Last post of the semester... and it's late, of course. XD

Yeah... done with fall semester at SVU now.  Finished my last final exam Wednesday without dying in the process (and hopefully not doing too horribly bad, even though it was at 8 AM), went to Original Italian and split a pizza with Ruth later the same day, drew and colored pictures for a bunch of people who were leaving this semester and not coming back in the next one (though unfortunately I know I missed at least one person...), got a whole bunch of hugs (mostly on Thursday before people left, but a few others throughout the rest of the week too!), said goodbye to as many of my friends as I managed to bump into before they left, and didn't have any trouble as far as cleaning and packing before I could check out and leave.  Mom and Julia came and got me earlier today (...Friday, I mean; I haven't gone to bed yet so it's still "today" to me) and we went and ate at Subway... and then later, Dad came over and picked me and Julia up to take us over to Victor's to eat (so... two really good meals in one day!)

Overall it was a pretty good semester, I thought.  I feel like I did pretty good in most--if not all--of my classes (got a 92 in Spanish and a 102 in Information Literacy!), I managed to go on five dates (including being set up on a blind date, which has never happened to me before) despite getting started a little late on that this time around, I got to know a bunch of new people (though unfortunately a lot of them aren't coming back next time...) and of course continued to stay in contact with most of the people I'd gotten to know before, got to see a couple of plays/musicals that SVU put on, finished my senior paper, got to see a couple of movies I'd never seen before, and even got a demo release of The K'hyurbhi Lands finished and another new game started despite the mountains of homework threatening to prevent me from getting anything else done the whole semester.

I'm still not 100% sure if I can say it was better than my fall semester last year (though it was at least close enough that I'm not sure!), but it was definitely better than last spring semester.  Let's hope next semester turns out pretty good too.

Wondering about something now...

So, it turns out that what I originally thought was just a throw-away "trying to make me feel better about things" line at that dance a couple weeks ago wasn't actually that at all.  I was talking to a girl I know and her boyfriend, and he said that he knew that there was at least one person there who wanted to dance with me.  Of course, I took that the same way anyone would (as, like I said, a random thing said trying to make me feel better rather than a true statement--a "well, there's got to be someone out there" sort of thing.)

After bumping into the girl I was talking to again and asking her about it, though... it turns out that apparently the guy actually had a specific person in mind when saying that "at least one person" at the dance would have wanted to dance with me.  Unfortunately, she said that she wasn't allowed to tell me who this one girl who apparently wanted to dance with me was, so I'll probably never know (since I'm not a mind-reader and all.)  Still made my day a little better to know that there may actually be a girl out there that likes me in some way, even if I'll probably never figure out who she is unless somebody actually speaks up and lets me know (or at least gives me a hint or something!)

In other news... I've been drawing stuff for people who are going home this semester and not coming back in January (I've finished 2 out of the 5 that I know I'll need to make so far; only gotten one of those delivered yet, though), and I've also finished two of my final exams (also out of five. XD)  My project for 2D Design is moving along okay (have the seven light-to-dark rainbow colors in a ring done; next is either the gray tones of those colors in semicircles or the combinations of two colors in the points of that big Star of David in the middle.)  Still need to do the rest of my Printmaking stuff, but that shouldn't take all that long since I only need to go through one or two more revisions of my cockroach plate before I'll be done.  Still have a date with Ruth planned (pizza!) on Wednesday, if nothing comes up between now and then, though I should probably bring it up with her again to figure out exactly what time and such before then.  And I'll be headed home Thursday night, it turns out; Mom says the weather is calling for freezing rain on Friday and doesn't want to drive in that, so she's picking me up earlier than planned.

Wow... I've REALLY gotten into a habit of not posting these, haven't I?

Yeah... well, it's been over a week since my last post on here, so I'll briefly go over all the stuff that's happened since then.

Made gingerbread TARDISes in the Doctor Who club meeting.  Mine has clear Gummi Bears (intended to be Adipose) and a Reese's Dalek in addition to the TARDIS itself.  And the doors open and close!

Went on that date with Ruth last Friday! Yeah, I mentioned this in my last post but forgot to actually post again after it happened... but the important part is, it happened!  She came over to my house after driving people back to the girls' dorms after the Doctor Who club meeting, and the timing worked out really well--by the time she got here, the pasta was almost done cooking, so she was just in time to test the first piece of rigatoni to see if it was ready.  It was, and I already had plates, forks, and cups set out, so we got to eat pretty soon after she first got there; pasta turned out really good (she apparently liked it, as hers disappeared even quicker than mine did! XD) and we talked for a while there before heading off to the play (Little Women, which was showing here at school.)  The play was really good; I actually ended up crying in the second half, which has seriously never happened to me before when watching plays/movies/etc... but yeah, not just watery eyes this time, actual crying.  After that we went to what was left of the Shenanigans show (about half an hour) and then we walked back to her car.  A couple of hugs (including one really long one!) later, and she had to go, driving herself and her roommate back up to the lofts.  Turned out pretty well, I thought.

On Saturday, there was a dance.  Unfortunately, it didn't turn out so great.  There were a few good parts about it (like the fact that I won a $25 Wal-Mart gift card, which never happens), but the first hour or so was lonely and depressing, and the last 10 minutes or so were terrible.  I'd rather not remember much more about it, because it pretty much sucked.  Here's one random picture from the end of it anyway, though:

Sunday was okay.  Monday was... actually, I can't remember much about Monday... except that a couple of my friends were talking about blind dates and such and when I mentioned I had never been on a date where someone else set me up with the girl and I didn't know who she was, they decided to change that. XD

That date ended up being a double-date sort of thing, which happened on Thursday.  Though it started off kind of shaky (I was worried it was going to turn into a "3-person conversation, plus Eddie just sitting off to the side" situation, since the other three all knew each other and I only knew one of the two girls... who was not the one who was my date), it actually turned out to be a lot of fun.  We went down to one of the off-campus student houses and made a gingerbread house out of a kit that they had (which included wall/roof-shaped gingerbread pieces, icing to stick them together, and random candy for decorations.)  Though I was having trouble at first, I eventually did end up talking to and getting to know my date a little... though I didn't catch how to spell her name, unfortunately (there's at least half a dozen ways to spell a name that's pronounced "Kaylee" but I forgot to ask which one it was. XD)  She seemed pretty nice, and apparently she had seen me around before and actually knew what my name was already.  But anyway, once we built the gingerbread house we stabbed it with a knife and ate chunks of it. XD  Here's a picture or two from this:

There was also the last social dance club meeting of the semester on Tuesday, which also turned out really well.  Surprisingly well, actually... for the first time in ever I actually didn't have trouble asking girls to dance, and ended up asking a whole bunch of people (and being asked a couple of times, too) before the night was over.  Ended up dancing a lot and kind of wearing myself out... and learning a few things, even (learned how to do the basic steps of a couple different versions of swing dancing, and that I can use all of the country swing moves in those also.)  Oh, and there was free pizza! And cookies! So yeah... overall a really good time, and a great "last impression" to have of the dance club for the year.

I've also had  two of my exams today (Spanish and 2D Design) and have started drawing a series of pictures that will be given to people who are leaving and not coming back next semester.  Oh, and working on another new OHRRPGCE game... this one using the newly added turn-based battle system, and the weird little blobs that I came up with a while back.  Not sure when I'll get enough done of that to come out with a demo, but it shouldn't take as long as most of my other games at least.

More odd ways that people have found this

Yep... as I've probably mentioned before, this blog thing keeps track of what search keywords people use when they end up finding this through a search on Google or other search engines.  There've been some odd ones before, but recently I've spotted a few more weird ones.

Specifically... two people ended up here when searching for "old stop signs" (and probably found my post about the "stop sign graveyard" in Buena Vista), one came after a search for "bob marley hat busch gardens," and finally there was also one that searched for "pretty mormon girls" and found this blog instead.  Though I guess technically they may have actually found pictures of pretty Mormon girls, as I posted some pictures from one of the dances on here a while back. XD

In other news... yeah, I forgot to update this regularly again.  Then again, there hasn't been much to say lately... not much going on but homework, after all.  I did finally get my senior paper finished and turned in, so that's one huge assignment less (the biggest one, actually, so I don't have too much to worry about from this point onward.)  I also finished a demo version of The K'hyurbhi Lands and uploaded it in time for the Heart of the OHR contest.  More recently, I found out that the Wikipedia page that I was planning on using for my Information Literacy project has been "de-stubbed" by someone else while I was busy doing other things, so I'll either have to go back to the old version and use that (as if nobody had ever de-stubbed it) or somehow figure out something else, which seems unlikely to work very well this late in the semester.

Had a weird dream about blubbery kittens the other day.  Yes, blubbery kittens. XD

I walked up into an area that I probably wasn't allowed in yesterday... "hard hat area" and "authorized personnel only" signs around the entrance and all.  Apparently what these signs were about was just a construction site of some sort, which didn't seem to be active (there was only one big construction machine up there, and it looked like it had been sitting there for a while.)  Took a bunch of pictures of stuff up there, but I haven't put them on my computer yet so I can't post any here.

Also managed to ask Ruth on another date! Though at the moment I'm not sure if it will actually happen or not, since it depends on how busy she is either tonight or tomorrow (she needs to check her schedule first before she can know for sure.)  If it does happen, though, I'll be cooking her some food (pasta!) and then we'll be going to see the play that the school's putting on right now (she's actually seen it once already but wants to see it again, while I haven't seen it yet at all.)

Wow... over a week since the last post on here... whoops! XD

I did that again... sorry about that, Russian spambots (they do seem to be the only people who read this, after all. XD)

Anyway... last week-and-a-half has been a combination of super stressful (earlier on, up until last Saturday) and some of the best days I've had in a while (last Saturday and parts of various days here and there since then.)  Mostly my problem was that I was being slowly crushed to death under the weight of a mountain of homework, but now that I've finished my Stage 6 Burijeoo prints and my 2D Design project and the second draft of my senior paper, it's gotten a lot better.  I still need to get the final draft done at some point, but I'm not really concerning myself with that much at the moment (since I want to get my second draft graded and handed back to me before I change much for the final one--I can put in my works cited and add a few things here and there without it, but before I do any major changes I'd definitely want to get the second draft back.)  I have a few minor assignments in other classes due right after the break, but none of them seem like they'll be too horribly time-consuming; I could probably just do them Friday and Saturday (in the case of my printmaking assignment) or early next week (presentation for 2D Design and Information Literacy assignment.)  And the 2D Design project isn't due until December 3rd, so I have plenty of time to work on that once the senior paper and other due-very-soon (or late already) things are dealt with.

As for the good parts not related to homework--well, Friday I ended up randomly watching The Nightmare Before Christmas with Ruth and some other friends, and noticed for the first time that the undead band's accordion is actually a fish accordion (seriously, it has a tail fin and a fish head on it! somehow I never noticed that before.)  Saturday I finished my paper's second draft and then was insanely relieved by the fact that I didn't have to worry about that anymore... and then went to the Fading Point/Elephant Shortcut concert the school was having (which also had a dance afterward.)  This went pretty well--got a seat next to someone I kind of knew so I wasn't freaking out due to crowdedness, and the concert itself was good too.   The dance was a lot of fun--ended up dancing with six girls and talking to a bunch of people throughout it, even though they ended up stopping it an hour short (around 10:00 instead of 11:00) because people were already leaving earlier than they had originally planned on ending it.  Still went really well though, and I actually ended up being able to use some of my actual-dancing stuff I had learned in dance club--I taught one girl how to waltz, and also did some spins and dips here and there with others.

Yesterday also turned out pretty good--for the FHE activity that the Mormons in my ward group were doing, they watched The Sandlot and had pizza.  I ended up freaking out a little due to the crowdedness of the movie-watching room, but it turned out okay--a couple of the girls moved to another room with me and we talked for a while, then went back in and watched what was left of the movie when the crowds had thinned out a little bit later on in the movie.  Also, free pizza, which is always good. XD

And then today ALSO turned out good! I got to say goodbye to several people before they left for Thanksgiving break, which led to a lot of goofiness (especially when Michelle, Ruth, and Clarissa were all gathered up around the car they were using to get to Michelle's place for the break--she had a giant stuffed tiger and some peanut butter+jelly stuff called "Goober," Ruth had her cat hat, and all three of them were goofing off and I got some pictures of it. XD)  I also got one of the best hugs I have had in a long time when saying goodbye to Ruth... seriously, if I had not known a hug was coming she might have knocked me over! Later today there was a dance club meeting, which turned out really well for once--though it took a while for me to really get started, once I did I never ended up in the "sitting around kinda depressed and lonely on the sidelines" mode again the whole time.  And I also was told a couple times that I'm apparently really good at leading in dances (especially country swing), which I was not expecting at all... it's not really the sort of thing I'd think I'd be good at, since I'm normally not good at things like initiating stuff, showing people how to do stuff, etc... and yet somehow multiple people all agree that I'm good at it.  Weird.
I also finally learned how to continue doing steps while spinning a girl today, which is something that I never quite "got" until today (and I was kind of stunned when I finally found myself getting it--it just kind of happened unconsciously one time and after that I was able to do it pretty much every time for that dance!)  Now I can actually do that for both country swing and waltz, which still amazes me even after I've done it many times in both dances... that was one of those things I thought I'd never quite get, and then right here at the last dance club meeting we'll have before the break, I just did.

Overall it's been a good weekend (and start of another week.)  Not a bad start to Thanksgiving break, I'd say... now let's hope the break turns out good and not too boring toward the end.

Two non-boring Saturdays in a row!? When's the last time THAT happened??

Yep... today managed to turn out pretty well, despite it being one of those two days stuck in at the end of the week that always start with an "S" and usually end with boredom.

I spent a lot of the day working on homework, some from both Printmaking and 2D Design; managed to get more than enough of the yellow background prints for my Stage 6 Burijeoo project finished, and got my sketch for the 2D Design project put onto the good paper, though unfortunately I haven't actually gotten around to painting it just yet.  Apparently lots of people decided today was a good day for doing homework in the art building, because a whole bunch of people I knew just happened to turn up while I was over there.  So I actually had people to talk to occasionally while I was working on stuff, instead of just being over there alone, which is always good.

And of course, later on I ended up going to Subway with Ruth.  Yep, I actually managed to ask her on a date for the first time since last year... kind of... I didn't actually mention the D-word, so I'm not entirely sure she saw it as a "date" or not, but we did go out to get food together (and I paid for her food, though I used a coupon to get my sub free, heh) and talk and such, and it was planned out ahead of time rather than just randomly decided on right before it happened... which is pretty much what a date usually is, right?
I had hoped we'd be able to sit and talk a little longer after eating, but unfortunately her roommate's phone charger had died and she needed a ride to Wal-Mart to get another one (so pretty much an emergency, since the phone was near death and that's the only way she has any contact with her family all the way across the country)... so we ended up being there less than an hour.  Still got some talking and goofiness in (and a couple of hugs, of course! XD) and I got to eat some good food with one of my favorite people rather than being alone for once, so it turned out good regardless of the slight rushed-ness of it (and of whether it technically counted as a date or not.)

And after that... more homework.  I actually didn't do much of anything for 2D Design until later, spent most of the afternoon doing Printmaking stuff instead (and since I have the yellow images printed, all I need to do now is get the black ones down and I'll be finished with that whole project.)  Didn't really get too much done with the "letters on a line-covered background" project, but I do have the outlines of the letters/lines/etc. traced onto the expensive paper now, so all I need to do is paint them (...which will probably take forever, and I don't think he's really given us that much time... I'm not sure if they're due Monday or Thursday, though, so if it's Thursday I might get them done on time.)

Oh yeah, I almost posted without talking about other stuff going on recently besides Saturday's stuff.  The rest of the later part of this week wasn't too bad either.  On Friday, I actually danced at the dance club meeting (only a couple times, but still... I did dance, and I managed to remember some of the stuff I haven't had much practice with AND managed to leave before it got depressing), and then Elle randomly showed up at my house and cooked lentil soup! (Okay, technically it wasn't random since she let me know she was coming ahead of time and asked if it was okay to borrow my kitchen... but still.)  I didn't actually get to eat any of the soup since I had already eaten some of my own food by the time it was done, but she put a bunch of stuff in there that smelled really good while it was cooking (onions, cumin, curry powder) so I was actually thinking about trying a bit of it (despite the fact that I'm not much of a soup person and I also didn't like beans the last time I tried any)... until I realized I was already full.  Oh well.  That just means she has more Tupperwares full of the stuff to take home and eat (or feed to her roommates) later, heh.

Random bits of nonsense (because there's not much more than homework in my daily life recently...)

I've recently learned that Cracklin' Oat Bran is a really good cereal.  Why did I never try it until now? I know I've seen it in the stores for years and years, ever since I was a little kid...

I've also found out that you actually get more food from Subway's Spicy Italian sub than you do from the Italian BMT.  Seriously--with the BMT you get one layer of pepperoni, one of salami, and one of ham... with the Spicy Italian you get a double-layer of both salami and pepperoni.  That's four layers of meat vs. three... on the cheaper of the two subs! Especially this month when the Spicy Italian's a five-dollar footlong, making it a full dollar cheaper than the BMT.  I guess the ham is just that much more expensive than the Italian meats are, or something.

Also, I've put up a poll on my Facebook account asking about Kirber from The K'hyurbhi Lands.  More specifically, should he get a name change like Kirb (now Kurb) and his entire species (formerly "Kirbys," now K'hyurbhis) before him?  Answer the poll here (or leave a comment, if you can't answer the Facebook poll for whatever reason): http://apps.facebook.com/my-polls/zy8mfb

Holy crap!

Yep... it turned out that the dance yesterday turned out WAY better than I could have ever expected it to! They had the VMI jazz band come in and play for us live (and the dance was in Chandler Hall, where they usually have plays and concerts and such, so they were up on a stage instead of taking up dance-floor space), which meant there were very few "random wiggle-dancing" songs involved... so there weren't very many times when I ended up just standing off to the side with nothing to do.  And the few times that did happen, I usually took the opportunity to take pictures of other people dancing and such.  Like this one:

Look at that face! I don't know how I managed to catch this one at the exact moment I did, but it came out so funny-looking. XD

But anyway, the dance turned out really good.  Started off a little slow for me since I didn't know exactly what was going on dancing-wise (I need some idea of actual steps before I can dance, so if I see a bunch of people doing stuff I don't recognize I get confused and if I have no idea what I'm supposed to do it's impossible for me to do much of anything), but after a couple of the girls explained what kind of thing was going on, I caught on to it pretty fast and was able to actually dance.  And even more amazingly, actually ask girls to dance, which normally I am terrible at (most of the time at dances, it ends up taking so long for me that the song is halfway over before I actually manage to ask... and that's when I do actually manage to ask, instead of just freezing up.)

But yeah... I ended up doing so much more actual dancing at this dance than I have at any of the others this year.  Definitely the most fun I've had at a dance in a while (probably the only other one similar was the Honor Ball last year, which also had the live band and no random wiggle-dancing.)  In case you couldn't tell, this was one of those fancy dances where everyone had to dress up, which meant the guys had suits and ties and the girls had dresses.  Like these:

That's me on the right in the first picture, by the way.  Probably only the third time in my entire life that I've actually had to wear a tie, and I still have no idea how to put one on (thankfully one of my housemates was able to help me out with that before I went off to the dance.)

And after the dance was over, I hung around for a little while talking to people and helping move the chairs back down into the room while other people cleaned things up and moved stuff back to where it came from.  Here's a couple of pictures from then:

Yeah, there were random fall leaves, hay, pumpkins/gourds, and stuff like that as decorations here and there.  It is November, after all.  And speaking of gourds...

...what the heck is that giant gourd doing there!?

Basket auction turned out great this year!

Well, it turned out great for me anyway... turnout was kind of small compared to last year's, since only five girls made baskets and maybe four guys actually showed up to bid on them, and since there weren't that many guys there only one of the baskets' bids actually got into the double-digits.  Just like last year, I was the winning bidder on two baskets.  Unlike last year, I actually got to go on both of the dates that came with the baskets, because neither of the girls involved this time were that weird type of Mormon who absolutely refuses to even so much as go on a date with someone who doesn't share their religious beliefs.  Yeah... I'm still a little annoyed about that happening last year.  Funnily enough, the teacher who helps run the basket auction didn't react well to finding out that had happened either; when I just happened to mention it (to someone else!) while she was within hearing range, she decided to give me a refund of the $5.00 I had spent on that basket last year.  Was not expecting that.

But anyway... the basket-auction dates.  Which actually turned out to pretty much be one date with two girls at the same time, since they both had stuff that probably should've been eaten right away before it got gross and they decided to combine the two baskets together into one giant feast for all three of us. XD
One of the girls was someone I had never met before yesterday when this thing happened, while the other was someone I met for the first time earlier this semester and had already gotten to know fairly well before the basket auction even happened (and I actually knew which basket was hers, since she just happened to come over to my house to cook some of the food beforehand... heh.)  Tons of food in those baskets--a full loaf of French bread, shells-and-cheese pasta (with homemade cheese sauce!), Twix bars and random Milk Duds, grape juice, popcorn, cookies, and finally the huge pan of strawberry cobbler that I (and my kitchen) had actually helped make.  The bready stuff hadn't quite covered the strawberries the way it was supposed to, since there were just so many strawberries in there, but it was still really good despite being a little funny-looking.  Also a lot of talking, and a lot of general goofing off (at one point we kept joking about how "someone was naked nearby"... because we could hear some guy taking a shower somewhere else in the house. XD)  One of the girls had to leave part of the way through because she had left some things at a friend's house and needed to go get them, but it continued with just the two of us who were left, until eventually she decided she should probably go start on some homework.  I walked her to her car and of course there was even more talking there... and a hug.  I like hugs. XD  And then she randomly decided to give me a ride back home, which I hadn't been expecting.  Of course, that meant we ended up talking outside the house in her car for another hour or so afterward, so by the time I finally managed to get out of the car and go back home, it had been three hours!

I'm a little behind compared to my first semester here (where I went on a date at the start of October... then two more throughout October... and then the basket auction), but still... I'm glad I can finally say I've had my first date-type thing of the whole semester, and that it turned out so well!  Oddly enough, it was apparently the first date-type thing of one of the girls' life, not counting things like going to a dance with someone in high school (which apparently she wasn't counting, so...)
And it turned out really good overall, or at least I thought so (I figure it probably turned out pretty good for the girls also, since we did end up talking for over an hour... or two... or three, heh.  But then again, I'm not a mind-reader, so it's hard to tell sometimes.)  I really was worried I'd run into the same problem I had with my second basket last year (the one who pulled the "members only" crap on me), but thankfully that definitely didn't happen this time.

Now... let's hope this dance that I'm going to in an hour or so turns out okay too.  I don't have quite as high expectations for that as I did for the basket auction, since the dances have been pretty crappy this semester (with the exception of Homecoming so far)... but who knows? Maybe this one won't suck.

Haven't posted here in a week... whoops

Well... this week hasn't exactly been the best week, so I guess that's understandable.  Monday I can't remember clearly enough to say if it was good or bad (though I know at least parts of it sucked), Tuesday was crap, Wednesday started off good and then turned to crap, and Thursday was up and down throughout the day.  A class I was in went to Washington DC for a trip... bad part: we had to get up in time to leave at 7 AM (or so they said; we didn't actually leave until around 7:30.)  Car ride over was okay, then once we got there things got crappy--I once again got left behind while I was in the bathroom and everyone else in the group rushed off to who-knows-where, leaving me wandering the museum aimlessly until I finally figured out where the exhibit we were supposed to be looking at was.  This took around 40 minutes, and every minute of that was pure crap, to the point where I was completely unable to even enjoy the museum because I was so pissed off at the fact that I got left behind again.  Eventually I found the exhibit (which was on the other side of the museum, in a different building... would've been nice to actually mention that, Mr. Always-Too-Vague-About-Things Teacher Guy), found a few people from the class, and things started to get a little better.  Then we left the museum and went to get food... supposedly we were going to this really good Italian restaurant nearby.  Instead, we went to this weird French place that appeared to have nothing but tiny cold sandwiches.  I wanted to eat a big lunch so I wouldn't necessarily need to eat dinner (since dinner was at the art show later and was almost guaranteed to be borderline-inedible fancy crap), and tiny cold sandwiches was not going to work.  Fortunately, one of the other people in the class remembered that other restaurants exist and we went to one (the same place I went to last time, Potbelly's) and I got a huge Italian sub and some chips.  Much better.

After that, the day got better for a while.  Lunch was good, sitting around talking while waiting for our parking spot to be paid for wasn't bad, got to eat one of those "Choco Taco" things from an ice cream cart on the street.  The trip through the second museum wasn't bad at all--got to see the Ai Weiwei exhibit (he's a Chinese artist who the government doesn't like very much... considering that he's taken pictures of himself giving the finger to the US and Chinese governments, I'm guessing the feeling is mutual. XD)  After that there was another drive (shorter this time) to the Mariott hotel where the art show/sale was taking place.  Students got to set up the paintings that people had brought in, and afterward we... were supposed to do other stuff, but I never actually was given anything to do, so I mostly just sat around bored until dinner started.  Dinner was, as predicted, borderline-inedible fancy crap.  Salad with random fruit in it, salmon/chicken with tons of asparagus randomly dumped on it, and some weird mushroom Hot Pocket, also with asparagus dumped on it.  Seriously, excessively-fancy chef people, most people do not want asparagus dropped on top of their food.  Take a lesson from actual restaurants and put it on another plate off to the side or something, if you really must put it there.  Of course, I couldn't eat any of that, so my "meal" was several slices of bread (it was good bread, at least) and a glass of water.  Then after the choir performance, they came out with the dessert, which was this ridiculously good cheesecake; a little circle of cheesecake with almond slices around the edges, several different fruits/berries on top of it, and whipped cream and this raspberry-ish sauce.  If that had been about twice the size that it was, it would've made up for how bad the rest of the meal was... it was that good.  After that, more sitting around and being bored (except for one brief time when the people who were bubble-wrapping the paintings left and I had to step in and do their job for a few minutes, heh) until we headed home.  The ride back home was pretty good... the car I was in got lost for a bit and then ended up wandering off to a different city to buy an aux cable for their car, so they could listen to the soundtracks from random musicals on the way home.  We didn't get back until 1:30 in the morning... XD

Friday was... okay, I guess.  Went to see the Shenanigans show, which was actually pretty funny (only a couple of jokes I didn't get this time, mostly related to the fact that I haven't seen/read The Hunger Games.)  Can't remember much else about Friday.  Saturday's DC trip turned out really good, amazingly; we went on a bus instead of the school cars/vans this time (since several different classes were going), and I ended up sitting with Ruth on the rides over and back.  We went to the in-museum restaurant and ate lunch together (which was really good--I had this orzo pasta salad with shrimp in it and some mushrooms/onions/peppers in balsamic vinegar, which were all amazingly good! Plus a regular salad and french fries), which was very expensive but good.  After that she had to go off to her drawing class's meeting, though, so for most of the rest of the time in the museum I was wandering around by myself.  It wasn't bad this time, though, since it wasn't a "got left behind and am now wandering around aimlessly" kind of wandering, more of a "actually looking at the museum stuff and drawing/writing about things, so I don't really need other people around that much for a while" wandering.  Saw a few other people from various classes throughout the day, and then toward the end I bumped into Ruth again in the Chinese pottery section.  By that time it was pretty close to time to leave, so we only got to see a couple more things (she hadn't seen the furniture section so I directed her to where that was, and then we both looked through the photography section which I hadn't seen yet) before going back out to the giant front steps to wait for the bus.  Overall, a great trip.  If only the day had ended shortly after we got back from that, Saturday would've been a great day (...as is, it was still probably the best day of this week, but it's not like it really had much competition for that.)  Instead... we got back early, and I made the mistake of going to the Halloween dance.

Which was terrible.  They had DJ Can't-Turn-The-Volume-Down-To-Save-His-Life in charge again, just like the first dance this year, and as usual the volume was way too high the whole time.  It may not have been quite as bad as it was in the first two dances, but he sure as hell never turned the volume down even after I went up and asked him.  As unimportant as it is to me actually enjoying a dance, the music wasn't even as good as usual; toward the end they played a few things that only barely even qualify as music (seriously... some girl screaming "oh my god" is not an instrument or singing or even a good sound effect.)  They even played that obnoxious "Party Rock" song again for the 39376th time.  And this is the stuff that the guy who complains about the music at other dances being not-so-good picked out? Yeah... a little hypocritical there, I think.  Only actually got to dance with someone once (one girl actually came up and asked me, amazingly enough)... every time I thought I might actually be able to ask a girl to dance, the exact girl I was going to ask always disappeared.  Yeah... it was a pretty depressing dance.  The only good part was the costumes people dressed up in, honestly... if not for that it would have probably been the worst dance of the year, or at least tied with the first one.

As for general stuff rather than stuff from specific days... my "girls I might ask on dates" list has shriveled way into next-to-nothing now.  I can no longer imagine a date (much less an actual relationship) with one of the girls I've liked for a while going very well... there's just too many issues there and I don't think things would ever work out with the two of us.  It doesn't help that I can't figure out what she thinks of me, so I don't even know if she would be even remotely interested in going on a date with me (probably not.  I'm honestly not sure if she even considers me a friend.)  Plus, she probably won't even be here next year, so if it did actually work out and we ended up dating or whatever... she suddenly wouldn't be there for my last year of school here.  It's basically a "nothing good can ever come of this" situation with her.

There's still Ruth, but... I still feel weird about the possibility of asking her on a date after the whole "not interested in relationships yet" thing from last year.  I mean, I guess maybe she could've changed her mind by now (it has been a year, after all), but I have no way of knowing that, so I'm really afraid to even bring up the possibility of going on another date or something... I just have no way of knowing whether it would be a good idea or not.  I mean, I definitely like her and would definitely like to go on more dates with her, but I don't want to freak her out or anything and I really don't want to go through all the trouble of asking someone on a date (and it is really hard for me, even now that I've actually done it a few times before) just to get yet another "no" in response...

There've been a few other girls this semester that I've briefly thought of asking on dates, but I somehow always manage to convince myself that it would be a bad idea within a week of getting the thought.  And the one time so far that I didn't do that, it ended up not working out anyway (though thankfully the homecoming dance turned out great even without me having someone to go to it with.)  I don't know what the problem is here... it's really annoying, though, whatever it is.

Random wanderings around SVU and Buena Vista

Yeah... I'm not good at remembering to update this regularly, am I? Oh well... haven't had so much to say lately anyway, it'd be kind of silly to post "Hey, I ate food today" or "I talked to a girl today" or whatever when that was all that really happened, nothing really big. XD

But yeah... this weekend's turned out to be mostly okay, despite there being absolutely nothing go on around SVU lately.  Ended up randomly ending up in one of the girls' mods the other night and got to watch a movie and a half; saw pretty much all of Hairspray and then about half of The Princess and the Frog (...which I now need to figure out how to watch the other half of, since it feels really weird to just have to leave in the middle of a movie and be unable to finish it... even if it is because it was 1 AM and I had to leave or the SVU Honor Code Cops would come after me. XD)  Got some homework done and did laundry yesterday, since it was Saturday and there really wasn't much else to do... and then today, I ended up finally trying something aside from the Italian BMT at Subway--I used one of my coupons and got a 6-inch BMT along with a 6-inch of the Tuscan Chicken Melt, which is apparently only going to be around for October.  It was pretty good, especially the sauce (which was balsamic vinegar based.)  I think the Italian BMT is still my favorite out of the subs I've tried, though.

I also ended up going for a walk around Buena Vista, managing to find that random trail alongside the Maury River again... along with a road sign graveyard! Here's a couple pictures of it:

 This is what I first saw, after walking past a bunch of old school supplies and stuff (those dark blue chairs, some of which were broken... also desks, including some of the big teachers' desks that go at the front of the classrooms.  And cars.)


But yeah... it's a big pile of old stop signs.  And a few other signs, but mostly stop signs.  Some of them don't even look like they've been damaged or anything, so I'm not sure why they were throwing them out...


Another view of the stop sign graveyard. They still have the clumps of dirt on the bottom of the signposts and everything... weird.

And here's a SECOND stop sign graveyard a little further past the first one.  This one has a huge sign of some sort, along with a speed limit sign and some street signs too...


Also a little pile of decapitated stop signs on the left there. XD





Yep... stop-sign graveyard.  After that, I grabbed the only sign I could find that would fit in my backpack (a street sign for "Factory Street") and then continued the walk along the side of the river, and eventually turned around and headed back into town... walking back along the railroad tracks this time instead of on the regular streets.  So much old stuff hidden back in the far edges of Buena Vista.  It was a pretty good walk, ended up taking from around 1:45 or 2:00 until around 2:45 to get back to my house here on campus.  I really need to walk more.

Homecoming!

Yeah... I pretty much missed or ignored every homecoming activity this year except for the dance, but that's okay.  Most of them were either uninteresting (sports games) or wouldn't really work for me (paint war where you were supposed to bring a white shirt + long pants... I don't own either.)  I did sort of want to go to the concert, but... that ended up not working out, due to crowd/nowhere-to-sit issues as usual.  At least I didn't have to pay to get in, so I could just show up and see if it was possible instead of having to waste money on something I wouldn't have been able to stay for.  Hopefully the Christmas concert works out better for me; maybe I'll find someone who'd be okay with going to it with me (maybe a date idea...?) and not have to worry about crowd freakout issues that time.

Anyway... this week has been pretty good for the most part.  I actually did manage to ask someone to the homecoming dance, though it took a couple of tries--the girl I asked was in my Spanish class, and I had written up this little note (in Spanish!) asking her to go to the dance with me... but my original plan kinda fell apart because since she's not technically taking the class, she doesn't have to be there for tests (which is all we did on Friday.)  So I ended up bumping into her after the concert instead and giving her the note thingie at that time, since she was in the concert (she plays the flute, I think.  Maybe some other wind instrument... I can't remember for sure.)  She opened it up and read over it and then looked really shocked and excited-ish for a moment when she realized what it said... but then she told me that she didn't feel comfortable going to the dance with me because of the age difference between us (I'm not sure exactly how old she is, but I'm guessing I'm at least 6 years older.)  This was the first time I'd run into that problem; I know I went on dates with mostly 18/19-year-olds last year and none of them ever had any issues with it.  I guess that's just one of those things that's different for different people, how much of an age gap there can be before it gets creepy.  At least I managed to actually ask, though; I felt a little bad about it immediately afterward, but overall it went fairly well considering that she said no.  I hope she's still okay with talking to me and stuff though, we seem to get along fairly well and I'd like to at least be friends with her even if going on dates and such isn't an option.

Speaking of feeling bad about it immediately afterward... during that brief period, I happened to bump into Ruth and that led to one of the most amazing long conversations we've had in a long time.  Sometimes, last year anyway, I just didn't quite feel comfortable talking to her about certain things (like dating issues and that sort of thing) and wasn't sure how she'd react to seeing me in a really bad mood, but apparently this year something's changed there, because I feel like I can talk to her about anything now and not feel weird or uncomfortable bringing things up, even things that I worried about last year.  She seems to be really good at talking through situations, figuring stuff out (especially with people's mental issues, problems they have with certain things, and stuff like that), and making me feel better when I do end up in a kind of rough situation (rejection, etc.)... and before too long I didn't feel too bad about it at all.  And then we pretty much kept talking late into the night until she started getting a little too cold and had to go home. XD

But yeah... sometimes I really need those long conversations at random times with good friends.  I'm kind of worried that I'll just lose track of people after I graduate, but hopefully I'll be able to keep in contact at least somewhat after that and not just... never see any of my friends from here again.  Of course, people who will still be here after I graduate I guess I could always come up here and visit sometimes, since it's not far away and I'll have access to a car when I'm back home... maybe that could work?

Oh yeah, and the homecoming dance? It actually turned out amazingly well even though I didn't have a date to go with.  It started out kind of depressing, since there were so few people there, but after a little while (maybe 15-20 minutes or so?) some people I knew started to show up and I ended up doing a lot of talking with both Ruth and another new friend I've made recently.  Who both happen to be redheads with glasses, oddly enough. XD
But anyway, this homecoming dance was easily the best dance we've had here this semester so far.  Having people to talk to (and occasionally dance with... I even was able to remember enough of what I learned in my dance club/class things to waltz with Ruth once!) really makes the difference between a crappy dance and one of the best ones so far, it seems... the last two I occasionally had people to talk to but they never hung around for long, and I rarely (if ever) was able to find anyone to dance with, aside from a few girls who actually came up and asked me for once (I'm so glad that some girls actually do that, by the way.  More girls should ask guys to dance instead of just blindly sticking with that "wait helplessly for guy to ask me" crap they've been brainwashed into their whole lives.)  This time, I actually manage to ask people to dance! Okay, only two people, and we only really danced once each (plus the last 30 seconds or so at the end of a song the first time I asked one of them... yeah, I take a while sometimes XD), but that's still a massive improvement in the "actually being able to ask someone to dance" area compared to the other dances we've had this semester.  Definitely had a lot of fun, and I'm glad I decided to go after all despite my lack of a date.  Hopefully this semester's "dances get better every time" pattern continues; it'd be a nice change after last semester's horrible "worse and worse dances every time (aside from the honor ball which was the best dance we've had since I've been here)" downward spiral pattern.

Past few days have been... pretty good, for the most part!

Yeah... the Mormons had their general conference Saturday and Sunday, so barely anyone was around.  So I had plenty of time to get all my homework done (Printmaking, 2D Design, and Spanish, and I actually got more Spanish homework done than I really needed to... turns out I did an extra worksheet that won't be due until we get through Chapter 15.  Whoops!)  I also got a bunch of drawings scanned in, thanks to some help from Ruth who let me use her scanner.  We also ended up talking for pretty much 2 hours straight... which is something that really needed to happen.  I've seriously missed actually having time to sit down and talk to her for a long time, rather than just 15-20 minutes or so during lunch or dinner occasionally, and I think this was probably the first or second time it's happened this year so far.  Still, ended up being the best Sunday I've had in a very long time, scanning stuff in and talking (sometimes to the point of being distracted from the scanning part XD) and goofing off and so on.  She even randomly read one of my stories that I had sort-of started working on last year, which came up when I was talking about one of the pictures I had drawn recently (which had the main character of that story in it, plus other stuff)... I didn't even really ask if she wanted to read it, she just plopped herself down in the seat in front of my laptop after I had opened it and read through the whole thing pretty much as soon as we were done scanning things in.  She actually seemed to like it and told me I should continue working on it, which was good to hear since I really hadn't touched it since December 2011 and wasn't sure if I should keep at it or not.  I mean, I want to write something set in the First Nherbi eventually, and this has been pretty much the only idea I've had for that sort of thing in a while... so why not? Maybe I'll actually finish the first chapter now. XD

I've also bumped into a few more new people recently, some of which I managed to talk to for a while.  It's still so weird to me that I can just walk up to random strangers and start talking to them now, but it keeps happening every other day or so it seems.  I've also drawn a lot of Papoogs lately, for some odd reason.  They can be ridiculously cute when drawn the right way, as I've found out recently.

Still haven't managed to ask any girls on a date yet.  It seems like most people I've been thinking of asking are going to be in the concert this Friday, and so of course can't be asked to go to it with me (apparently I know a lot of girls who sing or play some sort of instrument)... either that or they're someone I'm not sure I should ask on another date yet or not.  I guess I could ask someone to go to the homecoming dance with me, but... I still feel weird about asking a girl to a dance, for some reason.  I'm not sure why, since I can actually sort of dance now (as long as it's not the "random dancing" people do to most fast songs) and maybe even teach the girl to do some of the ballroom-type dancing we've been learning in these dance club meetings... but yet I still feel like I'd end up dragging things down for whichever girl I ask, just because I still kind of feel like I "can't dance" for some reason.  I'm not sure why... especially since I'm getting so much better at actually dancing (learned even more steps/etc. for country swing tonight at the dance club meeting; those super-complicated-looking dips that I thought I'd never be able to do? I can do several different kinds of those without always screwing up now.  Pretty amazing.)

Maybe starting to figure out what my crowd-freakout issue really is?

Yeah... today I was talking to someone while working on some Printmaking homework and at one point my freak-out-in-crowds issue came up during the conversation.  As it turns out, the person I was talking to just happens to have the same problem!  Wasn't sure if it was the exact same thing at first, but talking about it more I found that pretty much every single thing matched up; the only difference whatsoever was that the "freakout symptoms" when it actually happens are a bit different (she tended to do more crying/emotional stuff more often while I usually just freeze up and get silent and twitchy; pretty much the same aside from that one difference.)

Apparently what she has is called "Social Anxiety," and is an actual recognized psychological disorder.  Literally every last detail about this thing was the same between the two of us, all the way down to the variety of different factors involved in what sets it off (number of people around, how the room was set up, where I am in that room, whether I have someone I know to sit with, etc. etc.) and ways to deal with it (understanding how it works makes it easier, as does having people to talk to/sit with/etc. rather than being alone or among strangers)... the absolute only difference there was is the difference in some of the "freak-out symptoms," and even some of those matched up.  And apparently there are medications to treat this thing, which apparently tone down the effects of the freak-outs and make them happen less often or in ways that are more manageable.  I'm seriously considering looking into this; the thought that I can actually get something that will help with this freaking out in crowds issue and make it easier to deal with crowded room situations is pretty amazing and could probably make my life here at school (and afterward) even better than it already is.  I mean, imagine if the reason why I have so many problems at dances (asking girls, etc.) and when it comes to dating-type stuff (again, actually asking girls) has something to do with the same thing that always makes me freak out in crowds? If I could take some pills that would tone down that sort of thing, who knows what kind of great stuff could happen? I mean, if the side-effects of it (...because there's always side-effects with these things) weren't too bad, anyway.  I'm not going to go through constant nausea/vomting/upset stomach/diarrhea (or worse) just to freak out less in crowds... so hopefully whatever side-effects exist for this sort of thing aren't too severe, if I get any at all.  I mean, it's probably too soon to go ahead and diagnose myself with something (I'd need to go see an actual psychologist and figure that out first), but still... that'd have to be one hell of a coincidence for me to just happen to have the exact same problems as someone who was diagnosed with this social anxiety thing and not have the same thing.

Other than that... today was a pretty good day, though uneventful early on.   The Mormons were mostly all off watching general conference all day, so not many people were around... though a small group were gathered right outside my door to watch part of it. Which included a girl who appeared to be lying on the floor sleeping, only to suddenly sit up for the closing prayer... and then *plop* right back down into her seemingly-asleep position once again right after the prayer was over.  I'm not sure why, but I found this (and the rest of her rolling-around-on-the-floor antics earlier... but the "sit up... wait... plop back down" thing especially) to be ridiculously cute.  Kind of like a cat rolling around doing goofy things, actually.  XD

Did 2D Design and Printmaking homework today--three Bill Clinton portraits earlier, and three Cthulhu prints on the nice Rives paper later on.  The last of the three Cthulhus turned out really well, so I'll probably make that one my BAT print (the best of the practice ones that you use as an example for what the rest of your "real" prints will be like.)  I also got a good load of Spanish homework done earlier on; not sure exactly how much I still need to work on, but it's not much if I remember right, maybe one more sheet or so and then I can go back through and do corrections (which are part of our grade; otherwise I wouldn't ever do them, just like going to tutoring last year. XD)  Most of my homework for Monday is finished, and if I have much more to do it'll be easy to get it done tomorrow since... it's a Sunday, there's nothing to do on Sundays.  I may end up going to at least one of the Mormon general conference meetings tomorrow, though it depends on how things work out (I'm sure I'll at least be able to see the second half; maybe part of the first during lunch if they're showing it in the dining hall.)

Also ate at Subway today for the first time since I've been sick; Italian BMT as always (I keep wanting to try another sub, but the BMT is just so good! I can't resist it sometimes! XD), though this time the avocado was actually fresh-looking (no brown crust) so I added some of that instead of just getting the usual meat, cheese, veggies, and chipotle sauce.  Really good sub; glad I walked down there instead of trying to stay in the dining hall and eat mediocre pasta, especially since there weren't many people in there to talk to.  For a while I considered walking over to where this one girl I know lives (in the red apartments) just to see how she's been, since I haven't seen her at all since the day I bumped into her and ended up talking for hours... but right when I got within 10 feet of her door, I suddenly had to use the bathroom, and it'd be weird to just randomly show up at someone's place and immediately ask to use the bathroom.  So I guess I'll have to save that for another day.

MENACE TO SOCIETY

Heh.  Title comes from something very odd I just found out about the LDS church: apparently they consider unmarried 26-year-old guys to be a "menace to society."  Yeah.  Let's hope the Mormons around here don't take that particular bit of the church's statements too seriously.

Anyway... the parts of this week that happened after my last post have been pretty good so far.  Went to see Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat with Ruth yesterday night, and that was pretty good; definitely glad I got to go see it.  Lots of goofy moments both in the musical itself and the one-act play that came before it ("maybe I'm not a white guy on a horse!"), and I was not expecting all the random changes to different musical styles and such throughout the play... going from '20s gangsters to a hoedown in cowboy hats to hippies (one guy even had a giant 'fro) to Elvis to French to Jamaican in one play? Definitely did not expect that to happen.  I'm kind of amazed they put together everything for this (including all the practicing and such) in just three weeks... that must've been insanely hard for the people in the play to pull off, especially with classes ongoing the whole time.

Anyway, after the play ended and everyone started going home, I ended up heading over to the library instead because another one of my friends wanted help with studying for an Art History test, and I was apparently the only person she knows who had taken Art History who wasn't in her class (she didn't manage to get into any of the study groups, or something along those lines.)  That went okay, since I think she knows the stuff pretty well and I helped fill in some blanks here and there... though we didn't actually get around to going over most of the stuff before it got too late and everyone had to leave the library.  Oh well.  It also turns out that I left a few papers in the Art  History book after all; I thought I had removed them all after last semester, but apparently there were still two or three (two test review sheets, and one of notes and drawings) that had stuck in there better and were still there when she got it.  Whoops. XD

Also made a trip to Wal-Mart today to get a replacement for my old toothbrush head, which has been getting a little gross lately and probably is well past needing a replacement.  Plus I used it while I was sick and don't want to re-introduce any of whatever it was that got me sick back into my system that way.  There was also a lot of talking involved; I ended up hanging around with one of the girls I met during the progressive lunch last weekend, and found that she's only 17 years old (!)--really was not expecting that, I would've guessed more along the lines of 19-20 or so based on the fact that she doesn't act anything like the typical teenager at all.  Also ran into a surprising number of people I know in the store; unfortunately, this also meant that I found out that I won't be able to tag along with another girl (and some friends) to go see a movie this weekend after all, since her car was already full before I asked about it on Facebook due to people saying they wanted to go through text-messages and such instead.  Though apparently I'm going to be on the "waitlist" for the next time she decides to get a bunch of people together to go see a movie; it's always nice to have people remember you exist, so let's hope she actually does by the time that next movie comes up.   But yeah... I ended up getting that toothbrush head and a box of salsa-flavored Wheat Thins, which are really good.  I should probably stop eating them and put them away before I end up eating the whole box right here.

Printmaking and 2D Design homework: still tons of it! I spent an hour or so printing multiple Cthulhus from my woodblock, trying to figure out how to get them to turn out really well so I can start using the good paper.  I've managed to get them to somewhat-consistently turn out actually black rather than a dark patchy grayish color like what I got the first few times, though I'm not sure if I've gotten good enough at it to churn out multiple copies that look exactly the same (or close enough, at least.)  And apparently I need to resize my Bill Clinton face for the 2D Design assignment, since the assignment's supposed to focus more on the face/shoulders/etc. and I had his entire upper body and a globe he was holding.  That shouldn't be too much of a problem, though, since that assignment doesn't take forever and I can actually work on it on Sundays (since all I need is a Sharpie and tracing paper, one of which I already have and the other of which I can easily grab a buttload of tomorrow or on Saturday and bring home with me.)

And finally, dating-related stuff... because there's always that, or at least me worrying about it.  I'm sort of considering asking someone on a date for tomorrow, though I am a bit worried that that's a little too short notice.  I could also ask her to go on a date with me Saturday night instead, since the only part of the Mormon general conference that's airing after 6 or so on Saturday is the Priesthood part (which is intended for guys only, so there's a chance that girls won't be watching it and thus will be able to do other things instead.)  Of course, I'm not sure if Mormons are okay with going on dates during general conference or not, so I may just go with the super-short-notice Friday night date idea instead.  If I do end up doing this (...and I pretty much only have one chance to even attempt it... unless I happen to see her at lunch or something, then maybe it'll be two chances tomorrow), I'm thinking we could walk down into Buena Vista together and go eat at someplace not too expensive (I'm thinking Subway; partly because I really like Subway and partly because I actually have enough points on my card to get her a free sub, assuming she'd want a 6-inch rather than a footlong anyway), and then after that come back up to campus and watch the Men in Black movie together.  Seems like that would work pretty well, so I just need to hope I'll actually be able to ask her (and that she isn't going to be busy with other stuff in the period before the movie starts... I may have to leave the social dance club meeting early for this, but I should still be able to go for at least part of it since it's starting super early tomorrow--at 5:00!--and usually dates and stuff are more 6:00-7:00-ish in my experience.  Plus the movie is at 9:30, so that leaves some time for walking down there and back, talking, eating, talking, and even more talking... maybe some extra walking around town or up on campus if the meal and initial walks don't take up the whole time?)

I seem to be getting into a habit of not posting anything here... again

Yeah, I guess I forgot to post here for a few days there... oh well.  I'm no longer sick at all (still an occasional lingering cough, but it's less and less often now and not nearly as bad as before; I don't have to be drinking something 24/7 to avoid coughing and sore throats anymore, which is always good) and have pretty much gotten caught up on my homework (just got a woodblock Cthulhu done yesterday, and I should get started on the 2D Design stuff later today if I have time, or early/mid-tomorrow if I can't find any time today), so classes and such should go pretty well from here on assuming I don't get sick again or get buried under another homework-avalanche anytime soon.  I also went ahead and registered for classes for next semester, though I'm not sure how that's going to turn out.  I'll apparently have to do my senior art show thing next semester after all, rather than next year, but that might work okay... depends on how much other homework I have, I guess.   At least I'm not waitlisted for 3579 different classes this time (that's seriously the first time that ever happened, me signing up for classes and not being waitlisted for any of them!)

I've been continuing to go to the social dance club meetings, and I've gotten a lot better at the whole "actually dancing" thing.  I still have a lot of trouble going up to girls and actually asking them to dance, but sometimes I've actually been able to pull it off, even when the girls are total strangers or close to it (which I was never able to do before)... I just need more practice, I guess, though I don't think it's something I'm ever going to actually be good at (I might eventually get to the point where I can do it, but it'll still be really hard and nervousness-inducing.)  The actual dancing is quickly becoming the easier part, though... yesterday I attempted one of the more complicated moves from the country swing dancing we learned a while ago, and I somehow managed to pull it off without even realizing that I was doing it.  I just did this entire long complicated chain of dancing stuff unconsciously.  Seriously... I never thought anything like that would ever happen, since I've always had so much trouble with any kind of dancing and just could not get it... but apparently when I get enough practice I suddenly become able to do it, and once I'm able to do something for a while I just kind of pick it up well enough that I can do it without even thinking much about it.  I guess I really can't say "I can't dance" anymore, at least as long as I'm talking about dancing that involves actual steps instead of the weird random dancing that most people do to fast songs.

Still haven't gotten around to really asking a girl on a date yet this semester, though hopefully I'll be able to at some point.  I had originally planned on asking a girl from my Spanish class to go to the play with me sometime this week, but then while talking to her the other day I found out that she'd already gone and didn't have money to spend on going to see it a second time, so I ended up not asking her after all.  I still want to try asking her to go on an actual date at some point, though; she actually kind of seems to like me (we've known each other for less than a month and she's already waving and saying hi to me before I even get a chance to say hi to her first, for one thing XD), and we're both transfer students who went to community college for a while first, so we do have some things in common.  I don't know her extremely well yet, but she does seem nice and we get along pretty well, so maybe that could work?  Gah... I guess I'm back to the first semester "trying to figure out who I would even want to go on a date with and then somehow managing to ask them" stage yet again.

I did manage to ask Ruth to go with me to the play, but I'm not sure if that really would count as a date or not.  I haven't actually called it a "date" (I'm honestly kind of afraid to even say the word around Ruth now, knowing that she wasn't interested in relationship-type stuff yet last year even after we had gone on several dates... I mean, it's been a full year since then so things may have changed on her end, but I still get paranoid about that sort of thing and afraid I'll screw things up somehow if I go ahead and start asking her on dates again even after this long...), and I just asked her over text-message if we could go to the play together, after mentioning in another message that I hadn't gone yet because I was worried about the crowd issue and not being able to find a seat.  So I'm guessing it's probably not an actual date or anything.  That's okay though; I'm fine with just going and doing stuff as friends, as long as I actually get a chance to be around Ruth at all--due mostly to schedule weirdness, it seems like we barely see each other this semester, and there's only been a few times when I've actually had a chance to talk with her for any really significant length of time so far.  Plus, this way I know I'll get to see the play without having to worry about not being able to find somewhere to sit, which is always a good thing.

Speaking of dating/girls-related things, I actually managed to overhear two guys talking about that sort of stuff last night, and amazingly they didn't sound like total creeps! That's seriously the first time that's ever happened.  Every other time I've happened to overhear guys talking about girls they liked and stuff along those lines, it always degenerated into this "hurr hurr, she's hot" kind of thing (if it didn't start that way, anyway... and half the time it seems like guys start that bad and get worse), but somehow these two guys actually didn't say anything really creepy at all and actually seemed to care about the girls they were talking about.

Pretty much the best Saturday in a LONG time

Like the title says... today was pretty much a great day all the way through, despite being a Saturday (which are usually boring as all hell.)  At first I was planning on getting up early and going to the service project, but it turned out getting up at 8:00 was just too early... and then when my other alarm went off at 8:30, that was also too early... and so I ended up sleeping until around 10:00 before I finally got up.  A while later, I found out that there was a Marvel superhero movie marathon going on over at Chestnut House (one of the girls' living areas) that was going to last until around 6 PM.  I wanted to go down into Buena Vista and walk around during the "progressive lunch" thing that was going on today, though... so I ended up deciding to do both! Walked into town and wandered around a bit, then eventually went by Uncorked (where I got a free bottle of water and some non-free but really good chips) and then bumped into a big group of girls right as I was leaving.  I tagged along with them for a little bit as they walked around in Alexander's and saw a bunch of random stuff for sale (I may have to come back over there at some point; they had stuff like a computer tower for sale for $20, books for 50 cents, and an old Atari system), and then the group split up for a little bit because two girls (plus me) wanted to go to the Original Italian Restaurant while the rest of the group went to Bluedog Art Cafe.  I ended up splitting a pizza (a large, with pepperoni and garlic) with the two girls; the pizza was really good and I actually had people to talk to for once (unlike pretty much every other time I go out to eat, it seems), so it ended up being a great lunch overall.

After I got back on campus, I headed over to Chestnut just in time to see most of Thor (though I did miss some of the early parts of the movie, unfortunately.)  I also got to see Captain America as well as seeing The Avengers for the second time; usually I don't re-watch movies often and watching a movie again so soon after the first time seems weird to me, but this time it didn't bother me at all (especially since I knew more about what had happened in a couple of the previous movies this time around, so I understood some of the references and flashbacks and stuff that weren't so clear the first time.)  I've really missed getting the chance to randomly go watch movies at somebody's house; it happened so often last year (Ruth was usually involved... not surprising considering she's always suggesting movies/books/etc. to people... XD), which makes it seem kind of weird that stuff like that hasn't happened as much this year.  Well, there was that one time when I randomly ended up watching episodes My Little Pony with a couple of people in my own house because there just wasn't anything else to do, but that's not quite the same. XD

And then after that, I did some homework.  2D Design stuff mostly, since that required access to the not-open-on-Sundays art building (due to requiring compasses, rulers, and fancy paper) while none of my other homework does.  We had to make a couple of "Golden Rectangles," one of which had to have a "Golden Spiral" in it, with a couple of little bars between the two.  Not that hard of an assignment at all... once I figured out how the heck to get it to work, which thankfully I managed to find someone to help me with.  I just couldn't figure out exactly how I was supposed to be using the compass on my own, and I kept trying to make the lines/squares/rectangles just by measuring the sides when we supposed to be doing a bunch of weird compass/line/angle stuff to get them right.  It turned out okay in the end, though.  Oddly enough, I found that making the really small curves of the spiral (which were said to be harder because the compass supposedly just doesn't work as well with smaller circles) was much easier than getting the big curves to work right; my small curves turned out almost perfect (so much so that I actually made a few more smaller squares just so I could do more of the small arcs) while my bigger ones were always at least a little bit off in some way no matter what I did.  Weird.  I guess that's just me not working the way most people expect things to work again. XD

Other people's relationships sprouting up everywhere like mushrooms after it rains

Yeah... that pretty much describes how it's been here lately.  It seems like every day (or multiple times a day) another girl I know suddenly is in a relationship with some guy, often not even a guy that hangs around with her a lot but some guy I have literally never seen her around until just the past week or so.  This has happened so freaking many times lately, I can't even count the exact number... and half the time it's a girl that I had the thought of attempting to ask on a date (or at least just ask to dance once or something), too.  None of the girls I've really seriously had a crush on so far, but I wouldn't be surprised if the insta-relationship plague started infecting some of them too, at the rate it seems to be spreading to everyone who is not me.  Seriously, I'm surrounded by guys who are either in a relationship, engaged, about to be in a relationship, and so on... and all they ever do is complain about their (comparatively minor) problems.  Come on, you think you have problems with girls? Maybe you should ask the 26-year-old guy who's never had a girlfriend (and didn't even go on a date until he was 25) about what a real problem with dating/girls/etc. is like, since you probably have never actually experienced one.  Except maybe a bad breakup... but since breakups seem to lead almost immediately into another relationship (or at least the possibility of one... and even that is something I've never been lucky enough to have, as far as I'm aware) around here, even that's kind of a wussy problem compared to the kind of crap I have to live through.

Even worse, today it seemed like I just could not avoid all the relationship "problems" talk.  Or just relationship talk in general.  Seriously, every freaking time I wandered somewhere in an attempt to find people to talk to, I would always walk in on someone talking about some girl they want to ask on a date, or trying to come up with ideas for a date, or something along those lines.  And most of their "problems" seem so insignificant to me... and I have problems with a lot of small things sometimes, so if somebody else's problems are so small even I just kind of laugh and say "wait, that's all?", you know it's a pretty insignificant problem.  It's like if I kept running into people who buy lottery tickets, and most of them have already won the lottery but yet can't find anything to say but "what am I gonna spend it all on!?"  Meanwhile, I never even get a winning lottery ticket in the first place despite buying just as many as any of them.  Okay, maybe not just as many, if "buying a lottery ticket" = "asking girls on dates," since I haven't actually gotten around to that even once this year... but still, most people don't have a giant death-machine obstacle course in front of their hypothetical lottery-ticket store.  Heck, some people even have other people go in and buy their tickets for them.  I've never had anyone offer to set me up on a date with some girl.  NEVER.  Supposedly this happens all the time, but despite having so many female friends, apparently not a single one of them has ever thought "hey, maybe this lonely single guy who always mentions his terrible luck with girls might appreciate it if somebody did the hard part (actually asking) for him and set him up on a date?"  And yet these guys who have no difficulty asking girls on their own get extra help like that all the freakin' time.  Ugh.

It doesn't help that it feels like I rarely ever run into any of my really close friends this year. I think I'm probably having Ruth withdrawal symptoms at this point, I've see her so rarely this semester... I'm actually missing her more now than I did over the summer, since at least then there was no way to see her since she was a gazillion miles away.  Now she's literally right here in my backyard (okay, in the Lofts, so a little further than that) and I still never see her... maybe very briefly once or twice throughout the week but that's been just about it this year, I never really get to talk to her anymore because we've both been so busy and our schedules don't match up well on most days... it's been really awful for me.  It's almost feeling like she's just been kind of cut off from me, though I know (or at least I hope) that it's not intentional... I can't help but get those horrible paranoid worst-case-scenario thoughts about the situation even though I should know better and realize that it's just schedule conflicts and business, there's no reason for her to actually be avoiding me or anything like that.  But I still worry about stuff like that... I just can't help it.  :(

Aside from that, today was... eh.  It started out okay, then turned kinda depressing, then eventually somehow managed to get a little better (though I honestly can't figure out what did it... I kept running into the depressing relationship-talk all day, and nothing especially good ever happened for me throughout the whole day either.)  I really need to quit eating at Subway so often, since it's eating away my money much faster than I would like, but sometimes there's just nothing to eat on campus (dining hall food sucks sometimes + I'm not going to pay money to eat that food by myself or with hordes of strangers unless it's really good that day... and sometimes I just don't feel like eating at Jonzzey's, especially when the "by myself or with hordes of strangers" problem is a factor.)

On a more positive note, I'm not really sick anymore (just occasional coughing, but today was the first day I could go without Advil or Dayquil or no-name nose decongestants for the entire day without any difficulty.)  I finished reading my second-ever volume of Sailor Moon manga either this morning or last night, I can't remember which for sure (I may have forgotten to mention that I grabbed that when I made another trip to Wal-Mart recently, when I had run out of drink mixes and stuff again... I don't think I posted about that trip at all, though I can't remember for sure.  If I didn't, well... I mentioned it just now. XD)   I also drew a pretty awesome picture of Kekyu Arghenplaffer and a small army of Yagyuoo, along with this weird swirly space-esque background on the right side.  I'll have to scan that one in (along with Damuru-J and possibly the map) the next time I have access to a scanner.

On a completely random note, I finally figured out what the "stop-light" theme of the first (and crappiest) dance this year was all about.  Apparently it was supposed to be "wear red if you're taken, green for single, and yellow for... something complicated."  Some sort of weirdo Mormon relationship code, pretty much.  This was not explained anywhere that I could see, at least not until someone (who had... somehow found out about it) posted it on the SVU blog.  I guess it was only mentioned during orientation stuff.  Still, I finally know why Michelle thought wearing both red and green would confuse people... the idea that this was supposed to be confusing somehow was what confused me at the time, not the color combination itself. XD

And back on the dreaded subject of relationship crap again: I really want to ask someone on a date sometime soon... actually going on dates is another thing I've really missed from last year (or first-semester last year, really), and I really would like  to get a chance to actually do that again.  Unfortunately the problem I have right now is not the usual "unable to ask girl" issue, but instead a harder problem to solve: I don't know who to even ask on a date in the first place.  I guess I could always ask someone I don't know very well, but... the problem there is obvious (I would have a very hard time asking someone I don't know very well on a date, and plus... if I asked a girl I didn't know very well, I wouldn't know her very well, so I would really have no idea what to expect or even if I actually would want to go on a date with that girl in the first place.)  A few of girls that I was sort of thinking about asking seem to be already taken at this point, or "soon to be already taken" in some cases.  Another girl I like is in an "I don't want to worry about dating" mood at the moment, which pretty much ensures that some random guy from out of nowhere is going to swoop in and become her boyfriend within the next week, so I might as well consider her "soon to be already taken" as well (seriously, that has seriously happened every time I've seen or heard a girl say they're giving up on dating this year.  Within a week, no exaggeration.  It's ridiculous.)  There's Ruth, who I would really like to go on dates with again, but... I'm not sure if a full year is long enough to wait after the "I'm not interested in a relationship right now" thing.  I mean, technically I wouldn't even be asking for a relationship right away (who would? that would be just rushing into things), but I'm worried that even asking her on another date might be taken that way.  And there's another girl who I had a pretty big crush on last year (one of several that I've liked pretty much the whole time since I've been here, along with Ruth and another girl who probably wouldn't go on a date with me due to Mormon issues), and who people kept pointing me toward last year for some reason, but... I honestly don't have any idea what she really thinks of me despite her claims to the contrary, and (if, by some freak chance, I do ask her on a date and by an even more unlikely freak chance it develops into something more than that) the idea of a long-term relationship with her seems like it could be a bad idea, for several different reasons which I won't go into here where anyone can read.  I mean, I don't usually like to think that far ahead in the future, but there are some things that just kind of... make you think that far ahead, in a "wait a second, if this works like that, then this other thing could never happen" kind of way.
Plus, I think she's actually in the play that's running over the next couple weekends, so she'd be busy during the usual date times and I wouldn't be able to ask her to go to the play with me, which is the "sort-of date idea" that I'm kind of bouncing around in my head right now.  Maybe if I do end up asking someone (and hopefully end up picking a girl who hasn't already seen the play by then...), we could go to eat somewhere first and then go to the play afterward? Or just go to the play and then go for a walk around afterward... it's funny, the guys who actually have dates are having so much trouble coming up with ideas while I randomly come up with two just off the top of my head like that.  Yeah... I still have to laugh at the guy who considers "I already have a date but don't know for sure what to do on that date" to be a serious problem.

Despite all the coughing, still a pretty good day

Yep... had classes (which generally went pretty well, though I'm not looking forward to the whopping eight printmaking assignments I'll need to pull off tomorrow... in addition to at least a few parts of other classes' assignments... yeah, the homework-avalanche is definitely getting started now), talked to people, went to another dance club meeting which went fairly well despite my inability to ask anyone to dance for some reason (and the fact that I'm still sick and had to leave early because of it.)  I've found that I still remember the basic steps of country swing pretty well and even managed to pick up on some of the newer stuff this time.  I'm guessing the main problem I had with asking people is that I just felt kind of bad about the whole sick thing, and didn't want to ask someone to dance with the guy who's coughing his lungs out the whole time.

After that, I went and watched The Avengers on the giant inflatable movie screen out in the field outside the dining hall.  Was definitely worth it, even though I was still coughing pretty much the whole time (the orange juice I brought with me and the lemon/honey cough drops I mooched off of Kaitlyn definitely helped in that area, though; there were times when I actually wasn't coughing! and when I did it usually didn't hurt much if at all.)  I had wanted to see the movie back when it first came out, but never really had an opportunity to... so now I guess I've made up for that, since seeing it on that giant screen is about as close to seeing a movie in a real theater as you can get (if not better.  No mysterious sticky spots under my feet out in that field, and stuff like that.)  Anyway... yeah, that was a great movie.  Definitely worth watching even with all the coughing and slightly-chilled-by-wind-ness that was going on.   I actually haven't seen any of the individual heroes' movies yet (Captain America, Iron Man 1 & 2, Hulk, Thor, etc... yeah, I don't see a lot of movies XD), but I still didn't have any trouble following what was going on.  And it was one of those movies that made me get that weird tingly feeling on the back of my head in some scenes, which is always a good thing (...I honestly don't know what that is, but I know I tend to get that when watching movies and kind of... unconsciously wondering what's going to happen next? I guess that'd be a good way to put it.)