Today is June 1st of 2009 and the time is 10:17 a.m.-do want to know how my first day of this warm, summer month started. With a sudden outburst of maniacal screaming from my mother downstairs. The sort of screaming you would expect to find in common places such as a horror movie, or Fear Factor, or a dark alleyway in Gotham City.

Well the screaming was coming from our sunroom (sorta like a second living room with skylights) and without my glasses, I ran down the hallway and down the stairs to find my mother screaming at something beneath the couch. She was jumping on the couch and screaming and hollering with her phone in hand with the other person still on the other line. Then I saw something, a brown, fuzzy flash dash from beneath the couch to beneath our little woodstove connected to our chimney.

Well needless to say, I began an outburst of screaming, hollering and jumping.

To better see what I was screaming at-I ran to go grab my glasses and ran back-to see my mother swatting a little squirrel with a broom. I grabbed the broom while she went to get the longed-stick duster. What followed was a frenzy of wacking and hitting and more screaming. There was a moment where the squirrel was trying to climb the chimney to get upstairs (which was a big no-no) and I hit with the broom so hard it began flying at us. Then using a combination of shear, awesome skill and too many hours watching Matrix movies, I spun the broom through the air and brought the sweeping end down upon the nasty little rodent, bringing it crashing down onto the floor and sent it cowering beneath the woodstove once more.

Now, let me take a moment to address the PETA activistists and general lovers of cute, cuddly woodland creatures. 1st-PETA-I don't care what you think you radical bunch of nudists. 2nd-I understand why some of you would sympathize with this little monstrosity covered in fur. However, there is a boundary between the indoors and the outdoors which very few animals should be allowed to cross-squirrels are one of them. Now, if you knew a squirrel was living in your house, would you just let it be and always have on your consious that you might just wake up one morning to find a little rodent sitting on your face or stalking you in the dead of night?

And if you heard the sounds it was making at my mother and I, you wouldn't think it was so sweet after all.

Well, after about twenty minutes of swatting the thing out of the fake tree (why we have a fake tree inside I will never know) and hitting it off the brick chimney. My mother tapped into her latten hunting abilities that comes from being born to a long line of woodland creature hunters. She ran to the garage and grabbed my old lacrosse stick then with a yell to even make William Wallace and his brave heart wet his kilt, she began to jab at the squirrel beneath the woodstove (I had moved the fake tree outside so it couldn't use it as a hiding spot). The squirrel, after much angry chattering and cussing us out in squirrel-language, dashed from beneath the woodstove only to find it-self cornered.

In a stunning climax, my mother trapped the squirrel beneath the lacrosse-stick's net, dragged it across the floor and hurled it outside. I ran, closed the door and locked it.

The terrifying ordeal was finished.

However, another terrifying thought had occured. The door to the backyard was not open, it had in fact blown open last Friday or Saturday. The squirrel had been spending the weekend in the Adkison abode. But had it been alone?

So I've been hung up on this life dream of mine to become world dominator. It's been a dream of mine to rule the world since I was...well, young enough to say "bow before me" in a dramatic voice. As I grew older, sport athletes and Dinsey channel stars inspired me to hold on to that dream.

How did these celebrities inspire me, you might ask?

It was all because of their cheesy slogans.."Follow your dreams," "no dream is too big" and "don't let anybody say 'no'"- well, at the age of seven, I wanted to be two things...world dominator, or a famous stage magician. My reasoning with being a stage magician was that it was the closest I could get to doing magic while not being a pagan. However, I stunk at doing magic tricks (though I did love the capes) and I was terrible at shuffling cards, so I opted for world domination instead. Besides you get more publicity as a monarch than you do stage magician.

I remember laying in bed at night, dreaming of magnificent castles built just for me in Europe with the whole world attending my birthday party (which-at the age of seven-included huge pokemon decorations). I dreamt of standing before the U.N. with a golden laurel leaf crown on my head wearing a long flowing red cape and a whole lot of medals for pomp and circumstance. The U.N. would have to do what I told them and give me presents at every meeting. Yes, I know...it all seems a little egotistical-but when your seven you can dream as big as you want without any reprucusions.

Oh yeah, and I also dreamt of having a super-awesome robotic army with all sorts of laser weaponry and a profile of my face with laurel leaf crown (Roman Emperor style) on their chests-it was the ultimate peace keeping force.

I still like to dream about what it would be like to be world dominator. Just for those who think of me as a war-mongering despot-wanna-be, I have no intention of mongering any sort of war-in order to gain power I would simply hypnotize the U.N. and ask if I could have the world very nicely (perhaps do a little brainwashing here and there but nothing excessive). I've given up hope of world domination sadly and moved on to more "realistic" endeavors such as being a famous novelist. I guess there a whole lot of people out in there world who think having a world dominator would be a bad thing.

Anyway, you might be wondering what the title of this blog has to do with what I'm writing-well I was reading an article online the other day about what is called the Bilderberg Group-which is suspected of being a world council much different from the U.N. that meets behind closed doors and you have to be a Major V.I.P. to get into this club. Some suspect that it is controlling world-affairs.

This group was started in 1954 by some unheard-of Netherland Prince. It contains some very influential people, members of the U.S. Senate, European royalty and the guys from Google. To check out all of the famous people like Condoleeza Rice and Henry Kissinger who have been apart of it and for further reading check out http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1085589.html

So basically these people have been called the "kingmakers" of the world-some claim that the winner of the U.S. presidency was decided at last year's meeting in Virginia. Though that sounds a little far-fetched-these people do operate behind closed doors and do not allow press to cover their meetins-which throws a whole Empire full of speculation on their little get-togethers.

A few British news teams will be covering some of the meeting-but no U.S. teams, which really annoys me. Even if nothing really big is going on behind these closed doors. However, why would these government and corporate power-houses take time out of their busy schedules to meet with other busy government and corporate power-houses if it wasn't for something important. And they have the nerve to not let the public know what is going on-since they are power-houses, their decisions most likely affect us.

It makes me so mad that they have a club, like some sort of snobby country club for world leaders only so they can play with us like pawns while they sip champagne and use really fancy words like "postulate".

Well, kids who dream of being world dominators don't sit well as pawns.

At least, I hope not.

Anyway, it seems a whole lot goes on in our government that we have no clue about. Everything from CIA dealings to Area 51 to super soldiers to whether or not Elvis still lives. I just wish world leaders would ask 'What does the public want?" or say "Hmm, this is pretty important, we should let the whole world know about this."

I can see life as a public gorvernment figure being a tough life-but it's not like they tell you world leading is just fun and dandy in law school.

Oh, and since this is a political rant-I want to say something else-Obama is getting way too much positive publicity. NO president should be getting this much brown-nosing, not even from ABC. I mean, Bush didn't try to spend this money in his first year let alone get a multi-billion dollar plan going. Don't get me wrong, I think Obama is guy who has his heart in the right place and has the "making of greatness" or whatever-but can he please stop spending so much stinkin' money. And if he keeps taxing the rich too much, they're all gonna move away-cause their rich and they can do that.

Well, here's my little dose of politics for the blog-what blog wouldn't be complete without a little bit of politic-ness to spice it up.

An uneventful trip between airports is a wonderful trip. Generally, an eventful trip between airports is a terrible trip.

Well, I'm having an eventful trip.

I am currently sitting at Gate A18 at the Detroit Metro Airport waiting for a flight that will not come until 5:45 in the morning. Right now, it is 10:44 P.M.

My lay-over has become a sleep-over.

That is right my faithful readers, I missed my flight to Portland-the plane from Detroit to Portland left at 9:08, boarded at 8:38. I got here from Little Rock at 8:45, which was on one side of the airport. My gate was on the complete opposite side of the airport, naturally. So, I power-walked my way from one side of a major big city airport to the other, knocking into all sorts bystanders with my body covered in bags and pillows-I forgot all sorts etiquette and manners, I was like a bull and they bowling pins. My calves were screaming, my back was cramping and my breath was getting a little worse for wear. It was one of those moments I strongly wished I was into exercise and all that active stuff.

Well, as you can see, I still didn't make it. I will not be sleeping in my own blissful, wonderful, beloved bed tonight. I will not be waking up to the sweet, delectable aroma of fresh cinnamon rolls. I will not be sleeping in after a long week of finals. Instead, I shall be waking to the sound of an announcer making sure I do not leave items unattended or they will be considered deadly devices of destruction. I will be waking up to the chatter and gossip of airport workers who do not know the meaning of customer service. ( Side Note: Why do airport workers never, ever look happy to be at their jobs? Of course, if I worked in an airport, I probably wouldn't either.) I will be waking up at 5:00 a.m., to board a plane to Boston where I will be picked up to drive 2 hours to Portland.

Why does stuff like this always happen to me? Well, I can never say I lead a boring life.

And I must say, I feel strangely grown up. Sleeping over in airports is a businessman, adult sort of thing. I got my own flight together and everything and picked what city to go to and everything. I naturally went with which ever flight was the earliest and nearest to Portland. Adulthood seems to be giving previews, or should I say trailers, of what life will be like in a few years when I'm really on my own.

Being on your own isn't so bad. It is kind of weird sitting completely by your-self in a big terminal, watching the security drive by on their segways speed by. But, I've always been o.k. with solidarity. Don't get me wrong, I am a highly-social creature created for socializing, but I've gotten used to sitting by my-self. It reminds me of 8^th grade when I first moved to Maine-I sat by my-self at these big, round tables trying to not get noticed. Being the new kid sucks. Pure and simple, but it teaches you so many things, it stretches you in so many directions. Being the new kid makes you stronger. Being the new kid tears you out of your comfort zone and puts you in the Twilight Zone. You learn so much about yourself when you are in a world without friends.

Wow, I am really starting to sound depressing and melodramatic. Have no fears, I eventually made many, many, many good friends at Gorham High School and I am so glad I went there. It just took some getting used to. Hey, I started out eating alone and ended up being elected Prom King-what a weird, unexplainable world.

I guess what I really want to say is being on your own lets God have free reign. There are no others to distract, no one to tempt you, no one to interupt the connection. God did make us to be creatures of relationships, but He likes to have us all to Him-self from time to time-even if it means making you miss that plane ride home.

So, here I am, stuck in the Detroit Metro Airport for a whole night, mad at the world because McDonalds was out of fries when I went to eat dinner and really sad because there is a great Borders just on the other side of my gate, but is closed. And listening to Celine Dion isn't really helping. I'm also looking over at this Delta kiddy playland strongly tempted crawl inside one the plastic play houses and rest easy for the night-but that might not go so well with security. Let's see if I can find a nice, clean spot of carpet to relax on.

Well, here's to Life, and all the fun that comes with it.

The end has come. The end of the beginning. The end of what might possibly have been the greatest academic year of my life. The end of the beginning of my time at Harding University.

That's right folks, my freshman year has come to an end and, my goodness, it was EPIC!

Here are some highlights of this past epic year that will live forever on in the Life and Times of J.M. Adkison, in sorta-chronilogical order:

1.My good friends Eric Suddeath and Laura and Adam and Josh and a few other people going on stage for a very talented hypnotist, who had the super-strong Eric prancing around in a princess hat with a magic wand, had Jake giving birth to his best friend, Laura just smiling sweetly, and Josh translating what an alien-girl said in a perfect imitation of C-3PO.

2.Going to Heber with Devon, Rose, Laura and Brandon-jumping from a forty-foot cliff and convincing Devon and Rose to jump into the water in their clothes (they failed to bring swimsuits)

3.PLEDGE WEEK-'nuff said.

4.Getting into BOX-a little gift from God, giving me the brothers I never had but always wanted.

5.PTP Winter Semi-Formal with the dashing Emma Poe-dancing in the car to Cascada, trying to not knock down paintings in the museum, pondering why a picture of a line was $25,000, hangin' out at Sonic and of course...waiting to see zombies at the graveyard at midnight-but no such luck.

6.Going to Colette's grandparents' farm with Colette, Becca and Daniel-getting to chase peacocks, eat REALLY good food and feeding Big Momma (the cow).

7.Going to Daniel's house with a whole slew of rock-awesome people to help clean up the charming town of Padeucha, KY. Plus, we got to watch Space Jam.

8.The Valentines Day hike with Kellum and Co., which is a delightful menagerie of kind-spirited, but mentally warped homosapiens trying to redefine their respected realities (so, naturally, I fit right in). The hike was, for the lack of a better term, a BLAST!

9.Going to the Chi-O broomball function with the delightful Darah, much earlier in the year, to play on the highly-skilled Reindeer team. My antlers were complimentary of Spencers-right next to the weird costume section, which were not for Halloween I later found out.

10.But of course, the Natick Campaign-a fun-filled mission trip to Natick, Mass with a great group of people led by the legendary Jeremy Dagget. There are many words I could use to describe this trip-in fact would probably need a whole separate post for it-but I shall put it into sub-points.
a. Directing traffic-not an easy task with limited parking
b. Meals on Wheels excursion with a bright old man who drove like a maniac.
c. Pulling/Eating organic veggies for an organic farm.
d. Singing at a BILLION nursing homes
e. Freedom Trail in Boston
f. Three story Abercrombie and Fitch!!!
g. Ice Skating in Boston
h. Natick Youth Rally!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I. "I like...to catch them"

11. Repelling with Andrew (see Hanging By a Thread)

12. Dancing at the Daily Citizen-Yes, Harding kids do know how to dance!

13. The Rescue-spending the night in the parking lot at War Memorial Stadium for a good cause-go to the Invisible Children website to learn more about the Rescue.

14. And to finish it all off on a good note, winning the dance competition at the BOX spring formal-with my signature dance-"The Lotion"

15. Oh, and how could I forget, 5:00 dinners with the crew.

And thus, my year comes to an end-an end I never thought would really come. I am excited to go home, see the family and no longer worry about finals-but the ugly creature known as Distance will once again come between friends for three months. Good thing I've got a pretty good pack of friends up in Maine. But alas, Harding University and Gorham, ME are two places that will never collide.

Time seems to be stealing these great and epic moments, taking them from the present and giving them to the past.

Time is a cruel creature-it moans and slows when we ask it to move faster and then decides to make the great, epic moments become past rather than present in no time.
We enjoy the good times, but the good times are finite things that have short life spans.

Which is one of the reasons why Heaven will be so great. It is a single, epic moment preserved perfectly in the present, no past or future, just that blissful moment we ask to stay and does. Death is not there to kill those we love, sin is not there to defeat our joy and time and space is not there to keep these moments from flying by.

Heaven gives a whole new meaning to the term "BFF."

I guess that is why this is a bittersweet ending-leaving the glorious moments of Harding for the comfort and beauty of Maine summer.

There is a little saying that goes in my family when someone is strongly expressing their negative emotions. It goes like this..."Grumpy Wumpy was a bear, Grumpy Wumpy had no hair."

I could act like a high school English teacher and dig into this rhyme to find the deeper, existentialist purpose and how it relates to human passion, the Forbidden Fruit of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and the author's psychological instability created by an abusive home life, drug usage and hatred of society...but basically the rhyme means that being grumpy leads to more grumpiness, which will eventually lead to excessive hair loss.

Though when I went through middle school and my big-hair days (we all had them), my mom used to say "Grumpy Wumpy was a bear, Grumpy Wumpy had lots and lots of hair!"

Anyway, you might be wondering why I am writing about this wierd little house-hold rhyme. Well, I've been feeling excessively Grumpy Wumpy-ish today. VERY.

Perhaps its because I only got a few hours of sleep this weekend-and those precious hours of sleep I recieved was spent on rock ground in a damp sleeping bag. (For those of you who don't know-I'm high maintenance-call it a family curse or genetic trait, ask anyone in my family-we all are)

Today, everything just seemed to go wrong.

It all started with the swine flu-the latest epidemic in today's news. I wasn't sure what it was all about-but because of it I didn't let my-self eat any of the sausage, which just made my day bad right there.

Tangent: Why does the next mass-hysteria have to be called the "swine flu" that is so...anti-climactic. If there is going to be a plague that could potentially cause high death-tolls at least give humanity some sense of honor and call it something worthy of Hollywood. Such as the Neo-Black Plague, the Great Disease or the Apocalyptic Cold. Wouldn't just stink if humanity was killed off by something called the swine flu (no pun intended)

Back to me: So, since this morning-I've dealt with a boring breakfast, a really bad lunch (there were no buns for my burger and there was way too much peanut butter and no jelly (Kenzie-I feel your pain)), I had to study for a stats test, I had to take a stats test (which is never a rainbow in my day) and work on a really, really, really long and tedious photography project that caused me to nearly have a nervous break down in the computer lab today. As for that project, I got through half of the project, only to see the computer freeze up and quit when I tried to save-so I had to start all over.

And to top it all off-Heroes had a very anti-climactic season finale. Some cool things happened, but once again...Nathan died, again, Sylar survived, again, and Hiro lost his powers, again. Oh, and Claire's dad lied to her, again. And Allie Larter is back in the show after dying, again. I think the writers are just recycling their ideas, maybe they need another Writer's Protest to jog their creative juices 'cause the first season was AMAZING.

But alas-my day is still NOT over and I want it to be so much. Hopefully it will go better tomorrow.

Hopefully I'll put some more posts up.

Well, sorry about not having written anything in a really, really, really, really long time. There just hasn't been very much to write about as of late. Life was going alright, till this night (Monday night) when it all of the sudden went great!

Tonight we had our last social club meeting of the year. For those of you who don't know, I am in the social club Beta Omega Chi (BOX for short) and it is basically the greatest club/frat in the history of universities every where.

And tonight, they elected me Spiritual Life Director.

Not to sound really cheesy, but I am so honored.

I already have somewhat of a reputation as a preacher in the group. That is...a hellfire and brimstone preacher. I'll never forget that day on 3rd floor Keller during visitation week when I was told to yell out the loudest, fiercest and "brimstone-est" sermon I can holler. So, I cleared my throat and summoned the old, crazy-eyed hellfire preacher hidden deep inside of me, and I gave a quick sermon. I sermon that involved the usual: an urgent call to repentance, the unending agony of hell, the damnation of the lost and the fact that in the end, Satan's demonic, half-breed children will crawl up from the underworld to devour those not saved. And thus, I entered the club.

I thought the girl running on the sidewalk below looked like a person in need of a good, morbid sermon. She didn't come forward, but I like to think I planted a seed.

During pledge week, I was called on yet again to preach to the masses, this time, from the back seat of our former club president's car. So, I sat in the backseat, my head pocking out of the window, screaming out the greatest verses of Revelation. I was to preach all the way from Downtown Church of Christ back to Harding, which is only about a mile away-but it seemed to be so much longer. So much painfully longer. And what made it worse, we stopped at a red light.

So here I am, screaming at the top of my lungs about fire raining down from the heavens, demons popping out from the ground and the anti-christ jumping out on to the stage saying "Surprise"!!!! Luckily our most honorable president let me finish my sermon early because my voice was going and I was about to start coughing up blood.

And that is why I love BOX so much.

So, here I am, the Spiritual Life Director (which is no small position) for this amazing club. Boy, am I nervous. But, boy, do I feel ready. I just ask all of you guys reading this that ya'll pray for me next semester that I live up to the expectations of my club next year. I just pray that I don't mess this up. But, I don't think I will-'cause this little verse popped into my head.

"...for such a time as this..." from Esther.

Well, I don't know if it is that dramatic, but I know I got this position for a reason. And I'm going to fulfill that reason. Even if I do have to give a sermon or two on the seven-headed dragon and his evil babies if I have to. (ha-ha)

So, here I go.

P.S. In case you were wondering-this was my pledge name

(In dramatic, harsh voice)
TO THE ANGEL OF THE CHURCH IN ADKISON WRITE, THESE ARE THE WORDS OF HIM WHO HAS THE SHARP DOUBLE-EDGED SWORD, "I KNOW WHERE YOU LIVE". FROM THE BOOK OF JOHN MARK, CHAPTER TWO VERSES TWELVE THROUGH THIRTEEN.

It is a phenomenon that is sweeping the crowded shelves of every bookstore in the nation...in the world. It is a wide-spread mania that is driving causing girls to scream with delight. It is a fad that that has suddenly replaced the brave and bold Harry Potter with the dark and daring Edward Cullen.

This event is known as...well we all know it...as Twilight.

And where on earth has it come from? Besides the mind of a BYU graduate, it seemingly came out of thin air and instantly all the little girls are loving it-without any rhyme or reason. It sounds like something Disney would do, you know force something to become famous, whether the world likes it or not.

With the end of the epic Harry Potter series, young-adult fantasy authors clamored to take the throne that J.K. Rowling abdicated. And Stephanie Meyer came out of nowhere to seize it before experienced fantasy heavy-weights like Neil Gaiman or Garth Nix could make their claims. Sadly, Mrs. Meyer's novels aren't exactly as uni-gendered as Harry Potter was...sadly, it is ultimately one-sided...to young, tween to teen girls. Boy, now guys can't even peruse through the young-adult section without looking like their trying to find the next Twilight novel or one of its ridiculously-covered copy cats.

Which brings me to my next point-all of those stupid-looking books that have been copying Twilight's vampiric story-lines and dark romances. Their covers are stupid looking with teenage girls leaning against pale, sleek looking guys dressed in black but out-of-this-world-good-looking who are obviously vampires. It is the sort of things teen girls are going after now: lip-gloss, Hannah Montana music, Zac Efron movies and the blood-sucking un-dead.

Whatever happened to the days when vampires were purely gross and gruesome and reserved for Gothic people who try to file their teeth into fangs? I wonder how Gothic girls feel about their beloved Lords of the Night becoming adored by glitzy, giggling tween-agers? It's kinda like Hannah Montana doing a tour with Marylin Manson.

I wonder how many parents know that their children are reading about a young girl getting seduced by a blood-sucker who stalks her-and later impregnates her with a child that tries to eat its way out of her. Not so innocent as we thought-huh?

Well, at least the demon-baby wasn't born out of wedlock.

I've heard from several friends who have read the books-I even read a little bit of the first book on a rainy day (I was really bored and I wanted to know what all the hype was about)-and they all say that the main character Bella becomes super-hot AFTER she becomes a blood-sucker. The novels are also fraught with sexual undertones that are covered by Edward not wanting to "bite" Bella, but Bella kind of wants to be "bitten"-If you get my drift.

Hey what's better than spending eternity as an undead creature who has to drink blood to survive-as long as you get to spend it with the one you love?

Being seventeen forever isn't as fun as it sounds now is it?

I'm not one of those people who think that Stephanie Meyer is trying to corrupt the young girls in our society-I really don't think she is a bad person at all, but her novels aren't exactly as kid-friendly as we all want to believe.

It is really weird though-parents from every loop in the Bible Belt were up in arms against J.K. Rowling for her "satanic" series that taught kids witchcraft-when in fact she made up her own spells from Latin words-take Latin, you'll see what I mean. But I have not heard a single parent, besides my own mom, speak out against this dark, sexual and glittery-gothic series. At least J.K. Rowling didn't have sex in her books-excessive kissing yes-but no sex.

What I want to say is-if blood-sucking, cannibalism and the undead has suddenly become the new "hot", then our society is really going drain-in a very unexpected way. Perhaps its a Gothic ploy to make being pale the new tan.

Now that would be scary.