cdharrison.com

Category: Personal

Posts of a more personal nature.

  • Superman No More

    it’s early. i just got into work and i feel tired. i woke up early to go to the hospital for a blood pressure check. i haven’t felt all that great lately. i’m sure i hadn’t mentioned it before so i’ll go into a little detail with this…

    my health sucks. i tried to give blood a couple of weeks ago, and was denied because my blood pressure was extremely out of whack. usually, it will run somewhere around 120/80 and that has been pretty consistent for me. when i was denied… my blood pressure was around 60/109. i was also running a temperature of 99.3º.

    definitely not normal.

    so, i scheduled an appointment with a doctor here at the local military hospital, where i still enjoy medical benefits through year’s end and i got a checkup done. my blood pressure was out of whack and my weight was way beyond what i thought i weighed.

    well, maybe not beyond. but definitely beyond the point i wanted to believe that i weighed.

    well, the doctor tells me that my condition is probably a result of the stress my weight has placed on my body. he also thinks it could be a genetic problem possibly as well. ( test all hypotheses we must!) so he schedules me for several blood tests. i’m still waiting on the results.

    i’ve got a follow-up appointment scheduled for july 3, the day after i return from virginia, and an appointment with a nutritionist on july 6. between now and the 3rd, i need to get my blood pressure checked 5 times. this morning was the first in that series, and it looks promising… my diastolic wasn’t so high as it was… but my systolic was a little high… 150/83.

    so now, i feel the most scared i believe i have ever felt. it’s not a good feeling and i’m concerned and so are my closest friends and family. i’m 22 years old and i thought i was invincible. i wasn’t prepared to deal with this crap.

    i guess now i do.

  • Feelings

    i don’t do feelings all that well. my girlfriend tells me that a lot. i know this to be true, and yet, i don’t really make the effort to change the fact that i don’t allow myself the pleasure of “emotions” all of the time. my achilles heel i suppose.

    i’m actually feeling pretty good right now. and as i stated in my previous posting (see below), i’ve been going through some feelings of fear and confusion as of late. it’s to be expected, of course. i’ve never really had to deal with many problems during the course, unless of course you count my various financial difficulties.

    speaking of finances… a strange thing just happened to me recently. i broke down and finally got a copy of my credit report, which is dismal at best. it mainly told me that i owe a lot of people a good deal of money. i suppose if i’m patient and i work hard, i’ll be able to pay off my debt soon enough. but anyways, that’s not what i wanted to discuss. anyways… on my credit report i discovered that a delinquent jcpenneys account somehow made its’ way onto it. i don’t really care for jcpenneys nor have i ever had a credit card account through them. the funny thing about this account is that it was establish in 1987. last time that i checked, i was 9 at the time. they give credit cards to nine years olds? i don’t think so. so i call jcpenneys today to figure out what the hell is going on and why i have an account showing up on my credit report. come to find out, there isn’t one, and somehow or another this damn card made its way on to the report. so now, i have to write a letter to equifax and to jcpenneys explaining how someone f*cked up and put this on my report.

    so now i’m having to deal with this on top of everything else. fun huh?

    ’nuff bitching for now. i’m sure you’re tired of reading such ‘negativism’.

  • a new beginning?

    as you can see, i’ve pulled my site offline. don’t worry, it’s temporary. i’m going to take a little time off and try to get things better organized on the site. i know a few of you may be disappointed for my doing this, but the site is not getting the attention it deserves from me. for that i apologize.

    i’m still not sure what I want to achieve with my site. i originally intended it as a portal of sorts to give people an intimate look into my life. the more i think about it though, the more i realize that few people would care about a closer look at my life. when i first started this site, i figured i knew where i was headed with this… now, i have no idea which direction to turn. i guess it was always supposed to be like this. i’m not always supposed to know what things are going to be like, or how things will turn out.

    so what is to become of me and this site? well… only good things can come from a little time off now and then. i’ll be able to devote more time to keeping this site up to date once i figure out what i want on here and what what v3 will be like design-wise. i won’t let you down, don’t worry. with every new look i’ve gone for, i’ve aimed for something a little more special… and a little more unique then the predecessor. hopefully, i’ll be able to achieve that once again.

    i’ve got a ton of work ahead of me, and i don’t anticipate it will be easy at all, but i will be working on it. no need to worry about that. so please, bear with me. even if it takes me all summer long to get things straight on here, don’t give up on me.

    thanks for your patience.

  • A Long Overdue Update!

    Here it is… Memorial Day weekened. The sun is out. It’s totally beautiful outside, and here I am, making updates to my website. Have I got my priorities out of whack or what? Oh well. Who cares, right? Like I really need a tan… hehehe. Actually, the reason for this update is quite simple: I haven’t made one in nearly a month and the site hasn’t changed all that much.

    Many of you now know that me and my brother Matt now share a townhouse in lovely Augusta, Georgia… just minutes from the Augusta National and Hooters and countless other landmarks. Things have gone rather well after this first month, and I am looking forward to the 11 months we have left on our lease. It’s nice to be on my own again. It’s nice not having to check in with my folks all the time. Independence is fun.

    This summer looks to keep me pretty busy. I’ll be heading to Virginia in just over a month to be in my best friend Heather’s wedding. My wonderful girlfriend Kim will be making the trip with me…Hopefully, I will be able to show her where I “grew up”. I’m looking forward to it. Also, with no school this summer, I will be working a hell of a lot more. Anyways… just a brief update. I will try to get better at this, I swear. I will be porting this site over to ASP or ColdFusion soon so I can set this damn thing up with templates and manage it more easily. Oh, did I mention my cable modem finally is hooked up? hehehe… Off to surf I go… TTFN.

  • Man, it is so nice to have a break.

    Man, it is so nice to have a break. School is over. I got an A in Publication Production II (whodathunkit?) and a B in Political Methodology. I did alright. And the grades raised my GPA a little bit. I’ve got a 2.25 now. I’ll raise it up higher! I swear! And my cumulative GPA jumped to 1.895 from a .57. Not bad huh? I’m definitely taking steps in the right direction. As you can see from the image to the right, I signed up with Cingular. My phone is pretty sweet. Feel free to drop me a line sometime. My new number is (706) 414-0549. (And it’s the easiest way to get in touch with me, guaranteed!)

  • Wow. It’s May already.

    Wow. It’s May already. Can you believe it? Yesterday was quite cool. Though, I’ve got to admit that I am tired as hell this morning. The townhouse I’m now living is pretty roomy. We got about 95% of our stuff moved in. Now comes the fun part of trying to get everything unpacked, put in the proper place and making my new home “home”. One of the nice things about the new place is that it’s pretty close to school and to work. It’s only about 3 miles from Augusta State and only about 7.5 miles from work. Translation: I’s gonna be saving a hell of a lot of gas now ) (Which, I might add is quite nice. Especially when you consider that gas might hit $2.00 a gallon in the Augusta area this summer.)

  • God, this weekend has been hell.

    God, this weekend has been hell. I worked until the wee hours of the night trying to get my paper on the emergence of right wing groups in France finished. I’m a moron for procrastinating for so long to get the damn thing done. I’m praying to get at least a D on the paper. Fortunately, most of my classmates are in the same boat as I. So I don’t feel as bad as I did this morning. My problem now is dealing with the fact that I probably took too many NoDoz last night in order to stay awake. I feel ill to the point where I want to get sick, but can’t. It’s a severe pain in the ass. I barely slept last night. The 5 pills I took all kicked in at the same time and had me severely whacked out. I’m a dumbass, I know. I’ll be moving into the new apartment tonight. I guess that has compounded things as well. Had I not had to pack up yesterday, I probably could have used the daytime to write my paper instead of staying up so late. Oh well. C’est la vie. I’m hoping I feel a little better later. Anyways, I’m going to take a nap. Check back for another update soon.

  • A quick update

    Progress has been slow on updating this site to the point where I had my old one, and for that I apologize. I’ve got a 15 page paper to wrap up for Methodology before Monday and some packing to do this weekend in preparation for my move on Monday night. Needless to say, this weekend will be rather hectic and I don’t plan on getting much done with the site, if anything at all, until later next week. I appreciate your patience with me as the dust settles. Drop me an email sometime, k?

  • Drivers Beware

    I’m not the world’s greatest driver. I’d be lying if I pretended to be. I’ve been in an accident. I’ve gotten multiple speeding tickets. Do I consider myself to be a bad driver? Yes. But I am working on it.

    Now that I’ve got that out in the open I shall continue…

    Other drivers tend to bother me. And I mean that in a “I HATE OTHER DRIVERS” kind of way. Why, you ask? No one cares about driving anymore. There, I’ve said it. Driving is something we all take for granted. We drive and drive and drive and drive… Many of us forget to use blinkers, we make sudden stops, we cut in front of other cars. We forget that there are other drivers on the road. This in itself is a major problem.

    Not a day goes by where I don’t drive past some sort of accident. Minor fender benders here, five car pileup there… it’s insane! People just aren’t paying attention anymore. They lack courtesy. And they’re ruining the road for the rest of us.

    I don’t ask for much from other people. I’m not very demanding. But there are a few things I’d like to say today.

    1. Use blinkers. I’m not a psychic. I don’t know if you’re going to go left or right unless you give me some sort of sign. Blinkers are there for a reason, use them.
    2. Yellow doesn’t mean “slam on your brakes”. A yellow traffic light doesn’t mean you need to slam on your brakes. Chances are there will probably be someone behind you. By doing this, you increase the risk of an accident.
    3. A yield sign doesn’t mean stop. I don’t know how many times I’ve been caught behind someone on a highway on-ramp where they’ve stopped at a yield sign. Yield does NOT mean stop. In many cases, yield signs placed in areas near on-ramps tend to be placed around bends of some sort. During any given week, I see at least 1 accident caused by someone careening into another driver who has stopped for no reason at a yield sign. It’s retarded. Learn to merge. Other cars will work with you if you’re smart about it. Speed up or slow down. By completely stopping you impede traffic and increase the risk of an accident.
    4. Go the speed limit. One thing I cannot stand is getting stuck behind someone who refuses to go the speed limit. If you’re in a 55mph zone, that does NOT mean go 40. If you feel compelled to drive slow, let me pass.

    Granted, these might be just petty whines, but valid ones. Too many people just don’t pay attention to the flow of traffic these days. Too many people are busy talking on cellphones or applying makeup or writing stuff down or looking for things on the floorboards. Pay attention. I don’t want to die. I’m sure you don’t either. Let’s keep an eye out for each other, k? You watch my back, I’ll watch yours. Together, perhaps, with a little common sense, we can bring safety back into driving.

  • Apathy Sucks

    Originally appeared in an October 2000 issue of The Bell Ringer:

    I think student apathy is a serious problem on campus. It’s going to be the death of this university. This school is what we make of it. Students are the lifeblood of Augusta State. We can make or break this university.

    This is my first semester at Augusta State University. I have always felt that it was important to have a well-rounded education. I’m currently taking 12 credit hours. I hate it when I walk around and see so many students disinterested in the future of this school. To them it’s just a place to go to class. For me, it’s become so much more. You see, I’ve gotten involved. I’m a member of the Political Science Club, College Conservatives, Model League of Arab States and I am the Art Director for the Phoenix Magazine. Why did I feel it was important to get involved in activities outside of class? I care about this university. I care about how it’s going to be four years from now when hopefully I’ll walk out of here with a degree in Political Science. I care about the quality of my education. Anything that I can do to make this school a better environment for myself I will do, without question. Anything I can do to help this school become a better environment for my fellow students is even better.

    Get involved. Please. Clubs and organizations on this campus exist to give students a voice. They give us forums where we can meet with people with similar interests and do things that create a better atmosphere on this campus. Get involved in a theatre production. Join a faith-based organization. Join a club that relates to your major. Just do something. Take a chance and see what else this school has to offer aside from classes. I’m tired of hearing the excuse that “I don’t have any time” or “I hate being at school any more then I have to.” Sometimes, some things are important enough to dedicate time to. I love everything that the Political Science Club has done so far this semester. We’ve held a mock election, a few voter registration drives… We’re out there… we’re educating people about politics. We are a big part of this university, and I’d like to think we’re having a positive impact. I know some clubs do take a great deal of time out of our lives. I work full-time, attend school full-time and I still try to make time for extra-curricular activities. Sure, most nights I’m not home until 10pm or later, but it’s time well spent.

    Find something you love and get involved. If there isn’t a club on campus to suit your interests, start your own. I mean, what bad could possibly come from it? Otherwise, the next time you find yourself bitching about how terrible you think this school is, ask yourself, “Have I done anything to change it?” If you can’t say yes, all I have to say is keep your comments to yourself.