The bleary-eyed bleakness of the store rang in my brain. As my head oscillated from shelf to shelf and the squeaky wheels of my shopping cart swiveled from aisle to aisle, the empty display cases gave evidence of the voracious greed that had enveloped the shoppers who had gone before me. The barren shelves reminded me of my own procrastination.

Sure, it was only two days before Christmas when I walked through the automatic sliding glass doors of the Wal-Mart at 180th and West Center, at this point I hadn't even given a thought as to what to by everyone for Christmas.

The first thing that rang in my brain was the slightly older, slightly "oversized" gentleman maneuvering the majorly oversized push-mop through the canyons and entryways of the store. The next thing that seemed out of place about this trip was that the typical "greeter" seemed pre-occupied. The person who was always so friendly, the person with the smiley face stickers seemed to have multiple responsibilities at this time of day. Something was wrong.

You see, as a college student I am ok with saying that I frequent the local area Wal-Mart and as a college-student I would consider myself pretty familiar with the typical Wal-Mart landscape and it would seem that on the evening of this particular visit, something had gone majorly askew. However, throwing caution and confusion to the wind I began to proceed with my shopping. I was tired and as any man would, I just wanted to get done with shopping and go home.

Another thing that was noticed about this visit was the definate lack of people. It was this fact that brought the protagonist of this story a little bit of satisfaction. It was this portion of the story that he had counted on. It was just after midnight when I arrived.

I had gone to a few different stores in the days leading up to this night with the intentions of getting all of my shopping done. However as the slightly shy person that I am, I don't like being around that many people at one time, especially if they are in front of me in line to check out. So in my logical but slightly irrational mind, I devised a plan to attack my shopping at a point where I figured there would be the least amount of people. Thank goodness for 24 hour Wal-Marts!

As I meandered the lifeless aisles seemingly nothing stuck out at me with the tag, sticker or advertisment that said "HELLO MATT, I WOULD MAKE A WONDERFUL GIFT FOR YOUR FAMILY MEMBER!" And as the minutes wore on slowly, the shopping slowly wore on me. I picked up a pair of work out pants for myself and exasperated grabbed a movie for my brother, paid and left the store.

It had been nearly an hour. Frustrated and tired I drove home. With only one gift down, I decided that shopping really does suck and would prefer to never do it again.

The moral of the story however is that the least crowded time to shop, especially at Wal-Mart is between the hours of 1 and 4 in the morning.

MERRY CHRISTMAS to all!!!!!!

I will not have my dreams hampered by reason or logic. Reality perhaps, but I will not suceed that idea before it happens.

"Shoot for the stars"

"The frustrating thing about finals is that they are so.....final."

So here I am, I actually have 2 of my 3 finals done and I have a day off in between todays final in philosophy and my thursday final in my political sciences class, so that is nice. A proverbial cooling of period for my oft-overworked brain. I find myself here, engaging in about as many mind numbing activities as possible, which often goes so far as simply hanging out with some of my friends here on the hall. Not to say that they are all immature, but I want to remind some of them that "THIS IS COLLEGE!" Junior-hi was over more than four years ago, lets grow up. I hope that doesn't come across as pompous on my part, I won't begin to claim that I'am more mature by any point. But when at dinner, humor is the main portion of conversation. I want to ask, are we capable of having a formidable conversation? Maybe I just need some new friends. But I digress. All that to say, I realized today that I am looking forward to being in Omaha, where the logical conversation doesnt grow on trees or even come a' tricklin down the rocks. But at least I dont have to stage a desparate search for logical thought.

Now, where was I? Flappin' my yap about finals, eh? The frustrating part about finals is for the past two nights I have spent probably 8 hours stuffing my cranial region with information that I will wake the next morning to pour out all over the pages of my latest exam. I watch alot of movies, and in watching some older war movies you may notice that when loading and firing a cannon the infantry man loads the ball, then the powder, then they have to pack the powder down with this big-large Q-tip type thing. Ok, now picture my brain as the cannon, and especially for the point of my very dis-jointed story, lets skip to the packing of the powder and picture in your mind that technique of studying(or cramming, as we like to call it here in college.) A few hours of this, a couple hours of sleep, wake up, regurgitate the well digested knowledge onto paper, walk out of the classroom and proceed to never need that information ever again, ever. How pointless is that? Is that really learning? I mean, sure I would love to be able to say that I am actually interested in all of my classes, but to be honest, as any college kid will attest to "Im not interested in all of my classes."

This has been another of "matt's vent sessions" thanks for tuning in and listening.

The "A donde?" of where Iam.

So then yeah guys it is the weekend after dead week and it has been quite some time since I have written.

Just to let you know I plan on using the words propensity, pedantic, menial and docket in this post, so should you need to look those up, I will be taking a brief intermission here to allow you to do so.

(House lights up)

-----

(House lights flicker then go out)

Ok, now where was I? Ah yes, something about "dead week." Now if one were to take a look at the individual words used to express this thought, one is likely to come to the conclusion that it is a week with the characteristics or qualities of being dead. Now personally from the word "dead" I would infer that it would peaceful, relaxing and above all, a time of reflection, right? Hmmm....wrong. ITS BEEN CRAZY!!! Studying and reading and reviewing, seriously folks, I WANT MY MONEY BACK, talk about false advertisement. Boy they should be thankful that I dont have money for a lawyer! To be honest, I think that is why college costs so much, simply so that students can't sue the university over menial items such as this.

Anywho, now that I either have your attention or have lost it forever, we have that out of the way. Now on to my life as it is now. I sit, we all sit teetering on the edge. The edge that I now find myself perched on and peering over is Finals Week. WHEEEE. Well it has been a year since I took my last college final and I find myself kind of at a loss as far as what to expect. I have 3 finals in 3 pedantic "gen-ed" classes only one of them comprensive. Why you care about those details I dont know, but I felt that you should. Anwyho, so that is on the docket for this coming week. So that should be fun.

Other than that, this morning I performed a ten-minute scene for the theatre department, that was alot of fun and kind of a nice refresher course as I lower myself slowly back into the waiting pool that is stage theatre. I plan on auditioning for a couple shows this next semester, so I will keep you all informed on progress of that kind.

Being the Film Nerd that Iam, I have a propensity to watch lots movies and the past and recent weeks have been no exception. Allow me to pass on the commendable and the other of the films that I have watched. I watched James Cameron's The Abyss last night and was amazed, ok, let me expound on that a bit, I cried. I would recomend this movie to anyone. Also a few weeks ago, I watched William Friedkin's The French Connection, a phenomenal look back on what the cat-and-mouse thriller is supposed to look like, with great performances by a young Gene Hackman and Roy Scheider, also of Jaws(another great film by the way.) As far as comedy goes let me throw this out as we sit amidst the Christmas season, Elf with Will Farrell was(in my opinion) hilarious. Not to say that it was a cinematically spectacular film, simply to see it was very entertaining. I also watched Christopher Nolan's Memento this last week and I must say that it is one of my favorite films. So there you go, as I look back on it, I dont think you guys have the stamina to keep up for the number of "non-commendable" movies that I have watched, so maybe we will save that for next time.

Hmm...other than that I dont know. Just hanging out here at college and pretending that I know what I am doing. I am looking forward to being done with finals this next week and should be back in O-town this coming weekend some time. So if you find yourself in that area over break and would like to kick it around town, give me a holler and we can do so.

peace,

matt

"Just because you feel it, doesnt mean its there."
-There, There by Radiohead

Wow! Sometimes all that it takes to get us going is a kick in the butt and tonight I have recieved two. I can honestly say that I just read two of the most inspirational and hope filled writings that I have read in quite some time. Thank you Miss Axne and you Mr. Styles.

I guess, following in the vain of things a couple of quotes come to my mind.

"Everyone thinks of changing society, no one thinks of changhing themselves."
-Leo Tolstoy
"Without a revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement."
-Lenin
and the word Praxis
-Websters collegiate dictionary.

I could stop there and have said all that might need to be said. But frustration pervades and my greed gives way to passion and I vent.

Steph talked in her blog about (as I interpret it) getting up off your butt and getting things done. This has been something of a frustration to myself for many years now. This epidemic of people not taking responsibility and making something of themself has produced a multi-million dollar psychiatrist industry and has made "dr." Laura lots and lots of money. People are sooooo concerned with knowing what the "right" thing to do before they do it that they inherently forget to go do anything. -you can visit her blog at ifiwerequeen.blogspot.com

Jeremy talked in his blog about how we as a "fast food" generation have become proficient at all, but masters of none. We have all this information fed to us and we have no idea what any of it means. We are continually reliant on others to start something.
-you can visit his blog at discipleforlife.blogspot.com

I guess all of that brings me to the word praxis, a lovely word that, as I have found out, very few people understand or know the meaning of. Defined as; "Practice, as distiguished from theory, of an art, science, etc." Praxis, in my mind is doing, now you may ask, how can one do without first thinking. But this is the thing, it should be a symbiotic circle. Many of us get so caught up with acting before we think or getting stuck in a rut of thinking and pondering and theorizing, that we forget to act, completely and totally negating any perpose to the thought at all. Praxis then in my mind has to become the two feet of logical action. Thought...Action...Thought..Action..Thought.Action.ThoughtActionThoughtAction.

We are all sitting around waiting for this world to become this magically better place and I would ask you this. What are we doing about it? Now I do not remove myself from this criticism because God knows that I am probably just as guilty as the worst of us in this area. But if we hedge ourselves in the mire of blame then we still have accomplished nothing. Let us stop waiting for change and merely change ourselves in order to change the world.

"From nothing, nothing comes."
-Stavesacre

Kapeesh?

p.s.- snow sucks

I make no further attempt at trying to explain the nuances of my personality.

I must say, more power to little people!

Seriously, the childrens rock. Today as I was walking across college campus, a place where you typically expect to see more average size people say between 5' and 6'10"(is this tallest I have seen thus far, but this guy is Gargantuanical, a national championship/olympic shot putter.)

But today I was on my way to Philosophy and Current Issues class, when out of the corner of my eye I spotted a gaggle 2-3 foot persons! It was awesome. About 20 or 30 of them all holding on to the rope that was held between them. All of them eyes wide as their small feet struggled to keep up with their roaming eyes. I guess they were on some sort of field trip from the local pre-school visiting "Big school" they were being lead around by 3 ladies that barely seemed to know what they were talking about, but who can hold it against them. Some of them had their fingers out stretched as they tried to put words behind the synapsis coursing though their developing minds.

Yeah, a few years from now they will be all grown up and at college themselves probably making the same observations about some kids touring college. But for today it was my turn to enjoy the contrast.

I wanted to warn them all, STAY IN PRESCHOOL. Dont grow up and become wise to the ways of the world. Stay in a place where you can play with blocks and cars.