RAIN!!!!!!!

I feel like a drowned cat. Not that I have ever BEEN a drowned cat, mind you. But if I were a drowned cat, I'm pretty sure this is what I would feel like. Meow.

It has been raining for ETERNITY. (Okay, that's an overstatement. Shut up.) But no, really, I think the longest we've gone without rain since this year started has been three days. I'm not even kidding. My jeans are being torn to shreds from getting dragged through puddles. There are waterstains in the soles of my favorite Chucks.

It wasn't so bad at the beginning of the year. You know, when it was still WARM. Now not only is it rainy, it's also COLD. And tonight we're supposed to have a soccer game. I'm currently waiting for the powers-that-be to text me back and tell me whether or not we're playing tonight. AND THE ANSWER HAD BETTER BE NO.

Rain makes me cranky. Can you tell?

Dystopia 101

No, it's not that retarded Rihanna song (Disturbia). Dysopic novels are stories that take place in a miserable, emo world usually full of poverty, war, disease, suffering, blah blah blah. Good examples most people know are 'The Giver', '1984', 'The Handmaid's Tale', 'Children of Men', 'Minority Report', 'The Matrix', or, my personal favorite, 'V for Vendetta'.

What does this have to do with the price of tea in China? (Don't ask, it's something my old pre-calculus teacher used to say...) Well, as some of you may know, November is National Novel Writing Month, affectionately referred to by its loving fans (aka yours truly) as NaNoWriMo.

And I, being the creativity nerd I am, have decided to do something a little different and try my hand at dystopia. WOOT! October, by the way, is National Novel Planning Month. (NaNoPlaMo? I don't actually know if they call it that...)

This was most likely caused by the fact that Anne, Emily, Agathe and I watched 'V for Vendetta' this past weekend for movie night. If you haven't seen it, then I will forgive you, as long as you go rent it ASAP. It's probably one of the best movie's I've ever seen, and yes, V has been added to my long list of fictional boyfriends. He's pretty friggin awesome.

Awesome quote: "There are of course those who do not want us to speak. I suspect even now, orders are being shouted into telephones, and men with guns will soon be on their way. Why? Because while the truncheon may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power. Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth."

Anyway, as good as 'V for Vendetta' was, that's not the point of this post. The point of this post is that through my desire to write a dystopic novel for NaNoWriMo, I have put my poor characters through centuries of trauma.

Today I planned out the history of the fictional world my NaNoWriMo takes place in. First I created this kick-ass religion based partially around Hinduism, partially around Chinese philosophy, and partially around Socratic/Platonian justice. (Whoever said Dr. Austin never told us anything useful?) Then I stole some ideas from V for Vendetta (and I'd tell you specifically what they were, but it would spoil the story, and THAT would be a tragedy) and wiped out half of my population, installed an evil power-seeking dictator who uses my awesome religion to control people politically, and forced everyone who DID survive my catastrophe to live in constant fear that the dictator will suddenly develop a hatred for... say... people with freckles, and BOOM, within a week everyone who had freckles will be hanging by their necks from a crenellated wall.

-cackles maliciously- I feel SO POWERFUL!!!!!

Five hundred years after all this, my six main characters will have to head up the resistance that's taking this guy's descendants down. How are they going to do that, exactly? Um... give me a few days to work that out... Viva la revolucion!

(Where's V when you need him?)

Lamentations of a Deprived Gamer

Maybe you haven't noticed yet (what are you, deaf, blind, and stupid?) but I'm pretty obsessed with video games. And by obsessed, I mean COMPLETELY, TOTALLY ADDICTED BEYOND ALL HOPE OF RECOVERY.

But the thing is, I don't have any of my systems with me, because 1) my parents wouldn't let me bring the PS2 or the GameCube, 2) my brother and I share them anyway, so even if I was allowed to take them I'd have to get through him first, and 3) I don't have a TV to plug them into anyway.

But lo and behold, I was talking to Anne, and she was like, "I think I might have one of those at home..."

Me: (thinking) how do you have a PS2 and not know it?

But I digress.

So basically she brought her PS2 down over fall break and I nabbed a bunch of games I had, like Kingdom Hearts and the Chronicles of Narnia and stuff.

Of course Anne, being the non-gamer she is, didn't think to grab a memory card, so anytime we want to play anything we have to start over from the very beginning of the game. And she also had to special-order a TV, which should be shipping in... sometime... hopefully...

So we've had to hijack the lobby TV whenever we want to play, but of course we can't play anything fun because we don't have a memory card yet. Meanwhile anyone walking by us hears yells of 'Get that ogre!' and 'Drop the small child and no one gets hurt!'

My favorite has definitely been my name-unknown fellow game nerd, who observed us running around Caer Paravel in the Prince Caspian game and went, 'Um, why are a minotaur and a centaur on the same team? They're supposed to be mortal enemies.'

Whoever you are, dude, I think I love you.

Legal

Today is my eighteenth birthday (halla!) so I was already feeling pretty good when I woke up this morning. Then it turns out my rhetoric professor's sick, so class was cancelled, which is AWESOME because I hadn't written my paper yet, and I'd been planning to do it this morning, but now I don't have to. Yay!

Anne and I were talking about it on Facebook, and someone she knows was telling this story about how her professor had a heart attack so they didn't have to take their final. At first I was like, "That's terrible..." but it turns out he didn't die, which makes it okay... right? :)

But it's pretty weird, because I have Facebook for my phone, and every time someone writes on my wall, it texts me... and since it's my birthday, which is listed on Facebook for all to see, everyone's posting on my wall 'happy birthday' and stuff like that. I feel pretty loved, except my friends apparently all get up at the buttcrack of dawn to check their Facebooks, so I got like eight different messages between 6 and 7 this morning.

I'm a morning person, but really? Was that necessary? Some people need their beauty sleep, and I need more than everyone else. :D

Rain, Rain, GO THE HELL AWAY.

It has been raining for THREE WEEKS.

No, not three weeks straight, just... three weeks. I think the longest we've gone between downpours is like twelve hours. And the sidewalks and streets flood pretty bad, so it's practically like swimming to try and get around campus. It rained this morning, but by 1:00 the sun was out, so I thought it was over, so I didn't grab a jacket or an umbrella or anything when I went to chemistry. I know, I know. Stupid me. I get out of chem and what do I see? A whole lot of nothing, because it's all blocked out by rain. ANGRY FACE.

Oh, yeah, and I wore a white t-shirt today. -sighs-

Now they're saying it's a tornado warning, and all I want to do is go home, but I have a four hour drive, and from what I hear it's raining back home too... why, God? Why?

Don't Take It Personally...

Emily's now threatening to kill me because of that last post. :D She tried to call me just now (this is only five minutes after I posted 'Leftys') and I didn't answer (because she's scaaaaary) and this was her voice-mail:

"I'm going to kill you. I know where you sleep, I can climb through your window. Be very afraid. I hate you."

Right now you're thinking, "Wow, and they call each other friends?"

Most of Emily's and Anne's and my relationship is based on insults. We have multiple names for Emily including 'adopted', 'cracker mack', and 'inferior lefty'. Anne and Emily make fun of me for the whole squirrel thing (see 'SQUIRREL!' and 'Sleeptalk'), and I regularly inform Anne that no one loves her, or that she has exactly 0 friends.

It's not cruel. It's not horrible. It's simply our way of showing affection.

Lulz.

Why Leftys Are Inferior Beings

So Emily's left-handed, a fact which Anne and I find hilarious. Why is the simple question of hand dominance hilarious, you ask? Well, there are so many things in the world that they complain about and don't need to.

For example: left-handed scissors. Right-handed people can't use left-handed scissors, but leftys can use right-handed scissors. My question: then why the hell do they even make left-handed scissors? Let's exclude more than seventy percent of the population by being hand-ist against the majority. Right. Makes sense.

Also, if Emily is sitting on my right side at lunch or dinner, her elbow keeps knocking into me when she eats. So we make her sit on the far left end of the table. And she has to turn her paper sideways to write, which doesn't make any sense no matter how you think about it... so we've decided that she's naturally inferior, and therefore all leftys must be inferior.

No one else in her family is left-handed, so the joke is that she's adopted. Anne and I keep telling her that no one loves her. LOL.

Bane Of My Existence

I'm sitting in calculus as I write this. Yes, I am actually in calculus this very second. How do I have access to my blog in calculus, you ask? We're in the Mathematica lab right now.

Mathematica = (a calculus program on the computer) x (frustation^1,000)

Why is calculus even required here at EKU? You only ever need it if you're going into physics. WHICH I'M NOT.

Joelle = ((tired x cranky x (sore from rock climbing))^Mathematica) + (hatred of math in general)

What is the point of a computer program that does calculations for you? I feel like they already invented a pocket-sized version. Oh yeah, it's called a CALCULATOR.

Wtf.

Why Women Don't Let Men Do Laundry

(Yes, I know the title of this post is sexist. Get over it.)

Anne and I spent another three days holed up in her room this weekend. Before you judge us, just know that I finally bought Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days (which is FRIGGIN AWESOME, in case you were wondering) and managed to get Anne hooked too. We intended to actually do something productive on Saturday... like do our laundry... but *coughs* that didn't really happen.

Anyway, I don't know about Anne, but by Sunday I had no clean socks, so we went downstairs to the 'man cave' (the basement is a guys' floor in our dorm) to do some laundry. We figured it would go fast since we each only had one load, right? A good thing, since for reasons unknown the basement of Sullivan smells like a mixture of kitty litter, old gym socks, and horse manure.

Much to our dismay (or EXTREME IRRITATION), some guy had taken up three of the four washing machines doing like a BAJILLION loads of laundry. His basket was still sitting on the floor with unwashed clothes in it. Now, at this point Anne and I are getting pretty pissed, because, sure, we procrastinated our laundry, too, but it wasn't like we were completely monopolizing the laundry room, unlike SOME JERKS I KNOW (or don't know, actually.)

(Laundry-room-guy, if you're reading this, please know it's not a personal attack...)

One of his loads had 12 minutes left on it and the other two had 18, so I stuck my laundry in the machine that wasn't being used and Anne waited for the other one. When it was done we dumped the clothes in his basket on the floor and unloaded the wet stuff into his basket. (FYI, touching unknown persons' boxers, clean or not = gross.) Then we went and crashed on the conveniently-located couch in the laundry room and Anne revised her rhetoric paper while I laid the smackdown on virtual Heartless. (I LOVE Kingdom Hearts, in case you couldn't tell.)

Soon enough, laundry-room-guy came in after the last two loads he'd started were done. Anne and I pretty much glared at him whenever he wasn't looked. I mean, seriously, there were some major death-vibes going on in that room. I wouldn't be surprised if he had nightmares.

Randomness!!!

Anne says I'll never get married. I have no idea what she's talking about. I mean, I AM the most ridiculously good-looking, intelligent, witty, attractive person in the universe. Modest, too.

All joking aside, though, she's probably right. Her reasoning for this is the sheer amount of random crap I do all the time. Like our weekly trips to Blockbuster/Walmart. Anne always drives, and I do things like roll down the window and laugh hysterically as loud as I possible can in this crazy high-pitched voice whenever we drive by people. I've gotten some pretty crazy looks.

I also have this tendency to stare at people until they look at me and then give them a double thumbs-up. This includes but is not limited to friends, teachers, and complete strangers.

I'm also prone to randomly scream "SQUIRREL!" at any given moment.

The sad thing is, I'm not even the most random person I know. My friend Scott definitely wins that award. :)