There are about six people in this building. They are all adult counselors (or something) for a cheer camp that’s starting tomorrow. They don’t really need my supervision or have any reason to come bug me at the desk like the teenage girls will be doing tomorrow. So why am I sitting here? Apparently, it’s time to post.

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I have a thing for remembering names and faces. This is not a new thing, it’s been that way as long as I can remember. I just have a knack for remembering things about people, and if I can’t figure out why I remember them it will bug me until I figure it out. It doesn’t have to be someone I know. Sometimes I’ve only seen a person once, just long enough to notice something significant about them that I’ll recognize the next time around. I guess it’s kind of like the way I can recognize artists on the radio when they come out with a new song and identify announcers on TV commercials and stuff. Is this talent significant? Is it just attention to detail or something else?

Sometimes I feel pretty transparent, and I wonder how often someone actually recognizes me the second time around. I’m not talking about good friends, but people I haven’t necessarily met, just passed by on campus or had in class a semester ago. Occasionally I see the moment of recognition on a person’s face when they realize they’ve seen me somewhere before, but it seems like those moments are few and far between (for me at least). I wonder how long it takes before the impression I might make on a person is forgotten? Then I have to ask myself, what kind of impression am I making anyway? I’d like to think it’s a good one, but sometimes I’m not so sure.

OK, I think not having lots of stuff to do this summer may be my undoing. Anyone who knows me very well at all knows that I compulsively over-analyze everything. Guess what I start to do when I’m bored?

Well, I think this has been sufficiently random so I’ll wrap it up. Don’t forget to leave comments!

Currently Playing: Nothing! Strange I know, but there’s no radio in Boyd and I haven’t broken the rules to install Winamp on this computer yet. If I had the choice it would be Flickerstick – Coke.

So it’s been a long day. A few months ago when I found out that the third installment of the Harry Potter movie series was going to be released in IMAX format, my sister and I agreed we would go see it. We knew that would mean traveling a little ways, but we didn’t realize the closest theater would end up being in Tulsa. Still, we decided to go, and it became an all day event for me.

I left at 9am and picked up a friend. Two hours later, we’re picking up my sister, one of her friends, and another friend of mine in Wichita. Three hours after that (yeah my estimate of drive time to Tulsa was a little off, we’re true fans, what can I say?) we got to the theater. We still made it an hour early, and there were only about 20 or 30 people in line. So we stood around, hung out, laughed at the true Harry Potter fans wearing cloaks and Gryffindor colors. For the record, my sister was almost one of the ones in a cloak. Apparently there was some problem with a sewing machine that prevented it.

If you’ve never been to an IMAX theater, you really need to go. First of all the screen is huge, the sound is awesome, and the picture is crystal clear. Then there’s the movie…wow. It was different from the first two, which I was definitely expecting, but at the same time I still didn’t know what to expect. There were some little artsy transition type things that were obviously different, and of course all the kids are older. The story was modified to save time, but I thought it was done well. The style was great, and the scenes with Buckbeak the hippogriff were amazing. There was only a split second I didn’t believe the CG creation was real, as it takes off with Harry on it’s back for the first time. There were a few details in the story that I thought were important (namely Moody, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs and their history, the explanation of what Harry’s patronus actually is) that got left out to make room for more frivolous stuff (just my opinion). Oh, and I was really hoping to get to see the Sirius Black/Peter Pettigrew showdown in realtime, but I could live without it. There were definitely some excellent additions to the story (most are small), my favorite being near the beginning when all the third year boys are eating animal candy (animal crackers?). All in all, well worth the trip. Two thumbs up, four stars (five? depends on your scale). Go see this movie.

Currently Playing: Staind – Epiphany

It’s official. Training has started (and luckily will be over soon). The games have begun. I’ve been in my room approximately 30 minutes total today. Instead of running around with 500 things to do, I only had to worry about two things: getting through training without falling asleep and doing whatever I wanted to do.

I mentioned games…Let me just talk about that for a minute. First was Spades. It’s been months since I played, but last night I got the invite and I just couldn’t pass it up. We were losing, but hey, it was fun. And when our last hand was just really crappy, we decided to call it quits. In the days to come I foresee my partner and I bagging out or getting set as games continue late into the night.

Lunch Money. Let me tell you, this is a great game. You play as Catholic school girls hell bent on taking away others lunch money. Not a game to be taken lightly, it must be played with incessant trash-talking and increasingly elaborate verbal attacks. This could get very interesting…*grin*

Alright, it’s already later than I wanted to stay up, and I’ve got more training tomorrow at 9am. I’m gonna try and start putting in the song I’m listening to while writing. Here’s a new(er) one that’s pretty good.

Currently Playing: Lost Prophets – Last Train Home

Wow, it’s been entirely too long since we posted anything. As you can see, we’re going for a fresh new look here. Blogger recently changed a lot of stuff around and added some functionality including profiles and comments. We decided to take the opportunity for a fresh start. So we dropped our initials, created our Blogger profiles, and changed our layout. We hope you like it.

A lot has happened in the last few weeks while we weren’t posting. There’s way too much to try and recount it all, so I’ll try and hit the highlights. First was the unfortunate departure of our third member, Jimmy. I’d like to apologize for those of you who came here to read his posts, as I am partly to blame for him leaving. Most probably know by now that we had a difference of opinion, but I hope that it won’t keep people from reading Common Exception. Also, go check out Jimmy’s new site over at Xanga; his posts are as good as ever.

In other news (thanks Trenary), Manhattan is empty again. Most people left on Friday, and the rest of the stragglers left Saturday. I’ve been sitting in this gigantic room for 3 days wondering what to do with all this space. It’s awesome. And sad. It really is like a completely different place when everyone goes home.

Despite my major suckage (yeah, I made it up) in the last two weeks of the semester, I think I’m going to pull off A’s again. Sometimes I don’t think I deserve the grades I get. I ended up with middle B’s on both my finals, though not low enough to pull my grades down too far.

Now it’s time to look ahead. I’ve got 3 months of summer ahead of me. My only responsibilities are my job as a Cool Cat (best job ever) and to myself. I’ve still got that list of goals around somewhere and I plan to stick to it. I just hope I’m not bored out of my mind. Training starts tomorrow and I’m sure it will be as exciting as last year (sarcasm). Once we actually start work, things should get more interesting. I can’t wait for camp after camp of spoiled little kids whose parents send them here with $250 in their pocket.

Well, that should bring everyone up to speed a little bit. Look for a lot more posts from me now that I have free time again. Free time…wow…is this what it feels like?

Song: Switchfoot – Meant to Live

My apologies for my absence. I’ve got two ongoing projects at the moment and a test tomorrow (today). Believe it or not, things will really calm down once finals week arrives. Don’t expect much from me until then.

I’m so lazy. I’ve been at work for 2 hours already and so far I’ve done nothing to work on my projects that are due soon. It’s just hard to get motivated on the weekend. Plus, there are distractions out there on the web that make life so much more interesting than typing a paper. Ok, I don’t really have much more to say so I think I’m going to abandon this post and order some food.

Song: Seether featuring Amy Lee – Broken *Winamp required to listen

This week has been pretty good so far. Tuesday night was the leadership banquet and I was really impressed with how it turned out. Winning a scholarship might have helped make it a good night too. Then yesterday we had the shortest ARH meeting of the year, so D and I went to Sonic afterward for some food.

Now I get to focus on the things to come: 2 tests, 1 group project, 1 individual project, a web project for MIS Club that isn’t finished, and finals. If all goes well, I’ll only have 1 final for the 3 classes I have left. That would be most excellent. Like summer.

Ok, this post is really just a technique designed to put off some of the work I have to do. Procrastination = bad.

Edit: Apparently I’m Lois. I’m kinda hot for a cartoon character.

A good day! Not much could have made it better. Unfortunately, I’m totally exhausted. More later.

I’m having the hardest time putting things into words right now. There’s a lot of things on my mind that I don’t know how to explain. After about a month and a half of being less than happy, I’m finally trying to get my life back on track. I say that like it’s been a long time…I guess it really hasn’t. For some people it takes a lot longer, and I’m grateful it didn’t take me more time to commit to do something about how I was feeling. Anyway, as some people already know, about a week ago I just decided I didn’t like the way things were going. I didn’t feel like going to bed at night and I didn’t feel like getting up in the morning. I wasn’t very nice to people, I didn’t care about a lot of things I should have, and my motivation to do schoolwork was at an all-time low. Not to mention I’d had a long string of disappointments with few bright spots. I’d had enough.

I decided I was going to make things change. Some things a person can’t control, and I don’t pretend to think I can affect those things. But there are a lot of things I can change, mostly in myself. I knew that I wouldn’t be able to hold myself to this unless I made a list of goals, and I knew I’d have to actually write them out or I’d lose sight of them. This last week has been a big improvement. I started off on the wrong foot by shutting off my alarm Monday morning and sleeping straight through my 9:30 class, but things have been looking up since then. I’ve been to breakfast every day since Tuesday, something I haven’t done in a long time. I haven’t gone to bed later than 1am or had a single pop all week. I’ve done my best to be nicer to everyone in general and not let little stuff get to me. If I continue on this way, I just might make it to summer and have my much needed break from all the stress of the semester. No class + good job = free time = happier C.

Unfortunately, while I’m doing my best to improve things, there’s other *stuff* going on that’s beyond my control. Most of it doesn’t directly involve me, but that doesn’t mean I’m not affected. There are two situations in particular that have been on my mind. I just don’t know what to think. It would be nice if I could have this time to work solely on my goals and improving my own character without having to deal with anomalies in the character of others. Unfortunately that’s not the way it works, and as much as I’d like to focus just on improving myself and my relations with other people, I can’t do it. Other things happen in the world that affect me (even if it is indirectly), and I can’t just act like they don’t matter to me. It’s not in my being.

So maybe I didn’t do so bad getting everything out of my head and into this post. But let me tell you, this isn’t half of what’s swirling around in there. Ask me about it sometime. You might be surprised at what’s you find in there.

Song: Abandoned Pools – Start Over

I think my roommates got us into a prank war. Not that I’m complaining. Now I have an excuse to get involved. It started with some jingle bells. Well, I guess if you wanna go way back, it really started with a marker board at the beginning of the year. The marker board is long gone now, so we’re back to jingle bells.

Here’s the rundown. These three jingle bells somehow found their way onto our door one by one. There they remained for a good 2 or 3 weeks. One night, they were replaced with three tampons. Though we all thought it was hilarious, J felt the need to retaliate. A few days later (before he’d come up with a plan), we opened our door to find everything upside down and a few additions on the wall outside. Next, their sorority postings ran away. Over the weekend, some popcorn became mysteriously attracted to their door. Finally, this morning we woke up to this:

It says, “Don’t Mess with the BEST! Grrrrr! – Putnam 18.”

Pretty weak if you ask me.

So now we’re thinking it’s time to take this to the next level and find out who’s really the best.