Quips, Quotes, and Quandries (or not)

Yo yo yo, peoples. Well, it’s that time of the week again . . . time to update. So, even though I’m a bit tired and a bit . . . hm . . . contemplative, for lack of a better term, I am here, faithfully updating my blog for you to read. Since I’m sure you all look forward to it every week, just counting the hours until Sunday comes and my blog is, once again, new and fresh.

So today we’re going to divide things up in general events again, but we’re going to do it slightly differently. Instead of giving events numbers and clever titles, I’m going to characterize everything by a quote that was said by someone in regards to it. There are also fewer than usual, so y’all can rejoice that you might actually have a little extra free time this week that normally would’ve been spent reading my blog (although you never really know).

”I’m confuzzled!”
On Monday, since it was Labor Day, I had no school. Which was cool, making it the last day of my summer vacation. Also since it was Labor Day, Mother decided that we should have the Christisons over for dinner.

And so we did. Although David and Dr. Mrs. both had migraines, so they couldn’t come, which was very sad. But Sarah, John, and Dr. Mr. all came over. We sat around in the family room talking for a while, then Sarah, John and I went to play video games while the adults remained there. We played quite a few games . . . we had a pretty even split of victories and losses, too (partially due to the fact that Sarah was barely functioning, so I could actually beat her).

Then came dinner itself. ‘Twas good, it was Pat & Oscar’s chicken, breadsticks, and salad, and two of mom’s pies. We talked about many things . . . football, for one. That was cool . . . John knows so much about football that it scares me. But he picked the Broncos to go to the Super Bowl this year, so yay.

After dinner, Sarah, John and I retreated back into the office, where Sarah determined to get me un-stuck in Tales of Symphonia (I’d been stuck for . . . gosh, I dunno, maybe a year or so). She did get me unstuck, although it took longer than she’d anticipated. We progressed in it fairly rapidly (to everyone’s surprise, since neither Sarah or I had played it in ages, and I’m not sure how long it had been since John played), and were going steadily and strongly until we hit the third boss after where we’d started. This guy totally creamed us, easily, three or four times. It was depressing. Then Dr. Mr. came in and summoned his children to leave (though not before I’d given Sarah her wonderful little Spider-Man quarter-machine thingy).

“I’m confuzzled” comes from while we were playing ToS, because since Sarah hadn’t played it in ages she didn’t remember a whole lot, and so every five seconds or so she’d say some variation of “I’m confused.” It sort of became the theme phrase of the evening . . .

”I’m tired . . .”
On Tuesday, school started. *ominous music* Initial impressions:
Geometry: Math. Sucks.
Chemistry: Math. Sucks. But hopefully it’ll improve as it goes along . . .
Vocabulary: Meh, same as always. Not too bad, not too great.
French: See above.

And Torrey we have to take a bit longer with.

First off, Second Treatise of Government by John Locke is freakin’ amazing. I love it. Everybody is always talking about this book as the dreaded Locke reading, the first reading of FAT (Foundations of American Thought), the beginning of the toughest year of TA (Torrey Academy). So I went into it somewhat apprehensively. But I got half-way through the first page, stopped, and said, “This rocks. I’m gonna love this.”

Of course, being written in 1690, it’s just fun to read because of the kind of language he uses. It makes me realize how rich the English language really is, and how little of it we really use. Not to mention that his logical progression is amazing. The whole book is basically one big syllogism, which makes it quite easy to follow for something of that sort. He starts way back with Adam, and progresses through what he believes to be political and legal history. I don’t agree with everything he says, but it’s still amazing.

On Tuesday we also had orientation. This basically means logging onto Breeze (the program we use for class) and having our tutor (Mr. Selby) brief us on how things are going to work. The class seems really cool, I think I’m going to like most of the people, and it’ll be a fun group to work with. Mr. Selby seems cool, although he seems a bit more serious and strict than Mr. Arcadi was. Which is depressing because I tend to be a bit . . . well, not-serious. Like, after my first impression, I doubt I’ll feel comfortable at any point during the year telling Mr. Selby to “get a real girlfriend,” which I did Mr. Arcadi (and no, it wasn’t mean in context . . . actually, it was the comment of mine that got the biggest response from my other classmates all year). He’s also imposing a dress code . . . for an online class . . . which is very nearly cruel and unusual punishment . . . he said something about it “getting us into a serious frame of mind,” but it’s still depressing. Not so much for me as for the sake of the people who wore pajamas all year last year, but still.

So yes, that was basically school for this year . . . Précis are still evil incarnate, all that jazz. Where “I’m tired” came from should be fairly obvious, I think . . . going from summer to school.

”HOO-AH.”
So on Friday, David came to pick me up for dance as always. We went to Didi’s, as always, and had dance, as always. Nothing out of the ordinary, everything perfectly normal.

We start going home, everything normal, nothing wrong at all. And then, at a red light, David’s battery just completely dies. This isn’t terribly strange, it’s happened before. All he has to do is get out and tighten the cable, right? . . . Right?

Wrong. He went out and tightened it, and that got the electric system back online so he could put the hazard lights on. He spent the next five to ten minutes desperately trying to get it hooked up so he could start the engine. He failed.

So he comes back, opens the door, and says, “alright guys, teamwork time. Sarah, I’m gonna need you to steer. Mark, you and me will get out and push so we can get it out of the middle of the street and onto the side.”

So we did. Sarah was protesting, because she had only read about how to steer and such, and had never actually done it. We did, however, successfully get the car around the corner and onto the cross-street at the side.

We then determined to push it up to the MPH sign, which was about 30-50 feet up from where we were. I say “up” because we realized once we started that we were pushing the car uphill.

The car, by the way, is actually a minivan. With tons of stuff in it. And Sarah in it, too. So we were heaving and shoving for a good half an hour or so to get it up the hill, but finally we succeeded. We then took a break in the shade under a tree while David called first his mother (to ask for help) and then Carly and Katrina (to complain).

Eventually it was decided that Sarah and I would walk back to my house (we were fairly close), and then David would swing by and pick Sarah up when he got the car working again. We were maybe halfway back when Dr. Mrs. swung by and picked us up, giving me a lift the rest of the way.

Maybe half an hour later, I got a call from David and Sarah, noting that it would’ve been a HECK of a lot easier had we put the car in neutral, rather than left it in drive. We all slapped ourselves at our idiocy, then commented on what a great workout David and I had had.

So yes . . . not-so-fun times, although it’s all amusing (to me, anyway) in retrospect.

”In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.”
That probably surprises a few of you, being something more commonly seen on AJ’s blog than mine, since I tend to keep mine as light and happy-happy as possible and try to avoid going into anything even moderately serious.

This, however, was definitely worth mentioning. Earlier tonight, I went to Trinity’s Fall Reunion (whatever that is . . . I was there, and I’m not entirely sure), where they baptized a rather large group of people that included Zach, Megan, and Taylor (and was supposed to include David, but didn’t in the end because of a number of things).

It was really cool. Everyone being baptized gave their testimony before being baptized . . . lots of tears and such, as always. It was really cool, though . . . I dunno, what else can I say? My family is now bigger :-D

So yeah, that’s basically it for this week. So go get some sleep with the time you’d usually spend reading the other five pages of stuff I’d written here.

Comments:
AJ: Ah, Twilight Zone, of course. Yeah, I thought you’d like the kayak thing. As for the train metaphor, it's true that the train didn't get hit, and it's not overly inspirational for the reader or the train. The metaphor, however, was referring to the penny, which got hit and managed to turn an entire train, something easily a thousand times its size. If you ask me, that's darned inspiring.

Rae: Heh, yes, “Pyaaaaanamaaa” wasn’t really expected to be gotten by anyone but David . . . I love it, too. And I think I’ll let David give you the info on it . . . if everything works out (such as, like, my parents okaying it), I’m probably going to try to go again next Sunday, if you’d be interested in seeing it with me and whatever Lifehouse folks I can get together . . .