I get to see my parents tomorrow. YAY :)

In my mind Betsy and Heidi are now 27 and 29 respectively. They seem much older and more mature than the 23 and 25 year old's I know and am friends with, so therefore I am adding on some year's to their ages. In addition, I think I'll drop back down to being 19. I don't feel like I'm almost 21.

Check out these 6 week grades. I am so glad I switched to an FOS. I am almost certain that if I had remained a CS major I would not have been able to graduate on time. A lot of the people who are majors have D's and F's right now in a few of their classes. If they are struggling, then there would've been no hope for me.

CS401 NG 0%

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CS484 A- 20%

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IT305 A 10%

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IT460 A- 10%

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IT485 A+ 9 9%

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MS401 A 20%

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PE424 B 20%

As I've said before, I'm not Tiger Woods at golf.

What I strive for:

"Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith, and in purity."

1 Timothy 4:12

On saturday, after being locked out of Thayer Hall and then finding out my project meeting was canceled, I took off for the night and drove to my favorite town in NY, Haines Falls. I met up with Leah, Celio, and Heather, who had already been camping there for a night. I got there around 7pm, and since they were already at the s'more making part of the evening, and I hadn't eaten dinner, I procceded to consume 4 or 5 s'mores over the course of the night. Celio was greatly amused by a chicken carcass that he had on a stick, and was waving it around, sticking it in everybody's face, and trying to get it to burn in the fire. He had roasted the chicken over the fire for their dinner, and from what they were all saying, it turned out very well. Too bad I missed it. We sat around the fire for a long time talking, stuffing our faces with s'mores, candied apples, and the individual parts of s'mores.

The excitment of the evening happened when we heard a rustling over by the picnic table. Celio told me to turn on my lantern, and when I did we saw a huge racoon. We claim it was 50 lbs, but it was probably only 20 or 30 lbs. I'm terrible at guessing weight, so it may have been much less than that. In any case, it was enormous. Celio ran after it with a big stick, and then a man popped out of the woods and asked if the racoon was over by us. The racoon tried to climb up a tree, and celio was running around the tree with the stick, Heather and I were standing off to the side watching, and Leah was asking Celio to not hit the racoon. The racoon decided the tree wasn't the best bet, and decided to try and make a run for it. The man threw a rather large rock at it, but missed, and the racoon ran/waddled off into the darkness.

I eventually got up around 9am, read for awhile until everyone else got up, and then we packed up our campsite. For breakfast we ate at the same diner that Leah, Celio and I ate at after we went backpacking right after graduation in June. The meal we ate back in June was the second best breakfast I've ever had, the first being the breakfast following Robin Sage. Both were so good because it was the first real meal I'd eaten in a few days/weeks. This morning's breakfast was good, but not comparable to either of those two.

Following breakfast we hiked to a gorgeous senic overlook of the Hudson Valley, and then hiked around in the woods for about two hours. We came across the perfect camping spot up on the top of a mountian by the former site of very nice hotel at the turn of the 20th century.

On the way back we made a detour to Woodstock, walked around there seeing the sites/people, and ate ice cream. We came to the conclusion that the hippies have turned into yuppies. For being supposidely so free thinking, diverse, liberal, etc...I noticed that just about everyone there appeared to be middle/upper middle class, and Caucasion. There were numerous BMW's, Mercedes, and other very nice cars lineing the streets. Heather found it amusing that the one ultra-hippey looking man we saw was actually standing there trying to make money by looking like an ultra-hippey person. (If any of this is offensive or not politically correct, please let me know and I will remove it...if you ask nicely).

Now I'm back at school and looking forward to a week of morning practice every morning. Sleep deprivation here I come.

My cell phone is on it's last legs. It's very last legs. In fact, I think these are artificial legs that it is hobbeling on.

This morning I was able to sleep in until about 9am. It's a B weekend, and the break is definetly appreciated. I have a senior project meeting this afternoon, but after it is over I'm headed to the Catskill's once again. Celio, Leah, and Heather are camping there for the weekend. Origionally I was going to go for the whole weekend, but then the meeting came up. One night is better than nothing.

I now understand how Anne felt last year.

I ended up being awarded the Hooah Note for my company.

It states:

Cadet ***
* Company, * Regiment

   I extend my hardiest congratulations on your selection fo rhte Brigade Tactical Officer's Hooah Note.

   You have been recognized for your outstanding preparation for hte TA-50 inspection. Your care for your subordiantes was clearly evident in preparing them for the inspection. You have also performed magnificently as the Company IS Officer; fixing multilple computer problesm within the company during your free time. All of this has been accomplished while serving on the Army Crew Tea.
 
   Your dedication to duty and commitment to excellence are noteworthy. Thanks for going the extra mile. Well Done!

   Hooah!!

*****
COL, IN
Brigade Tactical Officer

I really don't deserve it. Seriously. All I do is what people tell me to do. I half think they just wanted to have a firstie be nominated for it to even out who got it.

Are my expectations/standards too high? Am I too self-centered? Do my warning signals go off too easily? Have I hurt anyone? Do I push people away from me when they get close? Someday...

This evening Bea-hob and I met over dinner to discuss The Da Vinci Code and Christianity. Going into the conversation I knew I would have to rely on Luke 21:15, because I had no clue what to say. We ended up talking for about an hour and a half. It was a very good conversation, but I came away from it feeling exhausted, not knowing if it made any difference, and having to turn it all over to God, because I feel like I just talked in circles and he got nothing out of it.

About a half an hour after we finished talking I went to my company Bible Study where the topic was Romans 6. I try and talk more during the Bible studies, but I was so exhausted, if that's the right word, that I didn't say a word the whole time. I did have thoughts on what we were discussing, but some of them pertained to baptism, which is something I am studying more in depth at the moment, but it is not a discussion that would be helpfull and and uniting for the small company Bible study. Jason, Charlie, and I freely admit that we are staying away from the contriversional doctrinal issues with the Bible Study, because those discussions are probably more than our group could handle, and has time to handle in that setting.

After the Bible Study I stayed and talked to Charlie and Jason for a few minutes and told them about my talk with Bea-Hob. It is really nice to have people in the company who are strong Christians that I can go to and talk about my faith, God, Christianity, the Bible, and other related stuff.

So far, buying a Palm m515 for $20 from a cow has been a good investment. I'm tempted to see if a yuck will be willing to sell me one of their Palm Tungsten T's for $20, but I don't really want to spend money on something that I don't need when I have something that works already. Plus, I'm not a big fan of the Tungsten T. The sliding open feature on it is one more thing that can break and ruin the device.

Good verse that I hope will apply to me.

"I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith." - 2 TImothy 4:5

APFT today. Please pray for me.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!

After the TA-50 inspection I took a nap and proceeded to sleep for six hours. It was awesome.

Why is that back at the end of July on the way down to NC I had a lot of time to think and decided that I wanted to try and not focus on guys/relationships and not date anyone for at least the next three months for a couple of reasons, which i figured wouldn't be hard because there were no prospects, and then two days later began a string of four guys who showed up in my life. When the first one showed up I felt like forgetting my whole plan, but ended up recommitting to the idea. That's the way it's been going, and I've learned some valuable things about myself, as well as what I am looking for in a guy. I don't have the time or the energy to be in a relationship at the moment. I can barely make it through a week with only having to think about myself as it is. When I tell people I want to relax during the weekend, what I mean is crash on my bed and not move for the next 24 hours. Of course, that isn't going to happen, but I just need a breather from things, and not just school things. Give me time. Give me space. At the moment I think Anne's and my NGUET club is actually somewhat of a good idea, and not just a joke we have.

Sleep does a body good.

Yay! Golf class is canceled this afternoon.

October 27th. Waiting until then.

I asked God if this was what he had for me, if it was his will, and the answer I seem to be getting back is "no", or "not at this time". So close, but not quite there.

I just found out my PSG nominated me for this week's Hooah Note. This is what he wrote:

3rd PLT Nominee = **********
-superior layouts amongst the hg section
-consistently clean AMI
-meeting company needs with IS problems (aka computers, printer)
-awesome balance between classes, crew team, and company duties

It's a good thing he didn't see my edge dressing spill last night. I ended up with half a bottle of edge dressing covering my left leg, plus some on my shorts and the furniture. I used a nail scrubber brush to scrub it off, because when I used a paper towel I ended up with a rug burn type thing. It didn't all come off, and I got many comments on my leg at crew practice this morning.

Right after the edge dressing incident the plebes threw Alyson a B-day party. When they knocked I jumped up and tried to keep them out of the room, but they pushed through, tossed four big boxes of packing material, the S shape kind, all over the room, ripped her bed apart, and stole her Full Dress. We spent hte next 45 minutes cleaning it up, and there are still tiny packing pieces all over the place. While we were cleaning up she told me she would've rather had the normal get tied-up-and-have-table-condiments-poured-all-over-you birthday party. I think the table condiments kind would've been worse.

I have a lot to write about the past weekend, life in general, and Alyson's B-day party from the plebes (our room is trashed at the moment), but no time to write, or I'm busy writing other random blurbs.