Possibly my last post of the semester...?

I'm not sure if I really want to keep updating this thing anymore.  There just hasn't been a whole lot going on in my life lately, aside from classes and endless piles of painting-related homework.  Probably the last things worth mentioning were the movie a couple weeks ago (the new Superman movie, Man of Steel--the school was showing it and I went... I can't remember if I already mentioned this in a previous post or not, I've forgotten just how long it's been since the last time I updated this thing!) and the Multicultural Festival thing the school had last Saturday (which I went to most of, only leaving later on because they everyone moved into one part of the room and things got a bit too crowdy for me, especially without having anywhere to sit and watch the stuff that was going on.)  I also went to a friend's birthday party, where there was a lot of goofing off with party hats--people ending up with multiple hats on the same head--and watching The Hobbit in weird green colors because we had a messed-up projector.

Unfortunately I was not able to see the play that was going on the past two weeks (Hello Dolly), mainly because everyone I knew pretty much went the first week (or Friday of the second week, but tickets were sold out before I could get one) and I was planning on going the second week... the only reason I even bought a ticket the last day was because someone claimed they would sit with me to help with crowd issues if I went that day... and then they didn't, they plopped down right in the middle of a row where first of all there wasn't even room for another person, and second of all... I couldn't have sat there anyway because it was the middle of the damn row.  Seriously, I specifically said "I'll probably have to sit toward the front, on the edge of a row"... and when looking for a place to sit, right after seeing me there and saying hi, she goes straight for the middle of a row in the back.  Okay, if you're not actually planning on sitting with someone, please do not offer to sit with them.  I ended up having to leave (even though I had already wasted $7 on the ticket!) after that point because there was just not anywhere I could sit; the rest of the audience was pretty much all total strangers, and what few people I knew were around were all crammed in the middle of rows, too (or they were people I didn't know well enough to sit with comfortably.  or both.)  So yeah... that pretty much sucked.  I doubt I'll make any more attempts to go to SVU plays and such after this, at least not if I don't know for sure that someone I know pretty well is going and will actually be okay with sitting next to me to prevent crowd-freakouts.

Speaking of stuff that hasn't worked out this semester, I haven't been on a single date this whole time.  Several times earlier on I had thought of asking someone on one, but every time something came up--usually it turned out that the girl I was thinking of asking (there's been two so far) was going to be busy with something else pretty much any time I could think of asking her to come do something with me.  I'm almost wondering if I should just completely give up on dating here at SVU, because it feels like it's just going nowhere, between the lack of dates this semester and the whole "everyone here is Mormon so they probably wouldn't want to date me anyway because of annoying, outdated only-date-within-your-religion BS" issue.  That, and I kind of feel like I'm slowly starting to drift away from someone I've liked for a long time here... I don't know, maybe it's just that I haven't seen her much this semester (especially the later half of this semester), but it's getting harder and harder to imagine anything ever actually happening between us.  But, weirdly enough, I really don't want to lose that... even if my chances are terrible, at the same time I really don't like the idea of not having those feelings for her anymore.  I'm not really sure how to explain it, so what I just wrote probably makes no sense to anyone reading this (...ha! someone actually reading this! no way that'd ever happen)... but oh well.

Wow. I *REALLY* am not keeping up with updating this thing this semester...

Yeah... this hasn't been updated in half a month now. XD

Which is weird, since I actually have (occasionally) had stuff to write about.  I guess I've just been so busy with these mountains of painting homework that I haven't really been able to get around to posting anything up here.  And yeah, I have had a buttload of homework this semester--so far I've finished three big paintings for Advanced Watercolor (and have gotten some good progress in on a fourth) and two for Senior Show (and I need to get working on a third one today, and maybe a fourth by the time Monday rolls around so I'll have 4 done in both classes before next week.)  Added to all that, of course, is all the work for my two less-stressful classes, 3D Design and Astronomy.  Mostly 3D Design, since Astronomy is like... barely any homework at all, maybe a half-hour of work (including reading) every other day during the week, with the occasional extra assignment here and there.  No big deal.  It's definitely the art classes that take up most of my time, as always.

But anyway... since the last time I posted anything up here, a bunch of stuff has happened.

I went to the Homecoming dance... for about half an hour, because for some stupid reason they decided to cut the SAC in half with a big wooden divider thing and what would normally be a room consisting of "crowd -- empty space -- tables" became just "crowd + tables."  Needless to say... crowd-freakout definitely happened, and I had to leave early or I would've been completely miserable the whole time.  Which really sucks, because there were a lot of people there that I knew and I'm sure I would've had plenty of people to dance with throughout the night if it hadn't been for the awfultastic room setup (unlike previous dances this year which were pretty much flooded with random freshmen I've never met before)... but anyway, Ruth ended up wanting to leave early also, and rather than just disappearing on her own she mentioned this to me, so we ended up going back to my apartment and playing Super Smash Bros. for the next 2 or 2-and-a-half hours.  So basically... it turned out to be simultaneously the worst dance ever (the actual dance part), and one of the best ones (after leaving.) XD

Shown here: the only picture I took at the Homecoming dance.

There was also a bunch of Halloween stuff going on.  First, I went up to the Lofts one day with a few friends and saw all the Halloween decorations they had put up there...

The paintings were decorated too (...except the one of Jesus.)

...and also a bunch of little kids who had come in trick-or-treating.

Such as this little guy, who's dressed as an AIRCRAFT CARRIER!

After that, I ended up going to the "Art After Dark" thing they had going on in the library, where a bunch of people got up and read poetry-type things they had written.  People also had drawings/paintings/prints/photos/etc. set up around the shelves, and there was not-quite-free food as well.  And after that, I found out that there was a Halloween party going on over at Chestnut House, which I hadn't been aware of until that day (which unfortunately meant that I didn't have anything resembling a costume to go in.)

It was a little crowdy at first (so many people were crammed into the room where the snacks and such were!), but once the crowds cleared out as most of the total-strangery people moved over to the room where a movie was being watched and the food room was left with just a half-dozen or so people I actually knew (with others occasionally moving in and out), it worked out pretty well.

During the week of Halloween itself, I had some stuff to do also.  I unfortunately was not able to get my "guy with Beard Card" costume together (as Wal-Mart had run out of fake beards by the time I went to get one), so I wore my squid hat around all day instead.  That's sort of a costume, right?  Anyway, on Halloween there was a Halloween party thing going on in the ballroom...

Minions!

Scariest costume of the night right here.

Not riding a horse, just clopping coconuts together to make the sound. XD

Also pretty intimidating: a 6-foot Maddie with claws. XD

 Yeah... I took a TON of pictures at this thing.  Lots of really neat costumes around (as you can see above), and of course snacks and other random things.  After hanging around there for a while, I stumbled across someone who was willing to pay for me to go through the haunted house thing they were doing on the upper floors of Main Hall (they only took solid money, not student ID card money, and I had none with me at the time), so I went through that also.  I didn't really get scared at all, but that's pretty normal for me in haunted houses; one of the girls in the group I went through with was FREAKING OUT pretty much the whole time (funnily enough, before we went in she was the one who really wanted to go and she had to pretty much drag one of the other girls in with her.  Once inside, she was freaking out and the girl who had to be dragged in was fine. XD)  There were some neat effects, though--a roomful of floating ghost/mask things, for example.

After Halloween was over, well... November started.  So weird to think that the semester's more than halfway over now... it really doesn't feel like it's been multiple months since this one started.  Except at the same time it sort of does.  It's weird how time seems to pass both super-slow and super-fast at the same time here sometimes.  Anyway... shortly after November started, there was a Washington DC trip for my 3D Design class, which I went on.  The ride over was pretty miserable (I had to get up at 6:30 AM, which I do not do ever, and then I was lonely and bored the whole way over), but once I actually got into DC things started looking up.  It helped that I had someone around to talk to the whole time, thanks to the first-ever actually helpful instance of the "buddy system" rule.

As always, a picture of the giant-pillars-and-fountain room.

The Native American museum, I think.  We didn't actually go in.

The empty haz-mat suit says hi.

In the Air and Space Museum.
Seems that guy's taking a picture of me, too...

Shown here: the National Archives.
Also, the person who cured my boredom that day.

And here's the fountain where we had a water-fight and both ended up soaked.

 But yeah... I bumped into a friend up there (who had been way in the back of the other bus on the ride over, so we didn't see each other until after getting off the buses) and she basically grabbed me and dragged me off to go see as many museums and such as we could fit into the day.  She'd never been to DC before, and I don't think I have ever seen anyone as excited to go to Washington DC as she was--she was basically bouncing-off-the-walls hyper for most of the trip.  And I think that actually helped--I was feeling so crappy from the ride over, and I think being around someone who was actually excited about the trip kind of "cured" my lonely-and-boring-bus-ride crappiness.  It helped that she was someone I actually knew, of course (I don't think an excited random stranger would've really helped much, if it all), but still.  Before too long I had completely recovered from the bus ride, and we went through the National Gallery (and its gift shop) for a while before having lunch (which was really good, but a bit more expensive than I would've liked.)  After that was a brief visit to the other side of the National Gallery, then heading outside to find the Air and Space Museum where we stayed for a while.  I don't think we got around to nearly everything in there (since it is a huge museum) but after seeing a bunch of the space things and the Wright Brothers exhibit, we left that one and wandered off across DC for a bit, eventually ending up at the sculpture garden once we figured out that the Lincoln Memorial was too far away for us to be able to reach it and have time to get back.  After that we stopped by the National Archives (which I don't think I'd ever been to before) and got to see things like the Constitution and Declaration of Independence under their thick protective shells of glass and such.  Also, the elevators, which actually do look like the ones in National Treasure.  After that, we headed back toward the National Gallery so we could look around at the modern art section for a while before the buses were ready to leave... but before we went inside, a random water fight broke out next to one of the fountains, and before too long we were both pretty soaked (the right side of my shirt was still wet by the time I got home. XD)  By the time that was over we only had a little over an hour to look around, but I think we managed to get through most of the museum exhibits that we hadn't seen yet by that point and got back to the buses with time to spare.  Overall, it turned out to be a really good trip, despite the bad start.

Oh, and the day after that trip, DST finally ended, meaning that clocks stopped pretending it was an hour later than it really is (and I suddenly have a much easier time going to bed in the 12:30-1:00 AM range, and getting up in the 8:30-9:00 range, than before.)

This week so far has been mostly uneventful, aside from some unexpected long talks with people (which are always appreciated!) and free pizza (also always appreciated) last night after the meeting for the ILP program, where people can go to China, Mexico, Russia, etc. to teach kids English.  I doubt I'd be able to go on something like that (lack of money, no financial aid after this semester, etc.) but it still sounds like it'd be really neat to do.  And they were giving out free pizza (they had so much pizza there, but hardly anyone showed up, so I got to take a full box of it home with me afterward!), which is pretty much a guarantee that I'll show up at some point.  I've had several really odd dreams lately, such as one where Bleach characters Zommari and Kenpachi were fighting (Kenny was too slow to actually hit Zommari, but it seemed like Zommari's attacks weren't really hurting Kenny much... and for some reason he had this giant laser gun thing with tiny lightsabers on it in addition to his regular sword) and another one where I bought an old copy of Pokémon Red and found the box to some NES games (and they were games that don't actually exist, too) hidden away inside that box, somehow.  Later this week there's going to be a movie showing in the SAC, the new Superman movie Man of Steel, which I haven't seen yet.  I'm planning on going, and it seems like I won't have to worry so much about my usual "finding a seat that will actually work" issues this time, so Saturday night should be a pretty good one.