I just fingerpainted Kirby on a neon green sheet of paper.

Yep... today at FHE (which, if you don't know, is basically "the Mormons get together in groups to do random stuff, and I tag along because I'm bored and have nothing else to do") they fingerpainted.  And I just happened to fingerpaint a Kirby standing in some grass with "FNRRF YGM SCHNISH!", a Num Power symbol, and a question mark.  Most of the rest of the group seemed pretty amazed by it... it looked a little crappy, but then again it was fingerpaint, so I guess it'd be hard to make it look really not-crappy.

Also, while sitting around in the Lofts with not much of anything to do, I saw a girl jump over the back of a couch and land on some guy's back, and another dive to the floor and start rolling around half-laughing and half-screaming because one of her friends accidentally(?) scared her.  Sometimes weird, random things happen when I'm bored.

Holy crap, that was probably the best dance ever.

Yeah... somehow, the dance yesterday actually turned out really, really well, despite how much I had been worrying about it during the past week or so.  The dance cards seemed like they'd be really weird at first, but once I actually got there and figured out how they worked it wasn't that bad (and it turns out that they didn't make everyone get theirs signed in the first few minutes or so--you got to keep them, and you could still get people to sign them all the way up until the dance with that number actually happened.)  Mine actually ended up being completely full by the end (all ten slots), amazingly enough... half of those were girls who came up and asked me to dance, and the other half was me actually asking girls, both of which rarely ever happen.  I even danced with a couple more girls when they were playing random songs in between the numbered dances, and though I did struggle a bit with the whole "actually dancing" thing at times I did manage to pull it off fairly well for the most part (and got to spin girls around, which is always fun. XD)  But yeah... somehow, this dance turned out really well even though I didn't end up having a date for it and I was really unsure about it at first.  I think I might actually try to continue learning how to dance so I don't just completely forget what I've managed to get so far; I know they have swing-dancing classes every week here, and at the ballroom classes earlier this week someone mentioned that they might try to set it up so that those can keep going throughout the semester too.  That might even help out a bit with my "nothing to do after supper on most days" boredom problems.

And afterward, I was pretty worn out and sweaty... and kind of hungry, since I hadn't eaten much beforehand.  So I went back up to my room and ordered a pizza (Domino's was doing this large-2-topping-pizza-for-$5.99 thing this week, so I got a lot of pizza... too much for me to eat in one meal, so I still have almost half of it left, heh.)

Scudding

The title comes from the fact that the word "scud" is actually used in the Iliad.  Of course, I can't see that word without thinking of either Zexion (aka Captain Scud, as he's the only member of Organization XIII who can't levitate, only scud very quickly across the ground) or someone rapidly sliding across a linoleum floor on their socks or slick shoes, preferably with a squeegee.  Which apparently was really, really funny to a couple of people I was talking to in the library.

I've also continued taking those ballroom dancing classes, and today's class (swing) actually went surprisingly well.  This was the first one all week that I actually got the hang of pretty quickly, and I always managed to find someone to dance with (I even managed to actually ask girls to dance this time! no freaking out and freezing up!) and actually danced so much (and so quickly, at times) that I was more worn-out by the end of the class than I usually am after my volleyball class, or after a short walk.  Apparently there's going to be another one tomorrow at 3:00 or so, and for once I'm actually looking forward to it rather than kind of dreading it and wondering if I'll actually be able to keep up at all.  Even though I won't actually have a date for the dance tomorrow (...unless I ask someone at the last minute, which supposedly is okay for something like a dance according to someone I was talking to earlier), I'm still kind of looking forward to the dance itself, too... though I'm still worried about the overall weirdness of it.  I'll probably go, though... it's not like I'd have anything else to do if I didn't go, after all.

And now I have a tie, I guess.  One mysteriously appeared in my room at some point during the time I was away from it (between 8:30-ish and midnight), and whoever put it there left behind no indication as to where it came from or why it was sitting on my keyboard.  I guess it's possible that Rachael somehow had one delivered to my room, since she did say that she'd try to get me one before the dance when I was talking to her shortly before I asked her to go with me... but again, there wasn't a note left behind saying where it came from or how it got into my room or anything.  Just a tie sitting there on top of my keyboard when I came in.  Weird.

Finally managed to actually do it

"It" being asking someone to the dance, of course... it took a while (about a week this time... which means I broke my previous "taking a very long time to ask a girl out" record from last semester, which was just 3 days), but today ended up being the day where I realized "hey, just giving up is going to feel even worse so I should at least try the next chance I get" and just went up and asked her.  Which is, oddly enough, pretty similar to what happened the first time last semester (...though I think I actually freaked out about it more that time, despite taking much less time to actually get around to it... probably because it was the first time I'd really asked a girl to anything ever.)

But yeah... after a week of being unable to find her (or get her away from crowds of other people, or get a chance to talk to her for more than a few minutes) I finally asked her, and... I guess she said "maybe." XD

It turns out she wasn't entirely sure whether she's going to go to the dance or not, but she said that if she does go, she might go with me (and she said she'd at least dance with me a couple of times before she leaves, since she was planning on leaving early if she did go.)  And she also said she'd try to get me a tie, since the dance is more formal-ish than usual (tuxedos are "recommended," but if you don't have one a regular suit and tie works) and of course, I don't actually have a tie of my own.

So I guess I'm not undecided on going to the dance anymore, heh.  That probably wouldn't go over well, asking a girl to a dance and then not even showing up myself... which also means I should probably keep going to those ballroom dance classes they're having the rest of this week.  Today's went better than Monday's, but probably not quite as well as Tuesday's... I got a little nervous at first and freaked out a bit (probably because of the combination of how crowded the room was, the fact that the girl I wanted to ask out was actually there, and just my general nervousness about dancing), but once I actually managed to find people to dance with I did okay.  I'm at least getting the basic steps down, so I won't be completely lost at the dance... and heck, I might actually be able to do at least some of the more complicated stuff, like stopping after one step and spinning the girl during the waltz and that weird turning-to-the-side thing from the cha-cha.  So I figure I should at least be able to dance enough to not go into "freeze up and not move at all" mode during the dance, especially if I can find people to dance with (...well, other people to dance with besides the one that I know will be there, anyway. XD  Especially since she's leaving early.)  And apparently not every dance will involve the dance cards that you have to sign ahead of time--only every other dance.  So there will be some times where I won't have to plan out ahead of time who I'll be dancing with... never thought I'd actually be glad to have to actually go up and ask girls to dance, heh.

EDIT: Turns out she can't go with me because she's planning on going with a group of friends.  Oh well.  Not really a problem for me, since she did only say she might go with me in the first place... still slightly disappointing though, since I was kind of hoping to have someone to go to the dance with.

Weird week

Yeah... lots of weird stuff going on this week.  For some odd reason I'm taking ballroom dancing classes... well, it's because that's what the dance this Friday is going to involve, but I'm not even sure if I really want to go to that at this point.  But anyway, the classes themselves... I'm struggling with them pretty bad, since I can't really dance all that well and they rush through stuff so quickly that I barely have time to get a grasp of the basic stuff before they're already on to some other thing (or two or three other things.)  Monday's class was awful, I pretty much got completely left out after the first couple of things and ended up standing there on the side of the room with absolutely nothing to do for half an hour or more.  They pretty much gave us 3 seconds to rush across the room and ask a girl to dance, and since there were more guys than girls (one more guy than there were girls, to be specific) and it takes me a lot more than 3 seconds to ask a girl to dance even when I'm not being forced to as part of a class... I was always the guy who got left out.  Today's class was a lot better though.  There were actually more girls than guys this time (...a lot more, actually...), and I at least sort of managed to learn how to do the dance they were doing today (the cha-cha, I think)... well, the first two parts of it we covered, anyway.  I completely missed the rest, since it took me until the end of the class just to get the first part down pretty well and start to figure out the second.  I was planning on not coming back again if today's class was anywhere near as bad as the first one, but since it turned out so much better I think I might actually continue to go to these (and then the dance... maybe.)

Speaking of the dance, I'm starting to wonder if it's really a good idea  to actually ask someone to go to it with me.  I mean, when I didn't know what exactly it was going to be and thought it was just going to be a pretty much normal dance that seemed like a good idea, but... with the whole dance card thing and the fact that all the dancing will be this ballroom stuff that I really don't know how to do very well, I'm thinking that trying to actually go to the dance with someone wouldn't end very well.  The dance card thing seems really weird... the whole idea of having to pretty much decide who you're going to dance with before you actually start dancing at all is just strange, and I'm not sure how that would work with the idea of going to a dance with someone... would you just go ahead and sign your name on every slot of that person's card, or what? Plus, since I pretty much suck at dancing I figure that if I did go with someone, she wouldn't want to dance with nobody but me the whole time.
Maybe I'll try to just ask her out on a date for this Saturday instead, or something like that.  Or we could go on an actual date before the dance, rather than just going to the dance and nothing else, since it doesn't even start until 9:00.  I'm not really sure.

Completely unrelated, I've fallen behind a bit on my Iliad reading for Classics of Western Literature... I'm almost done with the assigned reading for Monday, but it's almost Wednesday.  Ugh.  Also haven't even started my drawing assignment, and I need to get at least a partial drawing done before class tomorrow... I guess I'll be able to do that, though I definitely won't have it finished before then.  Of course, I'll probably have pretty much the whole weekend to work on that, knowing my luck when it comes to actually trying to ask girls on dates recently...

Also, a random funny quote from... well, not lunch exactly, just sitting in Jonzzey's talking to people earlier today once I got out of my classes.

Me: I don't think you've ever been mean to me.
Rachael: You're a dick.

...she actually wasn't talking to me; that response was to something one of the other guys around had said a few seconds before I said anything (in response to her talking about how she's apparently been really mean to people in the past and is trying to be nicer.)  But the timing of it just ended up really funny. XD

Is there a word for this?

I keep forgetting to actually post stuff here this semester, for some reason. XD

But yeah, as for the topic... when you publicly ask a question related to a person without actually mentioning their name, and that exact person (unaware that they are, in fact, the same one you're talking about) actually answers... is there a word for that? Would it be irony, or something else?

In completely unrelated news, some random stuff has happened lately.  I had a crappy day that was at least partially caused by not getting a haircut, a long chain of coincidences (a couple of the later ones involving me) lead to someone's missing student ID card being returned to them almost as soon as they realized it was gone, and I went to the first actual singer/band-type concert I've ever been to.  It was here at school, and the singer was Mindy Gledhill, who I had never heard of before this week.  I'm not really sure what sort of music it technically was (I don't keep up with the vague and nonsensical names of music genres, so if something doesn't really fit into "rock," "country," "rap," "jazz," etc... I really don't know where to put it), but it was pretty good, and (at least partially thanks to Ruth letting me sit next to her) I didn't even freak out from the crowding... in fact, I actually bumped into another person who also is bothered by crowds, and another who I'd met once before mentioned that she has a relative who has the exact same sort of problem as me... and a brother who has the exact same community college "150+ transfer credits and three degrees, the last two earned in the same year" situation as me. Weird how that kind of stuff happens.

Also, I had to go to Wal-Mart to buy a knife.

...

...for my drawing class, since we have these weird pencils and need to sharpen them with knives because they won't fit in a pencil sharpener.

Schedule wonkiness fixed!

Yeah... my schedule was kind of weird at the start of this semester (with the 15-minute lunch break on most days, and only 30 minutes on Fridays... not nearly enough), so I had to do a bit of adding/dropping/switching classes over the past few days to get everything fixed up.  I only ended up having to actually drop two classes, and one was that Book of Mormon class at the Institute building--my now-at-1:30 Spanish class ran over into half of it, so that wouldn't work very well.  The other one was actually a required class (Information Literacy) but I figure I can always take it next semester.  I also had to drop that photography class I had signed up for just in case I couldn't get into Spanish (waitlisted), but since I did get into Spanish and can't really take 12:30 classes it's kind of pointless to still have it on my schedule.  May try to take that one again sometime, too.

On a completely unrelated note, the food in the dining hall is already running into the "no good food at all on these days unless you want a salad" problem that became a recurring thing at the end of last semester.  Hopefully I'll be able to get by on salads, bread or french fries if they have them, and ice cream (maybe a sandwich instead of salad to mix them up a bit) on the "no good food" days, because I don't really want to end up running down my student account eating at Jonzzey's all the time.

And on another even more unrelated note... I'm starting to suspect that a certain girl here at school might actually like me.  I'm not sure yet if it's just me being paranoid or if there's actually something to those suspicions, but... yeah.  I guess I'll find out eventually? It's hard to tell with that sort of thing...  XD

EDIT: Nah, probably not.

EDIT EDIT: okay I really have no idea.

First day of classes (again, heh.)

Yep... first day of classes has come and gone, along with that extra day (yesterday) that was sandwiched in between moving-in day and actually-going-to-classes day. Classes seem mostly okay so far; Art History and Spanish are both crammed full, but I got a decent seat in Spanish (in addition to... actually get into the class; I wasn't sure that was going to happen at first since the SVU website was being wonky about whether or not I was even registered for that one) and hopefully a decent amount of people are going to drop out of Art History in the next week or so and the room will clear out a bit.  Managed to get all of my books before any of them sold out this time, most of them used (...except for the most expensive one, that is.  Crap.)  Turns out I need to get an add/drop form for Art History, though (since I'm still technically on the waitlist), and I also need to drop out of that Digital Photography class that I took as a backup in case I ended up not making it into Spanish.  Other than that, I shouldn't have too much trouble with classes, though I can't say what the Monday/Wednesday(/Friday) classes are going to be like yet at this point.

And of course, I bumped into a bunch of people I know today (and yesterday), and actually ended up talking to several of them for at least 10-15 minutes or so.  The only problem I've run into so far is the heat/cold in my room... when it got down into the 20s or below the first night here, I actually got cold and needed to turn the heat on for a while, and now that it's not cold at all (45-ish I think), my roommate is getting sick and is keeping the heat on all the freakin' time.  Which means that, even on the lowest setting, my room turns into an oven.  Let's hope I can get him to turn that off before it's time to go to bed, because there is no way I will ever be able to get any sleep with that heater on.  Even when it was in the 20s I never left it on for more than a half-hour or maybe an hour at a time, and that's just on the lowest setting! Anything warmer than that and I'd be worried that my bed would catch fire and my Wii's wires would melt while I was away.

I'm back!

Yep... I am now back at SVU.  In the process of unpacking (which will most likely take a while...) at the moment, which will probably take even longer than last time since I brought my Wii and a TV that I got for Christmas with me this time and I'll need to figure out where those can even fit... I'm guessing I'll have to put the TV up right next to the laptop and just slide the laptop out of the way when I want to use the TV.  Since I don't have a DVD player or any way to get actual TV channels on the thing, and pretty much am not going to use it unless I want to play the Wii, that probably won't be too often.

Still need to figure out exactly how many classes I'll have this semester and what books (if any) I need for them, but I've got until Thursday before classes actually start so I should have plenty of time for all that stuff.

EDIT: Holy crap, Craton's hallways (well, 2F anyway) are ridiculously shiny now.  I wonder how long that'll last... weeks? days? until the guys who play trash-can lacrosse in the hallway get back?

Unfortunately, it seems that my new 3DS is unable to find a wireless access point here at school.  I wonder why? I mean, my laptop has no problem at all connecting to SVU's Internet... I'll try the Wii later once I get it (and the TV) hooked up... which means taking the TV out of its box, which may take a while since I don't have any scissors.  Guess I can always borrow some again.