Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Clubs, Show Choir, Stress, William & Mary
Hey guys.
Sorry for the long chunk of silence.
I’ve been meaning to write for a while, I just haven’t been able to find the time. I don’t really even have the time now, but I’m not really in any shape to be actually productive, so I thought I’d give it whirl.
Things are bad. Just . . . bad.
So, right now, I’m coming off basically an entire week without sleep. Slight exaggeration. I sleep a couple hours every night. But a couple as in a couple. Not a couple as in really-it’s-five-but-I’m-used-to-more. If only I could get that many.
So, it’s basically just been getting progressively worse since Monday last week. I whipped out a ten page paper on Jefferson’s slave to get it out of the way for another paper. The slave paper wasn’t really too big of an issue. The other paper, however, was. It had to be twenty pages, and was due Tuesday. I did finish it, but spent all week staying up to do so.
As a result of losing sleep, I started losing my mind. And my possessions. Since I wasn’t forming any memories, all my stuff seemed to magically disappear, leaving me at one point with zero forms of ID. I found my driver’s license the next day, but did not find my school ID until yesterday. That doesn’t seem like too big of a deal until you take into consideration that that card is my meal ticket.
So, no sleep + no food.
There was one day where all I ate was broth. At four in the morning. To keep me from falling asleep.
Add to that the fall showcase for show choir, of which I am the music directer. Now, I love show choir. It is my favorite part of the week, and I always look forward to it. The only thing is, recently it’s giving me even more stress than my schoolwork.
The dress/tech rehearsal was last night. The first half went well; there were some costume issues with changing in front of people, but other than that, it went quite smoothly. We got some good warm-ups in at the beginning, if nothing else.
But then we went to the Commonwealth.
So.
I don’t hold it against the girl who was actually there to do the tech for us. If you’re reading this Girl Who Did Tech For Us, this is not a complaint about you. But the Sadler Center always screws us over! I don’t know if they just don’t understand that we’re putting on a show or what, but somehow it is impossible to get anything done efficiently. They didn’t know we needed mic stands, they didn’t want to run sound from the booth because of liability issues with a computer, and worst of all, they weren’t even giving us the same techie between the rehearsal and the performance. It was such a hassle to get it all together that we completely lost the rehearsal. All of exec was so stressed trying to get people to do their jobs, that I guess everybody thought they could do whatever.
We caught people outside of rehearsal, going into other club meetings in the building. After we had called them into places for a song and were figuring out sound, everybody lost patience and gave up the formation. We had to call backstage when people needed to come out. It was just a giant mess. I mean, there were plenty of people who made a conscious effort to help us, like Nancy who sang her duet by herself and talked the stage manager through fading out the song, and Hannah Lee who offered to sit on the ground when they didn’t have a bench ready for their quartet, but when you’re as stressed as I was, it’s hard to see the good parts.
After making it 3/4 of the way home afterward, I remembered (somehow) that I had left my computer there.
So I went back to get it. Rachel and Russell were still there outside the building, piles of costumes in their arms. They went inside with me to get it, and stayed inside with me when I couldn’t make it.
I really just have great friends.
That’s kind of what the point of the blog post is. Or at least, what it’s trying to be. Mostly it’s just been complaining up until this point.
But I really do have great friends.
Rachel and Russell sat with me and hugged me and listened to what I wailed on about, telling me everything that I needed to hear. And Carlie invited me to have lunch with her and her family since nobody’s going to be able to come see me. And my Secret Buddy keeps sending me all the right notes. And Ben promises that it is never too late for me to call him. And Nathan’s going to feed me pizza this weekend. And Kathy sits backstage and sings along with my song which really just makes me want to cry because I don’t deserve any of it.
But you guys do it anyway.
And where other people would be uncomfortable or leave because I’m not fun anymore, you guys all step up stop me from falling over the edge.
You really don’t know how much it means to me.
Thank you.
So my summer class is basically the most fun class anybody could be taking.
Firstly, there are eight people and we all get along great despite the fact that all of them are gorgeous. Usually that causes problems.
Secondly, no homework! It’s crazy!
Thirdly, and bestly, every day is a field trip! And not a field trip as in, “this lecture is so interesting it’s like I’m not even class”-type field trip, but “get in a sketchy, unmarked van and drive hours to run-down, dangerous houses full of wild animals and ticks and other such dangers.” Today was probably the best one. I think mostly because the weather was so nice. It was very relaxing. We went to a house in Surrey County where we split into groups and drew out the floorplan of the building. I feel like we’ve bonded, haha. I also got some great pictures. Because, you know, that’s the point of the class.
I’m very proud to say that I have not been bitten by any ticks to my knowledge. (I’d better not jinx it though.) Nor have I been attacked by rabid beasts.
I feel like I am learning loads more than I have a right to, and I can’t look at buildings the same anymore! As I am a nerd, I am excited to go home and make a scale drawing of my house.
Filed under: Uncategorized
Follows is an actual conversation.
Person 1: Or you could just work for Best Buy and get a discount.
Person 2: I applied there, but they didn’t want me.
Person 1: Yeah, well I’m prettier than you.
Person 3: I think any employer would just look at you and hire you.
Um. What does that even mean?
This morning, as I pulled on my 1970s-gold cardigan over my discounted v-neck shirt, buckled my gladiator sandals, tied a ribbon around my head, and pushed on my horn-rimmed glasses, I made a horrible discovery: I have turned into a Hipster.
Someone please just punch me in the face.
I am not quite sure how I let this happen, mainly because I am a staunch Republican. Isn’t a big part of being a hipster being kinda socialist? Most of my hipster-esque tendencies do have quite good backstories that have nothing to do with carefully planning out a nonchalant appearance.
I LOVE mustaches. Especially the curly kind. Also, mutton chops. And well-kept beards. This is not because I think they’re ironic. My love for them is two pronged: The shorter prong is a basic love of all things Victorian. Especially their facial hair. It. Was. Epic. The second is a quirky obsession I’ve had with manliness since the Manly McManman skit. Epic facial hair is the ultimate expression of manliness. Do you know how much testosterone it takes to spring out of bed with a fully-formed handlebar mustache every morning? About as much as Keira Knightly has. (So an excess amount.)
I am also obsessed with plaid. It is the manliest color. (Pink and purple plaids are not real plaids.) Its manliness can be evidenced by the fact that it is sported by lumberjacks the Canada over. My love of plaid started, however, because of my grandpa. He is probably the coolest person ever to live, and he only wears plaid. I want to be him when I grow up.
Horn-rimmed glasses/Any vintage thick-rimmed glasses. How are you going to recall a time when it was acceptable to subjugate women without these bad boys on your face?
I have a fixed-gear bike. But it was all I could afford!! It was the cheapest one. And I got it at Target! That doesn’t count right? It’s a corporation? It negates any Hipsterness? (Oh man, you should see it. It’s all red and white and made to look like a vintage bike from the ’50s.) Crap.
I carry a messenger bag. But I always have, ever since the third grade. I am a very (very) petite person. By petite, I mean tiny. Like freakishly small. So backpacks always hung down to my knees. That made it ridiculously difficult to walk. So, I reverted to messenger bags and have never gone back. In my defense, the one I have now can go between being a messenger bag and a ludicrously over-sized shoulder bag. And I got it at Target. The only time when I didn’t have a messenger bag was in the seventh and eighth grades when I had a rolling backpack. That’s something I think hipsters should pick up. They’re so lame that they’re hilariously awesome.
I do have some, hopefully, redeeming qualities that will save me from sinking deeper into the hipster quagmire. I hate beer, so ever getting into Pabst Blue Ribbon is not an issue. (I can’t even imagine why anyone would want to drink that.) I have an awesome sports car. Ooh ooh, here’s one! I have a Hillary Clinton nut-cracker: she cracks them in between her legs!
Come to think of it, a hipster would probably have that too.
Gaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh.
But I’m a Republican!
Last night was King and Queen’s Ball. It was so much fun!
Susan came over at like six, and we curled our hair and got all made up. My wallet disappeared off the face of the earth as we were about to leave, and popped back up again in my underwear drawer. I swear I am haunted.
To start of the evening, we went to T.G.I. Fridays with Julia and took advantage of their “Get a multi-course steak dinner for pretty cheap” deal. Unfortunately, Julia had a paper to write so couldn’t make it the actual dance.
We saw nearly everybody from show choir at the dance. It was pretty exciting. We were asked to dance twice. The first guy was probably 17 (if I’m being generous) and attempted to teach my how to swing dance. The second was Indian and danced by circling his hands in front of him like you do when you’re pretending that you’re dancing. I was kind of hoping that he’d break out into a Bollywood-style dance and it would turn into a dance/sing-off between the men and the girls. But it didn’t.
We met up with Mary, Matt, and Emma at the dance. Emma is so good at making everyone her instant friend! I was afraid that Susan would be left out when they came over, but Emma was so good about it. We all had lots of fun.
Tonight is Amy’s birthday party! I feel like such a little social butterfly.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: apartment, exams, Party, Show Choir, William & Mary
So as you can see by my massive number of posts, it is about to draw this first year to a close. It’s pretty exciting. I’m getting a new roommate, taking only classes I should enjoy, and will be music director of the Show Choir.
I definitely am starting to feel like I fit it.
Nofi will be moving in with me for next year. We will have the epic-est house ever. All of our arguments will be decided through battle axes. (We have already bought them.) We are going to cover a wall in butcher paper so we can color all over it. We are never going to close the shower curtain if someone is not currently taking a shower, just in case there are dead bodies in the tub.
I have some super fun ideas for show choir next year. Mainly that we’re going to make CDs of all our songs in the media lab as a fund raiser and ego booster! All small groups will be auditioned about halfway to performance, and if full-group songs don’t come together, we’ll have a base from which to draw replacements. If people don’t come to side-performances, we will replace full-group number with small-group numbers. We’ll have a half-hour warm-up session before every rehearsal. Russell will have singing parts for every song!
The end of this semester has been pretty fun. I’ve had stuff to do nearly every weekend. The weekend before last was the show choir performance and the reenactment club’s event. Then, all through the week were show choir activities. Last weekend, we did admitted students day, then Nofi and I went to Busch Gardens and got season passes. Wednesday, Gemma, Nofi, and I went to Cracker Barrel. It sounds mundane, but it was really fun, and it was their first time there.
Last night, Nofi and I drove up to Norfolk to see the AP tour. We were a bit late, and then got turned away because my camera was too impressive! So by the time we got back sans camera, her favorite band there was packing up their stuff. We were bummed to miss them, but it was exciting to meet them out front! And we got signs autographed for some of her friends, and made a new friend! Most of the people there were like 15, but we happened to meet the one other person there who is our age, and she was really nice! She was friends with Nofi’s favorite band, so we got to talk to them a lot. (Or at least more than we got to talk to The Matches the last time I went to the AP tour.
Tonight is the King and Queen’s Ball. I’m pretty excited. Gemma and Nofi aren’t coming, but Mary’s coming over before-hand to get ready before she goes off with Matt, and Nathan’s going with his girlfriend. Susan is also going to come over to get ready, and then we’re going to meet Julia for dinner and go to the dance. It should be fun. I like to dress up, but I don’t know which dress to wear. It’s not like I don’t have one though, haha. I have four semi-formal dresses, and I cannot decide between them. I might go for the black one? But maybe the Prombie one. I don’t know!
After finals are done, I’m following Nofi up to DC with Gemma in my car and we’re going to drop her off at the airport. I can’t really get it through my head that she’s actually leaving. There are some times when it hits me, but mostly I just can’t picture William and Mary without her. I mean, she’s been here the whole time I have, and she’s one of my best friends. Someone, pretty sure it was Ellie, sent me a photo of Nofi, Gemma, and me, and it almost started me off crying. What are we going to do?! She will simply have to stay and live with Nofi and me next year. Problem solved.
After that, I’m going to Lynchburg to see Dianne graduate. It’ll be fun to see someone from home way over here! I don’t know how long she’s staying and what the whole deal is yet.
After that, I’m going back and forth between Uncle Fred’s and here. On May 22, I’m taking someone’s engagement photos! I’m ridiculously excited for that. The only thing I’m worried about is that my computer with photoshop doesn’t even like to turn on anymore, and legal-to-buy version is SIX-HUNDRED DOLLARS. That’s a bit steep. And negates any profit I could make from the shoot. Other than that, Uncle Fred and I are going to sail to Ocracoke and see all the BlackBeard stuff and stay the night in the boat. I’m so excited about that! I’ve never sailed with a destination before! (Beside “that marker over there” or “let’s go past those houses before we turn back.”)
I’m kind of worried about Sey’s and Kevin’s wedding though. They just moved it up to June 5th, which is the Saturday after I start class. My class Friday ends at 4, and my class Monday starts at 10. So I guess I could fly out Friday night and fly back Sunday afternoon? But that’s 5 hours each way for one day at home. I don’t know if I could make it. Or afford it. I’ll have to talk to my mom soon so I can RSVP. I really REALLY want to go.
So, this post comes merely minutes after my last post, wary as I was with letting you all think that my life was a bottomless pit of despair and woe. Not that it’s not! Oh it is. But there are also some good things. So I figured I’d write another post listing those.
I made a new friend in my British Empire class! (A class I enjoy despite that fact that Nathan hates it.) Well, I actually just declared a new friend in my British Empire class. We worked in small groups Tuesday, so I got my first chance to see the rest of the people in the. (When you sit in the front row and face forward the whole time, the only person you see is the teacher.)
So this new friend sits in the back taking notes on a laptop which bears two stickers: one suggesting that you pay taxes because Democrats who don’t work need some source of income, and one counting down the minutes until Obama is no longer in power. So you can see why we have to be friends. Thursday, before class, I was sitting in the hall staring into space when the aforementioned compute drifted past me and settled, along with it’s owner, right beside me. I believe my exact words were: “I meant to tell you this Tuesday when I saw your computer, but we’re friends now.” It worked. We’re friends now.
In other news, I got a new laptop. My other one is far, FAR to big and unwieldy to haul to class, and writing notes just wasn’t fast enough (or organized enough since some of my professors enjoy rambling through random outline points). Not to mention that it would stop responding if I opened the internet. I mean, I can still use it and access all my documents/pictures and stuff and will still use it for photoshop and hooking and up to the TV and at home stuff, but I now have a more portable one. It really has come in quite handy even in the short time I’ve had it. It came with a music-making program, so we’ve been able to record a song for our band so we could remember it without writing the music out at 10:30 at night. I was able to pull up websites referenced by teachers in class. For both my psychology and philosophy classes, we’ve had to do surveys (which I always forget), but when the teacher reminded us, instead of writing it down and forgetting to look at my reminder, I pulled it up right then and let it sit on my desktop to be there when I next opened it. And, I doodle less. So I guess that’s a good thing too.
Yesterday, I rode my bike to Colonial Williamsburg and ambled around the governor’s garden. It’s the perfect time of year for that. Yeah it’s cold, but that scares away all the tourists, and the garden is so much more beautiful when it’s empty. I sat on my special bench by the canal-pond-thing, walked every path through the ornamental garden, stood in the stables and listened to the carriage trot past, sat on a barrel in the cellar, planned picnics in the paddocks. . . it was really relaxing. I had not been doing well at all earlier in the day, but that made me feel better.
So, I realize that I haven’t blogged in a while, and that is mostly because I was not relishing the idea of filling in everything I had missed talking about. But, I have decided that I shall continue on as if I haven’t missed anything. (Better something than nothing, right?) And, since this story’s just too good to wait for a full recap of the last 3 months, you will hear it. Er. . . read it.
Ok, so this story starts the day that I got back from being at home for Christmas. I was sick with mono every day that was home, but I was better the very day that I came back here. While being happy that I was better, I was really mad that it seemed like the world hated me by making me sick all through vacation and better just when it ended. My friend Nathan had gotten back a few days before me and was feeling lonely since we were the only people in town yet, so we decided to run errands together.
He came over at like 1 in the afternoon (at which point I was still in bed), so I dragged myself up and out the front door, reflexively locking the door handle as I closed it. I got my keys out to lock the deadbolt, flipping through my California house key, Friendgrandma’s house key, my house key again, Friendgrandma’s . . . It was only then, standing in front of my locked door that I remember that I had yet to reattach my keys to my key ring. Yay.
We figured that I could stop by the realty office and get a copy of the key from the landlord, so we booked it over there before running the errands, but, wouldn’t you know it, they had moved locations while I was gone. I punched the new address into my GPS, and it took me to an empty lot. I was getting really frustrated by this point, and apparently so was my car as it started funny noises in protest.
Nathan calmly suggested that we stop by his house and check on the internet for the real address of the realty company. When we pulled up to his place, my car started smoking! So, we went inside to let the engine cool so we could find out what was wrong, and we found where the realty office was.
Once my car cooled down, the first thing we checked was the oil. Partly because I think that’s only thing he knew how to check and partly because the guy watching Mr. Darcy said that he changed it for me. Well, when he changed it, he either quit halfway through or was attacked by magpies that plucked out his eyeballs so he couldn’t see because the dipstick came out entirely dry, but there was oil all over the top of the tank. You can’t drive a car with no oil in it. Any distance.
Nathan’s car was at my house, so we were stranded there.
Or so I thought.
He decided he wanted to walk back to my house to get his car.
And that I should come too.
So, we walked the TWO MILES to my house. I had just gotten over being sicker than all sick for a whole month, and the temperature was below freezing. There was still leftover snow on the ground, and the puddles were frozen. And most of where we walked didn’t even have sidewalks, so I’m pretty sure it was illegal to walk there.
Luckily, the realty office was on our way, and we got there just as they were closing and got my key. By the time I got home, I was ready to collapse and I hadn’t had anything to eat all day. But, there was no food in the apartment, so I was out of luck.
Anyway, the next morning at 8, Nathan picked me up and took me to my car so I could call a tow truck to take it to a service station. We took it to the Meineke since that was the only chain name that I recognized. Which apparently isn’t how you’re supposed to choose a mechanic because they didn’t know anything! They told me all my fluids were bad and tried to sell me struts, which didn’t have anything to do with the problem! After talking to my dad on the phone and having him help them figure out the problems, we were able to make a $1300 estimate even out to around $60.
But! They didn’t fix it! They were entirely off mark! A couple days later my car started making the noises and smoking again! So, I called my dad describing the noise, and he helped me run tests on it to figure out what was wrong. There was a leak in the radiator. I could pour a whole pitcher of water into it.
So I asked around for a GOOD mechanic, and all I could find was the Cadillac dealer. (My car’s a Mitsubishi.) They told me that my car indeed had a water pump leak in the radiator, but also that my head gasket was blown which they couldn’t fix because I didn’t have a Cadillac.
Now, Nathan had been talking to his dad, who is also a mechanic but lives only 2 hours away, and talked him into fixing my car for me. So, we planned to take it up that weekend to get fixed. But, lo and behold, Nathan got a girlfriend the day before we were supposed to leave and cancelled the trip.
Since I had been filling my radiator up with water, and it was supposed to freeze at night, I had to get it to a mechanic fast or my engine would split in half. So I took it to the Mitsubishi dealer in the next town over.
It seemed I had finally found a reliable mechanic! But my hardships were not over. I went next door to the rental car place because head gaskets take a while and I need a car to get to school. While I was there, I found out that my driver’s license expired and I couldn’t get a car. The reason I didn’t have a good one was because my mom had gotten the new one at our house and, instead of mailing it to me, she lost it. I cannot get a new one until I go to California to physically go into the DMV and get a new one. I now have no driver’s license.
Well, the mechanic called my dad and told him that the head gasket was fine, and what exactly was wrong with the radiator, which wasn’t as bad as we had thought. So that was ok. OR SO I THOUGHT!
A week past and neither I nor my dad heard anything about the car. So, I called them. They hung up on me. So I called them again. This time, they told me that each mechanic was assigned to a different secretary, so I’d have to wait for a specific one to get off lunch to call me back. She never called back. So I called them again. Turns out, the mechanic they assigned to my car quit or died or something, and they never reassigned my car. THEY HAD MY CAR FOR A WHOLE WEEK AND DIDN’T DO ANY WORK ON IT.
So my dad called. And ultimate punched them in the face. They tried to pull the same thing with him telling him that he had to talk to certain secretary and all that, but he wouldn’t take it. And it’s a good thing he didn’t! Since he was talking to a different secretary, she had to go out and look at the car and tell him what they were doing to it. The original secretary had told us something ENTIRELY different, and a LOT more expensive. She was trying to charge us $700 to push a hose in and put on an O-ring. Very cheap things. My dad finagled his way down to $650 (for a $200 job), and I got my car back the next Friday.
But all was not peachy-keen in the car world. My car was still making the lovely, gurgling feed-me-Seymour noises it had before, and even started smoking a bit in the McDonald’s drive-through. I wrote it off as it just being really cold outside, which may well have been the problem. But, yesterday when I started my car up to have my meal of the day at five after my classes, it wouldn’t start! All I heard was click-click-click.
YAY.
But I guess it all worked out ok (ish) because today I was finally able to find an honest and friendly mechanic (through Google maps) who fixed my battery (which was also dead – thanks Hall Mitsubishi) and got me on my way in only an hour.
So four mechanics and more than $700 later, hopefully my car’s ok now. Because this is ridiculous. It would’ve cheaper for my dad to fly out from California to fix it. He even could’ve stayed in a hotel. (The Motel 6 on Richmond road has single rooms for $19.99 a night.)
Moral of the story: avoid the Meineke here at all costs, and if you are in Williamsburg and have car trouble, go to American Pride Automotive.
In other news, I have three Tuesday classes, the first of which has a paper due, the second of which has an exam, and the third of which has a paper due. Fun times! And I’m catching a chest cold.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: apartment, exams, History of the Middle East, midterms, School, William & Mary
I had my last midterm today! It was History of the Middle East. I got up half an hour early, went to school, and sat in my car studying. Then probably didn’t retain anything through my World Music class. Then walked into the wrong the building because I was reading my flash cards. Yeah. I was pretty stressed.
Turns out, it was mildly needlessly! The test wasn’t too hard. Probably because I studied so hard being as stressed out as I was. It turned out that I did a lot of unnecessary studying though, like reading the book. Pshaw on assigned reading. As soon as he handed it out, I was giddy. Hopefully I scored well, haha. Otherwise, this would be a little embarrassing.
In other news, next weekend+Monday+Tuesday is fall break — the break they give us instead of Labor Day and other Monday holidays. Emily’s going out-of-town to visit her family, but I’m staying here because my first day of work is Saturday. And I have a paper due the day we get back. (Because my teacher loves us oh so much.)
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: exams, History of the Middle East, Job, William & Mary
So, there is so much studying to do for Middle Eastern History. UGH. I don’t even know if it’s going to be a multiple choice test, essays, short answer, or what. This is so frustrating!
In other news, nothing really is happening. Just a lot of school. I go in to Best Buy next weekend for orientation. (Finally.)
I’ve had loads of midterms all at the same time. I don’t really have any test-free times until Thanksgiving week. I’m kinda getting to feeling overwhelmed.
On top of that, I need to get to work on my multiple essays. It’s so tempting to put them off, but then they’re all going to come at the same time, so I need to do one now so that I don’t get all my sources mixed up etc.
