For the Girl

"When you love somebody, does it matter how long you'll wait to be with them? Does it matter what you'll do or even what you'll give to be with them? No. It only matters if it's worth it. And when you love somebody as much as I do... it's always worth it."

Think of this as a kind of placeholder for yet another story I hope to write. Probably sooner than later. Yes, the title will be For the Girl.

Well, I should really fall asleep now, as I'm in bed at the moment. I'll have another post up later today detailing the grades I got for Winter quarter. It's kind of what inspired me to write that little future excerpt up there :)

Now what am I supposed to do?

Soo, Winter Quarter ended for me on Tuesday and until the grades come out at the end of the month, I'm happy thinking that I'll get the grades I hope for.

As it stands, I don't have to worry about reading, writing or studying at all until I go back. Which is nice. Believe me, I'm enjoying not having to worry about what assignments are due or what exams I'll be taking. The problem is... what am I supposed to do until school starts up again?

I'M BORED!

Yeah I've got work but that's over with once I get home. I even kinda miss having to get up at 8 in the morning, get ready, and worry about once again getting a decent parking spot. Until then, well I guess I can put up with more free time that is also stress free. The good kind of stress mind you.

Spring Quarter starts on April sixth and I've had my schedule set for about a month now.

Those classes would be:
English 102: English Composition II
English 246: American Literature WWI - Present
History 137: American History Civil War - Present

I got most of my books today (still need two more, one for each English class), and by the looks of it, I'll be doing a lot more reading this quarter. A lot more. Looking forward to it.

X & Y

I'll admit that the first Coldplay album I got was the amazing Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends. I had heard some of their singles and I liked what I was hearing alright, but nothing to make me rush out and buy their respective albums. Well, one of my friends at work is a big fan of theirs and he gave copies of Parachutes and X&Y to check out (I had... access A Rush of Blood to the Head already).

I don't usually do very well with a lot of band's debut albums when I've already heard their newer stuff (i.e. Foo Fighters, Everclear, Cake, etc.) so I went straight for X&Y. I gave it a listen while doing the dishes to see if any track in particular would grab me and if I should give it a more dedicated listen later.

There was no need.

From Square One to Twisted Logic I loved every track. It was one of those rare albums where no matter what track I started listening to, I had to listen all the way through and roundabout if needed. Y'know, start at track 6 and listen until you get to track 5. A couple songs really started to grab my attention so I was finally able to focus on individual songs and discover intricacies I couldn't really hear before.

I think the first song that caught me was 'What If.' The music was just a piano with a slow fade in of strings, so it was the lyrics that really grabbed my attention. For example, these lyrics:

What if I got it wrong
And no poem or song
Could put right what I got wrong
Or make you feel I belong

When I was first able to really hear these lyrics (wow Kelly, you need to be more observant), I laughed a little bit and sighed. From there I started to listen more to the other songs like White Shadows, Talk, Swallowed in the Sea and Speed of Sound. I had the chorus of Speed of Sound stuck in my head for hours at a time. Thank goodness I loved it so much.

Then I was grabbed by (in no real order) A Message, Square One, Fix You and The Hardest Part. Low and Twisted Logic have yet to do the same, but I'm sure they will soon. I loved the album as a whole and by individual tracks. So I decided to do what anybody interested in knowing more about something does: I went to Wikipedia of course!

I read through the abridged history of the album other stuff, then I got to the track listing. 'Til Kingdom Come? A hidden track that I don't have?! I remedied that very quickly and was very happy I did. It's a very touching love song that with a little non-standard tuning (CACBGe for those in the know, hehe) is very easy and fun to play. Here's the chorus to prove my point :)

For you I'd wait, til kingdom come
Until my days, my days are done
Just say you'll come and set me free
Just say you'll wait
You'll wait for me

I've had the album for a few weeks now, but it wasn't until a couple days ago that I realized that the majority of the songs are about love. Not the easy kind either. The kind of love you work towards because it's worth it. Which definitely helps to explain why I like it so much. Then the album title made sense. X&Y refers to men and women. That's how I see it at least. And it explains the majority of the tracks being love songs.

The little quote I have up there below my blog title is from A Message, and it's found in the middle of this:

And I'm not gonna stand and wait
Not gonna leave it until it's much too late
On a platform i'm gonna stand and say
That I'm nothing on my own
And I love you, please come home

My song is love, is love unknown
And I've got to get that message home

If you haven't already listened to it, you really should. It really is such an amazing album, and one I'll be listening to for the rest of my life.

You can has

You can use this as a background for your computer, print it out and put it on your wall, or even buy the t-shirt that it comes on.

Here you can see how well it fits to a desktop.



I really will try to get an actual post up some time soon. Hopefully.

I sure can pick 'em

Just to warn those who might be expecting a post with substance, this is going to be me talking about being single and how I wish that wasn't the case. I promise to try and make it funny though.

I've become more of a social person and less shy since I've started school. I'm speaking up in class and talking to other students and even making what you might call friends. It helps that whenever I do speak up I know what I'm talking about and I can be funny about it at the same time. I try to use whatever confidence I can glean from that to talk to those of the fairer sex: girls!

This quarter there have been two such girls. One in my Biological Anthropology class and the other in my Lord of the Rings class.

I started trying to talk to the girl in my LotR class first because hey, she's cute and she knows the source material inside and out. How can I go wrong? Well, it didn't last very long and we didn't talk much after that.

Then for the mid-term I got into a study group for my Anthro class and the girl that sits next to me was there. She was pretty too and we seemed to hit it off. Her and I would have little conversations before class started and we'd kinda talk during class. Then a couple weeks ago she expressed interest in reading one of my stories. I gave her a copy to read over the weekend and on Tuesday I asked her if she'd had a chance to read it. She did and she really liked it. We were walking together talking about it and having a really good time.

So very casually, and without any kind of expectation, I asked if she'd like to maybe go have lunch somewhere and talk about whatever. She smiled and said she'd like that and we set up a set up to hang out. I had Friday and Saturday off and she didn't have any plans. Cool.

Then the next day when class ended, she packed her stuff up as quickly as she could and bolted from the classroom. Trying not to be pessimistic about it (as I usually am, and I'm trying to change that), I figured she just really needed to get to class. So the next day, Thursday, I asked if we were still on for lunch and she apologized and said she remembered she had things to do before lunch.

That was when I got the hint. So I didn't call her on Friday, but to seem like I bought her excuse I called her on Saturday. Got her voicemail, left a quick and laid back message. Half hour later she calls back and says that again something has come up but "I'll see you in class on Monday." "Yeah, definitely. Have a good weekend!" I said with a happy-go-lucky inflection. So yeah, that was a bust.

I felt stupid thinking about it, but I figured why not try again with the other girl (noticed how I haven't used names? yeah, that's on purpose). So yesterday, having had more conversations with her in class, I wasn't going to do anything but I saw her leaving class and I said, out loud, "Ah screw it, I'll regret not doing it even more."

I slung off my backpack and ran over to her (she didn't see this) and called out to her. I apologized for the suddenness and asked if she'd like to hang out sometime and talk. Like over lunch maybe. She said she'd like that, and we could talk about it the next day after class. Good enough for me. I was more hesitant this time, but still hopeful.

So today comes, I get to class early and she's sitting there. We start to talk about LotR, the movies, the differences and having a really good time. Class pretty much starts after we're done. Even during class her and I were making points and counterpoints, agreeing and debating. This is awesome! Not just because she's really pretty and is into the same stuff, but because I'm having an intelligent conversation about literature!

So class ends, she waits up for me and we're walking and talking and having fun. Yeah, this is the catch: she's engaged. Showed me her ring, but she'd still like to hang out and maybe set up a marathon viewing of the movies for certain people in the class. So while a loss for the most part, there was a silver lining.

Her strengths are in English as a subject same as me, and (she admitted it was a tad egotistical) she's glad there's somebody on the same intellectual level as her in the same class. She doesn't have to dumb or slow anything down. I told her I really like her contributions and she told me the same.

So yeah. Still single with no change on the horizon. I seem to have a new friend though, so that's good.

I just wish that... well, that it was different.

I mean seriously! All these closed doors had damn well better be closed so the right door is that much more amazing when I finally come to it.

Watchmen

I admit that I didn't really know about Watchmen until the talk about a movie finally being made started to make the rounds across the internet. Before that I had heard about it and it's legendary landmark status for comic books, but other than that nothing. Then the very first teaser came out and that sparked my interest.

I immediately went into Wiki-mode (yes I just made that up) and got to finding out everything I could about it without spoiling anything. Superheroes banned by the government: Nite Owl II, Rorschach, Ozymandias, Dr. Manhattan and Silk Spectre II. They were the players.

Intensified version of the Cold War, Nixon re-elected to third term as term limits lifted, Russia stockpiling nukes, war imminent, world likely to end. That was the setting.

The Comedian has been brutally murdered. This was the catalyst.

I eventually got around to getting the graphic novel when Amazon had it on sale for around $10. Once I started reading it was hard to put it down. Within a few days I finished it and... well, all the accolades it had received were very well warranted. It was a masterpiece!

Then of course I started to think about how this would even begin to translate to a single film. What would be cut out? What could be cut out? Like any great piece of fiction there were multiple threads to the story that ultimately led to it's shocking climax.

What I saw yesterday however, was about as close as anybody could possibly come to committing such an elaborate tale to film. It focused only on the main story and left out pretty much every other subplot. It definitely works for whoever has read the graphic novel as characters from those subplots are shown in the movie. It make sense since the main characters never interact with them. So seeing them is almost as if the movie is saying "Yes, they're still there."

It really was such an awesome movie. It even wins the "Best use of 'The Times They Are A-Changin' for an opening credit sequence" award. Hands down.

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Being 27 sure hasn't done anything to change my procrastinating tendencies. I'll have a blog up later tonight when I get home from work.