Andra's Nameless Blog

The Save the Dates

2012-01-25T13:30:00.003-06:00

I like to be crafty so when it came to save the dates, I really wanted to do them myself. Also, I understand that people get tons of stuff in the mail everyday, and anything I sent could be easily lost. Ryan and I thought that magnets would be a good idea (easier to keep up with it--just stick it to the fridge!), but I still wanted to do it myself, so I looked around and found a DIY magnet kit online. I came up with a design, playing off of my bridesmaid cards (Ryan's suggestion of playing off of his groomsmen invites was vetoed), drew it, scanned it, and followed the instructions that came with the kit to format our magnets. The kit came with a test sheet, so I ran that through the printer. It looked great, so I moved on to the first magnet. The design was out of place by an inch or two, causing the bottom to be completely cut off. Apparently magnets don't go through a printer the same way that paper does. I adjusted the design down and tried again, but now the printer's ink was running out. I changed the cartridge and for some reason it didn't align properly, so on the next magnet I tried, the placement was good but the picture was printed twice, like how 3D looks when you don't have on the glasses. After trial run after trial run after trial run and what seemed like hours and hours and hours of frustration, I finally figured out a system that worked. I definitely put the whole "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again" thing to work. Only with about 20 billion more tries in there. I ended up loving the result though, so it paid off!

The Wedding Party

2011-12-23T08:53:00.001-06:00

A result of our long friendship before we ever started dating, Ryan and I have a lot of mutual friends. For some reason, most of them are guys. This posed an interesting problem for picking our wedding party. Most of our friends get to stand on his side of the church, and he wanted to include a lot of them. I have 2 sisters, a future sister in law, and a few close girl friends that I wanted to be my maids, so I drew the line at 7. If I hadn't, we'd probably have 15 groomsmen, I'd be scrambling around asking people I barely know to be my bridesmaids, and they'd be hanging out into the aisles of the church during the ceremony. As it is, we'll fill up the stage and he can use everyone I wouldn't let him include as an usher so they still get to be a part of our day.

Once I picked my girls, I started thinking of ways to formally ask them (most of them knew they'd be in my wedding already) to be my bridesmaids. I like to be crafty, so I decided to make cards and write notes inside them all telling them exactly why I wanted them to be in my wedding. Some of the notes were long and mushy, some were short and sweet, but they were all heartfelt. For the actual cards, I saw a little doodle of a bride and her bridesmaids (on Etsy, I think) and decided to modify it for myself. I bought some blank cards and envelopes and drew a bride with a maid on either side of her on the front of the cards, I wrote my notes inside, and then colored one maid on each card to look like the recipient. I liked this, but they were still kind of lacking in color, so I found some paper with wedding doodles on it (cakes, champagne glasses, hearts, etc.) that were kind of in the same simple style as my bride drawing. I lined the envelopes with this paper, and the result was pretty darn cute, if I do say so myself.

Ryan and his mom came up with the idea of giving the guys he wanted to be his groomsmen a bottle of whiskey, but customizing the labels with wedding stuff. We found a website that let you type in our own text, and it would put it on a Jack Daniel's label. We played around with it some, got a rough idea, and decided he could tweak the wording later. However, between our initial discovery of the site and the next time he tried to use it, Jack Daniel's apparently sent them a cease and desist order, so he had to go with our rough draft wording, that we had thankfully already saved, just in case. He just had the label printed on wallet sized photo paper and glued them to the bottles, and I think they turned out very nicely.

The Venue

2011-12-23T07:34:00.012-06:00

Now that you know the story, we can start planning! My sister made an observation when I first got engaged: when people hear the news their first question is one of two things. If the person is female, first question is "Can I see the ring?" If the person is male, the first question is "Have you set a date?" This probably says something profound about the difference between guys and gals. Girls like sparkly things and boys like to know when they'll have to show up for things. Who knows? Anyway, to answer all of the men, we started trying to set a date. After discussing all potential scheduling conflicts, we decided sometime toward the middle or end of May would be our best option. Since we met in college and Ryan proposed in the chapel on campus, he really liked the idea of getting married there. I made a call and discovered that the only open time was from 8-2 on May 12th. Graduation for half of our wedding party is at 10 on May 12th. Nope, not gonna work. We discussed some other options, but I really wanted the place we get married to mean something to at least one of us, so the ceremony is going to be at my home church. This left us free to pick just about any date we wanted, so we opted for the next weekend, May 19th.

The next big decision was where to have the reception. We could do it at the church, but most receptions at Baptist churches are really just glorified receiving lines. Not that there's anything wrong with that at all, but it's not really want we wanted. Having the reception at the church is probably more what my family would expect, but his family, not being Baptist, would have other expectations, and this day should be about both of us. We were tossing around ideas for places on the Coast, when I remembered that there's a building next to the Walter Anderson Museum in Ocean Springs that has a big room with full wall murals painted by Walter Anderson himself. How perfect! Minimal decoration required (or allowed), unique, dance floor and bar friendly, pretty inexpensive. We called and it was open for our date! Venues: done.

This is the room where our reception will be.

An idea of what it looks like with tables set up.

The Story

2011-12-17T11:54:00.009-06:00

Hey guess what...I'm engaged! I figured I'd start posting about the wedding planning process, but I'm over a month in and haven't even told you the engagement story yet, so first things first.

The fiance and I met at school, and even though we graduated in April, we still have a lot of friends that are still there, so we visit a lot. On the weekend in question, we were going up for the MSU vs Bama game, so he picked me up after work and we headed north.

When we got to Starkville, Ryan said we had to make a stop on campus because he told his sister that she could borrow his camera for Bulldog Bash. For those of you who don't know what that is, basically they close all the roads in the Cotton District of Starkville, set up a stage in the middle of the street, and it's a huge concert with people and vendors and all kinds of things that are damaging to cameras everywhere. Ryan is very protective of his camera, and I knew his sister was planning on being right in the thick of things, as close to the stage as she could get, so this whole borrowing the camera idea seemed a little odd, but I wasn't going to question it. We met her in the Union, handed over the camera, then he suggested we walk around for a while before meeting up with our friends. We hadn't been on campus in a while, so this sounded like a plan to me.

We set out and I pointed us toward the Drill Field, in the middle of campus. He seemed reluctant to go that way, which was a little odd, but I pressed on. We ran into a friend and stopped to talk but I did most of the talking and Ryan was preoccupied with his phone. He eventually told the guy (who is actually going to be one of the groomsmen in our wedding) we'd catch up with him later and pointed me in another direction. He steered me toward the chapel, getting antsier by the minute. When he opened the door, I saw a guy playing the piano at the front, so I figured we'd just turn around and continue our walk elsewhere so as to not disturb him, but Ryan led me right down to the front, grinning at me the whole way, got down on one knee, pulled out a ring, and asked me to marry him. And then I saw a big flash. Turns out the camera at the concert story was a cover for getting the camera to her so she could capture our big moment and the preoccupation with the phone was his sister telling him she had gotten someone to agree to play the piano for the whole thing. And now the moment you've all been waiting for...the pictures!

"Will you marry me?"

"Yes!"

The ring!

Tuesday

2011-06-21T09:34:00.006-05:00

My last 2 posts have been written on Tuesdays, (quite unintentionally) so I figured I should write one today to keep up the trend, even though I missed last Tuesday.

I was here...

....doing this...

I also did lots of other things like ride a tandem bike around Mackinac Island, look for petoskey stones in Petoskey, MI, and hike a million miles up and down zillion foot tall dunes to Lake Michigan, which was a billion degrees below zero when I stuck my foot in. It was a lot of fun, but I was happy to get back home to the land where it's 90+ with a relative humidity of 3000% in June (not the lucky-to-get-up-to-75 weather I experienced for a week), where people say y'all instead of yous guys, and where sweet tea is a staple. Honestly, other than the accent and the weather (and of course the lack of good drinks) Michigan is a lot like Mississippi. Lots of farms, lots of cows, lots of country stations on the radio.

Making the transition back to work from being on vacation wasn't so bad either. I went into work yesterday, was asked to work the weekend shift at the Walmart branch of the bank, and told I could take Tuesday and Wednesday off. Off for a week, work a day, off for 2 more days. I can dig it.

I had all kinds of plans for today. I was going to get up and walk with my dad as usual, do some cleaning, go to Hobby Lobby because I have a crafty thing in mind and need supplies, and spend the rest of the day working on my still splotchy leg tan from the beach. However, my alarm didn't go off (or perhaps I turned it off without realizing it) so I wasn't up at 5 to go walking, and as a result, I am still in my p.j.s at 10:00. Oh well, there's always tomorrow, which I probably won't blog about because it's not Tuesday.

Noise

2011-06-07T06:07:00.007-05:00

As my dad and I were out walking yesterday morning, he said something about how wrong people are to assume that living out in the country would be quiet. I hadn't really been paying attention to the noise around me before that, but I perked up and started listening. It is loud! There might not be the sounds of steady streams of cars rushing past, horns blowing, and people yelling, but there are roosters crowing, dogs barking at the crowing roosters, birds chirping, frogs croaking, crickets...cricketing.

This morning as we set out, I started listening again. You can hear roosters coming from every direction. I would like to see a map pointing out every house with chickens within a 5 mile radius. I bet there would be a big circle right around our house. Imagine the Ring of Fire, only the Pacific plate is my yard, and the volcanoes are chickens. (Now there's an interesting mental image...)

In addition to the usual critters this morning, we also heard our friendly, neighborhood lion. The Mobile Zoo is right down the road, and every so often, I suppose when it's feeding time, you can hear, or rather feel, the lion roar. It's kind of like the bass at a concert, only in my front yard at 5 am.

Anyway, I suppose if you truly want quiet, even living in the middle of nowhere won't always do the trick. Life just has a way of being noisy. My advice to those in pursuit of silence: find a library.

What I've Been Doing Lately, Picture Book Style

2011-05-31T17:15:00.010-05:00

I graduated, which makes me very happy and very sad at the same time.

I started working at the bank again. (This is not really where I work. Century Bank is a much nicer looking bank than this. Even the Walmart branch.)

I hung out with this guy a lot, but not as much as I would if we didn't now live an hour and a half apart instead of the former 2ish minutes. (P.S. Isn't he a handsome?) Yesterday I went car shopping with him which made me decide to start saving my money...

...for one of these.

I started getting up at 5:00 every morning to run with my dad. I like the exercise. I love the conversation and the time spent outside watching the world wake up.

I was asked to help teach 2nd grade Sunday School, which I am very excited about and will start next Sunday.

I also went to the beach and got a funny, splotchy sunburn on my legs, which I will spare you pictures of because I couldn't find any non gross sunburn pictures.

Basically, I started my transition from college student to whatever comes next. So far, not so bad.

Just Call Me Domestic Darla

2011-04-09T08:32:00.003-05:00

It is Saturday. More importantly, it is the Saturday of Super Bulldog Weekend. What does this mean to you? Maybe nothing. To me it means that I was up late last night and I'll be up late again tonight, therefore, in the interest of my mind and body, I should be asleep right now. Instead, I was awake at 7:30 am. Wide awake. I could have stayed in bed hoping I would fall back asleep, but it was hot, so I decided to go downstairs and have breakfast. Once I reached the kitchen and saw the state it was in, I decided I'd straighten it up a little first. This turned into completely cleaning the kitchen (wiping counters, scraping up little bits of cookie dough that seemed to have gotten plastered all over everything, sweeping, and mopping) and the living room (scraping up even more cookie dough that somehow got under the rug, sweeping some more, mopping some more, straightening the pillows, and vacuuming). Then and only then could I make the coffee and biscuits that I came down for, but before I'll be able to enjoy eating them, I'm going to tackle the dishwasher, and possibly even the dirty dishes in the sink.

P.S. I wasn't even here last night to make this mess.

P.P.S. I think I have a problem.

2011-01-15T10:31:00.004-06:00

I just spent a while reading a few other blogs, so I feel the need to write something in mine since I've neglected it for a while. The only problem is that while I have the inspiration, I lack the subject matter. The only thing I can think of is that I never wear my spoon ring anymore and I never play my ukulele either, rendering my last post completely obsolete.

Also, I am hot. The living room in my house is big and open and has tile floors and my roommate and I are cheap. These things combine to make it cold in there all the time. However, even though we don't set it very high, we do keep the heat on since it's been downright Arctic here for the past week. The heater runs and runs, unsuccessfully warming the living room but way too successfully warming my bedroom which is much smaller, a lot less open, and carpeted. I don't know how thermostats work, but I'm assuming that whatever instrument measures the temperature of the room is in the living room where it is currently 67, not my bedroom where it has to be at least 90. The only exception is my closet where it is always 30 below. Maybe the architect designed my room the way he did, knowing that the closet would always be cold, because he knows that boogie monsters prefer a warmer climate. Unless my personal boogie monster is the Abominable Snowman. Or was he not actually one of the monsters that worked to scare kids on Monsters, Inc? I don't really remember, but I don't think he was. Guess that means I'm safe.

It looks like I had more to talk about than I originally thought.

Spoons 'n Ukes

2010-08-11T07:16:00.005-05:00

I didn't get in bed until after 1:00, yet here I am at 7:17, already finished with my regular internet pass times so you know I've been up for a while. I moved back to Starkville yesterday. My bed was apparently not as happy with this as I would've thought and welcomed me back with zero sleep. Since I'm up anyway, I'll bore you with a little of the happenings in my world recently.

I have lost my spoon ring...again. I know I had it Saturday, and I know I didn't have it Sunday. I'm at a loss as to where it might have gotten to between those days. Maybe it was tired of living life being called a spoon but never being used for food consumption, so it ran away. Or maybe I just dropped it and it rolled under my bed and it's living it up with the dust bunnies. In either case, I feel truly bereft without it.

My mother got a ukulele for her birthday back in May, so all summer I've been messing around with it. Since I'm back in Starkville now and figured she probably wouldn't appreciate it if I took it with me, so I bought my own. I am very excited and fully expect to be the next Israel Kamakawiwo'ole except for the fact that I am not a very large Polynesian man.

I will now combine the subjects of the last two paragraphs into one snazzy picture.

I miss you dearly, spoon ring. Hopefully our paths will cross again one day soon. My finger feels naked without you.

I

2010-07-19T01:15:00.002-05:00

I never post anymore.

Is it sad that most of my posts say something to that effect?

I guess that really depends on your point of view. If you like hearing from me, it is sad. If you don't like hearing from me, you probably aren't reading this now and so it makes no difference.

It is currently 1:17 a.m. I'm in that weird stage of being tired, but not sleepy enough to go to bed. When I reach this point I get contemplative or silly. Right now it's kind of both.

I've started every little section so far with the letter I.

It was unintentional, but now I feel like I have to continue with it.

Icecream is yummy.

Ice cream is also apparently two words.

Igloos probably aren't very fun to live in. Or at least they wouldn't be for me. I'm always cold.

I can't think of any other words that start with I and it seems self-centered and taking the easy way out to just use the word "I" as my i word, so I believe I'll stop.

It's bed time anyway.

Happy Surprises

2010-05-15T22:50:00.003-05:00

I love it when God unexpectedly plops little happys (happies? It's not a real word, but it's the one I want to use. I just don't know which wrong way to spell it is the right wrong way.) into my lap.

Last week in church we were talking about not just sitting around but actively doing something for our faith, so I got to thinking about how I'm not involved in any ministries at home. This is mainly because during the school year I'm never there. However, I'll be home for June and July which is a whole two months that shouldn't be used for idleness but for doing something productive. I was just starting to contemplate what I could do when a friend leaned over and said she needed to talk to me about something after the service. She wants to start a program for girls in the church, a kind of mentor/Bible study/sleepover-fun kind of thing, and she wants me to help. It was like all I had to do was actually think the words "What can I do?" and God was right on top of it with a "Here--do this!"

I am currently sitting in a hotel room in Odessa, TX as part of a group of 8 students and 2 professors from my school on a storm chase. We're driving around the Great Plains for 2 weeks looking for storms. The most I really expected to get out of this trip was some cool pictures of clouds, hopefully some tornadoes, but yesterday I got a lot more. I was sitting in the room with two of the other girls, one of whom was reading her Bible. She read something that she thought was cool out loud to us and it sparked this whole deep conversation about finding God's will.

I didn't expect God to immediately give me a ministry I could be involved with the second I asked for one or for Him to speak to me about His will through my fellow storm chasers while sitting in a Texas hotel room, but He did both of those things. And when I think about it, why did I not expect Him to do those things? He's an all powerful God. He can do anything. Just imagine what He could do with me if I was asking for and expecting great things rather than just being surprised (although pleasantly so) by them when they're dropped into my lap.

Yee Haw

2010-05-03T10:11:00.003-05:00

I associate summer with country music. I have for a while, and I have no idea why. I rarely, if ever, listen to country during the school year, but all summer I listen to it almost exclusively. I used to think that it was just a Lucedale thing. Something about driving down back roads at home just needs country in the background to feel right. However, here I am, still sitting in Starkville and the least excited about summer that I've probably ever been, but what am I doing? Listening to the Josh Turner Pandora station. I guess my mind is trying to tell me subliminally through my music choice that summer is here and there is nothing I can do about it, so I might as well suck it up and make it worthwhile. I'll see what I can do.

And so that this isn't a complete downer of a blog post, here's a happy story. Last semester I was in a class called Physical Meteorology that was probably the most ridiculous class I've ever taken (Actually that's not entirely true because I'm pretty sure Physics II was an even bigger bane of my existence, but that was last year. New year, new bane.). Not that the subject was ridiculous, but the teaching method was. It was unorganized and way above everyone's head. The first test was mostly quantitative (plugging stuff into equations and whatnot) and I made 100 (with a curve of course). Since the curve was necessary, the teacher decided that for the next test, it should be all qualitative (explaining of processes rather than proving them with equations). I made a 77. The class average overall was a lot higher though, so for the final, it was decided that this new format would be kept. I just knew that there was no way I'd get an A if this was the case. I dreaded the test all week. When the day came, I was convinced it would take me at least 2 hours to finish, judging by how his previous tests had gone. Instead, I was out of there in 45 minutes, and this was after working through the test three times because I didn't want to be the first one to leave. Finally, I gave up and turned it in. The next day, I checked my grades, not expecting that one to be posted yet, but saw that it was...and I had an A!! I screamed. Out loud. My roommate came running into my room because she was sure something had attacked me.

Kamikaze Cockroach

2010-04-29T07:03:00.004-05:00

Today I am a believer in signs.

I do not do well with roaches. They completely creep me out. I get the heebie jeebies just thinking about them. This morning as I was getting in the shower, I saw a big, ugly, obviously mean-spirited roach crawl across the wall of the bathroom. I was already partly in the shower, and therefore wet at this point, so there wasn't really a whole lot I could do about it without dripping all over the bathroom, so I just decided to go ahead and finish my shower, and then deal with the problem later. The silly roach completely ruined my shower experience though because naturally I was worried that it was going to crawl into the shower and eat me the whole time.

Thankfully, I finished my shower uneaten, so I got out and began to look around for the roach so I could kill it, but I didn't see it anywhere. If there's anything worse than seeing a roach, it's knowing a roach is there, but not seeing it. Completely ill at ease at this point, I decided the best thing to do would be just finish getting ready, so I leaned over the toilet to get something out of the cabinet above it and just happened to look down. Low and behold, the pesky roach was floating belly up in the toilet bowl. All I had to do was flush.

Since today is the day of my worst final this semester and I've been worrying about it all week, I've decided that the roach is a sign, and maybe today won't be so terrible after all.

Home

2010-04-15T09:04:00.003-05:00

I started this post the other day and never finished it. However, I just spent all afternoon working on a project that involves manually putting 20 years of daily soil temperature data into a spreadsheet, and I'm pretty sure if I spend one more second working on it today I'll explode. Seemed like a good time to take a break and finish my post.

I'm in this weird stage of life where I have a house with parents and sisters, but I'm not there most of the time, so it's not exactly "home" anymore, or at least not in the same sense of the word as before. I also have a place to stay at school with my school "family", where I do spend most of my time, but it's not really "home" either because I know I won't be here for much longer. So when I think of the word home, I don't automatically see images of a particular place or particular people. Instead when I think "home" I think of feeling completely relaxed, of being absolutely comfortable, of being at absolute peace with myself and the world around me.

I recently came across this verse in John 15: "I've loved you the way my Father has loved me. Make yourselves at home in my love." Other versions say to remain or abide in my love, and while it means the same thing, something about putting the word "home" in it makes me see it in a whole new light. It brings all those feelings of comfort and peace with who I am and where I am to mind, and it speaks volumes to me of who my Savior is. While He is all powerful and has every right to do anything He wants with us, He's not some ruthless, hard hearted slave driver, constantly ordering us around with no regard for our well being. Instead, He wants us to make a home in His love. To be so comfortable there that we'd rather be there than anywhere else.

Some friends of mine lost almost everything in an apartment fire yesterday, and that got me to thinking about home again. If what we consider home is where we keep all of our stuff, that can all be taken away in an instant. However, if we consider Jesus's love for us our home, then it can never been taken away. His love is constant, never changing, never ending. It can't be stopped by a fire or a flood or anything else that can so easily destroy our worldly dwellings. If that isn't comfort and peace, or my definition of home, then I don't know what is.

I'm Twitchy

2010-03-30T21:41:00.003-05:00

Earlier tonight, while sitting in Priority, my eye decided it would be fun to start twitching. I do not agree with its decision. It was most annoying, and it made me look rather silly. Now the twitch has decided to move to my left thumb. While this does not make me look quite as silly, it is quite possibly even more annoying. Thumb twitches are more prolonged than eye twitches. Also more violent. I wonder if the twitch will get tired of my thumb soon or if it likes it there and is planning on camping out for a while. I certainly hope it moves, but only if i get to pick where it goes. A nose twitch might be fun. I'd kind of look like the girl on Bewitched.

Insidiousness

2010-03-25T23:50:00.003-05:00

In an attempt to feel productive without actually having to do homework tonight, I decided to go through all of my old blog posts and fix grammatical errors. I think it takes skill to come up with a procrastination like that. I'm kind of glad I did it though. I used to have some pretty humorous things to say. Now I feel like I don't have anything to say. However, looking through my old posts, I realize I didn't really have a whole lot to say then either. They're all about the silly things that go through my head or about not-that-interesting-but-cleverly-narrated things that happen to me. Silly things still go through my head and not-that-interesting things still happen to me quite frequently. I enjoy writing and need a creative outlet for it or I'll lose it, so in the future I promise I will try to remember all the silly things I think and experience so you, my dear reader, might have a little bit of entertainment.

We'll start off the silliness with a description of my Applied Climatology class this morning. We are talking about how climate affects agriculture, and one of the topics was drought. There is a type of drought called an invisible drought. It's like what happens in July when you get a little bit of rain every day, so you think you're doing fine, but actually the amount of rain you're getting is less than the amount of evaporation taking place so the drought is "insidious." The professor went on to define the word insidious for us. He said that to a lot of people it has big, destructive, evil connotations, but in actuality it just means it creeps up on you, "like too big underwear on a 20 mile hike."

Generous Living

2010-01-13T17:32:00.003-06:00

I was reading in Matthew today and came across a passage that I've probably read a hundred times before, but somehow it struck me differently today. Here it is: "Go to the lost, confused people right here in the neighborhood. Tell them that the kingdom is here...You have been treated generously, so live generously."

In my head I know that I am supposed to share Christ with the lost world around me, but sometimes, actually a lot of the time, that knowledge stops right there, as a thought, and never actually carries over into an action. However, Jesus didn't have to come to Earth to die for me or even do a lot of the smaller things he's blessed me with. How ridiculous is it for me to take an incredibly selfless act performed for me and hide it away instead of sharing it with people that need it? Especially when I've been specifically asked to by the creator of the universe? It's like a slap in the face, and I don't know about you, but I certainly don't want to be the one slapping Jesus Christ, Son of God, in the face.

Hmmm...

2009-11-03T08:41:00.003-06:00

This morning as I was getting ready, I noticed a freckle on my side that I don't remember ever seeing before. I wonder if it recently graced me with its presence or if it has always been there and I am just that unobservant...

Check it Out!!

2009-10-21T14:17:00.002-05:00

The studio here at State where the broadcast meteorology department does all of their weathercasting recently got a major overhaul and is now amazingly cool (not that it wasn't cool before, but now it's just that much cooler). We've (I say we like I'm actually involved. Not until next year.) started a new webcast called Campus Connect that gets updated twice a day during the week on this website. You should check it out. The technology that the new equipment uses is the same technology as was used in the new Star Wars movies. Pretty neato, huh?

Also, when I signed in, I couldn't for the life of me remember what my password was, so I had to do the whole "forgot your password?" deal to reset it. I guess this means I don't update enough.

Remember Me?

2009-09-24T14:23:00.008-05:00

So I ran out of ways to waste time on the Internet earlier, so I decided I'd read my mom's blog because I hadn't in a while. When the page came up, I looked at the list of blogs she reads and noticed that I have apparently not posted in 2 months. That is kind of a long time, and I know you must all be dying to hear from me, so I figured I should probably come up with something to post about, so I am going to share with you all one reason why you should not leave your thermostat set to 50 over the weekend.

My best friend, my roommate, and I went to Ft. Walton Beach last weekend. I was the last to be done with all of my Friday obligations, so the other two loaded up the car so we'd be ready to leave as soon as I was ready. Apparently, they got hot while carrying stuff out because the air conditioner got turned way down. I didn't notice when I came in because I'd just had to trek all the way across campus and I didn't stay in the room long anyway.

Well after several incidents and much giggling on the way, we made it to the house we were staying at in Ft. Walton and did the whole beach thing. The weather was kind of questionable the whole time and we ended up having to leave early on our one beach day, but all in all the trip was still a blast.

And speaking of blasts...when we finally made it back to school, and got all of our suitcases and coolers lugged upstairs to our room, we opened the door and a blast of cold air smacked us in the face. This is when Morgan remembered she had set the air before we left. It had been running on 50 for 2 days straight. It was so cold, condensation had started to form on the inside of the light above my bed. It eventually started leaking out of one end and had made a wet spot on the floor. We set a cup underneath it and after about an hour of dripping, this is what we had collected. The moral of the story is, don't turn your air conditioner down as far as it will go and then leave for several days. You end up with icky light fixture water.

Peeved

2009-07-22T09:39:00.002-05:00

I am bored to tears at work and have already read just about every article on The Onion, so in an attempt to keep myself from falling asleep I've decided to make a list of all my pet peeves just because I'm in a testy mood. Most of them will probably relate to work since that's what has me bored.
1. I hate when people bring in a deposit that's mostly cash and all the money isn't facing the same direction.
2. I hate when people act like it's my fault when they find out their account is overdrawn. Learn basic math and keep up with it yourself!
3. I hate when smelly old men prop their elbows on the sides of my teller window so that their armpits radiate stink directly at my nose.
4. I hate when aforementioned smelly old men try to make me laugh at their stupid jokes.
5. I hate when people come to my window while on the phone and look at me as if I'm the rudest person on the planet for interupting their call with silly questions regarding their transaction. It is absolutely unacceptable that I am not a mind reader.
6. I hate when people expect me to fill out their deposit slips and withdrawal slips for them just because they don't know their account numbers.
7. I hate when people hold up the line because they don't have all of their stuff together.
8. I hate when people breathe heavily.
9. I hate the stupid tracphone commercial with the violin music that plays on a loop all day on Walmart's tvs.
10. I hate the flickering light above register 11.
11. I hate how cold our break room always is. (I'm using the word room loosely. It's more like a closet.)
12. I hate when my cheerful greeting of "Good Morning! How are you?" is met by stony silence.
13. I hate when people assume I know all of Walmart's policies and proceedures simply because the branch of the bank that I work at happens to be located inside Walmart.
14. I hate when my coworkers decide to let it be Andra-work-by-herself-day and all disappear into the back to gossip.
15. I hate when I have to resort to making lists of things that I hate to keep myself occupied.

Blah.

2009-06-25T07:30:00.005-05:00

I lack all motivation to do anything. You may call me Sloth today. That is all.

Banking Update

2009-06-15T21:18:00.002-05:00

Banking is good for your ego. I have now been hit on twice and told I was a "purty little thing" by at least 5 old men. One such man today told me to shred his receipt for him so that my "old man" wouldn't know we'd met because "purty thing like me, he must be jealous." I have also been asked multiple times if I am old enough to have a job at the bank. Normally the guessed age is 15, but today I aged 3 years because the new guess was 18! Maybe by the end of the summer I will look my actual age...

Walmart: My Personal Hell

2009-05-29T08:22:00.003-05:00

During the summers I work at Century Bank, last summer as a random file scanner/switchboard operator/address label sticker/vault of loan documents reorganizer/anything else they could come up with, and this summer as a teller. All teller training is done at the main office of the bank, which has normal banking hours: 9-4 on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday, 9-12 on Wednesday, and 9-5 on Friday (but you have to be there at 8 and generally don't get to leave until 30 minutes after the bank closes). Normally when someone teller trains, they are kept at the main office for a while, just to be sure they're comfortable with it before they are sent to whatever branch they are intended for; however, when I finished my initial training, there was someone already waiting to start theirs, and since there are a limited number of windows, and I hadn't made any huge mistakes so far, I was sent to another branch. This was fine because the branch they sent me to also has normal banking hours. I was there for a few days and liking it well enough when I got the dreaded call: they wanted me to fill in for someone who had called in sick at the Walmart branch. This particular branch is about the size of my bedroom, is located right in the middle of the front wall of Walmart, between the SmartStyle and customer service, and is open from 9-8 Monday through Saturday. The regulars there work in shifts: one group works Monday-Wednesday and the other group works Thursday-Saturday and at the end of every month they switch. Since I was not a regular, that first week, after having worked the normal 8-4 at another branch on Monday, I worked 8-8 on Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, AND Saturday. I had Sunday and Monday (Memorial Day=bank closed!!!) to recuperate and then worked Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.

The last half of the week is when most people get paid so that's when everyone wants to come cash their checks. Since they don't make it to town before the other branches close, they all head to Walmart. At any given moment on Thursday and Friday afternoon and all day Saturday, the line can be backed up all the way past customer service to the bathroom. It is utter chaos. We don't have time to think between transactions. It's all mindless handing out of money, and when it's all over and the bank is finally closed, we are all so stiff and sore and worn out that we are completely worthless.

The beginning of the week is not much better than the end, but for a completely different reason. It is very slow and we are all quite aware of the lengthiness of a 12 hour work day. We sit at our little windows and watch the world go by, literally since everyone in the county goes to Walmart multiple times a week. When I get tired of people watching I just kind of stare out into space. There are 3 light bulbs within my line of sight that flicker on and off constantly all day every day. You can't escape them. When you look down, the flickering reflects on the floor. Wednesday, I watched a bright yellow "Clearance" balloon escape from its string and float up to the ceiling. It was headed for a sky light, but got stuck on a rafter, so it hung out there for a while. Eventually it unstuck itself from the rafter and made it to the skylight. It floated there for the better part of the day, but by late afternoon had apparently tired of sky gazing, so it floated off towards produce.

I think I'm going to die in Walmart.

Give Me A Break...

2009-04-29T11:54:00.003-05:00

What goes through physics book editors' heads when writing questions: Maybe if we give the questions witty titles and make them about totally useful things like using European coffee makers in the U.S. the students will forget that alternating current, impedance, capacitance, and all the other rubbish in this book has nothing whatsoever to do with their chosen major. They will be so blown away by our cleverness in titling and efforts to relate to them that they will be motivated to do all of their homework without complaint and maybe even change their majors so that one day they too can be as amazing as we are!

The End

2009-04-22T10:21:00.002-05:00

The end of the semester, or at least this semester, is super stressful. I have zero time. Just thought I'd let you know I haven't fallen off the face of the earth for the past month.

Oh, and Tank, this is for you.

Greetings and Salutations

2009-03-24T17:14:00.004-05:00

Yesterday morning in the shower I was thinking, probably about something shower related like shampoo or washcloths, and had one of those stream of consciousness things where you start at one thing and end up at something completely different and it makes sense to you at the time, but you can't really explain it to yourself later, and certainly couldn't explain it to anyone else. The thing that I ended up at from shampoo, or whatever it was that began it all, was the difference between the phrases "Good morning" and "Good afternoon." Have you ever noticed (or maybe it's just me) that saying "Good afternoon" seems way more formal than saying "Good morning?" It is perfectly acceptable to wish someone a good morning without seeming overly formal or cold, but wishing someone a good afternoon just seems awkward in everyday conversation. The only times I have ever actually spoken the words "Good afternoon" they were closely followed by "Vincent's. Can I help you?" or "Century Bank." Why is it that switching the word "morning" for "afternoon" suddenly makes a phrase something you only say when answering the phone at your place of employment? Or am I just crazy and people wish each other good afternoons without formality all the time?

Relief

2009-03-11T16:30:00.003-05:00

I just found out that a physics quiz originally scheduled for after spring break (so I hadn't been working on the homework to prepare myself yet) that was moved to tomorrow (so I was frantically beginning to work homework problems this afternoon) just got moved back to after spring break, so I find myself in a very good mood this fine day. Much better than the mood this guy is about to be in anyway:

Ridiculousness

2009-03-10T14:12:00.002-05:00

Last week, my Natural Hazards class was assigned a project about tornadoes. We were given a state and told to go to this website and download an Excel file of all the tornado data for our given state from 1950-2007. We were then told to plot all the F1 and F2 tornadoes on one map, all the F3, F4, and F5 tornadoes on another map, and on yet another map to plot the track of all tornadoes, regardless of magnitude on the Fujita scale, from 1970-2000. This meant plotting two dots for each tornado since we had to have a touch down and lift off location to get the track.

I lucked up because a friend of mine ended up with the same state as me, so we decided we'd work on it together. It didn't seem like it would be that hard until we sat down to start working on it last night and discovered that there were over 800 F1 tornadoes alone. We split the work to make it a little bit faster, but still spent about 4 1/2 hours sitting at his kitchen table last night putting dots on maps, and still didn't finish all of the maps.

This morning, when we got to class, our lovely teacher informed us that he had decided that 57 years gave too much data and that we should just filter it until we got about 100 tornadoes to work with. Why, oh why, could we not have waited one more day to start on it, or why couldn't he have told us one day sooner that he was making it easier? That's 4 1/2 hours of tornado plotting monotony that I will never get back.

Anti-Snow

2009-03-08T16:20:00.004-05:00

So you all saw my snow pictures from last Sunday (and if you didn't, just scroll down a little farther and you will). Well this Sunday it is 78 degrees and I've been wearing shorts all weekend. Isn't Mississippi weather the greatest?

SNOW!!!

2009-03-02T09:46:00.007-06:00

It snowed this weekend! In Mississippi! And I was there for it! (Everytime it snowed or there was even a chance of snow here last year, I was somewhere else.) It started snowing late Saturday night and by Sunday morning, we had about 3 inches. Naturally by the time I left for church most of it had melted, but I have a wonderful friend who woke me up really early so we could walk around in it. Naturally after about 5 minutes and 5 pictures my camera died, but I'll share what I have:

This is just outside my building. That's Butler Hall in the background.

This is taken from just about the same spot by my building, only from a different angle and with a different setting on my camera so it looks a lot better.

For you fellow Staters, this is just behind Suttle Hall and you can see most of Zacharias Village and Critz Hall in the background.

Chapel of Memories.

This is just before my camera died. There's lovely Suttle in the background and at this point it was still snowing (note the flakes on my hat). As you can see, everything I'm wearing here matches wonderfully, and you didn't even get the full affect. I still had my p.j.s on under this jacket. Oh, and after it stopped snowing and we were heading back to the warmth of our rooms, we walked back by the hill seen behind me and watched some people "snowboarding" down it. Quite entertaining as none of them made it far at all.

Canceled

2009-02-24T08:11:00.002-06:00

Tuesdays and Thursdays are not fun days for me. I have an 8:oo class followed by another at 9:30, another at 11:00, and on Thursdays yet another at 1:00. It does not help that these are all classes that I really can't miss without being completely lost like Physics II and Differential Equations. My first class is Natural Hazards, and while I guess I could skip it and still pass, how would that look if I skipped out on my one class that was actually somewhat related to my major?

This morning when my alarm went off, I grudgingly (and more grudgingly than usual because it's Mardi Gras; we're not supposed to be in class) got out of bed, shuffled to the bathroom, and began my too-early-in-the-morning routine to get ready for my day. I was feeling lazy, so I skipped a few steps (don't worry, nothing important like teeth brushing or deodorant putting on) and headed out to class a little early. I got all the way to my class (which happens to be on the third floor so I had to hike up two flights of stairs after hiking down two flights of stairs because my room is also on the third floor) only to find a sign on the door that said all geography and geology classes for the day have been canceled. I hate when they do that! If it's my last class of the day so I was out and about already it's not such a big deal, but when I could have slept an extra hour and a half but didn't because I thought I had class it's downright aggravating. Now what am I going to do with myself for the next hour?

Picniking

2009-02-21T23:22:00.009-06:00

I've known about this photo editing website called picnik for a while, but never really fooled with it much until a few weeks ago. I guess I've been more bored than usual. Or maybe more creative. Yeah, we'll go with that. Anyway, I haven't posted in a while so I figured I'd share some of my picniked pictures.

First up, my feet at Panama City Beach.

Secondly, my sisters, upside down.
I don't know that I like all the stuff I did to this one.
It was mainly just to see what all the website was capable of.

Next up, me standing under a waterfall on the Natchez Trace.

In this next picture, there was actually no green grass to be found,
so I tinted the picture green. Pretty nifty, huh?

And finally, my current Facebook profile picture.
I was bored in the car and had a half-eaten donut, so I did
what anyone else would have done in a similar situation:
turned it into a smile and put it on the internet.

I've Been tagged!!!

2009-02-09T08:58:00.004-06:00

1) Go to the 4th folder in your computer where you store your pictures.
2) Pick the 4th picture in that folder.
3) Explain the picture.
4) Tag 4 people to do the same.

This is my friend D.J. at Mississippi College's Academic Competition. It's a trivia game that you play on 4 person teams. The caller reads out a question and you try to be the first one to ring in on your buzzer with the correct answer. This was 12th grade. We made it to the semi final of the competition, and were ahead going into half time, but the other team came out of nowhere and beat us. :( That was the furthest our school's team had ever gotten though, and I answered more questions in that match than any of the others, so I was still proud. Anyway, we had so many group pictures taken of us at each competition that it got to be a thing with him to see how many pictures he could ruin with awkward, weird faces. One of the sponsors made a slide show for our end of the year banquet, and it had a whole section of close ups of D.J.'s funny faces. His mom was so proud...

And I hate trying to come up with people to tag, so I'm going to be lazy and just not. If you're reading this, do it!

Up Early

2009-02-04T08:24:00.002-06:00

For some reason that I cannot explain, I woke up at 7:00 this morning. Wednesday is a lazy day for me because class doesn't start until 12, so when I saw what time the clock read, I rolled over and attempted to go back to sleep. I was unsuccessful. I figured since I was up and there was apparently nothing I could do about it, I might as well do something worthwhile with this extra time, so I decided to catch up on my Bible reading because I've fallen a little behind the past few weeks. I am glad I did (did decide to catch up, that is, not fall behind in the first place.) because I ran across this verse in Romans, "God doesn't count us; he calls us by name. Arithmetic is not his focus." For some reason this struck me as funny. I actually laughed out loud (luckily my roommate has an early class so she had already left). I had an odd mental image of God bending over a desk doing my Differential Equations homework. I suppose this vision was brought on by a combination of relief that my first D.E. test, which was yesterday, is over (I spent most of the weekend doing just what I'd pictured God doing, only with most likely not nearly as much success) and sleep deprivation because my crazy body decided to get up way before it needed to, but whatever the cause, I enjoyed it thoroughly.

And to show you that I do have a spiritual side and am not all weird visions, isn't it nice to know that we're not just another number to God? Everyone likes to be called by name (unless of course you were unfortunate enough to be named something like Festus or Algernon and then I totally understand if you'd rather not be called by name) because it makes us feel special, like someone truly cares about us if they take the time to find out what our names are. To think that the God of the universe who has a million other things He could be doing took the time to learn them and call them rather than reverting to arithmetic is a really cool thought.

Cartography At Its Finest

2009-01-29T17:36:00.003-06:00

We are studying earthquakes in my Natural Hazards class, so when this map showed up on the teacher's power point presentation the other day, at first I just looked at the red areas and ignored everything else, but then the girl next to me drew my attention our wonderful state of Mississippi. I wasn't aware we'd acquired new territory.

Frostbite

2009-01-16T12:20:00.004-06:00

It is cold!!!!

That is all.

Incompetant Appliances

2009-01-12T14:09:00.002-06:00

I found salt and lime flavored popcorn at Walmart the other day. I'm not a big fan of butter, but I like popcorn, so I figured I'd give it a try. The bag said put it in the microwave for a minute and 30 seconds, so I did. When that time was up, I opened the microwave door and stared sadly at my still flat popcorn bag. I decided to give it another go and pressed the popcorn button on the microwave. This put 3 minutes on the timer. At the end of this 3 minutes, I'd heard one pop, so I put the bag back in for another 3 minutes. At the end of this 3 minutes, making the total microwave time 7 and a half minutes this is how much popcorn I had:I am very sad. I'm going to have to borrow someone's microwave.

UPDATE: I tried again today and discovered it is not the bag. My microwave really is deficient.

The Crazy Things Rain Does to You

2009-01-07T10:33:00.003-06:00

I did something yesterday that I told myself I'd never do: I went to Walmart in pajamas. Yesterday afternoon I went buy textbooks with a friend (my Differential Equations book was $200 and it's not even that thick!) in the rain. We drove to the bookstore, but my car is pretty far from the door of my building, and there were no good spots at Barnes and Noble, so needless to say, I got soaked. The bottom 5 inches of denim on my jeans were drippping. After we finished shopping, we went back to his room to watch a movie. I did not want to sit through an entire movie in wet pants, so I borrowed a pair of p.j. pants and put my sopping wet jeans in front of the air conditioner to dry off. Later that night, a group of us decided to make a trip to Walmart (for that icky cheese that comes in the bottle that you squirt out). I picked up my pants to go change back into them when I discovered that they were still really wet and now super cold from sitting in front of the a.c. Not wanting to be doubly miserable from the wet and cold, I made the trip in the p.j. pants. It is inexusable to my sense of style, but I must say that was the most comfortable squirty cheese run I've ever made.

Dreams

2009-01-03T21:48:00.002-06:00

Have you ever noticed how incredibly weird dreams are? Sometimes they can be explained, like if I go to bed thinking about someone or something and it shows up in a dream, it's understandable. I was dwelling on it as I went to sleep so it makes sense it would stay with me in sleep. But what about those way out there crazy dreams? This afternoon I was lying on my bed reading Eragon when I dozed off. I dreamed that our church was putting on a Christmas musical with a live Nativity scene and my family was in charge of getting all of the animals to the church. I, wanting to branch out a bit, convinced my parents to get kangaroos and pandas instead of the traditional donkeys and sheep to gather around the manger. I don't know where we found the animals but we brought them to the church in our mini van and were just carrying them into the sanctuary (and getting some mighty odd looks, I might add), when my cell phone beeped and woke me up. Now where did that come from? There are no Christmas programs, pandas, or kangaroos in Eragon so obviously it wasn't because I was thinking about any of it, so how did it end up in my dreams? It's really a shame that I woke up when I did though. I would have liked to have seen how the program turned out.

Schooool's Out For the Winter

2008-12-09T21:44:00.004-06:00

It's official: I am done with school for the semester. I finished up my last final (physics--it was awful) at 5:00. My travelling buddy very generously offered to drive the whole way home (we usually make a snack stop about halfway and switch drivers) so I basked in my freedom and passengerdom by sleeping off a physics induced headache. Now I'm just waiting, impatiently I might add, to get my grades, and depending on them, I will either have a very pleasant month off or a slightly-less-pleasant-but-still-a-bazillion-times-better-than-being-in-school month off.

Bzzz!

2008-12-06T09:58:00.004-06:00

I made my first ever B as a final grade yesterday. It was in Calculus. I had an A going into the final, but the day before the test instead of studying I had a really long lunch with some friends I hadn't seen since last semester, and after that I had an adventure with 2 more friends trying to find Columbus from Starkville. I have come to the conclusion that online maps hate me. When I typed in Columbus, MS show times, Google gave me directions to the theater, and they were to the correct address, just on 45-Alt instead of 45, so we ended up in the middle of nowhere, and after much driving around and calling of various acquaintances who might possibly give us correct directions, finally found the theater right as the movie was starting even though we'd left 45 minutes before. Columbus and Starkville are not that far away. Anyway, the point of all this was that I probably should have studied more, but if I go through all four years of college with a perfect 4.0 but have no new friends and no adventures to speak of, what is it all worth? And afterall a 3.9 isn't that much different. Now the only question is, do I really believe all this or am I just trying to console myself? I guess it has to be a little of both because friends and adventures are important, but I have honestly never made a B before. I was the only person in my graduating class with a 4.0. I made a C in middle school band once (I didn't even know that was possible) but middle school doesn't count, and plus we're talking about B's, not C's. At least it was in Honors Cal III instead of something like Music Appreciation. I at least have a dignified B.

So Long, Farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, Good Night

2008-12-04T10:06:00.002-06:00

The last 2 and a half years of my life have been consumed by Calculus tests, Calculus homework, and Calculus projects, but as of about 30 minutes ago, I am completely finished. No more derivatives. No more anti-derivatives. No more graphing polar coordinates or approximating power series. It's over. I couldn't be more thrilled. Of course this is all assuming that I didn't do so horribly on the final that I have to retake the class. I don't think that will happen though. I might not get my A but as long as I'm done and my gpa doesn't fall so much that I lose my scholarships and have to get a--dare I say it--(wince and sharp intake of breath) job, I don't really care. I can finally sell my Calculus book back to the book store!

Jumbo Shrimp

2008-12-02T11:00:00.001-06:00

Did you know that the word oxymoron is itself an oxymoron? It's taken from the Greek oxy which means sharp and moros which means dull. Amazing, huh?

See Ya MWF!

2008-12-01T10:10:00.004-06:00

Today is the last day of Monday Wednesday Friday classes for this semester. This means that I just finished my last day of Intro to Meteorology (which is sad because I absolutely love the teacher), but it is also my last day of Physics (not in the least bit sad. In fact, this couldn't have come soon enough.) and Cal III (somewhat sad because I love the teacher and my classmates, but the point of infinite series completely escapes me). Although I go to French today, it is not my last day (which is rather sad because I'm ready for that class to be over. We don't learn much and I am called not by my name but by the name of my home town, and it's not even me individually. A friend from home is also in the class, so we are referred to as a collective unit, as if we don't have identities outside of each other. Talk about demeaning. There is a bright side though: if I don't know an answer and he calls on us, I can just assume he was talking about D.J. and not bother to say anything. This aside was really long. I apologize. I will now take you back to the original thought.) Foreign language classes are 4 days a week. This is completely idiotic if you ask me. It throws off scheduling for other classes and it only counts as 3 hours even though it's 4. Anyway, now I just have one more day of class (the last French class and Comp II which will only consist of a quiz so it shouldn't take long) and then "Reading Day" and then exams and then HOME! Yay!

By the way, I got a Nintendo DS for my birthday and the game Brain Age. The first day my brain age was in the 70's and lingered there for a while, but today it was 32! I'm getting younger by the minute!

Okolona! Where the wind goes sweeping through the atmosphere?

2008-11-24T13:33:00.005-06:00

I assume everyone knows what I'm talking about when I say radar. Not just the images they show on TV, but the actual instrument. Big, white, round thing on a tower. Usually at airports. Kind of looks like a volley ball. If you're still clueless, here's a picture: Anyway, the ones that they use for the images on TV do not point up. The ones that are pointed directly upward just measure the wind speeds and directions up in the atmosphere. This is pretty handy for forecasting; however, the state of Mississippi only has one that does this and it is located in Okolona. Why, I ask you?

Haircuts?

2008-11-21T14:05:00.002-06:00

I was walking past the cafeteria today when I saw a table set up on the sidewalk that was sporting a poster advertising free haircuts. Sure enough, a girl was standing behind the table with a squirt bottle and a pair of scissors, about to work her magic on some guy's head. I wouldn't have a problem with this except for the fact that it's been super windy all day. Why would she pick the windiest day in quite a while to be the day she gives free haircuts outside? They can't turn out well. And there was a pretty long line stretched out beside the table. I, for one, would never in a million years let some random girl with a sloppy poster set up on the sidewalk touch my hair with scissors, and certainly not when it's windy, and I discourage anyone else from doing it either. The results will most likely be disastrous. Not to mention, she was going to town with the squirt bottle. I'm surprised the guy's head didn't turn into a giant icecube.

The End of an Era

2008-11-20T11:57:00.004-06:00

I am currently about halfway through the last day of my teenage years. It's really kind of sad. I am celebrating by going to see Twilight at the midnight premiere. I hope they don't screw it up, but even if they do, it's semi-excusable because a friend of mine is paying for my ticket. Hooray for birthdays!

Brrr!

2008-11-16T22:20:00.005-06:00

Why would an institution keep the air conditioning on in the common areas of a dorm when the temperature outside (according to my Weather Channel desktop) is 35 degrees? I just walked down the hall and almost got frostbite on all of my toes. I felt like I should be shoveling through a mountain of snow instead of walking to my room. It seems like an awful waste of energy if you ask me. This is coming from the university that runs the sprinklers during the rain though, so I suppose I shouldn't be that surprised.

Hazardous Dreams

2008-11-10T21:51:00.002-06:00

I woke up this morning and went to the bathroom to begin my daily getting ready ritual. When I looked in the mirror, I noticed a long scratch down my cheek. Since I don't remember getting in any catfights, I can only assume that I had a particularly rough night's sleep last night. I suppose it could have been a lot worse; I mean I could have woken up with a black eye. I wonder what I was dreaming about that made me lash out at myself. Maybe I was dreaming that a giant octopus had one of his suckers on my face, and i was trying to pry it off. Or maybe I was dreaming that I was the guy in Poltergeist that claws his face off. Whatever it was, I hope I don't dream it again. I don't enjoy being a hazard to myself.

Nothing in Particular

2008-11-09T21:24:00.008-06:00

I just recalled that I haven't posted in over a week. This was unintentional. I've sat down at my computer several times and started to type out a post, but got called away to do something else halfway through. By the time I got back around to it, whatever it was I had planned to say was already irrelevant.

Unfortunately, I do not have anything particularly profound to say at the moment. I just figured I'd post something so you wouldn't all think I had been kidnapped. I assure you, I have not. I am safe and sound in my dorm room watching CSI reruns on Spike. The current episode is "Toe Tags" just in case you were wondering. I've seen it at least two times before.

Ooh! I just remembered that I have Dove chocolates in my freezer. I'll catch you later...

20/20

2008-11-01T20:45:00.019-05:00

It's the first day of my favorite month. November! I will be 20 in 20 days. Pretty neat huh?

Anyway, we played Kentucky today. The score is not important. What is important is our new screen is now operational! Our team may not be that great, but at least we have the biggest screen east of the Mississippi!

(This is for my mother)

Old and busted. _________________New hotness.

Here are a few more pictures from the game.

Parachuters left and right!

Go State!!!

Bonne Halloween!

2008-10-30T22:44:00.010-05:00

For the past two days, French class has been dedicated solely to Halloween. Yesterday we were given a list of French Halloweeny words and told to pair up and write a Halloween story. D.J.'s and mine was about a witch (une sorciere) named Miranda that got drunk on pumpkin beer (citrouille biere) one night and fell off her broom (balai) into a cemetery (cimetiere) and died (mort). She is now a ghost (fantome).

Today we were given this worksheet (<-- look left) and told to complete it. It was incredibly difficult, I assure you. Especially with the answer so cleverly marked out at the bottom ( look right --> and down v (I have no down arrow so a "v" will have to suffice)). We were then given very Halloweeny orange fortune cookies (that were even nastier than regular fortune cookies if that is at all possible) with French Halloween fortunes inside. Mine said, "Passe une belle Halloween! Bonne chasse aux friandises!" It means, "Have a great Halloween! Happy trick-or-treating!"

Here are a few more of the fortunes. Consider them my Halloween gift to you (since cyber candy isn't very tasty). You can use them to impress all your non-French friends.

Bonne Halloween! C'est un jour EPATANT!
Je le sens jusque dans mes os!
(Happy Halloween! It's a scary day! I feel it in my bones!)

L'Halloween, c'est l'occasion de changer
d'apparence et de hanter la nuit.
(Halloween is the occasion to change your
appearance and haunt the night.)

Offre-toi un plaisir MONSTRE pour l'Halloween!
(Have yourself a monstrously pleasant Halloween!)

Drunken Ghosts

2008-10-26T12:40:00.006-05:00

In each of the halls of the building that I live in there is a bulletin board. The R.A. that lives on each hall is responsible for the decoration of their hall's board. At the beginning of the year, each board has welcome notices, helpful tips for campus living, directions to different restaurants, and lots of that sort of thing. A month or so into the semester, the boards start changing. On D.J.'s hall the board has different optical illusions. On another boys' hall there are "You know you're in college when..." jokes. (I read a few. They're all dumb.) On another of the girls' halls the board is pink and has a big breast cancer ribbon, a sharpie marker, and an invitation to share the breast cancer stories of loved ones that have been affected. The board on my hall kept it's welcome message until about 2 weeks ago. When the welcome message was taken off, a black background and Halloween border was put up around the edges. Other than the border, the board was completely blank for a little over a week. One day late last week, I came in to find it completed, and quite frankly I liked it better blank. Now I suppose the idea behind it was good. It's nice to remind those who are underage of the dangers of alcohol, I suppose. However, the whole thing is just a little goofy. There are smiling ghosts all over it. What do smiling ghosts have to do with alcohol? I guess they go with the whole Halloween theme, but the pumpkins contain supposedly scary facts, so if it was up to me, the ghosts would be a little less happy. Or maybe they're excited about all the people that are apparently going to die from alcohol consumption and add to their numbers. If I don't understand the happy ghosts, I definitely don't understand the drunk ghost. First of all, everyone knows that ghosts can't eat or drink therefore they can't get drunk. Secondly, supposing they could drink, I don't think they would suddenly become filled with cotton balls. Maybe they'd fly a little crooked, but they wouldn't get fluffy. The caption also cracks me up. The message "Looks a little funny, huh?" referring to a tipsy, cotton filled ghost is supposed to convince me not to consume alcoholic beverages? Mission accomplished! If I'm going to turn into a giant cotton ball the second I get drunk, I will most definitely refrain. The eyes in the middle of the board are also a little weird. Who do they belong to? What are they looking at? What is their purpose in the grand scheme of things? Are they just there to fill in a blank spot? If that's the case, and I suspect it is, why not just use another happy little ghost?

I hope my R.A. never reads this...

Take that Physics and Calculus!

2008-10-22T13:28:00.000-05:00

I got my calculus test back today and (drum roll please........) I made an A!!!! I haven't gotten the physics test back yet, and I'm thinking it won't be quite as high as the cal grade, but who knows? I'll keep you posted.

<--This is my grade.

And this is me excited about my grade. And strangely neckless. -->

Conspiracy

2008-10-19T22:47:00.000-05:00

I am convinced that my calculus teacher and physics teacher are out to get me. They found out somehow that I have one of them at 11 and the other at 12 and have made it their job in life to make my life a living hell. It wasn't enough for them that it's already hard for me to switch gears between the two classes to understand the lecture. They had to get together and schedule tests on the same day, too. My second test in both classes is tomorrow. One right after the other. For the second time. Coincidence? I think not! And they're always on Mondays so my whole weekend is shot because I'm shut up in my room for hours on end finding the dot product of vectors for calculus and calculating the sum of forces for physics. And I don't even have time in between classes to relearn formulas or anything. Oh for tomorrow to be over...

This is my poor desk completely covered with equation sheets, books, and scrap papers.

This is random jibberish I'm supposed to understand.

This is me having a nervous breakdown.

Template Change...Again

2008-10-16T23:42:00.000-05:00

I warned you that I was not completely satisfied with the last template, and now that I know how to change it, it is subject to change at any time. I rather like the current one, my only real problem is that there is a random link at the bottom in another language. I don't suppose that really matters though. I never go to the bottom of my page.

Everytime I change a template, all of the widgits are deleted and I have to add them again. I keep putting in a welcome, but I can never remember what I've said the previous time, so I've probably welcomed you all at least 4 different ways. I apologize. Maybe I should start writing them down.

On a completely untemplately note: we proofread the first draft of our papers today in Comp II. We're supposed to write a literary analysis of one of the short stories on our syllabus. Basically, we just pick a "theme" and write about it, backing it up with some academic's ideas. I have issues with these types of assignments. I think the term "theme" was invented by someone determined to give English teachers jobs after about 4th grade when grammar is pretty much mastered. (No offense if you're an English teacher. I have nothing against them. In fact, some of my favorite teachers have been English teachers.) I do not think that authors put nearly as much thought into their compositions as English professors think they do. Granted, there has to be some thought behind why they say what they say, but honestly, every little word does not have to have a secret meaning. Maybe I just feel this way because I have never been good at picking out themes. I read for the enjoyment of reading, not to pick out every detail. I like to get lost in the story, not preoccupied with so called literary elements.

Now what point was I trying to make? Oh yes, I was talking about proofreading. The teacher assigned us partners and we were instructed to read our papers aloud to our partners, the reasoning being that we can hear our own errors if we read them aloud. Next, the paper was to be turned over to the partner who would give it a good silent reading and fill out a form that is supposed to help the writer with revision. My partner, bless his heart, apparently completely misunderstood the assignment. He picked a story and wrote about the setting, but he failed to include any sources whatsoever. He did have one quote, but it had no quotation marks and no citation. It was something like, "Sugar quoted [insert quote of your choice here]." Not even a comma to separate the lead-in from the quote. On top of his inability to quote, he had atrocious grammar. My 6th grade sister can probably construct better sentences. When he gave me his paper, I got right to work. I wrote all over it, and I know I didn't get all of the mistakes. After tearing his work to pieces, I gave him a detailed description of how to properly quote sources and walked him step-by-step through accessing the library's database so he could find sources. I only hope I helped a little. He certainly needed it. He didn't even get the name of the story right. It wasn't the story I was writing about, and in fact, it's probably my least favorite of all the ones we've read, but I still knew the title and fixed it for him. It's really kind of sad. How do people manage to make it through 13 years of school and at least a year of college and still not know how to write a simple paper? Our school system obviously has some very serious flaws.

Great News!

2008-10-14T10:22:00.000-05:00

I have officially figured out how to use one of the millions of pre-made templates that can be found online. Unless you are completely blind, you can see this already. I'm not sure if I'm completely satisfied with this particular one, but it doesn't really matter because I know how now!!!

Turtle Kiss

2008-10-13T22:36:00.000-05:00

I bought a bag of Goldfish Crackers today and was just about to open it up and munch on a few when I happened to glance at the back of the bag. On it there were a few pictures and these instructions: "What do you see? There's always more than one way to look at something. Seeing things in DIFFERENT ways can be HELPFUL when trying to solve problems. WHAT DO YOU SEE BELOW? The answer isn't always what it seems!" Below was the picture that I have placed above and to the right. According to the small, upside down print at the bottom of the bag, this can be two Goldfish Crackers, a dog with floppy ears, or two turtles kissing. I see the goldfish; the dog is a bit of a stretch because of the size of the cheeks, but I can see it; the turtles, on the other hand, are waaaaay too much of a stretch. I agree that they might be turtles. Legless, shell-less turtles that are really more like frogs, but that's not the point. There is no way on earth that said turtles are doing anything resembling a kiss. They look like snapping turtles that are trying to snap each others' heads off, or maybe they have the little hangy thing like turkeys. I don't know what it's called. They're not kissing though.

HOLD IT! I just had a breakthrough. The part of the turtle that I thought was a lower jaw might in fact be a leg. Now the turtles are no longer legless, and they sort of look like they might be kissing, but since when to turtles kiss anyway? And how is seeing turtles shaped like Goldfish Crackers going to help anyone solve any real problems? How do they come up with this stuff?

Haffle Wouse

2008-10-12T20:58:00.000-05:00

I just (Well not exactly just because I played Rock Band for a while before I got on here.) got back from Waffle House, or as D.J. refers to it, Haffle Wouse. If you've never called it that, you definitely should because it's much more fun than the actual name, but I digress. We entered said restaurant around 6:45 (We would have gone sooner but the Cowboys game went into overtime. Sadly, they lost, but I digress again.) and spent 5 minutes trying to find a place to sit. It's not that the restaurant was crowded. In fact, we were the only people there but the tables that weren't completely covered with dirty dishes were soaking wet from being cleaned right before we got there. We finally settled on a wet table and had just gotten it mostly dried off with a handful of napkins snagged from another table when the waitress appeared out of nowhere and slapped a soaking wet towel down on the table and got it just as wet as it was before.

When the waitress came back to take our order, I told her what I wanted then told her again because she didn't hear. It went like this all around the table. Nothing like a waitress that doesn't pay attention. We got our food, bits at a time, but that's not really a surprise because they always give it to you in bits at Waffle House (or Haffle Wouse) but it seemed to take forever for the waffles to get there. This didn't really matter to me because I didn't get a waffle, but it's still part of the story. When the waffles did finally arrive, they came with no syrup and no butter. A few minutes of everyone just sitting there not eating their waffles went by before the waitress walked back by. By this time one of my friends had run out of Coke. She got the waitress's attention and asked for butter, syrup, and more Coke. The waitress muttered something unintelligible and wandered off. After messing around at the other end of the restaurant doing who knows what, she came back with syrup and butter, no Coke.

My friend, who likes syrup and had smothered her waffle with it, soon became desperate for more Coke, and understandably judging from the amount of syrup on her plate. Unfortunately for her, our waitress had apparently disappeared into a black hole because she was nowhere to be found. Eventually she got the attention of the sole cook, who was busy with a few other people that had come in by that time, and asked if she could get another drink. The kind cook obliged and my very grateful friend downed most of the drink in one gulp.

As we were eating, our wonderful waitress (Who had magically reappeared by this time.) only stopped by our table once to check on us. It normally annoys me when waitresses constantly check up on you while you're eating, but the one time she stopped by, she asked if she could take any of our plates (They always give you way too many plates at Waffle House and the tables are small and get cramped easily.). We said yes and indicated the plates she should take. She looked at us like we were idiots and walked off.

Once we had finally finished our meals, conserving our drinks because of our knowledge of how difficult it is to get a refill, we sat and waited for the waitress to bring the check. She never came. We sat until 8:00 (recall we arrived at 6:45 and were most likely done eating by 7:15) without the waitress so much as looking in our direction. Finally D.J. got up and and found her to ask her for the check. She brought it and looked annoyed that we had bothered her, even though she had left us mostly alone for over an hour. Between the 4 of us, we left $2 for a tip and got up to pay. I was first in line at the register but had to wait several minutes while she flopped her soaking wet towel down on some counter that didn't need cleaning, and took her time doing it, too. When she finally got to me, she once again gave me the annoyed look and halfway through swiping my card stopped to have a discussion about A-1 sauce with a random guy sitting near by. Waffle House doesn't even have A-1 sauce. According to my friends, she was even ruder to them than she was to me. Once of them even told her to have a good night and she stared like that was the most idiotic thing on the planet to say and remained silent.

And that is the story of my awful trip to Waffle House. It took forever to tell because I bought When Harry Met Sally the other day and decided to put it on. It keeps distracting me. I started typing this at the beginning of the movie and now Harry and Sally are aruging in the kitchen at Marie and Jess's wedding. And in the time it took to find a picture that I wanted, Sally is at the New Year's Eve party and Harry is catching up on his window shopping. If there was a job where you could make a living wasting time, I would be perfect for it.

Squash and Smithereens

2008-10-07T21:51:00.000-05:00

I just got back from spending a long weekend at home, so I haven't been grocery shopping in a while. I wanted something to snack on, but the only thing in my fridge was the remnants of a bag of grapes I bought at some point either last week or the week before. Why is it that when you get down to the bottom of a bag of grapes, they're all squashy? I abhor all squashy foods, especially squashy grapes. When grapes are nice and firm, they are the best thing in the world. When they get even a little bit on the mushy side, they suddenly become quite the opposite. It is most depressing. Oh well...

I was reading in 2 Kings the other day and came across this verse: "The king smashed all the altars to smithereens—the altar on the roof shrine of Ahaz, the various altars the kings of Judah had made, the altars of Manasseh that littered the courtyard of The Temple—he smashed them all, pulverized the fragments, and scattered their dust in the Valley of Kidron." 2 Kings 23:12
I have heard the word smithereens all my life, but never thought it was an actual word. I figured it was just another one of those words that every one knows what it means, but no one knows where it came from because it's not a real word. However, it's printed in the Bible. I guess that means it's real.

Hello October

2008-10-01T22:25:00.000-05:00

Fall officially starts in September, but it doesn't really feel like fall to me until October. It can be 90 degrees outside, but if I know it's October, somehow it still feels like fall. Today was a nice first day of October. It actually wasn't 90 degrees. Only like 77. That's still pretty warm to be considered fall, but any temperature that doesn't have me pouring sweat by the time I get to class is fine by me.

One thing that did mar my lovely October day was my ridiculous Mathematica project. I'm beginning to wish that the teacher that I was so happy with for giving me a second chance had just given me a low grade and let that be the end of it. I'm so tired of being cooped up in a computer lab for countless hours. Tomorrow will be the last day of it though. It has to be because the project is due (for the second time) on Friday. Then only one more project (he claims the second one is easier) and Mathematica will be a thing of my past. Hopefully...

As my partner and I were leaving the computer lab today, we passed by a friend of hers who was also working on a Mathematica project. We are in Honors Cal III and he is in regular Cal III. Our project involved animating 3D locks and shooting projectiles of off towers factoring in not one, but two gravitational pulls. His project involved making graphs of letters of the alphabet. He was on C as we were leaving. I think I want to puke. Why, oh why did I decide to use Cal III as my one honors class this year? Why could I not have done like I did last year and taken something like Honors Intro to Theater? We took like one test in there. It was on Hamlet, which I also read in high school. It had questions like, "What country does Hamlet take place in?" and "What is the name of Hamlet's girlfriend?" I hate my life! Just kidding.

On a lighter note, my Comp II class is cancelled tomorrow. On a darker (Can you use darker? Everone always just uses lighter.) note, I do not get to enjoy this at all because I will once again be in the computer lab burning brain cells by staring at a computer screen and getting absolutely nowhere. On another lighter note, I was planning on working on the project from 11:00 until 2:00 since my 12:30 class was cancelled, but instead I get to quit early. On another darker note, the reason I'm leaving early is because I have a French test at 2:00 that I'm probably going to fail if I don't leave early so I can go study. School is the pits. I'm ready for the weekend. Fall break, baby! Four blissful days of absolutely no school work...except for the fact that I have online physics and Cal III homework due. Fall break is the pits.

Rock Band...

2008-09-30T23:42:00.000-05:00

...Is a must have for every person with any kind of game console that they make it for. Just so you know.

I bought it today (not exactly on a whim, but pretty close to it), and I must say it was totally worth however much it ended up costing. The only thing that stinks is I don't personally own a game console, so I had to buy it for D.J.'s Xbox360. However, I have been promised the Xbox over Christmas break since he has another one at home. In the meantime, I'll just pester him to death by never leaving his room.

Tag! You're It!

2008-09-30T00:08:00.000-05:00

Tagged by my mom.

* Grab the nearest book.
* Open the book to page 56.
* Find the fifth sentence.
* Post the text of the next two to five sentences in your blog along with these instructions.
* Don’t dig for your favorite book, the cool book, or the intellectual one: pick the CLOSEST.
* Tag five other people to do the same.

"Why do we turn to literature, if not for arguments that tell us how to live? What does a work of literature offer us? Consider this comment by Salman Rushdie: 'The liveliness of literature lies in its exceptionality, in being the individual, idiosyncratic vision of one human being in which, to our delight and great surprise, we may find our own vision reflected.'"

It was actually a tie for closest book and the other book had a boring sentence, so I used this one. It's from one of my text books: Literature for Composition. The fact that it's close makes it sound like I'm a good student that actually reads my text books. Don't be misled.

Also, I'm cheating because I don't know anyone on here (other than Mrs. Jones) that hasn't been tagged already, so if you're reading this, consider yourself tagged.

Tiger Bait

2008-09-29T13:15:00.001-05:00

I got back from Baton Rouge yesterday afternoon where I spent the weekend with some friends at LSU. We drove down to go watch our team lose to the tigers. We knew we were going to lose. It's inevitable. It's still fun to go to the games though, and it was nice to see some people I haven't seen in a while. I did take a picture of the scoreboard the one time we were ahead. It was not even two minutes into the first quarter and we promptly lost that lead as soon as LSU got the ball. Oh well...

Our tickets (due to one LSU friend waiting until the last minute to look for better ones) were in the nosebleed section. It is adequately named because on our way off campus, D.J. got an awful nosebleed. Naturally there was no Kleenex or anything resembling Kleenex in the car so he had to just pinch his nose and hope it stopped. He made me take pictures so he could pretend he got in a fight (guys are so weird). I'd put them on here, but they're pretty gory.

Before the game started, we had to walk to the library with our LSU hosts so they could print out their tickets. On the way there, we had to walk along a sidewalk that was lined on either side with tailgaters. We were assaulted on both sides with screams of "Tiger bait!" so we were glad when we finally made it into the library. However, it provided no relief. Immediately upon entering, we walked past a line of computers. One of the users turned around and whispered (we were in the library afterall), "Tiger bait." He then proceeded to follow us to a different part of the library and ask us, none too politely, what on earth we were doing in the library because we really didn't have an excuse. I mean, we couldn't possibly be studying. Our friends came to the rescue (the stalker hadn't realized they were there) and explained that we were with them. The guy walked off sheepishly. While I didn't really mind his curiosity, what kind of a person follows someone through the library just to find out what they're doing? For all he knew, we could be LSU students that just happen to be State fans. Or we could be hot. The library is air conditioned. Or we could be with friends (which we were). He had no business telling us that we had no business being where we were. The nerve of some people!

Anyway, I have good news. We got our math projects (the one from the previous post) back today. My partner and I got full credit on the spherical lock problem, even though I know we didn't do it completely right. You couldn't tell from the print out of the graph though, and apparently the teacher didn't look closely at the commands we typed in. Also, on the problem about launching projectiles from a tower on a hill, we were completely off, but instead of giving us no credit, he walked us through the problem, emailed a version of the walk through to us, and is giving us until Friday to rework it. What did I tell you about his grading technique? I love this teacher!

Brain Aches

2008-09-25T22:06:00.000-05:00

I just spent the majority of my day sitting in front of a computer screen trying to do a math project on an absolutely ridiculous program known as Mathematica. Actually, the program itself is pretty cool, but neither my partner nor I really knew what on Earth we were doing. We were given a packet of problems to work and basically set loose to work them how we pleased. The first several problems were pretty straight forward, but the second to last was just a series of 3D graphs of what they called a spherical lock. Basically it was two domes that we had to animate to close simultaneously, one right outside the other. No numbers or anything. We were just given the pictures and told to replicate them. We looked up the equation for a sphere (hooray for Wikipedia!) and then cut the intervals in half to make our domes. Now the problem was how to animate them. We tried about a million different things until suddenly I stumbled upon a way to combine 4 different half domes to get the 2 domes we needed. The only problem was, they didn't combine into 2 domes until halfway through the animation. To make it look like we had it right all along, we just changed the animation so it would start in the middle and go to the end, so no one ever has to know that we didn't really do it right. Our teacher will probably realize this, but he's more of a set you free then when you inevitably do it wrong, he'll just explain it and give you an A for effort kind of teacher.

The problem after the lock problem was all about launching projectiles off of a tower on a hill, and I won't even get into that. We stared at it until we got kicked out of the computer lab in the math building because they were closing. We relocated to the library and stared at it some more. Finally, we made up some stuff that seemed at least halfway right and called it a day. We have one more Mathematica project this semester. I am looking forward to the future when Mathematica will be a thing of my past.

P.S. I was trying to find a picture similar to the spherical lock we were animating to give you a better idea of what we were doing, but instead of locks coming up in Google images when I typed in spherical lock, this picture came up instead. Go figure.

P.P.S. What were they thinking?

P.P.P.S. I wonder how much that cost...

A Cowbell for Colin

2008-09-24T22:35:00.000-05:00

Colin Powell was at State tonight to speak in a leadership conference. Some friends of mine were going to get bonus points for a class, so I decided I would go as well. I mean, how many times in your life do you get to see Colin Powell in person? (I suppose if you're the president or a foreign diplomat or his wife that answer would be a lot, but forget about all those people.) Before he began his speech our interim president stepped up to the podium and said (in the most southern southern drawl I've ever heard), "How many of y'all out there are Bulldawgs?" I don't suppose I've ever actually seen this guy before, but he is a perfect president for our school. He could be an actual bulldog. If Mississippi State was Hogwarts, he would be an Animagus, and his animal would be a bulldog. If you don't believe me, just look at him. He even has a slightly bulldogish name: Vance.

After our Animagus president spoke, Sylvester spoke, and then it was time for the man of the hour: General Colin L. Powell, himself. I was afraid that he was going to be a little dull, and the most I would get out of it would be the ability to say I'd seen him in person. I was completely wrong. He's a pretty funny guy. He said the thing he misses most about being Secretary of State is the jet. Shortly after he retired, he had to fly somewhere, so a friend had to talk him through how normal people get plane tickets. You have to park your car in the garage, walk to the airport, buy your ticket and then go find the correct terminal. They do not roll out a red carpet for ordinary people. Once he had his instructions, he said he followed them very carefully, only he made three mistakes: he was running late, he paid in cash, and he had no luggage. He very shortly found himself surrounded by security personnel doing a very thorough job of searching every inch of him. He said he was bewildered and slightly annoyed until he realized that he had helped put those procedures in place.

I had no idea that Colin Powell is as old as he is. He is 71. He doesn't look it at all. According to Time magazine he is one of the top 5 gracefully aging men. He's actually number two, right in front of Robert Redford. I didn't think Robert Redford was aging that gracefully (I mean have you seen his skin? It looks like it's made from leather that came off of someone's very well worn cowboy boots.), so I don't know if it's a compliment to be only one in front of him, but anyway, the point was Colin Powell doesn't seem like a 71 year old. He recently bought a Corvette and says he recommends them to everyone. The police in his town were not that happy with his decision, but he enjoys every minute of it.

Now I don't want to give the wrong impression. The conference wasn't all fun and games. We really learned a lot. For instance, I bet you didn't know that the prime minister of Japan is an Elvis fan, did you? He is also a big fan of the New York Yankees.

After Mr. Powell was done speaking, Vance the Bulldog came back up to the podium and presented him with his very own engraved cowbell, which he proceeded to ring, although you couldn't hear it over the whistles and screams from the crowd. Hooray for Colin Powell and Bulldawgs everywhere!

P.S. I figured I'd leave you with one last picture (now that I know how). Colin Powell isn't the only famous MSU cowbell ringer. Apparently William Wallace/Mel Gibson has one too!

World Domination

2008-09-23T17:18:00.000-05:00

I recently bought the game Risk for my dad as a birthday present. I'd never actually sat down and played a full game before. I'd just always assumed I wouldn't like it. I was wrong. We played the night my dad opened the game, and I lost, but I fell in love...with taking over the world. I bought my own copy of the game yesterday and have since succeeded in getting my little group hooked.

I sometimes wonder if I'm missing out on college experiences because I don't go to all the parties, concerts, and clubs, but I really don't think I am. Most people when looking back at school can only reminisce the good old days of getting drunk at every sporting event. I can look back and smile at how many times I controlled the Western Hemisphere or took over Asia and all the strategy discussions between games. Who cares if I'm not a sorority sister with 20 dates? I have achieved world domination.

I Forget...

2008-09-22T17:15:00.000-05:00

Have you ever thought of a great idea for a blog post (I mean a blow-your-mind-knock-your-socks-off-absolutely-amazing blog post) and by the time you sat down at your computer to type it out, you'd forgotten what your super awesome idea was? I have.

Shortcomings

2008-09-21T21:43:00.000-05:00

I have decided that computer programming is not my thing. One would think that when one downloads a template to use on one's blog that all one would have to do is copy and paste into one's edit html tab. Not so. The problem is I have no clue what is required so unless I have a breakthrough and become suddenly fluent in html or xml or whatever it is, my blog will be forced to keep its current template. This would not be so bad except now that I know there is a whole world of amazing templates out there that are off limits to me simply because of my technology shortcomings, I know I will not be satisfied. Oh to be a tech nerd!

Titling

2008-09-20T23:39:00.000-05:00

My mom and best friend have fairly recently gotten into the whole blogging thing and have been trying to get me to join in for a while. I may be just now starting to post, but I have a confession to make: I have had a profile on here for quite some time, I just never could come up with a good name. I kept putting off creating the actual blog because I didn't want to just type in some dumb name that I'd eventually either be embarrassed by or get tired of. I wanted it to be catchy, clever, and memorable. As you can see, I gave up.