Well, I got the first batch of Australia pictures...

Well, I got the first batch of Australia pictures scanned. I finished my Human Race and Relations paper done and printed. Tomorrow, I tackle the pile of homework for ESCI 230 and that's basically it for the semester. *WOOHOO*

I'm ready for summer school. This was my relearning the drill semester, now it's time to soar.

Killer speeches rock!

The speech simply rocked.

It's finally gotten warmer and sunny.

I like spring!

That was fun...

Four hours of fun at St. Cloud General Hospital ER...

I still have an arrythmia, but it's a "safe" arrythmia.

I'm going to pound out the next SJ update here this afternoon and see how things go with that.

I so want to just wear shorts and a t-shirt to the speech tomorrow. It's Linux. Casual, laid back development.

Oh well, I'll be in a polo and slacks (gah).

Thank God, that speech is written

y huge CMST 192 speech is written. I'm ready to present on Monday.

WOOHOO!

Think about it...

Well, lessee. I'm facing finals in a week.

School is going well, but I'm starting to buckle under outside stresses.

1: I love finding out that the only reason a 'friend' hangs out with you is because they have nothing better to do and find you a diversion from their own life.

2: Grandpa Lamb is day to day.

3: #1 has pretty much rendered my trapped in St. Cloud. I'm happy.

4: Gay life doesn't exist here. I'm facing an extended trip back into a what will basically become a permanent closet.

5: See above. I'm going to get to play the happy heterosexual for a few years. I'm having no luck making friends up here. I'm an outcast on the floor. Even Jason, the roommate, has more friends and gets asked to do more stuff than I do.

Overall, I'm hitting a major lowpoint. I've been strong all semester since going back to school and refinding myself up here in St. Cloud. Now I'm asking myself, do I like what I've found?

I'm slowly feeling the weight of loneliness and isolation pulling me down. I need to find my space and find friends or else, it's going to be a long summer.

Insomnia sucks

Well, my friend insomnia paid a visit last night. I finally got to sleep around 6am. Up at 9:50 *OOOPS* to run (literally) to my Speech class to take the test.

ESCI was a snooze. We didn't do much of anything at all and Aaron wasn't there so it was a double waste of time.

It's just after noon and I feel like I've been hit by a Mack truck.

Hopefully the day will get better...

Silly Names...

Black -N- Blood. The recruiting call of the rugby team. *eyeroll*

It's supposed to be rain and 45 Saturday and 45 with sun on Sunday.

Hmmm...why can't we have hot sunny weather for the rugger tourney?

Heaven or Hell?

Oh. my. Goddess. Lead me not into tempation for it will dine with me.

I'm down in Garvey having dinner, when I go for seconds (shocker).

I get stuck in line with the SCSU rugby team. *pant* *drool*

Surrounded by big beefy sweaty men all worked up from practice.

*whimper* I've never wanted to be used like a pig so bad in my life!

Must See Reality ;)

All-Saints Rugby Tournament this weekend at Selke Field.
All day Saturday and Sunday.

WOOOF!

Crunch week

Well, one paper down and one to go.

My speech outline is mostly done and I've been studying for my CMST 192 test.

I'm writing a quick blog as today was totally boring.

Now I remember Hell

I'm starting to feel less alone and just isolated. I can deal with isolation more than aloneness.

I have two papers due Thursday, a Speech test Friday, and I present my 5-7 minute persuasive speech the following Monday.

At least I got a 79 on my ESCI test on sub-surface water. I have a firm B in ESCI. My speech grade is an unknown to me. I've done well on homework and we did really well on our group presentations. My tests have been a 74, 70, and 75. We can drop our lowest test grade, so I have a hard C in that class. I can't afford a C. I'll lose my financial aid if I pull a C. I have to bust my ass and pull a high high grade on the test Friday and do a knock-out presentation on Monday. If I can do that, I'll have a B for certain.

I have a good feeling about the semester, but at the same time, I'm edging the line and I don't like it.

Oh well, I made this bed and I'll have to sleep in it.

Otherwise, life is going well. I'm adjusting to St. Cloud. We've seen the end of winter (aside from the surprise 6" of snow over the weekend). It's supposed to be in the mid 60s tomorrow. Three weeks from today, I'll be shacked up in Mitchell Hall and relaxing after the semester from hell.

Songs of the moment:

Miss Jane/Opus III - It's A Fine Day
Paul Kelly - I'll Forgive but I Won't Forget
The Mavericks - Blue Moon
The Whitlams - Make The World Safe
The Whitlams - You'll Find A Way

Sometimes, it just feels good to vent...

Todd and I had another of our two hour conversations tonight. We talked about GLBT Services and other minorities as well as perceptions inside and outside of minority groups.

I brought up an aspect of my life to Todd and suprisingly I'd not thought through the aspects of what I was thinking and seeing that it was a universal to any minority group.

I'm starting to feel my resolve and inner strength starting to wane a bit as I keep going through every day basically alone. I deal with the people on my floor and I live with Jason. But it's more that I interact with them at a distance, as a personal who shares space with them.

But in reality, I feel very much alone. GLBT Services isn't really a social option for me. I'm an "older" student, so I don't really identify with the binge drinking and who's sleeping with who now crap that goes on around my floor.

I want to get my degree and move along from St. Cloud, but yet at the same time, I want to find a nice man to date and with whom I can spend time. I always would like to find a circle of friends that I can spend time with, hang out with, and when I'm with them, just be myself.

Owen is a good friend as is Joe, but Joe is still in Minneapolis and Owen works nights, so hanging out wiht him is fairly rare. I really don't feel like I have any close friends left.

I really wonder if this is what it's like for minority students who live on campus. I can't imagine what it's like to be an African student on this campus. Not only could you be non-White, but have poor English skills, and a different culture. How do you hold on to yourself and still interact with others? What parts of the self do you "keep quiet" or hide to just get along?

At 29, it's really hard for me to just put myself into little cubbyholes to please a group of people so I can be friends with them. I'm me. Unfortunately, being on campus, being yourself and living life with the knowledge of experience and life, it's difficult.

I'll go to sleep tonight, wake up in the morning, and suck it up. I'll put on my smile and face another day while inside my mood is gloomy and I'm feeling utterly alone.

Midweek...

i've not been feeling good this week, so I've been not been blogging. Monday it was a humid 84F, Tuesday the same...perfect setup at the surface and aloft for a huge severe weather outbreak...

Squall line tears towards St. Cloud...starts to bow out (very good indicator of wind damage). The gust front whipped through here with winds to 45mph, we got about .10" of rain and a nice light show.

Talk about disappointing. No hail. No damaging winds. No tornadoes.

Aaron showed up in a t-shirt and sweat shorts to class on Monday. I nearly fell out of my chair. I so wish I could get up the nerve to say "hi" to him and try to strike up a conversation.

In other news, Sean (see previous blogs) asked to do a survey for him as part of a class project. I agreed to do it. I had it sitting in my mailbox for a while and finally did it Monday night. I hadn't realized that it was a very probing and deep survey of attitudes and sexual attitudes. I didn't want to mess up his survey results but at the same time, I know that Sean won't like some of my answers to the questions. Sean and I are just friends. There's something about him I like, but he's so hard to talk to/talk with about things that I don't feel like I'm getting anywhere on getting to know him.

I'd like to move things along with Sean, but I don't think it's going to happen. I think I'm getting stonewalled on his end, so I'm going to just let it slide on past me.

As for campus news, *yawn* less than three weeks left of school. Finals start 6 May, so the semester is quickly screaming to a halt.

GLBT Services has managed to totally make me feel alienated. I mean, they are doing nothing for non-traditional students (read that as 25+), they've had *one* program on size issues. All the panelists were under 25 and all looked like A&F or Structure models. What the fuck do they know about sizeism?

So, I'm an out gay man on campus, with no community. Owen and I are going to take the summer and deal with Granite City Bears over the summer in terms of planning and publicity. I'm not even sure I want to deal with it. I mean, getting word out here at SCSU will be difficult as GCB will not be a student organization and so not entitled to those "perks". That will also help us, as we won't have to suck up/kiss ass to the University or GLBT Services.

I turn 30 on Labor Day weekend. I'm single, alone, and feeling like an fishing float adrift in the waves.

Songs of the moment: "Blue Moon" by the Mavericks
"Forever Young" by Alphaville
"Somebody" by Depeche Mode

That's the catch up for the week so far, such fun and uplifting news...

Holy Shit! Drool! Pant! Dragging the ass across the floor like a sick dog...

Aaron (the hydro hottie) in a rugby shirt and a shorts!!

*drool*
*pant*

Societal Homophobia

Well, in retaliation for Dallas' putting a picture of his brothers junk on their door, the girls down the hall decided that it would be funny to put pictures of "sexy" (and I use that term only because they did) guys all over Dallas' door. Never mind the blatent homophobia of it, but well, they've done it.

It's a quiet night around the asylum as Sugar Ray is playing over at Hallenbeck Field House tonight. I'm more worried about what it's gonna be like about 11:30 when the concert gets out, or worse at 1:30am when the drunks pile home from the bar after the concert.

I hope this cloudy, rainy, cold weather breaks soon. It's been a week of grey and gloom that has started to affect my mood. I need another day of sun and warmth to break this. It's supposed to be 60ish and sunny tomorrow, but I'll believe that when it happens. The pattern keeps changing and forecasts have been about as accurate as throwing a couple of darts at a dartboard. I've had my forecasting accuracy go to hell in a handbasket as well 8-\

Oh well. Only 30 days til the end of the semester and I'm rid of Jason, the roommate from hell...

I find out the results of my CMST 192 test tomorrow. *please* let me do well :)

Warm fronts suck...

at 4pm CDT today...

Lakeville MN 72F and partly sunny
Crystal MN 48F and cloudy
St. Cloud MN 39F and a thunderstorm

Other than that...

I'm registered for summer school...my schedule is tentative pending the results of my math placement test.

I should know where I"ll be living in Mitchell Hall for the summer at the end of the month.

My big CMST 192 test today seemed way too easy. I think I did really well...

We'll see on Friday.

Tranquility Rocks

I've not done much of anything this weekend but sleep. I've really needed to catch up on my sleep and prepare for the mad dash to the end of the semester.

I've not thought about much or worried about homework.

At least the NCAA Men's Hockey championship stayed close to home, Minnesota beat Maine 4-3 in OT.

Not much happening, so this is a short one :)

Lotsa news...

I have a A in ESCI 230, a B in CMST 192 and an A in HURL 102. This is good.

The *F* in POL 195 sucks hard.

As it stands right now...I have a 2.64GPA (AMEN!) which is higher than the 2.3 I have to carry to avoid academic suspension and the Financial Aid department mandated 2.5 *dances happily*

This is not to imply that I'm happy with a 2.6GPA for the semester, rather I'm happy to have gotten over the threshold. I was shooting for a 3.2 or higher for the semester. Considering everything I've had to deal with coming into and during this semester, I'm quite happy to have not just said "fuck it all" and gone back to the real world. I'm actually enjoying being back in school. I never realized how much I truly enjoy learning and having my brain stimulated.

HURL 102 is a prime example of this. "Human Relationships and Race" is the title of the class. It's a very deep class looking at the social injustices against minorities in Western society and the thought and power structures that keep the minorites marginalized.

It's a profound awakening to realize how much is just "given" to you as a white male. I've never though about it, but then again, I don't see it as it's all just given to me. However, when the "gay factor" is brought into it, I see it plainly. My own understanding of Native American issues brought that issue to light. I've seen how all the power structures all inter-relate and how the epistimololgy of Western thought structure works.

The more I look around me and the more I watch/listen to the mass media, I see the disproportionate representation of Caucausians.

In other news, from the GLBT Services Coordinator:

[I] just wanted to make the campus community aware of some recent bias-motivated occurrences at SCSU. Recently, GLBT Services has been the targeted. We received a voice mail message yesterday that included explicit language stating that we should keep our "fag magazines" to ourselves because for some reason his five year old had gotten a hold of one. Then yesterday we found five notes in our suggestion box that included language like: Die fag, gay bashing at 12:45, G(ot) A(ids) Y(et), and so on. Today there was a Lavender Magazine left that had "not even God likes fags" written on it. And our brochures and handouts that are placed outside our office have been scattered.

Reports have been filed with Public Safety. I wanted to make you all aware of these occurrences for several reasons. First, if you have witnessed these or other occurrences on campus please report them as well. Secondly, if you have information about who may have done these things please let Public Safety and/or GLBT Services know. Finally, to remind us all to address homophobic and heterosexist attitudes because these attitudes lead to actions that create an unsafe environment for GLBT students, faculty, and staff.

These incidents are also a reminder that issues of oppression affect us all. One of the messages we received stated "we must secure the existence of our race and the future for WHITE children." I believe we must secure the future for all children by creating spaces for everyone to be who they want to be.

------

Now that's some powerful comments. What I find even more disturbing about this is that I heard about it tonight in my HURL 102 class. I'm involved with OUTLoud (our campus GLBT activisit organization) and I read the University Chronicle today. Neither the OUTLoud mailing list nor the Chronicle have had a word about these incidents.

If this kind of activity can go on, and the members of the affected community aren't being told....

It's not in the campus newspaper...

How am I supposed to know that there is an increase of anti-gay sentiment on campus?

The lack of visibility for OUTLoud, the lack of "services" for the older students on campus, and the lack of work towards battling the ageism and sizeism in the campus GLBT community has me really thinking of getting much more involved and even running for office.

I know I'm going to run for Hall President in the fall. Depending on the time constraints of my classes and Hall Presidency, I'll decided on working on the OUTLoud leadership.

Granite City Bears will still exist. I'm starting to seriously ponder a "Husky Ursine Group" for on campus to battle the ageism and sizeism that exists. Plus with an acronym like "H.U.G." how can you go wrong? "H.U.G. a Teddy" could be a booth...

This is a long blog I know, so I'm gonna wrap it up. I'm going to work on my novel for a little while, then I'm heading to bed early tonight.

Mad Scientist...

IT'S ALIVE! IT'S ALIVE!

The new Sherburne Hall Hall Council Website is now live!

With that monster out of the way...

Stocky Jock is on a two week update cycle, with the next updates being two weeks away.

I'm going to write my paper for CMST 192 and work some on my novel. Right now however, it's dinner time. I have our last All-Hall Council tonight, where we'll learn who the EAGLE award nominees will be announced and Sherburne Hall will be announcing it's website (I hope!).

I'll blog s'more later. I'm hungry :)

Hello Blogger, my dear friend.... I've come to talk to you again

It's been almost two weeks since I've blogged but school has been chaotic and I've been busy trying to find a life of my own. I think I'm doing it! :)

I'm working on my novel more and I'm getting Granite City Bears off the ground. Our first meeting is the 10th. Owen's got the news out to St. Johns University and I'm working on getting the news out via GLTBA on the SCSU campus.

The new Sherburne Hall website is done, but not uploaded yet. The old website was/is beyond scary. We're working on getting our own domain for our site.

Stocky Jock is doing very well with the new updates and the new galleries. I'm hoping to get webalizer running on it soon so I can track visitors and where they are going :)

I have a 5-7 page paper due Friday for my CMST 192 class, a 2 page paper over a program on Thursday (due Friday) but thankfully Wednesday's classes are cancelled for the Faculty Forum Day! :)

I'm winding down and hoping to get to sleep soon.

I'll be blogging more now that I'm back into my more normal pattern of life.