Beetle Adventure Racing

Many years ago, Jenica organized the lot of hooligans I knew as friends before Y2K and got me an N64 for my birthday. Star Wars: Rogue Squadron was the reason, but it was soon eclipsed by my addiction to New Tetris, and also to my wild abandon for driving the new VW Beetle in the virtual world of Beetle Adventure Racing.

Like any other driving game, each new track presents greater challenges than the ones prior. At the same time, as you advance through levels, you gain better vehicles with greater manuverability and speed.

No matter how cool a car you had though, the first lap of any level of any racing game, done for the first time will result in some rail rubbing. Or you might drive your car clean off a cliff. Or overheat the engines of your podracer. Whatever the case may be, the first time around the first lap of a new level is always a bitch. It takes you halfway through the second lap to catch your stride, and by the third you can keep up.

This fall semester feels like the first lap of a new level. I had gotten good at the levels I've been doing the past few years. I had fallen into a pattern of sorts. Part time work, part time school.

Now it's full time school, part time work and a teacher's assistant's position to boot. I think that adds up to roughly 60 hours a week all said and done. One class alone sported a reading list of 13 books. I need to read The Illiad in one week and have a presentation ready for it this Friday. I could go on, by I'll digress to that the recent release of Seven Devil Fix's second CD (and the need to play shows to promote said disc). Just sprinkle with phone calls and you've got a recipe for stress leave.

What it looks like most days is that I leave at about 9:00 in the morning and come back around 10:00 at night, or some variation thereof. I can't seem to find my stride. The one where I know what I'm doing and when I ought to be doing it. I've never done graduate level studies before. I've never been a teacher's assistant in a university. I've never worked with a senior pastor who I got along with so well he actually said yes to my suggestions, thereby having me doing new things at work in the midst of the maelstrom. And just to slap icing all over the cake, I'm the band leader for the worship team currently at the Gathering, Stone Soup. To be fair, I booked that a loooong time ago when I didn't know my life would be this hectic.

So. If I don't reply to your emails, or update the blog, or call you back on the phone, or pay any attention to you whatsoever, don't feel special. I'm currently doing it to everyone except my classmates, my professors, my students at HR, my bandmates and of course, Jen and Gunnar. And above all, please don't send me emails bitching about the lack of updates, or I'll start posting that dry academic stuff I was doing earlier this year!

What I need is the Police Beetle from the game...you could turn on the siren and have everyone else slow down...I'm sure someone has some aphorism regarding taking time out to relate to that. My advice...keep it to yourself.