Thursday, August 25, 2011
Flashback to Charles
As far as what I ended the last post on, it's still up in the air. I'm super fickle sometimes.
Anyway, classes started today, yesterday. They're going to be fun. Linear Algebra should be somewhat easy, Physics will get hard, and Python will be time consuming.
I'm irked that in Physics we have to pay money to be able to do the homework. That's super silly.
Python is going to be a blast though. The professor, Julian, seems super awesome, and if you were at CSSI, or know Charles he reminded Sara and I of him. It's going to be worth the effort.
Tuesday Eric started playing Kingdom Hearts for the first time. I'm loving seeing it all again. Absolute favorite game of all time ever right there.
I have more to say, but Jacob is sleeping, and I feel super bad for still being awake blogging.
I'll post more later! =D
Oh and be jealous, because I got to Hangout with Emily today! Boo-yah world! =D
Love you guys, and night.
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Telepictionary
I've been telling myself to blog for about... Two (?) days now. I'm not too sure exactly on the time, I've had so much happen in the past few days that it's been a whirlwind of awesomeness.
I got help from Ann, Cathy, Lynn and Emily moving in on Thursday. I'm super grateful they were willing to help, it made the whole process go so much smoother. We went and ate at Pluckers, and then returned to hang out and just talk in my room while I put a few more of my things up. I then drove them home, and made the awesome (dreadful) walk from my parking spot to my dorm.
Friday I woke up to help Gerardo move in, but he assured me he didn't need help, and sent me back to bed. I then got up to meet Lynn and Ann, before heading to move Cathy in. Her parents are super nice, and it was cool getting to meet them. We helped Cathy organize her room, and I alphabetized her books on her bookshelf. Side note: She had 3 boxes of books, and she lives on the two and a half floor and there are no elevators. Those things are heavy! Haha.
After we got Cathy all moved in we decided to go eat, and Cathy, being super awful, paid for our food since we helped her move in. =P Gerardo crept up on us, on accident, which was super funny. We then went back to my room to play some Little Big Planet. Cathy got super addicted and was beating the rest of us. Whilst we were playing, Jacob arrived, so we felt bad playing and tried to help him move in, but there wasn't much he needed help with.
Following that, Jacob and his family invited me to dinner, which took place at Curras. It was a pretty great Enchilada, and I ate more of it than I thought I could.We returned, and went to Cathy's room, where we played Telepictionary a few times. We got some pretty great sequences out of that. We then returned to my room where we played more Little Big Planet. It was as enjoyable as it was before, and Cathy was continuing to be one of the better players consistently, which is super duper awesome. When we finished up our gaming, we walked Katherine to her dorm, then I walked Cathy to her dorm, because I didn't want her to get attacked in the middle of the night by some strange night attacker person.
Saturday, the Erics moved in, and I got to help the second Eric move in when he got here. We were able to get everything up in 2 trips, and then the move in help left so he could unpack and we wouldn't be in the way. We ended up playing more Little Big Planet, with Eric joining us once he was free.
I just got super distracted, and lost all trains of thought, and it's 2:30...
We saw One Day yesterday, and it was one of the greatest movies ever. I recommend it to all of you. I spent the whole movie going back and forth between thinking, "I want to be that guy!" and, "Well, I don't want to act that way." Honestly though, he had some super awesome redeeming qualities, even though he was a jerk and I thought he didn't deserve her.
Realistically though, I feel like I'm a lot like that. I'm stupid at times, and I hate myself for the way I act, or treat people. I'll say something that completely destroys someone, not with the intention of destroying them, just because it sounds right in my head. In a moment I can send a conversation in the opposite direction and not even know I did. I like to think though, that at the end of the day I've done more good things than jerkish things.
I know I can't erase my jerk moments by being doubly good. I wish it worked that way, but it doesn't and never will. When I watch romantic shows I'm reminded more and more that I'm not as good as I can be. We have these shows where the guy is always the jerk, and the girl is way more deserving than he or she realizes, and in the end he changes and they're happy with each other. I feel like that is so me, granted I'm sure it's a ton of people.
I'm the best friend, who doesn't always realize the blessings he's being given, and when he does he's too... Slow to act on it. If I were to be super honest right now, I'd tell you that I've given thought to the whole liking someone situation. Lots, and on several occasions felt as though I may have found someone who makes me happier than anyone else. I can't be sure, because I have to spend way too much time over thinking things, because I'm retarded.
Wow, umm... I think I'm off for the night, because I may have just talked myself into something I've been trying to do for a while now. I'll keep you posted.
Goodnight, and I hope everyone is enjoying the start of a new school year. =D
Friday, August 12, 2011
No Such Thing as Monsters
My whole Tuesday was devoted to my friend Brian's movie premiere. It was awesome, and I wish I could have more days like that one!
I'm going to take us back a bit, to when we were still in high school. I don't remember how it all began, but somewhere along the way Brian and I became super awesome friends. Not even lying, I would pretty much do anything for him. We've done several projects together over the years, starting with our cake project freshman year. I don't think we did a project Sophomore year, which kind of breaks the pattern I was going for. Haha. Junior year is where the magic happened.
Our English teacher assigned us a video project. We had to make a parody video about two of the books we had read. Brian and I had no trouble deciding to work together. Chris, Ryan, Nate and Cong were also in our group and Stickley and Autry came from a different English class to help us with some of the scenes. (Julie also showed up to help, however she is Chris's super awesome mom and not a student.)
It was the most genius video I'd ever made, which doesn't say much because it was the first, but it was awesome. Brian planned everything out, and we pretty much hit the ground running. We decided pretty unanimously on Moby Dick and The Great Gatsby. Nate took the role of Ahab and the Owl Eyed Guy (Sorta), Cong was Queequeg, Chris took the roles of Gatsby and Detective Grissom, Ryan was a reporter, I was Moby and Ishmael, Brian was George, and everyone else were the extras that were at Gatsbys/part of Ahab's crew.
We started off with a Cribs-like intro, which was all about Gatsby, and eventually he got shot. This lead to the reporter and Detective Grissom, who segwayed the video into an awesome chase scene with Ahab and his crew chasing Moby, me. Brian, Chris and I spent several hours editing it, using Windows Movie Maker. We stayed up until 1 or 2 in the morning, the night before we were going to turn it in. The rest was history. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILXgwKasH2g
Shameless plug for a high school video. Yeah, haha. I went that far.
When Brian was looking into college he decided to make a video to send to USC. The video was How To Ride A Bike- Learning to Fall Down. It was a more inspirational type video than Brian had made. Here's that one. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jf30CumJTI8
Senior year, in our Government class we had to do a John Locke project. Brian, Brison and I teamed up and decided we were going to make a video. Somehow we ended up on the idea to take songs and rewrite them. We decided on two songs, Tik Tok and Birthday Sex. I have no idea how those two made the cut, but they did, and it doesn't make much sense.
I didn't appear in the video, and Brison did Tik Tok while Brian did Birthday Sex. It was an interesting video, and we meant it to be super funny with very little of the video that was scripted, with most of it being thought up on the spot. The hardest part was getting all the video and everything on my computer which wasn't able to connect to the camera anymore because we got a new computer. We actually didn't get the video working in time for us to present, so we made a backup slideshow that was thrown together in a few minutes.
I remember it was snowing a lot, because we had to drive over to Camron's to get the video on a flash drive, and then back to my house, and then to take everyone home and there was snow and ice and what not all around. We got the video together, with music and vocals which took some work, and then presented it the next day even though we had already done our slideshow.
Our class thought it was funny, and so here is that project. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=989s7rkTDhs
Also our senior year, Brian had a few projects of his own for us to work on. One of them was a fun one called Wanted: New Roommate. This was all in our free time, over Spring Break senior year, and we had a ton of fun making it. It was serious, and funny all at the same time which made it rather good. This is the first of the films that I actually appeared in, if you don't count me carrying a whale/showing up in the credits for Death in The Water.
It was a lot of fun to shoot, and was the last video of Brian's design I edited. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgjPS7Si4uM
We did one more video where I edited, but it was more my set up, with Brian helping out with the filming and lining things up. It was a video for our choir banquet, that was supposed to be fun and cool for everyone to watch. I wanted it to be something we could watch and think, "Yeah, that was our choir!"
We interviewed a few people and put what they said in the video, along with some epic music and one of our concerts. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JN-NcLshnc&feature=grec_index
The next thing Brian went on to tackle was a video he titled Cured. This video took place earlier this year, I think around Spring Break time. It's about a society that has figured up a way to keep people from aging and thus dying of old age. Basically, since there's more people you have to have permission to have kids basically. It's a strange society, and makes you question what you would do in order to protect the family you have.
Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iadQuTBmQp4
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dh9oit0Cz_0
Finally, Brian has recently made No Such Thing As Monsters. I've seen it twice, and the only reason I haven't watched it more, is because I've been busy since he put it up online. It is an amazing story, and watching it the second time it was a whole lot more powerful. The movie isn't perfect, but the budget was literally nothing for it, and so he made due with what he had and created an amazing show.
My favorite part of it is the characterization, and how real the actors make it feel. Keep in mind that everyone who appears in it did it because they wanted to, they had no obligation, no payment, just a love for acting. The same goes for the whole crew. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8YjR3uE7iA
That's the movie we had the premiere for, and it's crazy thinking about how far we've come, how far Brian specifically has come.
There you have it, a whole novel post about Brian, and his films. I love that guy, and anything you could say that would make things better would be appreciated.
http://www.blackelephantfilms.com/
There's his website, and ways to contact him, cast or crew.
Alrighty, adios guys! Love ya!
Thursday, August 4, 2011
Toss Toss!
The trek back to the hotel was probably the hardest of any of the treks we'd made because it was in the middle of the day and super hot. We managed to make it, although I didn't think I would make it.
We got to the hotel, and they didn't have Emily's room or Izzy's and my room wasn't ready. Izzy looked into getting a room at a different hotel, and Kofi, Lynn, Emily, Elissa, Sam, Mario, Sara and myself sat in the lobby waiting for my room to open up. It did finally, and around that time Elissa left, so we all said our goodbyes, and Izzy went to a hotel a block away.
When we got upstairs and in our room, we started the shower rotations and I passed out super quick. I woke up to Kofi hovering over me, he was leaving and Emily made sure he said goodbye. It was in no way easy, but it wasn't as sad as last year. After meeting up once, I wasn't scared I'd never see him again.
I don't remember if I passed out again, or stayed awake after that. I do remember talking to Sam and realizing that he's probably one of the coolest people I've had the pleasure of knowing. He did a few impersonations, and I think one of them was me, which was ridiculously accurate.
Eventually we all finished getting showered, and we were in the last stages of getting ready, so we started to work on where we were going to go eat. Sam wasn't dressed up, because he was just crashing in the room until his friend got off of work, so he didn't want to go somewhere nice and look out of place. We thought about a few places, but decided on Shake Shack eventually. I was wearing my black dress shoes, black dress pants, a black T-shirt, navy blue button up, a silver tie, and a black velvet vest. I got told the heat would kill me, and it tried to. I had to take my vest off after we got to Shake Shack in order to live.
If you get a chance go there. They had the best orange cream slush thing ever! The burgers are pretty great too. After eating, we walked with Sam over to the subway entrance and all said our last goodbyes with him. Sam, if you read this I miss you, and wish I had spent more time with you than I ever did. We got on the subway, and down to our stop easily, and weren't sure if we should go to the theatre or wait and shop some. We decided to go in, and looked at some merchandise, and bought some, and then went upstairs to where our seats would be. We couldn't get in the theatre yet, but we sat outside the doors and it was a bit overwhelming. The whole building is Wicked themed... Did I ever mention we had planned to go see Wicked? Hrmmm...
It's legit though, the building that is. We got drinks because they came with a souvenir mug, and then just talked as we waited to go in. The stage... Ahhh. The work that goes into that shines forth when you just look at it. Ahhh!
Had I finished this the other night when I started it, I would have skipped out on describing the Wicked experience to you as well as I could. Emily had said something about it being almost inevitable that we would cry at the end, and she was right. I need to explain something before I go on, we had all been up since 7ish the previous day, and had got, at most, a few hours worth of naps in. Sitting in the theatre was super hard, because it was cool and comfortable which didn't help the whole tired thing. Izzy took a nap before the show, and I think Sara might have tried.
I'm not going to devote a lot of time to explaining the show, because if you know it you know what happens, and if not you need to, but it's a lot for this blog, haha. I think Izzy was the loudest person in the theatre when he laughed at Galinda, and at the end when Glinda imprisons Madame Morrible. There were several parts in the show where I couldn't help but cry, it was a mixture of the amazingness that was the show, and the overwhelming feeling that I was actually sitting there watching a Broadway show in New York. I'm silly like that. =D
I do think I dozed off for a short second, Emily quickly woke me up, haha. During this whole thing Mario was sitting twelve seats from the stage, while Lynn, Emily, Izzy, Sara and I were a row or two from the very back of the balcony. The view was amazing though, haha.
After the show, I talked myself into buying a Wicked sweet track jacket. It took me the whole show, but in the end, I couldn't help but buy it. We took several fun pictures right outside, and then made our way to the heart of Times Square, and did our last bit of shopping. Hershey store, M&M store, a little shop for "I heart New York" shirts. The good stuff, minus Disney, haha. We eventually decided we were super tired, and all made our way back to the hotel.
We talked about the show, and all of our favorite parts, but still crashed pretty quick once we were back. We ended up waking up later than we expected to, which was bad because we didn't have much time before Lynn and Mario left for the airport. We managed to run to this nearby food place and grab some breakfast/lunch to go and eat it outside the hotel before the shuttle for Lynn and Mario showed up. I think Lori arrived before they left, and we all said hello to her and goodbye to Lynn and Mario. Izzy went to his hotel with Lori to get his luggage so he could keep it with mine and Sara's at our hotel while we ran around before we left. While he was gone the shuttle for Emily popped up, and he didn't get to say goodbye which was super sad.
After Sara and I saw Emily off, we checked out and gave them our luggage, along with Izzy's to hold till our shuttle arrived. We made our way over to Central Park, and found ourselves walking around this big lake thing, which wasn't too exciting, so we left the park and went to a nearby Starbucks. We then walked as we looked for a place to eat. My phone battery was on it's last legs, for some reasons, which was bad because I had given the shuttle company my number.
We eventually decided to eat at the Shake Shack, so we caught some shuttles over there and stood in the line, which was long. It was nearing time for the shuttle to arrive, and I was worried, because my phone had died. We got our food to go, and basically ran back to the hotel. The guy had waited for us, and he wasn't too happy about that, but we were thankful. The hotel then took a long time finding Sara's luggage, which made the guy a bit angrier I think. We said our goodbyes to Lori and Izzy, and sat in the shuttle, eating quietly to ourselves.
We made it there, before 4:30, which was an hour after we had signed up for the shuttle at, which meant we didn't get charged extra but the guy asked for a waiting fee, or whatever so we paid it so we could just go inside. We got inside, got checked in to our flights went through security, and waited at the gate. They informed us that we might miss our connecting flights because they had to stop in Tennessee to fill up, because it was too hot in New York. We called our families to tell them, but ended up landing in Dallas only a few minutes late.
Sara and I walked to my gate, which was overbooked so they were taking off a bit later. I charged my phone, and we talked about how we'd see each other in a month so it wasn't sad. Then, I boarded the plane, waved goodbye, and that was pretty much it...
I got home, and was super happy to see my sister and parents. I couldn't stop thinking about the trip, but I was ready for that Sunday afternoon, because I was having my birthday party then.
Ummm... That was my New York trip, since then I've had a birthday party, played in a Brawl tournament, watched Brian's movie with the cast and crew and am currently waiting for the premiere on Tuesday. It's a legit premiere with people paying to watch, and catering, and we rented out a room at the Civic Center. Crazy stuffs.
I'll tell you guys how that goes. Love ya! =D
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Sing a song! ... Ummm... Hakuna Matata...
We somehow managed to make our way upstairs to Hemispheres, which has an outdoor seating area. We all went out onto the patio and looked out over the skyline, in awe of the city in the morning. It was one of those picturesque moments, and I know so many people got a billion great pictures! Ahh, if you guys could have been there, I mean, I would give it up if that meant every single one of you could be there, witnessing the beauty of New York in the morning with several of your closest friends around you.
We spent a lot of time watching as the sky lit up, standing around talking and just basking in it all. They got all of us together to take a few pictures with the whole of everything behind us. I was one of the last to leave to head back downstairs to get ready for breakfast then our presentations.
I don't know if I mentioned this, and I probably did, but I had been wearing my glasses for almost 12 hours, which never actually happens. The first thing I did when I got downstairs was put my contacts in, which people thought was weird since I'd been up for so long, but it felt a lot better having my contacts back in. We went to breakfast, and probably looked ridiculous to all the BOLD immersion students, and the actual Googlers.
We got back to Tech Talk, and set about preparing ourselves for super awesome fun presentations with 58 half asleep students. Sounds good, right?
Oh it was! While it was hard sitting in the audience, everyone who was on stage did a superb job! I was super tired, and so I don't remember a ton of what everyone said, but I remember that the gist of everyone's programs was along the lines of making it easier to find events that are going on, or will be going on.
When we took the stage we spent a good amount of time trying to get the screens to work, so I decided to take the mic and improvise. I started off with a few bad knock knock jokes.
"Knock Knock!"
Everyone started laughing, so I couldn't hear anything.
"Did you say 'Who's there?' because I couldn't hear."
"Who's there?"
"Boo"
"Boo Who?"
"Don't cry it was only a joke."
I tried to think of a good one, but got:
"Knock Knock!"
"Who's there?"
"Tuba."
"Tuba who?"
"Tuba toothpaste."
If I remember correctly someone else told a joke, but I don't remember that, sorry. It was after that last joke though that I decided to stop telling bad jokes.
Someone told me to sing a song. I was about to start A Whole New World, but in my tired state I forgot how to start it out. The only other song I could think of was Hakuna Matata, so I started off slow.
"Hakuna Matata..."
"What a wonderful phrase." It was this line that a lot of people joined in.
"Hakuna Matata, aint no passing craze!"
I don't know how far into the song we got, but our presentation started working, and everyone was laughing or singing, so I handed the mic over to Victoria who was starting our presentation.
It went well, everything worked like we had wanted it to, and I feel like there weren't as many speed bumps as there could have been. After that we had some lunches that they had packed for us, and it was time to start saying goodbyes, and get everything out before we had to all leave.
It was fun, and awesome, and super sad all at the same time. Eventually, even though I don't think they liked doing it, Cat, Isa and Stephanie had to ask us to all leave, because we weren't technically allowed to be there or something, I honestly don't remember that either...
What do I remember then? Haha.
I remember getting to play the Ha Game one time, before we all left, while we were all delirious and having the time of our life. I remember thanking Cat, Isa and Stephanie for everything they had done for us. I remember having to say good bye to all the CSSIers a second time. I remember thinking that we'd done it once, we'd left and met back up so it was no longer as sad because the chances of us seeing each other again are pretty great as long as we actually want to, and even if we don't try, if we all shoot for Google we're bound to at least see each other again.
When we finally left, Lynn, Emily, Sara, Mario, Izzy, Kofi, Sam, Elissa, and myself all made our way to the hotel we had left the previous day to check in for our last little hoorah in New York.
More on that in the next post, because it's 3 AM, my laptop is dying, and I'm super tired.
Yesterday was super short, but felt so very long, and not in all the awesome ways I thought it would. I'm still not entirely capable of living in the now. I keep fading in and out of the future, and that makes being here in Amarillo hard, because there's not much of it in my future. I'm kind of torn between UT and Google, as far as where I feel most at home, and I really want to still feel that about Amarillo. I love this town, and truly can't see why people don't like it. It's because of this town that I am who I am, so I may be weird, but I can't help but love that.
Oh no, if I stay here I'll just keep going on rant after rant that my tired mind wanders to, because I think way more when I'm tired, especially about non physical things like emotions and morals and whatever else may crop up.
I promise I'll finish off New York in the next post, and then I can get back to me pretending to have some sort of important ideas that if people took a moment to read might cause them to think and maybe one day cause them to grow some. I dunno.
Night readers. Love you all, so much. =D