I'm bored tonight, so I'm writing. Fantastic start, right? It's been a year and a half since I've posted, and this is the first time I'm so bored that I'm going to update my blog.

I could write some inane sarcastic statement like, "not a lot has happened," but I'm a better writer than that, to be sure. And I know you know this is the case because you stuck around after the first two sentences. You, reader, truly are a connoisseur of fine writing. You see Isaac Asimov next to Stephanie Meyer and the choice is obvious. You've heard of Stephanie Meyer.

So what has happened since February of last year? It looks like during my last post my plan was to attend SPU. That went well, in that I got an interview, and not so well in that I wasn't accepted to the university. That's fine because I ended up at Northwest University instead. You'd think, being a university you've never heard of, it would cost less than SPU, but that's not the case. On the bright side, it didn't cost more than SPU.

In May, I bought a new-ish car and traveled the US. I visited 27 states in 29 days. The whole photo album can be viewed here.

Memory, it turns out, is fairly malleable. For instance, perhaps a decade from now, I'll remember having accidentally entered Mexico, rather than accidentally entering Ontario, without my passport thanks to unfounded trust in Bing Maps. And I'll remember the three pieces of graffiti I saw on three different overpasses over two separate freeways, each at least thirty minutes apart saying "I ♥ you", "Forgive, forget", and "Have a good day" in Spanish rather than English. I'm not really sure what a heart symbol in Spanish would look like, but if I remember crossing the border from New York to Mexico, I'm sure I could think of something.

Perhaps some day I'll remember... nope, this was a stupid way of writing. I'll have no more of it. Fine, I'll tell you a couple more tidbits. The only place I visited or drove through in which I did not find some amount of beauty was Los Angeles. Everywhere else I appreciated some aspect to it.

Washington DC is the only city I've ever considered someplace I'd want to live. I really prefer suburbs and rural areas. I actually got giddy when I first saw the Washington Memorial from the freeway. I had no idea I would feel that way. Perhaps I've seen the West Wing too many times. My favorite place to visit in DC was the National Building Museum.

Petrolex's family in Phoenix was ridiculously hospitable, and even gave me $100 for gas. I loved my visit with them.

I went to the Sounders/Dallas FC game with Nicci and her then boyfriend. We were three of about ten Sounders fans scattered about the sadly small stadium. Even that close to Mexico (most of the attendees were hispanic), soccer is not a big sport in the US. The three of us made an appearance on TV in Seattle for a couple seconds around half time. We won that game 2-0. It felt really awkward being an away fan. That's the first time I've experienced that.

After visiting Disney (an old female friend from high school, not the company--if you're reading this it's because I didn't manage a better pseudonym for her before finishing this post) and her boyfriend in San Diego, which was super fun, I drove Phoenix-ward and got a ticket in California for speeding. 'Cause if you're going to get a speeding ticket, southern California is the logical place to get it.

Texas has freeway speed limits of 80mph. "Share the road" signs in Texas are for motorcyclists. God bless Texas.

My most surprisingly awesome visit was with an old church/high school friend and her husband whom I'd only met briefly at their wedding. Halfway through what had been a normal small-talk dinner, I made some nerdy science statement and things just went uphill from there. Her husband and I stayed up until 1:00am discussing the physics of light.

On a month-long trip, you're bound to have some ups and downs. Aside from LA and my speeding ticket, I've only listed some ups. Some downs were missing Mother's Day and my grandpa's 75th birthday party. Also Montero scored his first, long-awaited goal of the season against the LA Galaxy at one of the games I missed, and it was a pretty fantastic shot. That's alright. He's not on the Sounders anymore anyway.

A few of the visits I had were really awkward. Maybe I'll forget those over time. There are a couple other stories, but I really will only tell those in person. So if you're that interested, and you know me, ask about the girl in Chicago, or the whole story of Niagara Falls through Ontario to Chicago, as getting into and out of Canada without a passport is a feat.

In mid July, I saw an old acquaintance, Mary, online. (She's aliased so for her love of British everything, such as Downton Abbey.) I knew of her from college, and I'd always thought was cute. She'd been part ofwith Vin's clique of CCFers that I was never really a part of. Up to that point in our lives "hey" was the only word we'd said to each other, so quiet naturally, that's what I said. One thing led to another and we dated from August until January. I don't know what to say about Mary. She's one of the best people I know. She's funny, compassionate, real. But there's an indescribable quirkiness that's just Mary (though italicizing her real name would make this sentence more accurate). It's that quality that most attracted me to her. We broke up on good terms. In fact we were both planning a relationship changing/ending talk for the same evening. I miss her semi-frequently, but more often than not, I miss her more than my romantic relationship with her.

With September began my masters program. We began as a group of twenty-two, but in the end nineteen of us graduated. One failed a class and dropped out, one ran into healthcare/money issues, and one got super sick after commencement (which happened in May, despite the program ending in July) and had to push back her student teaching to this September, and she'll graduate when she completes that.

The first three months were pretty easy, and as long as you had flexible hours, very doable while working a job. I didn't have a job, still relying on my Microsoft stock.

Second, and technically third, semesters were a little lighter on class load but also had two major teaching projects--one for the school, one for the state--a forty page research paper, and student teaching. At this point, you could no longer maintain a job.

There really is a ton to write about my masters degree experience, and I've exhausted tonight's writing enthusiasm and, let's face it, talent, so I'll post more about it tomorrow, or, you know, within a year or two from now.