Notes from SunnyJay

I’m afraid to say that the last two days here at work have been terrible!  I’ve had nothing to do!  Right now, as I’m writing this, I’m sitting at the receptionist’s desk next to a silent phone just waiting for someone to call.  I can literally feel my energy oozing out of me.  By the time I hit the metro, and sit on the soothing train for 30mins, I’ll be nearly dead.  Or at least asleep.

The primary reason for this is because of the time of the month – we’ve finished all our phone invoices which come early on, and the next month hasn’t hit yet so we don’t have a fresh batch of work to do.  We’re in the dull drums.  So I just sit here, twiddling my thumbs, wishing I had thought ahead of time to bring my book.

It does however stir-up some very strange feelings.  Feelings which I know, once written down here, will never be lived-down.


I want to exercise!

I want to run, jump, visit the ::gulp:: gym (I’m not making a joke!)  I feel rigimortus setting in!  My limbs are increasingly stiff, and my energy grows less and less.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m still intellectually active – very active – I’m using my creativity in new and challenging ways that stimulate my interest and teach me new things.  I do spend hours (8hr 3 days a week to be exact) listening to NPR and Kojo Nnamdi, and Diane Rehm which is brain-cell-growing.

So my brain isn’t dying just yet, but physically – I feel terrible!  Like I’ve been on a flight to Australia for 28 hours without a single break.

Now, I realize that as soon as I say this, certain people (friends, parents, and other) will start encouraging me to use the gym either at home, or on campus.  Their encouragement will probably sound more like a threat – but I’m ok with that.

I find, however, that I have a major problem – a severe case of “jockiphobia”, or fear of the athletic (and/or their domain, the gym).  While I don’t like to think of myself as a nerd, I am in fact more in the nerd camp than I am the “jock” camp, and thus am afraid to even consider actually going to a gym of any kind.  I think you’ll agree that this is a problem.

Well, to combat your glaring eyes I have started (I did this before, but I’m restarting it with a new passion) walking up the escalator!  Yes friends, once this flabby old blue-blood was firmly in the anti-escalator-walkers camp, but not anymore!  NO!  I’ve switched sides!  I now run up the escalators!  (perhaps run is a bit strong, but I don’t just stand there anymore)  I race up those steps with a passion for physical fitness!

Now, before you laugh, these aren’t just those escalators in the mall, that are short, say, 12 steps or something.  NO!  These are the Metro escalators, specifically, The Tenlytown escalators, which must be at least 50-75 steps high!

I tried this before, with Sarah at AU, we decided to do these walks together where we could talk about things, as well as get exercise.  Guess what?  We actually did a grand total of 2 of them. (though the first one really did count for more than one, it was 5miles long and I firmly believe that THAT counts for at least 2 normal walks!).  One thing that helped me, was Ryan’s persistent insisting that we actually go on walks, he really did drive us out of the dorms and out on the sidewalks.  While his encouragement wasn’t received as graciously as It should have been, I still am thankful for his faithful prodding to get out there!

So, I guess you could say that my New Year’s resolution is to live healthier, or to exercise more (I doubt I’d be alone), and while I may mean well now, my resolve will only last so long.  Without a concrete plan my efforts are doomed!

oh well.

OK!!  I’m SERIOUSLY behind in my storytelling.  The last few weeks of the semester has been tragically under-documented!  I now am going to try and change that!!!  NOTE:  these are a few weeks old, and are accurate to my recollections. (not to mention written with my usual flourish and embellishment!)  Enjoy!

     Remember back to the assassins game (if you don’t know how it’s played check previous posts I’ve written the directions on here twice.)  Tuesdays were always my biggest terror.  They were the days that I had to go to work at WAMU (thats not the terror part).  But part of getting to WAMU is standing at the shuttle stop and waiting for up to 15mins for a bus.  While this may not sound so bad, imagine doing this while under the constant threat of getting shot with a dart and effectively “killed” out of the game!  Stress!!

     Well, as luck would have it, as I arrived at the bus stop, with my hand on my plastic dart gun hidden in my pocket only to find Ryan standing there waiting for a bus!  He saw me coming and gave me a suspicious glar as if I intended to kill him.  I saw only an opportunity to have company on he way over to WAMU.  (I also saw an opportunity to have fun with his brain, but we won’t get into that.) 

     So I walked up and stood next to him, and we chatted back and forth.  He was obviously concerned that I was going to shoot him, I had my hand on my gun inside my pocket, and I refused to conceed to his requests to remove my hands (it was really cold!) and so he quickly drew out his bright yellow gun and aimed it at me the whole time.  I remained calm.  I didn’t panic.  I smiled and asked him to put the gun away.  He demanded that I take my hands out of my pockets and voila!  Just like that, the cold war started all over again!

     Needless to say we were getting quite a few strange looks during this dialogue.

     Our moment of nervous tension was suddenly broken up by the arrival of the bus.  He forced me to get on first (at gun point!) and I raised my hands in “surrender”.  I sat down sideways in the front of the bus.  Ryan at the opposite end of the bus, his eyes drilling into the side of my head.  Between us, many rows of empty seats and on each one of those seas, seatbacks that stood erectly so that he couldn’t see my hands.

     As Ryan stared me down in silence, I decided to have a little fun.  I softly removed my dart, and proceeded to sit in a peaceful silence.

     Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the bus finally stopped at our destination, I was once again escorted off the bus, with Ryan a short distance behind me pointing a gun at my spine.  As I jumped down the stairs exiting the bus, I placed my hand on my gun, I landed on the street outside, spun around wipped out my dartless gun and pulled the trigger!  The hollow plastic click reverberating through the bus.  In a panic, Ryan too drew is loaded gun, and hastily fired at me, not noticing that I didn’t have a dart.  As his dart flew past me, missing it’s target entirely, I smile spread across my face!  The shock, and stunned silence that occured in that moment seemed to add to the humor of the act.

     Victory!

     That was the first and last time I ever tried to shoot anyone in that game – and he wasn’t even my target!

     I decided that perhaps I should shoot my target.  But at that point, no one really cared about the game anymore, and everyone was focused on finals (Imagine that!?)

     We were all sitting in the lounge, it was 1 hour before suicide would take effect.  In the assassins game, suicide is what kills you, if you haven’t killed your target by midnight of the 3rd day.  At 11:00pm, I hadn’t yet killed Aaron, my target.  So, I decided that I would go ask him if I could shoot him.  I knocked on his door.  He opened.  I asked.  He was in the middle of writing a paper, so we agreed that we would both consider him dead.  I had killed my first target!

     So I return triumphantly to the lounge to greet by fellows dormmates and relate the heroic story of how I killed Aaron on the field of battle.  Well, they refused to by the story of how I had shot him.  In fact it came out that I had infact negotiated his surrender rather than brutally forced him out of the game.  This didn’t go over well.

     At one point in the argument, I was waving around the plastic gun and for dramatic emphasis fired it at Ryan (as one normally does when is wildly waving around a plastic dart gun)  Well, at extremely close range, a plastic dart fired accidentally into the face of a former wrestler is rarely a good thing – and could have resulted in something horrifically brutal occuring.

     So I take this momentary pause in the conversation, to allow myself to be guilted into dragging Aaron out of the neutral zone, and firing a dart into his leg, and letting him go back to his paper, thus legitimizing my murderous claim.

     As I was exiting the stairwell, Ryan, being rather sneaky in an ogerish sort of way, comes up behind me and grabs my neck, as the owner of a puppy does when they’re grabbing it by the scruff of the neck.  Being the creative/artsy/comm major/intellectual type, I wasn’t prepaired for such an assult.  So I naturally did what anyone would have done, and wrapped my arm around his neck.  So basically we were poised to do a killer Russian wedding dance, with our arms locked around each other’s neck, and legs free for kicking, goose-stepping, and what-not.  However, this was a serious moment.

     My life was hanging in the balance.  I couldn’t have matched his years of fighting experience and freed myself from his grip – so I contented myself to leading him around the hall by the neck – which was fun!  After a long and throughly delightful dialogue about badly one of us could crush the other (i was making up lots of very tough language that I’d always wanted to say, but never had a chance to!)  It was finally decided that Ryan valued his life more than the privilege of having maimed Jason Cunningham, and backed off.

     In the famous words of so many people, “a good time was had by all”.

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In other fun news – I received a letter from “People to People Student Ambassador Programs”  AMBASSADOR?  haha!

“I’m more interested in the rock of ages than the age of rocks” – W.J. Bryan

TODAY IS OUR BIG SEMESTER-END REVIEW!!

(Above): Me, Amy, Simon, Sarah, Ryan, Erica, Michelle, Stacia, and Lesley make up some of my wonderful friends here at AU – we’re missing a bunch, but we’ll cover those in a bit.

I’d like to take a few moments to recall some of the fine people I have met, and friends I have made, during my first semester here at American University.

One thing I’m consistently surprised by is how a bunch of the people here fit into very neat little stereo-types.  Lets examine the roles that my friends have played in the life of The Deuce (2nd floor Hughes Hall!)

First up is Sarah Gmeiner:

Sarah has been the old wise woman of the floor – she is the one everyone comes to with problems, and she helps them ALL out with bits of wisdom and insight.  She’s literally a broker of floor insight – when someone and I are having trouble relationally, she’ll be the one who I go to, to get a little insight into what I might have done wrong, or how I need to approach making up to that person.  She’s a wonderful 3rd person perspective – and a wonderful friend!  She also doesn’t drink, which frees me from feeling any peer pressure from having to do that sort of thing.  How helpful that is, you wouldn’t believe!

Next up is Mike Burgtorf: (correct spelling of his name)

Mike is the quintessential Music/Theater Arts major, and everything that a theater major should be – he is!  He’s the one I spend hours with talking about what happiness is, where it’s found.  Late night dissuasion subjects also range from bible doctrine, to the difference between Film and Stage performances, to merit-based scholarships.  We’ve had quite a time as you can imagine – I’m halfway to acting like a theater major, and he’s all the way there, between the two of us, a flurry of dramatic ”trouble” often happens.  This is also Ryan’s roommate who we’ll be covering a little later.  I’ve really enjoyed getting to know Mike, and since he lives in Maryland, perhaps I’ll get to see him outside the school year!

Next up is Jessie DeStefano:

This is Jessie, I know I didn’t graphically edit a “Princess” picture for her, however this is finals week!  I’ve got so little time!! On top of that, she looks so much like a Princess already I couldn’t improve on it!  Really!  Jessie has been called many things from a “Test” from God, to a 7 year old by Ryan (painful subject) to a “Housing and Dining Queen”.  She does however consider herself to be a Princess (playfully of course).  She’s been a delight to get to know as well.  I’m glad that she’s a 5 year senior because if she hadn’t been, I’d never have met her.  I hope that because she’s got $2000.00 in Au parking tickets, that she’ll stay next year, but I doubt it.  Jessie and I have been through a lot, and it’s always been helpful to have her to cheer me up when I’m down.  She’s been one of the many people God has used to bless me this Semester, I can’t wait until next semester!

Next up is Ryan Cole:

Yes, he’s the “Rambo” of the floor.  Now you probably know the most about him, I’ve written fairly frequently about this good friend of mine.  He takes Tae Kwon Do and is extremely militant (thus Rambo).  He’s fairly quiet, which can be refreshing, except that I always seems as though something is bothering him.  He is a bit of a “fitness freak”, as I’ve mentioned before, but in a way that inspires rather than subtracts from his intellect.  As for his intellect – I can’t really say much – what I’ve seen of it has been focused mainly on the study of languages, which he has mastered.  Other signs of intellect that I’ve seen are his vague knowledge on a wide variety of subjects, which often gives he impression that he knows everything about everything – which isn’t the case at all – but he fooled me!  For my Interview with him for The AU Gobble, Click Here.
 

Next up is “That Guy” named Guy:

He’s a senior, and is a MAJOR gambler.  I didn’t really get to know him that well, however he’s infamous!  He and his friends break chairs, and steal computer, but boy, do they have a good time when they sit in our lounge gambling hundreds of dollars on poker hands!  If he had been born 100 years earlier than I’m sure he would have been a Mississippi Riverboat gambler!  I know it!  Anyway, He’s a very jovial character, and makes loud noises, which are generally funny, though the halls late at night.  He’s a riot!  It’s been fun getting to know him.

Next up is Michelle, Lesley, Erica, and Stacia!

I’ve really enjoyed getting to know these 4, gracious, intelligent, and mature girls.  Whether it be hearing about how the basketball game went, or pep-band, swing dancing in the evening, or how tired Michelle looks when she returns from a jog, they have brought a refined maturity to a floor that could otherwise fall victim to the less mature influences found in a dorm.  Thanks for being a gracious calming influence on everything!

(L-R) Sarah G, Amy, Michelle, Erica, and Ryan (see “Rambo” section above)

Next up is Montana Jen and Tom!

This is Jen and Tom!  I’ve had many good times with them this Semester!  It’s a tad hard because they’re not from my dorm, but I still enjoy doing dinner with them!  What a great pair they are!  Tom used to be An Audio Tech, major, I don’t know what he is now, he changed.  and Jen is a… um… a… I really can’t remember what she is… but I think she has a major… I really don’t remember!  sorry!

Up next is Kaitlyn and Jen (twice because I can’t remember her major!)!

This is what EACH AND EVERY Tuesday night looked like, I’d come from World Politics class and we’d study for our Cinema class quiz the next day.  What good times we had.  I always looked forward to those study times!  Everyone was always such fun!  I remember running around the room making a square out of my hands to try and illustrate framing, and high angles, and low angles, and canted angles, and high, medium, and low camera height.  Such good times!  In the end – We survived!

Next is Dentin Murphy!

Dentin is From Texas.  He talks with an accent that makes everyone soon feel like they’re from Texas!  He’s also in ROTC which means he’s basically a marine!  The guy is the very image of what you expect a Texan to act like – I’m sorry if that’s a bad thing, I don’t consider it to be a bad thing – but he does.  He’s a Senior so he won’t be around next year, but I’ll be sure to remember him and his instant formal dinner he made to make up to his girlfriend!  Only he could sleep through his promise to make dinner for his GF and then manage in 1 hour to transform the lounge into a romantic restaurant!  The guy’s very talented!

There have been many others who I have enjoyed getting to know this Semester, and it makes me sad to think that after next semester, most of them will be moving out of the dorms.  That will be a sad day indeed.  But what a privilege it has been to know such fine people!  and I eagerly await seeing them again, next semester!

A brief Note: I didn’t include roommates in this post – there were several reasons for this, but none of them were any good – so just know that I got too lazy to cut off heads for EVERYONE else and too lazy to write about my own roommates!  what stellar student I am!

Have a wonderful Christmas!

Just a sample of the brilliance that can come a mind inspired by the Lord. (above)
(The picture that is above, not “The Lord above”)
(Well, yes the Lord is “above” but thats not what I was trying to say.)

CHECK OUT WWW.SILVERDOME.NET

It’s just the beauty of Dave’s composition that I’m really impressed with.  While I find it a little embarrasing that I’m on top, all by myself looking all “Look at me, I’m Mr. Professional Reporter” or as I like to call it, “The NPR news effect”.

The coolest thing is that any angle I look at it at, I like what I’m seeing from a design standpoint!  Text placement and overall colors are truely impressive!

The subject matter doesn’t hurt any either – SDP is always a winner in my book!

Thank you Dave, Gart, and Danny for spending the time making the SDP what it is today: an unimportantly tiny, penniless, company starting off in the defunct medium of radio!  But boy, is it fun or what?  It’s a God-glorifying blast!  I love every minute I spend thinking about the SDP and it’s members!  What fun!

For those of you who were asking about The Assassins Game, here are the rules and basic concept.

1) Assemble a large group, preferably ones you see frequently, or that live in a dorm with you.
2) Buy 55 small yellow plastic dart guns.
3) Draw a name from a hat – this is your target (person you’re trying to kill). (i.e. Sarah, Jessie, Ryan, Mike, Tage, Simon, or Jake, but I don’t know a Jake)
4) Your goal: to kill your target without you, yourself getting hit by the person who has drawn you.
5) If you kill your target the person your target is supposed to kill, is your new target.  Dead people are out of the game.
6) Last person alive wins!  Fairly simple.  However rules for where a person can be killed are usually a question of heated debate.

There are the rules!  Usually a game last about one week, we had 2 rounds, each lasting one week, and are nearing the end of the 2nd one.  I’m still alive, and even killed my target in a daring feat of military brilliance!  We signed a treaty! (he let me shoot him)

Social confidence problems persist – uneasiness is more noticeable than expected, and apologies invoke laughter and strange looks.  Things are in a shaky balance at the moment by my calculation, while the viewpoint of others may not show it as being so shaky.  I’m finding that I’m becoming increasingly paranoid about little worthless things, looks, glances, glares, punches, attempted murder, all these things give me the vague idea that perhaps people don’t enjoy my presence as much as they would want me to think.

I think world Politics has changed the way I write – now everything’s in terms of diplomacy!  haha!  Oh well!  College Life!

Last night, I went and viewed Narnia, like the rest of the world.  What a wonderful film!  While some had said that it was aimed at a younger audience than for me, I don’t think I need to be worried.

I loved how Lewis’ original Christian message of the Gospel remained intact even though it was produced by Disney.  I also enjoyed how seeing that message depended on how you were watching the film and what you brought to it.  For example, Ryan didn’t agree that Asland stood for Jesus, apart from him rising from the dead.  I found there to be too many overlaps between the two stories for me to question it at all.  Again, it’s my perspective.

Wonderful film for both the Christian, and those who are just there to have a good time.

So much I need to tell you… so little time to update.  I’ll try and update a little later… I hope I can remember them all! 

I decided to play the assassins game, and last night was suicide if you hadn’t killed anyone.  Well, I asked my target if I could kill him, and he said yes.  but he was busy so we just agreed that we’d both say I had shot him.  Well, guess what?  Ryan led a mob against this, and made me go tell drag him out of his room so I could actually “hit him with a dart in a non neutral zone.” gosh!  So now I’m still in the game, but care even less than I did before!  What to do.

Oh well… many fun stories on that note a little later.

Tonight at Midnight, the 2nd round of the assassins game begins.  As of this moment, I’m still unsure whether or not I’m going to be playing.  If I do play, it will be under drastically different personal guidelines as to how I will behave towards my fellow players.  Though I don’t know if it’s even worth the effort and stress.

Any thoughts?  Should I play?

In other news, Wendy Reiger, anchor of NBC’s local news, came to class today and spoke to us about the news industry… it was really cool to hear about how News organizations are giving up true reporting in exchange for higher standings in the ratings game.

What popped to mind was this xanga.  How I am increasingly desperate for ways to attract new readers and appeal to a broader audience.  I don’t strive for ratings, I strive for comments!  Yes, thats right, comments!  The ultimate sign of success in this line of work.  I would consider 4 comments to be my average, and 12-14 being an uncommon high.

While this isn’t a stunning high, even by xanga standards, I feel content with this number.  I also know that there are other readers who don’t feel the need to comment in a textual form.  I can understand this, I only rarely comment on the xangas of other people.  I should get better with that.

Assassins – 2 hours.  trouble!

We have a boy on our floor by the name of Creepy Jason.  No one seems to like the poor boy, and is generally considered to be annoying.  Everyone dreads seeing him sit down because they know it will be trouble!

I find it extremely humorous each time that a group on the floor is getting ready for dinner.  What happens is that he’ll walk up and hear that we’re planning on going to dinner, and ask to come along.

Well, no one wants him to come, and no one wants to say no.  So what happens?  They tell him to ask someone else in the group, usually the one who suggested going to dinner.  Now this person doesn’t want him to come, but can’t say no either.  So Jason will put the two lack of responses together, and create a Yes!  2 + 2 = 6!

So usually what happens is he comes along and no one ends up having as good a time as they would have if they had just left a few minutes earlier.

The funny thing is, you look around anywhere during dinner time, and you’ll see this frantic drama going on with different groups at different times.  I noticed this last night, as I was sitting in the T and just started laughing.  Don’t get me wrong, I tried really hard to be nice to him, and befriend him.  I think I might be the last one on the floor who treats him well.  But what are the rewards for this?  His constant attacks on Christianity and conservative values.  I’ll try my hardest to pray for him…

“Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in your power to do it.” – Proverbs 3: 27

This is just one of many verses in Proverbs that has been feeding my soul…  here at college I’ve been thinking of this over and over again, I don’t know why…

“A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, and poverty will come upon you like a robber, and want like an armed man” Proverbs 6:10

“The fear of the Lord is hatred of evil.  Pride and arrogance and the way of evil ane perverted speech I hate.” Proverbs 8:13

Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be still wiser; teach a righteous man, and he will increase in learning. Proverbs 9:9

Where there is no guidanc, a people falls but in an abundance of counselors there is Safety Proverbs 11:14

Whoever walks in integrity walks securely, but he who makes his ways crooked will be found out.

Do no be among drunkards, or among gluttonous eaters of meat, for the drunkard and the glutton will come to poverty, and slumber will clothe them with rags. Proverbs 23:20

Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, and let not your heart be glad when he stumbles. Proverbs 24:17

just some odd verses…