It starts....

Well, the semester has officially begun. I'm not sure how to feel about that. Mostly, I'm a little bummed. I absolutely love summers in State College. You can walk around campus without feeling overly claustrophobic. If you want to go to a bar (which I only occasionally do), you can easily find someplace to sit and you can talk with whomever you went with without feeling like your shouting to make yourself heard. And you can get on any loop or link and not have to worry about it being overcrowded.

However, with the passing of time, summers end and the fall semester begins. Now all the undergrads are back on campus and some of them are being a bit more stupid than I thought they were. For example, I was on the bus this afternoon heading back to my car in the BJC lot. I got on at College and Allen, which is typically what I do on days that I have therapy. And already the buses are starting to run slow. (Not even two days into the frickin' semester....) So, the blue loop was pretty crowded because people are scared to walk very far in the rain, I guess. I'm included in that, but I have a lot farther to go than most of the people taking the bus. Anyway, I'm sort of digressing here. Apparently today was being an idiot day on the bus. First, someone didn't pull the cord until we were right at the stop he wanted to get off at, which I can accept if he's new here. Then, a few stops later, someone else decides to sneak in the back doors of the bus, even though it's relatively clearly labeled that people shouldn't enter that way. The bus driver did call him on it, which was gratifying to me. Last, there was this group of three Asian people near the back door just yammering on like there was no tomorrow. The bus driver repeatedly goes on the intercom to tell people to move to the back of the bus. But do they move? Nope! All they do is squeeze in closer to the back door. It's not that hard to move up a couple steps and get closer to the back of the bus, but people in general don't seem to get that concept. I swear, some people should just have the word "moron" tattooed on their forehead so the rest of us can avoid them when possible.

In case you haven't noticed, I'm kind of in ranting mode today.

I've come to the conclusion recently that people who have really loud bass in their cars should, at the very least, be smacked upside the head repeatedly. I concluded this while I was at home a couple weeks ago for a mini-vacation. Now, granted, our house isn't exactly new, so a little noise getting in is to be expected. Plus, we live on a somewhat busy street. So I can totally expect noise to occur. And I'm fine with that. However, on numerous occasions a car would go zooming down the street with bass blaring out of the car so loud that our house would rattle. Is there really any necessity for that? It just doesn't make sense. Plus, most of the time, the cars that have loud bass are either old, poorly made, or falling apart, so as the car goes past, the bass doesn't even sound from the outside, and I can only assume that it doesn't sound good on the inside either. Of course, these same people are probably half-deaf so it doesn't make a difference to them. I just find it incredibly annoying. Very few cars are built decently enough to support a sound system that can pump out that much bass. Plus, I don't think there is any excuse for people to deem it necessary to share what they're listening to in their car with the rest of the outside world. But, that is just my opinion.

One more rant before going on. So, I'm trying to get people organized for the upcoming candidacy exam, which I'm still bitter I have to retake completely, but I'll just have to get over that. Anyway, I'm trying to set a time for anyone who's interested in studying as a group to get together to organize when/where to meet. Plus, I also want to discuss the possibility of getting the exam moved to before Christmas rather than after. So, trying to find a time to meet this week yet is hard enough when working around nine different schedules. What makes it tougher is when several people don't send me what times they are free. So, I have limited data to go on there. That's part a of this rant. Part b is that one person didn't respond to my original email that I sent out to all of the grad students. This person was writing to a different person who has the same first and last initials as me, but a different middle initial, and therefore, a different email address. So, he comes in to tell me that I didn't put him on the list. Well, I told him that I hadn't gotten any emails from him, and he didn't believe me. So I bring up my email and show him, and he wants to look at all the different names I've gotten email from before he believes me. Then he tells me that he's been sending it to someone else. How does someone do that? I mean, whenever I want to respond to someone's email, I hit "reply" and type away. So, that made me a little upset today. Usually I can tolerate other people's blonde moments, especially since I have them quite often, but today I just was in no mood for it. Part c (yes, this is a rant of many parts) is that I decided on a time that I thought would work for most everyone, and it turns out the first time I had proposed worked better. Of course, this goes back to part a. I had limited data to work with, so I had to make do with what I had. I eventually decided to go back to the original time I had proposed because it worked for more people. So, hopefully everyone will show up.

Now on to other things....

As one of my previous entries stated, last week I played poker with a group of meteo grads and other people. Apparently lady luck was hovering over me because I actually won!!! I was utterly shocked by it. By the time we got the group pared down to five people I had half of the chips in play. So, I knew that unless I made a huge mistake, I should still wind up in the money. How I got most of those chips is really quite impressive. I had pocket aces and Chuck had ace/queen, I think. I was slowplaying my aces. How could I not? I didn't want to scare anyone out of the pot. So, the flop has an ace in it. I make a modest bet and Chuck goes all in. I do a little acting and look at my hole cards again, and then call. Needless to say, Chuck was shocked by what I had, and I won the hand. So, I was impressed with that bit of skill I had. I was actually playing really well. I even had some pretty good reads on people, which I usually don't have. So, I'm happy with my performance.

Other than that, not much else is new. I'm going to Uniontown this weekend to see Ingrid and to get out of State College for a while. I don't foresee that happening anytime in the near future, so I might as well take advantage of it while I can. I'm not sure yet what we're doing, but even if it's not much, it'll still be fun.

Today I had therapy. It was a rough one today. I hate the slowness of the healing process. While it's true that I have a lot of issues to work through, sometimes I wish there was just a magic pill that would make it all better. And I'm not talking about anti-depressants. Those might help, but they're not a cure. It would definitely only be a band-aid for me. At least recently, I can actually start working on the hard stuff, issues dealing with my father and everything that's happened in the past five or so years. Well, actually my entire life, but it completely changed about five years ago. It's going to be a rough going, but hopefully I'll make it through. I just get tired of going at it basically on my own. I haven't told most of my friends about it because I really don't want to burden them and because it would take so damn long to go through my life story. Eventually, maybe I'll tell some people, just so I don't have to support myself through it, becuase I get tired of supporting myself. It's really quite exhausting. Of course, today, I comforted myself with a chocolate shake from Irving's, so I'm feeling a little better now. That may be just a sugar rush, though.

Anyway, I have lots to think about/brood over from my session today, which is why I'm glad I've arranged it so that I can just go home right after therapy. I definitely don't think I could have handled going back to the office today after my session. It would have been way too hard.

Well, I suppose I should be off now. I've been writing in here for long enough. I should really go get some food because I feel the sugar rush starting to subside. Besides this entry is getting to be way too long the way it is. I really shouldn't save stuff to write about for so long. But time just doesn't always allow for me to write entries. So, I make do with what I have. On that note, I really must be off so I can eat!

Katrina

I've decided for this entry (and possibly all future entries) to forego the titling convention I'd set up a few months back by naming my posts with movie titles. This entry is going to be more "newsy" than others have been. But it's something I feel that I should write about.

Obviously, this entry is going to be on Hurricane Katrina. I think it's very appropriate. It is a monster storm that left damage, destruction, and devastation in its wake.

It was a very impressive storm after it first crossed extreme southern Florida and strengthened in the Gulf of Mexico. At 6:00 pm last night (eastern time) the eye was incredible. I haven't seen an eye like that in a storm in quite some time. I don't usually put pictures in my blog, but I'll make an exception this once. (Of course, if I like how it turns out, you may be seeing pictures again.) I saved this one from the NOAA website. It's the GOES storm floater visible satellite picture yesterday late afternoon.

So, the hurricane made landfall early this morning in Louisiana, and then again on the LA/MS border. I watched a little of the coverage this morning while I was eating breakfast. What can I say? I'm a weather weenie. I'm very interested in storms and the destruction they leave behind. But then I had to go to campus to try to get some work done, which was hard to do with all the articles I could read about what was going on with the storm.

Needless to say, I didn't get a whole lot done today. One of the articles I read from cnn.com told of how New Orleans could have become a huge expanse of toxic sludge, what with the possibility of water treatment plants being ripped apart by the storm and other such buildings. I was deeply disturbed by this article mainly because I felt bad for anyone that had no means of evacuating the city when they had the chance. The most disturbing part of the article was a comment by Ivor van Heerden, from the LSU Hurricane Center:

"Imagine you're the poor person who decides not to evacuate: Your house will disintegrate around you. The best you'll be able to do is hang on to a light pole, and while you're hanging on, the fire ants from all the mounds -- of which there is two per yard on average -- will clamber up that same pole. And eventually, the fire ants will win."

Isn't that just a depressing thought? I'm not even sure what to make of that. My guess is that the ants will viciously attack the human clinging to the light pole for dear life and I guess that person is going to die. Talk about horrible ways to die! (If you want, you can read the whole article here.)

Just watching the damage being shown from various sources today kind of makes one take stock of one's life. There was another article I read today, again on cnn.com (click here). The quote that I found incredibly sad is as follows:

"The water's rising pretty fast. I got a hammer and an ax and a crowbar, but I'm holding off on breaking through the roof until the last minute. Tell someone to come get me please. I want to live."

This is from Chris Robinson (via cnn.com) talking to the Associated Press on his cell phone. I cannot imagine what it must have been like being anywhere that Katrina had hit. I don't know how or if I could have handled it. Of course, then there are those reporters who are getting blown around trying to show people what it's like in the hurricane, but yet telling them that their best bet is to stay inside. Um, hello? Shouldn't you be following your own advice? I realize that a video camera is not going to be able to withstand hurricane force winds if left alone outside, but take video from inside a building. Or at least wait until there is a lull in the storm, relatively speaking, of course. But, hey, who am I to judge what's been going on for as long as I can remember? I'm just saying that one of these times, some guy reporting the news is going to get hurt in one of these storms, and it isn't going to be pretty.

I also heard on CNN on Paula Zahn's show that in one of the states, I can't remember which right now because there was so much devastation, that some of the rescuers saw bodies floating in the floodwaters. It really makes me sad that some people didn't have the means to escape before the storm hit. It makes me angry at the others who figured this would just be a false alarm again, kind of like the boy who cried wolf, so they decided to stay and wait it out. I think this might teach people to take the weather seriously.

Well, I think I've hit all the things I want to say about this storm. My thoughts and prayers go out to those survivors that they get rescued and can return to their homes and rebuild their lives. Even with my morbid curiousity and needing to see coverage a lot, my heart still goes out to these people. Now, with that, I say good night at this time. My next entry will hopefully not be so serious, but who knows? It all depends on what's going on in the world.

*edited 9/5/05 11:22am

Insomnia

Well, I'm back to posting in this blog again. I know, I'm becoming really crappy at it. I just never seem to have enough time to devote to writing one of "my entries." I put that in quotes because mine seem to be longer than the average person's. It's no big surprise to me that I don't seem to get many comments from people. I think most get bored after about a paragraph.

So, let's see, what's been happening with me in the last month. I think I've just about settled into my new apartment, finally. There are a few more things I'd like to arrange, but things are really starting to come together nicely. It definitely feels more homey than any other place I've lived in so far. I think this may just be my permanent home until I'm done at Penn State, whenever that may be.

I did get to go home last week, which is always really nice. The only part about it I didn't like so much was the drive. I forgot what a horrendously boring drive that can be. And of course, I decide that I should go home the week where it's really hot and humid out. I didn't have a whole lot of choice in the matter, though. I have to give a presentation at our group meeting this week, and last week my therapist was on vacation, so it made sense for me to as well. Anyway, the drive wasn't very eventful either way. On the way home, I got stuck for an hour in a traffic jam in north central Ohio. There was a really bad accident; a semi went off the road, and as I was going past, I couldn't see the cab, only the trailer. I'm not entirely sure what happened. I do feel kind of bad, though, for thinking, as I was stuck in traffic, that there had better be a bad accident holding us up. But, I was a little pissy, and hot, and sweaty, with no air conditioning. After that, though, the drive was pretty boring. I hit some heavy rain in Indiana, but after that, it was smooth sailing, even in Chicago. It was after 8:00 central time when I got there, so rush hour was pretty much over. I've come to believe that there is never going to be a time in Chicago when there is no traffic, though.

My week at home, was very nice, though. I didn't do much of anything, which is how vacation is supposed to be. I watched tv, played with Higgins, read some more of Wicked, went to visit the grandparents, and spent some time with Mom and Bree. We also rented some movies. Guess Who is a pretty cute movie, although a little predictable. It wasn't the best movie on earth, but it was at least entertaining. I also saw The Aviator. I must say, I'm not all that thrilled with that movie. First of all, it was nearly three hours long. Secondly, it didn't start to get really interesting until nearly two hours into the movie. I was very tempted several times to just stop watching it, but I'm too stubborn to give up. Plus it got so much Oscar buzz that I thought it had to get pretty good sometime. Third was the ending. By that, I mean, it ended. It didn't feel like the story was finished at all. It just kind of stopped, like whoever was making it got bored with it or ran out of money or something. I hate it when movies do that. That's like reading a novel and finishing 100 pages from the end. What's the point?

Anyway, on to my drive back here. Again, it was hot and humid, and rather uneventful. Chicago had lots of traffic for a Saturday because there was an air and water show. And a cold front moved through the night before, but I felt like I was following the rain the entire drive back here. Then when I got back, I unloaded my car, and spent several hours sitting up because I was overcaffeinated and overtired. I didn't get to sleep until 5:00 AM. I wasn't a happy camper. I've never been that wired before. I think I'm still catching up on sleep.

Well, I think I'm going to stop for now. It's poker night tonight, and I need to head out pretty soon. Hopefully the poker gods are smiling on me.