It's FINALLY over...

It's that wonderous week that leaves overstressed pupils feeling oddly unbusy... the week after finals! Still trying to adjust to the idea of not doing ANYTHING, students flock to bars, sporting events, or other forms of entertainment that they have been unable to enjoy for the past few months.

With Christmas soon approaching, it's hard to wait for that amazing tradition of stuffing food down your throat, opening a bundle of presents and hanging out with people you only see a handful of times per year.

In the meantime, theaters are flooded with bored students, just trying to pass the time until that great day. However, remember to take your time and enjoy each day... next semester is right around the corner.

The Pirate Fantasy

Josh was a pirate. Deep down, he'd always known it to be true. He wanted to feel the cool, salty mist splash his face as he sailed his scooner around the Ivory Coast of South Africa. He wanted to set sail on his maiden voyage to the far reaches of the globe, searching for buried treasure, cities to pilage and lasses of all shapes and sizes.

He could easily picture himself as a captain, setting sail with the finest crew in the land. He knew that he was the perfect man to lead such a fine crew, since he was a section leader back in his band days. He could sure belt out that tuba, and even though he was past his musical prime, he could still play a fine little diddy on the ukelele.

As he invisioned himself, a strapping young seaman clad with pegged leg and parrot, he couldn't help but smile. Damn he was a good looking pirate.

Grandpa got pulled over

As the car pulled into my grandparents' driveway, my best friend and I piled out.

We had just gotten back from a far away football game: the regional playoffs. It was senior year, and we were both in the band. Since my grandparents were at the game, we decided to ride back with them and get something to eat on the way home.

However, the game had gone horribly awry and our old team came away empty handed. The car ride back to Topeka was much more quiet than normal, with the occasional spurts of fury "What the heck happened?" or "They just didn't have it tonight." My grandfather, a kind old 71-year-old who seems almost loopy at times, had driven us up to the game.

As we were driving on the highway, the car began to slow down and was barely going. We didn't know what was wrong with it, so we decided to drop it off and pick up another car for the drive home. My grandpa, who hauls dirt and plows snow for a living, had a veritable junkyard behind his house that was filled with a museum's worth of ancient, jeep-shaped vehicles called Scouts.

We dropped my Grandma off and piled into the oldest, rustiest, most jankity looking hunk of junk in the yard. My buddy Brendan, looking apprehensively at the decrepit vessel, climbed nervously into the backseat.

"Don't worry," I said. "It should stay together."

He gave a nervous chuckle, and my grandpa pulled out his wallet. Pulling out one of the thousands of credit cards his spouse had gathered over the years, he announced that our first pit stop would be at Dillons to gas up the beast. As he struggled to ignite the dusty old engine into life, smoke rose vividly in the chilly air. Finally getting the motor turned over, he pulled out of the driveway and headed toward the grocery store.

When we arrived, there wasn't a car in sight. The store closed at 9 o'clock back in those days, and there was no Wal-Mart across the street. It was empty. As he gased up the car, we noticed he turned the other way and a strange noise was coming from outside. At first, I thought that the gas was leaking out of the crappy yellow Scout. However, my friend was the first to realize what was going on.

"Is he...peeing?"

I turned around in astonishment, only to realize that my grandpa was taking a leak in the Dillon's parking lot. I felt an odd emotion right then, a mixture of embarassment, confusion, worry and almost peeing myself from laughter. As the got back in the car, I smiled broadly at my grandfather.

"You know there's cameras out here, don't you?" I asked him.

"Oh, it's too cold for them to see anything," he responded matter-of-factly.

Laughing all the way back to the highschool, we realized we were the last people to leave. We continued talking in the parking lot as my grandpa drove off. Moments later, a police car went whizzing by with his lights on and sirens blaring.

Instinctively, I said out loud, "Probably going after Grandpa."

We got in my truck and headed out the same entrance he had left from. Moments later, I realized my fears were correct. Standing outside the yellow Scout, my grandpa was having a heated conversation with the police officer, gesturing with his arms and trying to talk his way out of the ticket.

Giggling madly, I called my grandma on my cellphone.

"Grandma," I said. "Hope you got enough money to bail grandpa out of jail..."

Love is a battlefield... and I am the cannon.

Laying in bed, he mentally prepares for the day ahead. Hoping to escape the monotony of schoolwork, he picks up his phone and gives her a call.

He knows it's stupid but he actually kind of missed her today. He doesn't know what to tell her or how to tell it, only that he knows he feels something for her more than friendship, whether he's just closer to her than his other friends or whether it's actually something more.

Knowing how things have gone in the past when he gets too far ahead of himself, he decides it's best to just enjoy what they have going, and doesn't say a word about it. Yet he can't help but get the impression that she knows what he's thinking.

In an obvious attempt to seem inconspicuous, he mentions something about the cold weather. She agrees that it is, in fact, quite cold.

"Enough of the bullshiting," he tells himself. "Just tell her how you feel."

He feels the words creep up from his gut to the back of his throat, but they never quite reach the phone. They keep talking throughout the night, finally deciding to call it quits. They both say their goodbyes, and he finally hikes up the nerve to say what he's been dying to say. He opens his mouth...

"I..." he sputters. Click.

My condom conversation with Corey Jones, a.k.a. Chocolate Thunder, a.k.a. Flannel Bear

Sitting on the couch, the trio filled the room with laughs as they planned out the hijinks of the night. The paper was in need of pictures, and one of those pictures would require condoms. Trying to think of good places to goof off and buy condoms, Jeannine got a phone call. As she got up to talk in the kitchen, Corey and Josh continued their great condom debate.

"I wonder if they have coupons for condoms," said Josh. "Like buy one, get one free... for the marathon man."

"That could be the brand name... Marathon Man's condoms," said Corey.

"Yeah, if I start my own condom business, I'm definitely making some Marathon Man condoms. I could also make some condoms called Chocolate Thunder, for you," said Josh.

"You could make some Flannel Bear condoms too!" Corey exclaimed.

The week ahead

Pressure is mounting like a horse in heat this week as the staff prepares for the Argo. He hopes that he will have enough content to fill up 12 pages, but he's not sure he can trust anybody to get their stories done. He's had plenty of problems with writers not doing their job, and this week has pushed him to the limit. All he can hope is that things go right this week. If not, he will most likely bring the fury and heads will inevitably roll.
Looking for an escape from the stress, he can't wait for hunting season to start. It'll be nice for him to get outside and do what he loves, although he still dreads waking up at ungodly hours. It's worth it, though. He plans out the trips he will take as an NFL game plays on a nearby big screen television set. He's not even remotely interested in the game, as it is once again the Giants and Cowboys taking up his late night football time. He has decided they are two of the most boring teams to watch, alongside the Eagles.
Drat!

A good week...for real this time.

Today he feels as though the world has been lifted from his shoulders.

He has no specific reason to feel this unexpected joy, though he has an idea of where it's coming from. He knows now how precious life is, and how every little moment is worth enjoying. Without the bad, there can be no good. After the past few weeks, he never thought he'd have a good week again. Yet he did...

He'd always heard people say "It's always gets better," yet he realized now that it always does. It's naive and juvenille to expect everything in life to be handed over on a platter. It just doesn't happen that way. Life is cruel and unfair, filled with enough toil, pain and sorrow to make even the most cheerful souls weep.

Yet the good times make it all go away. Something so small as time spent with friends on a Thursday night or having a week alone can completely turn around a bad week. This has truely been a good week.

Josh Rouse - Poisoning the minds of today's youth worse than Chinese baby bottles

Another long day of homework under his belt, he stumbles into the living room only to find his least favorite person in the WHOLE world staring him right in the face.

He loathes the man, yet he seems unescapable even in his own house. He treks down the stairs to the basement, where he finds a happy little suprise awaiting him. It seems the cat decided it was time to decorate, covering the floor in a lovely shade of vomit.

Ruing the day the feline entered the family, the germaphobic lad cleans up the mess and curses violently at the four-legged beast. The cat does not respond, but he can tell it regrets its decision and he decideds to drop the issue.

A glimmer of hope arises as he notices his guitar is left unscathed, and he quickly heads toward it. Plugging it in and hoping it can salvage the last remaining shreds of sanity left over from the vomit fiasco, he flips the amp on.

Feeling the power of the voltage in his very fingertips, his fingers form the familiar pattern of a G-chord and he prepares to strike strings with the ferocity of a thousand Portugese warriors when suddenly... the power goes out. It's a good day.

A glimpse of life at Washburn U.

As the sun begins to sink behind the cluster of trees that outline the boundaries of the beautiful campus, an unusual energy flows through the air. Though it is October, the usually cool fall breeze that invigorates students with memories of seasons past is replaced with by the warm remains of the blazing summer.

The energy is instead flowing from the excited students themselves, a nervous yet stimulating vibe that drifts past White Concert Hall into the small community surrounding it. For some, it's merely about curiosity. Others are clamoring for the celebrity that waits for them behind the stage.

For some, however, it is a nuisance. The parking lot is filled to the brim with cars, and busloads of people shuttle around the walkways. To those who find no purpose in listening to a porn legend, or to those who angrily shuffle to class, the multitudes of people are a pesky annoyance.

Good parking overrides Ron Jeremy any day.

The Old Man

It's been months since the old man has left, yet the drift caused by his departure has yet to fill.

The old lady sits at the table, staring at the empty seat that was once occupied by her love. A smell of smoke flows through the air as she lights another cigarette, letting the nicotine take control so she can stop crying.

Her sons rarely talk to her anymore, too burdened with memories to carry on conversation without painful reminiscing. She carefully folds up the curtains she's been cleaning, all the while hoping that the work would distract her from the torture inside of her. But it did not.

She glances at the pictures on her refridgerator, from her grandchildren's baby pictures to their highschool days playing football and marching in the band. Time had flown by, and she felt blessed that he had hung on for so long, long enough to see them grow up. But yet, she felt, it still wasn't long enough.

An eternity wasn't long enough to spend time with that man she loved. God she missed him.

Imagine there's a witty title here...

Staring cluelessly at the blank white screen, he ponders a hundred different ways to start the story.

After several tense minutes of soul searching, he decides the next best course of action is to check his Facebook. Quickly scanning through messages from God knows who and continuing his never ending poke battle with a friend from highschool, he decides that time is of the essence and tells the girl who gave him a 10 on Hot or Not to quit playing games with his heart.

Returning to his intense staring competition with the blank word document, he begins writing. The words begin to flow, when all of a sudden he loses his inspiration. He used the word "surplus" twice in a sentence. In an effort to make himself look like a writing God, he scours his memory for a good word to replace it... only to realize nobody is watching him and he can use the thesaurus. After changing the second "surplus" to "plethora" and giggling at the idea of his teacher thinking he's a vocabulary genius, he types in a period and is finally finished... with the first paragraph.

He loses focus on the paper as he glances at a huge mound of books, all assigned reading for the week. As he flips through page 1024 of his OTHER anthropology book, he jumps as a sudden loud beeping fills his ears. He grabs his phone and sets it on vibrate, then opens yet another text message from his girl friend. Wincing at the thought of the phone bill, he notices that the time on the device says it's 2:30 in the a.m.

As he closes the computer, planning to work on the second paragraph when he woke up, he looks over at the nametag sitting on his dresser drawer. Terrific, he thinks, I gotta work tomorrow.

He closes his eyes, but sleep does not come. All of the worries of the day, which had so pleasantly been waiting for this opportunity, come rushing in like a buffalo in heat. As he turns his computer back on to make a quick change to his fantasy football team (it just can't wait until tomorrow!), he looks at the empty wallet on his nightstand and sighs.

"I hope this is all worth it," he says to himself.

Terror

Terror. It's a word that once sat dormant in the bowels of the dictionary, attracting no more attention than any of its homonyms. Yet, in the blink of an eye, this vile word catapulted into the limelight, delighted in sudden drones of onlookers, surpassing every noun, vowel and adjective imaginable.

The word itself is just a word. Of the billions of words used throughout the world, there is nothing extraordinary about it. Yet the feelings and memories that this single word produce make it a symbol of untold evil, of cruelty beyond measure. Wars have and are being waged over it, yet in other contexts it can simply be the thrill of a roller coasting or the shock of a scary movie.

Young men and women have left their families behind to overcome the word, and even though the mission was though to be accomplished long ago, it is still as powerful as ever.

As news stations replay the broadcasts, as though it were just a rerun of some "reality" show, the actual reality sets in. It controls us, like a puppetmaster and his stringed toy, deciding what we do and how we do it.

Terror has nothing to do with the Middle East or an unidentified enemy. It has nothing to do with airplanes or guns or explosives. It is a part of us all, and like obedient children we follow its wishes. When all foreign threats have been eliminated and order is finally restored, it will still be a part of us. As long as there is something to fear, terror will still thrive upon that fear.

Yet, when the fear becomes overwhelming and hope seems a pitiless joke, there is still a triumphant glimmer of solace. It's still just a word.

Outside the Box

As the team took the field, there bodies toiled laboriously to perspire, roasting under the inferno that lay mockingly in the summer sky.

They ran through their drills, barely able to lift their feet as hours of repetition finally caught up to their aching muscles. Water had become a scarcity as the group fought for the last fluid ounce of hydration, but it did not matter. They would not leave the field until they achieved perfection.

The glaring eyes of the vicious dictator overseeing the practice caught even the subtlest mistake. Every misstep was captured, as though photographed, into his hawk-like retinas. As the imposing figure yelled out orders to an overeager freshman, the entire group stopped dead in their tracks. This would no doubt go late into the night.

Preparation was the key to success, and success was what they strived for the most. While each and every disgruntled body fought the urge to call it a day, not a single member would give up until they were ready for the next day's battle.

Finally, after countless attempts at the impossible, they had beaten all odds and accomplished what they had set out to do. Memorization was of the utmost importance, as they could not afford to forget their part on the field tomorrow. Each member had to bring their all to the field, not just with their bodies but with their minds and souls, as well.

As the team shuffled off the field, worn down and ready to climb into their cozy little beds, the freshman stopped the head honcho and asked him, "How do you think we'll do tomorrow?"

As experienced eyes took in the frightened young tuba player, he said with confidence, "This is the best marching band I've ever directed."

Life is tough... be tougher.

Each new day brings forward with it a boundless array of possibility, for humor and dispair, for pain and delight, hope and dejection. While the world and all of its wonders may seem impossible to obtain to those who are disheartened, happiness can be given to those who are resilient. It's important not to let the sorrows of the world become a burden. Rather, it is better to decide how to perceive the day.

For every pitfall, some good must come. It's a matter of physics: For every action there is an equal but opposite reaction. Some call it karma, others ponder of a constant battle between good and evil. However, in the end it is all a matter of mindset. Those who expect bad things to happen will find only what they look for.

Perhaps the best advice that can be given is this: Never take a day for granted, for it may be the last. Rather than worry about what difficulties may come, embrace the challenges and be thankful for each and every moment. Life is tough... be tougher.

Week uno

The semester has only just begun, yet stress levels are higher than ever. The hustle and bustle of moving in, sitting in a class for ten minutes and realizing it's the wrong one, trying to fit in work between classes... it's a madhouse. Everyone has their own problems, their own agenda. Impatient drivers frequently pull dangerous moves to make it to class on time, and yet their NASCAR moves become fruitless when they enter the congested parking lot. Welcome back, students.

Woot

I finally got it started up.