee). He and Caroline came up for the homecoming game against Akron and they got to see our band perform; I think they were really impressed. It's a shame I didn't get to spend more time with them.
I could reminisce a lot but it would come at the expense of how much sleep I'll get tonight, which is getting lower by the minute. Perhaps I should get back to work. One of my old away messages on AIM was "My mission, should I choose to accept it....ah screw it, I'll probably just be lazy (or will I?)" I think I have that away message up in my head right now. Anyway, enough meandering for right now. Hopefully the next blog post I make will be done from my own computer. If I'm lucky. :-)

I think at some point in our lives, we all wonder if any events on Earth are truly random, or if God has a purpose for every single event that happens. I think I re-examined this idea last night. I got a last minute invitation from Armenoush to her birthday dinner at Jaberwoke and ice cream at Arch's afterwards. I had a meeting so I couldn't make it to the dinner but I headed to Arch's immediately afterwards. Just as I got there, I saw another friend, Kristina, that I hadn't seen since 1st year, who was also looking for Armenoush. Seeing that Armenoush wasn't at Jaberwoke yet, we went over there and Armenoush and her other friends were walking out of Jaberwoke and they all decided they were full and wanted to call it a night, so Kristina and I went back to Arch's and then took the ice cream back to her porch to eat it. While we were eating, she told me that she was getting married in Australia in September. She told me a long story of how she met her fiance over AIM. I have to say that I don't think I've ever heard such an incredible story of two people becoming so spiritually connected to one another. I also don't think I've ever met someone so devoted to their Christian faith before. I can't think of a way of retelling the story, at least not in a way that will do justice to the way that Kristina told it. Communicating with God is something I know that I constantly struggle with, and I imagine just about everyone of faith does. Nevertheless, Kristina's story reminded me of how active God can be in each of our lives if we can truly find a way to accept Him. I really want to believe that our meeting last night didn't happen by chance, especially considering I would have missed her completely had I left 5 minutes earlier or arrived 5 minutes later at Arch's.

When I left Kristina's, I stopped by the library to check my email since I have no computer right now. I looked at Rachel's SCC Minutes from our meeting last Sunday, and logged onto SecureCRT to edit/update the calendar. While I was doing that, someone sat down at the computer next to me and started asking me if I knew anything about HTML, or someone who knew a lot about HTML. He was trying to set up a new website for an electronics business he was opening, and was confused about several of the weblinks to and from his site. The man didn't know very much about coding. Now, I know very little about HTML either, but after everything else that had happened that night, I couldn't say no to the guy. So I forgot about the calendar and worked with him for a while to try to understand the problems he was having with his website. He was using a graphical template editor which didn't work very well, and unfortunately I didn't know how to edit the html on his page directly. However, looking at HTML code from a different site, and with the help of some copy/paste action, I managed to use the template editor to add one important weblink to his site, a link to his product listings which are sort of "enmeshed" within several layers on a larger warehouse website. (This probably doesn't make a whole lot of sense to anyone, but that's not important; the man was glad that I helped him add the link).

Again, I can't say if we just ran into each other by chance or by the stars, but some events in your life just really make you wonder....

Since my computer crashed, I haven't done very much with computers lately other than check my email. And after forgetting to go to a lab station to fill in college football picks, I now find myself in last place! :-P Oh well. But I realized that I never made a post about our first marching band performance. The "advertisements" of Mr. Pease (the director) about how great the band would be this season indeed came true.
I gave Emily and Mandy a ride to U-Hall that morning for breakfast with the rest of the band and some eager band parents that wanted to see our show. We rehearsed some during the morning and did some final run-throughs, and Pease gave us a bit of a pep talk saying stuff like ("the crowd'll be so loud you won't be able to hear yourself play").
That afternoon, we got dressed in the new Cavalier uniforms; navy blue pants, an orange/white jacket with the V cross sabres, and an orange cape! (Stay tuned this weekend to see what we do with the capes!) And of course, the "Cavalier" hats to make it look official. Once we got dressed we bussed over to President Casteen's place to play some of our pregame music, and we were congratulated there and cheered on by some of the fans in the area. Then we bussed over to Old Dorms, and marched in "the block" towards the stadium. As the crowd cheered for us as we marched by, we turned and played several songs for them, and then continued on our way. Then we walked into the parking lot at Scott Stadium and got into our lines in the side tunnels, anticipating our moment to come out on the field. Some of us were pretty nervous, others of us were really excited.
I was pretty excited myself, although not that nervous. I'm not really sure why, because before high school performances I'd usually be freaked out that I'd forget what I was doing and do something "noticeable" during a show. And also, since we were about to perform in front of 62000 fans, about 100 times what we'd get for a football game at my high school and 10 times what we'd get at marching band competitions. I guess it's probably because college marching bands have much simpler drills so it's tough to forget where to go, and also because it's all about the music and pleasing the crowd.
And then all of a sudden we started high-stepping onto the field, with all of us simultaneously shouting, "WAHOOS.............WAHOOS...............WAHOOS............ U-V-A!" And we got to our opening set, we turned around, and the crowd was going wild. It wasn't quite as loud as Pease described it (I could still hear myself play), but it was pretty close... definitely the biggest and loudest crowd I've ever played for.
After doing our show, we turned around and watched the CavMan cartoon as he battled the UNC mascot (and as usual, kicked its ass!), then the real CavMan came out onto the field on his horse and came right into our giant V formation, and the football team passed through. Then the crowd REALLY went wild. Finally, we played the fight song one more time and marched across the field. The crowd roared as we left the field, and the "LETS GO WAHOOS" chant began. There were some mishaps afterwards (ie trying to get into the stands & waiting for buses for over an hour afterwards!) but nothing could take away from our performance. Mr. Pease told us before hand that performing for our home crowd would be one of the greatest experiences of our lives. I can't say I disagree with him! I still can't believe we put that show together in 3 weeks!

Wow... it's hard to believe that we're making our debut band performance this saturday... I hope we have a day of decent weather at some point to finish our halftime show!

Two words describe today: in-sane. Ok technically it's one word but I think you might be able to use it in this case based on this crazy day. But what do you mean, one might ask? After all, I was just supposed to go hiking today with the Outdoors Club. Yeah, that's what I figured when I woke up. And all that changed by about 8:30.
So I set both my alarm clock and my cell phone for 7 AM, figuring I need to get to Bonnycastle by 7:50 for takeoff. Well, somehow I woke up in a bit of a cold sweat probably about 6:20 or so. I can't explain why, and I really don't remember; it's not that it's something that I'm telling myself I shouldn't be posting. Anyway, so I figure I'll get ready a little early. I take a shower, then I go to the kitchen to make myself a scrambled egg with this nutso stove that no one really knows how it works. Well, I put two eggs in and they somehow picked up some brown debris in them, although it didn't seem like it was part of the eggs. I did my best to eat around that part and throw the rest away. Then I heated up a bagel and put cream cheese on it but only half of it heated and the other half got frozen. When I finally got through my breakfast snaffoo I realized I needed to leave so I quickly grabbed the directions and supplies and headed out and soon arrived at Bonnycastle.
When I got to Bonnycastle, Baron, the trip leader was introducing himself. Not everyone was there yet and he really wanted to leave. One of the "missing" was one of the drivers, so we tried to cram extras into other cars. Fine, so I'll take 5 people, I'm thinking. Well, the final driver showed up, but her car had suddenly become no longer necessary. So she jumped into the backseat of my car, not wanting to drive hers if she could help it. With good reason, I found out.
Baron gave us all directions on how to get to Old Rag Mountain, and I had printed them out from the website. When we left, the first left turn I made, I had to stop in the middle of the intersection because a truck came out of nowhere on the other side of the road. Fine, I thought. Keep going. We all get onto 29, and start heading north. I followed a red car that I thought was one of the group's, although they turned off 29 way before the directions said to do so. So I guess that wasn't them. Ok, so we're by ourselves, we'll just follow the directions, I figured. Well, we turned onto route 231, and the road was closed about a mile into the highway. Doh! I asked a cop there how to get to Old Rag; he says, "Take a right and you'll see a sign!" We turned right and continued on the road. Eventually we came to route 670, which the directions said to turn on. So we did and went a ways... one of the other cars was following us. That's comforting to know you're not alone. I was looking for route 640, which turns out is a fictitious highway, probably I just heard it wrong. Anyway, at some point we realize that we lost the other car, and our road was about to end. We turned around and stopped at a general store to ask for directions. I asked a postal clerk; she said she had never heard of highway 640. I went back to the car and checked the directions; that's when I found it was 643 instead. Arrgghh.. So after a brief pit stop we got onto 643 and merged onto 600, which the directions said. Only thing is, we were looking for Old Rag; the road only had signs to White Oak Park. We initially thought it might just be further up so we passed the entrance to White Oak and continued on a single lane road (well maybe not intentionally but it was just that thin!), figuring we'd see it eventually. A few miles later, still going; we figured the directions just screwed us over, especially seeing a bunch of "Posted - private property" signs. So we went back to White Oak, no sign of the other cars. We asked someone for help, and they said we were miles out of our way and the main Old Rag entrance was miles down the 231 road. So we backtracked back to 231 and went probably another 15 miles and found the main entrance. We (myself and the people in my car) parked in the lower level lot and walked about a mile to get to the trail, figuring we might catch up with the others by moving quickly.
Well, first I should mention who I was with. I drove 4 people there, who, by the way, seem to be some really awesome people. Chong, Chad, and Ryan, all grad students, and Rebecca, a fellow 3rd year in the comm school. I was surprised at how many grad students are in this club. At first, Chong and Chad went really fast, setting the pace for the rest of our "mini-group" (by the way there were 18 or so that originally left). At several points heading upward we had to stop for water; the humidity was insane and we were all sweating like pigs. The website said bring a liter; it wasn't enough! (I brought a little extra which came in handy later!) So we hike up the mountain, at a pretty good clip; we figured if we were on the same trail we'd catch them at the top when they stopped for lunch. We started hiking at 10:30 so we had an hour and a half to get to the top.
Well, it didn't go that quickly, but that's ok. We got some great group shots of us along the way up, as well as some excellent shots of the scenery (Chong and I were the primary photographers). That timer feature on a digital camera is a work of genius!
Anyway, eventually the "hike" stopped as we were going up and it became a bunch of boulders that we navigated through. Some of them required you to balance your footing in crafty ways to that your arms could pull you up; some you had to squeeze through like a snake, and some we had to jump into small canyons between the rocks to continue moving. It's all good... it was a challenge but we all made it through them pretty well.
Well, then along the trail we took another wrong turn and started going down this ridiculously steep cliff. No markers in sight, we called back to other hikers up there and they said that we missed a turn into a cave. So we turned around and sure enough, we missed an arrow that was faintly painted on. We scrunched through the cave and then it was back to the boulders. I don't know how we got up some of those boulders considering there was no place to mount our feet; you'd think you'd have to be Underdog to be able to scale some of them!
After another set of boulders, we came across the other 10-15 people that had left this morning. Well, sort of. We didn't catch up with them; they were going the opposite way! We saw them at about 12:15, and they said they had taken a long lunch. They continued to go down the weird path that we had just gone up as we continued to go up to the top, tired, sweaty, and hungry.
Eventually the 5 of us in our 'mini-group' made it to the top probably about 12:30 and had some really neat photo-ops. We ate lunch and talked about mainstream rock bands for a while. I didn't know most of the groups they were talking about, but that's ok, it was a cool conversation. After lunch we went along the fire road down the mountain; a longer but significantly easier way down. Sort of like a cool down after an exhausting morning. We had some really neat conversations on the way down; Ryan and Chad were talking about their grad engineering work; Rebecca was talking about a trip she's planning to lead at some point this semester; Chong and Rebecca and I just talked about all kinds of stuff. Also on our way down Chong stopped to take lots of pictures of the horticulture and the insects and spiders that we saw along the trail. It was really quite fascinating. The view wasn't necessarily the greatest photo opportunity on the trip!
Somehow, on the way down the fire trail we ran into the other people in the big group again. They apparently had gone all the way around and had taken lots of breaks. Cool. Well, once again, we split up to head back to our cars. We found out that the single-lane dirt road we were originally on driving in; if we had kept going it would have led us to some parking spaces. Oh well, we had found the main entrance. So we headed back to the main entrance and started the drive home. Somehow, we crossed Baron's car on 29 on the way back.... what are the odds?
Well, although I really only got to meet 4 people today as opposed to 18 or so, I have to say that this was an incredible day and a real adventure. I should do these road trips more often (although it should probably be in a better car; nevertheless my car held up, always a good sign!) I don't know if I'm gutsy enough to do some of their more intense activities like whitewater kaying, but I can almost guarantee that this will not be the last adventure I do with this club. Just have to figure out what weekends aren't band weekends (I mean football game weekends)!

When you're not getting your bills in the mail until it's too late, I finally confirm that the postal service here indeed sucks. :-P