The Adventures of Two Clueless College Girls

Happy Thanksgiving, guys!

I'm writing this from home (WOOT!) and the animals have clearly missed me, judging by the way they're following me around the house. Currently Dog is sprawled on the floor and Kitty is contemplating pouncing on the cursor running around my computer screen.

Anyway, Anne drove me to Cincinnati yesterday so I could catch the MegaBus home. Due to a crazy random happenstance, we ended up downtown an hour and a half before my bus was scheduled to be there. We could've gone to her house... but we would've had to leave as soon as we got there, so there was really no point.

So of course we wandered around downtown Cincinnati for a while, looking for food.

Me: What's good to eat around here?
Anne: I don't know.
Me: ...You live here.
Anne: Oh yeah...

Eventually we found Fountain Square and a Chipotle Mexican Grill. (om nom nom nom.) I love Mexican food. You have no idea. Well, I love spicy food in general - Thai, Italian, whatever - but Mexican definitely tops the list. We killed some time and ate some awesome burritos, and then it was time to catch the bus, but I had to go to the bathroom first.

Note: the MegaBus does have a bathroom, but... gross.

The Chipotle bathroom was locked (weird) but Anne was like, 'I'm pretty sure there are public bathrooms up in the plaza.' So we trekked on over (and just for the record, it was friggin FREEZING) and found the bathrooms... which were also locked. Apparently they're only open certain hours.

The rest of our search continued in the same fashion. CVS? No bathrooms. Walgreens? Nada. Zippo. Zilch. You'd think it'd be easy to find ONE BATHROOM in a city full of people. You'd be wrong.

So we gave up and headed back to Anne's car (a few blocks away) to grab my luggage. By this time it was getting pretty dark (and it was STILL friggin FREEZING) and we kept walking by creepy alleys.

Anne: This is kinda creepy.
Me: Yup.
Anne: Let's not get mugged, okay?
Me: No problem. I'm pretty much a badass.

(At least, I like to think so.)

Thankfully, we made it to her car without incident, and I caught the bus on time and used the gross MegaBus bathroom.

Hey, a girl's got to do what a girl's got to do.

Joelle + Repeater Pistol = Danger.

For those of you who know my video gaming habits, you know I SUCK at shooters. Hardcore. I like games that don't require me to move AND change where I'm looking AND keep an eye out for enemies AND not die at the same time. I'm a decent multitasker, but not that much. Which is why I tend to avoid games like Call of Duty or Halo. I just suck.

But a while back, my brother informed me of this game he loved called Borderlands that - and I quote - 'even YOU couldn't be that bad at.' I didn't think much of it at the time considering it was an Xbox game and I don't have an Xbox. But lo and behold, a few days ago one of the boys mentioned it and I was like "HEY! that sounds familiar."

My first chance to actually play it was today, because Emily, Anne, and Eric are out of town, which leaves just me, Dave, and Patrick. Around four-ish Dave was like, 'Hey, you haven't tried Borderlands yet,' and I was all 'No, I haven't,' which we decided must be immediately remedied.
And so here we are. For the last five hours or so, I've been running around behind David's character, shooting bandits and alien monsters with an incendiary repeater pistol (thus setting them on FIRE!) while occasionally using skills to turn invisible, run up to an enemy, and PUNCH THEM IN THE FACE. I'm not even that bad! (According to David, I have aiming issues, but hey, whatever.)

Here's a pic of the characters. Mine is the chick, and David's playing as the black guy. We pwn.



If it's such an epic game, you ask, then why am I wasting time on the Internet? Well... apparently wearing glasses and staring at a screen for five hours straight causes headaches and cross-eye. Yes, I am actually currently cross-eyed. (I have to keep going back and fixing typos as I write this.) David is suffering from similar symptoms.

We'll be at it again in twenty minutes, I guarantee it. This game's addicting. I'll probably end up as one of those stories parents tell their kids to make them quit playing video games and go outside. You know, that girl that went blind from staring at a TV for hours on end. Just wait.

All-nighter, here I come.

When NOT To Mess With Joelle

I'm a pretty laid-back person, overall. I can take a joke. (Usually it's because I made it.) Yes, I have one or two berserk buttons, but doesn't everyone? On the whole, I consider myself an entirely affable person. Nothing really fazes me on a day-to-day basis. But there are certain small things that, when stacked on top of each other, turn me into the MOST ANGRY PERSON EVER.

AKA today. Today I'm angry for no good reason whatsoever - just a whole bunch of bad ones. So I figured I'd provide a go-to list so my faithful family, friends, and stalkers know what not to do today. Hence:

THE LIST OF THINGS THAT PISS JOELLE OFF:

1) Alarm clocks. (Especially the loud ones that go off every five minutes because SOMEONE doesn't want to wake up. I'm looking at YOU, roomie.)
2) Cold weather. Extra points for cold, rainy weather.
3) Professors who don't teach.
4) Dumb computer programs that serve no detectable purpose.
5) Professors who don't teach and use dumb computer programs that serve no detectable purpose.
6) Incompetent classmates who can't do their own work.
7) Cramps.
8) Retarded drivers who either don't know that pedestrians have the right-of-way or just don't care.
9) Almost getting hit crossing University Drive because drivers are retarded.
10) Email spam.
11) Anyone touching my hair.
12) Getting glares from the roomie because I'm being 'loud' and waking her up WHILE HER ALARM IS GOING OFF.
13) People who can't tell that I'm ANGRY and don't know to LEAVE ME THE HELL ALONE.
14) Not having a punching bag on which to vent my frustrations.
15) Dumb online homework.

THE LIST OF THINGS MAKING ME FEEL BETTER RIGHT NOW:

1) Writing this in chem class under the nose of my prof, who's teaching something I already know anyway.
2) The fact that this is my 69th post. -immature giggle-
3) Knowing that I get to kill someone in my novel tonight.
4) Not having to wake up at seven in the morning because my lab was cancelled this week.
5) Only having six classes between me and Thanksgiving Break, aka freedom.
6) Actually figuring out how I can make the Madrigals Dinner back home. :D

On the whole, the final score is ANGRY 15, THRILLED 6, when on most days I have two or three ANGRY points tops.

I really need some chocolate. That usually tips the scale. :)

Here's A FRIGGIN LIFE LESSON.

Until today, the posse and I were on housing probation.

'Why' you ask in horror, your image of us as perfect law-abiding, dutiful citizens shattering? It's simple: we have lives. Anyone living in the honors dorm here on campus has to attend a certain number of housing-organized programs, don't ask me why. You'd think, as honors students, that they'd rather us stay secluded in our dorm rooms studying than going out on pointless excursions when we could be doing homework (or more importantly, playing video games.)

Anyway, there haven't exactly been a whole lot of them, and there are less still that fit nicely into our schedules. So of course we haven't gone to enough - and rather than just let it slide like our old RHC would've, the new one busted us and we were informed that we had to go to at least two before November 13th or... well, or else, I guess, but it was implied we'd get kicked out.

Fear not, we've made it to two and we're good. One of them was a monthly Honors Pizza Supper, which they hold downstairs in the lobby. Since we were only going to be gone for a half hour at most, Anne and I didn't bring our keys. Of course, we failed to notice that Emily DID, since she had to go to a Genetics study group thingy, and she locked the door... so Anne and I realized after the supper was over that we couldn't get back in to the room.

Oops.

Here we were, no jackets, no keys, no wallets, no nothing - well, we did have cell phones. So I texted Emily - no response. Then I called her - and got ignored. So of course we traipsed on over to the library (hoping that was where her study group was) to demand her key. Luckily, we actually did find her, with the rest of her Genetics group.

After we'd explained the situation, she gave us our key, but not before one of her groupmates lectured us. I don't know her name, so we'll just call her Miss Holier-Than-Thou.

Holier-Than-Thou: How old are you guys?
Anne: Twenty.
Me: Nineteen.
Holier-Than-Thou: Oh, right. I'm twenty-one.

(Like that's a big difference from nineteen/twenty?)

Holier-Than-Thou: Here's a little life lesson: don't ever forget your keys, because the one time you DO forget them, you KNOW you'll get locked out.

Here's a little secret: I don't take well to being lectured by people I don't know. Especially people that think they're smarter than me - because I'm pretty damn smart, if I do say so myself. Add that to the fact that I was already irritated from having to march down to the library (irritated at myself, not Emily) and you have a SUPREMELY PISSED OFF JOELLE.

Here's how the trip back to the dorm went:

Me: 'Oh, here's a little life lesson, because I'm a year older and obviously SO MUCH MORE WORLDY, bring your keys! Because you're clearly an incompetent underclassman, blah blah friggin blah!'
Anne: Heh.
Me: WHO DOES SHE THINK SHE IS? SHE DOESN'T EVEN FRIGGIN KNOW ME! -roundhouse kicks air-
Anne: -stares-
Me: That was her head, rolling across the ground. ...Really. She'd be dead.

Hey, Miss Holier-Than-Thou. Here's a life lesson. TWENTY-ONE DOESN'T MAKE YOU WISE AND WORLDLY. And I guarantee you my IQ's higher.

Bitch.

Foot Fetish?

I have really, really gross feet.

Really. You have no idea. All the perfumes of Arabia could not sweeten these little feet. It's like they're a breeding ground for calluses (calli?) and blisters and fungus and just general GROSSNESS.

Maybe it's because I'm a soccer player. Maybe it's because I wear flip-flops and high heels and shoes that are bad for my feet. Maybe it's because I wear shower shoes and can't easily wash them. I don't know. They're gross. There's no escaping it.

Over the summer my mom dragged me to a spa and we got pedicures, and we had to apologize to the poor woman who had to practically hacksaw the nasty calluses off my feet. She made them all nice and pretty and within a week they were gross again. It's my curse. I just have gross feet. I will never, ever be able to marry anyone with a foot fetish because they'll HATE me. I'll have to run away and join a convent because no one will ever love me again (which is bad, because I'm not Catholic - not to mention I wouldn't look good in a habit) and I'll take a vow of silence and refuse to talk to anyone ever again because my feet are THAT GROSS.

This morning I got back from my ungodly-early chemistry lab and took off my shoes and woke up my poor roommate because I was 'ewwwing' over the nasty blisters forming on my heels. Then I popped one just for fun and discovered that there was ANOTHER blister under it - right where my flip-flops rub.

I almost took a picture to post it for proof, but I'll spare you your eyes. (And gag reflexes.)

Guess who's NOT wearing flip-flops today? :)

So Which Is It?

Remember when people used to say that humans only use 10% of their brains? (LIE, by the way.) Even if I didn't already know it was false, I wouldn't be able to believe it because of all the random stuff going on in my head.

Map of my brain:



(I may need to reevaluate my priorities... but that's not the point of this post.)

Each of these segments comes with its own distinct voice and personality. For example, I imagine the Useless Knowledge segment as Alex Trebek, complete with the old nineties mustache. Music inexplicably speaks in the voice of my high school choir director (with occasional input from my Auntie Jon) while Responsibility hasn't progressed past infant stage and therefore can't talk, just wails in the corner while the other pieces of my brain ignore it. Sports is a meaner version of myself complete with shinguards and dirt-smeared elbows (from falling all the time) whereas Useful Crap is me in a lab coat. The compiled References personality has bad posture and is cross-eyed from staring at a screen all the time.

All in all, my imaginary brain looks something like this:



There's this site called StumbleUpon that has to be the greatest website EVER for us ADOS (that's Attention Deficit Ooo Shiny) kids, and the other day it led me to a piece of interesting trivia: in South Africa, there was a Sesame Street puppet named Kami who was HIV positive and an orphan, to help kids deal with a circumstance that's not all that uncommon in South Africa.

My brain was in at least fifty different places:

Music: 'Sunny days, sweepin' the clouds away...' Hey, I bet I could transcribe that... Let's see, what are those chords?
Entertainment References: Hey, Final Fantasy XII had a whole bunch of orphans in it! Also, 'Invictus' took place in South Africa.
Sports: So did the FIFA World Cup this year! ...Curse you, Spain, you PIECE OF CRAP! GERMANY SHOULD HAVE WON!
Useless Knowledge: 'Kami' is the Japanese word for God!
Entertainment References: I'm sure I've seen that in an anime somewhere!
Useful Stuff: HIV leads to AIDS, which attacks your immune system!
Music: Hey, that reminds me of RENT!
Responsibility: ...Don't I have homework to be doing?
Everyone Else: NO. GO AWAY.

Conclusion: I'm either a freaking genius or a multiple personality disorder patient. You decide.

Pigeons

My friends and I have weird class schedules here on campus, but they usually coincide for lunch. And with a few exceptions, lunch for us lasts about an hour while we sit around in Upper Powell and goof off. No, we don't need an hour to eat. It's just not worth the climb up four flights of stairs to get back to the dorm room, only to have to turn around and head to calculus or chem lab or humanities or whatever we happen to have that day.

Anyway, in the extra forty or so minutes that we DON'T need, the topics of conversation can get pretty random. And truth be told, I don't remember exactly how the topic came up (probably David and his random subject changes) but somehow we got to talking about messenger pigeons.

David described them as 'ye olde-time text-messaging services,' which resulted in us contemplating the kinds of 'texts' people might have sent in medieval times.

Imagine, for a moment, that you are a noble with enough money to afford your own messenger pigeons, which are finicky and kind of gross (as well as scary, if you ask my brother). Not only are they a pain to take care of, but they also take a few days to get to where they're going, no doubt. You send a message to your parents, living far away for whatever unknown reason, telling them that you're going to marry the man/woman/(animal?) of your dreams:

You: Forsooth, Mother and Father, I beg your blessing for my upcoming nuptials.

You wait with bated breath for the week or so it takes for your pigeon to reach them (hoping that it actually DOES and doesn't get lost in cyberspace - er, the wilderness). When finally your parents' long-awaited reply arrives, you behold this message:

Father: LOL.

Wouldn't it just piss you off? :)

The Downtown Adventures

After a far-too-short fall break, I'm back on campus again.

The drive back is around four hours, and since I don't have a car, some kind person has to take eight hours out of their day to chauffeur me to school, which is a pretty involved little trip. So generally I find some sort of alternative method of transportation. Since I've been expressly forbidden by multiple parties to ever try hitchhiking, I have instead discovered the MegaBus. It's amazing. For fifteen bucks I can snag a ride to Cincinnati, where I have college friends who will let me tag along. This means that all my dear parents have to do is take an hour or so and drive me downtown to the departure point.

I've done it a couple times now, but this time Mom and I forgot to print out the nice MapQuest directions, so we had to play it by ear, and ended up in a not-very-pretty area of downtown before figuring out where we actually should have been. And on the way out of our little detour, we ran across this completely EPIC intersection that consisted of maybe four different streets coming together and slanting off in random directions, usually one-way.. This of course meant that the stoplight was obnoxiously long, and pedestrians have field days at that sort of intersection.

This one group of kids walked by in tight black pants and t-shirts and multicolored Converses, (mind you, it was about eighty degrees at the time) and Mom was all O_O and I was like, "Look, emos! In their natural habitats!"

Which we both thought was insanely funny.

Then we parked in an area that was CLEARLY marked 'POLICE VEHICLES ONLY), except no one seemed to care, so we were good.



And all this was DURING rush hour, mind you. Yay random adventures.

I'm Pretty Much A Genius.

No, really, I am, because I just figured out how to post pictures! (I know, I know. You're in shock.)

Anyway, I've gone back to a bunch of old posts and stuck in pictures because they make sense and I'm bored. There's really not a point to this post. You just wasted sixty seconds of your life. Muahahahaha. I win.

The Moral Is, Drink Your Milk Like A Good Kid.

For reasons unknown, I have this gift for injuring myself. Namely breaking bones. Maybe it's because I don't get enough calcium, maybe I just have genetically low bone density - or maybe I'm just really great at failing at life at exactly the wrong moments.

Anyway, our intramural soccer team had a game this week, and neither of our two goalies showed up, so guess who had to play goal? Yup - me. Not a huge deal, because I used to play goalie all the time, I just generally prefer playing the field - it's just more exciting. The halves in our league are only twenty minutes long, which is obscenely short, but since only five of our teammates showed up to play it felt like an hour. After it became apparent that we weren't going to be winning (or even coming close), Patrick (our team captain) decided that we would be using goalie as the 'break' position.

Doesn't matter, because even in the grand total of twenty minutes that I played, I managed to injure myself. (I know my family won't be surprised by this. At all.) I'm not in great shape (read as: ridiculously slow) so I have to play a preemptive style of goalie - RUN AT WHOEVER IS COMING AT ME WITH FULL FORCE before they can kick it. Sometimes I get to the ball, sometimes I don't, but about eighty percent of the time it ends in both of us hitting the ground none-too-gracefully. But having not played goalie in a long time, I forgot that these full-body tackles usually work better if you don't flail your limbs in random directions.

Yeah. That happened.

I stopped him scoring, ended up hitting this guy (built like a freight train, might I add) full force with my left arm stretched out retardedly, forcing my last two fingers back further than I'm sure they were ever supposed to go and also bending my elbow wrong, but I don't think the elbow's seriously injured. However, the black-and blue state of my hand (and my vast experience with broken bones and pain) suggests that it is broken in at least one place (pinky knuckle) and perhaps one or two more.

Cue face-palm.

I'm used to having broken fingers, so it hasn't been bothering me too much, except for I keep forgetting it's broken and doing dumb things like trying to open doors with it or using it as a brace to push myself out of bed. Or typing (which hurts, so I'm trying to compensate with other fingers). Or, for example, accidentally dropping my phone down behind Emily's bed and making a dive for it - left-handed - and smashing it against the wall.

Sometimes I hate my life.

UPDATE: I went to have my hand x-rayed yesterday, and ended up with this guy:

Stalker Alert!

No, I'm not being stalked. I am, in fact, the stalker in question.

Confession time: I have this weakness for pretty-boys. And when I'm bored in class, my attention tends to wander - and what better to occupy my time than stalking - I mean, OBSERVING - people around me?

Take today, for example, in chemistry, when we were reviewing basic math and unit-conversions. (P.S: I'm a chemistry whiz-kid, and knew all of this three years ago.) Being in the back row provides an excellent position for stalking, and who should be sitting in front of me, right in my line of sight to the board, but a pretty blonde boy with gorgeous blue eyes?

Muahahaha.

Bored as I was (and having recently watched Sherlock Holmes online) I decided to infer as much as possible from what I could tell about Blondie. I won't go into the details now, but I certainly reported them to Emily :D and we decided he was a freshman (from the brand-new backpack and copious, overly-neat notes), not too concerned about appearance (from the wrinkled T-shirt and worn-out shoes, not to mention three or four days of stubble), a nail-biter, and possibly a math whiz (he never touched his calculator but managed to get all the right answers before the prof.)

This is where the fun part commenced: once class let out, I stalked him to his next class (math or a foreign language, since he disappeared into the Wallace building) and deduced that he was from central Kentucky (by the accent) and probably an engineering or mechanics major (from his phone conversation with his friend? girlfriend? mother?)

I'm not a creeper... really, I'm not...

Okay, maybe a little.

Fear Uz, For We Is Ninjaz.

I know this may astound some of my devoted fans, but I am not the most graceful person in the world.

Despite this, I happen to LOVE wearing super-tall heels, and am actually decent at walking in them (well, better than Emily, in any case.)

Anyway, Anne and Emily already have a reputation for their mad ninja skillz. And when I say that, I mean lack of anything even CLOSE to ninja skillz. Last year they tried to sneak up on David when he left his door open - except he heard them coming all the way down the hallway. Something like this: "thump-thump-thump-OUCH!-giggle-giggle-shhhhhh!"

I consider myself a little more ninja than they are (mostly because I wasn't there that time) but when I'm routinely falling down stairs because of my shoes, I feel like I can't talk. :( But it's not like I could just NOT wear heels! That would be a total waste! They'd feel all neglected, and besides, how ELSE am I supposed to be taller than Anne? (And my rapidly-approaching-six-feet-tall brother, for that matter.)

Oops.

Guess who hasn't posted anything new all summer? (Good guess!)

Sorry! But I'm back in the dorm, and therefore the Dorm Room Rant is being revived. Classes start tomorrow D: but it's great to see everyone again, and my new roommate is super cool, and life is good.

Well, except for the fact that we live on the fourth floor of a building with no elevator.

I know what you're thinking. "Why would you go and do that, Joelle?" To be fair, it wasn't entirely my fault. Last semester when Emi and Anne and I were signing up for new rooms, they were like, "Hey, let's move in to Burnam (which is the all-girls dorm) so we can have sinks in our rooms!" And I thought it could be a cool idea, so we went ahead and did it.

But then about a week later, I started having second thoughts, and we decided to come back to Sullivan after all, except there were only a few available girls' rooms: two in the basement and a whole bunch on the fourth floor.

Now we would have been totally okay with living in the basement, except Aliena and I aren't roomies anymore, and we all wanted to live on the same floor, so we needed three rooms in the same hall and therefore had to move onto the fourth floor. Which was okay - until move-in day.

(Sorry, everyone who I press-ganged into moving my crap.)

Anyway, I'm gonna have some killer legs by the end of the year. Hopefully.

So Drill A Hole And Let It Out.

Okay, before you say anything (that is, if you're like me and talk to the computer... okay, you probably don't) I am aware that I haven't posted in over a month. Don't hate.

Anyway, as much as I thought summer vacation was supposed to be laid-back and carefree, it's been anything but - between summer theater and babysitting and trying to find time for all the friends here in the Burg that I've been neglecting, it's hard to remember when to eat, let alone sleep.

Not even kidding. I babysat for 50 hours last week. Which is actually a great deal, since it's not something I have to pay taxes on and therefore I'm making a lot of money. And the two girls I'm sitting for are actually old enough that they really don't need supervision, not that I'm complaining. Most of the gig is just me carting them around to their various softball games, tennis camps, or vacation bible schools. (Good thing I'm getting paid for gas, too.)

Anyway, the older girl has a tennis camp in Indy, and it's about a twenty minute drive with good traffic (which, if you know Indianapolis, does not exist.) So generally it takes between thirty and forty-five minutes to get there. On the way up, I turn on Air1, the Christian alternative radio station. It's nice because they play cool groups like Skillet and Thousand Foot Krutch, but I don't have to worry about the girls hearing something they shouldn't and me getting in trouble with their mom. But the trouble with Air1 is that they play the same songs OVER AND OVER.

So naturally on the way back I crank up X103 (rock and metal) or occasionally RadioNOW (although they play WAY too many commercials.) Anyway, on RadioNOW they've been playing this song called 'The Only Exception' by Paramore. And the first time I heard it I didn't pay much attention to the lyrics because I was driving behind some jerkface who was driving like twenty miles an hour - and I'm a very vocal driver. I get it from my daddy. :D

But the second or third time it came up I was like, 'wait, I've heard this before...' and started actually listening - and it's a really sweet song. It's about how Haley Williams (the singer) watched her parents' hearts break and never had much luck herself in love - so she promised she'd never write a love song, because real love doesn't exist.

But that's where the title of the song comes in - 'But darling, you are the only exception, you are the only exception...' etc.

Anyway, it's been stuck in my head for the past, like, week. Of course, if I say, 'I have this song stuck in my head,' my dad will promptly reply with 'So drill a hole and let it out.' (Hence the title of this post.) If I had a hole in my head for every song I've ever been addicted to, I wouldn't have a skull left. Which kind of made me think of those Cro-Magnon skulls the archaeologists found with the holes in them - holes that were apparently drilled while the people were still alive, and it didn't kill them.

Conclusion - my daddy is a Cro-Magnon witch doctor.

Muahahaha.

Let's See What Happens

Sadly, I don't have an amusing story to tell in this post. Actually, I'm just bored. Because Anne and Emily are off taking some final, and I'm just chillin in their dorm room, listening to the RENT soundtrack and playing Horseland.

Oh! Let's talk about that. Horseland. For those of you that don't know, it's this online multiplayer-game in which you can raise your own horses, show them, breed them, et cetera. The only thing is, it's really... shall we say... juvenile. As in, geared toward the preteen-adolescent audience. Emily and Anne say they played it in middle school. (I'd never heard of it.)

Well, Anne picked it up last week just for the sake of something to do, and got TOTALLY OBSESSED. And then Emily was like, "Dude, no way!" And then SHE started playing it.

The whole time, I was thinking, "Oh. My. God. Children."

But I made the mistake of making an account today just for kicks and giggles, and I totally understand the addiction. I mean, the horse thing I could care less about. But there are these minigames that you can play to make money, and one is this apple-sorting game where you click on groups of three apples at a time to make them disappear. And it is SO ADDICTIVE.

But as I started playing it, I asked myself: Why am I sorting apples by color, when the basket they go in mixes them up anyway? Why are some of the apples pink? Why is that creepy pony on the side of the screen staring at me? Why are rotten apples contagious? How does a golden apple make all the rest of them disappear? I want a golden apple! And further more, who sorts apples on a conveyor belt ANYWAY?

It just bugs me.

Heh. I found something to talk about after all.

It's Called DEAD Week, People.

At last, the end is near. Starting next week, no classes - just finals. And since this week is the last full week of the semester, and the last before finals, it is affectionately called 'Dead Week.'

Why is this, you ask? Simple. During 'Dead Week', professors aren't supposed to assign you any work so you can focus on your finals. All the studying is supposed to 'kill' you, hence 'Dead Week.' It's also supposed to be really boring, since no one REALLY studies until the weekend anyway.

Well, apparently no one thought to inform the Honors program professors about the wonders of Dead Week, because they all decided to pile on more crap than ever before. Civilization? Panel presentations on sixteenth century England and a primary source analysis paper on 'historical change'. Humanities? Yet another panel presentation linking philosophy, history, and literature. And since all of these are worth a SIGNIFICANT portion of our grades, it can definitely be said that I am DEAD this week - but not from studying. Oh, no. Dead from exhaustion, due to projects.

Curse you, Dead Week. Curse you.

It Smelled Like Paradise. :D

Today was a good day. (And by today, I guess I technically mean yesterday, because it's now after midnight. Whatevs.)

Now, if you'd asked me around five o'clock if I thought it would turn out to be a good day, I would have said HELL NO. Emi and I went to Cleveland this weekend to visit a friend of hers, which was all well and good except for the five hour drive, so we woke up at nine (approximately an hour earlier than the time I actually become coherent) and hopped in the car for the rest of the day. And even though the company was great, spending that much time in a car is not fun.

I also had a Civilization paper due tomorrow. Well, today I guess. (Don't give me that look, I already finished it. No, I'm not procrastinating by writing this.) Ewwwww.

Anyway, Emily and I had a lot of crap to move out of her car and into the dorm, so we parked illegally while we unloaded, and then went back out to move her car so she didn't get a ticket. :) Oh, and Anne came out with us. As we walked out to the curb, one of the landscapers working on the front lawn asked us if we were leaving and going to be back anytime soon.

It turns out there's some really important person coming to campus Tuesday (don't ask me who, no one tells me anything) and they were on a deadline and didn't have time to go grab Gatorade, and could we maybe run and get some for him and his workers? He paid us five dollars (woo...?) and we had nothing better to do, so he wrote down what they wanted and handed me some money.

Correction. He handed me a one-hundred-dollar bill.

It took every ounce of self-control I had not to pee myself. See, I'm a broke college kid... and I've never held a one-hundred-dollar bill. Benjamin Franklin's face had never looked so beautiful. No, it wasn't really my money, and yes, we had to give him the change back. But for the twenty minutes it took for us to get to Walmart and grab some Gatorade, that $100 was in MY wallet. :D

Emily and Anne were making fun of me because I took a picture with it. But hey, these opportunities don't come around often. And besides, I happen to LIKE money.

-dies-

It's so. Friggin. Hot.

-dies-

Don't get me wrong, I love the sun. It makes me happy. I wish we could just skip over winter entirely, because the rest of the year is fun. Now, the seasonal allergies thing, not so much, but I'm willing to overlook that in favor of actually being able to go outside without so much insulation you feel like the love child of Frosty the Snowman and the Pillsbury Doughboy.

Here's the thing, though: somewhere between winter and summer, there's this lovely little season called spring. Did you hear that, schizophrenic Kentucky weather? SPRING.

Seriously. Two weeks ago we were all freezing our tails off here on campus. (See? I have no tail.) And now all of a sudden it's eighty-five degrees. Which would be awesome and all, if my dorm would turn the air conditioning on. Since they've apparently decided that air conditioning isn't necessary, it's STIFLING in here. All the windows are open, but still. And going outside in favor of being able to breathe means that you scorch off your entire epidermis. Sigh.

So, in protest, I have written this Declaration of Indignation. (For those of you who didn't already see it on my Facebook status, that is. I'm looking at you, Mom and Dad. :D)

We, the people of Sullivan Hall, in order to form a more perfect dormitory, establish respiration, ensure a decent temperature, provide for the common inhabitability, promote the general cleanliness, and secure the blessings of comfortability to ourselves and our roommates, do ordain and establish this plea for you to TURN THE FRIGGIN AIR CONDITIONING ON.

It's a work in progress, but hey, whatever.

Lament of the American Gamer

Fact number one of RPGs (that's Role-Playing Games to you outsiders): Japan makes them better.

I mean, really. Let's think about some of the top-selling video game franchises of all time. Mario? Originated in Japan. (As did everything else Nintendo, including Pokemon and the Legend of Zelda.) Final Fantasy, to name my personal favorite, has been around since 1987 (that's ANCIENT in video game terms, my friends), created 13 mainstream games, at least 10 spin-offs including two full-length 100% computer-animated MOVIES, and sold over 96 MILLION games to date.

Of course, with all these games originating in Japan, it takes a good six months to a year for the game to come out in America after it's already surfaced in Japan. This leads to spoilers, leaked cutscenes, crappy fan-dubs and know-it-alls who post EVERYTHING on the Internet. Basically, once it comes out in Japan, it's fair game for anybody with a pocket translator.

Now, for purist die-hards like myself, the Internet becomes ANATHEMA during this period of overlap. The particular example that's bugging me currently? Oh, just guess. Yes, it's Kingdom Hearts.

Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep is the fifth installment in the Kingdom Hearts series, or sixth if you count the remake of Chain of Memories (which I generally don't.) It released in Japan on January 9th, and isn't scheduled to come out in America until... um... 'summer 2010,' it says. (Which, knowing them, means something like October. Really.) And I legitimately DON'T WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS. Not until I play it myself. I ruined the Kingdom Hearts II experience for myself by looking up spoilers.

This would be all hunky-dory, except Anne, who has no such restraint, has been looking up the entire story on Wikipedia, watching all of the cutscenes on YouTube, and now knows the entire story. The worst part? She was sitting there watching the scenes WHILE I WAS IN THE ROOM. Granted, I don't understand any of it, since I can only listen, but I can still see her facial expressions, and she was TOTALLY FREAKING OUT today. I can't ask, because I for serious don't want to know... but then again, I do...

This is so hard! Curse you, Japan-based video game corporations!

Vespula Flavopilosa

(That's the official Latin name for yellow jackets. AKA the spawn of Satan.)


I. HATE. BEES. In fact, I'm pretty much INSANELY APIPHOBIC. (Any of my family members or close friends can vouch for this.) Flies? Beetles? Ladybugs? Don't bother me. Spiders? I actually considered getting a pet tarantula for a while, until Mom's reaction was 'NO WAY IN HELL.' But bees? Forget it. I freak out. Sometimes I even go into full-on panic mode. When I was a kid, I distinctly remember running around my backyard in zig-zag patterns because I was CONVINCED a carpenter bee was following me.

Let's clarify this a little. I'm not allergic to bees. I've been stung a couple times, and it doesn't really hurt beyond being annoying. That said, there should be NO GOOD REASON why I'm pee-your-pants terrified of the little guys. Not that that matters with the whole phobia thing.

The reason I'm telling you this? At approximately 9:45 this morning, about fifteen minutes after I woke up, I heard a buzzing noise and turned around to see a BIG UGLY WASP flying around my room.

Cue panic attack.

I flipped out entirely, ran to the opposite end of the room, waited for it to fly to my side of the room, and then made a mad dash for the door, fully intending to run into Anne and Emily's room screaming 'MAKE IT GO AWAY!'

Problem: they weren't there, and the door was locked.

I figured my options were these: 1) run back in, open the window, and PRAY TO GOD that it flies away; 2) run screaming into David and Zack's room instead, 3) chase it around madly with a flyswatter and hope it doesn't sting me or 4) hide out in the bathroom and wait for Emily, Anne, or Aliena to come rescue me.

Options 1 and 3 were immediately discarded, because I couldn't force myself to go back in there. (Yes, I am a big chicken. SHUT UP.) Option 2 was... well, shaky at best, seeing as which I was still in my PJs, and not exactly dressed for seeking out the help of XY-chromosomes.

So I texted Emily and Caitie (Caitie understood completely, being a total arachnophobe, whereas Emily and Anne proceeded to laugh and tell the whole story to their Civilization class) and ran into the bathroom, where I proceeded to hide until an hour later when Anne and Aliena finally came back.

And that's not even the best part. I made them go into the room first. They discovered the wasp in question perched innocently on the blinds, and proceeded to inform me that...

Oh yeah. It wasn't even a wasp.

It WAS, in fact, a black-and-yellow beetle of some sort, that was roughly the same shape as a wasp, and could POSSIBLY be mistaken for a wasp if someone with an irrational paranoia of the damn things saw it flying around.

It's funny in hindsight, but at the time I was, needless to say, exceedingly embarrassed.

Why Humanities SUCKS

As I write this, I am sitting in the most useless class in the universe. No, really. HON 205 - Humanities I.

And because this blog is titled 'The Dorm Room RANT,' I'm going to take this opportunity to do what I do best - gripe.

WHAT THE CRAP? Why do I care about letters that some jerk-face philosopher wrote to his nun-girlfriend? (Yes, you read that absolutely correctly. It's called 'The Letters of Abelard and Heloise'.) Moreover, why is my professor's opinion the only one that matters? It's the Honors program, people, I can think for myself!

While I'm on the topic of useless crap, let's talk philosophy. I mean, every Honors kid had to read Plato's 'Republic' last semester for Rhetoric. EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. So why would they make us read it again for this class? (Keep in mind that I have the crappy set of professors for this class, who will remain nameless.) Other Humanities classes got to read something new. They got to read Aristotle (okay, not much better, but at least it's not quite as boring as reading something YOU'VE ALREADY READ.)

-pants-

Okay. I'm done. For reals.

But one more thing. Whose idea was it to schedule the most boring class in history on Tuesdays and Thursdays? M/W/F classes are 50 minutes long, but T/T classes are AN HOUR AND FIFTEEN MINUTES. Talk about excruciating.

I think I might die. Only thirteen minutes left in today's class, anyway. Maybe I'll make it.

Mochaholic

Today is Wednesday, which means I had Health class this morning. And since Health is a boring, unnecessary subject that any idiot with common sense can pass without trouble, it takes a lot of effort for me to pay attention through class.

Effort -> read as 'coffee'.

Every Monday and Wednesday before Health, I go to Starbucks and order my usual: a Grande Peppermint White Mocha and a blueberry muffin. EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. I mean, routine is a good thing, right? And peppermint white mocha is pretty much the only flavor of Starbucks goodness that I like. So naturally, I headed in there this morning and waited patiently in line for my daily fix.

Except as I walked in, I heard the cashier announcing, 'We're out of Grande cups, peppermint syrup, and white mocha.'

Me: ...But... but... -head explodes-

But I steeled myself, took the next best thing, and grabbed a Venti Hot Chocolate, which, may I point out, doesn't have NEARLY as much caffeine and isn't NEARLY as tasty. Needless to say, as I walked out of Starbucks, I was... annoyed. (Read as 'VERY, VERY AGITATED'.)

So of course I did the only thing I ever do in these situations that threaten to detonate the H-bomb in my skull: whined to Caitie. (And David, but he just laughed at me, because he's a JERK.)

(note: this is an exact transcript of our conversation.)

Me: D: they were out of my white mocha coffee! -has seizure-

Caitie: Calm down. Breathe. Now, grab your knife, and demand to know who bought the last one. Once you know, go mug them. If you hurry, you still have a chance.

Me: D: I don't have time to mug someone, I have an exam in ten minutes!

Caitie: Holy cats! (yes, she really said that.) Try the cinnamon dulce latte! Try the earl grey tea! Something!

Eventually we decided that after my test, I needed to go pillage and burn the Starbucks to the ground, and pour my untold wrath upon the unsuspecting employees. EKU students, I hope you're not too attached to that store. It might take them a few months to rebuild.

WHAT?

So just now (i.e. 1 in the morning) Emily, Aliena and I were sitting in Em's room watching Australia (great movie) and Em and Aliena were eating grapes. Aliena mentioned going grocery shopping with her dad, and they'd taste a few grapes before buying the bag, you know? And then she was talking about how they'd get those fresh-made donuts and eat them while shopping, and just keep the empty bag for checkout. Which isn't stealing, we agreed, because you're paying for them anyway, duh.

So I brought up this story about how my brother and I used to go to Marsh after school on half-days or the last day before a break and get breadsticks, which is awesome because Marsh breadsticks are only 39 cents each, and they're HUGE. You buy them at the little bakery, eat them right there, and then you can go scan the sticker at the checkout aisle.

When I finished the story I realized they were both staring at me with very confused looks, and I was like 'what?' In perfect unison, they went, 'Marsh?'

They've never heard of it. This is insane. How can someone not know about Marsh? I mean, it's just like Kroger or Walmart. It's not even just a local thing, there are Marshes everywhere! Really!

Conclusion: These southern bumpkins are deprived.

No Day But Today?

Today has been a very, very strange day.

This morning I woke up early (craziness, I know) to go down to the card office and get my meal plan fixed. Then I had some time to kill before class, so I went to Starbucks and got coffee. (Strange, because if you know me at all, you know that I don't like coffee. But this stuff was GOOD.) Then my health teacher let us out after five minutes of class because she couldn't get the projector to work. -giggles-

Now, all these things seem pretty good, and normal, until this next part.

At lunch, I was randomly hit in the face with a melon rind.

It wasn't even like I saw it coming, or that somebody had a very good reason to hit me with a melon rind. See, if I had been like, "The day THAT happens is the day I get hit in the face with a melon rind (because I would TOTALLY say that... um...)", then I could understand. But no. I was minding my own business, talking to Dave across the table, when WHACK, a melon rind hits me in the face. Turns out Emily was trying to hit Anne, and forgot my HEAD was in the way.

Then later, Emily, Aliena and I (not Anne, who is home for Valentine's Day weekend... apparently people like to hang out with their significant others around this time of year, not that I would know) were going to Emily's car for a Walmart/Blockbuster trip, and something hit me in the head. At first I was like, 'is it raining?' and then I realized that we had just walked under a tree full of birds.

Yeah. A bird pooped on my head. I am not even lying. I thought it only happened in movies, but apparently not.

I feel so violated. I was like, 'AAAAAHHHH!' and proceeded to have a freak-out right there in the parking lot. Needless to say, SHAMPOO. LOTS OF IT.

Theoretically, this day can't get any stranger. I say this, of course, fully expecting to be abducted by aliens or something equally random. Who knows? There are still three hours left in the day...

Cake = LIE.

Today, I must mourn the passing of a dear and cherished friend.

His name was Yum-yum, and he was the most wonderful, delicious friend any cake-lover could ever have. (No offense, Daddy, you make great cakes, but this was AMAZING.) Yes, it's clear dear Yum-yum was a divine gift, sent from God to make my day brighter.

He was a yellow cake, with white frosting and sprinkles - the multi-colored kind, mind you. And he was the moist-est (is that a word?), yummiest cake ever. But alas, as my friends and I made the trek back to Sullivan, I was forced to end dear Yum-yum's life, because what cake could ever exist without being eaten? Let it be known, however, that his death was short and painless - I finished eating him in only six bites, then sang 'Taps' as I committed his plastic cup to the trash can. -sniffle-

In memory of his life, I have composed this - the 'Ode to Cake.' (Sung, of course, to the tune of Beethoven's 9th.)

'Yum-yum, Yum-yum, I adore thee,

Cake of sugar, cake of love,

Cookies are but naught before thee,

Bowing to your might above.

Melt the healthy foods of sadness,

Drive the grains and fruit away,

Giver of delicious gladness,

Please come back another day!'

-cries- Oh, Yum-yum. I'll miss you.

Saved by the Bass?

I play piano for the praise band/choir at the Catholic Newman Center here on campus. No, I'm not Catholic. But the Wesley Foundation - no offense, they're pretty cool - just wasn't doing it for me. And, being a musically-inclined sort of person, I was going a little stir crazy not having an outlet for my awesome piano skillz.

I've been playing with them for almost the whole school year, so around three or four months. And it's kind of awkward, not gonna lie, being the only Methodist in a building full of Catholics at Mass. I mean, no one taught me the little creed thingy they chant before communion (which they call the Eucharist, which is cool, but I was confused at first) and there's a whole lot of standing/sitting/kneeling that I haven't quite gotten the swing of yet.

Anyway, yesterday was the first Sunday I'd been back to Mass since before Christmas break, and I immediately had a miniature freak-out because there was a new person who looked mysteriously like my friend Scott, only with black hair. AND he plays bass. I'm not even kidding. Craziness.

So after my initial freak-out, I noticed that Russ (that's his name) was asking a lot of questions about the service, and I was like, "Are you not Catholic?" and he said (sarcastically) "No. Crazy, right? I'm Methodist." And I went, "No way! I'M Methodist!" We gave each other a big high-five, and decided that we were gonna be best friends.

Amy (the band leader) joked, "Uh-oh, they're revolting!" WOOT! Methodists, represent!

Dirty Little Secrets

I'm feeling pensive, so this won't be a funny post. :)

For the Honors Program here we have to go to a certain number of 'Chautauqua' lectures. (Don't ask what that means, I honestly have no idea.) Basically they're to 'broaden our horizons' and all that good stuff. Strictly speaking, they're pretty boring, but there was one scheduled for tonight, and Emily had actually heard of the guy and thought it would be pretty good.

The man's name is Frank Warren, and five years ago he started a blog called PostSecret, where people anonymously send him postcards with a secret on them. Sometimes it's a silly secret, like 'I tell people I'm allergic to peanut butter, but really I'm not,' and sometimes it's a heavy one, dealing with suicide or loss or crime.

If you haven't seen or heard of this blog, I definitely recommend it. It's actually pretty moving. The concept is that there are some secrets you just can't tell anyone, but being able to write it down and tell a complete stranger gets it off your chest, you know? And that definitely makes it easier. But I think it's braver to actually tell someone you know.

And I got to thinking about the secrets my friends have entrusted me with. I'm blessed with a lot of friends, some of them that I've known my whole life, some that have grown apart from me over the years, and some that I've only known a year or so but that doesn't make them any less awesome. But with having a lot of friends comes a lot of drama. And sometimes I complain about all the drama that goes on, but the truth is, I'm honored that you guys trust me enough to confide in me. I guess before now I never realized just how hard that can be.

Not only that, but I'm also blessed to have friends that I can confide in. So if you're reading this, thank you. For trusting me, and letting me trust you. I love you guys.

Chica?

Last week I auditioned for the campus spring musical, Beauty and the Beast. I'd done the musical last year at my high school and played the Wardrobe - you know, the opera diva with the Julia Childs voice that hangs out in Belle's room because she can't fit through the door? It was a lot of fun, but this time I auditioned for Mrs. Potts, and MADE IT!

So of course I was running up and down halls screaming like a maniac. Duh.

In celebration, the girls and I (a.k.a. Emily, Anne, Aliena and I) went out laser tagging. (Actually, we'd already planned to go like a week in advance, but we'll call it a celebration.) It was my first time, so Em and Anne had to explain how to play, where to shoot on someone to actually 'kill' them, et cetera. The place we went to was all Egyptian/desert themed, and each laser pack they had to pick from had a call name attached, and so of course I managed to find one marked 'Tigress' - in honor of my Taitie - and was feeling pretty confident about the whole thing.

Pretty confident, that is, until three minutes in to our twenty-minute battle, when I realized that a little girl, maybe ten, was following me around shooting me in the back every time my laser pack repowered.

Let's do the math here. If you get shot, your pack powers down for four seconds, and you can't shoot or BE shot in those four seconds. So if you DO get shot, that's your cue to book it away from whoever it is that shot you so it doesn't happen again. Which I did. But apparently this girl just had it out for me.

So after five or six times, I've had enough. Now, I pride myself on being good with kids. I used to play piano for my mom's children's choir, and they LOVED me. Once I had someone drive through the Donato's window where I was working and inform me that their four-year-old in the backseat thought I was pretty. I attract kids. I like kids. Mostly.

So I turn around, and in as nice a tone as I can manage - albeit loudly, since the music was pounding as loud as they could crank it - I said, "Chica, nothing personal, but you've gotta stop following me and shoot someone else, okay?"

She got that look that ten-year-olds get when there's no way in HELL they're going to do what you say. You know, the 'you're-not-the-boss-of-me' look. And then she screams, "I'm not a chica!"

(For those that DON'T know, 'chica' is just a Spanish word for 'girl'. I mean, really, there are worse things I could have called her. Come on.)

So for the rest of the session, she proceeds to follow me around and grabs one of her little friends, too, and even when I do manage to escape - I mean, my legs are friggin THREE TIMES AS LONG as hers - they inevitably find me.

Sigh.

We get scorecards at the end, and it will tell you (by call name) how many times you shot a person and how many times they shot you. Usually it's between three and six per person. I mean, it's a big arena, and there are a lot of people in there.

Well, Chica over there managed to shoot me sixteen times over the course of the battle, and her little Amiga got me nine times.

Friggin ankle biters.

WARNING: Radioactive Waste

For a long time, my dorm room has been infested with gnats. Aliena and I figured they were coming out of the heater, since they've been here since around the time winter started.

Well, today, Anne was shooting Emily's Nerf gun in my room while Emily and I did something on the computer, and she lost one of the darts, and moved some stuff to get to it... and stumbled upon the source of the gnats. A shopping bag containing what we THINK was a loaf of bread and maybe some fruit... that had been sitting there for who-knows-how-long and was now a nest for gnats.

Like, EWWWWWWWWWW.

This happened to me once before, when my friend Liz and I were eating grapes in my room at home, and didn't feel like taking the dishes downstairs so we just overturned one bowl over another. Well, me being the neat-freak I am (lulz), of course I forgot about them. A month later, there was a self-contained colony of gnats in my room.

Of course, this was SO MUCH worse than that little incident, because the shopping bag 1) was open, 2) had been buried under stuff for probably two months, 3) had a leak in it, and 4) was soggy and drippy and GROSS.

Me being the cool, confident, fearless person I am, I proceeded to FREAK OUT, and we snagged a garbage bag, Clorox Wipes, and some Febreeze, and doused the room with enough germ-killing smelly stuff to suffocate a giraffe.

I'd like to point out that this TOTALLY wasn't my fault. It wasn't my bag, or my bread/whatever, and the hall staff SUPPOSEDLY checked all the rooms for anything living and didn't catch it. How was I supposed to know that there was radioactive waste spawning in my room? :)

Back Home Again In... Wherever I Live Now...

I looked at the calendar this morning and nearly had a heart attack. I know, eighteen is a little young to be dying from this sort of thing, but hey, anything could happen.

Get this. Today is January the fourth. As in, exactly one week from today I am expected to be back on campus, going to class and BEING PRODUCTIVE. (Why, God? Why?)

In light of this I thought I'd talk a little bit about being back home for these three and a half weeks, as short as they seem/seemed.

1) My family. This may come as a surprise to some of you, since I'm a naturally loud, outgoing, and headstrong person, but for the seventeen years I spent with my family 24/7, I spent most of my time locked up in my room, doing things that didn't necessarily involve socializing with my family (i.e. reading, listening to music, dancing around like an idiot, etc.) Now, though, since I hardly spend any time with them anymore, I usually just sit downstairs and watch TV (which may not seem much better, but hey, it's a family thing.) This is especially true with my brother. You know, we do the whole sibling 'I-don't-like-you' thing, but whenever I come home after being at school it's like, 'Dude, when did you suddenly become a cool person?'

2) Friends. Everyone I know can pretty much attest to the fact that I'm a pretty antisocial person. I don't mean this in the way that I don't have friends; actually, I'd consider myself pretty good at making friends. I just mean that I am a girl who needs her alone-time. With the exception of approximately five of my friends in the whole world, I think I might puke if I spent every day with my buds. Seriously. And as Lydia or Becky or Caitie can probably tell you, before I graduated high school I spent maybe a day a month with them outside school. (In all fairness, this is probably why I hate the idea of having a boyfriend - too much social work.) However, now that I never see any of them, I'm over at their place or they're over at mine ALL THE TIME. Which is totally awesome - I love you guys.

3) Clothing. I have to keep reminding myself that while there is no dress code at EKU, it would still be a good idea to dress slightly more nice than I usually do nowadays. For example, wearing the same smelly sweatpants four days in a row is marginally less acceptable around the Burg than it is at school. No one really cares what you look like at college, which I gotta say is refreshing. (Not that I cared about that sort of thing even before college, but whatever.)

4) Money. I'm a scholarship kid, and my parents (currently) aren't paying for any of my schooling, unless you count the little student loan they helped me get. What my scholarship didn't cover, the loan does, and I even have leftover money from the loan. Plus I got a nice little scholarship from my church, which is awesome. This is the first time in my life I have ever really had substantial money of my own to spend. But it's a double-edged sword, because I now have to pay for everything myself. PAIN. It's nice, though, coming home from college, because everyone remembers that you're a broke college kid, and starts picking up tabs, inviting you over for free meals, blah blah blah. (And in case you DIDN'T already figure this out, I have the practice of mooching down to an ART.) It was weird, saying, 'I need some new black slacks' and my mom answering, 'I'll give you some money.' I was all set to have to pay for it myself. (Not that I'm complaining.) And last weekend, Lydia and her sister and her dad and I went to see Avatar 3-D (which is an awesome movie, I've now seen it twice) and Lydia's dad paid for everything - the movie, lunch, the whole deal. (Joe, I LOVE YOU!)

In summary:

Pros of being home: Seeing family, seeing friends, getting money, not having to deal with my lame college friends. (KIDDING.)

Cons of being home: Having to actually pay attention to what I'm wearing.

I think I'll take that trade. The dorm gang will forgive me eventually. :)