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[Rugs]

Entry 1: Rugs is Really Bored

Er... yeah...

So, as the title of this here entry thing says, I'm sitting here in my dorm room, bored out of my mind, since not much is going on today, so I just decided I'd do one of these blog thingamajigs.

So... where to start?

I guess I can start with me. For all two of you that don't already know, my name is Alex. I'm a first year college (which I guess would be university for you Brits) college student down here at Mississippi State University. I'm a journalism major, so yes, I'll be dealing with writing quite a bit as I move forward through school, though news writing is an entirely different thing than the way we write for things like this site. State's been good so far. All of my classes are going well enough, though this semester has sort of turned into a mad dash to get as many A's as possible, since I forgot to sign up to do experiments in my Psych class last semester and, given the fact that I pretty much had no cushion coming in, that ruined my GPA. So now I get to struggle to stay in the Honors College. Fun fun. But it can be done. Most of the classes I'm taking this semester are general stuff that needs to be gotten out of the way, and a news writing class, but that's not that hard. At least it isn't yet.

But yeah, so far, college has been good. I've liked or at least been neutral on all of my professors so far, and that really leans more to the 'like' end than the 'neutral' end. The worst I had was last semester for an Architecture Appreciation class I was in. The guy was just so boring, and the class was at eight, which is horrible, but I give him the benefit of the doubt since I was always barely awake in that class, anyway. But, on the other hand, I've had some really cool professors, like my Mass Media one last semester, who is so much of a fan of The Office that he decided we'd spend class watching it one day, or my Psych professor, who told us more silly stories than I can remember. I might share a few here one day, though most of the charm would be lost without him being the one to tell them.

Another thing I can say about college is that I fear it's turning me into a football handegg fan D: See, before I came here, I never really cared much about handegg. But, as a number of you already know, I'm in the marching band here, which means I go to every home game here and at least one away game. So, as much as I didn't really care at the beginning of the season, when you're in a stadium with 60,000 other roaring people, you just kind of get swept away in it, and you want your team to do well. And, on top of that, the atmosphere is just a lot of fun. And the most frightening thing? I'm looking forward to next season. I don't remember being like this in high school D:

I can't really think of anything else to ramble incoherently about at the moment, so I guess I'm done. I really don't know if I'll post here again, though I guess I could post some pictures from my vacation over the Christmas holidays up, since I said I'd do that in my farewell thread for that trip, and I never really got around to and there's no need to bump it after so long. We'll see. And, though I can't think of anything anyone would have to comment on so far, comments are welcome.

PS: If the Saints lose tonight, you may not hear from me again. I fear that the people here will riot. I'm currently in the process of turning my dorm room into a fortress, but it may not be enough.

[Otterling]

O__O A Rugs blog?? Holy crap. I was stunned at first. Then again, boredom leads us to do silly things. *glances over at the page full of Di'Shan doodles in her sketchbook* Anyhoo, it's kinda interesting to get to see the person behind all those awesome characters. I have never been a fan of "handegg" (Btw, that made me LOL) but, meh, to each their own. I can completely understand getting caught up in the spirit of a good crowd though. It's all too easy to cheer along with everyone and root for something you normally wouldn't care about when you have a ton of other people all cheering too. ^__^ Nothing wrong at all with that. The SMSgt that sits here in the office with me is a huge handegg fan. She cheers LOUDLY when they come over the radio with updates on the game. Heh. Good luck with the Saints thing. >__> If you need a lifeline, just post a SOS on here. We'll find a way to get you out. XD

[Rugs]

Haha, thanks for the comments otter. And yes, the Saints won, so I was safe.

Entry 2: Something Something Something Cruise

Mmmk, so I've been like "oh yeah, I'll get pictures up from my holiday vacation up soon" for like two months now, so here they are.

First an overview.

So, me and most of my family went on a cruise with Carnival over the Christmas holidays. It was through the Eastern Caribbean and the path looked something like this

It was the second cruise I've been on, and was great fun. Though, I will admit, I think seven days is just a tad too long. Or perhaps it could have done without one of those days at sea, because the wind was high and the boat rocked, and poor Rugs is prone to headaches. But, that minor annoyance aside, it was a lot of fun.

Now, onto the stops.

Miami/Departure

So, to get to Miami, we had to take this retarded flight route that made absolutely no sense. It looked like this



Because everyone knows the best way to get somewhere is to fly in the complete oppositedirection and make the trip much longer than it needs to be, amirite? But whatever, it was the cheapest route. Somehow. Anyway, to the pictures. Well, some of these. For each of these stops, I'm only putting in a few of my favorites, because I've got way too many pictures from that trip. Over 2 GB worth, so yeah... Also, these are all sized way down, since it'd stretch the page like nobody's business if I posted the full size ones.

Alright, so there's nothing really special about this one, I just like it. Took it while we were waiting on a cab to take us back to the hotel after we finished eating dinner the day we arrived. I was playing around with setting on my camera, and I can't describe how hard it is to do a shot like this without a tripod. I have so many others with wiggly lines xDDD Or maybe I'm just jittery. Who knows?

Ok, so this is the main lobby entrance central area place that you come into when you get on the boat. It has magical changing lights on the ceiling. It's quite nice.

This is another picture that doesn't really have much meaning or significance. I was, once again playing with the settings on my camera as we were waiting for them to finish get the rooms prepared. So I saw the Christmas tree in the lobby and decided to see what I could come up with. I rather like this shot.

This is one of my favorite pictures from the trip. Obviously, we've left port, and the sun was setting over Miami. I really love the silhouette of the city's skyline.

Nassau, Bahamas

So our first stop was the next day in Nassau, capital city of the Bahamas. I'd been to Nassau before, but it's still a fun place. We spent most of the day on a tour of the island, and it was nice.

This is our ship, the Liberty. Big, yes? I thought so too, until we eneded up in the shadow of this monstrosity of a ship that happened to stop at most of the same ports of call that we did. And I was somehow to dense to get a good picture of it. Google the Oasis of the Seas if you want to see said ship. It's the biggest cruise ship in the world. Scary.

These are flags. Flags of the Bahamas. There's a tower thing behind them. Yep.

This would be the Pegasus fountain in front of Atlantis, a ridiculously nice, ridiculously retardedly expensive resort we took a look through while we were in Nassau.

This would be the massive rotunda that's the first thing you see upon entrance to said resort.

And this is the nice little beach area they have out behind the aforementioned resort. It's quite pretty.

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Anyway, like I said, I've got too many pictures from each stop, so I'm just putting up a few to try and gice a feel for what each one was like. Onward to the next one![/center]

St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands

So, after a day at sea (and a day with a headache for me), we arrived in St. Thomas. St. Thomas was great, and was probably my favorite stop of the trip. On to the pictures. I'm starting to get pressed for time, so there won't be as many, not that any of you would complain, I'm sure xDD

This is probably my favorite picture of the whole trip. It was taken from a lookout point high up on the island, and as you can see, gave a splendid view. Our ship is the one in the middle, by the way. Oh, and remember that massive ship I mentioned earlier? It's there too, but it's out of the picture because they had to build a new dock to accommodate it's hugeness. Yeah...

This is the view out from the little bay where the beach we went to was. You've no idea how much maneuvering I had to do to find a spot that didn't have some half-nekkid fat old guy that would end up in my picture. You're welcome

This is St. Thomas at night/sunset/evening/whatever. It's pretty.

Alright, that's enough of St. Thomas for now. Next!

San Juan, Puerto Rico

So, San Jaun was just a skip and a hop away from St. Thomas, so we arrived there the next morning. The weather decided to be bad that day, so we spent most of our time in some fort that I can't remember the name of. It wasn't a long stop, anyway. But still, it was nice.

I know, beautiful skies, yes?

I took this inside one of the tunnels that runs underneath the old fort that I still can't remember the name of. I thought they were pretty cool, but there was this lady behind me who must have been claustrophobic or something, cause she was freaking out. I probably shouldn't have been amused, but I was.

Yeah, the water was about as nice as the sky was that day.

Grand Turk, Turks and Caicos Islands

Ah, Grand Turk. It was an interesting place. The area around the port could certainly be called grand, but the interior of the island... not so much. The island had been hit by a hurricane in the previous fall, and was still recovering. It was really quite interesting to note the difference between the part of the island owned by the cruise line and the rest of it. Oh, and that island is tiny. Like, ridiculously tiny.

So, this is the 'Grand Turk' part of the 'Welcome to Grand Turk' sign. I thought this picture came out nicely enough.

And this is the kind of thing that was common deeper in the island. The island wasn't in ruins, mind you, but it was apparent they still had a good ways to go on the path to recovering from the hurricane.

Took this from the beach as the sun was going down behind our ship and another ship that was docked at the port. I like it.

Now, time is getting short, so I will proceed to dash through the rest of the stuff. I might add some more pictures once I'm done with school, so check back later.

New Year's and Other Junk

Since I don't think I've mentioned it, this is the theater that was on board the ship. I spent a good a fair bit of time here, and the shows I saw were pretty entertaining.

This would be the New Year's celebration in the middle of the ship. It was lot's o fun. There was another ship out not too far away from us, and I swear the two ships got into a duel to see who could blare the klaxon the loudest/longest. Then everyone started to drunkenly sing Aud Lang Syne. Fun stuff indeed.

Anyway, we got back in Miami on the day after New Year's and then we made our way home. And yeah, we had another stupid route to get home

No, I don't understand who comes up with this stuff, but it is what it is.

And that's the end of that for now. Like I said, I might add some more pictures to this post later, but I've class in a few minutes and I need to start getting ready to go. I think what I have will do, anyway