Halloween Week of Awesomeness

Anyone that knows me well, knows that my all-time favorite holiday is Halloween. Every year, there are multiple parties that involve multiple costumes and probably more money than I should be allowed to spend as a broke college kid. But the theatrical, makeup side of me gets giddy and extravagant. :-) Some awesomeness from the past...

Now, it's a challenge for me to one-up myself ever year for EVERY party...usually there are 3, the band practice halloween party on the Tuesday before Halloween, the unofficial drunken band party called Hallobuff (Halloween + Hairy Buffalo) which was thrown by our apartment last year and we also took it this year. This takes place the Saturday after Halloween or on the Saturday of Halloween depending on the year. The last party is thrown by the Tuba Section the night after Hallobuff called P&P (Pimps and Prostitutes) which is pretty self-explanatory in costuming. As you can see, the UC Marching Band takes their Halloween festivities very seriously. It becomes a week-long celebration of our awesome crassness and ridiculousness. This year, I have added a fourth and fifth party to my schedule, my non-band friend Jen is throwing a Hairy Buffalo party as well tomorrow night as well as my friends across the street who are throwing an 80's party which will make my Halloween celebration last from Saturday-Saturday. I could not ask for more. :-)

This year, my costumes required the upmost creativity and budget-planning.

For Party #1, I am recycling my old Pirate costume from my freshmen year which surprisingly still fits rather well and have conceded to wearing it to the 80's party as well because I'm sure there were Pirate Hookers in the 80's! Maybe...

Party #2 is the band party in the band room and I will be going as a Guitar Hero. Basically, I'm dressing as cliche 80's rock star and carrying around my plastic controller to look like a character that might be in the game. This one is going to be my pride and joy because I created the look out of pretty much everything I owned and only had to buy some ridiculous earrings.

Party #3 is Hallobuff and I'm going as a creepy doll. This costume was inspired from my love of The Nightmare Before Christmas, my fear of dolls coming to life, and the fact that I was dying to try out some new make-up techniques. I've already practiced this costume (I practice new make-up at least twice before it's unveiling hehe) and I'm pretty satisfied with the results.

Party #4 is P&P which required a bit of recycling as well...I'm taking old slut clothes worn years past and just dressing them up like a devil with devil horns and a pitchfork.

Pictures of course will be posted after it's all said and done. Sorry I rambled about this for a ridiculously long time. I'm just that excited.

Yikes.

This freaked me the hell out. I saw it both ways equal amounts of time...I would literally stare at it for a few minutes and was totally sure of its clockwise status and then as I looked over at the list of what this meant for my brain, out of the corner of my eye it would change. So, I'd stare at it in the new direction and this went on for about 20 minutes. I was so frusterated, I thought it was switching on purpose. Weird....

I Never Win Anything!

So I won a prize! I never frickin win anything, so I was quite excited when Amy emailed me to tell me I won a book. Now, I won't let the fact that I had a 2 in 3 chance of winning, I'll just get all excited about the fact that I won a prize. :-) Thanks Amy!!!

Also, Dumbledore is gay...go figure.

Mother Nature Herself Can Kiss my Ass

Last night at midnight the severe weather started which is rare for Cincinnati and then around 12:30, the tornado warning went off. We live a few miles from the downtown siren so it was fairly boisterous as was the radio station I was listening to. But, did I flee? No. Did I cower in my bathroom in fear? Negative. I was on a MISSION. I was writing my midterm paper that was due 10 hours later. And by god, nothing mother nature could throw my way would thwart me. So during the severest thunderstorm I've ever seen here, I continued to sit in front of my window, in front of my computer and continued to hit "save" every five minutes praying to the computer gods that we wouldn't lose power. Stupid? Probably. But it's DONE BITCHES.

I'm heading back north to see my family for the weekend. Much homework and hugging to be accomplished. I'll be back Sunday. Peace out.

Vote SC for 2008!

Two of my favorite, "must-see" shows are The Daily Show and The Colbert Report on Comedy Central. My jury was still out on who I was going to back in the 2008 elections until Stephen Colbert announced his candidacy on this show last night. Stephen Colbert for President!

On a sadder note, after months of searching for someone to adopt my ferrets, I finally found someone. But, that means I have to actually part with the little guys. I am a college student that can barely take care of herself let alone two mischievious pets. I love them with all my heart, but they need a better home that gives them the attention they need. So I'll say bye to them...*sigh

Weekend Thoughts

So the weekend was fairly busy yet uneventful at the same time. Friday night was some annual "band" shenanigans that involve us "not" playing for frats and "not" getting a crap-ton of beverages in exchange. So we didn't do that. Because that would be wrong and against the rules. Just sayin'.

Saturday was our homecoming against Louisville, our biggest rivals and the team which we hate most because we haven't beaten them in years. And of course, it didn't matter that we had an 8 home game winning streak, and that we were ranked #15 in the country at the time...we still lost because we played like crap. So did they, for the record, they just played a little less crappy than we did and we lost 28-24. And, of course their fans are just gems. One of them tried to cut through the band while we were in parade formation (and you do NOT do that to the UC band...we actually have this written down in our rules as the first and last rule.) and when we tried to stop him, he jacked a flute in the face with this elbow. So much for congenial relations. We were pissed at that point but being in uniform, no riots were started. We at least played a good show and enjoyed the cool weather though it was a long 12-hour day for us band kids.

Sunday, we had some sorority/frat stuff in the morning and then the rest of the day was spent getting nothing important accomplished because Sundays automatically = lazy days for me. Particularly after an intense day of band/football the day before. I didn't even go out Saturday night, I came home and collapsed.

My iTunes is somehow playing my mood..."You Woke the Morning" by Mat Kearney and "Champagne Supernova" by Oasis just played in succession. Rock.

I am really having a difficult time with finishing my major. I know I want to teach eventually, but I'm not a big fan of the education program here and as much as I love UC, it's starting to burn me out a bit. I've got one more year (in theory) to go after this one, and I can't say I'm entirely sure I want to spend it here. But being on a quarter school could make transfering long and painful so perhaps I just need to suck it up? Regardless, something in my life has to change because I am ridiculously restless and unmotivated to achieve anything good right now. Going to class is REALLY. HARD. LATELY. I have to practically bargain with myself using Chipotle burritos to get out of bed in the morning. This week I have a lab, a paper and a quiz so the repercussions of those are sort of forcing me to go, but I hate to use negative reinforcement to make myself want to go to class. Sometimes, I miss attendence-taking.

Enough procrastinating, I MUST go to class now.

I used to always blog my favorite postsecret from the week and I decided to start doing that again. I usually pick ones that either I can relate to in some way, that are incredibly touching, or that are incredibly funny. You can decide. :-)

NASCAR Unite

Doing my normal blog stalking in the morning led me to a quote that I believe sort of sums up my feelings on the subject of being an inner-city NASCAR lover:

"I am just tired people. Why is it that I as a NASCAR fan have to justify
myself for choosing a sport I love to watch? I don’t see people those who
are football or baseball fans having to defend themselves. When
people find out I am a NASCAR fan they immediately assume I am some hick
the sticks."

I think she pretty much got it right. Why do we have to justify our sport? There are plenty of people who think boxing, football, baseball, horse racing, etc are ridiculously boring yet no one questions those that love them. I live in the ghetto of Cincinnati, OH where we chant Who Dey and put chili on our hot dogs. I personally know ONE other NASCAR fan in the city which means that out of my 200 other friends and acquaintances, I am forced to justify what I love. Maybe before you criticize my cars making left hand turns all day, you should analyze your players hitting a ball with a stick and running in a circle. At least my sport moves fast.

The Power of the Meme Will Save You

From Zoot's site. Better to write about what other's have written about than write my own writing. So there. I've realized I've started a lot of books I've never finished...oops. :-)

Bold those you’ve read.
Italicize books you have started but couldn’t finish.
Add an asterisk* to those you have read more than once.
Underline those on your To Be Read list.

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell
Crime and Punishment
Catch-22
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi: A Novel*
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote
Moby Dick
Ulysses
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey
Pride and Prejudice*
Jane Eyre
A Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the Fates of Human Societies
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveller’s Wife
The Iliad
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations
American Gods
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West*
The Canterbury Tales
The Historian
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Love in the Time of Cholera
Brave New World
The Fountainhead
Foucault’s Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo*
Dracula
A Clockwork Orange
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood
Bible
1984
Angels & Demons*
The Inferno
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver’s Travels
Les Misérables
The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Dune
The Prince
The Sound and the Fury
Angela’s Ashes
The God of Small Things
A People’s History of the United States: 1492-Present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-Five
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
Cloud
Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road*
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
The Aeneid
Watership Down
Gravity’s Rainbow
The Hobbit*
In Cold Blood
White Teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield
The Three Musketeers*

Bloggers Block

I'm having bloggers block.

Sometimes exciting things just don't happen that anyone really cares to hear about. Or, sometimes things happen that are so messed up you just don't want to share them with the online community. Sometimes a bit o' both.

So on to boring things like the weather and my cold.
The weather is fall and chilly. Yea. My cold is still here though I'm able to function. Boo.

My roommate's boyfriend makes the BEST CHICKEN ENCHILADA'S ON THE PLANET. I ate one for breakfast. That's how good.

This is a horrible post. Please disregard.

Do As I Say, Not as I Do

Well. Apparently there are healing effects to beer afterall.

I was laid up most of the weekend (surprised after all the bitching I've done?) and had to miss the band festival on Saturday. I was so bored, I actually got a jump start on my knitting projects for Christmas. I was able to watch the UC v. Rutgers game in it's entirety and NOW we're ranked #15 in the country not that anyone besides people who live in Cincinnati care. But, I digress...so Nick and Elliot down the street were having their 23rd birthday and I have not missed their birthday party in 3 years. Imagine the guilt that came with not drinking their cheap beer and watching Nick get so drunk he takes off his clothes and lays in the bathtub. After everyone left from watching the game, I threw on a pair of jeans and ventured out of the house for the first time in 72 hours. Just TWO minutes, I swear! I wandered up the street (convienently, there are three houses on my street with 5-6 of my close friends living in it including my own large apartment so on any given weekend night, something is bound to be going on) with no intention of staying just to give birthday hugs and laugh at my roommate being inappropriate and standing on the porch yelling at sluts below. I ended up staying out until 4 AM...

And the next morning I woke up at 10. Feeling amazing. I was showered, fed, and working on homework by 11 AM. Somehow the physics of this defies real logic.

Beer = healing juice

*Shrugs*

Just take me out back and shoot me

I have said this phrase numerous times in the past 72 hours because 1) I'm still sick as a dog and 2) I'm a huge ass baby when I'm sick. My awesome list of symptoms include but are not limited to:

• Sore throat
• Left ear infection
• Digestive woes
• Slight fever
• Congestion to the point of no breathing
• Headache
• Swollen eyes
• Cough/Sneezing every five minutes
• Nightmares (No idea why this is happening)

I've been through two large boxes of tissues and everyone including my roommates, Rob, the office staff, and my entire family has heard me whine about how I'm going to die. I am missing the marching festivals today because I woke up on the couch (where I always sleep when I'm sick) feeling that perhaps someone had run me over in the middle of the night.

I give props to my friend Rob for putting up with my whining. He's been with me the past two nights and tolerates my sad, sick personality.

So, I just got done taking some nighttime cold meds because thats all I could find in the house and it will probably knock me back on my butt for a few hours this afternoon.

I'm done complaining for the time being...

I feel massively guilty for missing this marching band thing. Crap. It's not even my fault! It's Mr. A and his death chips*!!!

This may sum up my feelings on popular music better than anyone has said it before.


*One of the assistant directors gives me his leftover chips and salsa whenever he doesn't want to eat it anymore. A few days ago, I walked into work without paying much attention, and he gave me the leftovers which I started inhaling like I hadn't eaten in 3 days. Around the last chip, he walks by me commenting on how "sick he is" and I look up into his sickened, green face and couldn't even speak. Why oh WHY would you give me your leftover food if you feel and look like YOU'RE DYING??!! I didn't even have the heart to say anything because I was past the point of no return. So I finished the chips.

Rockin' Girl Blogger

So Amy gave me the "Rockin' Girl Blogger" award today and I can't help but say I'm flattered...I feel completely ridiculous giving this to some of the girl blogger's I admire because they probably already know how amazing they are, but part of the award mandates I have to reciprocate and name 5 of my own.

1. Miss Zoot: Sort of a blogger role model, I started reading her blog about a year ago and she's just inspiring. Whether it's dealing with pregnancy issues or boob sweat, her words have been inspiration on a sad, rainy day for me. You can't help but fall in love with her family and her!! Perhaps my favorite blogger of the times.

2. RC: Writes for The Racechicks blog which is basically a site by girls about NASCAR. Her writing is insightful and funny and always a good place to sit back and shoot the shit about racing.

3. The Thinker: I wish I had been this cool in high school. She writes about dealing with her parents, searching for a college and just trying to find herself, but she writes on a level most adults would die to reach. Her life commentary is full of things I wish I had thought of at that age. She is just incredibly cool.

4. Susan: Just started reading her site in the past month or so. There are some bloggers who just capture your attention with their words, and Susan is one of them. She's down-to-earth but witty and it shows through her posts. I am looking forward to reading her more!

5. Rockstarmommy: Her tell-it-like-it-is attitude makes for hilarious reading but reminds me how real people can be. Her stories about her kids, husband, and life in general always have me laughing.

You guys rock! Thanks for inspiring me!!

On to other things...

Yesterday was a blogging milestone for me...I had FIVE comments on my post! Yea!! This would be the most comments on this site to date. Doesn't seem like a big deal in some blogging circles, but man, I am pumped!

In real life...I saw my best friend off today at the airport. She is moving to Arizona to be with her mom for a few months and while I know she'll be back, it didn't make saying goodbye any easier. She was my first real friend in college and letting go of that is hard. I know it's for the best and I'll be hopefully flying out to see her in December. We had to get up at 5:30 this morning to leave (karma bitch-smacked me today...I wrote a comment on someone's blog talking about how I never see 5 AM from the morning side because of college...go figure.) but I'm glad I got to see her off.

Then, I ended up in the Doctor's office at 8:30 to check out this sore throat. It's not strep as of this moment, but they're going to culture my throat cells to make sure it won't become strep. I missed class and now will be missing band this evening to try and rest. I'm such a baby when it comes to being sick, most of the time I just ask people to take me out back and shoot me. I'd rather be put out of my misery than live through this sore throat and headache. Woe is me.

Time for Nap #3 for the day.

It's not PMS, it's a cold dammit!

I am the Queen of Grump when it comes to being sick and with a slightly weaker immune system, I'm always sick. All of my friends, however, assume that I'm just PMSing. No. I don't PMS, I rage. This is just grump.

I hate talking about my social life on a romantic level because I was the talk of the collegiate marching band village for three years whether it refered to The Cheater or The Mentally Unstable One so I've refrained from telling people what's been going on in my life if I can help it. I will say that I'm really bad at this jumping back on the bandwagon thing. I'm nervous, distrustful, and generally not very good at "dating". I had a stretch in the summer where various friends were trying to helpfully set me up with their friends, and I realized that I was REALLY bad at blind dates. And they were all crazy. I also had sworn off band guys a while back. I was NEVER going through that again. I should have added that to the List of things I swore I'd never do in college but find myself doing anyways.

And that is as comfortable as I'll be about that subject for the time being.

Is it Friday yet?

Hoping I have more readers than I think I do...

Apparently, I have to now comment on every blog I read in that list over there...so I will do my best, tomorrow to not sound like a damn fool.

I have a cold. My boss/band director has one, now I have one and the other office assistant/roommate has one and so does another roommate. It's a nasty collegiate cycle.

I'm le tired...