Saturday, April 24, 2010

Socializing.

Thursday:
1. Dinner
2. Rooney concert (lead singer = Michael from The Princess Diaries)
3. Tim Tam Slams
4. Hanging with Cassidi

Friday:
1. Dinner
2. The 39 Steps at Gammage
3. Foosball/Pool
4. John the Animal
5. Mill Avenue
6. Cookiez on Mill
7. Three giant bunnies (statues)
8. "If you throw a debit card in the fountain, all of your wildest dreams will come true."
9. Me retrieving friends' debit cards from the fountain
10. "Question: which bear is best?"
11. Boys playing with their hair
12. Rearranging the couches in the lounge

Note: not every silence is awkward.

Listening to: Dorm Life
Reading: Justine by Lawrence Durrell

Saturday, April 17, 2010

Dorm life.

Friday was quite the day. I got up and headed out around 5:30 AM to go running. Then, at 7:30, I had a geology lab that involved climbing part way up a butte. When the TA dismissed us, he said we could either follow him back down the way we had come and ask questions, or we could go up and over. Silly me, I chose the latter. Me and three other poor fools. Because of the way the vegetation grew, the clearest paths up the butte are baby ravines filled with loose, fist-sized chunks of rock. And it was a mite taller than I imagined. When I finally crested the top, my lungs hurt, my legs hurt, and I was thirsty something fierce. The only things that kept me from going back down were that I knew going down those steep rivers of loose rock would be harder and I'd already gone so far that I might as well keep going. Like the blonde joke about the blonde who swam halfway, got tired, and turned around. That was not going to be me. So I made it to the top. My lab partner was also one of the ones who decided to go over. I think he's part mountain goat or something, because he reached the top a good ten minutes before I did. Though maybe not, because he threw up and I didn't. Then of course, we took the wrong fork going down (the other side had real paths) and we had to pick our way down another ravine as the actual path down was a in the other direction.

We made it, and I was rather happy that the rest of my classes required little thinking that day. A few people did cultural presentations in Spanish and history was a lecture like usual.

I came home, ate lunch, and took a short nap before diving into yet more geology. I had to read two chapter and take online quizzes over them before 11 PM. I finished the first chapter before dinner (taking time out to shower and get all of the mountain off).

Dinner was Roomie, the Cynic, and I.

Afterwards, I hurried through the other chapter and quiz (and got stellar scores, by the by), so we could all watch a movie. They invited a bunch of other people to our small soiree, but only three were not busy and in town. We watched Disturbia, which I am not at all fond of, but it was kind of funny how often Roomie freaked out and started screaming. At one point she even left the room for a minute, but to no avail. The Cynic paused it until she came back in. Devious creature. Her timing was impeccable. She literally walked out only a few minutes before the climax.

After the movie, we spilled outside. We were initially in quest of ice cream, but we got sidetracked when some of our company wanted to be shown where the aquatic center was so they could find it to watch a water polo game on Saturday. That turned into us walking to Mill Avenue, the local street of stores and awesomeness. I think the Cynic was antsy or something, because he was the mastermind behind all of the traveling we did.

I'd never been to Mill at that time of night. There were buskers and street artists galore playing all sorts of funky stuff. It was awesome. We came back down University and went to the only place still open on campus at midnight. It wants to be a '50s diner, but it fails miserably. We got shakes and sundaes. The service was kind of mediocre. I suppose I can't really blame them. There was a surprising amount of people in there. So we hung out there with our various ice cream concoctions just chatting for a while.

Eventually the group dispersed as people realized when they had to get up in the morning for their various activities.

Saturday was a laundry day. Also, Dorm Life. Great webshow. I finished watching it on Saturday night. Started Friday afternoon. Yeah, I found it that awesome.

Saturday was also an interesting day for elevators. When I left in the morning, there was a couch in the elevator. Unfortunately, it was facing the back and I had a laundry basket, so I couldn't manuever well enough to sit on it. Later in the day, I got a text from Roomie telling me she was stuck on one! She called the Cynic who alerted the front desk who alerted the authorities and both the police and fire department came with their lights on and sirens blaring. (I heard about all of this second hand). The elevator had gone down only half a floor and stopped. They had to pry it open and Roomie had to climb out. She's pretty sure they broke the door getting it open. Its groundfloor door now has an "Out of Order" sign on it.

Quite the weekend.

Listening to: "One Tin Soldier"
Reading: The Definitive Wit of Winston Churchill

Thursday, April 15, 2010

Crispy.

What with a history paper and all, I haven't felt like I could justify taking out the time to write. For better or for worse, that was turned in last night, so for tonight I feel relaxed. I'm sure that will change tomorrow when I realize that I haven't read in my geology book and I have online work over two chapters due.

I read Oedipus Rex today. That was weird and all sorts of messed up. There are times when it's okay to be wilfully ignorant, but that is most definitely not one of them. Yeah, I'm talking to you Jocasta.

Today was Driver's birthday, so Roomie and I got him a giant, sheet-cake sized rice crispy treat. She put vanilla frosting on it and spelled out "HAPPY BIRTHDAY!" in M&Ms. I stuck 19 candles into the cruncy goodness. (Sorry this is such a dry retelling. I'm kind of burnt out on writing at the moment.) Again, we had to go outside to light the candles, but it was even windier than the last time with the flaming muffin, so we were only able to get four or five to stay lit long enough for us to sing. We each cut off what we wanted, mostly in weird shapes and places, and hung out munching on rice crispy treat for a while.

We followed that up with a couple episodes of The Office.

Listening to: "I'm So Excited"
Reading: The Definitive Wit of Winston Churchill

Monday, April 12, 2010

Funky.

I reinstalled iTunes on my laptop. Just saying. That's not really big news. It's just something that happened this weekend.

I stayed up until midnight making a Spanish presentation. I don't think I did a very good job presenting it. I am not expecting high marks.

FHE was awesome. We went to the visitors' center and watched the Joseph Smith movie. Still, I've been in a mood all night, what a friend of mine would call "a funk."

My roommate is amazing.

And apparently Roomie and The Cynic are in some sort of (fake) power struggle over who's in charge of our little group. I feel like the Rhineland.

Listening to: "Lyin' Eyes" by the Eagles
Reading: Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko

Saturday, April 10, 2010

Chillin'.

One of Roomie &. Co.'s friends from high school was in town this weekend for a concert. He was one odd duck, but vastly entertaining.

The morning was spent in cleaning and the afternoon in hanging out with said friend and The Driver. There was a jam session, In-n-Out Burger, and the airing up of Roomie's bike tires and the fixing of her bell.

An uneventful day, but fun.

Listening to: "Africa" by Toto
Reading: Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Time-wasters.

Today Roomie and I took the bus over to a nearby collection of huge franchise stores with the intent of going to Target. Mission successful. Our goal? TimTams. Or, as the packaging says, Australia's Favorite Cookie!. The exclamation point is the packaging's, not mine. They were on sale for $2 a package.

We came home and killed the time until dinner by watching Alex Reads Twilight, a hilarious sequence of YouTube videos in which a snarky Brit (friend and soon-to-be roommate of Charlie McDonnell) goes through Twilight chapter by chapter and shares his thoughts, sometimes to hilarious results (at least for us viewing).

Then dinner. Through which Roomie and I used British accents. Well, I didn't last the entire time. She lasted through most of it.

Then an episode of The Office.

And then, the big moment. TimTam slams! I felt certain I had explained them in a previous post, and I was going to link to it, but I can't find it, so I suppose I'll just explain again. TimTams are a type of chocolate cookie. To do a TimTam slam, bite off a little from both ends, put an end in your mouth, then dip it in hot chocolate and sip the tastiness up through the cookie. Hands are not recommended, as the hot chocolate melts the cookie. Instead, slurp quickly then throw your head back to drop the cookie into your mouth. Basically. I was so sure I'd posted about this before...

Anyway. I feel bad for The Cynic. Either he was having a bad night in the first place, or we were hardcore driving him crazy with our energy.

I don't know what it is, maybe the spring segueing into summer, but I was hyper all weekend and Roomie was hyper all day today, until she ran out of energy halfway through The Office.

I think I would've enjoyed the evening more if The Cynic wasn't so cynical. Downer! But still, tons of fun.

I don't know whether you'll think this is as awesome as I do.

Listening to: "Africa" by Toto
Reading: Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko

Saturday, April 3, 2010

Pageantry.

Where to begin.

Somehow, miraculously, I finished my online geology work before 10:30 PM on Friday. In fact, I finished it before 3. Which was great, because my friends and I had plans for the evening and I would've guilt-tripped myself if my homework hadn't been turned in, thereby earning me zeros. I actually scored quite high on the little assignments. I even had enough time to finish the extra credit. My geology is now staring balefully at me now, though, since I have a test on Monday and have yet to study. Today was spent in better pursuits. Namely, Conference, laundry, and napping. Wow, guess I don't have to tell you about my Saturday now. Not that I was. Wow, sidetracked much?

Back to Friday!

Roomie's sister arrived around 3:30. We showed her what Rick-Rolling and Communist-Rolling were (YouTube them), and then they spent the next hour watching an episode of Psych. I spent the next hour writing down cool quotes I found in my linguistics book on notecards in colorful Sharpie and taping them to my walls. Inspiration, entertainment, an instant smile. It's all there on my wall in bright marker between faint blue lines.

Around five we headed down to meet the rest of our party for dinner at our glorious dining hall. And by glorious I mean it's a buffet that serves variations of the same five dishes daily. Dinner was a jolly affair. To make my story easier I shall introduce the company now:

1. Roomie. My roommate and partner in crime.

2. Roomie's Sister, hereafter referred to as Cake. Expert in the art of coolness.

3. 19-Year-Old Male #1, hereafter referred to as The Cynic. Master of the Mac and owner of a Dwight Shrute bobblehead.

4. 19-Year-Old Male #2, hereafter referred to as Driver. He who paid the ridiculous price to park on campus and therefore was the automatic chauffeur.

5. 19-Year-Old Male #3, hereafter referred to simply as #3, as I can think of no suitable psuedonym. He shall make only a brief appearance. Know only that he speaks too much of ballroom dance and that which he seems to know but little about.

6. Rebekah, hereafter referred to by all first-person pronouns unless otherwise indicated.

Cake left us a little before six to hang out with a friend who lives nearby. Shortly thereafter we gathered up blankets and trekked out to Driver's truck. I got my first real, useful opportunity to use Google Maps on my phone. Mesa recently started an event called Bikes on Main, which is pretty much what it sounds like and takes place the first Friday of every month. The central part of Main St. is closed off for motorcyclists during this time, so I knew we couldn't just drive down Main to get to the temple. Oh, I don't think I mentioned yet where we were going. Silly me. The entire to-do was about going to the Easter pageant at the temple. Some of my companions' friends were going to come down from their hometown to see it, but they cancelled last minute.

We took a highway route, but it turned out that even our forethought was foiled as Bikes on Main was yet still farther west than where we exited. I guess it's all fair, though, since my dad rode to it and he told me that Main was closed in the opposite direction for pageant traffic. We all just started off on the wrong sides of the Valley, didn't we? Anyway, after much turning in circles we found a parking spot and hiked over to the temple grounds.

They had a huge stage set up for the pageant, and behind the audience they had the poshest port-a-potties I've ever seen. At first I thought they were some sort of manager's trailer or some such.

We ended up sitting way in the back, so during the pageant we kept having to lean back and forth to see around a palm tree.

We got there around 7, but the pageant didn't start until 8. We were saving seats for Cake and her friend, so the way were split up I spent the hour just chatting with Roomie and The Cynic. I didn't mind a bit. Of all of the company present, they are the two I most enjoy conversing with. I have no idea what Driver and #3 did during the interrim.

The pageant wasn't really what I expected. I though it would be just the Easter story, covering the last week or so of Christ's life. Instead it started with the Creation and Adam and Eve, touched on the prophecies of Isaiah, then jumped to Christ's birth and went through some of the highlights of his life. All in an hour. It was pretty awesome, though. I even teared up a bit now and then. The cast was huge! The dialogue was prerecorded, but I totally understand the logic so I didn't mind. It took me a little while, though, to figure out why the narrator sounded exactly like the narrator in most Church films. My favorite part was probably the angels. They had a big balcony above the stage and set back and huge numbers of angels would appear up there blowing trumpets or rejoicing. They would shine the lights on them and the white of their robes would almost glow. I loved it!

Cake & Co. arrived fashionable late, but not too late.

After the pageant was over, we power walked out, trying to get out before traffic got bad. However, it was not to be. We had parked in a dirt lot by a wall, and someone who came in later had backed straight up to the wall, blocking us in along with three or four other cars. Of course, we were in the worst position for trying to wiggle out. Meaning, there was no way. It was like a blue minivan convention. The car blocking us in was one and there was one in front of us. Then we were flanked on one side by a silver minivan and on the other by the wall. We hopped into the bed of the truck and hung out some more until enough of the cars around us had left that we could find a way out. Oddly, they all left around the same. We ended up pulling forward and out. When we left, that minivan that came later and mostly blocked everyone in was one of the last cars left in the lot.

It seems like the pageant and Bikes on Main ended around the same time. As we were getting on the highway a pack of 10 or 12 bikers was pulling on beside us. I love the sound of motorcycles! It was rather awesome to see all of them roaring by.

We got back to the dorm around 10. Cake & Co. met us there, as Driver, Cake, and Roomie were all heading up to their hometown for General Conference. They left as soon as they could get their stuff together, expecting to arrive home around 2 AM.

Man, that was such a fun night. I don't know what it was, but I was hyper and euphoric. It'll make a sweet memory. I'm already smiling at the thought.

Listening to: "Heaven Is a Place on Earth"
Reading: Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko