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Monday, September 30, 2002
It's refreshing. I talked to my little sister, Lauren, over the weekend and she told me that she is planning to move to Denver, CO with some of her friends when she graduates high school. She said that it would take a hella lot of money. But, to me, whether it actually happens is immaterial.
What impressed me was the fact that she knows what she wants to do: get an easy job and hang out with her friends. While this seems like a very short-term, and ill-thought out, plan, it's better than my plan (which I just recently realized was more short-term and ill-thought out than I had tricked myself into believing) which is costing more than the amount of money Lauren is planning to save up for Colorado . . . per semester.
And what am I going to do after these three or four more years at Truman? At this point, getting an easy job and hanging out with my friends isn't looking like such a bad idea, but do I really need a college degree for that?
| Mr. McBastard | 11:31 AM | | |
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Sunday, September 29, 2002
Ah, home, known for it's perpetually comfortable beds, reliable clothes dryers, and all-you-can-eat buffet refridgerators.
| Mr. McBastard | 2:35 AM | | |
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Friday, September 27, 2002
Jimmy Eat World concert tonight! Yay! Also playing: Appleseed Cast and Schatzi. Total cost: $8.
Be jealous, be very jealous!
| Mr. McBastard | 10:40 AM | | |
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Thursday, September 26, 2002
I'm Not
If you find me
I will most likely be
Running away and
Gunning away at my dying hopes
'Cause I believe in what I'm not
I'm not believing in what I could be
If only I tried
Don't remind me
Of inadequacy
'Cause I'm already falling
I'm already wasting my life away
Whether I believe it or not
It's not a question of what can I do
But what will I do
I don't look behind me
'Cause I don't want to see
The times that I've fallen
Maybe I'm stalling from going on
'Cause I believe in what I'm not
I'm not believing in what I could be
If only I knew what the hell was going on
I missed something somewhere
And it doesn't seem fair
But I'll try to get there
Somehow
| Mr. McBastard | 6:43 PM | | |
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Monday, September 23, 2002
Wal*Mart, I miss you!
I just filled out an application for a position at Taco Bell. They told me I had to stay there and fill it out, even though I told them that I had neither a pen nor a list of references and their contact information. They assured me that it didn't matter. Then the guy across the counter handed me a two page application, a test booklet, and an answer sheet.
I had just finished taking a Bio test. The Taco Bell application had more questions than and took longer for me to complete than (and rivaled in difficulty) the Bio exam. Most of the questions in the booklet pertained to how much I would hate my co-workers and customers, how much money I was going to steal, and how many times I was going to be late. I answered appropriately.
I would have been worried that I had answered too appropriately, but when I handed back the application (after an hour of filling it out), the guy behind the counter (whom I assumed was some sort of manager) just glanced down at the times I had written that I would be available to work and looked back up at me saying, "We'll get back to you as soon as we look this over."
Wal*Mart, Wal*Mart, why have you forsaken me?
| Mr. McBastard | 4:33 PM | | |
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"Why do people paint God as such an ass? It's not like he's just waiting for us to screw up."
--Ryan Pfaff
| Mr. McBastard | 2:08 PM | | |
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Friday, September 20, 2002
In my head:
Hey, old bag, shut your cake-hole! Maybe the rest of us could learn some Latin if you'd just keep your yapper closed!
In real life:
Please, be quiet.
| Mr. McBastard | 10:30 AM | | |
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Wednesday, September 18, 2002
I found this while lolly-gagging around on the internet. I thought it was cool.
| Mr. McBastard | 4:50 PM | | |
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Monday, September 16, 2002
I just finished re-reading The Walking Drum by Louis L'Amour, a tale about the exploits of a young man in thirteenth century Europe and Middle East. While reading I found several good quotes that I'd like to share:
On Learning:
- Only the ignorant can become fanatics.
- Reading without thinking is as nothing, for a book is less important for what it says than for what it makes you think.
On Religion:
- It is a poor sort of man who is content to be spoon-fed knowledge that has been filtered through the canon of religious or political belief, and it is a poor sort of man who will permit others to dictate what he may or may not learn.
- No, I am no blasphemer, but something worse, I am an asker of questions.
- To die for what one believes is all very well for those so inclined, but it has always seemed to me the most vain of solutions. There is no cause worth dying for that is not better served by living.
- The radical ideas of today are often the conservative policies of tomorrow, and dogma is left protesting by the wayside.
- Had I been a Christian, I would undoubtedly have been considered a heretic, for what the world has always needed is more heretics and less authority.
On Philosophy:
- I have reverence for truth, but I do not know what truth is. I suspect there are many truths, and therefore, I suspect all who claim to have the truth. . . . I have reverence for the inquirer, for the seeker. I have no reverence for those who accept any idea, mine included, without question.
- A true philosopher will never refuse a lass, a glass, or an hour of conversation!
On Women:
- It is a theory of mine . . . that as a seeker for truth I should find my own answers, and my own women.
- Women admire gentlemen and sleep with cads.
| Mr. McBastard | 6:51 PM | | |
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Sunday, September 15, 2002
On Friday night I was pinned as a pledge of the Delta Chi fraternity. A year ago -- heck, three months ago -- I never would have thought that I would join a social fraternity, but then again, I never thought I'd change my major to English. I thought that fraternities were for a certain type of guy, a kind of guy that I was not. Fraternities were full of those Abercrombie & Fitch, red sports car, Doc Martin sandal guys. And for the most part, some of them are. But if college has shown me anything it is that the stereotypes I hold as truths are often the farthest things from the truth.
So now I am a "frat boy". I am one of the stereotyped. I can only imagine some of the questions and comments that I'll receive in the near future: "Why did you change? Why did you become one of them?" But I haven't changed. I haven't become anything. The only thing I have done is taken down the imaginary boundry in my mind -- the boundry that separated me from "those other people" and kept me from seeing that everybody is a lot like everybody else.
| Mr. McBastard | 5:04 PM | | |
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Friday, September 13, 2002
How jaded am I? I was walking down the hall of the dorm and came across a dollar laying in the middle of the hall. I stopped and stared down at it for about a minute before continuing on down the hall. I didn't pick up and pocket the dollar because I thought is was a trick.
| Mr. McBastard | 2:13 PM | | |
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Thursday, September 12, 2002
I've been doing a lot of two things recently: thinking about my college career and drinking water. Besides the fact that I have the cleanest colon in northern Missouri, and I have to pee every half-hour, I've decided that drinking a lot of water is overrated, and most likely bad for you. But on to more relevent things. . . .
I talked to Ryan Walsh [Two Dollar Prayer Blog] the other day and was complaining about my Calc II class. He told me of his experience with the class: He took two weeks of Calc II, got fed up with it, dropped the class, and switched majors from Computer Science to Psychology. I asked him what he was going to do with a Psychology Major and he replied, "I don't know, but at least I will have read the classics and enjoyed college." That struck me as funny and somewhat irresponsible and frivolous. But I thought about it later on and it made a lot of sense. I don't know what I am going to do with my Comp. Sci. Major any more than Walsh knows what he is going to do with his Psych. Major, and he is going to spend his four years (or more) at Truman doing something he wants to do and enjoys doing; meanwhile, I will spend my time complaining and whining for four (or more) years and come away from Truman with no more direction and many more bad memories.
So, what does all this mean? It means as soon as I can get ahold of my academic advisor, I'm going to drop Calc II and switch to an English Major. Hasty decision, yes. Bad decision, maybe. But I enjoy writing and I enjoy reading literature. I don't, however, enjoy calculus. The saying goes: "The road to success is paved with hardships." But sometimes the path of least resistance is just a detour that leads in the same direction.
| Mr. McBastard | 10:20 PM | | |
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Tuesday, September 10, 2002
I got back the second quiz in Calc II. Getting my scholarships back is looking much like a prize across a river, and I can't swim. And the river is crawling with aligators and pirhanna. And there's a big, mean, burly guy on the other side of the river waiting for me. And he has a gun. And his gun has a scope. And he's a crack shot. And he likes to shoot people in the head.
| Mr. McBastard | 11:16 AM | | |
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Friday, September 06, 2002
I'm home again for the second weekend in a row. My computer is giving me trouble so I decided that I'm going to reinstall Windows. Unfortunately, I left the install disc in my room in Wheeling, so I came back to get it. . . . And here I am!
Changing the subject completely, I still don't have a job yet. I called them for the third time yesterday, and they told me that they had just started to go through all the applications they had received recently. The personnel manager said that they had over 300 applications! I hope that I still get a job. I've had prior experience, so they won't have to train me, but amidst 300 apps, I might get lost in the mix. If I don't get a job at Wal*Mart I'm not sure where I'll work. I guess it'll probably be fast food for me.
| Mr. McBastard | 10:06 PM | | |
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Tuesday, September 03, 2002
While I'm on the subject of complaining about classes:
Today the professor handed back the first quiz I took in Analytical Geometry and Calculus II. Coincidentally, Calc II is exactly twice as hard as Calc I.
I'm screwed!
| Mr. McBastard | 4:09 PM | | |
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Getting up early (for a college student) at 8:00am to hear some overly-happy and rambling woman talk for 50 minutes about stress is not exactly my idea of higher education. But hey, if Truman State University -- "the Harvard of the Midwest" -- says it is, then I guess I'll play along.
| Mr. McBastard | 10:12 AM | | |
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Sunday, September 01, 2002
I discovered (realized, actually) my favorite thing to do: drive home from college.
I love to take the back way -- staying off the major highways -- and wind around on the county and state roads. I see such sites as the beautiful town of Humphreys and an old, wrecked, and rusty truck in the woods somewhere on State Highway 139.
I also love to listen to some good music on the way. I usually listen to either The Gorillaz, Jimmy Eat World, or P.O.D.'s Satellite. This time, however, I made a CD for myself right before I left. There's no other feeling like speeding along a curving country road with the window rolled down and the stereo blasting some good drivin' tunes.
I wrote this poem (The Road Home) some time back about one such drive home. The last stanza pretty much sums up my thoughts on the matter.
| Mr. McBastard | 3:36 AM | | |
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