Setting yourself up for failure...

Driving so fast the world is starting to blur, so late that there isn't a single pair of headlights in sight, music so loud that you're incapable of thought, the feel of the steering wheel getting more loose as you accelerate, the joy of realizing the pedal isn't to the floor yet, the tightness of your grip on the shift knob, your head glued to the headrest, the radar detector blaring, the fear of police....

perfect euphoric bliss

the ignition is like birth, acceleration like coming up for air.

I want to share it with you... with all of you... to have you see and feel what I do, that is when you would understand me.

Going 110 down the freeway at 3 in the morning, losing traction as you hit patches of black ice... at the time you are filled with this urge to go faster and faster, you feel invincible at that speed... but looking back... a time when I wasn't anything like I am now... I shudder and think what might have happened... crash... death... hell.

But I made it through, I survived my early teens, I have changed, adapted to new surroundings and social structure as best as I know how... but the old me is still there, with all the anger and rage that he had when I left him behind. And everytime I get angry he takes control, refusing to listen to reason and refusing to accept help from anyone. Like a blind rattler... he just strikes at anything, no warning, just action.

The longer I'm in this place the quicker the rage is at assuming control...

SlowTEC saved me from the rage. I miss him. Every road here holds a memory of an ignorant high schooler, red-limiting his red Honda, the V-TEC screaming as he drove faster. That was me.

Now its over.

All Day Long

Today was just a friggin blur of rage and sorrow... but as always the end is always calm and what happened before, all the emotion, seems like a dream...

Soon I can return to Oregon, this place was entertainnig for a week or so.. but now I'm ready to return... and so return I shall, after the 1st.

Gonna sleep now... wake up and watch something... maybe a western...

Sleeping through...

Meant to come home at Midnight last night... but about 11:30 passed out on my friends couch, woke up like 6 hours later to see him still awake playing UT... So after a bit I drove on home

Now I'm considering going to sleep again, its only 7:30 after all.

Sorry I ain't been online much of the time.. I'm always at my friend's apartment and then I get home late if ever. Best time to catch me... prolly 2-4 am Idaho time.

So now I'm going to watch a movie or something, haven't worked my way through all of the ones I got for Christmas yet...

"Merry Christmas You Filthy Animal... And A Happy New Year"

All I want for Christmas is...

Christmas was friggin wicked this year... got everything I asked for. I didn't ask for anything huge, so I didn't think that would be a problem. Mine weren't huge like the $400 digital camera my brother got.

My family has traditionally, since before I can remember, opened an early present the day before Christmas Eve. So this year on Friday I got the Widescreen Original Star Wars Trilogy on DVD. Now I have the VHS and the DVD versions.

My family opens all the rest of the presents on Christmas Eve, then on Christmas morning we get Santa gifts and what not. So here's what I got:

- Firefly Series on DVD
- Sky High (DVD)
- Batman Begins (DVD)
- Star Wars shirt
- Another friggin Gnome shirt (its turned into a trend for me to get shirts with gnomes)
- PJs
- Set of Nice Clothes
- Star Wars Trivial Pursuit DVD Edition (I owned my mom at it last night)
- Millenium Falcon Lego Set (Which I'm still in the process of building the instruction book is a friggin 100 page manual)
- A lot of socks
- Star Wars Battlefront II
- McLintock (DVD)
- 20 Questions game (that thing is Satan, Haskell)
- Big Jake (DVD)
- Blue Steel / Hell Town (DVD)
- UNDERWORLD (DVD) (Already watched it twice since yesterday morning)
- New Cologne
- The Hulk (DVD)
- Hackers (DVD) (The most amazingly cheesy hacker movie ever)
- Appleseed (DVD)

and a few other bits and bobs...

Making this my most enjoyable Christmas I can remember...

I got a full nights sleep the other night... ever since my nightmare I've been only getting 1 or 2 a night, I stay up as late as I can and when I sleep I'm too tired to dream... but last night I slept for 7 hours of dreamless bliss. I feel alot better.

Well, ya... I get my wisdom teeth taken out tomorrow.

I have to go and pick up my friend Nick from the airport in Boise tonight at 11:30... but for now I'm gonna watch the Hulk and slip into some comic-book fantasy/sci-fi wonderful-ness.. and what not

The Endless Night in Retrospect... and then the following day until about 30 minutes ago.

Ok so anyways...

I was hanging out at my friend Andy's apartment, his brother, Nick, was takin off to California on a plane that left for Boise at 6... so he wanted to be there at 4 to make sure getting through security and everything went smooth. Well he left at 2 in the morning because it takes 2 hours to get to Boise and about 2:20 he calls Andy and tells us that his car quit on him. And so it begins...

I, at the time of the phone call, was now an hour gone immersed in World of Warcraft and was settling in for a long night of repetitive senseless killing with my newly created Tauren Warrior. But out of the goodness of my heart I gave up my night of well-deserved gaming goodness to help out a friend in need and picked up Nicklaus from the side of the freeway. I was thinking 2:40 in the morning, no cops I can get him there in good time... I was wrong.

At the first Bliss exit, while traveling 85, my car started slowly sliding sideways... I easily and quickly corrected due to my vast knowledge and unmatched experience in any situation with an automobile. Shortly after slowing down to the speed limit because of the lubricious road, fog started in. Not "cool things look kinda hazy" fog, but thick, "I can hardly see the lines on the road "fog, the "I'm gonna miss a turn and kill us all" kind of fog.

So after expertly navigating my vehicle through the fog, it cleared up. Leaving me a straight shot from Mountain Home to Boise, which I covered quickly and without incident. I dropped Nick off at the airport, switched out driving with Andy and we sped once more toward home.

The road was slicker on the way back.

We finally pulled into my drive way at 7 in the morning, I ran in and grabbed my phone charger, got back into the car and drove back to Andy's apartment and salvaged what was left of the dark hours of day playing WoW until 10 this morning. I drove home, showered, and slept.

I then returned to Andy's apartment this evening at 7 and played until about 30 minutes ago.

My Tauren Warrior is level 13 and very bad a.

I opened an early present earlier tonight, got the Star Wars Trilogy DVDs... and now my life is complete.

Tomorrow is the beginning of the eating and the presents and the Christmas. Christmas dinner is at 2 o'clock tomorrow afternoon at my Aunt and Uncle's house in Buhl...

All you Fox people. I miss you. It's much boring here. If it wasn't for my Tauren... I'd probably already have lost my mind.

"Merry Christmas to All, Now You're All Gonna Die!"

Endless Night...

I was out all night last night... just got home in fact. This one has a good story to it, but for now I need to shower and get some shut eye.

I just had the worst dream of my life.... I want to bury my head in my hands and sob, I want to never sleep again, I want to never think of it again... it was the kinda dream that changes the way you look at other people...

Exercise in Willpower

This is gonna be alot of half-thoughts.

For starters... a warning. Haskell if you haven't seen Cold Mountain, don't, there's some stuff in their that is pretty hardcore (literally). So yeah... good movie though.

I used to think I knew what I wanted. A fast car, a fast computer, and a fast internet connection. That was my perfect life.

It has changed.



Alex's birthday is Friday.

My family sleeps early, everyone is out by 11. I'm up late some nights, just thinking, nothing to do, no one to talk to, I just stare at the ceiling, not wanting to sleep... just thinking. Same way I do in the Silage Truck in the summer... when you drive for upwards of 8 hours a day, there's alot of time to think. I think about everything... mostly I day dream.

During this time is mostly an over-analyzation of all the encounters and conversations I've had with people, what I said or did, what they said or did, what I should or shouldn't have said or done. Basically I read so far into things that I regret even talking/seeing that person at all.

That first semester of college went fast. Like I said earlier, when I look back everything is like a dream and thats what last semester is like to me now. It's had its good points and its nightmarish sequences.

Me and Haskell had a conversation about different levels of love we have for people. I had a few levels ascending in I'd fight with you, I'd fight for you, I'd kill for you, and I'd die for you. Since thinking about that, I've come to the realization I would die for quite a few people. My main criteria for that category is I believe that you have the potential to live a fuller life than myself or I want you to survive no matter what to fulfill your life... Mostly that category is full of people I know well and I know will succeed. No way am I gonna die for someone who's gonna be a failure, that's pretty pointless.

Most people are in those 4 categories if you know me at all, otherwise you're in the if I saw someone about to jump you I'd chuckle to myself and think Someone's about to get dealt some divine justice, and then walk away.

I had some other thoughts on death and purpose, but I decided that I haven't thought them through enough, so they can wait for another time.

And so I sit here, in the darkness, thinking, making myself feel darker than the room I'm in.

If anyone wants to talk... you have my cell number... or at least Haskell does.

Flicker, Flicker, Dimmer Fade to Black

Manic Bi-Polar Depressant

Ok so generally speaking:

If you are ever having a really tough time emotionally and you feel like fuming to me that's awesome, because you trust (or at least like me enough) to tell me your problems, I never had friends like that growing up so its cool having people be open about whats irritating them.

However, if I ever start using humor that is innapropriate or insensitive to the situation I apologize, because humor is my defense mechanism. When humor fails, than comes anger.

I don't mean to be a jerk, I'm usually trying to be careful in the way I phrase things, but I do sometimes get flustered and thats when the meaningless word vomit comes spewing out of my mouth, and I begin talking faster than I can think. Please don't be offended, I honestly feel guilty for days after I upset people like that.

An example of the word vomit:

Sarah, I'm really, really sorry for cussing... I feel so horrible about it...

The Dismal Break...

import random

Its been 3 days from Fox... I'm friggin bored as crap... there is usually a bunch of people that are always willing to talk or hang out, Big Dan, Haskell, Sarah, Eric, Vlad, Lesley, Alex, Amy... and the random people always in the lobby to strike up conversation with.

Bad food aside, I like Fox even with all the stupid trash they make me put up with.

But I'm sure when I open presents I'll feel better, who know's, it usually makes me feel happy.

I just want to have the break be over, for the first time in my life I have friendships. I've had them before, but now they matter. I had Andy here and he's friggin awesome. Hanging out with him is the only way I can survive in this state. But Andy aside, the place is dull.

Haskell, dear friend, I swear we are gonna watch movies for days when I get back, even if I am doped up on pain meds...

I woke up this morning and ran on the treadmill for an hour, watched Unleashed, watched Out Cold, headed to Twin and then got back at 10:15...

And tomorrow is going to be similar.

More UT... Talk to you later... you friggin tools.

All it takes is one person to tell me to come back to Oregon... and I'm already back in my car.

End of .random

Back in the Deep North...

Idaho is no longer my home. The place feels foreign, I know all the roads, all the places, all the people. But it doesn't feel right.

Feels wrong... dead wrong.

I'm counting down the days to my trip back to Oregon. To school, to friends, to what has become my new home.

I miss everyone from back at Fox. They are my new family. It's wierd not having them around. Even the ones I hate.

Talked to Sarah tonight. It was cool. I didn't think I was going to talk to anyone from Fox for friggin weeks. But she put my worries to rest, at least some people still know what the internet is once they leave Fox.

But for now I am going to game, and I'll probably be wierd when I get back to Oregon because I haven't been able to game for months.

Here we go.

Goodbye Brother, Comrade.

Vladimir is our hero, our rock, our brother, our comrade, our Ukrainian. Now Vovka is leaving us. In a way. He's moving out of Penn. He's now Commuter Vlad.

Never have I had the priviledge of such a friend as Tkach. He is the textbook definition for the strong, silent type. And smart to boot.

All the girls talked about him and no wonder. And if they didn't it was because they were blind, stupid, or a combination of the two.

Vlad you will always been a Penn1 Man. And there's always a chunk of carpet in my room with your name on it.

I love you man.

The Looming Doomsday

So Haskell has decided that me and him should, if we still like the girls we like at this point by that date, tell them we like them on February 17, 2006.

We've also decided that we should probably write down all this crap into a friggin book and make millions with "Life As a Tool"

Me and Bohl are running back through Intitial D, the coolest cartoon ever devised.

So until tonight when something may or may not happen, the end.

Failed Attempt At Concentration.

I tried to keep from seeing that girl all day today as well...

That didn't work out, saw her at dinner and then hung around in the lobby for a few minutes.

I can't concentrate afterwards, I'm always wondering what she's doing or how she's feeling. Frick. I just gotta keep my mind on my classes for a few days.

Well thats about all I've been thinking about... wow I'm pathetic... and she doesn't even like me.

Vlad thinks I'm friggin crazy, I hardly know the girl... and all I want to do is hang around and talk to her.

Makes a guy feel like a total tool.

Oh well, no classes tomorrow, just time for studying.

Late to Bed and Early to Rise make Brad a very tired boy...

I have to get up an hour earlier than usual for my Final, and I'm honestly so pissed about it.

Found out I have friggin Engnell for Intro to Comm, that has me kind of pissed off too. Public speaking is not my strong point. My business stats class was cancelled, so now I have to find something else to take its place to keep me around 16 or 17 credits.

I took a break from liking a girl today, didn't see or communicate with her in any way shape or form all day, makes me proud.

I hate Computer Science with all of my body.

Sleep is going to come in short order.

g'night.....

The Story of the Deaf Apology Part Dos

So anyways, I talked to Michelle last night. We talked for a little over an hour and I had recieved some advice that I should probably apologize to her for some stuff concerning our relationship that I still felt guilty about. She listened to about the first 5 minutes of the apology, and from then she didn't accept any more.

So that was the end of it.

I got some things off my chest and I apologized.

Now its done for good, if she never talks to me again. I'll be fine. The number was erased, the emails were deleted the pictures were burned.

The Story of the Deaf Apology

Here's where stuff changes again.

I talked to Michelle. Oh goody. Extrapolations coming tomorrow.

For now I'm tired. I was gonna write it all out, but after thinking for about five minutes and realizing how long it would take to write it out. I've decided to instead sleep, so until next time.

-Brad

Hedgehogs, Centaurs, Fawns, Foxes, and Gryphons

Went to the midnight show of Narnia. Got back to the dorm around 3 in the morning and worked on my paper til 5:15, slept until 7:45 and went to class.

After class I worked on my paper for another half hour, then walked with Sarah to her bank and then into the Creature Cabana. How do you get ahold of a Fennec fox... that place is shady, they probably purchase off of the black market, how else would you have African Hedgehogs...

The hedgehogs were friggin awesome. I want one.

No more friggin CS, I can't even explain to you the relief, but the final is like a black cloud on the horizon.

No more papers, no more classes. Just time to hang around with other people who are gonna be uptight as crap studying for all their finals....

Feels like I'm back in grade school and I'm waiting for the clock to hit 3...

Tomorrow is the last day of classes.

I'm so psyched I can't even handle it.

I'm done with writing papers, I have to write a research paper tonight still, and then have Haskell correct it and then rewrite and get it turned in by tomorrow morning. I also have a programming assignment I should be working on, but I probably won't.

Rammstein really does make me angry, because as soon as I listen to something else I mellow out.

My card doesn't work at the Bon right now, so until lunch tomorrow, I'm just going to have to go somewhere and grab a bite. I hafta pick up a newly fixed card in the morning.

Talked to a guy I knew from high school from about 5:15 to around 7:45, just talking it was pretty awesome, he was one of the guys I knew and I really liked but we were never really close or nothing, just hung around occassionally, it was good catching up with him.

End.

4 Finals, 2 Papers, a Log, and a Blog - Sorting Out Priorities

I have two papers I still haven't gotten around to writing. One is due tomorrow and the other Friday. I know that I need to do it but I can't gather the amount of responsiblity or drive to start either one. So as all great papers before it, it will begin at midnight and run long into the morning. After all, literary genius cannot be planned.

So...

When asked to describe myself, how high school was, or how my life as been it always sounds like a sob story. I don't mean for it to happen, but it seems that the bad things seem to overshadow the good when they shouldn't, my life has been way happier than I make it out, bumpy but awesome.

And honestly, for the rest of my time knowing you I'll feel really guilty about complaining about my life problems to you for hours at a time. And even if you claim that you didn't mind or it was okay, I don't know if I'd ever be comfortable around you again. That is one of the reasons I don't talk to people. I know I either won't say what I want to say, I'll be misunderstood, or I'll say something so blatantly retarded that they you won't want to speak to me again.

Honestly, after talking to someone about myself, something I've done rarely and extremely carefully, I usually feed them a load of complete bullshit and then avoid them for a while, mainly because I feel so bad about it.
The difference is, in the last couple days I've been honest and now I feel so awkward because for once in as long as I can remember that person could insult me and have it actually hurt. I haven't had an actual self-esteem lowering insult since probably 8th grade. Because you learn to keep your head down and not let anyone know anything about you, it gets hard to bash someone you know nothing about.

I've prayed more this week than I have the entire 3 months of being here.

I've felt really self-conscious lately... more than usual. And I even had an axiety attack last night, that's the first time in a couple years. Yippee.

Besides those thoughts, this has been the happiest week I've had since being at Fox.

Being Honest is More Horrifying Than Any Lie

So anyways, I was honest for the first time in my life last night. I usually hide myself behind a very intricate mask of made-up stories or just one or two of the exciting real ones. Just enough that people don't question my credibility...

And I was open to someone I barely know. What I told her was a major part of the why I am the way I turned out. I just felt that for once I should be honest with someone. And honestly I feel awkward and embarrassed towards that person now. On top of already being nervous.

And I've come to a conclusion about the whole thing. Erase the number and burn the rest.

Only thing left to worry about is the conscience, I have an amazing memory for all the stupid crap I've done.

And it feels really weird to not have something to hide behind, after 4 years of criticism it's a very different thing to be freely handing out ammunition to someone. But I think it was good for me.

Took a drive last night, scary as piss. A combination of driving too fast, my poor vision, a very windy road, and fog it was pretty gnarly for a bit.




I feel better now.

Fuming

Circling the Penn parking lot for 15 freaking minutes, no parking spots, and nowhere else to go...

I just want to walk down the rows of cars and put a big basketball-sized dent in the side of every car I don't recognize.

Just take deep breaths and forget about the stupid wankers who bring a car to college and only drive it to Nap's once in 4 freaking months.

9 School Days To Go

My day has gone okay so far, felt like I did well on my quiz this morning in Intro to CS, slept until 12:37, ran to my 12:40 class and got to play Basketball for an hour, went back to my room, found out my Grandma was okay, called my Brother, and now I'm blogging.

Just finished a muffin and a frickin juice box, and I don't have any classes for the rest of my day.

Watched 10 Things I Hate About You with Sarah last night, that movie is friggin amazing, even if it is classified as a chick flick.

I have 2 essays to write this week. And a huge programming assignment.

My hair's friggin screwed up from sleeping too... I hate sleep. Waste of friggin time.

And now I'm going to leave and go to my brother's...

What the crap...

So I got a call from my mother tonight, apparently my Grandma Paulin had a heart-attack today. I'm not sure how to feel about this. Honestly, my Grandma is so ornery that she won't die until she feels like it. She's had strokes and heart problems forever, and that's why I don't know whether to shrug this off and be like, oh well it's happened before, she'll pull through no problem, or if I should really be worried about this.

Sometimes I have a hard time explaining things... or saying things to people when I'm there... or walking into a girl's hall for no reason other than to talk to someone.(I don't have Bohl's confidence)

Those are things that I either can't do or find it difficult to do.

So anyways, I'm tired again, didn't get my homework done, but I'm feeling pretty good. Bored as crap, if anyone reads this... save me.

Playlists, Pirates, and Paper Snowflakes

Hung out in the Study room in Penn with Sarah from 9:45 to 1:15 or something like that and it was pretty awesome. She tried to show me how to make snowflakes... mine sucked, hers were all lacy and frilly and mine were friggin jagged and tiger-looking, and then she spent 3 hours trying to construct a playlist and transfer music to one of her friends... and she is a hardcore music pirate... her and mytunes go together like white on rice. Hahaha.

I'm friggin tired and I have alot of work to get done in the morning...

.//End Transmission/