SBXI

You know how it isn't over until the fat lady sings?  Well, I say spring break isn't over until I blog about it!

Let me begin by saying it's strange to be typing on a real keyboard again.  I used my iPhone a good amount throughout the week, but I haven't been on a computer since last Saturday morning.  I feel absolutely refreshed after my technology cleanse!  (Speaking of which, I definitely took zero pictures this week and need my friends to post theirs. :D)

I also feel refreshed because, for the past 8 or 9 days, I let myself escape Tuscaloosa and all the stress that comes from being at school.  I did some schoolwork the Thursday and Friday before I left, but I literally did not think about school from the moment I rolled out of Tuscaloosa.  It. Was. Glorious.

I was extra excited because this was my first real spring break at the beach.  Freshman year I went to Vegas with my bff Amanda.  Sophomore year I went home to San Diego with Mom, Kenny, and Scotty.  Last year, I'm pretty sure I went home and slept.  (To clarify, I was taking 18 hours of classes last spring.)  I had to cram super amounts of fun into this spring break to make up for my lack of cliche spring break adventures for past 3 years.

Here's a quick rundown of the main part of SBXI... because there's no way you would read (or that I could remember) details of the past week.  Actually, looking at my twitter would probably give me some pretty good reminders.

Location: Gulf Shores, AL in an awesome duplex very close to the beach.  We were thankful for everybody's sake that nobody stayed in the other unit in our building!

Ride Down: Provided by my big brother Kenny, who was conveniently staying right down the road, and his friend Bryce.

Housemates: Laura, Erica, Chase, Chris, Ryan, Joey, Colin, Krista, Kenneth, Marissa, Matt, Sarah, John, and me.

Songs:  There were quite a few theme songs of our SBXI.  OF COURSE, the official one was "Friday" by Rebecca Black.  I think we can credit Colin with introducing that masterpiece to the house a couple days into the week.  Another very popular one was "What the Hell" by Avril Lavigne.  Every single song by Ke$ha and Lady Gaga. "F**k You" by Cee Lo Green.  "Firework" by Katy Perry.  There were probably many more, including every one from our lip-synching competition, but I'm blanking right now.

Activities: Beaching, getting sunburned, imbibing, lip-synching for our lives, almost getting PIs the first night, partying with strangers, sleeping, looking hot, walking the beach at night, "the game," causing drama, bonding, eating entirely too much (and usually, ahem, late at night), outlet shopping, Flora-Bama-ing on St. Patty's Day, etc.  This week was so much more than any of those things, but we'll just say the sum was greater than the parts.  And it was pretty freaking great.

After exhausting amounts of fun with my friends, it was family time!

I felt very fortunate that my mom was willing to drive up from Destin to Gulf Shores to retrieve me for a few days with the family at the end of the break.  She picked me up after a hellish drive on Friday morning and drove me to the condos in Destin where my Uncle Chuck and Aunt Ethel (actually great uncle and great aunt, and also my godparents) stay during the winter to escape the cold of Chicago.

Mom and Grandpa had been staying in another condo in the same building since last Sunday, while Uncle Chuck and Aunt Ethel's daughter Marla and grandson Ty (neither of whom I had met before Kenny and I had lunch with the fam at McGuire's in Pensacola on Wednesday) stayed in the condo with them.  I stayed with Mom and G-Pa, and Uncle Tommy picked up Scotty from PCB and joined us later that evening.

We swam Friday and Saturday nights in the heated pool, went to the beach, ate out a few times, talked a good bit, played Paper Jams with Ty and taught him to say, "Roll Tide!", and just had a good time.  I was sad to miss the end of SBXI with my friends, but family is very important to me.

My mom drove Scotty and me back to Tuscaloosa after a huge breakfast at Golden Corral with the fam.  We got home around 4, and I have been unpacking, doing laundry, etc. since then.  I'm trying to prepare myself mentally for the next 6 weeks before graduation!

Overall, I have to say this was the best spring break I have ever had.  I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to spend quality time with my friends (who I don't get to see anywhere near as much as I want to) and my family (ditto).

Thanks to everybody who made this week possible.  And fun, fun, fun, fun!

Mardi Gras!

As you all can probably guess, I should be doing something other than writing a blog post (and watching Titanic).  Tonight, I should instead be writing a statement of purpose for grad school (Don't ask... yet.); but my spring break started at 12:15 today, and I just can't bring myself to be overly productive so early in my break.  I do plan to finish it by tomorrow, though, so that I can avoid thinking about school for the next week while I'm at the BEACH!

I can't complain that this week was too difficult.  Usually the last week before spring break is filled with midterms and misery, but I finished most of my tests the two weeks before this one.  I must say, it was very considerate of my professors to schedule my tests around...

*MARDI GRAS*


And what a lovely Mardi Gras it was!  This was my second year in a row getting to experience the holiday with one of my best friends, Lauren.  Making a friend from New Orleans was definitely one of the best decisions I made in college (as my Grandma told me last year).

Anybody can go see Mardi Gras from a tourist's perspective, but having a friend from New Orleans has afforded me the opportunity to experience it essentially as a native.  I get to see the parades uptown on St. Charles rather than downtown.  The only time we went downtown (to Bourbon Street) last year was much less enjoyable; we didn't even attempt it this year except for the Endymion Extravaganza, and I can't say I missed it.

I had planned to head down to Nawlins on Thursday, but if you remember from my last post I decided to sleep instead.  Good decision since I definitely didn't sleep much this extended weekend!

I finished packing and drove to New Orleans on Friday instead, and I didn't return to Tuscaloosa until Tuesday evening (only a little more than a day after I intended to).  Roll Tide?

It was great getting to see Lauren for the first time in months and to catch up with Sara, who neither Lauren or I has seen since May.  Wowzas.

I don't want to bore you with all the details, so let me sum it up for you.  We went to tons of parades, caught bajllions of beads, ate pounds and pounds of king cake, drank a few sips of alcohol, experienced minor flooding, went to the Endymion Extravaganza/ball (with Anderson Cooper, Kelly Ripa, Pat Benatar, and Train), met a Saints player (Darren Sharper), ate crawfish (my first meat in over 3 years), avoided knocking children off of ladders, slept on occasion, skipped four classes (Oh wait, that was just me.), made new friends, illegally used port-a-potties, and had more fun than should be legal.

That about sums it up!  I need to write a more detailed summary for myself to remember everything, but I'll just leave you all with some pictures of my very much needed weekend in Nawlins!  (Credit to Sara for some of these pictures... I didn't take nearly enough!)

Our first night after being reunited! :)

This gave me a great reference to explain where I am from.

Ian and I decided to try something new.  We split this bottle (over the course of a couple days), and it was delicious!  I love New Orleans.

Me, Sara, and Lauren at the Endymion Extravaganza.  Lauren and I were appear much taller than usual due to our heels and Sara's flats!

The king cake I bought after I got the baby the first night.  Yum.

That's Darren Sharper on the right!  (I'm a Cowboys fan, but I still appreciate that the man is a Super Bowl champion.)

Yes, I ate a few of these.  It was a strange experience after being a vegetarian for over three years.

Me eating one of the poor crawfish pictured above.

And on that note, I'm calling it a night.

The Art of the Nap

My inspiration for this post is the amazing three hour nap (or perhaps I should say temporary coma) I just took.  It's been a long week with too little sleep, and my afternoon nap was an outstanding way to recover.

Some people think it's a shame that human beings spend about one-third of their lives sleeping.  I think it's a blessing.  It would certainly be a blessing if I slept anywhere near 8 hours a night as a college student!

Some people say they have much better things they could do with those nighttime hours than spend them asleep.  And perhaps that's the case... in theory.  But in reality, what is more important is than letting your body and your brain rest and recharge?  I'm barely functional on 6-7 hours of sleep a night; I can't imagine running on empty.

Some people claim they can get by on very little sleep.  Sleep is both a necessity and a privilege for me.  It is near the top of my priority list, and I hate when I have to sacrifice sleep for other things (like schoolwork).  I think teachers should understand that sleep is generally more important to me than class, but somehow they expect me to sleep less rather than study less.  I think they need to reevaluate their priorities.

It's not technically my major, but one subject that I have become an expert in during my college years is napping.  I hated napping when I was younger.  I chose Taekwondo over naptime during a summer daycare program when I was 7 or so years old, and that set a precedent for the rest of my young life.  I always preferred activity to napping.  Even through high school, I rarely napped.  If I was tired, I just went to bed early.

But things changed when I got to college.  Going to bed early wasn't an option, and dumb little freshman me had 8 o'clock classes.  Some afternoons or early evenings (right after MDB practice) when I was especially tired, I would set my alarm for an hour or two in the future and just sleep.  It was GLORIOUS.  I had discovered my passion (and, conveniently, a great way to get around not sleeping enough at night).

Second semester, I utilized my newfound free time from 3:30-5:30 PM to nap even more often.  Almost every day, in fact.  It was a beautiful thing.  I took full advantage with my patented epic naps of 2 hours or more.

I now gauge my semesters based partially on whether or not I have enough time to nap.  It is a major determinant of my happiness, after all.  Based on available nap time, I can't say this semester is a great one.  I've been so busy that today's nap was the first one I've taken in at least a month.

Obviously the next subject I need to master is power napping!

The Post About Katie

What happened to me blogging semi-consistently?  I admit, this blog is not one of my top priorities, but I don't want to stop.  It really is nice to just write once in a while.  Math and economics don't allow for much individuality or creativity.  I need this.

But what I'm going to post right now is something I wrote a week ago:

Friday, February 18

So it’s about 9:45, and I just got off the phone with my best friend Katie.

Generally, we don’t spend that much time on the phone with each other.  Admittedly, neither of us is the best with the whole constant communication thing.  This is probably due to the fact that our friendship began after getting each other for potluck roommates freshman year.  We loved each other (once we got to know one another), lived together for two years, and the rest is history.  Anyway, it was much easier to talk when we saw each other every single day.  Now we’re older, busier, and she’s…

ENGAGED!

Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!  That is what she just called to tell me.  Sorry for the long lead in, but I thought this announcement deserved a little build up!  I cried when she told me.  It’s not every day your best friend gets engaged to her soulmate.

Of course, nobody is going to see this until everybody else knows anyway.  Katie is in a sorority, and she should be having her candlelight ceremony Monday.  I don’t plan on spoiling the surprise!

Anyway, there go our grades for our final semester of college.  We have more important things to attend to… namely, A WEDDING!

I’m so, so, so excited.  It’s been a long time coming; she and Zack have been since first semester of freshman year.  Everybody knew it was coming, and we’re all glad Zack finally proposed.

I had to get this out, but I don’t want to say everything I’m thinking right now.  I’ve got to save something for my toast at the wedding.  ;)

^ I am still just as excited as I was a week ago.  Yay yay yay!  And P.S. I cried again during the time when I knew she was having her candlelight and again when I went over to see her and her ring!  I can't help it.

I'm so excited to get closer to Katie and all of my fellow bridesmaids over the next 5 1/2 months.  Not long to plan a wedding, right?  But this is going to be the best kind of busy ever.

Until next time, readers!

Edit:  Here's a picture of me and Katie with her RING!

V-Day or D-Day?

Today is February 14th, Valentine's Day.

For some people, it is among the greatest days of the year.  For others, it is among the worst.  And of course there are plenty of people who are totally apathetic about it.

If I had to put myself in one of these overgeneralized categories, it would be the last one.  I am neither in a romantic relationship nor incredibly spiteful toward those people who are in relationships, so I can't say I belong in the first or second group respectively.

Let me reiterate: I am not bitter about my single status.  My lovely friends reassure me that the right guy will come along eventually.  And I think they're right!  I just have to trust that someone other than me has a hand in it.  Once I'm out of school, I think guys will be less prone to be intimidated by my intelligence.  Particularly if I don't ever get a job!  (The last two sentences are in jest, by the way.)

All that being said, I see where the many people who loathe Valentine's Day are coming from.  As noted in my title, the abbreviation "V-Day" bears a striking resemblance to "D-Day."  A little history refresher for my readers, D-Day was June 6, 1944, the day the Allies stormed the beaches of Normandy, France.  The mission was a success, but there were a lot of casualties along the way.

Forgive the loose and possibly distasteful analogy, but that's kind of exactly how Valentine's Day is for single people.  Every way we look on Valentine's Day, we are subjected to displays of love that are not for us (like enemy fire).  It can really hurt sometimes; thousands, if not millions, of emotional casualties I tell you!

So, a few words of advice to those of you who are taken: try not to rub your happy relationship in other peoples' faces just because it's a holiday.  But please do enjoy the day and feel extra grateful that you have somebody who loves you.  Valentine's Day always reminds me that I have plenty of people in my life who love me, even if it's not romantic love.  V-Day is a holiday for all sorts of love!

I don't even feel like discussing the whole argument that Valentine's Day is an evil plot by the greeting card, flower, candy, and jewelry companies.  We all know they make bank off this holiday!

However, I do want to include a little something from my favorite movie, "500 Days of Summer."  The main character Tom writes greeting cards for a living.  He's especially good at it when he's high on love, but his work suffers when his relationship with Summer goes sour.  One day Tom just can't take it anymore, and he goes on a bit of a rant about what "service" greeting card companies provide.

"This is lies. We are liars. Think about it. Why do people buy cards? It's not because they want to say how they feel. People buy cards because they can't say they feel or are afraid to. And we provide the service that let's them off the hook. You know what? I say to hell with it. Let's level with America. Or at least let them speak for themselves. Right?"


I'll leave it to you to interpret that.  So I guess that's all, folks!

P.S.  Happy birthday to two of my best friends Katie and Lauren.  I am glad I can focus on the fact that today is both of your birthdays when I don't want to think about Valentine's Day! ;)

Procrastination and Education

This is not a real post.  It can't be a real post; I have a math test in 8 1/2 hours for which I still must do a lot of studying!

So I guess it's an imaginary post!  And what better to write about than what is currently one of my biggest troubles?!  Advanced calculus?  No.  Although that really is my biggest problem right now, I doubt many of my friends would care to read about that.  What I'm writing about is procrastination!

Just about every college student I know claims to have a problem with procrastinating.  You think we would've learned our lesson after the all-nighters, poorly written papers, and bombed tests most of us have had because of putting things off until the last minute.  But very few of my friends have been so adversely affected by procrastination that they've sworn it off.  Lord knows I haven't!  Procrastinating actually usually turns out well for me.

In the morning, I'll have to drag myself out of bed to take my test tired and bleary-eyed.  But hopefully I'll be awake enough to spit out all the information I "learned" the night before on my test paper.  I can usually pull off that much, at least.  Too bad I'll probably forget loads of the material as soon as I leave my classroom.

So what good will my procrastination do me?  Well, hopefully it will get me a decent grade on a math test.  But that really isn't what I should be striving for as a college student, is it?  I really do want to learn, and I feel like the way the American education system tests my learning (and has tested my learning since I started elementary school) is not terribly effective.

I may have a 4.0 GPA, but I don't feel like that says much about my intelligence or my abilities.  I think it much more appropriately measures my ability to cram and spit out my "knowledge"on a piece of paper.

There's the problem, and I wish I had a practical solution to propose.  All I can really suggest is that our education should be more focused on experience and application rather than on memorization and regurgitation.  I think it would better prepare students for the real world, whatever that is.

But who is going to listen to what I have to say?  I'm just an insignificant product of America's public education system.

A Morning Without Twitter

In honor of the crisis in Egypt, I left all of my electronic devices at my apartment today.  Okay, I'm lying about my reason; I was just in a big rush this morning and forgot my phone and iPod.  It wasn't a political statement, but perhaps it's appropriate given the oppression in Egypt.  The difference is that I'm on the Internet and able to post this blog now...

Anyway, I felt super disconnected from the world (and totally clueless about what time it was) as I rushed from Ten Hoor across the Quad to Gordon Palmer and couldn't even tweet about it!  I reached the 3,000 tweet mark yesterday, so you can probably infer that I am a prolific tweeter.  I tweet when I'm feeling happy, sad, angry, annoyed, bored, pensive, and creative (and most often when I find something hilarious or appalling and need to share it).  It's a great outlet to break up the monotony of a day.

Since I didn't have that outlet this morning, I decided to do a little stream of consciousness thing on, get this, real paper.  I cannot guarantee each of my thoughts will be shorter than Twitter's character maximum of 140 since I'm not writing on my phone, Twitter, or a word processor, but I'll try not to be too wordy.  Enjoy the things I would've tweeted today:

• (As I was half running across the Quad to math class) Power walking is fun.  It's boosting my metabolism to burn extra calories in class!
• We just worked problem 2b from a section in our math book.  Nerd behind me said, "To be or not to be?"  Thank God nobody laughed.
• Stop asking open-ended math questions and expecting any of the ten people in this class to answer.  It's too early for this academic back and forth; just teach.
• No joke for 3a, buddy?
• What is the limit of my boredom as time in this class approaches INFINITY?
• Why are there not clocks in classrooms anymore?  It's like you want students to check their cell phones in class.
• I am going to assume my math teacher let us out late.  I may not have the time, but I feel like it's a safe bet since he always does.
• Things I hate #1: Stupid assignments.  I am here to learn, not to spend my valuable time writing an exam for this class. #givemeabreak
• Things I hate #2: When it starts raining between classes.
• (And so begin my GBA 490 "tweets.") I am obviously not cutthroat enough for the business school.
• Gotta love the debate about cussing in the classroom.  It doesn't bother me, but I don't thing censoring bad words takes anything away from the learning environment.
• Most important qualities in a wife, according to a guy in my class: ambition > fitness > sense of humor > intelligence.  Awesome, business school senior.
• The girl next to me is breathing so loudly.  You're awake, homegirl.  Stop snoring.
• Lakeside may have a lot of good memories, but the food and music are nothing short of horrendous.

I wouldn't have actually tweeted all of those things.  Mostly because I don't want people to unfollow me for tweeting every few minutes, but also because it's hard to text in class sometimes!  Haha.

Anyway, that was my morning and what I thought was an interesting reason to update my blog for the first time in a week.  I hope you enjoyed my rambling!