Dear reader,

I don’t know who you are but now I will proceed to use graphs to display various aspects of my life while I have been here. Ew calculus.

You don’t know me,
Connor Gorman

P.S. You have to click on the graphs to be able to see the whole picture!

Nostalgia versus time:

Hormone level versus time:

Amount of stairs climbed versus time:

Swing dancing skillz versus time:

Stair rail-sliding skillz versus time:

Lanyard-twirling skillz versus time:

(See "Stair rail-sliding skillz versus time" minus picture and pun comment)

Inclination to write in cursive versus time:

Fireworks versus time:

A more accurate and less hairy depiction of fireworks versus time:

And from all this information, we use various mathematical processes to derive one very important conclusion which can be described by this graph:

Adieu, adieu, all's vanity!

E'ERBODY IN THE AUDIENCE SAY "UH OH!"

Okay. Hold on.

I think I need to actually create a whole new blog to shake off the tone that the previous one conveyed. I do not mean to suggest that I belong in someone's closet with the word "FAIL!" tattooed on my forehead. Because sometimes people get anxious and do dangerous things when they discover an unwanted person in their closet (see the movie "Burn After Reading"). And also because I haven't failed THAT much.

I have been working on my cooking skills.

One of the many magics of childhood was seeing food in front of me that my mother created and then seeing that food into my mouth and drooling at the wonderful tastes (I think if my mom reads this, she will contradict me, because I'm sure I didn't ALWAYS enjoy her cooking). I always thought that my mom had to work some kind of actual magic in order to allow this sequence of events to take place. As in, as I'm remembering walking into the kitchen with child-vision while my mom was cooking, I remember her having to wear wizard hats and facial hairs as she waved her arms with all of that magic powder over the stove. You see, I was too small to see over the counter, even less into the pots, so I never knew what was going on.

But after creating a meal or two or three or four or five or six or seven or eight on my own, I'm starting to be discouraged. I realize now, how little magic it takes to make food. I realize now, that no one will think I'm a magician for making food appear in front of them and making flavors happen in their mouths.

But this doesn't prevent me from making future generations think that food=magic.

Consider my potential maybe possibly conceivably future children. Consider then, what you know of me, and what I just said about wanting future generations to think that food=magic.

Are you seeing a connection? If you aren't, let me outline a HYPOTHETICAL scenario.

Sometime in the future: Connor has children, unassisted.

A moment later in the future: Connor makes smiles and plans.

A few years after that moment: Connor begins to don a long white beard, a wizard hat, wizard robes, and a wicked wizard mustache prior to cooking every meal.

Beginning at the same time: Connor begins to mutter random gibberish and wave his hands in random circles at cooking food.

Sometime later: Connor's unassisted children spend the night at some other parents' house. The children wonder why the other parents are so weird and why their food doesn't taste as good.

Same time: Connor smiles again because he knows he has accomplished his plans.

(I was kidding about having children unassisted. I said unassisted because no woman I potentially possible maybe conceivably marry will let me skew my childrens' worldview so dramatically. I AM NOT AN ASEXUALLY REPRODUCTIVE AMOEBA/SPONGE!)

High school taught me to place my thesis sentences at the end of the introduction paragraph. Apparently this is because when writing an essay, one should wish to inform his or her reader of various small, but important details before grabbing the reader's attention.

I think college is teaching me to put it wherever the hell works the best. To say what formal "section" of this writing my thesis sentence exists in is difficult though because my style of writing consists of many two to three-sentence paragraphs because I refuse to be practical and be satisfied with separating my thoughts with a mere period as most successful writing people do. To me, every thought is wonderful and unique in it's own way and must have it's own space to be properly appreciated. Okay... that came across as more romantic than I intended it to. I am not in love with my thoughts.

Okay. Anyway.

I'm about to type out my thesis sentence for this blog entitled, "A Rebel Yell."

I hope you are paying attention, and if you're not, I hope it grabs your attention. Because I think this is where the "wherever the hell works best" place is in this blog.

Summer,
Oh, This summer,
Has been full of
Disappointments.

My dad told me the other day, and I'm surprised I didn't gather this from all of the songs in which the singer joyfully sings or mournfully wails, "I am my own worst enemy!" but he told me the other day, that people are best at lying to themselves. Better at lying to themselves than they would ever imagine themselves being at lying to other people.

These are among the things I told myself I would be spending my time with this summer:
"Friends!"
"Family!"
"Cooking!"
"Writing blogs for self and Trinity!"
"Work in a restaurant!"
"Guitar!"
"God!"
"Exercise!"
"Not video games!"

I included the exclamation marks because, you know, I was so happy and excited at the prospect of an un-busy summer in which I could spend plenty of time developing the aspects of me which I didn't have much time to develop.

But I forgot where un-business used to leave me. Remember when I included "Not video games!" into my list of things I would be spending my time with? Well that one item on the list was the one exception to the exclamation rule in that it is meant to be said with a sort of sarcastic enthusiasm. As in, that's what I ended up not doing. Not not spending time with video games.

Summer,
Oh, This summer,
Has been full of
Disappointments.

From now on, whenever I enter my room with the thought of playing video games, I will only grant the computer screen enough attention to yell at it. Not with words, mind you, because I want my family to retain at least a little respect for me, but with noises.

Like
"AGHHHH!"
and
"WAAAAAAAH!"
and
"GARRRR!"

etcetera.

Television, video games, movies, for the most part, are only a good way to turn your mind off. And during a time when my mind is expected to not only be on, but also absorbing information, I think that, yes I do think that, OH I SO THINK THAT... I should not turn it off.

You know something I'm really grateful for right now?

The gag reflex.

You wanna know why?

Just now, I was walking from the dining hall (I can't call it a cafeteria anymore) with my eggy burrrrrrritoooo in hand and I decided to reach into the tortilla and grab a little nibble of egg. Little did I know, that nibble of egg would soon threaten my life.

So as I continued on my walk with burrito in hand, cheeks bulging with egg and the air created by my happy whistling, a funny thing happened.

(Wow. I should be more careful with my diction. I know a few people who would read that last sentence, and look back on the word "cheeks" and screw up their faces with suppressed laughter.)

You know how sometimes, when you're drinking beverages, you get so excited about the beverage you're drinking but also the prospect of perhaps drinking more beverages in the future that you breathe in really quickly and the beverage gleefully flies down into your lungs? I think that happened to me. But I was drinking no beverage. This is the difference: the kind of egg that you put into a tortilla in hopes of calling it a burrito is not liquid.

I'm always personifying things: this egg took advantage of my excitement and sudden breath by growing arms and legs. Arms and legs it decided to use for clinging. Clinging to throat parts.

I'm always personifying things: this egg probably was so excited about growing clinging arms and legs that it also grew a smile and happy eyes it used to look delighted as it clung to my throat parts.

I'm always personifying things: this is when my throat parts grew a frown and decided to take action.

And as my throat parts grew a frown, my eyes went wide and I realized, not as happily as the egg, that "Hey! I'm kind of choking!"

And my life flashed before my eyeses as I thought that this might be my last time to ever walk on a sidewalk and be excited about food or beverage or the combination of the two.

But no! Out of spite, my gag reflex happened and my throat parts kicked the egg in its happy face, out of my mouth. And I, out of spite, angled my eyebrows down, pushed the probably-not-so-happy-anymore egg to the front of my mouth, where my canines promptly minced it into more manageable pieces. And I swallowed again, and was happy.

I'm always personifying things because I don't know any better. It is quite possible that all these things happened in my mouth. To tell me otherwise is to spoil my imagination. Unfortunately, I can never enjoy any of these images in three dimensions because such things cannot be imagined without converting normal existance into cartoon existance.

And so Trinity is a place in which scenes happen that could not possibly happen in other colleges and that could not possibly be portrayed in such astounding melodrama.

The end.

A learning:
People will pick things up that don't belong to them and then suddenly think that these things in fact are theirs no matter what socioeconomic background they come from.

Recently I lost my wallet.

Let me list the contents of my wallet to you, my suddenly sympathetic audience.

-Used target gift card
-Blockbuster Membership card
-Used barnes&noble gift card
-about forty dollars in cash
-debit card
-parent's credit card
-Best Buy rewards card
-picture of girlfriend
-drivers license
-health insurance card
-macy's card
-moustache disguise

That is, recently I lost my wallet, or rather, some nincompoop picked it up knowing it wasn't his, and suddenly realized that hey, now it was his. (You see, this is a part of gender profiling which actually benefits women. Usually you think of nincompoops as men.)

I know I will not marry this person. Even if he/she gives my wallet back, I know that just by teasing me and separating me from my wallet, the only thing to which I owe this person for eternity is a daily subscription to Hostile Sticky-Notes Ltd.

The thing is, I'm really not as disappointed at losing my wallet and its contents as I am at losing my drivers license. I believe I am not alone when I say that a good drivers license photo is hard to come by. I mean, you get them like, once every five years? And if you ask to retake the photo, odds are either you didn't even ask in the first place out of silly fear or the behind-the-counter lady was having a really bad day because she forgot to pluck her eyebrows and EVERYONE was noticing and she wouldn't let you retake it. But this drivers license picture which was taken was REMARKABLE. I mean, all I would have to do is flash it at the large people blocking the way to the airplanes and they would let me through. I've seen what happens when people who take bad drivers license photos try to get through to the airplanes, and now, since I have to risk a new photo, I'm terrified of the same thing happening to me.

So now I walk around with the most pitiful face on, hoping that the bumpkin that found my wallet WITH IDENTIFICATION IN IT will see me and be repeatedly touched by guilt and come yelling at my door with my wallet, beseeching me to release him of the guilt that comes with taking someones means of identification at airports.

Do you know what I will say?

I will say,

"Puhah! Knave! Get thee to thine kitchen and make me a peanut butter and jelly sandwich!"

and then he'll look really confused and I'll stop acting and say, "Okay. Yes." and take my wallet and shut the door.

Usually, during the months of March, February, January, and December, I assume my alter-ego, traditionally known as Daphne.

I think I'm a very pretty girl sometimes.

Afterthought:
I probably smell good from time to time, too.

Hyoo-manitee!

Introduction... introduction...

Ah!

There's this town I've never heard of in Texas named Frankfurt. Wait... no that's in Germany. Hold on a second... I need to recall my third grade state capitals test. Okay. Frankfurt is in Kentucky. Not Texas. The town I'm talking about is Fredericksburg. Anywho, one of my friends at Trinity named Katy lives just outside of Fredericksburg. Okay... let me reorganize myself. This is getting confusing... because Katy is another town in Texas... and she lives outside of Fredericksburg? And Fredericksburg is really the name of a giant hot dog that lives in Germany.

...A-hem.

So Katy, being the superb female that she is, invited a few friends to visit her home in Fredericksburg for a Saturday. Additionally, a little-known hill called Enchanted Rock is Katy's one-hour-neighbor, so she also asked us if we wanted to go hiking and spelunking as well.

"Spelunking" kind of sounds what big rocks do when you drop them into lakes, and since I don't often enjoy being dropped into lakes, naturally I was perplexed and had to inquire as to what the word meant. Apparently, spelunking is what you do when you go into dark caves and stub your toe trying to find the light switch. Maybe the word would make more sense if someone dropped you into the cave and you made a certain sound as you entered.

Still confused, I agreed to this *adventure* that Katy proposed, and proceeded to make everyone wait for me in the cars as I made a few "Oops! I forgot something!" returns to my dorm. By the time we got to Enchanted Rock, everyone wanted to strangle me for not talking so much. I could tell it was going to be a good day.

Anywho, we got out of the cars and decided to pay six dollars to the officials who drew an imaginary line and said we had to pay six dollars if we wanted to cross it. This is how the encounter went:

"Excuse me, sir. Why are you standing here?"

"See this line? I dare you to pass it without paying me."

"What li- wait.. you didn't answer me! Why are you here?"

"I dare you, small fry!"

"I don't understand... what line?!"

"This one right here, buttercup! Give me six dollars!"

"Hey hey... my name's not buttercup! And what are you going to do if I don't?"

"GIVE ME SIX DOLLARS!"

"Whoa there... we have a car and all you have is this booth... wh-"

"SIX DOLLARS!!"

"Sheesh! Okay okay... here you go!"

Instantly his expression changed from a wicked scowl to a delighted grin.

"Thank you, come again! No litter please or we send pidgeons to poop on your car!"

"We?"

"Yes."

"...I still don't see a line."

He might as well have been a really agressive homeless person. Sometimes they're kind of crazy... right?

Okay, well once we passed Buttercup, we got out of the cars and took the obligatory "I'm at college and having the time of my life with my friends!" group pictures, which is when I decided that, hey, you could take a picture of yourself on the rock in front of your house and give it a caption that says "This is me at the Grand Canyon!" and no one would even question you. Here, let me try out this theory:

This is us at Enchanted Rock!
Okay... that one was true.

This is us at the Grand Canyon!

This is us in the Australian Outback! Oi, mate! There's a dingo in me trousers!

This is us about to go into a convenience store!

And off we went up onto the top of the second largest granite formation in Texas to get dropped into caves. Usually, when telling someone of a certain adventure I went on which would usually be thought of as exciting, the only thing I tell them about that adventure is something negative. For instance, when I tell people about the freshman backpacking trip, I usually say "I had to poop in the forest for four days." In telling someone of my experience at Enchanted Rock, I would say, "I think that there was one point where I could have jumped up and been carried away by the wind," or, "No one would let me stop to get a snowcone."

And though I do only say negative things about my adventures, I always enjoy them. Once we finished hiking up and down the beautiful Enchanted Rock and exploring all its nooks and crannies, we wearily drove back to Katy's house to enjoy homemade barbeque and peach cobbler courtesy of her parents.

It was a good day.

Oh! And before I forget...

This is Doug.

And this is what Doug gets for being skeptical as I took a picture of him and said, "I'm gonna feature you on the Trinity website!"

So... since I judge the quality of my blogs by their length and not by their substance... I would say that I have successfully blown your pants away with my awesome writing skills.

The End.

I will savor - and underground aquifers, as well as those who monitor them - will rue the day that reading in the shower becomes a possibility.

It's people with ambitions like mine who will suck this earth dry! Muahaha.. ha

ha.. aha!ha.

ha?

*meep*

Today, I got owned by a racquetball. In the face of all places. In the eye, of all faces.

I wish more publishers or journalists or famous people would read these blogs so I could be quoted for being so profound and rhythmic.

I hope you all realize that when I say words like "today," I usually mean sometime other than today. Most of the time, in the past.

For some reason I thought it would be a good idea to take a racquetball class at 8:30 in the morning on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

This is me being optimistic:
"Oh! Racquetball at 8:30 sounds like a good idea... it will wake me up and I'll get some extra weekly physical activity logged! Hooray!"

But now that I've felt the fury of a racquetball, I'm beginning to wonder what made me think such annoying thoughts.

As I watched that tiny blue ball form a path whose endpoint was my eye and, using my danger-induced slow-motion vision, begin to slowly get bigger without deviating from its path, I sincerely wished that a time machine would whisk me away to the moment annoying, optimistic Connor decided to sign up for a racquetball class, so I could punch him in the face. (I suppose that would have achieved the same effect as the racquetball did, but I think you know what I'm trying to say. I also suppose it would be easier to just wish that I had goggles, but whatever.)

You know how, if you make a backwards "C" with your right hand using your thumb and pointer finger (or a normal "C" with your left hand), and you put the "C" up to your right eye (or left eye), you can imagine that you can squish really huge things that are far away with your fingers? Well that's called making the most out of depth perception. Sometimes I use this nifty little trick to squish friends' or annoying peoples' (synonym: choobers') heads when they don't know it, but that's beside the point. ("Were you just trying to squish my head with your fingers?" "Umm... heh... no?")

That ugly blue racquetball decided, then and there, to make use of its ability to influence my depth perception, and as it reached the point in its journey to my face in which it was an inch away from its destination, it became the most unsquishable object in the universe.

My racquet clattered to the floor and I rolled my one good eye and sighed as I lifted my hands up to inspect the damages. Valentine's Day was that weekend and my eye could NOT be black. (I can't wait to introduce you to my girlfriend!)

Eventually, I realized that my adventure that morning wasn't completely bad, because not only did my eye end up staying the same color, but I also have this killer story to tell, although I don't think that it would proceed much farther past "I got owned in the face by a racquetball" in daily conversation.

In retrospect, recalling that scene in which the ball slowly got bigger and bigger until it gleefully bounced of my flinching face is actually pretty enjoyable. I mean, I do remember that occurrence in slow motion, and I've always dreamed of having the ability to slow down time in moments of intense action, and while the action happened TO me rather than WITH me, I still have this feeling that some obnoxious genie is out there somewhere, misinterpreting my wishes and granting them. Not many people have this feeling.

Oh crap.

I just realized:
This is me being optimistic... again.

And I also realized:
"Is this what he was talking about when he said he keeps going on adventures?"

No.