octoberween celebrations

You'd be surprised how much fun you can have at a Catholic Halloween dance :p (hehe) Well, okay, it was pretty tame for the most part... BUT... we did get some "Busta Move" and Moby going for a bit, in between the polkas and the country music. Plus, Martha and I (dressed as ninjas, of course) had to frequently thwart the attacks of a couple of mangy pirates (April and Amanda)... pirates and ninjas never get along, so the proposed truces never lasted... so that helped to keep things hopping. A bunch of Martha's friends ended up coming, so I got some dancing lessons from Kent, which was pretty neat.

Last night I also decided on my Japanese ninja name... 狂木鼠. I bet you wish you knew what that meant. (mwa ha ha)

So, now I have to worry about my evaluative essay that is due this Tuesday. Got any ideas for a period in history I could analyze? (hint: Peter Fritz, help!)

More later, after I rest my sore toes (Martha kicked my foot yesterday, and it feels like my big toe is either bruised or slightly fractured...)

dancin' in the streets

This whole day has been an excellent start to the weekend :) At 10 this morning, I tested into my yellow belt for karate (yay!). Then we went to Wilke for some good ol' breakfast, and they had pull-a-parts!! I love those things!! They weren't quite as good as the HyVee ones back home, but they were excellent all the same. And then... I got to spend the rest of the day getting ready for the Honors Formal!! Jeremy, April, Saman, and I went to Whitey's for dinner, which, despite the extensively disagreeable name, actually had some wonderful food. The dance was also pretty awesome, although they could have worked on the music selection a bit more than they did. C'mon, let's break out of the mold of playing the Chicken Dance as the last song of the night... aaargh. And I think we probably need to destroy all remaining copies of the Grease mega-mix... definitely would be beneficial to all living beings. AND... Tomorrow morning I get to help make pancakes for a pancake breakfast fundraiser :) It shall be interesting flipping stuff with about 4 hours of sleep in me. Good night, and farewell!

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in the aftermath of an english paper

Six hours is an incredibly long time to be continuously doing anything, much less writing a hellish philosophy paper for Comp/Humanities. Why can't med schools just accept that maybe I'm not an awesome writer? Plus, it's PHILOSOPHY. What am I supposed to say about other people's philosophy? "Yeah, this person thought lots of things back then... some people agreed with him... other people didn't, and then they shot him... yeah..." Don't tell my Comp teacher this, but I am going to be completely ecstatic once I'm done with this semester :) :) :) The only extra composition class I'll eventually need to take will hopefully be satisfied by Sophomore Honors Portfolio next year... or maybe all I'll need is Spanish Comp next semester (hehe).

But now I'm totally done, which makes me entirely happy about life in general. And, as Dave informs me, now I can totally learn how to play my guitar for two hours a day for the next two weeks (as in, until my next paper is due... now I'm hearing voices of evil english teachers cackling together in their break rooms: "mwa ha ha ha" ...)

Tomorrow I will discover what I've gotten myself into with this new CPR class... and the fact that Thursdays are already crazy-isimo. And the fact I haven't gotten the floor newsletter for this week out!! How bad of a person am I?! Aahh!!

So, countdown to my karate belt test... 3 days... actually, 2 days 10 hours... and at this time in three days, I'll probably be out at the Honors Formal... extremely bored... (haha, just kidding... perhaps we shall take our marauding supplies along, just in case, though). More excitement to come?

prelude to parents weekend!

Tomorrow my parents will be coming up to GF to hang out with me :) Neat! I'm pretty excited, since I only got to see them for a few fleeting hours last weekend. Although... that does mean I need to clean up tomorrow. I hope I'll get to move around my furniture, too. It's not working out so well with my bed in the middle of our room, what with the phone being on my side, and April needing to jump over my bed to answer it... she could probably be re-gimp-ified from such activity... poor April...

I think I may need some congratulating for getting through today. Thursdays are always so tiring. Hey, but I probably shouldn't even talk, because in five days... no, four days, I'll be starting CPR and First Aid, which is Tuesday and Thursday mornings, from 8 to 9:50AM... yuck!

I'm predicting that this weekend will be mucho fun-o... There is a carnival tomorrow... a football game on Saturday... I'll probably go out to dinner with my mom and dad that night... we'll buy a printer and (cross your fingers!) a cell phone, so I can finally call people without being in my dorm room... and maybe my parents will get to see me do some sparring on Sunday.

Next weekend is the Honors Formal, Pre-med Day, and my karate belt test... decisions, decisions...

update

It is past midnight right now, yet there is no real motivation to be starting that spanish story analysis just yet... or reading "Lies My Teacher Told Me"... crappy, stupid book...

So, the weekend was excellently wonderful. I got the opportunity to hang out with the family (mostly my dad, since my mom was working all weekend, and Steph was never there... like usual...). We made some awesome dinner on Saturday, which was definitely cool, because I never get to cook at the dorms here (unless you think cooking involves putting water on ramen noodles and microwaving for three minutes). Plus, I got to hang out with Lucas, Josiah, and got to see Seth Jacobsen at that one space cadet movie. (neat!)

Monday was poop, due to the fact I put off writing my philosophy paper to the very last moment (yes, it was definitely a 3AM night)... and consequently Tuesday wasn't much better. Today I got asked by Saman to the Honors formal, which is pretty cool. Hanging out with the J3 gang will be the best, though... we could all wear ninja outfits under our dresses, so we can masquerade in the middle of it! :) hehe

Anyways ... I should get to my homework.

asthma?!

This is not supposed to happen. I am 18 years old, and I haven't had any sort of problems with asthma for... years... probably about five years to be specific. Why does it choose to haunt me now? The devious asthma demons must have known I had nothing of the sort to help me (no inhalers, no steroids, not even vaporub, for goodness sakes...), so I hope they are at least happy with making me miserable.

Yes. I am an asthmatic. A cold-induced asthmatic, at that. (Think illness, not temperature.)

Anyways, it was sort of thrilling getting to use Brenda's Grand Am to make an emergency trip to the pharmacy (her key remote has a honk button to locate the car in a parking lot!! awesome!!) However, after seeing a car accident outside my window this afternoon... I'm a little bit nervous. I mean, the speed limit there is like, 15 mph, since the crosswalks are always full of pedestrians throughout the day. So it's kind of crazy that a car could have caused that much damage running into another at that speed. Oh, well. I'm mostly happy with my bike. Plus, I get the excitement of almost getting run over by people that don't look when they're driving!! Yay!

Time to get groceries and make the 2 mile bike ride home from Red River. More later...

ode to my pre-teen voice

Well, it's really good to know that I don't have meningitis, ebola, or the black death... but that still doesn't save me from the pain of sounding like a pubescent boy. Hopefully my voice miraculously heals overnight...

Saturday was a horrible day, although we did get to do some "Girls Night In"-type things in the evening. Basically, all I did Saturday was lay in bed, waiting for the day to pass. Sore throat, congestion, fever... I had it all. Yay for being done with it. Boo on having a boy voice.

Oh, but we did get to do some quasi-marauding activities after "Girls Night In," hanging up coloring book pictures in 3rd floor Fulton's bathroom... therefore we didn't go outside at all ("yay!" = jessica's lungs and throat). We ended up watching "The Princess Bride" in Martha's room with about 16 people (talk about claustrophobia!), but I found it kind of boring... and much too much like "Robin Hood: Men In Tights" for me to recognize it as a wholly separate film. (I mean, hello? It's the same guy playing the lead character, same approximate plot: a poor guy trying to win over a beautiful princess, a brutish-but-eventually-good guy as the lead's side-kick, and for heaven's sake, both movies include the characters jumping out of windows onto horses? Shame on the movie industry.)

Tomorrow is another tutoring day at Red River High School. Shall be interesting... a senior boy committed suicide last week... it's really hard to deal with, especially since I might have even seen him walking through the hallways the past few weeks... Why does this have to happen, God? I am tutoring a senior girl in geometry, so we'll see tomorrow if she knew him. I really hope his friends are dealing with it... (geez, even that is something impossible to imagine...) and I pray for his family. God, please take care of them. They need every prayer in the world right now.

Do you remember, back when you were a kid, having dreams that you or a family member died? For some reason, I had those dreams a lot, and I always felt somehow better when it was I who had died, and not someone else. Does "immaturity" explain this? Or is it just human nature? We can deal with our own loss of life, but we can't even own up to the pain and suffering that we would potentially go through in such a reversal of the situation. Why do people refuse to realize the pain that those "left behind" have to deal with because of their own (quote) "personal decision?" There is no possible way for any person to live a purely "personal" life; there are too many ways in which we influence and grow with others every day. Take a moment to think of all the people you love, and to remember that one action you do can affect every single one of them.

And remember: Jesus loves you, and God loves you, too :)
(excerpt from traditional Hensel bedtime prayer)

what could be better?

Oh, it feels so nice to have a clean room, no homework, and a paper handed in :) !! I do feel kind of bad for acting so strung out the last few days... and even today, when I really had no reason in the world, apart from just not adapting to the fact that, heck, I don't have anything to be freaking out about!

Today was pretty fun, in fact. I went to Calculus to find out that I was the only one in my class of 30 or so who got the complete answer to yesterday's quiz... And the sub in Spanish Lit. Analysis told me that my high school video of "La Siesta del Martes" was muy bien :) So that was pretty cool...

And just about an hour ago, I find out that I have been accepted into Emerging Leaders (as one of the 35 out of 80 that applied)... Yay for more things to do!! Well, when I put it that way... eh, it will be an awesome experience. Plus, it seems that the more I do in a day, the less I put off my other work... we'll see how it goes!

I talked with my karate people about their trip down to the cities on the eighth, and it seems like I can still snag a ride with them. So if all goes well, I should be back for CHS Homecoming ... ech, I don't like to say that. It makes it seem like I have some kind of emotional tie with the school, when really all I'm doing is coming back to see my long lost friends and my family :) No real sentiments for high school... especially when I go to Red River and I see how nice all the secretaries are and how actually helpful the counselors are... (ahem, Mr. Unger and the lady in C/D and the attendance lady...)

Kind of got onto a strange tangent there... Anyways, it's time for bed! The JFS (Johnstone, Fulton, and Smith) volleyball tournament wraps up tomorrow with our team at 4PM; should be exciting!

ninjas and RAs don't get along

By request of my peers, I'm updating my blog, even though I'll probably be suffering the consequences of it later when I realize my paper still isn't done... oh well, procrastination is the name of the game.

I suppose the last four days do deserve a blog...

Friday was ninja night for us J3ers. We had some good fun kidnapping Jeremy (a new kid in our karate class), almost running through a church service at Christus Rex, going to McDonald's and being asked to have a picture taken with some lady's baby, getting asked "Does your mom know what you're doing?" by some high school girl...

Saturday... Saturday we were all about watching the rest of "The Tenth Kingdom" (yay for Wolf!! He's very bite-worthy, as Martha can attest to) and then we went to Squires to play some Mortal Combat. After that, I guess we just did some random karate sparring on the way back to Johnstone... and some imaginary volleyball...

I woke up about 15 minutes before we were going to leave for church on Sunday morning, so that was pretty exciting. We went to Hope Evangelical this time... I really liked the Baptist music a lot better, but the message at Hope was definitely worthy of a Sunday morning's time.

Then I saw "Love, Sex, and the IRS"... but that is way too much plot for me to get into right now. Trust me on that.

So now, I'm sitting here, getting ready to bike to Red River to tutor some kids :) And hopefully I'll figure out this picture import stuff before I leave, so I can get the floor newsletter out. Wish me luck!

playing with fire

It's really good to know that today is almost over. Today and yesterday are definitely in close competition for being superiorly sucky days. Yesterday I first tried to use my credit card instead of my NAID card for lunch at the dining center... then I go to Target later that day and try to use both my NAID card AND my driver's license to pay for my groceries. And today, I nearly follow the guys I was walking with to lunch into the boy's bathroom... Be thankful that you get to laugh at my stupidity from afar ;)

One redeeming factor of the day would probably be... burning stuff and then putting them in flasks of pure oxygen and watching the flames turn different colors. Chemistry is good for cheering me up, most of the time... at least, when my lab partners aren't squirting me with water or when I'm not engulfed in smelly sulfur smoke (nastiness!!).

And I can't forget that Tuesday relieved much of the overall suckiness of the week so far. It started out as a plan for Martha and me to drive out to Target to develop her film and for me to get some much needed groceries. However, at karate, we found out that everyone was heading over to BW's (Buffalo Wild Wings, for the older generations who may be reading this). Yes, that did mean that I would starve for one more day... but it was worth it :) What can be better than bustin' out to Cake and getting mooned by the driver of some other car?!

I found out today that our karate belt test was moved back to the 23rd of October... so that means I might be coming back for Homecoming :) However, getting a ride is also a big factor in there... so we shall see...

stop raining, so I can get groceries!!

It finally started raining today, relieving the greater GF area of some greatly unnecessary humidity... But that does mean that I am stuck inside my dorm still, when I could be biking to Hugo's for groceries. Last Friday I found that my bag of bread was finally starting to mold, which made me very sad, since I didn't once get to utilize both the sandwich meat and the bread together in a wonderful sandwich. And I'm out of yogurt, fruit, and cereal... and milk, now, too... so for breakfast this morning I had a package of "Peanuts" fruit snacks, a snickerdoodle cookie I stole from the dining center yesterday, and a half bottle of water.

Needless to say, my mind was kind of dragging when Calculus finally rolled around. Thankfully our test this morning didn't require too much brain power... but maybe I should hold off on that comment until we get our grades back... ;) yikes

Tonight I get to finish my first draft of my Honors Comp paper... Josh, please tell Catherine "thank you" for letting me borrow "Oleanna"!! It really is wonderful not needing to pay for all of my books :) Oh, yes, about "Oleanna"... tonight I will need to explain the inherent misunderstanding between John (college professor) and Carol (a student), and why it causes such catastrophe. Exciting, eh?

The Twin Cities trip turned out to be pretty fun. I got to see the cherry in the spoon for the first time... we walked by a hippie peace rally in a park... ate some really good Indian food (I know, this is radically interesting, as I hate the taste of curry in food... maybe it was counteracted with some good MSG :) ... "Death of a Salesman" was a real downer, although it was performed well... perhaps I just haven't learned to fully appreciate such tragic plays. Oh well.

It's strange to say, but I definitely felt a little "homesick" when I was in the Cities. The entire time, I kept thinking of the fun to be had back in GF, and the cool people on my floor... Definitely a weird feeling... but I guess it's a good sign that I'm finally getting into college life and maybe making some good friends :)

Wish me luck in getting to the store!! (Otherwise I may have to resort to starvation in a couple days, here... Ramen noodle soup for breakfast? Blech...)

making it to friday

Sorry, Dad, you're going to have to tell Mr. Walters that I didn't get season hockey tickets :( Apparently there were over 900 people lined up outside of the Ralph early this morning waiting for tickets, so whomever was in charge decided to just start raffling them off (hmm... not the most brilliant idea ever). Anyways, it seems like most people even got tickets with the system that they chose, but for some reason, none of the 3 groups that I was semi-a-part-of got selected. Bogus! I'm really not too disappointed, I suppose... I can work there at concessions for my Honors service hours for half the time and then see the rest of the game, so that's pretty decent. It would be pretty cool to see some blood bounce on the ice, so hopefully that happens in the games I go to ;)

Yesterday was pretty fun, but way too busy. Thankfully I didn't have to sit through a painful three hour lab in Chemistry (yay for doing labs ahead of time!!). We learned our first Kata in karate yesterday, and I discovered how extremely uncoordinated I am... It's going to be a wonder if I pass my orange belt test, because I'll need to be able to perform that Kata pretty well in order to move on. Hall government also wasn't too bad, although as always it took forever. We decided that our mascot for J/F will be U.M.F. Kingdom of J/F (Ultra-Mega-Fantastic, you see?) with a little castle and everything. I was pretty partial to Cuppy the Cup, but I guess other people have their opinions.

Now I get to go to Calculus and hand in my weekly homework! Yay! I was done with it on Tuesday, so maybe I should check it over again... especially since the Calc tests are supposed to be muy dificilisimo :) Thanks for tuning in! More to come in a few days, after I get back from the Twin Cities this weekend!!

a barbie nation

What an adventure each day is here at UND. Yesterday I had to bike all the way to Red River High School, which is, like, 2 miles from here... and it was really cold. And windy. I know, I know, it's just going to get worse, and I definitely shouldn't be complaining about 50 degree days when in about 2 months I'll have to be winterized against neg. 60 degree days :) It's just hard to not complain when you have friends in Cali talking about the awesome beaches and tanning ops (...cough, Emily and Jes and PJ...)

Oh, well I guess I didn't really explain in the first place why I put myself through such arduous torture to get to, of all things, a high school. One word: money! Just kidding :) I get to tutor high school kids, starting next week, in all sorts of fun stuff. Hopefully they are nice to me... hey, they could be seniors... and really tall seniors, at that... And you know how those seniors can be... Thank goodness I'm taking karate :)

Today I had to watch "Barbie Nation" for my comp class. When you get to the part where they feature adults making... how shall we say this... apendage additions and piercings for their Barbies... just please do yourself the favor of turning it off. I think I may be permanently disturbed...

Tomorrow is my crazy day of having stuff to do from 10 AM to 10 PM, with a total of 2 1/2 hours for non-activity related stuff (such as eating). So we'll see if I live... :)

everything must begin somewhere...

and I guess it begins here. It's interesting how the beginning of one thing can spark so many other new beginnings. I mean, seriously, who could have ever guessed that I would join karate? Or clean my room on a regular basis? Do laundry?? What has happened to my life is, truly, pure madness. And as I sit here, eating a loaf of zucchini bread, I realize that most of it, in fact, has been pretty good. My roommate is definitely cool (I mean, what's more awesome than minoring in Russian?) and the people on my floor are all crazy cool as well. I get to eat lunch with people who discuss religion, politics, ninjas, and how to defy the rules of music downloading. If I ever want to play DDR, I only have to walk across the hallway.

However, I cannot say that my life feels entirely real yet. Perhaps paying that final bill for room and board will make it a little less imaginary :)

Or maybe getting a C on the comp/humanities paper could do the trick as well... However, let's try to avoid that situation for now. Yuck. Papers. Wish me luck...