28 December 2005

warm at last

the temperature today was in the upper 60s. we were in tank tops on the 23rd. i haven't worn a coat in four days. my cousin has been running around in short sleeves. this is amazing. sigh...do i really have to go back to the arctic wasteland?

some quotes

exhibits A - G on why i find family gatherings amusing:

aunt frances: "it's a Yankee Candle"
charlie: "is that a candle that comes down here and stays?"
aunt lubie: "no, that would be a damn yankee candle."

charlie: "'yay, socks' doesn't sound too sincere."

my grandmother: "don't make fun of your mama, or the boogerman will get you. that's one of the commandments."

ashley: "yay, sweater."
charlie: "that goes along with the 'yay, socks'."

conversation between my grandma and great aunt, while opening a nativity scene:
"it's the house."
"i think it's called a stable."
"guess who's in it."
"well, let's see, i wonder who...moses? samson?"

in reference to the stupidity of students:
charlie: "one of my students came up to me and said, 'when people have sex with farm animals, why are there no babies?' i followed with another question, 'where are you from?"

20 year old katherine, to 8 year old elijah, at the chinese restaurant:
"are you picking all the chicken out of the chicken and broccoli?"
"yes"
"you're THAT guy. you're the one. you're the same guy who picks all the M&Ms out of the gorp."


unfortunately, i look entirely too much like these people to ever deny being related to them.

27 December 2005

family

after looking over my last post, i realized i need to clarify something. both of my parents came from the same small town in north carolina, so when we come down here, we see both sides of the family. granddaddy is my mother's father, and grammer is my father's mother. hopefully that clears things up a bit.

spent the whole day yesterday with my dad's family. it was nuts. we are all insane normally, but when we get together things just escalate. (yes, this would be the same bunch that was talking about chewing tobacco and musical chairs at the funeral home.) we did our standard christmas activity of eating assorted junk food all morning, having a huge meal in the afternoon, then eating leftovers and dessert all evening. this, plus opening presents and talking a lot, constitutes pretty much all we do on christmas. i think this conversation between my grandma and my dad really sums it up:

"We can't start opening presents. Bizza hasn't finished eating."
"That can't stop us. If we wait until nobody is eating, we'll never get out of here."

food is a big deal in my family. grammer makes all this food for christmas that she never makes any other time of the year. why she doesn't, we don't know, but the end result is that we spend the whole holiday eating nothing but cookies, chex mix, cheese wafers, M&Ms, chocolate peanut butter balls, chocolate trash, and all sorts of other things that are bad for you. health food fanatics, we are not.

opening presents with them is always an adventure. per family tradition, we all have to sit down together, pass out the presents, then go around the circle opening one present at a time so everybody can see. it sounds awful, but i love it. due to our special breed of lunacy, the gifts are often hilarious, and the reactions to them are priceless. especially since uncle john (my great-uncle) & co were there, so we had the "tacky presents" too. the Tacky Present Contest is an annual event between my grandmother and uncle john that has been going on for as long as i can remember. the premise is simple - they each try to find the tackiest gift for each other that they can, and then everybody votes on which is the worst. there are only two rules: 1) it has to be a real item that is purchased (as opposed to something that you yourself have made), and 2) it has to have originally been a serious item. nothing that is designed to be ugly or funny counts. these things are usually found at flea markets and church rummage sales. over the years, they have come up with some real gems: multiple figurines made of shells, a miniature grandfather clock with martin luther king jr's face as the face of the clock, a picture of a cartoonish devil sitting on the toilet painted on brown velvet, a platic gold fan with a clock inside of it and roses glued on (this one scared the dog), etc. this year was a tie between a hideous paper-mache cat with brightly colored flowers all over it, and an eskimo "doll" made of three round potholders, a face cut off a doll, yarn braids, and wearing ice skates made of yarn and paper clips.

we spent the rest of the time sitting around and talking. but not talking like a normal family. oh no. it's like the unwritten rule is that you have to be talking to someone at all times, but it has to be someone across the room. also, no more than three people can be talking about the same thing. bonus points if someone involved in the conversation is in another room.

jess and ryan will love this - the highlight of the day for me was the bluegrass music. my sisters play the fiddle and the guitar, my uncle terry is a bluegrass guitarist, and charlie (my dad's cousin) plays bluegrass guitar and banjo. twice during the day, they sat around picking. (for those of you unfamiliar with the ways of us southerners, "picking" is when they sorta mess around with the music, playing whatever songs they happen to think of. it's a lot of one person starting a song, and everybody else just joining in whenever they pick up on it. in the words of briscoe darling: "just jump in when you can, and hang on".) i absolutely loved it. it was true bluegrass, doc watson, earl scruggs, and lester flatts style - none of this new stuff with drums and whatnot. the only thing missing was the mandolin (and that was only because charlie left it at home). and no, this does not make me a hick. this music is in my blood, i can't deny it.

i had the best time. the whole shindig may sound a little crazy, but they're my family, and i love them. there's nothing i like more than sitting around talking and laughing with them.

25 December 2005

christmas

away from school - amazing. i got christmas break off to a hectic start: a christmas shopping blitzkrieg with peter on thursday. trust me, nothing is more akin to lightening warfare than central park three days before christmas. we spent the whole afternoon battling horrendous traffic, long lines, and stupid people. i guess that's what we get for putting off buying presents until the last minute. we managed to get everything without maiming anyone in the process, though we did decided that we each would have given up hours earlier had we not been together. that, and i was in a ridiculously good mood because i'd found a great clothing sale earlier in the day. i should not get this excited about finding more student teacher clothes.

we drove to marion on friday. i slept the entire seven hours. it was great. we got together with most of mama's family that afternoon. the evans and crosses and us went over to aunt iris' for awhile. i hadn't seen isaac in a while, he's huge now and talking a lot. loooooves sports. and, just for the record, it is really funny to see two NCAA Division I football players playing ball with a three year old. we went back to graddaddy's and met up with uncle david, scott, and heather, then the whole clan went out to eat chinese food (picking up the morgans along the way). there were 25 of us in all - and there were still people missing. my family is big. it was really good to see jennifer. she's moving to maine next month to start a job as a professor at bowdoin.

that night the four evans, my sisters, and i went bowling. the boys just couldn't stand to be still any longer, they had to get out of the house. it was...interesting. white trash central. i think it was the constant stream of people carrying beer from the bar next door that really set the mood for the whole place.

spent the whole day saturday at grammer's cause mama and aunt susan went to south carolina to see all the old relations (as in numerous great-aunts and my 94 year old great-grandmother). i basically just watched tv all day, and sorted through a bunch of old boxes of grandpa's stuff. i found some great pictures. and a lot of random, random stuff. for example, why did he feel the need to keep owners manuals for guns bought in the early 70s? or napkins from the naval academy? or eight copies of my parents' wedding invitation? i did get some military scrip from the korean war, which was cool. i'm going to have to get some mylar from work to store it in.

i saw jeff that afternoon. he's going to help me get a job!! he knows all the people who work in the costume shops in NYC, and he said just to let him know and he would tell me who to call. and the shops aren't union, just wardrobe work on broadway. it's a little scary - i never considered just packing up and moving to new york. i'm still getting used to the idea.

saturday night was the annual concord united methodist church christmas eve service, complete with the off-key choir (with aunt lubie's voice ringing out loud and clear above everybody else), the advent candle burning down to the wreath and almost setting the place on fire, and baby jesus belching in the middle of the prayer and getting really, really ticked off half-way through the shepherd's visit and having to be taken into the back hallway because he was screaming at the top of his lungs. plus, the preacher almost set one woman on fire because he had an open flame right near her oxygen tank. grammer kept leaning over to me the whole time and making obnoxious comments about everything that was going on. but i enjoyed it nonetheless. christmas wouldn't be christmas if i didn't spend christmas eve in that little church.

today was nice. we went to church with granddaddy this morning after opening presents. i got some good stuff, a few dvd's, makeup, and a nice new coat (back to the student teaching clothing thing again). we ate christmas dinner with granddaddy, aunt susan, aunt becky, uncle jim, and jennifer. i really enjoyed it. it was really weird having a family gathering at granddaddy's with only ten people there. i slept all afternoon, and in the evening the lawings came over. isaac was adorable. he'd gotten a tiny nc state football uniform, complete with pads and helmet.

speaking of nc state football...i get to go to their bowl game on saturday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! hooray for real college football played in a real stadium!!!!! (the panther's stadium, to be exact). mama's dropping me off in raleigh on tuesday, and i'm spending the week with the evans. thursday night we're going to charlotte. i have no clue what we're doing there for three days, cause the game isn't until saturday, but i don't really care. i never get to see katherine and quinn and aunt beth anymore, and it'll be the first time i've seen the boys play ball. and the girls want to show me around nc state and carolina, including the archives at chapel hill. yes, this qualifies me as a certified nerd, but i used a lot of their stuff for my historical research paper, and it will be cool to see what else they have.

tomorrow is the christmas extravaganza at grammer's. uncle john, aunt frances, and charlie are coming up from charlotte, so the total count will be 20 people crammed in grammer's tiny living room. should be complete insanity (as is normal for us).

21 December 2005

DONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



forever. and ever. amen.



no more papers. no more exams. no more sitting in class staring at the clock wishing with all my might that the hand would move quicker. no more counting ceiling tiles while a professor drones on and on. no more staying up all night trying to force myself awake while reading. no more making flashcards. no more memorizing flashcards. no more quizzes. no more tests. no more dr. harp. no more dr. smith. no more dr. graham. no more dr. tilford. no more falling asleep in class. no more paper outlines. no more studying. no more notes. no more paper research. no more falling asleep in the basement of the library. no more skipping meals to study. no more waking up before 7am to study. no more stressing out before finals. no more classes. no more teachers. no more school

20 December 2005

at least part of me is celebrating christmas

i have discovered a new finals week phenomenon: "Christmas Eyes"

this is when you have green eyes, and wake up in the morning to find them extremely red and bloodshot. it arises from a combination of too much studying and getting little to no sleep for six days straight.


at least i'm keeping with the holiday season.

18 December 2005

bits and pieces

a quick update for the katies of the world:

- finals: three down, three to go. so far they went ok. i have no idea how the kengor one went, but i don't really care at this point. i have early modern europe and issues in education on monday, and then social problems on tuesday night. if i actually focus and get work done, they should not be too bad. if i continue the trend of last night (blowing off studying to go to kings) and tonight (blowing off studying to watch arrested development/sit around doing nothing), they will not go well. let's hope i can motivate myself to dive into the wonderful world of enlightenment thinkers and teacher tenure.

- met my co-ops last week. i think i'm going to get along with them. one just had a baby, and she warned me that she'll probably be pretty out of it the whole time because she's sleep deprived. that should be interesting. i'm teaching almost entirely 8th and 9th grade US history. the first half of the semester (8th graders) will be hard, because i maintain that it is damn near impossible to make topics such as "forming the national bank" and "martin van buren" interesting. let's be honest, the only person who wants to know about millard fillmore is dr. harp. i figure i'll just talk a lot about the war of 1812 and the oregon trail. i'm really looking forward to the second half of the semester. i'm teaching my one 8th grade class about the civil war, and my four classes of 9th graders will be doing world war ii (yay!), the 40s and 50s, the korean war, and the civil rights movement. could that possibly be more perfect for me? i don't think so. the other class i teach is 12th grade world issues, which is (to quote mrs. engels) "anything you want to talk about". another cool thing is that mrs. allio is the yearbook advisor, so she's got a period of yearbook kids, too. i've always wanted to work on the yearbook, just never had time. and i've gone and volunteered myself to help out with the musical. will i never learn?

- mary (my younger sister) got into virginia tech. she seems quite pleased, particularly because the boyfriend and several other cronies got in early decision as well. i wasn't worried about it. my thought is - if they didn't take her, who would they take. this makes me feel really old - my little sister is going to college next year. i remember when she was born. jeez - i have to become an adult soon, don't i?

- there is a boy, i believe he resides in ketler, who has some type of stadium horn or fog horn or something which makes a very loud noise. it sounds like something the rohirrim would have in lord of the rings, even if my entire suite (and caitlin) thought it sounded like a cow for the first day or so. the point is: this person has been blowing this stupid thing on a regular basis since thursday. and by "regular basis" i mean about once every two or three hours. for three days. megan and i want to maim him. and then take his horn and use it to hit the obnoxious freshmen girls who keep yammering non-stop in the study lounge. it would be like our own personal crusade, except instead of fighting infidels, we would be on a quest to purge our dorm of annoying loud people. what is it about finals week that causes the females here to shriek as they sprint up and down the halls late at night?

- i made my mother lose it earlier today by using the phrase "i want to say, 'grow some balls, and suck it up!'." carol anne said she could hear her laughing on the other side of the house. i called back a few hours later, and she said she was still laughing about it. i don't think she'd ever heard anyone use that expression, which shouldn't suprise me considering that there is nothing even remotely uncouth about my mother (this is the woman who refuses to use the words "fart", "snot", or "butt" because she thinks they're crude). i found the whole situation highly amusing. i could hear my father in the background, "well, if the shoe fits...". phone conversations with my family generally consist of talking to my mom, while my father yells random things at me from across the room, with my sisters occasionally grabbing the phone momentarily to let me in on some scintilating bit of news from the world of high school.

anyway, i should maybe think about studying. or maybe just fall asleep sitting up, like i have every night since wednesday.

so much for a "quick" update.

15 December 2005

new career goal

i want to move to kwajalein.

island paradise, men in uniform. it's perfect.

and it just so happens that there is a nice little high school there where i can teach. thank you, that is all.

waiting

i am dreading finals. i hate the feeling of doom that it brings forth. the "i think i've studied enough, but i'm not sure, so i'm going to just stay up all night and read these notes as many times as possible before i have to take it" feeling. i absolutely do not understand how people find finals to be relaxing. i've decided either a) they don't really care about their grades, or b) their finals are such that studying isn't necessarily going to help - you know it, or you don't. none of this dozens of pages of vocab terms to memorize, essays to outline, old notes to look through, etc. to give an example of what i'm talking about, here is my list of what i have to do to study for my world geo final on friday (just world geo, mind you):

- make flashcards for vocab from class notes
- memorize class notes vocab
- make flashcards for vocab from the textbook
- memorize textbook vocab
- read 4 chapters in the textbook (approx. 100 pages) at least three times
- read notes from class at least five times
- figure out the sections the cumulative portion will be on
- review class notes from previous exams
- review vocab from previous exams (both from notes and from the textbook)
- review the countries of north america, south america, and the pacific rim for a map quiz

i have a list like this for every one of my six finals.

this is why i hate finals week. i realize that my posts as of late have not been very happy, but i dread this more than anything. part of it is that i just hate actually taking the tests, because they are mentally exhausting and you come out of them ready to turn off your brain, but you have to immediately start in studying for the next one. and i know i will spend the next six days sleep deprived and wishing i had more time. also, and this is the first time i've ever done this, i started studying ahead of time. all of my vocab for all six of them are already typed, and i've done the reading for some. it's not even study day yet (well, technically it is seeing as it's 1:14 am, but whatever) and i'm going to have the vocab memorized for world geo and spec mind before i go to bed. just having the vocab typed up has saved me hours already. as a result, i'm waiting for this feeling of total panic to set in when i realize that i don't have time to study everything i need to. maybe that won't happen this time. i should think positively. maybe my working ahead will pay off and i will actually feel prepared for a final, for once. that would be very strange. all i can say is, i am so glad i never have to do this again.

14 December 2005

end of an era

today i am going to my last classes...ever. this is such a weird feeling. i'm actually getting kind of nostalgic. why, i don't know, but i am. i think it's because suddenly 17 years of my life are going to be done, and nothing that i do from now on will be anything like it. never again will i have to stare at a clock, counting down the minutes until a teacher stops talking. i won't have to buy textbooks, read a syllabus, or write down homework assignments in a planner. i won't write any more papers, give any more presentations, listen to any more lectures. this should make me ecstatic. it's just such a huge change. going from high school to college wasn't that different. i was still just trying to stay awake during class, finish homework on time, make it to rehearsals, etc. going to classes is easy - i'm used to it. i know what i'm supposed to do, it's what i've always done. you go in, sit down, listen for an hour, write down everthing the professor says, and then go on to the next one. now i've got to figure out my life without someone handing me a schedule and telling me where to go. i guess it has a lot to do with the fact that i'm scared to grow up.

12 December 2005

and it begins

1:08 am. monday morning. we have now officially entered finals purgatory. this is where you spend the few days before finals trying to study ahead of time, and then feeling guilty when you don't. finals hell officially begins at 3pm on wednesday. it will not be pretty. sleep will be lost, meals will be skipped. but then i get to go home.

11 December 2005

missing christmas

you know one of the things i hate about college: you miss christmas. you spend the three or so weeks between thanksgiving and christmas break rushing around like a chicken with its head cut off, going to rehearsals, performances, writing papers, freezing in the snow, dreading finals, studying for finals, beating your head against the wall because of finals, taking finals, and contemplating the sadistic tendencies your professors seem to possess as manifested in the finals. then you finally get home, crash, wake up 36 hours later, blink a few times and realize it's christmas eve, then BOOM! the whole thing is over and you're in the car driving home from your grandmother's house wondering why your life is going by so fast.

it's not that you don't know it's the christmas season. the college has thrown up a few wreaths, silent night is the closing hymn at church, and the pop-up ads on the internet have red and green packages and christmas ornaments on them. somewhere in the recesses of your mind, behind the cafeteria lines, finals schedule, and economic development of southeast asian states, you are vaugely aware of the yuletide season. but you don't have time to enjoy it, or even dwell on it for more than about 4.2 seconds.

it makes me miss being a kid and looking forward to christmas for weeks ahead of time. decorating the tree, buying presents, making cookies, watching various assorted holiday movies on tv (because, as we all know, christmas isn't christmas until you've seen the griswolds blow up the christmas tree). this was driven home to me a few days ago when my mom left a message on our answering machine (causing yet another roommate to cackle in amusement at my mom's accent - seriously, people, you need to spend some time in the blue ridge mountains if you think she's bad). she wanted to know if i wanted to put my ornaments on the tree, or if they could go ahead and finish it. and we're not one of those tree-goes-up-the-day-after-thanksgiving-and-the-presents-are-under-it-by-sunday families. no, we're more of the, "oh yeah...maybe we should get a tree" type. so her question definitely meant that christmas was basically going to be over by the time i got home, and this made me sad. so...at least one benefit of graduation and being forced to become an adult will be that, once again, i will get to experience christmas.

09 December 2005

bamboo sticks, barometers, and ballets

my roommate (a.k.a. megan, a.k.a. churro) informed me quite indignantly that i had not updated in a week. so...a few brief snapshots of my life as of late:

1.) orchesis ended well. the injuries were minimal (one head bashed against a locker door, and the "girl we can't identify getting whacked in the leg with a bamboo stick during the lion king dance and then bleeding across the stage" incident) and set strike didn't take very long. though the pit did break in the middle of it. at least it had the decency to wait until after we'd gotten the little theatre risers and jazz band platforms up onto stage.

2.) actual conversation with the suitemate on the way to dinner. she was irritated because we had to walk across campus.

rachel: "It's soooo cold."
laura: "It's not that bad."
rachel: "You and your stupid barometer."
laura: "Rach...a barometer measures air pressure."
rachel: *growl* (insert indignant scarf flip) *stomp*stomp*stomp*

3.) i've started job hunting. it is not fun. i've officially sent my resume to the pittsburgh ballet. i haven't heard from the woman yet, but i'm consoling myself with the fact that it is the middle of the nutcracker and she's probably a little busy. yesterday's attempts with the DC jobs i'm looking at resulted in an angry-frustrated-violent-swearing-crying spell. the whole thing makes me want to become a professional homeless person in santa cruz. a phone call to my father made things much better, though. i love my daddy.

4.) life lesson of the week: when you throw your keys across the room in a violent rage, it is helpful to remember that later when you can't find your keys.

5.) i'm going to cleveland tomorrow to see various assorted sandhams in peter pan. i'm looking forward to it. yet another caitlin/brian/rainey/trey/laura road trip to ohio. it will be interesting to see the very blonde lindsay play an indian.

6.) brendan has decided he wants to write a sequel to peter pan. i have been laughing about it for three days. this is because, in brendan's version, smee becomes a good guy and learns to fly. he also has a fairy, but instead tinkerbell played by a little light and chimes, smee has tunkerbutt, who is played by a large spotlight and a gong. for some reason this absolutely cracks me up everytime i think of it. i think it's because "tunkerbutt" is just a funny word.

7.) current favorite thing: arrested development. i adore this television show. caitlin and i are a little obsessed. we watched 22 episodes of it from 3pm on tuesday to 10pm wednesday. we're watching season two tonight. i highly doubt we'll be going to bed.

and i just realized that i have 15 minutes to get to pew. damn. i am running the light board for the jazz concert. HA! i don't think joe quite realizes what a silly decision that was.

02 December 2005

why?

why am i incapable of going to bed early? even when i have nothing to do.

on an unrelated note, orchesis opened tonight. it went very well, if i do say so myself. we pulled off the techie dance - no small feat considering we were still practicing 15 minutes before the house opened. but i somehow feel that this was keeping with the spirit of the whole thing.

29 November 2005

orchesis and band dorks

back at school...sigh.

i had a lovely time at home over thanksgiving. i slept a lot, watched a lot of tv, and actually got a fair bit of work done. i saw two very good movies (rent and walk the line) with two old friends, one from high school and one from (good lord) elementary school. thanksgiving was good. we ate with some old navy friends. i always like getting together with them, because mr. swauger is one of the few people not related to him that my dad genuinely gets along with. and i got to see part of the bondathon on spike tv. made me happy.

it's now orchesis week. therefore life is crazy. but fun.

tonight was light-up night and the christmas parade. my last time doing marching band, ever. so very, very weird. it's been such a huge part of my life for so long. it's strange for it to be over so abruptly. yes i realize that this makes me an extreme band dork. i don't care.

16 November 2005

crazy suite

operation christmas child: where i get to watch my roommate attempt (a little unsuccessfully) to nicely wrap a shoebox with 99 cent wrapping paper, all the while yelling at my suitemate to stop playing with the toys, specifically the slinky, before she breaks them.


what an evening.

15 November 2005

thoughts during lunch

anne and i made an observation the other day:

the army song is about the strength of the army.
the air force song is about the glory of the air force.
the coast guard song is about the valor of the coast guard.
the marines hymn is about the duty and honor of the marines.

anchors aweigh is about drinking.



this should tell us something. it also explains a lot.

14 November 2005

sadness

i do not want my friends to graduate early. today caitlin finally got her pins from the costume shop, and gave back all the ones she had stolen. and i realized for the first time exactly how many memories i share with one e.t.g., iii. i find it bitingly ironic that the song which came up on my playlist as i write this is "taps". so, before i get too emotional and start crying, i will end with this:

caitlin and trey: i am going to miss you. very, very much.




why does life have to change?

13 November 2005

carpatho-danubian

titles of the books i am currently using for research:

eastern europe in the twentieth century - and after
the new political geography of eastern europe

and my personal favorite:

ethnic continuity in the carpatho-danubian area


growl.


although i have learned that the most important piece of moldovan folk music is about three shepherds and a magical ewe. sounds like something travis would write.

10 November 2005

p.s.

today's headline: "runaway ostrich tramples car"

round two

it is still show week.

as a result, i have spent the past several days:

* watching a harpsichord get crunched
* painting marching band spats with flat gray wall paint
* sorting through the 1939-1947 TAP scrapbook
* safety-pinning
* forcing chris into eyeliner
* making six foot tall dummies stuffed with pillows and pink tulle
* staring at a five-gallon bucket of purple dye and wishing i had something else to dye in it
* wanting a beer

yesterday mrs. craig said she wants rachel to have a "dainty hanky". we're going to staple lace to a kleenex.




major barbara opens tonight. you should come see it.

08 November 2005

and so it begins...

it is now officially show week.

so far i have managed to dye a purple map of the nile river down my left arm.

this is not a good sign.

07 November 2005

strange friends

i say that i've got a huge exam that i won't be able to finish in time. this is how my friends respond:

SandCait: I tell you what, a bunch of us will dress up in EMS outfits, and you can have a nervous breakdown, and push a button on a chain around your neck and yell "I've broken down and I can't get restarted!" and we will come blowing in and haul you off on our shoulders.

wow.







i am studying until the fat lady sings, the cows come home, and niagara falls...or until i fall asleep fully clothed on top of my computer.

05 November 2005

strange profs

over the course of the past few years, i've developed the habit of writing down weird things my professors say in the margins of my notebooks. i was looking through some of them this week, and i have come to the conclusion that my professors are crazy.

"it didn't used to be a competition. in the 70s, we just threw the frisbee on the quad with the smell of pot in the background and the sound of the greatful dead blaring from somebody's dorm room window" ~ dr. gordon

"i wish there was a slippery rock gay men's chorus. i'd go up and ask them if they'd take a little straight guy. it'd be great because it would really piss off the dean." ~ dr. gordon

"calling it "a good divorce' is like saying 'a good case of syphillis'." ~ dr. campbell

"it's like saying 'cats can eat oatmeal, but my little boy one time had a skateboard'." ~ dr. campbell

but dr. kengor, hands down, wins the prize for saying wacky things in class:

"the next few lectures are very boring, so if you feel like skipping, that's fine...i'll probably skip myself."

"the government's like a drunken sailor...you don't let him guard the booze cabinet!"

"you want a dessert? take out some ice, squirt cantaloupe juice on it, and lick it."

"i was going to get myself arrested and thrown in cuban jail. then you guys could protest and act like typical left-wing college students."

"why can israel have nucs but sadaam can't? because israel's not nuts. nobody cares if they have a few bombs and everybody cares if a screwball does."

"yeah, me and bobby went into his dad's gun cabinet and got the shotgun shells, then took them out to the back porch and were beating them with a hammer...when you have kids, take your sons and just tie them up."

"baseball season is over and there's nothing on tv. i had to watch virginia tech trounce boston college. it really gets depressing when football season's over and then you're left with hockey and basketball...it's enough to make you slit your wrists."

"i'm not going into great detail on this, because i find it very boring."

"if you've got a citizenry who are miserable and on the verge of revolt, don't take their booze away from them - then they'll really be ticked."

"i read an article about a russian vodka drinking contest. the winner died."



do normal schools have professors like this?

31 October 2005

discombobulated exegesis

"Andy, do you have anything to add to a discombobulated exegesis?"

oh, the joy that is pastor hughes.



it's been a crazy few weeks. i had a major panic attack thursday night at about 2:30 am, worrying about all the work i have to do. ryan had to remind me to keep breathing. that, howevever was better than wednesday night, which i spent in the emergency room. megan had a really bad reaction to some sleeping meds she just started, so we had to take her in to make sure she wasn't going to die, or something. i think my first clue that something was wrong was when she fell off the bunk beds while trying to get down...then didn't remember that it happened. things went downhill from there. however, considering the lack of competency of the ER here, the trip went ok. they only ignored for like 15 minutes, and i don't think they ever forgot she was there (though i chalk most of that up to the fact that rachel and i didn't leave her side, and rachel camped outside the curtain and stared at everybody as they walked by to make sure that no one forgot about her). also, we got there at 1:30 am. it was way better than last year when bekah stabbed herself in the leg and sat in the waiting room for two hours before anybody looked at it. the doctor kept winking at rachel...that was a little weird. but megan is fine now, and has strict orders to never take that medicine again.

friday night i went out to compadres with the buffalos. i had a blast. over the course of the evening i learned that i don't really mind cheap beer anymore and frozen margaritas are really good. as jeremy said, "it's like a slushie that gets you drunk". i also learned that you never know how many friends you apparently have until you walk into a bar of slightly tipsy fellow students. people i barely know and hadn't talked to in months were like, "laura! how are you??" it was rather funny. the boys were obsessed with the double size beer glasses. they were like a foot and a half tall. nakis referred to them as an Eiffel Tower of Beer. it also sparked the following exchange:

ian: "how do you order one of those?"
scarps: "i want one of those huge-ass beers"

the best moment of the evening though was when ian and nakis started singing the zeta song (why? i have no idea), and jan asked if the buffalos had a song. the entire table immediately burst into a rendition of "buffalo soldier" by bob marley, complete with steve and nakis banging out the rhythm on the table. nine white guys plus one greek singing jamaican music about african-americans in a mexican restaurant. this is why i love these boys.

and now i am going to blow off work and go to dunkin donuts with ryan. isn't senioritis fun?

27 October 2005

long time coming

i am finally going to take time to write about my trip to north carolina.

the trip was an adventure to say the least. first of all, i got confused at one point and didn't know which road i had to take. a smart person would have a map in their car, and could solve this problem very quickly. i am not a smart person. so i did the next best thing. i just found a wal-mart. superwalmart keeps the road atlases in the stationery section, in case you ever need to know. i just waltzed in, checked an atlas, and waltzed back out. that got me a few strange looks from the guy looking at crossword puzzle books. also, driving through west virginia is not fun. while the scenery was fairly pretty, the state itself just goes on forever. plus, gas is freakishly expensive due to the fact that like half the state revenue comes from gouging drivers on the interstate. the only redeeming feature is that i could go about 85mph and not worry about getting pulled over for speeding.

the weekend itself was pretty much a nightmare, but that had a lot to due with grandpa not have anything planned, the fact that my dad and his sisters have this seemingly complete and total inability to communicate with each other under stress, and that, oh wait, i was there for a funeral. fortunately most of that got worked out fairly quickly, and everybody was speaking to each other again by monday morning.

the funeral home visitation monday night was yet another Fun Family Adventure. nothing we do is ever normal. to start off, you have to understand a little about my family. we are all crazy. people think i'm nuts; my family is basically 15 of me. also, whenever you have four or more of us together at the same time, we can't take anything seriously. at the funeral home, the mood for the evening was pretty much set when one of the funeral directors walked by us in the parking lot, and my dad and aunt were debating whether his face was deformed, or if he just had a gigantic wad of chewing tobacco in his mouth. (they opted for the tobacco.) then as we were walking in, my cousin rachel (who is 18 and a freshman at UNC) asked: "are they going to serve refreshments?" she was very disappointed to find out they didn't, and all evening kept bringing up the fact that the whole thing would be much nicer if there was food. when we got inside and saw that there were chairs lining the walls, my cousin bizza, who's 24, stated, "hey, we could play musical chairs". this type of attitude basically prevailed the entire night. i believe my sister mary wins the prize for funeral home decorum. first of all, we made the mistake of letting mary, carol anne, rachel, and andrew (who is 17 and the lone male cousin) all cram together on a couch, which was made worse by the fact that it was at the end of the official greeting line (or whatever you call it when they make all the relatives of the dead person stand in line and shake hands with everybody who comes). other than the fact that it is a bad idea to put two 18 year olds, a 17 year old, and a 15 year old on a couch for two hours, everytime somebody came through the line, the four of them had to smile and nod and pretend like they knew who they were talking to. that was why i positioned myself at the end of the circle of relations. by the time they got to me, most people had already started talking to the people they came with. anyway, at one point andrew, for some odd reason, ended up accidentally spitting a tic tac out onto his shirt, which was odd enough, but mary thought that he had drooled on himself. she found this extremely amusing and was laughing so hard she couldn't breathe. and every time she looked at him she started laughing again. my mother kept shooting evil looks and hissing at her.

the decorations of the funeral home didn't really help any, either. not to be disrespectful to the dead, but i just found the whole place a little tacky. i've never been in a funeral home that uses horse collars and bales of unprocessed cotton in their decorating scheme. the hallway was covered floor to ceiling with paintings. some were originals, which weren't bad, but they also had the most random prints. i think my favorite was the one of the cowboy falling off a cliff with the caption, "hang in there, ol' buddy". i spread the word about that one, and throughout the evening various family members (by which i mean everybody) kept excusing themselves to go look at it. also, the whole place was full of antiques. but antiques in the sense of piles of old nails, shelves full of glass bottles, old iron tools, etc. the women guarding the lobby (i don't know what her official job was, but she spent the whole night perched on a stool by the front door like some kind of octogenarian sentry) told us that their "collection" all came from clients who decided to donate the stuff. my dad wanted to know if the clients donated it before or after they were in need of their services. afterwards we went to uncle bobby's (my great-uncle) and ate. a lot. the women at his church had done the standard post-funeral old southern lady job of burying his house in casseroles, macaroni and cheese, and pound cake.

the funeral itself was much harder than i thought it would be. in retrospect, wearing mascara was probably a bad idea. i did get to see the ancestral graveyard, as it were. apparently my family has been going to this church since it was built (1790s), and they are all buried in that graveyard. that was kinda cool. according to aunt annabelle (my grandpa's sister), i'm related in some way shape or form to everybody in there. afterwards we all went to the steak house to eat. true to form, everybody got the buffet, and as grammer said, "they lost money on us". i don't think there was a point in time the entire meal that somebody wasn't up getting more food. the entire parks side was there, too, all 25 or so of us. it was sort of a baptism by fire for justin. one of those "so you just got engaged, welcome to the family, meet the whole clan" kind of thing. if that weekend didn't scare him away, nothing will.

it wasn't a bad day, though. i rarely ever see that group of relations. i hadn't seen jody in about ten years, i don't remember ever meeting aunt annabelle before that weekend, and i know i'd never met jeff and charlie. sitting at the table surrounded by everybody reaffirmed my theory on parks genes: they are like a virus and they kill everything else in your DNA, so that we all a) look just alike, and b) the older we get, the worse it gets. my thought is that eventually we're all going to be either aunt annabelle or uncle bobby.

at the restaurant, we ended up telling stories about when we were all little. ashley told one i had completely forgotten about, where we were all on a picnic at linville, and mary and rachel, who were about four at the time, had to go to the bathroom. we pointed them in the right direction and let them go. when they didn't come back for awhile, somebody went to go look for them. they weren't in the women's bathroom, but you could hear them talking. they were eventually found in the men's room, perched on the urinals, and asking what the deal was with the "really tall potties". and of course the infamous Labor Day Picnic '89 video was brought up, complete with mary shoving rachel off the picnic table, strangling the cat, and grammer's immortal introduction, "hey steve! this is our annual labor day picnic and we've eaten three chickens and 27 hot dogs".

on the whole, i was really glad i went (even if i did get lost on the way back and ended up back in west virginia an hour after i'd escaped it). the drive was long, and i missed three days of classes, but i think i would have regretted not going. plus, it just reaffirmed how important my family is to me. i think it's something only military brats can truly understand. because i moved so much, they were the only thing in my life that remained constant while i was growing up. my cousins are my oldest friends. for years, when people asked me where i was from, i'd say north carolina, regardless of where i actually lived at the time. no matter what happens in my life, i know i can always go back to that little town and those mountains and feel like i've come home.

24 October 2005

observation of the night

our bathroom currently contains:

- one full fishbowl, complete with rocks, sans fish
- a richard nixon shower head cover
- "pretty princess" beads
- a jesus nightlight which is plugged in upside down

this is not normal.





then again...it's us.

23 October 2005

wasting time

Rachel tagged me. And is yelling at me through the bathroom to do something about it. So...

Rules of the game: Post 5 WEIRD and RANDOM facts about yourself, then at the end of the list the names of 5 people who are next in line to do this. Also leave a comment on their xanga/blog to let them know.

1.) when i was little, i was terrified of men with red hair.

2.) they filmed the movie Last of the Mohicans in my grandmother's backyard. (ok, so it was three miles away...same thing.)

3.) one of my dad's business partners was president clinton's orthopaedic surgeon while he was in the white house.

4.) i once got a case of poison oak so bad that my best friend didn't recognize me.

5.) i'm a direct descendant of charlemagne. and one of the wives, too, not a mistress.

umm...people...bekah, susie, matt, rainey, and erica.


at some point, aka when my stupid issues essay is done, i'll write about life.

16 October 2005

i hate midterms

eirelady84: must work, must work, must work
eirelady84: must, must, must, must, must, must, must woooooorrrrrrrkkkkk
eirelady84: blech
eirelady84: i
eirelady84: just
eirelady84: do
eirelady84: not
eirelady84: care
eirelady84: any
eirelady84: more
SandCait: CARE!
SandCait: LIKE THE BEARS!
eirelady84: noooooooooooooooooooooooooo
eirelady84: noooooooooooooo woooooooooorrrrrrrrrkkkkkkk
eirelady84: i have lost my mind
eirelady84: this stupid school has finally sent me over the edge


yeah, this pretty much sums up my life right now.

i hate exams.

boo.

13 October 2005

grr...

ok. one more gripe.

you know what really bothers me? professors who don't check their email and don't keep their office hours and still get on your case because it takes a week to make up a missed exam.

thank you. that is all. i'm done now.

too many edwards

just for the record: i'm still alive. i survived the weekend. however, i may not survive my dr. smith midterm tomorrow morning. (at 7:30 A.M.!!!! WHY is he even in his office that early?!?!?) and i would like to make the point that european history would be infinitely easier if british monarchs would expand their name database beyond eight names when christening their sons. so i will update the world, by which i mean my friends who read this and any random people who may be stalking me (hey, it happens - just ask trey), on my life at a yet to be determined point in the future. but for now: death, destruction, and the invention of the printing press.

09 October 2005

is honesty really the best policy?

you know what's funny? when people say "how are you" or "how's it going" in greeting, they don't really want to know. instead, they just want to hear "fine" or "ok, how about you". consequently, i spent the day lying. i gave the prerequisite "i'm ok", instead of answering with "i'm awful - my grandpa died today and i feel like my life is falling apart" or "i feel like i'm going crazy - my life is a mess and now i get to add a painful funeral to it, how about you?" it's not that i don't want to go. it is just going to be a hard, hard couple of days. i do not, however, want to be driving for nine hours tomorrow. and i am just trying so hard not to think about how insane my existence will become when i get back. i have tests and papers for a week and a half straight. i simply do not know how i am going to get it all done. the whole thing with a paper being due four days after break is really not helping things. especially since it's for the psycho professor. and i have no idea when i'm going to make costumes or figure out orchesis. plus i've been an emotional basket case for a variety of reasons (but at least part of that managed to solve itself today).

so i'm glad i wasn't expected to say more than "i'm ok". i really didn't want to have to explain why all i've wanted to do for the past three or so days is to just break down and cry. but i'll be honest here:

i'm not ok. but i will be. eventually.

07 October 2005

would the music be loud enough?

first: happy 18th birthday mary.
second: there is no possible way i can write about my life right now without using a lot of swear words. so here's more annie dillard.


"I was gaining momentum. It was only a matter of months. Downstairs in the basement, I played "Shake, Rattle, and Roll" on the piano. Why not take up the trumpet, why not marry this wonderful boy, write an epic, become a medical missionary to the Amazon as I always intended? What happened to science? My boyfriend never seemed to sleep. "I can sleep when I'm dead," he said. Was this not grand?

I was approaching escape velocity. What would you do if you had fifteen minutes to live before the bomb went off? Quick: what would you read? I drove up and down the boulevards, up and down the highways, around Frick Park fast, over the flung bridges and up into springtime hills. My boyfriend and I played lightening chess, ten games an hour. We drove up the Allegheny River into New York and back, and up the Monongahela River into West Virginia and back. In my room I shuffled cards. I wrote poems about the sea. I wrote poems imitating the psalms. I held my pen on the red paper label of the modern jazz record on the turntable, played that side past midnight, over and over, and let the pen draw a circle hours thick. In New Orleans - if you could get to New Orleans - would the music be loud enough?"

06 October 2005

"Our father taught us the culture in which we were born. American culture was Dixieland above all, Dixieland pure and simple, and next to Dixieland, jazz. It was the pioneers who went West singing "Bang away my Lulu". Our culture was the stock-market crash - the biggest and best crash a country had ever had. It was the bread lines of the Depression and the Okies fleeing the Dust Bowl, and the proud men begging on city streets, and families on the move seeking work - dusty women, men in black hats pulled over their eyes, haunted, hungry children: what a mystifying spectacle, this almost universal misery, city families living in cars, farm families eating insects, because - why? Because all the businessmen realized at once, on the same morning, that paper money was only paper. What terrible fools. What did they think it was?

American culture was the World's Fair in Chicago, baseball, the Erie Canal, fancy nightclubs in Harlem, silent movies, summer-stock theater, the California forty-niners, the Alaska gold rush, Henry Ford and his bright idea of paying workers enough to buy cars, P.T. Barnum and his traveling circus, Buffalo Bill Cody and his Wild West Show. It was the Chrysler Building in New York and the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco; the Monitor and the Merrimack, the Alamo, the Little Bighorn, Gettysburg, Shiloh, Bull Run, and "Strike the Tent."

It was Pittsburgh's legendary Joe Magarac, the mighty Hungarian steelworker, who took off his shirt to reveal his body made of high-grade steel, and who squeezed out steel rail between his knuckles by the ton. It was the brawling rivermen on the Ohio River, the sandhogs who dug Hudson River tunnels, silver miners in Idaho, cowboys in Texas, and the innocent American Indian Jim Thorpe, who had to give all his Olympic medals back. It was the men of every race who built the railroads, and the boys of every race who went to war.

Above all, it was the man who walked unencumbered by family ties: Johnny Appleseed in our own homewoods, Daniel Boone in Kentucky, Jim Bridger crossing the Rockies. Father described for us the Yankee peddler, the free trapper, the roaming cowhand, the whalerman, roustabout, gandy dancer, tramp. His heroes, and my hoeroes, were Raymond Chandler's city detective Marlowe going, as a man must, down these mean streets; Huck Finn lighting out for the territories; and Jack Kerouac on the road."


i was looking through an old journal and found some passages from a book we read senior year - an american childhood, by annie dillard. a cop-out post, i know. but i really like this book.

04 October 2005

i love being warm

it is a glorious day. the weather is gorgeous - sunny and warm - and i love it. everybody else keeps complaining about how they're ready for cold weather, but not me. i can't imagine wanting it to get cold. for me, cold weather = being miserable and depressed. my one consolation in the cold weather is that the leaves will start to turn. i think grove city is definitely prettiest in the fall, though it always makes me want to go to marion. nothing compares to the blue ridge mountains in the fall.

speaking of which, i was really bummed all weekend that i couldn't go to granddaddy's 80th birthday party. on thursday quinn and anna were both asking if i was going to be there. mama said it went really well, which is good considering there were 28 people there. i have a lot of relatives. even scott and heather managed to show up. the one i'd really like to see, though, is jennifer. i need to find out if she has a screen name.

homecoming weekend was fairly enjoyable. the dance was freezing, but i think it was worth it to see the wolverine dancing. whoever is stuck in the mascot suit this year is really good at it - i find him highly entertaining. the day of homecoming was madness, but i absolutely adored my old people. i ate lunch with a group who graduated in '46-'49 and i loved them. they told me some great stories. two of them, glenn and alice, had been in the outing club together and were still friends 60 years later. (glenn was the one who had on about three different name tags, because, as he said, you can never have too many.) they were telling me about how somebody would always get hurt when they went to the outing club cabin. or really, anytime the outing club got together. i quote, "do you remember the time betty planted the axe in her thigh when we were chopping down trees behind rockwell?" alice was also the one who told me about climbing on the roof of colonial dorm to smoke, and that the dean would sniff them when they came in at night, to see if she could smell alcohol or cigarette smoke. then there was peg. we became good friends. she was the one who told me about all the livestock that got set loose in south lobby, such as a cow and a flock of chickens (though not at the same time, unfortunately). it was also amusing to find out that people have been sleeping through vespers for over sixty years. the cutest one, by far, was harriet. harriet is 86 and an absolute doll. she was telling me how her husband used to flick the lights on and off in his dorm room in ketler to let her know he was on his way over, so she could meet him in the lobby. she also got real excited when she found out i had had a class in the room she and her husband donated in memory of their daughter.

the rest of the day was fine, except i got a migraine at the football game from the sun. needless to say, i crashed afterwards and slept until 9:30. then i got up and went out with theatre alumni. it was really good to see everybody. on the whole, i'd say that homecoming was a pretty good success.

now midterms are beginning. hooray.

30 September 2005

sometimes the fighting is...big

things that make me happy:

1.) dr. campbell moving the exam from monday to wednesday, thus insuring that i will be able to enjoy my weekend
2.) finding $10 in the pocket of my coat
3.) being in dunkin donuts at 1 a.m.


it's the middle of homecoming, and so far, life isn't too insane. i spent the whole day in crawford, setting up/tearing down the homecoming worship service. i must have coiled about 11.3 miles of cables over the course of the day. that's what i get for being the only one who knew how to do it. i also got to attach the legs to the sound table. the true joy in that was that someone (brad) forgot to bring the drill adapter, so i had to put them all on with a ratchet. as i was manhandling the 2x4s and plywood, i came to the following conclusion about myself as a housewife: i may not be able to make dinner, but i could build the deck.

the good part is that i got out of classes for the day. apparently i missed a rip-roaring day in world geography (insert heavy sarcasm here). as caitlin stated, "she said, 'sometimes countries fight, and sometimes the fighting is...big.' and then she put up a picture of hitler." that's right, folks, apparently all the campaigns of world war two can be summed up as "big".

hopefully the rest of the weekend will run smoothly. i can't wait to talk to my old people.

27 September 2005

and the insanity begins

tonight i tried to unlock my dorm room with the key to the costume shop.

this is a bad sign.


it's homecoming week, and surprisingly enough, i don't think it is going to be that stressful. this is mainly due to the fact that the only thing i have this week school-wise is a map quiz in world geo on thursday. on europe. not expecting any problems there. so, for the first time in three years, i think i'm going to be able to truly enjoy homecoming. i also love the shirts. everybody else keeps saying they think they are ugly, but they're right up my alley - a black and white picture of one of the homecoming queens from the 50s getting coronated. i love it. i just wish i'd known that's what they were doing; i've got some even funnier pictures from the old yearbooks.

this past weekend was a blast. ian, mel, ryan, and i went down to pittsburgh after the football game on saturday. we went to a high school band festival (yes, we are band nerds - we don't care) to see ian's high school band march. well, they don't march so much as dance. it was unreal. i couldn't for the life of me figure out how they hop around like that and play at the same time. there was also another dancing marching band with a midget. he played the trumpet. made me happy.

after the festival we went to molly brannigans, which is this totally sweet irish pub in pittsburgh. zinger's brother is one of the bartenders there, so she was planning on meeting us. getting in was interesting, because as we walked up, we had to stop so ian could make a phone call. i guess we must have all been looking at the bouncers funny, because we overheard them making comments about how we must all be underage, how we were going to just try to sneak in, etc. so we walk up, nod to the bouncer, and walk through the door. they wait until we are through the entryway before they call us back to check our IDs. to me it would have made more sense to check them as we walked up, but whatever. as he checked mine (which took him four times as long as it took for the other three due to the fact that people in PA can't ever figure out my license; next time we go out i'm going to hand them my military ID, just to see the confusion), he made some comment about how we had the same birthday. i didn't think anything of it until later, when he kept staring at me, and ian was like, "laura, that was a line. he was hitting on you." i never notice these things. which explains a lot about my love life.

zinger was a riot. when she got there, the first thing she did was climb on the bar to give her brother a hug. not over the bar, not around the bar. she actually crawled up the chair, and climbed completely on the bar. it was really great seeing her; she hasn't changed a bit. the rest of the trip was great too, except that we had to come back earlier than we wanted so that they could go to some boring recital. not fun.

my goal for this week is to actually get some work done ahead of time. so far, i have been entirely unsuccessful.

23 September 2005

i need to get more sleep

today was not the best day. exams, being sick, bad food for dinner, and a number of other assorted factors threw me into quite a depressed state for awhile, which is never good. i don't handle depression well. however, there were several things which did make me happy:

1) chris - despite the fact that he was trying to bite my ear off
2) cockney accents courtesy of the major barbara cast
3) cheez-its
4) watching four episodes of Charmed - which i am starting to get addicted to, thanks to my suitemate's boxed set of the first season
5) slumber party hour

so i guess all in all, it wasn't too bad. though there was awhile there where i just wanted to go home. it's a bad sign that i'm already doing that this early in the semester. however, it is now friday, i don't have any homework due, the homecoming booklet is done, and it's going to be a fantastic weekend.

22 September 2005

apparently, i'm supposed to be a nun...

unfortunately, caitlin has now introduced me to yet another way to waste time when i should be working. fortunately, it is amazing. www.jobpredictor.com. it's a wonderful place. according to this nifty little website, my ideal job is a nun. HA. it has also churned out such results as the fact that trey should be a stripper, chris should be a monkey impersonator, rachel is a circus freak, kristin is a garden gnome, and my sister is President. my father is supposed to be a trained assassin. for those of you who know my father, somehow this is not surprising. as you can see, instead of working on my homecoming stuff, i have just spent entirely too much time plugging in the names of everyone i know. such is the life of a college student.

this week has been crazy-busy. monday was guest artist - a production of hamlet. from this i learned that being a professional wardrober involves a lot of steaming. i also learned that yet another costume shop ironing board needs a new cover because some reject from humanity used a hot glue gun on it and there are little bubbles of glue all over it. i actually spent most of the day listening to random music on ryan's ipod and wandering around pew. i love my job. the play was pretty good, though hamlet was a little...something. i liked the lighting.

i had my first chiefs meeting for Major Barbara on tuesday. i think we'll be able to pull it off, which is good, seeing as the show opens in seven weeks. the set is ginormous. consequently, the run crew is as well. the scene change in the third act is hands down the biggest one i've ever seen. you know it's a bad sign when cliff says that you're going to need all of run crew and their relatives.

i had two exams today: world geo and spec mind. i spent all day yesterday studying. it was awful. i'm really glad that this is the last semester i'll ever have to take tests. i seriously started at about 4:00pm, and didn't stop until 3:00am. i did get to see ryan chase mel down with a banjo, though, which was enjoyable. life is always interesting when you are friends with music majors. the tests were pretty easy, so now i am just sitting here wasting time and avoiding finishing my homecoming brochure. which was due yesterday. oh well, what are they going to do? not let me do it next year?

21 September 2005

black and white overload

after spending the past four and a half hours editing old black and white pictures of the college for homecoming stuff, i have come to the conclusion that i was born sixty years too late.

19 September 2005

unfortunately...

once again, bon appetit has managed to disappoint me. apparently, it was not chocolate chip cookie dough month, but instead just a random tub of it that they threw in the freezer. sigh...

18 September 2005

it's chocolate chip cookie dough month!!!

megan: laura has a large collection of scarves.
rachel: it's better than having a large collection of other things.
megan: like what?
rachel: subautomatic machine guns.

conversations of this type occur on a fairly regular basis in suite 213.


it's been a rather good weekend. friday night we (by which i mean anne, ryan, and myself) went to another football game at jess' student teaching high school. this time we got in for free, which was great. we were standing around outside watching jess deal with the various assorted members of the mighty mercer mustang marching machine, when their band director walked over and was like, "you guys know to stay near the band so you can get in for free, right?" he was a grove city grad and gets the biggest kick out of the fact that we come to the games. it was really weird being back in a high school band room before a football game. brought back a lot of memories. seasons may come and seasons may go, but high school band remains the same: the drummer with two-tone hair, the freshman trombone player who is shorter than his trombone, the senior saxaphone player who thinks he is God's gift to women. there was even the prerequisite group of band guys trying (key phrase being trying) to play football in the parking lot. my favorite was the kid who is called "deerslayer". by everyone. the second he could take his jacket off in the stands, he produced a flannel shirt and camouflage ballcap. the ironic thing, according to jess, is that he's never actually managed to shoot a deer.

this brings me to a realization i have come to in the past few weeks: i absolutely adore friday night football. i didn't realize how much i've missed it until we started going to jess' games. in high school, football season was the best time of the year, and everybody in the school came to the games and rabidly supported the football team. in talking to my friends here, i've begun to come to the conclusion (once again) that i come from a different world. i guess people just take high school football much more seriously at home. and college football too, for that matter. but we don't even come close to the utter devotion people around here have to professional football. i mean, i've seen some pretty devoted redskins fans, but steelers fans take that to a totally new level. it's kind of scary, actually.

i slept til noon on saturday, due to the fact that after the whole "randomly starting a blog" moment on friday, i proceeded to watch tv until 5am. i do not really have much sense very late at night. then i spent the whole afternoon in pew hanging lights for the guest artists. what a delight that was. at least i got paid. and i got laundry done. then came the mercer band festival and the joy that is cramming sixy-something college students, instruments, uniforms, hat boxes, clothes hangers, and black shoes onto a bus. dustin had come back to visit, and, in true dustin form, he rode the bus with us over to the festival. that made me very happy. i sat next to him and told him all about the europe adventure with anna. he got a big kick out of it. the festival itself was uneventful, other than the fact that i finally had enough of allen's spastic marching and made him march like a normal person. i filched ian and kristin's "good for $1 at the concession stand" tickets, so by the time we marched, i had two packs of skittles and a blow pop stashed in various pockets in my uniform. that made life interesting. jess also repeated her line of "hypnotizing a chicken" in announcing for mercer's show. the highlight of the festival, however, was the "airgram" dustin sent to mel: "to mel, from the grand poobah. 'smile. it makes people wonder what you're up to.'"

afterwards, a bunch of us went to rachel's. and by "a bunch" i mean about 30-odd people, all music majors except for me, julie, and anne. our waitress was a saint. i had a great time. chris was in a mood, meaning that he was absolutely hilarious, and matt + alcohol always equals an amusing time. i also had a breakthrough, because for the first time, i sat down and thought to myself "i want a beer", instead of some fruity chick drink. ian was very proud.

however, the highlight of the weekend occured tonight in the cafeteria, when i realized that it is now...(drumroll please)...chocolate chip cookie dough month!!!!!!!!!!!! for those who never witnessed me at meals last year during january-february, i got slightly addicted to cookie dough ice cream. and when i say slightly, i mean very. six to eight scoops of it per meal. as in football players who i've never met before coming up and saying things like "whoa, that's a lot of ice cream". bad sign. my goal this year is to not eat so much of it. i'll try to limit it to five scoops.

17 September 2005

maybe i shouldn't listen to rachel

side note: on further reflection, i have come to the conclusion that rachel is crazy. for further details, see the following - http://lessoftheshadow.blogspot.com/.

i listened to rachel

so, i've been meaning to start one of these for awhile, i just never got around to it. go figure. then rachel got it into her head that i needed one, and the rest is history. the whole reason why i've been putting it off? i didn't want to come up with a title. such is my life.