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. :)