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There will be no more to this week than anticipation for this weekend when my fall break begins. Due to Tech’s policy of not wanting a small early fall break and a small Thanksgiving break, they just let us out for the entire week of Thanksgiving. I think that is a great idea. So besides a calc test and classes, I’m just looking forward until I’m out of here for a few days. ::a chorus of a’hoopin’ and a’hollarin’::

I’m anxiously awaiting a package from the services of UPS. I somewhat started my Christmas shopping early and will be continuing this pattern into mid-December at which I won’t be able to rely on online purchasing due to heavy web-based retail traffic. But right now, the internet looks like a wonderful source of items to give and receive. Yes.

I chatted with Adam and Ney (is it all right if I call you that?) late Saturday night for a very long time. I’m normally not big on instant messaging (unless it’s video chatting, and I don’t have a Mac right now to take advantage of iChat AV) so this long period of chatting wearied me. I introduced Adam to OK Go while he further introduced me to Something Corporate and The Postal Service. And we all jointly agreed it would be fab if I could come up to H-Vegas during my Christmas break, and that I will vigorously try to work out. So yeah, that was a long and interesting night.

So right now, relax and enjoy some Keats with me.

In a quick decision-making endeavor I determined myself to watch Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Quite possibly one of my favorite movies ever. Gene Wilder is at his most superb level of genius as Roald Dahl screenwrote his own book for a sublime adaptation to film. I am consistently enthralled by this movie. “Spitting is a dirty habit.” “I know a dirtier one.”

Today was spent wandering about Target and the mall for whatever ran into us. But all we ended up colliding with was skim milk, bottled water, and a few bracelets. Although…eventually…Abigail and I noticed an RX-8 in the mall parking lot. I oggled and perhaps even Abigail was amazed at the feverish craftsmanship that Mazda put together. Anyways, it was a grand afternoon.

Last night, as previously blogged, was The Matrix marathon. It was good to see the first two again; I think I enjoyed Reloaded just one degree more (although I cannot simply overlook the horrible dialogue and useless implementation of male hormonal stimulation). Then we resolved the great Matrix quest by watching Revolutions in the NRV theater. At least it is over. The last one was entirely composed of monologues!!! I got so sick of it. We simply couldn’t sit through Trinity’s demise without laughing uncontrollably at her never-ending death scene. The action is just overrated and not nearly as fascinating as Reloaded. Also the plot becomes too unbelievable and undercarriaged. Yet I can only be so hard on it because I enjoyed this one more than I ‘enjoyed’ Reloaded. Revolutions is an over-hyped flop, but it beats staying home on a Friday night.

Tomorrow looks to be EF group collaboration indefinitely. Hooray…but next weekend begins my Thanksgiving break ::true celebration:: !

Not forgetting: Happy *belated* Birthday to Adam! Hoping it was fab.

My examination extravaganza is over. I think I did just fine. The make-up Honors Vector Geo was the same difficulty but by my second try I had understood so much more than the first time through. EF was simple. Chemistry was easier than normal, but still ruthlessly hard. So that is all over with, until a couple more weeks. …yay……

Let me interupt my recapping and forecasting for some critical thinking. Yesterday in my Intro to Comm class my professor lectured for a while on the concept of hegemony, the ability to influence social definitions (aka the most powerful influence of any type). He showed us a clip of the movie Malcolm X that summarized that idea in dialogue. The line is quoted below but the rest of the hegemony-influenced dialogue resulted from two black inmates looking at a dictionary. They noticed how the word black, used to describe their race, is synonymous with ‘evil’, ‘wicked’, and ‘dirty’ while the word white, used to describe the majority race, is synonymous with ‘unsullied’ and ‘pure.’ Now the concept here is that words were assumably defined in this way to depress black people. I think that’s interesting in theory, and possibly true to some extent, but I think that it cannot be looked at too far. Because the question that you reach in the process of scrutinizing social definitions used as factors of prejudice is what came first, the prejudice or the definition void of prejudice. Anyways, I thought it was very interesting, and I thought about it for the next couple of minutes while I froze myself walking back to the dorm. Oh well, I find things regarding human interaction and social communication very fascinating.

Quickly concluding, I added an archived webcam page in my free time late last night. Finally.

Tonight is a The Matrix marathon that will close in a viewing of The Matrix: Revolutions. I haven’t heard one really positive review of this movie yet, so I’m not expecting to be impressed. But at least I can find out how the Wachovia-brothers ended this near-catastrophe of a trilogy. Perhaps that was too harsh. Forgive me. I just was really disappointed with Reloaded and don’t expect much tonight. But it will still be goodtimes.

::relief from tests::

Christmas shopping has officially begun. I don’t have any clue what to get some of my future giftees, but I guess I don’t know anything to tell people either. Last year I was out until Christmas Eve getting stuff, and that better not happen this year. I wouldn’t mind finishing up my Christmas shopping when I’m home for Thanksgiving break. That would be so awesome…and good. I have a feeling I’ll be using the wonderful, wonderful world of online shopping much more than last year.

The weather has become rather bleak around Blacksburg. Today has been grey, overcast, and drizzled-up. And just the day I decided to wear sandals (stupid 64degF and ‘partly cloudy’ forecast). But I wore the ‘thong’ style of flipflops and I’m not fond to those. So I definitely got a blister from where the rubber thing sanded its way into my foot; plus that whatever that goes through your big and next-to-biggest toes just killed me. So I’ll never wear those again beyond like around the house, or dorm. That was interesting….and off-topic.

I went to Crossroads on Monday post-Wachovia. They had like almost all of the BT cds, even the Rare and Remixed one. I was impressed. Perhaps I’ll go back there sometime for some a-Christ-a-mas shopping.

In summary, I wish you and yours the best of holiday shopping this year. I look forward to Black Friday. Outlets in Hagerstown…talk about circus.

“In a year when record labels hit a sour note by suing students, grandparents and 12-year-old file sharers, [Steve] Jobs had effectively brokered a peace agreement: he had shown the music industry how to win friends and make money on the very Internet that was being used to steal their songs.” - from TIME magazine’s article on the Coolest Invention of 2003, the iTunes Music Store

This week is going to really kill me. Last week I had two tests both in my big ’study-the-book’ classes. This week I have tests in my ’study-anything-you-can-get-your-hands-on.’ Ought to be a blast.

So I spent the weekend in Pigeon Forge, TN (where the women drive the bigger trucks) watching football, eating, playing pool, taking pictures. That kind of thing. It was a nice time away from campus although it left me with little time to do homework when I got back and a lost toiletries (bathroom stuff) bag. New stores we passed along the corridor of death (aka the entirety of Pigeon Forge) included the Amish Outlet (I guess there’s a little Amish in all of us). Most of the rest of the town is just a large contraption of tourist traps and whatnot. Definitely not worth a trip, or day, or afternoon. So yeah, it was good. And I realized how close it was/is to Christmas, so I need to get a list going and get to shopping for peoples.

Yay for Adam and his new design. Fabuloos!

Well, I need to do a thousand things this afternoon, so I’m going to get my walking shoes on and will cruise B-Vegas for a while. Enjoy.