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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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...

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.

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.