School Fever

Everyone's going to school, and it's starting to get me a little down.  I want to go to college.  I want to write a paper.  I want homework.  I'm not even joking.  It's pathetic.  Maybe it comes down to the theme that's been revolving around my life for a while:  I want a purpose.  I want something more out of life than going to work, coming home, and then going to bed.


I will go back eventually and get my dumb English major that I don't know what I'll do with yet.  But for now I just have to sit back and listen to friends talk about how much homework they have and their finals coming up... then I can laugh at them.  It's weird, but I kinda miss the adrenaline rush that comes from putting off a paper until the last minute.  I once started a seven page reserch paper at seven am the morning it was due.  I did the reserch and everything then too.  I'm such a procrastinator.


Okay, so I don't necessarily miss the boring reading assignments, and I know I definitely don't miss getting up early.  But I do miss writing papers.  I love the accomplished feeling that comes with getting an A or even a B on something.  I miss school supplies.  Every year I go out and buy fun new folders and notebooks, really fancy mechanical pencils, brightly colored pens to take notes, and a backpack if it's needed.  I love pretending to feel organized with all this crap.  I don't know, once I go back I'll probably wonder, why on earth did I miss this again?  But for right now it's just hard to watch all my friends skip off to class and not be a part of it.

Another Quote from the Brilliant Mind of Einstein

So one of the asignments for my creative class a long time ago was to post a blog of our favorite quote.  I chose Einstein's "Imagination is more important than knowlege."  As I said in that post, I completely agree.  Someone can have all the knowlege in the entire world, but how can they put that to good use without propper imagination?  Anyway this blog is not about that quote.  It is about a different one.


"If a cluttered desk signs a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk a sign?" ~Albert Einstein~


I was reading a magazine article about how to cope with everyday messes and how it's really just a part of life.  Then they started talking about creativity and imagination.  That's when they quoted Einstein.  It made me smile.  Too true, I think.  Yes, messes can be hectic and cause a lot of unoraginzion, but at the same time who has time to keep everything so perfect?  There's such a thing as too clean I believe.  Too quote one of the Harry Potter books, it seems unnatural.  Like there's not one person even exsisting in such a clean, organized atmosphere.


I believe a little clutter keeps me on the creative side.  A pile of junk on the floor can inspire a painting or photograph that needs to be taken.  I'm sure inventers get ideas from two random objects next to each other.  And who wants to spend every living moment of their life cleaning and organizing?  I like things neat... once again not too neat... and I like things orderly.  The process of cleaning things can be relaxing for me too, but by keeping everything perfect, there's no way I can have time to actually enjoy life.  A little mess inspires creativity.  Can order and creativity go together?  I'm sure they can, but I haven't discovered it yet.  I mean, after all you have to be organized to write a novel.  You have to be able to find time to paint a masterpiece, and there are certain rules involved with any form of creativity.


I guess, like most things, it's good to find a balance.  A little mess never hurt anyone, but not being able to find your keys underneath a huge pile of laundry might not be a good thing.  Also, not being able to see your floor isn't such a good thing either.  A pair of shoes on the floor isn't going to hurt anything though... unless of course your dog eats them.  Just remember, a cluttered desk may represent a cluttered mind, but an empty desk may represent an empty mind.

We Kick Some Serious Brass!!!

So band camp's over.  It was fun, and we got so much accomplished.  I'm very proud of the incoming freshmen.  It looks like it will be a fantastic year all around.  I mean, we can play the music.  We are getting the drill down.  And we can even march and play at the same time.  I'm excited to finally have a day off though.  I am sore and exhausted.  I gotta say, marching band is tough work, especially when we go for twelve hours out of the day for a week.  The hard part's over now though.


Yesterday was a blast!  We had our barbeque along with the anual Pride games.  The Pride games are just some fun silly games we do at the end of our band camp week.  This year we did the human knot, a relay, a pie eating contest, and a water balloon toss.  I participated in the human knot and water balloon toss.  The teams were our sections, and guess who won?  The low brass, baby!!!  We pretty much dominated on every event.  I didn't do so well on the water balloon toss though.  I must have caught the balloon too hard because it poped and I got soaked.


The pie eating contest was a mess.  People who weren't part of the contest  were whipping pies and pudding around like crazy.  It got everywhere.  It wasn't as crazy as last year though.  Last year a lot of pudding got all over our director's car.  We all helped wash it off though.  Anyway, low brass one that contest too.  After it was over people were running around trying to cover each other in pudding.  Then we had to clean up before the water balloon contenst.  After that was over we took the left over water balloons and ranr around throwing them everywhere.  I tried to throw one at Kelsey, but missed.  Ritter got her back for me.  After the balloons were gone, people started shaking up pop cans and spraying those everywhere.  I stayed out of the way.  Pop is too sticky, but Robb and Matt dumped an entire can on their own head.  It was pretty funny to watch.


Even though this past week has been so much fun, I'm excited to take a break.  Today I plan to catch up on my laundry, memorize some of my music, and take Penny for a walk.  All this week I've been too exhausted to walk her.  I bet she'll really be excited for her walk tonight.

BAND CAMP!!!

Band camp has finally arrived, but now that is has I'm exhausted.  I've been waiting all summer for the marching band season to start.  Call me a geek if you want, but it gives me something to do besides working, eating, and sleeping.  It's something to look foreward to, and there's lots of new poeple to meet.



I think this is going to be a great year.  Robb is doing a great job at leading the section and explaining the things we're supposed to be learning.  I haven't really had much of a chance to hear the freshmen play, but I hope they're good.  We have a really hard piece to tackle for our first show.  I hope we have the dedication it will take to pull it off.



I love the people of the marching band.  I miss a bunch of the senoirs from last year that are now gone, but it's like that summer break wasn't even there.  We're all talking and joking as much as ever.  The "your mom" and "that's what she said" jokes are flying around left and right.  The low brass section is big on those.



It's only the first half of the second day and I'm already exhausted.  My feet hurt from marching.  My arms hurt from holding up an imaginary instrument for marching fundamentals, and my shoulder hurts from the weight of my sousaphone.  I can't wait until my usual knot forms and it doesn't hurt anymore.  I'll look like I have a hump, but there won't be anymore pain.  I swear, I've never been this sore for band camp in my entire life.



So most of the usual marching gang is back together with a few new faces.  I can't wait for the first home football game so we can show off our skills while cheering on the team.  I can't wait to play Fight on Sioux while we wait for the kick off.  I can't wait to play the school song the first time we score.  And I especially can't wait to do the dance to the cowbell cadence.  I hope it'll be a great year.

Bonk!!!

Nice picture, huh?  Yeah, we had our seventies day the other day at work.  You'd never guess that shortly before this picture was taken something horribly hilarious had happened.  The day started out pretty normal.  We were all dressed in our seventies outfits, ready for work.  The prep work got done, people came in to eat, and we served them.  After the big sixties birthday celebration though the seventies seemed a bit lame.  I am excited for the eighties though.

Anyway, this horrible yet slightly funny event happened when we ran out of rootbeer.  I don't know if anyone has tried to lift a keg before, but they can be kind of heavy.  My friend Alex can do it by himself... he's a beast.  Too bad he wasn't working that day.  So Kelsey I went to lift it into the fridge, and instead of that happened the carbonation tank fell and hit Kelsey on the head.  Those things are incredibly heavy.  I ran and got her the step ladder to sit down on and then fetched her some ice.  A big bump was starting to form and everything.

No one could figure out how to get the keg in the fridge.  I've done it a bunch of times too.  I wonder what the problem was.  Anyway, so my mom went out and found some stronger costumers and offered them free pop to help us lift it in there.  They got it no problem and all was well... except for Kelsey.

She had a headache and was feeling really dizzy.  I was really worried about her.  I made sure she didn't drive that day and took her to her mom's house to spend the night.  I think she might have had a concussion.  She's fine this morning though.  And I know this makes me a horrible best friend and everything, but now that I know she's okay I think it's kind of funny.  I'm sure it hot a lot.  I mean, those things are heavy, but how often does someone get bonked on the head with a CO2 tank?

Sylvester

Meet Sylvester.  He is Penny's favorite toy, which she got on the very first day she came home.  He was a gift from my friend Sarah to congratulate me on my new pet.  I got to pick him out though.  Of course I picked a cow for a corgi.  Penny's my little cattle herder... even if it is just a stuffed animal.  Kailin is the one who picked out the name Sylvester.


Penny's so cute with it.  She'll sneak up behind it then grab it and tear across the living room with it.  After a bit she'll drop it and just start doing "hot laps" as my family would call it.  That's where she'll run around the house like crazy.  No one's chasing her.  She doesn't have a toy.  She's just running around as fast as she can from one end of the house to the other.


Once she tired herself out a bit, she'll take Sylvester over her spot in front of the balcony door and lie there chewing on him.  I liked it much better before Penny figured out how the squeaker worked.  Now all I hear is squeak, squeak, squeak as she chews on it.  Kelsey said I should just take it away and hide it, but I don't want to do that.  I'm so happy she's chewing on one of her toys instead of my shoes, and if I take it away it might teach the wrong lesson.


I think dogs with their toys are adorable.  If you hold one of Blitzen's toys and say, "This is mine," he goes absolutely nuts.  He'll bark at you and try to take it.  It's a bit scary when you have that huge German Shepherd jumping all over the place trying to get a toy that you're holding.  Once my uncle put his rope up on top of the cupboards, and Blitzen was practically up on the counter trying to get at them.  Blitzen's kind of a jealous dog.  If he's playing with a toy and Charlee or Penny starts playing with a different toy, Blitzen will get up and take that toy from them.  He'll also bring a rope or something to one of them to play, but as soon as they try and grab ahold of it, he growls.  It's not a very threatening growl though.


So I'm hoping Sylvester lasts for a long time.  Penny's just too cute with him.  Not to mention the fact that he gives her a lot of exercise.  I also just like the fact that it's a cow for a corgi.  Sheep would work too.  I should buy Blitzen a sheep... it would be in pieces by the end of the day.  Not only that, but if it had a squeaker, my papa would want to throw it out after five minutes.

Hi There!

This is my first official blog here on blogger.  For those of you who don't know, I used to have a blog on areavoices.  But then they changed their layout and there was a bunch of confusion involving a dead email address and lost passwords.  So I can't log in to that account anymore.  I would have just set up a new blog on that cite, but their new lay out is way too confusing.  I couldn't even navigate my way around it.  The cite also lost two of my blogs.  They were good ones too about my puppy and the first pet mouse I ever had.  Anyway, any of the posts I made before this were things I've copied and pasted from that blog.  It took a long time and made me realize that I need a life.

So, some things about me I guess.  As my about me section to your right says, I live with two of my best friends that I've known since high school.  You'd think we'd get into lots of fights... and we do, but we get over ourselves.  They're mostly about me being a self centered drama queen anyway.  But, I love the two of them so incredibly much.  We've been through thick and thin together, and I wouldn't trade them for anything in the world.  We've even made a quilt together.  Penny also lives with us.  She's my three month old puppy.  She's the dog in my profile pic.  She is what keeps me going in this life.  I also consider my grandparents dog Blitzen my dog.  There is no other dog on this earth like him.

I work for my mom, aunt, and uncle at their drive in.  It's okay, but not a very creative job I guess.  I'll have to find a new job when they close for the winter.  School is not my strong suit.  I dropped out last semester because I just got too lazy.  I wasn't going for anything special.  Liberal arts was my official major title.  In 2011 I will be starting school up again for an English major.  It's not much better than liberal arts, I know.  I'd like to make something very clear here.  I do NOT want to be an English teacher.  It may be my favorite subject, but people who know nothing about grammar at all really annoy me and trying to teach English to idiots would give me a headache.

I love music.  Through the years I have played the recorder, viola, flute, guitar, and tuba.  The tuba is by far my favorite.  I play it for UND; I especially love playing the sousaphone for marching band.  I listen to all types of music, mostly musicals though along with alternative.

I am diabetic and asthmatic, but the asthma thing is mostly because of nerves and marching band.  Playing the tuba and running around like that could make anyone out of breath.  Maybe I just need to get in some better shape.  I'm also going through a bit of a depression spell that I'm trying to pull myself out of, but don't worry I don't blog about that much.  I save it for my journals.

My favorite color is pink; Bobi Joe (my guitar) is hot pink.  I also love eating pomegranates, especially during World Series time.  My favorite team is the Red Sox, but I haven't been paying too much attention to baseball these past two years since I moved out and can't afford cable.  I love writing.  I daydream about becoming a published author some day, but I'm afraid I don't have the drive to make that happen.  I also love riding my bike, painting, quilting, taking bubble baths, reading comic books, and collecting anything... Jones soda bottles, barbies, pokemon cards, candles, action figures... the list goes on.

So that's me in a couple of paragraphs.  I hope you enjoy reading my blog as much as I enjoy writing it.

Pamper

8-9-10

Yesterday was one of the best days I have ever spent alone.  I don’t get enough alone time.  Don’t get me wrong; I love spending loads of time with my friends and family it’s just every now and then I need sometime to myself.  Everybody does… or at least they should if they can squeeze it in somewhere.  Anyway, I decided that yesterday I was going to hold a home made spa day for just me.

I started with a nice warm bubble bath, which was really enjoyable and relaxing until the giant spider fell from the ceiling.  There I am enjoying my nice bath with my eyes cloths and I open my eyes just in time to see a spider fall into the tub.  I screamed "creepy" and hoped out of the tub in record time.  I fished it out with a dixie cup and hoped back in.  Unfortunately I couldn’t shake the feeling that another one was going to fall in, so I just got out.  It was still a pretty enjoyable experience.

Then I watched a the ending of Sweet Home Alabama while I used a mud mask.  It felt nice, but the mask stunk.  The good news is that I have no more black heads.  It was truely amazing and worked like a charm.  My face is still super smooth.  I gave myself a pedicure- complete with feet soaking and pumice stone.  I even painted my toe nails hot pink and teal.

After that I put on one of my new cute dresses I bought at Walmart and did my hair and make-up.  If you know me at all, I never wear make-up.  I think it’s a huge waste of time, but it was fun to doll myself up yesterday.  I just used some blush and eyeshadow.  Then I threw my hair up in a bun.  I thought it looked adorable.  I never do anything to my hair except for pony tails, but I think I might try the bun a little more often… especially since the weather is supposed to be amazingly hot all this week.

I ended the day with a really good frozen dinner of steak tips and mashed potatoes.  It tasted great, despite it being frozen.  And then I bought some really expensive ice cream to go with it.  I think I should have alone days more often.  Not necessarily all spa days, but maybe just to write, paint, quilt, watch a movie, or even walk the dogs.  It was really nice.

Babies

8-5-10

For those of you that don’t know, I have baby fever… I know I’m only twenty years old, am not in a stable relationship, and have no steady job.  In fact, if I don’t start getting applications, I won’t have any job come October and the Kegs closes up for the winter.  Anyway, babies are cute and precious.  They are so little and pink, and they make adorable noises.  Of course there’s also the screaming and the fussing.  The diaper changes and the puking.  I still want one.  I think it goes along with the whole I need to find my purpose thing.  That’s what Penny’s supposed to be for.  I have her to give me a sense of purpose, get me out of bed in the mornings, give me something to get out of life other than work, give me something to love, and just to cuddle with while I cry.

Anyway… my friend Sarah had her baby the other day.  They named her Melody Colleen and she is just beautiful.  We watched her get her bath and she screamed and shivered until they tucked her back in all nice and tight.  That baby has some lungs.  She will make a great tuba player some day.  Her dad would love that; he plays one too.  I think it’s funny that two musicians name their baby girl Melody.  Fitting, yet incredibly geeky.

She looks very much like her mother… I think.  It’s hard to tell at this point.  Chad certainly thinks she does.  He said she has her mother’s pouty look.  That’s cute.  On the day she went in to labor, Kelsey and I had to work.  But as soon as we got off and showered we rushed over there to see little Melody… and to congratulate Sarah and Chad of course.  I got to be one of the first people besides family to see her.  I am so happy that Chad and Sarah allowed us to be a part of everything.  If either of you two read this, it really meant a lot to me.

The next day I got to hold her.  She slept the whole time and occasionally made faces that made me think she was going to wake up and start screaming.  But she stayed sleeping.  She was just little pink thing wrapped up tight in a bunch of blankets.  Sarah was also adorable as she talked sweetly to Melody while feeding her.  Melody doesn’t quite have the hang of the whole eating thing yet.  But Sarah was gently talking to her saying, "It’s okay take it…  There you go little girl…  Nope… there now you got it… Nope, those are your fingers."  It was very cute.  She’ll make a good mom.

I’ve offered to babysit this kid once the parents are ready for a break.  Maybe it will help with the whole baby fever thing, maybe it will make it worse.  I don’t know.  Once thing is for sure though.  I know I’m not going to go get myself knocked up on purpose until I’m ready.  I definitely want kids some day though.

The Walk to End All Walks

8-3-10

Kelsey, Kailin, Penny, and I went on a walk last night.  It wasn’t originally planned to last as long as it did; we just kept walking a little further, and then a little further.  We circled around our neighborhood for a little bit, walked around campus for a while, and then to the marching band practice field.  Somewhere in there we stopped at a gas station for water and I got some food because I started to get hungry.  I’m so proud of Penny.  For a nearly three month old puppy, she’s a trooper.  She didn’t even seem tired until we got home.  I won’t be taking her on a walk of that length again anytime soon.

I love walks, especially at night and especially with my friends.  We used to do it at sleepovers all the time.  Usually it was just Kayla, Kailin, Kelsey and I.  Kailin and Kayla walking up ahead together; Kelsey and I side by side.  Sometimes we’d go down dark streets with no lights and talk about how spooky it was.  There were times we’d talk about really deep things like problems we were going through, things that were happening in the world, or just life in general.  Most times though it was conversations about Family Guy, Buffy, story characters, randomness, and a little bit of gossip thrown in there.

Last night was fun, even though I thought my legs were going to die.  We walked over the overpass and I started talking about how my town can seem very peaceful and how if I just stop and look around a bit, it’s not that bad.  I don’t want to live here.  I’d rather live in New York or something, but I don’t have the guts to just up and move.  While walking down street, I saw a lot of great photo opportunities.  I wish I would have brought my camera.  I’ve never seen the campus at night before.  It’s really pretty too.  I guess I just think everything more beautiful at night.  There’s just something about it.  Kailin kept complaining that UND should put outdoor drinking fountains around campus.  We decided we should write a complaint letter and saying they should put some up.  Some of the things we’d put in there would be, "It was like the effing Sahara out there and there was no water.  My friend doesn’t even go to this school and she was very upset."  I said Kelsey should add how she does go to the school and pays them lots of money.  She said, "Yeah so give me my free water, bitch."  Kailin mentioned that if anyone got a complaint letter like that they would either throw it away or pin it up on the bulletin board.

By the time we got to the gas station, I was exhausted and I really had to go to the bathroom.  So Kelsey stayed with Penny while Kailin and I went inside.  We also grabbed some water and some food.  It’s weird, but after getting the chance to relieve myself I got a second wind.  So did Kailin.  We walked to the practice field and hung out there for a bit.  The mosquitos were terrible.  Imagine that, mosquitos out at night in North Dakota.

We eventually called my friend Ritter to come pick us up.  Good thing we did too, because the second we got in the car it started to rain.  It was only a sprinkle though and didn’t last very long.  I have a blister on the back of my ankle because I chose not to wear socks.  I had no idea we would be going that far.  For the most part I enjoyed myself last night, even though it was tiring.  The good news is Penny slept though the night.  She’s still out now.  I’d like to go on a walk like that again with friends, but just not that far.

Characters

7-27-10

Characters are my favorite part of reading a story.  They are my favorite thing in writing.  When I write fiction, I write though characters thoughts and feeling.  Most of my stories are told in first person.  Very seldom do I describe what a person looks like though because I’m so focussed on their thoughts.  Physical description is my biggest weak spot in writing.

I think it’s amazing how people work.  People in the real world are very round.  Even though someone might be a true and loyal friend, that doesn’t mean they’re a nice person all around.  Of if someone cheats to get ahead in any way they can, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they aren’t going to donate a few moments of their time on weekends to help out a charity.  But then again, there are those people we come across in our lives that seem flat.  Just because we don’t take the time to get to know them.  Like the person at the drive-through window at McDonald’s or a lady you walk by who happens to have the same type of dog as you.

When I make up a main characters for a story I learn everything I can about.  I imagine myself having conversations with them, sort of like interviews.  I make a list of favorites and find out everything from their favorite subject in school was to what they’d name their children that are years away from being born.  Not all of this goes into the story of course.  There’s no way it could fit.  That would be like me writing a memoir on my entire life from birth to now, including every moment of my existence.  The reason is I want well developed characters.  I don’t want my main character to seem flat.  I also tend to make up life stories for the person who asks, "Would you like fries with that?" at the drive-though, but that’s just because I love characters.  I love creating people.  Maybe that’s because I want to understand people or maybe it’s just because I make these people because they are what I aspire to be like… which wouldn’t be good because I mostly write about really pissy teenagers.

I believe that good writing comes from good solid characters.  If the character development sucks well… the whole story’s going to suck.  A reader needs to feel what the character is going through.  A reader needs see inside the characters head.  That’s why I like fist person.  It really makes a reader feel like they are part of the story.  Third person limited is okay too sometimes.  Omniscient makes me feel like God, and second person is creepy.