Sleeptalk

After reading this post through, I realized it's really friggin long. Sorry. But bear with me, it's funny.

My brother grinds his teeth when he's asleep. (I'm pretty sure he doesn't read this, so it's safe to tell everyone. Teeheehee.) It's really obnoxious, like nails on a friggin chalkboard. He also has this tendency to wrap himself in so many blankets that he sweats straight through his PJs and then wakes up in the morning all like, "why the hell is it so hot in here?"

My dad snores, and my mom mumbles. You'd kind of figure that doing obnoxious things in our sleep runs in the Camillo family. And you'd be partially right. But from what I've heard (because I don't exactly watch myself sleep, duh) I don't snore, or sleeptalk, or grind my teeth, or sweat.

No, my obnoxious sleep problem actually occurs in the twenty or so minutes before I fall asleep. Apparently in that state of half-sleep when it actually feels like you're dreaming, I have this habit of saying really random and sometimes awkward things.

Take this as an example: the weekend before I moved out of Brownsburg, Caitie and I went to Newsong Festival to camp for a weekend and see various AWESOME bands in concert. I think Caitie's Facebook status at the time was 'Caitie Weaver no longer has a face, due to the massive amount of FACEMELT at the Skillet concert.' Anyway, the point is we spent two nights together in a tent. In the course of this trip I told Caitie:

1) that I had already taken the trash out. Which makes no sense, because there was no trash to take out, and taking out the trash isn't my job even at home. It's Logan's.

2) that I wanted a banana. This also makes no sense, seeing as which I HATE bananas. They're gross. And also the world's stupidest fruit.

3) that I 'wuvv you, Taitie'. Why the baby talk? Don't ask me.

The funniest part (in hindsight) is that I have absolutely no memory of saying any of these things. So in the morning when Caitie offered me a banana, I was like, "Um, I hate bananas," and she of course started cracking up.

Now, I thought I could avoid anyone else figuring out my little problem. Yes, I do have a roommate, but Aliena and I hardly ever go to bed at the same time, and when we do I make an effort to put headphones in and listen to Billy Joel or something, to prevent me from talking to her and saying something embarrassing.

This all caved when Emily and I spent the whole weekend in Anne's room (see 'Procrastination At Its Finest) in order to... well, actually I'm not sure what the point was, but it was fun. Apparently in the ten minutes or so before I fell asleep we started talking about squirrels (see 'SQUIRREL!') and I was complaining about the acorns that they kept throwing at me. I said something along the lines of 'I always figured squirrels would find me attractive' before falling asleep.

Again, I have no memory of this, and Anne and Emily won't stop giving me crap about it. I need to invest in Lunesta or something.

SQUIRREL!

I killed a squirrel once. It was a pretty traumatizing experience. I was driving on 267 (busiest street in Brownsburg) and I didn't have time to stop or room to swerve, so I tried to straddle it. Problem: I drive a PT Cruiser, which has like two inches of clearance, so I basically mangled the poor thing into oblivion with the various pieces/parts on the bottom of my car. I was on my way to work (at Donatos), and I was crying and crap (because I'm a softy, I know this surprises some of you) and my manager made fun of me, and then Dad brought me flowers to try and cheer me up (don't ask, it was Mom's idea).

Anyway, the point of this grisly story is that I used to think squirrels were small, fuzzy, adorable creatures that could sometimes be suicidal, but were generally sweet and cuddly. I think I may have watched one too many Disney movies as a child.

My current view of squirrels:

SPAWN OF THE DEVIL.

I am not kidding. They're trying to kill me, and their weapon of choice? Acorn fastballs. In the past week, I have been hit in the head by five (count them: five) flying/falling acorns. Every single time I hear the obnoxious chitter of squirrels. The first time, the squirrel in question scampered down his tree and glared at me.

Notice that these only count the times that I've been hit. Once we were coming back from lunch carrying dessert and an acorn fell into Emily's pudding. Which would have been insanely funny if I wasn't convince these squirrels were conspiring to assassinate me.

Don't mess with squirrels. DON'T DO IT.

Curse You, Walmart!

Anyone read the Inkheart trilogy? If not, what the hell is wrong with you? Those books are freakin' awesome. Anyway, I've read the whole thing but I only own the first two books, and so I've been meaning to buy Inkdeath for ages. The thing is, the only place I ever go shopping is Walmart, and they never have it. FAIL.

Why not go shopping somewhere else, you might ask? Well, because 1: I don't have my own car here (-glares at parents-), and 2: I don't actually know where a Barnes and Noble's or a Borders might be.

But Walmart sells Inkdeath online, so I figured I'd just order it with my EKU Colonel Card and, while I was at it, preorder Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days. 

Problem Numero Uno: even if I select one-day shipping, I won't get Kingdom Hearts until a week from today. Why is this? You got me. It's supposed to come out tomorrow, and if you add one day to that I should have it Wednesday, by my reckoning. Apparently no one's told Walmart that one day means ONE DAY, dammit.

Problem Numero Dos: Walmart.com doesn't have a 'pay with debit card' option. There went my strategy.

Solution? I'll just have to wait until Thursday when Emily makes a Walmart run to buy KH358. That is TWO WHOLE DAYS after it's supposed to come out, meaning all my friends have TWO WHOLE DAYS to get ahead of me. -cries-

Procrastination At Its Finest

For the past... (checks time) 26 hours, I have been holed up in a room with Anne, Emily, and (for some of it) Aliena.

The reason? Well, Anne now has a private room, so we decided to have a sleepover in Anne's room (yes, it's all of three feet away, but who's counting?) Emily, Anne and I watched a movie (Taken - I recommend it, Liam Neeson is a BEAST) and ate popcorn and hung out. And then today... we spent all day writing our four-page papers for Honors Rhetoric.

Well, let me rephrase that. Anne, Emily, and Aliena busted out their laptops and wrote papers.

I, however, curled up on Anne's couch with a box of Cheezits, a bag of gummi bears, a can of Mountain Dew, and Anne's Nintendo DS. Life is good. Aliena finished her paper and Anne and Emily are about halfway through theirs. I haven't even started mine. But who cares? I'm now halfway finished with Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings. (Yes, I'm a nerd. So shoot me.) Tomorrow I'll write my paper. And I'll get an A. I have this procrastination thing down.

Exhibit A: Two years ago in AP English we were supposed to read Machiavelli's The Prince. (Key word: 'supposed'.) The day before our big project was due, I realized I hadn't read it, and who was I kidding - I wasn't going to. I asked Becky for a summary, she gave it to me, I did the project, and got a 98%. Becky's grade? 94%.

Don't tell me I'm not a good student :)

Selfishness

At what point does someone say, "You know what, this situation is bad enough, let's not make it worse"? We've all known that person who gets in a bad situation, and then blames it on everyone but themselves, and makes big deals out of the things that don't matter.

I walk in to the bathroom to take a shower this morning and I realize someone is in there crying. You guys all know how bad I am with tears. I don't know what to say, I'd give whoever's crying anything they want. I'm going to be one of those horrible doormat mothers someday, because I just can't handle tears. They make me want to beat whoever caused them in the face until whoever's crying feels better.

Anyway, I ask her what's wrong, and she explains the situation. Basically there's this other girl who really wants to move (and it's for a legitimate reason - she's got a crazy ex with military training, I mean, I'd want to move, too) and was asking my friend if she would mind changing roommates. Now, my friend has already been through a load of crap over her own housing situation, so she asked if there was some way to resolve the situation without her having to move.

Personally, I think that's a perfectly fair request. I mean, I am of the opinion that it's completely okay to be selfish once in a while. You can't just let people walk all over you, you have to say what you want, and that's OKAY. My friend is TOTALLY JUSTIFIED in wanting to not move.

Well, this other girl's mother basically called my friend a bitch, and said something along the lines of "I hope something like this happens to you and you are dealing with someone just as obstinate as you are."

How the hell can someone say that? That mother should be ashamed of herself. Her daughter picked a stupid boyfriend and is paying for it. How is this my friend's fault? Instead of blaming my friend, that mother should be thinking, "What can I do to help," not, "Things aren't going my way so I'm going to make the situation EVEN WORSE."

Maybe you've noticed, but I'm a little pissed.

WHY?!?!?!

Let's just get this out there: I moved to Kentucky because EKU has a great forensic science program, the campus is gorgeous, and they paid me a s***load of money to come here. Yay scholarships.

That said, I did NOT come here because of my love for country music. In fact, I HATE country music. It makes me want to hurt small fuzzy animals. It makes me want to pull out an Uzi and go postal on the cafeteria. It makes my head want to explode.

There's a jukebox in the cafeteria at Upper Powell, right? At lunch they were playing a whole bunch of songs I LOVE, like 'Time of Your Life' and 'Smoke on the Water' and some other good stuff. And then...

Country music. Lots of it.

Where is the Three Days' Grace? Or Breaking Benjamin? Or Halestorm, or Red, or Skillet, or Chevelle, or any of the other bands I actually ENJOY? Oh, yeah, back in Indy where I left them. I'm in Kentucky now, y'all. Carrie Underwood and Garth Brooks for all.

SHOOT ME.

T-Minus 7 Days and Counting!!!!

No, this is not a crappy reference to The Ring. In case you didn't know I HATE that movie. Although with my long, almost-black hair, it's really fun to flip it over my face and freak people out. When I was in sixth grade I used to do that all the time.

Anyway, I'm getting off topic. The REAL topic of this post is KINGDOM HEARTS!!!!!!!! YEAH!!!!!!

I know, I know, I'm obsessed. I can't help it. Those games are SO ADDICTING. I've beaten the first one at least ten times, and the second probably around thirty. I just can't stop. Riku, I love you! And the newest game is coming out NEXT TUESDAY!!!!! 

The only problem is, I don't have a Nintendo DS, which I kind of need... I saw one for really cheap on eBay, but it didn't have a charger. Sigh.

So, Anne, I'm sorry, but I may be stealing your DS occasionally in the near future... :)

Itchy Fingers

So today at dinner I had this song stuck in my head, (Debussy's Arabesque, my favorite classical piano solo EVER) and I was being typical nerd Joelle and playing piano on the table absentmindedly. The girls all made fun of me, and then Emily reminded me that there is a piano in the lobby of her dorm, which is right next to ours. So I ran back to the room, grabbed my books, and we all headed over to Emily's dorm for a free concert for everyone except me - which I was totally okay with, seeing as which I've been musically deprived ever since I moved in.

Then we get to her lobby to find that there's no bench for the piano - never a good sign - so I roll over a chair. And... ewwwwww. The piano's ridiculously out of tune, so badly it's disgusting, as if no one's played it for years. Which I suppose is possible. So then we ran around Emily's dorm looking for these practice rooms that were supposedly in the basement (a LIE, by the way), ended up getting locked in the basement, and had to go out a back door and circle around to the front.

All that, and I still haven't found a piano. -cries-

Don't Believe Their Lies!!!!!

I woke up this morning and got ready and checked the forecast for today, something I've been having to do a lot recently because it's rained a lot. And in case you didn't already know, I HATE RAIN. HATE IT. It's cold and wet and disgusting and gets EVERYWHERE and makes you feel like CRAP. So I've been carrying a hoodie around with me just in case. 

But this morning the forecast said 30% chance of showers for Richmond, Kentucky, so I didn't bring it. And walking out of chemistry, what happens? Oh, yeah. I GOT RAINED ON.

Meteorologists are LIARS. Do me a favor and send hate mail to the nearest weather station. And if you have the time, go stand outside their door with a pitchfork, a torch, and your local angry mob. DO IT. End the oppression! Accurate forecasts for all!!!!! YEAH!

These Heels Were Made For Walking

Anne and I woke up this morning and played a few rounds of Shanghai (which I lost, in case you were wondering) and then decided to go to lunch. Now, being girls (I know, some of you were wondering) we came to the conclusion that we felt like wearing heels today. I mean, we all have days like that. So we changed into heels and some cute tops and went to lunch feeling pretty awesome. 

Then on our way back from lunch I stopped to get my wallet out in front of our dorm, and in that not-even-two seconds I stopped, my heel went through the doormat and got stuck, and I pretty much felt like an idiot. So Anne started making fun of me, and I lifted up my heel to show her how skinny it is and try to justify myself.

She lifted hers up to compare, tripped over her own pant leg, and fell over into the wall.

It was pretty hilarious.

Card Shark

So Anne's been trying to teach me this game called Shanghai, which is a little like Phase 10, if you know that game. Basically the goal is to get rid of all your cards by combining them in runs or groups, and certain rounds require you to have certain combinations of cards. Then if you have cards left over when your opponent goes out, you get a certain number of points depending on the cards in your hand. It's golf scoring, so you don't want points.

The rules aren't important. What's important is that I totally suck at this game. Hard-core. I can win a round or two, but when I lose, I lose EPICLY. The first time we played I almost tripled Anne's score. The second time I won three rounds and thought I had it down, and then Anne came back and beat me by a hundred and ten points. Therefore I have decided I HATE THIS GAME.

Keep Your Friends Close...

I have the weirdest friends in the history of the universe. Currently we're crashing in my dorm room after walking through the rain. Rain on EKU, as we all learned today, tends to put the entire campus underwater. The result? Wading through eight-inch puddles to get from one place to another.

So as soon as we got back to my dorm room, I changed clothes into something dry, and turn around to see Emily and Anne, in my bunk bed, rocking back and forth trying to make it squeak.

Let's back up a bit. The beds in our room are bunked, and Aliena has the bottom bunk, so I sleep on top. The beds were designed to be bunked, so it worked out pretty nice, except you can't move at all without the beds creaking. A fact which Anne and Emily find hilariously funny.

Not A Dog Person

So for those of you that don't know, I've been doing yoga lately. Okay, laugh, I don't care, but it's actually really fun and pretty relaxing. It's all stretching, and breathing slow, and then at the end there's this ten minute period where we just lay there and zone out, so I always feel a little stoned after yoga. (No, I'm not on drugs, I'm just uber-relaxed.)

But today Anne and I went to yoga and the instructor - Michelle - apparently ate her Wheaties this morning, because she was like super-hyped up and we did all these ridiculous poses involving balancing in precarious positions while flexing your quads or some other random muscle, and it was HARD.

Plus there's this spawn-of-the-devil pose known as 'Downward-Facing Dog'. (Yes, they're all named like that - Cat, Cow, Tabletop, Child, Sphinx, Warrior 1, Warrior 2, etc.) Downward-Facing Dog involves putting your feet and hands on the floor and trying to make yourself a triangle with your hips up towards the ceiling. (Mind out of the gutter, boys.) Which is okay... once. Or twice. But we did it EIGHT times in one hour. And now my hips hurt. -cries-

Brownsburg Kids, Represent!

This past week Anne has been making fun of me for the stupid things I say. I have to explain to her that where I come from, they are NOT stupid. They are everyday terms. Here's the list of weird things Brownsburg kids say that no one else in the world understands.

SAUCE! (I'm pretty sure we all knew that one.)

Janky

Grody (that one might just be me. :)

Pwned

I might add more to this as the year goes on :) Anne thinks I'm crazy...

You Know You're Crazy When...

So I woke up this morning at eight, even though I didn't really want to, but there was no point in me laying around pretending to sleep anymore. My roommate Aliena was already gone, and I was like, aaaahhhhh, good morning world.

And the nice thing about the floor I live on is that there really aren't very many of us, and we all have different schedules, so usually you have the bathroom to yourself when you go to shower. The stories I heard about dorm bathrooms were usually 'you have to wake up at six if you want to shower'. Clearly whoever told me that didn't live in Sullivan Hall. I LOVE this place.

You guys all know how into music I am. Well, Anne and Emily and Aliena might not know, because I'm not doing music here. I HATE THAT. I'm already taking too many credit hours, and my scholarship won't cover any more, so I can't participate in a music group. HATE. So, being the choir-deprived diva I am, I started singing in the shower this morning.

No, I'm not lying. I thought I had the bathroom to myself, and I haven't been able to sing much this year, so I started singing 'Shoot the Moon' by Norah Jones. If you don't know it go look it up, it's pretty cool.

And then I hear footsteps, and someone goes, 'Oh, I love Norah Jones.'

I was SOOOOO embarrassed. I mean, who sings in the shower? Really? Besides me, but we already knew I was insane...

BHS, I Love You.

I think before this moment I have never really appreciated just how wonderful Brownsburg High School was. Really, that place was friggin awesome. Honors classes, I mean. Yeah, I complained about Honors and AP workloads, but regular placement would have made me want to shoot myself in the face.

How did I discover this? It's called CHE 115. General Placement Chemistry Lab.

Let's start with my lab partner. We'll call her... Agnes. Yeah, I like that.

First day of lab: 

Agnes: Oh, I'm really good at chemistry, so if you have any questions just ask me.

Me: ...Um... sure. What year are you?

Agnes: Well... technically I'm still a first year.

Me: ...

Agnes: But this is my third year at EKU. My first year I partied too much. And second year I dropped out.

Me: (and she wanted me to ask HER if I had any questions?)

Agnes: What dorm are you in?

Me: Sullivan. The Honors dorm.

Agnes: ...Oh.

Then she proceeded to tell me that she didn't buy a lab notebook because she never used one in the past. And who took all the notes? Yours truly. Oh, and, by the way, could I please email her the lab report? Since I had the only copy of notes.

So I said, 'sure, what's your email address?'

And this week when we got to lab, she was like, 'you forgot to send me the lab report.'

Oh. Yeah. 'Forgot.' My bad.

Me: Did you buy a lab notebook?

Agnes: Um... not yet. But I will.

So I tore out a couple pages from mine and handed them to her. TAKE YOUR OWN DAMN NOTES. (No, I didn't say that. But I wanted to.)

And this week? She's writing her own lab report.

Sigh. Stupid people irritate me. 

P.C.? Who, me?

Because this is the Dorm Room RANT and not the Dorm Room Politically Correct Speech, there are certain people that I will probably be talking about in this blog because I don't like them. If its a person I don't like, their name in my blog will NOT be their real name, because I just don't want to mess with it. If you see a name you don't recognize and just can't contain your curiosity, for goodness sakes just ask me. Text me, email me, I don't care. I won't post their real names.

Besides, you know what they say about curiosity.

Meow.

I Guess I'm Now the Class Clown.

Well, I'm new at this whole blogging thing, which should come as no surprise to those of you who know me. I mean, I didn't get a Facebook until last month, and I was never into the MySpace thing. My friends had cell phones four or five years before I did. I'm just totally, wholly, and completely behind the times.

But the other day I said something about someone making my day, and my friend Anne said, "Alright! Because whenever Joelle's in a good mood, everyone's in a good mood."

My first thought: Awww, that's so sweet.

Then: ...what am I supposed to say now?

Then everyone in on the conversation decided that I was in general a pretty funny person, just because I have this slightly twisted, random outlook on life. So I figured I'd start a blog. And within 30 seconds of me posting that I was thinking about blogging on Facebook, I had three people say, "I'd read it!"

So here it is: the Dorm Room Rant.