It's-a-me! Mario!

Yep... I ended up getting all the pieces of my Mario costume together in time for the Halloween dance yesterday; got my overalls and (backup) hat when I went home Friday, and then ate tons of pizza at Victor's before coming back over here yesterday.  Even had the gloves this time (and they were actual completely-white gloves, not ones with black bits and straps and stuff like the ones I ended up using two years ago.)  The hat from the kids' Mario costume was a bit too tight (actually seemed to be cutting off circulation to my head after wearing it for a while), but it worked; the mustache also started to fall off after wearing it for several hours, but then I was able to just stick it back on without problems not long afterward.  I think the problem was that I tried to eat and drink with it on, and ended up partially knocking it off with the cup I was drinking out of; hopefully the adhesive stuff on the back will still work tomorrow, since that's Halloween and I'm going to need the costume again then.  Not sure if I'll wear it around school all day or if I'll just dress up to go to supper and FHE... I doubt the mustache has enough stickiness to last the full day, and wearing that hat around all day probably wouldn't be such a good idea either, so I'll probably just change into it later rather than wearing it around all day.

Speaking of the Halloween dance, that went really well; hardly anyone showed up without any sort of costume, so there were tons of things to go around seeing.  A few random little things around the sides this time, but not as much as at homecoming; there was a costume contest, a donut-eating thing (of course, I just got a donut without bothering with the "eat donuts hanging from strings" contest... might be hard with my mustache getting in the way, after all), a picture-taking booth as always, and a few others I can't remember off the top of my head.  Went with Ruth, and we did dance a couple of times (to slower songs) but mostly we just walked around, talked to all sorts of people, goofed off, and tried to see how many different costumes we could find and take pictures of.  I kind of get the feeling that I could have actually gone to this dance by myself and not gotten bored, since so many people were just wandering around talking and showing off their costumes rather than just dancing and I ended up bumping into and talking to a ton of other people the whole time... but hey, having someone to go with is always good too, even if it's not 100% necessary to avoid boredom.

And after the dance, a few people I bumped into decided they were going down into Buena Vista to get the free cookies that this place was giving out... so I tagged along and talked some more (and of course, ate my free cookie) for a while there before finally going back to my dorm and changing back to regular clothes.  It's hard to sit down on the floor in overalls, I found (and it's also hard to eat or drink anything with a giant mustache hanging down halfway over your mouth, heh.)  Overall, it's been a pretty good couple of days!  Let's hope it doesn't suddenly go downhill out of nowhere next week.

EDIT: Oh, and there'll probably be another couple failed attempts to ask a girl on a date this week, what with that spaghetti thing at the Institute building going on this Friday.  In fact, there's been one already! (Actually not a "couldn't get any words out" problem this time... more of a "girl will not stay still long enough for me to even try asking her" problem.  I sorta considered calling her to ask her that way afterward, but that seemed a little weird, so I decided not to.)
I probably won't even go into much detail about those this time, though, so this is probably the last time I'll mention it this week until/unless I actually manage to ask someone (or give up on that and just sign up on the "people without dates" side of the paper so the people running the thing can randomly set me up with some girl I've never even met before.)  And of course, if the girl I'm trying to ask out this time is already going with someone else (or already has a boyfriend, or wasn't planning on going, or just says no for whatever reason... or no reason at all), I'm pretty much out of ideas as far as people to ask goes, so I'll probably have to sign up on the "no date" list anyway.
Speaking of other people I thought about asking out, the other girl I liked earlier this semester doesn't seem to want to be around me at all anymore, and I have no idea why... she used to talk to me quite a bit (though we didn't see each other too often, we usually at least talked for 10-15 minutes pretty much every time we did see each other, sometimes much longer), but now... she just doesn't talk, beyond saying "hi" and sometimes answering questions.  And the weirdest thing is, she actually seems to talk to other people just as much as (if not more than) she used to... as far as I've seen it's just me who gets the "say-hi,-maybe-smile-a-little,-and-then-just-stand/sit-there-silently-making-me-feel-really-uncomfortable-to-even-be-around-her" thing.  She's... pretty much completely dropped off the "girls I'm considering asking on dates in the future" list, at least for now... it's just so uncomfortable being around her lately (what with the not talking, and just kind of staring at me not saying anything unless I ask her something first, and especially the fact that I seem to be the only one she does that to) that I can't really imagine how going on a date with her could ever work.  No idea what's going on there, but it kind of bothers me...

More random quotes, Mario costumes, and... spagghetti?

Yep... I now have most of my Mario costume.  I still have to get the overalls from back home, and possibly the hat (the one I borrowed from a kids' Mario costume from Wal-Mart that I bought today looks more like Mario's hat overall, but it's also really small on me, so I'll have to decide between the two at some point.), but now I have a mustache and a red long-sleeved shirt (and, again, possibly the hat)... along with a hammer! Which is actually a Thor hammer rather than a Mario-ish hammer, but hey, it works.  Plus it's a Nerf hammer, so I can go around bonking people with it and not get in trouble.  The only thing I'm really missing are the gloves, but I think the Covington Wal-Mart may have actual Mario gloves... I'll need to check the next time I'm there.

Also, I found out today that there's this "date night" thing being held at the Institute building next Friday; they provide the food and you go on a date with someone, and you have to have a date to come... didn't sign up for it just yet (there were like five people actually signed up, though I didn't find out until later that the list they were circulating was only for the class I'm in--they pass those around in all of the classes, plus there's a list in Durham and another in Jonzzey's), but I'm kinda thinking about trying to ask someone to go to that with me.  And if that doesn't work, then maybe I'll just sign up on the "people who don't have dates" side of the list and just see who they match me up with (because that's what they do if you sign up on the "people who don't have dates" side--they'll match you up with another dateless person! I'm not really sure how they end up deciding on who to match everyone up with, but hey, I might meet someone new that way, or end up on a date with someone I already kinda like but wouldn't think of actually asking on my own.)
But yeah... I'm planning on signing up for that sometime at least, even if I don't end up with an already-set-up-ahead-of-time date for it.  I mean, hopefully I'll actually be able to ask the girl that I'm kind of thinking about asking, but if not then I'll always be able to sign up on the "doesn't have a date" part of the sheet and hope I get matched up with someone I can get along well with.

And finally, the random silly quotes! Not too many of them today, but hey.

"He's a god, he doesn't have to work hard." (from Art History class, about Zeus)
"If you pretend you're going to blow up Mormons, you get in the paper!" (my sister, talking about the bomb threat)

Smash Bros. is good for killing boredom...

...and also keeping me from doing homework, unfortunately. XD  Yeah, earlier today I ended up going over to one of the married student apartments and playing Smash Bros. with a couple of guys (and two of the guys' wives, though they didn't actually play Smash Bros. with the guys... they were just there talking, goofing off, and in one case making pumpkin pie.  Which was good, but still so warm when we ate it that it melted the whipped cream and made it almost fall off.)  The wives just happened to find out how old I am right after they were talking about how all the single girls they know are older than the single guys they know, which led to one of them saying that she might set me up on a date with one of her friends sometime... nothing definite yet, but still, that's pretty much the first time anyone's ever offered to do that.  I have no idea what her friend is like, but I'd much rather go on a date with someone than just sit around thinking about it but never managing to actually ask people.
They also joked that it'd be funny if I got married and ended up living in that exact same apartment next year, since one of the guys (and his wife) lived there last year and now one of the other guys (and his wife) lives there now... seems pretty unlikely, though not because of the "living somewhere other than Craton next year if I have the money" part so much as the "being married by next year" part.  Actually "unlikely" is kind of an understatement, more like "there is pretty much no chance that's going to happen."  Actually having a girlfriend by next year, maybe... still pretty unlikely, but I can at least see it as a distant one-in-a-million-chance type of possibility.  Married by next year? No way.

But anyway... I played Smash Bros. for the better part of 3 hours today.  And got to eat some pumpkin pie afterward.  The rest of the day, overall, not really much worth mentioning... though I did watch part of a movie in Spanish class (it was in Spanish, of course) and finished drawing some more stuff (well, made some progress anyway... I'm trying to draw as many of my 500+ characters on one page as possible, and so far I have around 95 of them on that page and more than half of the page still open for more.)  No more real painting homework yet, though we did have an assignment related to drawing rocks that we're going to paint a still-life of next time.  Found out that I got a near-perfect (just one point off, 79/80) score on my essay question on the last history exam, so even with how bad I did on the other part of the test, I still got a high B (89/100) on that one... which is something like a quarter of my grade by itself, so that's pretty good!  Still way behind on reading for that Book of Mormon class, though.

Also, I just noticed that I randomly got this huge surge of people reading this blog today.  I'm not sure where they're all coming from, since only two of the 25-ish hits on it for today came from Facebook (the only place I've posted a link to it is on my Facebook page.)  My other blog on Fnrrf Ygm Schnish games and stuff also got a surge of hits; less overall, but more from Facebook (...well, one more anyway, there were only three.)  Bizarrely, all 21 of the hits to the FYS blog came from people using Google's Chrome browser, which I have so far never actually seen anyone using--it's usually Firefox or Internet Explorer, and I think I may have seen Opera... once? But yeah, kind of odd how that turned out.

Mostly uneventful day, but it ended up pretty good overall.

Yeah... kind of odd how nothing really "big" happened today, and yet it ended up being pretty good overall due to a combination of little things.  Not entirely good little things (example: me discovering that the chicken panini at Jonzzey's does not have the normal strips of chicken, but some weird-ass finely chopped-up chicken that was completely unappetizing to me), but overall the good outweighed the bad and today... definitely didn't suck.

Got a lot of jogging done (7 blocks straight without stopping, 11 blocks in one period of ten minutes or so... both new records for me), met a couple of new people (including one that I ended up talking to for at least an hour, only stopping because it was 11 PM and guys aren't allowed in the Lofts past 11:00), did a lot of talking with various other people that I already knew, asked Ruth to go to the Halloween dance with me this weekend (though of course it won't really be a "date" this time, it's still nice to have a close friend to go with so you have someone to talk to and don't ever get stuck in one of those "bored with nothing to do while everyone else is dancing with their dates/girlfriends/etc." times), decided that I'm going to dress up as Mario for Halloween again this year (just need a new mustache; may end up buying a Mario costume from Wal-Mart just for the 'stache and gloves, and maybe the hat if it's big enough to fit), drew some more stuff, got some Spanish homework done, heard people talk in silly British accents, and started thinking about who I might try to ask on a date the next time I get around to that.

...okay, it's actually not so much "thinking about it," since I've already pretty much decided who I'm going to try and ask next... but I guess it might be a good idea to have someone else in mind just in case the first girl I ask says no (or already has a boyfriend, or something else along those lines), and there are so many girls here that seem really nice, are really cute, and are easy to talk to and get along with... the problem is figuring out which ones are already taken or not interested at all.

Random quotes from Craton's hall meeting (and bomb threat!)

"Don't pee on the wall, it's gross."
"You've all been peeing for a long time."
"If you pick your nose in the shower, don't wipe it on the wall, that's gross."
"If you need to know what counts as sex or a sexual relationship, just come and ask me."

Also, we had a bomb threat and all the guys in Craton had to evacuate.  Right now we're sitting in the church parking lot waiting for the SWAT team to search the building for the supposed bomb (if it exists.)  Yeah, SWAT team guys... full gear, bulletproof vests and rifles and everything. They just came pounding on our doors randomly, telling everyone to put some warm clothes on and then evacuate.  I grabbed my laptop and put on a coat... some people didn't bother even put on a coat and are now cold.  And most people seem to have brought their phones, rather than something less boring like a computer... silly teenagers.

Update: Now we've been moved into the SAC (student activity center) and these morons decided to watch freakin' Spongebob, of all things.  Hopefully something halfway-decent comes on at 1 AM.

Update update: They ended up letting us out around 3 AM.  And then didn't cancel classes.  Well, screw that, my 10 AM class is definitely cancelled no matter what the official word is... no way I'm getting up at 8 or 9 in the morning to get ready for classes after not even going to bed until 3:15 or so (and probably not going to sleep until closer to 4:00.)  On a more positive note, I bumped into a bunch of girls that I'd never met before during the lockdown in the gym/SAC and actually had people to talk to (both in person and over Facebook chat) during most of the three hours we were in there.  Including one girl who does not wear shoes... yep, not at all.  I guess she has hobbit feet, but without the hair.

Also, random quotes from the bomb threat!

"Is anybody worried that they'll find something in your room, like R-rated movies or porn or marijuana?"
"They're bringing in a specialized dog with a specialized snout."
"It's over nine thousaaaand!"

(Yes, someone seriously made an "over 9000" joke... obviously not a real DBZ fan or he would've said 8000 instead.  And if you're going to imitate something you heard on the Internet, wouldn't an All Your Base joke have made more sense anyway, since "someone set us up the bomb?")

Fall Carnival wangledoo

Yep... this Friday ended up being surprisingly non-boring.  Finished another painting (third out of the five that I need to get done before Monday; there's only two left now), volunteered at the front desk for an hour and a half (okay, this part was a little boring), and then at 7:00 decided to go over to the Fall Carnival thing that they were having in the parking lot of the Institute building.  Turned out there was a lot of stuff to do there, and I ended up bumping into a bunch of people I knew, so I pretty much wasn't bored at all the entire time.  They had hot chocolate (which was very hot, by the way... had to wait probably 10 or 15 minutes to let it cool down before it became drinkable without a spoon), tiny little pumpkins and markers you could use to draw on them (I drew a somewhat exaggerated version of my dad's face on mine XD), and a bunch of random silly games and stuff, like "fishing" for little plastic toys (I ended up with a noise-maker and a little smiley-face thing with balls on strings hanging off of it; originally I had a broken whistle, but I traded it to someone for the smiley-face thing), bowling with Nerf balls and pins, and the throw-beanbags-into-a-hole-in-a-board game which is apparently called "cornhole" (which... I did not know.  I'd seen the game itself before years ago when I was a little kid, but had never heard anyone call it "cornhole" until last year.)

Afterward, I ended up staying to help clean up, and then me and a couple of girls ended up exploring the random creepy tunnels upstairs in the church, which I had no idea were there until then.  Apparently the door leading to the stairs that go up to the second floor/attic/whatever-it-is is usually kept locked, but it was open today because they store all the game equipment up there.  We walked around up there for a while and found such mysterious things as the device that runs the church's internet connection (kept in a locked box... with the keys hanging from the lock! whoops) and a bunch of pipes and ventilation shafts.  Also, it was really dark up there, and we only had a tiny little finger-flashlight thing to light the way.  Kind of a fun side-trip though, I never knew all that stuff was up there and I like walking around in random places like that.

After that I ended up walking Melissa (one of the girls I was hanging around with at the Fall Carnival; also one of the two who went up into the creepy attic) back to her house-dorm-thing at Carriage (the "sort of off-campus" student houses, I guess? I never knew exactly where they were until today, which is part of the reason I wanted to walk over there--I'd heard people mention the place but never actually seen it), and she kind of gave me a tour of the area (which had lots of Halloween decorations up--tons of fake spiderwebs and pumpkins everywhere!), stopping in at her house for a few minutes so I could see it and meet her housemates, and also dropping by someone else's for a second to drop off a hat that someone had left in the parking lot.  I kind of got disoriented on the way back out, though, so she ended up having to walk me back over to the entrance area of Carriage where I could actually see the road leading back up to the school before she could go back home.  Might be easier during the day, but it was dark and I had no idea where I was going. XD

And after that, I ended up bumping to a few more girls I knew at the Institute building when I ran in really quick to use the bathroom... and then ended up sitting in there and talking to them for a while, while they worked on puzzles and stuff.  They ended up walking with me back to Craton afterward, and then they wanted to see what the lobby area of Craton looked like, so we all went in and sat on the couches for a while (and ate some chips and drank more hot chocolate, which the HRAs just happened to have with them at the moment we came by.)  Ended up leaving the chips for anyone who wanted them, and one of the girls used a Bible to weigh down the top of the chip bag so they wouldn't fall out... and left a note on them saying "Eat! ...and read!" on little business-card type things that were laying around.  I'm not sure if anyone's actually touched the chips yet, though, since they were still there (with signs still in place) this morning when I was down there.
Overall, a pretty good day! Now I just need to finish those other two paintings...

What a good/bad/average day. (Yes, all three at the same time.)

Sometimes literally.  Yeah... today was a weird one.

First, the good.  I actually managed to finish one of those paintings I need to do before next Monday.  This means I only need to do... four more of them... which is still way too much.  But now it should at least be somewhat manageable, at least if I decide for sure not to come home over the weekend (and this would be a great weekend to come home on--especially if Mom and Julia come get me on Friday instead of Dad getting me on Saturday, so I can go to the Shootaround and get away from school for a while... though for the most part I like being here, just get worn out sometimes when certain things happen.)  Also, when I sent a text message to Ruth letting her know that I think she's cute, she didn't freak out and start avoiding me or any other of the "typical 17/18-year-old reaction to finding out I like them" things I ran into several times in high school... she actually still wants to be friends and said she really likes talking to me, so at least I didn't lose one of the closest friends I've ever had over a freakin' text message.

Now the bad part.  Ruth pretty much came out and told me that she's not ready for an actual relationship yet, since it's her first year of college and she's trying to focus on her schoolwork and do well on it right now and it seems like she doesn't think she could handle all that and a relationship.  At first it didn't really bother me (I was more relieved that my text message telling her that I thought she was cute didn't bother her or anything, and I wasn't going to lose a friend over something dumb like that), but afterward... yeah, the whole "Ruth most likely will not be my girlfriend" thing hit me pretty hard and I felt pretty terrible for a while.
The way she worded it didn't rule out the possibility of something happening between us eventually, but... not anytime really soon, possibly not even this whole year.  Even as much as I like her (and I really like her, probably more than I've ever liked a girl before... though the fact that it isn't completely one-sided and she actually likes talking to me, going on dates, etc. probably helps), I really don't think it'd be a good idea to just wait around (not going on dates or anything with other girls, etc.) for a year or so for what basically amounts to a very vague "maybe" and a feeling that for the first time it might actually be possible for something to happen there (once the first-year-away-at-college problems are gone, anyway.)
Also, on a completely unrelated note, I think I may have slightly hurt one of my legs when I tripped in this random giant hole on the side of a hill and fell.  Fortunately, no knees got busted up this time, but still... it hurt a bit.

And the average part? Everything else, pretty much.  Just the usual school stuff, nothing really worth writing about here.

Homecoming dance!

Yep... today (...technically yesterday now, since it's almost 1 AM), I went to the homecoming dance with Ruth.  And also to an Italian restaurant, this time the one that's further away from school (Nick's Italian Kitchen.)  Food was really good as usual--I had manicotti for the first time in a while, and she had eggplant parmesean (which apparently was pretty good, and the eggplant didn't taste weird or anything) with ziti.  No cheese sticks this time--mainly because we'd probably be full enough without them; Ruth said she didn't want any because she wanted to still be able to move after eating! XD--though we did have salads and breadsticks (seems like most Italian restaurants give you those for free, heh.)

The dance was actually really fun this time--no sitting around feeling lonely and bored at all! I'm guessing this was partly because there were actually things to do besides sit around or dance (the dance was circus/carnival-themed and had lots of random games and such around the sides), and mostly because I actually went with someone, so I always had someone around to talk to, dance with, etc. rather than having to just wander around and hope to bump into people.  Me and Ruth stuck together pretty much the whole time, usually talking and just goofing off (for a while we played with balloons, we had our pictures taken, got random stuff painted on our faces, and tried out a few of the games around the edges of the room) but occasionally actually dancing a little bit.  Well, okay, she danced a lot more than I did, but most of those times I was kind of standing there attempting to dance and ending up... actually moving a little bit, for once?... but not really dancing.  Except when they played slow songs a couple of times, we actually danced to those.  Eventually she started getting a little sleepy, so she decided to leave and I went with her.  I think we only left maybe 10-15 minutes early, because when I walked back down afterward it seemed like everyone else was leaving too.  Anyway, we drove back up to the lofts (...okay, she drove, but I was in the other seat!) and then stood outside talking a little bit more... and as always, I hugged her before she left (twice this time, actually... the first hug wasn't nearly long enough. XD)

Overall the whole night went really well, I thought; Ruth seemed to be enjoying herself too, even to the point of staying a little longer to talk and goof off more despite the fact that she was starting to get sleepy.  And thanks to something that came up in one of our random conversations toward the end, I now have an idea on where we could go on our next date... whenever that might happen to be (probably not next weekend, since I'm going to the Shootaround with Julia and the venture crew then.)

I think that's the first time I've ever stayed up until 3 AM on purpose

Kind of a busy day yesterday! Well, busy night anyway... the day part was pretty normal, aside from the dining hall actually having pasta for once (tortellini for lunch!)  Only bad thing: I found out that I have yet another painting homework assignment, and it's even worse than just painting--not only do I have to paint something, I have to write a freakin' paper.  Only one page, but still!

Anyway, I ended up going to the homecoming concert (with the school's band/choir), which was good but very crowded... got a bit uncomfortable at some points, thanks to there not being any seats left by the time I got in there.  I did end up standing with Ruth at the back of the room though, so I was at least around someone I knew (which probably helped keep me from freaking out from the crowding.)  After that, it just so happened that Ruth was going to go watch a movie (in a room in Durham with a projector screen... apparently laptops can be connected to the projectors here at school, I didn't know that!) with some friends, and one of them ended up not being able to go, so I tagged along in her place.

Originally we were just going to watch one movie, but then somehow it turned into two movies, heh... so we were in there until close to 1:30 AM.  First we watched Howl's Moving Castle, which I had never seen or even really heard of before (I had heard the title before, and Ruth has mentioned it before... but that's about it.)  It's the first Miyazaki (...I hope I spelled that right) movie I've ever seen, and I thought it was pretty good (very, very weird, but definitely good!)  After that we watched Little Shop of Horrors (the '70s?/'80s? musical version), which I've heard a lot about from my sister (who had seen it before) but had never actually watched before.  So now I've finally seen the "giant singing carnivorous plant" movie. XD

So... yeah, we ended up staying up until 1:30 watching movies.  And eating some random mandarin oranges that the other girl (Melanie, I think?) brought along with her.  She also brought forks (and not even plastic forks, real metal forks!), which was really convenient since reaching into that can to get those tiny little oranges with your hands could get a little messy.  Also got to try "Whales," which are basically exactly the same thing as Goldfish crackers except... shaped like whales.  And after the movies and food, we all walked back up to the lofts and ended up staying up until somewhere around 3 AM just talking and goofing off.  Melanie brought out her laptop and we ended up watching several really ridiculous videos of people doing silly dance moves that I had never heard of.  Eventually she went off to bed, but me and Ruth stayed out there another half-hour or so afterward just talking about random stuff... and of course, before she left we hugged (seems like this happens a lot lately, heh... did not want to let go this time, partly because I really like her and I really like hugs... but also because it was getting a little cold out and I didn't have a jacket with me), and then I started to walk back to Craton to get some sleep.

...and right when I got to the top of the stairs going down from the lofts, I realized I had left my notebooks lying on the ground near the door.  Whoops!  So of course I had to walk all the way back across the parking lot and grab them.  But oh well, overall yesterday was pretty good and I'm looking forward to today.

Homecoming week

...most of which I've ignored so far. XD

But yeah, this week is turning out pretty well even though I haven't been involved at all with any of the homecoming-related stuff that's been going on (a lot of sports-related junk, people dressing up as different things, voting for homecoming king/queen, and so on.)  No new painting homework to add to the endless pile (in this Wednesday's class, we just rearranged and threw out old stuff from the closets), which is a bit less endless now since I finished another assignment (though I still have... three, I think? left to do.)  And I ended up getting a bunch of random books and a metal walking stick (actually an "extension pole," whatever that is, but I've been using it as a metal walking stick so far) during the closet clean-up, since they were going to throw them away and it was okay to take home anything you wanted from the "trash" piles.  Not too much work in the other classes at the moment, either, though I still haven't come anywhere near catching up on the reading for my Institute class (it's on the Book of Mormon, and I've only gotten to chapter 3 of 2nd Nephi... while the class is 20-some chapters further in.)  Jogging's been kind of hard this week due to rain (I really don't want to go jogging in the rain and risk slipping and bashing myself open again...), but if it stops being so wet I should at least be able to get halfway or most of the way there before the week's over.

Oh, and yesterday I finally finished my card thing I've been making...  back around Monday I decided I'd ask Ruth to the homecoming dance by making a card-type thing for her and then putting it somewhere where she'd find it, rather than just handing it to her or asking the usual way.  Wasn't so sure about the idea at first (since that's... kind of close to what I tried with Amber waaaay back in 2004/2005, and of course that didn't turn out all that well), but once I got started actually making the card I just kept going.  Eventually I colored the whole thing (with colored pencils), which had Ruth's name on the front along with a bunch of random decorations, a picture of her (with a half-grass, half-desert background... including skeleton fish XD) on the first inside page, and then on the second page more decorations, a lot of shininess, and a short little note asking her if she'd go to the homecoming dance with me this weekend.  I just happened to bump into her roommates in the library right after I'd finished making it, and got them to sneakily put the card in her room somewhere where she'd find it later.  I'm not entirely sure where they put it, I forgot to ask, but I know she did find it at some point... because around 10:00 last night, I got a text message from her thanking me for the card (apparently she really liked it!) and agreeing to go to the dance with me.  Which, of course, turned into another series of a dozen or so messages back and forth over the next half-hour, in which we decided that we'd go out and eat somewhere together before the dance.  So... looks like I have a third date this weekend! That makes three weekends in a row that I've had dates with her, which I'm still kind of (okay, extremely) surprised by, considering how I thought for a long time that I most likely would never even find a girl who'd agree to one date with me.  I guess I must be better at this sort of thing than I thought, or at least I'm getting a bit less nervous about the whole "asking girls on dates" thing... or at least less nervous about asking Ruth on dates, since she did say yes the first time (and the second, and the third... XD) after all.

Also ran into my first fanatically religious person at SVU.  Who wasn't actually an SVU student, and was a lot nicer than the "angry screaming YER GOIN' TO HELL" type I'm used to, but still... very loud about her beliefs and seemed to be completely unable to see anything from a "non-religious" perspective.  I'm actually not sure if she was a Mormon or some other type of Christian, since she didn't really say anything that seemed "Mormon-specific" to me and only referred to the Bible rather than the Bible and the Book of Mormon, but... oh well.  We ended up talking for a while anyway, but it was a bit uncomfortable at certain points, and apparently she was one of those people with a pretty "black-and-white" view of the world (it seemed like the only two possibilities to her as far as how the world works were "the Bible is God's word and we should follow every single law in there, to the point of disregarding secular authorities entirely!" and "there are no rules! so do whatever you want without any fear of consequences, go crazy and have sex with everything! there's no reason for anyone to be a good person if there isn't one true religion with messages directly from God.")
She said she'd pray for me... if I prayed, I'd probably be praying for her too, because she seemed to need... um, a bit of help.  Reminded me a bit of someone I used to know during her "ultra-religious" phases, and based on what she said about her own life I would not be surprised if there were more similarities than what I actually saw.

Washington DC temple trip

Yep... got up at 6 AM (actually woke up around 5:50-ish) this morning, somehow didn't immediately fall back asleep, and went on the trip up to the Mormon temple in Washington, DC.  Actually didn't turn out bad at all--I was expecting the combination of 6 AM and a crowded bus to pretty much ruin the day for me, but it turned out that I was surprisingly awake for that time of day and the bus wasn't all that crowded after all.  Sat with Ruth the whole way over, talking pretty much constantly (as usual!), playing Kingdom Hearts Re:Coded for a while (I bought it at Wal-Mart several weeks back but hadn't had much time to play it before today; finally done with Traverse Town now!), listening to lots of music from obscure bands/singers I've never heard of before, and finding out that listening to music with one earbud in one person's ear and the other in another person's ear actually works pretty well (I had seen other people do it before, but I just figured it wouldn't really work, for some reason.)

Of course, I wasn't able to actually go into the temple since I'm not a Mormon, but I was able to look at it from outside and take pictures (that building is HUGE.)  Also worked outside some for a service project (digging up plants, replacing with the bulbs for other plants) and looked around a bit in the visitor's center, which had a lot of exhibits (including this really neat model of Jerusalem from ~30 AD, and a table with copies of the Book of Mormon in about a gazillion different languages.)  Ate some generic sandwiches and chips for lunch, and after more visitor's center-ing for a while, rode the bus back to SVU (once again sitting with Ruth the whole way... kind of surprising how well sitting next to someone you like can cancel out the boredom of a 3-and-a-half hour bus ride.)  After we got back, I walked Ruth back up to the lofts once again, and this time she actually hugged me (rather than the other way around)--and it was just completely out of nowhere, right before she was going to leave! I think she must actually like me, since it's not often that someone just randomly hugs me with no warning like that.

Unfortunately, by the time we got back Jonzzey's and the cafeteria were both closed... so I ended up walking down to Domino's and getting a pizza and some cheesy bread.  Probably should've gotten the hand-tossed crust; the thin crust isn't awful but the hand-tossed is way better.  Still need to try their sandwiches (I had planned on it today but was distracted by the lure of a large pizza for even less than what I'd normally have to pay for a small with the same amount of toppings.)

Kong Fu

...which is how my Spanish teacher misspelled "Kung Fu" earlier today, when trying to write "Kung Fu Panda" on the board.  We had to say (in Spanish) what we planned on doing over the weekend, and pretty much all of the class were going to see Kung Fu Panda 2 today, so... that was the first thing that ended up being written on the "stuff people are doing this weekend" list on the board.

Anyway... I went to see Kung Fu Panda 2 earlier today.  Or, I guess I should say, we went to see it... since I kinda asked Ruth if we could go and see it together, kind of like another date I guess.  She finished that giant philosophy paper Thursday and just needed to get it proofread today, so she ended up being able to go after all.  The movie was really good! I'm actually not sure which of the Kung Fu Panda movies I like more, since I really liked both of them (I've seen the first one a couple times, and the second one once now) and I generally have a hard time picking out one of several things I like better when all of them are good.  And of course, me and Ruth sat together and talked the whole time (well, we talked before and after the movie with the occasional short comment during, since during we were usually too busy watching the movie.)  Ended up having to sit directly on the grass, since neither of us had blankets or anything to sit on, heh... started out at normal sitting-next-to-each-other distance at first, but we kind of ended up drifting a bit closer together as the movie went on, though never quite into "guy and girl practically laying ontop of each other" closeness.  Still, we ended up close enough that we'd bump into each other if either of us moved much, while at the start we could both sit cross-legged and neither of us would bump into the other... so she doesn't seem to mind sitting closer than that to me, which is always good.

After the movie was over we talked and walked back up toward the lofts, and while crossing the church parking lot we stumbled upon some random kid's book about an escape-artist hamster, just randomly sitting there in the parking lot, not even run-over or otherwise damaged at all.  Ruth ended up putting it into her bag and taking it with her (though I think she said she'd take it to the lost-and-found tomorrow.)  We always seem to find random odd things laying around on our dates... first the hubcap, and now a book about a hamster.  But anyway, another "first" today--while walking back up the hill, I asked if it was okay if we held hands while we walked... and she had absolutely no problem with it! She actually said her hands were getting cold (she had previously had both of them in her coat pockets), and the one I was holding did feel a bit cold... hopefully I kept her hand a little warmer at least, heh.  We didn't actually hold hands very long, since we bumped into another girl and talked to her a bit on the way up and Ruth was doing the "move hands around as you talk" thing (she does that a lot, heh)... but still, that's the first time I've ever held hands with a girl.  Probably not exactly a huge deal, but I had never done it before, so... just one of those things I figured I'd try now that I actually know a girl who doesn't mind being around me, I guess. XD

And of course, just like the last time, I ended up giving her a hug before she left to go do homework and sleep.  Didn't really ask this time, just held my arms out and said "Hug!"... which I guess is almost like asking but not quite as question-y, if that makes any sense.  But anyway, she pretty much immediately hugged me after that, so I guess that means I don't really need to ask in complete sentences.  XD

After that I ended up going to a bonfire with a bunch of random people (a couple of which I actually knew), where someone stuck a random Italian sausage on a bent coathanger and roasted (more like blackened!) it in the fire.  Someone else brought cold Taco Bell food and reheated that using the fire.  And we listened to lots of random music, talked, moved around to avoid the giant cloud of smoke coming off of the fire... that kind of stuff.  No s'mores this time, but it still worked out pretty well... I ended up leaving around 1:00-ish, though I didn't get back to my dorm room until 1:40 due to standing around talking to random people afterward.  Overall I'd say I had a pretty good day!

Watching paint dry

Yep... with a title like that, you probably already know that I've got painting homework again.  Two new assignments, actually... plus I should probably get around to doing that one from earlier in the semester that I still haven't done, but is pretty much required for a later assignment to work at all.  That class has waaaay too much homework... but at least I'm getting some of it done before the weekend comes around and I won't really be able to work on it much (unless I bring my painting stuff back home with me and work on it there... nah, probably not the best idea.  But I dunno... maybe it could work?)

Signed up for next semester's classes the other day... and I'm already waitlisted for half my credits (second half of Art History, Spanish II, and volleyball.)  And it's only the second week of registration, which is pretty freakin' ridiculous... I kind of expected classes to be at least a little more available this early!  My advisor person told me to try and sign up for "alternate" classes just in case I can't get into either of those, but... that seems kinda weird.  I guess I could try it just in case, since I really don't want to end up with only seven credits worth of classes (and not even qualify as a full-time student, in addition to pushing my graduation back a semester if I can't get into Spanish... because there is no way in hell I'm taking any class, even a relatively easy one, at 8 AM, and that's the only other time Spanish is offered that I could take and that doesn't already have a waitlist.)  At least I got into the other half of my classes, though, and since I signed up pretty early there's a chance other people will drop out or drop off of the waitlist and get me into the class itself (which happened with Art History and Astronomy this semester... problem was I needed to drop Astronomy in the end because it overlapped with that painting class.)

On a better note, it seems like Ruth is probably done with her paper by now and we'll probably be able to go see Kung Fu Panda 2 together tomorrow night after all.  She had the paper in "pretty much done, just needs re-looking-over" state earlier today when we talked about it, so I'm pretty sure she should have it done before tomorrow (she did say before that she wanted to get it done before Thursday, since she didn't want to be distracted by thoughts of homework when she went to see Wicked in... Richmond, I think? a while ago. I'm not sure what city, but it's around 2 hours away from here, so Richmond sounds about right.)  Speaking of Wicked, she really seemed to enjoy that; bad part--she won't be getting back here until 1 AM and has a 7 AM class tomorrow.  I hope she does okay on very little sleep, because there's not a whole lot of time in between there... I know I'd probably be falling asleep on my feet the next day, if I was able to get any sleep at all (I'd have to either take a shower the night before or get up at 5 AM to have time for both that, breakfast, and getting ready for classes... and neither of those really sounds like a great idea.)
And supposedly they're going to have the movie outside tomorrow... not sure exactly how that's going to work.  But I'm going to try and get there a little early and figure out what's going on so we don't end up stuck in a terrible seat or something (and also find out if it actually is outside or not--the last one was supposed to be outside as well, but got moved in because it was going to rain.)

EDIT: ...and, I forgot to jog.  Crap! Got to hurry up and do a little bit of that before bed...

Broke my jogging record again!

Yep... now that these knees aren't bothering me anymore, apparently I can jog not just five but six Buena Vista city blocks in a row without stopping or completely exhausting myself.  And adding it up in my head, I've figured out that if I just did that much every day, I'd make almost 3 miles in a week without any difficulty.  Of course, I'm pretty sure we need either 4 or 4.5 miles by the end of this week... but hey, I've done more than 6 in a day before, even when I couldn't go more than 3 or 4 blocks straight without stopping, so I should definitely be able to pull this off as long as I don't get too distracted by other stuff.

In other news, the food here seems to be slipping a bit in overall yumminess.  The things that were good before are generally still good (though sometimes the salad bar looks a little off; wilty lettuce and such), the problem is that they never seem to have nearly as much good stuff out there anymore.  Just today, I ended up having to eat a sandwich for lunch and a plate of rice and french fries for supper because... the other food just didn't look very good.  Well, there were these enchilada things for supper, but it wasn't clear exactly what was in them and they were sort of buried in an endless ocean of melted cheese, so I didn't risk trying one.  Fortunately there's always something to eat, but it seems like they just aren't having the really good stuff as often anymore.

Painting class: still annoying! Well, this time it wasn't the painting so much as the way the assignment was set up... we had to go to some random parking lot and attempt to get a halfway-decent place to sit and paint something.  That... didn't work very well.  I did paint a really good eyeless, noseless polar bear in a snowstorm (aka blank white page), but that was it.  I'll have to go back later and attempt to get that done some other day this week, since we don't have class Wednesday.

And last of all, I'm seriously considering asking Ruth on a second date sometime.  I wasn't sure if I wanted to at first (kind of afraid it might seem weird to her if I ask again so soon after the first time, like I was trying to rush into a "real" relationship or something), but she really does seem to like me, and apparently she really enjoyed our first date (which I found out thanks to another girl I know, who just happens to be in the same math class as her.)  Sort of thinking about asking her to come watch Kung Fu Panda 2 with me this Friday, since they're showing it here at school (and it's free!)... and possibly walk around for a while in Buena Vista or just around the SVU campus beforehand so we can have some time to just talk, since there's not much opportunity for that during a movie, heh.  She's already seen it once if I remember right, but I haven't, and she's always trying to get me to watch movies that she likes but I haven't seen... so this might work out pretty well!

EDIT: Yep... turns out I sorta asked her on that second date earlier today after supper.  Well, I didn't exactly call it a "date" this time, but I did ask if we could go and watch Kung Fu Panda 2 together this Friday (and surprisingly the question just kind of came out with no real effort... nothing even remotely like the three days of being unable to say anything that I ran into the first time!)... and it sounded like she wanted to but it depended on whether or not she gets all her homework done before then.  She already started on it yesterday, though, so I figure she'll probably be done in time.

I officially can no longer say "I've never been on a date in my life"

Yep... I'm back from my date (well, okay, I got back almost 5 hours ago XD) and I'd say it went pretty well! We met up in front of main hall around 5:50 or so, then walked down into Buena Vista and just talked for a while, wandering around in the streets and looking at random stuff, talking about all the restaurants they have around here and trying to decide which one to go to.  After a little while we decided on this Italian place called (oddly enough) "Original Italian Restaurant."  Yeah, kinda generic name, but the food was good--I had ravioli, she had stuffed shells, and we split some mozzarella sticks (and also the bread and salads that came with the pasta.)  Kind of a funny thing here, she ended up pretty much perfectly cleaning off her plate at the end even though she wasn't able to finish all of her stuffed shells (she took one home in a little styrofoam box)... by picking up one of the pieces of bread and "picking up" all of the sauce from the place with it, then eating the bread.  Talked about tons of stuff, including (of all things) a Harry Potter musical spoof.  Which led to one of the songs from that getting stuck in her head, and then she started randomly singing it while we were walking back.  About that time it started to rain; just kind of a light sprinkle though, so we only really got wet at all because it was such a long walk back up to the lofts from Buena Vista.  Along the way we saw a random hubcap just sitting there on some stairs, and she was going to take a picture of it... so I suggested that I sit on the stairs and get my picture taken next to the hubcap. XD  Yeah, kind of a silly picture, but it worked.  And once we got back up there (and wiped the random raindrops off of both of our glasses), I gave her a hug before she left.  Turns out the whole thing took a little over two hours, I'm guessing most of which was taken up by talking, heh.  So... I think it went pretty well!

And afterward, several people that I bumped into asked me already if there was going to be a second date, and... well, I didn't really think of that at the time, heh... I was still kind of surprised by the fact that I was even having a first date, so the thought of doing it again just didn't really come up at the time.  But hey, who knows? I mean, I'm not sure I want to randomly ask her on a date again so soon after the first time (kinda worried that would make it seem like I was trying to rush into a more "boyfriend/girlfriend"-ish relationship... I dunno), but I definitely wouldn't mind doing something like that again in the future.  And maybe now that I've actually had a completely positive experience with this sort of thing, I might not be so nervous about actually asking girls on dates from now on.  Okay, I'd probably still be super nervous if I tried to ask anyone else on dates (apparently it's normal to go on dates with a bunch of different people, at least before you actually have a boyfriend/girlfriend... seemed a bit odd to me at first but I guess I can get used to it?)... but at least I might not be so nervous about asking Ruth again. XD

After I got back from my date I ended up hanging around at the lofts for a while waiting for my jacket to dry, and just talking to random people.  After a while some other people decided they were going to go see a movie (The Help, about a girl who wrote about the situation that black people hired as maids in the '60s were in, based on stories that she was told by pretty much all of the maids in one town in Mississippi), so I tagged along.  Movie was good; actually the first one I've seen in a theater since 2005-2006 or so.  Ended up eating most of someone else's popcorn because they didn't like it too much... definitely not the best popcorn I've had, but not completely bad either.  And also a Cow Tale (those long caramel-candy-rope things) and some Dr. Pepper.  The medium Dr. Pepper I had seemed to be pretty huge even though it was only a medium, so I have a hard time imagining just how much bigger the large must've been... I wonder if they've increased the sizes of movie drinks again since the last time I saw them, or something.