Climb a Mountain: Check!

Okay, so it was more of a hill than a mountain, but it was still pretty damn big! And intense! We were actually climbing a lot of the time-- no namby-pamby path for us to follow!

Isn't that kind of a metaphor for life? Hmm, maybe.

It felt so good to be out of the city and see Edinburgh, which is so much cooler than London. I wish they still had a program that went there! It was the perfect combination of old, pretty, and wild! Hardly modern at all, and hardly metropolitan like London. It had the benefits of a large city, plus the beautiful hills, mountains, ocean, and castle! Oh, I miss it already. It really felt like home, though maybe that's just because I supposedly have ancestors from Edinburgh?

Anyway, next week is our trip to Ireland, another one of my ancestral homes. I hope it will be just as cool as the wee bit of Scotland we saw (lol, wee). When I get back from that, I'll be swamped with papers again. In fact, I should be working on them now, both for this week and for the next couple weeks, but I feel I've been neglecting my blog shamefully. I can't promise regularity, but I will promise to write a guilt-driven little update every once in a while.

So yes, I've climbed a mountain and found a place I'd love to call home. I feel like I'm really living. It's kind of odd, actually. I am usually 'meh' or carefully guarded about things, but when I was on top of that hill overlooking the city, the sea, and seeing snow-capped mountains in the background, I was just in awe and crazy happy and proud of myself for hiking up that far. I felt my spirit of adventure had returned! It's a wonderful feeling!

Still, it will be just as wonderful to see all my friends and family again. I do miss Manitowoc, and even Point a little. It will be nice to return home, having done all that I've done. For a while there, I felt like I wasn't doing enough here, but now that I look back at all the pictures and stuff, I'm starting to realize how much I've done.

I wonder if this experience has changed me. I wonder if people will say I'm different once I get back. I don't feel changed, but I'm sure that if I have changed, it would have been a gradual process and I wouldn't have noticed. Hmm. You should all tell me if I have when I get back. I would be interested to know.

Here's to all the places I've been, the places I'll go, and the people who've been there with me, both at home and abroad!

<3 <3 <3

P.S. I signed my name in the toilet of the Elephant House, but you could barely see it... Oh well, I know it's there :)

Thanksgiving in Retrospect

So, I've just gotten back from Thanksgiving break, and I'm not sure what I thought of such an extended time in good ol' Manitowoc.

Wednesday night was good, we went to Manitowoc Coffee, watched Glee, and had a little reunion at Perkins. Thanksgiving itself was only so-so, I didn't eat much, which is weird for me because I usually pig out on Thanksgiving, though Lisa's cooking wasn't up to par so whatever. Thursday night was lots of fun though! Drinking with your closest friends is so much more fun than with people you hardly know or don't know at all! And we even got a ride for the night, hooray! And we have some goodies left over, hooray! Lol, so yeah, must do that again!

Then there was Friday, the day I got my hair cut. I like it, tis a good hair cut, so all was well there. Then, my mom made my family our own little Thanksgiving dinner since the boys had to work on Thanksgiving proper, and she even gave me two presents for Saint Nick's day early: Scribblenauts and the Star Trek DVD. I played Scribblenauts for hours and, though it can be frustrating to say the least, it's a lot of fun! So then, Saturday rolls around and I have to get up early yet again for an eye appointment at noon, tee hee. They upped my perscription and discovered there is nothing wrong with my right eye so that's good I guess. I can finally see! Anyway, so then my mother and I went to Maurice's and Kohls and shopped a little bit before getting Starbucks and returning home, where I played the Wii while I still could and more Scribblenauts of course. By the time my mom left for work, I was home alone and decided to watch Star Trek on the HD TV with the sweet sound system cranked up. It was epic! I love that movie! I didn't think I'd like it at all but I did! So once the movie was over I went to hide in my room (as my dad so kindly puts it) and drew some random comic thingies of some of my favorite (and not-so-favorite) characters from Dragonlance. . . which somehow included a quote from Hunchback of Notre Dame in them, lol.

Sunday I ate brunch with my mom (and a surrogate sister!) at Time Out, a place that I actually miss, though I hardly admit it. (Oh, my God, this guy just came in with Lady Gaga's Bad Romance playing really loud on his Ipod and he totally doesn't look like the type to like Lady Gaga...I am amused!) Anyway, I packed up all my crap, played the Wii one last time, then joined up with Catey to head back to Point.

Once we lost and found Catey's car keys, smuggled in the goodies, and got all our crap back into our respective rooms, Catey, Aaron, Adam, and I went to Perkins for dinner since Debot was apparently still closed. We discussed the mysteries of cheese on apple pie and just how weird Catey was . . . Then we went back to my place to "watch" Thoroughly Modern Millie. We ended up watching videos on Youtube including The Onion, the Berries and Cream guy, and Eddie Izzard (love!). I didn't get any of my paper written but whatever, twas a fun night.

I've just remembered that my fanfiction updated yesterday and I haven't read it yet! Must go do that. . . bye!

Edit: So I just started reading it and there's quote from Star Trek in it . . . hooray! :D

R-Patts In My Dreams and I Didn't Vomit?

So I had a number of crazy dreams last night, the most memorable of which involved a certain actor in a certain vampire teen romance series. First of all, get your mind out of the gutter, it wasn't that kind of dream (I would have vomitted for sure then) but still a rather odd one. It seemed R-P was a good friend of my brother's, and I was meeting him for the first time. It was me, Catey, Alyssa W, Jarid, and a friend of his that I don't know all in a room that sort of looked like my dorm room but we were all in Manitowoc so that doesn't make any sense (but this is a dream after all...) Anyway, so R-P comes in and we're all talking, and apparently Catey and Alyssa W already knew him and had met him before and they were friends with him too, so I was the only one who didn't know him, lol.

So, then we all wen to MacDonald's in Manitowoc and hung out. I sat next to R-P and I have to admit my dream persona thought he was pretty darn cool. We didn't talk about his career or anything, just whatever we usually talk about (which is weird considering we seem to talk an awful lot about Harry Potter, lol) and he said that we were all pretty cool at one point. This is where the dream gets fuzzy for me. Suddenly my whole family complete with distant relatives shows up and we have to go walk somewhere and drop something off before walking back across town to go to Time Out. All of the non-Lees left except for R-P, who walked next to me through the whole thing. It was weird, because my whole family was fighting about the fastest way to walk from somewhere around the Hospital uptown towards our house and Time Out and R-P just kept hanging out with me and we kept talking. Eventually he and Jarid left to go drink or something, lol, I'm not sure why they just didn't come to TO with the rest of the family but whatever. I woke up somewhere around here, and had another strange dream when I went back to sleep, but I can't really remember that one so I shan't recount it.

Right, so this weekend I had two close brushes with death, both due to extreme cases of boredom. The first one occurred on Saturday when Aaron had to work from two till eight. We ate lunch at noon and played some Smash Brothers before he had to go. So then I picked out classes and then had about three hours to laze around and go crazy . . . and yeah, I was basically dying until he finally got done (not before earning himself a poop!) and ate and watched some movies. (So far he and I have watched Muppet Treasure Island, The Goonies, Elf, and half of the Producers, which we have to finish sometime). The second severe case of boredom occured at work yesterday when my shift was from 11:00 till 4:00. It was so boring. I only checked two people out and only two people had questions to ask me. What made the whole thing untolerable was that I couldn't connect to the internet for whatever reason (seriously, what the heck? I've done it before at work!) so I basically just played solitaire on my laptop and occasionally drew on MS Paint. Towards the end of my shift I remembered that I had Maya's PDF on my laptop and had to stiffle my laughter whilst reading Amazing Bouncing Rat. It was too little, too late though, and couldn't make up for the four and a half hours I spent sucking at solitaire. I suppose I could have grabbed a magazine (you know, since I work in the periodicals department and all) but I just didn't feel like it. It would have been a perfect oppurtunity to look at the Ladies' Home Journals from 1911 till the mid '30s that we have behind the desk but...eh...as much as I would have liked to I didn't, for whatever reason. I hate it when that happens. Too bored to make yourself un-bored. Oh well.

Sigh, I wish I could have gone to Madison, but I had to work on Sunday and I had to get some classes picked out because I have my advising tomorrow. Also, I wasn't really in a party mood ( I blame my period!) though it turns out that all they did in Madison was eat food, lol. Oh well, I survived, in any case, and Thanksgiving is fast approaching! That means good food, a chance to go to MC and get a really awesomely good caramel macchiatto, hang out with the whole gang, and go out to a birthday dinner with my family. Twill be much fun, I hope.

Oh, I should pose this question, are we going to watch Glee and then go to Perkins this Wednesday as per usual? It does seem to be a tradition now :P Oh, poop, that made me hungry! And I don't get to eat until two and all my bowls are dirty! Ah!

Well, I'll leave you on that distressing note. Wow, it's almost time for Spanish! When did that happen? I suppose this was a bit longer than I had first supposed it to be. . .

Bye!

NaNo Time! A Quick Update!

Hey all! This is just a short little update/ disclaimer to tell everyone that I probably will not have much time this month, as it is National Novel Writing Month, for blogging. (As opposed, to Alyssa, who appears to be doing a NaNo log on her blog, I haven't seen it yet but I swear I will as soon as I've made my personal quota for the day!)

The only thing of interest lately in my life was this past weekend, where Kory, Catey, and I drove down to Madison to join up with Dana and Alyssa for some Halloween partying: Madison style. After a memorable Friday night (well, more memorable for me than for certain members of our party) we had a rather tame Halloween night due to dead parties and the cop infested Freakfest bringing the whole vibe down. Oh well, we stuck it to the man by sneaking Dana and Alyssa into out hotel room anyway. :P The photos are all up on Facebook; most of them hilarious! Though of course wall know what happens when you drink to much (coughCATEYcough)! Really though, it was a fun weekend, even with all the not-so-fun and slightly terrifying parts.

Oh! I wish I could see the pictures those Indian fellows took of us as we were waiting in the bus shelter to warm up. I'm so sad that I forgot his name :( Vashim? I don't know. Something with a V? Does anyone remember? Oh well, it doesn't matter anyway. Goodbye!

An Interesting Weekend

So this weekend was interesting, as if you couldn't tell by the title.

It started with Friday night. I had work, as I have lately, and shortly after working the usual suspects gathered at Catey's house to lay on her bed, eat ice cream and popcorn, and watch Matilda. Alyssa O. and I stayed over because we would be visiting Steven's Point the next day and had to get up at 5:30 in the morning.

On the way there, my CD player ran out of batteries about five minutes into the journy, so I decided to just sleep the whole way down. Speaking of sleep, Alyssa looks hilarious when she falls asleep because her mouth hangs wide open, lol. Anyway, we went through the whole "View Point" at UWSP (except for the student part at the end, we had had enough by then) and it was pretty good. I liked the size of the campus and the city too. The dorms could have been better, though. Then again, I shouldn't have a problem with small rooms as mine is so tiny. It was also homecoming day, so there was a parade. One guy said he loved me when I waved back at him. Awesome. I can't wait for college.

We ran into Bethany while we were walking around. She was surprised to see us. . . a little too surprised if you ask me, lol. Oh! It was also National Coming Out Day! We know because there were a thousand chalk drawings all over the campus with funny little slogans. It was very cool. And colorful.

Oh! I got a pink UWSP shirt, too I win.

Then when we got back I changed and took Carrie to Samantha's house for Phil's birthday party, where we played volleyball and soccer. Then Catey finally woke up from her nap (of five minutes apparently) and she and Kory arrived in time for pizza, chips, and a game of HORSE. (We used the letters GAY in honor of National Coming Out Day.) Then the party migrated to Phil's house where many games of WiiSport were played. I played a few holes of WiiGolf as Mr. Olson....that was kind of weird. It was hilarious though watching Karl and Phil play WiiBoxing. Oh yeah, I won a red lightsaber (well, Carrie and I won) for playing well in vollyball, soccer, and HORSE.

Then we had cake and sang a few rounds of Guantanamera and La Bamba (of which I think Austin got on video...yikes!) Then some of the guys went to Dewey Park and the rest of us played Apples to Apples. It was so fun! When everyone came back, we had one uber huge game of Apples to Apples, then it was time to go home.

On Sunday I slept in before going to play practice and then leaving early to go to work. Yeah, this was the boring part of my weekend. But alas, as I've said before, Sunday isn't really part of the weekend. It's just a poser.