It was an exhausting day, to put it very, very mildly. The service in the church was relatively short; my brother and I were two of the pallbearers. But my grandfather was a Lieutenant Colonel in the Air Force and served in the military for 37 years, and had earned the right to be buried in Arlington National Ceremony. When we arrived, there were troops there in full uniform; some holding flags, some with rifles, some to carry the casket, and some with instruments to play the music. They took the casket to the gravesite via a horse-drawn platform and everything, and at the end of the military service, they fired the rifles to honor him. I think that was the hardest thing to bear, for me; it felt like that was when the real weight of it all suddenly got to me. The entire service was really amazing, especially since I had no idea what to expect.
After the funeral, family and friends of my grandparents all gathered at Grandma's house for the reception, and I spent several hours being sociable. That was where most of the exhaustion came from. When we got home I made a bee-line for my bed and took a nap. The rest of the day was spent drawing and staying to myself for the most part. There are so many people in this house and I'm going nuts for some personal space and time to myself. I'm looking forward to getting home tomorrow.

So here I am. I spent all day with my family, which was actually kind of nice. I hardly ever get to see my brother and after the family dinner he and I went out for coffee and just sat downtown and talked for a long while. It was really awesome. When alone, I spent most of my time continuing work on the new aaronsite. Still looking good. Tomorrow morning is the big event. Wish me luck.

My grandfather's funeral is on Tuesday and I'm catching my flight to Virginia in a couple hours. I guess I'll start packing sooner or later.
Anyway, I, Matt and his boyfriend went to see Rat Race last night and it was actually pretty hilarious. Some of it is painfully trite and you can point out the places where the cut out chunks of 'unimportant' footage for time (it's still over 2 hours long), but I'll still recommend it! I haven't laughed that much in a long while. Den and I have a lovely date Friday night and I spent almost the entirety of yesterday working on a new version of aaron'site. You can check on my progress here and by all means, mail me with your thoughts.

My first two real days of classes. The rundown:
Intro to Anthropology looks like a nice, but boring, joke. But Ben, who I had Spanish with last year, is in there with me, and just like we did in Spanish, we're already sitting in the back and being sarcastic and joking through the class.
American Art is gonna be hard. The teacher reeks of bitchiness and talks too loudly but she's really passionate about the content, and I always respect that.
Multicultural Lit is going to be pretty easy, I think, but at the same time it looks really interesting. I think there's gonna be a lot of discussion, and I can always dig that. I just hope the books we read are interesting.
Intro to Painting is a fucking nightmare. It's at 8AM and he's having us do oils. Oils! We have to spend a million dollars on damn oil paints for a lousy intro class. I'd switch out of it, but I'm telling myself that I can use the exposure. I might as well give it a try. That's what college is for, right?
The Intermediate Drawing professor looks to be a pretty laid-back guy, and says he wants to focus on us exploring the paths that we choose for ourselves. We wants us to write manifestos for next class talking about our art and what we want to achieve and while I can't stand the artistic rhetoric of "what art is," which he also asked for, I'm still keeping positive.
More to come!

Den came over to hang out around nine or so last night, and when we realized it was past 1AM, I just asked if he wanted to spend the night. We got up around 10, went to his place and played videogames for a while (Tenchu 2 is fun!), watched some TV, and then ducked into a Chinese Buffet around 6 before I came home. On the dessert bar they had these small, jiggly opaque white squares that were difficult to bite through and almost tasteless. I had one and was too scared to try another. I worry about what it's doing to my internal organs right now. But I digress. It was a very fun near-24-hours.
After coming home I spent most of the evening cleaning the house. I even scrubbed my toilet. How fucking domesticated is that? And for a while I laid on the couch and read some of The Vampire Armand for what I think is my fourth or fifth time and just relaxed. That too was great. And... now I'm just chilling. As long as I get up at noon tomorrow, I'll have plenty of time to get ready and catch the bus to campus. But I've noticed these past couple days that my lower right jaw is still a little swollen, and pretty sensitive. Is my wisdom tooth hole not healing right? Did it knock something out of alignment? Did I get something in it? I wish I knew what was going on back there.

My sister drove up to meet mom and I, and then after lunch the two of them left for her house, where Mom will stay for another day or so before flying back to Virginia. It was a fun visit, but now that Mom's gone, and Matt's almost always out of the house, I'm walking around my big new place and starting to feel acutely lonely. Last year in the dorm I shared a tiny room with another guy, and even though we did our best to tune each other's existance out of our own, there was nevertheless someone there. But Matt's gone most of the time and I'm a distance from campus. There's no dorm lobby for me to lurk in and no dining hall for me to sit in and grab a snack and peoplewatch. It's just me. But I'm thinking that I'm just being hypersensitive, and that most of this will fade as soon as I'm busy with schoolwork and/or a job. In other words, I'm guessing I'm just bored more than lonely.
In other news, I kinda-sorta got my schedule worked out. At the moment:

Mon/Weds/Fri:
Intro to Anthropology
American Art History
Multicultural Literature

Tues/Thurs:
Intro to Painting
Intermediate Drawing

It should be an interesting semester...

Yeah, I... ... I'm here now! So much has happened but I'll try to keep myself brief.
I'm indeed at school now. I had forgotten about Georgia's thick, neverending heat and the fact that you're shiny with sweat five minutes after leaving a building, but other than that I'm quite glad to be back. I'm very much moved in and loving the new place. It only took me a few hours to unpack almost all of my stuff... I think I have too much practice. -_-; And Matt says I'm being obssessive-compulsive when it comes to keeping things clean, but I stand firm that I'm simply being responcible. In any case, I'm really happy here.
Matt #2 (henceforth known as Den[nis] to end confusion) and I got together the day after I came and talked about a lot of things, many of which being mistakes that I made. And I'm grateful that we did. The lesson I've learned is that while I see the importance of bringing up and talking about issues... there are lots of issues I'm too blind to catch, and they can do a lot of harm to people I care about. I'm not sure if there's a cure for blindness, but I'll be damned if I'm not going to try to find it. And-- we also decided that we're dating. And that makes me go: ^___^
My grandfather in Virginia died on the 12th-- I'm taking a few days off of school and going up to the funeral on the 28th. Grandpa left me an inheritance, yet after I came back to NC from Virginia, I couldn't even squeeze time out of my schedule to write him a letter. I fully believe that regret is a futile emotion, but it's times like these that truly make me feel like a wretched and selfish person. Still... the last time I saw him, he gave me a hug when we said goodbye, and that's the first hug that I ever remember him giving me. It's a very precious memory for me and I know it always will be.
My mom flew into town today and we went all over, eating dinner out and buying things for the house and just spending time together. I'm really happy to see her and I always like showing her around town. Tomorrow we're going to go out again before and after my classes, and I'm looking forward to it. The more I see her, the more imporant I realize she is to me.
My class schedule is too stressful to even mention at the moment, so I believe I'll just say bye for now. Until tomorrow, or sometime soon thereafter--

I will be waking up in seven hours to help load the truck and drive on down to Georgia. I guess that means I oughta sign off and disconnect the computer. Bye, NC...!

Yeah... uh... I'm still here! I guess didn't feel like posting as long as whining about the pain in my mouth was what I felt like doing most, but now that my mouth is mostly healed now, I'm back. And it was a nice break anyway. So moving on--
I leave for school again tomorrow! Right now I'm about 70% packed... just gotta handle my clothes, my bathroom stuff and the computer and I'll be all set for the moving truck which is showing up in a couple hours. But first I am off to have a goodbye lunch with Becca and her family! -=whoosh

I got my wisdom teeth out yesterday morning and now I am a rather large mess. My cheeks are swollen, I can barely open my mouth and all I can have are things like mashed potatoes, juices and soft soups. The bleeding had almost stopped by this afternoon, but now it's started up again. And did I mention my big phobia of stitches? ^_^;