Wonders Never Cease

When we were at Johannah's house last weekend, I set Jesse up with a xanga account (xanga, not blog, because Brittney and Justin #2 are ardent xanga-ers and would not tolerate us setting up a blog for him). He protested a little, telling us he wouldn't even write in it or anything.
Well, guess what?
Not only has Jesse written two very long posts in his xanga, he has even paid for a year long subscription so he can get all the cool features.
This is wonderful.
On Wednesday night he and Justin #2 spent like an hour making his site all spiffy and adding music and everything. His first entry was about his two girlfriends (just read it), and now he's added one about snowboarding, complete with pictures (including the one of Tyler practically hanging upside down by his board). This is a glorious day for men, as they have gained yet another testosterone-driven online journalist who is not afraid to express what he is truly feeling-- even if it is just about cars and snowboards.

Note to self

Note to self: This is Jesse's xanga address

http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=thunderalleyracer

So to all of my friends out there who want to here about my wonderful friend Jesse.... go there.
(He didn't really write all that stuff-- I set him up with xanga.)

This week's highlights

Sunday 11/18-- Sadie Hawkin's went down in the RAC (that's the Ryan Athletic Center, or simply gym for you non-CHC, CHS, or SMCC people out there). I think we all had a good time, playing silly picnic games and eating Subway and all that hooplah. But by far the most memorable experience was the three-legged race where, due to my partner's lack of knot-tying skills (didn't you say you were a cub scout, Jig?), we ended up falling on the hard wood floor, resulting in a glorious bruise on my knee, which is still a deep purple, almost black, color a week later. It's not quite as good as that bruise I got when Tyler tried to teach me to snowboard, but it's still up there (remember that, Ty? When you tried to kill me?). After Sadie's everyone was lame and went home, so I headed over to the Aubrey's to wait with Justin for the others to come home from dance lessons. When they got there, Jesse tried to teach me what they had learned, so I wouldn't look completely stupid this week, but I'm afraid I'm still a little lost. We watched The Day After Tomorrow, and it was as good as when we saw it in the theatre six months ago. (Question: is it ironic that the day after we watched The Day After Tomorrow, we found ourselves in the biggest rainstorm we've had in like forever?)

Monday 11/18-- The rains came down and the floods came up. I discovered the only times I enjoy rainy weather: when you don't have to be out in it. I was perfectly content doing homework all afternoon on Monday, solely because there wasn't anything else to do. Rainy days are good for curlng up with a blanket and a good book or movie. And, as Sonia added (and I agreed), a cute boy.

Tuesday 11/19-- Work, yuck.

Wednesday 11/20-- No work, yea! I got to go to Bible study with the CHC-ers again, and the Breuningers once again had my favoritist snack ever, popcorn, as well as my second favoritist snack ever, chips and salsa. It was a good night.

Thursday 11/21-- Work, again, but we were stocking snacks which is always the funnest, so it wasn't bad. Then off to college group, and afterwards our dance lesson, where I finally got the routine down. I'm so proud of myself. Now on to conquer the world....

Friday 11/22-- School, and then right off to work. The temporary manager was there again today (our manager's on vacation), and it's great because she doesn't quite know what our responsibilities are. So she'll come into the back and ask us to do something that's already our job, and then be extremely grateful when we agree to do it. I feel a little bad about that.... but, oh well. And since there were so many of us there last night, we finished everything early and basically got to do whatever we wanted (as long as it was productive for the store). Back to stocking snacks! After work, we went to Justin #2's house, me, Jesse, the Justins, Britt, and Johannah, and watched The Sum of all Fears (another great movie). Britt and Jo went home around midnight, but the boys and I stayed up late discussing deep theological questions. We covered such topics as predestination and foreknowledge, the disprovability factor of something that has been proven true, the Ice age theory, how cross-breeding works (Justin Aubrey broke up this conversation to say, "How the heck did we get talking about the mating systems of donkeys?"), and finally, how do scientists really know how far away a star is? Jesse thinks it's all a conspiracy.

And so that brings me here, Saturday, 11/ 23. I'm chillin' in the writing lab for five hours, two of which I've already procrastinated in doing my homework, although I did read a few pages. Guess I should get going on that. Lots of tests this week. See ya'll later.

FYI

Yeah, so for those of you who want to here the testosterone side of the Halloween Haunt, visit my friend Justin's site-- www.justinpaulgibson.xanga.com, or go to the Justin link on this site.

Oh, and I have recently been informed that the Who's Line game mentioned in my post is actually called the Irish Drinking Song.... yeah....

3 a.m. continued

So I left off at the point when we were tramping through the park off to my doom. Of course, I was oblivious to that fact until I saw... the monster.

Okay, okay, so I'm a wee bit dramatic. But those boys were insane if they even thought they were comparing the ride we had just been on, which didn't go two feet above the ground and actually very closely resembled the teacups at Disneyland, with this horrifying deathtrap they wanted to go on.

It went the way it normally goes at amusement parks. They downplayed how high it actually went. I witnessed how high it went and told them they were nuttier than I thought if they thought I was going with them. They said I would have fun. I said I've never had fun on a ride like that, why would it change now? They said this one was different, that I'd like it when I was on it. And once again, I succumbed to their pleading and joined them in line, telling myself I could always back out at the last second.

I think I'm finally scared now You think I'm weak - but I think you're wrong I think you're already leaving Feels like your hand is on the door I thought this place was an empire But now I'm relaxed - I can't be sure

So I got on the darn thing. And for awhile it was okay. But then we started going, and suddenly I hated them, offficialy hated them, for doing this to me. Because they knew I would not enjoy it. Well, the Justins knew. Jesse was still a little unsure of how much I would hate it, and decided for my own good, he had to make me have fun. Well, he learned. I think his hand is still hurting, and I'm surprised I didn't break it with how hard I was squeezing it as we were on that STUPID DEVILISH MONSTROSITY. My hand hurt afterward.

Aside from my brush with death, the night was very fun. We watched the "hanging" and the fun show that goes along with it, where basically every big celebrity, singer, or politician over the year is mocked and thrown off the stage, by each other. The greatest thing was Bush kicking Kerry's butt.

Everywhere someone's getting over Everybody cries and sometimes You can still lose even if you really try

I do have one complaint. In the years before, they've always had guys wearing "greased up knee and elbow pads" who basically go running and sliding all over the place. They are my favorite part of the Halloween Haunt, but I only saw two of them the entire night! The place used to be crawling with them! I was severely disappointed....

We left at two, when the park closed, but we didn't actually get out of the county for another forty-five minutes. We stopped at four different gas stations before we finally found one that didn' t have an out of order sign on the bathrooom door.

Just stay all through the night And in the morning let me down Cuz that's all that I need, right now

I was dead by the time we finally got going home and fell asleep pretty quckly, but the guys, somehow, were wide awake the entire way. Somewhere around three thirty I regained enough consciousness to understand that they were playing the Who's Line song game.... again. I caught my name in their little lyric a few times, too, but I wasn't awake enough to make sense of it.

And that is my Friday night adventure. Not much of one, and yeah, I was a scaredy cat through most of it, but hey, I survived, Justins. Who knows? Maybe next year I'll open my eyes for those rides.... maybe.

It's 3am, I must be tired

I started Saturday morning in a state of complete and utter panic. No, I did not wake up in the middle of the night from a horrific nightmare; this was much worse. The panic was real. At twelve am I found myself-- against my will-- holding on for dear life to the harness holding me into the giant swinging and rotating pendulum that my wonderful friends had forced me on.

Backtrack to four-o-clock on Friday afternoon. With carefree hearts and expectant of a night of fun, Jesse, the Justins, and I met at Jesse's house for our annual October trip to Knott's Berry Farm for the park's Halloween Haunt. This is a tradition where they basically turn the park into a plethora of "scary" mazes, demonstrate a public "hanging", shoot off smoke machines everywhere, and dress their employees in less-than-comfortable monster outfits. It is wonderful, and my friends and I have made this a tradition.

We started our road trip off with a little KFC and some Matchbox 20 tunes (lyrics of which inspired above title and will be showing up in this entry for no reason other that that I like them). Of course, being a Friday afternoon heading into LA, we hit massive traffic and it took more than three hours to get there. But don't worry-- they boys kept themselves (and me) entertained by playing that song off of Who's Line.... you know the one where they make up some lyric by giving one line each and the second and fourth line have to rhyme? Yeah, they did that... for a long time.

Straight up, what did you hope to learn about here if I were someone else, would this all fall apart

Anyway, once there we had to wait in line for tickets for like forty-five minutes, before finally being granted access to our fright night. We went to a few of the houses before finding a ride that we all wanted to go on-- including me. See, I'm not into the whole being plummeted through the air at fifty miles an hour from two hundred feet in the air. I really, really don't like roller coasters unless they're Jordan-friendly... you can ask a Justin which one those are. So we went on this one ride (not a roller coaster) that basically whips you around, back and forth, and makes you think you're either going to hit a wall or someone else. It gave me quite a thrill. I commended the Justins for picking a ride that I actually liked, and they tell me, "Oh, well if you like that one, you'll like Revolution. Let's go!"

They tell me I'm naive, but I've discovered I'm never more naive than when I'm with them! In complete ignorance of where I was going, I followed along as we crossed to the other side of the park.

To be continued....

Those were the days....

The Theology Papers
Part Two

Another week has come and gone. It seems like in college, days go by super fast. The semester is already almost half over. Very hard to believe. While I am anxious to finish “growing up” and getting out of college and homework, I still want to be a kid. It’s kind of scary knowing that from here on it will only be more and more responsibility, and that never again will we just be carefree kids of the past. That’s really something I struggle with. I would love to go back to the days of high school, basketball practices, and youth group, living and loving, and not really having anything to worry about. The days when we would spend our afternoons hanging out in the yearbook room (and working on the yearbook), or go to the football games after school on those beautiful California fall days, or spend the entire spring break at Justin’s house watching movies all day long. Call me nostalgic; say I live in the past, whatever. I’m telling you, those were the days. No work, no payments, but still a lot of the freedom that come with that stuff. Sometimes it seems like “growing up” doesn’t really have a lot to offer….

I (subject) soon (adverb, describing when) shall-go (extended verb) out of my mind (adverb, describing state of being)

Grammar class used to be my favorite class. I know, I know, you all think I'm weird. But it's something I'm good at, something I understand, and therefore, it was a good class. However, we are now getting into the devilry of verbs (dum, dum, dum....). Oh, the horror. To give you all a little taste of what we are going through in our Approaches to Grammar class, I will write out the verbs in all of the following sentences in the extended diagramming version we learned today.
Last night I past+ be+ ing+ go (was going) to stay at home because I didn't have to work. I past+ be+ ing+ need (was needing) a little rest and relaxation. But present+ ing+ have+ en+ be+ en+ invite (having been invited) to hang out with my friends at some coffee shop, I decided I past+ shall+ go (should go) with them-- I don't see them that often anymore and we past+ ed+ need (needed) some bonding time. I past+ shall+ not+ have+ en+ tell (should not have told) them i was coming, however, because I really past+ have+ en+ want (had wanted) to go to a Bible study at the Breuninger's house with Sonia. Just before I left, I found out I past+ can+ do (could do) both, so my night was set. Maybe I past+ shall+ have+ en+ stay (should have stayed) home and studied. If I past+ have+ en+ be+ ing+ study (had been studying) last night, I past+ can+ have+ en+ be+ en+ prepare (could have been more prepared) for today, and I past+ may+ have+ en+ be (might have been) able to understand how to work with these darn extended verbs!
Yes, I know. This is just ridiculous, people. Please pray for me, and my cohort, Frijole, as we drudge through verb extensions on Tuesdays and Thursdays between eight and nine fifteen.
PS- ask Frijole about the specially constructed sentence I diagrammed for her in class....

This is my test picture, to see if this darn thing will actually work! Anyway, this is a picture from like two years ago, me and Justin Aubrey (Justin #1) on the houseboat we had for our senior trip. This is one of my favorite pictures ever, because it was just so darn beautiful there! I want to go back.... 

Help!

To anyone out there who has figured out how to post pictures: Please help me!!! I'm driving myself crazy. Maybe my computer's just stupid (valid reasoning), but I just cannot figure out the whole 'Hello' thing. So please, someone who can give blonde-friendly computer instructions, leave me some kind of direction!

The Bright Side

Okay, so I guess I've been kind of a downer lately, for reasons that some of you know but are not really that important to begin with. So I've decided to go back over the last week and find all the things that were great about it.

1) The Over the Line tournament-- Fun stuff! Our college group split into about fifteen teams of three and went down to Coronado last Sunday afternoon for a little OTL. I played with Justin #2 and Tyler, and in keeping our OTL tradition from last year, we won the first two by a lot and then lost both the next games which kicked us out of the running. But then we played with a few of the other teams that had lost, which included Jesse, Brittney, James, and just had a no-pressure game, which was way more fun. I just want to put it on record right now that, while I can hold my own at bat, I am terrible at catching, but I managed to snag on of our very own baseball legend James McHugh's fly balls out of the air. That was my amazing moment of the day, and I am really quite proud of it.

2) Stupid movie night-- I got to spend some quality time with the Justins on Wednesday night. They had rented two stupid movies a few days earlier, and we watched the second one after we got foot long Subway sandwiches (yum, yum). This movie was defintely the stupidest of all stupid movies we have ever watched, and I am not even going to reveal its title here, lest any of you decide to actually go and waste money renting this horrible film.

3) College group dance lessons-- Don't freak out, all you CHC-ers! This is church-run, choreographed, and Doug Damon-approved. Question of the day: What do you get when you put two blondes together and try to teach them to dance? ..... Well, maybe not the exact routine, but Jesse and I still have a lot of fun! Actually, we do pretty well. We've been learning a lot of swing, and recently we've started a few other types, too. It's really fun seeing all of your friends' attempts at coordination. My friends, Kevin Costner and his dancing partner, are especially entertaining (see Liberty and Justin #2's xanga sites for details).

4) Friday chapel-- well, after a week of the Bible conference and one of the hardest to follow speakers I have ever heard, we had an amazing guy talk to us on Friday. This guy, Chris something, is a youth pastor at North Coast Church (not sure where that is), and he totally knew how to appeal to our college-level attitudes... he brought in flannel graph. Flannel graph! The guy's a genius! We were all on the edge of our seats as he put up pictures of David, Moses, a tree, Noah's ark, clouds, and even flannel depictions of heaven and hell. It brought me back to my childhood. Anyway, his main point was about God's love. Sounds simple, right? But the way he explained it all was just what I needed to hear right then. Best chapel all semester. We need that guy at the Bible conference next year.

5) Lip sync contest-- Well first of all, the best part of the night was my very own teammate's daring Sadie's invitation at the end of the well-known Relient K song (see Frijole's site). Other memorable moments were the girls soccer teams' line dancing, Paul's enldless list of puns, "Tina Turner and Aretha Franklin", and Josh's oh-oh-oh's, while dancing onstage in his khaki pants. It was great, and next year, I am so going to be part of it.
Afterward, Jenna and I went to Denny's with Jig and Spike, where the two guys told us funny stories about each other, before finally turning on us and demanding our own embarassing stories. I couldn't think of any, only stupid things I've said or done, that didn't really embarass me. But guess what, guys? I finally thought of one, and my friends agree that this is a good one. I'll tell ya all about it on Sunday.

6) Saturday night with friends-- Started off really good and promising, but we ran into some "disagreeable" things midway. But I learned a very valuable lesson through it: I have the best friends in the entire world. Actually, I already knew that, but that night just re-enforced my opinion. Johannah and Brittany and I spent a lot of time talking, while the guys, knowing I was upset, picked out a movie that they knew I liked, and convinced Johannah to make popcorn just for me, because they know I love it. Then they would not even start the stinkin' movie until I was in there with them, comfortably set up on the couch with my popcorn. I know this doesn't make much sense to anybody who wasn't there, but to those of you who were: I am so blessed to have you as my close friends. Justin, Justin, Jesse, Brittney, and Johannah-- you guys are awesome, and you have no idea how much I appreciate you.

So all in all, it has been a pretty good week. Sometimes you've just got to step around the disagreeable things in life and spend time focusing on the good ones.

Alright, alright. I am now in the blog cult, as opposed to the xanga cult. This one just looks cooler. And everyone else is converting anyway. And Sonia made me do it.
Anyway, not much excitement here. I'm stuck in the writing lab for a couple more hours, and haven't had visitors yet. I think I'm going to go check out the guys' soccer game for awhile-- nobody will know I'm gone. I should probably get some English Lit done, too, while I have the time, but I'm just not feeling inspired yet.
By the way, I would just like to add my congrats to Sonia for finally deciding to nab a guy for Sadie's, and in such a gutsy mannner, I might add, and despite the valiant attempts of appropriately nicknamed Napoleon and Hitler to thwart said date (see Adelaide's site for more info). It's gonna be fun, teammate. And, Napoleon and Hitler, you better watch out, or you'll be wearing pink next Sunday....

Conforming to Society

To all my adoring fans:
The following dialogue went down at 1:05 pm on Saturday afternoon.

Jordan: I'm sorry. Sonia made me do it.
Sonia: Whatever. You just wanted to be trendy.

Jordan: True. I'm a follower. And the crowd is going to blogger. So I am following. But I'm leaving a link... does that make it okay? That's what Sonia did.... And apparently nobody's yelled at her yet....

Sonia: I want to go buy a newt.
(See previous 'ADD' entry and you'll understand)

Anyway, so I've converted. Sorry, your leader has left the xanga cult. But I'll still keep it up here, so you xanga peoples can get on quick. And I have a link to ya'll on my blog site too. So it's still convenient for everyone.