Well... this last week has been a busy one.

Yeah... I'm not even sure where to start here, so much has gone on since the last time I posted here.  I actually don't remember off the top of my head when the last time I posted here was, though I know I haven't let it go for too long without a new post (checking again, it seems my last one was last Monday--so just over a week.  not too bad.)  But yeah... this past week.

It started off pretty good, I guess.  Started on (and finished) a 5th painting, got the notes on the back of three of them written up (and one delivered to the person it was made for), and unexpectedly ended up asking a girl on a second date, which is the first time that's happened since... way back in October 2011 when me and Ruth went on our second date.  Which means it's also the second time that's ever happened in my life, oddly enough; apparently I've gone on a whole lot of first dates but somehow never got around to asking any of those girls on a second one.  The thought had come to mind earlier, when I had found out that she actually wasn't going to be immediately disappearing to go on her mission after the summer but instead coming back to SVU for at least one more semester, but at the time I had kind of brushed it off... until we ended up talking in the library and I just couldn't help but blurt it out.  That's going to happen tomorrow; I'm going over to her house and making chicken fajitas as a late lunch for both of us, which should be pretty nice.

Later on in the week... things changed a bit.  Thursday I found out from my dad that my grandma had died.  I didn't react much at first (mostly just kind of stunned by the news and wasn't able to get many words out), but the next morning it finally hit me when I saw my dad share her obituary on Facebook.  I shared it too, and started to type a little bit of a message to go with it, and then ended up going on and on and going over all of my memories of Grandma and crying for something like an hour straight.  Thankfully I had friends to talk to about it with and help me calm down a bit almost immediately (one even contacted me midway through the typing-and-crying hour... just to randomly talk to me about something, but it turned out she just happened to get in touch with me right when I needed someone to talk to the most, whether it was intentional or not.  Thanks for that.)  I don't know how things would've gone if I had been stuck alone in my apartment the whole day with nobody to talk to about it, but fortunately that did not happen.  So many friends came out to show support that day, whether it was in-person or over Facebook or even by text-message.  Thanks again for being there for me, you guys.

Despite starting out with me crying for an hour straight over my grandma, Friday actually turned out to be a pretty good day somehow.  I ended up having a trip to Food Lion to stock up on some things I needed, got a haircut so I won't get kicked out of graduation for being too shaggy (and not only was it free, but it doesn't look weird to me! usually when I get my hair cut shorter, it does), spent a lot of time hanging around with friends, and went to a choir concert at SVU which turned out pretty well.  Friday was a pretty good day.

Saturday, though... that one broke my "nothing but good days since February" streak, even though the truly bad part lasted less than an hour.  It was just that bad.  I'm not sure what the heck I was thinking, but for some odd reason I signed up for a 5k that SVU was doing.  Started off fine, before it actually had started, when I was just hanging around talking to some friends... but then when it was about to start, everyone got packed in together at the starting line.  I ended up in at least a "pre-crowd-freakout" state around that point.  Then it started, and my friends (who I had thought would be mostly walking) took off running and I made a crappy attempt to keep up at first but found myself unable to put forth enough effort to actually do so thanks to the still-developing crowd freakout holding me down.  After that it just got miserable.  I was left behind by literally everyone, even random married people pushing baby strollers; I was in the very back of the line for a while, only 20 feet ahead of the random police car that they had to pick up people who physically were not capable of going any further if they happened to pass out on the road or something.  I just got so angry.  Mostly at myself for making the stupid mistake of signing up for this thing, but any random stranger who was dumb enough to cheer for me from the sidelines got yelled at a bit, too.  I was at least able to be a bit nicer to the people I actually knew, but not as much as I normally would.  I almost felt like I had regressed back to the high school version of myself for a while there--it was just that bad.  I mean, I don't *like* having people cheer for me even now, but I don't normally react too strongly to it, I don't normally yell "SHUT UP!" at random people who do it for even a second; back in high school I absolutely hated it, though.  I did actually have someone to talk to very briefly, for a few minutes toward the end, but... that was about it.  I probably should've tried to find someone who planned on mostly walking before it started and convinced them to stick with me for as much of the race as possible so I would have someone to keep the crowd-freakout from happening and be there to talk to me, but... for some reason I didn't think of it ahead of time.  I guess I didn't think that "running along with a bazillion people" would trigger crowd-freakouts in the same way that "sitting in one place with a bazillion people" does, or something.

And oddly enough, before the thing even started, a friend suggested that I should find a certain person who was walking the whole way and stick with them.  At the time I didn't really consider it because I thought that the group of friends I had managed to track down were planning on doing more walking than anything else, but looking back, it probably would've helped a lot if I had actually done that.

Anyway... after the 5k itself was over, I managed to find a group of friends again and be not-alone during the luau afterward.  I was still feeling pretty crappy for a while, but eventually I managed to at least partially recover thanks to having friends to talk to and goof off with for a while.  That always helps.  I didn't completely recover until around 11:00ish when I stumbled across the same group of friends again as I was leaving the lofts, and things just got really silly and I kept cracking up laughing and... yeah, I felt like myself again.  The only bad part was that I didn't have my camera to take pictures of some of the goofiness I was there to see.  So Saturday didn't end on a bad note, at least.  It just had one really awful one in the middle.

Sunday... was a Sunday.  Nothing particularly eventful about it, except that I finished a 6th painting (the first of the small ones) and it's really goofy-looking.  I only left my house to go for a walk later on.

Yesterday was my grandma's funeral.  I'd never been to a funeral before, but... it wasn't really that bad.  I managed to avoid crying, though only just barely (several times my eyes did tear up a bit, but never went beyond that--I guess I let most of it out Friday morning when I cried for an hour straight.)  Met a lot of relatives I didn't know I had who had shown up for the funeral, and also got to see my mom for the first time in a while (though unfortunately my little sister didn't come--apparently she had said she wouldn't be able to handle it and decided to stay home.)  I actually managed to get up in front of everyone and talk about my memories of Grandma for a while during the funeral service, despite my fears of having a crowd-freakout and just not really liking public speaking too much.  I was one of only three people who did that--one was the guy directing the funeral service, another was someone from Grandma's church, and then there was me.  I kind of ended up rambling on about silly little things, but... I think I did okay.  And besides, rambling on about silly little things is a normal thing for me, so at least I was "working" at the time rather than breaking down and not quite being my usual self.
I think I finally understand what the point of having a funeral service is, though.  It's not for the dead person; they're dead, they've already moved on, and though I suppose they might be present at their own funeral, floating around somewhere and watching and getting another look at their loved ones again without the physical ailments that made it hard during their last days on Earth getting in the way... the one in the casket is not "them," it's just a dead body at this point.  There's no need for it on that level, it's not some superstitious thing where the dead person's soul can't find peace until they have all these ceremonies and rituals done in their name or anything silly like that.  A funeral is for the people who are still alive, to give them a chance to come together and remember the one they've lost and have some sense of closure about it rather than dealing with it on their own and possibly dragging things out for too long and messing themselves up in the process.

After the funeral, I went along with my dad and several newly-discovered relatives and got something to eat at Jack Mason's in Clifton Forge.  The food (I had a fish sandwich, salad, fries, and cheese sticks) was good and it was nice to have people to talk to the whole time.  After that, we went up to the cemetery where Grandma's body is going to be buried.  I don't think it had been done yet, since there was a recently dug hole with a bunch of boards over it in the place where her gravesite should've been.  We did see my great-grandparents' grave, which I'd never seen before.  I never knew either of them, since they died in the '70s before I even existed.

After that, me and Dad went over to the computer place in Covington and got a replacement battery for my laptop.  The old one had apparently been in bad shape for the past semester-and-a-half, not being able to hold a charge for more than an hour and constantly telling me I needed to replace it.  The new one seems to work much better; at 40-some percent it still had more time left than the old battery had at 100% toward the end there.

And then I came back here, got more food over at the Institute building, and got to hang around and talk to several friends for a while.  One in particular I ended up talking to for hours... a lot more hours than I had expected to originally, actually. XD  But I think that was a good thing.  It's nice to have friends who I can just sit down and have multiple-hour conversations with, especially when they're the kind of friends who I can bring up literally any subject with (no matter how weird or not-socially-acceptable they might be to bring up with someone) without much fear of making things too awkward or freaking them out.  I wish I had more friends like that... there are several now, and I'm definitely glad to have those I do have, but I wish there were more.

A weekend that doesn't suck at all: it happens sometimes!

Yep... despite probably worrying a bit too much over it this week, the dance last night actually turned out REALLY well.  Did I have a date? Nope! Of course not.  I had been hoping somebody would come out of nowhere and ask me during the week leading up to it (since they actually encouraged the girls to ask guys to the dance this time), but it never happened so I just went alone.  Well... I didn't end up being completely alone, since there actually were a decent number of people who went without dates (though, at first, it seemed that the only people there were a bunch of engaged/married couples and the group of friends that I hung around with for most of the night.  Around 6 or 7 of us, plus 6 or 7 couples, most of them engaged.  That was weird.)

But yeah... although nobody asked me (I have had a few suspicions of people who might have been the most likely to ask in an alternate universe where someone had... but I don't know if any of those suspicions are remotely accurate), I definitely did not have trouble finding people to dance with.  The "nobody but engaged/married couples" thing changed before too long and more people showed up, some of them without dates.  I actually kind of had the opposite problem, for the first time ever: even though they seemed to be playing more slow songs than usual for an SVU dance, there were actually more people there that I would've liked to dance with than there were songs that I could have actually danced to! Several left before I had a chance to dance with them, and one was responsible for watching the front table so she couldn't actually go in and dance (though I did at least manage to ask.)

I think this is actually the first "regular" SVU dance where I actually had people to dance with pretty frequently and didn't even have problems asking anyone to dance.  Usually, it's only the live band ones (where it's easier to do ballroom-type dancing)  where I manage to have people to dance with pretty consistently; the regular ones have too much "random wiggle dancing" and it's usually really hard to track down people I'd like to dance with at a moment's notice when a slow song first comes on.  I think the fact that it was in the ballroom and also was a bit less crowded than usual helped--I could usually see across the room well enough that I could point out people I knew from a distance and go toward them as soon as a song started, in the cases where I wasn't already standing there talking to them before the song started up.  It was kind of weird how easy it was for me to actually ask people this time--usually it's really nerve-wracking for me, but this time it wasn't hard at all, not even the first time I tried.  Of course... I think it helped that someone asked ME to dance before I ever tried to ask anyone to dance.  I'm not sure what it is, but for some reason it becomes a lot easier to ask people to dance once I've been asked by someone first.  And that effect applies to other people too, not just the same person who asked me, so it's not even just an "oh hey, someone asked me to dance once so she'd probably be okay with dancing again" sort of thing.

I actually kind of amazed myself a few times.  Not just with the fact that I was able to ask people right as a song started, sometimes without even having been hanging around talking to them beforehand (though that's always pretty amazing too, when it happens--the "3 seconds to find someone to dance with"  thing doesn't tend to work well for me), but with who I was able to ask in a few cases.  I ended up dancing with two girls that I didn't know all that well prior to the dance (one of which I had only really talked to once before), and also asked someone who I had a crush on waaaay back in my first year (...and a half) at SVU, which is the sort of thing that can be a little awkward sometimes.  Especially since those feelings never got brought up with the person I had them for (...though looking back at several situations from my first semester or so, I was being pretty obvious about it a lot of the time, so I'd assume she probably figured it out at some point I guess?), so rather than a clear "no" that whole situation is still in "what if?" territory.  There was a brief moment last night where I wondered if I might've accidentally revived at least a tiny bit of that crush, or that it wasn't quite as dead as I thought it was before (just sleeping), but... I guess it's too soon to say.  So far I'll just assume it was more of a "hey, I used to hang around with this person more often and actually liked her!" sort of thing and the "crush may be starting to return" thing was just from memories of the first time coming up to the surface or something.  So... "still dead, but with little ghosties floating around occasionally reminding me that something used to be there" I guess.

Also ended up dancing with the girl who I suspect might have been the one someone was telling me about at one of the dances last year (the mysterious "girl who was at this dance who apparently liked me" that I've mentioned several times on here... I assume she'd probably have lost interest by now since that was waaaaay back at the end of fall semester 2012, but I'd still like to find out who she was at some point... I hate leaving questions unanswered and having these dangling "what if?" sorts of things floating around my head for years afterward)... no way to confirm or deny those suspicions as far as I can tell ("did you like me a year-and-a-half ago?" would just be way too awkward of a question to even ask), but I figure that if by some freak chance she actually is the one who likes (liked?) me, asking her to dance can only be a good thing for both of us. XD

(...plus I'm fairly sure I could end up liking her if we saw each other more often and got to know each other better.  and it'd be really nice to actually find someone who likes me for once, rather than constantly having these horrible one-sided crushes on so many people who will never actually feel anything for me.  I'm guessing I would have much easier time growing to like someone--and would be much more comfortable with bringing it up once I did--if I found out she liked me first.  So if you're reading this and you suspect you may be the person I'm talking about here, let me know!)

The weekend aside from the dance also turned out well.  I managed to randomly bump into a group of friends (the same ones I hung out with most of the time at the dance, actually) three days in a row and ended up actually having stuff to do and people to talk to, not just sitting around alone in my apartment all day.  On Friday there was an Easter activity at the Institute building, which turned out fairly well (despite not being able to do all of the activities--one triggered a bit of a crowd freakout, one was just awkward, and one I just never got around to.)  After that I went to an SVU orchestra concert, which also turned out pretty well.  Saturday I didn't have anything in particular to do (before the dance) but ended up wandering on campus and bumped into some friends again, which led to me tagging along for a bit as they went to the Amish Cupboard, the dollar store, and also the last women's lacrosse game of the year.  I had kinda been wanting to go to one of those at some point, mainly because I actually know several people on the team, but I wasn't able to get a chance before this past Saturday because I'm not really a sports person and that's the sort of thing I'd need to have friends to sit with at or things wouldn't go well (either due to crowd freakout or just a bit of boredom and loneliness... which tend to make me more vulnerable to crowd freakouts, so it'd probably end up being a little of both if I tried to go by myself.)  But yeah, since I had friends to sit with and talk to and goof off with, things went pretty well and I ended up staying to the end (...though we didn't get there until right before halftime. XD)  Later on Saturday was, of course, the dance which I already went into a lot of detail about.  Though I did forget to mention one thing--I actually ended up hanging around and talking to some people after the dance for quite a while (dance ended at 11:30... I didn't start heading back down the hill until something like 1:30.)  That's definitely something I've missed from my earlier semesters here--just having random conversations with people that end up going on for hours late into the night and only ending when somebody needs to go to bed. XD

Sunday even turned out well, which is something that doesn't happen too often.  I had to get up a bit early (which I'm kind of surprised I was able to do, considering that I didn't get home until almost 2 am and stayed up almost another hour before finally going to bed) because a friend had invited me to her church meeting so that I could watch her (and her brother, I think?) sing.  Apparently the Mormons have several musical performances from members on Easter Sunday, or at least they did this time, and hers was one of them (and as it turned out, two other friends were there playing the piano during her performance also.)  This was one of the 9 am sessions of Mormon church, but thankfully the meeting I was invited to didn't start until 10:50ish so it wasn't completely impossible for me to get up in time.  I actually ended up getting there a bit early--there was basically no one there at 10:30ish when I first got up to the church building!  Despite the initial lack of people to sit with, things turned out well; another friend had apparently decided ahead of time to sit with me so that I could avoid crowd-freakouts, so I waited for her to show up rather than spending all of my time glancing around the room desperately searching for somewhere I could sit.  There were a few others I knew there, so I probably *could* have had somewhere to sit if she hadn't shown up... but it's always nice to be able to skip the "awkwardly looking around for a seat" stage and just be able to say "oh, I'm sitting with this person!  that will work.  no need to worry about seating arrangements now," so if you're reading this... you being the "designated crowd-freakout preventer" this past Sunday was definitely appreciated! XD

And randomly, I also got to find out what the Mormons do when there are people who need gluten-free food, rather than just making them eat the hunks of bread that everyone else gets during sacrament meeting.  Apparently they put out this tiny little cup of... some sort of crunchy thin bread/cracker-type things, alongside the usual pile of torn-up bread chunks.  That's actually not something I've ever really thought about before (the "what about people who can't have that bread?" issue), but it makes sense considering I've met several people who are definitely gluten-intolerant or suspect that they might have some degree of gluten intolerance.

Sunday didn't even turn out to be a "sit around alone" day after that point, surprisingly.  I went to Subway, went for a nice walk, and then around 7:00 I ended up going to the fireside up at the Mormon church just to have something to do.  Spent most of that drawing and watching someone's baby running around and doing silly things, though I paid some attention to the speakers also.  Wasn't too "churchy" in this case, surprisingly enough, which is probably why I actually ended up paying some attention to the speakers--more of general "advice for doing well in life" sorts of things from what I can remember, and talking about the first two expeditions to the South Pole and comparing how they went (one guy made it there and back, the other's entire group ended up dead 11 miles from their base camp.)  Also ended up sitting with and talking to a new person who I had only seen a few times before.  And after that, I ended up wandering up to the lofts where I stumbled across the same group of friends that I had repeatedly bumped into throughout the weekend, this time dyeing Easter eggs in the lobby.  I ended up decorating one of the eggs (put two random chicken stickers on it and drew some squiggles and lines and random grass) but mostly just talking and goofing off.  Which continued for several hours--it wasn't until 11:00ish that I finally ended up going back home again.  It's nice that I've been able to get to know some of these people a bit better over the past week or two, though it really sucks that most of them are going to disappear (going away on missions) after this semester's over.  It really kind of makes me wish that the later half of February as it was had never happened (or at least, that the crush I had on someone back in February had never happened... or if I had managed to bring it up with her earlier and get a clear "no" early on rather than being unable to say anything and thus unable to give up until the feelings went away) and that it had been more like these past few days/weeks instead.  It's kind of funny (but also kind of sad) that I only just recently exchanged phone numbers with several of my "met this year" friends, and then they're all going to be gone in the next couple weeks (...which I also didn't know until very recently.  I knew two of them had planned on going on missions after this year, but I had no idea the rest of them were all going to disappear too!)  Hopefully I'll see them a good bit during the next couple weeks that are left of the semester so even if I never get to see any of them again, at least things will end on a good note rather than it being an "aw crap, I never even got to say goodbye to these people" sort of thing.

I'm going to have a job this summer. (Maybe now that my luck's turned around a bit, a girlfriend and a car will suddenly come out of nowhere too?)

Yeah... this past week or so has been a fairly productive one for me, which isn't something that happens often.  Made another $70 or so selling video games on eBay, bumped into several people I haven't seen nearly often enough this semester (and got to talk to others who I've seen more often but haven't really gotten many chances to actually talk to), went to a Doctor Who club meeting that turned out pretty well, and (of course) got a freaking job.  Yep--this past Saturday I went over to Camp Shenandoah and had my in-person interview and was told that I was "probably hired" by the ranger and that it was a 95% chance by the other guy in charge of hiring.  And then yesterday I got an email officially offering me the position, telling me how much it would pay, and so on.  So yeah... I'll repeat: I got a freaking job.  Just have to get some supplies (Boy Scout Class A uniform that actually fits, a couple of "class B" uniforms that actually fit, etc.), get a physical, and fill out some other forms that Camp Shenandoah should be sending me in the mail within the next couple of days and I'll be ready to go.  Doesn't start until mid-June, so I'll be home for around a month after graduation.  This also means I won't have to worry so much about the usual summer boredom and loneliness, since I'll be away from home for half of June and at least most of July working at camp.  And I won't have to worry so much about being cut off from my friends, either, because I'll have electricity in the staff campsite (so my laptop will work!) and wireless Internet access around the dining hall, apparently.  Hopefully it turns out well!

I know my visit to the camp Saturday turned out pretty well--aside from the interview, lunch, and helping some people out with their attempt to spread gravel out across the roads (which will be nice, since I'll have to drive on those roads when I'm the Assistant Ranger this summer!), I also got a chance to wander around a bit and explore the campsite.  Here's some pictures!

...and yeah, that trash can at the end says "Crap Canvas" on it.  I'm not entirely sure why. XD

But yeah... though job stuff has been the biggest thing, other stuff this past week has mostly worked out pretty well too.  I finally got to talk to someone who I'd been having these really odd feelings of "wanting to talk to this person-ness" all semester (which is especially odd considering that she's someone I really didn't know at all), and it seemed that we actually got along really well.  And apparently, according to her, we had talked once before, oddly enough--apparently it happened way back at the beginning of last semester at an FHE activity or something.  It's weird that I didn't remember; I assume it must've been pretty brief, because usually when I actually find a new person that I can talk to I remember them afterward and I don't think she's the sort of person I would've forgotten about so easily based on our one conversation so far.

The one thing that didn't turn out so well was the movie on Saturday.  SVU was showing the second Hobbit movie, and I thought I'd actually be able to stay--I even found people to sit with, which normally would prevent crowd-freakouts pretty well.  Unfortunately, things didn't quite go that way... I was doing pretty well for a while (talking and goofing off and eating cookies and cotton candy with friends), but then some other people showed up and somehow the conversation shifted toward "who has a crush on who" sorts of things.  A topic that's pretty much guaranteed to leave me feeling a bit left out, especially now that I don't really have any major crushes (there are a few people hovering in the "maybe I'm starting to like this person... okay, yeah, I think I'm starting to like this person... wait, maybe it's just a maybe again, I'm not sure >_<" range, of course, but so far there's nobody that I'm just constantly thinking of like there always has been from 2011 up through February or so of this semester.)  And then it drifted to "hey, this other guy has six girls who like him" and I'm just sitting there with this look of utter disbelief on my face (or would be, if I wasn't already in a pre-crowd-freakout state that made me unable to show facial expressions besides "blank") like "really? six? okay, sir, you've got more than enough luck for one person, I'm going to have to confiscate some of that."  Oh, and it didn't end there--apparently he was able to figure out who three of them were!  It just amazes me how insanely, ridiculously, unrealistically lucky some people are.  If there was just one girl who liked me, I probably wouldn't be able to figure it out unless she made it so obvious that anyone in their right mind (which, to be fair, disqualifies some of the guys that I've met) would be able to figure it out.  How can one person be so lucky to not only attract the attention of six different people, but be able to figure out who three of them are?? It's just... bleh.  That's too much luck for one person.  I've got nothing at all against the guy (we're actually friends, even), but that doesn't mean I want to hear about how ridiculous his luck is while I'm sitting here with my "dating/relationship luck-o-meter" hovering just a few degrees above absolute zero.

But anyway... so that whole conversation got me feeling a bit left out and alone, and that feeling made me a lot more vulnerable to crowd freakouts than I would have otherwise been in the situation.  So when a bunch of random people (mostly strangers or people I don't know that well) suddenly moved in just a few feet to my left... yeah, crowd freakout happened.  It wasn't too bad as far as crowd-freakouts go, but it was bad enough that I didn't really feel like sitting silently and watching a movie for a couple hours.  I was able to poke one of my friends and let her know that I was leaving (so people didn't just... suddenly find out that I was no longer there an hour or so later), and then headed back down the hill to my apartment.  Thankfully, a couple of good friends were online and after a while of talking, the crowd-freakout effect wore off and I was feeling pretty good again.  I'm always kind of surprised that talking to someone over Facebook can actually have that effect--for most of my life, online stuff just didn't quite work as well as talking in-person.  It's only been in the past year that I've stumbled across people who can somehow, miraculously, make online communication feel like actually talking to a person rather than just... some robot is sending text at me again.  Definitely nice to have people to talk to when I'm in a crappy situation and really need it, though.

Also found a huge shiny black beetle crawling around in the grass the other day.  First one like this that I've seen in years, so of course I took a bunch of pictures (here's one.)

Yep... I like bugs. XD

I've also been doing some painting lately, working on some little random things that will be gifts for some of my friends that are graduating or otherwise leaving SVU after this semester.  Currently I have three done, though I'm not 100% sure if one of the three people is actually graduating this semester (I'm pretty sure he is, but... not 100%.)  I have 8 people on the "graduating people" list so far (the 3 I have done were all from that list), but I know that's not everyone who's leaving... I don't have a "people who aren't graduating but are leaving" list started yet, but I probably should start that one up pretty soon so I can keep track of how many of them there are.  I may have to cut the size of these things in half (or make sure I only do simpler paintings for most of them) if I want to get them all done in time...

And in completely unrelated news, there's a dance at SVU this weekend, the last one of the semester actually.  And apparently it's "ladies' choice," which I'm not sure if is intended to mean "girls have to ask guys if they want to go to the dance with a date" or "girls have to ask guys to dance at the dance itself."  Sounds nice at first (no asking for me this time, yay! also, get some of those lazy "I don't believe girls should ever ask guys" people off their butts for once and show them how hard it actually is to ask, so maybe they'll understand why not all guys can do it like it's no big deal) but unfortunately "ladies' choice" is probably going to end up meaning "girls are asking the guys to dance, and guess which guy's never going to get asked?" (Hint for the clueless and/or people who don't know me well enough to have heard about how awful my luck is with this sort of thing: that guy's name is Eddie.)
It'd be nice if it turns out that my prediction is completely wrong (either a girl will actually ask me to go with her, or if not then at least I'll have people asking me to dance while I'm there), but I can't really see that as being all that likely.  Would definitely be a pleasant surprise if someone DID ask me (at least, assuming it was someone I at least kinda-know and not a total stranger from out of nowhere who's just that desperate for someone to go with), and especially nice if it turned out that this was someone who actually liked me in some way and decided to take this chance to actually let me know... but I'm not really counting on anything like that happening.

Another almost-entirely-good week

...well, I guess technically it's been a little over a week since the last time I posted anything on here... but eh, close enough.  I doubt I'll really have enough going on during the next month-and-a-half for multiple posts a week (or even "a post every week") to really make much sense, and after that point there probably won't be any more posts on here until I'm back in Buena Vista again in the fall.  Well, unless I decide to expand this out into a general "what's going on in my life" sort of thing rather than a "what's going on in my life at and around SVU" like it has been.  And of course, that's assuming that I end up coming back here at all; that's the plan currently, but I'm not 100% sure because... well, that's months ahead and I don't really like to plan things very far ahead without knowing how things are going to go or having any idea about what might happen between now and then.  Heck, I don't even know for sure if I'll end up having a job over the summer or not at this point, though apparently my chances were pretty good the last time I heard.

Speaking of job stuff, that was one of the good things about this week: it's looking like I might actually have a job soon.  Or possibly two.  I've applied to work a temp job in the SVU bookstore for exam week, and I'm also in the process of filling out the forms to work at Camp Shenandoah over the summer.  All I need now is one more reference to put on there and the forms will be done, so I'll be able to scan them in up at the library and then send them over to the guy who's responsible for doing the hiring.  I already had a phone interview about the job last week, and was told at the time that my chances of getting the job were probably upward of 80%... hopefully that holds up and I'll actually have something to do this summer.  There's also this weird one involving post-office boxes that I was thinking of applying for, but if I get the Camp Shenandoah job *OR* the bookstore job it'll be hard to do that one (I've already seen what the schedule for it looks like, and there'd be at least a couple of days I'd have to do that which would overlap with the bookstore job, and one that would overlap with Camp Shenandoah.)  And it also wouldn't pay nearly as much as either of the other two, especially not Camp Shenandoah--the absolute max I'm looking at from the post-office box thing would be less than $200, and just one week at Camp Shenandoah would pay that much or more.  Still, it's nice to actually have a real chance of getting a job for once, and also to have multiple options in case one doesn't work out... seems like that hasn't really happened before.

I've also continued selling stuff on eBay, which made enough for me to cover my electric bill (and a trip to Wal-Mart) without any difficulty last month and will hopefully end up making enough for me to pay May's rent + April and May's electric bills once those come around.  Plus, if I sell off most of my old video games I'll have some spare boxes to bring food and such home with me, assuming that I'll still have any food left over by the time I get around to moving out.  I'll definitely have other stuff that will need to be in a box of some sort, though, so there's always that even if there's not much left of my food supply by the time graduation and such is done and I'm about to leave.

I've now (finally) started working on the little paintings that I'm planning on giving to my graduating-or-otherwise-leaving-SVU friends.  Well, so far I've only actually started on one of them, but that one is well on its way to being done (the next time I actually sit down and paint, I'll probably end up finishing it.) I've had a few responses from people as to what they'd like me to paint (two actually gave suggestions, and a few others responded in a more "paint me something, I don't care what it is!" kind of way), and a few other people have been put on the "I need to paint something for this person" list even though I've gotten no response from them as to what they'd like to see.  I'm kind of sad that I haven't heard from more people about what they'd like me to paint for them, but eh, I figure that some of them just haven't seen the announcements since they're not on Facebook so often.  Plus, if someone doesn't give me a suggestion I can always just make something up off the top of my head.  It's usually worked out okay in the past (...well... except for the times when I've just had too many "draw whatever/no request" things to get done and in the end only got half of them done. >_<)

And it seems my "ask people on dates shortly after getting the thought" plan (as opposed to the usual "wait around forever and let things fester before ever saying anything") that I've had during the past month or so continues to actually work out pretty well: I went on a maybe-this-was-a-date this weekend!  Heh.  I say it that way, of course, because I'm not entirely sure whether the other person involved really saw it as a date or not.  I mean, it pretty much fit the usual definition for what makes something a "date" (just two people, both single as far as I'm aware, eating or talking or doing other fun stuff together, on a day/time that they planned out ahead of time, because one of them asked the other)... but that's one of those things that's always kind of unclear when you're not a mind-reader.  But yeah... I had some ravioli in my fridge that I wanted to eat before it went bad, and since it was too much for one person to eat (...though, as I later found out, not too much that one person can't eat two-thirds of it... XD) I figured I'd ask someone to come over and help me eat it.  The original day I had planned for turned out to not be the best day for her, so we had to reschedule to the next day, but after that one little hiccup was sorted out it turned out pretty well.  She came over, I cooked ravioli, we both ate and talked and goofed off and then afterward we played Scrabble for a bit and then I walked her home.  Definitely was a lot better than my usual Sunday night plans, which are "sit at home alone doing nothing of any real importance." XD

Speaking of Sunday, earlier on that day I attempted to go to one of the Mormons' General Conference sessions (as usual, partly just to see what was going on and partly to see friends and have a chance to sit and draw random stuff--it seems like I always end up drawing some interesting things when I bring a notebook along to stuff like that), but... that didn't work so well.  I got there 15-20 minutes early, hoping to be able to get a decent seat, but found that the place was basically abandoned.  There were literally 5 or 6 people sitting down when I got there, none of which I knew very well (or at all, in most cases) and definitely not anyone I knew well enough to actually sit with.  I guess those people must have all stayed home and watched it on their computers.  I waited around until it was 30 seconds away from starting, but saw basically nobody that I knew that well show up (a few friends were there, but none that I know well enough to be really comfortable sitting next to... a crowd-freakout was likely to happen if I attempted to stay), so I ended up leaving.  Probably a good decision, since I still had to clean some things up around the house and staying somewhere that was likely to trigger a crowd-freakout is always a bad idea.  I'm just kind of glad I managed to get out before a freakout actually happened, rather than freaking out and then deciding to leave; things tend to not go so well when I do them in that order.  It also gave me some extra time to finish up a new chapter of Fangirl Extermination Squad, which got done surprisingly fast considering that I just finished the last chapter of that story this past Wednesday.  I guess it's a bit easier to finish them up when they're directly continuing from the previous chapter, so there's a lot less "okay, time to figure out what the heck's supposed to be happening here" work and more of just getting all the ideas that wouldn't quite fit into the previous chapter to come together in this one.

I also finally got around to trying to cook using these frozen mixed veggies (peppers, onions, and celery) that I picked up during one of my recent Wal-Mart trips.  And... it actually turned out really well! I had been worried that it would take too long for the frozen veggies to thaw out and it would make it hard to get everything cooked right, but I just tossed a bunch of them into the skillet and stirred them around for a couple minutes before putting the noodles (and some garlic I had chopped up) in with them and everything turned out pretty well.  Yet another thing I can do with my stir-fry noodles now.  Though, I only have one more pack of noodles and a lot of veggies still left... I guess I could also use them for those chicken fajitas, whenever I end up getting around to making them? Seems like a good mix of veggies to go in a fajita to me, anyway, especially with the shredded lettuce added in with them.  Only problem is... like the ravioli, the chicken for the fajitas is in a "too much for one person" package (and unlike the ravioli, it's frozen right now and needs to be thawed before I can use it... and probably won't re-freeze well, according to people who have experience with freezing/thawing chicken.)  So I'd have to find someone to help me eat it when I do decide to cook it, or I'd end up wasting at least some of it (I don't know how long it'd keep after being cooked, and already-cooked chicken + refrigeration is a baaaaad combination most of the time anyway, so... yeah, I'd have to get someone to help me eat it.)

I've also had a few weird dreams lately.  I've posted most of them on Facebook, so most of the people reading this (who aren't Russian spambots) have probably already seen most of these... but eh, here they are anyway:

March 30th
Batman and Bane were in this forested area (...I think it looked like the part of Twilight Town outside where the old mansion is) fighting, and there was this old Model T type car which they would pick up and try to throw at each other or pin the other underneath.  That's about all I remember.

March 31st
Two dreams, both randomly involving the luchador El Santo for some reason.  In the first one, I was in a house that was sort of like a combination of Mom's house and my apartment; there was one spot where someone had drawn El Santo on the wall in pencil, and I was worried that I'd get in trouble so I peeled the paint off of the wall in this spot (there was more paint underneath, so it wasn't *quite* as visible as the drawing was before.)  I also duct-taped over a hole in the floor, for some reason.

Second dream was set up kind of like a video game.  Started out with this guy getting out of bed and walking around, and at some point he found Santo's mask and put it on, which transforms him into Santo (even his facial features visible through the holes in the mask changed.)  He was standing around a table talking to some other people after this point, and this really tall scrawny guy said something along the lines of "No hablo español.  But it looks like you've turned into one o' them Mexican wrestlers!"

April 2nd
Vaguely remember at least part of a dream.  It was Star Wars-based, but stuff happened differently; Luke was fighting Darth Vader for a while, but someone else ran in randomly and the Emperor got shoved into the hole early, so Vader wasn't half-dead by the time it happened.  Palpatine also had shown off his own red lightsaber earlier on, unlike in the actual Return of the Jedi, but I can't remember why or whether he actually fought or not.  Apparently Vader wouldn't stop fighting until there had been "4 people with lightsabers" dead, and then Luke pointed out that there HAD now that the Emperor was dead--I guess three of them were Obi-Wan, Yoda, and Palpatine but I have no idea who the fourth was.  Luke also pointed out that Vader was now the boss of the entire Empire since the Emperor was dead, and that he could change things so it wasn't as bad.  It looked like this was actually going to work out okay by the end of the dream.

Also remember fragments of another one where I went into this door to a part of SVU that apparently would only allow students to go in, avoiding some creepy guy who had been following me.  Later on I found another area which had a slide going underground and into the basement of some place, which had become partly full of dead leaves so I had to scoot myself back out of it rather than sliding all the way down.

April 4th
Remember bits and pieces of two dreams.  In one, I was walking around with a girl (...I think it may have been someone I know and like in real life, actually) and we were looking for a place to go and cuddle.  We ended up having to leave one of the library mods for some reason and we went to the house which is now abandoned... only to find it very much NOT abandoned, and apparently home to three separate couples who were all sitting on the couch with the girl on the guy's lap.  Me and her sat on the table, but I'm not sure if we were planning on actually staying and joining in on this weird mass-cuddle situation.  It seemed like it was going to be too awkward for us to stay so we were going to head off somewhere else before too long.

In the other, I was playing some kind of Zelda-like video game which my sister apparently made, where one of the items you could get were Chiba Balls (which you picked up 4 at a time, like bombs in Zelda), but then when I went further in the game and was about to use the chiba Balls, things switched over to real-lifey mode and I was in this snowy parking lot, creeping up behind this tiny car.  I opened the back door of it and looked inside to see three kids and a ton of snow (...inside the car??) and they were all sort of piled on each other in weird positions.  I threw a Chiba Ball at them and ran (actually scudded) away from the car.  While scudding across the snow-covered parking lot (this time on my belly like a penguin, rather than sort of... almost moonwalking? like before) I saw other people approaching, but I think I woke up before anything happened involving them.