Arachnophobia Explained

I am not, for the most part, a scaredy cat. Scary movies don't make me jump, I'm not afraid of the dark or small places, I do not look behind me when I'm walking through a parking lot.

Some might even say that I lack the basic, healthy fears. I've swam in the ocean at night, which apparently means I missed getting eaten by a shark by shear luck. Oh, and whenever I have seen an alligator here in Florida, I've always headed towards it to get a better view, rather than running and screaming away from it, which seems to be the normal reaction (Florida people are TERRIFIED of alligators...alligators = the bogeyman here).

However, I do share that most natural and foundational disgust of one animal along with the rest of humanity: the spider.

If I see one, I don't freak out. I don't yell or jump on a chair, and I have no problem with killing one. But I find spiders incredibly creepy. Yesterday morning, I discovered a spider in my shower, a rather large spider. Did I mention that I found it in my shower, immediately AFTER I took a shower...meaning it was in there with me the whole time? Well, I was throughly creeped out. More importantly though, I was able to distill the two things about spiders that are the reason they are so creepy/scary. Here they are, for your benefit:

1. Their rapid acceleration.

No other animal is like the spider in this regard. Spiders have two speeds: standstill and sprinting. There is no in-between. And the scary thing is, that a spider, standing still in some corner, will at any moment run faster than light itself across the wall right at your face. It's the unknowing when it will bolt that is so unsettling. You can be starring at it for minutes, then you slightly move your finger, and all of the sudden it's streaking across the table. This lack of acceleration doesn't give you any time to predict, to react. You're on pure instinct at that point. Bees and wasps could be equally creepy and the bees most of the time could hurt you more, but they aren't nearly as scary as spiders because they are much more predictable.

2. Once you see a spider, you realize they could be anywhere

As soon as you see a spider, you instantly become aware of the fact that that spider had been in your house this whole time, and you only just noticed it. That time you took a nap last week? Yup, he was in your room. That time you were watching the movie? Yup, he was still there. You just didn't know it. He could have been under your bed, or on a shelf, or on the ceiling waiting to drop down on you. Then you realize that he's not alone. There's probably tons of them, everywhere, you just haven't found them yet. There's probably one of them behind you right now.

New Website

Hey, so this is news! I got a new website. I finally got www.zachswee.com and put up a website, and you should totally go check it out! Let me know what you think of it...

Not Blocked?

It's Monday and I'm at work. My computer is puttering away at authoring a scouting DVD for one of our soccer players, and so while I patiently wait for it to finish, I'm surfing the Internet, only to discover that Blogger isn't blocked. I had assumed that it would be, since sites like Xanga, Facebook, Twitter, and the like are all blocked. But apparently Blogger isn't. Which means one thing, I can update this while at work. That's good news for the potential survival of this blog, since I'm more often at work than at home. Viva La Blog!

Blog?

Apparently I didn't get the memo that says you need to post a blog entry at least once every three years in order to be in the cool club. Also, I may or may not have misspelled "apparently" just now. If I did, it's a funny way to start off a post to a blog that essentially died years ago from malnutrition and lack of exercise.

A quick fact about me: I never (ever) know how to spell exercise. I always (always) have to look it up. Here's how it ranks with other common spelling mistakes I make:

Rare: spelling "fruniture"
Occasional: spelling "Christina" instead of "Christian"
Ubiquitous: Spelling exercise incorrectly the first try, usually "excersice"

(Some close reader might notice that while I will take the time to check and correct the spelling of "exercise," I don't bother to check to see if I spelled "apparently" correctly at the start of this blog entry. This probably says something about me...I just don't know what. Side note: I think the correct word instead of "spelled" that I used before should be "spelt." Personal opinion.)

So you'd think that this was some sort of grammar blog (is grammar really with an -ar at the end??) or some sort of existential post-modern blog. It really is neither, I promise. Honestly, you can't really classify it as much of anything at the moment. I was looking through past entries, and most are ridiculously short or uninteresting or simply links to some audio I recorded with a friend. I've got some more substantial blogs on this site, but those are currently set to private, since I don't have the time right now to read through them and make sure they are safe for public consumption.

It is Sunday, tomorrow is Monday, and it's now my bedtime. Hello week. My name is Zach.

I'm on vacation right now for the whole month of July! I'll still be blogging while I'm gone, but not here. If you want to follow what I'm up to, check out my xanga.

Animal Kingdom

I went with Ismael, Andrea, and Lorie to Animal Kingdom. Here are some pics:

Abby's Baby

My sister had her baby! The beautiful and healthy Sephora, my new niece! Ok, definitely more pictures to come, these are just the first batch. Here's my mom, my sister, and my niece, three generations of women in my family:



and this is Abby, Jobe, and Sephora:



Oh, and another update: A correction on her name. I guess I left out a middle name. Her full name is: Sephora Ember Rain Ewing.

More pictures to come. Thanks for all the congrats!

I Love Movies!

Here's a list of my 100 Favorite Movies:

1. Braveheart
2. Good Will Hunting
3. Disney’s Robin Hood
4. Once
5. Brick
6. Children of Men
7. Contact
8. Gattaca
9. The Postman
10. Jurassic Park
11. Magnolia
12. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (and Trilogy)
13. Babe
14. Matrix
15. Primer
16. Moulin Rouge
17. Groundhog Day
18. Fiddler on the Roof
19. A Clockwork Orange
20. Me and You and Everyone We Know
21. Clue
22. Romeo + Juliet
23. Aladdin
24. Swingers
25. Amadeus
26. Bicycle Thieves
27. It’s A Wonderful Life
28. Miracle on 34th Street
29. The Secret Garden
30. Flight of the Navigator
31. Phenomenon
32. Requiem for a Dream
33. The Parent Trap
34. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
35. Gerry
36. Shakespeare in Love
37. Maverick
38. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
39. The Lion King
40. This Is Spinal Tap
41. Schindler’s List
42. Swiss Family Robinson
43. The Incredibles
44. Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory
45. The Shining
46. Forrest Gump
47. All the Real Girls
48. Mulholland Drive
49. Singin’ in the Rain
50. Saving Private Ryan
51. The Princess Bride
52. There Will Be Blood
53. Punch-Drunk Love
54. Fight Club
55. Full Metal Jacket
56. The Godfather Part I
57. I Am Sam
58. Memento
59. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
60. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (and Trilogy)
61. Rounders
62. Gladiator
63. Back to the Future (and Trilogy)
64. The Conversation
65. The Neverending Story
66. Fame
67. Hook
68. Spirited Away
69. Garden State
70. Spanglish
71. Zoolander
72. Tombstone
73. Annie Hall
74. The Passion of Joan of Arc
75. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
76. Lawrence of Arabia
77. Love Actually
78. Almost Famous
79. American Beauty
80. Atonement
81. Serendipity
82. The Usual Suspects
83. The Dark Knight
84. American History X
85. Paris, je t’aime
86. Glengarry Glen Ross
87. Amorres Doggies
88. Some Like It Hot
89. The Shawshank Redemption
90. The Sword and the Stone
91. The Fugitive
92. Wait Until Dark
93. Stargate
94. Ocean’s Twelve
95. Toys
96. The Adventures of Baron Munchausen
97. Die Hard (and Trilogy)
98. Cabaret
99. Closer
100. Apollo 13

First-year teaching

Well, some of you might know that I'm teaching an 8th grade class this year. I've never taught before and this is a very new experience for me. A lot of teachers say that their first year teaching is always the hardest. That kind of makes any problems in the class better. I think though that the class is going pretty well for me. We're talking about economics and for a project I've been having them assemble some Coach knock-offs for the last couple weeks. They've been tracking the profits that I've made on ebay from them, and as a group project they're going to plan my trip to the Bahamas to stay within the budget of the profits. Sure, they don't pay attention sometimes and complain about all the work I make them do, but that's normal for 8th graders, right? I know I have a lot of ways to grow as a teacher, but at least I'll have a lot of nice, quiet time in the Bahamas to come up with some good strategies.

Boycott New Year's Resolutions!

So there year's coming to a close and all of the sudden everyone is going around making "New Year's Resolutions." All the things they've been too lazy to do all year, they are vowing to do right in the coming year. How silly is this people? No one's gonna actually follow them, it's just some hip trend to impress the neighbors. That's why I'm making a New Year's Resolution that I won't make any New Year's Resolutions! And that I'll work out three times a week this year.

Broken Washing Machine

Yup, I've been having more problems with my landlord again. Seriously, I don't know what to do about this guy! I've called him 5 times about coming to fix our washing machine, and nothing. Sure, he's real nice on the phone, and he swears he'll send someone right over to fix it, but he never does. I've stayed home the last three days waiting for a repair guy to fix it. I'm getting about ready to yell at my landlord, the liar. And the washing machine is getting worse too! At first it just didn't fill up all the way with water, but then it started making like a ringing noise, kinda like a doorbell. And then it started making like this repeative knocking sound, and lately it makes some sort of weird sound that sounds like someone shouting. It's really starting to bother me. Maybe I should just stop waiting for my landlord to send someone and just try to fix it myself. I'll let you know how it goes.

Drum Roll Please

Dear readers, the long wait is over!  Your patient checking of my blog for the past year is finally paying off.  Here comes a brand new entry.  All the hopeless times you checked it in vain is now coming to fruition, as now you can read this wonderful next phase of my blog site.  Enjoy.

The FMA

Ariah's been talking about this FMA thing. For those of you who don't know what it is, you're not alone. I kinda nodded when he brought it up and then made an excuse about having to go to chapel (ha!) and resolved to look it up later on google. Well that was a bust! I seriously doubt if he was talking about Filipino Martial Arts. I need your help guys! If anyone knows what this is, please let me know. He's been emailing me asking what my thoughts on it are, and so I've just been sending him parts of a paper I wrote a long time ago about Billy Graham, replacing his name with FMA, and I dont' think he's gonna fall for it too much longer. Please help!

Isaac too?

Joel refuses to admit he’s gay and he hasn’t written about it in any of his journals. I’m starting to wonder about Isaac too. I knew homosexuality was on campus but I would have never guessed two of the seven guys of my house would struggle with it. He does the dishes all the time and sometimes he makes comments to me that make me uncomfortable. Not about sexual things at all, but about other stuff, like class and food. I guess I don’t understand his jokes, especially when they are longer ones. Anyways, he may or may not be gay. It’s really not up to me to judge. At least it’s not as obvious as with Joel. (Joel ran to Scripture Press yesterday—I wonder if anyone else notices these things.). Melissa agreed with me, but I think she thought I meant “happy” and I didn’t have time to explain to her because I had to get Logan’s car washed.

Buried under a pile of work

Homework’s really crazy right now so I can’t write much. I have 15 pages to read for Revelation and I need to draw 10 different sizes of boxes for art class.

Something's up with Nate

I came home and said hi to Nate but I said it kind of lower than normal because I didn’t him to know how excited I was, and then he looked at me and moved his eyes a little to the left and then down, and so I wanted to know why, so I didn’t react right away so that he wouldn’t know what I was going for then I raised my eyebrows and shook his hand. He squeezed it not too hard but harder than I did to him, so I worried that he’s thinking something’s up that’s not. I wanted to tell him nothing was up, but I knew he would think something was up if I said something, so I kind of looked at him blankly, hoping he would get the message. Which he totally did, because he walked away real quick, then came back and sat down as his computer. Then he made like a thing with his hand that looked like he was scratching his head, then he did something else I don’t remember. So I know he’s upset but I can’t tell if it’s about yesterday or not. I told Megan about all this, but she thought I was just reading into all of this.

Who Am I?

I’m scared that I’m going to forget who I am. When I go to sleep, I just lay there saying over and over who I am and how old and everything like that, hoping that it’ll help me remember those things in the morning. I’ve never forgotten before, but since I’ve been doing this so much lately, I’m afraid that if I stop, I’ll forget because I’ve gotten dependent on doing it. Amnesia would suck and plus cuz I don’t always believe people, I might not trust them if they try to tell me my real name. What if I woke up thinking I was someone else?? I mean, I’m sure it’s happened. So yeah, I really don’t like going to sleep. Thankfully I still think I know everything about myself that I did yesterday, but I’m not sure. Am I going crazy or does everyone feel like this? It helps to know I’m not alone.

the Festival

Ok, so October 4th is a huge historical festival in Lombard. I’ve been reading all about it online. It looks like so much fun! I want to get the house to go, because we would have so much fun! I’ve never done one of these before. But I’m afraid to bring it up to the group. I don’t think David or Scotty would want to dress up for it. They have a weird dress code at this one, it has to be either green or purple and there has to be at least 5 feet of combined lace. Plus, it would be hard to get 7 of those pointy hats all together in time. Anyways, I don’t think the guys would go for it. I may just go by myself and just stay for the pig weighing competition I read about.

Jade--Fact or Fiction?

Logan last year talked about a girl named Jade. And we all kind of thought he was making it up. Anyways, he started mentioning “her” again and it’s kind of weird. Nate thinks she’s real I think, but no one’s ever seen “her.” I looked the name Jade up on the internet and it’s a type of rock! My guess is someone asked Logan if he had an interest in any girls and he panicked and looked around the room and saw a rock and said he was hanging out with a girl named “Jade.” Anyways, it’s getting a little old now. He made up this whole RDT breakup thing and than a two day later RDT get back together thing. Anyways, it just sounds like he’s too old to be making up some girl. I’m going to have to ask Emily about her, if she’s real. Anyways, I’m not looking forward to confronting him about this imaginary girlfriend in ManShare. I mean, what is he, 17?

I hate it when i can't get there in time

It happened again yesterday. You think with two bathrooms I'd be able to get to it in time. This sucks. Well, it got all over one of the couch cushins. Luckily no one was around this time. I've been really lucky with that. Anyways, i wiped it up the best I could and flipped the cushin around. I just hope no one else in the house can smell anything from it, cuz I can't really tell that kind of thing. I looked online and found a few excersizes I could do to help the problem.