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| So, my mother informed me that I had promised some of you an epistle regarding what I did this Spring Break. I did not make this promise to all of you, I know, and if you really don't care, you really don't have to read, but if you do care, I encourage you to peruse on at your leisure.
The first half of my Spring Break was spent galavanting about the Mid-Atlantic coast with Valparaiso University's liturgical drama troupe, Soul Purpose. (Note: liturgical drama troupe is just a fancy way of saying, "We do church plays.") This tour, I got to play Simon in a play about the calling of the disciples, Lazarus in a story about the raising of Lazarus (go figure), and Zaccheus in a story about Zaccheus. The last one was because I'm a "wee little man", and I'm ok with that. We did one "show" in Maryland, one on Long Island, two in Connecticut, and one in Delaware.
In general, they went well. My friend and I even got a standing ovation for a dance we did in the Lazarus play. That's never happened before. I got referred to as a "huggy bear", and some lady couldn't resist stroking my beard with that comment... (I'm still having nightmares over that...) Another memorable moment was that we basically had a bunch of teenage roadies at our last church, which was cool I suppose. We pretty much felt like rock stars and had to keep reminding ourselves that in the end, while all of it was a LOT of fun, we were doing it because of God and not us.
The most exciting part of the trip for me, though, was that our director arranged for us to stay in NYC for a few days. Churches don't do too much in terms of services Monday through Wednesday morning anyway, so we got a hotel and saw two broadway shows. One was called 'Spring Awakening', and it was about sexually repressed youths in 1890s Germany. (It got a little racy, so if you get to see it when it goes on tour, be prepared.) The production was great, and it gave the drama troupe plenty of conversation fodder for the night, mostly about the purpose of plays and their moral responsibilities or lack there of. Personally, I thought its amoral proclivities made it of questionable worth, especially since its target audience seemed to be teens, though I think many parents could get a lot out of it.
The second was 'Journey's End', a play about life in the trenches during World War I. This was a naturalistic play (hyper-realistic), meaning, they took realism to trying get every single detail exactly right... The only lighting effects were the candles up on stage, so it was incredibly hard to see, the set looked real, as in they had taken a real dugout out from the war and put it up on stage, and I'm pretty sure I even saw dust falling from the rafters of the dug out. Very cool.
Besides the typical sight seeing, I got the opportunity to meet a family friend in NYC from my dad's side. She's a professor at New York University, it seems, and knew my Grandma quite well. She had quite a few stories for me (we talked for nearly 3 hours), and I also told her what I knew about my family. She even told me a funny story about Uncle. Something about not wanting to meet Desmond Tutu, but meeting Hutch from Starsky and Hutch made up for that?
At any rate, that was the East Coast trip in a nutshell. It was a lot of fun, and I feel a good experience.
Upon returning the VALPO, I decided to stay here for the rest of the week and finish the draft of my honors project, which I did get done. Now I have to wait to see what my professors think of it so I can begin editing it to their academic standards. I think that, since the paper is on Japanese history, most of my editing will be adding historical background information that I probably assumed a reader would know. Silly me. We'll see though. And if they don't have anything for me to edit, so much the better. I wouldn't mind having the rest of the semester off. 
Other news not related to Spring Break: I got the Fulbright grant to South Korea! This means that next year I'll be out of the country teaching English to secondary school students and besides which exploring (I only have 20 hours of work a week, including prep time)! I'm very excited.
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| That's right folks. I made it down to the good ol' Gateway City. It was quite a trip let me tell you! There was a small snowstorm (and by small I mean it covered the tri-state area) on the way down, so I had to take the interstates which brought me a couple of hundred miles out of the way. No biggie. I made it safe and sound, and as nice as the visit in Winona was, it's nice to be back home as well with family.
So, to wrap up what happened in Winona: Jake and I talked some more. We made it up to the Cities to see a Cotter High School Girl's game, which was a great game right up to the end. Well fought, and everything. Then we drove back in a blizzard that I just shut my eyes for. Scary stuff. And that was about it.
Highlights on the way home: My car stalled at a stoplight, but I got it to start up again and haven't had any trouble in that area since. (For the trouble I have been having, see below.) The other highlight was Alison called me. Yes! Discussions on children's literature and sleeping techniques soon ensued.
So, yes, I get home, and guess what? My car is up for it's re-registration. Safety and emissions inspection time. Well, she passed the emissions test with flying colors (way to go La Gordita), and then came the safety test. A leak on the power steering pump, you say? $1200 in repairs, you say? What, you say? Man, they set me up the bomb. Luckily, my dad had the presence of mind to realize that the dealership I took the car to for a routine inspection jipped up before. He took it down to Gray's Auto Center. They found the real source of the leak was from a transmission line. Sounds even worse, right? Well, it turns out that the leak on the transmission line was only a tidy $76 to fix. Score! So, now I have to go down to the MoDOT to get the ol' girl registered, and I'm all set. At least until the transmission fails. Knock on wood.
Oh, yeah. I saw V for Vendetta last night. A visual masterpiece. I love it when they take graphic novels and make them into movies. The storyboards are so tight and the plots so intriguing. The only real issue I had with the movie was how heavily they treated homosexuality. Of course, my initial reason for this is that I'm not particularly fond of homosexuality, but it was almost as if it was the only thing they were addressing would be a problem under a religiously zealous dictatorship. They could have done so much with religious, artistic, speech, written oppression that they just barely touched, especially given all of the problems between the European and Muslim populations in Europe (of course, the same could be said to a lesser extent about the U.S.-Mexican problems over here). At any rate, go see it. It does have a bit of excessive gore at the end, but otherwise it holds back I think. Language is a bit offensive, but it only comes from the bad guys mouths. Hugo Weaving, who played "V", is just so smooth with his speech; I think I want to memorize his opening monologue.
As the Italians say, "Ciao."
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| So, my adventures in Florida have ended. Soul Purpose played their final show at St. Paul's Evangelical Lutheran Church, which is LCMS afterall, but very confusedly so, in Ft. Lauderdale, and we rocked the hizzouse... so to speak. I also got a new hat from the church.
At any rate, we flew back up to Chicago at an insanely early hour (4:15 am was the wake up call) and then drove to VALPO. I then attempted a 7 hour drive from VALPO to Winona, which went very well up until about 20 miles outside of La Crosse, where I fell prey to the ice and spun out at a spot my tow truck driver assured me was notorious so I shouldn't worry about my skills as a driver. At any rate, it was either there or sometime before that my tire rod ends went out of place so I have to get those repaired. $400 later, I should be back on the road with La Gordita. She will ride again folks! Her last ride has not yet come.
So, now I'm in Winona. I'm staying at my ex-girlfriend's house, although she isn't here. She might as well be because there are pictures of her all over the house, but I've learned where not to look. One of my best friends is here though (he's housesitting) and thus the awkward arrangements. We've had quite a few laughs about the whole situation. I mean, which bed do you think would be the least awkward? The ex's, the ex's parents', or the ex's brother's? Um... I'll just sleep on the couch Jake. Are you sure, Jer? Yeah, I'm sure. Good times.
Anyway, we've spent most of the time just talking and catching up. We had lunch at Winona Sandwich Company, which kicks butt. If you're ever in Winona, try this place out, and have breakfast at Bloedoes at least once. Winona Sandwich Company isn't as ritzy as Panera/St. Louis Bread Co., but it's definitely on a par with Jimmy John's; Bloedoes is 10x more toxic than Krispy Kreme, and has been said to induce heart failure in 1/10 first time buyers. After that we rented a couple of movies (Stealth is terrible. I mean, I wasn't expecting it to be good. I even kinda wanted cheezy action, but this was absolutely awful. Not even coherent. It had the plot consistency of when I would play with Legos as a kid. Seriously, you've been warned.), baked a frozen Pizza, took care of the horses out here and talked some more.
I've got the house to myself for a couple of hours now, so I think I'm gonna go read some homework. Blech! It's break, and I'm going to read homework... | | |
| Ok, so I haven't updated in a while, and instead of trying to catch everyone up on what I've been up to, I've decided to just write an entry in the hopes that you can fill in all of the white space by yourself. So there.
At any rate, I'm in Florida on Spring Break with Soul Purpose--VALPO's own liturgical drama troupe. It's been a blast! We've done And They Danced (the story of Lazarus--I'm Lazarus--and the aftermath) about a bizjillion times, and tonight we get to perform The Hard Part (Mark's cleansing of the Leper and the story of Naman), which is going to be a lot of fun. I've never done it, but I get to play Jesus finally, so... yeah, it'll rock. I'm also playing John the Baptist for Locusts and Wild Honey. A couple of my friends on this trip put together a couple of good comedy routines during the trip, which have been hilarious, and the inside jokes in general have been profuse. Among them "A Drum," "Roger that!" "The Lord of Hosts," and "Madness!"
In other news, I'm heading up to Minnesota when I get back to VALPO before I head down to St. Louis. I'll get to see my friend Jake who I haven't seen for a couple of years now. Should be good, although we're staying at his girlfriend's house because he's housesitting there. It'll be a little awkward seeing as I'm the girl's ex. Yeah... I was thinking of inviting Alison down for an afternoon, but... yeah...
I'm looking forward to the end of break. It's been good, but busy, and I'd like to get back to my routine. | | |
| Oh, man... I pawn all with my leet haxor skillz! Fo'shizzle. Although I swear the site originally said that I had 15 car bombs planted. Ah, well.
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Johnny Tight Lips |
| People Iced: |
Fifteen |
| Car Bombs Planted: |
One |
| Favorite Weapon |
Poison |
| Arms Broken: |
Twenty Three |
| Eyes Gouged: |
Twenty One |
| Tongues Cut Off: |
None. Pathetic. |
| Biggest Enemy: |
The Impailer |
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Get Your HITMAN Name | | | | |
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