Man, I've been getting behind in documenting my life. Spending too much time living it. OK, so Liz came to visit a few weeks ago, and it was an awesome week. Andres, Liz and I went to El Yunque and hiked down to the waterfall, although Liz didn't dare to jump down the first waterfall. Ah well, it was really scary my first time as well. On the way down, we stopped and ate awesome Puerto Rican food as is tradition, and then, exhausted and sated, drove down the mountain with the windows down and Sigur Rós enveloping us.

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Well, I think Liz's family received a warm welcome back to the island. Check-in time for their hotel was 3pm. Their flight got in at 6pm, so they headed to the hotel then, and the room wasn't ready. Finally around 8:45pm, as I was getting off work, they were finally let into their room. The hotel offered them a free meal at the restaurant in compensation, and they invited me to dinner. During the meal, the power went out several times, finally going out and staying out. I pulled out the three mini-flashlights I keep in my bookbag (take that, Jing-Ta, it is useful to keep everything with me after all), handed them out, and we went in search of stairs to climb the 14 floors to their room. We couldn't find them, so Liz and I headed off and her parents continued searching for a way up to their room. They called Liz later to let her know they had gotten up to the room, but the power was still off and there was no water either. I offered repeatedly to let them stay with us, but they refused. They did, however, accept two bottles of water to use for brushing teeth, and Liz took a shower here before I took her back. I hope the rest of their vacation can live up to the high standard set for it on the first day.

You know those roads that are marked with an unrealistically low speed limit, and everyone sort of ignores? Like the section of Hwy. 76 that passes through Clemson, which is marked 35mph but is basically a highway deserving of something like 55mph. Or Kennedy Expressway in PR, marked 45mph but is a long, straight road with no exits or on-ramps. I usually drive 65mph on Kennedy and it feels completely comfortable.

Tonight on the way home from dropping Liz off at her hotel in San Juan, I was making my way back on Kennedy at 2:30am. The only other car on the road was a cop car with lights blazing, as they always are here. Naturally, I matched his speed, but the lights were pretty much blinding me, so I nudged forward until I was just in front of him. He then got on the loudspeaker and said, "You're going faster than 40, you know."

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Liz arrives today, and will be visiting for a week. Andrés arrives tomorrow, and he will be here for two and a half weeks. I've accumulated four vacation days from working weekend shifts over the last month or two, so I'm taking Thursday, Friday, Monday, and Tuesday off. That means today is effectively my Friday, which is awesome.

After Liz regrettably leaves, Andrés and I are going to see if we can make a weekend trip to St. Thomas to visit Rose. A few weeks after that, I'm going to Cedar Point with Bryan and Cat. Around then, Michelle and Andrea get down here for the summer, and they'll be here for 4 months. So for the next few months, at least, my solitude seems to be in a temporary reprieve.

Liz's plane gets in around 6pm, so the plan is to call her when I get off work at 8. Just have to make it until then and I'm home free.

Hey, what's up. Well, lots has happened but I really don't feel like writing tons right now, so I guess you'll (I'll) miss out on some stuff. I should have written sooner. OK, well, first I guess would be the christmas show. Oh, yeah, today's Wed., had my last final, English, today. OK, well, last Fri. was the christmas show and we played a bunch of christmas songs. I was like, mature or something, and didn't play when I wasn't supposed to, etc. It was cool. Afterwards me, Ryan, Liz, Alan, Sarah, and others that I don't know well yet (like Alan Paluska) were jumping from that gymnastics springboard thingie into the gymnastics mats. It was cool. OK, next: just that I tried to learn ACOS but JP uses the 7-string and I had no idea how I could play it except for having the Bass blay those B's in the intro, but I'm sure we couldn't do that thru the whole song (if we played it). Finally what I did is tune the Peavey different ways and try to play it (at least the intro). Well, for the intro the best tuning is B E A G D B, like cutting off the 1st string. But in the rest of the song, I'm sure JP uses the first string, so I thought of tuning it B F# G D B E. This gives me the entire range, but it's some pretty big stretches in some parts. So anyways, next topic: midterms. This will be purposely short. I hate midterms! There. I said it was gonna be short! No, JK, OK: Chem one was great! Prob'ly got 100 or close. Missed 3 completion but I did the bonus problem, which I assume (hope) is worth more than a completion. If it's worth 3 times more, I'll have 100 (I think)! Spanish sucked (that's all I got to say about that), Bilder was hard but I think I did pretty well on it. The Geometry was simple (I finished it in half an hour, out of an hour and a half that we had), and Cushing's today was OK. On Cushing's We had to write a fully developed essay. Mine came out really good, but I had to stay 20 min. late to finish it! OK, next, Ed and Kwadwo are here. In fact, today I'm going to Ed's house to jam. He's playing lots of blues now, which is great cause that's what I jam best to. Haven't really talked a lot with Kwadwo but we talked a bit today and he mentioned Doom. I want to play Doom 2-player again! I haven't played 2-player since Kwadwo left! Oh, wait, I went to Ed's house that day, but still, only once, and that was a long time ago. Well, I guess I am writing tons! Next, Oh, christmas. It's 5 days away! Next Monday, today's Wed. YES!! I haven't been that excited or whatever this year, but now I am getting excited cause I'm getting lots of money towards the SGX-2000. Mami and Papi are giving me $200 for christmas plus $100 if i get on the honor roll this quarter (don't think so, but it would be cool), BRB rosalyn's gonna clean the CR Room. Later!

Did it. Got it to work with IRQ 5, DMA 6. Going to Steve Vai tomorrow!!! YES!!! Got Countdown to Extinction. Gonna send demo tape to Silverchair to see if they want another guitarist. I doubt I can get in, but what the heck. Mami's cool with it; she says "Follow your dream." YES!!! I still like the same 3 (in order): Adrianne, Liz, Laetetia. C'Ya! OH! Gonna try and install AOL so I can go on MTV Yack Live. That would rock!!! Now, bye.

I handed in the essay. Yesterday we played at Plaza Aquatica. I named my band Fish. Cool. I have a major report due on Mo. in Spanish. Today's Sun. I still like Adrianne, but I am starting to like other people too, like Laetetia and Liz.

Wow! Today was great! On the way to school I just kind of decided to be happy that day. I told Marcos to shut up, I talked to Adrianne a few times without being scared, I did well in school, I sat with Ryan, Liz, Pedro, etc. at lunch, and I found out that I'm not the only one that hates Marcos! Cool. Well, See Ya, Can't wait for my wireless to get here!

Well, a hurricane is coming, Hurricane Luis. It's HUGE! The EYE is bigger than PR! It will probably hit tomorrow afternoon. No school for a few weeks. I am making a level of the house. It's ok. There are no textures that look very much like our walls and floors, so I'm just using ones that look cool, not accurate. Liz Had a birthday party two days ago, saturday. It was pretty cool, but Marcos and Ernie and Victor were there and they took some people to Gabriela's house to drink. Adrianne was there, and so was Annette. I haven't talked about her. She's a new girl that I'm pretty sure likes me. I don't know. Oh well, I guess I'll say bye. C'Ya.