Sunday, November 30, 2008

tryptophan and road trips

This is a recap of my Thanksgiving weekend.

Tuesday: My weekend actually started last Tuesday at 10:15am, partly because I only had one non-relevant class scheduled on Wednesday, but mainly because I wanted it to. Left UCF around 11:30, got home around 2:30, hung out with the Mom,took Jennifer (my little sister) to her dance practice, went to say hi to Jennifer (hmm, how to describe Jen...friend just doesn't cover it, lol), and went to The Walk with Jen.

Wednesday
: Woke up at my normal time (there is no such thing as 'sleeping in' for me...), went to a dentist appointment, then picked up Jen and went to visit my high school. At some point in the past 1.5 years since I graduated from CGHS, the school has morphed into a prison, except worse, since vistors are not allowed at all. Treating it as such, Jen and myself used a very high-tech and elaborate scheme to gain entrance to the school [aka walking in a side door during class change] and proceeded to carry out various evil and nefarious deeds [aka hugging and catching up with our old fave teachers and faking smiles for our old not-so-fave teachers]. No worries, we were not the only ones doing this, as one teacher said she had lost count at about 40 former students stopping in to say hi =D Then I went to the mall with Jen and Nanki, where we bought awesome goodies and took photo booth pics [fun fact: I love photo booths]. Met up with Alice and went to visit my good friend Corbin, who was down from Darthmouth for the break.

Thursday: Thanksgiving! Started re-reading 'New Moon' during the morning then went to Grandma's for Thanksgiving dinner. Sanctioned gluttony ensued. Afterwards, I kept up with my post-Thanksgiving dinner tradition and went to Corbin's house where an assortment of friends had gathered to take part in video games and revelry. Then I went home and hung out with the family.




Friday: Began my psuedo-impromptu road trip around the state [yay google maps!]. Departed bright and early for New Port Richey [North of Tampa/St. Pete] to get Jen. It was my first time driving on Alligator Alley and while it wasn't anything special or anything, I can see why it has the notorious reputation it does: miles of straight highway; not very crowded, even at its busiest [excluding hurricanes]; NO streetlights, not a one for miles on end. Basically, no driving on Alligator Alley at night o.O Got Jen, headed to Ocala to visit our friend Alex. NOTE: Ocala is literally in the middle of nowhere, as in there is NO cell phone reception, ever-encroaching darkness from a lack of streetlights and non-observant drivers who rear-end drivers when you are that far down the rabbit hole [yes, I got rear-ended (!), but my car (once-again) proved its amazing robustness and didn't even have a scratch]. Then it was off to UF [Gainesville], where we spent Friday night.

Saturday: Left for FSU [Tallahassee, henceforth Tally] around 11, got and hung out with Meagan, who could not go home for Thanksgiving [Jen and I thought we would cheer her up/visit her for fun, and hence the purpose of the trip]. As it was a football game day - and an in-state rivalry at that [FSU vs. UF - UF won, of course] - Tally was extremely crowded, with 70% of the population wearing either orange/blue or garnet/gold. We went to the mall, hung out in Meagan's dorm, had dinner, more dorm time, then went clubbing at Tally's Club Rayn [and yes, people were there in orange/blue, lol].

Sunday: Left FSU around 11. It was raining when we woke up and it was STILL raining 3.5 hours (note: a normally 2 hour drive) later when we arrived in Gainesville. Traffic sucked in general due to many factors but mainly the deluge of bad weather and the post-Thanksgiving travel. After having lunch, I left UF at 4:30 and headed back to UCF, getting back in 3 hours [another normally 2 hour drive], concluding a 922 mile journey [excluding the initial drive home].

All in all, it was a good weekend, enjoyed in a way that I saw fit ^.^

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

versified glorification

I came across another interesting crossword clue the other day: versified glorification. The answer was 'ode', and I thought it was funny that such a long phrase was a description for such a small word. Regardless, I got it correct :)

This Week I Recommend:

>Twilight: Speaking of odes... NO, I am NOT going to regale you with all the reasons I personally like the Twilight novels and I'm not going to deny that they have their flaws and plot holes. However I will say that I was wary about how the movie [released last Friday] would turn out, based on previous experiences with the book-to-movie transition, and that I honestly enjoyed the Twilight movie. They changed things up [of course] but they kept the story intact enough to please fans and still create a complete story for someone who had never heard of it before.

The second book, New Moon, has now been confirmed to be made into a movie and it will be interesting to see how it turns out, seeing as it will require much more special effects, a trip to Italy, and a more in-depth look at characters other than Bella and Edward.

I would now like to take a brief moment to mourn the moving of the release of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince [HP 6] from November 21 [last week! Friday] to August 21, 2009 [a freaking long time from now!]. It was originally moved to July sometime, but then WB realized that they truly hated the fans of their most profitable film series ever [the combined Harry Potter films still beat The Dark Knight...] and would make them suffer an extra month. Thanks WB for truly alienating the fans of The-Boy-Who-Went-Naked-On-Broadway-But-Still-Flies-Around-On-Broomsticks-And-Stuff.

No worries, I have AccioCon, right here in Orlando(!), to tide me over until then ^.^ AccioCon is a Harry Potter and Twilight theme convention taking place in April; yes, uber-dorky, but that's nothing new with me =D

This Week I Don't Recommend:

>Obnoxious Movie-Goers: question - why would you pay money to see a movie you don't like or want to see? Another question - why would you stay in the theater VERBALLY ridiculing and mocking it instead of just getting up and walking out if you loathed it that much? These are the questions I considered asking these two stupid, unattractive females [I decided not to vent how I really felt about them here] sitting across the aisle from my friends and I when we watched Twilight yesterday evening. The entire movie, they were making rude comments, talking on their cell phones, texting, making snorting sounds and overall acting extremely disgusting in general, much less in a theater. I had no idea what to do about it though: how do you get someone kicked out of a theater? Nothing I can do about it now, but still...

No Frisbee this week, so no Frisbee Wisdom... though if your bored, you can check out our women's team website. Its still in development though, so don't judge it yet...

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Thursday, November 13, 2008

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Monday, November 10, 2008

somnambulist

(n) sleepwalker, (somnambulist, noctambulist) someone who walks about in their sleep.

Cool word, though I would personally hate to be a somnambulist...

This Week I Recommend:

>Homecoming Week: In high school, Homecoming was a dance that took place around October/November that wasn't as formal as prom, but more dressy than everyday school wear; it had a popularity competition known as a King/Queen campaign and a game that had to be won or it was the end of the world. Homecoming in college is not that different, except a lot more fun and more worth your time. The King/Queen campaign is still a popularity competition, basically to see which Greek organization can get the most of their members to vote for a candidate; the football game should still be won, though since there are actually rankings and conferences and such in college football, its not always a guaranteed win; there isn't a dance, but there are lots of other things going on, like Movie Knight [<-- the knight/night puns never end], Comedy Knight with Kyle Cease and two other not-so-funny guys [John Pinette, LaVell Crawford], Skit Knight [Honors won 2nd place small organization skit!], Concert Knight [Panic! At The Disco, Dashboard Confessional, Plain White T's and The Cab], Spirit Splash on Friday, and Homecoming Parade/Game on Saturday.

Basically Homecoming Week in college is a good distraction from the norm for a week, allowing people to attend events, boost school spirit, and enjoy awesome free stuff.

This Week I Don't Recommend:

>Homecoming Week: As awesome as Homecoming is, it is the most exhausting time of the year, even more so than the exam weeks. Between going to events daily and still running one's full normal schedule, it can get exhausting pretty fast. Of course, one could always just not go to the events or even to some of them - but come on. It is just one week after all... Other things were going on this week that contributed to the chaos: Election Day was Tuesday, ans that was an ordeal in and of itself [yay for absentee ballots!]. I went to see Anberlin at the House of Blues on Friday [yes, the day after the Homecoming concert] and it was a very good concert; very happy I went. We lost our football game which [sadly] has become an expected outcome this season >.> Now after my fall-asleep-while-taking-off-my-socks and 9 hours of sleep Saturday night, I'm feeling better. But...it may take me about a year to get ready to do it again.

Thursday, November 06, 2008

Frisbee Wisdom 18




Tina and I got tired of being the only girls at UCF's Club Frisbee practices so we held a meeting and recruited a good number [around 14!] of girls to come join us! Hopefully I'll soon be telling you news about UCF Women's Club Frisbee =)

Wednesday, November 05, 2008

remember

Here we are, once again, at the Fifth of November. As "V for Vendetta" is one of my favorite movies ever, I always try to remember this significant day. However, this year's fifth of November [or technically the fourth, I guess] will be remembered for far more than a rhyming poem stated in a movie, for it is/was the day that history was changed forever with the election of Barack Obama as the 44th president of the United States. Love him or hate him, no one can deny that this day will go down in history...

Tuesday, November 04, 2008

Frisbee Wisdom 17

regimented

My Google Calendar for this week:



yeah...

Monday, November 03, 2008

ready

This Week I Recommend:

>Costumes: Halloween was this past Friday and, like always, it was filled with lots of candy, memorable moments, and [my fave part] interesting costumes. Some of my faves this year include Sweeney Todd, Alex DeLarge from "A Clockwork Orange," Carl from "Aqua Teen Hunger Force," and Tony Stark [aka Iron Man]. I dressed up as Foxy Cleopatra from Austin Powers: Goldmember; def. one of my more interesting costumes to date... =D

>Blue Man Group: Went for the first time on Saturday with my friend MarkM [there are multiple Marks mentioned in this post, lol]. I highly recommend it; definitely a good time.

This Week I Don't Recommend:

>Pushy Volunteers Who Forget That They Are Just Volunteers And Let Stuff Go To Their Heads: Earlier today, my friend MarkL and I volunteered with UCF's Knights for Change for the local Barack Obama campaign office [yay for helping out...]. Basically, they had us calling people to find out if they had voted and if they hadn't, to let them know that today was the last day to early vote and where the nearest poll to them was, etc. It wasn't very interesting but it wasn't bad. However, a group of the volunteers were going to go door-to-door canvassing of various areas around UCF, knocking on doors to find out if people had voted and to take them to the polls, if they wanted to be taken and such. They went around the office gathering volunteers and got quite a group together. Then they got to me.

Now, I was already uncomfortable enough calling people and invading their peaceful Sunday with questions; there was no was no way I was going door-to-door to do it [plus it was raining]. So I said that I didn't want to do it, simple as that. Then three of the people [note: these are also college student volunteers, not paid professionals or anything] started getting in my face about how this is how votes are won and how it needs to be done - and one of them literally grabbed the papers I had in my hands away from me and threw them on the table. So then I started getting annoyed and MarkL was pissed and stated quite succintly that we were volunteers and don't have to do anything if we didn't want to. The trio backed off and we went back to our calls. The guy who grabbed the papers came back and apologized a little bit later.

Long story short, I'm glad I volunteered today and contributed my part to a cause I support. I just wish that certain people would remember the reason why their doing something in the first place instead of making things awkward for those around them when they think they're more important than they are...

>Broken Cell Phones: My cell phone's screen stopped working on Wednesday and its driving me nuts because the only thing worse than not getting text messages is getting text messages and not being able to read them o.O Thankfully, I know the layout of my phone and the menus and such, so I can still make calls [sort of] by typing in my contact's names, but believe me when I say that my Firefox's refresh button has not been hit as many times as it has this weekend for the shipment tracking page of the replacement phone...

>Losing Time: So I definitely did not realize that Daylight Savings Time ended today. Imagine my surprise when I find out I could have slept in an extra hour and still been perfectly on time... Oh well. ^.^

UCF's Homecoming Week activities start tomorrow; time to get ready for one of the most hectic-yet-worthwhile weeks of the year...

awake

yay insomnia
wandering around your head
seeking the shutdown.