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
Sunday, September 30, 2012
Friday, September 28, 2012
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.
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.
Friday, September 21, 2012
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.)
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.)
Thursday, September 20, 2012
Still sick...
Yeah... I think that two hours of random talking without anything to drink on Tuesday night probably screwed my throat up pretty bad. I still have the sore throat, runny nose, and coughing combination, though it's not as bad today as it was yesterday. I'm also still getting chilled a bit later at night and needing to wrap up in a blanket to stay warm, but again, it's not as bad today as it was last night... so at least it's getting better, I guess?
Other than the sickness, though, this has been a pretty good week. Got lots of talking in with various people (though not enough to screw up my throat even more, thankfully XD), getting to know some new people, and so on. Keeping up with my homework to some degree; printmaking and 2D design might be a problem, since it seems like I'm getting to the "massive homework load" part of the classes (which wouldn't be that bad if not for the fact that I'm getting it from two or three classes at once.) Spanish and Information Literacy are still pretty easy to keep up with, though, so I should be okay as long as I recover from this disease I've picked up before too long.
On a completely unrelated note, I found out today that the Lexington Wal-Mart sells the recently re-released Sailor Moon manga. I grabbed one volume while I was there (the beginning of the S storyline, if I remember right), mostly picking that one because I never got a chance to see much of that arc when it was still on TV and I've always wanted to read the manga. Also because the other two they had would be "just the end of R" and "a later part of S," and I didn't want to start reading in the middle of something. I'll probably end up grabbing the rest of these as they come out, once I get more money here with me.
Other than the sickness, though, this has been a pretty good week. Got lots of talking in with various people (though not enough to screw up my throat even more, thankfully XD), getting to know some new people, and so on. Keeping up with my homework to some degree; printmaking and 2D design might be a problem, since it seems like I'm getting to the "massive homework load" part of the classes (which wouldn't be that bad if not for the fact that I'm getting it from two or three classes at once.) Spanish and Information Literacy are still pretty easy to keep up with, though, so I should be okay as long as I recover from this disease I've picked up before too long.
On a completely unrelated note, I found out today that the Lexington Wal-Mart sells the recently re-released Sailor Moon manga. I grabbed one volume while I was there (the beginning of the S storyline, if I remember right), mostly picking that one because I never got a chance to see much of that arc when it was still on TV and I've always wanted to read the manga. Also because the other two they had would be "just the end of R" and "a later part of S," and I didn't want to start reading in the middle of something. I'll probably end up grabbing the rest of these as they come out, once I get more money here with me.
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
Wow, today was a REALLY good day... even though I was sick.
Yep... even though I was coughing all day because of whatever it is that I've caught recently, today turned out really well. No classes (...well, I was supposed to be in a class on the Old Testament, but I didn't get there until only 10 minutes of the class was left... whoops, good thing it's not for credit!), but I did have a visit from my mom (who came with extra food, so now I won't need to go to Wal-Mart until either my milk runs out or I want more peanut butter M&Ms, whichever comes first), and we went and ate at Subway before she left to head back home. Mom actually got an Italian BMT, which surprised me a bit since I didn't think she really liked Italian subs much. She also let me borrow her credit card for a bit so I could order a book I needed from Amazon; I ended up finding a used copy for 44 cents (plus $3.99 shipping. XD)
Later on in the day, I finished the slipsheets for my printmaking assignments and turned those in (they were due yesterday... but oh well, close enough!) That was the only real homeworkish stuff I had to do, though unfortunately I kinda forgot another assignment that's supposed to be done by tomorrow morning at 10:00... I still have some time, but I'm unsure if I'll get it done in time or not.
And even later than that, I went and got a milkshake at Jonzzey's right before going to the dance club thingie's meeting... and ended up being half an hour late because I bumped into a girl there I had never met before and ended up talking to her for a while. It turned out that she was actually one of the few people here that isn't Mormon (she's actually Buddhist, sort of--apparently she believes most of Buddhism, but with a few things different; sort of like how I was with Christianity back in my early community college years, I guess), and we ended up talking for at least half an hour before she had to go do some homework (and I needed to go to that dance club meeting which I was nearly a half-hour late for at this point. XD) Pretty interesting conversation; I hope I bump into her again sometime, she seemed like someone I could be pretty good friends with (it's odd how few non-Mormon friends I have here... it'd be nice to have at least a couple of them in addition to all those Mormons, heh.)
After that there was the dance meeting, which also went really well. We did some more country swing at the start of the class (I missed a really complicated dance move in my half-hour of lateness, and I never really caught up on that one) and then did the waltz, which I actually somewhat knew from last year's ballroom dancing classes. By the end of the class, I actually ended up doing pretty well at all three of the types of dances we had gone over up to that point, so much so that I was amazed by how well I was getting this stuff down now. I'm definitely going to keep coming to these things whenever possible.
Once that was over, I ended up talking to one of the girls who had been there, and we walked up to the Lofts together afterward. It's been a long time since I've done that, walking up there with somebody and talking the whole way and then hanging around outside and talking for another hour or two... yeah, I've really missed those random 2-hour conversations with girls outside the Lofts that kept happening last year, especially in the earlier part of last year. XD
If this is any indication of what the rest of the semester's going to be like, I would guess that it's going to be another good one. Hopefully a step up from last semester (which wasn't bad but just didn't match up to the first one), at least!
Later on in the day, I finished the slipsheets for my printmaking assignments and turned those in (they were due yesterday... but oh well, close enough!) That was the only real homeworkish stuff I had to do, though unfortunately I kinda forgot another assignment that's supposed to be done by tomorrow morning at 10:00... I still have some time, but I'm unsure if I'll get it done in time or not.
And even later than that, I went and got a milkshake at Jonzzey's right before going to the dance club thingie's meeting... and ended up being half an hour late because I bumped into a girl there I had never met before and ended up talking to her for a while. It turned out that she was actually one of the few people here that isn't Mormon (she's actually Buddhist, sort of--apparently she believes most of Buddhism, but with a few things different; sort of like how I was with Christianity back in my early community college years, I guess), and we ended up talking for at least half an hour before she had to go do some homework (and I needed to go to that dance club meeting which I was nearly a half-hour late for at this point. XD) Pretty interesting conversation; I hope I bump into her again sometime, she seemed like someone I could be pretty good friends with (it's odd how few non-Mormon friends I have here... it'd be nice to have at least a couple of them in addition to all those Mormons, heh.)
After that there was the dance meeting, which also went really well. We did some more country swing at the start of the class (I missed a really complicated dance move in my half-hour of lateness, and I never really caught up on that one) and then did the waltz, which I actually somewhat knew from last year's ballroom dancing classes. By the end of the class, I actually ended up doing pretty well at all three of the types of dances we had gone over up to that point, so much so that I was amazed by how well I was getting this stuff down now. I'm definitely going to keep coming to these things whenever possible.
Once that was over, I ended up talking to one of the girls who had been there, and we walked up to the Lofts together afterward. It's been a long time since I've done that, walking up there with somebody and talking the whole way and then hanging around outside and talking for another hour or two... yeah, I've really missed those random 2-hour conversations with girls outside the Lofts that kept happening last year, especially in the earlier part of last year. XD
If this is any indication of what the rest of the semester's going to be like, I would guess that it's going to be another good one. Hopefully a step up from last semester (which wasn't bad but just didn't match up to the first one), at least!
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
Random interesting facts
Just looked at my blog stats thing... and apparently most of my views are fake referrals from spammish sites. Apparently that's a common problem for these blogs, though.
That wasn't all, though! Apparently people have ended up here when searching for each of the following:
"mormon" (4 people)
"the k'hyurbhi lands kirber" (3 people)
"busch gardens bob marley banana" (1 person)
"the k'hyurbhi lands" (1 person)
That wasn't all, though! Apparently people have ended up here when searching for each of the following:
"mormon" (4 people)
"the k'hyurbhi lands kirber" (3 people)
"busch gardens bob marley banana" (1 person)
"the k'hyurbhi lands" (1 person)
| "Mormon" I understand, since it's in the blog's title and all, but I'm kind of surprised by how many people got here by searching for The K'hyurbhi Lands. I mean, I've never actually posted anything about The K'hyurbhi Lands anywhere else on the Internet except for a few pages of my Fnrrf Ygm Schnish wiki... how are people finding out about it, I wonder? Especially odd that Kirber got a specific search (and not just once, but three times!) And also someone found this thing while searching for giant Jamaican bananas... XD Oh, and I did the same thing with my other blog (the Fnrrf Ygm Schnish one) and got even more search results listed. Apparently people came to that one after searching for... "the k'hyurbhi lands" (6 people) "fnrrf ygm schnish" (3 people) "ohrrpgce the k'hyurbhi lands" (2 people) "pointy eared people" (2 people) "supernum the kirby lands" (2 people) "fnrrf ygm schnish blog" (1 person) "nummer kirber upchukk" (1 person) "numnum kirby blurby" (1 person) "ohrrpgce frankfurter's quest for soap remake" (1 person) "random name old man" (1 person) Aside from "random name old man" being the funniest search keyword I've had link to one of my sites so far, there's more evidence that people have somehow become aware of The K'hyurbhi Lands despite me not posting anything about it anywhere except for on that blog yet! I know at least one "Fnrrf Ygm Schnish" was one of my own searches a while back, and at least one of the plain "The K'hyurbhi Lands" may have been one of those also... but two instances each of "OHRRPGCE The K'hyurbhi Lands" and "Supernum The Kirby Lands" had to have been somebody else. Also "Numnum Kirby Blurby"--apparently people are searching for original TKL-related stuff (hence the use of "Kirby" and mentioning Supernum), and finding the new TKL instead. "Pointy-eared people" could be just a coincidence, or it could be someone from school that I've mentioned that story (with pointy-eared people in it) to trying to find it. Hard to say. "OHRRPGCE Frankfurter's Quest for Soap remake" is really interesting too, since I literally have not talked about that project in years (or done any work on it at all) and yet at least one person out there actually searched for it. It's weird to think that people on the Internet are actually aware of my games and searching for information about them like that. | |||
Sunday, September 16, 2012
Well, today didn't turn out too bad.
Was having a really good day, but later things kind of threw that off... but oh well, it was still a mostly good day overall.
Anyway... I had a huge pile of printmaking homework to do this weekend, which I thought would be completely impossible for me to finish with only Saturday to do it. As it turns out, not only did I finish all of it today, but I finished all of it in only two and a half hours (rather than the 4 or 5 I was expecting it to take.) Even more surprisingly, I actually liked how all but one of them turned out, and even that last one I didn't like so much is way better than my crappy first attempt from earlier this week. I haven't put them in that really thin tissue-paperish stuff yet, or put my name and such on them, but... oh well, I can always do that stuff in class on Monday. Now I just have the rest of my homework to get done, including making that portfolio for 2D Design that I didn't manage to get around to and a couple of writing assignments. I also have Spanish homework left, but that's not due until the 21st so I don't have to jump in and do it right now. Same goes with Information Literacy, since that's only on Thursdays and all. But yeah, Printmaking homework went surprisingly well; got to know someone from class a bit better, got all my work done in less than 3 hours, and didn't even have to do all the cleanup myself for once... so just all-around a great day up to that point. After that I went to Subway, which was also good as usual. I actually got chips with my sub for the first time in a while; they had those jalapeño chips I like, rather than just plain Lays and Doritos, so I grabbed some of those.
Later on there was a luau, but I ended up not really going since when I got in there it was extremely crowded and full of total strangers (seriously... I saw so few people I knew in there, it was kind of ridiculous.) They did have an actual whole roasted pig there, though, which was cut up and turned into food... but I didn't try any since I was already full of Italian BMT at the time. Plus the whole "nowhere to sit and nobody to talk to" issue.
There was also a dance. It started out... kinda mediocre. A lot like the last one, except the volume wasn't so absurdly high this time (they did eventually turn it up more, unfortunately, but it never got quite as bad as last time's horrible organ-vibrating, voice-drowning noise-storm.) This lasted for about an hour. After that I managed to bump into a few people and talk to them for a bit; most of the talking was actually with strangers, oddly enough, since it seemed like most of the people I actually knew were just kind of walking past me like I wasn't even there, while random strangers waved to me, said hi, or even weirdly hugged me from behind (I still have no idea who that guy was.) After that it started to get better. I actually had three girls ask me to dance with them (including one who I hadn't really met until today... which kind of surprised me, though I guess it shouldn't have so much since the whole "strangers come up and ask me to dance" thing has happened at SVU dances before), though unfortunately I never actually did get around to asking anyone to dance myself. Still, had some of the goofiest little conversations while dancing (there was a surprising amount of talk about toothpaste and toothbrushes, and later about when it's okay to get in a car with a stranger driving and when it's not... with the "not" examples including "crazy hobo guy with eyepatch" and "guy with full facial tattoos"), and having girls actually come up and ask me to dance with them always makes me feel a lot better about things.
There were two people that I kind of wanted to try and ask to dance, but one of the two was kind of hanging around the same guy the entire later half of the dance (though I'm pretty sure they weren't there on a date or anything, I never saw them together at all until then) while the other... well, she's just kind of intimidating, for some reason. I don't know why--I've known her pretty much the whole time I've been here, and I have no problem coming up and talking to her when she's sitting at a table at lunch or something, but when it comes to asking her to dance or anything like that... I just freak out. Which is especially odd since she's the first girl I ever asked to dance last year... really weird. I had two chances to ask her but the first time I saw her standing there and just kind of panicked and went off looking for someone else to ask (...not finding anyone, of course.) I'm not sure why she scares me like that sometimes; I actually do kind of like her, and she doesn't seem to mind talking to me or anything, and yet for some reason I still get even more nervous than usual whenever I attempt to ask her to dance or anything like that. I had an even better chance the second time, but it was the last song and once again I just freaked out at the thought of actually going up to her and asking, especially since she wasn't actually inside the room where people were dancing and I would've had to go outside, ask her, and then bring her back in to dance. I did actually end up dancing with someone for the last dance, though (the aforementioned stranger that came up and asked me), so it turned out okay in the end.
Overall, not the best dance I've been to, but there were still definitely some good moments to it... and overall it ended up much better than the last one, so there's still hope for dances not sucking this year. Let's hope the next one (whenever it is) turns out even better.
Anyway... I had a huge pile of printmaking homework to do this weekend, which I thought would be completely impossible for me to finish with only Saturday to do it. As it turns out, not only did I finish all of it today, but I finished all of it in only two and a half hours (rather than the 4 or 5 I was expecting it to take.) Even more surprisingly, I actually liked how all but one of them turned out, and even that last one I didn't like so much is way better than my crappy first attempt from earlier this week. I haven't put them in that really thin tissue-paperish stuff yet, or put my name and such on them, but... oh well, I can always do that stuff in class on Monday. Now I just have the rest of my homework to get done, including making that portfolio for 2D Design that I didn't manage to get around to and a couple of writing assignments. I also have Spanish homework left, but that's not due until the 21st so I don't have to jump in and do it right now. Same goes with Information Literacy, since that's only on Thursdays and all. But yeah, Printmaking homework went surprisingly well; got to know someone from class a bit better, got all my work done in less than 3 hours, and didn't even have to do all the cleanup myself for once... so just all-around a great day up to that point. After that I went to Subway, which was also good as usual. I actually got chips with my sub for the first time in a while; they had those jalapeño chips I like, rather than just plain Lays and Doritos, so I grabbed some of those.
Later on there was a luau, but I ended up not really going since when I got in there it was extremely crowded and full of total strangers (seriously... I saw so few people I knew in there, it was kind of ridiculous.) They did have an actual whole roasted pig there, though, which was cut up and turned into food... but I didn't try any since I was already full of Italian BMT at the time. Plus the whole "nowhere to sit and nobody to talk to" issue.
There was also a dance. It started out... kinda mediocre. A lot like the last one, except the volume wasn't so absurdly high this time (they did eventually turn it up more, unfortunately, but it never got quite as bad as last time's horrible organ-vibrating, voice-drowning noise-storm.) This lasted for about an hour. After that I managed to bump into a few people and talk to them for a bit; most of the talking was actually with strangers, oddly enough, since it seemed like most of the people I actually knew were just kind of walking past me like I wasn't even there, while random strangers waved to me, said hi, or even weirdly hugged me from behind (I still have no idea who that guy was.) After that it started to get better. I actually had three girls ask me to dance with them (including one who I hadn't really met until today... which kind of surprised me, though I guess it shouldn't have so much since the whole "strangers come up and ask me to dance" thing has happened at SVU dances before), though unfortunately I never actually did get around to asking anyone to dance myself. Still, had some of the goofiest little conversations while dancing (there was a surprising amount of talk about toothpaste and toothbrushes, and later about when it's okay to get in a car with a stranger driving and when it's not... with the "not" examples including "crazy hobo guy with eyepatch" and "guy with full facial tattoos"), and having girls actually come up and ask me to dance with them always makes me feel a lot better about things.
There were two people that I kind of wanted to try and ask to dance, but one of the two was kind of hanging around the same guy the entire later half of the dance (though I'm pretty sure they weren't there on a date or anything, I never saw them together at all until then) while the other... well, she's just kind of intimidating, for some reason. I don't know why--I've known her pretty much the whole time I've been here, and I have no problem coming up and talking to her when she's sitting at a table at lunch or something, but when it comes to asking her to dance or anything like that... I just freak out. Which is especially odd since she's the first girl I ever asked to dance last year... really weird. I had two chances to ask her but the first time I saw her standing there and just kind of panicked and went off looking for someone else to ask (...not finding anyone, of course.) I'm not sure why she scares me like that sometimes; I actually do kind of like her, and she doesn't seem to mind talking to me or anything, and yet for some reason I still get even more nervous than usual whenever I attempt to ask her to dance or anything like that. I had an even better chance the second time, but it was the last song and once again I just freaked out at the thought of actually going up to her and asking, especially since she wasn't actually inside the room where people were dancing and I would've had to go outside, ask her, and then bring her back in to dance. I did actually end up dancing with someone for the last dance, though (the aforementioned stranger that came up and asked me), so it turned out okay in the end.
Overall, not the best dance I've been to, but there were still definitely some good moments to it... and overall it ended up much better than the last one, so there's still hope for dances not sucking this year. Let's hope the next one (whenever it is) turns out even better.
Friday, September 14, 2012
Another "bouncing back and forth" day
Started out as a pretty good day. The meeting for the art writing seminar class thing went pretty well, and I got some random goofy quotes out of it too, oddly enough. Had a really good lunch (which I cooked myself--bowtie pasta with tomato sauce AND green chiles!) I'm getting better at Spanish, and also getting to know one of the people in my class who was a total stranger at the start of this semester; I haven't bumped into quite as many new people this year as I did in my first semester here (probably due to not eating in the dining hall all the time) but I still keep meeting new people and getting to know some of them a bit, which is always good.
Then there was Printmaking homework... which frustrated me so much, for some reason, and pretty much screwed up my day for a while just from the frustration that came with it. I think it's mostly because I still have five more of these things to do before Monday, and with the art building being closed down on Sundays, I only really have tomorrow (and even then, only the parts before the dance, since I am planning on going to that!) to get all that stuff done... and also the fact that I just couldn't get any ideas for this one at first, and it took me a while to even get started. Funnily enough, it was actually me getting pissed off and randomly slapping the inked plate with a brush that got me started on something--the angry brush-marks sort of vaguely formed a bird shape, which I turned into... not quite a bird, heh, but it does have wings and a bird head (and... another head... and a random arm on one side... yeah this one turned out weird.) It should be doable, just a little tight time-wise, since it takes about an hour to get one whole print done (including cleanup) so far... the one today maybe took slightly less than an hour if you didn't count the cleanup part, but that took longer because I was cleaning up after myself as well as two or three other people who left before I did. I guess it should be possible if I do several in a row without cleaning up until the end, then take a break and do several more in a row later. The only problem is ideas... though thankfully I think I'm getting some of those now! My first two random thoughts are to do one of the dungeon layouts from the original Legend of Zelda (they were all shaped like various things--level 1 an eagle, level 2 the moon, level 3 a swastika...) and something involving Tetris blocks. Which both mean "white squares/rectangles on black background"... shouldn't be too horribly time-consuming.
After that, the day eventually got better. Calmed down a bit from the printmaking frustration (...and a bit of other frustration), then went to this new "Social Dance Club" thing that was recently set up at SVU. This was actually pretty fun; I ended up learning how to dance a bit more, and actually got the first of the two dances (country swing, I think it was?) down pretty well before the end of it. The second one threw me off a bit, though, especially when we had to start dancing in a circle. Overall it was pretty fun and I'm glad I decided to go even though I had been having a bad day before. They said they were going to get the people in charge of the dance tomorrow to play a song that went with one of these, though I can't remember which of the two; I have the first one down pretty well but the second is still kind of hard to consistently get right. Still, I'm actually kind of looking forward to the dance tomorrow, which is kind of surprising after how the first one of the year was so bad.
Then there was Printmaking homework... which frustrated me so much, for some reason, and pretty much screwed up my day for a while just from the frustration that came with it. I think it's mostly because I still have five more of these things to do before Monday, and with the art building being closed down on Sundays, I only really have tomorrow (and even then, only the parts before the dance, since I am planning on going to that!) to get all that stuff done... and also the fact that I just couldn't get any ideas for this one at first, and it took me a while to even get started. Funnily enough, it was actually me getting pissed off and randomly slapping the inked plate with a brush that got me started on something--the angry brush-marks sort of vaguely formed a bird shape, which I turned into... not quite a bird, heh, but it does have wings and a bird head (and... another head... and a random arm on one side... yeah this one turned out weird.) It should be doable, just a little tight time-wise, since it takes about an hour to get one whole print done (including cleanup) so far... the one today maybe took slightly less than an hour if you didn't count the cleanup part, but that took longer because I was cleaning up after myself as well as two or three other people who left before I did. I guess it should be possible if I do several in a row without cleaning up until the end, then take a break and do several more in a row later. The only problem is ideas... though thankfully I think I'm getting some of those now! My first two random thoughts are to do one of the dungeon layouts from the original Legend of Zelda (they were all shaped like various things--level 1 an eagle, level 2 the moon, level 3 a swastika...) and something involving Tetris blocks. Which both mean "white squares/rectangles on black background"... shouldn't be too horribly time-consuming.
After that, the day eventually got better. Calmed down a bit from the printmaking frustration (...and a bit of other frustration), then went to this new "Social Dance Club" thing that was recently set up at SVU. This was actually pretty fun; I ended up learning how to dance a bit more, and actually got the first of the two dances (country swing, I think it was?) down pretty well before the end of it. The second one threw me off a bit, though, especially when we had to start dancing in a circle. Overall it was pretty fun and I'm glad I decided to go even though I had been having a bad day before. They said they were going to get the people in charge of the dance tomorrow to play a song that went with one of these, though I can't remember which of the two; I have the first one down pretty well but the second is still kind of hard to consistently get right. Still, I'm actually kind of looking forward to the dance tomorrow, which is kind of surprising after how the first one of the year was so bad.
Washington DC trip, first of the semester! Out of... at least 2. Heh.
Yep... spent most of my day up in Washington DC today, or driving to or from there. Turned out to be a pretty good trip; got to look around a bit at a couple of art museums, attended a "hear some stuff from an artist" thing, and ate some good food (donuts from Dunkin' Donuts on the way up, and then an Italian sub at Potbelly's in DC.) Also talked a lot with several of the people that also went on trip, and somehow managed to draw a surprisingly good picture of Damuru-J while on the car ride up there... really weird, since usually I can't draw very well while in a moving vehicle, but somehow it turned out really well this time. A funny thing I noticed: they sell porno magazines out in the open in Sheetz. Not anything super hardcore with dirty stuff on the cover where the whole world can see it, but there were Playboys and one of the Playboy calendars just sitting right there on the rack with other magazines (though they were in plastic bags, unlike every other magazine there.) I've never actually seen porn just being sold out in the open like that--usually you think it'd be behind a counter or something like that.
Only bad part is, I missed a class as a result and I also have several homework assignments to do that I either forgot or missed (one or two from the missed class, one forgotten. And also Spanish, but that's not due until the 21st so I've got a bit more time to worry about that one.)
Apparently there's a dance this weekend, and also I've been kind of recruited to go to this dance club thing they'll be having on Fridays (and other days too, Tuesdays I think...? but the only one left this week is Friday) where they will apparently be teaching people to do a certain dance that they goes with a song they're going to play during the dance on Saturday. Hopefully this dance turns out better than the last one; that one was pretty terrible. And hopefully whoever's in charge doesn't turn the volume up to "my organs are vibrating and I can't hear myself talk"... almost every dance since I've been here has done that and it's always annoyed me, and I know for a fact that it bothers other people too, but nobody ever does anything to change it. Ugh.
Only bad part is, I missed a class as a result and I also have several homework assignments to do that I either forgot or missed (one or two from the missed class, one forgotten. And also Spanish, but that's not due until the 21st so I've got a bit more time to worry about that one.)
Apparently there's a dance this weekend, and also I've been kind of recruited to go to this dance club thing they'll be having on Fridays (and other days too, Tuesdays I think...? but the only one left this week is Friday) where they will apparently be teaching people to do a certain dance that they goes with a song they're going to play during the dance on Saturday. Hopefully this dance turns out better than the last one; that one was pretty terrible. And hopefully whoever's in charge doesn't turn the volume up to "my organs are vibrating and I can't hear myself talk"... almost every dance since I've been here has done that and it's always annoyed me, and I know for a fact that it bothers other people too, but nobody ever does anything to change it. Ugh.
Sunday, September 9, 2012
Officially giving up on the whole "going to church" thing
Well, technically I gave up on that many years ago, but I'm talking specifically of while I'm here at SVU this time. Last year I would usually go to church on Sundays just to have something to do on Sundays (and to have a chance to see people I know, talk a little bit, and so on), even though I'm not a Mormon and have no intention of becoming one. I do like actually seeing what people do in church and learning about what other people believe in (which is another reason I was going last year), but when it's "me alone in some giant faceless crowd" rather than "me sitting with one or more people I know pretty well" it just isn't going to work.
Neither of the two wards that meet at 1 PM are going to work for me this year, from what I saw today. 1st Ward had a few people I knew in it but none of them were sitting somewhere where I could actually sit with them (they tended to cram in with a bunch of other people, making that impossible.) The other one, I don't know which one it was, had so many people crammed into one room that I literally couldn't tell if there were any people I knew in there or not. I think there might be a third ward meeting at the same time, but that one had things in a different order (I'm assuming it would be the reverse of the other two--priesthood/relief society first and sacrament meeting last--though I don't know for sure, since last year one of the 1 PM wards had their sacrament meeting in the middle of the other two) and I don't really feel like walking all the way back over there at 2:00 just to check and see. Eh... I dunno. I might do that anyway even though it's extremely unlikely to work out, since I'm not going to have much else to do today (I think I have... one homework assignment, and that's it... yeah.)
And of course, 9 AM church is just way too freakin' early for me to even consider bothering with. I would need to know for sure that it would work before going if it's going to be that early--there is no way that I'm going to wake up at 8 AM or earlier to waste my time poking around in crowded rooms trying to see if there's even anywhere I can sit. I might end up trying it just in case next week, since I really don't like just giving up on stuff (even when it's something not particularly important), but if it doesn't work the first time I'm definitely not giving 9 AM a second try like 1 PM got this time.
It's a good thing I'm not Mormon, because I'd probably have people freaking out about the whole "not going to church for a whole year" thing if I was.
Neither of the two wards that meet at 1 PM are going to work for me this year, from what I saw today. 1st Ward had a few people I knew in it but none of them were sitting somewhere where I could actually sit with them (they tended to cram in with a bunch of other people, making that impossible.) The other one, I don't know which one it was, had so many people crammed into one room that I literally couldn't tell if there were any people I knew in there or not. I think there might be a third ward meeting at the same time, but that one had things in a different order (I'm assuming it would be the reverse of the other two--priesthood/relief society first and sacrament meeting last--though I don't know for sure, since last year one of the 1 PM wards had their sacrament meeting in the middle of the other two) and I don't really feel like walking all the way back over there at 2:00 just to check and see. Eh... I dunno. I might do that anyway even though it's extremely unlikely to work out, since I'm not going to have much else to do today (I think I have... one homework assignment, and that's it... yeah.)
And of course, 9 AM church is just way too freakin' early for me to even consider bothering with. I would need to know for sure that it would work before going if it's going to be that early--there is no way that I'm going to wake up at 8 AM or earlier to waste my time poking around in crowded rooms trying to see if there's even anywhere I can sit. I might end up trying it just in case next week, since I really don't like just giving up on stuff (even when it's something not particularly important), but if it doesn't work the first time I'm definitely not giving 9 AM a second try like 1 PM got this time.
It's a good thing I'm not Mormon, because I'd probably have people freaking out about the whole "not going to church for a whole year" thing if I was.
Friday, September 7, 2012
Today was a really good day...
Classes went pretty well (Spanish III might not be quite so scary as I thought it was going to be the first day), I'm getting to know some new people (mostly girls of course--I'm still me, and I've always gotten along with girls better--but also a few guys), and I'm continuing to bump into people I knew from last year who I hadn't seen in a long time. The food/party-thing event at the Institute building was kinda ehh (lacking a bit in the food, and way too overcrowded), but I did manage to get a salad and a really good brownie, and of course talk to people.
And then, right when the day was being pretty much my best day in a while... suddenly I get this horrible flash of paranoid-ish thoughts (almost) out of nowhere, (probably) completely unfounded in anything that's actually there (though of course, telling them that doesn't really make them go away.) I don't know if there's actually anything to be worried about or if it's just me being a bit too suspicious of things sometimes (I'm guessing that it's just me being overly suspicious, and I really hope I'm right about that guess), but still... not exactly a great feeling to end a day with.
I hate it when I'm having a great day and suddenly some little thing (which may not even be an actual thing at all--probably just me being paranoid about things) comes along and tries to screw it all up. It's happened before, though with different things triggering the paranoid-ish-ness (usually something I did, or someone's reaction to something... this is probably the first case in a long time where it wasn't, actually.) I'm probably being incredibly vague so nobody has any idea what I'm talking about and thinks I'm just crazy or something, but that's okay. I'd rather people not know exactly what it is that's bothering me in this case, in case that leads to either a confirmation or certain people thinking I'm too paranoid about certain things.
Of course, after writing down this vague rambling mess of nonsense that nobody will actually understand, I actually sort of feel better (the initial thoughts have left my mind, at least, so unless something sets them off again I should be fine.) Guess I'll walk down to Subway or something and get some real food now. I definitely need some; can't go all night on just salad and a brownie after all.
EDIT: And after I got back from Subway... my day got really good again! When I noticed there were several extra people in the house and they were hanging around the dining room table, it turned out that they were playing board/card games over there and had no problem with me joining in. So I got to play two games for the first time--Apples to Apples (for a little bit, since I joined in when the game was almost over) and Quelf (which I was present for the whole game of.) Turned out to be a lot of fun, and I ended up pretty much laughing my ass off pretty much the whole time (apparently most of what you do in Quelf is getting cards that make you do random ridiculous things, like singing "I'm a Little Teapot," pointing at people whenever you talk to them, pretending to be armless, or complaining about a football, three rubber ducks, and a piece of bark being super-glued to your forehead during everyone else's turns.) Toward the end I got an "ask your foot for permission to speak whenever you're going to say more than 3 words," but someone won before that happened so I didn't get to do that before the game ended (kind of surprising considering how much I talk, but I somehow managed it... I think the longest thing I said was "bag of seeds" which is right at three words, so I guess my foot didn't mind. XD) I've pretty much entirely forgotten about the momentary crappiness from earlier, too!
I think I'm really going to like living in the Library Mods (and not just for the "having my own bed," "cooking my own food," and "no noisy lacrosse kids keeping me awake at night" parts.) Back in Craton the place always felt really lifeless, and nobody was ever around except some of those random strangers I lived in the same building with and I had to walk over to the lofts/the library/one of the mods to have anyone to talk to... but here people are always coming into the house to talk and goof off and there's usually at least someone to talk to even if there's not much else to do.
And then, right when the day was being pretty much my best day in a while... suddenly I get this horrible flash of paranoid-ish thoughts (almost) out of nowhere, (probably) completely unfounded in anything that's actually there (though of course, telling them that doesn't really make them go away.) I don't know if there's actually anything to be worried about or if it's just me being a bit too suspicious of things sometimes (I'm guessing that it's just me being overly suspicious, and I really hope I'm right about that guess), but still... not exactly a great feeling to end a day with.
I hate it when I'm having a great day and suddenly some little thing (which may not even be an actual thing at all--probably just me being paranoid about things) comes along and tries to screw it all up. It's happened before, though with different things triggering the paranoid-ish-ness (usually something I did, or someone's reaction to something... this is probably the first case in a long time where it wasn't, actually.) I'm probably being incredibly vague so nobody has any idea what I'm talking about and thinks I'm just crazy or something, but that's okay. I'd rather people not know exactly what it is that's bothering me in this case, in case that leads to either a confirmation or certain people thinking I'm too paranoid about certain things.
Of course, after writing down this vague rambling mess of nonsense that nobody will actually understand, I actually sort of feel better (the initial thoughts have left my mind, at least, so unless something sets them off again I should be fine.) Guess I'll walk down to Subway or something and get some real food now. I definitely need some; can't go all night on just salad and a brownie after all.
EDIT: And after I got back from Subway... my day got really good again! When I noticed there were several extra people in the house and they were hanging around the dining room table, it turned out that they were playing board/card games over there and had no problem with me joining in. So I got to play two games for the first time--Apples to Apples (for a little bit, since I joined in when the game was almost over) and Quelf (which I was present for the whole game of.) Turned out to be a lot of fun, and I ended up pretty much laughing my ass off pretty much the whole time (apparently most of what you do in Quelf is getting cards that make you do random ridiculous things, like singing "I'm a Little Teapot," pointing at people whenever you talk to them, pretending to be armless, or complaining about a football, three rubber ducks, and a piece of bark being super-glued to your forehead during everyone else's turns.) Toward the end I got an "ask your foot for permission to speak whenever you're going to say more than 3 words," but someone won before that happened so I didn't get to do that before the game ended (kind of surprising considering how much I talk, but I somehow managed it... I think the longest thing I said was "bag of seeds" which is right at three words, so I guess my foot didn't mind. XD) I've pretty much entirely forgotten about the momentary crappiness from earlier, too!
I think I'm really going to like living in the Library Mods (and not just for the "having my own bed," "cooking my own food," and "no noisy lacrosse kids keeping me awake at night" parts.) Back in Craton the place always felt really lifeless, and nobody was ever around except some of those random strangers I lived in the same building with and I had to walk over to the lofts/the library/one of the mods to have anyone to talk to... but here people are always coming into the house to talk and goof off and there's usually at least someone to talk to even if there's not much else to do.
Thursday, September 6, 2012
Classes... not sure what to think of them yet.
Yeah... I've now actually had one day of each of my classes, and as the title says I'm not sure what to think of them yet. Spanish III apparently requires everyone to speak Spanish all the time in class, rather than just when doing assignments and such. That... might be a problem, especially considering the total-strangeryness of half the people in that class (and it's not a big class) and the fact that the teacher seems to like putting everyone into the Uncomfortable Chair Circle instead of doing the "let people get up and walk around" thing like Señora Fuentes did last year. Printmaking seems like it might be interesting, though the whole "needing to come in to Tucson House to work on stuff" thing may become an issue, especially with it not being open on Sundays (which make the best homework days for non-Mormons here; the Mormons are all off doing church stuff for half the day and generally not being especially active even when church is over, so you end up keeping to yourself a lot on Sundays when there isn't a fireside or anything else to do after dinner.) My other art class, 2D Design, also seems like it might be okay aside from the potential homework issue... and there's a pretty significant number of other people I know in the class too, which is always good. That art writing seminar thing (I honestly don't know the official title of the class) I'm not sure about, since we really haven't done much of anything in that yet, though there is a homework assignment-ish thing I should probably be working on pretty soon. And finally, Information Literacy actually doesn't seem like it's going to be that bad either, despite the rumors that it's a very boring and tedious class (the only assignment given so far is extremely easy, quick to finish, and not too boring), so it'll be kind of a break from my other classes, I guess.
In other news... I got the chance to talk to a few people I haven't seen much of today (and some I have already gotten a chance to talk to this year), some for a pretty long time. I also missed the Robey/Library Mods cookout (which my phone's spell-checker wanted to call a "bookmuv" instead) because nobody had any food ready by 7:00, even though it started at 6:30. Which meant that getting a sandwich at Jonzzey's earlier was actually a really good idea, even though I didn't realize it at the time. The art major meeting thing that was mandatory for everyone (which was the reason why I had to leave the cookout before 7:00) ended up being utterly pointless and kind of annoying, due to the combination of people trying to push me into trying the hummus (I've never eaten any before and I generally don't tend to try completely unfamiliar food without any idea of what it might be like), me almost missing my Wal-Mart shuttle ride due to not knowing when it was okay for people to leave, and the dreaded Uncomfortable Chair Circle that my teachers seem to love so much this year. I did end up going to Wal-Mart once I got away from that big roomful of pointlessness; since I was the only one going (besides the driver, of course XD) I guess it wasn't a big issue that the van had to leave late. And now I have my food stocked up for a while; the milk I got claims it'll stay good until September 17th, and I have oatmeal, cereal (Crunchy Nut, to be specific... and thankfully they still have the "O"-type version, rather than only the flakes, despite only the flakes appearing on the most recent commercials), AND Pop-Tarts now so hopefully I won't run through the oatmeal quite as fast as I did this past week when I've been eating oatmeal for breakfast almost every day. There was also a hall meeting type thing (except... for Mods 1 and 2 rather than any dorm hall, heh) which went pretty well. Got to see what happens if you dump water on a grease fire, found out that one of the guys in my mod has gone this whole time without realizing there was a dishwasher (or as it was explained to him, "that big white box under the counter"), and got a brownie. Everyone introduced themselves to the others, and somehow I managed to forget to mention the fact that I'm not Mormon even though we were supposed to add an "interesting fact" about ourselves. I guess the fact that I draw stuff counted, or something.
In other news... I got the chance to talk to a few people I haven't seen much of today (and some I have already gotten a chance to talk to this year), some for a pretty long time. I also missed the Robey/Library Mods cookout (which my phone's spell-checker wanted to call a "bookmuv" instead) because nobody had any food ready by 7:00, even though it started at 6:30. Which meant that getting a sandwich at Jonzzey's earlier was actually a really good idea, even though I didn't realize it at the time. The art major meeting thing that was mandatory for everyone (which was the reason why I had to leave the cookout before 7:00) ended up being utterly pointless and kind of annoying, due to the combination of people trying to push me into trying the hummus (I've never eaten any before and I generally don't tend to try completely unfamiliar food without any idea of what it might be like), me almost missing my Wal-Mart shuttle ride due to not knowing when it was okay for people to leave, and the dreaded Uncomfortable Chair Circle that my teachers seem to love so much this year. I did end up going to Wal-Mart once I got away from that big roomful of pointlessness; since I was the only one going (besides the driver, of course XD) I guess it wasn't a big issue that the van had to leave late. And now I have my food stocked up for a while; the milk I got claims it'll stay good until September 17th, and I have oatmeal, cereal (Crunchy Nut, to be specific... and thankfully they still have the "O"-type version, rather than only the flakes, despite only the flakes appearing on the most recent commercials), AND Pop-Tarts now so hopefully I won't run through the oatmeal quite as fast as I did this past week when I've been eating oatmeal for breakfast almost every day. There was also a hall meeting type thing (except... for Mods 1 and 2 rather than any dorm hall, heh) which went pretty well. Got to see what happens if you dump water on a grease fire, found out that one of the guys in my mod has gone this whole time without realizing there was a dishwasher (or as it was explained to him, "that big white box under the counter"), and got a brownie. Everyone introduced themselves to the others, and somehow I managed to forget to mention the fact that I'm not Mormon even though we were supposed to add an "interesting fact" about ourselves. I guess the fact that I draw stuff counted, or something.
Wednesday, September 5, 2012
Wow. NEVER lock your key inside your room.
It happened to me once or twice in Craton, too, but in Craton the HRAs actually had keys to all the rooms. Apparently the guy who hands out keys hasn't been so quick to give them to the people at the library mods, though, as when I locked myself out of my room when heading out to take a shower at sometime after 9 PM today, I ended up finding out that apparently nobody had a key. My RA? No key. The HRA over at Robey? No key. The OPSS guy they sent over? No key...
...except that he actually DID have the right key. He just didn't try that one. It took a second call to OPSS, with much arguing between the RA/HRA and the OPSS guys, more than an hour later before we finally got someone to come in and use the right key to unlock the door again (thankfully the RA was there the second time and pointed out that one of the keys looked like the one that had opened someone else's door earlier, which was probably the Mod 2 master key if not the one for all four mods.)
Other than that today was okay, if a bit uneventful. Did manage to bump into some people (a few of which I hadn't seen before today, and at least one I had met before but never really talked to much) and talk a bit, and since Jonzzey's was open today I had my first sandwich of the semester there (the good ol' #14 on panini bread--basically an Italian sub, and probably my favorite sandwich there.) Also had a visit from my mom, who brought over some stuff that I had forgotten when packing (my "old map" mousepad, some tomato sauce, some French onion dip for chips, and a bowl.) She also brought over my Art History book, since I found out halfway through today that one of my friends needed one and wanted to borrow someone's until the one she had ordered comes in. After I gave her the book, she decided that if the book would work (it's an older edition, but she's taking Art History with Professor Crawford so that should be fine) she would just borrow it for the whole semester and/or year instead of ordering one at all. So I just saved somebody 70 bucks for an Amazon book order, I guess. XD
I also got one of my guesses as to a "Mormon mystery" I had been wondering about pretty much confirmed. One of the Mormon guys here pretty much admitted that the reason why Mormon engagements are so short compared to other people's engagements is because Mormons, just like most everyone else, are horny little buggers and want to start having sex as soon as they can... but unfortunately for them, they have that pesky "no sex before marriage" rule to worry about. Additionally, Mormon engagement apparently feels pretty much the same as when people are just dating but aren't engaged (at least after the initial shock of "holy crap we're gonna get married eventually" wears off) rather than an actual "higher level" of relationship between just dating and being married, since engaged Mormons can't really do anything special that just-dating Mormons couldn't already do (I assume "wear an engagement ring" doesn't really count) and since they're already planning to get married by that point they want to hurry up and get to the can-have-sex-now part.
Basically, belonging to a no-sex-before-marriage religion does not fundamentally change who someone is, and horny teenagers/twenty-somethings are still going to be horny teenagers/twenty-somethings even in a place where they aren't allowed to act like it in public. This was pretty much exactly what my guess was for the reason why so many Mormons get married so early, so it's kinda funny to get it 100% confirmed by the offhand statement of an actual Mormon.
...except that he actually DID have the right key. He just didn't try that one. It took a second call to OPSS, with much arguing between the RA/HRA and the OPSS guys, more than an hour later before we finally got someone to come in and use the right key to unlock the door again (thankfully the RA was there the second time and pointed out that one of the keys looked like the one that had opened someone else's door earlier, which was probably the Mod 2 master key if not the one for all four mods.)
Other than that today was okay, if a bit uneventful. Did manage to bump into some people (a few of which I hadn't seen before today, and at least one I had met before but never really talked to much) and talk a bit, and since Jonzzey's was open today I had my first sandwich of the semester there (the good ol' #14 on panini bread--basically an Italian sub, and probably my favorite sandwich there.) Also had a visit from my mom, who brought over some stuff that I had forgotten when packing (my "old map" mousepad, some tomato sauce, some French onion dip for chips, and a bowl.) She also brought over my Art History book, since I found out halfway through today that one of my friends needed one and wanted to borrow someone's until the one she had ordered comes in. After I gave her the book, she decided that if the book would work (it's an older edition, but she's taking Art History with Professor Crawford so that should be fine) she would just borrow it for the whole semester and/or year instead of ordering one at all. So I just saved somebody 70 bucks for an Amazon book order, I guess. XD
I also got one of my guesses as to a "Mormon mystery" I had been wondering about pretty much confirmed. One of the Mormon guys here pretty much admitted that the reason why Mormon engagements are so short compared to other people's engagements is because Mormons, just like most everyone else, are horny little buggers and want to start having sex as soon as they can... but unfortunately for them, they have that pesky "no sex before marriage" rule to worry about. Additionally, Mormon engagement apparently feels pretty much the same as when people are just dating but aren't engaged (at least after the initial shock of "holy crap we're gonna get married eventually" wears off) rather than an actual "higher level" of relationship between just dating and being married, since engaged Mormons can't really do anything special that just-dating Mormons couldn't already do (I assume "wear an engagement ring" doesn't really count) and since they're already planning to get married by that point they want to hurry up and get to the can-have-sex-now part.
Basically, belonging to a no-sex-before-marriage religion does not fundamentally change who someone is, and horny teenagers/twenty-somethings are still going to be horny teenagers/twenty-somethings even in a place where they aren't allowed to act like it in public. This was pretty much exactly what my guess was for the reason why so many Mormons get married so early, so it's kinda funny to get it 100% confirmed by the offhand statement of an actual Mormon.
Tuesday, September 4, 2012
Explosions!
Yep... explosions. Because I got to see Buena Vista's Labor Day fireworks last night, heh.
Anyway, yesterday turned out to be a pretty good day. Found out that I most likely won't have to buy any books at all this semester (freeing up that whole $1300 of extra financial aid money for buying food, most likely from Jonzzey's once they open but also the dining hall occasionally), got to talk with someone I haven't seen much of yet this semester (and also practice my Spanish a bit by trying to figure out what the names of Spanish/Portuguese foods meant without reading the translations XD), and did more work on my Zelda Classic tileset (Link's tiles are done now, along with pretty much everything else except dungeon graphics.) Ate supper in the dining hall and, for the first time since I've gotten here, a lot of my friends were actually there--I ended up sitting with the Doctor Who Club people, most of whom I hadn't really seen much of (besides saying hi to them in passing) so far. As a result, I have now heard about someone getting coconut stuck in their nose while eating coconut cake... and also been threatened with having a piece of coconut cake stuffed down my throat. XD
I've really missed sitting with these guys (...well, girls; I was the only actual guy at the table XD) and talking and generally goofing off. Honestly that's probably the only reason I kept eating at the dining hall as often as I did last semester, aside from the whole lack-of-money issue. Probably will be the same way this year--if the food's good or I see some friends in the dining hall, I'll eat there; otherwise I won't.
Also, classes started today. But not for me, because I have no classes on Tuesdays. Muwahahaha!
Anyway, yesterday turned out to be a pretty good day. Found out that I most likely won't have to buy any books at all this semester (freeing up that whole $1300 of extra financial aid money for buying food, most likely from Jonzzey's once they open but also the dining hall occasionally), got to talk with someone I haven't seen much of yet this semester (and also practice my Spanish a bit by trying to figure out what the names of Spanish/Portuguese foods meant without reading the translations XD), and did more work on my Zelda Classic tileset (Link's tiles are done now, along with pretty much everything else except dungeon graphics.) Ate supper in the dining hall and, for the first time since I've gotten here, a lot of my friends were actually there--I ended up sitting with the Doctor Who Club people, most of whom I hadn't really seen much of (besides saying hi to them in passing) so far. As a result, I have now heard about someone getting coconut stuck in their nose while eating coconut cake... and also been threatened with having a piece of coconut cake stuffed down my throat. XD
I've really missed sitting with these guys (...well, girls; I was the only actual guy at the table XD) and talking and generally goofing off. Honestly that's probably the only reason I kept eating at the dining hall as often as I did last semester, aside from the whole lack-of-money issue. Probably will be the same way this year--if the food's good or I see some friends in the dining hall, I'll eat there; otherwise I won't.
Also, classes started today. But not for me, because I have no classes on Tuesdays. Muwahahaha!
Monday, September 3, 2012
Somehow I keep forgetting to post stuff here
Not sure why... but yeah, I completely forgot to post anything the whole weekend even though I actually had stuff to talk about. Whoops. XD
Anyway... this weekend was one of those weird ones were Saturday ends up bad but Sunday ends up good, which rarely happens (usually if one ends up bad, so does the other; or if Saturday is good Sunday is either good or average-ish.) There was a dance Saturday, which was pretty bad aside from finally bumping into a few people I hadn't seen yet this semester (I did manage to actually dance with someone once, but as usual I wasn't able to actually ask anyone to dance; the one girl I danced with came and asked me.) Apparently there was some sort of theme related to the colors green, red, and yellow... but the first time I ever heard of that was a day after the dance actually happened, and I still don't know what the heck was supposed to be going on there--supposedly, you were supposed to wear one of those colors and each one meant something, but I don't have a clue what. Overall probably not the worst dance I've been to here (that hastily-planned, barely-announced one they had halfway through last semester has got to be #1 in that regard, with the "'90s dance" also ranking pretty high), but also very far from the best.
Sunday, on the other hand, wasn't bad at all. Didn't go to church (well, I "went" but I didn't stay), since I found out when I got there that apparently I'm supposed to go to 1st Ward now (based on where I live) and when I looked into the room for 1st Ward it was almost entirely strangers, with the few people I did know at all sitting in pretty crowdy-looking places. So since I had nothing much to do there, I went back home and worked on my Zelda Classic tileset for hours, getting a big chunk of what I still had left finished (the overworld tiles are essentially done, and both monsters and items are close to being finished too.)
Later on, I found out that Mod 1 was having some sort of potluck dinner thing for everyone who lives in the Library Mods, so I went over to see what they had. Turns out, they had some good food over there--I ended up eating a lot of Mexican food (rice, chicken taquitos, chips and pico de gallo) and drinking some Hawaiian Punch (or at least the Wal-Mart knockoff brand equivalent, but close enough.) Assuming that everyone who was there actually lives in the mods, I also found out that some people I knew last year who used to be in other places (mostly the lofts) have also moved down here.
After that I went to the fireside. For those who aren't familiar with Mormon stuff, it's sort of like an extra church session that happens around 7 PM where people come up and talk about various things, sometimes not always religious in nature (or at least not entirely); there's also some singing, which in this case was a couple of regular hymns that everyone sings and also a few people who got up in front of everyone and sang alone... and after that you get free food, usually ice cream. This time the Institute teachers all came up and introduced themselves and told us a few stories of things that happened in their lives, most of which ended up centering around dating/relationship-type stuff for some reason. At first I wasn't planning on staying, since I couldn't find anywhere to sit near people I actually knew... and then right when I was seriously thinking about leaving, Ruth suddenly showed up behind me, and the first thing she did (after we said "hi" to each other) was come up and give me a hug. Needless to say, that changed my mind about leaving pretty fast. XD
I finally got a chance to talk to her some afterward, though unfortunately not for all that long (not nearly long enough, especially considering that it's been all summer since I've seen her; I know we text-messaged back and forth a couple of times over the summer but that's not nearly the same as actually seeing someone in person!); she was going to give Elizabeth a ride home also, and I didn't want to hold them up by sitting in the car talking for an hour, heh. I'll have to track her down sometime this week and talk some more and really catch up on stuff; I managed to ask about what she was up to over the summer, but didn't get a chance to say much about what I was doing or talk about anything else. Unfortunately I probably won't see her at FHE this year, since I've been relocated into 1st Ward (as mentioned before) while she's probably still in 3rd... so it might be a little harder to find much time to see her this time around. If so, I'll have to try harder to keep in touch with her instead of just kind of hoping to bump into her at lunch and stuff like that; she's one of the closest friends I've ever had and I really don't know what I'd do if I had to go not only a whole summer but most of a whole year without seeing her much.
After the fireside, I went for a walk down in Buena Vista for the first time since I've been back (not counting the random trip to Subway on my first day here, anyway.) At one point a cop pulled over to the sidewalk and rolled his window down, asking me what I was doing; apparently when I had stopped to look at the stuff people had written in the dust on one of the windows, the cop thought I might've been drawing stuff on there. Didn't get arrested or anything, thankfully, since I actually hadn't been drawing anything (just looking to try and figure out what some of the stuff on there said--it was mostly just a ton of penises drawn on that window, but there were some actual words here and there, too) and the cop believed me when I explained that I had just stopped to see what was written on there.
It was pretty obvious that people had been setting stuff up for the parade; there was a SEA of political signs everywhere, both for Kaine and Allen, though it seemed like there may have been more Allen signs. Random funny thing--Kaine's signs were red and Allen's were blue, the opposite of their party affiliations. Also saw a few Romney signs on one street (like three in a row in one spot... but then none anywhere else), but no Obama signs anywhere. I guess Buena Vista is more excited for that senate election than the presidential one, heh.
Anyway... this weekend was one of those weird ones were Saturday ends up bad but Sunday ends up good, which rarely happens (usually if one ends up bad, so does the other; or if Saturday is good Sunday is either good or average-ish.) There was a dance Saturday, which was pretty bad aside from finally bumping into a few people I hadn't seen yet this semester (I did manage to actually dance with someone once, but as usual I wasn't able to actually ask anyone to dance; the one girl I danced with came and asked me.) Apparently there was some sort of theme related to the colors green, red, and yellow... but the first time I ever heard of that was a day after the dance actually happened, and I still don't know what the heck was supposed to be going on there--supposedly, you were supposed to wear one of those colors and each one meant something, but I don't have a clue what. Overall probably not the worst dance I've been to here (that hastily-planned, barely-announced one they had halfway through last semester has got to be #1 in that regard, with the "'90s dance" also ranking pretty high), but also very far from the best.
Sunday, on the other hand, wasn't bad at all. Didn't go to church (well, I "went" but I didn't stay), since I found out when I got there that apparently I'm supposed to go to 1st Ward now (based on where I live) and when I looked into the room for 1st Ward it was almost entirely strangers, with the few people I did know at all sitting in pretty crowdy-looking places. So since I had nothing much to do there, I went back home and worked on my Zelda Classic tileset for hours, getting a big chunk of what I still had left finished (the overworld tiles are essentially done, and both monsters and items are close to being finished too.)
Later on, I found out that Mod 1 was having some sort of potluck dinner thing for everyone who lives in the Library Mods, so I went over to see what they had. Turns out, they had some good food over there--I ended up eating a lot of Mexican food (rice, chicken taquitos, chips and pico de gallo) and drinking some Hawaiian Punch (or at least the Wal-Mart knockoff brand equivalent, but close enough.) Assuming that everyone who was there actually lives in the mods, I also found out that some people I knew last year who used to be in other places (mostly the lofts) have also moved down here.
After that I went to the fireside. For those who aren't familiar with Mormon stuff, it's sort of like an extra church session that happens around 7 PM where people come up and talk about various things, sometimes not always religious in nature (or at least not entirely); there's also some singing, which in this case was a couple of regular hymns that everyone sings and also a few people who got up in front of everyone and sang alone... and after that you get free food, usually ice cream. This time the Institute teachers all came up and introduced themselves and told us a few stories of things that happened in their lives, most of which ended up centering around dating/relationship-type stuff for some reason. At first I wasn't planning on staying, since I couldn't find anywhere to sit near people I actually knew... and then right when I was seriously thinking about leaving, Ruth suddenly showed up behind me, and the first thing she did (after we said "hi" to each other) was come up and give me a hug. Needless to say, that changed my mind about leaving pretty fast. XD
I finally got a chance to talk to her some afterward, though unfortunately not for all that long (not nearly long enough, especially considering that it's been all summer since I've seen her; I know we text-messaged back and forth a couple of times over the summer but that's not nearly the same as actually seeing someone in person!); she was going to give Elizabeth a ride home also, and I didn't want to hold them up by sitting in the car talking for an hour, heh. I'll have to track her down sometime this week and talk some more and really catch up on stuff; I managed to ask about what she was up to over the summer, but didn't get a chance to say much about what I was doing or talk about anything else. Unfortunately I probably won't see her at FHE this year, since I've been relocated into 1st Ward (as mentioned before) while she's probably still in 3rd... so it might be a little harder to find much time to see her this time around. If so, I'll have to try harder to keep in touch with her instead of just kind of hoping to bump into her at lunch and stuff like that; she's one of the closest friends I've ever had and I really don't know what I'd do if I had to go not only a whole summer but most of a whole year without seeing her much.
After the fireside, I went for a walk down in Buena Vista for the first time since I've been back (not counting the random trip to Subway on my first day here, anyway.) At one point a cop pulled over to the sidewalk and rolled his window down, asking me what I was doing; apparently when I had stopped to look at the stuff people had written in the dust on one of the windows, the cop thought I might've been drawing stuff on there. Didn't get arrested or anything, thankfully, since I actually hadn't been drawing anything (just looking to try and figure out what some of the stuff on there said--it was mostly just a ton of penises drawn on that window, but there were some actual words here and there, too) and the cop believed me when I explained that I had just stopped to see what was written on there.
It was pretty obvious that people had been setting stuff up for the parade; there was a SEA of political signs everywhere, both for Kaine and Allen, though it seemed like there may have been more Allen signs. Random funny thing--Kaine's signs were red and Allen's were blue, the opposite of their party affiliations. Also saw a few Romney signs on one street (like three in a row in one spot... but then none anywhere else), but no Obama signs anywhere. I guess Buena Vista is more excited for that senate election than the presidential one, heh.
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