(Blame the Peach *point to blogroll*) 

Have you ever had an argument with a teacher?
Arguement? Probably once or twice. Of course there was the time I called my 8th grade history teacher a bitch to her back. Funny how much tile and cement echo.

Can you count in Roman numerals?
On the fly, not really. I know C from D, and I can always tell what superbowl we’re on, so I guess I do okay. 

Are you bilingual?
Sure. I’m a music major. I can tell you how to play slow in three different languages. Also, I know that spumate is not Italian for something inappropriate.

Do you know how your car’s engine works?
No, and I routinely prove this by doing something stupid, like locking my keys in my car or forgetting that antifreeze is important. As far as I’m concerned, I know where the gas goes, where to check the oil, where to put the key, and how to turn on the A/C. Everything else has paid help.

Can you program the time on a VCR?
Once upon a time, sure. Now, I can only tell what time it is because my cell phone updates itself through a satellite.

How many email addresses do you have?
I think that depends on what consists of email. I have three actual email addresses and a couple message boards and this blog, which are also forms of electronic communication on a computer. But I’ll stick with three.

Do you own a slinky?
I had two at one point. Back in the corner of my book case where you are supposed to put books. They were rainbow-esque, and one housed a small yellow smiley-face stressball. Funny story: My mother and her boss used to use them to make metaphysical force-fields that effectively deflected IT directors and other co-workers.

Do you talk to yourself?
Who else am I supposed to talk to? No, seriously, I used to constantly, and sometimes I still do. Of course, I have to look into a mirror, because I’m talking to a “you” not a “me.”

Do you have a tough time remembering people’s names?
It depends on if they are memorable, I suppose. More often than not, I forget because I have to draw connections to information that isn’t connected to a face.

Did you go stag to your Senior Prom?
Hell no! However, I didn’t go with the people I would have really loved to go with. But hey, small town in New Mexico? You won’t see two boys even looking at each other with lust, much less coming close to physical contact. However, I did have two dates that year, and went home early because one was sick and the other was annoying. I ended up star-gazing for an hour, then watching Queer as Folk at midnight for four hours. One of the best nights I remember.

Is any leftover food currently residing in your refrigerator?
Lots of stuff I don’t want to talk about.

Are you high maintenance?
No, but my expectations of the other person are surprisingly low, yet still hard to reach. So yes?

How do you want to be proposed to?
I think I’d rather have some sort of across-the-table-at-dinner agreement than a proposal.

“So, you wanna do that thing?” *bite of Wendy’s*
“Sure.” *facefull of french fries*

Do you work out regularly?
I work out my patience regularly. It’s called middle-school. How’s that?

Do you care about your appearance?
I was talking with friends who I thought were fairly vain and highly kept, and turns out I do twice the stuff they do on a daily basis to be pretty. I was shocked.

Describe the person of your dreams:
He would have a functioning brain, a nice body, and would be close enough to touch. See, surprisingly low!

Do you like to be tan?
Sure. I’d love to have one of those full body tans, since I get a nice t-shirt tan every summer anyway, but that means sun with less clothes, and eeeeehhh, I don’t know.

If you had your choice of anyone in the world to spend a night with, who would it be?
Oh hell. Chris.

How many keys are on your key ring?
Six. I think one of them doesn’t even work anymore.

How much money is in your wallet/purse right at this moment?
A little over twenty.

What is your favorite spice or seasoning?
Seasoned Salt, but only because it saves time, and it takes like my Meme’s home cooking!

What does your name mean?
Ruler. Like, the king kind. Root name, though: Theodoric!

Do you give your pets holiday presents?
Used to for Christmas, but I don’t get to spend that holiday with my pets much. Timing and all. 

When doing up your jeans, do you button then zip? Or zip then button?
Oh, oh, I know this. Button then zip. That’s how one ends up with open-fly, by the way.

How far would you go on the first date?
Better question: Can I go further?

Do you sleep on your side? Stomach? Back?
My lungs refuse to let me go to sleep on anything but my back. I usually end up in a ball though, on my side.

Have you attended a high school reunion yet? How was it?
Not yet. I thought about the five year, but decided that I talk to the people I want to talk to from high school now, so why rush things.

Are you ticklish? Where?
If I tell you, you’ll never get the joy of trying to find out.

Would you rather change your past or know your future?
Boring!

Do you believe in saving yourself for marriage?
That’s like believing in unicorns. Or the good commerical radio.

Would you pick up a hitchhiker?
Thought about it, and decided I don’t want an axe in my neck.

Would you consider yourself a worrier?
Me, ha! *implodes*

Do you notice when your crush/significant other changes something about themselves?
Yes, but only because I have stalker tendencies and consider it a boon to my strategic advantage to keep track of nuance.

Do your first impressions of people usually stick?
Yes, much to their dismay.

What movie can you watch over and over?
Mambo Italiano. He has fun shirts, and he’s quirky.

Do you like to cook?
It’s okay. I’d rather eat.

Do plants die in your care?
Not typically. However, I did kill one of those bamboo plants you buy at the mall. Turns out, soil isn’t that cool!

What’s one thing you feel you must do in your life before it ends?
I think I’ve stopped worrying about that one. I often think, when walking out of a building, that I could be sniped or plowed off the road at any  moment and have no control over it at all. So why fuss?

</meme>

In the city,
   down by the river
Up shoots hot air,
   bottled air,
Canned deep in the veins
   of commerce and industry
Deep in the tunnels that lead to
   sweat glands that lead to
   salivating
Tongues, and mouths
   that feast on smaller creatures
Those microbes that skitter
   all over its paved body.

These are the vents,
   the hot vents
That blow the city around
Scattering us about like trash
Blowing us into each other
   into buildings
   into coffee shops
Domestics
   natives & travelers alike.

Blowing us around,
   where I am blown
   into the throngs
Into the masses, all of us
   eager and angry
   to stay or go.
Each of us fit for traveling again
I am certainly one of them.

Now I am on the road
   and I hope it will
Lead me home.
I hope my time was well spent

For fear of leaving here
   unlearned.
For fear of returning home
   untouched.

I hope to go home
   to replicate my experience
I hope to go home
   to be blown around.

Update!

Still no internet! The apartment manager told me that we are waiting for his boss’s credit to go through before Suddenlink would be willing to do the job. We would be free to purchase our own stuff for the time, and it would switch over to said boss’s name when the credit was approved.

My retort? We’d still have to pay in advance. I asked him if we could get a reduction in rent until it was taken care of if we took care of it ourselves. He said he’d look into it. Probably won’t…

Anyway, as convenient as it would be, I suppose it’s not the most important thing right now. Usually, when I come home from school, I just plop down in front of the xbox for a few hours, then go to the library, then to bed. Nothing special.

In other news, Adam, Regina and I had a discussion about old men staring at the HS cross-country team as they ran around a city park. My position? I know I’d be watching them, unethical as it may be. They are all very nice looking young men, and everyone likes eye-candy. I tried to explain that to them, but they still thought it was gross. Silly people and their ethics. Ever’budy gots tuh get some!

For the dedicated readers, i want you to know that I haven’t completely forgotten about this blog. I have, however, been completely immersed in a world with limited internet access and limited time to remedy the situation.

Essentially, here’s the deal. I moved in a new apartment, and the manager promised us free internet and cable on February 3rd. Well, that day rolled around and it didn’t happen. And it still hasn’t happened. Supposedly, the cable company would have to rewire the whole complex to get what we were promised. This is bunk because there are tenants who have internet and the manager even has it.

The manager told us that we just need to get it ourselves if its that important to us. This, I cannot handle, because he promised us free stuff, and we’d have to pay for it otherwise. So the plan is to demand a discount in the rent until he can take care of it. I’m worried, I guess.

In the mean time, I’ve come to the library to handle all internet business, which is getting harder. I’m about to have weekly online meetings with my frat, plus submitting class work, and checking email and taking care of job hunting things. All in all, its pretty frustrating. My roommate just bought an insanely expensive Alienware compy so he could play his MMO’s without the serious lags of his previous computer, and so far he’s not even been able to check email at home. It’s dumb.

Granted, I know there are people out there with no internet, and people with no food. I shouldn’t complain about not being able to access every little piece of info that I want to, because there are people who don’t have even a rudimentary education. However, it is inconvenient to have your luxuries taken away.

To be sure, this is proving I’m not addicted to the internet.

I feel like a total ass. I kicked my student out of her lesson because she hadn’t practiced before she showed up. She expected me to practice with her and to help her do everything when she wouldn’t and hadn’t put any effort into it before the lesson. Part of me says that I was being overly sensitive about it and that I might have kicked her out because I would rather be doing anything else than trying to teach her.

Part of me also remembers that part of my learning where they said that you need to stick to your threats. Granted, I didn’t make one per se, but I did insinuate that we would be done early if she wasn’t going to put any more effort into it beyond the lesson.

Was I wrong for doing this? I don’t know, and maybe that’s what’s hurting so bad. I really think that she needed to be more prepared than she had, and tried to put some effort forth. She makes it clear that she has no interest in working or putting forth said effort, so why should I? What makes me the dupe in all this? I didn’t get payed to practice my own stuff, why should I get paid to practice someone else’s stuff for them.

Maybe the worst part is that she doesn’t really even understand what the problem is. For the first time, she uses what her “old lesson teacher” used to do against me. Lucky for me, I can’t stand that guy, and I don’t think he’d make a good teacher anyway.

Or maybe the worst part is that she probably gets some sort of victory out of this because now she doesn’t even have to have her lesson. Something tells me that they will pull her out of lessons, and then maybe out of band. Why do something if you aren’t going to do it all the way? Or even half-way? Hell, even doing what’s asked of you seems to be qualifying anymore…

In better news, I have a new iPod! It’s shiny!

Truths I have learned today:

1. Children will misbehave when their schedule is disrupted.

2. There is no such thing as “face soap” at Wal-Mart.

3. I can feel sympathy for someone enough to want to cry, though I might not actually cry.

4. I can shut down emotionally during a class.

5. Boys don’t listen to men. Girls don’t listen to women.

6. It takes four beginner percussionists to operate the metronome, and they will still break it.

7. Sometimes your friends just want to play your games.

8. Nothing spells happy like riding a shopping cart through a parking lot.

9. I have the gumption to submit a story that includes a “tween-age orgasm” to my writing class.

10. It can be colder at 3pm than it was at 7am.

Tomorrow, I make the arduous trip to Marshall, TX. Weather looks a little trecherous, but drivable. I will be constantly awake from 6:30 that morning until probably well after midnight. I’m gonna try and fight that as much as I can because I’ll turn around and make the same 8 hour drive back on Sunday, hopefully in time for the Imbolc celebration in town.

And, by the looks of it, I might get to sleep on someone’s dorm floor. Not an experience I was expecting, but it will complete my college life, I suppose. Besides, my back could use it after driving 8 hours, compounded with the crappy alignment I currently maintain. After February, it will be time to find a chiropractor or just cut the damn thing out.

Also, on the manic-aggressive front, I have still not completeed unpacking. I know, I know, most people don’t fully unpack from a move until a good 6-months after it happens. In my family, we never completely unpack. However, ever since I’ve ducked away to college, I’ve had a fairly obsessive habit of trying to be completely unpacked and arranged the day of the move. Truthfully, I’ve succeeded pretty much every time until now. I’ve learned that I have far too much shit to keep doing this. I must consolidate, I must clear out. The thing that kills me the most is how attached I’ve grown to the dumbest things, i.e. my foam “shocker” hand. It was $5 and I’ll never part with it, though I’ve yet to use it in public but once.

We do have power (thank the gods, every damn one of them) which means I get to not sleep in four layers of clothes under 5 layers of blankets. My room is a bit of a heat vacuum, which isn’t that unusual to me. The real upside is that this apartment has central heat and air, whereas my previous apartment had a wall unit that was only really affective after running for three solid days.

(also, about me putting my recital here, I can’t. WordPress doesn’t accept any audio format. Anyone willing to host for me? It’s completely illegal, mind you…)