Back to normal... for now

Well, after three remarkably fun days spent hanging out with Bill, Matt, Chad, Dan, Tim and the rest of the gang, normalcy has returned to the world of Mark. It was great to see Bill for the first time since December—he was just as wild, crazy, and fun as he always has been. Unfortunately he heads back to Iraq tomorrow morning to finish his tour of duty over there, but he might be back here for good by the holidays, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

After the wild night at Starbusters on Wednesday, we decided to take it easy on Thursday. Thankfully I didn't have class, so my entire day was free to have fun. After lunch, Bill, Matt, Chad and I bought some baseball gear and found a nice little field around town where we proceeded to partake in the National Pasttime for about four hours. (Dan joined us a few hours into it.) It was really fun because I haven't played that in ages and it was such a beautiful day outside—perfect weather, little wind, and plentiful sunshine. Bill cranked a few home runs and we all had our moments, but for the most part we all stink at baseball. But hey, we're not payed to play, so who cares? It was fun and that's what counts.

I will say that one of the unfortunate side effects of all that activity yesterday was the soreness that crept in over the night and greeted me rudely in the morning. It's not too bad, actually, but my posterior is quite sore for whatever reason so that's kind of distracting when I'm not sitting down. Thankfully, I picked a sedentary career so that shouldn't be too much of a problem!

After baseball we went home and made tacos and just hung out the rest of the night. Nothing too exciting but it was plenty relaxing. Lisa and Kristen came over and at one point attempted to give me advice about how I can solve my lack-of-a-woman problem. I won't get into too many details, but basically I apparently need to grow out my hair a little bit and get smaller shirts. I was afraid they were going to assault me over the length of my shirts! Well I'm probably going clothes shopping over the weekend, so stay tuned to see if I listen to their advice.

Tonight I'm headed over to my old stomping grounds: Neptune East, second floor. Mike Chiu is having a little shindig over there in his room and I'm coming to bask in the nostalgia afforded by the place where I spent three years of my life. He actually lives in the aforementioned Dan and Matt's old room, which is right next door to my room for two of those years. Speaking of Dan, he might tag along so that should be a wild time. After that, the plan is to stop by my friend Amy's apartment for a little while for a movie night she's having for some of her friends. Amy is usually pretty busy so I always take advantage of every chance I get to spend with her. She just auditioned as a singer for the band Rosenguard yesterday and got the gig, so congrats Amy! I've never gotten a chance to hear her sing but she's a very talented person so I'm sure she'll do great. The band has some shows coming up so I'm going to make sure to be in attendance so I can head bang with my long, flowing, heavy metal hair ;-)

Tomorrow afternoon my friend Dash from the computer science department is throwing a barbeque so I'm going to stop by there. I can always use a grilled meal and some relaxation time, and I'm sure there will be plenty of both tomorrow. After that, though, the rest of my weekend will be centered around classwork, since I have pretty much done nothing since Bill arrived late Tuesday afternoon. I've got a few assignments coming up that aren't too difficult but which need to be finished, so hopefully I can make some solid progress on that this weekend.

Well I've spent way too much time typing this out and I need to get ready for my last class of the week. I'll be sure to post sometime soon and let you know how the weekend goes—or at least the interesting parts. Until then, arrivederci!

-Mark