Week 42: Rough Week Ends With A Nail-Biter

I am so incredibly thankful that this week is over. The last several days have been a little rough, and that's putting it mildly. But I don't want to delve into that.

At least I got to end the week by seeing the MSU Spartans defeat the Wisconsin Badgers. Oh my goodness, did you watch that game? Talk about a nail-biter!! In general I think that close games are the most interesting to watch, but that game was even a bit too close for me. While there is something exhilarating about being driven to the edge of your seat and something equally captivating about the suspense of the potential to lose... let's be honest, everyone prefers to win.

But the Spartans really pulled through tonight. What a spectacular win!

I just started reading Scott Westerfeld's "Goliath" last night, and the goal is to have it finished by Monday... roughly speaking. Maybe Tuesday, but we'll see. The point I'm coming to here though is that basically in the last two weeks or so I've devoured this trilogy and while it's cool to be able to read it straight through without waiting a year or years between installments, it also leaves me thinking WHY didn't I start reading it sooner?!

Scott Westerfeld's latest Steampunk trilogy, which began with "Leviathan" is SO good. It's late, and I can't formulate a proper review at this point, though hopefully eventually I can begin communicating in effective sentences, but I'm telling you that you need to check this series out. It's such a fun read!

On that note, I'll talk to you soon!

Week 37: In Which I Apparently Have A Lot To Say

It’s been an eventful two weeks. This is not an excuse for failing to blog last week however, it is merely a statement of fact.

Last weekend Sarah and I drove up to Clarkston for three days, to go to two concerts. The first one we went to was the Uproar Festival on Friday (9/9/11). We didn’t go see all of the bands that were playing, but we got there around six and saw the four bands that we were most interested in seeing: Bullet For My valentine, Seether, Three Days Grace, and Avenged Sevenfold.

That concert was so much fun! We’d previously been to a concert at the DTE, but last time we got general admission tickets, which essentially is lawn seating, which isn’t really seating but more standing in a hill outside the cover of the pavilion. That was crazy, and we determined it was an experience not worth repeating. This time we paid the extra and got seating in the pavilion. It was so worth it!

There just aren’t words that do the experience justice. Each of the bands were great, and if you ever get the chance I definitely recommend seeing Avenged Sevenfold live. They were phenomenal.

I took a few videos that give you an idea of the experience, but really don’t do it justice. (Seriously, you just have to go!)

Here’s my playlist:

Saturday was a free day, since we opted to get a hotel room and stay in Clarkston rather than making the drive up and back home twice within the span of one weekend. We checked out the Great Lakes Crossing mall, which was huge, and made a stop in to best buy to pick up larger memory cards for our cameras.

Then, because we had the time and it sounded good, we went to Steak and Shake. Mostly we went to try their shakes, which we had heard were really good (And they are!!) but we also each got cheese fries (or chili cheese fries in Sarah’s case).

Then we just kind of drove around the area. It was a nice day and we didn’t have anywhere to be, so why not?

But there was some excitement early in the morning on Saturday. We had each set alarms on our phones to go off between/around 11:00-11:30. There was no need to be up SUPER early after all… So, we were both surprised when the hotel provided alarm clock started BLARING at 5:30am.

We each startled awake, Sarah turn on the lights and we haphazardly tried to read the teeny tiny directions on how to operate the clock that were located on the tray attached to it. After a minute or so I noticed there was a button on the front of it that said “Alarm OFF”.

I hit that, and then we each attempted to catch a little more sleep.

So, right. That was exciting. But that brings us to Sunday. We had breakfast/lunch in the late morning. We had to be checked out of our room by 11:00am.

After grabbing something to eat we drove up to Birch Run to check out the outlets up there. It was gorgeous out, though admittedly a bit warm. Overall it was a nice day, and the trip involved a lot of walking. We just spent the day generally hanging out and relaxing until heading to the concert around seven.

Sunday (9/11/11) was the 89X Birthday Bash and featured My Chemical Romance and Blink 182. Again, so much fun! This was the first time that I’d seen My Chemical Romance, and they were SO good live. I’d previously seen Blink 182, but I must admit, I really don’t know many of their songs aside from those that have been singles on the radio…

I did take one video of My Chemical Romance performing, and again it’s SO much better when your actually there. You’ve GOT to go, I’m telling you!

Here’s the video:

So, that was LAST weekend. This week, was not nearly as exciting, well that is, until today. I worked until three this afternoon, so my day started early and was rather uneventful, aside from you know, working. The exciting portion of the day started once I got home.

I got home just in time to catch the Michigan State v. Notre Dame game, which I was fairly excited to watch. It was actually, as a Spartan, a bit painful to watch. It’s not so much that they lost, it’s just…. I mean did you watch the game?

So, yeah, obviously, watching your team lose isn’t exactly the most fun in the world. But, wait, it gets better. Literally the minute the game ended my dad gets a phone call, from my mom, who had borrowed my car to go get my niece.

My car died. It would not start, and since everything was working, the lights weren’t dim or anything, it’s not the battery. I mean, anyway, the battery is brand new. Or, practically brand new. We don’t know why it wouldn’t start, but it wouldn’t. You put the key in and turn it and all it would do is make this awful sound.

So, they left my car in my sisters driveway thinking maybe it had overheated and just needed to cool off. About an hour later dad and I went with the intent to retrieve it one way or another because for reasons I’m not going to get in to there was no way that’s where my car was staying.

Of course, we first attempted to start it again, to no avail. Instead, we put it in neutral and pushed the car out of the driveway. Once we got it to the end of the driveway, we made sure it was positioned correctly on the road and then I quickly jumped in and hit the break so it wouldn’t take off before we wanted it to.

Do you like bumper cars? I don’t mind them, but I prefer not to play bumper cars with my ACTUAL car. So, most of the way was downhill, which actually worked in our favor since, you know, my car wouldn’t start. But every so often we would have to go up hill. This was interesting because I’d be coasting along and then my car would momentarily stop and begin rolling backwards. I’d hit the break to slow it down a bit and then once it made contact with the front bumper of my parents van dad would give me a little push.

Thankfully the garage that we’ve previously taken it to, to be worked on was just around the corner. So, for the moment my car is hanging out at the repair place, and Monday we’ll put a call in to see about having them look at it and see what’s up. Thankfully we’ll be able to work things out so that we can all make it to the places that we need to be on Monday even though we’re down one car. (One car of two that is.)

But, things always seem to work out one way or another. I mean, really, what can you do? While this whole thing is kind of crazy, you can’t help but laugh and take it all in stride.

By the way, did you notice the new “logo” header thing? I made that this afternoon. Well, I started making it last night, and then finished it this afternoon. What do you think? It was time for an update, the other one was just a tad out of date.

I’ll talk to you soon.

Packed Weekend

This weekend was busy, but it was a nice kind of busy.

Friday night I went and hung out at the His House girls house and helped Nataleigh, whose four, gut a pumpkin so that she could carve it. I definitely ended up covered in pumpkin, but that's a given when hanging around smaller children. Later in the evening we went to do Hot Dog ministry in front of The Living Rock. As usual that was fun.

However, the weather hadn't been too great all day, so it was quite a bit slower than usual. I don't think we even went through all of the hot dogs. We did manage to get rid of all of them that we had grilled up though. It was nearly three by the time I got back to the dorms.

Saturday, I attempted to get some of my homework done, but I don't think I really succeeded in getting much accomplished. If anything I got bits and pieces of multiple things completed. I had a lot of trouble focusing on any one thing at one time for most of that day. I would start on one project, and then my mind would wander to another project until I started working it, and so the process went.

But Saturday evening was the MSU v. Iowa game, so a group of us went to Pizza House, and had dinner while we watched the game. That game was CRAZY. Really, that's all that needs to be said. Once the game was done, we went back to the girls house, and we watched a movie and just kind of hung out. Again it was about one-thirty or so when I got back to the dorms.

Then Sunday turned into another full day. I went to church with Kali, Felicia, and Jessica in the morning. That was really cool, I really liked Riv Church's service. It followed the same kind of format that fellowship does on Wednesdays.

Anyway, after church we went and got lunch, and after hanging out at PetCo, we went back to the house, and from there went shopping with Julia, Nataleigh and Niki, before returning to the house and hanging out. Once again it was about one thirty before I got back to my dorm room. But the sleep deprivation was worth it. It was a really good weekend, and it gave me a chance to just forget about school work for a little bit.

Of course, now I have to get busy filling out my application for the School of Journalism. It's due Friday, and I can't get in to see an advisor until Thursday. Between that and interviews for my latest story for class, it's going to be a busy next few days school wise.

Day of Football

I went to the MSU v. CMU game today with Felicia and Danielle. It was a really good game, as in interesting to watch, but it really stunk that we lost it in the last eight seconds. That was honestly awful.

After the game, we had to return the ID's that we'd used to get into the game. We bought the tickets from people who had bought them but didn't want to go, and since they were student tickets they swipe the ID as the "ticket". We were in the upper level of the student section, which is isolated from the "student experience", and yet you could see the entire field.

The sun was a little brutal though.

The day started out foggy, overcast and a bit chilly so I wore I sweatshirt. It become apparent rather soon that I wouldn't be needing that sweatshirt.

Anyway, once we'd returned the ID's we met up with a larger group of people at Pizza Hut and had dinner while we watched the Notre Dame v. Michigan game. We really wanted to see Notre Dame win... It was really fun though. On the way back to 'home' we stopped at a Dairy Store and got ice cream cones.

Now I need to finishing reading a chapter and a half in my "The Elements of Journalism" textbook and consider getting some sleep. It is nine o'clock and I'm kind of exhausted.

Lansing State Journal

Hey, look who remembered to blog!

On the whole it hasn't been too exciting of a day, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. I had two classes this morning, with a rather long break between them. During that break I had lunch and picked up two of the three papers I'm supposed to read everyday. I haven't even read the one's that I picked up yesterday yet... Yes, I have six newspapers to read through this weekend. Awesome!

Once my last class of the day was through I made the trek down to the gas station for my final newspaper. This time they only had two left, and I definitely got there way earlier in the day today than I did yesterday. What is it with the Lansing State Journal?

Aside from the newspapers I have at least one hundred and fifty pages of reading to do for my two Journalism classes between the three textbooks. Maybe I'll try and get some of it done before I leave tomorrow... The first football game is tomorrow, so working the breakfast shift should be interesting, and by interesting I mean crazy. We shall see! I am going home at some point tomorrow afternoon, since Monday it a holiday and therefore there is no class, plus the MDA telethon is on!

I just made my yearly donation a few minutes ago. Has anyone noticed that I'm really good at leaving things 'till the last minute? Yeah, huh. Anyway, I got back to my dorm and worked through a very small portion of my homework before my interview with my RA. It was just a kind of "getting to know you, how are you adjusting" thing. No big deal. We had a floor dinner around six, which only about five of us between the two floors went but that's alright. It was fun, if a little awkward.