Williamsburg/Jamestown/Yorktown travel study trip

Yep... that's where I've been for most of this week! I went on the Historic Virginia travel study trip.  Was a little worried about it at first, since most of the other people going were total strangers (only one person I actually knew at all, and only one other that I'd ever even talked to once before)... but it turned out pretty well.  I ended up getting to know the "not quite total stranger, but not someone I knew either" person of the group and talking to her a lot, about all sorts of weird random things (things that came up--Art History assignment, since we're both in that class but at different times; asparagus turning people's pee green; how conversations tend to wander into weird seemingly-unrelated things if they go on for a long time uninterrupted; silly things to do to fight off boredom... and so on.)  And of course looked around at tons of stuff in Colonial Williamsburg, Jamestown, and Yorktown (but mostly Williamsburg--we were there two days, while with the other two we had to split a day between them.)  Watched a bunch of reenactments of Revolutionary War-era stuff going on, sat in on a fake witch trial (based very closely on partial records left from an actual witch trial), visited a bunch of colonial-era shops and stuff that actually did things the way they would've been done back then, ate food (including some really good pizza and an Italian sub at this restaurant called Stephano's, fish & chips at the Jamestown visitor's center, and a very mediocre "Thanksgiving dinner" at another restaurant followed by a much-better bowl of pasta, orange soda, and some pumpkin pie at the same restaurant), got some random silly souveniers (a wooden toy pistol, alphabet-dice, chocolate covered peanuts, and a bag of pasta shaped like turkeys!), and so on.  I even got some work done on both the NaNoWriMo story I'm writing (not much, but...) and The K'hyurbhi Lands (started on another of the few maps I need to make before I can release a demo.)

...I would say more here, but I already had to write journal entries for the trip in order to get credit for it, and I have a pizza that needs to be eaten.

EDIT: Silly quotes and assorted randomness from the trip...

1. Little stone Daleks.  Yes, apparently the parking area of the hotel we stayed in had these short squat little stone things around the edges that were shaped a bit like Daleks.  Oddly, I don't remember seeing them still there when we were leaving... uh-oh.  They must've un-statuified like that one in the Pandorica episode.
2. Bumper Stickers: "Keep honking, I'm reloading" and "Politicians and diapers need to be changed often, and for the same reason."  Both on the same vehicle, too.
3. The reason why the bakery is hidden behind the tavern--because its "the secret bakery where they make the bread that the British don't approve of."
4. "No butts and snakes."  A quote from when we were talking about how the courtroom where the witch trial took place had an apse, which I misheard as "ass" and then "asp."
5. "We're not Roman Catholics, we don't torture and burn people..." ...shortly after talking about how the punishment for perjury is to put someone in the stocks and then possibly cut off their ears.
6. "It's allowed in the Massachusetts courts!" "This is not Massachusetts!"
7.  "I doubt Georgia not being able to send representatives, because Jamaica did!"
8. "I understand that the cell reception in '79 is pretty bad." (1779, that is.) 
9. "You're free to explore the property, they're not home."
10. "Olde English Bulldogge" (overheard in the street; someone apparently was telling someone that you had to spell the name of the dog breed that way)
11. Pineapples: they were everywhere. Apparently a symbol of hospitality; I didn't know that.
12. Odd things you see when glancing at someone's "things I'm thankful for" list: Vacuums, tennis shoes, Winnie the Pooh, and... sex!? Wait a second... on a Mormon's thankfulness list? On a non-married Mormon's thankfulness list?? Hmmm...
13. "Shrimp Dip Kit with recipe for party shrimp dip -- contains tiny wild cocktail shrimp."
14. "HAPPY THANK GIVING"
15. "That's the poopdeck.  You can take a poop right off the deck."
16. "No projectile... we'd like to sink the ferry, but I don't think VDOT would appreciate that."  
17. "Professor Brotherson convinced both of us to kiss the pig."
18. "If you ignite the powder what happens? ...A boom! ...Hopefully..."
19. "What belt do you have? It's not one of the light-colored ones, is it?" An older guy, to a little kid showing off his karate skills.
20. "A faggot of sweet herbes" -- from a 1607 recipe
21. "Who wins?" "The girl!"
22. "It's artillery, it's close enough, get out of the way!"
23. "Pig bladder: nature's saran-wrap."
24. "I did not cook the bladder."
25. "Now I've got pig bladder juice all over me."  
26. "You guys actually eat that stuff?" "...Not really."
27. "How many of us have taken the lid off a jar and eaten it?" 

Board games, movies, and random silliness

Actually had a lot to do this weekend so far! Painting homework, however, was not one of those things... even though this still-life is due tomorrow and I only have the cloth on the table painted (plus part of one of the dishes, but.... yeah, I doubt I'll get this one done on time, even if I show up to class early to work on it.  At least I'll be able to turn my rocks in on Monday, though, since I got those done a while back.)

But anyway... Friday I ended up getting invited to go and play board games with a bunch of people (most of which I knew or at least had talked to once or twice, though there were a couple of total strangers), which turned out pretty well for the most part though I was pretty disoriented at first (unfamiliar games + big crowd + lots of noise tends to throw me off pretty bad, so it was the usual "just as soon as I get used to the rules of one game, they put it away and bring out another one" thing.)  Saturday was the first meeting of the SVU Doctor Who Club, which so far is basically made up of almost nobody except people I know (there was one girl I didn't recognize, whose name I still don't know, but other than that everyone at the meeting was someone I at least had talked to a couple times before.)  We started out in Durham (where we came up with ideas for a service project to do later; seemed like we'd probably end up doing something Christmas-related), then moved toward the Institute building when we found out that we couldn't use the projector in Durham, and then moved up to the Lofts when we found out that the Institute building was locked... yeah, lots of moving around that day.  But eventually we did manage to watch an episode of Doctor Who, which was the one with the Weeping Angels in the old abandoned house.  Since we didn't have any way to connect the computer it was on (on Netflix I think) to a TV or projector, we ended up all huddled around this one laptop, but it ended up working a bit better than I expected it to and I was only feeling overcrowded at the very start.  Also had cookies, which were pretty good.  And I took pictures of the whole group (...one of which had half of them covering their faces like the Angels, heh.)

Later on Saturday, I was  going to go to the play (Pride and Prejudice) that the school was showing, but I ended up changing my mind because there was a good chance it was going to be extremely crowded and I'd probably freak out.  I'm not sure how it would've gone if I did go, since I did have someone to sit with at least (she even said she'd save a seat for me...) so I might not have freaked out quite so much since I wouldn't have been completely surrounded by people I don't know or anything, but... oh well.  Instead, I ended up going over to Carriage and watching Despicable Me with Ruth and her friend Elizabeth.  The movie was good, and the whole thing turned out really well and ended up fighting off the boredom for pretty much the entire night (I was there from 7:20ish until midnight... we sat around playing chess, talking, watching silly videos, talking, looking through my notebook, and talking after the movie was over. XD)  Also kind of kept me from getting any more writing done, buuut... I should have plenty of time to catch up on that today, and I think there was probably more than enough talking and general silliness to make up for not getting much done.
And, randomly, one of the topics that came up was weird misconceptions people have about Mormons.  One that I had never heard before is that Mormons have horns--no, seriously, apparently some people believe that converting to the LDS church will make you magically sprout horns, and that's apparently one of the questions that missionaries get a lot: "if I get baptized, will I grow horns?"  Another one I had never heard was that they're building a secret underwater tunnel across the Atlantic to transport women in from other countries so they can have them for the polygamists to marry.  And amazingly, neither of the two Mormons in the room had ever heard the "won't accept blood transfusions because it's the same as drinking blood" one, which is... one of the only ones I've actually heard before (and apparently it's also not true at all, or at least neither of them had any problem with blood transfusions or had even heard of anyone having that problem.)  But yeah... apparently there's a lot of weird Mormon conspiracy theories. XD

Last night I had a weird dream, but unfortunately I didn't write it down as soon as I woke up from it so I only remember one part of it right now.  I was walking around at some place and came upon a table where a girl I know here at school was sitting, and for some reason she was talking about how many guys she "had to" kiss in the past.  I'm not sure why she said "had to," as that sort of implies she didn't have any other choice... but she didn't sound like she was saying it like it was a bad thing, so the whole thing was really weird.  There was a lot more to the dream than that (I think completely unrelated to the first part, though I can't remember for sure), but I can't remember any of it now since I waited too long before writing anything down about it.

Assorted randomness from the past few days, and silly quotes here and there

Yeah... I haven't posted anything on here in a few days, have I? Heh, whoops.  I guess I've been so busy with school stuff and NaNoWriMo that I just forgot about this thing.  Anyway, a few things from the past few days... Monday I ended up going to this open house thing that the church was having here, partly because I had nothing else to do and partly because I was invited by four different people (one of which agreed to actually go with me and hang around the whole time so I wouldn't run into the "crowded rooms full of people I don't know" problem while I was there.)  So I went to the open house with her and went through the tour of the church building, getting a look at various rooms, finding out what the various paintings on the wall are supposed to be, hearing about the classes and different parts of the three-hour Mormon church service (which weren't entirely new to me, though I did get to find out a general idea of what goes on in the girls' Relief Society meetings), and having a little bit of free food at the end (ice cream and Oreos.)  Found out a few new things about Mormon beliefs, such as how they believe that Adam (as in Adam and Eve) is the same person as Michael the archangel--Mormons believe that everyone's souls exist before they're actually born and hang out somewhere before they end up in their bodies, and that angels are essentially those people who either don't have bodies yet or who already had them but then died and are now just souls once again.  Apparently this isn't an especially well-known fact even within Mormonism, however, since Caitlyn (the girl I went with) had never heard that before either!

After the open house, we ended up hanging out together for a while and she actually made me food, after I mentioned that I hadn't had time to eat earlier and was getting kind of hungry.  Okay, it was just some ramen noodles (spicy chicken flavor, which were actually really good), some peanuts, a little package of cookies, and some strawberry-flavored appleasauce... but still, I was kind of amazed at the fact that someone would even bother to make food for me just because I hadn't had any earlier, rather than just... telling me to go eat at Jonzzey's or something.
On a somewhat related note, I found out yesterday that the random Volkswagen Beetle that honked at us as we were walking up the hill was being driven by a few other friends from here, who apparently thought I was on a date with Caitlyn at the time, just because we happened to be walking up the hill to the lofts together.  Seriously, one of them asked me "who were on a date with yesterday?" when the topic came up, and I was a bit confused for a second. XD

Speaking of dating, my other basket-auction date (with Shannon) should be coming up... sometime soon?  She said she'd let me know when, but I haven't heard a specific day or time from her yet.  Apparently we're going to be playing a board game rather than watching a movie, since she's going to be kind of busy with a research paper this week, but that probably would work better anyway since people can actually talk while playing a board game (while talking a lot during a movie just means you're not paying much attention to the movie. XD)

Also, I had a weird dream the other night.  It involved this huge (2 feet long) red centipede showing up in a dorm-like area (which looked very different from the Craton dorms, though I think I have had another dream that took place in the exact same building... I wonder what that place actually is? if it exists at all...) and me chasing it around from a distance, trying to take pictures of it apparently.  I eventually followed it outside, and managed to get a picture of it when it dove into the water of this creek-type area and then came up to the surface again, almost like it was doing the "whale breaching" thing.  After that it got back up onto some of the rocks, but this hawk or eagle swooped down and grabbed it.  The centipede squirmed around a bit and tried to break free, and the bird eventually tossed it over onto a different rock.  I went over and took a picture of it, and apparently the bird misinterpreted what I was doing and came over and started swiping at me with its claws, squawking at me.  In the dream I was able to "translate" the bird-talk into English, but since it was only a literal translation of the words rather than the actual meaning as a complete sentence, it came out as something broken-English-ish like "friend not take my prey."  Apparently the bird considered me a friend, but wanted to eat the centipede and though that I was trying to snatch it away from the bird and eat it myself.  I don't remember anything after that; I think I just woke up.

And apparently my hair was finally getting too shaggy for the school's rules, as my HRA came up to me during one of the meals this weekend and said it was getting a little long and I should probably get a haircut soon.  So I did exactly that today; walked down to one of the haircut places in Buena Vista around 4:00-ish and then walked out less than half an hour later with "short enough to not get fined $50 at SVU" hair.  Since I was in town I went ahead and checked out that gun shop I had seen a few times before, looking at the guns and other stuff (like crossbows, and a carved wooden statue of a bear with an assault rifle!) that they had in there for a while before leaving and walking over to Frank's for the Memories, another place in town that I had never actually had a chance to stop by before.  Had some nachos (with everything but chili on them) and a hot dog; the nachos were good but not quite the best I'd had (though that was only because Jack Mason's Tavern back home has the most amazing nachos I've ever seen), while the hot dog was one of the best I'd ever had.  I really liked the way they make the buns there; the bun itself is a bit different than the usual ones, and they also toast them before serving them, so it wasn't just a "hot dog wrapper" made of bread like some of the blander buns end up being.  The only downside is that the buns are so hot when they bring the food out that it's hard to hold onto them until they've cooled down a bit, but that just means there's some time to eat the chips, pickle, nachos, etc. before starting on the hot dog itself.  Plus they have an absurd amount of toppings you can put on a hot dog; I had just mustard, onions, and green peppers on mine, but they have something like 35 different things you can get on a hot dog.  I might end up trying a few different things whenever I end up going back there.
They also have cats inside the place, one of which (the bigger black-and-white one) really liked me and kept rubbing my hand and walking around me while I was sitting there after eating.  The little black kitten-like one (which reminded me of Midget, though not quite as skinny and with slightly different-colored eyes) didn't like me that much, though. XD  I could never get that little thing to even come close to me, even after sitting there attempting to do so for several minutes.
Unfortunately, by this point it was pouring down rain outside, and I hadn't brought an umbrella or a jacket at all... it looked like it had finally stopped raining when I first walked down there, but no, it was just waiting for an hour or so before coming back even stronger than ever.  Fortunately, Ruth wasn't busy with anything at the time so she was able to come down there and give me a ride back to the school... so I ended up not getting soaked (and if I had tried to walk back, I definitely would have gotten soaked, since Frank's is probably three or four blocks away from campus...)

And now, the silly quotes!  Previously there was only one here, but another one happened today so I added it.

"These are happy little Puerto Ricans."
"He doesn't have to step in the horse poo-poo!"

Hairy Potheads

Yep... I've now seen the last two Harry Potter movies, since they were showing them both (in a row, with only a half-hour break in between!) over in the SAC.  Even though I probably should have started on that paper I still need to write, I ended up going and watching both movies instead.  Started out kind of badly since the only seats around were either crowded around tons of people I don't know, or right in the middle of huge empty spaces with nobody around at all... but eventually I bumped into someone I knew (or more accurately she walked up to me and said hi) and we ended up sitting together for the whole five hours of the two movies, talking a little bit here and there (not enough to disrupt the movies though, so it was okay) and sharing some popcorn.

Of course, I just had to screw it up by mentioning, at the very end just a few minutes before she was about to leave, the fact that I had a dream the other night with her in it.  There wasn't anything weird about the dream really (other than the fact that I usually don't have dreams with people I know in them), we were just sitting in the cafeteria talking for a few minutes before the dream switched over to something completely unrelated... but almost as soon as I mentioned it I started to feel bad, like I probably shouldn't have mentioned it at all.  I know it's probably just me worrying over nothing and getting a little paranoid, since she didn't really seem to freak out or anything when I mentioned it and we still talked a bit afterward (she didn't like... try to avoid me or anything), but I was kind of hoping I'd be able to walk with her back home afterward and talk some more... instead she got a ride with some other people, so the whole talking thing got cut off kind of abruptly... which probably contributed to the weirdness of it all.  I'm guessing the only reason why this one tiny little thing worries me at all is because I think I'm starting to like this girl, and lately it's almost seemed like she might actually like me too in some way--she seems to be smiling pretty much constantly whenever I talk to her (and from what I've seen it's not always quite as constant with other people, though she still does smile a lot); she actually came over and said hi to me today, when the movie had already started and she probably could have just as easily gone ahead and sat down somewhere; she was the one who suggested that we sit together and (later on) that we share the same bag of popcorn; she even thanked me for letting her sit with me at the end, when I had tried to thank her for the same thing, she just insisted that it was the other way around.  And she seemed to like the idea of me walking her back home, she only ended up getting a ride with someone because it is pretty far to where she lives and it was getting kind of cold out by then.

It seems like I can never like just one or two girls at a time, it always has to be at least three... so I guess when one drops off of the "girls I like in that way" list, another one moves in to fill in the empty slot or something. XD

In other news, I've gotten over 4000 words of my NaNoWriMo story written and I drew a bunch of Killer K'hyurbhi's minions from the 1995-1996 (4th/5th grade) era.  Cruncho, Darno, Eato, Grakker, Uposo, Slambosh and Yummerplet, Crobombug, Christy (who is now Christy Telamora, I finally came up with a last name for her last year!), the Alligator Teacher, and General Yourgh.  I wasn't sure who to put in the last space on the second page (with Christy, the Alligator Teacher, and Yourgh), but looking over the list it seems like the only major Killer K'hyurbhi minions I've left out so far are Count Crappaddoo, Badmazz, and Captain Smash (who was basically a palette swap of Badmazz... which means I'll need to do at least a little bit of redesigning there.)  Unfortunately, I probably won't have time for much of anything tomorrow since I'll be working on that paper for history class... will probably end up having to skip the fireside tomorrow (assuming that's actually when it is, I can't remember for sure... it might actually be next weekend) just to have time.  Either that or skip church, which is what I did last time (though not for the same reason, I just ended up getting there late last time and couldn't find a decent seat among all the crowdedness.)

Apparently double-dates are not quite as strange as I thought they'd be.

Yep... earlier today (4:30-ish until almost 6:00), I was at the basket auction thing they had in the ballroom here at SVU.  Basically how it worked was girls would put together food and stuff in a basket, then guys would bid on the baskets (based only on what food was in there; we weren't told which girls made what basket until after the bidding was finished!), with starting bids of $5.00.  Only a couple of the baskets really went much higher than that (I think one went for $20.00, another for $13.00, and a third for $12.00 or $10.00 or so)... most of them were right at $5.00 (the starting bid) or $6.00.  I made bids on five of the baskets, and for the longest time I was the only bidder on those... until a ton of people started bidding on the one with New York Deli sub sandwiches, then I was only the lone bidder on four of them. XD
I ended up being the winning bidder on two of them in the end; one of only two bidders on one (a picnic-type meal with sandwiches, tiny carrots, chips, Capri Sun juice pouches, Oreos, and Uno cards), and the only bidder on the other one (brownies, cookies, hot chocolate, and a movie.)  Obviously can't go on two dates at once, so I talked to the girls who made both of the baskets and found that the girls with the picnic lunch were planning on having their date right after the auction, while the one with lots of chocolate-based food was okay with it being sometime later (especially since the brownies hadn't actually been made yet--there was literally a box of brownie mix just sitting in the basket.  So no worries about the food going back before the date even happens! XD)

But yeah... ended up going on one of my two dates earlier today, which turned out pretty well and was a lot of fun (and not as strange as I had originally imagined the whole "double date" thing being--I couldn't figure out how the heck it was even supposed to work, having two guys and two girls instead of just one of each, but it really wasn't that weird after all.)  We ate most of the food (a couple of sandwiches left over, along with a handful of Oreos and half a bag of chips, which I brought back to my room with me), talked about all sorts of random things, goofed off, and played half a dozen games of Uno, three of which I actually won, amazingly enough.  I guess my luck was abnormally good today--got to go on one date, have another one planned for next week sometime, and actually won at something for once.  I guess the Uno victory isn't really quite so impressive compared to the other stuff, heh.  By the end, it had actually been close to three hours; first we were over in the breezeway (that hallway thing between Chandler and Main Hall), using the random church pews in there as booth-type seats and the mini-tables as... well, tables.  But apparently the people watching the play next door could actually hear us from there, so after someone came out and told us that we decided we should probably move to somewhere else.  After looking around for a bit we decided on the Main Hall lobby area, right there in front of the door; we sat this big green blanket down on the floor and just took our shoes off and sat on it, then picked up right where we left off with the food and Uno (and the other guy who was there taught everyone how to throw cards--apparently it's not quite as simple as "grab card, throw card," you need to hold it a certain way and flick your wrist to get it to actually go very far.)  Lots of talking, food, Uno, and other assorted random stuff before eventually everyone figured they should probably wind the whole thing down and go off to other stuff they needed to do (a bonfire, giving the money raised by the basket auction to the guy in charge of it, and... my history paper.)  Overall it went pretty well, and now I won't be so weirded out if someone ever suggests a double-date to me since I know it won't necessarily be really strange and/or "leave Eddie out of everything"-ish.

I never did figure out which of the two girls was "my date" and which was the other guy's, though. I guess it doesn't really matter too much since it wasn't like... the "holding hands and cuddling and possibly kissing" kind of date, more of just a random silly thing for fun... but still, kind of funny how that happened.  XD

Now I just have to finish that paper for Western Civilization... and then figure out when my other basket-auction date is going to be.  (Kind of funny how one of the two baskets I ended up winning--the one that nobody else even made any bids on, even!--just happened to belong to one of the girls that I was wanting to try asking on a date eventually anyway.  Odd coincidence there.)

Oh, and in completely unrelated news, I've started (a bit late) to write something for NaNoWriMo, based on that picture I drew of the mountain with the pointy-eared people and such.  So far I've got around 3600 words done, which is... about 13000 behind where I'm supposed to be, since I didn't even start until 10 days into the month.  Oh well!  I doubt I'll get anywhere near 50,00 but at least I'll have started on this story, and maybe I'll get around to finishing it sometime later on.

Balloons make your hands smell funny.

...as I found out today when I helped set up for a surprise birthday party, and I had to tape balloons to the walls... afterward I smelled my hand for some odd reason, and it had this weird smell which hadn't been there at all before I had been handling all those balloons.  So yeah... balloons make your hands smell funny.

But yeah, today was kind of busy toward the later end, since I went to the murder mystery/spaghetti date night thing at the Institute building at 5:00 and then Katie's birthday party around 7:00.  The spaghetti thing actually went pretty well; there were a few different possibilities that I was worried about (getting matched up with someone I couldn't stand, bad food, the murder-mystery thing being too confusing or disruptive of the date part) but it turned out that none of those happened!  I actually didn't end up being paired up with a total stranger like I was expecting; instead my date ended up being Julie, one of the several girls I met when everyone was locked up in the gym after the bomb threat happened.  We had lots of random stuff to talk about, and also ended up talking with one of the other couples at the table a bit (except they were an actual couple, since they were engaged!) The food was good, too; the spaghetti was real edible spaghetti (where you get some spaghetti on your plate and then add the sauce on top) and not the "noodles and sauce all mashed up together before serving" cafeteria-food junk, the salad had giant croutons, and there were also breadsticks and cake.  Nothing but water to drink, but surprisingly even that sort of worked.  The murder-mystery part was kinda entertaining as well, since the people playing the suspects all did these really goofy accents and walked around visiting people's tables occasionally so we could ask them questions (and then a few times they all got up in front of the room and gave their "clues," since nobody had enough time to get around to all of the tables.)  It turned out that it was the guy announcing everyone else who did it, rather than any of the actual suspects. XD

After that I went to a surprise birthday party for Katie (who I know mainly because she sits right behind me in Spanish class... wasn't expecting to get invited to her birthday party, but one day in lunch this guy came over to my table and passed me an invitation out of nowhere.)  This is when I found out that balloons make your hands smell funny, of course.  Also watched I Am Legend (which was on a laptop and the volume was too low to hear what anyone was saying unless they were yelling at the time... so basically Will Smith's only line in the movie, as far as I could hear, was "DAMN!"), ate some random snack food (including a cake that looked like a giant cookie!) and generally goofed off for a while.

Also found out that Ruth's car is repaired (new radiator!), so I'll be volunteering at the Boxerwood nature park place for a few hours tomorrow.  I think Ruth mentioned that she was giving someone else a ride also, but I can't remember who... guess I'll find out tomorrow.  But yeah, I'm not entirely sure what I'll be doing over there but it should be a good way to pass some time, see stuff, and get some of those service hours out of the way (I've already got six down, so two or three more should put me pretty close to the end!)

A mostly crappyish day yesterday, and a weird dream from last night

Yeah... yesterday kind of sucked, at least until later (where it briefly stopped sucking and went back to "average-ish," then resumed sucking for a while, then eventually got a lot better.)  Won't go into detail about why most of the day sucked, though, because that'd be kind of boring and I don't really want to go over that stuff again anyway.  A few good things, though: I got to eat pumpkin pie and drink apple cider, I went around dressed as Mario for several hours (from around 5:00-ish until maybe 9:00 or so?), I talked to people (as always), and so on.  Toward the end of the day, though, I ended up bumping into some people who were going to go watch a movie (The Nightmare Before Christmas) in one of the library mods (basically, little rectangular houses near the library) and they invited me to come along.  I did, and... that probably saved my day from crappiness, actually--talking to people, watching a movie, eating popcorn and cake, and getting to see a part of the school that I've never seen before (I had never actually been into one of the library mods before this time.)

Also, I had a weird dream last night! I'm not entirely sure what was going on, but the dream was really long and there was a mountainous area where I was apparently living (sort of resembled the mountains back home, but not exactly), and these weird tentacley plant monsters kept showing up, stronger and stronger every time.  The dream sort of seemed video game-ish during the parts where I was fighting the plant monsters; kind of vaguely similar to the Kingdom Hearts series in the way the movements and maps were set up (I've been playing Re:Coded more lately so that may be why.)  For a while I was able to fight the plant-monsters, but eventually a really big one (the main body wasn't too big but its tentacles extended a really long way--there was a scene that showed one tentacle going probably close to 100 feet burrowing through the ground after extending from its body) showed up and I just started throwing random rocks at it and stuff like that instead of... whatever it was I was doing to fight them before (I can't remember that part.)  I'm not sure what happened, but everyone fighting the plants apparently gave up and left or something.  There was also something in the dream about a guy with a gun, but when someone asked about going to see him apparently that wasn't a good idea because he had gone crazy already and someone else had to beat him up.  Eventually Pokémon became involved somehow, and there was a Rhydon attacking me... so I randomly brought a Cloyster out of nowhere and had it fight the Rhydon for me (and for some reason it was able to just turn around and block attacks with the back of its shell, though this only worked when the Rhydon used Rock Blast... not when it used some attack that doesn't really exist called "Bone Bash," which didn't actually look bone-related in the dream, more like a huge ball of gray dust-ish stuff.)  I think the Cloyster eventually beat the Rhydon, without taking much damage at all (only a little bit from "Bone Bash"), but I can't remember for sure.
There was also another dream, probably completely unrelated, about little kids drawing pictures comparing Mario with Sonic the Hedgehog, and one kid had drawn this huge long description on Mario's side and then on Sonic's side wrote nothing except for "Sonic is cool too, he can go really fast."  There were others too, but I can't remember any of them except that one, though I think there may have been one where one of the kids accused Mario of writing his own description once and calling him a "liar" (on the one where Sonic barely had anything? or on another one? I'm not sure which.)

Compared to yesterday, today's been a lot better so far.  Classes are going okay, and I've been playing Kingdom Hearts Re:Coded a bit more lately--I may actually be getting close to the end of the game (I think? Maleficent and Pete have shown up now, anyway.)  I actually managed to ask someone to the spaghetti date night thing earlier today, and I didn't really have any trouble asking this time... it kind of surprised me how much easier it is to ask girls on dates now that I've actually done it before (and, probably more importantly, actually had a girl say yes when I asked.)  I just walked up to her, said hi, and then asked her if she was planning on going (and if she'd want to go with me), just off the top of my head like that.  Of course, it turned out that she wasn't really planning on going at all and if she did decide to sign up at the last minute, she wanted to sign up on the "people without dates" list rather than having a date set up for her ahead of time... but oh well.  I'm kind of surprised that this didn't bother me at all--I actually sort of felt better after asking, even though it didn't exactly work out... just because I was actually able to ask in the first place, I guess.  And now I know for sure that I'll either have to ask someone else (which means actually coming up with someone else I would want to go on a date with, which... might be the hard part now that I've run out of ideas) or sign up as a "no date" person and see how the randomly-picking-a-date-for-you thing works out, so there aren't so many annoying "what if" type possibilities to get too paranoid about.

I've been making some progress on that drawing (the "as many of my characters as possible crammed into one page" one) lately; now there's close to 140 different characters on there, which is... a lot.  It's getting harder to think of characters that aren't already on there now. XD

Oh, and I might get to work on The K'hyurbhi Lands more sometime soon.  Talking about it with other people recently (and even showing part of the game to Ruth once) has reminded me of how much I really want to get this thing finished, or at least get it to "long enough demo to put on the Internet" level.  Maybe I'll even manage to win the Heart of the OHR contest in 2012 if I end up getting enough done in time to release it for that? Even if I don't, this game still needs to get finished; it'll probably be the last time I use Nummorro (and the First Nherbi as a whole) as a setting for a game, so I want to finally have something good in that setting before I "retire" it.  I might post something about it on my Fnrrf Ygm Schnish blog sometime soon, and maybe even upload some of the first screenshots of it (which really will be the first screenshots of it ever posted on the Internet, aside from a few used as pictures for the FYS wiki.)