will you be surprised?

Hmm... What has happened in the last week that I should update about... Perhaps I should ask, what hasn't happened? Well... let's start at the beginning.

Monday, I believe, is where I left off last. Being a typical Monday, it would be a good guess to say it was drudgerous and depressing, owing to the fact that papers are typically due on Tuesday. So, yes, I did have to write a paper... but I did get to write part of it in the Urban Stampede in EGF (East Grand Forks) with Dan Ellenwood.

Tuesday... I'm not remembering too much from Tuesday, besides being long and boring... and nearly falling asleep in Calculus class again. I've discovered that classes should never be over 50 minutes long. After about 40 minutes, there is really not much to do except wait for the time to pass. And when it's a 75 minute class, you really run out of things to occupy thoughts for those last 35 minutes.

Again, not too much to remember about Wednesday, except for biking to Red River H.S. and doing the tutoring thing... picking up some groceries... oh, and I booked a train home for Thanksgiving! Since there's only one time that passenger trains depart GF, I'll be leaving at the lovely time of 12:54 AM and getting in at 7 in the morning on Thursday. Needless to say, I hope that there is adequate recline-age in the seats.

Thursday was crazy, but pretty normal as far as Thursdays go. Hall government was less than stellar, and Chem lab was muy estupido. I refuse to accept that light waves can be associated with Chemistry. Way too Physics-ish for me. Anyways, I'll have to pretend there is a relationship between the two for at least 7 more hours, as I have a Chem test on that this evening.

Friday was nice, other than not getting to take the Calc test early because of needing to show my room to visiting high school "Honors Students For a Day" and finishing up the newsletter. However, Friday evening made up for this all. It was Carol's birthday, so after some DDR and late night (a.k.a. late dinner at Wilkerson), we went out to Red Lobster and reverted back to our childhoods with attempts at making balloon animals and playing with Sand Art and clay. I guess Carol and the rest of her group must have gone off for other activities, because it was suddenly just Martha, Russ, and me heading off to the movie theatre, where we met up with a totally new group of people. We (previously mentioned people + Dan, Rob, the Jeremys, and Kent) all saw "The Incredibles," which, despite my slight prejudice against animated films, I really thought was AWESOME. In fact, even Kent agreed, and he's one of the least likely people to admit he enjoys anything.

I stayed up much too late on Friday night... or rather, Saturday morning... but surprisingly I felt awesome when I woke up at 10. OH! Now I get to start telling my weekend story! Okay, so we decided Wednesday that it would be an excellent idea to celebrate Carol's birthday by going up to Winnipeg... so after a quick breakfast at Wilkerson, April, Martha, and I raced back to the dorms to pack up and head out with Mike and Kent in Kent's black Ford Explorer (which he says his grandparents bought for him with their money from hitting oil on their property... interesting... anyways, I have to stop making sidenotes). Surprisingly, I made it all the way from Canadian customs to our hotel, desperately needing to pee, without exploding. I was very proud of myself, especially since we spent about 30 minutes just trying to find the hotel in downtown Winnipeg.

After exchanging our money for some crazy Canadian cash, we hung out in the hotel and waited for the rest of our group to arrive, since they (Carol, Rhiannon, Kylie, Eric Larson, Micah, Drew, Chad, and Jeremy Manstrom) ended up leaving a full two hours after us. Right before April and I nearly starved to death, they showed up and we headed out to this cute, little Chinese restaurant. However, as we waited for our food, I believe we did sort of die, combining the facts that our stomachs were slowly digesting themselves, and we were made to listen to Kent talk about himself some more :) what a character... (No, seriously, now listen... leans in closer... seriously... long dramatic pause... begins with 10 minute-long story of something or other of little or no significance...)

Having no true "clubbing" clothes, I had borrowed this crazy black top and skirt from Carol... which at first I put on backwards, thinking that the stringy part was supposed to be in front... that would have made for an interesting look, I guess. It was actually a pretty cute outfit, and the skirt even sort of had shorts built into it, so I didn't have to worry too much about scandalosity. This was the first time I had ever been in a club before, and it really was super fun. The whole atmosphere is different from anything I've ever experienced. There were, of course, some intoxicated people out there, but since we had a pretty even guy-girl ratio, us girls were pretty well-protected from potential dangers. For the most part, I didn't have any problems, except for one guy who started dancing with me and asking my name and where I was from... I just started backing away from him after that, hehe... oh, and there was one guy that was noticeably "high on life" who started eyeing our whole group and motioning for us to dance with him... Kent saved me from that one, which I was sooooo thankful for. I also lost a bet with Kent at the club: he bet me that he could get some girl to buy him a drink before the end of the night, and, well, he must be pretty charming, since he ended up getting that from an engaged woman. I still think he cheated, though, because he sort of knew the group she was with from North Dakota student council, or something. Anyways, I'm a two-ney down because of his charm, I guess. And I probably do owe it to him, since he did save me from that one creepy guy.

We nearly didn't get through customs back into the US on Sunday, due to the fact that I had left my driver's license with April for Saturday evening. But due to our extreme luck (or as Kent tried to persuade us, his immense charm and good looks), we had no trouble at all.

So, now... it is Monday, and I've now used up my entire lunch hour just updating. And I have to bike to Red River in this tropical, 30 degree weather. And hopefully get to Best Buy to redeem my 40-some RewardZone dollars. And revise my totally crappy first draft of my evaluative essay on analyzing The Crucible's historical significance to the Salem witch trials. And summarize "La casa de Bernarda Alba" for tomorrow. (Pardoning my horrible French:) c'est la vie...