Ick....

Well, I have managed to survive nearly an entire semester at Southern Utah University. That's something of an accomplishment. It seems like I will get at least a B+ in my Script Analysis class, a B in Costume Construction, an A- in Arts Retrospective, and a decent enough grade in LM 1000...but Survey of Theater and University 1000 scare me to no end. I have to keep at least a 3.6 in order to keep my scholarship, and, to say the least, I am dying of stress. What that means is if I get less than a B- in any of my classes all of the rest have to be at least an A-...Panic much?

If you get the chance to pray that I won't die of stress that would be really nice, and if you can spare a moment to pray that I will do well in finals week that would rock as well.

And, oh joy, I managed to freak out at Laura. She has been wanting to do a movie featuring the story of one of the alleged theater ghosts, and this past Saturday we went and borrowed a top hot and dance dress from the costume shop with the intent of returning them this morning. The guy that was going to help us with the movie jerked off and wasn't home all Saturday so we couldn't film. And he wasn't available this morning like he said he would be. Lo and behold, Laura just came into my room and asked me what I was going to do about it. Hm, not the best decision. I asked her why she can never talk to Earl, the costume professor, herself or why I always have to be the one with answers. It's as if I am expected to be an all-knowing all-doing god while they don't notice how horribly freaked out I am. She hissed something at me before storming out the door. Whoop dee do. This is why I really shouldn't get stressed.

Right, now that I've binged about that bad crap I will continue on to the rest of my life.

This past week my family relocated to a different part of my state, and so I now get to figure out a very large city when I go home on Thursday. It should be rather exciting. Oddly enough I will be within five minutes of Mary and my brother will eventually go to her high school. I wonder what kind of mischief will come from that one.

Of late I have been running around a bit too much to really get on the internet. Somewhere between classes, shows, assignments, and obligations I disappeared into the masses. Hopefully after this week I will be live for three weeks, but I make no promises about the next semester. It should be an easier one because of all the classes I have (like Acting I, Intro to Visual Arts, and a journalism practicum).

I am going to go work on something for one of my classes, and then work on something for another class, and then hopefully find time for food before working on something else. Cheers all, hopefully I will get to talk to you all soon.

P.S. Josh and Jeni- I will be on MSN after this week at a more normal rate. Hopefully. Considering how little time I've had to sleep I haven't had much of a chance to talk. I <3 the both of you, though. Stay sane.

For the sake of letting you know I live...

You Are A Weeping Willow Tree

You are a dreamer, and you're into almost any kind of escapism. Restless and capricious, you love to travel to exotic places. You are easily influenced by others, as long as they don't pressure you. You tend to suffer in love until you find that one loyal, steadfast partner. An empathetic friend, you love to make others smile and laugh.

What's Your Celtic Horoscope?

You Are More Yang

Masculine Creative Angry Spring Summer Morning Sun Space Active Wood Chocolate

Are You More Yin or Yang?

You Are Destined to Rule the World

You have the makings of a very evil dictator... Which is both kind of cool and kind of scary! Will you rule the world? Maybe. Maybe not. But at least you know that you could.

Are You Destined For World Domination?

Handsome Geeks In Shining Glasses

I am floating somewhere between cloud nine and heaven.

Okay, so maybe I'm not that high up, but I am pretty much a happy being. Monday night at the observatory was beyond Epic. Yes, Epic with a capital “e” because it was just that amazing.

Laura and I had been floating around all day doing this and that (which did include a trip to D.I.) when we decided to retire to our rooms for a little while before going to work. It was 6:15 when I received a call from Professor Cotts, who is in charge of the Astronomy department, telling me that there were five cars worth of people waiting for us at the observatory. Now there were two astounding things about this: a) we don't open until seven o'clock during the month of November and b) the most we get is a group of scouts numbering perhaps twelve kids, a few parents, and the leaders. Five cars worth of people was nothing short of insane.

So, I scrambled from my room and got Laura before we dashed over to the Ashcroft with all haste. When we got there lo and behold there were five cars full of people waiting for us, and before we got everyone settled we ran out of seats. For the first time that I know of the observatory was so full some people had to stand during the presentation, and as things continued we got more and more people flooding in.

The source of this excitement? Last Wednesday there was a story in The Spectrum about the observatory and about how Laura and I work there, and it just so happened that they re-printed the story on the front page for the Monday edition. Exciting much? When my institute teacher gave me a copy of the story this morning I couldn't help but laugh because Laura and I had no idea that it had been re-printed (we were really confused when people kept mentioning the story in that day's paper about us).

There was just one big problem. For the past month our poor thirty year old telescope, which is a big beastly orange thing, has been out of alignment. We had contacted Professor Cotts about it, but as of yet nothing had been done about it and we were being flooded with people. So, in a panic, I dashed up to the dome to escape the flood of people and placed an emergency call to the professor in hopes of getting someone up to fix the telescope. Professor Cotts was understandably stunned at the number of people crammed into the observatory, but she promised she would call a guy by the name of Neil (who I figured was a professor) to come and fix the telescope. I didn't really expect him to come, but, since we had three more groups on the way and there was some chance of him coming, I went outside to wait anyway.

It wasn't more than ten minutes before a figure came charging out of the darkness with a book on the universe in hand and blew past me with a smile. I was, in a word, shocked because he couldn't be more than a few older than me. Was this Neil? Since there was no sign of the other groups in sight I slipped up into the dome and, wonder of wonders, there was the guy from moments before already working on fixing the telescope. We quickly got past the introductions (he already knew who I was, no shock there) before going back to dealing with the literal flood of humanity that had converged on our tiny observatory.

To make a long story short I will simply give you the larger picture for the rest of my night at the Ashcroft. Laura and I were there from 6:25 until 9:10 at night, and during that time we filled the room several times over and gave six presentations—which doesn't include the two presentations Neil gave outside. We figure over sixty people came to the observatory and two or three other groups had called asking about the coming Monday. Not only were the numbers epic but I learned that Mars is starting to come up sooner along with Orion and Taurus...and I learned how to fix the alignment on the telescope. By the time we sent the last group away and had turned off the porch light Laura and I were tired (I don't know how Neil was doing).

Somehow Laura and I managed to get the whole thing locked up before we climbed into my boat of a car, and soon we were back on our way to the comfort of our dorm rooms. But the story doesn't end there my friends! Neil was following along behind us, and when we got onto what turns into Center Street in Cedar City things got amusing... Yeah, pretty sure Neil started to race us down that street without really intending to. It wasn't until we hit the light right near the Wendy's that it turned into a real race, and that was because Neil did the challenging edging forwards while laughing his head off at us. Oh yes, we accepted and the game was on. I will admit that driving a Crown Victoria was at a disadvantage, especially when he was driving a lighter drifter-style car, but I was determined to win anyway. We shot off along Center Street at a grand five miles over the speed limit, and Neil quickly gained something of a lead. But! Slowly we edged forward, and it seemed we were going to have some chance of at least tying when suddenly Neil put on his brakes. Before Laura and I knew it Neil was behind us, and we had won. I was confused but definitely giddy.

It was a beautiful night of good laughs, record numbers, and handsome geeks in shining glasses. What about that wouldn't be wonderful? Now if I could figure out whether or not the handsome geek already has a girlfriend...

Longest Weekend On Record

“I came back and Kirstin was sitting on the couch telling her fingers not to argue...while watching The Wedding Planner.” At least, that was Derek's story that he happily told people Monday night.

To say that he was right would be admitting insanity, which I would never do, but in all honesty I think it fair to defend my side of the very, very, very long weekend.

Juniper was a barren wasteland. Once in a while, in passing, I would see a stray copy of the University Journal roll across the floor and a wind would whistle through the empty terrain. There were no signs of life, and I was entirely alone. Well...almost alone.

Saturday dawned bright and clear, but I was fast asleep in my nice warm bed (and remained so until it was much too late in the day). It wasn't my stomach began to yell at me in less than subtle ways that I finally rolled out of bed and faced what had to be the longest day in my life: a day where I was all but abandoned. Yes, my friends, for the first time since school had began I was to be without my faithful partners in crime because of one show: Crimes of the Heart. Ah, but I digress. We were at the point where I finally decided to stop being a lazy bum. As it was, I managed to get out of bed and wandered over to the local cafeteria to eat, and discovered it was closed. I was very sad.

It was in that moment of great need that I decided it was time for a quest! I bounced back to my room to grab my keys and liscence (wouldn't want to get pulled over, after all) before dashing down to my awaiting charriot, which is also known as The Boat or The Crown Vic. Soon I found myself wandering listlessly through the vast aisles of Wal-mart wondering to myself just what it was I had hoped to find in the giant soul-consuming building. I shrieked with glee when I reached the ice cream aisle and happened to discover that, against all odds, Wal-mart carried my favorite flavor of Breyer's ice cream in the universe: Brownie Mud Pie. When I came out of Wal-mart it wasn't with something for lunch, as I had intended, but instead with a shirt and a carton of ice cream. Clearly this failure would not suffice.

So I jumped into my Crown Victoria and began to drive in the vague direction of Main Street. It didn't take me too long to realize that there was a grocery store there, and so I decided to take a chance to explore it. The exterior wasn't very promising with the faded red lettering reading Lin's Market Place and the rather lackluster wood roofing that didn't quite compare to the commercial gloriousness of Wal-mart, but my exploration was not to be unrewarded. This rather unamazing building, you see, gives a 10% discount to any students with valid I.D. includes a sticker for the current term, and I was able to walk out with two things of Swedish meatballs and three york peppermint patties for just over half what it would have cost me in the great and spacious location I had been wandering so listlessly through before.

With a smile on my face I made it back to Juniper, and the rest of the weekend was a very...quiet affair. It wasn't until Saturday night when I was coming back from doing the show—and I was singing quite happily without regard for the empty rooms—when I discovered that I had been in company all along. Liybie, a girl at the other end of the hall, poked her head out of her room when she heard me singing and gave a brief greeting before disappearing once more. I was astonished—no, I was astounded. I had gone two days without major human contact, and she had been there all along! Through the course of the weekend I saw her about...two or three times more, but beyond that I was on my own.

Until Derek showed up.

I was sitting on the couch watching The Wedding Planner cuddling with a blanket—JC300's hallway and lobbey are very cold currently—when suddenly he appeared on the couch next to me. Rather happy for the fact I had someone to talk to I tossed my blanket to the side and pounced on Derek. Snuggling him I informed him how happy I was that he was there and told him all about the quiet that had afflicted the entirety of the dorms all weekend long. Somehow or another he managed to keep my entertained, and when Amberle came home my world was at long last looking up.

Yes, I am just that dramatic.

Monday was, for the first time in recorded history, a promising day. I knew that people would be coming back all day, and that things would finally come back to laugh. All day I watched with glee as people appeared, and I don't think I have ever been that happy to see even the people who annoy the crap out of me. The only down side of Monday was that work caused me to miss Heroes again, and I think I may have to buy the dvd for season two just so I know what the crap happened. I'm sad that I always miss it...

But hey, welcome back SUU! The break without you was painstakingly long! And now...I am going to go catch some z's before I crash on my computer. Night!

Busy Doesn't Define It

I am not entirely certain that I am capable of thinking enough to write, but I will do my best. Let me think...Tuesday. Yes, that would be the day. I can never seem to remember these kinds of things, but you may have to forgive me due to the late hour of my writing.

The reason for my particularly late writing is due to the rather strange thing that happened to me on Monday while I was making rice for Laura and myself. One moment I was floating around happily reading the forums on National Write a Novel Month and the next I was on the phone with the director of "Crimes of the Heart." It was somewhat confusing but eventually it turned out that they desperately needed someone to come run props for their show, and why they called a directing major rather than a technical major I still have absolutely no idea. Regardless I soon found myself driving over to the theater (I wouldn't want to walk home in the dark, after all) and began to watch the show to see just how things fit together.

I had recently told one of my friends that life was ironic because her life has been sickeningly busy since the beginning of school and now that her life is calming down mine would shoot off into all kinds of busy. I shouldn't say such things. Suffice it to say that from six o'clock to ten o'clock I was learning all about the wonderful world of props and just how much work the properties people do. You know, sometimes I am not certain that actors and audiences realize just how much work goes on to make things go smoothly--heaven knows I didn't always pay as much attention and respect as I should have.

Other than teching for "Crimes of the Heart" I have simply been trying to survive my classes with a G.P.A. high enough to keep my scholarship. By way of good news I got 90% on my Script Analysis midterm and 100% on my Arts Retrospective: Music Final. Yay for good news! Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go and write a critical review of Henry V for my Survey of Theater class. Cheers!

Oh, and go see "Crimes of the Heart" if you get the chance. It's awesome.

Sexyfine Superheroes

I don't think I will be eating ice cream for a long while.

Have you ever happened to hear of The Zion? It is a massive compilation of twenty six scoops of ice cream, six sauces, and twelve sprinkles that exists at GranDee's; and, when you manage to finish off that beast your group/name goes up on a plaque. My friends decided that we were going to go and conquer this mass of food...The one problem is there were only eight of us.

Now let me tell you another little story to help you understand why eight people are a problem. Two months ago as a Resident Housing Freshmen Assistant Board we went to GranDee's and conquered The Zion. We had fourteen people and barely managed to finish the beast off, and so to go at it with almost half that number was considered to be suicide.

So, with our motley crew we sat down in our seats and stared at this mass of ice cream wondering what we had gotten ourselves into. Among us was someone allergic to milk, someone allergic to more nuts than she had originally thought, someone who hates chocolate, the comeback kid, and four super eaters who nearly didn't make it.

I got the nickname "slow and steady" because I ended up eating five cups of ice cream and helping drain the bottom of the bowl, and only paused for a five minute break in the middle.

During the gauntlet of ice cream many interesting events happened (as one might expect), and I'm not sure there are words to describe all of them. Where should I start?...Ah yes, the mini yoga session! Right towards the end it was determined that, in order to cleanse various auras and be able to eat more, it was necessary to "greet the sun" and do some yoga. Had you walked into that ice cream store at about...six at night you would have seen three girls standing in the middle of the room doing various yoga poses and giggling madly. I, thankfully, was not one of them. I was laughing my head off at them.

After that they collected themselves and sat down, and we continued giggle in almost an insane manner. We were on the ultimate sugar rush, and that soon spawned interpretive dancing. Before we finished we managed to interpret numerous Walt Disney songs and created a rap of "Dancing Through Life" from Wicked. Finally, though, after about two hours of eating we finished with something of a collective groan, waddled over to the bell, and declared ourselves victorious. Now if you go into GranDee's and look at the names of those who survived The Zion you'll happen to see one that says "SEXYFINE 'Don't just admire us beautiful people, become one of us.' " That oddity would be ours.

Oh, and if you don't get the reference go onto YouTube and look up "abridged Avatar" and click on episode three. Pretty sure you'll get a good laugh, even if it makes no sense. Actually, I would recommend watching all four just for kicks and giggles.

I will have you know that I did go to work after conquering The Zion, and I managed to give a presentation to a group of scouts on the stars and planets. Things went well except for the fact our thirty year old telescope was miss aligned inside, and that led to all kinds of frustration. Oh, Laura, our lactose intolerant person, is my assistant at the Astronomy Lab, and after eating enough ice cream to make herself ill she ate two jr. double cheeseburgers and fiesta potatoes...I wonder how she did it because I'm still not hungry, and those events happened yesterday! Talk about insanity; but hey, she's fun!

I don't think we had an exciting enough day, really. I have to wonder...what's going to happen next?

Why Phantoms Shouldn't Hide In My Closet

How can I explain today? It all started with Liybie. I blame everything on Liybie.

Now why would I bother to blame a nice girl like her? Because she asked Laura and I to help her recreate a photograph for homework. That's always dangerous. Why? Because the creative juices start flowing and don't stop. Why? Well...I just don't know.

I will say that we did manage to recreate the picture quite beautifully, but that meant we had to make a trip to the soul consuming Wal-Mart. So we went. Nothing really exciting happened...but then things went horribly amiss. We went to D.I.

For two hours we were consumed by the awesomeness of what we found. When at last we walked out it was with leather pants, a leather jacket, a belt, a sweater, two skirts, a fishnet jacket, and 80's prom dress. How we got that much stuff is a story for another day, but suffice it to say we planned on something of a photo shoot for that night.

And then came dinner. Now around JC300 dinner is an adventure--ask anyone who has eaten with us...or near us...or at the same time...or anyone who has happened to hear of what happens when JC300 eats. Pretty all stories lead to awesomeness. At dinner things were going rather normally...until the KaoruHikaru incident. To those of you who don't know what Ouran High School Host Club is you're missing out...Let's just say that it meant false blushing, false tears, and false flirting. Oh snap, it was awkward. But really funny. A girl who we will call "Shematite" for the sake of privacy actually snorted hamburger out her nose. Oh yes, we rock that much. ><

Do you know what happens after dinner on a Tuesday night? LAUNDRY PARTY!!!! If you've never attended a JC300 Laundry Party you are missing out. What happened? Well, most of that will remain a JC300 mystery. But! I can say that it did lead to a rather epic photo shoot. Laura and Shematite got their vampire on and used a boy who will call "Shadow" as their human prop. I got to have lots of fun taking pictures of the event, but at ten o'clock at night Laura finally decided to go back to Manzanita.

And that's when things got scary. Poor Shadow, in his endearing innocence, came upstairs dressed as The Phantom (from the awesome Broadway show)...JThe C300 females struck. He was able to seek asylum in my room, and it wasn't long before my door became the focus of a mob. They pounded, they yelled, they stuck cameras through the door...Thanks to dear Faith, though, we were warned enough in advance to barricade the door so they couldn't in. Shadow eventually took to hiding in my closet to avoid the scary females awaiting outside.

Once the mob was satisfied that Shadow wasn't coming out to play (as they begged him to) they left. Thank heavens. At the moment we're hiding in my room hoping they don't come back, and all the while we're wondering if it's safe. I doubt it is. Poor Shadow is going to have to sneak out my door and pray he's not caught. Hopefully he makes it.

The point of this all? JC300 rocks. Actually, the point is that life is never boring living on campus. @.@ Night all. Pray for Shadow.