How Many Days are in January?

Pshaw. It's not enough. I mean, I can still see my car! I can still open the door at the bottom of the dorm. People are driving on roads, what is this!? They lifted the snow emergency? More snow! More ice! I have charcoal and lighter fluid! Or maybe let me take back the little heater I gave to Rochelle last week, but then I'll be all set. I mean, c'mon, the professors can still escape from their homes! We're back to having classes! This is not right. I must protest. I am not satisfied. Blizzard conditions! National weather records! I want more! Last semester we had the hurricane, this semester we had a snow storm, but it's really wimpy. Level 3 Snow Emergency for Cincinnati? Level 5 please! I want to go sledding off the roof of my dormitory! Daugh.

*breaks into laughter*

-Sam

(Tree Encased in Ice. 01/28/09)

I've Never Checked the Forecast So Much

If I were at home, I might take a ruler or yardstick out onto the front yard and measure the frozen precipitation. Random. Just to give you a semi-accurate account of the amount of snow received. Since I'm on the 4th floor of a dorm in Cincinnati, I shall not do that this time. However, we've gotten pounded with snow and ice in the last two days here.


This makes me happy. We've had two days off school as a benefit as well. Once again, the adventuresome group of Tattoo, Oreo, Trapper, Osprey, Falcon and Black Owl decided to be adventurous and trekked 1.2 miles through the snow to Panera. We did homework, ate, attempted to stay warm, dried our boots by the fire, and played a game. Much kudos (or as they say in the Greek "κυδος") to Black Owl for his muggable trek back to pick us up.

Due to Day 2's level 3 Snow Emergency issued in Cincinnati, we created our own Coffee Emporium in the Student Center. We did homework and played Scrabble. Crude. Rains. Pixies. Squire. Proven. Leaden. Jot. Gold. Bath. Bins. Stakes. Wider. Yews. Qua.





And I've enjoyed it all. Thank you God for the "bad" weather.

Conversations

Conversation in dorm hallway:

Brennan: (upon exiting from dorm room and encountering Phil & Sam in hallway) "Hey, how are the Greek students?"

Sam: (answers for himself) "Good!"

Phil: (comments about difficulty of Greek IB)

Brennan: (who is no longer in Greek after completing one semester) "I feel like the loser and the rebel, and it feels good."

Sam: (who is in Greek IB) "I feel like the man who persevered, and it feels better."

Brennan and Sam both laugh.

Brennan and Phil exit hallway right.

Sam exits hallway left, and blogs.

The Beauty of Koine Greek

How well do you know English? That's the key. If you don't you will certainly have a hard time understanding hortatory subjunctives, deliberative subjunctives, and prohibitory subjunctives. The latter is what gets me.

First an excerpt, shall we? "The subjunctive mood presents the action of the verb as probable. It expresses an action viewed as potential. Translate with auxiliaries may, might, or should." Next lesson, "Prohibitory subjunctive: The aorist subjunctive with μη prohibits an action and should be translated as a simple command." How can it be a command and be subjunctive? Oxymoronic? Maybe.

Greek also has emphatic negation. Double negatives don't cancel each other out, they increase the negation. However, since we can't use two negatives in English, we translate double negatives in Greek as increased negatives in English. Auxiliaries: never, not at all, by no means.

Indefinite Relative Clauses and....yea.

In other news, eating peanut butter from the jar helps with the confusion.


-Sam

Random

1. I like to change the subject
2. My middle name is Lee
3. I love loud music
4. I love the smell of citrus
5. I bought gum today
6. I can speak short phrases in 9 languages. English. Spanish. French. German. Swahili. Greek. Russian. Hebrew. Arabic.
7. My wall calendar is missing February, March, August and September. I don't know why.
8. My house number is 3839.
9. 218 is my dorm room number.
10. My mailbox number is 313
11. On my bookshelf there are 102 books
12. My favorite shoes are converse
13. I have a deep love of scarves. Just bought a plaid one.
14. Scars fascinate me
15. I eat peanut butter straight from the jar
16. I name everything dear to me. Car: Toby. Computer: Adriana. Guitar: Oscar. Microwave: Dave. Pillow: Carlisa. Ipod: Neo. Cell phone: Sully. Rubber duckie: Chino
17. I just learned to snowboard
18. I preach on Philippians 2:12-18 soon
19. I love dreaming.
20. My Christmas tree is decorated with CD's and DVD's. It's still up.
21. My wall clock is square.
22. I write in my Bible
23. My favorite coffee shop is Coffee Emporium
24. I love punctuation
25. I am paradoxical
26. My chapstick has beeswax in it.
28. My shopping list has hydrogen peroxide and miracle whip on it - among other things.
29. My comforter is plaid. Plaid is dope.
30. I have a cartoon on my door.
31. My abilities include cooking, cleaning and laundering.
32. I have had my hair diffused.
33. I like dill pickles and green olives.
34. I've made chip dip with cottage cheese and spices. It gave my life meaning and purpose.
35. I thrive on randomness, unorginality, and eclecticism.
36. I have a plant. His name is Narcissus.
37. Allergies bother me.
38. I collect lamps
39. I've had 4 ear surgeries
40. I've flown in an airplane with Nate.
41. I've never had 2 sets of dentures.

-Σαμ ΜχΚονκη

Give Me Help

Jogged at 6:00 AM. 17 degrees. I need psychological help.

Am behind on sleep. Homework is literally never-ending.

Smacked my head on the concrete floor while diving playing volleyball. Details are fuzzy. I didn't go unconscious but witnesses said I laid there for a while. I felt woozy the rest of the night, but didn't pass out. My eyes weren't dilated and I had no blurry vision. I'm fine today for which I thank God. One thing bugs me: I never had a headache.

Toby came home from the hospital today with a transplant. He's doing much better.

Sjorring, Denmark's weather calls for rain tomorrow.

And thank you, Tattoo, Black Owl, Osprey & Vulture for the many laughs at supper.

Signing off.
Sincerely and simply,
Sam

011609 - Mission: C6389 (Codename: Random Adventure)

In the spirit of spirits, whose spirits linger in the spirit of friendship, we rendezvoused @ 18:30 for an evening anticipated by much excitement. (This emotion was no shock to us) First on the fun itinerary was a trip to (Classified) Park. There the urge to chase deer was resisted by me, and after said resistance instructed everyone to get out of the car. Tattoo thought surely I was going to line them all up and shoot them, but no, never fear, I, in an even more mysterious manner pulled a box from the trunk and again told them to follow. Once to park grill, I pulled charcoal bag out, doused said charcoal in happy fluid and Tattoo with much excitement (and this excitement leading to failure in correctly lighting phosphorus tipped stick) eventually was able to light the fire, and with a little more happy fluid, and short screams from female agents, we stood warming ourselves in the freezing cold by this fire. It is then that Oreo lamented the lack of marshmallows.

After pictures to document said mission, we left this place and traversed in gold sedan to Location 2: CE/HP. Credit Oreo for mission idea and Falcon for reconnaissance of this locale. CE/DT is our normal pick-up, however, we have found CE/HP to be quite satisfact'ry. (Sat'sfac'try is said in Brit'sh accent) There we merried ourselves with photography, laughter and stories. Added to this merriment was my beverage of Costa Rican coffee. We also pondered giving Untitled the title of Trapper. (She has a lovely green scarf, fit for Ireland.) "Here, lit'l leprachaun...No! Bring the pot'o'gold with ye." She does not agree to this correspondent name, will suit name later. My deepest apologies to the ladies and gents of whom we disrupted their lives by our merriment at this CE location. Also, our deepest apologies to Fluffy and Ginger: may the lives of a thousand coyotes be slain in your honor! Apparently (according to the sign, which happened to strike fear in my heart) there's a coyote problem at Location 2.

While forgetting to vote upon the next stop in our 3 stop adventure, we agreed (in a friendly manner, with no violence) that rendezvous point BN should be our destination, since we were content with coffee breath and not famished of heart nor stomach. Enjoyment was had of picture books, pop-ups, and a book on Ireland for dummies, (which I wonder why there's never any books for smart people!) of which I found the only enjoyment in learning Irish slang. Ask for a lift, not a ride! And I'm not taking the leak out of ya! Convos were pleasant, engaging, thoughtful, and delightful there. Once grouped, we viewed a little sarcasm and we, (Untitled, Falcon, Oreo, Tattoo and Osprey) with smiles on lips, warm hearts, and cold bodies, blew smoke into the air as we ended the evening.

As Bill Harris as so eloquently said: "There are worse things in life than having fun."

Maybe It's Cold Outside

Actually it's 3 degrees outside right now, and headed towards -7. And I went jogging at 9 degrees this morning. No, I'm not crazy...well yes I am crazy, but I stayed warm and did fine. Now if we can just get that dumping of snow I've wanted.

Don't know why, but I haven't started this semester feeling gung-ho at all. Normally, I'm pretty excited about the start of a semester, but this one is staring me down. Perhaps its the warnings I've received from friends who have gone through this semester in my education division. Feels...bleh.

For those of my friends whom I haven't shown this video. Check it out. Sarcastic's Anonymous. Hilarious!

-Sam

Hype

I wanna be a snowflake. So I can dance and fly through the air at the same time.


I'm hungry...for God. I want to feel his presence more. And not at a certain time on given days in a special service. I don't want warm, fuzzy feelings that fade. I want Him. I am His. I want more of Him. I want to be more like Him. Don't give me emotional hype. Give me Jesus. I wanna think and act like Him.

Filled with passionate desire,
-Sam

My TV Show Idea

I'm just chock full (chock, I love that word, isn't it fun to say?) of great ideas. Okay, so for a holiness reality TV show, what we should do is switch all the worship leaders and musicians at various churches and film this show to get everyone's reaction and behind the scenes of the switches. The show would also document how things go after the switch at these churches. We wouldn't tell the pastor or the congregation, only the various musicians and song leaders, etc. A great show idea - plenty of laughter all around I say.

More blogging later.

Our Attempts at Profundity and Levity

Under the due advice of Mel to blog about this, I have pondered what those artists of past centuries were thinking of when they painted those famous paintings, or set up the scene for great photographs.

The Lord's Supper? I can just see the painter..."Okay, Phillip can you lean in a little bit more?" "John, put your arm around Jesus....yea, that's it." "Hey Andrew move your hand a little more to the left....no, your left...yea, that's good."

Or maybe Washington crossing the Delaware? Okay George, put your knee right here...yea, like your looking out over the river. What are you doing with the flag? Hey, you with the oar, yea...kinda have an intense look on your face, and everyone else look cold!"

Robert E. Lee with his horse Traveller? Yea, okay, Mr. Lee for this shot I want you to just look out over the horizon...yea, good...Hey! Hey! Stupid horse. I'm sorry General Lee, it's just...Hey!"

Skiing, Snowboarding, Soccer, Unnumbered Resolutions, and a Gag in my Mouth

May I forever hold the position and heretofore state that I love skiing and snowboarding. Went with my cousins to New York. Had a blast skiing. And thought I would try something new and go snowboarding. Ha. I got all bruised and scratched up. I am sore all over, but getting better. Landen asked me after I had just wiped out on snowboard, "Why do you keep on getting up and doing it?" I sighed and answered. "I live by a motto: Success is failure."

I don't normally do this at all. But let me succumb to it. I hereby resolutely resolve to establish good sleeping habits. Also on the list is to eat lots of food, and make sure its healthy and stuff. I also want to be outspoken in my faith and increase my passion for what God wants me to do and learn how to think like Jesus. So there, unnumbered, are my 2009 resolutely resolved resolutions.

I played goalie for soccer intramurals tonight. Rachel Crissinger is on my team. She's cool.

This semester promises (with much promising) to be a difficult one. Here we go! Somebody please place a large cloth in my mouth and gag me - I might start screaming if I don't control myself.

-Samuel

You Forced A Smile

I forgot how soon I have to go back to school. Posh. Don't wanna. The good news is that I've completed a decent amount of collateral and extra credit work for next semester. To quote that great quote that I love quoting: "It's back to the fake world."

I like green olives.

And lemon meringue pie.

I'm going skiing tomorrow.

-Sam

Blogging from a Hotel

Something I haven't done in a while. Comfort Suites. Monaca, PA, just outside of Pittsburgh. High in the mid 30's today and I'll be dressing in black and going out into the cold and snow for the funeral. I have successfully been able to avoid a lot at the viewing. What really bothers me about all this is what well meaning people say to you. First of all, they know me and I don't know them. This bothers me. Second, they offer up predictable cliches about what a great guy he was. Fortunately, he lives up to the comments made after his death. If I get the nerve I post more later about him.