Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Hello there!

2008-12-16
12:32 AM

Okay, so.... I'm back. Sorry for the series of super depressing entries. I just had a run-in with some old habits and emotions. You see, I have this really bad quality about me, and it's that when I get to like someone, I fall for them pretty hard. Sure, I guess you can say a lot of people do that, but the thing is that I'm always stupid enough to express it fully, and that's what scares people. I've watched myself do it a few times, and every time, I tell myself I've learned not to do it, and I tell myself that I've learned more about what doesn't work... But I always find myself back in the same position. It's my downfall, I suppose. However, I am trying to work on it. I guess the best I can do for now is to say that, and to remind myself of it whenever I need to think before speaking... Or acting...

Anywayy... The semester is ending, and I can't believe it's already been this long. I mean, really... I've only written three times this semester. Why can't I find time to write in here anymore?

Regardless of the whole ordeal with Andrea, it's been a spectacular semester! The fraternity has progressed.. We've gained more intelligent, respectable men, who have learned from us, and who have taught us as well. I've bonded more with my friends from last year, especially living with some and coordinating events with others. And most importantly, I've managed fair grades this semester, which is all my mom ever asks of me, so I'm glad to have done that =)

Well, like I said.. The semester is ending, but it's not quite over yet. Maybe I should get back to studying for my last exam, which starts at 8:00am =x

See you soon ;-D
Vaniah Schwenoha

Saturday, November 08, 2008

*sigh*

2008-11-08
2:48 PM

*Note: This was actually written on October 6th. Figured I might as well just publish it for any of you who actually read this.

I thought I knew her... Turns out I just knew a lot about her. Not enough, though.

Feelings, emotions, connections erased, it seems... just as quickly as they were written.

She did warn me, I'll give her that.

That's why I don't want to be angry at her.

I'm more angry at myself, really.

Said too much... Pushed too much... Trusted too much.

Fuck the distance, for sure...

'til next time, I suppose... Next time I meet an incredible girl.. Next time I just 'click' with someone..

And as for her... Maybe we'll have a next time. I can't expect it soon, though. She's too scared, and deservedly so. I crossed a line. I crossed it far too soon and without enough warning. And just like that, things turned around 180ยบ. One night, we're talking, joking, laughing, holding hands.. The next, she's reluctant to see me, to call me, to talk to me. Funny, how that works. Somehow, I took a mutual attraction between her and I, and by simply addressing that attraction, I derailed the entire thing.

"That would be fucked up of me, if you just told me that and I said I didn't want to talk to you anymore."

Well, good thing you didn't say it, right?

Back to an old closing...

Actions speak louder than words...

Vaniah Juniper Schwenoha

P.S. ~ If you read this, Andrea, please forgive me. I forgive you. I just... wish you would talk to me, that's all...

Wednesday, October 01, 2008

Because I can't directly say it to you, for fear you may push me away...

1 October 2008
1:53 AM
I can give you space...
I can give you time...
Just don't ask me to give you up...

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Emotion

16 September 2008
11:45 PM


It would be tough to describe my emotional state right now. I'm experiencing so much, all at once. Happiness... Grief... Stress... Relief... Love...

Assuming I actually take the time to write out everything running through my mind right now, this entry may touch upon all of those, so please, bear with me.

Last time I wrote was at the end of spring break.. Oh man.. How things have changed since then...

Mmm... Summer was great. I got some work done by taking Calc III during second session. Because my summer school session was the same as Niki's, and because our classes were at the same time, He and I started going to the gym regularly, and I actually started to build muscle, which never really happened when I used to go to the gym a few years ago. I hung out with my friends quite a bit, which was great. I missed spending time with them =)

At the end of July, I was at a friend's house partying and I met a girl. Sounds typical enough, right? Surprisingly though, even to me, this was a unique experience. She walked in with a couple of her friends, and I was on the other side of the house when she did. I immediately noticed her, but did not immediately take any action. Throughout the night, I would introduce myself to her, ask her to do me a small favor or two (like handing me a couple beers from the fridge), and tease her. Then, something happened. I'm not sure how, but we started talking - first about small stuff, as most people do at parties. But then our conversation got much deeper. We talked about life goals and our pasts and our passions. We talked for about an hour or an hour and a half. The conversation went on endlessly, and from that point on, I was hooked. Never had I connected with anyone in such a way. It was amazing. At the end of the night, we said goodbye, and I asked for her phone number, and once I got home the next day, I found her on MySpace.

Once I started talking to her on MySpace, on AIM after, and eventually over the phone (which I love doing, btw), I started wondering when the time would come when we would run out of things to talk about and things would get awkward between us. But then, an entire week went by, then two... And now it's been over a month and a half, and conversation is as pleasant as ever =)
I mean, yeah, there are points where we're silent on the phone, but it's never been awkward. It's comforting, actually, to just sit silently, knowing she's on the other end of the line...
=D
Mm... Because of the short amount of time we had to spend with each other before I left (and some other minor factors) we decided when I moved that we should remain friends for now. I still talk to her every day, though. It makes me really happy =)

Moving off of that.. I'm back in Los Angeles now, and school has started. We're already in the fourth week, which is awesome because things are going so fast, and vacation will be here in no time =)
I'm only taking four classes this semester since I took Calculus over the summer, which takes a load off of me. The workload is starting to get heavier this week, though, which sucks. Oh well. I'll manage with it. Fraternity things are going well this semester, and I'm excited about that. Can't give out many details, but I just wanted to mention it, heh.

I found out that Chris Conzen died today. It was really shocking to hear about. The more I think about it, the more I realize he affected so many people, including me. When I think back, I can honestly say that he was a major influence in terms of where I am today. He taught me a ton about computers. He was there the first time I took one apart, and explained how to properly put it back together. He got me more interested into my entire field of study. That's crazy...

*sigh* ... I really wanted to write more in here, about everything, but I can't take the time tonight to do it. Umm... If I don't write again soon, feel free to leave a comment and let me know what you'd like me to write more about.

Rest in peace, Conzen.
Vaniah Schwenoha

Thursday, April 17, 2008

Busy

17 April 2008
11:12 PM

Sorry about not updating in awhile. I still don't know if I want to update right now. For now, please take pleasure in reading this other blog. It's very deep writing, so be prepared.

http://tlfdblog.blogspot.com/

Have fun
Vaniah Schwenoha

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Forget injuries. Never forget kindnesses.

25 March 2008
3:17 AM

Confucius. Wise man, imo.

Spring break was good. I was only in Vegas for four days, really, but I did so much.

  • I saw a free preview of a movie. Something I don't get to do so much out here.
  • I went to SkyMania. Also something nonexistant in LA.
  • I went to Sonic Drive-In. Closest to my apartment here is in Anaheim, 25 miles away.
  • I went to Wal*Mart. Never been to one out here because I don't have a car.
  • I setup remote access to all of the desktops in my house. Now troubleshooting with my dad should be much easier from 275 miles away.
  • I hung out with a friend from high school who I had previously never even really talked to outside of class.

but most importantly, I brought some people together who I doubt would not have come together without third-party influence. Particularly, I got Niki to hang out with everybody else. For those who don't know, Niki hasn't hung out with Chris, Dallas, and the rest of the group in months. It may be quite a bit egotistical, but I think that he wouldn't have hung out with them had it not been for Ron's trip to Cali, which brought Niki into interaction with Alexa, and other plans in Vegas to hang out. I really hope he starts to hang out with them more often. I don't think our connections within that circle of friends were meant to get lost as we transitioned from high school to college.

I'm not sure how much I'm worth in this world, but I do believe that any one person can make a beneficial change in peoples' lives.

Sleep well.
Vaniah Schwenoha

Sunday, February 24, 2008

Cynthia

24 February 2008
12:58 AM

That was her name - Cynthia...

Brittney Rufkahr's mom passed away last night. Almost eerie how I just wrote about her in my last entry... About how many of us can not - will not - feel her pain. We will all die, though. The only thing to worry about then is how the ones you leave behind will deal with it. I hope, I pray that Brittney will be able to make it through such a hard time. If she makes it through this, she will be stronger than she has ever been. She's already stronger than me, that's for sure. I haven't had to deal with my parents separating. I haven't had to live with an extremely close family member who has suffered day in and day out as a cancer victim. I haven't had to put my life on hold for anything, ever. She has. She has and she's still accomplished so much. She went through it and she still graduated high school in a white robe. She kept up in school and even managed to get jobs - to integrate herself into the real world. She's taken this semester off in college and she still has the heart to ask me how mine is working out. It's amazing, the hands some people are dealt in life. And it's even more amazing how those people can take what they've been dealt and run with it.

That's all I have to talk about right now.

I wish you all the strength in the world, Brittney.
Rest in peace, Cynthia. You're free now.

Monday, February 18, 2008

Skip

18 February 2008
1:47 AM

Every once in awhile, I feel like writing about something important to me, but then I think that I need to catch my blog up on the past month or two before I can actually write about what I want to write about. Having thought about it just now, I realize that I should be writing what I feel when I feel it, regardless of having to 'catch up' on the other shit and trying to write about what I don't necessarily want to write about. So I've decided not to obligate myself to write about that stuff. If at some point I have some extra time and want to write about it, then I will, but other than that, you can just ask me about the two months missing from this blog. Let's do a brief summary just to give you an idea of what you might want to ask about if you're interested...

Winter break was awesome! It was great to be back home for those three weeks.

I rushed and am currently pledging for Sigma Alpha Mu fraternity.

Classes have been going great so far this semester.

My social life is fucking thriving right now. I love it.

Alright. That sounds like enough. Moving on... The rest of this entry might seem kinda random. I might talk about a variety of things. Some may be depressing, some may be uplifting. Just depends on how much I feel like writing, I guess. Here goes...

Michael Mausbach died shortly after the new year. It's sad to think about, really. I mean, it hasn't been more than nine months since my graduating class walked out of the Orleans Arena, heads held high, smiles on every face. Less than nine months and two of those smiling, hopeful faces lie in the ground. It's sad. It's really sad. And a friend in one of my classes had a friend who was shot and killed in the recent NIU shooting. It's a fucked up world, I'll tell ya...

I was driven to write tonight while MySpacing, actually. I was looking at Brittney Rufkahr's pictures and came across one of her and her mom. I think I remember hearing about the first time her mom was diagnosed with cancer. I heard about it when I was a junior. In a way, it has and hasn't been all that long since then. Looking at pictures of her, though, you'd think she'd been to Hell and back over the years, and you'd think she's been fighting her battle for an eternity. It just makes me think about how much I don't know about life. And this goes both ways. I don't know how much beauty there is in the world. I don't know what I've missed out on seeing by having lived in Las Vegas through the first eighteen years of my life. But I also don't know pain. Real pain. It's not something I would wish upon myself or any other individual, but really, can you imagine the kind of pain a cancer victim has to go through? How can you possibly know without being a victim yourself? How can you know the pain that comes with a heart attack, a severed limb, a collapsed lung? They're things some of us in the world will experience, though some of us never will. Some of us will never know. Is it too awkward to say I want to know? I suppose it is.

Don't like, call the cops or get me admitted to a psychiatric institution or anything after reading this. I'm not suicidal or anything, haha.

Alright, now that I've weirded everybody out to the extreme... let's touch upon the other extreme...

Pleasure. Such a mysterious feeling, isn't it? In different context, it can mean different things. There's the pleasure of just hanging out with your friends. There's the pleasure of good conversation and time spent with an individual. There's the pleasure of a woman's touch. All call upon the same word to describe the feeling they summon, but all can be described differently. It may not be as intriguing to you guys as it is to me, but I just kinda felt like writing about it.

I'm out of things to write about... For now. I guess I'll see you guys later. Don't be strangers, now. Feel free to call/text/IM me whenever just to talk.

Have fun out there, fellas.
Vaniah Schwenoha

Sunday, January 13, 2008

The Adventure

12 January 2008
6:47 PM

Good song. It’s by Angels and Airwaves, if you’re interested in listening to it.

Damn. It’s been so long since I last wrote. I’m writing on the bus back to Los Angeles now, so I don’t have Internet access to check my last entry for where I left off. I know that I haven’t written since before Thanksgiving, though, so I guess I’ll start writing from there.

Coming back for Thanksgiving was great, but definitely too short of a break. I met my brother Richard’s new girlfriend at Thanksgiving dinner, as well as her two daughters. One is ten years old and the other one is sixteen. It was a bit of a surprise to find out she had kids, but the whole lot of them seem really cool. His girlfriend is a looker, too. They seem pretty happy together, and it looks like Richard does well with kids. We played Wii at Thanksgiving dinner, which my sister bought for her boyfriend, Liermann, for his birthday.

The rest of the weekend was spent hanging out with family as much as friends, which was nice, because I didn’t really hang out with family that much when I lived in Vegas, but I do quite a bit now that I’m not always around. I went with my cousins to SkyMania – a much-needed exercise. Friends were supposed to go too, but by the time we went, a lot of people were busy, and had to bail out on me. I didn’t mind, though. I went to the mall on Black Friday, which I don’t think I’ve ever done before. We went at like, 6:00 PM, so it wasn’t too crowded. I got a good deal at Express Men on a T-shirt and two pairs of jeans, and because it was Black Friday, I got a promotional pair of pajama pants with my purchase. Chyeah!

On Saturday, I went to the UNR @ UNLV basketball game. I sat with Chris, Dallas, Alexa, Alma, Alex, Cortney Beasley, and Maricela, but I also saw Sabrina before and after the game and I saw Alicia at half-time, when she and Niki came over to our side to say hello. I bought a UNLV Athletics T-shirt, haha. UNLV won, which I was happy about. It’s kinda sad that I went to a UNLV basketball game before I went to a game for my own school, haha. After the game, Chris and I went over to Angela’s house for Game Night. There were a lot less people there this time than there used to be when I was younger, and would go every Saturday. Back then, I met new people every week because the regulars would bring their friends from work and such. Now, I guess it’s usually just the regulars, and it’s more hanging out than the semi-parties it used to be.

Chris told me he’s jealous of them because they’ve known each other for so long and still hang out with each other at least once a week. I’m not so jealous. I trust that we can be like that in the future, no matter who we end up working for. Imagining something like that, I think about what’ll happen after I get my degree. Maybe there will be some computer hardware company in or near Las Vegas that I can work for, and I’ll be able to come hang out and visit with people like Chris, who might be working his way through the ranks in a nice hotel or high-rise in Vegas.

I think the only other thing I did before I went back to L.A. was go to lunch with my brother Richard one day and with my uncle and cousins another day. Then it was back to my life at USC. I finished out my classes, some with good grades, some… with not-so-good grades, haha. My group in my Engineering Freshman Academy class built our semester project, which was supposed to be a device that allows you to walk on water. You can find video of it on YouTube. On the day we were supposed to present our project, there was a race among the groups across the diving well. The initial goal given was to walk on water for at least five seconds unassisted, but we were confident in our project, so my team wanted to win the race, too. I was the one who used the device, and when the race started, I worked my ass off trying to get across the pool. The only other guy that got a good start besides me fell down about half-way across the pool… but I also fell down when I was about ¾ of the way across. I pushed so hard on my device that the frame of PVC fell apart, which destroyed my balance, and once I was down, there was no getting back up without going back to the edge of the pool. If we had glued the PVC together or if I had gone slower, I’d have won the race easily. In fact, after the race, I put the frame back together and made it across the pool a second time. We came in a weak third in the end, however, losing to the guy who fell down and later cheated by getting help from his teammates and to another guy, who didn’t get a good start, but ended up getting across the entire pool without assistance.

That was one of my big projects for the semester. That course was a credit/no credit course, and I earned credit for it. The other project was the programming of my BoeBot to go through an obstacle course. I’m pretty sure that in the end, my team’s BoeBot made it through the obstacle course with the most precision. We earned a 99% on that project, and I ended up with an A in the course for the semester. I also got an A in Calculus I, which was expected. However, I did get a B- in my Writing class and a C- in my Law, Politics, and Public Policy class =x My GPA after first semester is 3.04. Not bad, I suppose. I’m still eligible for the MGM Mirage Family Scholarship, so I’m happy, and so are my parents.

I relaxed a bit over the weekend between the two final exams I had. On Friday, I celebrated Festivus in Matt’s apartment with the guys from Sigma Alpha Mu and drank with them afterward. I invited this girl, Natalie, over at some point during the night. I went down on my rollerblades to meet her, and she rode her bike back to Matt’s apartment with me. We took a shot when we first walked in, then talked while everybody else played XBOX 360. After a few people left, we decided to play a game of beer pong. I had been on my game pretty well earlier in the night, only losing one of about four or five games that I played. By the time I played with Natalie as my teammate, though, I had lost it. We played ten-cup with three beers instead of two, too, which surprised me because it was Natalie’s suggestion, and I had never played with that much beer with these guys. I think we played two games like that, and later on played one game with six cups and one beer on each side.

Alright, I have to put something in here. We play beer pong on the balcony at Matt’s place. Every once in awhile, a ball will go over the railing and into some bushes, and we lose a lot of balls that way. Well, we’ll usually go look for the ball for a few minutes and ditch it if we can’t find it quick enough. Usually, looking for the ball involves going out the front door, down the hall, out through the building entrance, and around to the side of the building to look. On this particular night, early in the night, instead of going through the front, I decided to just hop over the railing and climb down the wall to grab the ball. I did this a few times, climbing back up after I found the ball. Well, this happened once after Natalie showed up. The second time it went over while she was there, something interesting happened… Natalie decided to climb over the railing and get the ball herself because she thought it looked fun. At first, I was pretty concerned. I didn’t want her falling down and breaking something, especially since this was the first time she had come drinking with me. But she insisted on climbing down, so she climbed over and I held onto her hand to support her weight while she figured out how to climb down. After she climbed down, I came to the conclusion that… this girl is fucking awesome, haha! She’s a more hardcore drinker than I am, she’s really easy to talk to, and she’s a decent ninja, haha. Anyway, I ended up passing out in the middle of the night, and Matt and his friend walked Natalie back to her suite.

The morning, Niki drove over to pick me up. Niki came down for the weekend to pick up his mom from her cruise/have a little fun in San Diego. He drove down to San Diego with Daniella on Friday, stayed a night in his hotel room, and came to pick me up the next day. Before I go on, I want to mention something that I found out about before we left my apartment. If you read through my last post, you’ll notice the one paragraph in there about that girl I met while tumbling, who used to be a cheerleader in high school. Well, I checked my Facebook before I left my apartment, and she had written me a message saying that her friend had seen my blog, told her about it, and that she had read it. She didn’t like what I said about her, and pretty much told me that she has no interest being my friend anymore because of what I said. The thing is, though, that she misinterpreted my blog. See, the way she read it, it sounded like I was planning on breaking up her and her boyfriend so that I could go out with her. Now, I’m not sure who all reads this, but I’d like to think that it’s mostly people who know enough about me to know that I’m not the kind of guy to try that kind of stuff with any girl. I’m usually not one to fight for a girl when there’s another guy involved. She either likes me or she doesn’t. There’s no point in trying to impress her to get her attention away from the other guy. If she doesn’t think I’m a better person, then hey.. her loss. So you see, I never meant for my blog to say that I was planning on breaking two people up, if that’s how you read it. The way I wrote it, what I was trying to say was that if she and her boyfriend broke up for any reason, without my influence whatsoever, I would take an interest in her and try to get to know her. But as long as she and her boyfriend were going out, I’d just be her friend, and hopefully have someone to tumble with out in the quad. Honestly, if I were interested in her as more than a friend right now, I’d at least talk to her more often than whenever I went tumbling. I’d ask her to lunch and or dinner at one of the cafeterias every now and then or something. I actually specifically made sure not to ask her to lunch all that much or even at all because I didn’t want to look like I was coming on to her or interfering with her relationship with her boyfriend.

Now that I’ve gotten that out in the open, I can continue with my story about Niki and Daniella visiting. I sent a message back to Michelle and we left on our way to San Diego. Niki let me drive because he was sick of all the California traffic he had been exposed to in the past couple of days. It took us a few hours to get to San Diego, but eventually we got to the hotel. We chilled there for a bit and then left to Viejas, the casino Niki had picked for us to go to. There was a mall across the street from the casino, so we dropped Daniella off there to go shop around while we played poker. Niki borrowed $100 from me, and I withdrew $60 to play with. We both bought in for $40 at first at the $1-$2 no-limit hold’em table. I lost my $40, bought in with my last $20, and then turned it into about $90-$100 within a few hands. I should’ve left then to go eat dinner, but I got stupid, and didn’t. I played a few hands, and then told myself that if I got back above $100 or got down to $30, I’d leave the table. Well, I went up and down a few times, and then finally got down below $30… and didn’t leave. I lost that $30 plus another $20 I withdrew from the ATM, leaving me $80 down for the night, haha. Niki left the table with about $60, so he was up for the night. He paid me back and we got a late-night meal in the casino, after about five hours of playing poker. We stayed the night in his hotel room, drove to pick up Niki’s mom from her cruise in the morning, stopped at the beach, and then I got dropped off back at my apartment and they drove back to Las Vegas. Overall, it was a fun weekend.

I took my last exam and then packed up and got ready to go back to Vegas for winter break. At 5:00 PM the day before I left, the power went out and… didn’t come back on until 3:00 AM the next day. The guy I was catching a ride with back to Vegas almost decided to leave early because the power was out, but instead we just packed in the dark, put our stuff in the car, and waited ‘til morning to leave. We made it to Vegas in about 4½ hours, stopping at Denny’s for breakfast on the way. I paid for his breakfast since he didn’t ask me to pitch in for gas or anything. My parents also gave him some comp tickets to the Bellagio as a thank-you.

I’ve been writing for about an hour and a half, so I’m going to take a break. If I don’t write more on this bus, I’ll just leave off here and try to recount winter break another day.

Best,
Vaniah Schwenoha