Nick on the Rooftop

hey

Tue, 07 Feb 2006 01:35:24 GMT

does anyone know where i can get the ethnic adversity photos from cycle four? i thought they were really cool but i can't find them anywhere (they aren't on the web site because i assume that they were too offensive....?)

i REALLY want to see these pictures! lol thanks if you can help!

yay!

Fri, 03 Feb 2006 21:34:07 GMT

i'm on the dean's list

grargh

Sun, 25 Dec 2005 07:38:03 GMT

Honors Modern Fiction: A-
Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature Honors 1909 - A-
Introduction to Creative Writing: A

Biology 1001: B+

that was the EASIEST class ever! i'm proud of my other grades but i'm disappointed about that.

grouphug.us

Mon, 05 Dec 2005 01:16:57 GMT

there's this site called grouphug.us where people make anonymous confessions. i check it every once in a while and most of the confessions are stupid ("i jerk off 2 much am i weird or something?") but i saw this one today and i really liked it:

When my cat sits on the desk in front of me we each lean in and knock our heads together. I guess he likes it because it's like i'm speaking his language.

It's just so...cute, I guess. And not pretentious.

AAAAAAAAAAAH i'm gonna die.

Thu, 01 Dec 2005 20:23:25 GMT

so today in newspaper our teacher was talking about the "tiny microcosms" of our lives and i just kind of blurt out "I resent that!" really angrily/punily and he's like "oh ha ha sorry the macrocasm eminence of your life" in this sort of joking way. i wanted to kill myself. my life is SO puny. oig.

and then in bio we were discussing the biological reasons why people age and die. it was SUCH a debbie downer. it's a wonder i haven't jumped out my window yet.

PS

Tue, 22 Nov 2005 23:13:58 GMT

that guy up-ed his offer to $500 for an hour. ooooh lord i hate not being a hooker.

LORD

Sun, 20 Nov 2005 22:39:15 GMT

it is HARD to keep your morals when you are dirt poor broke and someone offers you a hundred dollars to give YOU a blowjob. ooooi

OH DEAR LORD

Fri, 18 Nov 2005 03:43:02 GMT

scott just IMed me. Scott. You know Scott. My FIRST. SCOTT THE NOW THIRTY YEAR OLD. SCOTT THE HOT LION. ooooh lord.

I even pulled out the Donnie Darko soundtrack...

Sun, 13 Nov 2005 09:01:56 GMT

So. Alcohol. Not a good idea. Today I pregamed the football game and went with people on my floor. I drank waaay too much waaay too fast, threw up in the metrodome (not in the bathroom, either, going up the STAIRS to the bathroom) and passed out in my seat. I'm not sure if I'm allowed to be angry with my floormates for not taking care of me or even seeming to care that I was so incapacitated (one did walk back to the dorm with me halfway through the game, but she was piss drunk as well) or checking on me in teh seven hours I was passed out (woke up at 7 pm with the worst hangover of my life). I know it was all my own idiotic fault for drinking too much, but what if I had alcohol poisoning or something? I guess I just know who my real friends are.

the anual substantial post

Tue, 25 Oct 2005 04:11:35 GMT

I'm not sure that I want to be here. In college, that is. Well, Minnesota too I guess. It's just like there's nothing here for me. I'm not really learning anything. Or at least that's what it feels like. I'd like to believe it's because I'm taking all the wrong classes, and that it will all be fixed with the changing of semesters, but somehow I don't think that's the case. I keep thinking about what Ashley said last year when we were talking about going away for college. I said I wanted to go to college to become a writer and she said "But you're already a good writer." I don't think by any means that I could hack in the professional world of writing if you slapped me right into the middle of it now, but I also don't feel like I'm progressing as a writer at all because of my stay here at the U.

I think that I had this incredibly naive notion that when I went to college, all the things that made me unhappy (prejudiced, simple classes, my family, my faults) would all go away. Turns out the reason it's all called "baggage" is because it stays with you. I don't even know if I want to actually be a writer. I just feel like it's something I can do reasonably well and that I can beat other people when I do it. Maybe that's the whole reason I want to be a writer--because I think life is a competition, and that the only way I'll make anything of myself is if I'm proving I'm better at something than other people. That's a pretty sick way to view life.

My friend Steph keeps talking about her friends that all just up and moved to Portland and got an apartment and jobs and lives and are happy just dicking around. The first thing I thought about when she told me this was "Lord, who would want to live such a small life?" But this dorm room feels pretty damn tiny right now, and I don't seem to be on my way to anything so fucking prestigious.

What would I do? Drop out? Go back to working at The Summit and serve old people their slop until I become my boss? A twenty-something who dropped out of college and works eighty hours a week at a place they hate praying for cancer because I know my health insurance wouldn't cover the treatments and dying would finally get me out of that horrible place?

A guy from Campus Crusade for Christ stopped by my room today and talked to me for like half an hour. HE sounded sure of where he was in life and how things worked. Now I don't think I could ever find comfort in my life through God, just because I'm me. I'd feel like I was being tricked and would never be able to find any kind of true contentment. Maybe I could try to find it through something else?

oi

Fri, 21 Oct 2005 17:00:02 GMT

i am pumping out creative writing homework like no tomorrow

Character Sketch of Missifus Maynard
Cole Dennis
There is an old saying “take the bull by the horns.” Of course this does not mean to literally take a bull by the horns, because to do so would be both foolish and messy when the bull gores you and gets blood all over your nice bullfighting apparel. It means to live your life in an exciting way and to take a chance on exciting opportunities, not to battle animals much faster and stronger than you are.
Missifus Maynard often “took the bull by the horns.” She was an actively spiteful child, a word which here means “mean” or “bull-like.” When presented with the opportunity to scorn another child in her class, Missifus Maynard would never turn it down. She would pull on pigtails, blow raspberries, spit, and occasionally cut break lines.
One day Missiful Maynard was answering a question in class, voraciously and incorrectly, a phrase meaning “loudly and quite wrong.” When her poor and dilapidated teacher told Missifus that no, Missifusland was not the capital of Oregon and that it was, in fact, Salem, Missifus became quite irate.
“You don’t know that!” she shrieked terribly.
“I do, Missifus. You have to know quite a lot to be a teacher.” This statement is wrong, but applied well enough for the situation.
It was then that Carolina Dinkins decided to “take the bull by the horns,” and confront Missifus Maynard in class. The kind of excitement Carolina confronted, however, was not daring and wonderful but scary and anxious. She took a breath and began to speak.
“Be quiet, Missifus, everyone knows you’re wrong and nobody wants to hear a temper tantrum.”
There are several kinds of quiet in the world. The quiet Carolina had been hoping for was a reserved and contemplative quiet in which Missifus could ponder her imperfections and choose which of the nastier aspects of her personality to improve upon first. The quiet Missifus sank into, however, was one of silent rage. Instead of contemplating how obnoxious and rude she had been being, Missifus instead thought up of all the hundreds of ways she could get back at Carolina.
I’m sorry to say for Carolina that Missifus Maynard may not have been very intelligent, but when she was angry she had another powerful tool. When chess champions sit down and play chess (a game in which you enact terrible and horrific battles in the comfort of your own living room) they do not win their games because they are smart. More often then not, they are quite bright, but they win because they are able to concentrate. If Missifus had been angry at a chess champion, she would have beaten him. Not only that, but she would have beaten him so badly and told so many people about her victory over the chess champion that he would have been very sad and embarrassed for quite some time.
Don’t get me wrong. Carolina is not a chess champion, and Missifus had no intentions of embarrassing her with a rousing and horrible game of chess. Carolina would, however, be very, very sorry for what she had done. Sometimes the phrase “taking the bull by the horns” is a fun and interesting phrase used by fun and interesting people. In this case, however, Carolina would “take the bull by the horns,” and it would not end well for her at all.

aaagh

Mon, 03 Oct 2005 05:00:18 GMT

i just read "Ender's Game" like over the course of two days. it was pretty slow, and didn't make sense at some points (the author even admitted as much in his introduction) and was too self-righteous for its own good at some points, but it was a really good book. the ending was too "guwah" for me. i like have to stop the music that was playing in my room and put on something calming just to make my head stop feeling all "guwah." Orson Scott Card certainly has you invested in the characters, that's for damn sure. there wasn't anything else to the book, really. just mind games and bad dreams. it was all about children, too. it was hard to remember that they were the whole book. but the definition of a child in our culture is really based on what their situation is and what's expected of them. they aren't really children because they're young but because they don't have to worry about not being young, i guess.

Joyce Sutphen

Wed, 14 Sep 2005 05:39:53 GMT

we had a really cool guest lecturer in my creative writing class today, and her name was joyce sutphen. she's a contemporary poet that i actually like (!!!) and she said this, which i thought was cool:

"If all you do is take one part of your life and pay really close attention to it, that's enough.

UUUUUGH

Wed, 14 Sep 2005 02:44:08 GMT

k. here's the piece of shit poem i'm going to turn in on friday. at least there's plenty of room for revision (which is what they want). please give feedback.

Walls

A wall is a wall is a wall.
Unless it’s AWOL.
Then it’s a traitor.
A wall can be leaned against,
But only if there is at least one other wall helping,
Like old friends who’ve picked up a drifter to help him home.
A wall can hold things.
Like art, or photography, or even a coat.
But a wall will never hold a decent conversation.
A wall can be bad.
A wall can hide secrets.
Behind a wall could be puppies, little girls playing with ponies,
Or a meth lab.
I guess you never really know.

A wall can lead you far away,
A wall can take you home.
Walls can even be a home.
But walls do not make a home.
A wall can’t rock you to sleep at night,
Or tell you why you aren’t the prettiest,
Or the fastest, or the best at hockey,
But, hopefully, it won’t let any dark clouds
Rain on your parade,
If there’s a ceiling.
I guess you’d need one.

A wall is a friend you’ve never met.
That’s because a wall will ignore you.
A wall can’t hold you at night.
Not that the wall wouldn’t,
It just doesn’t have arms.
So don’t feel bad.
The wall won’t,
The wall is an inanimate object.
A wall can’t love you.
But it can’t hate you either.
I guess that’ll have to do.

ugh

Tue, 13 Sep 2005 23:24:47 GMT

anton just told me to "stop hitting mr. computer and start hitting the books."

i never thought i'd miss eden prairie.

and remember what i said about my classes being easy? turns out intro to creative writing is SUPER hard to get an A in. here's the requirements for each grade in that class:

C The student attends class faithfully, participates fully, and completes all assignments.

B The student revises work significantly and submits a particularly strong portfolio (poem/story and revised version) in addition to fulfilling the work required for a C.

A The student demonstrates an extraordinary mastery of language, original approaches to the material, and great skill with the fundamentals taught in class.

SINCE WHEN DOES COMPLETING ALL THE WORK AND GOING TO CLASS AND PARTICIPATING GET YOU A FUCKING "C"?? I NEED A 4.0 TO GET OUT OF THIS SHITHOLE OF A STATE!!

ugh

Tue, 13 Sep 2005 12:51:24 GMT

not liking college thus far. my classes are easy (sorry, post secondary educational system) my roommate's weird, and everyone i've met that lives around me is so vapid and shallow.

last night i was in the study lounge (anton was obsessively watching "House, M.D." DVD's) trying to read a lab manual. but there were kids in there just talking. in the study lounge. which is fine, i guess. i can deal with that. but they were talking about the stupidest things.

this one guy is from chicago and he was telling the other kids there about how he always heard about the elderly and mentally handicapped being raped. the first response from the other kids wasn't "that's terrible!" or "they must have been defenseless! how sad!" it was "ewwww!"

that wouldn't bug me so much if that weren't a typical example of every conversation here.

huwumph

Mon, 12 Sep 2005 21:19:24 GMT

for my creative writing class we're supposed to pick three objects and write a ten line stanza about each in the style of this "blackbirds" poem we read. i've pumped out two disjointed stanzas that look like they were written by someone with no cognitive reasoning abilities.

lol oh bradley

Wed, 07 Sep 2005 04:18:13 GMT

me: i'm not that interesting, don't put too much stock in me.
bradley: bill gates isn't interesting, look where he is.

it took me FOREVER to get that he meant that microsoft's stocks were super high. lol i adore this kid

huh

Sun, 04 Sep 2005 04:45:21 GMT

i haven't actually met my roommate yet. he won't be here till tomorrow. but he doesn't SOUND ugly on the phone, and that's good, right?

...right?

hmph

Fri, 02 Sep 2005 06:21:16 GMT

i met six new people today, and every one of them thought i was sixteen. did i REALLY look even younger than that without the piercings? because i thought i was kidding when i said i looked twelve before. i guess i wasn't?

lord

Tue, 23 Aug 2005 08:17:25 GMT

ten days left until i go to college. finally. it's the longest ten days of my life, i think. still trying to clean out my room (APPARENTLY my brother is going to take it after i'm gone. I have to scour it for cigarette paraphonalia, alcohol, and porn before i leave).

i started reading the book for my honors modern fiction class that was written by the professor. i'm afraid to continue. the first five pages weren't exactly...magnificent. he based it in minnesota and keeps talking about how the main character got fired from the Strib and how even the Pioneer Press wouldn't hire him and he always italicizes their names and talks about things from Minnesota and it's so little-story-about-my-home-town-y that it's kind of making me sick. little bit of vomit. little bit. i'm just glad that this isn't my creative writing teacher. i don't think i'd be able to handle it if my creative writing teacher couldn't write. sigh.

well

Fri, 19 Aug 2005 16:58:28 GMT

i had a dream last night that i had sex with jon stewart of the daily show. it was like sandpaper. i'll leave it at that.

and the night BEFORE last, i had a dream about david meyer. i don't THINK we had sex (though like every dream i've ever had either has sex or a car crash in it, so presumably i banged meyer) but he had kickass short hair and like that scruffy not-quite-beard thing.

oh, karl

Sun, 14 Aug 2005 09:32:43 GMT

karl leaves monday for college, and he drove me home from his house about five minutes ago. before i got out of the car i kissed him (heh heh heh) and hugged him

me- karl, i love you
karl- i love you too, nick
me- ha, no you don't
karl- probably as much as you love me.
me- true!

lol i was so glad he realized it was one of those false "i love you"s that means i love your quirks, and not a real you-had-me-at-hello i love you. and he's one of the few straight guys that i've said "i'm gonna miss you so much i like you so much!" to and hasn't said "nick, i'm straight..." in their stupid naive way. like they think i'm actually pining for them.

oh, karl.

hmmm

Sat, 13 Aug 2005 07:19:16 GMT

should i make my nickname in college be cole (niCHOLas) or Nickie?

man i've been updating a lot

Tue, 09 Aug 2005 18:25:58 GMT

i had this really disturbing dream last night. i think i died in a car crash, and instead of going right into an afterlife i went to this weird little house where these other dead people were assigned to watch over me until i actually passed on. but then i convinced them to let me leave and i started like wandering the countryside and found the place where the car had crashd and adam was there. it was like the saddest feeling dream i'd ever had.

i hate it when i have nightmares, they always freak me out.