I’ll be the first to admit that this might be a skewed perception of this most recent weekend after coming off of the fiasco that was last week, so I’ll try to think about this weekend more objectively. But I think it might still stand in my life as one of, if not the, best weekends ever.

To start, I wrote that last post late Thursday night and went to bed. On Friday I slept in. That’s right. I slept in and enjoyed every minute of it. When I woke up I ate some lunch (I slept in after all) and jumped in the shower where I sat for a good while. Yes, I have one of those shower chairs for the elderly. My reasoning when I bought it “Because I don’t have a hot tub to sit and relax in dammit!” I stick by that reasoning.

I got all dressed up and pretty, ran to get my gift for Alex and Sheree, and headed straight up to the Hard Rock Cafe for their luncheon. It was great fun and Ryan was even really nice to me at one point by retrieving a brownie for me. He claims to have stink-palmed it, but I know better. What’s more, he put some chocolate syrup on it. Warmed my hardened little heart right up. After the luncheon I palled around with Wong and Emi until Danny finished up some work and joined us then we went to their place for a bit and to the reception.

If you weren’t there, you missed out. First off, the place could have easily been the setting for some B horror movie if I could have just figured out how to keep everyone from breaking through the glass doors… I mean, I wasn’t planning on killing anyone. Just hurting them a bit. Maybe some maiming.

I kid, I kid. Second, there was a Leatherby’s ice cream bar. I wasn’t able to take full advantage of such awesomeness due to an already increasing amount of sugar intake. There was also a wide variety of beverages to partake of including Mexican Cokes. Sweet sugar cane always beats high fructose corn syrup. These drinks were the kind that I enjoy myself after a long day and a succesful hit (I’m so not a hitman [or am I... ]). I partied and conversed with friends until the happy couple decided it was time to depart to which I did the same and went home, took a shower, and went to bed. So I take two showers in a day sometimes. There are days when I’ll take three. What are you going to do about it?

Saturday seemed like it was going to be just another day. But I was so wrong. I got to class and found out that we wouldn’t be having it the next week (this week). SCORE! Also, we wouldn’t have to write a report like we were going to have to. SCORE! The only thing better than a teacher bailing on a day of class is a teacher bailing on a final project and a day of class. I got home, got in touch with Alex and got tickets for the Dark Knight. More on this later.

Before the movie I went down to Wendee and Sam’s for some lunch. BBQ salmon. Also SCORE! We hung out for a bit and watched the first episode of Deadwood. An interesting show that I’ll enjoy watching more of. Then I left to see Batman.

Oh.

My.

Heavens.

Up to this point I was pretty happy with my weekend, but this movie sent me over the edge. I can’t believe how awesome it was. I’m still geeking out about the pencil trick! WHAM! Ta-da!

Made my day. Anyway though, you all have seen it, or should see it. You know what I’m talking about. I went out to get some food with Wong after that. Not so glamorous but this post is getting long. Last weekend rocked. Also, I found out today that all the schoolwork I spent so much time on last week really paid off. I’ll be getting better grades in my classes than I was expecting and that is a very good thing.

Until next time everyone.

Holy damn.

This week has been one that has taught me some valuable life lessons. Allow me to share them with you.

1) Summer is not meant for schooling. Though I had some very good reasons to take all these classes this summer I will never do so again. I plan to spend my coming summers at BYU at home, with family and friends, outdoors, and maybe working, but definitely not at school. The only way I will even consider doing so again would be if I absolutely had to and only for one class, not seven like right now. Yeah, that’s right. Seven. DAMN YOU NEAL OF THREE MONTHS AGO FOR SETTING THIS UPON ME!

2) I require much less sleep than I have previously thought. Last night I was doing homework for a few of my classes and didn’t get to bed until seven. AM. I then had to wake up at ten to get to class. That was one of the weirdest hours of my life after waking up. I wasn’t sure what I was doing and I kept thinking about alpha and z scores and all the other stupid statistics terms and formulas. I remember all of it, but I don’t think I was aware of it all until I was driving to school.

3) Pancakes are delicious. Truth be told, I knew this all along. But after working on homework for the better part of yesterday I felt the urge to eat some so I traveled to Lehi’s IHOP with Alex and Sheree where I was able to partake of their American pancake celebration. They were good but freak, they were small. I think I’ll make some pancakes tomorrow morning. Some wheat ones.

4) I need to eat. Again, I knew this all along. I just didn’t adhere to it. I grabbed some food on my way out the door this morning and didn’t eat anything until moments ago. It was worth the wait though. A Texano burrito works wonders for a person that has a drained stomach, brain, and soul like I did. I just need to be sure to remember to eat more regularly.

5) I will never have my fill of Baldur’s Gate. After finishing my burrito I plopped down onto my bed and let my mind absorb the tasty view Food Network had to offer but that wasn’t really alleviating any build up of stress I had and then a thought flashed in my juicy brain that said “When was the last time you played Baldur’s Gate?” By George! A while! I love that game. It’s so much fun and relaxing. So I got up and made the treachorous journey in the dark from my bedroom to my enterainment room and turned on my computer and got to playing. The last time I played was just before a battle with the Iron Throne organization and I remember dying a couple times. Not this time though. I trounced those bastages like the Bhaal-spawn I was. No one crosses me and gets away with it! MWA HA HA HA HA HA!!!

6) I can’t wait to get out of this place and down to Orem. My own residence. Goodness will be had by all!

So those are six things I learned this week or was reassured about. Now if you’ll excuse me I head my bed calling my name and I need to smother it with my tired body.

Hello again. I think I have slowed down on my posting because it seemed like I was posting a lot there for a while and I kind of got the impression that it was too much, especially since some of my posts are really long. I’ve also been busier with school and life. Among that life area is that I am going through my stuff and boxing it up in preparation of moving.

I have a lot of stuff too and it took until this time of cleaning that I noticed how much of it is moderately to very useless in the general sense of the word. I have more games than I know what to do with. Be it video, board, or card games I have a ton. And yes, many of them I have not played. I need to find someone that will play them with me. If I had a checklist for finding the future Mrs Neal I could put that on there so when I was out courting the fine ladies I could be all “Likes watching funny as hell TV shows.. Check. Is willing to play the most nerdy of nerdy games with me.. Check.” I don’t have a checklist though. It seems too tacky. Also on an interesting note, most of my games are strategy related. Perhaps deep down I am just a very plotting individual and my choice of games is a subconscious way to reveal that.

Anyway though, I decided to write this blog about a big blue rubbermaid tub I have sitting opened next to my futon (which I can’t sit on because junk is strewn about it). Inside of this tub I have kept my memories. Yes, the very real and tangible memories I have. This is why I often have a comparatively sharper memory than some people. Have you seen Neverending Story 2? It’s like those crystal balls. Ok, this has gone on too long. I don’t really store physical memories, but wouldn’t that be cool? “Look what I found that had rolled under the bed! It’s the memory of that time I lent you five bucks. Pay up sucka! You can’t refute the memory ball!”

What I have in this tub are things from the memories I store in my head. Most of them are pretty lame and would mean little to nothing for everyone else. It’s all pretty random stuff as well. I have a packet of salt Alex gave me one day with the advice to always have it on me to ward off witches. I put it in the tub instead. I have all the letters from my mission in there as well as all the letters I got from friends on their missions. I have all the notes I got in middle school. The program for Depeche Mode’s Singles Tour is in there with the ticket stub.

I have wedding announcements and programs in there. I have my award winning short story from seventh grade “Night of the Living Skeletons.” (It’s even more lame than it sounds.) That’s where I keep all my high school dance pictures and Starmakers related items. But mostly it is full of little odd things like the salt packet. I don’t look through it very often but when I do it’s fun to get those rushes of memory and say “Oh yeah.” Each time I look through it though, there’s always more moments of “I don’t know what that’s from.”

Maybe one day when I’m a stark-raving-mad old dude (a prospect I very much look forward to) I won’t remember anything of what’s in there and it will all be worthless. But until then, it sure is a neat little treasure/junk chest.