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November 2, 2002 - Flattened red squirrels
Monday - Friday This week was Battle of the Ravine week and
Homecoming. During this week a war is declared upon the university across
ravine, and in all wars there are casualties. This week my fraternity
brothers and I took turns guarding the major monuments across the campus from 6
PM to 6 AM every day. Even on the nights I wasn't scheduled for "OBU
Watch" I still would go visit my friends on guard just to hang out with
them and conspire against OBU. We planned many pranks to use on OBU, but
many of them never actually happened. Luckily, other crazy guys did pull
some pranks and got away with them (freshly painted red tigers anyone?).
Wednesday - Tonight was Phantom Reddies night, a *hush hush* tradition
the band does every homecoming weekend. It's supposed a secret but
everyone knows we do it and they still allow it, so it's one of those "public
secrets". Basically a select few band members drive to faculty homes and
play the Fight Song and Alma Mater, then run way before the neighbors call the
cops on us for disturbing the peace. This year we actually got caught by
the police and pulled over, but luckily it was in front of Dr. Dunn's (Mr.
President) house and he bailed us out. We then "treated" him and his
family to a special version of the Alma Mater by switching instruments and
trying to figure out the new parts (I played the trumpet part on a tuba).
Of course the piece sounded absolutely horrible, so we switched back to our
regular instruments and blew him away. After going to each of the faculty
houses we played for the boys and girls dorms, and we were vilified the entire
time...
October 18, 2002 - Films galore
Monday - Thursday -The Documentary Film Festival
happened this week so for the most part I was in Hot Springs each day watching a
movie and writing about it for my classes.
Friday - Tonight was social night at my house. My parents were gone for
the weekend so I invited quite a few people to hang at the house on Friday.
Except a certain problem arose...
But first my suitemates (well at least their girlfriends) would kill me if
I forgot to mention that I had a surprising last-minute dinner/chat invitation
on Friday by one of my female friends. She called me up saying she was at
Thrios and she needed to someone to talk to because she was bored. So I
literally dropped everything (note-to-self: clean up mess) and spent time with
her talking about various things. The reason I feel obligated to tell this
is because my girlfriend-in-laws (as in my suitemates' girlfriends) have a
notion in their head that they are going to force me to hook up with this girl.
I, on the other hand, like things just the way they are. At least for now, that
is. Currently I'm having too much fun in my bachelorhood, so hooking up with a
cute girl (which she undeniably is) is not on my current agenda. Maybe
later...
Anyways, back to the problem with my house. Have you
ever seen the movie "Dazed and Confused"? Well in said movie there is a story
arc which involves a teenager throwing a major party at his parent's house while
they are away. Unfortunately all of his friends (and the kegs) arrive at
the house BEFORE his parents leave so the parents catch on to their son's party
fairly quick. Every time a partygoer arrived at the house he was greeted by two
angry parents who were in the process of killing their son (not literally).
Needlessly to say, the teenager was not in good-standing with his parents for
the rest of the movie...
Well the same thing happened to me. There just so happened to
be some sort of miscommunication between me and my parents. When
they said "We are going to be gone this weekend" I thought they meant Fri-Sun.
Boy was I ever wrong. Their definition of weekend is Saturday morning-Sun night,
so they were really surprised when 12+ college students arrived at their house
Friday night looking for a night of fun. To make matters worse, I was
still at Thrios at this time so everyone who showed up early had to explain
themselves to my parents...
Ah, but this is where it gets cool: instead of turning
my friends away and filleting me, my parents let everyone in and catered to our
every needs. My mother suddenly had the urge to bake cookies for everyone
while my father entertained a select few with his collection of Civil War books
and Mech games. After we finished watching a movie in the theater room everyone
then went to my living and started chatting with my mother. We stayed like
this for over an hour and it seemed like everyone enjoyed themselves. Plus we
had home-baked cookies to enjoy during our entire visit...
But how did this happen? My only assumption is that now
that both my sister and I have moved away to college my parents are getting
lonely and miss the company who would always come over when we lived at home. I
do know that my beaglador
sure enjoyed the company, she seemed like she hadn't played Frisbee in weeks.
October 11, 2002 - And the cow goes... ?!?
I am determined to catch up the days to today so I can post more on
each day rather than tidbits of information. So I plan on only
highlighting the major elements of the past week and ignoring the normal
days...
Monday (7) - I went to a class today that I hadn't been to in 2
weeks (something I really try to avoid doing) only to find out that today was
the major test day in that class. Considering that I hadn't been there for
the last few class times I figured I was a dead man. As it may turn out I
was dead wrong, for I earned a mid B on the test and I didn't even read the
chapters required. In the teachers defense it wasn't that he made
the test too easy ("What is angina pectoris?" is an example question), but
the entire test was based upon common knowledge that any person concerned with
their health would know. The problem with this is now that I know I can
skip that class and still pull off a good grade it's going to be hard to force
myself to go to that class each morning. Sometimes I wish I would
just flunk one test in my life so I could force better study habits upon
myself...
I also felt more relaxed tonight than I had ever before, maybe because I
actually committed a good deed for someone else and expected nothing in return.
A fellow art student was working in the lab with me well into the night, and
when I finished I found out she still had another 3 full projects to complete
before class that morning. Considering it was almost 2 AM I knew she would have
a hard time completing everything before class, especially in her current drowsy
state, so I offered to go pick up a cappuccino for her at the gas station.
She gave me money for it but I couldn't accept it for some odd reason...
anyways I drove out of my way to pick up a drink for her (which at 2 AM, you
find some odd people at a gas station) while she worked on her projects.
Luckily she finished all of them before class started the next day and I had a
sense of well-being that I actually did something nice. This might be something
I look into doing more often...
Tuesday -Thursday - For the life of me, I
know I did things these days but I can't remember any of it. That's
usually not a good sign. (I think I wrote a computer program for 8 hours
Thursday night, but its all hazy)
Friday - After band today I did another good deed by driving over
to the humane society and playingwith the dogs for about an hour.
...
No really, I did.
Seriously, I'm not lying
Anyways the dogs were so fun to play with and some of them attached
themselves to you the instant you walk into their tennis court. One of
them kept bringing my his toys and begging me to play with him. I felt sad
leaving him there because I know these dogs don't get to play with people very
often, they must be bored to death way out there in the middle of nowhere. I try
not to dwell on what I saw there (as you know "Ignorance is bliss") because it
actually bothers to think of what these animals have to go through.
But enough of that, what did I do that night?
My suitemate and I went a friend's house where a rather large gathering
was taking place. After a couple erotic games of Balderdash and chess
(hmmm, erotic chess, gotta love that) we watched A Bug's Life and then humored
which other with our dry wit and bitter sarcasm. So many insults occurred
in that room that a passerby would think we were all bitter enemies.
Ironically the night I actually leave my dorm room and party somewhere else was
also the night someone e-mailed me asking me for something to do because they
were bored. I felt bad when I got back because I did say I would be glad
to entertain anyone if they were bored, and when someone actually takes me up on
the offer I'm not even there to reply to them.
Saturday - The band had an exhibition in Ashdown today so most of
the morning was spent practicing and most of the afternoon was spent on a bus.
The exhibition went great and I was impressed that all we did was play the
exhibition and nothing else. I am used to getting someplace, waiting a
couple of hours for us to perform, performing, then spending a few more hours
getting ready to leave. Instead we arrived at the exhibition a few minutes
before we performed, we walked on the field and performed, then we ate and left
almost immediately. I think we spent more time on the bus than we did at
the exhibition. On the way back I threw a VCR coup d'état and let everyone
watch The Emperor's New Groove rather than the chick flick a few girls had
planned to torture us with (I consider myself a humanitarian for this act).
When we returned home I spent most of my time downstairs in my "other home"
watching Mel Brooks films and entertaining people with mordant satire.
Sunday - Most of the day was spent animating the comic,
plus I took a short break to go home and watch Curb Your Enthusiasm.
October 8, 2002 - Of Diapers and Togas
Monday - This week was the fabled Tech week in band (meaning
the Tech band came to the game and participated in a battle of the bands against
the HSU band) and in order to celebrate we designated each day as a
special-article-of-clothing day. Monday happened to be crazy hat day so I
broke out the Winnie the Pooh hat I bought my sister at Disney World and marched
with pride (or was it shame?). For added entertainment you could squeeze
the nose of Winnie the Pooh and he would squeak like a baby's toy. Other
interesting hats of the day included: a beanie hat, a sparring helmet, a British
royal guard's tall hat, and a few other indescribable hats. As you
may have read last week, on Monday I also had major Non-Western Art history exam
which nearly fried my brain. The test required me to learn 15 different slides
of African art and be able to describe their purpose, composition, creation
date, and creators. This was not easy since most of the names were
hard to pronounce let alone memorize ("Mauikev and Khameinebty" anyone? ).
After the test was over I had a very important meeting where I learned how to
sing. The final part of my day was spent coloring my illustrations for
Illustration and Design.
Tuesday - I took my first major Comp Sci test today, and it was
almost as bad as the Non-Western Art History test I took the day before.
It had to be one of the first tests I've completed that took me the entire class
period to finish. I'm starting to realize my classes aren't as easy as
they have been previously and I might need to spend a little more time studying.
Wednesday - Turns out today was "toga day" in band. I
forgot about it so I went to band dressed as usual. I didn't stay like
that for too long... When I arrived on the field, one of my friends told
me she still had an actual toga (re: not a sheet) in her car from her theatre
days. Within seconds I was wearing an official toga, complete with a
laurel crown, marching around in 90° weather with jeans on underneath. Not
surprisingly, the day I'm dressed in a toga is also the day the newspaper
decides to stop by and take pictures for the paper...
Friday - This was the day we had all been waiting for: "Crazy pants
day". My "crazy pant" was none other than a very large diaper (a tradition
in the band). I wore that diaper with pride and humility. And boy
did I ever need that humility for I was basically naked out there.
Underneath the diaper was a well hidden pair of shorts, but unless you were
really looking you would have never known it. At least I didn't go and do
the full monty by wearing nothing under the diaper, which is more than I can say
than the guy wearing the kilt...
Maybe next year I throw in a little chocolate pudding for effect.
Saturday - Probably the best day I've had in a long time.
The Tech game was awesome, we had so much fun playing in the stands and taunting
the opposing team (in a friendly manner of course). We also marched the best
halftime show ever. At the end of it I was so high off of adrenaline
that I felt like I could jump over a building. Just seeing the entire
stadium give us a standing ovation made everything worth it. The feeling
stayed with me throughout the 3rd quarter when I met some members of the Tech
band, they were some of the funniest people I've been around. We all sang
together and talked about how much we loved the other's show while oblivious to
the game of football being played behind us. Even better was the fact that
we won the game!! Again, I've been to many football games in my life but
none were as exciting as this one. We were so close to losing so many
times that it was unnerving, but the football team stayed true and fought to the
end giving us one adrenaline-rush of a game. By the end of it so many of
us were almost in tears that we almost forgot to play our halftime show again
for the crowd.
To top off the night, I threw a nice little shin-dig at the house owned
by my parents who were gone for the weekend to go see my sister in Louisiana.
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What
to do, what to do...