I know it will take a special kind of nerd to appreciate this, but…

Well, I guess I just know a lot of special nerds. I don’t really know if I’ve ever blogged about Foam In the Liberal Arts (F.I.L.A.), the Nerf club at Houghton, or admitted that I’m such a big nerd, but I guess it’s about time. What is the reason for my sudden desire to discuss Nerf on my blog? Well, one unabashed reason. I’m prideful and I think, despite all cultural evidence to the contrary, that this makes me look cool. Also, Nerf is my time to unrestrainedly stroke my ego because of my toys. So, let the egomania commence!

I am proud to announce (brag) that I have invented my own custom Nerf mod: The Vigilante!

Since I’m ego stroking anyway I can give it whatever cocky name I want. This is an Alpha Trooper CS-18 blaster loaded with a Raider CS-35 clip and, here’s the kicker, with an attached Longshot CS-6 stock. My favorite part is that it’s held together with rubber bands. What’s cool about this modification is that, not only does the primary clip hold 36 shots, but the new stock holds the 18 round clip perfectly. What’s that? 54 shots with only one reload? Yes, yes that is what I’m bragging about. Also, because the Longshot stock is only connected to the Alpha Trooper through rubber bands the recoil vibrations of firing don’t transfer. No more sore shoulder! Oh, and of course the air restrictors have been removed as well, so the range is 30-40 feet depending on the dart and elevation. But most of all, it will just look cool!

Anyway, thank you for indulging my extreme nerdiness. I just feel pretty cocky and pretty happy about this. I’m looking forward to getting back to Houghton and really trying it out.

Am I Where I'm Supposed to Be?

Well, today I've been working on school stuff. NO!!! It's barely August and I'm working on school stuff? It's follow up to my internship. Don't worry, I haven't had a complete personality shift and become one of those people who reads their books for class the summer before or gets good grades or something. No, I'll always be a barely average slacker, no worries there.

Self-deprecation aside, I've been wondering if I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing. Not just today as I've been typing up patient histories and wishing I could play Mass Effect instead but other times too. When I started out at Houghton I had a religion major because I figured that, as far as God goes, you can't get in too much trouble majoring in Him. But within half a semester I desperately missed writing and I was getting very sick of boring facts about the Old Testament and I had failed/dropped Biblical Greek. So the study of religion was, by and large, out of my future and I went back to my first love: Writing.

Psychology had always interested me, plus I wanted an excuse to take Human Sexuality and Abnormal Psychology, so I decided to minor in it. Up until this past semester I was very satisfied with focusing on writing and having psychology as a hobby. But then I started counting credits. I had already taken the majority of writing classes that Houghton offered and more than enough for my major so I wasn't sure what I would do my senior year. Until I realized that I had just enough room to squeeze in a psychology major on the applied pre-therapy track. This was exciting not only because psychology is cool and really interesting to me, but because it meant that I might graduate with an actual hireable degree and keep me from living in a cardboard box after college.

Due to my psych major I spent a large portion of this summer as a psychology major at the Acadia Hospital, a psychiatric hospital in Bangor that's about a 20 minute walk from my house. It was a really cool experience and when I first started I felt all fired up and was like "YES! This is what I'll do for the rest of my life. I'll be a psychotherapy super hero!" But by the middle of the summer, and definitely by the end, I was less sure. I don't know if I have the patience or endurance for a career in psychology. I think I would definitely burn out by either getting too impatient or getting too emotionally involved with my clients. Honestly, I think I might be too much of a softy for that kind of work. I don't know. Also, I think I may be too wimpy for the classwork. This coming semester I will be exclusively taking psychology classes. Honestly, they all look hard, and I'm only really interested in one.

So I feel kind of torn. My temptation is to drop the psych major, change all my hard, core psych classes for next semester to easy, fun, and random classes, and to spend the rest of my life as a starving artist living off my writing/becoming the next David Foster Wallace (not like, I'm not that good.) The only problem is that I'm getting married. If I wasn't getting married I would feel no responsibility to grow up, get a job, mature, or be responsible at all. But I do.

I guess I should just stick with my psych major. It's the practical thing to do. It's also really hard work and I would hate to fail a class. I mean, if I do then I have to drop the psych major.

Anyway, for the few people still reading this blog I guess you've figured out that I've got my angst back so I'm writing again. It's been a while since I wrote anything with zero conclusion, meaning, or decisiveness. But here I go. I think I'm enjoying getting back into it.

Old Orchard Beach and Life and Stuff

Well, as expected, my last blog post did come across as somewhat more incendiary than necessary. I really haven't figured out how to write, or talk, about politics well. I will someday. For now I hope that at least some people got something out of it. I remember when I was in Estonia and blogging much more consistently that some young Americans I knew back in America were forbidden to read my blog by their parents because of how offensive I come across. Oh well, you win some, you lose some, you irreversibly alienate and make enemies of some. So it goes, say Kurt Vonnegut and I.

Anyway, now that I've blogged once it's like some sort of writing Cocaine and I feel all-powerful and like I should just keep going. Also, like a Cocaine high it doesn't last very long so I need to keep doing MASSIVE amounts, like Scarface or something.

Anyway, here's what I've been up to lately. My internship is all done, which is great because it means I can focus on other things. So this past weekend I was down in Old Orchard Beach (OOB, which always seems slightly dirty...) for Salvation Army Camp Meetings. It was a really good time. Jenny got to be exposed to a million people in uniforms (again) and I got to see a bunch of people who have known me since I was a fetus and who, seeing as how I was so fetal, I don't remember at all. I always feel awkward in those situations...

Anyway, it was really great. I liked the main speaker, Oscar Roan, a lot. But even more than that I really enjoyed hearing from some really cool Salvationists, like Commissioner James Knaggs (who has a surprisingly big Wikipedia Article.) It was quite a good time. I also bought the new book by Knaggs and Major Stephen Court, who I knew in Vancouver. It's called One For All and it's really cool. I haven't really looked at it much, but it's really cool. It's like 3 books in one, and the first book is a collection of essays from a whole bunch of different Salvationists. This is one book I am very excited to read.

So, that's really all I had to write about...FOR NOW! But I would like to write about Psalm 103 (super great) and David Foster Wallace (My long haired writing idol) at some point. But right now I need to go see the Lego creations Jenny and Peter are building together.