^ That's a good thing, by the way. It feels like I have a ridiculous amount of down time this summer, even though I'm still working full-time. But, I'm not working two jobs, finishing high school until July, or raiding every night this time, and I love it. I can't believe this is what life will be like after school (in 10 1/2 months...).

I've managed to stick with about half of the activities I started last month. The whole cello thing sort of stopped when I got to the end of the "level one" book I had and didn't feel like buying another one. And programming a graphical MMORPG? Eh, not this summer, anyway. I'll likely get involved in some other kind of programming project instead. But at any rate, the chain mail shirt is about 1/2 done, I think.

Michelle is officially done with high school now. She'll be living at Malone in two and a half months. That's a strange concept... she has as much personality as the other four of us combined. It's not like I'll be around much during the school year anyway, between work and school, but the house will be pretty quiet, especially if Sarah ends up going to school or something. (Mom won't have any messes to complain about but her own!)

I'm currently watching "Modern Marvels: Bathroom Technology" on the History Channel. It's rather dull, really... but you know, 200 years ago we didn't have toilets. 80 years ago, toilet paper was uncommon. Now we take both for granted, just like running water. Now we have all of that stuff, and it always works. But by most modern accounts, our rate of innovation is exponential, not on a bell curve.

So, what common items will be unrecognizably improved 50 years from now? I immediately think of things like wall-size, paper-thin TVs and computers with an exabyte of hard drive space (1,000,000,000 GB), but what about common items like... furniture? Lights? Lysol spray bottles?

Anyway, about one week into summer break, I've retrieved the cello and started with that, done a bit of chain mail, started running (and waking up at 6 AM to do it) and ... moved a whole lot of mulch and dirt. But hey, all in a day's work.

Well, in that order...

Finals are this week, which means that in two days, I'll be done until the end of August. I plan to study lightly for the one I have to take tomorrow (business stuff - yech) and I have to write a few pages for a take-home final, but otherwise, it's just going to Walsh to take a test for 45 minutes (after driving for 1:30) tomorrow and Wednesday. I remember when I used to get all stressed out about finals. The last time that happened was probably the first semester of my freshman year, actually. I'm of the opinion that you shouldn't have to study for finals. If you've forgotten enough of the material to have to re-read the entire book for most of a week before a test, then you won't remember any of it coming out of the class anyway. I suppose that's fine, actually... but to avoid the studying (takes WAY too much time...) I prefer to just listen every now and then in class, seeing as I have nothing better to do when I'm stuck there.

So now, I'm a little conflicted: How will I fit all my projects in this summer? I want to learn to play my cello, finish my chain mail shirt, and now program a space MMORPG. (Yeah, so I was poking at an old game I used to play a lot - Escape Velocity - a 2D space RPG sort of thing. So now I want to learn sound, graphics, and network programming in either Java or C++.) And I only have 4 months to do it all! Sigh.

Geek warning! AJAX is pretty awesome. I'm using it in a new project at work - I've got it set up so that you can just start typing part of a name, and it'll show all the matches as you type, and you check boxes and it updates without having to submit forms, and all that. I think I'm going to have to use this in pretty much everything I do now.

And, that last thing. My parents went up to Michigan to visit some great-aunts (my dad's aunts) this past weekend. I got to be the adult for a whole day... got home from work, made dinner, drove Sarah all over the place and everything. Michelle was tanning in the backyard while I'm doing all of this, too. She'll tell you she did some dishes, but would you believe that? I didn't think so. Well, ok, maybe she did a little bit. I guess I'm getting so old that I don't really care anymore, though. But making chicken linguine alfredo was pretty fun. I suppose have to start figuring out how to cook dinners if I want to move out in a year and a half.

I've been spending a good bit of time working on my chain mail shirt (technically, it'll be a "haubergeon"). It's got about 400 feet of 16-gauge galvanized steel wire in it so far, but it'll probably end up with at least 2000 feet of wire. I've done about half of either the front or back of it - not sure which yet. I found out that I was about to build the whole thing sideways... I'm just glad I figured that out before it would have resulted in days of work fixing the thing.

There are exactly 4 days of class left when I go back on Tuesday after break. Getting out this early is great, but why can't I be a senior right now?

So, I'll come out and say it: I'm getting sick of World of Warcraft. It's not the first time this has happened... I actually cancelled my account for a while a year or two ago. But this time, it's not because I'm more interested in another game instead. I'm actually wanting to spend time not being on the computer. Wait, huh? Yeah. Like, I started reading a book a couple weeks ago - haven't had time to finish it, but it's a start. Oh, and instead of doing homework while staring at the chat window in WoW, I went outside and studied on the patio.

Maybe I'm just getting tired of computers. Maybe it's because my latest guild is a rude, abrasive bunch. But I think that even more, it's because I'm realizing, for the first time in 6 years, that there is life to enjoy beyond games. Half a year ago, I wouldn't think to attend some kind of social event during a raid night. Not so much anymore. I made dinner last week, not because I was asked to, but because I wanted to. And at the same time, I had no interest in earning some leet XP or epic phat lewt. You see, this is troubling because for most of the last 6 years, I've been telling myself that spending all my free time on the computer was OK because I had nothing better to do. Now I might actually have to regret the (significantly large number) days of time I've spent on games and not, say, learning to play my cello.

At the same time, I'm appreciating the people around me more because of this. I mean, I have amazing family and friends, and seeing as I no longer mind that spending time with them means not finishing those darned quests, I should probably do it more often. And that's something that I think I can go with.

In other news... I have a 4 page paper, two group presentations, a 6 file program, a practice newsletter, and 9 days of class left before summer break. And finals, but I don't count those. They're easy. But, I'll probably have two Bs in classes where I could have easily had As if I cared more. If junioritis is this bad, I don't even want to know what senioritis will be like.

I had been thinking about building a new computer for a while... after all, we're supposed to help the economy by buying things, right? My current gaming PC is about 2.5 years old. It's been pretty good, but nearly every component has gone through at least one full generational shift since I built it. So, Tony had to go and send me an e-mail about a deal on Newegg and that got going.

Anyway, here are the numbers:

750 watt power supply

2.66 GHz Intel Core i7 (Quad-Core)

1 GB nVidia GTX 285 graphics card

A pretty nifty motherboard

6 GB of DDR3 1600 RAM

74 GB 10,000 RPM hard drive

640 GB 7,200 RPM hard drive

Honestly, I'd probably be better off with a faster dual-core CPU for now, but I'm banking on games figuring out how to use quad-core more effectively in the future - some already have.

I thought I'd also try one of those fast hard drives - I'll install my games on that so they load more quickly, and everything else will go on the 640GB drive.

Anyway, so much for being cheap. I guess it had to happen eventually.

Mom, Sarah, and I went shopping at Kohl's last night. I decided I needed some pants that weren't actually for work, and since I always used mom's Kohl's card (being too lazy to get my own), I had to wait for two things: A good sale, and both of us being available. As it turned out, that was last night. And also, coincidentally, Sarah had been needing a few things too. She needed a couple pairs of jeans also, and a jacket. I offered one condition: "Ok, if you're quick about it..." Granted, I really didn't have any say in the matter anyway, so, off we go.

Ok, I know, I'm 21 and shopping with my mom. In my defense, she hasn't actually been involved in deciding which clothes I pick out for a number of years, I just -really- didn't want to get the additional credit card required to save another 10% or so on all purchases. (Lousy forced-loyalty programs...)

Anyway, we got to the store, and I went off to find my pants while Sarah and Mom drift off toward ... whatever it's called. Juniors? Girls? Misses? 14-year-old-girl clothes? I took longer than usual this time. I wanted a couple pairs of jeans and cargo pants, and had to try them on, and all that. Normally, I would just take a guess based on the size of what I was wearing at the time and just find something that looked approximately OK, but for whatever reason, I decided to make sure they fit well enough this time. After maybe 15 minutes, I had found my new pants and proceeded to return to the Whatever-they-are section of the store to check on Mom and Sarah. Sure enough, they apparently hadn't moved since I left them.

Sarah and Mom had (sort of) selected a couple pairs of pants within a few minutes of my return. But where else had they been? She had a new shirt ... dress ... thing? After they were finished with the jeans, I followed them on what had to be the longest possible route to the jackets she wanted. Every dozen feet, something would catch Sarah's attention and we stopped to look at another rack of frilly, pink, or white items.

"Ooh, ooh, look at the [shirt things that I don't remember the name of]s! I want to buy one!"

"Mom, we need to come back tomorrow! There are so many clothes left unbought!"

The female shopping instinct. I simply do not understand it. That one would actually -want- to come back to a clothing store to purchase items that weren't absolutely needed is beyond my comprehension.

But, you know, it really wasn't all that bad. I spent most of the time making snarky comments about various items we passed, such as "Sarah, if you ever buy those mini-shorts, it will not end well for you," or "So this poster is telling us that if you buy this shirt, cool guys with skateboards and cars will go out with you." You know, practical, honest observations. It was like watching... well, a geek in a CPU store. If I ever find a good computer part store, I think I'll take Sarah along next time I need to buy something.

We did eventually find a suitable jacket for Sarah, and headed for the register. "Do you want a Kohl's card?" the cashier asked me. Hmm... be able to come back without accompaniment in the future? "Sure, why not."

Mom pointed out on the way home that this was probably the last time I'd be shopping for clothes with her or Sarah. Though it may have been entertaining to observe the shopping habits of a 14-year-old girl, independence is a wonderful thing.

Last week was spring break, which, coincidentally, also includes my birthday. So, you put the two of those together, and it's very hard to think about going back to school tomorrow.

Mom pulled off a surprise party on Friday, right under my nose - she set up and everyone got here while I was up in my room listening to music and messing with my computer. I guess my extremely old age has made me less sensitive to these sorts of things. We had an insane game of DICE WARS, as well as plenty of fun with denatured alcohol. No, you don't drink it - it's actually pretty toxic. You burn it, on driveways. And when that gets boring, you start soaking things in it, and burning them.

Speaking of alcohol... I may be able to buy it now, but that doesn't mean I have to buy it, or consume it, for that matter. Just to be clear, no such plans are on the agenda. Kegs full of white grape juice, however, are perfectly acceptable.

Anyway, 6 weeks of classes left for this semester. I think I can make it... time flies when you're always busy.

As I copied my old posts over, I quickly browsed each one to tag it. But, in the process, I ran across a series of posts I made when I started my freshman year. Wow, I cared a lot more about school then. I wanted to meet new people, I was excited about classes, and I was excited about working all day at the same time.

I was talking to a co-worker the other day about this very thing. She told me about how, during her freshman year, she felt very much the same way as I did at that point - sitting alone at lunch was awful, everything was new and exciting. And, like me, by the time she had been through a couple years, sitting at lunch alone was a good thing - you can do more work that way.

Wow, this mango ice cream is good... it sounds scary, though.

I can only conclude that, after two and a half years of being gone 10-12 hours/day, there is nothing fun about it. Rather than setting aside breaks in my classes to go to Mass, eat lunch, socialize, etc, I go to school, sit through three straight hours of class, then rush off to work.

But, you know, I'm enjoying this semester just as much as my first one. I've settled into a routine which seems much more like what I'll be doing after I graduate, and ultimately, that's where I want to be. I'm sure it would all be different if I was living on campus, or not working full-time. It's now much less about enjoying "the college experience" and more about "let's get this over with so I can move on and be an adult."

I could begin this post with "Well, it's been a while..." but that would only match most of the last 20 posts I've made on here. Though in this case, it would be a bit more appropriate. This time, it's been a year.

Instead, I'll focus on a change in direction.

This website started as a project for a slow weekend, but I figured, "What the heck, I'll just copy all the posts from my old blog on here." A lot of what was on my old blog was, in my estimation, filler. "I went to Cedar Point. I took a test. I did this, I did that." But what I thought was really interesting was the "... and that's how I feel about that" part. When I think about it... how great would it be to be able to go back 20 years from now and read about how I felt about going to college as an 18-year-old? I suppose that's no new concept, but I'm appreciating it more at the moment.

So, that could all be done in a neat little book hidden under my bed. Why not? Because I think it's better to share it. It gives it purpose. It keeps things positive. And more than those, it will hopefully provide a means to keep in touch with people I can't talk to in person as much as I would like to.

So, I'm going to go with that and see where it ends up.