Sunday, February 13

So, I got about six hours of sleep last night. It actually wasn’t too bad today, but I still had to rush around this morning so I could hit the road by 11:30. Of course, that plan was complicated when I managed to chew up a half hour of that time yelling back and forth with Dan about the computer. He’s feeling really frustrated about learning a new machine (understandably), but was definitely flipping out a bit too much about things. I mean, it is MOM’S computer after all. Anyway, we finally settled our differences and everything was peachy by the time I finally left. I wanted to get going as soon as possible because I planned to make a stop by Grandma and Grandpa’s house on the way back to the apartment. It was a good thing I built in so much time to my schedule today, because grandma ended up keeping me there for at least a couple of hours, feeding me a ridiculously huge “late lunch”. It was really great to see them though, even though I don’t think either of them has been feeling very well lately. I guess that means it’s especially important to visit them like this as much as I can. Anyway, I eventually got back to the pad by 7 or so, and spent the next hour or so burning the Valentine’s CD I made for Stefy, and making a card to give her with the necklace I’d picked up yesterday. She came knocking at my door right as I was sealing the envelope, so the timing couldn’t have been any better. It was really great to see my girl after being away for the weekend, and we cozied right up in my room with the Grammys on TV for the rest of the night. We (and by we, I mean Stefanie) couldn’t wait to exchange Valentine’s gifts until tomorrow, so opened our presents just after midnight. Miss Spiro picked out some really cool new swim trunks for our trip to Florida, and a really snazzy new shirt from Hollister for me. She really seemed to like her necklace, so I’m glad that worked out too. All in all, it was a pretty great Valentine’s Day Eve.

Saturday, February 12

I moved an alarm clock into the room I was sleeping in last night so I could see what time it was when I woke up, and this morning I kind of regretted that decision. It was already 10:30 by the time I woke up, and seeing the time was pretty much my only motivation for getting out of bed—I could’ve crashed for another hour or two pretty easily. I took my time getting up and around, and by the time I was done with my shower and getting dressed, my mom was back home from her haircut this morning, so we pretty much hit the road for the mall right away. We were all really hungry by the time we got up to Easton, so we had a gut-busting lunch at California Pizza Kitchen before starting our shopping in earnest. My main goal for the day was getting Valentine’s Day shopping taken care of, and hopefully next week’s six-month anniversary shopping as well. It was pretty slow going for about an hour or two, but my mom and I ended up in the former Lazarus (now Macy’s) store looking at jewelry. The store was insanely busy, and while I was ready to just bail on the place a few times, we eventually got a lady to help us look at some necklaces, and I eventually settled on one that I really liked for Stefanie. That pretty much took care of my V-Day shopping, but we hit some other stores too, and I bought most of the other stuff I want to give her next week for our anniversary. We wrapped up our day at Easton by going to see “Sideways”. I’d already seen it several months ago with Stefy, but my mom and Dan wanted to squeeze in at least one more Best Picture Nominee before the Oscars, so it seemed like the best pick. We came back to the house and pretty much spent the rest of the night setting up my mom’s computer after the movie, and that quickly descended into a shouting match between Dan and I. It’s a long story, but I think Mr. Schafer has a case of Mac envy. Anyway, the folks eventually went off to bed, which gave me the rest of the night to quietly work on burning the final prints of that wedding video I taped months ago, and also let me attend to some more “secret business” before hitting the hay at 3:30. Yeah, and I don’t get to sleep in tomorrow. Sweet.

Friday, February 11

It was another pretty quiet day at the office today since everyone was still sick. I worked on getting our deposits ready to go though, and did quite a bit of tinkering with the website to help bring it up to date. There was a nice little break in the middle of my workday for lunch with Stefanie and Brian at Panera. We hadn’t seen Mr. McGrain since early December, so it was nice to finally catch up with him. I went back to work for a couple hours after our lunch, and then split out and hit the road at 3:40. It was pretty much a straight shot to Columbus for me. The only stop along the way was to get gas just outside of Toledo, but even with that included I still only spent 4 hours and 10 minutes in the car, which I think is some kind of speed record. Of course, I was totally exhausted by the time I got to my mom and Dan’s house, so I just plopped down in the kitchen for a late dinner. We chatted for a while, and eventually decided to spend the rest of the evening watching “Seabiscuit” on their comfy new furniture. While I’ll admit that movie was done beautifully, it seemed a little slow for my taste, so it was a nice little break when Stefanie called about halfway through the movie to talk for a while. It was close to midnight by the time we finished the DVD and I was planning to just go upstairs and crash, but I ended up staying up another couple of hours on my computer, trying to get some work done on some “secret business” for Valentine’s Day.

Thursday, February 10

Well, I got my first big doozy assignment of the semester this morning. This one should actually be kinda fun though. We have to write a 6-7 page paper for my Film History class by March 4, and the cool part is that we get to choose what movie (from a list of ones available at the MSU Library) we want to write about. Once we pick one, we have to go to the library, and look at one of the press kits for the film, and write about the way studios used marketing and advertising to sell their movies. Right now I’m teetering between choosing either a Chaplin or Hitchcock film. So anyway, the class itself wasn’t too bad today—we just looked at a press kit from the movie we screened on Tuesday as a means of giving us some direction for the paper. Dad picked me up for lunch right after class got out, and he and I went up to Grand River to the Parlour for some eats. After lunch I went back to the apartment and killed about an hour there before doubling back to campus for my Film Theory class. We finished up our section on the French theorist/critic Andre Bazin today, and I was actually a little sad that we were done reading his stuff. I guess our studies are shifting into Soviet Cinema next week, and that’s sounding pretty boring to me right now. Anyway, I went back to the apartment after class for what turned out to be an insanely busy night of cleaning. I started by digging out of the dust bowl that is my room, and then made my way into the bathroom which was looooong overdue. By the end of my little cleaning binge I’d managed to burn through about three solid hours of my night, and I was pretty pooped by then. I relaxed in the living room with some of Mrs. Spiro’s amazing Chili and more of Curb Your Enthusiasm: Season Three, so that put me in a little better mood. Of course, that didn’t last though. I was pretty grumpy by the time I went to see Stefy later tonight, and I think that just put her in a sour mood too. Today really wasn’t too bad, but I’ll definitely be glad when it’s over.

Wednesday, February 09

I actually went to Sociology today. I don’t know how I did it. The really amazing part though was that I found out that I haven’t missed *ANYTHING* from the classes I skipped. So, that always puts me in a good mood. Anyway, I went into work for a pretty dull day at the office this afternoon. Nobody was here except Kim and Ilana since we had a board meeting today, so it was pretty quiet. I left for my English Lit class shortly after 2, and I also found out that I hadn’t missed anything from the classes I skipped in there. I know it sounds like I’m a big slacker, but it’s pretty elite when I can skip class when I need/want to, and not feel like I’m behind. In fact, I got back my first paper in class as I was turning in the one that was due today—a 3.75! Class itself was a total bore though since we had a group presentation to sit through, and that ended up taking an hour. It wasn’t too terrible though, since I got in some mad Tetris time while they were up there, and the prof ended up letting us out about a half hour early. I met up with Stefy after a few minutes of waiting out in the hall at Berkey, and we headed over to Cosí for dinner right away. Stef had gone to the Ash Wednesday service at the student parish with one of her friends from the dorm, and she hadn’t eaten anything all day, so she was pretty famished. We pigged out on some spinach artichoke dip before our dinners came—I got this really yummy Brushetta BLT, and Stefy got the pizza. After our meal we made our way back to the pad to chill out for a little bit before leaving with Nate for the basketball game shortly after 7. The game was against Ohio State tonight, and you could tell how tired everyone in the crowd was. It didn’t help that the first 8 p.m. tip of the season was the first home game after our crushing defeat against Illinois, and it just felt like nobody was that into it. I mean, it was a decent game, and the Spartans actually played pretty well, but we were all still feeling really blah about it. Anyway, we came back to the apartment right after it was over, and pretty much went straight to bed. It’s a good thing I get to sleep in tomorrow morning.

Tuesday, February 08

Well, things were finally settling back to normal for classes today. I started things off with my Film History class this morning. Prof. Fay lectured for a little bit longer than usual since we had such a short film to screen today. By the end of the movie, I kinda wished that she would’ve lectured longer. We watched “White Zombie”, which was this really piss-poor low-budget horror film from the 40s with Bella Legosi. I can usually handle bad movies, but this was just bad for the sake of being bad. Anyway, I can’t complain too much because we got out of class about a half hour early. The big news coming from the office today was that I finally had my employee evaluation with Christi. While I didn’t come out of there with the raise I was HOPING for, she left me feeling pretty good—I get to pick a new title for myself, and I am now accruing about 8hrs of paid time off a month. Also, she said that after I have a few more months of design work under my belt with stuff like the newsletter, I can submit an official memo to her explaining my situation, and request a larger raise. So, I think I’ll be in a pretty good position a few months down the road from now, so I’m feeling pretty good about that. The rest of the day was downhill from there. My Film Theory class was pretty low-key, and the movie we watched this afternoon was much, much better. We screened DeSica’s famous (if you’re a film buff famous) The Bicycle Thief, and I really enjoyed it. I really liked the other DeSica film we watched in my Film Criticism class last semester, but this one was even better. Anyway, I made my way back to the apartment after class, and spent the next two hours steamrolling through my English Lit paper. It was a short one-pager on “The Canterbury Tales”, and all I have to say is—thank God for SparkNotes! I barely read the actual text (it’s in this really tricky middle English that’s tough to read), and the prof told us to use SparkNotes if we had trouble, so that’s exactly what I did. I burned through the paper in no time, and I actually think it’s one of the best I’ve written this semester. Once that baby was over with I finally sat down for some dinner in front of the TV with American Idol on. After I ate I went back into my room to do some more random tidying up while I talked on the phone with my mom for a few minutes. It’s looking like I’m going to Ohio this weekend, and I’ll be flying solo since Stefy still has to deal with her car, and we both need some alone time to take care of some things for Valentine’s Day next Monday. Whew. So, after about a week and a half lull, my events are finally up-to-date. Now I feel better.

Monday, February 07

It’s amazing how quickly that 70% I was talking about turned into 0%. I honestly thought that I might decide to go to class, choosing to skip work instead to finish up my film theory paper, but that wasn’t bloody likely. Gee…go to a class that I’m just going to play Tetris in, or go make money? Yeah, so I stayed home and finished up my paper on good ole Rudolf Arnheim and Andre Bazin this morning, and I think it turned out pretty well. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I actually wish the page requirement was longer for this one, because I feel like I had to cut some things short that I wanted to discuss, but I still think it’s pretty decent. Anyway, I finished that baby with enough time to make it into the office at the usual time. There was a bit of a lull today since i was left waiting for Melodie to send me the last article I need to finish up this newsletter I’ve been working on, but I managed to keep busy. After picking up Stefy in the afternoon we decided to just chill out back at the apartment since neither of us were in a particularly good mood. We were both really hoping that this week would get off on the right foot, since last week turned out to be such a bummer (especially for poor Stefy), but the cold, gloomy weather didn’t exactly help to perk us up at all. We watched most of Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure on DVD this afternoon, but had to stop it midway through, so I could take Stef back to the dorm to work on some homework. I came back and was really ambitious about starting some research for the short English Lit paper that I have to write for Wednesday, but those plans went down the tube pretty quickly. I decided to work on some other secret business for a while, and do some other random chores around my room before going to bed at around 11:30. Man, it’s amazing what a struggle it is to make it to midnight nowadays. I’m such a grandpa.