i prefer pi

I stocked 110 bags of Imperial Pure Cane Granulated Sugar today. That’s four-hundred and forty pounds, people. I hope you all know that cookies and fudge go straight to your thighs.

I think that I finished my Christmas shopping on Saturday, so that’s a thumbsup x 2.

Uhh… I think I’m done. More work tomorrow, but at least I’m off at 3:00. G’night!

Today was my first day of “real” work (if, like my father sometimes jests, you believe that doing research isn’t bonafide work) in quite a while. It was a pretty good day, but I can’t say that I really felt like I got a lot accomplished. I mean, I did a lot of work, but I’m not sure how noticeable it is. So if you happen to find yourself in the Albertson’s in DeSoto at Belt Line and Cockrell Hill and you wonder who made the baking goods aisle look so sharp, or what employee it was that restocked the 2-liter sodas, or what dashing young gentleman replaced the pricetags on the 64 oz. Folgers coffee cans, I submit that he is before you. Of course, if you also want to know which oaf overstocked the top shelf of the soda aisle, causing a bottle to topple over backwards and knock over a jar of extra virgin olive oil into the next aisle over… well, that was me too. He told me exactly what not to do and I failed to follow his instructions to a tee :-\. I got it cleaned up and no one slipped and sued the company, so I think it was okay. I think that I owe them $3.99 though, which doesn’t sound like much until I realize that I’m making $6.80 an hour; it took about 45 minutes to clean up, so I think that I broke even. My seven hours went by rather quickly despite the fact that I didn’t break for lunch. I have tomorrow off and part of Sunday, which will be nice. My first truly “down-time” days in over a month, I’d reckon.

I found out all too late that Albertson’s did away with their “clean-shaven” policy several years ago, so I shaved without really having a reason. I’m not entirely sure that I miss it though; it never looked all that great, and I feel like I don’t look like a vagabond anymore:) On a semi-related note, I used the word “eschewed” in my epitaph. I could have sworn that it was the past participle of “eschew”, but dictionary.com doesn’t mention it and Google only threw back 7 results. I’m not sure why it would be a non-word when “hewn” is, but I suppose that saying “chewn” isn’t proper either.

Went and saw Return of the King again tonight, and I’m pleased to say that it holds up very well to repeat viewings. After I saw it the first time on Wednesday I was so overwhelmed by its emotional craftsmanship that I thought that seeing it again would break that somehow. I noticed a lot more of the subtle things this time through, especially in the score. Howard Shore did a fantastic job with this one, even better than with The Two Towers and its beautiful violin and double-reed textures. I especially liked hearing the Hobbits’ Theme motifs thrown in here and there and the part on the slopes of Orodruin where the main theme is taken over by a predominantly male chorus instead of the unison string line. I’d really like to get a complete score recording of the trilogy if they ever release one… the Star Wars 2-disc sets are still some of my favorites since you get to hear the entire score as it was presented in the film instead of a few disjoint, heavily edited tracks. I’m such a nerd. Oh well… I figured out a few bars of “Into the West” on my recorder when I got home; I think that I need to hear it a few more times until I’ve got it down.

In case you were wondering what I pray about these days, mostly it’s to thank the Father for the promise of 1st Corinthians 10:13, to ask for patience for both day-to-day living and for waiting for long-term changes to come around, and that I’d use every opportunity to tell someone about what Christ has done for me.

Time for bed (which is made up with my flannel sheets :))
- Caleb

Current mood: creative

Well, I scraped by and got an A in Algorithms (89.98 after a 10 point curve). My ride will probably be here in about 15 minutes time, so I suppose it’s time to bid adieu to my broadband connection. *sniffle*

Oh. The sheepish deed was done, but I didn’t feel half as silly as I thought that I would
Happy Holidays!

Current mood: cheerful

R.I.P. My Goatee and Sideburns
May 2003 - December 18, 2003

“Eschewed for the sake of the American economy”

Current mood: thoughtful

Did I mention how exquisite Return of the King was? I’m ready to see it again.

I need to keep Thoreau in mind while packing for home. Am I really going to need my speaker system during the month that I’m home? What use will I really have for all of my “toys”? How about I meet my fellow travelers on my bus trip instead of packing my CD player and headphones? In the past, my ideal vacation plans have been something along the lines of “play video games and relax for 3 weeks,” but a lot of my ideas about what constitutes Time Well-Spent have been in transition of late. I want to try a bit of an experiment over the break. I leave today and class starts again on the 20th of January, so it seems that I have an even month. But I’m not sure about the wording of what I want to do yet, so I’ll get back to you.

I hope that everyone has a great time on their semester break and that they enjoy some Happy Holidays!

Current mood: creative

Well, I wrapped up my semester this morning at 10:08 when I turned in my Algorithms final. The semester has had its share of ups and downs, but the last month God has really blessed me with a “full” life. This semester I’ve met many great new people, taken my first graduate class, learned to play badminton, experienced a new boldness in talking to people in general and in talking about spiritual matters specifically, honed my not-so-impressive recorder-playing skills, missed a few deadlines, gained a new appreciation for Mozart, experimented with open-source alternatives to conventional software, hurt and disappointed a few people, not gone home as often as I should have, been part of the best semester of TAGD ever (who cares if it’s the first semester?), obtained a pair of those sneaker-slippers that I wanted, become more active in Conversations and Hall Council (I promise that I’ll update the webpage when I get back!), recieved my Aggie Ring (WHOOP!), been accepted to grad school, “explored” more than half of the buildings on campus, gained back a lot of weight due to Sbisa and ramen that I shed in the spring, read more for leisure than I have since I got to A&M, and most recently, gone to see Return of the King. I’ve been reevaluating a lot of what I seek out in entertainment recently, but if you objectively define the quality of a film by its ability to engross you in a story then I feel confident in saying that there has never been nor can I forsee there ever being as good a film as this.

I was going to write some more, but I got distracted by visitors from my past. We should go play badminton again tonight.

- Caleb

P.S. Thanks to Kristen for supplying me with a ride home
Current mood: content

I just got back from running a few errands before I bunker down to study for the night. I got an A in my Mozart class (yay!) and I turned in my final paper (”On the Logical Presupposition of Ontology”) for Symbolic Logic; I don’t know formally, but that class is almost a guaranteed A. I turned in my final project report for my graduate computer graphics class on Friday, and I don’t feel so great about it. It’s bad enough knowing that I didn’t meet my own expectations for the first graduate class I’ve ever taken, but I feel that my work on the final was so sub-par that I’ve let down Dr. Keyser in some way or another also; I didn’t feel the wave of relief when I finally turned it in, just regret over the opportunity to do some quality work that I’d blown. So that was a bummer. But it’s over and I’ve talked with him about it and I’m planning on finishing the project that I endeavored to complete over the break or during next semester, so perhaps I can right some wrongs.

I’ve just one more exam to take, and it’s a doozy: Honors Analysis of Algorithms. I have 13 hours in which to prepare though, so I’m not terribly worried. And Return of the King comes out tomorrow, which is :thumbsup: :thumbsup: Now I just have to find a ride home…

Current mood: determined

I’ve been keeping a sleeplog since the beginning of November because I was interested in seeing just how much (how little, actually) I was sleeping. It was more than I thought, actually: in November I averaged 6.25 hours a night with 2 sleepless nights and 2 on the range (0, 3] and in December so far I’ve put away exactly 6 hours a night with no all-nighters. Along the way I started making a note of what I did that day so that I could update my LJ, but I never quite got around to doing that and it would be a bit excessive now.

I did go to the Rec tonight and played badminton with Jesse after biking for a while. It was fun, and I’m looking forward to doing it more often next semester (he’s taking the badminton KINE 199 that I took this semester). I’ve been to the Rec three times this semester and one of those was to watch Sean’s indoor soccer game… I’m glad to know that my student fees are going to good use. Saw Mary and her friend from last night playing racquetball (I forgot her name, but she knew that the first female leader of Nmenor was Tar-Ancalime and I was duly impressed), and Jesse and I met two older guys named John and Sharith and played doubles badminton with them.

I usually feel a bit odd mentioning other people online because I’m not quite sure how they’ll respond. Granted, my LJ has a readership of roughly two people (give or take two) and most of the people I interact with have their own online journal/blog of some sort, but I’m always afraid that I’ll say something indelicate; consequently, I end up sounding fairly narcissistic. I guess I’m resolved to the fact that I get more out of writing these entries than other people do out of reading them. I’m not sure where I’m going with this, but let’s just imagine that I resolved to change with a witty and memorable comment and gave a nice, smooth transition into my next paragraph.
Which happens to be this one. I’m going to do something tomorrow that will make me feel rather sheepish, but it’s too late to not follow through with it now. I promise to not update and let you know what it was
Listening to: Time Out by the Dave Brubeck Quartet
Current mood: good