Nonsense, Drivel, and Balderdash

I am writing from my house in spain. I got here yesterday, and am leaving sunday. I have only come to sign some papers. My spanish residency is expiring and I am here getting it renewed. I have to be here, because it is a residency and I have to make them think that I am still living here. If I am not able to fool them... then they take it away, which I am praying will not happen. If it does, then it will be very hard to get it back. Which will be bad. I dont have my nationality, and I will be bummed if I lose my right to live in Spain, even if I was born here.... geez.... I have red tape. If I DO get it renewed, however, I will be able to come back after college and get a job or work on getting my citizenship. Which would be nice. Anyway, spain is nice. raining of course. People think of spain as sunny, but during the months of october-january it looks more like London, gray and drizzly. I went to get together with some of my best spanish friends today. It was nice, we just went to...

Ahh... gotta love a little fun with words. Check it out. The soldier guy calls himself "the witcher" but what a problematic name....

Pues si, estoy mazo rayado ultimamente. No se porque. Y por eso lo escribo en espanol, porque en ingles no hay ninguna palabra para describir "rayado." Ademas, estoy rayado con la gente de aqui. Me caen que te cagas, pero ultimamente.... pues eso, me rayan. Pero tampoco creo que tengan la culpa, porque me rayo solo tambien, pero menos. Y no por algo en especial..... nose.... No he estado asi en un buen rato. Quizas es porque me voy a espana la semana que viene. Eso suele pasarme antes de viajar. Si, me voy una semana. Para renovar la residencia. Bah, por ahora voy a quedarme a solas, y a leer. Y si tengo suerte, a escribir algo decente tambien.

I am currently reading "For Whom the Bell Tolls" by Ernest Hemingway. I had only read Hemingway once before, in eighth grade. I was not impressed with "The Old Man and the Sea," though I might like it now. I picked up "For Whom the Bell Tolls" to give the ole boy another chance. Also, the subject matter is one that is of great interest to me. I have always been fascinated with the Spanish civil war. In particular I find it amazing that it attracted people from other countries to go and volunteer to fight that battle. Lord Byron died in Greece, fighting for its independence. Many romantics did this sort of thing. The Spanish civil war was the last war of that kind. In part you could say I started this book to get an impression of why they went. I am moved that a group of people that had nothing to do with Spain came and gave their lives for because they thought the cause was important enough. They found values compelling enough to die for. I am only 40 page...

Today was a relaxing day, I did my french homework, did some writing and ordered chinese food. I also watched a great movie. Upon Jonah's recommendation I watched North by Northwest, with Cary Grant, and loved it. It has quickly scaled my favorite movie lists. What a classic! Unbeatable. I also had the first real fulfilling walk in the woods that I had enjoyed in a long time. I took some pictures. Click on them to view a larger version.

In the morning I went out to the beautiful town of Rockport. It is a small coastal town on Cape Ann, in the northern part of the state. It lies about 20 minutes away from Gordon. I am torn about it, it is both a very quaint New England town, and a hotbed for local tourism. At least most of the tourists are locals, but it still makes the place feel slightly artificial. I mean, you can only have so many glass shops and art galleries before a place loses its authenticity. Before you know it, the tourist industry has morphed a simple town into an outdoor mall. Touristy places end up having more in common than normal places, somehow Segovia and Rockport have more in common than Madrid and Boston (in some intangible way). On the other hand, even touristy towns have a certain amount of unique character, which is why people still keep going back. Anyway, Rockport is a very nice town. Little, white, New England houses litter the landscape. Wooden and barn like, and yet drenched in maritime f...

The quad is over (for the uninitiated in collegiate terms, a quad is half a semester) which means that I am halfway through this semester. That is pretty amazing, and I dont know where the time has gone. Midterms are done, and papers are handed in. I hope I do ok. I am thinking of picking up an extra class this next quad... perhaps an easy A type class. I know of one. The end of the quad also means that I have 2 free days meant for finals. However, since I only take semester classes, I do not have finals for any quad classes. The extra long weekend will be nice. I hope I can take advantage of it, instead of sitting alone in my apartment like I would like to sometimes. Oh dont get me wrong, I will watch some movies. Alone preferably. However, I hope to "do" something. Many people are going home or taking off to Montreal to get smashed or investing in stock or something. I am landlocked without a car, but hopefully I can find friends who want to do stuff. My evans friends are ...

I dont know when it happened. But by the time I realized it, it was too late to stop it. The leaves have changed. They are now mostly made up of a series of browns, yellows and reds. I woke up today and looked outside and realized that the school is aflame with fiery colours. I dont know why that happened. God must have employed all of his angels; going from tree to tree, painting over the green boughs. Unfortunately, it was raining today, so I could not enjoy the view as fully as I would have liked. I have also heard rumors of wind, sweeping off the sea a couple of miles away. I hope it is merciful and does not jealously strip the trees of their many coloured coverings right away. There is nothing worse than an embarrassed tree standing naked before its time. On the other hand, there are few things more beautiful than the scandalized whispers of normally prudish leaves, as they toy coyly with the caressing breeze. At least when a strong wind comes from the east, I can sometimes smell ...

I have never been into school all that much. Really. I have always enjoyed learning, but have never been a straight "A" student. In fact, I have always been more of a straight "C" kinda guy. Well, for some reason I have gotten motivated this semester, and have gotten a desire to do as well as I can. So far so good I think. I have a goal, which always helps. I would like to go to Oxford next year. Gordon has a year-long program at the university in Oxford, England. I have always wanted to do some program abroad, even though in some ways... studying here is abroad. But you know what I mean; to study in some country that I am not really from in any way (by birth or passport). Originally, I wanted to go to France and learn french. I have been taking french classes and was hoping to finally get the language down by going over there. The plan was for me to go over there next semester, but I realized that there was no way I could get my english major done properly and t...

I have realized that this page does not load properly on internet explorer. It cuts off the nifty little banner I made at the top of my page. If you can you should use Firefox or Opera or Safari or pretty much anything. Explorer is slow anyway. Also I am cool because I have learned to use something cool. What have I learned? push the magic button to find out!!

This past weekend I was an RA again. The Evan's RA staff went on their bi yearly retreat. They needed someone to cover their shifts for them, and so Mindy asked last year's RAs to help out. Me and Allison split up the weekend. I took over the saturday to sunday shift. Basically it was like last year: I had to do "rounds" every couple of hours to make sure no one was doing drugs, having sex or throwing a kegger. Also, I could not leave the building, because I was the man there in case anyone happened to have an emergency. While this could be a potentially boring situation... it was fun, because 4-5 friends came over and hung out with me all day. Oh, I failed to mention that I got to stay in the RD's apartment, which is much nicer than mine, and has plenty of furniture that we could lounge on (our measly dorm has very little). So we watched movies and ate pizza. We talked for a while and hung out. It is amazing how much time I have spent with those Evans people this...