I forgot to blog yesterday! But I think my computer has a virus, and I was busy fixing it for hours, so I blame the bug.
Friday Five: Don't Fall For It
1. What do you like or dislike about autumn? I like the crisp smell. I love the smell of winter, so it starts coming up in fall, and that's nice. It's also nice to finally have the weather cooling off, but I hate that it's cold and rainy.
2. Have you raked leaves into a pile just to jump in them? I haven't raked in years. I've always been busy "doing homework" when my family goes out to rake. We have a ton of trees at home. But if I ever raked, I would totally have to do it twice, because I'd jump in them the first time.
3. Have you ever carved a pumpkin and how did it turn out? We don't carve, we paint. Painting is way less messy and you can make neater images (as in cooler and less messy).
4. Have you ever eaten anything made from pumpkins other than pie? I ate a really yummy pumpkin muffin once (it tasted like cinnamon), but I've never had pumpkin pie. I don't like pie.
5. Where is a good spot to see the leaves change color where you live? Driving today, we were on those parts of back roads where the road was surrounded by trees on both sides for a while. I loved seeing all the different colors.
Last Saturday morning, I was a bit confused by all the old people (i.e. parents) I saw around campus, until I realized it was family weekend. It made me miss mine a lot. I haven't been home at all this semester. I would have gone this weekend, but I had plans for today. I might go next weekend, since I don't know anyone who's having a Halloween party, and I don't have a costume, anyway.
I was running a bit late getting ready for church on Sunday morning, and so was Maura. It worked out, though, because I got there early enough for my liking, and she got there early enough to volunteer as an extraordinary minister. As it turns out, we could basically have a whole Mass with just the two of us and a priest. She can minister, I can lector, we both sing, she plays oboe, and there you go. All we need are some other parishioners.
I got a 93 on my Comm midterm, so either all that frantic reviewing paid off or it was just my paranoid streak. 280 was fun. We're doing phonetics now, so we spend a great deal of class time practicing making various vowel and consonant sounds. We sit around going "g, g, g" and "au, au, a, a," which is much funnier when I act it out. Oh, the limitations of blogging.
In 301 on Tuesday, we discussed "visual representations of literature." We watched a very old Edison film about a bunch of firefighters. It was so cheesy and old, but actually kind of cool. We talked about cross-cutting, too. When a scene has more than one perspective, and you see both sides (inside and outside a building, in the Edison film), you usually cut the scenes together so you see everything in sequence. In one version of the film, we saw the events from the inside, then again from the outside. In the later version, we saw them alternate, like we'd expected. It was really interesting class. I met with Pia that afternoon to set up our presentation, but we didn't rehearse it.
I don't really remember daytime Wednesday, to tell you the truth. Sara, Rajni, see? This is one of those times when my real memory shows, cause looking over what I wrote in my assignment book is not helping. I met Fr. Bill before evening Mass that night, then stayed for the Mass and got to lector. They may have had the wrong lectionary there, because I didn't check it out beforehand, and when I got to it, I hadn't seen those readings before. I do the daily readings online every day, straight from the USCCB lectionary, along with a meditation/devotion. Sometimes, though, when I do the online readings before or after I go to daily Mass, they don't match up. It's strange. So far, I haven't been surprised by any weird Biblical words I can't pronounce properly, but it's bound to happen soon. I should start checking the lectionary beforehand, even when Michelle taps me (sometimes literally) right before Mass starts.
Anyway, I didn't stay for free dinner because I had plans to go to Applebee's with Sign Language Club. I hadn't been to Silent Dinner since last fall, since I skipped the second one. I don't know much ASL, and I still get really confused, but I hadn't been off campus much at all this semester, so I decided to go. I got a ride with Irene there. We had to wait for a little while, since they wanted to seat us all together. We were at the high tables by the bar, but we all had chairs. I managed to get really confused, as usual. The girl whose name I can't remember was asking if I was going to Thursday's football game. I thought she was asking something about whether I had a roommate. It was messy. And then I incorrectly signed that I get confused, and instead said I was crazy... which I am, so I guess that kind of worked out. The food was yummy, though.
Thursday was a busy day. I went to 301, where we discussed art as literature, which was also kind of cool. After class, I went over to Cole Fieldhouse for a job interview. The Department of Education is starting a program for high schoolers in Anne Arundel County, something like Honors 100. I didn't take Honors 100 because of HH, but I need teaching experience, so I signed up for an interview. I was disgruntled that I had to dress up, and even more so when Thursday morning was especially cold. Wednesday was hot, so I was all thrown off. 301 had let out early, so I was more on time than I'd planned. When I got to the right part of Cole, I found a receptionist-type woman and told her I had an appointment with Dr. White. She had no idea who I was talking about. It was unpleasantly reminiscent of my Comm interview. Eventually, she figured out that Dr. White was just new, and she'd stepped out. I waited (yay for my patience), then had my interview. I think it went well. It turned out that she's a former principal at Gwynn Park, and knows Mr. Curtis from my high school. I did that whole "turn your weakness into a strength" thing, and I'd remembered to edit my résumé. I should know by tomorrow afternoon.
I came back, changed, then went to Mass. I couldn't find Hana at lunch, and Sara had been really hungry earlier, but I ran into Rebecca, so I ate with her. I came back and wrote up my notecards for my Comm presentation. Pia came by for a rehearsal. We only got through it twice because I had to go to ARHU. I'd given up on finishing the readings, so I felt really guilty while Tanya addressed that exact problem in class. I don't really know how to skim, so either I read all of an article, part of it but not the end, or none of it at all. I'd never thought about just reading the first and last paragraphs. That's really helpful. I just never feel like I have time for ARHU. All that theory turns me off. Bring back the practical applications! Buffy class was awesome!
We got out of ARHU early because Tanya wanted to beat traffic and not get a ticket. I came back and killed some time until I left for Fiat Dinner at the CSC. Fr. Bill was away, and they were having the Great Room carpet cleaned, so we got to use Fr. Bill's house, which is connected to the Center proper. This week was marriage and motherhood, with Sonia, former CSC pastoral assistant. The food was Greek, since Sonia cooks. We had something with ground turkey and feta cheese that was really yummy. I was very proud of myself for trying new foods. I'd tried some unidentifiable dip from the hors d'oeuvres, but that was a bad idea, since it tasted really gross. It was probably the strangely-named eggplant dip, but it might have been hummus; they looked the same. I just stuck with the pita chips. There was also something green... I've heard of it before but the name escapes me now, but I actually tried a very small amount of it. I swear that's the first green thing I've eaten intentionally in
years. I'm so proud of myself for that. The talk afterwards was really cool. Sonia started out thinking she would get married, but then decided she was obviously called to be a sister. She'd entered the convent and everything before she knew it wasn't right. So she wound up coming to work at the CSC, and met her husband because he works with the USCCB doing RCIA stuff. Now they're married and have two kids, with another coming. This whole discernment thing is so complicated. Help me out, Holy Spirit.
I got up early Friday morning to do laundry. I've basically switched my laundry day, and I wouldn't have been able to do it Thursday anyway, because of my project. Strangely, though, it's been raining the past few Friday mornings. Yesterday, it was flat-out pouring at first. My clothes got wet in my hamper as I waddled over to QA. It let up, though, so I didn't have as much trouble getting the dry clothes back in my giant IKEA tarp bag -- best impulse purchase ever! I had just enough time to change into dressy clothes (again!) and get to class. I had lunch with Andrew, which was lovely as always. Spanish was fine, but we ran over slightly, so I was in a more massive rush than usual to get to Comm on time. Pia was there when I rushed in out of breath, but she was obviously glad to see me since we had to present. The other group went first, though, so I had time to catch my breath and try to calm down. I always get nervous before I have to stand in front of a group, even when I lector -- and all I do there is read. I knew what I was going to say, though, since we'd practiced, and I'd grown to care about the subject (special education), so I think we did well. I know I purposely caught my teacher's eye as I was making eye contact while I spoke. On the way out of Plant Sciences (your guess as to why my Comm class is there is as good as mine), Melanie said Pia and I had been "engaging speakers", which made me feel great. All the other groups had done skits or shown clips, but we had less time and there were only two of us, so we decided to just talk. I'm glad it worked out.
When I got back, Cary was here with Maura. Scott came over to help Maura with redesigning the SAI website, so Cary and I played with my Klutz board game book while they worked. The lawn chair my parents left me finally came in handy, and we set a record for most people in our room at one time: four. It was fun; I liked the energy and liveliness of our room for that hour or so. I had another lovely big group dinner, then came back to try to solve my computer problems. I scanned my hard drive, then started my computer in safe mode multiple times to run Spybot, Ad-Aware, and another hard drive scan. The second scan took an hour and a half, and it still didn't find anything. I checked with McAfee, and tried to follow the removal instructions for an email worm that surfaced right around when my computer got fussy, but I couldn't find any of the infection-generating files. I don't know what to do now. I might just wait until Monday morning to see if OIT can help.
I went to bed super-early last night (around 11:30), since I had to get up early for the Maryland Renaissance Festival today. Sara drove, and Rebecca went, too. We stopped by the ATM and got McDonald's for breakfast, then headed up there. It was drizzly all day, so the crowd was diminished and Shakespeare's Skum cut back their shows, but I still had a good time. We wandered around to the shops a little, then saw a very funny German juggler in one of the taverns before the joust. He was a good juggler, but I liked his jokes best. "Is anybody here German? (sees about ten hands) Okay, that's enough, let's take over the festival!" "I need a helper. You, what's your name? (Dustin) That's correct. Can I call you Hans? Okay, Dustin-Hans (starts juggling), throw me the ball (Dustin-Hans throws the ball at him)... when I say 'now'." The joust was lovely; our team won the Ruby of Revel Grove. Rebecca took some pictures of the joust for her Keystone; I didn't see, but Sara said she got in trouble for climbing up on the fence. We wandered some more and got some food before going over to see the Squire on the Wire. I had one of those enormous pretzels, still warm despite the drizzle, and a piece of Sara's Belgian waffle since she couldn't finish it. The Squire was still good, especially since did his tricks on a wet stage and walked the tightrope in the rain. That took guts. As it turned out, the proposal to the bar wench is indeed a show gag, but I didn't mind. Wandering resumed after the show. I had promised myself not to buy anything, but I saw this super-cute crystal snowflake necklace that was only $5, so I bought it. I also saw a very pretty crystal-studded cross, but I resisted the temptation. We saw the end of one of the royal shows, then Skum's "Macbeth in 20 Minutes or Less." We stayed for the Bloody Improv. I actually got one of my suggestions in, which was cool, but the guy who had to guess all the crazy situations got them a bit too easily. Sure, he could have been a good enough improvver (?) to figure out that he was chasing sheep on a pogo stick on the Titanic with a tuba playing in the background while wearing a cowbell on his head, but I doubt it. Sara got a custom-minted coin, and we left to come back to campus.
We got back in time for dinner. It started to pour, so I was glad we'd left RennFest when we did. I met up with Rebecca and Sara again, and Scott and Andrew, and Hana, Monica, and Seth showed up later. I adore group dinners. I hate being lonely, so even if we're all focused on eating instead of talking, it's nice to have the company.
I have done absolutely no homework this weekend, and I spent way too much money this week, and I am very tired, but I am not depressed at all. It's a drowsy, mild-panic good feeling.
