Nonsense, Drivel, and Balderdash

I have mentioned before how dreams constantly impress me. By dream I mean what your brain does while your consciousness is involved in the physical act of sleeping... it blows my mind. I often am impressed about what people dream about, because they have actually come up with the whole thing. There are a lot of people who claim to be unoriginal or uncreative that then have crazy dreams on the side. Those dreams are not created by some sentient dream being who then hands out the plots and ideas randomly. Dreams are created by the actual person's mind. If you dream about a blender that can turn into a semi automatic machine gun, then you came up with that idea; your mind created it. My mind has recently been on an interesting dream spree. This week I dreamt that I was speaking with Brett Johnson's parents. I spoke with them for a long time in the dream. The thing is, I don't know his parents. In all honesty, I barely know Brett except that he was in the Gordon choir with me ...

And knowing is half the battle

My metabolism is slowing down. After years of having the metabolism of a rabid wolverine on a forty day fast, my body is finally saying "yo dude, if you eat that it will go straight to your hips." OK, not quite. My hips (as well as the rest of me) remain morbidly skinny, nevertheless I can tell that I am starting to get the normal body functions of a (*gasp*)... twentysomething. But yeah, I guess ye ole bod has decided to settle down with the psychological and lifestyle changes that have ushered me into the scary, responsibility filled, latte soaked, subway covered life of the modern working man. I have noticed other changes that lead me to believe that soon I will be buying a cane and investing in a nose hair trimmer. One tell-tale sign of my encroaching retirement is that the other day, whilst on public transportation -digression: I sometimes think that I have lived out most of my life on public transportation. I have had most of my major revelations with people pressed up ...

Life has been fairly even keeled lately. Slowly my life is turning into a routine of work and urban travel. Get up early, get on bus, go to work, get on subway, go to work, get on train, go to work, get on bus, come home, go to sleep, get up... The monotony of it all is mind numbing, but I am slowly getting used to it and learning to make other goals to keep myself entertained. I am a bit strange, I think most people that know me will concede that this is true. While some people would set long term goals for themselves, I tend to try smaller day to day ones to keep myself entertained. Sometimes I get up and decide that I will walk two bus stops down instead of getting the bus from the normal place. Or I see if I can get away with wearing tennis shoes with my suit, or I think 'today I will have tea and steak,' or go out a subway exit that I have never been out of, or any number of strange tiny changes that will make me view my repetitive life from a different angle. That is not ...

It is weird, all I could think about when they told me that Will died was "he should have gone to the game." You see, he had a ticket to a world cup game, a good World Cup game. For anyone that knows about events such as that one, you know how hard it is to get a hold of a ticket. Will entered a raffle months before the Cup and months before we finished our time in England. A couple of weeks before we finished he found out that he was the proud owner of a ticket. It was late in the year and he had already bought his ticket back to the US. To stay meant that he had to postpone his flight by a week and find places to stay until the game. It also meant that he would miss a job interview. He agonized over it and ended up selling the ticket and going back to the US. It seems pointless now. The job he interviewed for, the couple dollars he saved, they are all dust now. His plans for the future now mean nothing, the only thing that counts is what he did, the experiences he had. In t...

Will was a Westmont student who attended the Gordon-at-Oxford program I was at last year. He was the only non Gordon student there, which speaks loads about his character. He wasn't afraid of life or of challenges and was never afraid of joining something where he would be an outsider. Of all of us 15 students in our program last year, he was one of the ones that I thought would be most successful. He had the heart and spirit of the western settlers and was constantly looking for new and unexplored land to take on. He lived life with zest. Everything he did was done enthusiastically, whether it be going up and down the stairs (which me did 3 steps at a time) or playing sports (which always left him caked in mud and bruises). He was a great person to party with, an unpredictable poker player and had a great sense of humor. I am heartbroken to hear that he died this weekend, while driving to Phoenix to join a business firm that had recognized the potential we all saw so clearly. Rest...

The past week has been a fairly idle one. After training with my job I was told to wait until they called me with my hours and classes. That was over a week ago. The rest of the teachers in training have not received any hours yet either. It seems that the companies that use our English teaching services do not start their language programs until around the 2nd of October. I really don't care though, I am fine the way I am because I am still getting paid regardless of whether I work or not. It has actually been really nice to have a week off after the stressful weeks of training. It was especially nice since it was the week that everyone really moved into the apartment and we got everything in order. In fact, by the time I do start work I will probably be in the mood to do so, so this break is excellent. I went to the mountains on Saturday with the two apartment-mates that were around, Kenny and Dan (pictured left). It was quite cold this weekend and especially so up on the top of ...

Our new house is pretty cool. Check it out: (please feel free to click the pics for a larger version, it is usually worth it or at least it is in the last one) Here we see two of my apartment mates sitting in our commodious living room area. Brian is on the couch facing us, speaking to one of his many lovers. Dan is on the other seat, most likely contemplating a way to kill you using nothing but his uvula and half a stick of butter. And here is the missing apartment mate, Kenny, playing a little (ok, a lot) of Prince of Persia on the playstation. It just wouldn't be a guy's apartment without some sort of computer gaming going on. This is my room. Humble and Spartan, but bigger than the past 3 rooms I have had during the past couple of years. The nice thing about my room is that it overlooks the city and has a lot of light. And here is a panoramic view of what I see when I step out onto my balcony in the morning. Rooftops, windows, antennas, and the silesian monastery in the di...

College is done. This much I am certain of. Now I have joined the masses of "suits." I am one of many zombie faced humans that shuffles through the subway halls in the early morning. I am one of the white earphone wearing, wool clad, briefcase bearing denizens of the corporate world. I have become what I always swore I would never be. I get up before the sun is up and get back after it has set, like some sort of daytime vampire who evades the sun's rays in the safety of a cubicle or behind an office wall. At least pawning your soul pays well when you sell it to the almighty dollar. But life is not all terrible. Since I last wrote on my little piece of cyberspace, I have found an apartment and I have completed my job training. As to the first order of business, my new home is quite nice. It has 5 rooms for 4 people, which means we have room for guests if the need arises. The living room is also really large, which is a rarity in Spain. My other apartment mates have moved i...

Its nearly midnight and I am restless. I have spent most of the day taking it easy. I have just been hanging around the house. 'Bumming' around the house is probably more accurate. I have watched copious amounts of television and played hours of football on the playstation that Paco lent me while he was in Nepal. Actually, I have spent most of the week inside these four walls, though not all of it was spent piddling away the hours in the glow of a tv screen. No, most of my week has consisted of hours of scouring the internet for an apartment to rent (that is, 'flat to rent', for you british readers...). Once I found one that I considered to be a possibility I would have to look up the exact address of the residence to make sure it would be close to a subway stop and other such things. Many times, that step in the process would end with me realizing that the particular house was way too far from anything to be of value to me. After this long process, I would end up with ...

Ahh... the summer is finishing. Long days dwindle away as the sun gets tired of staying out late. The continued heat is only a ruse to lead us to believe that autumn is not on the way. But the daylight tells a different story, it is slowly changing colour from the deep yellow of summertime to the paler, more sterile, tones of winter sunlight. The change is slow, but it is inevitable. Fall is coming. However, I feel like I have already been in an extreme post summer environment. I have been cold at night, buffeted by rain and wind during the day, and thanked the lord for every sweet glimpse of sunlight I could get my hands on. Yes my friends, I have been to Scotland. I went there with the Jazz a cappella group, "The Oxford Gargoyles ," that I joined during my time in England this past year. After a year of performing concerts at everything from weddings to graduate parties, we decided to do what all struggling artists do in Britain: we went to the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh...

Are you worried that not enough people will show up at your funeral? Have you been a jerk your whole life and are afraid of not having any mourners? Well then why not try the Chinese method of attracting a funeral crowd? It will get a big crowd and make those who DO care a lot happier . Nothing like having naked people dancing on your grave to liven up a funeral.

OK OK, I lied. I may indeed put a couple posts up here this summer. This one isnt really a huge bit of writing, it is more of a suggestion, the recommendation of a bit of excellent critical writing. I love a good bit of media criticism, a good review, all that sort of stuff. Here is a critic saying that Sufjan Stevens isnt any good. Th reason I like this is because: 1) most critics kiss the ground Stevens walks on. 2) It´s a well written argument 3) The writer has some very good points. He was also able to verbalize some of my frustration with both indie music and its avid (and some times rabid) fans. "indie, has become a bunch of self-serving, self-congratulatory niches" How right he is. It has been that way for years now, ever since the term "indie" came to be a genre instead of a method distribution and production. This isnt to say that I dont like a lot of indie music, I do. There are some great artists out there. But I hate the genre, and I have a severe dislik...

Well my friends, the skies are clear and the swimming pool holds a fine chill. And that means it is time to relax. Over the course of the next couple of months I will be away from the kind of screens which aren't meant to keep out bugs. This is a good time to take a hiatus from this newsletter and rantletter. I will begin to write again when the air carries hints of autumn.

I'm done with college. That is crazy. Until this week, I had been studying continuously since I was 5. That is 18 years of a single activity, 18 years of singlemindedness, 18 years of focusing on filling my brain with information and filling my report card with something that will save me from the proverbial slap on the wrist. And now I am finished with all of that. I have my degree in English Literature, my concentration in creative writing, and my minor in communications. What does this all add up to? Well, for now it adds up to me sitting at my desk in my boxers, basking in the morning summer sun and itching slightly from a sunburn I received yesterday at the swimming pool. Creedence Clearwater Revival is playing from my high school boombox and it seems fairly appropriate for its summery, upbeat, antiestablisment sounds. Plus it has a sort of hillbilly twang to it which seems to fit the scene of sitting in the sun in your underpants. So I am theoretically supposed to have my lif...

Yesterday I escaped from Oxford and made my way into London (finally). I had not left this town at all this term until yesterday, so I was ready for a change of scenery. I went into the city to meet up with Kenny, who had come down from Durham as part of his end of the year mini-tour of England before he leaves the country. When we met up in the morning we didn't really have anything planned so we ended up heading over to the natural science museum. I love science museums, but I think it had been a while since I had been to one. So we spent a while walking around looking at lunar modules and steam engines, eventually ending up in the 'hands-on' part of the museum that was usually geared towards kids, but whatever, we are young at heart and spent a good while playing around with pressure machines, shadow capture booths and mini feats of engineering. We were about to leave but I wanted to see the dinosaurs, because, well... Who doesn't wanna see dinosaurs? We had a little...

Then there are the 'networking websites' like Myspace, Facebook, Friendster, Hi5... the list goes on for a while. These vary in what they do and who they are aimed at. I must admit that I am quite a fan of facebook, and I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't a myspace member. Of course, with the exception of Facebook that actually targets people who go or have gone to school together and therefore know each other, most of these sites are just ways for people to spend countless hours browsing profiles of people they will never meet or looking at pictures that look nothing like the people they are meant to represent. Alternately, people spend hours trying to take pictures of themselves in bad lighting and from angles that hide all their bad features (acne, small boobs, large boobs, unibrow, webbed toes, antlers...) and highlight their good ones (right eyelid, small boobs, large boobs, flexing muscles, cheap tattoo done in a drunken stupor over spring break that says "i...

The internet has had huge social repercussions. In fact, the social repercussions are arguably larger than the economic or informative ones. Think what a huge difference that email has made on the way we keep in touch. We now have cheap and instant access to sending and receiving information across the globe. We can now make sure that our family members know how life is going, or send pictures to our friends, or contemplate if the amount of spam advertising penis enlargements is proportionate to the number of men that need them (lets hope not), and lets not even mention all the death threats we have all received implied in the content of those chain letters ("...if you liked this joke please resend it to 45 friends if you don't, then tomorrow both you and your loved ones will be hit by a bus full of rabid monkeys, flogged by the ghosts of the spanish inquisition, raped and pillaged by giant amoebas and consumed in the fire of the almighty. thanx! have a gr8 day!"). But be...

Life is finally starting to loosen up a bit. Last week was a stressful as trying to find a needle in a haystack, in the dark, during a blizzard, with polar bears chasing you around the haystack, and a sneaky Eskimo midget setting the whole thing on fire. Figuratively speaking, of course. I have never tried to find needles in haystacks and have nothing against the denizens of the artic. But yeah, it was a busy week. I spent massive amounts of time in the libary or at my computer or rushing to and fro, trying to get things done, and preferably on time. And it rained. Non-stop. Cats and Dogs and various other domestic mammals fell from the sky and left a mess all over the sidewalks. On top of that, as my previous posts probably gave away, I was hit with a post-graduation downer and was wondering what the heck I was doing with my life. So yeah. A flaming haystack. But it was all good, it reinforced my suspicions that we all really lack any sense of perspective in this world and that we are...

I only have one tutorial a week now for the next couple of weeks, which means that I will be able to enjoy them fully. And they are meant to be enjoyed, for they are all related to children's literature. This week I am doing one of my personal favourites, The Wind in the Willows. If you haven’t read it and are looking for a wonderful bit of summer reading, it is a delightfully whimsical piece of post-romantic literature. And it has a badger in it. Anyone who knows anything realizes that putting a badger in your story automatically grants it entry in to the halls of literary immortality. Oh, I went to Kenneth Grahame's (the author) gravesite today and paid my respects. It was a bit sad. In the same cemetery I also found the grave of poet and inkling Charles Williams, as well as one of the fathers of Aestheticism, Walter Pater. Oxford is cool like that.

Eva had this in her blog in honor of the honorable profession of the housewife (which she aims to be) and to teach all those feminists a lesson. It was all in good fun of course. But to prove that I am just as much a modern man as she is a woman, I reply with a similar quiz (translated into the native language of this blog): 1. Favorite domestic chore/duty: She said that her least favorite was shopping for food. I didnt even know that was a chore. That is one of my favorite parts of the week for sure. 2. Most hated domestic chore/duty: Cleaning out the fridge. Anything that can put me in contact with mold or other things that might decide to migrate to my skin and set up shop. 3. Favorite laundry detergent: dude, that one that smells like lavender. I love that crap. 4. Favorite kind of apron: I am going to have to be a guy on this one and go with those that have some stupid slogan on it like "master of the flame" or "boss of the sauce". If it includes pirates in any...

well, all in all, the graduation day didnt turn out as bad as could have been expected. Around 7 o'clock, my friend kate found me sitting at my computer listening to cathartic angry metal whilst dressed in a graduation robe I found in a broom closet. She insisted that I needed to get out and stop mourning my passing college years, which was probably true. So we went to a pub, had a couple pints and chatted. I needed that I think. We spent several hours out chattin about complete innane things which made me feel much better. Then I hung out in on of th other gordon houses watching "green wing" (a british comedy series) which made me laugh a bit. One of the nicest gestures was when I got home and I found a couple nice british beers on my desk, courtesy of my housemate Miriam. While that was nice in itself, there was a sticky note on top which said that I had a present in the fridge. In the refrigerator I found a nice half leg of lamb. Miriam is clearly an amazing human bein...

I am so depressed. Today is graduation day at gordon. Not only does that mean that I should be done by now, but it means that I am missing something that most of my american friends are all doing. The end of my studies will be a "non-event". But even worse is this pit at the bottom of my stomach that misses the hell out of all my gordon friends and the knowledge that it will never be the same between them and myself. I suppose this should have hit me when I left for oxford, but it has sunk in in a different way now. I really wish I were spending the summer living on campus and working grounds crew again. It is at moments like these that I dont give a crap about going back to spain and just want to go back to the good friends I made in Boston. It is only worse that in a week I will feel the opposite and then back again. If I could settle on one place it would be easier. Having my friends separated by a vast stretch ocean, and having to choose between the two groups, kills me. ...

A funny thing happened to me this evening. As I walked towards the library, I was filled with something I can only describe as 'rapturous joy'. This all may sound cheesy, but it is only because I have no way of putting it into words . It was so unexpected, and welcome, and strange. Anyone who knows me know that I am not prone to feel anything of that sort, which is why it was so strange. As I walked down the street, I was suddenly overpowered by a deep sense of happiness surging up inside of me in such a way that I could not help smiling and had to keep myself from skipping. I do not know what it was that brought it on. Perhaps it was that I had been profoundly moved by the end of George Macdonald's book Phantastes a couple of hours before. Or it may have been the effect of dusk on the ancient architecture. Or it may have been that the air was filled with the intoxicating smell of springtime. Or the way that the warm sun combined with the brisk air on my skin. Perhaps a bit...

I cannot figure out what is "good." I'm talking in terms of productivity and creative output. It is interesting that quality is so limited by the fashions of the day. Take Oscar Wilde for example, in his day he was considered a poet. In fact he was a poet long before he became the famous playwright he is known as today. And yet, if you are to read his poetry today you will realize that, generally, it is pretty terrible. It is an emphasis on all the most annoying and dated poetic figures found in Romantic poetry without any of the free flowing soul found in the better poems of the time. It is exceedingly cheesy and over the top and relies on seemingly formulaic compositional elements. All in all, most critics agree that it is terrible poetry (the one exception, for those who like to read poetry, is the Ballad of Reading Gaol, which he wrote regarding his time in prison). Now, my problem is not that Oscar Wilde could not write lasting poetry. Many good authors have tried th...

I finally got the film from my camera developed this week. Most of the pictures did not turn out that well, in part because of my novice skills with the camera itself and party due to the very poor development quality. But a few good ones did turn out, so that is good. Most of these are from oxford, though a couple others are around as well: This is Magdalen college, seen as you walk out of town and towards my house Yours truly in a mirror. The walk to the english faculty library Buds and blossoms in the cementary The Gargoyles, waiting for the train to pick us up from singing at a 'posh' wedding. Ye ole mutton chops My sister and me A picture of David when he came to visit me in Oxford. This particular one was taken at the Tate museum of modern art in London though.

Kenny and I are on a plane. It is a jumbo jet, one of those big transatlantic flyers. For some reason it is filled with people I know; random people, many of whom I have not seen in years. I am talking about everyone from Daniel Jimenez, a guy I knew in high school and in Kings Kids, to Dorita Madre, the old lady from my church in Spain that heads up the prayer chain. It is dark, they have turned off the lights and people are asleep. I am sitting (get ready for this) between Kenny and Francisco Franco, the former dictator of Spain. Throughout the flight all three of us have been chatting. At one point I suddenly need a pen, probably to fill out a landing card or something. Franco has a pen sitting on his open tray table. Being that we had been chatting amiably, even joking around, I pick up the pen to use for a second. The old dictator freaks out. He stands up in the aisle and starts raving about how I am a thief. Kenny and I are pretty stunned, but not as stunned as when he pulls out ...

Every so often I sit down, either with someone else or on my own, and consider my life and what I want to do with it. I do not mean what my 'destiny' or life vision or anything grand like that. I am talking about the little things, the side projects, the things that make me happy or excited to dream about. I usually make a list of goals. Most of them are attainable or possible and I would like to attain them within the next 10 years. I figured I'd share them with you: - Live on a 'new' continent for an extended period of time: By extended period of time I mean over a year or two at least. If not, I'd go for living on a two for a year each hehe. So far I have only lived in North America and Europe. That leaves Africa, Asia, South America and Oceania. I would prefer not to live in Antartica for 2 years if I can help it. - Get something published: It doesn't have to be a best seller. It doesn't even have to be a novel. A short story, an article, or poem in...

- Homophones are fun. Eye think that aye should right like this four ever. Words r moor fun inn this whey. Jest imagine how grate simple lyrics could bee: "Eye can't take my aye's off of ewe"... of coarse it knead knot jest bee won kind. With sum thyme wheel bee abel two come up with moor: "Aye, can't take my I's off of yew." Butt I guess it all depends wear your taut too speak and what yore accent was torque to u. - I was in the airport the other day and a stern voice came on over the loudspeaker: "Do not leave your baggage unattended. Any baggage found unattended will be confiscated and destroyed!" For some reason the image of the airport security taking people's bags when they were distracted and then burning them quickly with flamethrowers came to mind and I laughed. And yes, it was around 2 in the morning. -There is a billboard on some buses in oxford that tries to advertise a plastic surgery clinic. It has two huge watermelons on ...

I am back in Oxford. My spring break travels are done and I am back in England for the last stretch. In two months I will have not only finished with Oxford, but with college in general. I will, for the first time since I was 5 years old, be out of school. That is pretty mind blowing. Being a student is all I have known really. Soon I will be a workin' man and my days of pouring over books will be done, or at least they will for a while, it is possible that I will go on to get my masters somewhere down the road, but for next year I will be working. I am pretty excited about next year. Being is spain for this past time whetted my appetite for next year. I am looking forward to going back. I have a feeling some good times are in store for me. My travels were pretty good. The easiest way to share the pictures is just to direct you to this link: My Amsterdam, Brussels and Brugges pictures . My verdict on the different places is as follows: Amsterdam: I wasnt a fan. People try to sell ...

I am in Spain again. It is past midnight and I am sitting in the dark, in my old room. It is strange to think of it as my room, because though it is, I have not really lived here for a while. If one were to look around it, at the walls and shelves, in the drawers and on the desk, it would be hard to prove that I have been alive for the past 4 years. Only some new books and CDs have joined the rest of the stuff that litters a room that has otherwise been frozen in time since I left for college. My bits and pieces, my recent clothing, my newly accumulated junk all lies scattered across the globe and my old room has gone from being a functional living space to a storageplace for my memories. So here I sit in the dark, enjoying a feeling I have not had in a while: it is hot in here. A dry natural heat stored up from a warm spring day in Spain. 3 days ago I was still a coat wearing kid, rambling up and down the cobblestone streets of a cold Oxford; a city that was still trying to shake off ...

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On wednesday I left sweet Oxford and went up north to visit Kenny in Durham. It is an old small college town, whose landscape is dominated by the presence of the University and the Cathedral. We hung out for several days, taking it easy mostly: going out to eat, running errands, watching movies, talking, visiting the sights, and chilling with Kenny's friends (everyone from his ethiopian housemate, to his working class british friends from his job, and the people from his cell group). As always, it was good to see him and catch up. I think I will tell of my time there with pictures and captions: Here's the cathedral that Bill Bryson says is his favorite. Notice that that design and architecture would never be seen in Spain or such places. The anglo-saxon/norman influences are pretty obvious and cool looking, especially the squarishness of the central tower. Here is Kenny. Notice how well his clothes match the mossy stone and cross. He is clearly fashion savvy. The english interp...

As I am one that is always doing lists, I have often put together a band in my brain comprised of all the musicians I like. Below I have made up the band that I would like to make music together. Ideally, in my mind, I am singing for this band, but as you can see I put Jeff Buckley down as lead singer because he is the only singer that I could think of that really taps the sounds that I would choose. As to the rest of the band, they are all great musicians that I think would play well together and work to create the sound that my brain hazily visualizes. All Star Rock Band: Lead Singer: Jeff Buckley Lead Guitar: David Guilmore (Pink Floyd) Secondary Guitar: Kevin Shields (My Bloody Valentine) Bass Player: John Paul Jones (Led Zeppelin) Drummer: Jimmy Chamberlain (Smashing Pumkins) These musicians aren't necessarily the greatest in their instrument, though they are certainly up there, but they are put together to create the sound I want. Yes, I know Steve Vai is a greater virtuos...

-I've finished with this term. I am happy to be done with it. I wonder what kind of grades I got. I am sad to be done with creative writing. I learned a lot about writing poetry. I realized recently that I really just need to keep writing it. I have really learned enough to keep on progressing on my own as long as I keep reading poetry and writing it. - I recently realized how many movies are "based on actual events." However, you will see a movie trailer that starts out with those words and then the story will be about a man who rides dragons, or a haunted hospital where ghosts have dismembered a group of teenagers. "Based on actual events??" Man! Where have I been spending my time! -Yesterday, I was at a pub grabbing a bite to eat with some friends from the Gargoyles (the acappella group) when we began talking about drunkenness. I started a big discussion that got nowhere about identity, for alcohol changes many people's personalities. Is the real you the...

I am rarely really possessed with the desire to own something. I tend to be fairly indifferent to most material goods. I can do without them. I think we have too much crap crowding our lives anyway. There are a couple of exceptions of course, I like gadgets, though I am not a crazy fanatic by any means. I like food, if you consider that a material good, and I like to eat well. That sort of gives you an idea about what kind of things I tend to really enjoy. I like material goods that are scintillating to the senses. I will pay the extra buck for something that tastes a little better. If I were a millionaire I probably wouldn't have expensive sports cars or massive homes, but I would be very much inclined to eat in fancy restaurants. I like beautiful things. Beautiful to the tongue and to the eye. Beauty is one of the things I hold in highest esteem, as I consider it an essential part to the wellbeing of man's soul. And I mean, soul in the most spiritual way. That is why I was ca...

I cant resist telling about this: Ricky Gervais, the creator of BBC's series The Office, has a radio show. In it he and the other writer from the Office sit and just talk to and make fun of their friend Karl Pilkington, who is either a comedic genius or a complete moron. Needless to say, it is about the funniest thing I've heard on radio for years. If you go HERE you can get a nice couple of episodes á la podcast. Really funny downloads. They are clean for the most part, (every now and then it isnt, but still not bad) . Either way, its worth the listen. Check it out, if you dont like it, fine, but if you do then you can thank me later. They are starting up the show again next week (they'd been off the air for 6 months) and you can subscribe to it for 6 dollars via Audible.com. I already have.

It is 6th week (out of 8) of my second term. I know I should be focusing on my Shakespeare paper right now, but all I can think of is spring break. This term has been taxing, slow, and tedious. I hate winter. Unless I'm snowboarding. But I'm not. Spring break is shaping up to look really cool. I am getting together with my friend Dave Macadam. He is a friend from Gordon who is studying in Madrid this semester. Last summer I told him that since we were both going to be in europe for spring break that we should travel together. Frankly, I didnt think it would happen, for it sounded like one of those plans that would be great but never end up working out. In part that is true, because some other people from Gordon talked about flying out and joining us, and they arent going to now, but Dave and I are still planning on it. Not only are we planning on it, we are acting on it. We bought our plane tickets today. I get a whole month off for spring break. That is the way it works here, ...

Has anyone ever seen High Fidelity? It is one of my favorite movies of all time. Its both hilarious and painfully poignant. John Cussack's character keeps doing top 5 lists. I happen to be quite fond of lists myself, though I know some people cant stand them. I am constantly making my own "top 5 places I want to be" or "top 5 friends I would take with me to ..." or "top 5 non cheesy romance movies" or "top 5 albums" etc... So today feel like writing my top 5 jobs that I would like to have. These are all ideals, irrespective of my own talents or occupational leanings. 5) English Teacher : I don't know why this seems appealing. Who knows if it is any good in real life, but the idealized version does seem appealing. Teaching something that is not useful per say in the same way that teaching auto mechanics or medicine is useful, but yet teaching something that resonates within the soul. Also teaching creative writing for much the same reason....

When we were in high school, Charles and I would sometimes sit around in study hall dividing up the world map. He would get one country, I would get another, and yet another place would be set up as a prison colony. It was random, a bit evil, and a lot of fun. I dont know if any of you have heard of Nationstates.com. It is a website where you create your own virtual nation. Every day you get a message from your cabinet or from your senate presenting you with a new issue for you to pass a law on. The issues range from taxes to religion, or just plain random things. For example today they wanted to know if the government would subsidize baseball, but our taxes are high enough, so I had to pass. Yesterday they wanted new laws concerning Dragonfly hunting (its the national animal) and I said that you could only hunt it with your hands. According to your different laws, your nation's status changes, your economy goes up or down, your civil or human rights rise and fall and your UN stat...

Here are some pictures from the acappella competition on saturday. They are fairly small, cause I wanted them to fit, so I am sorry if you were hoping for some wonkin' big ones. Here we are, waiting for our turn to go on. The expressions on our faces are priceless. Doing some singing See what I mean about the other groups having dumb choreographies and things? Not us, we have self respect. We dont move. We groove. Post-concert. It was a moral victory, so we are in good spirits. Walking away, down an oxford street. Time to get a bite to eat and a sip to drink. Later, at the afterparty, Matt smiles, and I issue a warning to the cameraperson, "Dont mention choreographies!"

-Dick Cheney accidentally shot his hunting buddy. If he had killed him, he would have been charged with manslaughter. The vice president would have gone to prison for manslaughter. To me, that is hilarious in a strange kinda way. --I think I may be getting the flu. It is going around. I started feeling poorly this weekend. Saturday morning my throat was scratchy, but I fought it for sake of my acappella performance (ps, I know it is spelled a cappella but it is easier to write it all together, sue me). But when I woke up sunday... I felt terrible. I stayed inside and took it easy in hopes that some rest would take care of it. Alas, this morning I felt terrible, and after running errands and going to lectures all day, I feel even worse. But really, who wants to read "A Diary of Ryan's Health?" No one, I imagine. So lets move on. ---Today, whilst sitting in a coffee shop studying with Miriam (one of the girls in my program, and one of the people who lives in my house). We ...

Last night, my a cappella group, The Oxford Gargoyles, participated in the International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella. It was held in the student union. We had about 4 groups come all the way from Cambridge and St. Andrews to compete. Oxford has the greatest a capella awareness though, as we have 4 groups in Oxford alone. It was a lot of fun. I like watching and listening to a capella anyway, not to mention singing it or competing. The Cambridge groups were pretty good, but the St. Andrews ones were not (even though the guys did all wore kilts to represent their Scottish school). In the end, we came in 4th. In some ways it was deserved, in other ways we deverved better. The problem was that 1/3 of the point system was based on stage movements and things of that sort. The three top groups had choreographies and all sorts of stuff, whereas we had very little. Of course, it was near impossible for us to have more than we did because of the nature of our songs. For example, the gr...

1. Spell your first name backwards: Nayr 2. Story behind your blogger name: I dunno, it just seems like I'm Always Abroad no matter where I go. 3. Where do you live? A little row house in oxford england. DESCRIBE YOUR: 4. Wallet: posh leather 5. Toothbrush: has a sweet tounge cleaner 6. Jewelry worn daily: none, though in the summer time I usually sport a necklace of some kind 7. Sunglasses: none yo 8. Favorite shirt: Probably a toss up between my SF59 tee with a lamb on it and another one I have that is grey but its just so comfy... 9. CD in stereo right now: Rufus Wainwright's "Poses" 10. What you are wearing now?: Jeans, shoes, zip up sweater. 11. Wishing: I didnt have to write a paper right now 12. Wanting: for the aformentioned paper to be written 13. After this: unless the rapture comes or my genitals spontanously combust I suppose I will write that paper. 14. If you could get away with punching someone who would it be? I was going to say shakespeare for making ...

In high school, all I listened to was Christian music. That was because it was all I had been exposed to. My parents did not like me listening to secular stuff, and I think that wasn't necessarily a bad thing during my formative years. But as I got older and started exposing myself to different non-religious kinds of music, I stopped listening to the Christian stuff. The main reason for that the secular stuff is just better. Not to say that all christian music is bad... some may even be just as good... but very little is better. For the most part, believers just content themselves with imitating, not creating. The Christian music industry replicates every musical and production value the secular music has and adds Christian lyrics. It has all the shallowness of mainstream pop but with clean lyrics. In fact it is more shallow, because not only does it imitate a shallow thing, but it pretends that by adding generic Christian lyrics that it becomes good. That's like putting a garn...

I remember when Mr. Musser, our high school P.E. teacher, made us play American football. There was always an uproar any time he tried to get up to play anything other than football (soccer). The worst uproar came when we were required to do the physical fitness exam once a year. We would all complain every day for about a month while we prepared for the fitness test. But in retrospect it was probably good for us to do, and got us in shape, even if it only was for one month out of the year. Street Hockey didn't get much better of a reception, though I personally enjoyed it. It was one of the few sports we played that I wasn't too bad at, though that may have only been because most of the others didn't bother putting much of an effort into it. It was the other way around when it came to basketball. I hated basketball more than any other sport. For one thing, I was short growing up. I am still no gargantuan man, but at least I am about average. But as a kid I just got trampl...