I have found it very true that the less I have to do, the less I feel motivated to do… This was one of the explanations proposed by people I talked to as to how I could struggle with only 10 units this last quarter, and it seems pretty reasonable now.

I had dreaded finals last week, so I felt especially compelled to study for once… And I’m surprised to say that some studying was done. I looked over a few Spanish verbs, and reviewed lisp and basic risc code gen a bit. But this was done in the last waking hours of the last day before each respective test. How was more time spent? Well, Monday, the day before my spanish final, a signifigant chunk of time was allocated to honing my squirrel and bird hunting skills - using magazine pages rolled into a sharp cone, projected through a thin PVC pipe serving as a blowgun. This may sound barbaric, but no squirrels or birds were harmed in the making of this anecdote. These paper darts could be pretty powerful and accurate, as Josh discovered, puncturing his windows shade, and even more convincingly, Alex punching a hole in a second floor Toyon metal screen. Unfortunately, we did not get to see one creature jump into the air, shocked that a rolled up picture of Bob Dole had just flown into it’s unwary tuckus. We did get to see the slomo escape attempt of a seagull - “Doh, many strange objects are flying towards me, better run, no FLY away!”, and the seagull flaps hard, slowly cruising right past Josh. But we failed to even hit this monstrosity.

Unsatisfied with the amount of time I had wasted so far, as the others returned to their work, I decided to pursue two things - some Christmas lights my mom wanted, that she couldn’t find in Grand Junction, and an aluminum arrow. The latter was to relive a very fun event in my childhood, that of shooting popcorn kernels large distances at high velocities, for nothing but mischief. I started out, quickly realizing I had no idea where to go for such things. I stopped at Andronico’s (supermarket), and looked in the sporting goods section of the phone book outside . They all seemed to cater to typeical Californian pasttimes: rollerblading, yoga, etc. etc… So, I figured I would have a better chance where they sold a more common weapon; I looked up Guns. As I was browsing through this section, a young man came up to use the phone next to me, saw my finger tracing out the address under a large ad for “Pete’s Guns and Ammo”, and quickly turned away, looking worried. Unfortunately, all the gun suppliers were far from the sheltered confines of Palo Alto, so I resolved to check the one “sports” store I knew of, really a glorified toy store in central Palo Alto. The clerk there asked if he could help me… “I’m looking for hunting arrows.” “Well, we have plastic toy arrows…” “No, I really need the aluminum kind, that you shoot deer with, do you know where I could get those?” He wasn’t sure, but said I might try “Big 5″, but unfortunately there weren’t any around here. I thanked him and left, he looked glad to see me go. I finally went down to Safeway for a while, just to browse and look for the lights my mom wanted, and anything approximating a hollow aluminum tube. Finding neither, I decided to give up and head home. As I exited the store, my gaze fell across the street, where, framed by some trees, was a large “BIG 5″ sign! I rushed over, and found an arrow, purchased that, and raced home, getting a few strange looks since the arrow protruded quite a bit out of my backpack. The actual use of the arrow was somewhat of an anticlimax, as it was difficult to reproduce my memories of the formidable weapon…

The spanish final went well, I probably did about average. The part where Julio read a list of stuff in spanish drew a lot of those quick little exhales that indicate frustration - do those have a name?

Well, this installment is going too long, so I think I’ll summarize now. Eat lunch, waste time, eat dinner, waste time, chat with Leah over ICQ (note I don’t include this as wasting time), go to Terrace, chat with Anne over my doorway, look at CS a bit, go to bed, take a shower, eat a bit, wake up, take CS test (wasn’t bad!), eat lunch, revel in being done, chat with Anne & Co. in their room - from 1 til midnight, waste time, drift off in chair, scramble to pack, hunt for my suitcases, finally getting Alex to unlock them from the storage room, be told my ride is invalid to the airport, have that reversed, go home via two planes (only saying maybe 10 words the entire trip - and I could have said none I see now!), eat Wendy’s, see my friend Steve, cut all my hair off with Matt’s clippers, and waste a lot more time. Although I have endeavored the last couple days to read a lot, and I have - I want more of an apologetic background, since questions regarding this baffle me. One more interesting thing will have to wait for later, as it is right now a secret. Working from a modem isn’t that bad, when text is all you have to manipulate!

Quote(s) of the week:

“No. No. Yes. Thanks. … No. Snapple. Thanks. … Orange Juice. Thanks.”

This is Bradley, signing out, and hanging up!