Yeah, I know it's trite,

but Christmas is excellent.

Ah yes...

...kicking back and relaxing. It can't be healthy to feel so good. Nothin to do and all day to do it. We could use a few more of these breaks. I didn't even know it was past twelve until just now. But it doesn't matter because I'm not doing anyhing tomorrow morning. Or tomorrow afternoon. I could really get used to this.

college trip no. 2

This Saturday I went with my cousin, uncle, and father to Hampden-Sydney. They were having a recruitment tour or something. It was a decent institution, but I couldn't see myself there. It seems like everyone who comes out of there majors in an economic field. I'm just not that interested in a job with a banking firm. It was a small, traditional college. It greatly contrasted with UVA. Like big school vs. small school. Liberal vs. conservative. Rhetoric was a mandatory set of classes. I liked that. But they put too much emphasis on brotherhood and a homely atmosphere. I don't think that's what I'm looking for. Plus it's all male and sort of in the middle of nowhere. Farmville is pretty close, accordingly Longwood University. But seriously.
Okay there was a fellow in the tour who sat kind of in front of me during a lecture. And I swear he looked exactly like Chris Cook. It was uncanny the resemblance. The real weird thing is I got a look at his tag and this guy's name is Roark. Lucas Roark. It was crazy. I thought that was a made-up name, something of Ayn Rand's invention. But no. Here was living proof of the validity of the existence of this surname. It was unbelievable.
And later that day in the parking lot of the Bass Pro Shop we saw a small child nearly become roadkill. He ran out between a stationary vehicle and one that was pulling up to park. The guy parking jumped out because he thought we might hit the kid as he ran across the street. In his haste, he neglected to put on the brake. Or put it in park. So while the mother is running in between the cars to get her kid, this SUV is rolling forward, closing the gap between the cars. And she bolted out right before it collided with the camry in front of it. All this happened in like less than ten seconds. And my cousin, uncle, dad, and I couldn't do anything but sit and watch in horror. It was really scary. But no one was hurt. That's good.

death at a funeral

So the most unusual thing happened Friday. As you might know, Alison Ayres took her life Monday night. Which was an extremely sad event. But the really tragic thing happened Friday. I got out of school at ten to get dressed for the funeral. The service was at my home church, Westminster Pres. A conveniently short distance from Riverview Cemetery. Taking advantage of the close proximity, my family (myself included) decided to walk to the graveside service. En route to the burial place, we stumbled upon a body sort of propped up on a grave. At first I thought he was a sleeping homeless man. Then we got a little closer and a guy near him started looking agitated and I took a good look and thought, "Holy shit. This guy's dead." It was truly surreal. And a guy was there for Alison's funeral was a student EMT or something and called it in. It was kind of grisly. He'd been stabbed, so there was blood all over his sweatshirt and jeans. And he must have been there for quite a while because a swarm of flies had settled in and he was beginning to smell.
The really sad thing is I found out who he was yesterday.
Some background info: Maybe a year ago Riley Felici, who went to preschool at Westminster, died because of some heart complications. I don't know the details, but I think she was killed during surgery. Anyway she was only about four years old. Very depressing shit, as you can imagine. Her family was having a hard time coping with it, especially her dad. He didn't handle it well at all. Like teachers would find him outside the preschool in the rain moping around.
So on/near the anniversary of Riley's death, Mr. Felici killed himself next to her grave. That's sad as hell. I mean, he left a wife and another kid, I'm pretty sure. It depresses the shit out of me. His obituary was in the News Virginian on Sunday.
So that makes a grand total of two suicides this past week. Awful.

"Saturday"

I took advantage of the lack of school yesterday and went up with my dad to Charlottesville. UVA offers tours for pre-college kids like me who want to see how things go. It was really nice. A dean came in and talked for an hour or so then two student volunteers took us around the grounds. Yeah but now I know what universities are looking for as far as high school classes and entrance essays and important things like that go. Whoopie! It was fun though. Very informative. And it only lasted a couple hours. If anybody has a weekend where there's nothing going on, I'd definitely suggest checking it out. I know during the week the tours start at 10:00 in Newcomb Hall. Or that was the case when we went up. Anyway, it's helpful. What they were talking about with admissions and courses can be applied to any similar college.

Something I learned: there is no free parking at the corner.

So Tuesday was great. We should start going to school every other day.

Monday night

I think it's really special that we're not in school tomorrow. I mean, I don't know if a day off is altogether necessary. But I will enjoy it. Maybe do some history homework. I'm so dull. And I don't have anything to talk about.