Merry Christmas!!!

Awesome!

Goodbye, Carl!!!!

1988 - 2008

Christmas Performance

Last Wednesday was Academie Lafayette's Christmas concert, and Lisa and I's first official Christmas concert as parents.  While in preschool, Collin had a couple of roles in the Nativity story.  One year and the Angel Gabriel and the other as one of the Wise men.  But this year was bigger. 

Here we are all packed into the school's auditorium.  Lisa, her aunt Susan, my dad's wife Mary, and that dark figure next to her is my dad.  Lisa's step-father Kevin was there too, but he got there a little late.  He had to watch from the balcony.  

Wednesday was only grades K through 3rd.  There would have been NO WAY POSSIBLE to get all the grades in one night.  The French like sardines, don't they?

There were lots of skits about trash bags.  I think they wanted us to purchase them or something.  This here is the principal wearing one.  

Sorry the picture isn't so good, but thats with a flash and everything. We were so far back that if I tried to zoom in any closer it starts blur. This is the all of the Kindergarten classes.  There are 22 kids in Collin's class, so I'm guessing there are around 4 or 5 K classes total. It is definitely the largest in the school.  Can you spot Collin?

What you can barely spot on the left is a guy in a brown leather jacket.  He stood in the aisle during the whole Kindergarten song. Lisa and I could see Collin perfectly, but he caused a freak out session by her aunt and my step-mother.

After messing with the camera I was able to zoom in a little more. Right there in the middle is Collin, singing "Must Be Santa" with all of his classmates.  I think the dark photos look kinda creepy, especially when you focus on the kids eyes.  When we got home and view all the photos, I zoomed in on this one because I thought I saw something weird.

If you look to the right, it kinda looks as if Batman's nemesis the Scarecrow is singing behind him.  

WTF?!?

Sunday night I tried to force myself to stay up and cram for my Business Math final.  I was dead tired when I began, so I got a cup of cold coffee out of the fridge that I was saving for the morning.  An hour went by when I realized that this was totally out of my normal study pattern and wasn't going to do me any good.  The more I worked the more frustrated I got.  My mind felt like mush so I decided that I'd have better luck cramming in the morning. Procrastination fits more into my kind of study pattern anyway.  

So I left everything on the table, put the rest of the cold coffee back in the fridge and got ready for bed.  Even though I was tired my mind was racing with thoughts of improv (it never stops) and now math problems and formulas.  I knew I was not going to fall directly to sleep.  This happens to me more often than not.  Dead tired from the moment I decide its bedtime to the moment I hit the pillow.  I won't be able to sleep even if I have one thing on my mind.  It's like a habit or something.  But strangely Monday night was different.

I laid there for five minutes thinking about the final, which consisted of things like depreciation value, simple and compounded interest, and everything that is taxes.  As well as improv, which consisted of new possible formats, marketing techniques, and things that happened in past shows.  I knew I HAD to sleep, the final was very important to me.  Then something happened.  I envisioned myself in my brain, floating upright and directly inside the middle of a gigantic cube.  The walls of the cube were transparent but defined.  I could visually see myself floating there as well as see what my eyes were seeing.  The cube itself resembled something out of TRON, and I resembled something out of the virtual reality scenes in The Lawnmower Man.  

Anyway, I started seeing thoughts come towards me through the cube.  I knew the only way for me to sleep was to keep all of these thoughts on the outside the cube.  So I started mentally pushing them away.  Breathing helped.  I good deep breathe was like a force that would push them all at the same.  Once the inside of the cube was empty except for me, I felt completely at ease, and I was able to focus on the nothingness inside the cube for a while.  A couple more thoughts would enter, and before they got close I was able to mentally push them away with no problem.  As this was going on, I knew I was not asleep.  This wasn't something that I had planned on doing to help myself.  It just sorta happened.  

Once I felt like I had a good grasp of the situation, I focused on expanding the cube.  I figured he bigger I made it, the more empty space I would have and the harder it would be for thoughts to get to me.  So with a big deep breathe the walls expanded as I exhaled. After a few more times of this, I believe I fell straight asleep.  The whole experience couldn't have lasted 10 minutes. 

I woke up the next morning feeling like I had gotten the best sleep I have had in a long time.  Then I started to think more about what happened and it left me completely confused, although extremely refreshed.  Did my brain just do me a favor?  I know for a fact that never in a million years would I purposely plan on falling asleep that way, yet it felt completely logical.  Of course!!!!  Keep my thoughts on the outside of the cube!!!  That's It!!!!!!!  

I wish I knew what the hell that was.

On a side note, I was able to get to school a couple of hours early and study.  The final went well.  I'd be very surprised if I didn't pull off an A.  Part of it was due to the blueberry smoothie I drank while studying.  Another part was due to the unexplainable sleep I got the night before.

What's wrong with me?