I had a wonderful Thanksgiving week in Nebraska.

I left for Nebraska on Tuesday and arrived in the late afternoon. Jenny met me at the airport. Meanwhile, Phil was finishing his graduate classes for the day, returning home, and cleaning the shower before I arrived.

I enjoyed spending a lot of time with Phil and Jenny while I was there. They’ve been married for 1.5+ years now and I appreciated the opportunity to observe two of my friends and how they treat each other in the context of marriage. I saw a lot of respect, concern, grace, and love between them in their words and deeds. I’m impressed and very grateful to have them as friends.

The Nebraska vs. Colorado football game on Friday was an incredible game to witness. It was high scoring, and ended w/ the right team winning — Go Big Red! My favorite moment was watching Ndamukong Suh (Nebraska #93 Defensive Tackle) put the smackdown on Cody Hawkins (Colorado #7 QB) while returning an interception for a touchdown.

Many games of Carcassonne the board game were played while I was there. Though I was experienced with playing the game, I only won on one occasion and didn’t know a couple rules correctly. However, I felt justified on returning home and realizing that my rules were different due to their being rule changes made over the course of the game’s history. (Source)

My iPod broke. Today, I bought a new one.

Seeing other college friends was fantastic as well. Many people came over on Saturday night, hung out, talked, and ate soup.

Other things: mediocre Mexican food and superb conversation w/ Jesse and Tyler and Nail Bunny, free dinner at Lazlos w/ Phil, Jenny, and Ben when the server lost our order, espresso shots at a new coffee shop, meeting w/ Hank (Aaron) at B&N at closing time to purchase football tickets, chilling w/ Varv and Linda, and brunch w/ Erika and friends.

One of the biggest revelations of the trip was the realization that there are numerous, attractive, single females in the world who notice my existence and appreciate partaking in conversations. I need to do a better job of finding a more local variety.

Categories: Friends, Life
Tags: holidays, Nebraska, Thanksgiving, travel

“There can only be one!”

Yes, I just watched Highlander. Honestly, I was expecting more from the soundtrack. Seriously, couldn’t Queen have come up with some better songs? Then again, did any good music come out of 1986?

Although the movie is more about the action. The absurdity of it was more interesting than anything. The dialogue gave me the most to enjoy. Lines like the cop saying, “Don’t move; don’t even breathe!” or later in the movie when the bad guy jumps in the car and yells, “MOM!” had me laughing plenty.

So November is almost over. I’m running out of goals for the year. The major one is still going. I’m angling to get at least one lunch date during December. I think it’s fairly likely and I only hope I don’t botch things up with my incredible knack for unsmoothness. Eh.

Who’s looking forward to Christmas? I’m trying to be less materialistic than other years, but I didn’t even make it through Black Friday without shopping. The good news is I’m just about done.

It was fun having the parents out here for Thanksgiving. Showed them around a lot, visited with some old family friends, lived out the annual family rivalry (Colorado v. Nebraska) wherein the Huskers were shamed (good riddance to Callahan), much food was consumed, and many excellent conversations had.

Work is going well. Other than the sexual harassment. I can’t say I enjoy being on the receiving end of jokes and I must say it’s a completely awkward situation being joked about. I tell myself that “I’m a man, I can handle some jokes” which is true, but that doesn’t make it any less annoying. Now I understand why harassment is considered such a problem — because it disrupts the workplace and creates a negative working environment. Even if I want to say something about it, it’s not quite that easy because speaking up creates real consequences for the people involved and there’s always the possibility of retribution or attempted retribution if anyone gets in trouble.

On reflection, I’m a bit pissed about the whole situation. I hadn’t thought it over much yet.

Categories: Life, Movies
Tags: family, Highlander, holidays

Waiting patiently, I finally had a random invitation to lunch after church! Yes! The family is pretty nice and considering I’ve now spent Christmas, Easter, and Nick’s 18th birthday with them… well, it’s kinda nice to have a family here to hang out with. It’s a big family, too, consisting of Matt and his wife Heather, Matt’s brother Nick, and Matt & Nick’s parents. Oh, and don’t forget the babies. Babies are good for many things: drooling and other bodily functions, crying, but more importantly they’re also cute when they giggle and make for excellent objects to poke and tickle.

I also went and saw Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix yesterday. I’d say they had to rush it at least as much as the fourth book to fit everything in, but they did the best they could considering movies can’t be six hours long. I recently preordered book #7 and am awaiting its arrival on Saturday. If UPS dares to deliver the book later than when I leave for work… DOOM!

Categories: Life, Movies
Tags: Harry Potter, holidays

What’s up? A lot’s happened this week. I got to hang out with my conversation partner a few days ago for a few hours. Chinese, Japanese, and Thai dishes for dinner. That was pretty awesome. Chinese New Years is in about a week and that will be fun to go to also.

Classes are easy. Need more be said?

I’m considering moving to East Campus next semester. My friend Jenny was offered an assistant residence director position and she asked a few of her friends, including me, if we’d consider moving over there. The intent would be to get to know some of them better and also to be a Christian witness in the dorms. Only about 200 people live on East Campus.

Categories: Friends, Life
Tags: college, food, holidays, Jenny