Classes went well yesterday. Nothing really eventful to report on. Work was complete hell though. We had computer issues all day, and since no one else was in the office, I got to take care of dealing with SBC. Basically our DSL connection had been dead for a day, and we couldn't figure out what the deal was. Well, we finally got it squared away this morning. It turns out that after all of my messing around with our equipment yesterday at SBS's direction, our hub had hit the skids, so after replacing it with a new one this morning, we finally got our connection up and running. Man, what a headache.

Anyway, tonight should be fun. My mom's coming into town for a visit, which makes her my first official house guest at the new apartment. Hopefully she'll find her accomodations to be satisfactory. At 8 p.m. all three of us -- my mom, me, and Stefy -- are going to the Wharton Center to see Dave Brubeck perform. I absolutely can't wait for the show. Honestly, this dude is one of the most important jazz musicians ever, and I'm just excited to be seeing the guy before he goes and dies or something (he's 85). And for something completely different tomorrow, I'll be heading back to Wharton with Stef and her friends Sara and Nolan to see Rufus Wainwright. I'm not sure if we could find two musicians with less in common in terms of genre, but I guess Dave and Rufus both play piano, so that's something. Still, it should be another great performance, and I'm really looking forward to both concerts.

I guess that's it for now. Have a great weekend!

First, a retraction from yesterday's post. My mom HAS visited me in Michigan since Christmas. I saw her the day before I left for London, and she picked me up from the airport when I got back. I am a horrible son, as my mom and Dan reminded me on the phone last night. There.

Anyway, we had a nice visit at dad's house last night. It was great to see the girls and get a chance to play around with them for a bit. Kyra was in rare form again, but her brutishness is becoming the norm. I snagged a bunch of my dad's new CDs for copying while I was there, including: the new Paul McCartney CD, the new Rolling Stones, the new B.B. King, the new Bonnie Raitt, and the new Eric Clapton albums. My iPod will thank me.

I knocked off a couple more pages of my script last night, so I only have about two pages left to finish tonigiht. Gosh, it feels so strange to actually be AHEAD of the curve for once.

Last night I managed to drag out a surprise secret from Stefy about this Friday. Apparently Dave Brubeck is playing at the Wharton Center, and she wanted to get tickets for us, but wasn't sure if my mom would be able to join us or not since she's visiting with friends that day. So, after some back and forth between them, I finally managed to have Stefy fill me in, and of course I was totally jazzed (har har) for the show. So, I think I'm going to head over to the box office after my last class today and buy tickets. Man, I mean, I was excited about the Rufus Wainwright show on Saturday, but Dave Brubeck is honestly one of my all-time favorites. I've been waking up to "Strange Meadow Lark" on my CD-alarm clock every morning since my junior year of high school. No joke. Zack = EXCITED!

Well, we finally got grades back from midterms this week. Yesterday I got the results from microeconomics... I am right on the cusp between a 2.5 and a 3.0, but he won't decide the curve for sure until later in the semester. Macroeconomics was a much better showing though... I got 51.5 out of 60 possible points, which translates to a solid 4.0 with the grading curve. What can I say? Sometimes you curve up, sometimes you curve down.

Prof. Wray was about 15 minutes late for class today. If he had been much later, I think he might've arrived to an empty classroom, but he lucked out this time. Class went well, and we got our first ten pages back. I got another 10 out of 10, but there was some really helpful criticism in his notes that I think will help me smooth out some of the character development through the rest of the screenplay.

Work was pretty low-key again today. The office is hosting a bunch of training sessions up in the U.P. this week, so it was just me, Wanda, and Kim today. I finally finished working on a final draft for this month's newsletter though, so I'm excited about that. Hopefully we'll get this thing out in the mail by the end of the week (crossing fingers).

Well, I'm off to my dad's for dinner and laundry tonight. I have a HUGE bag of dirty clothes to work on, so hopefully I'll actually have something to wear tomorrow.

And so goes the plight of the democratic, mac-using Spartan fan. Sigh.

It was an amazing game though, and I'm so glad that I finally got a chance to attend. I don't honestly don't remember having more fun at a football game than I did on Saturday, but I will admit that I think I needed to have my heart examined after the game, no matter who won. At least it was a tight one. Still worth the price of admission, I would say.

Anyway, aside from the painful loss, it was a pretty relaxing weekend. I mean, we were completely exhausted by the time we walked back to Stef's apartment after the game, but everything was pretty low key from there on out. Sean and Marina stopped by Stef's place to chat for a bit after they finished tailgating to drop off her birthday gifts: a cute bracelet from Greece, and a new sweater/purse combo from the Gap. It was really nice to see them, and sort of commiserate about the game with someone.

Once Sean and Marina left, and after we finished sulking, Stef and I headed up to Eastwood to see A History of Violence. It was pretty good, but certainly nothing earth-shattering. Basically Viggo Mortensen is a bad ass, and gets it on with his wife a lot. That's pretty much the gist of the movie. But, as simple as that sounds, it was still a really entertaining film.

Sunday (for me at least) was as lazy possible. I didn't roll out of bed until about 9:30 or 10, and took my time getting up and around by watching a few episodes of Curb with Stef to burn off the rest of the morning. Miss Spiro had a bunch of writing to do for an English paper, so I took off from her place by 1 or so, and then headed out to Grand Ledge to finally pick up my ottoman from Art Van. I got it home ok, but after I got it inside and out of the bubble wrap, I realized that those morons hadn't attached the legs to it. I could do it myself, but the job needs an allen wrench that's bigger than anything I have at home. Grrrr. That was pretty much it for the weekend, I guess.

This week is already looking much easier to manage than last week. Tonight I think Stef and I are going to this career fair prep-session (the actual fair is on Wednesday and Thursday this week), but I'm not really sure what that entails. My only real chore for homework is going to be writing the next ten pages of my screenplay, but if it goes as fast as it did last Wednesday, it shouldn't be too tough. My mom is coming into town on Friday for the weekend, so I'll finally have an official visitor at my new place... guess I better clean. Seriously though, it'll be nice to have my mom stay with me, and actually see her in Lansing for the first time since Christmas (yeah, that's right).

Anyway, that's it for now. I hope everyone had a great weekend.