Category: Life

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A sunset along Interstate 83 North in Pennsylvania

I walked across the stage and received my diploma just over two weeks ago, but I haven’t fully absorbed the idea yet. The fact that I wrote my last paper, turned in my last assignment, attended my last class, took my last final—unless I summon the desire to earn my masters, that is—refuses to sink into my brain. For 18 years, school was my life; I was a Student.

The end was visible for a few years and I looked forward to my graduation. I know that I’ll miss seeing some of my professors and friends on a regular basis or the impromptu philosophical/political/religious discussions outside of CLP after class or rehearsal. The midnight Bond/Halo battles on weekdays or 5:00 AM trips to the convenience store during all-nighters were what kept me going sometimes. The walks up (and down) the Hill on Thursdays and Fridays and Saturdays and a hundred other fun memories make this spring a bittersweet time. I’m very happy that my college days are over, but I know that I’ll miss them in the end.

Sadly, Senior Week came and went in a (mostly sober) blur; I would give almost anything to have had a Senior Month after the stress of finals was in the past. Such is life, I suppose. I’m looking forward to the next chapter in my life, something I’ve been anticipating for over two years. Now that I’ve earned my degree, I’ve earned the right to apply my knowledge.

Within the next few weeks or months, I will be moving to Baltimore, MD to work as a web designer. My degree is in English Literature, but for the past five years I studied web programming and design in every spare moment. I’m excited to transform my time-constrained hobby into a full-fledged career. Wish me luck!

The Most Awful Time of Year

That’s right, it’s time for final exams. I want to write about a dozen things, not the least of which is the five-year anniversary that Annie and I celebrated last Saturday! The entry for that and one or two other events will be back-dated. I also have a few really exciting things going on right now, but no time to talk about them. By the end of May, I should be back to a few entries a week.

The Way to Cape May

Annie and Stephen in Ocean City, New Jersey

Annie and I drove to the New Jersey shore on Saturday to do something different for our five-year Anniversary! It’s hard to believe that we started dating five years ago, but at the same time I can remember so many things from the earliest days, weeks, months, years that made the five years seem short. This trip was the first time that we went to the beach together and it turned out to be a great day. As it was such a momentous occasion, I felt the urge to bring the camera and take more pictures than has been the case of late.

A pier in Ocean City, New Jersey

We took a short scenic detour through Camden on the way to Ocean City where we started our day on the boardwalk. It was overcast and cold (for the beach), but that didn’t stop us from taking our shoes off and walking by the water. After about two hours there and getting lost in Ocean City, we picked up a Cape May County map and drove to the Cape May Courthouse Diner for a delicious lunch. By this time, the temperature was in the 70s and the sky was a bright blue.

Cape May, New Jersey

After walking around the city and beaches of Cape May for a few hours, we drove to Cape May Point to end the day at Sunset Beach. We sat on some rocks near the water and shifted through the pebbles that make up the beach to find Cape May Diamonds and other interesting rocks to remember the trip. It was a wonderful trip—without an itinerary to constrain or stress us at any point—and the most relaxing day I’ve had in a very long time.

Five Days in Baltimore

I’m not going to even try to relate every detail of the last two weeks. It’s not really worth it. However, I do want to say that last weekend (as in the one before this past weekend) was nice. I visited Annie and stayed down there from Friday to Tuesday morning; I even took her to work and picked her up on Monday. So for a few days, it was almost like I lived in Baltimore. That might not sound that exciting, but when we’ve been wishing we lived in the same city for almost five years and that event is only a few months away, it’s unbelievably exciting for us.

Long Overdue

I’m long overdue on updates here, again. I’ve sworn multiple times to update more often, but it seems that as soon as my life gets busy, I ignore any and all online presence I pretend to possess. In my last post, I completely left out a much bigger event—relative to my life, of course—than Gmail or Google Maps. The previous weekend (February 2, 3, and 4) the play I directed and Matt DeSciscio wrote, Point; Counterpoint, made its debut. Roughly four days before the show, I was about two phone calls away from a nervous breakdown—not really, hyperbole is fun—and legitimately worried that the show would bomb. Thankfully, we put in three days of long hours and tedious nitpicking of everything and the show came out a great success. The cast party later that night was quirky but fun; especially after the rest of the cast showed up, right Matt? And, to top it all off, Annie was able to come to Scranton (after a bit of confusion) and see the show on Sunday. She loved it, but she’s biased, right?

The week after the show was rough; too much to do, too little sleep, too many missed classes. I spent the weekend playing catch-up on work and sleep. The next week went better and I drove down to Baltimore to visit Annie for the weekend. I picked her up at work and we cooked a nice rotini dinner in her apartment. Considering that I wouldn’t see her before her birthday (which is tomorrow) and the order from Amazon came way early, I surprised her with an early gift: MacGyver Season One, her favorite show EVER! I’m so thoughtful (and narcissistic).

I made it from Baltimore to the Northumberland County Arts Center about ten minutes before Lourdes’ play began on Sunday to see my brother, Jason, in the show. It started snowing, so I decided to stay at home and come back to Scranton on Monday, but that turned out to not work so well; I missed work and class by the time I made it to the U.

Since then, I’ve been busy with class, work, job hunting, and web design projects. I want to keep this site up to date, but as I mentioned, my blog is always the first thing I drop when I’m busy. I don’t like it either, but I have to keep priorities alligned.

Time for a Break

It’s about time this past semester came to a close. It wasn’t as bad as last spring’s semester, lovingly referred to as “the semster that wouldn’t die,” but this one seemed busier than it should. I’m glad I didn’t involve myself in any Theatre stuff, because with 16 credits and workstudy, it seemed to take up most of my time. I think the biggest obstacle was the fact that I had an impossible number of pages to read for my classes; five classes, 24 books. Impossible.

I checked my grades online and I’m satisfied with the results. They aren’t as high as I had originally hoped they might be in September, but solid nonetheless. At the very last minute, I decided that I will be in Scranton for Intercession to direct a play; I will also be working at the CTLE a few hours a week. However, I don’t have any classes to take, so I hope to have a lot of time to work on web design work that I’ve been looking forward to completing.

A Draft Dream

Last night, I dreamt that I was drafted by the Army to fight in Iraq. As part of a new law passed by Congress, students were no longer able to avoid the draft while they were in college. Unsettling as it was, I reported for basic training and received a rifle, a uniform, backpack, and the rest of the standard military gear.

I wasn’t sure what to do as I was getting ready to ship out, but as I was standing in my kitchen of the house I lived in when I was in grade school (for reasons I can’t fanthom), I decided that I would not be going to Iraq. Why? Well, of course there is the fact that I don’t want to die. But the real deciding factor was that I felt I shouldn’t serve a government that was willing to send men to die in a crusade for oil. So, I gathered up all my military gear and some other camping supplies, hiked out past my backyard into the woods and set up camp a few miles from my house. In my dream, this made perfect sense: I wouldn’t be caught trying to cross the border into Canada and imprisoned.

I’m still not sure what I would do if I was drafted in real life—it would depend on the pretense of the war, I suppose—but I’m fairly certain that I would not be camping out in the backyard.

I Work for a Living

That’s the short answer to the question, “Why is he never online?” The longer version includes a verbose description of my two-week stint at an easy, but practically unpaid job as an “inventory specialist” and my three weeks (and counting) at a physically exhausting but well-paid industrial job. At this time, I have to go to bed because I need to wake up at a time that I frequently use as a bedtime.

Maybe tomorrow night I’ll post more if I have the time. That’s not likely so don’t stay up late on my account. However, my brother recently joined the weblog movement for the sole purpose of taking over the Blogshares market. If you like video games, you’ll love Jason’s weblog.

I’m Glad this One Is Over

It’s been one bumpy semester for me. After a relatively smooth and relaxed Fall 2003 semester, this semester was quite a shock. I don’t recall being this busy ever, and I know that my life has never been as hectic as it was these past eight weeks. Somewhere between Barefoot in the Park, the two ten-minute plays that I acted in—my first time on the stage in two years—for the New Director’s Workshop, or the papers that refused to die. Anyway, I’m looking forward to a little bit of downtime in the next few weeks and then hopefully I’ll have some web design work so I’m not reduced to panhandling in my own house.

Update: I also plan to finish the redesign of this site so that all the pages are consistent. It’s really been that busy.

Spring Break Recap

Now that I’m back in Scranton and feeling the warmth of spring—and by warmth, I mean four-degree wind chill this morning—I figured that I’d recapitulate on the unbelievable events that took place over spring break. In actuality, break was a rather subdued affair that mostly consisted of sleeping in, catching up on some reading, and semi-motivated web design work. I did get some antibiotics to take care of a little case of pharyngitis, learned from a podiatrist that I had a “high foot strain,” and finally went for a haircut.

Over the weekend, a trip to Baltimore to visit Annie happened in spite of the snow that we received on Thursday night. By the time I left on Friday, the roads were dry in most areas. On Saturday, we met Michael, Katie, and Chris and some of their friends at the Coliseum, which looked a bit crazy on their website, but turned out to be a nice restaurant with good food. Midget wrestling did not happen while we were there, much to my relief.