Welcome to Awkwardville! Population: Nathan

Coming to meet you...

It's hard for me to really grasp that the first three quarters of my freshman year are over with. When I return Sunday afternoon I will have roughly 2 months left before I'm packing my bags and heading back home. It seems like I just moved in on that hellish Sunday afternoon in August. I can remember the knot in my stomach well, and I remember the fear struck in my heart when I first met Roach. How I lived in relative seclusion for the first 3 weeks. It seems like I met a few people, had a few laughs, and now I'm about to part ways with most of them. I'm going to miss a lot of them, including my once frightful roommate.

I spent this week attempting to complete my FST 203 scene analysis project. I got about halfway through it instead, though I still feel ahead of the game I worry about the quality of work that I'll do on the last portion of it. Tomorrow is going to be weird. Spring break flew by and I'll have just 24 hours more to finish up what I'm trying to complete on the project, spend time with my family, wrap up the Halo insanity, and avoid housework. So what was spring break for me? Mostly a time of reflection on where I'm heading but also some fun.

I'll be glad that when I return I'll have less than two months of class. Though I'm not especially displeased with the schedule I have this semester, I am by no means pleased with it. It is mostly basic studies and the one class in my current field of interest turned out to be craptacular. I will be spending long hours with myself and my advisor trying to decide what direction to take my schedule for Fall '05. I won't be completely done with basic studies until the end of my sophomore year and at that point I have to know for sure what I want to do. I'm still mostly interested in film but creative writing sounds good too. I'll just have to see.

I just hope my grades turn out well. I'm really trying to keep my nose above a 3.0. I'm still interested in the prospect of study abroad during my Jr. year (if it's nay Scottish it's crap!) and I have to keep my grades up both for that, and for official admission to the film program. Some of the classes I'm taking this semester are easy but some of them are deceptive in their grading policies and others (cough cough!!! *FST 203*)) are just plain retarded/hard any way you look at it. At this point I suppose all I can really do is keep my chin up and cross my fingers.

Much of the week was spent sitting in my Dad's office, on the computer opposite him, setting up my FaceBook account and learning Photoshop CS. I also too the time to add a couple of little updates to my Links page. By FAR however, I spent much of Wednesday and Thursday playing Halo 2 online with (and without) Matt. It's amazing how this game just doesn't get old when you have friends to play it with. Next weekend is the meeting of the third Halo 2 Lan tournament and this time they're doing it with teams. We have a good team set up and I have a good feeling about it.
((nerrrd ne..ne...NEEEERD!!!))
It was nice to spend time in the same place with dad even if we didn't get to talk much.
I got to spend all afternoon this afternoon with mom too. She treated me to Arby's and took me to get my phone fixed at Alltell.
I do miss home and my parents (and sometimes my goony sisters) so it was a lot of fun to revisit Four Oaks.

But perhaps the biggest realization I came to was that Four Oaks is no longer the same place to me. When I left for my months at Caswell, and came back, it still molded itself back into that familiar feeling. The same no longer rings true. It feels like home but it is missing something it has always had before. What exactly that is I can't be sure. It's sad in a way but I guess it happens to all of us once we start our journey into that nightmarish "real world."

I wonder what that world will do to me if I never decide to show up. Maybe I, along with John Mayer, can rise above it.
But then I'd have to deal with being in his company constantly, him always asking me for bottled water and easy cheese, so I may be better off nine to fiving it at the local ABC store. We'll see.

Flintstone's Vitamins taste like poo. If you don't believe me...try them now.