One last thing. WASSUP!

I really should be in bed right now because I have to get up in a few short hours in order to be out the door at 3:25am and on my way back to West Point and Camp Buckner for the summer. It's been great being home and seeing my family and friends, relaxing, sleeping in, going to movies, and forgetting about the pressures of school. The worst part of being home is the day before I leave. The pit in my stomach threatens to consume my whole body and I feel very depressed the whole today. Today was no different, but a few things made it remarkably better.

The first was Matt calling me and us going out to lunch. He has the remarkable ability of cheering me up no matter what without even knowing it or trying. This can be good, but also kinda of annoying, in a good way, when I want to call him and wallow in my sorrow and depression and can't because I feel better. It was great to just sit and talk to him for a while and forget about the pit in my stomach. I'm gonna miss him.

Steph and I then went kayaking on the Huron River. It was really hot out and so we splashed eachother didn't care about all the polution in the water. I wouldn't be suprised if we each grow and extra eye or ear in the next month.

Besty came over for dinner and my dad grilled some chicken which tasted very good. It was enjoyable to have the whole family sitting at the table talking and laughing one last time before I leave. My Grandma stopped by for a few minutes to say goodbye to me and I was able to solve the mystery of how to lock the doors to her new car from the inside. You have to press the lock button twice. Later in the eveing the whole family watched my Dad set off some fireworks my Mom had bought at the store today. It reminded me of when I was little and we used to do that around the 4th of July. Good stuff.

I am suprised at the amount of stuff I have to take back with me. I don't know how I'm going to fit all of it into my wall locker at Buckner. Molly is probably going to laugh at me tomorrow when I show up at her house tomorrow morning with 3 huge bags. Becki stopped by tonight and we talked while I finished packing. We were supposed to hang out today but unfortunatly that didn't happen. I'm glad that she came over tonight.

I'm looking forward to seeing Jasmin, Ez, Erich, and everybody else again. This evening I made little loaves of banana bread to take back with me and give to Jasmin. I hope she likes them.

Now I must go and begin my 6-7 week hiatus from this and the computer all together. Since I won't have this to use to vent and transcribe my thoughts on I'm planning on taking up letter writing again. Gotta love the old pen and paper.

Talk to you later. Good night.

Ceder Point was fun, especially because I didn't have to pay for it. I started out by hanging out with Anna, James, Mike, Dan, and Greg and we went on the Power Tower, Wicked Twister, and Gemini before lunch. The Wicked Twister was a lot better than I thought it would be. Definetly a good ride. After lunch Anna, Aaron, and Mr. Hart and I went on the Raptor, Magnum and Gemini. Mr Hart left us when we went on the Gemini and after that we went on the Millenium Force. That was the longest line of the day at 1.5-2 hours. All the other lines were under 45 min. It was almost time to meet up again with the group after the Millenium Force, but we had a little time to waste so we rode the carasoul twice. Anna and I were going to take Beth and her friend on the Raptor after dinner but there was some miscommunication and Anna and I ended up riding it alone. The lines were short, the coasters were fun, and the weather was great. It was a good day to be at Ceder Point. I still kinda feel like I'm on a roller coaster even though I'm sitting at the computer typing. It's kinda cool.

This is my last full night at home :( Friday I have to be at Molly's house at 4am. Summer went by so fast! Tomorrow I have a ton o' crap to do like working out, shopping, laundry, and packing. I'm also hoping to go kyakying with Steph, hang out with Matt, and do something with Becki. Crap. If only I could slow down time. I managed to do most of the things that I wanted to do this summer while I was home which is good, but I'm not ready to leave and go back to West Point. I know I was complaining earlier about how I miss West Point, and I do miss my friends, but I also like my freedom. I really shouldn't complain about haveing to go back. This is the life I choose and now I have to deal with it. This is one of the many sacrifices. But I'm not ready to say goodbye to everyone. I hate that part. The final hug that I wish would last for forever but never does makes me want to cry. In fact, sometimes I do cry when I think about having to say good bye to the people who are the specialist to me. Or should that be most special. hmmm... I hate the part where I have to leave.

There is a delicate art to making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Growing up I learned this art from watching my mom make them for my sisters and I and then trying to perfect it later on in life when I made my own sandwichs. It is important to put peanut butter on both slices of bread in order to prevent the jelly from soaking through a slice and making it all mushy. The peanut butter has to cover the whole slice evenly and the coating does not have to be very thick. The jelly goes on only once slice of bread but must also coat it evenly. You do not need goobs of peanut butter or jelly, just a smooth coating of each so that neither taste masks the other. You then carefully cover the jellied slice with the unjellied slice. The way you cut it does not appear to affect the tast, but I've found a diaginol cut across the sandwich to be more asthetically appealing than a cut down the middle. If I'm in a hurry I don't bother with cutting the sandwich. In high school I'd heard rumors of people only putting peanut butter on one side of the bread, but for the most part I dismissed them as hearsay and assumed that everyone made their sandwichs the way I did. It was therefore shocking to me to arive at West Point during Beast and to find that people were scooping huge goobs of peanut butter out of the jar and then only putting it on one slice. They would then drown the other slice in mounds of jelly and smash the two pieces together. I was appalled. Has no one taught them the art of the sandwich. My mission in life is clear. The people need to know and I will teach them!

And now on to life.

Today I was really bored and none of my friends were free so I sat around the house, played with the dogs, and watched the guys doing construction. I couldn't stare at them and admire their shirtless bodies and muscles because I've known most of them since I was little and that just seems wrong. If only my parents would hire people I didn't know. Oh well. Mark called in the afternoon and asked if I wanted to go out tonight. The lack of plans and tremendous bordem I felt prompted me to very quickly say yes. After that I proccedded to go on a 2.5 mile run. It actually wasn't that bad, but I should have jogged longer. Anyway, Mark and I went out for icecream and then drove to a park in the middle of the city and walked around a bit. We ended up at this bench and it was so cool because there wasn't a cloud in the sky, no buildings were visiable, and everywhere you looked it was just nature stuff. It was really beautiful. We sat there and talked about flying cars, life on mars, and stuff like that. Weird conversation but very enjoyable. After that we went and saw Scooby-Do the movie. It was very funny, but I think it would scare little kids too much. I think my cousins, who love Scooby-Do, should wait a few years before they see it or else they'll have nightmares. Now I'm off to bed so I can get up somewhat early and go to Ceder Point. Yippeeeeeee:)

Stupid summer jobs. All of my friends seem to have them and so no one is home during the day. Therefore I have no one to go kyaking with and I'm very bored.

The deck is being torn apart right now. I didn't know my parents were getting a new one. There's a lot of stuff I don't know.

Yesterday as I was driving to the fitness center it hit me that I am leaving on Friday. It made me real depressed which hurt my workout. Driving home I was even more depressed because I realized I'm out of shape and not ready for Buckner, I have to leave Friday and won't be back untill Labor Day or Thanksgiving, and I started to think about Erich. I don't think he likes me, we don't talk that much, I don't know him very well, and crap like that. While I was thinking about all of that and feeling worse and worse by the minute the song The Middle by Jimmy Eat World came on the radio.

hey don't write yourself off yet
it's only in your head you feel left out or looked down on
just try your best
try everything you can
and don't you worry what they tell themselves when you're away

it just takes some time
little girl, you're in the middle of the ride
everything everything will be just fine
everything everything will be all right X2

hey you know they're all the same
you know you're doing better on your own so don't buy in
live right now
just be yourself
it doesn't matter if it's good enough for someone else

it just takes some time
little girl, you're in the middle of the ride
everything everything will be just fine
everything everything will be all right X2

do your best
do everything you can
don't you worry what their bitter hearts are going to say

The lyrics seemed to apply to me a lot right then and they were just what I needed.

Today I woke up to the sound of my alarm at 9:08am and then procceded to go back to sleep. I was having a pleasent dream a little while later when it was interupted by a loud banging. At first I thought it was my dad working on the new laundry room he's putting in my parent's bedroom, but as I became more awake I realized it was coming from the roof. I guess we're having the roof redone.

I finally made it back to the fitness center today to work out. Because there's an APFT on Saturday I decided to try a practice one today. I managed 32 pushups and 52 situps in the respective two minute times. I really need to work on the situps. The 2-mile run didn't happen because I got bored on the treadmill and couldn't figure out a route to run. Pray for a thunderstorm around 5am that lasts until 7am. It will only postpone the APFT for another day, but that'll prevent one more day of PT.

My Grandma invited my family over for dinner today and Aunt Sue, Isaac and Anna were there. I became a human jungle gym for them. After dinner my dad and I headed out to Dexter to go fishing and a pond at one of my dad's coworkers new house. Frank went with us. He caught 13 or 14 fish while I only caught 6. The fish were kinda small and we of course threw them all back and overall it was fun.

Time for some more late night writing. Up untill the end of junior year of high school I told everybody to forget anything I said or wrote after 11pm. It was after 11pm that I would talk to Andrew, the guy I liked in 10th grade, and would end up saying really stupid stuff.

There's a show about West Point on the Travel Channel right now. I've seen a couple of my friends on it so far. I kinda want to watch it to see if I know anyone else, but I'm not that interested in hearing about all the accomplishments of the graduates and I'd rather listen to music and type. I have such tough choices in my life. Wow! Gen. Custer graduated last in his class from West Point. There is hope for me! Hey, they just showed Erich's old company in the sandhurst competition, but it was from last year's and he wasn't on that team. Oh well. Okay, I've seen enough. It's just repeating the same stuff every show about West Point says.

Heidi and I went to see the Bourne Identity tonight at Quality 16. I thought it was a pretty good movie, but she didn't like it too much because it didn't go along with the book. We stopped at Meijer after it was over to try and buy a copy of the book for me, but they didn't have one. I wish I could be like the main character, not in his proffession, but in knowing many languages fluently, being great at martial arts, able to run fast and far, and all that stuff. There were a lot of high schoolers there. It's really easy to spot them. I didn't realize that until I came home from school at Christmas. Everyone looks so young. I bet I'll be saying that about college students in a few years.

I talked to Erich a little today on IM. It was nice to talk to him again, but not much was said. Everything good takes time. Five days till I see him. No, I'm not counting, but Jasmin is counting the days until Buckner starts. Gotta love roommates:)

It was great seeing Matt today. I didn't realize how much I miss actually talking to him in person. I really hope I can hang out with him again before I leave.

Tomorrow, well now it's today, my Dad and I are probably going to go fishing. Today, or yesterday if you want to get technical, I went fishing and caugh 2 trees and almost caught my dad's car. Okay, I was just practicing casting in front of my house. I sucked so bad at first. My dad would do it perfectly and then go inside and I would try. The line would get all tangled up and everthing would be messed up. Finally I managed to get better after my Dad figured out I had put too much line on the spool. What a smart man. Before I came home I invited Frank to go fishing with us, but now I kinda wish I were going alone with my Dad, but I'm not about to go back on the invitation. Perhaps it will be more fun with him there. I haven't talked to him since we went out for lunch 1.5 weeks ago.

Off to bed I go and it's not even 2am yet. Amazing!

I think I have the comments working now which is good.

I came home from the Church picnic and realized I was really tired and wanted to take a nap. I also wanted to read a book because I haven't had a chance to do a lot of reading yet. I found two books and started to read them while I laid in bed and after a while I decided to go to sleep. Of course I couldn't fall asleep. It was just my luck that I was no longer tired and so now I'm up and looking for something to do. Hmm, food, tv, or store. Tough choice.

Yesterday I went over to the big softball tournament and saw some of my teammates from highschool, a few parents, and my old coachs. Everyone wanted to know how school was going and all that stuff. It gets really boring repeating myself two million times. Maybe I should just tape a sign to myself that answers all the questions everyone asks:

"Do you like it there? Yes, School is great and I like it there. No, I hate it and would rather die than go back. j/k:) Is it hard? Yes, it is hard but that's okay. Actually, it's the easiest school in the world. We sit around and do nothing all day wasting tax payers money. What do you think? Did you like your roommates? Yes, I liked my roommates and made some great friends. Are they going to be your roommates next year? No, because we're in different companies. Do you get to choose your roommates? SometimesAre you on summer break now? Yes, I'm have a summer break but I'm only home for 20 days. Stop reminding me that my break is almost overAre you enjoying your break? Yes. No, I hate it and never want to have another break. Are you an idiot? What are you doing then? I'm going to Camp Buckner. Buck-Nam. woohoo. i'm going to be living in a model of a POW camp for 6 weeks. Where is that? Down the road from West Point. What do you do there? Small squad tactics training along with going to Fort Knox for a week and living out in the woods for a week. Get up way to early and do some grueling PT, sleep with the insects, and live like prisoners of war. Are you going to drive tanks? No, but at Fort Knox I'm going to ride in them. Do you actually think that they'd just let all of us drive tanks around? Do you get to shoot guns? I'll have an M16A2 and mostly be firing blanks. Please don't be stupid enought to ask me if we're firing live rounds at each other. Sounds fun. I guess. Just what I wanted to do this summer instead of sleep in late, hang out with friends at home, watch tv and use the computer. Have a good summer. You too." ask me any more questions and I'll scream.

That's a little to much for a sign I guess. Perhaps I should just print it out on pieces of paper and hand them out to everyone. The italics are just my thoughts and wouldn't be printed on the paper. I'm really not this bitter, but I needed to vent a little.

Still working on it.

Tonight I made danish puff. It's some good stuff.
I'm still trying to get everything worked out with the template.

I'm trying to add comments to this thing, but I don't know if it's working.

Sometimes I have so much stuff going through my head and I want to write it all down and tell it to someone, but then when I get the chance to I don't remember any of it. Funny how that works out. This summer I'm not going to have access to a computer for at least six weeks so I'm probably going to start writing letters again. Last summer I realized how much I like to write. I'm not a writer -- in fact I suck at writing -- but I like to get my thoughts out. I also like the idea that someone might read them. That's not what's importnant to me, but I've found it helps me write.

One of the things that I want is to feel special in someones eyes. That is also one of the hardest things for me to do for a person. The main thing that I want out of a relationship is to feel special, yet a relationship is not about reciving, it's about giving. I have a hard time letting myself try to make someone feel like they are special. I don't like that about myself. It's kinda hard to explain, but I'm going to try anyways. For example, if I bake someone bread and give it to them I'll deny that I did it just for them and say that I made bread for a number of my friends -- which I probably would do so that I could say that, but the main reason I made the bread was to give it to that one person. Okay, that's not a great example, but just hang in there. I've never had a single best friend, but I've had many really close friends. I'm afriad I'll get annoying and so after a while I back off from a friend and give them some space. I only call a friend once a week to talk. That's changed a tiny bit the past two years, but not a lot. Here's anothe example of what I'm trying to get at. Teresa and I went around last night to Bill, Matt, and Becki's respective houses and did different things to their houses for fun. I can only do that stuff to people that I'm comfertable with and how I'm good friends with, for the most part. Because that's the case I'm more apt to avoid them afterwords if they find out it was me because to me it's like I'm saying "Hey, I like being your friend and this is one way of me trying to make you feel special" in a sense. That puts me in a position of feeling vulnerable and I hate feeling vulnerable. In order to try and protect myself I therefore back off.

It was not until just now that I came to realize how much I hate feeling vulnerable. Side note: I'm analyzing stuff way too much right now because it's late and I'm tried, but this is fun and so I'm going to keep doing it. Oh, and if I'm spelling vulnerable wrong or anything, I don't care. Speaking in groups of people makes me feel vulnerable, so I avoid it. I don't ask questions in class very often because that too makes me feel that way. When I started this blog I felt that way because I'm sharing a part of myself and there's the possiblity that someone might actually read it. I almost stopped writing in here because of it, but finally I told myself that I was doing this for myself and it doesn't matter if other people read it because I'm not going to care what they think. I'm not going to let it bother me. This sounds stupid, but in middle school and the beginnign of high school I hated hugs because I was afraid that someone would think that I hugged to hard, or too long, or not long enough, or some crap like that. Once again, hugs made me feel vulnerable. It took me a while to get over that. There are many other things that have made me and still do make me feel vulnerable and so I try my best to protect myself. Some of the things I need to overcome and I hope that I do eventually.

Every night I go to bed and say to myself that tomorrow I'll go to bed earlier so that I don't sleep in as late, but it hasn't happened yet. I don't like sleeping in real late because it makes me feel like I've wasted part of my day. I also like the fresh, bright feeling that only early morning can provide. That doesn't mean that I like to get up at 5am however. I'm not looking forward to getting back to school and getting up at 5 for some PT everyday. Somehow I'll survive, I hope.

Today I went out in search of a kite. I love flying kites and at West Point there are some great places to fly them, but I never had one to fly. Every windy day I wished I had one and so I want to make it a point to fly a kite while I'm home. It's fun to watch them go so high up in the sky and feel the force of the wind as the kite tugs on the string. I searched for them at Meijer and at Target, but neither store carried them. It wasn't a total lose going to those stores because I got to spend time in the toy department. I'm still a little kid at heart and I love toys. While I was in NYC I made my friends go with my to the big toy stores there. The biggest one around here is TOYS R US and so that's where I went next in my search for a kite. I wanted to play with all the toys that I saw, but there were a lot of adults around and it would have looked pretty weird. The kite selection consisted of a whopping two kites. One was $4.99 and the other was $9.99. I went with the more expensive one because it seemed a little higher quality. It has an ET theme with a hole in the center where ET's spaceship goes and spins. I was hoping to fly it but a thunderstorm prevented that from happening.

I was out with Steph this evening and we went to pick up a pizza and ran into Tara. I haven't seen her since junior year and didn't recognize her at first. She hasn't changed:)

I wish I had more links, but none of my other friends have blogs and the only other things that I can think to link to are my school, and that's just boring. If I ever find something interesting to put there I will.

Yesterday Teresa came over around 1pm and we went to 7 Eleven to get slurpies and then to the park to play on the playground and swings. I haven't been on a swing in the longest time and it was fun to do it again. I tried to kick my sandles off to see how far they'd go, but instead of going out very far they went up really far and then came almost staight down. After that we went and explored the creek and searched for the frogs that kept evading us by jumping in the water and swimming under the creek bank before we saw them. We did find a crayfish skeleton however.

The Red Wings game was awesome. Becki invited me to Dorian's house to watch the game with some other people. The house was really big and had a lot of cool new stuff in it. I played pool with a few of the guys in teams of two. My team was really close to winning, but we didn't. It was great whent the Red Wings won the Stanley Cup. After that I drove Amy home. She was one of my best friends from when I was born all through high school, but I didn't get a chance to see her a lot this year.

About Matt. Of course I know where he lives. I've found that if I go to anyone's house at least once I usually remember where it is. It doesn't matter who. I thought that everyone was like that, but I guess not. Amy can't even remember my phone number when I've only been gone for one year, yet I can still remember the phone numbers of my friends from middle school and elementry school. Now if I could just remember all the knowledge I'm supposed to know at West Point.

Oh, and the bike riding to Dexter has nothing to do with Matt. It's a beautiful place and I have many friends who live there. It's a nice place to ride to because it's far enough away to be a little challenging, but not too far that I have to call home and have someone get me. Only riding around the city was getting boring because I'd gone everywhere. I did stop by my Grandma's house, but she wasn't home. For some reason, ever since I was little, I've liked going West. Going East feels like I'm losing my freedom, but when I go West I feel more free. That's why when I go on bike rides I only ride West until I have to turn around and head home. I'm weird, but that's what makes me me.

AHHH!! Only a week left of summer for me. What's sad is that summer doesn't actually start untill the day I have to go back to school.

Tuesday my Jungle Boots came, but they were too big so my mom and I drove out to some military base around Detroit to get some new ones. I ended up spendint $100 dollars on the boots, a few camo bungie cords my mom wanted me to get, and a polyporpolene shirt.

Yesterday I went out to lunch with Betsy, but before I went to pick her up I had to put some gas in my car. As it turns out my credit card was maxed out due in no small part to the fact that my dad made me buy a $400 blender on it 2 weeks ago. Why do they need a blender with 2 horsepower? I don't understand. Anyway, I was not happy. Some really nice guy ended up paying the $5 that I didn't have on me. The day did get better, however. Betsy and I had a nice lunch at Tio's. She's making an appointment to visit the convent she's interested in joining. It's in NYC, or thereabouts, but I don't think that I'd ever get to see her. I support her 100% with whatever she does, but I kinda think that my mom and dad will take it kinda hard. They weren't too thrilled with the idea of her becoming Catholic in the first place. I'm sure they're get used to it evetually, if she does decide to become a nun, but it might take a while. From what I gather, my mom had a little trouble getting used to the fact that i was joining the military and going to West Point. Gotta love scaring the parents. I wonder what Heidi's gonna do now.

After lunch with Betsy my mom and I drove to Kalamazoo area to visit my Aunt, Uncle, and cousins. Isaac had a t-ball game and so we went and watched it. Uncle Jeff was the coach, but he was feeling sick and so he went home. Aunt Sue asked me to coach the team, I felt the parents who actually have seen a t-ball game before would do better. I would have probably ended up telling some 5 year-old to steal 2nd or throw the ball to 2nd from home in order to get the runner out. They don't keep score and there's a really good reason for that. It was a lot of fun to watch because they're just getting the hang of the game and look really cute, but none of them know how to catch a ball yet. It was fun.

Last night I planned on getting up this morning and going for a run before breakfast. That didn't happen. I woke up at 9:30 and tried to talk myself into it, but by 11 when I finaly got up I had talked myself out of it. Today was spent shopping for stuff for Buckner. Around 4 I realized that I needed to get some exercise in and it was either running or bike rideing. I hate running and so the bike won. It was just going to tbe a trip around the city, but I ended up going into downtown Dexter. The way back felt a lot shorter then the way there. It was fun and sort of relaxing with plenty of time to think.

Good luck Jaz, Ez, Erich, Annah, and Adam in STAP and good luck Matt with finals.

On to the subject of guys. A three week break from them is great. I was getting way to caught up with Erich and thinking about him. We're just friends and thats the way it should be. Yes, I like him, but I think I liked him too much. I don't need to worry or stress about this stuff because there are far more important things in my life. Besides, worrying and stressing do nothing.

While I've been home I've hung out with a few of my guy friends. They are great guys, but only as friends. It's funny, most of the guys I know assume that since I've spent one year in the military I know everything about every weapons system avaliable today, and that I enjoy talking about them. That's not the case. Back to guys now. When I got back from NYC and realized that Erich had blocked me - perhaps it was an accident, maybe it wasn't. I'm not blocked anymore- I was really upset and wanted to talk to someone. The first person that came to mind was Erich, but since he was the one who blocked me I imediatly ruled that out. Next, Matt came to mind, but since he's usually the one I call and whine and complain to I decided to give him a break. There's only so much a person can take. For some reason Frank popped into mind after that and I ended up calling him. We had a nice chat and I didn't talk about what had happend at all but I still felt better afterwords. In fact, I felt so much better that I wanted to ask him right then to the Camp Illumination Dance at the end of Buckner so that he could come out and see West Point. I decided to wait until after I talked to him in person and we sorted some stuff out. When we went out to lunch I realized that I love Frank a ton, as a brother, but he's not the sort of friend that I can take to a dance. Things aren't like they used to be and we are both different now. I doubt that I'll bring anyone from home for that dance. Yearling Winter Weekend is still up in the air because it's a long ways off. A lot can happen in half a year.

Right now I'm thinking that if I marry, and I'm hoping that someday I do get married, it will probably be to someone who graduated from West Point or was/is at least in the military. I like guys in civilian clothes a ton more than guys in uniforms, but I have a lot more in common with the men in the military. That's at least 3 years off, probably a lot more than that. I'm not gonna think about it anymore right now. It scares me.

Today was one of the best days I've had since I got home. It didn't start out that great. This morning I didn't want to get up because I was really tired and then at church Matt wasn't there and i was hoping that I would get a chnage to say hi to him. I wasn't in a great mood and people kept on coming up to me and asking me about school which got kinda annoying. I know it shouldn't bother me, but it sometimes gets annoying repeating myself 10 million times. Joe challenged me to an arm wrestleing match, but it didn't happen. I probably would've lost by a lot.

Around 5 I headed to Sarah's graduation party, but I didn't get there until 5:45 because I couldn't find her street. I knew a lot of people from high school who were there and it was great to see them again. We sat around and talked for a while and then watched When Harry Met Sally. It's a great chick flick. After that Bill, Sarah, Marty, Ian, Becki, and I all went to Bill's place to hang out some more. I hadn't seen any of them in at least 6 months. It was like nothing had changed.

Things have definitly changed. Am I the one who's different, are my friends the ones who are different, or are we all just different?

Friday afternoon I met up with Jen and Christy, my two roommates from NYLF and we hung out in downtown. Jen goes to UM and Christy goes to the Naval Academy. I see them maybe once or twice a year, but it's suprising how comfertable I feel with them now compared to a lot of my best friends from high school. Christy and I talked a lot about our lives at the academys and explained stuff to Jen and she gave us a tour of UM's campus. Funny, I've lived there my whole life, but she knew a ton more stuff then I did. She took us to the most beautiful spot on campus, I think. It's right by where the law students live in this courtyard type area. The beauty of it almost made me wish that I went to school there. I had a great time hanging out with them. We went to AMERS for lunch and then to Starbucks for some frappacinos. I got Ez into those while we were in NYC. After that we stopped by Harry's Army Surplus store so that I could check out their Jungle Boots. It really is a fake army store. I was not impressed at all. We then had to hurry back to our cars to put more money in the meters. Mine had run out, but I guess I still had some time left when the meter maid came around because the car in front of me got a ticket but I didn't. It was then that Jen took us to the courtyard and we sat and talked for over an hour. At 6 I had to go because Heidi invited me to a UCO party that evening. It was great spending time with them again. Hopefully Christy and I will meet up just as we did this last year at the Army-Navy football game. Go Army!

The UCO party was interesting. Heidi had her hair cut really short that afternoon and suprised everyone there with it. I didn't know most of the people, but a lot of them knew who I was from stories they'd heard from my family. The grenade throwing one was popular. I'd forgotten about it untill Steph brought it up on Sunday. I guess people here like hearing about me throwing grenades. That was pretty weird. Since I didn't know very many people, maybe one other person besides my sister, I was pretty quiet the whole time. That's what I do to get to know people and what they're like. I also don't know what to say and don't want to sound like a total idiot.

The Michigan West Point Parent's Club picnic was this mornign and so my parents and I attended. It was great to be the person giving the advice instead of getting it. Molly didn't show up, but Chris, Kelly, Greenberg, and other people I knew from my class went. The picnic lasted a lot longer this year and by the end all of us were ready to leave. After the picnic I went to the big soccer tournament that Heidi told me about. Sarah and Hannah were there and so I talked to them a bit. It was nice to see them, but we kinda ran out of things to say after a while. I didn't stick around for the bbq because I felt like I'd just be tagging along behind somebody. I recognized a fair amount of people there, but I didn't really know them. There wasn't the feeling I usually get when I fit in somewhere. The whole thing actually made me miss West Point.

I miss my friends back at school. The people back here know more about me, but I'm becoming more comfertable with my friends at school. I miss Ez, Jaz, Erich, Dan, Beth, Molly, and everyone else. Last night I went out with Jake. We drove around the city and talked about nothing for a few hours. Today I went out to lunch with Frank. It was good, I guess.

My day consisted of getting up around 10:30, going for a run around 11:30 and then going to work out at Dominoe's Farms at 1:30 until 2:40. At 5:00 I met up with Amy and Matt B. and we saw The Sum of All Fears. It was an okay movie. I was bored around 8 and so I ended up calling Jake. It was more of a call to say hi and stave off bordem and it worked for a while. Tomorrow night we're going to hang out. I definitalty don't like him anymore, but he's a cool guy to be friends with. Yesterday Mark called me and we ended up going to Put-Put together for two rounds of mini-golf. I'm suprised how easy the courses seem now. That dosn't change the fact that I still suck at it, however. Becki and I are supposed to hang out tomorrow afternoon and then Erin and I are supposed to do something later in the day. I'm hoping that the times all work out. Frank and I are supposed to go out for lunch on Thursday. I'm looking forward to that, but also somewhat nervous. There are some things that we need to talk about and I'm hoping that Thursday will be the chance for it. On Friday I'm going to an OCF party with Heidi and maybe spend the night there. That reminds me, Mark invited me to a prayer meeting on Wednesday night. Crap. I can't make it. At least my life sounds somewhat busy even though it's not.

What I really hate is when I get start to think about something such as science and come up with all these ideas and explainations and ideas for things, but at the same time realize that I don't know anywhere near enough for my explanation to be plausible or for me to think any deeper on the subject. I'm watching a program on teh Discovery Channel about Super-Massive Black Holes and I began to think about how similar they look to tornados. I know hardly anything about either of those, but I know enough to get my mind working and trying to compare them and figure things out ina totally wrong way. They both spin around some central point and travel on some sort of path. Both have objects spinning around them and nothing in the center. The computerized picture of a black hole looks strikingly smililar to that of a tornado. My idea is that a black hole is very similar to a tornado. The center would be a calm spot just as it is in a tornado. It would then be possible to travel through the center of a black hole. The problem would be getting to that point because just like a tornado, it can not be breached. If only I actually knew something on this subject.