Inadequate sort of photo essay of the semester, kind of

Because I'm bored, and have random pictures on my computer that I haven't put on here. Yeah. May have put some of these up before. But no one remembers. Besides, who wouldn't want to look at pictures of ND?

Aw, remember the first good snow in January (at ND, at least)?

Twas quite pretty. And seemed like a lot at the time.

Caitlin and Bethany enjoyed being in the snowy trees.

Our faces froze off the night we had to walk back to the dorm from the parking lot after the Keenan Revue the first weekend in February. It was like 30 below. Remember those cold cold days? Fun stuff.

And then there were the cardinals, too.

Oh the cardinals. So pretty.

It snowed some more. And it covered the Holy Family statue. (Perhaps I should have included the picture I took when we passed this after dinner one night, and Baby Jesus had an ice cream cone in his hand. There, just do a search for ice cream and you'll find the picture in that post. I think there was another time we passed it, more recently, and there was some other food item there. A corn dog, I believe it was. Seems wrong, but it's a little funny.)

It snowed. A lot.

And then my parents came for JPW in February. (I know I posted all these already, but I've already got a theme going here.)

I liked my hair the second day.

And my mom.

My dad's pretty cool too.

I like him. He bought me the drink you see sitting in front of me. Some sort of chocolate or mocha or something martini. It was pretty good. As was that weekend.

Random picture from Spring Break. When Kebbie was still fluffy, and Colt didn't like it. (Not that she likes shaved Kebbie being near her any more than she liked fluffy Kebbie.) I like their faces here. Goofy Kebbie and possessed Chicken.

And then it was Easter. It snowed on Easter too. Oh, we had some nice days between the freeze and Easter, but it snowed on Easter weekend.

It snowed a fair amount, too, considering it was April.

The Blue-Gold game happened at the end of April. There were lots of people there. Some with funny hats. It was one of the nicest days up to that point. You could tell who had been enjoying the sun after that weekend, because people were either still pale or rather sunburnt. I was in between, because Bethany saved us all with her sunblock. But most couldn't be bothered because it was too nice to waste even a minute inside putting on sunblock.

This was the only empty section. No idea why they had it closed off. I would guess that soon enough, the whole stadium will be filled for this game. Even though it's a pointless game between us and...us. But by April, everyone's starved for some ND football.

I took a picture of the inside seats just to be creepy. But you can't really see inside it anyway. I was hoping I'd be able to see someone cool like...Joe Montana, or Regis Philbin, or...Brady Quinn. Haha. Just kidding.

Here's some players (and lots of other people) on the field for some reason. Perhaps around halftime? All those empty seats there means it was not during any real action, but we moved for the last quarter or so and therefore this would be before that. I don't remember. I guess I didn't really get any good pictures of real plays or anything. Oh well. There'll be plenty of that in a few short months, I'm sure. (3 months from tomorrow it all begins!)

This is Bethany. She's curled up. Wheat Thins and studying for finals scare her. Even if it was a lovely day out.

This is Dolu. He's quite tall. (Especially because I took this picture from my sitting position on the ground. But he is like 6'6.) Wheat Thins cower in his presence. And look at that blue sky!

This is Katherine. She tells those Wheat Thins what's what, and saves Bethany from them (Bethany de-curled, if you notice). She's cool like that. And she took the MCAT today. I'm sure she aced it, because she's also cool like that.

This is a squirrel. He doesn't mind the Wheat Thins.

This is another. He enjoys the lounging. They're quite like people, squirrels are, when you get down to it.

This is a ring. A wonderful, beautiful ring. After months of waiting, my class ring came at the end of April. It was the best day of my life. Ok maybe not really, but it was pretty fantastic. (Even if this picture isn't...)

This is a large lilac bush by Galvan. I think that's what it is/how it's spelled. I had a class there freshman year, and barely glance at it now. But if there's lilacs, I will look. Especially when I'm looking for lilacs, the day before I was leaving for home (theoretically...), trying to take whatever pretty pictures I could without people noticing. (Why I'm weird about that, I have no idea.)

This was taken at night, one last dome picture of the year. It might have been twilight. I don't know. But there's a star (planet?), and the dome.

This was taken the last week of school. Thursday morning, I believe, on my way to...my Middle Ages final I suppose it was. I wanted a foggy dome picture. Although it wasn't terribly foggy by that point.

The Dome (and the top spire of the Basilica there on the right), as seen through some pretty, blooming trees during finals week. Or maybe just one tree.

And another Dome picture, because you just can't ever have too many. It was a nice day, the dome was quite shiny (not that you can tell very well here), and I was sitting outside between classes because one had gotten out reallllly early.

And I took a Basilica/Dome picture too. Because I like the Basilica and the Dome. So there you go.

Yay for pictures, no? I'm quite a fan. Especially when they're from ND. Ah, Notre Dame. :-)

Why so rare?

I saw a picture or something today (I forget exactly what the trigger was) and it made me get an imaginary whiff of incense, as happens on occasion. It's been far too long since I've been at a Mass with incense. I mean, I guess it's been...four weeks this coming Sunday. Sigh. Why is it so hard to find a Mass that uses incense around here? It sure would be nice if, next to Mass times, they put things like "Incense!" "Latin chants!" "Traditional!" Kind of like how they specify their Spanish Masses and whatnot. Alas, no such luck. I am going to go to St. Gabes on Sunday though, I think. Here's hoping it's still the same 11:15 Mass it was last year before the hiatus-ed for the summer. And here's also hoping that they don't hiatus again this summer...

Should I?

So, there's a church in Security (a bit south of here...somewhere...not sure exactly how far...half hour?) that's a Latin Mass community. In other words they do the Tridentine Latin Mass, the Mass as it was celebrated before Vatican II's Novus Ordo. I think I've been to one, once, when I was quite young and not really aware of what was going on. (Both because I was so young and because it's all in Latin.) I'm tempted to go and try it out, because I think I might really like it. But I'm a little scared, because it is quite different from what I'm used to. I really just want a Novus Ordo Mass that has lots of Latin, because then it's the best of both worlds for me -- much more traditional, I love Latin, and it's a Mass that I know very well and don't have to...readjust or whatever. We all know how much I dislike change. (And to this end, I think I am going to go to St Gabriel this coming Sunday, in the hopes that they are still/again doing the Mass with chants and whatnot that they had been doing last year before stopping for the summer etc. I think they started again, but yeah. I don't know. It'd be nice if they just kept that one going.) But one of these days, maybe I should try out the TLM. I just wish I knew someone who had some experience with it who I could go with, so I wouldn't feel so completely out of place. I mean, I guess my parents have had experience with it, as it's what they had the first however many years of their lives, but it's been awhile for them. Anyway. Who knows. We'll see.

I'm happy, ok?

I just read an hilarious quote. "The only thing a true introvert dislikes more than talking about himself is repeating himself." Found here. I would most definitely consider myself an introvert. And I most definitely HATE repeating myself. Haha. man. That whole article is pretty funny, actually.

Last night, my parents and I watched the movie Miracle. An excellent, excellent movie, by the way. How a person can watch it and not be enthralled, sitting on the edge of his or her seat the further into the movie it gets, even though everyone knows how it ends, is beyond me. It's just an excellent film. (And it's PG! No sex or anything like that! I know -- how can you make a movie without having sex in it? Especially if it's about college-aged guys? That's all they do, right?) Anyway. I was looking at the wikipedia page about the whole thing, and discovered that the USA chant originated at that game. I had no idea. Or maybe I did, and promptly forgot about it. I think that happens a lot with me. Sometimes I think I have the memory of...some sort of animal that has a bad memory. (There's some saying about that, right? What's the animal? I know an elephant never forgets, so clearly that's not it.) Anyway. Go USA, I guess.

I saw Pirates 3 today. I think I highly recommend it. The ending may be a bit depressing, but there's two interpretations that seem to be out there, and one seems much more preferable to my more sappy side, so I'm gonna go with that one in my head, and be happier. Because, really, isn't being happy better than...not? :-) Oh, and afterward (and after free Chipotle, thanks to gift certificates Cathy had for some reason -- they raised their prices, which is one more knock against them, and man is Qdoba closing in fast, much as it might pain me to say so) we went to Borders to kill some time, because walking around bookstores is lots of fun for some reason. I got caught in the sports section -- football, to be exact -- for a little while, first looking at some encyclopedia thing of College Football (I think it only went to 2004 though, so they've got to update that, because there are some new records in the books at ND that are quite important to get!), and was just standing there smiling as I read the profile they had on ND, and then I picked up another book that was ND related and just looking at the pictures gave me a little thrill, and then I saw a third, and it was all just fantastic. Except, one of the books specifically about ND I think was mainly focusing on the 2005 season (I think the book was called Touchdown Jesus, and looked pretty interesting -- the other was called The Gold Standard, I think), and of course, the epic #1 USC @ #9 ND had a whole section. Ugh. Painful. So close. So so close. Anyway. Oh, the encyclopedia thing had the fight song (including the first verse that no one sings and for some reason a deplorably small number of students seem to know) and just reading it made me all giddy and excited. Boy do I love my ND football. (Except I don't like how we're called the Yankees of college football. I hate the Yankees. But it is kind of true in that you either hate us or you love us, if you follow college football, and there's all that tradition, and whatever. The difference is that the Yankees suck, and we rock. And speaking of baseball, Red Sox won again tonight, Yankees lost, and now the Sox have an 11.5 game lead over the next team down in the AL East, which right now is Baltimore. (And the Yankees are at the bottom of the division, as they should be.) A .706 winning percentage, and the only team in the entire MLB to have over .700 winning percentage (the next closest is the Mets with .660, and there's only two others even in the .600s). It's great.) To bring back to ND, only 94 days until the home opener (and first game of the season!). 94 days. Sigh.

Ok, just in case anyone's wondering:

Rally, sons of Notre Dame
Sing her glory and sound her fame
Raise her Gold and Blue
And cheer with voice true
Rah Rah for Notre Dame (u-rah-rah)
We will fight in ev'ry game
Strong of heart and true to her name
We will ne'er forget her
And we'll cheer her ever
Loyal to Notre Dame

(and then the part everyone knows. At least everyone semi-cool. The really cool ones know the beginning part, too)
Cheer, cheer for Old Notre Dame
Wake up the echoes cheering her name
Send the volley, cheer on high
Shake down the thunder from the sky
What though the odds be great or small
Old Notre Dame will win over all
While her loyal sons are marching
Onward to victory!

I expect you all to memorize that. There will be a quiz. Just makes you wanna get up and clap, doesn't it?
Now, when I was just typing it out (and yes, I even did the first part without looking it up, because I'm one of the aforementioned really cool people), for some reason I had the Glee Club version in my head. Perhaps it's because I happen to ADORE that version, or possibly because they're pretty much the only time I hear that first part. They do sound excellent when singing it. In any case, here's a version of the band (and some men's singing group, maybe the Glee Club although I don't know why that would be, but if it were at a football game as I initially thought, you would hear at least some girls' voices in there), you can hear the first part after the introduction, and then the singing starts with the part everyone knows, and then it repeats, just as it should. Man, just listening to it made me barely be able to contain my excitement for and wish to be at a game right now. Sigh. Anyway. I really think I need to get me a phone that can play real songs as ringtones, and then get the Victory March as my ringtone. Dude! I just found a Glee Club version online you can listen to! It's not the best I've heard, but it's something. (I found it here, and there's lots of other cool stuff there too it looks like. In case you're bored and want to listen to/watch some awesome ND stuff. And why wouldn't you?)

I'm unemployed, listless, and facing the prospect of going back to school in two weeks (as well as the prospect that I most certainly had better be employed by then as well, which sucks, much as being unemployed does, but obviously for different reasons), but...I'm happy! I really am. (Although possibly because I'm building up unrealistic and fantastical dreams in my head, actually being optimistic about stuff, and we all know life doesn't generally tend to turn out as well as our dreams may lead us to hope, but that's ok. It really is.)

Ok so I totally didn't intend this to be so long, but then I added all that stuff about ND, and apparently I can just talk on and on about ND for quite awhile. I'm ok with that. But that's enough for now for this post.

Enough already!

There's a commercial for some car. I see it like twice a commercial break, it seems. And it's getting on my nerves. It uses some crappy version of "You Are My Sunshine," a nice enough song, but when played over and over and over, and crappily, man is it irritating. And seriously, there have been times recently that I've seen that commercial twice in a row. Perhaps two versions, but it's the same song, and that's the annoying part. The song. THE SONG.

Just quit already, commercial.

(Ok, heard it again and wasn't close enough to mute it, and it's for Saturn, and seems to be for a Memorial Day sale -- so maybe, just maybe, I won't have to hear it again after tomorrow or even today. Speaking of Memorial Day sales, I read in a blog the other day someone saying how weird and almost inappropriate it is that stores use Memorial Day, a day which is supposed to be more of a solemn thing, to push merchandise and such. And it's true, when you think about it. It would seem wildly inappropriate to use Sept. 11 for "Sales! Sales! Sales!" and such, as this person pointed out. But I digress.)

Stuff and nonsense

The more I think about it, the more I think I want to pursue applying at the JPII Institute. Maybe I'm crazy, because, come on, two more years of school? But I don't know. It'd be classes that I'm really interested in. So yeah. Who knows what'll happen. We all know that I'm not the best at actually following through with things I want to do, but I guess we've all gotta break out of character once in awhile, right? 'Course, it might not even matter because I haven't been all that impressive, grade-wise, in my college career. I didn't ever really truly believe that I wouldn't get accepted to the colleges where I applied. I might have pretended to worry, but I think I would have been really surprised had I not gotten into any. (I was surprised when I got bumped from the early applicants to the regular applicants at BC, and I got the letter informing me of this the day I got into Notre Dame. Which is weird, because the joke at ND is that BC is full of ND rejects. BC sucks, by the way. The only plus they have is that, had I gone there, I might have had a better chance of going to a Red Sox and/or Patriots game at some point. But I wasn't nearly as interested in either when I was choosing colleges as I am now, so that's pretty much a moo point.) Where was I? Oh yeah. Bragging about my awesome college acceptance rate. The point is, I worked my butt off in high school to be able to have that position. Not so much in college. I mean, I'm ok, but my grades are pretty average-ish. A bit above a 3.5. Not quite stellar. I have no idea the kind of people this school takes, I just don't feel very qualified or something. I don't know. Whatever. Getting ahead of myself anyway.

So I want to do the incline again this year. The plan is already to climb Pikes Peak at some point this summer, probably later (especially as there's still tons of snow on Pikes Peak, and I think it even snowed some more over the past couple days too), but I'd like to do the incline before that. Maybe a couple times. Right now I think it'd be a lot easier than it was last year both times I did/tried it. I mean, I'm still very much not nearly at the stamina where I was a few weeks ago (Mom and Dad keep telling me it takes a long time to re-acclimate to the altitude, but I feel like I'm just a loser. It's been two weeks, almost. Seriously, Susie, get with it), but I do feel a lot better about myself in general. Which is good, and mostly the point too. (The obvious other being to look better. Which seems to be working out at least a bit. I was pleasantly surprised last week when I went to Kohls and bought a couple skirts and shirts, both of which ended up being bought in sizes smaller than I normally would get. Of course, I tend to attribute that more to the fact that I believe they're starting to make clothes bigger, while saying they're smaller sizes. It has to be true. But still. At the very least, my legs and stomach aren't quite as flabby and jiggly anymore. And who doesn't like that?)

I don't know where to go to church anymore. I hate to be a church-hopper, but I long to have a traditional Mass to attend. I mean, even the lit choir Mass at the basilica wasn't terribly traditional, but at least it had incense, a few priests, altar boys, and music that you can pretty much be sure you won't hear on any contemporary Christian stations (unlike the Mass I went to last week...the lovely LifeTeen Mass...sigh. Seriously, the woman in front of us was reading the ads for Safeway right before Mass. Not praying, not sitting in reverent silence, no, reading ads from the Sunday paper. I know I shouldn't judge people, but it's so hard for me to sit in that Mass and feel connected to God. Which is all on me, I know, but shouldn't I be able to go to a Mass that brings me closer to God? That's reverent, where the main focus is completely and obviously on the mystery of the Mass, and not on making ourselves feel clap-happy?). I'm reluctant to go to other churches because I just don't think I'd have a very different experience at many around here. And I think sometimes, in some churches, it might be hit or miss depending on the Mass you go to. I just don't know what to do, but I don't think I can take a whole summer being spiritually stifled by Holy Apostles anymore. I feel like such a horrible person saying that, but...it's just not fair that I can't get a whole and complete Mass the way it's truly supposed to be celebrated, in all its traditional glory, but everyone who doesn't feel like being spiritually challenged by anything more than the I'm ok, you're ok type of stuff that goes on at most Masses have tons at their disposal. And they can go whenever it's convenient, because God forbid we have to plan our Sundays around church, instead of church around our Sundays. Sorry. I'm a little bit bitter. I know I have to work on it. It's just not fair. I went to Holy Ghost that one time back in September, and it was lovely. All that Latin, all that reverence, all those people who actually took the time to dress nicely for Mass, and the priest actually giving a homily that challenged people about things like contraception (which did fit quite well into the readings that weekend, but I think a lot of priests would shy away from anything that disagreed upon by the majority of Catholics. Which is sad, because if they don't hear it from the priest, where are they going to hear it that they think they have to listen?). The homily last week invovled the priest pretending to call Jesus and proceed to have a conversation with him. Perhaps it was cute and engaging for the teens there, but to me it was ridiculous. And parts of it seemed kind of like Catechism 101, although I suppose there's quite a few of people who could use a crash course in the Catechism. Sigh. Sorry. I know I shouldn't be so disparaging toward my church. I mean, it's been my home parish for 18 years now. And it's not like the people are terrible. I just wish I had another option, one that fit me better. (And one that's closer than Denver.) It's frustrating. Oh well.

Another happy topic: The more I think about working retail again, the more I remember things I hated about it. Things like having to work Sundays, having to work holidays, having no set schedule whatsoever. But what else can I do? My stupid June school schedule's basically impossible to work around with any type of normal Monday-Friday job. Of course, maybe I'll end up not being hired anywhere. I guess that'd be slightly worse than retail, especially considering I'm going to want to be spending a lot of money this coming semester on football-related things (like going to away games. Such as Penn State, Michigan, and...Purdue, maybe? There were three we were hoping to go to, I can't quite remember the third). Sigh. Retail doesn't even pay well. At least, not in my experience. I suppose if you're somewhere long enough, it might. Finding a summer job sucks.

Well, I suppose I'll go do more pleasant things now, like reading Harry Potter, to get my mind of the whole job thing. (I especially hate it because I know my parents are wondering when I'll get one, or possibly when I'll get desperate enough to start going down the food services venue. If I do that, I'll be trying for hostess before waitress. I just think I would be terrible as a waitress. I'm not so good with the customers, as I consider many people nowadays to be quite rude and far too picky about stuff, and I don't know how well I'd be able to handle that all the time.

Nearest Book Meme

Grab the nearest book.
Open it to page 161.
Find the fifth full sentence.
Post the text of the sentence along with these instructions.
Don't search around looking for the coolest book you can find. Do what's actually next to you.

(I'm pretty sure I've done this one before, but whatever.)

"They didn't stop running until they reached the portrait of the Fat Lady on the seventh floor."

If you've read the book (or probably seen the movies), you'll probably recognize this. But if not, it's from the first Harry Potter book, which I'm currently re-reading in anticipation of the release of the 5th movie and 7th book. (My plan is to read through the 5th book before the 5th movie on July 13, and then in the week between July 13 and July 21 -- when the book comes out -- read the 6th book. Good stuff. We'll see if I manage to achieve that goal, given that I'll be starting classes in a couple weeks...and work, if anyone will ever hire me...)

Added to my list

If I had more disposable income (or any - ha), I would look into getting this. A couple eye doctor visits ago, my doctor said I'd be a good candidate for this (or something along these lines, I assume it was this), but we didn't really discuss it. I doubt that it's covered by our insurance though, and I don't imagine it's terribly cheap. But it could be nice. Although might be weird, not wearing contacts during the day anymore, since I've worn them basically every day since I was in 7th grade. That's like...8 years. But yeah. I don't know. Maybe something to keep in mind for later. I mean, it's almost kinda like laser eye surgery, without the increased sensitivity to light (which I don't need), and, you know, without the whole surgery thing.



Completely unrelated. I like my pretty ring. :-)

A few thoughts

I just came across this quote in a blog:

“When something is truly intended for you, it will come your way more than once.”

I kinda like that. Especially with my fear of missing out on things. Anyway.

I did something today. Something that makes me cringe inside a little bit every time I think about it. I pulled out like half of my top right eyelashes. Let's just say an eyelash curler and a clumsy hand were involved. Yeah. Boy was I surprised at how easy they yanked out, too. Ugh. Rather a horrible feeling, realizing you just pulled out a bunch of your eyelashes. Luckily it's the side closer to my nose, so it's not quite as noticeable as it would be were it the other side. And it's not as if my eyelashes are terribly prominent anyway (hence the eyelash curler). But I can still tell. I don't like it. At all. It's just weird, and just not right. Oh well. At least they'll grow back.

I think America Ferrera is really pretty.

The Celtic Woman concert up at Red Rocks was tonight. I still kinda wish I had gone (except for the fact that it's been raining all day here, with a high of 50 and I don't even know if it got there, and the mountains are supposed to get snow tonight/earlier today. Heck, we even had some snow for a little while earlier tonight. And as Red Rocks is up in the mountains a little, I'm sure it was chilly and wet at the very least. But still). Oh well. Hopefully I'll get another chance to see them someday.

Oh yeah, speaking of the cold. We had the fireplace on today. May 23rd. Fireplace. Odd. Makes me glad that I spent a good five minutes or so last night trying to find the outlet on the wall against which my bed is placed where I had my under-the-sheets bed warmer thingy plugged, before I unplugged it when I left for school this semester. (I like to unplug as much stuff as possible in my room before I leave for extended periods of time. I suppose I think it's going to cause a fire simply because I'm not here to monitor it.) It was kind of really annoying to find, but find it I did. And now I no longer have to suffer with a big (full-sized, which is big when you consider the fact that I pretty much only use up about half of a twin sized bed) cold bed for extended uncomfortable minutes. Of course, in a couple nights I guarantee I'll be wanting to turn off the stupid thing, but what are you gonna do. Well, turn it off I suppose. I do have the ability to do that without the whole unplugging thing.

It's really late again. Every morning when I continually hit snooze on my phone alarm (I really have to get a real clock radio in here, with an alarm that I can't pick up and move to my bed) despite the fact that it's set for around 9:30 which really isn't early by anyone's standards, I tell myself "I'm going to bed early tonight." And every night, I stay up late. I suppose it doesn't really matter, because what do I have to do, really? Not a whole lot. I don't even have friends in town to bug this summer. Maybe I should just go hang out somewhere and ask people to be my friend. (Incidentally, and completely unrelated yet linked somehow in my mind. Today when driving back from Katie's, in the rain, on a rather less than busy street, Dad and I passed a woman -- I think, hard to tell with the rain and the distance we were from this person and the fact that we were driving the opposite direction -- who was hitchhiking. I suppose if you're on a street somewhere in the rain, you might want someone to give you a ride. But who, in this day and age, would pick up a hitchhiker? I suppose maybe it's less sketchy the fact that this person was on a regular street instead of the highway, but I'm not sure why it'd be less sketchy. Maybe it's more. I don't really know. Either way it was weird.)

Oh well. Guess I'll head off to bed soon.

Can't win 'em all

Darn. Red Sox lost tonight. First series with the Yankees this season that they haven't won at least two of the three. Ah well. At least the got one in there. (And they're still the only team in baseball to have over 30 wins right now. And they have the highest winning percentage. Because they're awesome.) I really hope they keep doing this well all season. Twould be wonderful. It'd be excellent if we had another Red Sox win World Series and Patriots win SuperBowl season. Like freshman year. That was pretty sweet. Although I wasn't nearly into either at that point in time. They keep showing commercials on NBC for Sunday Night Football. I have no idea why, as it's nowhere near football season yet. To me it just seems mean because I so wish it were football season. How I love football season. Sigh.

That money thing again

Gas prices are expensive. Anyone notice? I need to get gas soon. I was going to get some yesterday, on my way home from the chiropractor, at this place that's always at least a few cents cheaper than most other places. For example, up until yesterday (if not today), it was at $3.16. Most places are $3.24 if not $3.29. Yeah, Colorado Springs used to be on the cheaper end of things regarding gas prices, but apparently not so much right now. Anyway, $3.16 was a steal. However, as I was driving past it yesterday (at around 5pm -- busy time on the roads, obviously), there wasn't even space for me to turn into this gas station and wait for an open thing. It's a pretty small station, and it's on a pretty busy street. So...that sucked. I was going to go later, but of course forgot. And I was going to go today, but also forgot. I'm the most forgetful person ever, I think. Anyway. I just went to like a gas price check thing, and I think that I saw it's now at $3.22. I'm not sure it's the same station, but I think it is. I knew it couldn't stay that cheap for very much longer. Sigh. Stupid gas prices.

It's especially worrisome because some of the places at which I'm applying for a job are pretty much as far away as I can get from my house and still be in the city. Kind of. Like the zoo. For some reason I think it'd be fun to work at the zoo. Nothing special, just like in the gift shop or maybe at the front gate or something. I don't know. I just like the zoo. Anyway. I did see today that they're hiring at Petco just down the street. Gas-wise, that'd be a good thing. (And I've decided, after looking at options and openings and whatnot, that I really can't avoid the whole retail job thing. There's not a whole lot else, what with my stupid class schedule. Sucks, but what can I do?)

Man, it'd sure be nice just to get that Petco job. Much as I don't want to do retail, really really don't want to do retail, sometimes we have to do things we don't want to do. It's what life is all about, in the end, right? haha ok maybe not. But still. I mean, I've been wanting to get a small 2gb mp3 player lately. It'd just be nice to have on a lot of occasions, I think. I've been checking them out on ebay. A specific one that seems to have pretty good reviews. It's a Sony something or other. Anyway, most end up going for about $70, which is more than I'd want to spend, but I think some might go cheaper. Either way, I decided the other day that I'm not going to buy one until I get a job, if I buy one at all. It'd just be stupid. So at the very least, it's a little bit of extra motivation for me to find a job. Which is kind of hard to do when I know I'm going to be stuck doing something that I really don't want to do and will probably despise by the end of the summer. (Although, admittedly, if hard-pressed to tell you what I would like to do, I don't know what I'd tell you. Not logically or realistically, anyway. I just can't picture myself doing much. It's kind of depressing, to tell you the truth. Am I going to be stuck in jobs I despise for the rest of my life? I guess it's all what we make of our own situations, but...I don't know. Honestly, I think there's a large part of it that stems from the slight agoraphobia I think I might have. But I don't think we need to go into that right now.) Sometimes, the thought of actually having to do something with my life beyond going to school really terrifies me. I never admit that, even to myself. Maybe I don't think I'll be able to be successful in anything. Or I don't want to work hard at anything. I don't know. It's not like my dream is just to sit around all day doing nothing. I'm feeling like such a bum this week (last week was ok because it was my recovery week), with nothing to do, and doing nothing. I don't like it. But I don't know what else to do. Go look for jobs, but where? I guess now that I've resigned myself to having to do retail, most likely, there's a few more options open to me, at least to try and get a job. Sigh. Know what it is, partly? I'm terrified of doing anything that gives me any responsibility. Over spring break I worked at Mom's work for a couple days, just packing binders. It was mindless work, really. But I didn't mind. It was something that I knew I wouldn't really mess up. I don't know if I could take years of that, obviously, but I'm terrified of making mistakes, which really holds me back regarding jobs. Cashiering, once I get the hang of whatever type it is, is something I almost enjoy doing. I really don't mind my job at school. But I think there's a difference between doing it there and doing it at some big chain store or something. Maybe there's not. And maybe I'm under some ridiculous notion that everyone is better than me at everything, more perfect, less apt to make mistakes. Because boy do I hate it when I make mistakes. Like when I'm driving, if I accidentally cut someone off, or just barely miss hitting them (although I'd feel so much worse if I actually did hit them, obviously), or just doing something wrong on accident. It takes awhile before I can let it go. And I hate the thought of going to work somewhere, with all new people I have to meet and make small talk with (I am horrible at small talk and meeting people), and then having some situation arise where I make some sort of mistake and then the whole company goes down in flames. Ok so maybe I'm being a bit overdramatic, but whatever. I just want to be anonymous. Anonymous Cashier or something like that. That's all.

Ok we're rambling now and going places I don't want to go at the moment. So ta for now.

Books are stupid

At least when they're for school. I just spent around $90 on books tonight. For two freaking classes. Ridiculous. Sigh. I have all these school books that I've bought over the years, with the intention of selling at least some of them. Have yet to do so though. I really need to figure out how to sell stuff on half.com or whatever. Maybe one of these days I'll do that. Maybe. haha.

But for now, I'll lament the money I just wasted on books I probably won't really read. Maybe I will. Who knows.

If it feels like there's something in your hair...

...it might just be a spider.

Seriously.

At dinner tonight. Felt something, thought maybe it was just an itch. Couple minutes later, something falls in front of my face. Looking suspiciously like a small spider. I freak out, jump up, take off my sweatshirt, go into the bathroom and shake out my hair (even though I knew it wasn't in there), come back to the dining room, try to find the spider (didn't have proof it was a spider, but I was pretty sure), finally found it on one of the rungs of the chair back. Dad killed it. It was just a little thing, maybe a jumping spider, but ewwwwwwwwwwwww. I moved chairs after that, even though I knew it wasn't there anymore.

Having a spider in your hair is not fun. And that's not the first time it's happened to me either. One time I had a huge daddy long leg in my hair. Disgusting. Spiders in hair is not a cool thing.

Branching out

I generally consider myself a pretty boring person for other people to interact with. I've recently figured out why it is, partly at least, that I'm so bad at being interesting. It's because the things that interest me the most are things that most other people don't want to talk about, or that end up causing arguments between people. The things that I love to talk about are things like I talked about in my post from last night. The things that are discussed in Life-Giving Love. Moral issues. Things that aren't really neutral. Most of my friends, for whatever reason, are engineers or science people. Three out of my four closest friends at school are engineers. And the one who's not was in Italy this past semester. And here, three or so out of my closest four or so as well are into science-related stuff. There's not many who get excited about discussing contraception or abortion or the sanctity of marriage or anything like that. So I've been thinking. Why don't I do more to get involved with people who are interested in talking about things like that? Not exclusively, obviously, because no one wants to talk about the same things all the time. But once in awhile, or more.

A few weeks ago, I happened to look up the one credit seminars put on by the Center for Social Concerns at school. They happen over fall break, and go different places for different things. Really, I wanted to see how many credits they are worth, because I was thinking that maybe instead of taking a sixth 3 credit class next semester, as I'm still considering, I could just do that and still get 20 credits for the semester. Alas, they are only one credit. (But if I do one, and then take violin lessons again, I'll be at 19 credits, and then I can still just take five classes second semester and do something else that's one credit, and just barely scrape by with 120 credits. Still considering, though, especially since violin (or guitar, which I've also considered) lessons cost money.) So anyway. There's one that I had remembered being interested in sophomore year. Didn't apply; I forget why exactly, but perhaps the application date had passed, or I just was my typical self and chickened out of even applying. It's the Gospel of Life seminar. I forget if I've posted about my interested in this already or not. It's a week (or like five days or whatever) in Washington DC, doing things related to life issues. The stuff I love to learn and talk about. It's only 12 people, it requires a couple of meetings beforehand, and a 5 page paper afterward. I'm applying. It means giving up my fall break, yes, but I'm kind of sick of not doing things. Of knowing that there are opportunities I should really grab before they're gone that I just don't for whatever stupid reason. So I'm applying. I know 12 people isn't a lot, but maybe I'll be lucky. I read that the earlier you get your application in, the better. They're due at the end of August. And the fact that I'll be a senior and this'll be my last opporunity to go is a plus in my direction as well. But I won't hold my breath, I think, as I tend to believe I won't ever get picked for anything (jobs, clubs, etc). But I do think it would be pretty awesome. At the very least, it'd be a new experience, and I think I could do with a couple of those. So I'll turn in the application and just leave the rest in God's hands. (The only problem now is trying to write answers to the two questions they ask which basically are much of how they pick people. It says at least two paragraphs per question, up to 1,500 words. Naturally I feel compelled to write as much as I can to get as close as possible to the 1,500 word limit, as if the more I write will show how much I would like to do this. Not exactly logical, probably, but that's how my mind works sometimes.) I won't find out until August or something, late August, early September if I'm chosen, but...it could be pretty cool.

And last night, I almost sort of kind of maybe possibly potentially decided to look into something else. I had heard about this school in Austria at some point maybe last year while perusing some blog or another. The International Theological Institute for Studies of Marriage and Family. It for some reason came to mind last night at some point. So I went back to the website, having looked through it a bit that first time I came across the mention. Deciding that was a bit over my head, I somehow remembered this other school, much closer, in Washington DC. The John Paul II Institute. And suddenly, I was considering applying. I've never really decided definitively that I don't want to do graduate school, but I didn't really know what I'd do or anything. But this would be just about perfect, or at least as perfect as more school can be...So I don't know. It's something to think about. It is in Washington DC, and it's another two years of school, and it's definitely not something that I really foresaw for myself (but as that plan isn't really coming to fruition, I guess it's time to start thinking about another path). I don't know. It would require me taking the GRE, and probably soon-ish, which definitely wasn't something I had been thinking about taking. But maybe, just maybe, I'm supposed to do this. I don't know though. Obviously I have to apply and be accepted first, and there's no guarantees that'll happen. We'll see though. At the very least it'll give me some sort of answer to the oft-appearing question, which has increased in frequency since I've gotten home, of "What are you going to do after you graduate?" Even a potential is better than nothing. So. There you go.

Boring randomness. But a pretty picture at the end!

My room is a mess. It's always been pretty cluttery, but ever since I got home after sophomore year, it's been kind of ridiculous. I guess maybe it was ok for a little while when I moved around the furniture. But right now, it's kind of suffocating. Every surface has stuff on it. Clutter. Junk. Nothing looks or is organized. I need to get it cleaned. I need to find a way to let myself throw things away. I am one of the worst kinds of packrat. I've always been pretty bad, but I think it might be getting worse. Or I'm just older so I've just had the opportunity to accumulate more stuff than when I was like 12. I need to find a way to let myself become detached from things. There's nothing wrong with being a little bit sentimental with a few things, but my level of "sentiment" is not ok. I may be starting to get better (I actually was able to throw away some things when I was packing up my dorm room this year that I maybe used to feel compelled to keep. Like holey socks. Or old, seen-better-days flip flops. Or the pages I've torn off of my daily desk calendar thing). There are so many things that I have and that I know I will most likely never glance at again, yet I can't let myself throw it away. I guess there's a part of me that's hoping that when I move out of here for good I'll be forced to make myself let go of a lot of those things. But I can't stand my room right now. However, the task is ridiculously overwhelming. I don't know where to start. I don't know what to do with the things I want to keep. Maybe one of these days I'll be able to go up there, start somewhere, and finally get it done. And have more than like ten inches of floor visible. Ok it's not quite that bad, not yet. But it's ridiculous, let me tell you. I need to make myself do it one of these days. Sigh.

So Blogger has this new feature, where every five minutes or so it saves the draft that's being written. This way, if ever my computer freezes or shuts down or just dies and I'm in the middle of one of my groundbreaking, earth-shattering, oh-so-important posts that we know I'm full of, it won't be lost. When it saves it, it becomes a draft in the posts list, so that I can just go to my list of posts and click on that draft and continue. It's kinda cool. I mean, the number of times that it's happened that I've lost a post for whatever reason is quite small, but you know. It's always annoying when it happens.

Lilacs are still in bloom here. They were pretty much done when I left school a week and a half ago or whatever, but here they had just started at that point. And as they're one of the few things blooming right now, it's very easy to pick them out. And there's a surprising number of lilac bushes in town, which I hadn't really noticed before. There's one house on Murray that I love, and must be wonderful to live in (except for the fact that it's on Murray, because that would suck, as it's kinda a busy street, and I don't want to live on a busy street ever) because it has a nice lilac bush in its front yard and a couple in the backyard, one on each side (the house is kind of diagonal, so you can see both the front and back yards from Murray as you're driving past it). I hope that when I have my own house, whenever that is, I have lots of nice full lilac bushes in my backyard. And heck, the front yard too. We have like three in our backyard, and they're nice, but I'd love TONS. Dad cut off a few yesterday (they're starting to wane, I think) and we put them in a vase in the dining room, and last night as I was sitting in the family room, I could smell the lilacs two rooms away. It was lovely. Mmm.

We watched Magnificent Seven the other night. Good movie. I learned something interesting though. You know the term shotgun? As in, the seat next to the driver? Well, apparently that comes from way back when, when someone would sit next to the driver of a coach or wagon or whatever with a shotgun, in case something needed shooting I guess. Probably everyone else knows that, but I don't think I did. So that was interesting.

In case anyone's wondering, my new picture is called "The Knitting Girl" by William-Adolphe Bouguereau. I happened to see it in someone's blog yesterday, and I liked it for some reason, and then I wikipedia-ed that guy, and I like a lot of his stuff. That's the kind of art I can get into. Realistic stuff. Pretty stuff. I like it. I wish the picture wasn't so small as my profile, but whatever. I like it. Here it is big.

Well, I guess that's enough for this post. Hope you all enjoyed...whatever this was. Haha. Hey, at least you got a nice picture out of it.

One of the cruel mysteries of life

It takes week to get semi-in shape, but all that can be undone in seemingly a few short days. Sure doesn't make me excited to exercise when I have to start almost completely over.

I can't stay away from this topic

The other day, yesterday in fact, I read something that made me feel a need to blog. And blog about a particular topic. So now I am. It was an entry in a livejournal community about abortion and sex selection. It's an "abortion debate" community, but the overwhelming majority of people who post in there are prochoice. So I don't usually read much of the stuff in there, because there's no point. Anyone who posts a prolife comment gets jumped on, and everything else just makes me mad. But this one post caught my attention, and I read the comments people were making. Instead of causing rage or whatever (ok it's not really rage), I was just...incredulous. And yet not. It's so amazing how children have become such a commodity for people. Obviously all the comments were saying that using abortion for sex selection is perfectly a-ok. And stuff along the lines of "Abortion is ok no matter what the reason, good or bad, logical or superfluous." I guess if you say abortion is ok you can't really put limits on what types are ok or not. Which forces those who are prochoice to bend over backward supporting any reasoning behind having an abortion even when it seems completely ridiculous. (Although to me, there is rarely a reason behind having an abortion that isn't completely ridiculous.)

And then the whole sex selection thing. People saying "I see nothing wrong with choosing the sex that I want," and "If someone is going to love a boy fetus better than a girl fetus, then why not give them what they want?" (Of course, referring to these babies as fetuses is the popular thing to do. God forbid we acknowledge that they're actually human babies.) Oh, and a lot of people saying "Any means by which there are fewer people in the world is great." Because, you know, people are horrible, and we should probably just start picking off the ones who have become a drain on our society. Or maybe the ones we just don't like. But I digress. Slightly. It's sad that we've gotten to a place in our world where parents are able -- and choose -- to pick the sex of their children, because they want the "perfect" family with one boy and one girl, and if they try to do it the natural way they might -- horror -- end up with more than two kids! Kids are not something that we get to choose, really. Kids are gifts. Isn't it always a little disappointing when it's your birthday or Christmas or something, and instead of being surprised by the perfect present (or perhaps not even the perfect one, but something that actually means something at the very least), your best friend just takes you to a store and says "Pick something out." I mean, there's some fun in that, but really, it's nothing compared to the anticipation and the genuine surprise of a gift that you didn't expressly pick out yourself but that your friend took the time and effort to pick and locate with you specifically in mind. When that happens, you often end up with something that maybe you weren't expecting, or maybe you were, but it's so much better than a gift you might as well just have bought for yourself. There's nothing special in that. I guess this analogy is kind of continuing with the consumeristic value our society has begun to place on children, but whatever. All I know is that we're starting to mess with what God gives us as gifts, intended to be products that show the love between a husband and a wife. (Preferably each other's.)

I've finally been really getting into Kimberly Hahn's book, Life-Giving Love which explores God's plan for marriage and family. There's a chapter that discusses the family unit (husband, wife, and child) as an image of the Trinity, where the love between the Father and the Son results in the Holy Spirit, just as the love between husband and wife results in children. That's a very crude explanation, anyway. I don't pretend to be nearly as knowledgeable as even her, although I wish I were better at grasping and explaining a lot of the things she discusses in this book. Anyway, the point is, our society has given up on the idea of accepting things as God wills them. It's all about me me me, now now now. If this baby doesn't fit into my plans now, I can just get rid of it, no problem. If it's not the perfect baby I want, it's gone. And in some places, if it's not the right gender, out you go. When the idea that contraception is a bad thing, something to avoid, went out the door, it started a snowball effect of making things become so selfish. And it cut God out of a lot of aspects of life. (I mean, obviously the widespread use of contraception hasn't caused all the problems facing society today, but it does seem to be at least part of the cause of a lot of those problems. Although very few would be willing to admit that. Most would say I'm an idiot.) Suddenly today, instead of being regarded as a blessing, instead of families being happy to welcome another child into their lives, children have become just one more thing to attain on the road to perfect success. Nice house? Check. Successful, high-paying job? Check. Two cars? Check. One boy, one girl? Check. Or maybe just one kid altogether. We can't have too many distractions, you know. Kids take up a lot of time and money and space. Let's make sure we control it so we don't have too much interfering with our golf plans and shopping sprees and nail appointments.

Maybe I'm being a little mean. Sorry. It's just weird to me that often, when people find out there are four kids in my family -- FOUR! -- they say, "Wow, big family." Four kids is not a big family. My parents came from five and seven kid households. Seven, I think, can be called big. But definitely not four. Kids seem to have such a negative connotation in today's world. They're something to be avoided, to get rid of should you be unlucky and find yourself facing parenthood. They're no longer something to be welcomed, no longer considered blessings. They're portrayed as noisy, disgusting, whiny things that no sane person would want to put up with. And, should you decide to let one in to your home, it better not be more than one or two because who would be able to put up with more than that? (And now, you're harming the environment if you have kids. Using up too much oxygen and resources or something.) I know some people can't have kids. And some consider themselves lucky just to have one or two. This isn't about those people. It's about the people who regard having children as a right -- the right kind, the right number, at the right time, of course. We're not all chosen to have kids. And some of us are chosen to have them when we might not have planned. But whenever, wherever, however they come, they're gifts. At the very least they're gifts for you to pass on to someone else. But accept them nonetheless, in one way or another.

I'm rambling, and it's late, and you all get the picture. So I'll end this now.

In which I complain about Amtrak. A lot.

Allrighty. Tonight might or might not be a hodgepodge of stuff. Which means it will be, and it will be long. Just so you know.

Firstly: What did they use for tributes before like "Time of Your Life" came out? I mean, it seems like the song to use if you're doing some sort of tribute or reminiscent thing. All the time. Hm.

Ok so last weekend. Got all packed up, got my stuff downstairs (not an easy task -- I had two wheeled suitcases, a duffel bag, a smaller bag, my bookbag, my purse, my pillow, my violin, ...and a box. I managed though. All by myself. I'm pretty awesome like that. Haha), got my stuff into the cab, got to the train station, got my stuff checked in, etc, waited around an extra two hours because the train was late getting in (but our stuff got on a train headed to Chicago that was also running late but got to our station at around the time ours was supposed to leave -- the guy said normally they would have put us on that one but that it was full), finally got on the train, had to sit next to someone, train took literally around five hours to get from South Bend to Chicago -- a trip that should normally take two hours by train -- missed my Chicago to Denver train as a result (by about half an hour. Which somehow sucks even more), they only have one of those a day so I had to get a freaking hotel and stay an extra 24 hours in stupid Chicago because of this. They paid for the hotel, of course. And even gave me $46 in cash to pay for taxis to and from the hotel, and for food. How nice of them.

So I go to the hotel. Sheraton. Nice enough. The room? Cost more for one night than the ticket for both trains (South Bend to Chicago and Chicago to Denver). Ugh. Was more or less unsuccessfully trying to fight off tears the whole time (as the lady was getting the paperwork and crap for the hotel, during the taxi ride, as I checked in at the hotel). Got up to my room, let it go, called my mom. I hate crying in public. Hate it. Usually don't have a problem with it, but when it comes to plans for getting home being interfered with, I just can't take it. Gets to me like very few things do. Especially this time. As a result of the train getting in so late, I missed Mother's Day. I missed a whole day with my whole family (or at least part of it with all of them, and a lot of it at least with my older brother who I don't see very often when I'm home). I missed everyone going to Mass together, which rarely happens anymore. So I was pissed. After crying to my mom for awhile, and talking to...maybe my dad and maybe my little brother, I forget if it was one or both, I hung up, turned on the TV, and watched a little bit I think. Then I slept for around five hours, since I was running off of two nights with no sleep (and had quite been looking forward to the opportunity to catch up on the train that afternoon/night), except whatever bits I had managed to snatch while waiting for the train and while on the train. Luckily the room I was in had these curtains which completely blocked out every inch of sunlight that was coming in through the window. Seriously. Have you seen the movie The Holiday? Remember the part where Kate Winslet's character wakes up in Cameron Diaz's character's bed, and then discovers the switch that activates some sort of cover over the windows, making it completely dark? Yeah it was like that. But less cool. Because there was no switch. Anyway. Woke up around 10pm, turned on the TV, watched parts of about 20 movies, went to bed later than I should have because I just didn't want to go to sleep for some reason. Ate some of the food that I had brought with me, although I was tempted to get something either from room service or the little fridge they have in there. I just couldn't do it though. Do you know how expensive that stuff is? Geez. The cheapest thing on the room service menu was $8. And it was for soup. Soup. And they automatically charge you like $3.25 for delivery and some other percentage for something else. Ridiculous. Even if I did have $30 from Amtrak. And the other stuff, it was like $3 for a candy bar, for example. Anyway. I just couldn't do it. I had some random food with me, so whatever. I wasn't planning on having it supply me for two days though, so I was rather hungry by the time I finally made it home. Anyway.

I didn't get to church on Sunday, obviously, plus I was in my blue sweatpants (not really sweat pants but like lounge type pant things) and a T-shirt. Comfortable for a long train ride, but not exactly fashionable. Plus I didn't have deodorant. Or a toothbrush. (Remember how I said my luggage got put on an earlier train? Yeah. It got to Denver on Sunday, when I should have. So all I had was my violin, my bookbag, my pillow, and my smaller duffel. In which I did have an extra T-shirt so I didn't have to wear the same shirt at least for 48 hours in a row.) So that kinda sucked. A lot. Have you ever gone that long without brushing your teeth or putting on deodorant? Sucks. (Yeah, I should have asked the hotel for a toothbrush and toothpaste. Don't know why I didn't.) I don't know. It all just sucked. At least I got to take a shower Sunday morning. And then I checked out and got back to the train station, plenty early (and when I went to the ticket counter to get my ticket changed for that day's train, the lady was like "Why didn't you just take the commuter train out of South Bend?" when I told her that my train had been delayed and stuff. I was like, what? I think she meant the train that goes from the South Bend airport to the same station in Chicago as the Amtrak I took. I've taken that one before, when Mom flew into Chicago for Mother Daughter weekend sophomore year. I told the lady something like "I don't think they realized my train would take five freaking hours to get here" except nicer, but geez. Her saying that was not helpful at all. And didn't help my mood, or my like of Amtrak), and finally got on to the train. Oh, I forgot. Saturday night, after I had woken up from my nap thing, I got a call on my cell phone from Amtrak. They told me that there was a huge freight train derailment on the route, somewhere after...Otumwa, Iowa. Don't know how it's spelled. But anyway. So we would have to get off the train there, get on busses, and take those the four or so hours to Omaha. And then get on another train to go to Denver. So I was real excited about that, of course. Anyway. So I got on the train in Chicago, got my own two seats and spread out. Didn't do a whole lot of anything that first leg. Knitted some. I finished the blanket I was working on and started on a scarf. I think I slept some, maybe. And then we had to get off in hot hot Iowa, where there were bugs, and we were forced to stand in the parking lot for seriously at least twenty minutes, staring at the four busses that were there, ready and waiting. Finally they let us start boarding, but of course the bus that I was in front of took the longest and was the last that they opened, for some reason. Ugh. Those people suck. So then I kind of managed to get two seats next to each other all to myself, and didn't feel too badly about it either. Still sucked, though, as busses are not very large or comfortable. And I had to sit on one for four hours. Or three and a half. Or something. But, how nice of them, they had announced before we de-trained that there were little snack packs for everyone to get for the bus. Know what they had? Two cracker things, some cheddar cheese spread, a little tiny bag of dried fruit, and a cookie. Which wasn't very good. Yeah. That was my dinner. We stopped for ten minutes at a rest stop at one point, and I got a root beer from a vending machine. Big spender. Anyway.

We finally made it to Omaha, after what felt like forever, and we got on the train. Two of the other three busses had already gotten there, and the one that had to make two stops between where we got on the busses and Omaha was still on its way. I managed to snag two seats again, and kept them despite some guy coming by telling people not to put their bags on extra seats because they would "need them all" for the people who were coming. I pretended to be asleep until we started moving, because I was like, screw this I'm a day late because of Amtrak so I'm getting these two seats to myself. I wasn't about to go a whole night having to deal with just one seat. I mean, if the extra had been the absolute last seat open, I would have given it up. But yeah. I mean, they took us from a train where we were in three different cars, to one where we only had two, and thus were more crammed. Annoying. We had to wait like half an hour to an hour before we finally started going after my bus had gotten there, which was very irritating. I did manage to get some sleep, despite being woken up every hour or so for awhile by stops, uncomfortableness, people snoring, some annoying squeaky noise thing that happened every once in awhile, etc. I was glad I had a pillow and a blanket though. But yeah. I think I did get maybe at least three or more consecutive hours as the night got later, and I woke up at 6 or something in the morning. And then I found out we were running two hours behind. Because, you know, I wasn't late enough as it was. Ugh. finally we got there, FINALLY (after slowing down the closer to Denver we got, until we were going slower than like cars driving along the street, and then we got near the station, and we had to go forward and then back in to the station and I was like just let me OFF already!), and Mom was there, and I went to get my bags that had gotten there the day before, and the lady told us that the room where they were would be opened in 15-20 minutes. Are you kidding me? So we took my carry on stuff to the car and came back and waited. Finally the guy came (I guess he had been getting the checked bags from my train), and then he told us that we would have to wait until everyone else had gotten their bags, and I wasn't happy, and then finally we could go in there and he got my stuff and finally I could go home. Of course, I had to deal with another hour of traveling, but whatever. It was just such a ridiculous ordeal and I was pissed the whole time and I'll probably be bitter about it for awhile, like I'm still harboring resentment toward the stupid post office for losing that box with all my CDs and whatnot back in freshman year. I mean, it's not like I have intense feelings of rage every day or anything, I just don't like them. Amtrak or the post office. And that's just the way it is.

So there it is, my lovely ordeal attempting to get home. I swear, I have the worst luck in travel of anyone I know. I've spent two nights in hotel rooms by myself (at least two...I think all other times there's just been delays). Actually it really started with the first time I ever flew by myself. Well, the leg home anyway. It was when I went to ND for an overnight visit my senior year. My flight home (or at least one leg of it, since I probably had a layover somewhere) got cancelled so I had to stay in a hotel in South Bend and then fly home the next day. Little did I know, that would be just one of many travel complications to bother me in the years to come. Seriously, it's ridiculous. The only mode of travel that has yet to give me fits is driving. And now I'm kinda scared to do that, because with my luck the first time I do it, something like my engine will fall out of my car, or something. Maybe as long as I have someone else with me it'll be ok. I don't know. At least if someone else is with me things don't seem as bad, maybe. Anyway. I hate traveling, and can anyone blame me? I mean, geez. It's ridiculous. And that's the moral of the story.

(And apparently, the reason my first train was all late and stuff was because they have to share the track with the freight trains, who get first dibs or whatever, but I don't know why that would cause a 5 hour delay. So I'll still just blame it on Amtrak. Because they suck. And screwed me over twice, basically. Once with the whole making me miss the train thing, once with the making me get off the train, get on a bus, get off a bus, get on a train, and get to Denver two hours (plus 24) late. Especially because I heard someone say that they actually had gotten the track cleared in time for when we'd be going through that area, but they needed the train we were on or something. Which sucks for me. Everyone else, probably, wouldn't be a big deal. Had it been my original train, I would have been more or less ok with it. I mean, having to do all that hassle with the bags and transferring here and there and the other place kinda sucked, but I wouldn't have minded a whole lot. Had I not already been screwed over, of course. So anyway. Maybe my anger at Amtrak is irrational and misplaced, but I still don't like them.)

I also am annoyed at the ridiculous prices people charge for things. I mean, I was in the hotel room, and I was afraid to use or touch anything for fear I might be charged and not know it. One of these days I wouldn't be surprised if they charge you for using the soap and shampoo and stuff they have in there. I hate having to pay ridiculous prices for things. As a result, I was quite hungry for two days. It's just...annoying. I think, even if I were suddenly to become ridiculously rich, I wouldn't feel right spending that much on stuff. I mean, maybe I wouldn't mind getting room service or something, but I still don't think I'd be able to blow money on things like some people do. (I just happened to see something, some celebrity's baby's room that was done in like a jungle theme, complete with a huge stuffed giraffe and an elephant. The giraffe was like...$300 or 500, and the elephant was $700. I don't think I'd be able to spend $700 on a stuffed elephant. Anyway. This is kind of unrelated I suppose.)

Ok. I'm done now. I won't go into the other things I was going to talk about. Didn't expect to rant about this for a long as I did. Sorry. Not that anyone probably stuck with me through the whole post. I'm ok with that. Amtrak sucks. That's all.

Oh -- one good thing. Kind of. Tom, my older brother, had someone take his Monday work shift, which allowed him to stay until Monday night instead of Sunday night like he was going to do. He found this out before my whole adventure, so I was really glad that I'd at least get to see him for a few hours, because if it wasn't for that I wouldn't have seen him at all. So looks like God at least gave me that.

Buy books? Me?

Scott Hahn has a new book out, "Reasons to Believe." There's another book to add to my list. I guess the only other one is the Pope's new book. I kinda think the Scott Hahn one might be a bit easier to get through though. I really like him. He was a good speaker, when I saw him back in...March? Yeah. Anyway. I don't really buy books very often. Not sure why, as I do enjoy reading quite a bit. I'm definitely buying the new Harry Potter though. I have to go order a copy from Borders or something one of these days. (I think it's cheaper there than at Barnes and Noble.) Anyway.

Geeeeeeeeeez

I miss football. Soooooooooo badly.

Especially in person. Oh man. Twill be a glorious reunion between me and the lovely Notre Dame Stadium come September 1st. You'd better believe it. (But I could do without the ridiculously long TV timeouts that come with being broadcast by NBC. Those things suck. A few are ok, but seriously NBC, cool it.)

And NFL on TV. Not quite as enthusiastic about that (except for the Patriots games I'll be able to watch, but who knows how many that'll be), but it's still great.

Just thought I'd share.

Not the story of my fun weekend

Hahaha, so I'm sitting here on the couch, with Leno on, but I'm paying more attention to the forum I'm reading than the TV. Leno starts saying something about Orlando Bloom, and some girl who's like his "biggest fan" or something, and I went back to my computer screen. And then Leno goes to introduce Orlando, and he walks out, and I think "Wow, I didn't know he had a movie coming out soon. Weird." Because I hadn't been listening when Leno said what movie he had coming out, as is normally done. And then like a second later I realized that I'm an idiot and that Pirates 3 is coming out...next Friday? and obviously he's in that. And it's kinda a big movie. Hence my laughing at myself. I guess it seems weird that it's coming out so soon for some reason, that it hasn't really been hyped up for me. So many movies coming out this summer, I have a feeling that Spiderman will be the one I get most excited for because there was nothing else before it. Well, I'm already very excited for Harry Potter. So I suppose those two. Although I am very looking forward to seeing Shrek 3, and Pirates 3, and...what else is coming out? I don't know. Those were my big ones. But I guess I'm not quite as excited about those two as I was about Spiderman or I am about Harry Potter. Anyway though.

Know what's nice about being home? Eating pickles. Mmm. And Frosted Mini-Wheats. (What a surprise to see them in the cupboard yesterday, considering I don't think we have them here very often, and just a few weeks ago I had this weird craving for them. I rarely eat them. So when I saw them yesterday, I got rather excited -- more so than someone should upon seeing cereal -- and had some right away. Even though it was around 10pm.) And nice, clean, clear, wonderful Colorado water. Nothing else like it. Mmmmm. And of course there's family and pets and blah blah blah. Haha I'm just kidding. They're great. My dog, who I took for a walk today (after my pathetic attempt at running again. Apparently I lost a lot of what I had worked up to the past five or so weeks, thanks to almost a week off, having to deal with hills here -- the biggest at school is like a .5% incline or something, haha -- and of course the lovely 6500 ft altitude change, give or take. It really was pathetic today) and who afterward followed me upstairs where I was doing crunches and (half-assed) pushups and just lay down there. And stayed upstairs while I took a shower, and got changed, and dried my hair. And then she went back downstairs with me. She's so funny. And cute. And then my cat, just a few minutes ago I heard her doing her weird late-night meowing thing which, I discovered awhile back, she does when she has some little stuffed animal in her mouth. (In the mornings you can usually find one on the couch, that wasn't there the night before, because she likes to carry them around places. Particularly this little wolf thing.) I was watching for her to see if I could actually see her doing it, since normally I just hear her. Sure enough, in she walks from the hallway by the stairs, carrying the wolf thing in her mouth, meowing. She walked over next to the couch where I'm sitting, dropped it on the floor, and then came over and jumped up next to me. She's so funny sometimes. And oh so fat.

Apparently there was a tornado at school today. Someone posted a link with some pictures, and they kinda make me really sad. Looks like a lot of the trees around Stonehenge and thereabouts got knocked around. And some others around campus. (Some of the pictures are hard to place because they're just trees on the ground and stuff. I can place a lot of them, but yeah.) And -- really sad -- looks like one of the spires or whatever they're called on the Basilica is gone! That's really distressing. I mean, I'm sure a lot of these things will have been patched up by the time I'm back at school, so perhaps I wouldn't even notice if I didn't know. But still. It's sad. (And I know, it's nothing compared to the flattening of towns and whatnot that often happens with some tornadoes, but that's like my home. It'd be like if my house were smashed up a bit -- not terribly, but noticeably and enough to cause some damage -- I'd be really sad about it. So it hurts a bit to see those trees on the ground, instead of standing upright and proud in all their summer finery and foliage that they just finally acquired in the last couple of weeks, after such a long time of bare branches. I do so love the trees. I mean, I was a tad ridiculously excited at the news that they had planted a bunch of new trees on South Quad a few weeks back. I'm glad that for the most part there wasn't a lot of damage, and not a lot of bad damage, but it's still sad.)

Oh, and George Lopez, just because your show got cancelled does not mean the world is out to get minorities on TV. It just means that people aren't watching your show. Get over it.

Ok sorry.

Maybe story about my weekend will come tomorrow. And maybe it won't ever. Who knows. For now, I'm done.