Two Purple Rains

Freeeee

2009-07-20T21:16:00.002-05:00

So I haven't blogged since May. Long time.

Things have been really exciting around here... heh.

I've been working in a pharmacology lab at my previous school of higher education. It's been pretty fun actually -- the best summer job I've ever had. A lot of that has to do with the fact I don't have to be there until 9:30, so I can sleep in past 8am sometimes. Woo!

So the most current problem in my life (besides having to pack up my apartment) has been the fact that my iPod quit working correctly about 2 weeks ago. This is a major problem for me, as my CD changer is in the trunk of my car, and I quite frequently travel distances in excess of 2 hours. I like driving, but a lot of that is based on the fact that I get to just listen to music and not worry about anything. SO, you can imagine my distress when I had to shuffle through the same 5 CDs for.... like 15 or 20 hours in the car. It got a little annoying. I like Green Day, but they really just sound whiney when you listen to them non-stop.

So I set up an appointment at the Apple Store here in Fort Worth. Since apparently you have to schedule time a DAY in advance, then wait 45 minutes for them to tell you "This is way out of warranty, and I can't see what's wrong by shining a light into the headphone jack. What's that? It doesn't work through the headphones jack or the other one (I don't know the name of it... the one that you plug into the computer or charger)? That's really strange. Try restoring it."

Yeah dude, I know its really weird, that's why I came here to ask about it before I buy a new one because I'm dependent on your products that are probably a ripoff but you know, whatever.

Also, the guy kind of looked like this chemical engineering TA that I had... long scraggly blonde hair, with some facial hair going on. Heh.

So I leave the Apple Store slightly annoyed, because I could have spent that time at home packing, or at least acting like I was packing. I get home, and decide to look up my problem online to see if there's any other solution other than spending over $200 on an iPod comparable to my current one. So I find my problem on some unofficial and official apple forums... No sound through headphones or dock. Apparently if you press on the corner of the iPod, the sound should come on if its the same common issue... So I do that, and I lo and behold I hear SOUND!

This doesn't really mean a whole lot, because at the time, the posts I read on the website were from like, 2006 or 2007. So then I keep reading, and find out that people had called Apple Support, and if they spoke to a supervisor or something, they'd call this a "manufacturing defect" and even if it was out of warranty, they'd replace it with a refurbished or new iPod.

So I call, talk to someone. And I'll be getting a new iPod. Which is really exciting, especially since I do NOT have the money to buy a new one.

So that's the most exciting thing that's happened to me in the past couple days. And now I hopefully won't have to ride in the car for 2 very long road trips without my iPod. Well, at least one of them. I guess it won't be here before this weekend...

I get to go to the beach this weekend! I'm excited about it, despite not really liking the actual BEACH. I mean, I like listening to the waves and stuff, but sand? It's just annoying. And it gets in EVERYTHING. But I'm going to see my cousins and aunts and uncles and grandma, which will be interesting, if not fun. heh.

And now I must get back to packing. Hmmm what is this "Monetize" tab here in blogger...?

One is the lonliest number...

2009-07-06T23:19:00.002-05:00

Lately I've been thinking about my impending move to the new apartment. I am quite excited to be leaving my current location, as I kind of always thought of it as temporary and so I never quite made it feel like home. I also am quite over the whole one room, sleep on a futon thing. It will be nice to have a bed to sleep on, a couch to sit on, a table to eat at, etc. As it is, I pretty much use my futon for all three of these things. I suppose it is rather versatile. Also good for housing guests...but that is beside the point.

Although there are many things to look forward to, I think the thing I most look forward to is having people around. I miss being able to come home and briefly tell someone about my day. I will like having roommates around, particularly on the weekends when you are just kinda lazy during the day and want to hang out at home. I will also be glad that I can more easily host guests. While I can do that now, I just don't think my place is a very comfortable/fun place to be. It seems now that if I want to see people, I have to go out of my way to find some activity and invite people to join me. Which is fine, but I miss the college random hang-outs that occurred. Remember when your friends could just kind of stop by, or when you spent an hour throwing a ball around your bedroom laughing hysterically? (Ok, maybe that last one was just me. And maybe I have thrown/kicked a blue ball around with friends in my current apartment as well. But you get the point.)

So the whole moving thing sounds great, right? Obviously, the PHYSICAL moving/packing/unpacking is not the best thing ever, that I don't look forward to, but the end result is key. Anyway, I guess the whole point of this post, is that it is just now hitting me. I've spent the last year (plus a month or so) living by myself. I've gotten used to doing my own thing, going out of my comfort zone a bit, and not having to answer to anyone. Now, all of a sudden, I'm going to be living with two roommates (three, if you count the cat), and I'm not sure how I'm going to handle it. I'm sure it will be fine, but for some reason it kind of makes me think of when I first moved away to college and all the worries I had. Except now it's kind of the opposite. I am not scared of being off on my own (which was an underlying fear when moving away to college), but now I am afraid of losing my freedom.

I hope this is not misinterpreted. It's not like I expect that I will be a prisoner in my house or something. It's just the freedom to do things how I want without asking if it's ok with everyone, or the freedom to leave dirty dishes in the sink, or the freedom to invite whoever I want over without having to check with people first. Not that I think my roommates will mind a ton about all these things, but it's just a small concern of mine. How will I handle losing a bit of my freedom?

Meh, I think it'll be better in the long run. My dream in life is to have a huge house that all my friends and family live in together. Maybe like that giant hotel in the Shining, except not haunted and creepy. Anyone interested?

Meat Loaf Madness

2009-06-14T18:39:00.002-05:00

You know the Meat Loaf song "I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)"?

Here's a link if you are not familiar with that 7 minutes and 23 seconds of awesomeness:
Click Here!

Anyway, today I realized that I would do anything for love...but that. And "That" for me is making a World of Warcraft character. Once you go down that path, you can never turn back.

Where did the last year go?

2009-06-03T20:04:00.002-05:00

Seriously though. What just happened?

This is my one year anniversary (give or take a day or two) of moving to Chicago. It feels like it's been awhile, but at the same time, senior year seems like only yesterday. I guess it is interesting to think of the new friends I've made, and all the new things I've experienced, and how I am kind of a part of this new city now. At the same time, however, I'm not sure if this is truly my HOME yet. It takes time, I know.

I guess a lot has happened since I've blogged last. Visits, parties, games, trips to Germany...you know, the usual. This week I feel semi-nostalgic. I miss Germany (ok, I was there a few weeks ago, but it was so pretty and green and European!). I miss GSP (that should be starting soon). I miss running around Louisville, and I miss walking around ND. I'm not sure what made me think of these things, but good times. Oh yeah, I also miss my friends. I guess. (let's see if any of them even read this anymore...)

Ok, on to real life. I am getting excited about moving out of the teeny weeny studio and into an apartment with a BED and a BEDROOM and ROOMMATES! You underestimate the roommate until you live on your own, and suddenly feel 100x more lame for staying in and being lazy. At least with roommates you can stay in and still be semi-social! Man, having my own bed will also be really sweet. You take it for granted. But I guess it makes travelling and actually staying in a bed that much more exciting! (Wow, I sounded really Pollyanna-like there.)

I am also excited about the nice weather (whenever that will happen!) because it means opportunities to go to the beach! That is the one thing I still can't believe about Chicago...the beach is pretty legit! I hear it's supposed to rain this weekend, though. Boo.

Two exciting recent activities were Maifest (like Oktoberfest, but in May!) and trivia night. The first trivia night was better than #2, mostly because we kind of sucked the 2nd time around. Oh well, there is always next week! And Maifest was cool because, well, beer, brats, and lederhosen. You get the picture.

In other news, I am now working in a very large building on a fairly high floor, and now have a desk next to a window, which is pretty nice. I find myself taking pictures more often than is normal. Oh well, I'm sure I'll get used to it eventually, but for now it's new and exciting!

That's really all I can think of to say. Sorry this entry was all over the place, but I felt like I should give some sort of overview of my life. I mean, I guess it doesn't matter, but FOR THE SAKE OF THE BLOG! THE BLOG MUST GO ON!

Uh oh

2009-05-16T16:38:00.002-05:00

So I told someone I would blog this week and she even commented about how her friends don't blog on her blog and so I just figured I'd have to since today is Saturday and is almost the end of the week!

Boo ya.

So Julie's in Germany. She can talk about that when she returns.

I graduated from my 1-year master's program, and am currently taking a break before I hopefully start working in a week or two.

I have three weddings on the lineup to attend... The first one is May 30th.

Bachelorette party next weekend for my friend Jessica. That should be fun.

I'm about to leave to go to a crawfish boil in a few minutes. I think I've been to more this year than ever, so that's cool.

The Grey's Anatomy season finale was crazy and I don't even like that show. I must say I didn't see the end coming -- Maybe I'm stupid, but I was surprised.

Hmm... So that's all for now. This is really just here so Susie won't complain to me. But she probably still will.

Ticket lottery

2009-04-11T15:19:00.002-05:00

Wow! It's been over a month since we've blogged, and lots has happened! St. Patty's Day, Crawfish Boil, multiple Backer visits, oh my!

But I am not here to talk about these things. Sorry. Maybe Katherine cold fill you in on those. No, I am here to talk about the nice little ND Football Ticket Lottery application I received in the mail today.

So the first thing in this packet is a letter from the AD. I will paraphrase it for you:

Dear Person who gave us money in return for the CHANCE to POSSIBLY buy football tickets,

Thank you for your interest, aka $50+ "donation," in our football team. We hope that we won't suck so bad this year.

A long time ago we decided to raise ticket prices every year, and this year it's supposed to be $3. We know the economy is bad, so we've considered this long and hard.

We know that no one has money, the economy sucks, and a $3 increase blows. Why should we raise prices when everyone is hurting monetarily? We think we probably should not go forward with this increase. That would be the nice thing to do. We probably don't need any more money for our athletic program.

BUT...since the $3 goes towards furthering the CATHOLIC mission of our CATHOLIC university to inspire people and emphasize how CATHOLIC we are, we've decided that we do, indeed, want your $3. I mean, it's only $3...that's practically NOTHING! C'mon guys, we've got to think of the CATHOLICS out there!

But just so you don't feel so bad, we have done some shady stuff with our athletic budget, allowing us to save money other ways. So don't be surprised when you see a jumbotron advertising Adidas and Coke and whoever else decides they want to give us more money. Remember, it's for the CHILDREN!

Go Irish!

Sincerely,
(scribble scribble)
Not Kevin White

Yeah, that was cool. Anyway, along with this nice letter, there was also a pamphlet with rules about contacting student athletes. I just learned that I pretty much can't even talk to anyone who plays or may ever play any sport at the University of Notre Dame. Being an athletic supporter (which has a very open to interpretation definition) is kind of like being a registered sexual offender...you are on that list for life! And much like a Registered Sexual Offender, I better stay the HELL away from any hot, young, under 18 kids OR ELSE. Boy, that makes me feel special!

I bet I get shut out of the lottery again this year...BUT THE JOKE'S ON YOU ND!! I managed to go to EVERY HOME GAME last year! Heh.

My biggest fears

2009-03-04T22:03:00.002-06:00

While I was in the shower just now, I decided to think about my greatest fears. I am such an optimist, right? (ahem...sarcasm) So for your reading enjoyment, I shall list them below:

I actually have a tumor growing inside me somewhere, and since I never go to the doctor, it won't be discovered until it's too late and I die a painful death.
One day I will be unable to resist the urge (yes, I actually do kind of have this urge) to touch the el train as it drives by me, and I will lose my balance and fall onto the tracks and get electrocuted. Or...someone pushes me onto the tracks while I am looking to see where there next train is, and I get electrocuted or hit.
I will be in a really high floor of a building when it is on fire or collapsing or something 911-esque, and unable to go down that many floors to safety.
I will marry a man who later turns out to be a pedophile, and all my friends and family see him on "To Catch a Predator" and I am super humiliated. Worse if we have kids and he abuses them.
I am actually really REALLY bad at graphic design, but no one has ever told me because they didn't want to hurt my feelings.
I am actually the smelly kid, and again, no one told me.
Some of my memories are, in fact, fabricated.
I find out a deep, dark secret about a member of my family that causes me to completely change the way I think about him/her.
I have done/said something really bad or really embarrassing while asleep.
I have a gas leak in my stove and it fills my tiny apartment with carbon monoxide while I am sleeping, I die, and people donn't realize for days.
People are just pretending to like me.
There are rodents living in my apartment/house. Seriously. This is super scary to me, and I have no idea what I would do because I couldn't even check the traps without freaking out.
Someone breaks into my apartment and rapes/assaults me. Or even just watches me sleep, because that would be creepy as hell.
I am actually living in an alternate reality and none of this is real (like the Matrix).
I am actually a man and I will have to come to terms with my new gender identity (and yes, I realize this one is pretty much impossible, but you never know, I could be a freak of nature).
I get really, really obese.
I fall from a really tall building. Worse if I just break my back but am still alive to feel the pain and live the rest of my life paralyzed.

That's really all I can think of right now. Hopefully none of these things actually happen, but if they do...well, that would suck I guess.

Sleeping is for suckers.

2009-02-14T11:48:00.002-06:00

I slept in a bed last night. This is exciting for someone who normally sleeps on a futon. This is something I will tell my children. Not the sleeping in a bed for once but...

"in my day, when I was right out of college, I was so hardcore that I slept on a futon."

Yup.

Some people are so demanding.

2009-02-13T01:05:00.002-06:00

hey! it's february now. this is going to be random, because i'm tired of those "this is what I did this week/month/day/however long since I last posted." I mean, it may have a little of that.

I should be studying for an exam tomorrow, but some people are just... never satisfied apparently. (SUSIE that means YOU) (And obviously I would talk about you in a parenthetical because you USE THEM TOO MUCH) (ha ha) (just kidding).

I like the 80s music channel on the TV. It reminds me of studying with my friends back at TC.

I also like Haribo Gummi Bears. Julie and I still talk about gettinga 5lb bag of them some day. That would be excessive, but delicious.

I think my favorite coke/soda/pop/soft drink/cola beverage is Diet Dr. Pepper. Sometimes I abbreviate it in my head "dDP" which reminds me of something from Biochemistry, so I never say it out loud.

I watched 2 movies yesterday while I was "studying," and one the night before. School of Rock on Tuesday, then Waitress (that was a sad movie - not really what I expected), and No Reservations. I actually liked No Reservations. It wasn't great, but sometimes you just want a stupid semi-entertaining romantic comedy. Is that really so bad?

I really want to see Coraline. Pretty much everyone I know here will be out of town tomorrow night. Maybe I'll go see it by myself.

YEAH RIGHT

So I still need to learn about the embryology of the renal system for my exam tomorrow. I felt like I did pretty well with the histology today.

I am going to Chicago on Saturday. Yes, I'm crazy, but the flight was really cheap and Bettina practically begged me to go. Don't judge me.

Oh man! I almost forgot. I made this mac n cheese with cauliflower today. It tasted VERY MUCH LIKE Noodles Romanoff from the Dining Hall at ND. It was really weird. It's good though. And.. semi-healthy I guess. It was nice to eat a homemade meal. I haven't cooked in a while since I've had tests sort of frequently for the past 2 weeks. After tomorrow, things will be pretty nice for a while.

I... have slacked off on my running a little this week. (training for a 5K, ambitious, I know. Heh) I'm hoping for a good one tomorrow after my test. Usually after a test I feel like running... Sooo hopefully I will. (and by training for a 5K, I just want to be able to run it comfortably. honestly, I could run one tomorrow... but I won't.)

In class the other day, the prof made some really nerdy joke involving Battlestar Galactica and the word "Frak." I haven't really ever seen that show, other than that one episode being on at Dave's apt. when Bethany and I were probably talking too loud for everyone else's liking.

In this one class I had today, this girl behind us was sleeping. And snoring. Really loud. It was very hard not to laugh at her. And like, her friend sitting next to her didn't even say anything to her. How rude.

Ok. Back to studying. You can blame the randomness on Susie. She wanted a post. So this is what she gets.

"SNOW" DAY!!!

2009-01-28T11:12:00.003-06:00

Well, guys. I haven't done this in like, 2 months or something.

And this is why there are 2 people blogging on here. Because we knew inevitably one (or both) of us would get lazy, and this way, one person blogging sort of influences the other one to. Ha.

So my school is closed today. That's the great thing about winter in Texas. If you do happen to get any kind of significant winter weather, things close down because there's no infrastructure to take care of it. Last night we got to leave class early, before 3pm. I was planning on being in class from about 8-8, so this was very much appreciated. It's sunny right now, and a lot of the ice is melting, so back to school tomorrow. We're supposed to have the written part of an anatomy exam though, and since we were supposed to have the review today, I have no clue what is going to be on it. I'm on my "studying break" right now. So yeah.

So things have been pretty busy for me since November. I finished my second semester of "grad school" and only have one more to do! I got a job during my winter break, which was good because I made some money, and I really didn't feel like I missed out on all that much having to work. On a sadder note, my great-grandmother and grandmother died (Grandma was the DIL to the great-grandma). Sooo that was pretty sad. This would look a lot like Susie's blog if I talked about that a lot, so lets just leave her to talk about her sad emotions about losing something/someone special to you. I'm not really good at being emotional (if you know me, you know this) so yeah.

After all of that, school started again. I guess it's been going on for about two weeks now. I have had a lot more motivation up until this week, when I finally have my first exam. So that's not great timing, but whatever.

Highlight of the semester so far was probably going to Chicago this past weekend where I reunited with my fellow blogger, Julie. Heh heh. I basically had a four-day-weekend and flights were cheap and I knew there were going to be people in town/things going on so I just decided to go before school got too crazy. So I got to meet Bethany in South Bend, go to The Backer (and Rocco's!), and get the obligatory day-after-going-out Chipotle lunch that we always seem to have. At least this time I could eat it... Heh heh.

Notable first: Shot of Patron at the Backer. Now, I rarely have shots at the Backer, and have only had them when other people buy them for me (not that I buy myself that many drinks there anyways... I can't remember the last time I did as a matter of fact). I don't know why I do tequila shots even when I know I hate them. Maybe I do.

So post-Chipotle, Bethany, Phil, and I drove to Chicago. We got to Julie's around oh.. 5ish or something and met another friend at a bar to watch the ND-UConn basketball game. I thought we were supposed to be good. Whatever. I'm getting used to disappointing ND teams. I'll still be a fan, but COME ON! Then we went to the "other friend"'s party. It was fun. Spiderman was there and was very entertaining. Julie and I played beer pong, and I did better than I normally do, which isn't really anything to brag about, but it wasn't a terrible game.

We went out afterwards... kind of uneventful... came back to Julie's where she, Bethany, and I slept three on a futon. It's really not as crowded as one might think. Phil took the floor. What a gentleman. Haha.

Sunday we met Laura for brunch, then Phil and Bethany went back to South Bend and Julie and I met Bettina downtown to go see Jersey Boys. It was pretty fun. I like Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons, so I enjoyed the musical. It's definitely not the best musical I've ever seen, but I'd still recommend it.

Julie said something when we were going in that was quite funny: "We never do anything wholesome together." Which sounds worse than it is? Haha. I mean, you know, we don't go to the zoo, or a park, or things like that. This event, however, still ended with the song "Oh What A Night" so that was rather appropriate. Following the musical, things got slightly less wholesome, but not by too much. Dinner was fun, and worth the supposedly-one-hour wait when we got to the restaurant. It was basically a fancy "make-your-own-stir-fry." I enjoyed it, and would like to go back sometime.

All in all it was a good weekend. Then I get back here and people start freaking out about freezing temperatures. Which is really just amusing. I mean, it is cold, but it could be a lot worse.

I suppose I should take my "snow day" to study some more so I don't have to feel bad about watching Lost tonight. (What? Record it and watch it after my test? I think NOT!) I think I heard somewhere that this episode is supposed to be really good. So we'll see.

Over and out!

Love is in the air...

2009-01-27T21:49:00.002-06:00

Maybe it's because I spend a portion of my day working on Valentines Day-themed drink cards, but I've been thinking about love lately. What is it? How does one know when it is real? How do you find it? How do you keep from falling out of love? I was talking to Phil about it, it's an interesting topic. So interesting, in fact, that literally MILLIONS and MILLIONS of songs are based on this topic. Here are a couple that are relevant to my musings, in case you were interested:

Love seems to blind people, too. What's up with that? It just isn't logical!

Gosh, I love Supertramp.

Musings

2009-01-07T20:34:00.003-06:00

My dear friend Mary got me thinking about blogging in high school, so I went to check out the ole' Live Journal. Firstly, I have a mysterious missing post about the high school prom...but I think maybe it was made private to protect the innocent. Or rather, guilty in this case. I also noticed that I am a really horrible writer. I wonder how I even got into college, and more importantly, how I managed to pass the classes that involved writing assignments. There really isn't much in the blog from high school because I started it on the last day of school. I would have liked to reminisce about the person I was then. I wonder if I've changed much?

Lately, I've been worried about the economy. I can't help but picture a Great Depression-like scene of executives jumping out of offices and soup lines that go around the block. Apparently no industry is immune, except maybe healthcare and education. I mean, kids still need school and sick people, hospitals.

I think I am starting to get into my winter slump. Yesterday evening was spent sitting in front of my computer wasting time and eating hummus. That. Was. All. I can't wait til summer, or at least increased sunlight! (Did I mention that I had to work in darkness today because the light above my desk was out? Fun times.)

Christmastime is here...

2008-12-17T22:20:00.003-06:00

Last night we had our company Holiday party. Since they are planning on having some "grand gala" thing in May, our party was in our office instead of at some fancy venue. Meh, whatever. Anyway, during lunch, I counted 42 bottles of wine in the kitchen, and not even counting the beer and Jagerbomb supplies. I knew it would probably be pretty out of control.

At 5:00, the CEO walks past my cube, directing someone to start setting up the "bar" right outside of it. Really, how often does that happen? The bummer of the evening was that there was supposed to be karaoke (yes, my company purchased a karaoke machine), but it didn't arrive until today. We did, however, have some entertainment. After scarfing down a good amount of Gino's East pizza, someone called us into the conference room to watch a video. Due to some technical difficulties with the Mac laptop and the projector, and after a venue change, we finally saw this video. It was one of those "Elf yourself" dancing elf videos, but with the faces of all the higher-ups in our company. It was pretty funny, and a disco theme! I forgot to mention that our temporary entertainment was our CEO dancing around, kind of in a tap-dance-y way. Who saw that coming?

I think the highlight of the evening was the White Elephant gift exchange. (Sometimes I marvel at how closely my work resembles Dunder-Mifflin...I mean, I have paper samples at my desk, and our Christmas party was basically scripted from that one episode a few seasons ago.)

So when it was my turn to pick, I picked up a heavy box. Inside was a box that said "can liners" on it. Inside that was a small bottle of Jager and a Red Bull. Sweet! But alas, this gift was quickly stolen, so I had to pick again. I picked the one that looked the most like a bottle (and everyone made fun of me...I swear I'm not an alchoholic). It was Boone's Farm! So all was well. Boone's Farm may be cheap, but it's tastier than a Jagerbomb, and I'm a girl so it's acceptable.

Then someone stole that from me, too. I went to the table and surveyed the remaining gifts. One of my coworkers pointed out that there were some envelopes left on the table...thinking they could be cash, I picked one up....and it was a $15 itunes gift card! This was great because our price limit was supposed to be $10...heh. Of course, that was stolen from me, too. I ended up with a Dunkin Donuts gift card, which wasn't bad, especially since I live across the street from one. At least I didn't get stuck with the 40 of King Cobra (which was actually in semi-high demand...that and the mini toy fishbowl).

Later that night, a wonderful thing happened to me. I won the most valuable or dedicated or something (girl) kickball player award (or whatever they called it). Yay! It was very exciting! I got my picture taken and a starbucks card. Woohoo!

I think some people started playing beer pong with a makeshift ping pong ball, which I thought sounded crafty. Alas, I did not participate. After we ran out of the last case of beer, a few of us moved on to a bar across the street. There were some bombs and some buckets o beer, and some talking and inappropriateness. A good time was had by all!

I must say, I think I can be pretty mean sometimes. I made fun of someone's tattoos, but in my defense, they were pretty lame tattoos. I think I was justified.

Coming soon, I will write a post about what I typically do, maybe a "week in the life" format. Because I know you are all dying to know my day-to-day activities. Does anyone even still read this blog? I mean, since I rarely see the main readers anymore, I rarely mention them in my blogging, and isn't that why people read these blogs? To see if their name is mentioned? Yep. I thought so. Shout out...to YOU! The reader! If you even exist! (At this point, Katherine, Oscar or possibly Susie posts a response.)

I need to end with a video. This one is terrible, but I watch this show a lot. I think the video/show would be better with a little less Mady (or if she acted less lame all the time). The other kids are super cute though.

2nd post in a few hours...

2008-11-27T02:00:00.002-06:00

So rumor on the street is that good ole' CW might be canned pretty soon. Now, I'd like a NC as much as anyone, but sometimes I have a hard time letting go. I think this situation is a perfect example.

I'm not sure why I like CW so much. I mean, I'm not a HUGE fan of him, but he seems nice enough. Ok, actually, he's kind of an ass, I think. But for some reason I've accepted that. I've also accepted his poor performance. I just keep hoping he'll do better. He'll improve, he's young, inexperienced, immature. He's good at getting recruits to like his coaching well enough to actually commit to ND. But once they are there, what happens to them? They don't live up to potential. He kind of lets them down. He's still hung up on his golden boys, BQ, Marge, etc. He probably begged them not to go, but they had no choice. They had bigger and better things to do. He's still bitter. And now with the new kids, he just can't get the job done, he fails them.

But still, I am holding on, in the off chance that maybe next year will be the year. Next year he will suddenly realize how to develop young players. But probably not. I can't see us staying together for the long haul. He's no Lou. But still, there is something about him I just can't get over, and I realize that it's illogical and facts (and a 3-9 record) speak for themselves. Still, I want him to stay, maybe just for a little while. I'm afraid we'll part on bad terms. That's always awkward. To make matters worse, he's probably flirting with the NFL. Practically cheating on us. But maybe we are to blame. Who'd blame a guy who's getting all this crap from the fans?

Ok, so maybe no one else wants him. That makes me want to keep him even more. He's ours. How could we have picked wrong AGAIN? Why can't THIS coach work out? Should we give him more time? Or should we just cut and run? Maybe the next time we hang out he will redeem himself...or not. He's hot, then he's cold.

But remember all the good times we had? Winning games every weekend? Going to bowl games? Scoring? Having game? Those were some good times! We were harder, better, faster, stronger, and kind of nasty. What happened?

Can we still be friends, CW? Or would that be too painful? How can we be lovers if we can't be friends?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tebow is a guy,
yeah, I know he'd been
a good quarterback
But in college something changed
that ain't hard to define
Tebow got himself a coach
and I want to make him mine
And he's teaching him all those plays
And he's lovin' him with that spiral,
I just know it
Yeah 'n' he's coaching him
in his fields late,
late at night

You know, I wish that I had Tebow's coach,
I wish that I had Tebow's coach
Where can I find a head coach like that?

YOU KNOW IT'S LATE BECAUSE THIS POST IS COMPLETELY RIDICULOUS!!

Deep Thoughts

2008-11-27T00:14:00.002-06:00

So I really wish I could utilize Facebook's vast store of information. I wish you could do things like see charts of how your friend network is organized, or who in your friend network has the most other friends, or who has the most friends in common with you in one click. I think it also would be interesting if you could somehow tell who in someone's network are close friends and who are more of acquaintances. It would also be cool to pick out people on facebook who have a large number of friends and then send them questionaires to see what personality traits they have in common.

I know, I'm a nerd.

In other thoughts, in cultures where people read from right to left, would they do better in video games that scroll from right to left (like older mario games), or would it make a difference? If there was a difference, how long would it take them to adapt? Or could they ever adapt?

Do birds blink? They probably do, but I can't picture them having eyelids.

I just discovered that F11 does some weird stuff. This computer is really slow and I'd like to wipe it clean and reinstall everything, but I fear I lack the computer know-how to accomplish this task.

Anyway, I forgot what else I was going to say. Boy am I ever interesting (that's sarcasm for those of you who need some help with things like that.)

I remembered one!

2008-11-19T10:46:00.005-06:00

So I remembered a really weird dream I had that I think was the inspiration for me to start putting my dreams on here.

It was the night after the Navy game. I had a dream we were walking from TC to the Backer, except we must have gone a really stupid way because we walked down Vaness. We passed a bunch of parties at TC, where people were leaving their doors open like they lived in a dorm. Except that apparently you're allowed to have your door open when you have parties. Which I don't think you can do in a dorm. At least not in a girl's dorm. Anyways, we walked to Twyckenham, where the line already reached along the fence of the soccer fields. Talk about a long line. Anyways. We were in line with some Navy people I think. Talked to them about something or other. Probably the 'backer. That's all I remember.

Last night I dreamt that my purse got stolen. Right in front of me. And I was really mad and made the guy give it back. I think this was related to me watching the first episode of The Wire the other day. Also, I was in an airport at some point and realized I forgot my backpack. I called my mom, who apparently was close, and came to the airport to give it to me. The problem was, I was staying in an airport hotel, which was on the inside of security (in my dream) so I was really worried I wouldn't be able to get it. BUT when I went to meet her near the security station, the people there just let her through. Which I was super confused about.

You know, that's the second dream I've had about my purse getting stolen that I can remember. Weird. Anyone know what that means?

You will probably be bored if you read this. It's more for me than for you anyway.

2008-11-18T21:43:00.004-06:00

I don't dream anymore. Maybe.

Anyway, I've been totally MIA lately. Here are some life bullet points:

The last time I blogged was Oct. 19th. That was a long time ago. I am looking at my calendar and trying to remember what I did. Apparently that week I saw a movie (Was that when I went with Wazi to Brew and View? We saw Pineapple Express and Stepbrothers...stupid, but funny.)
I made my first visit to Spiderman and Brad's apartment. It was pretty entertaining. Ty got embarrassed, Brad's rat crawled up his shirt, and I discovered the trumpet accent.
That week was the week of Halloween. On Thursday I went to Gino's East with Katherine, Amanda, Wazi and Allison, where we got a ton of food for very cheap. I still have those cookies...
I took off work early on Friday to catch the train with Oscar. We then met Katherine in Gary, where I was disappointed to not see MJ. We got to ND in time to see marchout, which was basically a Halloween costume parade set to ND music. Katherine and I went to CVS to buy my costume and get some RTD pomogranate mojitos. We proceeded to go to Dave's and drink it, like the freeloaders we often are. Yada yada yada (and only because I don't remember what happened during this time period), we ended up at the Backer, which was typical.
Saturday was tailgatetastic. We visited the Carroll guys' tailgate, and Mader's tailgate, and the Allare's tailgate (where we saw Tigger from last halloween, this time dressed as buzz lightyear), and ended up at that old trumpet guy's tailgate. Quote of the day: Me: "What's your real name?" Maddog: "Mad"
(there was a football game)
We took a nice long walk to Martin's to buy plastic silverware for Dave, then we all ate pasta and didn't introduce ourselves to the whole room.
Backer was especially good that evening, though I can't remember why exactly. RCK decided to celebrate EVERYONE's birthday that night and bought us all shots. Pete was there, and I know that because I made a song up about it to the tune of that Shake It song. There was even an after party, but unfortunately a bunch of people were sleeping in the living room, which really put a damper on the "party."
Bethany stayed with me for a few days that week because she had an interview. We watched a Steeler's game at Durkins, (after meeting some creepy old guy at Trinity during our dinner...), and stayed up way too late talking.
My birthday was on election day. People were pretty excited about Obama since he is the hometown guy. We went out to lunch at work for my b-day, which was nice, although we changed locations at the last minute and some people went to the wrong place..ooops! After work, and after voting and getting free coffee from Starbucks, we went to Trinity, which was hopping for a Tuesday evening! People kept buying me drinks...work was tough the next day as a result.
That Friday, I had a pretty chill night with Gail and Carol. We kind of ended up talking about depressing stuff, but it was still oddly enjoyable. Probably the company, not the topic.
Saturday I went to dinner and Durkin's for Katherine G's birthday. It was fun, and a good distraction from the horrible game. The evening ended at Duffy's...how typical. The night also ended with a crowded futon...interestingly, the air mattress was empty, but I couldn't use it because I was being the girl buffer.
I went to brunch the next day at a place called Nookie's with Laura. That is a funny name for a restaurant in Boystown.
Wednesday was chock full of work activities, starting with bowling. I was pretty awesome (for me). After scoring my 2nd game, one of my co-workers wrote bullshit next to my score because I got so many extra points from strikes and spares at the end of the game...heh. We also had our last kickball game...the finals! We actually lost quite badly, but I did get the pleasure of catching a ball with my face. A couple of us returned to the bowling alley afterward for a free drink since apparently someone had started a tab...
This past weekend, Bethany, Nick, and Phil came in town. Friday we had some drinks at a bar downtown for Laura's birthday, then we went to dinner with Wazi and friends, and ended up being lazy at my apartment, where we discovered the BEST show EVER...MANswers!!!!
We were well rested to go to Victory for the game watch at 11 am on Saturday. The game was ok, the end pretty much caused half the bar to have a heart attack. After this, we sat around then went to Gino's for pizza and wine. (We did not need the huge bottle...Phil). We walked over to Wrigleyville and had a pint...or liter, depending on the person, at uberstein, where we were met by Dolu, the African Prince. Shortly thereafter we met up with Mike's trolley pub crawl and went to three bars. My favorites were the Apartment (which wasn't quite hopping when we were there), and McFaddens. There was dancing, and drinking, and game, and no game, and phone-losing, and clinging, and people wearing sportscoats and scarves...an interesting night. What was more interesting was that there were 5 people sleeping in my apartment. Bethany and I had to share an air mattress...be jealous.
Sunday was a lot of lying around, some political discussion, some shooting the shit, and some vomit. Other than the vom, I enjoyed just talking to people, sitting around, making jokes, talking about serious things, etc. I missed the morning afters that we had in college where whoever happened to pass out in the same place would all just hang out the next morning.

Ok, enough of that. If you cared enough to read this, you are all caught up on the most public parts of my life. Maybe I will post about something interesting sometime soon.

We're not too good at this...

2008-11-18T16:34:00.003-06:00

So it's been a while since anyone's posted anything, and that last thing wasn't even anything interesting. Not that any of our entries are interesting.

A week ago or something I decided that I should start trying to write down what I dream, cause I've had some really weird dreams lately. And then of course, I forgot about it, and forgot the dreams also.

I do remember having a weird dream last night/this morning though. I was sitting in class, in a classroom that looked a lot like 101 Jordan (I love those chairs) and someone behind me kept making this really annoying noise. And I told her that I had a headache, and that I realized she was trying to annoy someone else (she didn't know me), but could she please stop. And she didn't. I'm wondering if it was maybe my alarm clock going off. Or like, my roommate leaving for class and the door alarm thing beeping. I think I had another dream last night too that left me with an annoyed feeling. Maybe that's just my default disposition, but I don't think so. I know people THINK I'm annoyed/mad when I'm not quite frequently though. Perhaps I should work on that.

Job search is... same as always. It feels like I get somewhere, and then nothing happens. Oh well, just gotta keep at it. I have a test Monday (I always have tests) that I haven't studied much for. Big surprise there. I only really have today, tomorrow, and maybe Thursday, but not much of it, to study for it since one of my childhood friends is getting married. We went to high school, middle school, and elementary school together and have stayed friends after that so that's kind of a big thing. And I'm in the wedding. Lots of old friends will be around, so that will be fun.

Well. Again, nothing really interesting, but I've gotta get to studying. Ugh.

I should bring my brother back for an encore entry. He writes some funny stuff.

Why can't I fall asleep at a reasonable hour?

2008-11-04T01:33:00.003-06:00

So, normally, it's my own fault that I can't sleep, but tonight, I'm pretty sure people in the apartment below me, or somewhere in my building, are having some sort of domestic dispute.

Wherever they are, there's a lot of yelling. And I can hear it from my bedroom.

Ohhh. Quote I just heard..

"I want you to tell me that you love me - "

"I have!"

And throw in a bunch of "F-You"s, etc. Some loud noises, which are presumably things being thrown or doors being slammed, and the occasional hysterical scream.

Arrrrghh.. Why can't we all just make each other sandwiches and get some sleep, huh? Since they've been arguing for a good 45 minutes now, I don't think its going to solve anything tonight.

Oh. And just so you know, it doesn't seem like anyone's been physically hurt. So I guess that's good.

Just another lonely Sunday (shout out to Phil, who I am pretty sure does not read this.)

2008-10-19T20:33:00.005-05:00

So I just set up my mutual fund. You know, went on the website and specified how much I would like to contribute per month. If I double my percentage that I am putting in (assuming that my salary is the same, which hopefully it will increase throughout my life) I can be a millionaire by the time I retire! Now, this actually makes me uncomfortable. At this point in my life, I do not feel ready to plan for the future. The main thought is, what if I don't live that long? Why save money that I won't even be able to use? Everything seems so uncertain at this point in my life, and with the economy the way it is...well, I don't know where I will be in five years, much less 40+ years from now.

In non-financial/me over-thinking things news, I bowled what was most likely my highest score ever. I went with Wazi, Allison and Erin. Allison was an experienced bowler, so she was giving Erin and I tips, which I think contributed to my performance...that, or the beer. I kid. Anyway, when I called my mom today and told her, she laughed at me. You must understand that my mom is pretty un-athletic and was very small when she was in her bowling league back in the day. You would think that a larger person, like myself, would have an easier time at throwing a heavy ball down a lane, but I guess this is not the case. Oh well. I will be happy with my score, even if she did make a crack about how I don't need to know how to score strikes because I never get them. Hit a little bit too close to home.

I had McDonalds for the first time in who knows how long. I generally avoid the place, except when faced with it in Italian train stations, or after drinking at a German beer garden. My "premium" chicken sandwich was actually kind of tasty. I mostly ordered it because 1. it was chicken and 2. you got Monopoly pieces. Not that I'll be going there enough to actually win anything, but I did get a coupon for Footlocker.

Last night when I got home I watched this movie called "Hard Candy" which starred Ellen Page (who played Juno.) I enjoyed it, but it was kind of disturbing/gross at times. Well, I guess they never show anything gross, but it is alluded to in the movie. Very suspenseful and artistic cinematography. Here is a link to the trailer if you are interested:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYBnm1xhM7I

Ok, so Star Wars episode IV is on (the first one), and I just saw this horrible scene with a badly-rendered CGI version of Jabba the Hut. Gross. Who thought that would be a good scene to add to the movie? I liked large latex suit version of Jabba. Speaking of large latex suits, the Teenaged Mutant Ninja Turtles movies were on TV today, and the third one uses terrible turtle outfits. They look too cartoon-y and have random age-spot looking things on them.

And well, I think that's all I've got. Maybe Ponge will update sometime. We'll see. Want to watch something funny?

I thought it was funny, but maybe only because I have seen people re-enact this many a time at work (which resulted in a couple of broken brooms at the movie theater) or in the backyard, or in various other situations. Yeah, people I know are weird.

Saturday Ramblings

2008-10-18T15:41:00.003-05:00

So I took this quiz from Susie's blog. I think it somewhat describes me. Actually, maybe surprisingly well...

You Are Mayonnaise

You tend to be a very quiet, introverted person.

You're happy to sit back and let stronger personalities shine.

You value loyalty and harmony. You try to bring people together.

Your taste in food leans toward simple comfort foods.

You love holiday meals as well as old school favorites like mac and cheese.

You get along with mustard and ketchup personalities. You have an unlikely alliance with hot sauce personalities.

What Condiment Are You?

Last night I went to the young alumni pub crawl, which was pretty fun. My complaints, though, would be that the bars they chose were not super spacious, causing crowding and difficulties getting drinks. Oh, well, it's all good, I still had fun. I had a chat with some NDnation posters and realized that I'm pretty lame. I further realized I was even more lame when I mentioned to one of the posters that I was friends with band kids and engineers. I am a nerd, no question.

Speaking of nerdy, I am reading a book called "The Elegant Universe." It's about, well, the universe and all its mysteries. It basically talks about all sorts of deep physics things like the relativity theory and quantum mechanics and things that people with crazy hair or robot voices think about a lot.

I am watching Wayne's World 2...and Christopher Walken is in it. Can you imagine marrying Christopher Walken? That would be so weird. He is super creepy. That's pretty much all I wanted to say about that.

I went to the Hangge Uppe with a bunch of people last night. I would dare say it was one of the more fun times I've had there, and I'm not exactly sure why. Perhaps I was in the perfect mindframe for it. I actually spent a decent amount of time upstairs, with the rap music and such. Although I'm not a huge fan of that type of music, it was generally stuff I'd heard of, which was nice. I also noticed that the ceiling has interesting decorations, such as upside-down mannequin heads and a cartoon dinosaur.

Today has been a lazy Saturday, the first in a very long while. It's kind of nice not to have anything to do, but I think I would maybe like to do something later. I really need to clean up this place. It's sad how small my place is and how I still can't manage to keep it clean. Maybe I do need a roommate or someone to motivate me. I would like a roommate, but I do enjoy having my own bathroom. Hey, for anyone interested (and who actually reads this), my building has studio apartments open if you are looking for some place to live in the Chicago area. Just a thought!

Well, I guess I have successfully written about nothing. I'll end it with a song that I very much enjoy for many reasons, one of which is that it's SUPER CATCHY! I bet John McCain would like it, he seemed really excited about Mamma Mia when I saw him on a talk show a few months ago.

Another long post about the last 2 weeks (but mostly the weekends)

2008-10-13T21:44:00.004-05:00

One thing that I was thinking about today as I walked through downtown Chicago (to Old Navy where I kind of went crazy, for me), was how this was the first weekend pretty much since I've lived here that no one spent the night (or that I did not spend the night elsewhere). As much as I like having the whole room to myself, it's kind of nice not to wake up all by yourself. It's nice to have someone else here to keep you company. I often wish I had someone here just to sit around and watch TV together. Anyway, I'm about two weeks behind, so I guess I will give the highlights.

Two weekends ago, Wazi and I drove to ND after work, after going the wrong way and taking the scenic route. When we finally got to SB, we had some BK (no, not THAT BK, who, consequently, was MIA all weekend.) Although Dave said there would probably be 2 people staying over, the actual number was closer to 10. There were a lot of air mattresses...

So Dave and I made an appearance at the Backer. I say appearance because we were there for maybe an hour because someone had to wake up early to do band things. I did briefly see Rachel and Christine, the other obsessive Backer people I know.

Tailgating was fun the next day. Wazi and I started out at the Carroll tailgate where I bought a ticket from some guy walking past with Karsten's emergency $50 bill (don't worry, I paid him back.) Afterwards, we were going somewhere, but ended up at Mader's family's tailgate. There were lots of trumpets, and I was deemed an honorary trumpet, or something of the sort. At some point, everyone left that I knew except Bryce and Ram, and we chatted with some dude who graduated in the 80s and was an OBGYN. The whole time I couldn't help but think how weird it would be to have that guy be my woman-parts-doctor. We realized we missed out on some of the glory days of ND, but of course, I'm sure all alumni like to wax nostalgic about times past and how much life must suck for current undergrads.

After this, we headed over to the Putt tailgate. The memorable moment was when (one again) I realized that everyone I knew had left. This Putt fellow told me I needed to hang out with more trumpets from the class of 1994. I suppose I will consider that advise in the future.

The game was pretty good, we won, and the post-game victory beer was well deserved (minus the 4th quarter). Back at Dave's that evening, I took my traditional post-game nap (oh, how I've missed those...) and woke to find a bunch of people had mysteriously vanished, while others had mysteriously arrived. Needless to say, I was in my usual post-nap daze. Later Matt M. and Cheron showed up, so it was nice to see them. Unfortunately, they wimped out on the backer.

I believe I had a pretty good time at the Backer. Some interesting stuff happened. I was entertained. I did not, however, appreciate the "Go Cubs Go" song right after the Cubs lost their series. What a cruel trick. Anyway, a nice little gang was there, including, but not limited to, Wazi, Allison, Karsten, Dave, Carrie, Ryan, and probably a lot of people I am forgetting. Before I move on, a word of advise. Don't have too many long islands/purple rains. ESPECIALLY if your dinner consisted of half a brat and a victory beer. Yup.

The next day most of the people rolled out to their respective locations, while me, Dave, Wasi, and John were the epitome of lazy. Picture this: Dave and John on the couches (occasionally joined by shredder), Wazi and I on an air mattress in the middle of the floor, all watching TV, and too lazy to get up for food. What is the logical thing to do? Call Jimmy Johns, because they deliver. Oh no! What happens when no one has the number? Well, the obvious answer would be to go look it up, but did we do this? No. Instead, Wazi called his sister (from the comfort of the air mattress) to get the number, and then we called and ordered our food. What a lazy Sunday. Eventually Wazi and I were on our way, but the Sox were playing, so we spent the next few hours at the Wasikowski house watching the game. I also got a nice tour and got to see pictures of a young Dan.

That week...well, like any other week. Our kickball team actually was pretty decent, and by decent I mean we were tied, and even winning! But alas, we lost, but at least it wasn't embarrassing.

Friday evening was full of craziness, in a way. Right after work I went to a bar to get drinks with some people from work. Gail came, but not after getting a bit lost (it was a little funny, because she must have walked right past us at some point). Eventually, Dolu got to Ogilvie, and Gail and I met up with him. We dropped Gail off at the L, and proceeded to go to the Regal Beagle (at Dolu's insistence). We had a nice conversation, some bad service, and free shots (because they felt bad about the poor service). Dolu decided to go home, and I went across the street to Starbucks, where I had a Pumpkin Spice Latte and read my nerdy physics book. About an hour later I got a call from Carol that went something like this:

Carol: We are going to Union Station to meet Cory
Me: Oh, ok, cool. I just left Starbucks on Michigan. So where are you now?
Carol: We are on a bus on Michigan. We might be close to you.
Me: Nice, maybe I can meet up with you guys somewhere
Carol: Are you at the Starbucks by PayLess?
Me: Yes....
Carol: Oh, we are on the bus, we'll get off there
Me: No, wait, I see you guys, I'm getting on the bus!

And I did. What was interesting about this was that we didn't plan to meet there. Their bus just happened to be driving past me at that very moment! The other strange thing that happened that night was that I SWEAR I saw one of the Backer bouncers outside of the Sears Tower. Carol also thought it was him, but she wouldn't let me go up and talk to him (probably for the best).
Well, next time I go there, and he is checking IDs, I'm SOOOO asking. I am such a creeper.

The next day, I went to Victory Liquors to watch the game, after determining that everyone was gonna be there. Some highlights:
-The game was good...until the end
-Laura, Carol and I got a free fishbowl full of some Bacardi concoction. It was delish.
-Wazi, Allison, and friends got one, too, and they made a giant 3 feet long straw.
-I saw Sarah E. for the briefest of moments.
-Mike C. and I met the Subway Alums, of internet video fame. They were pretty cool guys!
-I texted way too much, as usual.
-I saw various other people I don't see very often, which is nice and random
-The music selection was Backer-esque.

After the game, I got to take a nap, which was nice. I think I needed it for what was to come...the apartment crawl! Basically, four of my coworkers hosted part of the night, and we walked from apartment to apartment. The drink selection was interesting in that they all had some strange significance to me. Carlo Rossi Sangria, beermonade, something mixed with Hawaiian Punch...the list goes on. The evening ended at Duffy's the usual hang out spot, which worked out well for me because it was on my way home! It was a pretty fun time, everyone had nice apartments, got to hang out with work people (which I don't do so much on weekends), and met some new people. I also BYOB to a bar, which I realize is bad, but I just happened to have a beer in my purse...heh.

Sunday I somehow woke up early enough to watch part of the marathon which passed pretty near to my apartment. Unfortunately, I didn't see anyone I knew, but I did see juggling guy, and the Boys Town cheerleaders, which are always a good time. Afterwards, I walked to Los Tres Panchos, this little hole in the wall Mexican place on Diversey. I also got to Skype with my brother that morning, which was nice. (He is studying in Germany for the next year). It was an uber-lazy Sunday, as I napped for HOURS. I don't get to nap enough these days.

I was roused from my laziness by Laura, who called and invited me to see a movie with her. The movie theater was very close...and quite nice inside. We saw The Duchess, with Kiera Knightley. I thought it was a good movie, but also very sad. It did make me glad that I live in a society where I will not be forced to stay in a loveless marriage with a cheating husband who threatens to not let me see my children again if I continue to meet with the love of my life who would later become the prime minister. Woops...SPOILERS!!

Now I am just chilling at home. I was gonna do my 2nd load of laundry in 2 days, but I guess I just got caught up with shopping/video Skypeing with my parents and ichatting with Ponge and a bunch of people who were in her house. I really should blog more often so my posts aren't as long. It's like I am blogging Titanic over here! Like Titanic, we can all guess how this will end...VIDEO!

Here's an oldie but goody. And I met someone this weekend who is just like the guy in this video. And he was POLISH! I found that funny.

October = Birthday Month!

2008-10-05T21:38:00.002-05:00

I like October. Maybe it's because the weather is starting to get nicer (AKA not sweltering hot). Or maybe it's because the color associated with the month is orange, and I don't have to worry about not wearing black with orange for fear of looking like Halloween (because I CAN!). Or maybe it's because my birthday is this month (that's beginning to not really be that cool, you know?). Also, a whooole lot of my friends have birthdays this month as well.

Either way, I really like fall. Which essentially lasts through winter in Texas, since it's not too extreme.

So this weekend was kind of boring/relaxing. Friday... I didn't really do anything. Slept in, cleaned up some, went to a high school football game. It seems like a lot of schools use the ND Victory March for their fight song. Religiously-affiliated ones anyways. That's weird. When the band has like 20 people, it's kind of funny. My old high school lost, which wasn't too terribly cool. Whatever. My mom and brother came back to FTW with me, and we stopped by Wendy's on our way back. I requested a single burger with no mayo. When I got home, my burger had absolutely nothing on it. I was really pissed. Anyways, I tried to fix this problem, but unfortunately, I didn't have any regular mustard. I used dijon mustard, which was a terrible decision. It reminded me of a brat, which I really didn't want to mix with a fast food hamburger flavor. Anyways. After that travesty, we took my little brother shopping on Saturday morning to buy some nice shirts and ties. I found him a sweet BCBG tie for 10 dollars. Apparently, I'm good luck when shopping for men's clothing. Too bad its not fun for me at all. Ha. Anyways, Joe made it entertaining, 'cause he was dancing around in the clothes he was trying on in the dressing room.

Then we got to go to Gap and I was happy. No need to tell the story there. I bought too many things. The end. However, they're very "work-appropriate" things. So now all I need is the "work" part of that.

Missed the first quarter of the ND game on TV due to being at the mall. (Oops) Then I made some really good turkey chili during the first half. Say what you will about Rachel Ray (She's really annoying), but her recipes aren't bad at all. Luckily, I found this recipe online, and didn't have to watch her TV show for it. Whoo. And yeah, the recipe turned out well, and it was super easy. Let me know if you want the recipe.

After the ND game, we watched I Am Legend. That was a strange movie. It was interesting I guess. I can't decide if I liked it or not. I feel like it could have been better. It just kind of scratched the surface on like... the "interesting-plot" front. I think I-Robot was cooler. Hahaha. They both start with I. Interesting. It makes me laugh to compare Will Smith now to Will Smith as "The Fresh Prince." I'm really not obsessed with him. I swear. Anyways, so after the movie, my guests left, and it was a little depressing being here by myself after watching that movie. Haha.

Sonic Limeades are fantastic, by the way. I went running this afternoon and discovered how to run by the river and end up back at my apartment. Whoo. I mean, I knew the river was there, and I knew how to get there, I'd just never run there before, so now I know where I can go. And its much better scenery than my street. Not that my street is bad, but I don't really like running on needlessly-windy sidewalks. Then I decided to keep the "exploring" thing up, and I drove the other way down this road I hadn't been down before, and I discovered a Taco Cabana. Now, Oscar tells me that its gone downhill, but I probably won't notice because 1) I don't get beef tacos, I usually get chicken and 2) I don't go to TC (haha) regularly. For all you non-Texans, it's a fast food mexican place that is better than Taco Bell (and I even like Taco Bell, so there). So maybe I'll try that sometime. I have a long list of "to-try's" so who knows when that will happen.

So yeah, life's been fine. I should be studying more, but I have problems finding that motivation. Which is why I don't think I should be in school anymore. Oh well. I need to do well on my final. Taking two tests after getting back from ND the night before did not make for good grades. Ooops. Oh well. I know where my priorities are. Ha. Whether that's a good thing or not, I don't really care right now.

There's a piece of my computer that's broken. A little piece of plastic like, chipped off the part near the bottom right corner when the laptop is open. I should take it by an apple store, but I can't afford to be away from my computer right now, and it's just cosmetic, but it does need to be fixed. Sigh. I need my computer to keep me awake during class!

Maybe I'll wait till my next ND trip... Which reminds me I need to rent a car.

I'm going to leave you with some Hank Hill quotes. I don't care if you hate King of the Hill, these are so funny:

"If you'd like to learn more about sexual education, don't! Nobody likes a know-it-all who sits around talking about their genitalia. Now, I think you might like this next show, The X-Files. I always thought it was some kind of porno, on account of the title, but turns out it's all about two young people who don't have sex. Now, that's entertainment!"

(obviously, I had to put that one in there)

"If Bobby doesn't love football, he won't lead a fulfilling life, and then he'll die."

"You can't just pick and choose which laws to follow. Sure I'd like to tape a baseball game without the express written consent of major league baseball, but that's just not the way it works." (That one's for Nick Schott)

You know you want to read the longest post ever...

2008-09-29T20:53:00.003-05:00

Ok, sorry about the LOONNNGGG absence. I think I will ease back into things by talking about this weekend first, and then later try to remember stuff from the last two weekends. One thing that made this past weekend interesting was that I didn't have my "posse" with me. You know, the other people who make up my identity as a former TC girl. I'm unique! Or so Barney tells me...

Friday at work was very slow. I was trying hard to find productive things to do, but it was difficult. I was literally just waiting for someone to approve a job or ask for changes or email me or SOMETHING. No such luck. It made the day go by slower. I don't like to be swamped, but a good flow of work is always nice. Makes me feel productive.

I basically had to run to catch the train. Well, I took a bus, but once I got off the bus, I had to book it to the train. The woman who sold me my ticket told me I needed to hurry, so here I was, running through Millennium station, my change in my hands, dragging a rolling suitcase, and losing my flip flop on the platform. I am happy to report that I did indeed make the train, and I also got to read a good deal of my book.

When I got to the South Bend Airport, I met Rory who had flown in from a job interview in Wisconsin a bit before. We drove to Wendy's and partook of the so-called super value menu. I was disappointed to find that the junior cheeseburger deluxe is no longer on it, and that many of the items were more than 99 cents. I'm not sure if anything was! We had a nice little chat and then I was dropped off at library circle.

I went to Mary's room where we hung out for a little bit. I looked through some of her new design books, we chatted, etc. We were going to go to a party at TC that one of her friends from Chile was hosting. Upon arrival, we were given jello shots, which made our fingers jello-y. Ew. We talked to some people for awhile, and I got some interesting reactions when people found out I had graduated (why is that so strange?) We played a game of beer pong against these guys who both happened to be wearing black polo shirts. We pretty much got destroyed. Mary totally carried the team. I guess I lost my touch.

Shortly thereafter, Wazi called, and he came over to TC. We were going to go over to Rory's where I was told that there would be wine and/or cheese, but we soon found out that Rory was not home and there was neither wine nor cheese. So we decided to instead go over to Mader/Jim/Bryce/John's apartment where people were watching TV and sitting around. We had a drink or two, hung out, etc. Then Milf came over and me, Milf and Wazi decided to go to a party that Wazi's sister was attending. We called the Jesus cab, who picked us up...and then no less than 10 other people. Oh boy, how I love cramming a bunch of people in a van and riding through South Bend. Especially when half those people were drunk girls who kept talking about how they were going to get even more drunk so they could make out with each other and laugh about it the next day.

When we got to this alleged party, we walked in to see a couple in the throes of young love, and pretty much nothing else. We wandered into the abandoned basement, and eventually, after a few long minutes of searching, we found the host and eventually the rest of the party in the backyard. We played several games of flip cup on the worst picnic table ever. I also talked to the very drunk college sophomore when he took a break from being passed out on a wooden swing. At one point, Milf and I were standing in the backyard until we noticed that the old other people there were a couple making out. So we went inside, and left shortly thereafter.

The next day, I met up with Nick Schott and we went to Vinny's tailgate because he had once told Nick that he was always welcome. We mostly just talked to Karsten. There was a bit more computer science talk than I would have liked, but I suppose I bring it upon myself for having so many nerdy friends. We met my dad and my cousin Jeff, and decided to try to find Wazi's tailgate. After some wandering, we decided that it must not exist, which was further verified when we discovered later that Wazi hadn't even been able to find his tailgate.

After a short walk through the tailgates on the south side of the stadium (where we ran into Rory at Cassidy's family's tailgate, and then later saw Will, Katie, Laura and Ron), we went on campus to watch the concert on the steps, trumpets in the dome, and marchout. It was band-i-licious. I met up with Mary shortly thereafter, and I tried to buy a ticket. I ended up getting a good seat for fairly cheap (it could have been cheaper, but I felt bad after accidentally giving them the wrong amount of money, so I ended up paying more). The guys I sat next to were attending their first game and were pretty nice...they even bought me bottled water! Unfortunately, we had four Purdue fans in front of us (one of which sang his own version of our fight song), two younger guys on the left (who smelled of alcohol), and a few Purdue couples behind us (with some obnoxious women. Women should not be allowed to scream like that, it hurt my ears).

Luckily, we actually played well, which pretty much shut the Purdue fans up. I think the women left, the older guys in front of us started to only make neutral comments (that was a good play, if he'd made that interception he would have scored, etc), and the ones next to us left sometime in the 4th quarter. It was great! Especially after how mean the Purdue fans were to us last year.

After the game, I joined Nick and Jared on the long walk to Andy's parents' house, where they host regular post-game feasts. I say feasts because the house was filled and so were our stomachs by the end. There were appetizers, steak, side dishes, desserts, flat screen TVs, football, band kids, you name it. It was nice to relax at a house after a long day, and they were great hosts!

Nick and I called a cab and shared it with another guy. We went to the house where Nick was staying to pick up his car and then drove to campus so I could change at Mary's (and Nick changed in the library, go figure). Ok, this was potentially the funniest part of the weekend: Nick and I returned to the house to drop off his car and walk to the Backer. He wanted to say hi, so we walked in the door. There were at least 20 people crammed in the living room at this point. We said hi, and the room got COMPLETELY SILENT. At this point, I audibly mumbled "Well, this is awkward" and walked right out the door, with Nick following behind. BEST EXIT EVER. I guess you'd have to be there. It was great though.

So on to the Backer. Pete drove past us and told us to come to his party (which we had received conflicting reports about), but as it turned out, we just closed out the Backer. But I've gotten ahead of myself. Me, Nick, and Phil stood in line for awhile. After we got inside, I mean, outside, I saw my friend Katy from Rome who told us that the line had an insanely long wait, right before making us cut with her. They were thinking of leaving, but the wait didn't end up being as long as they thought from that point, so they went. I think I insulted her friend...woops. But I maintain that my statement was accurate, at least I think many people would agree. We saw the guys who did the fly-over get into the Backer with their posses without waiting. In my opinion, guys can go out in uniform and look hot, but it doesn't seem that the female military uniform is something that one would wear to a bar or something. It doesn't have the same effect as a man in uniform. Not that they are unattractive uniforms, but that usually you don't see women wearing starched clothing out on Friday night. I'm just sayin'.

The Backer was actually quite fun. The whole crew wasn't there, but it was a more intimate setting. Or something like that. We were working hard to get our Phil...everybody wants a thrill, you know? Ryan K came, too. He even stood in line all by himself to see us! There was dancing, purple rains, all that jazz. I think this one guy was a little freaked out when we started jumping like crazy when Miley came on...but he was a good sport. After closing out the Backer, Milf walked me back to Farley, where Mary insisted that I sleep in her bed, which is why she is a super awesome hostess.

The next day, Mary was doing homework, so I went to LaFun to get subway. Afterwards, I walked around campus until I came upon west quad which NO LONGER HAS A ROAD! What the heck? That was just crazy. Now there is a sort of grassy knoll there, or like a field with a little drop-off. Since I was in the area, I decided to be a creep and walk over to see Duncan Hall. I waited until someone opened the door and slipped inside. That dorm is SWEET. The rooms that had their doors open were HUGE. The chapel was very very nice. The hallways seemed more home-y than the other west quad dorms, and every lounge area (there were two on each floor) had nice couches and a flat screen TV. I wandered into one such lounge and met a nice freshman from Florida who I chatted with for almost a half hour. He told me all about their colors, mascot, what the dorm was like, and we talked about college in general. I for once felt like one of those old alumni who wanders into their old dorm on football weekend. Too bad I wasn't wearing plaid pants.

As I was walking out of the dorm I saw someone I recognized. I pointed at him and said "You're my facebook friend!" and we each repeated each others' names. Now, I have no idea how I know this kid...at all. I think I met him once. But we knew each others' names, and that was just weird. Then he said, "Hey, I think I saw Dolu downstairs talking to the rector." I got excited and went downstairs. Before I continue, can I point out that this kid knew that I knew Dolu? Oh, the wonders of facebook...although we very well could have met through Dolu. Notre Dame's weird like that (like the girl I always see at the Backer in South Bend or the Hangge Uppe in Chicago. It's just weird.)

I went downstairs as Dolu was leaving the rector's room, and he saw me and we had a grand reunion. What are the chances that we each come in from the Chicago area, and then run into each other in a dorm that neither of us had ever been in before? Crazy. We walked and chatted, and soon after, Wazi called and said he was coming to pick me up.

After picking up Milf, Wazi, one of his sister's friends, and I went to Chipotle. Chipotle seems to be a South Bend tradition. Or maybe just a weekend tradition. Finally, we had to make a pit stop at Wazi's parents' house in Granger, which ended the random weekend. You know the weekend has been pretty random when you end it in someone's parents' driveway as they clean the bird poop off the car before you leave.

That evening, Milf and I watched Independence Day, talked about the unlikely elements of the film, and watched the aliens get destroyed. Oh Bill Pullman, how you move me with your seemingly emotionless visage and inspirational speeches. We also watched my favorite part of Spiderman 3...the part where he becomes emo. Yeah!

Ok, I think this should win some sort of prize for being the most unnecessarily long account of a weekend. Maybe I will go back and write about my previous 3 weekends as well, but I promise they won't be nearly as long. Mostly because I can't remember that far back.

I feel like I should end with a clip or something.

Lazy Monday

2008-09-15T09:57:00.003-05:00

So Julie has yet to tell you about the events of last Saturday.

I'll see what I can remember from then. I'm currently on codeine cough syrup, antibiotics, a decongestant, antihistamines, and advil. Wooooooo.

Yeah I went to the doctor this morning, after not being able to sleep all night due to me taking a zyrtec d at 2am. I know it makes me not be able to sleep, but my head was pounding and I had to take something.

We'll come back to that later.

So Saturday.... hmm. Oh we were woken up by people running around outside at an insanely early hour. That wasn't fun, but the day was really nice and we got up at a reasonable time and went out tailgating. We started off at Dave's friend's tailgate I think. Oh no. Actually we met Caitlin at Dan's family's tailgate. Then we went to Dave's. Then we left there so we could get some food at my family friend's tailgate and see them and stuff. I don't remember anything that exciting... Dave wore a silly outfit. That's pretty standard though.

Oh. Then we got a call telling us to go to the Frankenstein tailgate. We walked over to the legends lot and we were like.. "What do you think they mean my Franken... Oh," as we saw the giant inflatable Frankenstein above a truck. We were invited to dance in the truck bed, which we did for a little bit. I'm surprised, being from Texas, that I had never done that before.

From there we went to the game, where Julie, Susie, Bethany and I all got to sit together! We were across the stadium in the other corner from the student section and we gt to meet Dan's brother! That was funny. And Bethany received yet another marriage proposal.

By the way, True Blood is a really weird show.

Soo we won the game. Wasn't really that eventful. Went to a tailgate afterwards to get some dinner. Then we went back to Farley. Bethany and I went to Pete's house to say hi. We took "Stranger Danger" and Phil with us.

People decided to go to the Backer early that night due to the problems we had the night before. So I think we got in line around 11:30, and Ryan and Carrie were there already, so we met up there with them. This was the last week of the NORMAL LINE! You will hear about the new one in the next entry, I'm sure. The Backer was good. We all got to get Purple Rains this time. Susie loved it. And she got some SoCo. So she was happy. She got really excited and told me at some point (must have been about 1am) "We still have 2 hours left!" I think Bethany even said "I think this is the most fun I've ever had at the Backer." Maybe she should leave a comment as to why this was the case...?

I forgot about that until just now. Cool. So I don't really know why it was so fun, you probably wouldn't understand unless you were there. I met some new people that weekend. New to me anyway. Wazi (that's how he told me to spell it in my phone), Dave's friend Ken who wanted to cut with us in line even though he really didn't know us very well. And then the other RA from my floor freshman year in Farley who works with Julie. I mean, I'd met her before obviously but whatever.

Wow. My nose just cleared up a little bit. I can breathe. Sigh. Maybe its this chicken soup I just heated up. Mmm mmm good.

So we walked back to Fischer Grad from there, making a pit stop or two along the way. Haha. Nick stayed at Dave's. Apparently some hilarity ensued involving Nick, which we missed thankfully, but it was pretty funny to hear about the next weekend.

Phil dropped us off at library circle, I believe and we walked back to Farley. Except, maybe we walked back from FOG to Farley. Whatever. I'm sleepy now. So Saturday night came and went. We slept, we showered, we went to mass, we traveled back to our respective homes, we saw Rory, ate at chipotle, met up with spiderman, drove to chicago (Not necessarily in that order.)

And that was that.

I don't have enough energy to discuss this weekend yet. I need to rest up for my next trip back up there which is wednesday evening. I really hope I'm not sick then, which is why I called the doctor as soon as they opened this morning and got up there to get medicine. I'm really glad that this was a classical sinus infection presentation, because if I were at ND, they would have just been like, "i'm not giving you antibiotics, blah blah blah" and I would still be sick weeks later.

So I think I'm going to take a nap, since I didn't sleep last night.

Labor Day, but not the childbirth kind.

2008-09-08T21:40:00.003-05:00

So wait...now what was I supposed to be blogging about? Katherine assigned me topics...who does she think she is, Linda Richman?

If you got that joke, good for you. I'd been meaning to blog for awhile now, even wrote it in my planner! See, labor day weekend was rather eventful, so I wanted to chronicle that, too. I guess I will give the highlights.

My weekend pretty much started on Thursday after work when we had our second trip to Castaways. It was fun, I didn't stay the whole time, but enjoyable and relaxing and no storms or anything. I had to leave early because Gail was coming in town to interview and was going to stay with me that night. I took a cab back, met her at a bookstore, and we came back to my apartment to chill and catch up.

So...the next day was notable because 1) Gail got the job and 2)We got to leave early. I spent that time taking a nap...just like old times! I probably slept too long because that's just what I do, but unfortunately there was not a dog show on tv.

I initially was worried about this weekend because I did not have any set plans. I worried that I would sit around the whole time being bored and doing nothing. Don't get me wrong, doing nothing is nice, but I tend to get bored/lonely/smelly when I just sit around all day doing nothing. After I woke up from my nap, I tried to find something to do. I used my creepy facebooking skills to get in touch with Wasi, who was going to a BBQ, so I tagged along. It was a bit weird because I was the youngest one there. Sometimes you'd like to think you're all mature and grown up...until you hang out with people who own a condo. It was pretty chill, but I enjoyed it. Anyway, after that we went to meet Spiderman and more trumpets at a bar. We had some huge cans of beer, which were impressive to me. Someone decided that we needed shots...ughh. Shots are gross. Spiderman imparted this piece of wisdom:
"Someone once told me: Beer before liquor? You're fine." Heh. So later we met up with Wasi's friends at this Korean karaoke bar. Upon entering, Spidermen promply threw up on his was to some sketchy back alley. We spent a bit looking for him, I brought some water, and we sat around. Eventually, I headed back in and dominated karaoke (if that is even possible). This place was great. You get your own little room for your friends and half the songs are in Korean (as well as the remote). The backgrounds are just videos of random cities, which is funny because I'd be singing "We Built This City" and seeing scenes of Prague.

Spidey stayed in my apartment that night, and he spent the next morning recovering as we watched College Gameday. Woo! College football! We eventually left to get bagels, when I got a call from Andrew because he and his roommate had extra tickets to see Batman in IMAX. This was great for me, because I was the one person who hadn't seen it and I got to see it on a HUGGGEEE screen. So that was a fun time. I personally was excited to see my building (that I work in) in the movie, as well as Millenium Station and Binny's (the chain of liquor stores in Chicagoland).

That evening I called Mike, who was at Kyle etc.'s apartment. There were a bunch of Sorin guys in town, which was kind of weird. Mark the Shark was there, telling us about his job which involves occasionally going into sewers and seeing poop float by. It was pretty fun to chat with people. We ended up at a chill bar down the street, and then finished the night at the little Mexican restaurant...again. This time I used the restroom...which was in the kitchen. I washed my hands in the same sink as the workers use! How exciting!

The next day was Sunday. I'm blanking...Oh. I watched football during the day, napped, then met up with Katherine at the BYOB noodle place. It is quite delicious, and BYOB is pretty much the best idea ever. It is weird that Katherine is a real teacher now...seems like only yesterday we were students! Ha. Her students love Miley, but she has to pretend not to know who Miley is. I never realized just how much some of my friends have in common with fourth graders. We went to a bar after since we were off the next day, and later met up with Mike C. and K-Fed. It got decently crowded, so we moved to Barleycorn expecting to find dancing, but instead were disappointed. Oh well. It was still fun to chat and not have to go to bed for work the next morning.

Monday I met up with Dolu. Some homeless guy told him that he should marry me. I decided that whenever I have to make a major life decision I will consult a homeless person. We went to Panera to use the internetz, and then went to Giordano's for some pizza. We had a nice long conversation about various topics, and Dolu referenced St. Peter the Great on multiple occasions. We ended up sitting by the lake downtown, watching the boats. How very romantic. Too bad he didn't take the homeless guy's advise, it would have been a good day to pop the question...haha.

Dolu had to get back, so I headed to Carol's to see her new apartment. I got a nice little tour of University of Chicago and Hyde Park. We ate at a little Mediteranean restaurant (and coincidentally, I just ate the leftovers from that evening today for dinner. It was delicious, I swear!) It was a nice ending to an unexpectedly busy weekend.

I have to leave for the airport at 4:30 am, so I am going to leave my blog entry for this past weekend for later. For the time being, here is a song for you to watch. I like the part with the gun shots and cash register.

Great Weekend? Or Greatest Weekend?

2008-09-08T00:41:00.002-05:00

(Hey Rory! Look! I'm updating since you say we don't do it nearly enough.)

I'm not gonna say greatest, cause things can always get better... like.. you could get to the backer at a reasonable time and have longer than an hour there...

Here's the return of Julie and I blogging about the same things. I hope you're ready for this.

By the way, I have a test in 7 hours, and I haven't really studied for it. Well, that's a lie, but I definitely haven't studied sufficiently for it. I shall start after I blog. I think this might end up being the second all-nighter of my life.

So I left my apartment at 4:30am on Friday to get to the airport in hopes of flying standby on the 6am flight to Chicago. I got to the front desk place at 5:15 (by the time I parked and everything) and was able to get on the flight, which was boarding right then. I was selected for additional screening! That sounds like I won something. I'm thinking it was probably 'cause I wanted to fly stand-by? I don't know. Anyways, I followed Julie's excellent directions to her apartment, and was finally reunited with my #2 speed-dial.

I was greeted to a beautiful sight of Susie sprawled out on the air mattress, looking lovely as always. We hung out in Chicago for a bit. Watched some Jon & Kate + 8 and Wife Swap while Julie and Susie showered, ate an eggplant sandwich, got a free iced berry tea, shopped for birthday cards, gave Susie an anime name (Su-San), you know, the usual. Spiderman met us eventually and we got on the road to South Bend! (After some minor difficulties... heh heh)

We listened to his free trial of satellite radio, the 80s station mostly. When we got to South Bend, we broke into Dave's apartment while he wasn't there, and dropped off our stuff, since Mary was at the pep rally, and thus not in her dorm room, where we had decided to stay. Multiple showers. That was the selling point. Anyways. We hung out there, had some drinks, Julie went off to "post-rally." The rest of us bought sandwiches at J.J.'s (not fish and chicken) and then took all our stuff over to Farley. That was strange. I used to live there.

Moving on.

Friday night started out at Dave's apartment? We hung out there for a while, then went to drummer's circle. No comment on that. Ha. I'll let Julie do that one.

We left drummer's circle for The Backer. We stood in line there for an hour before deciding to leave in order to at least have some time to hang out and stuff. Dave said we could go to his apartment, but he had to stay because "people inside need to see [him]". Yeah. I'm not sure about that. Hahaha.

When we got back to Dave's apartment, people were sleeping on the floor, so obviously that plan was ruined. We stood around outside mumbling and grumbling for a bit. At least Julie and I did. I asked Phil to take us back to campus and we ended up taking a detour by The Backer... noticed the line was non-existent at this point, and decided to go in at 2am. It was totally worth it. I think Susie had some of the best quotes of the weekend starting with:

"I forgot how good these were!"

in reference to a Purple Rain. Me too, Susie... Me too. We saw the old leprechaun there. He like, unbuttoned his shirt and was being weird and trying to get in our pictures. It was funny. I got a lot of beverage spilled on me... or maybe spit on me. That was gross. Thanks, The Glove.

'Oh What A Night' came too soon, as it always does, and we got a ride back to campus and went to bed in Farley. I slept in a different room than Julie, Bethany, and Susie, so they came and woke me up in the morning at like 9 something so we could get a good start on tailgating. This was pretty early for us, since we used to get up at like noon on game days. Yeah I know. That's kind of sad.

Anyway... I'll let Julie fill you in on Saturday and Saturday night. And Sunday I guess.

So I'm going to study for my test now. And I'll leave you with some selected quotes from one of our chat logs from a few weeks ago:

Julie: oh man, today i was at this restaurant, and they sell muffin tops
Susie: hahaha
Katherine: hahahha
Susie: that makes me think of girls who wear too-tight pants
Julie: but they are just the tops, they don;t make the stumps
Katherine: i learned from the "that's what i call the new milennium" what that was
Oscar: i wear too tight pants
Julie: which defeats the purpose
Katherine: yeah they sell those at panera
Susie: ew
Katherine: i was going to say pottery barn
Katherine: but that's not true
Oscar: too tight pants?
Katherine: hahahaha
Katherine: no..
Susie: there was an episode of seinfeld about that
Katherine: muffin tops
Susie: "top o' the muffin"
Julie: what about pants?
Julie: ohh
Oscar: i didnt know panera sold pants
Susie: hahahah
Bethany: they donated the bottoms
Susie: yep
Julie: top o the muffin TO YOU!!!!
Susie: and then got yelled out
Bethany: haha
Susie: SORRY!!!
Katherine: ohhh i remember that seinfeld
Katherine: hahahaha
Susie: um..yelled at
Katherine: hahahahaha
Julie: neuman ate the muffins
Katherine: wow
Katherine: i am NOT studying
Bethany: are you ever?
Katherine: studying sucks
Oscar: should u be?
Katherine: i have a test friday
Susie: that's why i graduated
Bethany: i'm not studying either
Katherine: this is much more fun though

The Prophecy

2008-08-25T10:07:00.003-05:00

So a week ago or something I had this dream that I was buying hair products. I remember in the dream that I was confused because I thought I already had the stuff? I don't know. I was probably buying some like, pomade or something. Anyways. Saturday, I went to NorthPark, AKA the best mall in the world. At least in Texas. According to me. I decided to stop in the Aveda store because I needed some of this red conditioner that I used occasionally, then I remembered that I needed some other things for my hair, since I got it cut and wanted to try out a new style.

I got into the store, felt really overwhelmed because all their products have weird names, and aren't very self-explanatory. So eventually this guy that worked there helped me out. He showed me this magical powder that adds volume. It is truly amazing. It like, dissolves in your hair and feels cold... its kind of strange. So I ended up getting that, some humidity protectant stuff which also protects your hair from the heat, and some smoothing stuff. To stop the frizz.

Before this, I went to the MAC store with my friend and got some unnecessary items including eyeshadow, concealer, and some makeup brushes. And I bought a necklace. It's nice, but I never wear stuff other than that one silver necklace I have, and sometimes I think for a second that I'm wearing mardi gras beads. But then I look down and am reminded that its not.

So that night, we went out for my friend Jessica's birthday. She's 23. Man. We're getting old. Haha. We went to a Mexican restaurant, which is like, the only kind of restaurant I've been to in the past week when I've gone out for dinner. That's Texas for you. So inevitably, margaritas were consumed. I think I told Julie that since I've been back in Texas, I've probably had more margaritas than I ever did in South Bend. Not that I have a LOT here, but they're just very accessible... and they're a lot better too. Haha. I better not talk too much about alcohol in case someone ever does an extensive background check on me. Heh heh.

Friday night, we went out in Fort Worth. Some Irish-themed place where draft Killians was 2.50. I was inordinately excited about that. I mean, its no K's (1.25!), but it was still pretty cheap. And better than Bud Light or Miller Light or whatever. So that was good. I may have to go back there.

My mom came in yesterday afternoon for a few hours. That was interesting. She had a layover at DFW so I picked her up and we got some food and she took a nap. FUN! The food I got was delicious though. Pizza. It was like, pesto and mushrooms and spinach and feta. Mmm.

I stayed up too late talking to people online. Probably the only people that read this blog were in the chat themselves. Sooo yeah. We started reminiscing on old times, and planning weddings and whatnot. Haha. I was laughing really hard the whole time, and I think my roommate thinks I'm crazy. Anyways. So I'm really tired. I was falling asleep in class this morning, so I didn't really pay attention and was kind of wondering to myself why I was even there if I was just going to sleep and/or do crossword puzzles. Eh. Who knows?

My electric bill was once again around 300 dollars. That's ridiculous. It's not like I keep the place freezing either. Seriously. I've been trying to keep the A/C set at like, 78 or something. I don't know if I should get it checked or not. I probably won't because I'm lazy like that.

So this weekend begins the month of traveling for me. Road trip this weekend to see family. The next TWO weekends I'll be at ND, and the next one I'm probably going home. We'll see about that one though. I might not be able to handle it. I'm really looking forward to having a test the day after I get back from the SDSU game. NOT.

I put some pictures of my apartment up on picasa:

http://picasaweb.google.com/KatherinePongetti/ApartmentPictures

So you can check those out if you want. I don't know why I didn't put them on facebook. Whatever. Actually. That's a lie. I do know why. It was because in the event that I lose my stuff on my computer again, I can download them in high quality from there. Except that I have my computer backed up on an external hard drive now, so it's kind of unnecessary, but whatever. They just opened an Apple store here though, so no more driving an hour to one. Woo.

I'm listening to Mariah Carey right now. Fantasy. It's great.

Talk to you kids later.

A strange dream

2008-08-24T13:41:00.002-05:00

So usually my dreams aren't that weird. I mean, they are things that could actually happen. But last night's dream was far from that.

So, the main part of the dream involved some type of road trip or something. I was in a van with a bunch of people i didn't know, but I think my parents might have been there, and my little cousin. So there is this guy who is there (I think he kind of looked like John Stamos), and his brother was a fugitive. We were driving (and there was even a montage, I kid you not. The mile numbers on signs counting down, you know, they show a sign that says 100 miles, then another that says 50 miles...after we got to 0 miles there was a sign that said mile 22398 or something crazy.) Throughout the ride, I realized that the fugitive was rolled up in a blanket between some of the seats, on the floor. I guess everyone else thought he was just luggage. Towards the end of the trip, his blanket fell off a bit and my baby cousin started laughing at him, and people started to figure it out. But I guess not everyone did?

We made it to someone's house. I think it was my grandma's house because there was a picture near the door that my uncle drew. Anyway, we were near a cliff, and the fugitive had somehow found a parachute. But he was falling (off the cliff, or from a plane, I don't know) and as he free-falled, he blew himself up. And then the chute went off to float his dead body to the ground. Then he exploded again. We were all like "that was really lame" I think his body turned into a mannequin or something.

So later in my dream, I was at a softball game, standing behind home plate with....THE POPE. He was all decked out in his pope clothes. I was like, wow, I can't believe I'm shooting the shit with the Pope! I don't think he understood softball much, so I was kind of explaining things. Suddenly, the backstop started falling backwards, and we almost got hit by the fence! Crazy!

That was pretty much it. In real life news, Mike and I tried the BYOB noodle place near our apartments. It was quite good, and I even had enough for leftovers the next day! That night I made a return to the late night salsa techno club that breaks out next to a Mexican restaurant. Luckily, I was not confronted by any creepy guys. I got my hair cut on Saturday, then went to dinner with Dolu at the Regal Beagle, which was a pretty cool place. Very girly. They played 70s and 80s music and the decor was very 70s. Dark, lit with a reddish glow, and couches. Later that night I happened upon a party that was practically a Sorin party...flashback to frosh/soph years. As were were playing flip cup we realized that 4/5 girls playing lived in Cavanaugh. It's a small world, I guess. Also notable, they had a keg of Smithwicks. Probably the classiest party I've been to, if only for that detail.

Next week is labor day, and I am looking for something fun to do. Any ideas? I will leave you with a song that will remind me of living in Chicago because it's been played in every bar I've been to, ever.

One quick thing...

2008-08-19T22:40:00.002-05:00

So there is a church down the street from my apartment that I pass on the was to the L. It looks like a normal church, but sometimes strange things are afoot there. For example, once or twice I've seen long lines in front of it, but at weird times, like 6pm on a weekday. But that is not the strangest part. They have workout classes there. No, not in the gym or some room off of the church, but actually IN the place where people would worship. I have seen it, heard the upbeat music and the person telling everyone to "keep it up!" Ok, so this would lead one to believe that this church is no longer actually a church, but rather a community center type place. But here comes the strange part...they actually have church services there. It just seem so weird to me! What's next, does it turn into a dance club at night? I wouldn't be surprised.

A few thoughts

2008-08-18T23:06:00.003-05:00

I don't feel like writing a whole post. That's right. You will not be getting a run-down of everything I've done for the last three weekends. Lucky you? I think I'll just put some random thoughts:

Why haven't I seen a picture of Michael Phelps wearing all eight of his gold medals? At once? Seriously, that would be the first thing I would do. I would probably even pose naked for some magazine with my medals covering certain areas. Of course, if I could win that many medals, I would probably have a super hot body...unless I was a weight lifter or something.
Every time I smell stale homeless person urine, I think of Rome. In a good way...I think?
I discovered that I enjoy moshing. This revelation came after my day at Lollapalooza and the Flogging Molly concert there. I now understand Fight Club a little more. After that, I ended up near the front of the absurdly large crowd for Girl Talk. I was all kinds of sweaty. WHO KNOWS what kind of skin diseases I could have picked up. The best part was when GT left the stage on a raft, crowdsurfing, with the last part of Journey's Faithfully playing. Bad. Ass.
I went to Kentucky last week. I got to play trivia with Phil and my dad. We did ok. It was mostly for the older generation, I think. I also saw Sandra Bullock in the Louisville airport. Annddd...no one else seemed to care.
I think it's weird when mothers and fathers refer to me to their little kids as "that lady" or something like that. Like, "move over, let this lady through." Since when did I become a lady?
Me, Rory, and Carol watched a movie called "Boy Eats Girl." No, it was not a porn movie, though that probably would have facilitated a threesome. Ha. No, it was a zombie movie. An Irish zombie movie. My only regret is falling asleep during it. That was such a me thing to do. Rory thought the movie was good though, but I assume good in a horrible horror movie kind of way.
I need to stop giving out my number. I am weak. I also almost got myself a stalker. Eek. Good thing I never answer my phone...
Today I thought about what it would be like if I moved back to Kentucky. It was kind of a romantic thought, like one would have about moving to a quaint rural village. When did this happen to me? I mean, I leave South Bend, move to Chicago for two months, and suddenly I'm one of those city folk? Never!
I'm a bit upset that all of my friends who were here for the summer have gone back home/to school. I kind of wish I could go back to school. Of course, homework is pretty lame. If I could just work instead of going to classes, but still be a "college student" that would be great. I'm not sure how that would work out, though...
I made my first adult purchase the other day. A bag of prunes. I'm just that much closer to retirement.

Well guys, I'll leave you with this music video for a guy who was mentioned in a book I just finished reading. That's right, I've been spending my paychecks on books.

La dee daaa

2008-08-16T17:40:00.003-05:00

Mmm... Looks like Julie and I have both been slacking a little bit in our updates.

I had a final a few weeks ago and started the fall semester last Monday, so I think I've got an excuse. The final went fine apparently. Got an A in the class. Didn't really go that often, so that's pretty cool.

I'm taking Biochem, and two other classes, but Biochem is the main one. That's biochemistry for you non-science types. Four days a week. 8:00 am. That's early. At least I don't feel quite as worthless anymore. I'm working on fixing up my resume so I can start applying for jobs. Hopefully that will be fruitful. All I gotta say is, I sure am glad I'm not in engineering grad school. Or in a real master's program where you have to do a thesis. Heh heh.

I got some pictures printed at Walgreen's today from graduation weekend and other events during school to fill some frames I have bought in the past few weeks. So that made me reminisce about school and all that. I'm going up in three weeks for a game though! Yay. Then again the week after. Crazy. Hopefully my flights won't get cancelled/delayed/crash or anything like that. Oh well. I just won't think about that till it happens.

I've done a lot of home-improvements this weekend. I went to Ikea and bought a dresser. Got to put that together. It hurt my hands. I hung up some pictures and things, too. I probably should have studied a little bit, but that didn't really happen.

I've made some pretty good, really easy recipes lately. If you would like the recipe for italian sausage and bean soup or eggplant pasta, let me know and I can email them to you. ;) Hmm so what else has happened since I last wrote in here.... I broke my phone again. Haha. It fell in the sink. I got one of those new Instinct's. It's pretty cool. It's got a GPS, so that's pretty convenient. I can be standing somewhere, and be like, where can I eat? And the phone will tell me what's closest! It's awesome! But its pretty funny when it doesn't know where I am and thinks I'm off course. Anyways.

Ohh facebook reminiscing. So much fun.

Later.

Fast times in the CITY

2008-08-02T14:07:00.004-05:00

Eek! It's been like...three weekends since I've blogged! In that time I visited the Hange Uppe a few times, went to a cook out (or two), hung out at the beach after dark, helped start up the dance floor, saw lots of random ND people, and the list goes on.

The most exciting part about two weekends ago was when I managed to get my air conditioner in the window. I learned how to use my crappy drill, discovered I had drilled in the wrong place, and had a bit of an emotional breakdown (during which I called my parents hysterically in tears. I am really lame like that sometimes.) Because I decided that an empty AC casing should not be left precariously perched in a window, I was determined, and somehow managed to get the whole thing in...heavy AC unit and all! And to celebrate, I even had people over! Because I was no longer embarrassed to host people in a hot apartment. Now, embarrassment for hosting in a cramped apartment is another story.

That evening, Katherine G. and I took Spidey and Carol to the Hangge Uppe for the first time, where we stood in line forEVER. It was super fun, though, as the Hangge Uppe often is. The mix of music, the people dancing, the crazy guys on the stage (not the same guys every week, but it always happens)...it's great! That night, Carol and Spiderman spent the night, and the next morning we went to a noodle place before the headed home. Then I decided to go shopping and bought a dress. I need more dresses...I seem to only have dressy dresses...I need some going out dresses...

I think this was the week where I went out for Ethiopian food with Carol, Rory, Carol's sister Janet, Stephanie and Kyle. Oh! What inappropriate conversations we had. That day was filled with weird conversations. At lunch, we talked about herpes. At dinner, we talked about threesomes and other strange sexual experiences. I'm surprised it didn't turn into a game of "never have I ever." The next day, we had a little work happy hour because a couple of my fellow designers "won" them. This resulted in me having a LOT of beer...and a well drink after Tom the intern gave me his bracelet. The night ended after Allison and I decided to start dancing, and pretty soon, the rest of our coworkers (the ones who had stayed til this point) joined in. I think my company has the potential to have some awesome dance parties. I can hope, right?

Last weekend I wandered over to the Taste of Lincoln Ave...in part to see a DMB cover band. I'm not sure if that was a low point or not...haha! They had pina coladas in pineapples, but they were $8 and I wasn't sure it was worth it. I also heard many conversations about a certain former ND player who was pitching for the Cubs that weekend. It was pretty funny to listen to people in the "real world" talking about a "classmate."

So soon after, I met Rory and Carol at the Potbelly's by my apartment. Some guy pretty much stole our money after we agreed to help him get his car un-towed. Psh. Then Carol and I made a nice little trip to the liquor store while Rory was off finding the best parking spot ever. This was a milestone in that now I have alcohol in my apartment, and on a side note, I am still bitter that my brother is drinking all of our alcohol from school. Ugh. I digress. Dolu came over, and eventually Kyle did, too, and insisted on playing cards. So Rory and I went to the Walgreens to get said cards. The game was rather long, but fairly simple to play in an inebriated state (well, except for Dolu who kept forgetting to follow suit, causing us to throw out a couple of hands.)

Kyle was tired, so he went home as the rest of us headed to the Hangge Uppe. A few points:
-I made my first trip to the upstairs dance floor, which had more modern hip hop-style music.
-Beer and the like was spilled on me at regular intervals. That was familiar...
-The clientele was a bit older than normal, and included a couple who kept pushing me into a crowd. The woman was not thin, and her guy was backing her into the crowd, and I was unfortunate to be between them,
-Also, there were these two crazy drunk girls who were standing behind me and kept falling all over the place and all over me. Dolu offered to switch places, and we did, but the girls were so intense that they were pushing him around. Then we started kind of talking with them, as I laughed hysterically watching them.
-Everyone there was insanely tall.
-First three songs...Sweet Caroline, Your Love, Don't Stop Believing. Also, I kind of freaked out when they started playing Africa because Dolu was with us.

So the next day, I woke up, went to visit Katherine who was at the bagel place down the street, reading, and ran to the store to get the last few ingredients to make...guacamole! I was a little frazzled as I made it...I had never prepared avocados, and I don't think they were entirely ripe. People seemed to like the guacamole, though, so I think it was a success. Why was I making this nutritious dip? For a cookout! Carol's landlady, who lives in the house above her apartment, was out of town, so we had a party! Woo! Even though the boys used the grill incorrectly, the food was good, the wine was good, and the scenery was good, too! We felt like grown ups, for some reason. It was nice to be in an actual backyard. Someday I'd like to own a house...we'll see if THAT ever happens...

This week....oh, let's see...I went running on Monday, but took the rest of the week off because I can't really even walk without the back of my heel hurting. I have a gross sore on it. I should probably get it checked out before it gets infected...Sorry for the gross aside. Wednesday, Mary and I went to Carol's for leftovers and ended up taking a walk to the beach. The sand was nice, and you could see the Chicago skyline, which was all lit up and glowed pink-ish. It was nice.
This week before work one day, the Jessie Spano drug addiction episode was on and I knew it was the start of a great day. I also discovered the "Executive" combo at the market, which includes soup and a sandwich for a little over $5.

Last night, Katherine and I were going to meet Dolu to go to some benefit thing at a local bar. After waiting for awhile, we went to a bar, and after a slight setback, were let in. Ok, so the deal was $25 to get a bracelet and then all you can drink until 11 (wells, wine, drafts). Katherine and I were a bit hesitant to pay this much for only an hour and a half of drinking, but we totally got our money's worth. While helping children in Africa with AIDS...or, little Dolus who have AIDS. We got to the point where we were alternating bars because we were afraid one of the bartenders would cut us off. I had fun, and we left a little after 11 and met Rory and friends outside. I led the way to a bar called John Barleycorn, which I had heard had dancing. It was a fun time, and later that night they played Miley (so obviously I had to text a few friends...) We saw some Sorin guys, which was pretty cool. At one point I left to meet (creepy) Mike who had literally JUST moved to the neighborhood, and escort him to that fine establishment. Later, on a routine trip to the restroom, I ran into the Michigan State guys who I had met at the Hangge Uppe a few weeks before, which was pretty random. We left when the bar closed (wasn't a late night one, unfortunately), but we were all tired and went home to go to bed. Dolu and I had another semi-deep conversation, and then I slept like a baby.

And here I am, today. I was going to go to the beach, but that didn't quite happen. I suppose I could still go, but maybe I'll go shopping instead. Or I'll just sit here and read. Welp, there you go. Now you know what goes on in my life, all the sordid details.

I'm still here

2008-07-22T23:13:00.002-05:00

Wow. So I've really neglected this thing. Oops.

I'm currently watching Batman Begins, so I can go watch the new one some time this week, but in more exciting news...

I'M GOING TO SEE THE X-FILES MOVIE AT MIDNIGHT ON THURSDAY (or Friday, technically). I am super excited about this. You really wouldn't have any idea unless you, too, where an X-Files fan back when it was still on the air (not including the last 2 seasons), or knew me in middle school when I was obsessed with this show.

Nothing too exciting has happened in the last month. I've gone out downtown a few times with friends from the master's program that I'm currently in. That's usually pretty fun. I invariably hear songs that I heard at The Backer, and it makes me sad.

My roommate has been making me work out with her lately. So that's good. I guess I started back up on Friday really. I've also been laying out at the pool a little bit, which I don't normally do. So, I've gotten some sun, and it's weird to think that I could be even WHITER than I am now, which is still extremely pale. We went to the TCU stadium and ran stairs today. That. Is. Difficult. Like, it was difficult to drive my car after that. With the gas pedal and clutch and all.

Oh yeah, my car. So I had to pay 1017 dollars or so to get my car fixed today. I took it in yesterday after about two months of my engine light going on and off occasionally. None of my gauges were showing anything weird, so I figured I had some time. Anyways, I took it to the VW dealer yesterday, and apparently the fan was broken on my water pump. And my thermostat and temperature sensor were broken, which is why I couldn't tell that there was a problem. So that was fun. And expensive.

So I had to pay for that right after I bought a plane ticket online to go to the Michigan game. I don't know why I do these things. Well, I do. They're fun. And I figure, I want to go to that game more than I want to... say... buy a 250 dollar dress, or spend 250 dollars at the store. So why not? Getting a job would probably be a good idea...

Anyways, so Sunday was fun, because Julie, Bethany, Susie and I went into the same chat room and all talked to each other in the same window! It was great. I think I couldn't breathe for about half the time because I had forgotten how hilarious we are. I would have posted a chat transcript here, but the freaking AIM chat doesn't save but like, the last 5 minutes of the conversation. I'm kind of getting angry thinking about that.

Anyways, we planned a wedding during our chat, so hopefully you'll be invited to that. Heh heh heh.

Ooh. Alfred and Bruce are looking at plans for the Bat Suit. Cool.

I never thought that I'd be that inconvenienced by the fact that I can only DVR two things at once, however, this is proving to be kind of annoying. Like right now, I'm watching Batman Begins, which I recorded yesterday, but I'm currently recording Secret Life of the American Teenager. However, I would have liked to record Leno, because Gillian Anderson (aka Scully from X-Files) is on it tonight. I had to cancel that recording, as well as Colbert, which isn't a big deal because he reruns like, 5 times tomorrow anyway, but still.

Wow. I kind of feel like that last paragraph was like when everyone in The Office was betting on how long Kelly would talk about Netflix.

So on that note, I shall end this entry, and hopefully blog more regularly from now on. So my brother won't criticize me.

Summer Woo!

2008-07-12T22:16:00.005-05:00

Found this online for your listening pleasure...

Oh yeahhh...It gets a bit convoluted at the end. But it's what I was looking for, I suppose.

So I suppose a lot has happened since I last posted. Lots of beach visits, some interesting adventures, and lots of random people sightings. It's pretty weird to see the most random people from college in a new city. Like kid in freshman year seminar (I think?), two people who were abroad with me, old dining hall co-workers...it's crazy! Well, here are some highlights. Two weeks ago, we had a work social event at this place called Castaways at the beach. As it turns out, there was a storm coming in and this place was outdoors, so we left and moved the party to a new location. It was a pretty fun event, I thought. Nice to talk to people outside of work.

Right now, I am watching "Bring It On Again." This is kind of embarrassing to admit.

Anyway, the next day was the third of July, and that evening Carol and I went to see the fireworks downtown. It was super crowded, but we had great seats! To avoid the crowd, we shared a cookie and a brownie at Cosi. Luckily, we didn't get shot. I heard that there had been some shootings down there...yikes!

On the Fourth of July, I went running around the neighborhood and then Katherine came over for dinner. We went to a mexican restaurant (irony? or is that the Alanis Morisette kind of irony?) The waiter gave us free margaritas! It was great! That evening we went to a bar called the Hange Uppe, which had been recommended to me. The basement was all 80s music (well, some 90s and other songs mixed in). Katherine and I loved it! I am planning on taking all my friends there! Also, it's on the red line, which runs all night. It's pretty convenient.

The next day was my first real trip to the beach here. I went up to the Loyola Lake Shore campus, where Katherine is studying for the summer. The beach was steps away from the campus. It was so nice! I love sand...water, well, I don't really care too much about. I think, though, that napping on the beach sounds more productive than napping at home, for some reason. We ate dinner at Giordano's, a pizza place, and met some of the people in her program. Then I had a tour of the campus. It was quite nice, I thought. I really like visiting college campuses. Perhaps I should have tried to become a professor or something...haha. I bet I'd be terrible at that!

That evening we celebrated Rory's birthday, visiting 5 bars, I think. We got coerced into going to some bar that was offering free drinks. The music was on the techno-side, and the dance area reminded me of LaFortune ballroom, which was weird. Couldn't quite put my finger on why, but that's what it felt like. The night ended with me, Rory, and two of his coworkers at the 24 hour Dunkin Donuts/Baskin Robbins. They talked about computer stuff THE WHOLE TIME. I was totally lost. Oh well. Sometimes I wish I had studied computer science so I could understand what my friends are talking about all the time!

The next day, after a long day of laziness, I went shopping at the Gap, which was recommended by Katherine the Ponge (yeah, surprising, I know). I got a pair of jeans for $14. That's unheard of at the Gap. Or...pretty much anywhere. I think it was worth the excursion!

Now on to this week...it was fairly uneventful, except when I broke my key in the door of the building and freaked out. It's ok, I got a new one, but not before my landlord lecturing me...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This weekend was quite the adventure! Mary and I had planned a nice little weekend. We were going to meet downtown to take the South Shore train to South Bend...but, after a few mishaps, we did not make it, and we were quite sad. So instead, we went back out to the suburbs, got Mary's car, and made it to South Bend by midnight! We first went to Beaubien's house, had some drinks, and walked to the Backer.

The triumphant return to the Backer! It was glorious! Well...wait...

Good: Cover was only $4!!
Bad: They wouldn't let us get purple rains with the drink tickets! (I hope this is not a new trend)
Good: We got long islands instead. And then people gave me purple rains.
Bad: They played Total Eclipse of the Heart and Bethany wasn't there.
Good: So I sang it with Peter Brandt instead!
Bad: The alien came out of Dave's stomach.
Good: Miley
Good: They played Africa! I requested it...of course.
Bad: No, my phone wasn't ringing.
Good: Dancing
Bad: Being smashed by Dave and Brian while dancing.
Good: No, wait...it was amazing. Because they have big penises. Three or four feet, to be exact. Or so says Dave. (No, I did not actually see this for myself. Thankfully. I am skeptical. Haha.)
Bad: I am kind of Brian's nemesis.
Good: He actually called me back the next day and almost went to the dunes with us.
Bad: He didn't actually go to the dunes with us.
Good: Carrie and Ryan were there!
Good: They had an after party!
Bad: The after party lasted til 6am...so late/early!
Good: We slept til noon.
Good: Beaubien made us lunch, and his house feels like it's in the country (compared to living in the city).
Bad: It got hot outside
Good: We went to ND and walked around campus. We saw some friends in a coffee table book at the bookstore. I bought THE SHIRT. We also saw The Shirt the Billboard on our way to South Bend.
Bad: I was an alumna, therefore no longer a student...sad?
Good: I got to walk up the steps of the main building and Mary didn't!

So after that, we went to the dunes. We accidentally got lost in some neighborhood, but eventually found the "real" beach. The water smelled kind of fishy, but you could see Chicago's skyline in the distance...and Gary, IN...ew. We spent most of the time napping in the soft, soft sand. Mmmm....I love sand. My legs hurt when walking off the beach because it was so think!

After a nice dinner at a Fazoli's rest stop (I love their Club Submarinos), we made our way home, and here I am, exhausted. Hopefully I will get some sleep this weekend, and that would be wonderful. I can't wait to go back to the Backer when more of my friends are in town...it could be even more like old times!

Summer in the City

2008-07-01T18:19:00.003-05:00

Well, to start things off, I am just gonna go ahead and say what everyone already knows. Hayden Christenson is a HORRIBLE actor. I am watching the second Star Wars movie, and just...wow. He makes Keanu Reeves look good.

But anyway. On to something more relevant. This weekend was rather busty, I suppose. As I still haven't unpacked my apartment. Friday evening, Mary came over and we walked around the neighborhood, observing the different types of people who were going out to the different bars. WAIT....I forgot about my exciting Thursday evening...

Spiderman came in town, and after walking all around to meet up , we decided to try the bar that had Iowa flags out front that I had discovered the night before. So we sit down, try the special ($2 domestic bottles) and order delicious spinach artichoke dip and tater tots. A bit later, the bartender comes up to us and says,
"Hey guys, just wanted you to know that it's open bar for the next hour.""
us: "What do you mean 'open bar'?"
him: "Well drinks and drafts are free."
us: "WHAT?!?!?!"
He blew our collective mind. Seriously. And he even experimented for us, and gave us some non-well alcohol. We had 7 drinks between the two of us. It truly was a Good Bar. Which was its name. In fact, it was a GREAT bar.

Back to Friday. Mary and I had ice cream from the 24-hour Baskin-Robbins/Dunkin Donuts/Deli across the street. Then we discovered that the bars in the two blocks around me practically have a dress code on Friday nights...short black dress, high heels, caked on make-up and lots of hairspray. I think it's because I live close to DePaul. Going a bit farther north, you notice the more eccentric type people. And the eccentric stores...And then if you go all the way to Wrigleyville (which is like...15 min walk, tops), you see people who are a bit older than the people who were down here.

Saturday I slept in pretty late and found out that if I sleep past 8, the sun shines directly in my face. I need to get some curtains or something. Later in the day, Rory came over for a bit, and after an unsuccessful attempt to install my AC, we went to Starbucks and then to the free Stevie Wonder concert at Taste of Chicago where we met Carol and Christina.

I noticed a few things: Firstly, everyone who goes to Stevie Wonder concerts like Obama. Or...maybe just everyone in Illinois. It's hard to tell. But I did see a LOT of Obama shirts. And let's face it, who would want to wear a shirt with McCain on it anyway? He's old. I don't wear shirts with my elders' faces on them. Ew. Ok, my second point was that it was rather humorous to see all the older people who were singing/dancing along. Or the groups of people who would just SCREAM out lyrics. I was entertained.

After the concert, and after Christina and Carol had to leave, Rory and I wandered around until we found a somewhat affordable restaurant that was open. We settled on a Cajun-style one that tried to look like Louisiana inside. You know, signs on the walls, mardi gras beads, bayou dirtiness. Like a Crackerbarrel, but Southern-themed. The food was delicious, though. Rory and I had a nice chat about Notre Dame, people at Notre Dame, the past, etc.

Sunday was also a pretty exciting day...first...I GOT CABLE AND INTERNET! It was weird when the cable guy was on his rickety ladder outside my window. I thought he would fall for sure...but he didn't. I am not a fan of Comcast's high prices, and I think it is probably good for me not to spend all my time online or watching TV or whatever, but it's nice to have. And now I can watch Saved By The Bell before work!

I went to meet Spiderman and Tracey and Brad at the Southport stop (to walk over to the "Alliance" together and eventually a party), but they were running a little late, so I had time to buy a sandwich and a personal item which I had neglected to apply before I left. (ok, so your mind doesn't jump to crazy conclusions...deodorant).
Overall, it was a day of backtracking. We first got lost on our way to Maddog and Devlin's house. Twice. Then we picked up Erin and headed to the parade. The parade was fun, lots of people wearing crazy multicolored outfits, lots of really nice men bodies and not so nice female ones, and alcohol. When we realized we would have to cross the parade to get to the party, we decided to go to a liquor store and buy beer. Which we promptly opened in the parking lot. And then Brad and Devlin and I got lost in the parking lot labyrinth. It started to rain a bit, which gave us the perfect opportunity to cross the street and get to the party! We watched the rest of the parade from a covered balcony.

One observation...I saw WAY more girls making out than guys. What's up with that? Brad had a funny quote, as we walked through the insane parade crowd: "This is like the gay Backer on a football weekend." It was probably the best discription for it. But I didn't get as much beer spilled on me.

After the parade/party, we went to Bar Louie. And yeah, that was my day. Time to move the narrative along...

Yesterday after work I went to a Tapas restaurant with Carol, Rory, and Carol's friends from ND and people she met through a U of Chicago get-together. It was fun to get a bunch of people together and do something like that on a Monday.

Ok, I am getting tired of writing and i need to grab dinner. Tomorrow there is a work-sponsored party thing after work...free food and beverages! Maybe I will make some friends, although I tend to do much better at stealing them. I opened a bank account today. Like a grown up...ish. (Ok, this makes the 3rd one I have. Whatever.) AND...I got my Chicago card today, so i can ride the el AS MUCH AS I WANT!!! Yeah! (not that I couldn't do it before, but now that I have unlimited rides...)

Additionally...you should check out the new Girl Talk album...AMAZING. So many good songs! Anddd...Happy 4th of July! Makes me want to sing proud to be an american! (but only at 3am) Ok, one more thing. I am really tempted to just take the South Shore to South Bend one of these days to go to the backer. Because I can.

Musical update

2008-06-21T17:30:00.003-05:00

I kind of like this singer, Lily Allen. Seems as if British pop artists have been doing well in America these days. But I like her songs (I listened to this one and LDN) because they seem so happy, yet the lyrics are very dark. It also has a bit of a reggae beat, which is kind of cool.

And here is a video from Katy Perry, the girl I mentioned in my last post. Her voice isn't what I expected. I like the beat though and it's pretty catchy.

That's all I've got for now. I need to start finding new music to listen to, though, because my selection is getting rather old. Ok, here's one more...it's kind of old, but I heard it on the radio the other day...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ACl9kxszLc

sorry I couldn't embed this one.

What's with this blogging craze lately?

2008-06-20T00:56:00.004-05:00

So since everyone's blogging so much these days... I guess I'll mention a few things. (AKA Since Julie did, and I'm not asleep right now, I feel obligated)

1. I think I need new glasses. Everything just seems a little blurrier than normal.

2. I bought a kitchen table. With my mom's money. Since all mine got STOLEN!!! (except for 9 dollars... thanks) It should be arriving on Saturday.

3. My friend/roommate isn't working tomorrow! So we're going to Dallas. Which is awesome since I have no money. But I still have credit cards.... mwa ha ha.

4. I bought a plane ticket for the first ND home football game. So it looks like I'm going to that. And if I can't get a game ticket... there's always The Backer. Heh heh heh...

5. I forgot how many bugs there are here. It's not terrible, but just a little annoying.

6. I got a washer and dryer... so no treks across the parking lot in hot/cold weather.

7. I have a potential roommate for the fall when madeline moves out. yaaay

8. I think that the video Julie posted a link to might reference us.... hahaha. jk.. but maybe....

9. I like numbered lists.

10. I watched 100 greatest songs of the 80s on VH1 last night. That was fun. And did nothing to alleviate my obsession with 80s guitar music brought about by too much guitar hero last weekend.

11. I'm actually staying in Ft. Worth this weekend. Hopefully I'll get things done, like unpack from going home last weekend... do some laundry... finish my applications... get some food I can actually make meals out of...

12. Oh! Get Smart comes out tomorrow. I want to see that.

13. Ok. I should go to sleep so I'm not too tired for another day of doing pretty much nothing... hahaha...

14. I almost feel like I've... regressed? retrogressed? it's late... basically I feel like I should be acting more grown up right now... as in having a more rigid daily schedule... not wasting my time doing stupid things... like... writing down random thoughts online? hahaha naaahhh that's ok.

And just to round it out with 15...

15. Hmm... it's taking me a while to think of something here. Sooo... Peace out. ;)

Update...since I have internet access for now...

2008-06-19T18:47:00.003-05:00

First of all...this chick is awesome...I want to be her friend.

Katy Perry interview

I especially like the parts about "dumpage" and "your love."

Today I was back in Kentucky on business. Apparently I will be coming back on occasion in the next few months.

But this week so far has been eventful. Monday evening I went to dinner with Pat and Mary, who were in town to visit/intern, Rory, who I had just remembered was in Chicagoland this summer, Carol, who is going to grad school in Chicago in the fall, and one of her friends. We all went to Pizzeria Unos, which was very delicious/filling. Afterwards, me, Pat, Carol and Rory went to Fado (sp?) for a pint. I liked that place because it has a ship inside! Rory taught us a fun game to play with coasters, I talked to Dolu on the phone and I determined that we will become a Power Rangers-esque friend-making machine, and Rory and Pat talked way too much about programming.

The next day, as I was finishing up work, Spiderman called, saying he accidentally took the wrong train while going to the bank and ended up downtown. So we decided to go back to my area and have a drink and dinner. We went to Victory Liquor, where we had half-priced sandwiches and chatted with the bartenders. We even got a tour! We found out that many of the owners are ND grads...and they have LIVE TEAM TRIVIA!! The bartender was explaining it to me, and I was just like "yeah...I know, rapid rounds, liar liar, halftime, etc." The bar immediately next door apparently has it, too. I just need to find a team.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with Chicago, it is bustling with activities. Bars are full EVERY NIGHT. Who goes out on a Tuesday or Wednesday? Apparently lots of people. My area (for those of you from Louisville) is a bit like Bardstown Road (the cool part), except with more bars, slightly fewer independent coffee shops, and a major league baseball stadium at the end of it.

Yesterday after work I decided to go running and ended up running for over an hour. I ran down the trail by the lake for awhile, explored the neighborhood, ran past Wrigley, etc. I was listening to an awesome radio station, too. They played "Oh What a Night" and I missed all my friends and the Backer so much!! And the new netflicks radio ad reminds me of "OVER 9000." Hah!

Welp, that's kind of what's been up with me lately. I'm pretty glad I will be back in Chicago for next weekend, which is the gay pride parade through my neighborhood. I think that sounds pretty awesome and eventful, and I don't even have to walk far! We also have a work party coming up in July which sounds like a good time. I haven't had a chance to be social with coworkers. I fear that they think I am either painfully shy or really awkward. Maybe I am. But I'm also fun, I swear! It just takes a little bit for people to discover that. And that makes me mysterious...maybe. A girl can hope, right?

Monday Monday...

2008-06-16T13:25:00.002-05:00

I guess I'll take the hint from Julie and write a little bit about what I've been up to...

I'm at home right now, not in Fort Worth. I came back for Father's Day and what-not and since I don't have class until Tuesday night, why head back to do nothing on Monday? Plus my mom and I took our cars to get them detailed. I'm pretty excited about that. I need to wash all the salt/chemical/whatever stuff builds up under your car from being in the snow. Plus I don't think my upholstery has been cleaned in two years.

My apartment is getting there. I don't have a kitchen table yet, but I found one I want. It's the same one that these people had at this condo at ND. Like a corner booth type thing. Now the issue is finding the money to pay for it. I hope I can get a job for a short amount of time.

That's another thing. Getting a job right now is looking more and more appealing when compared to 5 more years of school. Sigh. That's something I need to think about, but I guess I'm in an okay position right now to do that.

I think I'm going to be shadowing a doctor tomorrow. Haven't gotten the email back yet, so we'll see what happens.

Whoa! Julie just called me!

We're talking about some very interesting things right now... hahahaha. Like what happened to us on Friday night. It appears we both got drunk-dialed. Not by the same person, mind you. Heh heh.

Well that was fun. Julie says I should apply to med school in Chicago so I can be her roommate. I guess I'll think about it. Speaking of that, the last thing I need to do is work on my personal statement. I guess I have one I've written already, but I'd like to change it up a little bit. So hopefully that will be done this week. I need motivation. I get so lazy sometimes. I really need a job. And a kitchen table.

So Fort Worth is a pretty cool city, and there are lots of things to do here, but I just need to find people to do them with me.. Haha. Rick Springfield was there doing a show Friday night. The only thing I know that he sings is Jesse's Girl. Obviously, I didn't go.

The new X-Files movie comes out in... 39 days, I think. That's pretty exciting. If you knew me in middle school/high school when this show was still on the air, you'd understand.

Wow. My brother is listening to the Pokemon theme song in his room. Weirdo. "Ohhh you're my best friend.. in a world we must defend.." Ahem. Anyways..

Oh now it seems he's Rick-Rolling everyone. This is not "boy-Katherine" who wrote on here a few weeks ago.. It's the younger one. My family is weird. So is our cat. She comes into my room at night and jumps on me and wakes me up. It kind of sucks. Good thing I'm leaving tomorrow morning.

Ooh. I'm getting a washer/dryer delivered on Wednesday. That is so exciting. I'm really looking forward to not having to walk my laundry through a parking lot. Hmmm someone's playing guitar hero in the other room. and someone else just put Rick Astley on again.

Alrighty, well I guess that's enough for now, since nothing really interesting has happened to me. Later!

Starting a new-ish life

2008-06-14T20:43:00.003-05:00

Since Dave has been nagging me to blog, I guess I finally will. I guess there are a few eventful things that have happened to me lately:
1. I found an apartment the first day I was here, but it wasn't going to be ready for a week. So I have been living with my relatives who have been great the past week or so. They take me to the train station, have done my laundry, give me food...the whole shebang. I take the metra train into the city every day. It's pretty convienient.
2. When we first came to Chicago, I took my parents around downtown. The fun included the blues festival and sweet/cheap tickets to see Wicked (they were in front row, center, I was 8th row on the side. They were good seats, I thought) They were really impressed by the show, and I was impressed by the fact that I could actually see the actors' faces.
3. My relatives got me to go to this thing with a guy they knew who had an extra ticket. It was a black tie benefit for the Lincoln Park zoo. It was really last minute for me, but it ended up being fun. I was the youngest one there (the others in our group were late 20s, early 30s), but that was ok. They had an open bar full of top shelf alcohol and the best cover band I've seen. The next day I went on a boat ride and realized I didn't like boats much. The water was choppy, but the rave-type music was entertaining.
4. I started work this week. Basically I am designing stuff for alcohol distributors, such as posters and little cards with drink specials on them. I spend much of my day looking through files for the perfect photo of a bottle. It seems busy, but enjoyable. I hope I get to see some of my work soon. I always hate starting in a new place because I don't like being the new kid. I never know what's going on and it's a little lonely. Luckily, my coworkers usually invite me to lunch, or tell me when they will be eating in the break room, so that is nice. I have a cubicle, but it isn't quite decorated yet. The office kind of reminds me of a dorm room in that everyone's cubicle is decorated with alcohol memorabilia.
5. Speaking of dorm rooms...I started moving into my apartment today. My parents came up, we moved some stuff, then went to Ikea (and I heard a great song mix, including Miley and Whitney's "I Wanna Dance With Somebody"...so Backer. My studio is rather small, but is pricey compared to what I paid at TC. I am in a pretty 'happening' area, so I guess that's why they cost so much. I wish I could have found a roommate who wanted to live in the area, but oh well. Maybe I'll put up some pictures once it is decorated.
6. Yesterday I went with Spiderman and his old trumpet friends and some other people to Goose Island brewery, and then to a German-style bar. It was nice to go out with people. I got back all by myself, which included a trip on the el, a walk through downtown, and a Metra train. Woo! I'm awesome!
7. I'm probably forgetting stuff, but I guess I will post later whenever I get internet at my place...but who knows when that will be. What I do know is that I will most likely be in South Bend for the first home game. So...get your couches/floors ready for those of you who are still there (and read this blog). Katherine bought a flight, so I guess that settles it.

The end. Of this post.

And we're back...?

2008-06-02T18:46:00.003-05:00

Well. Julie's been telling me to blog, so I guess I will.

Actually, I'd started a few posts, but never had time to finish them. The rest of Senior Week was pretty much as described. Yes, Julie, we DID go to The Backer on Friday night. I think that was the night that Christine and Rachel were sad to leave. So I had a good number of people come in for graduation: My parents, my two brothers, my grandparents and uncles & 2 cousins from my mom's side. They drove a mini-bus here. How weird is that? Haha.

We had our Cheg Graduation on Sunday morning before the real one. It was actually really nice. A lot more informal than the main one, and they called our names and stuff. A kid from our class spoke, and did a really nice job. I was really tired/hot during the actual graduation. The speakers weren't bad, but not the most exciting I'd ever listened to.

I stayed around ND on Monday. We had a little get-together Monday night, which was kind of random and fun. I left ND on Tuesday, and I swear every song I heard in my car was about loss or leaving or something. It was kind of funny actually... and sad too. I got home the next day, went to my friend Katie's house, where I hung out with some of my friends. Thursday I had to do some running around to get things together for my orientation which was FRIDAY! I ended up driving to Fort Worth the morning of, so I had to leave my house at like 5:30. My mom dropped me off, and went to look at apartments.

Orientation was a lot of people talking at us. It was insanely weird to be called a grad student. I met a few people during orientation, but when I'm trying to take in all this information, it's hard to remember things that people tell you. Haha

After orientation, we got some Mexican food (of which there is like, 1-2 restaurants per block. I'd forgotten this about Texas), and went to my friend's almost vacant house to sleep. Saturday we looked at another apartment complex, decided to lease there, and called my dad to bring up my stuff, which hadn't been unpacked from me leaving South Bend. I went home again on Sunday, hung out with the fam for memorial day, went to an honors convocation for my little brother at my old high school, then drove back to Fort Worth. I've put a lot of miles on my car recently. So my apartment has 2 stories, the appliances are pretty new, and its just generally pretty cool. The pool and stuff is nice too, and I have a pretty decent sized balcony. I'm going to try to find a table and umbrella and stuff to put out there.

So I'm taking a biostats class this summer. Its 2 days a week, 6-9 at night. Soooo boring. We had to go to a conference about health disparities last weekend, which was honestly a lot more interesting than I thought it'd be. At least I get a credit for it. Once I write a paper... maybe I should get on that. I also need to get a job. I have a contact, I just have to call. Hopefully that will work out.

I'd forgotten how hot Texas was in the summer, too. And how many bugs there are.

Three of my friends from high school came to town this weekend to go to our other friend's "recipe shower." They came a day early so we could celebrate Carley's birthday. We went to an Italian restaurant downtown, where we had bellinis (yummm) and I won the award for best entree. I ordered this pear and gorgonzola stuffed pasta. It had walnuts in it too and was covered in some sort of creamy sauce. The noodles were the same type as the "Pasta PC 6-Cheese Purse Sacchetini" from the dining hall. Haha. Anyways, it was delicious. We then went out in downtown Fort Worth, where apparently places close at 2? That wasn't cool, but we had fun. Sunday was "cooking day" since we had to make everything for the shower we were going to. I made beans & rice, cause Madeline requested it. I also made a southwestern pasta salad, which was "katie's dish."

So that basically brings us to today, which was when I got my internet hooked up, finally. I had to go to Panera to watch Lost last week, cause I missed it due to that conference, and I couldn't watch it online here. That was funny. Which reminds me, I probably have other shows I can watch online. Cool.

So if you actually read all that, it was kind of boring so I apologize. I'm pretty tired right now. I had to wake up at 8 because that was when the cable guy could have potentially gotten here. Of course he didn't get here until 11, but whatever. Anyways, I think I might take a nap or something now. So long.

Wow...we really dropped the ball

2008-06-01T00:17:00.002-05:00

Yeah. We never did get around to doing a 2nd half of senior week recap. Maybe I will post a few topics so that either Katherine or I can come back and talk about them (because, frankly, I have other things I would like to talk about in this blog.) So...we need to fill you and ourselves in on Thursday of Senior week, which I can't really remember besides the last visit to the Grotto, the Friday, which was when my parents came in town, I went to the psych dept. ceremony, we ate at Brunos, and went to Katherine's parents' condo that they were renting. Did we go to the backer that night? Saturday, I went to the art dept. picnic, Bethany and I got pictures with JR, that was the day of the mass, after which...I went to that chinese place, and later the Ponge's condo, Cliff's party, and of course, the Backer, with Bethany's sister. The next day was graduation and things of that nature, culminating in a party at Susie's parents' rented house. The next evening, me, Katherine, Bethany, and Katherine's mom ate at the backer, then had some people over to finish the beer and that fancy striped cheese.

Ok, more recent news...the next week I got a job interview in Chicago, where I fell while walking down the street, spent a long time in a Starbucks, and had a strange coincidence involving Mike Piazza. Heh. Other notable things that week...getting rid of an apartment's worth of furniture, throwing out a ton of crap and other horrible move-out related things, last trip to the Backer with JR, and coming home. Also, the Sunday before memorial day was my family's cookout/picnic thingy.

So I guess the biggest news in my life is that I got that job in Chicago and I'll be moving there this week! It's all happening so fast...I have yet to sign the contract and I have nowhere to live, and I need to pack and stuff like that. I guess I will have more to say about this in the coming weeks.

Other recent happenings include my trip to O'Shea's with Phil. We got down to the Bardstown Road bar area, which was pretty bustling with people going from place to place, sitting outside and all that. For those of you not from Louisville, this is what the bar was like. You first walk into the courtyard, which has tables and a fountain and stuff, so it's a nice little calm outdoor atmosphere. Then, you walk inside to the large front bar, where a live cover band is playing. I thought they were pretty good. There are lots of booths and tables here, but also a bit of standing room. If you go back further, you pass the restrooms, including the secret one which apparently you do not have to stand in line for, as I found out. Then another bar, and the music here is the same as that which is playing in the backyard, where there is a large standing area and a dance floor. When we first walked out here, Living on a Prayer or something like that was playing, followed by at least 6 solid backer songs. Phil and I were super excited, as we thought we had found Louisville's version of the backer. But, like the backer, as the night went on, more and more rap and such was played, for the benefit of all the townies there. People even did the Cupid Shuffle. Weird. There is also a little house next to this area that had yet another bar in it, and a much smaller dance area.

So here are some key differences: 1. Phil pointed out the lack of sludge on the ground. I guess that's a plus?
2. Drinks: more expensive, served in GLASS, and no 32 oz cups of blue moon, though they did have it on tap.
3. We were the townies? In a way? Kinda weird.
4. No mmbop, or BSB or NSYNC, though there was some Justin and some Journey and Madonna early on. No Miley, though.
5. It reminded me of a Backer/Fever hybrid. There were a lot of male predators...the kind that just kind of stand there, watching. Just waiting for a girl to look desperate/drunk enough to dance with them or to tolerate being danced upon. There are many different areas to be, so less likely to get bored, more places to hide from said males.
6. I saw like 4 people from my high school, but only really talked to one, and just said hi to one briefly. These encounters baffle me, because when I see people who were merely acquaintances in HS, do I talk to them? What will I say? The girl I talked to ran with me, so that wasn't weird, but the other ones, I saw from afar and I guess fit this category.
7. I saw people wearing colors, backwards hats, dorags...and there were no security guards to shine lights in their eyes!
8. No pole. Phil and I decided it should have been more crowded on the dance floor, and a crappy gold painted pole.
9. We had to take a cab home because it was about 2 miles from my house. Oh, and also, the bars here close at 4. Which is craaaazyyy!!

Today was fairly uneventful until this evening, because I stayed up way to late last night talking to Phil and then reading, which caused me to sleep til 2pm. I did finish a Sodoku puzzle (I'm just starting to do these things...don't make fun!) I met up with my friend Kara and we checked out this new sushi place. It was delicious and quite cheap...less than $15 apiece, including tip, and we got 3 large rolls and miso soup. MMMM!! Afterwards, we stopped by some clothes boutiques on Bardstown Rd., which was hopping, by the way. I like how many people were out and about and how much cool stuff is along there. We went down the road a bit to the Heine Bros. at Eastern Parkway, where we sat for 2 hours, talking, drinking coffee, and listening to the cover band across the street at Qdoba. We also saw this fire truck thing with people on top that was called "Party Pool" or something like that. But the people were neither wet nor wearing swimsuits, so we pondered the point of this concept every time it passed by (which was like...10 times). We eventually went to a party where I talked to an old co-worker from Stonybrook, and watched the coolest physics project ever...involving fire and sound waves. You'd have to see it to believe it. There was also a lot of shirtlessness on the roof, for some reason. But yeah, enjoyable time.

Ok, I am tired of typing. Maybe next time I will share my crazy small world story!

Senior Week

2008-05-15T16:31:00.002-05:00

Well, I keep meaning to provide updates on all the crazy senior week activities before I forget, but this may be difficult. So I just wanted to post a couple things, a snapshot, if you will.

Saturday: Woke up, hung out with the may guests that spent the night in apt. 7 and 8. Katherine looked naked under he blanket. Nick woke up alone. Katherine gave birth to Bethany. Phil left. Then we went shopping for dresses, went to mass, and later went to the Backer. Most memorable part? Oscar almost getting in a fight with some huge tools.

Sunday: Cubs game. We went to Bar Louie before the game for a drink and a bit of food. We being me and Katherine. Susie and Caitlin met us there. Nick Schott, Andrea, Spiderman and various other band kids were there as well. It was raining, but the rain stopped for the game. They gave everyone with a uterus a free pink hat. It was really cold. Katherine wasn't allowed to buy a drink because of her underage ID. I almost bought an overpriced sweatshirt because I was cold, but thought better of it. Katherine, Nick and I left after the 7th inning stretch to pick up Spiderman from McDonalds, where he had ended up after a day of drinking with some trumpet alumni. Regular Spiderman is funny, but drunk spiderman is unreal. He was the highlight of the day. We then headed over to Cubby Bar where I saw my other friend Katherine. People kept asking us if we smoked, because I think they were doing a survey or something. We watched the remainder of the game on the 50 flat screens they had scattered about (ok, 50 was an exaggeration). Afterwards, we went to taco bell, then took one of the last buses home. Spiderman and Nick proceeded to do their own personal post rally, which was weird but also funny, especially considering the fact that we were on the drunk kids bus where no one seemed to mind much. Here are Nick's amazing lyrics to the tune of Africa:
Its gonna take a lot to drag me away from you
Theres nothing that a hundred seats or more could ever do
I bless the rains down in Chicago
Gonna take some time to do the things we never had...
Later that evening we went to Andrea's surprise party, where we waited in the dark for awhile (which was actually kind of funny.) Then they had cake and whatnot, and later someone brought a blacklight and a dance party ensued.

Monday: Um...don't quite remember much of the day (other than eating at Perkins with Bethany), but in the evening we went over to Bethany and Katherine's classmate's house where he had a bonfire. It was nice to go to one, I hadn't been in such a long time! And smores are delish! We also went to the Backer to see the end of the band bar crawl. We determined that I was the coolest person there because A) I was not in the band B) I was not an RA and C) I was not an engineer. Cool points for me! I even worked hard to bust up the cupid shuffle. We saw John there, who had opened a tab. I wonder how much he regretted this decision (after seeing the bill...) The night got a little fuzzy. But there are also photos for that.

Tuesday: I woke up and got ready for Cedar Point in about 15 mins or something crazy. And I forgot my ticket, but they let me go anyway because my name was on the list. Sooo...I was pretty mad that I fell asleep during the end of 10 Things I Hate About You on the bus. Then they played Anchorman....again. Seriously, no movie variety on the senior week buses? Cedar Point was pretty fun. My favorite ride was Millennium Force. I only rode 3 rides...but I did get to lie in the sun for awhile, which was very refreshing. The lines were pretty long because it was high school physics day.

Wednesday: I spent the day running around, making a power hour in GarageBand, went to the Gug tour where I took too many pictures of peoples' personal items, and then had the power hour itself. I was proud of myself for that mix. Later we went to the Senior Ball. It was nice to see so many people I knew, all dressed up. Can I just use this opportunity to say that See You Again is sooo catchy? Anyway, after the ball, we went to the backer. There were six people who went. And we were the only non-townies. On the plus side, I didn't care, and DJ Drew played all our songs AND read my mind. We decided that an after party was necessary. Boy Katherine, who you have read about below, came over and realized how much he had in common with Spiderman. Caitlin was quite giggly. We watched my DVD, listened to 80s music, and ate Brats. And no one spilled popcorn!

I guess this ended up being pretty long. Woops. I will talk about today tomorrow, after today happens.

Special Guest Posting (images now work correctly)

2008-05-15T12:35:00.009-05:00

Hello blog. This is Katherine's brother Phil, or as I was so affectionately dubbed by the people who I assume read this, "boy Katherine". I've been left unattended in my sister's apartment for about an hour now, and decided to blog because

A. I told my sister she sucked at it about a week ago

B. it was already logged in

C. I realized I'd been watching Home Improvement for like two hours and that's kind of lame.

while i could go and talk about my day or recent events, the fact that this blog's target demographic is not familiar with me and what i do, there would be no context for the events. So as background information, I've been in California for the better part of a year, i was working in the deli at Albertsons, going to school and taking an art class. So, for the recent events and such going on, or "traditional blog material". this week has been slightly busy, or more so than usual, anyway. Sunday was my last day working. Me and Chris, who was some guy i worked with, were sitting by the sandwich making area, discussing the ethics involved with making personal lunch sandwiches for people. When you ask for mayonnaise and mustard on the same sandwich, you're compromising the integrity of both condiments for anyone else who orders them. Because we're lazy and not going to wash off the spatula after doing that. Now no one has ever complained, been like "Hey, dildo! you got mustard in my mayo!" but that was always a concern i had. Chris and i were discussing this in such a manner

"oh dude, you're lazy too?" "yeah, man, fuck that mayonnaise. i'm puttin mustard in it."

one thing led to another, and we came up with a great invention idea.

drumroll mustayo!

that's a concept image, the actual product will have mayonase and mustard in the same setting though.

we'll make millions. millions.

anyway, monday i packed everything i own up because expedia said i could only bring one checked bag and one carry on bag on to the plane, so i had to mail all my stuff home, cost me 160 dollars, pretty gay. Then i sat around watching hbo on demand for a couple of hours. It's a world of excitement you people are getting a glimpse into today, i'm telling you. No idea what kind of crazy stuff goes on here. Tuesday I took this girl i worked with on a date to this italian restaurant mama d's. I planned it out all romantically and such, because i'm probably never going to see her again so i should go out with a bang, so to speak. anyway, i had been kind of seeing her for about a month and about two weeks in to that process, this other, more homosexual girl that i know starts talking to her, and by the third date she's basically gay and i'm wasting my time, but wasting time is something i excel at. When i started writing that it seemed more interesting than it looks now. Wednesday i set off to John Wayne Airport, which is a non smoking facility. This is bullshit. this is why

what is that in his right hand there? between the index and middle finger?

you fucking know it.

so anyway, got to sit next to a baby for four hours. she had a hot enough mom, and you know she puts out, however my application for acceptance in to the mile high club is still in processing somewhere, and therefore the baby was just annoying. Two hour layover in cincinatti. One interesting fact about cincinatti, there's one in kentucky. i was not aware of this. that's actually where i was.

Let me tell you about kentucky. It's residents (on whom i am now an expert from interacting with the ones working at the chick fil a at the airport) talk funny. There was not a kentucky fried chicken in the airport. i would have been disappointed if i knew i was in kentucky, not ohio. Actually, kentucky's residents are basically exactly how you probably think they are in your head. There was a smoking room in that airport though. It's weird to me that an airport named after someone who smoked is non smoking and an airport named after the city that it's in and the fact that it's an airport is smoking accessible. After my visit to Kentucky, i embarked on my 30 minute flight to south bend regional airport, got there, picked up my bags, no problems or memorable occurrences, Left the airport to be bombarded with "NEED CAB?" which i did, but they just seemed way too eager about it. Now, let me tell you about my cabdriver. He came here from Rwanda, talks like Borat, and is not very good at driving. He did not know where we were going, either. At one point he asked me to get out and get directions. Now, I'm not a cab driver, i don't ride in cabs regularly, and i don't claim to be some kind of a cab expert, but one, i think you're supposed to turn off the meter when you're driving in circles because you're lost, two, you're not supposed to get lost anyway, and three, if you do have to get directions, don't make your passenger get out and do it. I'm not driving. that's absolutely absurd.

I'm not going to get in a cab with a specific destination in the future, only if I'm on some kind of vengeance mission or something, where i would mainly just say "anaheim and 5th street!" hand him a wad of money and tell him to step on it, or something like "follow that car!"

actually i want to get in a cab saying that just to see if he would actually do it. but i don't have enough money to spend it doing things of that nature

Anyway, i got here and that's about the end of it. Well folks, i hope you enjoyed this window into my personal life. Hope by reading this you don't just feel like you're occupying your time but perhaps i may have enlightened or encouraged you in some way to better your own life. If i somehow did that with what i just said, i have the investment opportunity of a lifetime for you. contact Katherine for my information if needed.

Anyway, Boy Katherine, signing off.

Eleven Hours

2008-05-10T18:33:00.002-05:00

... between the time I got to the 'backer, and the time I went to sleep.

I suppose I'll rehash some of the things Julie has talked about... Chances are, if you're reading this, you've probably already experienced these events with us anyway, so what's one more re-telling of them? I'll try to throw in some original material though.

Soooo I'm done with school. That's kind of weird. Really weird. Well, I guess I'm technically going to grad school, then hopefully med school... which reminds me, I get to work on those applications again. YES! . HTML joke. I am AWESOME. Anyways, I'll hopefully start on those this week.

My senior design presentation went surprisingly well. I felt like I looked like a slacker during it because I spoke for all of like, 2 minutes of the 25 minute presentation, so I tried to compensate by answering questions. I felt that we were pretty strong on the Q&A side, and we ended up getting a good grade. I mean, I wasn't expecting a bad grade, but I wasn't expecting one as high as what we got. So good job team! The report was due the following Friday, and I ended up staying up until 7am working on formatting the thing. That was not fun. I guess I just didn't realize how much work it would be. I went to Legends to turn in the report, had a drink with my fellow chegs (frozen long island... mmm) and the prof, then went home. I'm sure we had an awesome weekend. Oh right. It was study days.. Hmmm. I'm sure we were at the backer. Whatever. Oh that was the weekend Julie's friend came. And the after party at Merten's house. I think Julie's covered those.

So last night was really fun. I was surprised by how much fun the backer was in the early evening. It was nice to be able to sit down and play drinking games and observe the transformation from "restaurant and bar" to "bar" I suppose. After midnight, when the students started getting there, it got really really packed. It was like, football weekend packed. Very hard to move, took a long time to get drinks, really hot, etc. I don't even know who I was talking to there were so many people around me. Caitlin came! Which was awesome. I hope she had fun.. It seemed like she did. haha.

The 'backer after party last night was pretty intense. A lot of people came back with us. And it got pretty sentimental. We had to say goodbye to Dave and Phil, since this was pretty much the last time we were going to see them. That was surprisingly sad. It's like, I knew it was coming, but you just don't know until it happens I guess. Bethany was really sad, and it was making me sad. I don't know why I was so surprised by this. Probably because she's usually not that emotional. But she said some very nice things. Not that that's a bad thing, I'm just saying. I didn't cry, but I don't usually cry about serious things. I didn't cry at my high school graduation, which was good, seeing as I had to give a speech. And all my friends were crying as I was talking. That was pretty intense (but also kind of funny. I made the guys cry with a video I made. That made it worth it.. haha). Anyways, just so people know, just because I don't cry, doesn't mean I'm not just as sad as you.

I still don't think the fact that I'm leaving has hit me yet. I'm like.. I just don't know what to think. It's a lot harder to think about because it's not like we'll all see each other when we "go back home" 'cause we're not all from the same places. I mean, these are friendships I'm willing to put some effort into, and I'm sure we'll make plans to meet up a couple times a year at least. I've been pretty good about keeping in touch with people from high school, so I have faith. It's just going to be so strange not seeing these people everyday, and it just doesn't seem fair that it has to happen so quickly. And things could have been so different too. I'm glad I decided to venture out of my dorm to find friends, not that those people aren't cool, but I never would have met Julie and Caitlin, and Susie. I would have met Bethany though, cause we're in the same major. Ha. But you know, I probably would have just thought "oh she's that nerdy girl who actually pays attention and takes notes in class instead of doing the crossword puzzle."

SO to change the subject slightly, my brother is coming in on Wednesday. I'm kind of excited, because we don't get to spend a lot of time together, especially not sans the rest of the family, so this will be fun. There is one minor problem though: his flight gets in at 10 and there's something I want to go to that I have to be at by 10:30. I'll see what I can do. Only a week of fun stands in my way to being a college graduate, so I'm sure I can think of something.

So just as Dave finally washed his completely disgusting pants, I finally cleaned my room yesterday, so I can actually work at my desk. This may have been more beneficial when I actually had work to do. But hey, now I can sit here and blog, so it's still cool. And today we went to the mall. After waking up at 1. Awesome. Initially, I was supposed just sort of be the chauffer (I don't know how to spell that). But then I bought a dress that's the same color as my glasses (awesome), and some yellow pants (everyone needs a pair of yellow pants), and a few t-shirts, including a Star Wars one. And then I got my woot shirt in the mail today. It's so cute! It was awesome. I hadn't been shopping in forever. I forgot how much I love it. And now the Gap has good stuff. So that was good. And then I got some dresses from my mom in the mail, so I tried those on again. It was a good time. I gave Bethany, Susie, and Caitlin a little mini-fashion show.

Oh and I got a gap card. Uh ohhh. I feel like I've been putting that off for a long time, and it does make sense for me to get one, since I shop at Gap a lot. I should get some good coupons out of the deal, I think. Anyways, I've been writing for too long, so I'll end this now.

And I think I made 2 new facebook friends yesterday.

It was a loooonnngggg day...

2008-05-10T13:27:00.002-05:00

So yesterday was fairly eventful. After waiting in line to sign up for senior week events and getting some checks cashed, Caitlin, Bethany, Susie and I ate our last NDH meal ever. Well, at least I think it will be my last time. I rarely eat there. I spent most of my time there working, and I am not sad to leave those memories behind...or the smells.

After an insanely long nap (as always with me), Katherine and I went to the Backer to eat with Christine and Rachel, who had been there since 3pm (they were doing 12 hours of the backer). We had cheeseburgers that were quite good, and Blue Moons. Dave stopped by for a burger, and after he left, Christine and Bonnie came back from playing pool with some townie guys...er, I guess they weren't technically townies, but the were a bit older than them. One of the guys bought a round of drinks for the table, which was very exciting!

We decided to play some drinking games to pass the time. First was kings. I think the most entertaining part was questions. Christine was always saying something inappropriate. Ha, later in the night some older woman told Christine that her husband has a crush on her. I digress. We then proceeded to play this school bus game, after which I ran home to change my shirt and use the restroom. I also talked to Bethany, Caitlin, Phil, and Susie who were watching the hockey game on TV.

I got back to the Backer (that sounds like it could be a movie...) and realized that I had forgotten to pay for my food, so I did that right away. After another rousing drinking game, (and after DJ Drew showed up), we decided that the time was right for dancing. Previously, the only people dancing were 65 year old women. I had requested "Paradise by the Dashboard Light" because I thought the older crowd would appreciate it. It was fun, we danced and sang and some older guys joined in. Pretty soon after, the tables were moved out of the way and more people entered the dance floor. Oh, on a side note, my favorite song transition of the night was I Wear My Sunglasses at Night/See You Again. Brilliant, DJ Drew, simply brilliant. After doing the Cupid Shuffle (and complaining about how lame of a dance it was), I tried to teach those around me how to do the tipsy dance. Rachel was about the only one who got really into it.

From there, more people started to show up. Fernando made an appearance, then we saw Tim Beaubien who just happened to have an extra drink. We met this guy names Lazo who was going to a wedding in the morning. He danced with me, then tried to convince Katherine and I to crash the wedding the next morning. He even introduced us to the groom, who apparently knew Beaubien, which I thought was a rather strange connection.

More and more people started showing up, including the kids who had been watching hockey. Later, all the old Carroll guys showed up. I realized just recently that these guys are really weird. I mean really weird. They all show up wearing matching Carroll shirts, kind of like when moms dress their kids alike when they go to Disney world so they can keep track of them. The backer was also REALLY crowded, almost to the point of it not being fun. I mostly stayed near a table and talked to this one guy. He knows Chauncey! Small world. 3am came way too soon, so we invited people over for yet another after party.

I don't know what it is with us and after parties. Maybe we just want to be nocturnal. Either way, there were a good number of people here. This is where the night gets sad...we ended up having a darkened-room sob fest, where we were all talking about how sad it is that we are graduating. Eventually, Carrie came in to console Bethany, while Nick, Katherine, Susie and I tried to spoon, first on Bethany's twin bed, then on Katherine's larger bed. Nick was disappointed when he woke up in the huge bed alone. Heh.

The next afternoon (which is when we woke up), the people who stayed all talked about the evening's events. Katherine looked naked under her blanket, and looked like she gave birth to Bethany. Susie complained about Nick's snoring. Fernando told us the origins of his second last name, etc. etc. All-in-all, I think it was a pretty memorable experience.

My worst post ever

2008-05-09T13:26:00.003-05:00

Things you may have missed:
Napoleon Dan-o-myte, my friend from home, coming to visit South Bend.
Backer, backer after-parties, backer after-parties with on-demand karaoke.
Derby party...with home made Derby pie and mint juleps (of which I did not partake.)
More Backer? Yeah, sounds about right. Nick Schott has an awesome picture of half the people in the bar. It was awesome, except the guy whose arm is partially obscuring my face.
Last week of school. No one really wants to remember all that work and stuff.
A few of us went to Rum Runners on Wed. Not really the most exciting crowd, but it was decently fun. Oh! There was also Seis de Mayo lunch at Don Pablos, although since it was voting day here in Indiana, there were no margaritas.

I finished most everything on Wednesday, but I still have some loose ends to finish up (I wasn't there when kinkos printed something, and of course they screwed it up. I almost had a mental breakdown, but that happens often enough for me, so whatevs). Thursday night, which was last night, we had a bunch of people over for pizza. It was pretty yummy. Lost was pretty good last night. It was good to see people, but sometimes I get overwhelmed with socializing. I think that is why I like dancing so much...you don't necessarily have to carry on a conversation.

Anyway. I am being lame, as always. I hope senior week doesn't suck.

Hakuna Matata

2008-04-27T18:30:00.002-05:00

eh. That's just the song that came on my iTunes on random.

So I guess I don't need to tell you about the weekend, since Julie has filled you in for the most part. I'll see if there's anything I can add...

Friday:

Well. I didn't have class. Which was cool. But I spent all day working on my senior design project. Well. Like 11 to 5ish I think. The math library is nice and not heavily trafficked. That's where we were that day I think. So Friday night we went to the Backer.. cause we weren't thinking that we'd go Saturday. Mary came over with her friend, who was pretty funny, but unfortunately underage, so alas he could not come to the backer. However, once he's old enough, there will be a new "Backer Pole" since this kid is Polish.

Saturday:

Luckily, I did not have to get up early, as my group decided to meet at 1:00pm. We met in Jordan Castle of Science, which is nice. Apparently they lock the doors there pretty early, which was actually nice because that meant that lots of people wouldn't be inside. I took a break to go to WVFI and the computer club thing. I got to play Rock Band, which was fun, but I kind of just like Guitar Hero. Call me a purist if you will, I don't know. And then I was nice and stole food for my cheg friends. But apparently I missed pizza, Susie being awesome at Street Fighter, and a potential Guitar Hero tournament. Anyways, so for WVFI, we actually had more listeners cause the people in my design group listened. I don't know if they regretted that, but we played songs that they requested.

Theeen Julie and I went to Wal-mart. Bought black emo togas. Read about it below.

So emo party, toga party, salvage the night at the backer. All in all a successful evening I guess.

At the emo party, Oscar told us about his Spanglish radio show he used to do. Sounded cool. Kind of like watching a "futbol" game.

I had difficulty getting my toga on. I'm pretty sure I was frustrating Julie. But I drove, which turned out to be a really good thing so she can't get too mad at me.. haha.

It was weird getting to the Backer at like 1:45. I'm really glad we went, cause I felt like dancing (despite what I sing sometimes... hehe) but I wouldn't have wanted to dance at the party we were at, because it was super hot inside, people were kind of a mess, and I just wasn't feeling it. It was strangely not humid and hot inside the Backer on Saturday night. My hair didn't even frizz or anything. WEIRD!

So then, I don't know why we thought it was a good idea to have people over after - probably because we were anticipating a much later night than what it was. I kind of was. Moving on... BK broke my keychain, after he deleted the pictures of Dave and him in their foil togas from my camera. LAME

Sunday:

I woke up at 9:30, which was waaaaay too early. Group meeting at 10. I leave the apartment at 10, drive to Starbucks, order a Venti Non-Fat Cappuccino, go to campus. Then the search for a place to work begins. We initially wanted to work in Debartolo, but apparently they're not open at 10 am on a Sunday morning. Neither is Mendoza. So we ended up in Fitz, and 356 (a classroom) was unlocked! Jackpot!

So then everything was great, except that I was too tired to function. So I slept in the corner of the room kind of behind where the projector screen would come down. So I was napping from about 11 to 1 on the floor. It was slightly uncomfortable, but incredibly necessary. Joy woke me up with Miley Cyrus, which was extremely effective because that song makes me feel like jumping around. Luckily, the one guy in our group wasn't there at the time. I think this may have scared him.

So then I was coherent enough to work on our presentation. At least we're not really doing any more research or calculations. I'm cool with a project with a net present value of -60 million dollars. Whatevs. So I kind of hate giving presentations. Ours is Tuesday morning. At least I go first, and I can get it over with. However, we don't get to use note cards, which I usually use, so I'm going to have to memorize what to say. Oh well. I guess the presentations that I do poorly on are the ones that I don't really know what I'm talking about. And I do think I know what I'm talking about with this one. Soo that should be ok? Now I have to go over my section, and figure out what I want to wear. That's the fun part. I love dressing up in "business" type clothes.

So throughout this whole senior design project, I've had to spend time with people that I don't usually spend time with, and its been really interesting and I'm really glad I had that opportunity. I think sometimes I get really "set in my ways" with respect to the people I hang out with/things I do, that I forget how much fun I can have meeting new people. I'm in no way saying that I don't like hanging out with the people I always hang out with - the opposite really.

I think there was one other thing I wanted to talk about here. Oh. Orientation for this grad school program thing I'm probably doing is THE WEEKEND AFTER GRADUATION! That sucks! But alas, I did major in Chemical Engineering, so I guess I have already established a behavioral pattern of torturing myself. Why stop now?

Alrighty. Time to go. I should have been doing other things besides writing on here anyway. Why is it that you don't blog for like a month, and then you do it a few times in one day/weekend?

Video emo toga after party

2008-04-27T16:05:00.002-05:00

Yesterday was absurd. Well, I guess before I get into that I should mention what we did on Friday. It was Backer, of course, as if you were surprised. I think Mary is a good addition to the Backer crowd because, I hate to admit, the old crowd was getting a little stale. I mean, I like the regulars, but it's nice to have someone new breathe life into it.

Well, on to Saturday. The day started when I woke up at 1:15 or so. After that I was fairly worthless until WVFI came along. It was potentially our last show ever, which was kind of sad, though I can't really fathom it. I think I've become dead inside recently to cope with the end of it all. So afterwards I had the most fun I've ever had in Fitzpatrick Hall of Engineering (because we all know how many fun times are had there).

Nick Schott and his computer club sponsored video game night! There was Jimmy John's, Rock Band, chips, and lots of nerdy guys. The only girls who came were friends of either Nick or Jarred (and were not technically in the club...) I really enjoyed Rock Band, but mostly drumming or singing. I kind of suck at drumming, but maybe with practice I could be ok at it. I was pretty good at the singing part. I needed to video tape someone talking about video games for a project, but it was difficult to find willing participants. I had to settle for Dave. Lame.

Soo...after that I went to the store with the Ponge (I had planned to go toga shopping with Mader, but alas, we had no cars). The girl who checked us out was rather chatty, and I am not good with the small talk with total strangers.

We went to Oscar's emo party, which was awesome. Oscar demonstrated his emo voice (which is lower than his normal one, but sounds like any other guy since he kind of has a high voice.) James/Giacomo looked wayyyy emo...it was awesome! He pretty much stayed in character. Bethany wrote some emo poetry, and I joined in. The decorations were funny...emo hairstyles and crappy emo bands. Oscar and I discussed the differences between emo kids and scene kids, and also the strange and annoying practice of bands making really long song titles that have nothing to do with the song.

We came home and changed into togas, which was a bit of a challenge, I suppose. I was pretty psyched about mine, it only involved one safety pin.

We went to toga, which was in interesting experience...from the floor bouncing, to Jesus, to people making out, to candy necklaces, to robot togas (and their unwilling wear-ers), to the cops coming in, firearms glistening.

We decided to head to the backer to salvage our night. It was a pretty fun experience...not too crowded, not too hot, drinks to go around. Someone had the grand idea of a TC after-party, and before we knew it, there was a sad attempt at the world's longest spoon train, popcorn, and the kama sutra. In retrospect, the group was a strange assortment of undergrad girls and CS grad students (with an accountant thrown in here and there).

Sometimes I wonder how this became my life. We decided that there was probably no way we could have anticipated the wackiness of the evening, and I have not even done it justice. I think I'll take a nap because I literally got no sleep last night.

Update

2008-04-24T00:32:00.003-05:00

So I got my old phone reactivated. At least I have one still.

Even if my new one dries out, I don't know that I can use it again.

All right. More senior design in the morning.

Because everyone needs to know these...

2008-04-23T16:00:00.000-05:00

Hannah Montana Lyrics
See You Again Lyrics

I hope I don't melt this one too

2008-04-23T15:58:00.002-05:00

I DROPPED MY PHONE IN THE TOILET IN DEBARTOLO!

It was like.. during the flush, so it swirled around in there for a while. I was afraid I was going to lose it forever, but it reappeared once all the swirling was finished.

Sigh.

So now if I'm not at a computer, I have no way to contact people. This is upsetting.

I'm trying to decide if I want to go run. I probably should... ok yeah. I'll go.

Hopefully this phone will recover from this catastrophe with all my phone numbers in tact.

And in the future, I will not put my phone in such shallow pockets.

She's just bein Miley

2008-04-23T15:32:00.003-05:00

So, as a response to Katherine's post below, I wanted to go into more detail about our recent adventures. The crawfish boil was cool because we A) got good crawfish B) had some Killians and C) the weather was nice. It was also funny to see my professors there...

So after a little while, we decided to walk over to Will's to get some pizza, as crawfish are not very filling. Solo cups in hand, we traveled across the street to Lafayette, where we enjoyed pizza and talking about "d-list campus celebrities." I think I found a topic for a future post! We later returned to the boil, listened to the band a bit, then walked over to Rory's, stopping in 23 for literally 30 seconds. At Rory's we socialized, etc. THEN we went back to get the cars, and I think we may have ended up at the backer, but I cannot be sure.

The next weekend (because obviously the week doesn't matter...) I went to Chicago on Friday to tour some studios (including the Chicago Tribune, which isn't technically a design studio, but it was cool to see a real paper. Not that the Observer is not a real paper, but I'm sure you get the point.) We had dinner at a restaurant/bar, and I talked to classmates, teachers, and alumni about the so-called real world. When I returned to ND (after a car ride home talking about religion, Rome, etc.) I went to the backer, but it wasn't as much fun as I had hoped. I believe that was the night Phil decided to sleep in my bed, since I had fallen asleep on the futon. It was kind of shoddy reasoning, in my opinion. Fernando and Dave slept over too! It was crazy!

The next day was a day of cleaning, crepes, hockey, oyster bar, and of course, backer. We had a very random assortment of people over for crepe night/hockey watch spectacular. I think the highlight of the evening was Cliff coming to the backer. There were also other sketchy men involved, but since I am no Tucker Max, I will spare you the details.

This past week, I had an interesting Tuesday. It was 80s day in GD3! We all wore our 80s outfits (mine included vintage ND spirit wear), ate fondue, and watched I Love the 80s. Interesting fact: I heard "I Wanna Dance With Somebody" at least three times that day. Once on the way to school, once in GD3 while we were taking a quiz, and then again in Music Through Technology. It was pretty wacky.

A few days later I decided to visit BK in his office, which was probably slightly awkward. He said I should though, and sounded serious at the time. I realized at the moment I visited him that I had never actually had a one-on-one conversation with him. I am such a creep, you have no idea.

Trivia: We came in 2nd. Oh yeah. And props to Susie for being psychic about the CS Lewis question!

This weekend was Blue-Gold. Before we went to the backer, we had some people over, including Phil, Oscar, Mary, Susie, you know, the regulars. We did on-demand karaoke which is always entertaining. Friday night was memorable as we met/danced with/kissed (on the cheek) Dave's old friends at the backer. It was funny to see so many guys in Carroll t-shirts. The other reason it was memorable was that MARY TURNED 21!! And she really seemed to like the backer! I like taking the youngins there for their first times!

The tailgate was cool. We rolled in with our suitcase of booze. There were cheese steaks. I saw people I haven't seen in years. We met spiderwoman. I found out that running while tipsy is a bad idea. I think I won a game of cornhole. I met some guy who posts on NDnation. I said "combination grill" about 30 times. Twas magical.

AND NOW...it is this week. Hooray!

The last time I freaked out...

2008-04-22T23:58:00.000-05:00

So we've received some criticism lately: Susie said we don't blog enough (Ha! She would, have you read her blog? Hehe. I love you, Susie!), and my brother Philip said "it needs action and stories and pictures of people being ridiculous at parties and pictures of terrible looking food you made because you were too lazy to go to the grocery store so you make a turkey pickle remoulade sauce bagel wrap."

So I'm not sure that I can address all his suggestions, but I do admit things could be a little more interesting. So lets see, when did we last write something... Oh wow. Easter basically. That was a fun weekend. Anyways. I can't remember what we did the weekend after that. It probably involved a little establishment across the street (no, not Notre Dame). We went to a crawfish boil a few weeks ago, and I taught Bethany and Julie how to peel them. I was really impressed with their effort and success on what was the first try for each of them. I didn't think I'd get any crawfish this year, but I did so that was cool. Umm that day involved a lot of walking, and we went to Club 23 for the first time. We only stayed for five minutes, and it really wasn't very cool. But I'm not going to say it sucks, because I know plenty of people that say The Backer sucks who I don't believe have given it a fair chance. Haha.

We won 3rd place in trivia at some point in there. I think it was the Thursday before last. That was pretty exciting. We jumped from like 11th place to 3rd place with the last question. Apparently people don't realize that Nevada has a higher percentage of people that work in tourism than any other state.

You know, maybe the recent decline in blogging activity can be attributed to the fact that Julie and I started reading Tucker Max's blog (which is really inappropriate, so if you're not into that, don't bother looking it up) and we realized that ours is entirely uninteresting in comparison. Not that I would want ANYTHING like what happens on there to happen to me, but still. The guy is a good writer. I guess that comes with practice. And its something I really don't like, so maybe this will be good for me!

It seems like a lot of people have already finished their big final projects for the year, or are going to this week. I mean, I know there are a lot that haven't either, but still. I just feel like I have SO much that has to get finished before... you know... I graduate (that feels like kind of a bad word right now), and I don't know how it's all going to get done. I'm sure I'll manage, but I'd like to have some fun in there too, and I obviously haven't deprived myself lately, so I shouldn't really complain too much. Maybe if I cut back on the TV and the screwing around on the computer

-----

So I had that stuff above saved as a draft for a few days.. okay... like a week I guess. Things are pretty busy. I have to decide if I want to do a year-long "Masters of Science in Medical Sciences" program in Fort Worth, which I think I'll do, unless by some miracle I get in to this other school of the wait-list, which probably won't happen, and if it did, I wouldn't expect to hear anything until after May 15th.

Senior Design Projects. Are a joke. Seriously. I don't care how much ethanol you want to put in my car, it's not going to solve any world-wide fuel crises. (We're supposed to design a plant to convert biomass to ethanol.. yeah.. exciting)

The Blue and Gold game was this past weekend. It was pretty fun I guess. I don't really like watching the game though - it's really not fun to play yourselves. However, we did get to tailgate, which is always a good time. We were treated to some musical entertainment by two of our favorite trumpet players:

So yeah. We got to meet some of Dave's old friends.. and Susie went to The 'Backer again and actually had fun this time I think!

So anyways... this week, my time will be consumed with working on my project.

Wow... It's almost over.

(Julie will fill in with more exciting things, since apparently I'm boring. :))

Quotes of the weekend and beyond...

2008-03-24T17:20:00.004-05:00

Katie: I don't want a swastika tattoo!
Will: Too late, Nazi!!!!

"It's like I'm eating an alien!" -Dave
and later "Bleh! I'm vomiting my alien disgustingness all over your plate...the alien burrito"
This was after eating an entire frozen pizza, by himself, wrapped up like a burrito that was dripping cheese.

Dave: I'm going to hug him in the face, then!
Us: How do you do that?
Dave: With my MOUTH!!
Dave, on how he shows affection to people on their birthdays.

"Well, my dad is in Iraq and my mom doesn't care." -Josh, talking about his late curfew. Or why his parents don't love him. This could be used in so many situations.

Good Friday...was a GREAT Friday

2008-03-22T13:45:00.004-05:00

Yesterday started off well as me, Katherine, Bethany and Rory ate delicious sushi at Toyo, a nearby restaurant. Afterwards we went to Meijer where we bought chocolate bunnies, including Bunny Big Ears, Peter Rabbit, and the bunny with the big feet. We passed on Professor bunny and Diva bunny (probably for the best). We also got some beverages on sale and PANCAKE BLASTER...pancake batter in a can!

Later that day, Dave came over and K, B and I watched Jesus Christ Superstar (you know, for Good Friday). I love that movie, seriously. It is groovy...or...far out? I am not up on the appropriate 70s slang. We had a delicious dinner of frozen fish, frozen pizza, and mac and cheese. At some point, everyone fell asleep, with Katherine on the futon, Bethany curled in an unnatural position on the round chair, and Dave on the floor, in his cute little sweatpants (kinda like kindergarten naptime.)

When we finally got everyone up, we played a game of beer pong, which Dave and I won. He was wearing a blanket like a cape and running around squealing. It was a great tactic. Later, we almost had a full-blown party. Rory came over, as well as JR, Brian, Fernando, Luis, and their friend Brian. Dave wanted to watch basketball, so i made him play one-on-one Kings with me, until JR and Brian jumped in. Then EVERYONE decided to play a game. It was a really fun game of Kings. Hilarity ensued. I got smacked on my butt more than once. Everyone ganged up on Katherine. It was great.

Then on to the Backer, keeping the streak alive! We saw some old friends, townies, etc. There was lots of kissing involved. I took about a million pictures. It was a pretty solid visit, in my opinion. Oh! And hug a polak day! Bethany and Dave were very excited! Yeah, it all gets kinda fuzzy after that.

2008-03-17T10:29:00.005-05:00

Have you heard of this thing called Lent? -Spiderman, explaining his t-shirt.

We're the blackest white kids you know. -Spiderman, as he was listening to Girltalk.

When I was a freshman I had to get a woman's card. -Spiderman, when Phil whipped out the BAC card with no red zone.

Are you the Irish Pope? -Me, to the Iowa kid with the green bishop hat on.

It's really hard to be female. -Spiderman, trying to explain to me what men want in a woman.

That's the great thing about being Irish. It doesn't matter of you're black, you can still be Irish. They're like, "oh you're black? Fuck it, you're still Irish." -Spiderman, commenting on the music. Afterwards, Katherine played "It Don't Matter if You're Black or White" by MJ.

Fuck you toilet..fuck you everything, I'm Spiderman! -Spiderman, in the bathroom

Noooo...there's so many more hours of drinking left!

Spiderman: God will require me to puke. I failed you God! Jesus! Jesus!
Jim: It's ok, you've got an extra man

Yeah, St. Patrick's Day is great! You should have come to our tailgate. There were green eggs and brats. Where was Nick Schott?

It's sunny outside!

2008-03-13T13:17:00.006-05:00

So this week has been pretty un-fun as far as weeks go. I don't really know when actually having to do work became such a burden, but a design report and 2 tests really tired me out. But now, I'm done with all that and am currently doing my laundry. When I should have been studying, I actually cleaned up my room some. I can finally use my computer at my desk! That makes my room sound worse than it really is, but still. I don't like working around clutter. Unfortunately, I tend to make things pretty cluttered so that doesn't really mesh well.

The weather is amazing right now. I wish it would stay this way, but I seriously doubt that will happen. Who knew 50 degrees could seem so warm? Well, I'm sure there are people... but whatever. Anyways, to enjoy the weather, I went for a run yesterday. That was like, the first time in many many months that I've been able to run outside, and the first time in weeks that I've actually run. I've had a persistent cough for a while that's finally, hopefully, actually going away. Then again, I've thought it's been "going away" for about 3 months now. So yeah, the run. I ran around the edge of campus, pretty much. I mapped it online today and it said it was 3.5 miles. You can see the route by clicking the button below. Cool!

In other news, I have a friend coming in town tomorrow. I'm planning on driving to Chicago to pick her up 'cause I'm nice like that. I'm pretty sure I'm going to hit rush hour, however and it's going to take me a long time. Soooo that will be fun. I'll bring good music I guess. I'd really rather not drive there by myself. I don't really know why... I drive to Dallas all the time from home and it's a little further I think. Whatevs.

Well. I hope that this weekend makes up for the crappy week I've had. Tonight we get started with Lost, and Legends Trivia - always a good time. Well. Mostly a good time. We've really been doing kind of poorly at trivia as of late. And that's a little depressing.

I just decided that this blog should have more pictures. SO! I'm going to try to take my camera more places and actually take pictures. That sounds like a good plan to me. 10 more minutes till my laundry is done in the washing machine.. 8 now. Okay. That's enough rambling from me. Like you even care.. Haha. But what are blogs for? Just ask Susie.

Spring Break-The 2nd Half

2008-03-10T01:16:00.003-05:00

Short recap of the rest of break...

Wednesday- I ran around trying to get all my stuff in order. I got a little print out of my initial PDF portfolio, submitted my resume somewhere, and did some other little chores. Then it was off to CHICAGO!! We got to Amanda's neighborhood and stopped in a bar called Raven's that offered cheap Smithwick's. We ended up at that bar on 4 different occasions (that day). We also ate at a restaurant later and had this really awesomely emo waiter wearing all black with an "i'm so depressed and foreign" accent. It was sweet.

Thursday- Woke up, went downtown, got some Jamba Juice, shopped a little, went to the Art Institute, met Amanda, ordered pizza, watched Lost and Saved! My favorite part of the Art Institute were the tiny rooms.

Friday- I woke up early and went to see my relative's printing company. I saw lots of large printers and all sorts of other print-related equipment that would probably bore most people. I also got some job search tips from some graphic designers. That evening, me, Bethany, Susie, Bethany, Ponge, Bethany, and Amanda got pasta and then went to some bars with Pete and Bethany. The Raven bar was very packed, but no one was dancing. Alas, it was no Backer.

Saturday- Woke up late, ate some crepes, came home, listened to some sweet sweet tunes on the way, watched Arrested Development, napped, and then Ponge and I went to the Backer where we were served strong LITs. And we saw those chicks who tried to get in fights with our group that one random Thursday last month.

Sunday- Lazy. Went to FOG mass, ate lots of free mini fried things, learned that grad students love ConAir, and came back to watch Donnie Darko.

Yeah, maybe Katherine will go into more detail. Well, probably not about Saturday night. I'll have to blog about THAT one...

Short Addendum

2008-03-05T00:37:00.001-06:00

I suck at blogging, apparently.

Now with ENTHUSIASM!!

2008-03-05T00:19:00.002-06:00

We were looking at pictures from our robot party and they were so funny! I mean, how many parties have you been to that involve an emo robot, daft punk, a jewbot and hitler robot, and robot sex!?! We need to have another backer power hour because we love our friends so much! They are pretty much awesome. As are we.

Today Katherine and I went to Rolfs. It was good to get out of the apartment and exercise. While Katherine rode the bike (which I did for about five minutes, when I learned of Brett Favre's retirement on TV), I ran an 8 minute mile, which felt great! Maybe if I trained more I could get back into racing shape. Then I checked out a basketball and shot around. Some men on the court next to us asked me if I wanted to play with them, but I was slightly intimidated. Katherine soon came and we shot around for a bit.

Katherine sometimes acts like a 40 year old woman. She likes cooking and television, and wearing feathery hats. She also talks about all those kittens her cat had. If that doesn't scream crazy cat woman, I don't know what does!

Back to the story. Neither of us had played basketball for a long time, but I think we did ok. We made some baskets and even briefly thought about forming a bookstore team! Then we had a nice walk through campus before going to the main building to pick up my transcripts. It was a nice day outside, for South Bend. Then we went into Riley where we saw Ron, who had gotten a haircut and was looking for a scanner. We talked about how we watched the same Arrested Development episodes last night. What a strange coincidence! Since Katherine and I were hungry, we decided to get some sandwiches from Decio. We got there just in time to get sandwiches! They were pretty yummy! Then after my phone interview, we went to Between the Buns for cheap cheeseburger night. We got to watch Jeopardy at our table and also had some deliciously huge onion rings. Then, on a whim, we decided to play trivia. We did well at the beginning, but had trouble in the middle. The half time question was about NASCAR...COME ON! So we made up some pit stop jobs (like tire holder and tire screwer and gas man). Going into the last round, we were tied for last. But then, we knew the last question, about the Best Picture Oscar in a certain year (we knew the answer from watching the Oscars at Fischer Grad mass...it was My Fair Lady. I hate that movie.) Anyway, we risked all 20 points and ended up coming in third! What a comeback!

We got some interesting prizes, such as a Captain Morgan visor (which looks great on Katherine Morgan), a $10 gift certificate, and a car magnet, which we found a great use for.

All in all it was a stupendous day!! Whoever said spring break in South Bend would be boring?

Memories & Tuesday

2008-03-04T23:35:00.002-06:00

So we were just reminiscing about our robot party. And I am in full agreement that we should have another backer power hour.

Today, Julie & I went to Rolf's. I biked for a while, since I seem to have a chronic cough now. Psh. Anyways. Julie ran, then we played a little basketball. Now I haven't played basketball since my sophomore year of high school.

Okay Julie just told me I was practically 40. I don't believe that.

Back to my story. So we were playing basketball. Yeah okay that's actually it. Then we went to the main building. Lots of excitement there. Then we were off to Riley, where we ran into Ron. After that, we were walking back to TC and stopped through Decio and got sandwiches. Blah blah blah... Then tonight we went to Between the Buns and ended up playing trivia and winning 3rd place! And those people have huge onion rings. It was kind of an uneventful day, actually, as you're probably realizing by reading this. But if you spend time reading stuff like this then you probably don't have extremely eventful days yourself. Or you spend a lot of time procrastinating. Which I know I do.

Oh. And we left our friend a surprise for when he gets back from spring break. hahaha.

A couple of ones I missed...

2008-03-04T16:45:00.003-06:00

I found a couple more quotes in post-it notes, so I guess I will put them here.

"I like editing media!" -Ponge, telling us about one of her many talents.

Julie: "Is it time to go to the backer?"
Katherine: "It's only 10:30"
Dave: "That's ok, Ryan will be there."
Ryan is always at the backer. In fact, when he isn't there, we are worried and text him to make sure he's alright.

Um, I think that's all for now. I have a phone interview in about 10 minutes and I'm nervous! Oh, how I wish I could go back to simpler times when I didn't have to think about how I am going to support myself in 2 months. Yikes.

Haha, also, when are writing/editing posts, at the bottom it gives you an opportunity to add labels to your post. In the example, the labels are "scooters, vacation, fall." My goal is to someday write a post that involves all of these things. I think that would be pretty impressive!

SPIDERMAN; quotes volume cinco

2008-03-04T15:18:00.002-06:00

I knew there were some good Spiderman quotes I was missing! Thanks to Bethany for forwarding these...

“Dude, I don’t give a fuck. That guy’s a fuck.”
-Nick Schott, I don't know who he was talking about. Maybe it was you!!

“Cooking with women is a very sexual experience. I am recording this because it is one of my beliefs.”
-Spiderman, being recorded by Nick's fancy cell phone.

“Some girls I know won’t let people they don’t feel comfortable with kiss them on the neck, because it is so arousing.”
-Nick Schott, who knows what the ladies like, apparently.

“My fish has been tainted with beer. No, tainted is the wrong word… blessed is more like it. It is like the fish of the gods. If the gods ate fish, it would be blessed with beer.”
-Spiderman. No comment.

“I wish Brad Reed was here.”
-Julie, as she was cuddling on the couch with Nick and Spiderman

“I have to stay clean shaven for Club Fever.”
-Spiderman, at lunch, on why he doesn't grow creepy facial hair like Nick Schott.

Bethany: “You played I Don’t Feel Like Dancing for me once.”
Gary: “That’s probably because it was on my ipod.”
I wish I had a Gary with me at all times. He is a one man dance party.

"It's funny. It's not really a club, but it's a mass in a chapel. I'm sorry I messed up your coloring book." -Pat? I found this one scribbled on a post-it note in my room.

"I wish they had meat pretzels." -Bethany, who wants to combine her favorite drinking foods. If only they could put meat pretzels on frozen pizzas with cottage cheese...

EVEN MORE quotes volume 4

2008-03-04T14:44:00.003-06:00

And because I want to finish documenting these golden nuggets of genius...

"If you want me to fold, too, Julie, I can. I used to do origami." -Katherine. Who knew the Ponge was an origami master in a past life? This was the night that Katherine helped me with my final project because I said I would go to Corby's with her if I finished in time. We did, went to Corby's, I got an A on my project, and Katherine takes full credit.

"Hey Bethany, you can have a multicultural orgasm!" -Julie, who thinks this quote must have had something to do with Dolu.

"Hey, hey, you, you, I don't like your mom...who is my girlfriend!" -Nick Schott to Dave as they sang along to Avril Lavigne's girlfriend. I think another backer power hour is in order...

You know, we haven't had a sexual quote by Dolu so far this post...

"Can we consummate a fake marriage?" -Dolu asked me this at a party. We had talked about getting married so that he could get a green card, so our "marriage" has been a running joke. However, this comment sounded pretty serious...

"Just give me five minutes and my liver, my liver is amazing." -Nick Schott, after downing straight whiskey and insisting on his sobriety...and then falling down.

"You get me drunk and take me to a store, and I WILL buy a Playstation." -Katherine, whose obsession with Guitar Hero may have gone a bit too far. Did you know she plays on expert!?!?!

"Erroneous...I love the band!" -John Cogill, after someone questioned his band loyalty.

"So far tonight Nick has old, hot, hungry, tired balls." -Bethany, after Nick said "I'm as ____ as balls" about 20 times that night.

"You need to give me your drink ticket because you're drunk and you're gonna kill yourself 'cause your shoe's untied." -Susie to Nick, on the same night that he was drunk as balls and praising his amazing liver.

Girls Next Door

2008-03-03T21:52:00.005-06:00

So Julie just said this:

"I kind of feel like Hugh Hefner, because I just stay in my pajamas all day."

I hope that's the only reason she feels like Hef?

So that's the story of our day. Yesterday and today pretty much actually. We did watch some Arrested Development, and it was the one where Buster loses his hand, which is a good one.

Last night, Julie and I played the same song at the EXACT same time on our computers! It was cool. We tried a few times, and finally got it right with "Low" by Flo Rida featuring T Pain. Hahaha.

We also watched The Darjeeling Limited last night. I personally, enjoyed it a lot. One of my favorite quotes from it was:

"I love you too, but I'm gonna mace you in the face!"

Then I watched Trust The Man, for the sole reason that it had David Duchovny in it. So that was enjoyable since he was a main character. Have I mentioned how excited I am for the new X-Files movie? Well. I am.

That is all.

More Quotes (vol. 3)

2008-03-03T13:37:00.003-06:00

Because it's spring break, and what else do I have to do....MORE QUOTES

"America is just a huge breeding ground for me." -Dolu. He has the uncanny ability to make most of the things he says sound mildly (or not-so-mildly) sexual. I think he was talking about how America is his oyster, but I suppose breeding ground works, too.

"Get a room...you four!" -Bethany, after a particularly touch-y feel-y football game. Yeah, that's what happens when your team sucks...you start to get overly physical in the stands.

"It's like a third and a half!" -Julie, and I have honestly no idea what this was in reference to.

"Bethany, you need to nurse my in-grown toenail." -Nick Schott, gross.

Before and After: Will McLeod Bethel-Thompson -I think this perfectly describes our ND-UCLA game watch experience.

"It's like you're dating McNerdy and McPrudey" -Julie, to Bethany

"Gross things don't fit in your mouth?" -Katherine. This one is best left untouched.

"Every thong's moving so freckle fast!" -Text message sent by Diana. That's what T9 will do to ya.

"He's a really great partner, we should have a threesome!" -Diana, and no, she was not talking about a sexual threeway. I wish we had her 10 minute monologue involving purple Tellytubbies, people falling out of chairs, and reform school.

Let's end with another quote from our favorite Nigerian prince...

"You know, marriage is a lifetime of bondage."

Oh Dolu, how true, in so many ways...

SB in SB Weekend I Adventures

2008-03-02T15:21:00.003-06:00

So Julie here has been criticizing me about my blogging abilities so I'm gonna attempt to work on that now. So here's how spring break weekend #1 went:

Went to the Backer on Friday night. Big surprise there. Someone decided it was a good idea to buy drinks for us all night. Oh well. I can't complain about only having to pay cover. Alas, Bethany did not join us. And Susie was gone. But we still managed to have a good time. Also, Susie gave me the great idea to mock her in our blog. That may happen, but probably not today.

Hmmm so what happened Friday? Oh. Brian the Accountant and Dave were enjoying themselves. Ha. They're both crazy. There were still some students around, despite it being spring break and all. A few people told us they'd be there but didn't show up. (You know who you are.) We got DJ Drew to play Girlfriend, which we hadn't heard in a while. We left early... I think around 2:30 or so.

Saturday night was like rap & MJ night at the Backer. I do think we got all our requests played. I Don't Feel Like Dancing, Your Love, I Want It That Way (don't judge me... hahaha). Speaking of these.. I haven't heard Invisible Touch there in a long time. I think that'll be my next request. Bethany was there this time, so I had someone to split a Blue Moon with. We hung out with Dave's friends sans Dave, and determined that we have sufficiently stolen his friends. Mwa ha ha ha. Bethany and I got to sit in the back seat of a cool car. It was very roomy. No automatic locks though. At the end of the night, we got like half of the people in the bar into a circle for Proud To Be An American. (NOTE: Contrary to popular belief, we didn't actually KNOW half of the people in the bar...) Now, I'm not really a huge fan of doing that "get in a circle and sway" thing, but it was pretty funny.

So now, Sunday, we're just hanging out. The plans are to go Don Pablos for dinner and eat some food. Then go grocery shopping. I want to bake.

So, Julie? Was that any better?

Quotes 2.0

2008-03-02T15:05:00.003-06:00

MORE QUOTES!!!

Here are some oldies but goodies...

"I did better than I ever thought I could!!" -Katherine, after playing a decent game of beer pong (for once).

"He did things with his body I could never even dream of!" -Julie, talking about a certain Colombian friend who dances like a male version of Shakira.

"It's like an emo mullet--it's emo on the side and business on the other side." -Bethany, on the dangers of "hip" haircuts

"You know the best way to repay Dolu is to repay St. Peter the Great." -Dolu's alter-ego is even more forward than he is. And just as bad at showing sarcasm.

and the classic...

"Facebook the shit out of me" -Kyle Alan Wickens, the Holy Cross freshman who crashed our party and puked on our floor, after showing off his "amazing" shotgunning skills. Needless to say, no one was very impressed. But we have kept his name up on our fridge, for old times sake.

What the blog are you blogging about?

2008-03-01T22:45:00.002-06:00

Ha. That title came from the opening monologue of SNL that we just watched. It was pretty hilarious. Anyway, I just wanted to talk about some of the interesting things you have to look forward to on this blog.
One: a background info post were we make a glossary of sorts telling you about all our friends and things doe those who are out of the loop.
Two: more quotes. Many, many more quotes.
Three: Descriptions of some of our more memorable experiences. (at certain establishments across the street.)
Four: a tribute to the Backer, for it shall not be here for much longer, or so the rumor says.
Five: Pictures.
Six: What we did at the mall today.

And the last shall be first. So today we went to the mall. We saw lots of interesting sights. Like the mennonite women in Victoria's secret. Are they allowed to wear pink panties? Really? And then later, at the same store, we saw one man, standing, looking confused, wearing camo and John Deer gear. Twas a funny sight. They changed the names of all the stuff at Bath and Body Works (well, since the last time I bought something from there, which was probably in 7th grade.) I saw some crocs with the fuuurrr. We ate delicious mall food. I fed Bethany a fry. Katherine looked at things in the Gap. Katherine learned all about hair school (we got our hair did). My hair smells like "product." So does Katherine's.

Welp, that's about all I have time for. Backer wooo!

Three Purple Rains

2008-03-01T10:39:00.001-06:00

While 2 purple rains sounds cool... three is probably not a good idea. Take it from me.

The Spring Break Adventures Continue

2008-02-29T19:22:00.002-06:00

So we went to JJ's Fish & Chicken today. We'd never been there before. Kind of greasy and expensive. Then again, 2 small meals were enough for 3 people. I got fried okra. Mmmmm.

Photo documentation to follow.

What could have been.

2008-02-29T18:39:00.003-06:00

Other blog names we considered:
"can you play... ?", your love tonight, bless the rains, People always told me.. be careful what you do, hold me like the river jordan, don't stop til you get enough, keep on with the force don't stop, lovely is the feelin' now, I'm Starting With The Man In The Mirror, here's... how it goes..., In the end our love mattered, at least i know julie...and katherine is hot too, strawberry fields forever, When there's no communication.... its a no win situation, we're just not talking, we got so much to say, sometimes we kick, we must be crazy, Josie's on a vacation far away..., We’ll shine together, into the shimmer light, Streetlights...People, i don't feel like robots, murder on the dance floor, those were the best days of my life, sexy lady robots, tv and robots, boots with the fur, I don't feel like dancing, Take on me, Everybody's Working for the Weekend

If you understand where all of these come from, you're awesome. We also like that we started this on a leap day. Our first anniversary will be in 2012.

Quotes of the Year Part I

2008-02-29T17:14:00.003-06:00

We started a quote list at the beginning of the semester. Sadly, we haven't been keeping up with it as much this semester, but that will have to change. We got a couple good ones from the recent robot party:

"Is this techno remix of that Kanye song, stronger?" -Dolu, in reference to Daft Punk's 'Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger'

Dolu is always good for some quotes. Call it that Nigerian charm.

--Matt, are you glad you came?
--Yeah, I got to f*** a robot! -Ethan Hart, because I believe he was pretty drunk at the time

And now for some blasts from the past...

"I type the fastest of anyone ever born!" -Susie, sometime early last semester

"Bethany, you need to dance when you are finished playing beer pong because I am the only one dancing!" -Ponge, she became quite the little dancer this year

and lest we forget her catchphrase, "Sometimes I kick!"

Am I a huge nerd for being annoyed that the quotation marks look more like inch marks? Ugh.

I'm lazy

2008-02-29T15:45:00.001-06:00

Well our adventures are pretty exciting. I think I've maybe spent a total of one hour out of my bed all day. I have learned some things today:

- What apple bottom jeans are
- That's actually the only one I'm comfortable posting on here. Hahaha.

And you should check out Susie's blog when you get a chance. Since she's our inspiration.

http://susalyn.blogspot.com/

The Adventures of...

2008-02-29T15:14:00.000-06:00

Today is our first day of spring break of our senior year of college. After sitting at hour computers for hours doing nothing, Katherine had the idea of starting a blog in which to record our many adventures. I said, why not? So here it is. Enjoy. Props to Susie for inspiring us to create a blog, as she is an avid blogger. I hope we are at least somewhat entertaining.