March 12, 2000
Return to Paradise

Room 6B at the Alpha Chi Omega house is alive with activity again. The kind that I like best is the sound of the air conditioner working really hard to make the room livable again. Right now an observer could also hear that Lelaine and I are watching “Contact” on TV while trying to get our lives back in order after this week-long break from school. I seemed like it was only a few days and I am back where I started.

My spring break was anything but relaxing. I think I spent one day at home without doing much productive work, but that’s one day out of nine. First I went to Panama City with Meghan, Kathe, and Danny. The trip was a little disappointing considering I thought it was too cold to go to the beach, but that only means that I am a native Floridian and my blood isn’t thick enough for spring break in early March. Unfortunately I had several homework assignments to work on over the break and I spent a little time on all of them. My schoolwork schedule doesn’t look too bad for the coming week, but there is always the usual stuff to do. I got back to Gainesville yesterday around 5 PM. Stuart and I were planning to go skydiving today for our spring break adventure, but he has been very congested recently (probably due to allergies) and he was worried about his head hurting on the way down. Truthfully, I was very scared thinking about jumping out of a plane, even if I was going to be strapped to someone else, and I was a bit relieved when we decided not to go. Maybe someday I will gather the gumption to go through with it. Nonetheless I was able to spend some time with Stu and that is a gift in and of itself.

That brings us back to today. “Contact” is still on and I am still typing away. Had an observer been here a little earlier he would have heard the sound of my brand new scanner working for the first time. My dad and I went scanner shopping yesterday morning and I finally settled on one after visiting at least four stores. I am now the proud owner of a Umax Astra 2000P scanner, but I am still figuring out exactly how it works. Here is one of my early works.

This is a picture of my sweetie when we went to Universal Studios last semester. His face is shadowed in the original picture so I had to change the brightness of the scan to makes sure his eyes were visible. Yes, I know this is probably a very pitiful scanning attempt, but I just got started today for crying out loud! Hopefully I will have some new visual aides for my webpage soon (as soon as my homework load gets a little lighter).

It is almost 8 PM and I have class tomorrow. The next break I get from school will come as soon as I am finished with my last final exam. At this point we have seven full weeks and three days of class left until then. That sounds like a long time, but, as usually happens in the spring semester, the time will probably go a lot faster than I expect it to. It seems like I am always looking forward to a break but I really do love what I am doing and I hope everyone realizes that. I know that working hard now in school will get me the job that I want as soon as I am through. Sometimes I just lose sight of the light at the end of the tunnel – the prize that is to be won. I will try and keep that more in mind in the future as long as all of you promise to do the same in your own pursuits.