End of summer and new toy

Finally, the end of the summer is drawing to a close. Sadly, I can summarize the entirety of my summer with one word... wasted.

I don't mean drunk, though I wish that was the entirety of my summer. It was only a small portion, though maybe that's a good thing. I had so much unused time, if I would've dedicated it all to drinking, I would be an alcoholic by now.

I return to school in a week from tomorrow. Most people I talk to that are going to school dread going back. Call me a square, but I am genuinely excited to return. Last semester was my most productive since I've been in college. Under the pressure of not being eligible for film school, I refocused my energy and reorganized my priorities and with relatively little effort earned myself straight As and a spot on the Dean's Honors List. Despite that high level of success, I am aiming even higher in this coming semester.

Not only do I want to earn good marks on my transcript, but I want to earn the respect and recognition of my professors and peers. I now know I can achieve academic success, but now I want to achieve the first bits of career success. I want mine to be a name and face that is recognized as a talented and deidicated filmmaker, even if it is only as locally as the ASU community. One step towards achieving this is making a film this semester. I don't know how short it will be, or even if it will be one of my personal projects, but I have to be a part – hopefully an important part – of an independent film during the next few months.

Lofty goals, but very achievable nonetheless.

Apart from school, there is another very exciting even that will be occuring very soon. Thanks to a bit of assistance from good ol' Uncle Sam and the people at ASU Financial Aid office, I am going to be investing in a brand new computer. You may be asking, “What are you getting? A Dell? HP? Sony? Apple?” None of the above. If you didn't already know, I am a big computer geek. I am building it myself, buying all the necessary parts individually. It's not going to be top of the line, but – without trying to sound to egotistical – it's going to be better than yours.

Here are the technical specifications:

- COOLER MASTER Centurion 534 Mid ATX Case
- Rosewill RV430-2-FRB ATX 12V ver.2.0 430W Power Supply
- ASUS P5N-E SLI LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 650i SLI ATX Intel Motherboard
- Intel Core 2 Duo E6550 Conroe 2.33GHz Processor
- G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel
- XFX GeForce 8600GT 256MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 SLI Supported Video Card
- Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3320620AS 320GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive
- Hanns·G JC-199DPB Black 19" 8ms DVI LCD Monitor
- Logitech MX518 2-Tone 8 Buttons 1 x Wheel USB + PS/2 Wired Optical Gaming-Grade Mouse

I've been giddy for a few days in anticipation of my new toy. I'm not sure what I'm going to name it yet. If you have any suggestions, feel free to share them.

Despite an overall recovery of many of the health ailments I've been suffering lately – including insomnia, stomach pains, nausea, intense headaches – I still have one non-functional part of my body. For a few weeks already I have not had the full capacity of my hearing. Maybe this is my curse for having such perfect eyesight. A balancing out of my senses if you will. The only benefit to not being able to hear very well is going to be that in school, I will be front and center at each lecture listening attentively and taking rigorous notes. It will look impressive to my classmates and professors, but they won't know that despite this apparent intense focus, I will only be catching about 60 percent of what is being said.

I'm not even guessing that percentage. That is about the amount I catch in every day conversations with my family at home. I have begun to become accustomed to it, but it is rather frustrating for others to have me say “huh?” a dozen times per sentence. People become frustrated when they think you are either not paying attention, or don't care what is being said. But it is a sad fact I may have to live with if I can't find the means to get see a doctor soon.

Hmmm... I seem to have over extended myself. I will cut this blog here because I've been writing for too long already. Thanks for reading, all three of you. Until next time. Cheers.