Author Archives: scott

Academic Overload

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On Wednesday, I get to register for classes. Today the honors college got to start registering, so I’m watching like a hawk lest my classes fill up too quickly. While I do this, I am also restlessly charting out the next few semesters, making sure I do everything right.  Every time I do this I try to figure out how I went from about-to-graduate-a-year-early to scrambling-to-graduate-on-time.

My freshman year was pretty uneventful. I took a few upper division classes to keep myself busy but had a light schedule overall. Since then I’ve been putting together booked semesters with a mixture of easy and difficult classes. This coming Spring semester is no different. I’ll be going back into my placement, probably in a middle school, so it will be different. I’m choosing a few classes that are supposed to be extremely easy (at least one promises to be so) and a couple that should be moderately difficult.  And I probably need to start up with the German.

Hopefully, while I’m gone on my internship I’ll be able to take a couple courses online. But this will require that I have internet in Tanzania or Indonesia or wherever.  Hopefully everything pans out. I guess I’ll just have to wait and see. While I wait, I’ll stare at classes and charts some more!

Brush it off and roll with it

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On Tuesday night, we had a fundraiser at Baja Fresh attract a whopping dozen person turnout. Last night, our club on campus hosted the Invisible Children roadie team for a big night – aiming for our biggest screening ever. Sure of a couple dozen attendees and hoping for fifty-plus, I took a bit of a hit when we waited an extra twenty minutes and still only attracted an audience of seven.

Afterwords, I got subsequent morale-boosts first from the roadies, then Alli and Kevin, and of course Kim.  Bad days in activism always force me to take a look at why I do the things I do.  I’ve always been overly idealistic and have been determined to turn my ideals into a reality. I’ve always wanted to make an impact and help people. That’s why I buddied up with my dad whenever he went to Rotary service projects. That’s why I want to teach. Invisible Children was the first thing that I did that made me feel a part of a community that did something.

Most groups I sought out didn’t really show a return that made me feel like I was helping. And whenever I got that feeling from Rotary projects, I didn’t quite feel a part of the community of middle-aged moderately-wealthy business-owners. But with Invisible Children I felt like I was an integral part of a youth movement that would help people who not only needed it but wanted it.

Since then, I’ve had plenty of ups and down. The ups have been great and the downs have been, well, pretty down. But no matter what I feel like I’m making a difference, however small, and I know I’ve got friends trying with me and I know I have the support I need (yes, Kim, that’s you!) to keep going.  So, after a few consecutive downs, I’m ready to bounce back with some resilience.

Talking Townhome

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On Monday (October 19th), Kim and I signed a number of sheets. We are, officially or unofficially I can’t really figure, homeowners. It’s been in the works for quite a while, and it’s been an option for even longer. I’ll hopefully be dropping off a check this weekend, and we should be getting keys then or soon after. Now, it’s time to get moving.

Over the past couple of weeks we’ve occasionally boxed a few things. But it’s time to step it up! The plethora of DVDs and a whole mass of my books have been boxed up. But that’s a far cry from all that we own (mostly my junk). We bought the place a little bit earlier than the end of our lease – trying to reach out to the federal government’s cash-back award for first-time home buyers before the deadline – so we have a bit of wiggle room as far as moving. But with school and work and at least a little bit of sanity, it will be important to get everything over there.

I don’t think either of us have really felt like we have made a big decision yet. It hasn’t sunk in. We have some paperwork to show for it, but we haven’t moved. Even once we move, it will probably feel like another place to rent. So we’re devising a plan of what to do to make it our own. Whether it’s change the locks or paint the kitchen or install a shelf, I think we’re going to definitively own this place by the end of the move.

If all goes well, I’ll put together some sort of photo gallery/video tour of the new place. :)

The First Dance. And Everything After.

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So, Kim and I were talking last night and listening to some music (Tom Waits, just so you know) and started talking wedding.  We’ve lobbed ideas at each other about what type of music to play, but I don’t think we really have too much set in stone.  What we do know is that we’re keeping it cheap by using a playlist and not a band or DJ, but other than that we’ve just named some songs – some cliche, some unique, some you might not have heard of. We’ve built on each other’s ideas, but we’ve also vetoed each other a bit here and there.

Tom Waits’ version of “Sea of Love” is an entrancing must, we’ve known that for a long time. Beyond that, we’re still talking.  Kim has found a good song about a boy and a girl in Michael Franti’s “Say Hey I Love You.” And we’ve considered some of the typicals, like Sinatra or the Beatles.  My opinions vary from my love for the 60s in The Doors to my love for unique sounds like Architecture in Helsinki to my oddly strong favoritism for Ingrid Michaelson’s voice. “Lie to Me” always makes me want to jump around and “My Moon My Man” has a cool beat, but what to choose? I’m also trying to keep an eye out for songs that people know and can dance to.

Problem is, I don’t really dance: I don’t know where to begin. As a person who is much more comfortable sitting there humming along and maybe toe- and finger-tapping, I’m not the best at figuring out what’s the easiest sound to shake your hips to. I just don’t have the ear for it I guess. So here’s where I’m reaching out to you, select readers: what do you dance to?

Reading. And reading and reading…

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This week, I am cracking open my fourteenth and fifteenth books of this semester. And that’s not counting at least a dozen articles for a few different classes and a whole book of excerpts (courtesy of Dr. Peskin).  I think this is the point where a lot of people start asking why the heck I am taking so many classes.  I’m really not all that sure, but I think it stems from a couple of things: a weirdly strong thirst for knowledge and a sense of economics.

I’ve thrown around the idea of three different majors and four different minors in the past year or so. I’m set to have two majors and one minor, and we’ll see if that shrinks or expands in the coming years.  I went into college taking a quick glance at other majors and penultimately planning to graduate a year early. I started the teaching program at ASU early and kept up my hobby of trying to save the world. Then it dawned on me that I could do a lot more, and since then I’ve gone full speed into busy semesters and an even busier life – probably much to Kim’s dismay.

I’m very lucky in that my parents pay for my tuition. Even though I am not paying for school, knowing that my parents are makes me want to get every penny out of it. At ASU, tuition increases per credit up to 7 credits, and then it’s all the same. So whether I am taking 9 credits or 19 credits, it’s costing them the same. I decided pretty quickly to simply pack my schedules and make college worth the money. Hence, the full schedules.

Well, now that I’ve explained myself, I should probably go read some.

Terms of Engagement (and moving)

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It has been 355 days since Kimberly and I moved in together and got engaged to be married.

It’s hard to believe we’ve been in this tiny apartment for almost a full year already, it seems like only a little while ago we were unloading boxes of belongings and hauling them across the courtyard.  But we’ve gotten quite a bit used to the space – definitely filled it all in – and are ready to move on to bigger things.

On the flip side, I feel like we’ve been engaged forever. Maybe it’s because we have been. I knew I wanted to marry Kim long before October 24th, 2008, so maybe it’s just the mindset that makes me feel like it’s been so long. 7 1/2 years of being a couple will do that, I suppose. As far as the official engagement goes, though, it’s been an amazing year and I think we are ready to move on to bigger things in that respect as well.

The past year has been a busy one and a relaxed one, a fun and a stressful one, a happy and tense one. But it’s always been perfect. I have loved the year that I have spent in this tiny apartment with my wonderful fiancee, no doubt about it. But it’s almost time to move on.  Pretty soon, we will start moving things out of the vacant town home and moving our things into it. By the end of November we’ll be completely moved! I’m excited, because it will be the biggest step since our move-out-of-our-houses-and-get-engaged stage. We’ll be in the oh-my-goodness-we-are-engaged-and-own-a-town-home stage and I am, albeit a little nervous, very excited. From there I think the next stage will most definitely be marriage which is, well, pretty big.

Home ownership is a pretty big deal, and the coming weeks will be pretty nutty. We’re getting the place for a steal, which is great right now because we’ll be saving a lot of money – which is what is making the whole purchase even possible – and in the future we’ll be able to get a lot more out of it than we put into it. Beyond that, though, Kim and I are going to own a place that we can call our own! We’ll have plenty of room to spread out and really make it ours (it’s three times bigger than our current living situation) and it’ll be nice to fill in the place as we like, not just with what we could scrounge like it was with the apartment. It’ll be a nice move, I think, and I can’t wait to start moving.

In addition to going from engaged to engaged home-owners, we’re getting closer to closer to approximated wedding time. I know we’re far away, but I hope we can start getting some concrete ideas together. I’m definitely going to raid Kim’s wedding binder and magazines. Maybe we’ll get a better idea of something like a place or colors. I think everything will come together as we go :)

Turning 20

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Tomorrow, I’ll be turning 20. So long, teenage years!  I don’t feel any different yet, but I still have a couple of hours before I officially get older.

So far, the birthday celebrations have been pretty nice.  Last night I had a tasty dinner with Kim, Cristina, Alli, Julia, and Alex (Julia’s boyfriend).  After a decent Mexican meal and some delicious cupcakes, Cristina, Alli, Kim and I stood around in the parking lot for a good three hours chatting.  I love the long talks, so it was nice to just be with my friends for an evening.

Today, Kim and I went to my parents’ house for what turned out to be a small gathering.  With my birthday always being on or around Columbus Day, there are routinely some families missing – this time there were several. But, it was all good! Kim’s parents joined us; I figure we’re getting married soon so our parents should be together more.  Overall a nice couple of days leading up to my birthday!

We’ll see how the move from adult teenager to young adult goes.

Prologue

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So, I feel the need to have an official start.

I’ve been contemplating putting together a blog for a while now. It was a long time ago that I abandoned my livejournal, and I felt the need for a clean start if I was going to really commit.  This is my clean start.

Hopefully, this will be a place for me to talk. Nothing too ground-breaking or edgy, just a monologue. As of right now I am engaged, in school and moving. Those three things will probably be frequent topics. Enjoy!