Friday Five 1. What are you most self-conscious about? I don't like to be so predictable, but my appearance. I mean, if people can't look at me seriously, how can I expect them to take what I say seriously? It's like my Comm TA was saying, don't give a speech about cancer wearing a tube top. I also just like to look cute.
2. What's your favorite word? Lovely. Again, fairly predictable. It's just such a... nice... word. And it goes with my name, which was very handy on retreat.
3. What's your biggest fear? Failure, loneliness, and uselessness. Yes, dear readers, abstract concepts are scarier than spiders.
4. What's the weirdest thing ever to happen to you at work/school? I get lost fairly often. I still can't ever remember which end of St. Charles Towne Center has Old Navy and which end has Afterthoughts. So, getting lost at school is my weirdest thing. On my first day at Flowers, my first class was in room 400-something. The school only has three floors, so I had to ask for directions. The admin right inside the door sent me up to the third floor, where another teacher sent me down to the second, where I was directed back to the first floor and finally found my room. The numbering there is by department, not floor. It's worse than Jimenez. On my first day at OHHS, I couldn't find my engineering classroom because it was across the courtyard, but numbered like it should have been in the main part of the building. Like Craig said about Jimenez, it has "crackhead" numbering.
5. If you were going to have a revolution, what kind of society would you create? Fear not, I think I'll forgo my dreams of starting a revolution. I'm good with small change. I had this great Ghandi quote on my door last semester, "You must be the change you wish to see in the world." Words to live by.
I don't do much online shopping, but sometimes I look around. (Not unlike my real shopping habits, really). Of note yesterday: an awesome
Urban Outfitters shirt I saw a girl wearing in my Comm class (which I would
totally wear if I could spend that much on a t-shirt), the
Ravenclaw shirt Hot Topic finally made (but again, I can't really afford it), and this very funny
bumper sticker.
Yesterday afternoon, the carillons (the Chapel bells) played the Marine Corps march at 4pm. I thought I was hearing things at first. I remember seeing someone post in the UMD LJ about the carillons playing a special song sometimes, but I thought it was Sunday evening. Either way, it was cool to hear something other than the alma mater.
Sunday was a nice day. My mom still won't take the rugrats to church every week, which bothers me, but they're not my kids. We went to church together, then had lunch at Ledo Pizza. My stromboli was yummy. We did some shopping afterwards. Payless was having a Buy One, Get One Half-Off sale, so we got our respective sizes of the same shoe. I haven't spent time out alone with my mom like that in quite a while. We don't have quite the same relationship as she does with my grandma, but maybe someday. I spent the afternoon doing laundry and no homework, then my dad drove me back to campus after dinner. Rule of thumb for trips home: Always stay for dinner.
We got timeslots for our informative Comm speeches on Monday. I have to do mine this coming Monday. I'm worried, as usual. It's like how my writing is technically flawless, but sometimes boring. I fear my speech will be that way. I'm also not sure I can inform people about the experience of Harry Potter without sliding too far into persuasion. I don't want to go with something non-HP because I'll lose the sheer passion of my speech, and that's my big selling point.
Tuesday was All Saints' Day, which is a Holy Day of Obligation, so I had to go to church. I have my study gap that day, so I decided to sit in the garden behind the Chapel instead of dozing off in the library. I got to lead a decade of the rosary, which was cool. Lacey was kneeling behind me when I sat back down, and apologized for being kind of in the way, saying, "Sorry, Lindsay. I'm all up in your grill," which was just south of hilarious. I was surprised to see so many people there, even though I'd expected them. It's weird to go from a weekday Mass of about twenty people to about two hundred. Fr. Bill asked me to read. I'd had a feeling I'd get to lector, though not enough of a feeling to have pre-read the night before. I had to wing it through two readings and the psalm, but I got through it without a single mistake. Thanks, Holy Spirit.
Wednesday was okay. I hadn't read for Spanish class, but I'm doing really well regardless. It still amazes me how much I retained from freshman year of high school. Comm speeches were pretty interesting: aromatherapy, pumpkin carving, video games, and Asian-American food. When I got to the CSC around 5:10pm, I found a Mass already underway, which I joined in on despite my utter and complete confusion. Apparently, there are
three Masses celebrated on All Souls' Day, instead of the usual two. In arriving early for the rosary, I'd walked into the middle of the second daily Mass. Oops. I lead another decade, then stayed through the right Mass and dinner. I'm beginning to love Wednesday Dinners. If I'd started going before First Timers' Retreat, I probably would have just had that awful alone-in-a-crowd feeling, but since I know some people now, it's fun. And there's free food. Sign Language Club is getting a tad repetitive, but my retention of ASL is nowhere near my Spanish, so I will keep going.
Thursday was a long day. I left on time for 301, so I didn't have to rush as much. I talked with Julia, a first-year HH-er, on the way there. Auerbach intended to have an open discussion just amongst the students, but that never works. Someone has to facilitate it, so it was basically just his leading the discussion from a very out-of-the-way seat. It made the class seem really long, though, when it usually passes pretty quickly. I came back to the dorm, then went to Mass. Hana and Sara had gone for lunch early, but we all stayed and talked for a while after we ate.
I came back after lunch to tackle the rest of the ARHU reading. Oh, Tanya, why do you have such high expectations for us? Settle, please. It was the linguistics mode, though, so I was actually mildly interested. I think I actually understood Saussure enough to write my response, and I enjoyed reading about Signifyin[g] once I figured out he meant momma jokes. For once, we had an academic article that was really interesting. Class wasn't so great. We stayed the whole period, and Tanya and Pat are still going to quiz us next week -- AND our next deliverable is due. ARHU, why do you suck so much?
I went to dinner with Scott, Andrew, and Dan, then came back for Bible study. I found Tim this time, but there was a class using the basement lounge, so we moved up to the Honors library. Maura came this time, along with Jim from my retreat small group, and a guy named Grant. We're doing the Gospel of Luke, so we studied the Annunciation. I really enjoyed it.
Yesterday was okay. I got up and did my laundry without much hassle. Finally, I got a Friday morning where it wasn't raining. I was a week behind on my 280 reading, but I still got through class. It's mostly lecture, anyway. I had lunch with Andrew and Scott, and ran into Dan (from retreat, not the Dan I usually mention). Kelsey sat behind me in Spanish. When I turned around to pass the attendance list back up, she was writing with this
enormous pencil. I swear it was fourteen inches long -- it was like suddenly being in a comedy or something. We played a version of bingo that had no prize, only "punishments." Yesterday's Comm speeches were decidedly more... I'll go with "interesting": Bollywood, hangover recovery, why one girl joined her sorority, and sex toys. As Javi remarked on our way out of class, I'm glad my parents no longer ask what I learned in school every day. Oh, it was awkward.
I tried to study, but I'm such a bad studier lately. I had dinner with Hana. I like talking with her. I think I just like talking to people in general. I spent so many years never going out, never doing anything, and never seeing anyone. I'm glad that's changed. I desperately wanted to go karaoke, but I couldn't find anyone to go with me, so I shall have to wait to indulge next month. When I got back from dinner, though, I managed to get down to studying and caught up on my 280 reading from last week. Now I just have to tackle the rest of my mountain of work. Boo.
Two weeks until GoF! I'm pretty sure Sara and I are gonna do the midnight thing. I'm so excited! It's going to be SO COOL! </fangirling>
