Shenanigans

I'm in Colorado Springs!! National Convention just ended a few hours ago...I'm rather tired, but it was so amazing. I got to see Wava, our founder, and meet several other people important to my chapter. Right now there's some sort of dance going on, but I'm socially retarded and literally ran away after about 25 seconds in that room. Yay me. All the other fun stuff involved me being on ritual committee...I really liked that because I'm a bit of a geek.

The best thing about Colorado Springs is the weather. It rained almost every day, but that meant that the weather was pleasant...I got to wear a cardigan outside comfortably, which was bad for my cardigan addiction and made me really happy. We went to Garden of the Gods and Manitou Springs...both places were super fun. Garden of the Gods reminded me of Robber's Cave a bit...I hadn't gone scampering on rocks like that in a few years. Manitou Springs is supposedly like Eurkea Springs, but I haven't been to Eureka Springs since I was 14 or so, so I cannot vouch for that claim.

I think I'll head to bed...long drive back to Fayetteville tomorrow. For greater bands!

"Wipe that hell off your face!"

Today my world lit group presented our presentation over Dante's Divine Comedy. I doubt that I'll remember much about it a week from now, except that in the original story, Cato literally tells Dante to wipe the hell off his face. We had fun with that. I played Virgil...it turns out epics generally don't have many women in them, unless they need wives or mothers. And since Dante was just travelling through hell (and purgatory and heaven) he didn't really have much need for the ladies.

I saw Evita last weekend at the Tulsa PAC, my Saturday home during the month of June. It was excellent, and made me realize that I know nothing about South America besides that the world's most dangerous road is there (thanks Top Gear) and that Brazilians speak Portuguese. But now I know all about Eva and Juan Peron. Did you know that Juan and his third wife, Isabel, kept Eva's embalmed body on their dining room table? True fact.

Tomorrow is the last day of the summer class I'm taking...I did that thing where I figure up how many points I need on the final to get an A. This is usually a bad idea that results in me watching a movie or writing a blog instead of studying, like I'm doing now. Hopefully the inspiration for the essay section will strike me tomorrow morning.

Girl on Fire

I finished reading Mockingjay yesterday...and came to the sad conclusion that it wasn't as good as the first two in the series. The series was still awesome, but the book was boring for too long. It's a good book to make me think though; dystopic books tend to do that. I'd actually tried to convince myself that I didn't like that sort of book anymore, but my middle school love of books likes The Giver and 1984 is apparently still hiding in the back of my mind.

In sadder news, I don't like the British version of The Office as much as I like the American version. I really want to like it, but their humor is a bit too inappropriate for my taste. Also, whoever borrowed it from the library before me must have keyed it or something...I can barely get the second season to play for more than 2 or 3 minutes before it freaks my computer out.

I'm glad my world lit class is almost over. Yesterday, I read Mockingjay and most of Pretty Little Liars but had to force myself to skim the assigned text for class. (It was from the epic of Son Jara, which had a half page of footnotes for every page of text because the Norton people realized that most Americans have no knowledge of African culture whatsoever.)

Today, this football played in said world lit class informed us all that the knowledge from this class can, in fact, be useful in everyday life. He told us that yesterday he was going to get a smoothie and noticed a hot girl reading a story we read earlier this month and used that to talk to her. Then he said he was an education major, but that may have been a lie.

I'm very excited about seeing Evita at the Tulsa PAC this Saturday. I saw 9 to 5 there last Saturday...my family's on a bit of a binge, I guess. 9 to 5 was cute enough, but not really substantial. 

Favorite song of the moment: "The Perfect Space" by the Avett Brothers

Writing A Paper

Right now, I'm attempting to work on my paper for World Lit. Several things are getting in the way of this, however.

1) This paper isn't due until Tuesday.
I literally have nothing else to do besides that until then. Like I have 22 free hours every school day. I'm going home on Friday and I'm still completely unconcerned about getting done on time.
2) This paper only needs to be 4-5 pages.
I haven't even really been trying, and I'm halfway done.
3) World Lit is a core class.
There are 2 football players in my class...since I am capable of making coherent sentences, passing shouldn't be a big deal.
4) Ms. Al-Dareisah says that she wants to give us all As.
We just have to show that we want them.

I think I may go to FPL in the unlikely event that I get my act together enough to finish today...I do love reading, and I'm sure there are many lovely books out there just waiting for me to damage them due to my habit of reading while eating. Eating is just so boring to me! I need to be reading or watching tv or talking...anything to take away from the knowledge that I'm going to spend days out of my life shoveling food in my mouth. Speaking of eating, I have discovered that soy milk is amazing. It can never replace actual milk, because it tastes nothing like it. Soy milk tastes like vanilla extract smells, while milk tastes like milk. Now I'm googling it to make sure it's not going to cause cancer like my cell phone is.

"It's Really Effing Hot"

Or, the ILOVEMUMFORD&SONSANDISAWTHEMLASTNIGHT post.

I went to Wakarusa yesterday. It was nothing less than awesome...I'd describe it as a lesser woodstock. It's held in the middle of a field in NW Arkansas. The bottles of water were free, and luckily (as Marcus Mumford put it) it was really effing hot, so I sweated enough to get a bit dehydrated and didn't have to resort to use of the port-a-potty. We were so close to the stage...like 4 people back from the rail put up to separate the cheap bracelet wearers (or us) from the old people with more expensive, but less cool looking, bracelets (or them). "They" got to stand right up against the stage...the railing for us wasn't that far from the stage, though. I'd estimate me as being less than or equal too 50 yards away from my favorite band ever. I really really really love all their new songs, and they sang all my favorites. I was a tiny bit annoyed when everyone sang so loudly to their old songs that I could barely hear the band's beautiful harmonies, but in the end it didn't matter. I saw my favorite band sing my favorite songs. It was nothing less than perfect. (Also, why do people not cheer for a song they love until the band begins to sing? I knew what song they were playing by the second chord unless it was new...just sayin'.)

Wakarusa was definitely a college experience I will treasure forever...I'm glad I kinda worked up to this level. First I had to do early week and get used to normal college stuff, then I went to a big showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, then I visited Ozark Natural Foods & the Fayetteville Farmer's Market, so I actually enjoyed all the hippie stuff at Wakarusa...I would've freaked out at the beginning of my freshman year. As it was, I wasn't scared or offended at all, although I think my lungs kinda freaked out as a result of being raised in the "breathe easy" generation...I don't know when I've been around that many people smoking cigarettes. But it was totally worth it. :)

I dreamed in German last night...

Last night, I dreamed that I saw a Wal-Mart while in Germany...which I thought was odd, because the failure of Wal-Mart in Germany is pretty famous. Then, for some reason, I dreamed I had to be a waitress to these cruel Germans who ignored me...I couldn't figure out how to ask these people what they wanted to order in German (although what I did say was grammatically correct) and after letting me struggle/ignoring me for a while, they revealed that they spoke perfect English. I'm going to cross waitress off my list of things to do when I'm in Germany next year...

Birthdays & Redneck Holidays

My birthday is tomorrow. I get excited about my birthday the same way Michael Scott does...although I like to think I'm less childish about it than he. Last year, I drove to Kingfisher and went to my great-uncle Fred's funeral. It sounds sad, but there was heath bar cake at the funeral dinner. This is my favorite cake. I was soooooo happy about that. But this year, I'm going to see Flanagan's Wake, a comedic play about...a funeral. That irony just became apparent to me.

The sad thing about my birthday is that it quite often falls on Memorial Day weekend, the second most redneck holiday of the year. Here is my scale for redneck holidays from least to most:

Martin Luther King Day

Columbus Day

Easter

Christmas

New Year's

Veteran's Day

Thanksgiving

4th of July

Memorial Day

Labor Day

Martin Luther King Day is least redneck because most rednecks don't know this is, in fact, a federal holiday. Veteran's Day, although not an alcoholic holiday, is redneck because everyone must show that they are more 'Murcan than everyone else. Thanksgiving involves football; the fourth of July is historically significant, which is the only thing keeping it below Memorial Day on the scale. Memorial Day is for getting drunk on the lake to celebrate the beginning of summer, but also involves (for some) a trip to the cementary; Labor Day is its end of summer counterpart, but it wins this discussion because it's the last hurrah of the summer.

I love classiness, and redneck things are the opposite of that. So it irks me a bit that my birthday falls on one of the great redneck holidays of our time. I guess that's the price a girl's gotta pay to have a good movie come out on her birthday every year.