Day 10: Sunday

It's finally over. Spring break is done. And I am very, very, very happy about it. True, I no longer have the HPU palace all to myself. I now have to search for a parking spot instead of being nearly guaranteed there'd be one in front of Phillips. I don't have the entire dorm room to myself anymore (or at least I won't whenever he gets back). But, I got to hang out with my friends tonight. And that was truly awesome. And I look forward to both hanging out with them again and seeing all my swim team friends at practice.

Working with the TV crew again was great. My friend and I got some advice as to how to get into the sportscasting business. We'll have to use the information to try and figure out the next step. Him more than me, since he's graduating in a few months. But even still, if I can get some freelance gigs before I graduate, it will open some doors. We'll see what happens.

Next week will be more of a break than last week. There are no games to do. There is no reason to move equipment for several days. Even though classes are starting back up, it will be great to be able to focus totally on schoolwork again. Well, not great. Useful is the word I'm really looking for. But now I can get done more of what I wanted to get done this week and still (hopefully) not be quite as busy.

This is the end of the Spring Break Blog. Tomorrow I will post the conclusion as I said I would yesterday. Until next year....

Day 9: Saturday

Finally got to work with the TV crew today, even if it was in a more limited sense than I would have liked. I wanted to get there early to help them set up, but I didn't get there early enough and they were already all set up. I guess I'll just have to help them tear down tomorrow. Of course, I wish I was able to do more than I did...I feel so limited when I do talent stats. Again though, if I had just shown up earlier I would have been able to feel more useful, so that's partly on me.

More and more people are coming back onto campus. I'm really going to miss having the place mostly to myself. Parking is going to go back to being too full. I won't be able to blast music without getting someone mad. At the same time, having my friends back is going to be amazing. One of them is already back. We went to Applebee's tonight and it was great. Food was good and it was nice to just hang out with someone for a change, rather than doing work all the time.

Part of me really hopes that, when everyone is back, someone complains about their spring break. Oh, I wish I went to Mexico instead of Florida. I wish I did this instead of that. Ugh, I had to do some homework over break. Most of what I've seen on Facebook and Twitter has been positive. Which is good. Don't mistake this for hoping everyone had a terrible spring break. But honestly...I just know someone is going to try and complain, and they will very much hear about it when they do so. This probably makes me a bit of an ass, but as long as I don't go too off on someone, I think it's also justifiable.

Tomorrow will be the last blog entry. After that, I will close out the blog with an evaluation of my goals for this week. Some were good, others were not so good. After that...I'll leave this alone and actually likely delete it after a few days if I don't forget about it completely. This blog has definitely served it's purpose, which was to try and keep a majority of my rantings and useless thoughts off Facebook. Again, more about that will be described tomorrow.

Day 8: Friday

Today was by far the longest day of the week, and it's not even over yet. Woke up at 5:30am, worked the morning lifeguarding shift, then did four straight basketball games. It's currently 11:30pm. I've been up for roughly 18 hours, and I'm still not going to be going to bed for another hour at minimum, or so I predict. I find it odd that I'm not even really tired. I'm not sure why, because I should be zombie-typing right now. This either means I slept better than I thought last night, or I will be exhausted tomorrow. We'll see in about 10 hours or so from now.

I expected working the games to be really slow and dull and boring. Luckily for my sanity and I, this was very much not the case. I was working with a great crew who I was able to talk with and joke around with the whole time. We were able to do a number of different positions, which at the very least kept the every game from being a carbon copy of the others, at least from my point of view. It was nice to work a camera, replay and graphics for a while rather than just direct every single game. This was the last time this season I get to work basketball games as a student volunteer...from here on out I get to work with the professional TV crews. I'm really looking forward to doing that again.

I will admit that I was a little disappointed I wasn't able to go to Applebee's like I planned tonight. We (the video crew) had to take down every single wire of streaming equipment that we used, and by the time the night was over for us, no one was in the mood to go out. Ah well, guess I'll try again tomorrow night. Instead, I pigged out on all four slices of saved cafe pizza I had, plus bread and lemonade, because after a long day today and all I've put myself through this week, I freaking deserve it.

Day 7: Thursday

Today was a little different in the sense that instead of games to broadcast, I had an awards ceremony. That went okay, as far as I know (I didn't direct so I'm assuming the stream went fine) but there were definitely a few bugs. For example, the camera I was on refused to auto-focus, so I had to manually focus the camera every time I zoomed. Nothing that was beyond overcoming, but it was just a little quirky and slightly annoying.

Besides spending the rest of the day moving video equipment from one place to the next, I spent the rest of the time working on my study guide for my test next week. Had I not have work tomorrow at 6:00am I would have just powered through it tonight and got it done. However, I'm on the last chapter and will really just have finish it tomorrow after the games. I'm getting more furious at this teacher as the semester goes on. I've been trying to contact her about meeting so I can review my study guide with her before the test. Some people may think it's unfair to ask a teacher to do something on their week off. However, originally this test was supposed to be the Monday after break, and quite frankly, if you give me work to do or a test to study for within two classes after break is over, you better believe I fully expect you to make every effort necessary to help me with it, break or not. There's no reason why I should be expected to do work for this class if I'm not going to get help, or at least try and arrange for it, when I need it.

Tomorrow is going to be an interesting one. With work so early tomorrow plus games all day, it looks like it's going to be a 16ish hour day for me. However, I plan on going out afterwards for the first time in what feels like ages, and it will be the first time since Saturday (or maybe Friday?) that I've seen more than one person I consider a friend at one time. We'll see how it goes, but if I don't have a blog entry for tomorrow, then it's because I'll have passed out early again.

Honestly, I just want break to be over. I will probably have more time to enjoy myself next week than I ever had this week, even with that test on Wednesday to worry about. While I can't say that break has been terrible, it certainly hasn't been too enjoyable. It's been a lot of work which doesn't pay off in the immediate future, which is has just been frustrating. I know that I chose to do this, so I'm trying not to complain too much, but even still, just I can't help but feel frustrated.

Day 6: Wednesday

No blog entry today. I'm worn out from all the work I've been pushing myself through this week and I still have more work to do tonight. I just need to push though what I need to get done ASAP and go to bed. I was hoping to have more time off tomorrow than it looks like I'll have to wind up having, so the more I get done the better.

Day 5: Tuesday

Posting a little early tonight, but I'm trying to procrastinate and this is a wonderful excuse to do so.

Highlight of the day was walking back from baseball and finding out the point was still open. I'm assuming they keep it open and running for tours, because besides the ability to order and consume delicious food, everything was running as it would as if everyone was still here....TVs were on (not sure why the History Channel was on the big screen at a sports grill), music was going, touchscreen games were on. Wound up playing a few games of bowling. I did ok I guess. Also, I managed to pick up some extra drinks even though I doubted that I could do that a few days ago. Great success there.

The rest of the day was just okay. Got more progress done on the Com Law essay (no popular movie reference this time) and just started the study guide for a test next week. However, I learned that my sports schedule for tomorrow was incorrect, and that was what I based my work availability on, and will now be at work instead of at a game. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining about extra money. I'm just a little frustrated that about a game a month is magically not the day or time I have it on my calendar. I don't know if it's me or if they switch it on me, but either way this has got to stop happening. This also means my productive time is going to have to be late tomorrow, something I'm not happy about.

People are posting on Facebook about their vacations and putting pictures up. I'd be lying if I said I didn't wish I was able to go somewhere and relax. Still, I'm holding out hope that the work I'm doing this week while most everyone else is taking time off will somehow pay off in the long run. I really have been using the time off from classes wisely so far. I guess I'll just have to push through the week and wait to see if what I'm doing will produce any results.

Day 4: Monday

Two things of (absolutely no) importance happened today. First, there was absolutely no parking in front of Phillips. It's spring break, and there was no parking in front of Phillips or behind Roberts when I came back from work. I was pretty mad. Didn't realize 'till later that the spots were taken by tour-givers who stayed over break who I'm assuming lived off campus. I guess this makes sense, which doesn't make me quite as mad. This is also something to keep in mind for the future.

Second, I got about a page and a half of the Com Law essay done. Seeing as this will be one of the longest, most stressful things I will have to do for one of the most difficult classes I'll ever take, I figured that the more I can knock out while I have the time the easier life will be down the road. Also, somehow I managed to get a reference to The Hangover Part II, which is something I never would have thought would ever make its way into a paper about law ever.

One thing I need to work on this week is motivation to swim. I wanted to do that today after work. It didn't happen. I want to swim tomorrow and I can already tell that's not going to happen either. Right now my best shot is Wednesday after work and Thursday before streaming the conference women's basketball awards ceremony. To be honest, this should have probably happened more, but between all the other stuff I have to do has to take priority.

Playing Call of Duty with Kevin was awesome too. I would talk about it, but I'm tired and TV is distracting.

Day 3: Sunday

Wind sucks. All it does is make things colder, therefore making things suck more. This was learned when I did camera in the outfield, and although the wind was on and off, it wasn't fun when it was on. To be fair, it probably wasn't really as bad as I'm probably making it out to be, and it was nice to not be directing for a change. But still....wind sucks.

Now that everyone who's leaving has left, it's striking to see how empty the campus can really be. Having my prime choice of parking is going to ruin me when everyone comes back. But for now, you better believe I'm taking full advantage of this. I'll be parking in front of Phillips every day. I'm half debating finding some chalk and writing "RESERVED FOR PAT" on one of the spaces just so I can pretend to be important for a week. Then maybe keeping it there after break to see if anyone follows it.

I said from day one that I need to try hard to do nothing. Since then I've done programming schoolwork every day. Tomorrow I get to start my Com Law essay, which I need to do a little bit of each day. On Tuesday I'm going to start studying for a test in another class. I plan on swimming every day during break. .........what break?

Day 2: Saturday

I got an iPhone today. I'm already telling Siri to do my bidding and all that. It's great. I've wanted this thing for a while and now that I have it, I'm very happy. I'm definitely playing with this thing all break. The biggest thing will be making sure I don't use more than 2 gigs of data, but with HPU having wi-fi all around hopefully that won't be too big an issue. Hopefully.

Sleeping in was awesome. The baseball game was also not too bad. I figured out that I can get into The Point, meaning at some point this week I'm having a private session at the arcade. That will be awesome. Hopefully the soda machine at the point will still be on and I'll get to refill my lemonade bottles whenever I need to, though I doubt it. Still, at least there's something other than games and schoolwork to look forward to now.

Day 1: Friday

I was debating not putting a Friday entry in, but technically the academic calendar does say break starts on Friday after classes. So, might as well write about it.

To be honest, it was a more productive day than I had hoped for. For example, I finally got a copy of my CPR certification from the Red Cross that I've been trying to get since last summer. (Seriously, how hard is it to send someone a business card sized paper saying I passed a test?) Glad that's over with though, because now I can at least know for sure that I'm going to have a job this summer now that I know ESPN isn't taking me as an intern (which I'm still mad about...). I was hoping to absolutely not be at all productive through Sunday and start doing work on Monday. Guess I need to try harder to do nothing.

In other good news, I found out one of my friends is staying the whole week too, making two people I know staying here. This is actually a pretty big deal. It's good to know that there will still be people to hang out with, as empty as campus is going to be. We wound up hanging out last night after the baseball game, and basically did nothing but play Sonic and watch hilarious YouTube videos. This one in particular was probably one of the most awesome things I've ever seen on the internet.

(Last thing, I promise...I'm going to try and keep these short and sweet). I do wish I planned my food situation a little bit better. Don't get me wrong, I'm not going to starve. I did raid the cafe and the point for food and drinks, and stuffed my fridge as full as I could, but when I got to the cafe they didn't have any cereal out, which I planned to take about 10 cups of. So, now I am cereal-less. Unless you count Goldfish as a cereal. Which I don't. Even if I did though, it's not enough to last me a day.

With a Food Lion right down the road though, it's clear what the only solution is: Sleep through breakfast as much as possible.

Introduction

This is a temporary blog that will be totally ignored after about ten days or so. The only ones who will actually see this probably know that by now, and also know the backstory behind why I'm writing this blog in the first place. So there's really no point in writing all that out.

That being said, if I don't do that, there's really no point of writing an introduction post, is there?

So, to compensate for a lack of introduction, here's my friend playing the harmonica.