This is what it will look like for a day or two. It’ll look better soon.

I got to the annual huge family get-together, and started playing with my baby cousin Austin. He’s had lots of health problems, and everyone in the family takes good care of him, especially me. Well, I carry him around for a while, and after a few minutes, his mom and my sister at the same time tell me I need to look at my arm. Well, I look, and see this orange-brown, mixed with bubbling spit, trail of ooze going down my arm, heading onto my shirt, and ending on my pants. Yeah. He decided to upchuck all over me. Needless to say, I had to run home and change into another shirt and undershirt (the pants had about two small drops on them). It was nasty.

So here we go.
First, my sister.

Next, my mom.

Dad didn’t get to go last night, so I didn’t get to get a picture of him dressed up. He looks like Santa. Serious. See for yourself. It’s a stock photo.

And, of course, me.

Christmas presents started for me on Wednesday, receiving Mary-Kathleen’s kickass “Get Jolly, yo!” holiday music CD. I listned to it through three or four times already. Then, last night, I got this shirt. It always happens that I get drawn in the family “Secret Santa” by one of my … less sophisticated cousins. Sure, the shirt is funny, but, it’s not really my style. Well, then I got up this morning and started the massive present opening extravaganza. Here is everything I got today. For those of you wanting to see a close up of the DVD’s, here you go. All told, there is a dartboard, a set of shelving, a hooge CD wallet, blank CD’s, two decks of cards (someone didn’t get the memo), Nelly’s “Suit” CD, the DVD’s of “Blazing Saddles”, “Spiderman”, “O Brother, Where Art Thou?”, and “Dave”, popcorn (to go with my movies), a pair of pajama pants, socks, a tie (gotta love my grandmother), a new jacket, a flashlight, John Grisham’s “The Last Juror”, a wireless keyboard and mouse, and a pair of Chuck Taylor’s (size 13, yes, they are motherfucking boats). It was a good haul. I loved everything I got.
Stuffed myself per family tradition at Christmas with my grandmother. It was lovely. Got to see all my immediate, and not so immediate family in the past 24 hours, always a wonderful Christmas wish that never goes unfulfilled. Had a great one, thanks to many of you out there, even if you just told me “Merry Christmas”.
Here’s to hoping you had a Merry Christmas. Much love to you all.

Pictures of me and the family, as well as some of my Christmas loot coming tomorrow night.
Wishing everyone out there in Deezilville a wonderful Christmas.

BIO 101 B
HUM 211 B
HIS 221 C
CSC 301 C
CIS 307 B
The worst semester I’ve ever had. It brings the GPA down to 3.31. Dangerously close to the 3.25 I have to keep for my scholarships.

I’ve been home for about 48 hours now, and all I can say about it is that I already want to be back in Murray. Gravel Switch isn’t my home any more. It’s my vacation spot. The place I go to get away from things for the shortest of times, right before I have to throw myself back into where I was. Home. Murray. And I really will have my own home when I get back to it in early January. I’ve got my own room, alone for the semester, able to do what I want, when I want, including being able to set around naked. That, I think, will be a luxury that I will enjoy, since it will be the first time in my life indulging in it. But being here, right now, as was with the first 16 and a half years of my life doesn’t afford me that luxury, or many others. Having to get up on days where I would usually sleep, no drinking, no parties, no unlimited internet (Provost: MIDNIGHT RULE!), no anything fun, no door on my room (due to a remodel 7 years in the making, now), and pretty much nothing that I have found that I can take for granted being in Murray. This sucks.

Just fel the need to clear my throat before speaking, since this may become one of my longest and most irate rants to date. That is, if I don’t puss out or go and actually work here in a few minutes. Let’s start at about the beginning of last week, just for fuck’s sake. Now, it was supposed to be dead week, the week where there was not supposed to be any testing going on, and classes were supposed to be in a lull. I guess my professors didn’t get the memo. They piled stuff on top of me until I couldn’t take it any more. And I was at my wits end two nights in a row, one of which I didn’t go to sleep in. Well, being the persevering soul I am, after quite alot of bitching at myself, I got everything done, pulled off a bullshit presentation grade, and made it through all my other obligations. As we go into this past weekend, I was stressed, physically and mentally, I didn’t think that I was going to get things arranged like I needed for housing and with other inor things, both here and at home, so I needed a pressure reliever. So, things with Kelly had been starting back up, so I give her a call, we agree to hang out Saturday night, both watching a movie in my room, and then later, at a party for a brother of mine. The movie goes well, we do a little bit of cuddling, no kissing or anything like that, and we head off to the party. Well, about 20 minutes into being there, she looks at her phone, then comes to me and tells me that she just missed a call, and she needed to step outside and take it. I ask if she wants me to come with, just in case something bad was up, and she told me no. I thought nothing else of it, and went back to talking to some of the brothers. About 15 minutes passes, and I decide to go outside and check on her, since she hasn’t arrived back inside yet. I go out to see if she’s in her car, and I guess she was in it, because that car wasn’t there to be found. Just in case I made that confusing to read, she ran off on me without telling me. So, I see a certain brother who knows of Kelly well, and he is walking up to me. I tell him what’s going on, and he tells me that she called him to tell him to come make sure I don’t do anything stupid. She doesn’t call me to tell me she went home, but gets another brother out of his room at midnight to come watch over me. I was pissed. I went off. I had to get out of there, so my big brother and my twin decide to go to this other party where my big bro’s girlfriend is supposed to be. We get there, start hanging out, and I see many people I know. Well, I get to talking to them, and start drinking for the night, and at some point this girl, whom I know of, comes up to me and starts hitting on me (MSUR Readers ATTN: It’s not SoCR). Well, we keep talking, start dancing, and somehow, the convo got to “do you want to come home with me tonight?”. I’ll end that story, except to say this, just believe what ever you want to as far as what happened. I’ll never tell anyone. Fast forward to today. I just got my asshole reamed by two consecutive finals. I feel like hello.jpg all over again. On one of them, there was material that we had never went over in class at all. It was the most ridiculous thing that I have ever taken. There’s going to be some formal complaining over this test soon, there better be, it was just pure and utter hell. Well, now I do have to get to work, so I will leave you, gentle readers, be. Have a wonderful one.

I thought I could handle it, I could handle all of it. But it seems that sometimes I can’t. And this week has been the most prime example of not being able to handle everything dealt to me, and how it caused me to get absolutely no sleep one night. Really, it’s been the past ten days of my life, days where there is constantly something going on, and nights that never seem to end. And it’s all catching up to me, and I want to go home. It’s not that I want to really go home, it’s just that I want to get out of here, or at least be ridden of the school work and the other burdens that seem to weigh on my back. And it’s not that I want them gone forever, just that I want them gone for a little while. Just enough time for me to get some sleep, get some more social parts of my life in order, and drink myself into a slow peace one night with a circle of friends.

Wow, there are not many things that can kick my ass and make me start thinking like a good conversation. Well, we have a new user on MSURacers and seeing as lots of people were posting conversing with her, I decided to add her to AIM and talk to her. Same thing I have done with a few special users, users that can read the boards perfectly without adjusting to it. Well, I have talked to her, and everything we are talking about is making me want to blog it all. Now due to me not wanting to do it all now, I will get to it later (reader’s note: later usually means never), but it was nice that someone touched my “special spot” and made me want to move to ye olde blog for just a second.

After a long semester with many trials, I am now a fully initiated brother of Alpha Sigma Phi. I am glad that I can call the other 370 brothers that come before me a brother, and I will be glad when I can help introduce a new class to make that number even bigger. It was a fun night, not too long, but very interesting. But then, the party. It had been a dry week, we were all chomping at the bit to celebrate, so it was wonderful. What’s left of my case of beer is still in the oven at Triple Threat’s house. Hopefully. All I know is that I got quite shitty, and started calling people. I wish to apologize to the following: Christopher Hodes, Eric Scott Morski, Craig Clayton, Laura Damico, and Maria E. Locklear. It was funny calling you, but since I know I woke at least one of you up, I must say that I am sorry for my actions. After about 10 drinks, I started going. So, I hopped in the car with the DD, and we went to Log Cabin. All I remember is putting my head on the table, and then nothing else until we left. Then, I got back here to the dorm room. The DD talked to the desk worker, while another drunk brother and I went to my room. I don’t remember kicking off my shoes or taking off my coat, but I do remember falling in the bed. Appx. 11 hours later, I woke up. No hangover, no headache, no nothing, just blurred memories of the latter part of one of the greatest days in my life.
And for the record, I got chanted on to a beer. And now, they did say brother.
“So here’s to brother Daniel, brother Daniel, brother Daniel, oh here’s to brother Daniel, who’s with us tonight. He’s happy, he’s jolly, he’s fucked up by golly, so here’s to brother Daniel who’s with us tonight. Soooooooooo……DRINK MOTHERFUCKER DRINK MOTHERFUCKER DRINK MOTHERFUCKER” and so on until you finish yo shit.
Thanks to everyone that supported me, brothers, pledge brothers, and others that I talked to about the whole experience. It was great that you were there along with me.

Yeah, I think it’s time that I made an update. There’s been alot go on here lately, and things are starting to culminate in many parts of my life. It’s just been quite a struggle coordinating all of it, and I hope that certain things will work themselves out, and soon. Thanksgiving was wonderful. It was great to start it out at home, sleeping in on my birthday, and then not doing much of anything else for the rest of the day. Not doing anything made me feel very good, it gave me the chance I needed to relax, but I felt like I wasn’t there in the full sense, that part of me was back here, and that I needed the whole of me back here as well. The annual gathering with the family commenced, and it went splendidly. I got to see all the people that I wanted to, and the usual few that I didn’t. Black Friday came, and I decided to brave the cold weather and the crowds to go out and face the madness that is shopping on that day. It was the worst mistake of my life. I will never go shopping then again, and quite possibly do all my shopping online from here on out. Then, on Saturday, the annual Christmas at the Switch festival, the one time the community I live in showcases it’s all in front of everyone. And it sucked. Sure, I got to see several people that I wanted to talk to, but it mainly consisted of sitting inside the community center, making sure lunch was going smoothly, and trying not to be bored. Sunday brought my return to Murray, a very welcomed sight. For the past tow days, however, I have been run ragged with fraternity expectations. It has been hell, but I have endured some of the most brutal issues I think I have ever had to deal with. Now, if one of our own wouldn’t have done something so stupid to fuck it all up for himself, I would be much happier, but seeing as he did, I go to bed pissed. At him. For making the wrong decision. And with that, I sleep.