Hunted By A Freak

I'm back. I don't even remember the last time I wrote. January, I believe. Why don't we recap what has gone down in the past two months.

I got the internship I was referring to in my last blog entry. The job is heaven. I get to sit at my own desk, in front of a computer, listening to Thomas Newman and Cult of Luna on my iPod, while getting paid to program. While this may sound boring to many, you must realize that I've been doing this for years and NOT getting paid for it, so I'm moving up in the world. I also submitted my resignation notice at Best Buy. It's crazy to think that I've been working there for four years. I was 17 then. That was two girlfriends ago. It was the first time I had long hair. It was before I knew what I was going to do with my life... It's flown by. My departure from Best Buy will be bittersweet. I will not, in any way, shape, or form, miss the stress that is working retail. I will, however, miss being able to work with a lot of friends I have made in the past four years. It's a shame the company doesn't take better care of their employees or I would definitely consider keeping myself employed there. Regardless... Good Riddence, Retail. Go fuck yourself.

bull dyke rodeo has taken off. We've play 3 shows in the past two weeks and have 2 more coming up in the next two weeks. All this at the same time that Werner decides that he may be leaving the band to pursue more serious musical endeavors in Chicago. I'm not sure what will come of bdr after his departure, but I wish him the best. Regardless, I'll be playing music, and I've got another project in the works as of right now with Bryce and Cory Rennison, of Dubuque. We're looking towards writing some more slow, sludgey, melodic post-rock. I'm excited to find the time to begin writing the songs.

More and more lately I've been thinking about graduation. I will graduate in about 14 months. What comes next? I have a pretty good feeling about the internship I'm currently at. I'm hoping I can at least stay there while I figure everything else out. I think I'm going to work there until next summer, save some money, apply to a ton of random jobs in random locations and just follow whatever one pops up first. I'm really looking forward to being totally independant for the first time in my life. I will be supporting myself without the help of my parents. I will have my own place to live where I can do whatever I want. It's not like I don't have these things now, but this is a milestone I've had set for myself for years, and it's going to come true in about a year. That is unless, of course, I get annihiliated by a drunk driver on a Saturday night. "Hey, It could happen" -Black Kid from Angel's in the Outfield.

I have really bad posture. I'm going to start working out soon so that I may regain the flexibility in my back and prevent further back pain from conquering my life.

I've been really getting accustomed to drinking beer lately. When I had tried it as a teenager, I thought it tasted like complete ass, but lately I have been enjoying its taste. I still limit myself to one or two over the course of the entire night, but I really have begun to enjoy its much different taste. Call me crazy. I guess I'm one of the last to jump on this bandwagon, seeing as how it took me until I was 4 months into my 21st year on this Earth before I began drinking. At least I'm not an alcoholic.

My overall quality of life has improved over the past year or so, I think. I've conquered a number of personal obstacles and I believe that I am now a much better person than I was last year. Still driving myself as hard as I can, but I'm now taking more time to try and enjoy life and I think it's working.

I'll leave you with these random thoughts:
I love hot sauce.
I got caught downloading Slumdog Millionaire by the MPAA last week.
I have really hard heels.
I bought two new guitar pedals this week.
I don't know when (or if) the new bdr album will ever see the light of day.

The Artifact and Living

Sometimes when I'm feeling unproductive, I try and force myself to do something. I've been writing music ever since I got home tonight, and I've, all of a sudden, got this urge to blog. So here goes...

The last month or two have gone by VERY quick, now that I look back upon them. It seems like this Winter is running at full speed. The days seem so short. The last couple weeks of school for this past semester had been hectic, but I survived, and managed to obtain a 3.18 GPA for the semester, which I'm pleased with. Since school has been out, my days have been consumed by music, work, and WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2009 (great game, BTW.)

This winter isn't the only time period that has been going by faster than I can believe. It's been all of 2008. It's been the past two and a half years since I began college. Time flies... 2008. What a year. Another story for another time.

I've come to realize that I'm really not one to live in the past, or even live for today; I live for what tomorrow may bring. I'm a goal setter. I keep my hopes and expectations very high for myself, and that I've realized this year that my "overachieving" nature is a huge characteristic of mine and how I view a lot of different things. I guess it's the fear of failure that keeps me on my toes and drives me to succeed. I can't help it, really. I need to be doing something productive (rather, something I view as being productive) or I get really irritated, agitated, and unpleasant. I'm working on changing this, but it's so hard. I've thought long and hard about how I've become this way, and have yet to come to a real solid conclusion. It's not like my parents weren't willing to fail, or let me fail. I guess the achievement of a goal just feeds my ego; it makes me feel like I've won... and who doesn't like to win?

It's just a character flaw. We've all got one. Our job is to learn to deal with it well enough so that it doesn't ruin our lives. Easy enough, I suppose.

I've been becoming a lot more open minded about people lately. I've been trying to be more sociable and interact more. I'm still working on the fine art of bullshitting. Maybe someday I'll get to that stage. Many of my friends are great at it; I'm not.

I've got an interview with a software company here in Dubuque coming up this week. It's an internship, and I'm really hoping I can get the position. I could really used the job experience, and it would be the hand reaching into the bottomless pit of retail and saving my sanity before it's too late. I've even cut my hair and will be shaving my beard so that I can maximize on this opportunity. Getting the job would help to bring me to the final stage of my college career. I can't wait to graduate.

But after graduation, what happens? Will I make it to Colorado with Courtney? Will I fulfill my old wish of heading to Seattle? Will I settle here in the midwest so that my mother will be able to babysit her grandchildren? For the first time ever, I can't decide what I want to do. Of course, I will be pursuing computer-related work until the end of time, but where? I suppose whatever opportunity shows its face first...

American Beauty

...and then life throws me for another loop...

Life is funny that way. One day things are great... the next changes everything. With every day, I find myself disconnecting from just about everyone and everything I know. It's not so much depression as it is a desire to just stand alone, be able to manage life effectively with minimal chance of getting tangled up with emotions. If you'd had the year that I've had, you'd know by now that your emotions will take hold of your throat and do its best to suffocate you, leaving you with nothing. This may be the darker side of emotion, but it's the side I know all too well...

This year, I've had problems with caring too much, and problems with not caring enough. I guess I view the balance of these is focusing all of my care on myself. This causes even more problems for those who don't think I care enough.

I don't know what I'm doing anymore, really. This is unlike anything I've felt before, really. Normally what I feel at these points in life is just an overpowering depression, but this time it just feels empty. Like there is nothing. Not even the feeling of despair. Just... existence.

I've made mistakes, plenty of them this year. I'm still sorting everything out, I think. It's been a long year, that's for sure. Despite it all, I'm still just looking forward to May 2010 (see: Graduation), above all else. Maybe that's my biggest problem... I put too much emphasis on myself, and ensuring that I'm ok, that I forget about the people and things that really do matter.

I simply just don't know, anymore. I don't know anything. It seems that my life is just... a book. I've gone through a number of chapters, and it's culminated to this...

What can I do?

I really wish that music could be described in words. The song 'American Beauty' by Thomas Newman just seems to make everything in life so clear... so easily understood... so calm...

blah.

Coil

This too shall pass...

I've heard these words from two separate people in the past week, and I'm beginning to believe what they said. It certainly has been a week to remember. Some crucial decisions were made, and the cards are falling as they wish. I'm trying to play said cards the best I can, and I think I've handled it decently. I've all but lost two friends over the past week, which is unfortunate. I wish people understood what I was thinking, why my actions of the past week and half or so have been so out of character, but at this point in time, it's really not something I can explain using words. I hope to be able to explain this better at a later date, but until then, a select few and I are the only ones who have been able to understand.

For the first time in years, I am afraid of what the future brings. I'm second guessing what I want to do with my life, and for the past month or two, have been secretly desiring to live a simple life. I want a job where I can go home at the end of the day and not have to worry about what I left at work. I haven't felt that feeling in 3 years, and if I stay on my (current) chosen career path, I'll be looking forward to it for the rest of my life. I've finished two years toward my degree, I am half done. I can finish in two more years. The money is great. The job placement rate is high. I just don't know if it's what I want anymore. Lately it seems like I'd much rather work as a musician, or quit Computers and become something interesting, like a Chef.

Or maybe I'll just bitch out... make a lot of money, and try to buy happiness the rest of my life. We'll see what happens.

Loss

I'm back. After a 7 month hiatus (almost as long as the band's hiatus), I am renewing this blog. I'm just really bored right now. Today is the last full day of classes of the semester, and I'm really looking forward to school being out. It's been 365 days (counting leap day) since I began this blog. Crazy. The past 7 months of my life have panned out as follows:

September through December (1st Semester) was filled with school and work, per usual. The band (http://www.myspace.com/bulldykerodeo) endured some trouble and eventually went on indefinite hiatus. School went well, decent GPA, met some people, you know, the usual shit.

December through today (2nd Semester) has been going great. My grades are great, I'm looking at possibly making Dean's List. Lot's of schoolwork. COBOL is a joke language, by the way, and my Software Engineering project took away over 50 hours of April from my existance. I'm kicking Calc II's ass, and Speech is easy. Deutsch ist auch gut.

I began playing with a new band with Loney, Bryce, and Tyler, which is tentatively named "The Escape Sequence". It's more post-rocky than BDR's stoner post-doom, and I dig it, though the last couple weeks I've been so busy with school work that I haven't had time to play much.

I'm presenting my SE project today, in about an Hour. That should go over well, hopefully. I've got 3 finals next week, all of which should be easy enough. I failed at scoring an internship for the summer, because I waited too long to apply, but hopefully will score one next year. Until then, I'm stuck at Best Buy.

I've been reading a lot lately. I've been trying to improve my life by eliminating the stress and anger in it, and it's been working splendidly. I've, as always, been reading a bunch of technical documentation, and am in the process of conceiving an idea for a Summer software development project. Haven't finalized anything, but am working on it.

Alright, that's all I've got now. I'm going to try and update this more, but it's not like anyone reads this shit.

--Cody

And so it begins...again...

So yeah. School started, again. It's school, to say the least. Basically my days consist of waking up at 6:45am, getting to school by 8am, sitting around in the student center until 10am and then having class until 3. From there, I do homework when I get home and go in to work most days at 5:30pm. Needless to say, I'm not really enjoying it. The weeks have been going by fast, which is good, I suppose, but I have little to no free time anymore. I'm always kind of tired and just want it to be over with. The band's progress has slowed to a crawl because of the lack of free time and that's crappy.

In unrelated news, Since my last post, the band has finally issued our first full-length album, entitled "Jailbreak." The entire album is available for download/streaming on our last.fm page (http://www.last.fm/music/Bull+Dyke+Rodeo) - if you're interested in picking up an official copy, please get ahold of me (via Facebook, email(cjsand@gmail.com), or AIM(marpstar)). All album purchases come with free stickers and other cool (read:none) shit.

So let's talk about school. This year I am taking:
1) Principles of Sociology
2) Elementary German
3) Calculus I
4) Programming in Visual Basic
5) Object Oriented Programming & Data Structures II

Basically that means:
1) Math takes up most of my time
2) Programming is a close second, but since I'm fairly driven to program, I tend to work on programs right away and get them finished, leaving me with a week of no programming.
3) I'm trying to learn a second language and it's not fun.
4) Sociology class probably won't benefit me a whole lot in my given field of study.

I can't wait until I'm done with school. I could've taken the easy route and just gotten some certificate from NICC and this would be my last semester, but I'm somewhat empowered by the fact that I'm attending a university, rather than a community college. That and I've never met someone from NICC's computer program that actually knew anything, but who knows what I could have done.

Kaylena and I are thinking about moving to Omaha once we're done with school. We visited Omaha over the summer and we totally loved the city. Plus it'd be a nice change of pace for both of us. Most people who graduate in this area stay in this area. I don't want to be one of those people who's stuck in Dubuque the rest of my life. I want to explore. I want to move around. I want to experience living in a city where there is actually something to do. I fell in love with Omaha's 'Old Market' - basically the downtown area filled with small shops and restaurants. The atmosphere was just there, and it was indescribable. Plus Kaylena loves the zoo, and the zoo is massive and is "awesome."

But, I suppose we'll see in about...4 years how things pan out. I, personally, can't wait.

The Finale

So yeah. Today was a pretty productive day. After hanging out with Kaylena and Nick last night, I stayed over at Kaylena's house and woke up and made myself a decent breakfast for the first time in awhile. I had two egg and cheese English muffin sandwiches...Solid. After this, we went to Kaylena's school to grab her art project, and came home. I hung out for a little bit, then I had to head home to get ready to come back to school.

So I get my shit together, and head back to Platteville, for the last time this school year. I get to my room and study for my final at 3pm. I leave, take the final, take some books back, get some food, and head off to band practice.

At practice, it was very productive. We're finally solidifying things for both the upcoming gigs and the recording of the album next month. For the win...

After practice, I came back, studied my ass off for math, but not before eating some McDonald's which put my into a minor depression. Bullshit... I'm good now, I think I'm ready for this Trigonometry test at 8am. I am tired, and ready. In approximately 11 hours (as of 11pm 5/16/07) I will have completed my first year of college.

Ah, the things I've learned this year. I've grown up quite a bit. If I weren't as tired as I am, I'd get into it now...but I'll leave that for another blog...

-Cody

What a day...

Today started like any other Monday. I stayed at home last night, rather than staying in the dorms, because I didn't have any class until 1pm. So I woke up at around 11:30am and did the usual preparation so I could face the day. I left my house and began my trek to Platteville at around 12pm. I was rockin' out to some Neil Young and looking forward to dominating on my English exam. I arrive in Platteville and get a great parking spot. I unhook my iPod to take inside, and I put it into the mp3 player pouch on my laptop bag. I proceed to my room, where I look at the mess Loney left, and walk over to the window to turn the fan on. I set my laptop bag on my desk and realize that my iPod is now missing. Now, normally this sort of situation would've had me yelling, screaming, and throwing things, but since I was alone, none of those things would've done me any good. So I think to myself "how could this iPod have fallen out without me noticing?" I look all over my room, but to no avail. So, I pack up my stuff for class and retrace my steps looking for a lost iPod laying in the grass. I fail to find it. I run back to my room, just to double check, and it's still no where to be found. I trace my steps AGAIN back to my car, check under my car, under my seats, etc and still cannot find it.

By this point, I figure that if I haven't found it, it's gone. A wave of depression hits me, much like the depression I felt when mine and Bill's cars were burglarized back in August. I handled it much better than I thought I would. I had been on a money spending streak for the past month (mainly for my recording studio: zlobstudios...coming soon), and now I had to add another iPod to my shopping list. All this after just upgrading to the 80GB iPod last month.

So, I chalk up the iPod as another expense, and blame myself for not making sure the iPod was secure enough in my pouch. I proceed to my English final, which I finish in about 15 minutes, and then walk to the student center to eat some food. I eat some good Chinese food while enjoying "The Colbert Report." My mind is finally off of the iPod and I begin moving on with life... after all, this isn't the first time I've lost something.

I come back to my room, and begin bitching to everyone I know that I lost my iPod. I try to get over it, but I work hard for my money, and don't like losing my shit. Everyone tells me it's OK, but really...it's not.

Around 5pm, I'm nearly over the iPod situation, and begin studying for my next final. I take a break from studying and lean back in my chair to take a deep breath. When leaning forward again, I catch a glimpse of something underneath the bed. I take a second look, and realize what I'm looking at. Stunned, I just stare at it, rather than trying to grab it. After about 10 seconds, I come to my senses and reach under, and grab what I've been looking for all afternoon, my treasured iPod, loaded with 30GB of music, all safe and sound in my room. A feeling of relief comes over me, and my day brightens again...

The Beginning (and the End)

Yeah... I'm bored, and am really looking for something to occupy myself. So I figured, since the internet is turning into a giant blog, I figured I would join. I don't have much to say right now. I'm in the middle of a review sheet for trigonometry, which is the only final I have to study for. Overall, the year has gone pretty quickly, and hopefully my next 91 credits go as smoothly as these first 29, and I'll be out of here in no time.

Until next time...
-Cody