a conversation with "tammi with an i" reminded me that i will be able to drink mountain dew in america. i'm less than thirty-six hours away from consuming my beloved until i fall into a drunken caffeine induced haze... holy.

so the album is complete, or at least i quit trying to make it baetter. it's now taking about an hour or two of effort track. i have a total of about 80 tracks. all my christmas shopping IS NOT done, i hope no one is upset... i have to upload the album.

at the expense of my neighbors i finished... i think.

tomorrow i get on a plane.
total travel time not including trains and buses: about 18 hours.
total travel time including trains and buses: about 20 hours.
total travel time from the minute i leave my house to where i touchdown in omaha: 23.5 hours.

the miracle of procrastination is that i will be totally released of any laziness when i board my plane tomorrow because can't change the past.

bad ass sensei dressed up as santa today for a special-ed class. it was hot.

and on top of my busy-ness, i'm only 15 pages away from finishing a book. so i'm trying to squeeze all that in.

take care. loike.

there was no one last night who i could giggle with and tell stories about how i was bad-ass sensei yesterday.

last night i met maxwell's friend raka, an eighteen year old super-genius who's currently in her fifth year of college and is thinking about doing the jet program. supergenius. it blew me away. it was quite good conversation. we had a good time, a good laugh, getting hot "like we do" and i'm thankful for the friends i have here in s_town. i'll miss them.

i'm coming home in four days. o m g . seriously. in pure d@ve rupert fashion, i haven't packed jack. now i'm frantically trying to finish my overdue album. i should finish today. and i think it'll be good.

mr.mark tells me hard things about sin and the consequences. bethel.

i just stared at my computer until it did one of those 3D magic eye things. it was intense.

i "slept" on the floor last night. i do that most nights, really, but last night was uncomfortable. i fell asleep while recording and i sort of burrowed a nest in the mound of crap that is replacing my floor and i "slept" on chords and books. not so comfortable. not sure i'd qualify it as a night of sleep.

i've had a lot of good conversations in japanese this week. totally making up for feeling totally worthless after my 2kyu (level2) test. last night i went to the convenience store at midnight to my friend about some lyrics i'm pondering. he makes me smile. he throws up the guns and says "shooting for july!" and we laugh. i like it here. but, come mid-january, that guy is going to canada for a year...

my greatest fear is that i'll come home and be the guy who speaks in Japanese when i could just use English. i don't want to do it at all. but i fear my jargon has been too strongly influenced. so you'll probably have to remind me to speak English. i'm gonna hate myself.

current mood: quite sleep-deprived and sick

frahnce.

In the fourth and fifth grade, had I been interviewed by the FOX 7 Kids' Club, I'd have said that my hobby was drawing. Actually, the only memory I have of Kindergarten is drawing pictures of Optimus Prime. Drawing along with video games would always held a special place in my life.

In the 2nd grade I inked my greatest masterpiece, a comic about a germ that drove around in a pill shaped car, ejected and entered the body through the toenail. I suppose the moral of the story was "wear shoes on the playground" but I'm not totally sure... I had created the idea after I was ill. In 2nd grade, I also wrote and illustrated Legend Of Zelda Fan Fiction. This was maybe the height of my career.

Of course Funny Faces tracing was an unstoppable hit at the book fair. Character drawing was guaranteed hilarity as the large head and miniature body mocked each other.

My glasses came about because of drawing. Around 4th or 5th grade mom noticed one night at one of those restaurants with crayons and butcher paper on the table that my face was real close to the picture I was drawing. The topic of glasses came up and I leaped at the opportunity because glasses were the new hot pink.

In the 5th grade, PBS turned me onto Commander Mark, a guy who was quite adept at drawing bears with unicorn horns on their heads. His drawings pulled me into a fantasy realm of martians and space ships. I bought his book and by doing so became a member of Commander Mark's Draw Squad. So now when he said "Okay Draw Squad?" on his TV show, I'd proudly respond back to the TV. His book took me through the steps in how to draw space ships, the uni-horned bears, and crag-filled space landscapes. I felt like I was becoming a natural. I had schemed plans to cover my room in paper and draw my own Draw Squad universe on the wall, much like Commander Mark had on his wall.

But then, I received a crushing blow. I had drawn a few things one day, beaming with creative pride i showed them off to my neighboring students. Then he walked over. We used to sit together, have fun, laugh, and were good friends. We had similar interests, namely drawing.

Grant's specialty was UFOs. His 5th grade mastery and understand of the paranormal left all of us in awe. He was good, I must admit and apart of me was a bit jealous. He too was a member of the Draw Squad, but because of his "ample amounts of free time" - read, unpopularity - he was fast progressing in the book.

So he comes over saying, "Let me see that drawing." With welling fear of criticism I handed it over. Then he delivered. "It's not that good. Your drawings have too many lines. You'll never be good..."

Slay.

There I stood, my drawing stripped of it's worth by the haughty master who was only a few chapters ahead of me in Commander Mark's book. I was ruined absolutely by this. I'm not sure I really opened up the Draw Squad again.

He was right though, in a way. My drawings were a bit chicken scratchy. I approached the wispy multi-lined effect at creating an image -lines made by multiple lines- much different and less popular than the fluid minimalist cartoon like strokes that Grant was able to perform. But part of me was furious because Grant's only known talent besides drawing was being able to stick one of those fat Crayola markers up his fat nostril, which during winter months was constantly discharging snot. So it was hard for me to take his criticism without feeling upset and angry.

So it ended. My fantasy of being an a amazing illustrator like Commander Mark or Bill Cosby on Picture Pages. Even the back up plan of becoming one of those guys at Adventure Land who would draw a character sketch of you for $16, that plan too was out the window. Defeated.

And that's my nostalgic story of the day! Hope you enjoyed it. It was inspired by a poorly drawn drawing I saw on the chalkboard at school.

hey dad, happy birthday (belated, per true d@ve rupert style). i love you and i hope that your 6000th birthday is/was the best ever! i'll see you in a couple of weeks. can you get me from the airport?