On Battery, both academic and actual

The end of the semester approaches, silent and stalking like a ninja, and at the same time loud and aggressive like some sort of rabid lion intent on devouring my flesh. It's quiet because it snuck up on me, and yet now it is yelling in my ear to do one of the many papers I have to do. Between now and 5/4, I have to write about 35 pages worth of stuff, and maybe take an Old Testament test. Academic battery. Candler should plead guilty and hope for a lesser sentence.

As far as "actually" actually goes, I was not assaulted. My battery on the new ride crapped out. I was heading out for Pigeon Forge this morning, going to visit the fam for a day as they were at Rod Runs (a huge classic car show/meeting/whatever). Went to turn the engine over, and got nothin'. Grrr... I am Jack's consistent frustration when things do not work. I really hate it when things do not work. I just got this car like two months ago. Given, the battery was old, but I was hoping it gained new life at the prospect of being owned by someone who would love it and take care of it.

My affections were spurned.

So, I spent about 5 hours total messing with it. I started by checking the connections. I unhooked all the stuff, allowed the computer to reset, etc. No luck. Tried to jump it, nothing. Finally, I conned a friend into taking me to get the battery charged. Props by the way to Derek "D-Rob" Robinette for helping a fellow Kentucky boy out. You are a gentleman and a scholar, even though you are deserting us for Asbury next year. It's okay though, you are getting married. I'll allow it. Sometimes, I too wish I was home in KY, for sure.

Eventually, I got the thing working (courtesy of a new deluxe-top-of-the-line-three-year-warrantee battery) though not in time to really have a chance to drive the 4 hours to the Forge and fight all the traffic there. So, no family visit for me. At least I'll be seeing them in two weeks, so it isn't an extraordinary loss, just a delay.

Other than that, things are going well. No luck on the zombie game. It's okay- people will come around. And if they don't, Michael, Tory and I (and probably others) at least will be prepared for the invasion. I will survive when the zombies rise!

Let's see, anything else of note? Oh, had a friend (Katie Bartlett) come visit Candler, I tried to convince her to come here next year (HINT HINT, if you're reading). That was fun. Good times. She got to meet some Candler people, and I'm not quite sure that was a good thing....haha. I kid, I kid. So we'll see how that pans out. It would be really nice to have someone here I know from back home. That would be cool. So, any of you out there interested in graduate education in Religion, Theology, Ministry, etc. let me know. I can put in some good words, and I'll give you a personal tour.

Alright, enough babbling. I think I'm going to go watch a movie....mmm....movies. I love movies.

Peace.

Zombies. Humans. Awesomeness.

So I ran across this site from a link on Fark.com: http://phoenix.goucher.edu/~jsegedy/hvz/Options.php. It's a game similar to "Assassins" (popular on college campuses, involving "killing" target people) in execution (pun intended); that is it's a live-action simulation of sorts involving "zombies" and humans, along with nerf weapons [Disclaimer- this is not my original idea. Props and all that go to Brad Sappington, Chris Weed, and Jim Segedy for the game. I have no idea who they are, but they put it together] . Now I have another goal to add to my list of things to do before I die (maybe a topic for another post): I want to play this game.

It needs a few modifications I think, such as the inclusion of headshots as a manner of stopping the zombies to give the humans a chance of "winning" (instead of just surviving as long as they can), to be a true reflection of zombie-ness, but overall it looks like a lot of fun. I'm already working on rules to make it more interesting (at least in my mind). So, if you're reading this and you think it would be fun or you have ideas, let me know. I'm open to any insight.

Other than that excitement, not much is going on. I registered this week for classes for the fall. I'm taking New Testament with Luke Timothy Johnson (noted Biblical scholar), Systematic Theology with Don Saliers (noted professor as well), Con Ed II (at Briarlake Baptist, see previous posts), and right now I am enrolled in both Intro to Judaism and "A Skeptic in Scripture: Ecclesiastes," one of which I will be dropping and replacing with a course on Buddhism in the undergraduate religion department. I'm really looking forward to the undergrad course, because I enjoyed the Buddhism course I had at Transy (with the wonderful Dr. Trina Jones), and I am interested in seeing how it stacks up to my undergrad experience at Transy. But overall the schedule looks good. I may end up dropping both Judaism and Ecclesiastes, I'm not sure if I want to do the 5 course semester again. I feel like I'm always in class this semester, and while it isn't overly difficult, I'd just prefer less time in class (meaning fewer assignments). I'd be fine just going to classes. It's those silly papers and tests that bore me.

Non-school-wise, it's been a dull few weeks. Not much going on, no one seems to want to hang out, due to being busy, lazy, etc. I'll leave the reasons to choice, though I have my suspicions. I haven't really hung out with a big group of people in a while. I see people here and there, go out with a couple people now and then, but I'm one who enjoys a larger group at times too. And that's not happening, for various reasons. I guess I just got really spoiled at Transy, always having a million people coming by the room, going places, hanging out, etc. I lost count of how many people I found sleeping in "The Lounge" over the course of my time there. It was cool being so close to people. I miss living on the hall: no hall frisbee or Tag-bombing or Barbie ball here. I miss two out of three there....haha. And I don't get to set things on fire here, or throw microwaves and other junk out the windows (at most it's a two-story drop). Oh well...

Enough whining. Summer break is almost here, and I have big plans for that. I'm going to a lot of Braves games, I'm going to build a trebuchet (not full-scale sadly- I don't think I can legally build siege weaponry on campus, which in my opinion is a total drag), I'm going to read for fun, I'm going to play some video games, I'm going to work on my book. And most importantly, I'm hopefully going to be working with youth again. Still waiting to iron out all the details for the summer stuff at Briarlake. I'd like to get those ironed out ASAP so I can look for another part time job (since sadly the Briarlake position is only 15 hours/week). I'm thinking maybe a bookstore (thanks to Jon Clark for the idea). Who knows?

I think that should cover it for now. Oh, one more thing: my fraternity brothers won Campus Sing (also known as Greek Sing at a lot of places) again, which is like, I'm not sure, probably at least 3 years in a row, if not more. The theme was "One Hit Wonders," and you can see video of them rocking it out here: http://www.kylelibra.com/CampusSing. We're the ones in the lower left corner (Delta Sigma Phi). Congrats also to the lovely ladies of Phi Mu, who won the sorority competition, and to everyone involved. I'm sure together we all raised hundreds, if not thousands, of pounds of food. End shameless plug.

Until next time, remember: stay calm, carry lots of ammo, keep moving and aim for their heads...