Woahhh

I'm almost done with college? What?! So crazy & weird that I have spent my whole life in school and now that time is finally coming to an end. My whole life. The whole post-education thing doesn't feel odd. I think I'm ready for that. I could even say excited. It's a world of possibilities out there.

So recent accomplishments I'm stoked about:

• Survived a 4 day zombie apocalypse at Vanguard. One of few remaining humans in the 250+ Humans vs Zombies school-wide game.
• Totally surpassed my expectations and got a 93% on my Media Crit paper. Woooo!
• Been offered a job in Hollywood working on the graphics of movie trailers! My internship is actually turning into a job. Whhaaat? Excellent.

So, current post-grad plans are to take a trip to Costa Rica and then start full-time mid-June and then move up to LA mid-August.

Soo yeah, woahhhh!

Bay area with my lovely lady and one of her best friends

Boom.

I did it.

Can't believe it, but I did it. 40 pages exactly. Finished within a few hours of the deadline. Got sick with 15 hours and 10 pages to go, but made it.

SO stoked.

And now, I feel like I have all the time in the world, despite actually still having quite a bit to do. The difference is just that I actually am filling my time with things that I want to to get done. Editing the first episode of Such Good Friends, pre-production with Dale on a short film, hopefully starting up the Not-So Extreme Sports Club, and other fun things. The end of the year has taken a drastic turn for the positive in the last week.

Gonna be a great end to my time at Vanguard and hopefully a good start to a new chapter in life.

A little glimpse of our whiteboard the week before the paper was due:

Roommates

Living with 5 other guys is ridiculous. Mostly in a good way. The hilarity that ensues when you have this many young men living together is just excellent. Sometime we do awesome things like all go take roommate pictures at a portrait studio and other times we all just randomly end up hanging out on the staircase. Last night, one roommate sharted while just sitting there typing on his computer, 15 feet from the bathroom. So funny (may have been less funny if it actually smelled). Also, one roommate sneakily plugged in a USB mouse into the other roommate's computer and pressed send on 3-sentence facebook message (the message was asking out a girl he had only met once) that he had been writing/reviewing for 30 minutes. Soooo good. That roommate doesnt know yet that he also unknowingly facebook "poked" her. We'll see how that situation turns out soon.

I occasionally film the random happenings in our house, but the videos are just too good for the internet. Well, really they are probably just a little too bad for everyone's image and may in fact just not make much sense unless you knew all of my roommates. Who knows.

Point is that this is a great group of guys. I may hate it when I sometimes walk into the kitchen and its looks terrible (written boldy on our whiteboard at one point: "Gentlemen, we can be assholes as long as our kitchen doesn't look like the inside of one"), but the positives definitely outweigh the negatives.

Oh, and for those of you who counted and realized there are too more guys in the photo, it's because one left and another took his spot, but we wanted to have both for the photo. 7 roommates would be a whole 'nother ballgame.

Fading Days

You know, college has been amazing. Great friends. Great times. Great lessons learned. What's a bummer though is how the great moments with my class (2011! Woohoo!) have just seemed to fizzle out over the last couple years. Its probably because we are slowly transitioning into our lives after college and focusing on other things, but it still doesn't seem like a a good enough reason for us to miss out on what we still have here.

We had a senior smores thing tonight (which unfortunately was really poorly advertised) and there only about 10 people there. It would have been so sweet if everyone just stopped whatever they were doing for an hour and just came out and mingled. Most people are just preoccupied with other things (some of them probably being legitimate). I just wish most of my friends were still down to just forget about homework and obligations for a little while and be willing to have fun as a huge group.

It may be somewhat irresponsible, but these are probably some of the last times that we can get away with putting things off for a bit and we will most definitely cherish the memories that we would make with each other. It just seems like great moments have just slowly been fading away (with concerns to fun major events) over the past 1 or 2 years. I just wish that it wouldnt be like this and that we would all make some time to really finish our last year out strong with regards to being a part of the Vanguard community. I'm guilty too. Well, even if we dont have some epic final event or moments, I will still look back at my time at Vanguard as the best time of my life . . . so far. Great days are still to come.

THE Paper

- THE Paper I have been dreading for 4 years
- THE Paper that must be 40-50 pages
- THE Paper that I briefly thought was just a cruel joke made up to scare freshmen communication majors
- THE Paper that will consume the next 23 days and nights of my life
- THE Paper that has finally arrived

And so it begins...

Bumskies.

Pan.

Why don't I post on here more often? Probably because I feel like my posts should have some depth . . . and depth takes some serious thought and serious thought is something to be avoided when I'm feeling lazy . . . which is far too often.

I think I should do 3 things:

1) Not be lazy

2) Not take this so seriously

3) Do what I want

So yeah, I need to force myself to act, but also be able to screw around and not put boxes around myself. Totally reflective of my life. Well, I think I've got #1 down right now and I'll get #2 and #3 accomplished with this:

Because he's awesome and I want to be him. Actually, I am him. I am Peter Pan.

So excellent. The best. Pan.

Distance

In the most plain and simple terms: I miss my lady. This is the toughest its been for me, even though we've been doing the long distance thing for over 2 years. Something about her being in Spain now opposed to San Francisco is huge. You would think, "Hey, you don't see her either way," right? The difference now is that I can't just contact her at any moment like I could before (unless I would like to take out a school loan to pay for the cell phone charges) and the option of having the ability to see her if I absolutely needed to is essentially taken away. I just feel so much more helpless in those terms. The other thing is that this is the longest we've ever been away from each other. We've gone a month without seeing each other many times, but 2 1/2 months is a long time. Then we'll see each other for a week (visiting her during my spring break!) and then we'll go another 2 months. All in all, I know I'll be just fine, but this has just been getting me a little down lately. I'm still having a good time, but I'm definitely feeling her absence more than ever. Can't wait to cross America and the Atlantic next month.

Junior Year

Crazy to think that I am over half way done with college. So crazy. Well anyway, my post is more about this year so far than about the unknown future.

I'm an RA! Im surprised that I am, but also not surprised at all. I've always wanted to be in this spot and over the last year, I realized that it was a strong possibility. Its still just really weird that it became a reality. Its definitely funny to be on this side of residence life. The guys on my floor look at me so differently than they would if it was just me. Thats a good and bad thing. Good because it allows me to connect with them quicker than if I were just another guy on the floor. Bad because I am not fully treated as one of them, and I'm sure, not trusted quite as much as I normally would be. I expected these things though. Its such a unique experience to be where I am now. I don't want to have any regrets. I want to make the most of it.

Fortunately, not much has changed with my friendships that were already established. With some of them, nothing has changed. With some others, the only thing that has changed is I am not told everything that I would normally be told. They, and I, knew it would be like this. I don't disagree with what they do, I just can't know because of my position as an RA. I will get to hear all about it next year. I'm so glad though that that is the only thing that is different. I'm not treated differently which is great. Seems like RAs in the past end up having at least some problems with their friendships. That has not been the case with me. I just need to make sure I balance my time well and don't disappear from any particular friend group. I like to exist.

So point is, I'm really enjoying this year. I love getting to know the guys on my floor. I love hanging out with my friends. I love God. And, believe it or not, I am liking (maybe loving) my classes. Oh man. I feel like I should say something profound, but nothing is coming to mind. There's a little look for you about how I'm feeling so far this year. I will try to update this a little more often by the way, but no guarantees. Oh, summer was awesome. So amazing. Maybe I'll post something about it some time later. Adios!

Finishing Out Finals

Ever since my last post, I have done a pretty good job of enjoying the time left this semester. I feel like I have made every free moment worth it so far. I have still had my fare share of work to get done, but that is expected since it is finals. So much fun tonight. Played ninja tag (very fun game involving a jungle jim and moves that could be mistaken for ninja moves) and ran around school quite suspiciously, for no reason other than to run suspiciously, which gave campus safety something to worry about for a while. They ended up locking down the building that we live in and taking down all of our names and numbers, which they apparently do to everyone who is out this late. Thing is, one of our friends (who was with us but got separated) walked right by us. "Hey what about that guy? You're not gonna stop him?" No response. It was a fun few minutes. Check out Jon Foster's Blog (link is in the sidebar) for a more detailed recap of the run in.

As it comes to school work, I have completed everything, but only at the last minute. Almost literally. I ended up pulling two all-nighters last week. One for a ten-pager and one to finish editing a short film (which you can see here- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfdP1MK3OxM ). Today, I finished a 5 page paper one minute before class. For reals. I dont think this is all a good thing but figure its worth mentioning to show how badly I have been procrastinating. The good thing is that I'm pretty much done now. Basically only need to show up to class tomorrow night and I'm free! Summer! Sort of. Im taking a 3 week summer school class, starting Monday. Shouldn't be too bad though.

Well there's a short update of things that have been going on. Glad to be able to say I view it all as mostly good. Tomorrow and Friday should be even better, and then I will get to see my lovely girlfriend this weekend. Life is good.

Feelings About Next Year

I just finished a very busy stretch of days. I have averaged 5 hours of sleep for the last 4 nights and had very busy days, so I am quite relieved to know I get a little break before the work picks up again. Fortunately, I have gotten through it with a relatively good mood. I'm definitely looking forward to summer, but I need to make sure to enjoy these last few days here at school. The first few weeks of summer will probably be pretty boring now that I think of it, so I need to enjoy these few moments I have this year.

Next year will be probably be incredibly different since I will have responsibilities as an RA. Im nervous about it. I don't know that many of the guys on the floor, which means that they dont know me. I wonder what they think of me at this point. They obviously dont think that I am a terrible guy since they stayed on the floor knowing that I would be their RA. However, I've been getting more excited and less nervous lately. The current RA of the 3rd floor talked to me about some of the guys that will be on the floor next year and assured me that they're great guys. I've met a few of them in the last few days and they seem to be pretty cool as well. I think it's going to be good. It will probably help when I get back into my crazy outgoing mood. Lately I've been pretty introverted (which is probably a good and bad thing).

C.S. Lewis talked about time in The Screwtape Letters and talks about how the future is not the part of time that we should focus on. Preparing for the future is not something that shouldn't be done, but worrying about it is not what I should be doing. As one of my favorite movies says, I should "live in the Now!" After thinking threw my thoughts and writing all this out, I've decided that I am going to make sure to enjoy these next few days. Gotta live out the rest of this year!