The Ass, the Cock and the Lion - An appropriate name for a children's story? You tell me. I don't even know if there is actually a fable/story called that. But either way, the way I had it presented to me was awfully funny.

What an incredibly relevant link.

What a crazy past 24 hours it's been. So yesterday, me and some friends from my old school, Parker, got together and hung out. We went to see a phenomenally bad movie, "Dungeons and Dragons," and then spent the remainder of the night hanging out at one of my friend's houses. Of course... we got little/no sleep... and I don't have any memory of the events from about 4:00 AM to 6:30, about where I collapsed and fell asleep. When I woke up, I know that I had a student id from Wellesley around my neck, yet I don't remember putting it on... so I'm somewhat curious about what happened after I fell asleep... or stopped having events register in my memory.

I've got some really great friends. I mean... they're great. During this get together, in the earlier hours, they presented me with a gift. It was a Palm device. My birthday was a couple weeks ago, and I didn't really expect a gift, but this was great. True, it's a group thing, and for each of the other people's birthday's, everybody pitches in some money to get the person a good present (as opposed to stupid trinkets, as I will explain in a moment). Two years ago, I got from one of them (as opposed to a pool) the russell.stadler.com domain registered for me through Mailbank. I don't think I had any sort of semblance to a birthday party last year... and this year it's a palm. Simply put, I'm extremely lucky to have found such a great group of friends.

On another unrelated note... I don't know what I'm going to do next year. I'm something like 1.5 credits away from making the minimum requirements for graduation, and those 1.5 credits must be a full year english course and a half year humanities course, as dictated by the school's graduation criterion. Technically, it's impossible for me to graduate early. The way the required credits system is set up, I can't graduate early. 4 english credits are required, and only certain courses count towards that 4. There only are 4 or 5 courses available to count towards that goal, and you can't take any of them early because each one is a pre-requisite for the next. So anyway... at the end of this (my junior) year, I'll have all the requirements met, except 1 english course, and the half credit humanities course. I'll also have met all the pre-requisites for those courses. So, the way I see it, I might be able to go to some college and take an english course, and for humanities, I'm screwed either way, but maybe I could figure out some way to do what the course would require me doing over the summer as well. Basically, although very unlikely, I may have the option to graduate early. And if I do have that option, I'm taking it. No matter what.

The thing is, what do I do after that. Next year, do I go directly to some college? Take a year off? Travel? Spend a year doing stuff for some cause (be it charitable, such as building homes in some impoverished nation, or just donating my time to research on some disease) and improving myself as a person? Work? What? Of course, there's always the option of staying in school, dual-enrolling like there's no tomorrow, and graduating high school with enough college credits built up to advance very quickly through college, or double major, or something like that.

I just don't know what to do. I think I may be provided with an opportunity to take a year off, and everybody (except people in my class in high school) is telling me to take it. I agree with them, but I don't know what I'd do.

There are some things which I just don't get, for example, the motivation behind flashing. I personally don't see the value in flashing somebody, and as a result, don't understand why others do. But hey, I'm just crazy and ignorant of the world.

Do you know what I hate? Well, if you know me, you'll know it's a lot of things, but you know what really bugs me a lot? Poppy seed bagels. ARGH. Or any bagel with poppy, or sesame or whatever seeds, sprinkled on the outside. Sure, they taste good and all... but they're such a pain to deal with. I hate how that if I pick up a bagel covered with this stuff, I end up not only covering my hand with stuff, but the tabel below gets sprinkled with bits as well. This bugs me. I think I'm going to stick with Plain, Cinnamon and Raisin, and other bagels that don't have crap all over the outside (except maybe onion bagels, now those are good).