Since I'm bored...

I'll update my blog! We'll just make this a productive time after all! :)

Anyway, not much of note happened this week, except for starting classes. I went and bought my books on Tuesday, and subsequently parted with $390- a lot more than last semester. It seems that all my classes this semester required at least one book, and that even getting them used didn't seem to help: the bookstores still slapped me in the face with prices. Guh.

I'm only taking 16 hours this semester, and I can already tell that I'll be bored a great deal of the time. MWF only has 2 classes: Structures of English at 9, and band at noon. Tuesday/Thursday, on the other hand, is craziness on a stick: I go almost non-stop from 8am til 2pm. Can you say eew? I do have a half hour that I can eat lunch (although not in the cafeteria), so I packed myself a peanut butter sandwich and some tortilla chips to eat, but stupidly forgot a drink, so I ended up getting a strawberry banana smoothie in the student center. The smoothie, I must say, was the best part, although for almost $4.50, I was a little disappointed with how very icy it was. Memo to smoothie people: less ice, more fruit/yogurt combo. The lady who made my smoothie (who I think transferred down there from Starbucks) had to spoon it out of the blender, so I guess I knew I was in for a pretty thick beverage. Oh, and there were a bunch of munchkins, probably about 5th grade, who were visiting campus for some event or another (I can't keep track of how many times I see children wandering about the student center in nice clothing and nametags...), and so this little boy who was waiting for some ice cream at the same place I was getting my smoothie at decided to strike up a conversation with me about just how nasty the sushi he tried (presumably at the neighboring place) was. I just kinda smiled and nodded, and tried to be a good person by acknowledging him and even engaging a bit in a conversation. I was a little surprised that he would talk to me, but whatever floats his boat, I guess!

Friday was uneventful for the most part. I only had the 2 classes again, and in English I was one of only a handful who were able to successfully diagram a sentence on a diagnostic quiz that we took. My 8th grade grammar teachers would be proud that I managed to dig all that nonsense up. Frankly, I didn't see what the huge deal was: I mostly figured the little sentence diagram (which was fill in the blank) out by looking at the different marks. Lines to separate nouns from verbs from direct objects, little tails to put adjectives and adverbs on. Yet there were people who had no idea what was going on. Oh well- guess that's why you take the class, eh? My friends and I went to go see HSM3 that night at the student theater that night, and I realized how much I missed the dollar movies. I frankly don't know what I'll do after college, since I always put off seeing movies until they come here so I don't have to spend the $7.50 for a movie in the regular theater.

Other than that, I was up half the night on Friday for various reasons, but I'm trying to move beyond that so I won't go in to detail. Saturday morning I woke up, called my mom, and then one of my friends called asking if I wouldn't come help them move. Facility transfers were moved up to Friday, and so both of my friends transferred into the same complex as me. We spent most all of yesterday just loading up cars (since their old rooms had to be completely empty before they could check out- eew), then subsequently unloading the cars into their new rooms. It took awhile, but overall I think we made good time: we got 2 people moved out and in in about 4-5 hours, which is not bad at all, considering it took the better part of days to move another one of my friends out last semester. In gratitude for our help, Liliana took Meghan and I to Zest-e-Burger. Zest-e is this little hole in the wall burger stand kinda on the outskirts of town, and our band director will never shut up about it. So, since neither Meghan or I had ever gone, we decided to see what all the fuss was about. Turns out that Campo knew what he was talking about, since they were actually really good burgers. Everything was wrapped in wax paper, which was such a refreshing change from the normal paper that you get at most fast food places. The burgers were pretty juicy, too, and their meals were like $3.50 for a burger, fries, and drink. Can't beat that!

I worked last night for the finals of the Schmitbaur (sp?) Competition. It was, according to one of my co-workers who sat in on it, really good: the performers were the finalists of the junior division and from what I heard from the lobby, could really perform their pieces. It never ceases to amaze me just how stupid people can be when it comes to recital etiquette: I must've had 3 people ask me, after they arrived late, if we would seat between movements. Even if it wasn't common sense, there was this huge (and I mean prominent) sign that detailed the etiquette expected of all concert-goers, which clearly stated that you could only enter/exit when a performer was done. *shakes head* Then came the catering thing. Apparently the Friends of Music (or somebody) hired catering to come and do a little reception afterwards. The music secretary, Missy, had been selling tickets and left after the first performer was done playing their two pieces. I totally could understand her logic: no point in her sticking around when there wasn't a whole lot of call for tickets 20 minutes into the concert. Anyway, she tells me on her way out that if catering asks, tell them to set up in the main lobby of the concert hall, not in the lobby in the main music building. Alrighty- sounds simple. So when catering showed up, trundling in with their carts, they looked at me and my co-worker and asked where to set up, which I was able to answer. They then looked around and then wanted to know where the tables were. Tables? What tables?! I honestly told them I had no idea, I was simply told that they were to set up in that lobby area. The girl kinda rolled her eyes at it all (you could tell she was not pleased to be doing this on a Saturday night) and dragged her fellow workers to find them. About 10 minutes in, this other older guy comes and kinda guides them in the task at hand. Meanwhile, they're making a tremendous ruckus and my co-worker and I are exchanging these looks like "Er, hello-there's kinda a concert going on inside, and these walls are far from soundproof. Maybe it's not that cool to be talking loudly and setting up/knocking down tables in here." Then, this frazzled older lady comes out, mumbles something about flowers as she walks past me and out to the lobby, and there's another exchange of looks. The lady returns with this, no joke, HUGE flower arrangement and looks helplessly at the yet-to-be set up tables and decides to put the arrangement on the bench, instructing me that the flowers should go in the center of the table. Er, alright: so now I'm an events director? *raised eyebrow* So, after overseeing that the table is put together (which mostly meant that I stood around and watched as the catering people did their thing), the catering folks cleared off, and I was left eyeing the sheet cake that they had put out. It looked so yummy, and I could've used the sugar, given that I only had what amounted to a couple handfuls of popcorn for dinner. But just as I was eyeing the other little sweets they had put out, out comes one of the other recital crew people asking if I had seen "Kevin". I don't know who Kevin is, why he'd be important, and certainly don't know why this girl would need to find him so desperately. I reply in the negative, and this poor girl goes running off to find Kevin, who is apparently one of the performers and actually won the competition. Smooth. Add person finder to the long list of things that we do that aren't in our job description. Anyway, she ended up finding him and the concert ended at about 9, which was nice. I hopped into my car and came home, stopping by a friend's room for a little while before crashing in my quiet bed.

I think that about wraps the week. I have work today at 2:30 (which means I need to be there at 1:45), and after that I'm free to peruse my English book and hang out with my friends.

Until next week,
~r