That last semester got rough. Thank God it’s over. Luckily my 8am class never treated me that badly, when I actually made it…. 90% of tests in their were based on lecture materials, so I was almost lost on the first 2 tests. I managed to make most of the classes before the 3rd go round, so that one felt a whole lot better, studied for like 5 hours, I better have done good. Digital Circuits was a paradigm of laziness, I missed a crap-load of homework’s in there. So despite my near 100 test average, I’m making a B in there. I made an A in German!!! Must be a grade curve though, cause I missed a few homework’s and quizzes, and didn’t do so hot on those vocabulary quizzes I forgot about. Kicked some ass on tests though. AC Circuits was also a paradigm of laziness, however, HW is only 10% of the grade and I managed B’s and A’s on all the tests in there, last one was kind of rough though, had to derive some formulas out of my ass. Felt like the old days of Calculus in high school, except much less complicated . So far I’ve only gotten 3 of my grades. I haven’t gotten the results of my Geography and AC Circuits grades yet, but I’m pretty confident. That German grade is going to help my GPA a whole lot, being a 4 credit hour course.
So what of the summer? The rush of classes is over, now it’s time to relax. Sort of… I’m working at ITS full time again, with the same crew as last summer. Peter Malmgren, Daniel Meachum, and myself. It’s going to be soo easy, now that we have our system of procrastination figured out and tried and tested true. Normally by the time I’m done working for the summer I’m more than ready to start classes, and see some color in my life. I’ve got a little color to last me some of the summer, but more on that later…. For now at least work doesn’t involve homework, won’t miss that ever.
I learned, or realized not too long ago that going out and throwing a Frisbee is a great excuse too hang out, and can lead to some good opportunities. While throwing the plastic disk with friends I was offered the opportunity to play bass in a band. The current drummer and bassist had dropped out of the loop, so now it was my turn. The band is “The Stand Alone Project,” a project lead by my friend Patrick Smith. They were in the midst of recording when the former members quit on them, so they have a full set of songs. Or rather we do, seems like I’ve made the cut and I’m playing with them consistently. I’m figuring out my parts as I go along, and I’m fairly satisfied with a lot of it. For the most part I’ve got something laid out for everything, just some little parts here and there to iron out, and some flavor to add to some simpler bass lines. It’s a lot of fun and has picked up recently with a new drummer auditioning with us. He’s really good, and fills the spot well. Only problem with him is he’s leaving in August, or is supposed to. It’s great to finally play in a full band with dedicated and talented musicians. Ever since my first endeavor 7 years ago (a short one), I haven’t played with anyone with the spirit to pull off what these guys have, I’m super excited and can’t wait to see what comes out of this. Added bonus, my friend Tara is trying her hand at playing violin in the band, which is super awesome. I’ve always loved it when any band of rock influence added strings into the mix (e.g. Lostprophets, Bush, Linkin Park). Needless to say a good drop of flavor has been added into the amalgamation called my life. If things go as hoped we’ll finally record the CD soon, maybe in a month’s time after drummer’s settled. For now it’s practice practice practice. I’m enjoying it a lot now though, they’re all really good people and it’s a lot of fun.
I’ve slacked off on exercise thanks to exams, so I need to get back into the swing of exercising. I’ve swung off the wagon of the Seal’s workout now, and I’ve started doing the American Parkour Workout of the Day( off of americanparkour.com). It focuses more on extremely intense, shorter workouts that work the whole body and gets you fitness in all areas. Anaerobic, Aerobic, and that in between one I forget about, the kind you’d use to run a 400m sprint. The guy who writes these is a certified Crossfit instructor, you’ve got to be pretty badass to become one of them. A lot of those guys are former marines and the like. The workouts are real intense and I can already feel stronger as a result. I wasn’t improving much doing the same thing over and over again from the last week of workout one for the Seal’s. Those took to long anyway. It took an hour to run, because of getting dressed and shower and all, and it took about 30 min. for pushups, sit-ups and pull-ups. Usually during class days that was a lot. Now with the APK W.O.D. I’m done in about an hour for everything, and it’s designed not to leave me too tired to function, it’s meant to intertwine with Parkour. Ya can’t do PK with super tired muscles. Examples of exercises involved are pull-ups, burpees, handstand pushups, tuck jumps, L-Sit, L-pullups, Ring-dips, etc. Not for the week of heart, and I have a little trouble with a couple of those, L-sits in particular. It will push me to the next level, that’s for sure. I still run every now and then for the hack of it though, great stress reliever.
Well, that’s my summer’s itinerary for now. Hope to take a venture to the beach somewhere in there. Probly will spend some weekends at the lake ridin the Sea-Doo’s (Waverunner’s) 
and hang out with some good friends and my “God-parents.” Things are lookin up for now. Well, I’ve written and reflected on life enough for now, time to go start carving my future.
Bis später Fruenden.
This last weekend we set out on a glorious expedition to the Pisgah National Forest to camp. It was a freaking awesome time.
After getting slowed down by confederate troops, getting kicked out of our first awesome campsite, enduring private property signs, and car trouble we found an even greater spot. After feasting on hot dogs, hamburgers, smores, beans, corn, and zip-lock bag omelletes among other things, we rested and set out hiking the next day.
Our hike took us along an awesome ridge, if you looked out to the side you could see the tops of the trees 300 feets away it was so steep. Many friendly snakes were encountered and we also happened upon a gully of ferns. We stopped and ate lunch on the creek sitting upon a rock. On the end of our hike we found this huge super-awesome waterfall, it was soo great, looked like something out of Last of the Mohicans. We swam around there, and I jumped and crawled around on the rocks. Good times were had by all.
We slept another night, and feasted on apple sauce and pancake (yes pancake, not pancakes. They sorta fell apart), then packed up and set out.
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Read this, found it compelling, now I’m very wary before I get chicken anywhere. Apparently our poultry is bathed in feces before being shipped to our mouths. But don’t take my word for it, read for yourself. 
