Flower Power
I have had this carnation in my room for sometime. It was so vibrant and full of life for so long but it’s time for blooming was bound to pass. Today I noticed it finally withered and faded. I should take it out and throw it away. Is it worth saving? Is something beautiful now past worth remembering only in our minds, where beauty remains unspoiled, or does a dried memory serve as a more powerful reminder of things past and the importance of valuing them? The western sun streamed in and cast the flower’s shadow on the wall; fading slowly, gently. And as the evening light drifted away and died, part of me died as well.
Currently I am listening to “Pavane for a Dead Princess” by Ravel. It’s from one of those classical mix CD’s - so I guess it’s rather like “pop” clasical. It’s a wonderful song; the most beautiful oboe I have heard in a while. Whoops something new is playing now, well if it isn’t the “Minute Waltz” by Chopin; fun song to play; it lays under the fingers quite well.
Dinner was good; I am getting a handle on when to eat and when not to around here - it is difficult to make the transfer from eating at home when food is just laying around to eating on a cafeteria schedule. Either way, there isn’t any food in the room other than oatmeal so I am pretty much immune to snacking; one less temptation to avoid. My gym class has taught me quite a bit about nutrition. For example, there are 3,500 calories in a pound, so if you eat 3,500 fewere calories per week, you lose one pound per week. It’s that simple. Easier said than done, however. That reminds me, I think I need to chop about 3,500 calories per week out of my diet. I have a couple of pounds to lose. You might be thinking “surely you jest?” but here’s the deal: Maybe they’re already gone, I don’t weigh myself at all. I just go by feel. They measured body fat in gym and I found mine to be between 7 and 8 percent. I am pretty sure I am still at my 175% on bench, so I am happy. What the heck am I doing, I never share stuff like this with anybody. Sounds too much like ego inflating, which I adamently oppose in any way, shape, or form. Besides, I don’t even care that much about my weight, so why should you.
Everything is going right for me. I don’t get it. Things feel out of control sometimes, but it turns out everything is still just working right. It is a very strange thing for things to be going so well. It’s funny, I look at the past three months and I know exactly where my emotional lowest low point was. I had gone out to play football in the rain and promptly got injured pretty bad; I got hit in the back and heard my spine crack from my tailbone all the way up to the base of my neck from the whiplash. I went back to my dorm room and crumpled onto the floor and cried. Just cried. I experienced the deepest emotional, physical, and hopeless pain that I had felt in years. I just crumpled. Since then, I have come close to that, but I think maybe, just maybe I have plumbed the emotional depths of sadness and things won’t get me down that far for sometime. I hold hope that this is true.
Someone will be moving in across from me. He is a freshman and will fill the vacant single across from me. I think he’ll be a good guy; he moved down here to be closer to the math and science classes on South Campus.
Speaking of South Campus, we printed up our shirts and they look great! I’d show you a picture if I had a digital camera, but maybe someone will take a picture of me or somebody else at homecoming and I can then share them.
I got an account at eBay and at PayPal - that way if I happen to see a particularly stellar deal on vintage gear including these:
Pioneer SX-1250
Pioneer SX Series
Marantz 2265B
Infinity Qb series
Infinity RS 6000
Infinity RS-III A/B
Pioneer HPM-100
Pioneer HPM Series
Kenwood VR-7070
Here’s the first time my plan has been revealed to anyone: I am looking to assemble an absolutely dominate home theater system (minus the TV, that can come some other time; I’ll make do with anything right now) at the lowest possible cost. I think I will be able to fund it all (with money to spare) from a certain project that I will soon be working on with Justin; ambitious, no? Currently I am looking at some auctions, made contact with the Audio Society of Minnesota, and will be calling two places: Fette’s Electronics in Faribault and the Speaker Clinic in … well I don’t know where it is, but it’s a suburb of the cities. On top of all that, I sent an e-mail off to the Needle Doctor so we can replace the belt and cartridge to get the Dual 1245 in tip-top shape again. Finally, the SX-850 will be going in to either HiFi Sound or Audio Perfection for it’s checkup. We have to make sure all the big caps are still working, that the DC offset is within acceptable limits, and that there are no leaky electrolytics or bad transistors. That’s all the terminology I know for now. I am hoping with my electrical engineering classes in these coming years, I will be able to use the St. Thomas resources to order parts, etc. for these old amplifiers and restore them right in the electrical engineering labs as a learning experience - I honestly think this will work and I am looking forward to it greatly.
But I have run off on a tangent. This evening I believe I will do some philosophy and some calc II; both very fun. Except I still need to sort out some of these math problems from these other two sections; I may have done fine on the test but I want to really understand this stuff.
I decided I like learning. I like my classes. I like school.