UWRF!
Friday night kicked all the other nights of college so far right in the butt. We all had an absolutely fantabulous time. Early in the afternoon, after I carded myself into the room (I locked myself out … I am a moron) I finished getting ready and awaited Matt and Shayla’s arrival. They found St. Thomas pretty easily and then we searched for a parking space; we ended up north of north campus. Ah! Then I gave them the tour from north to south of our lovely school and we killed time that way. They met my roommate; unfortunately he was dressed in only a towel when I introduced everybody. He was cool about it and we hung out in our room for a while. Matt and Shayla are right in saying having a wall in between rooms is nice - I really underestimated our living conditions. I should be more grateful. Anyways, we piled in Probe Deutsch at around 4pm and promptly ran into rush hour.
After wading through traffic, the trip to River Falls was very smooth and we arrived in time for the dinner and poster fair. I bought Katy the poster that I was going to get her and got one of my favorite paintings, called “The Accolade.” It’s an excellent work of art. We had some excellent food and I looked around the River Falls campus for some time. We chatted and caught up and walked around. It was a beautiful cool late summer evening.
The night took off starting when John called. He came over with the extra DDR pad and one other interesting thing is his trunk. That’s right, Steve drove all the way down from UMD in Friday and didn’t tell anyone. He hid in John’s trunk and surprised Shayla when she looked in there. I wasn’t there, but I hear Steve’s getting pretty good at jumping out of dark places. In a natural progression, Steve hid in Shayla’s dorm closet and then scared the crap out of all of us (especially Matt) when he burst forth from that dark recess and scared the rest of us. So it was quite a group; Matt, Shayla, Steve, John, and me - partying it up. We visited Other Matt from the clinic as well. So, we played DDR, went to Dairy Queen, played more DDR, and then walked around Main Street. It was an absolute blast! Now I’ve never drunk alcohol, but I can imagine how it would be by how small our inhibitions became. We wandered into the EconoFoods in search of Wheat Thins for Shayla. Now, the store was closing and we had just got in so it seemed a futile possibility to find the Thin Wheat Snack Item. Which is when Steve belts out at the top of his lungs “Shayla, we’re finding the damn Wheat Thins!” and he said it with such passion and conviction that we all just exploded laughing. It was great. Unfortunately, we had to buy the aforementioned snack item at a gas station. Those places get strange late at night, let me tell you; the people in line were definitely not sober. Anyways, we headed back to the dorms and chilled for a while. John had to take the GRE’s today - so he had that hanging over his head. Imagine this: John’s going skydiving. Wow I envy him; it’s only $180 and he’s going at the end of this month. I could go if I wanted to. I said, however, something like skydiving needs to be planned further in advance than 15 days. I got thinking how much of a rush that would be; I should try it before I have a family or anything. It would be the event of a lifetime!
I didn’t stay over at River Falls and I regret that. It would have been a lot of fun to do the “sleepover thing” because everyone gets so punchy when it’s late. And with the punchiness everything is funny and it’s the best feeling. That’s a bit like what the entire night was like on Friday. But I will finally conclude this long summary by simply saying it was great to see my great friends and stay connected; it was the best night since Prom.
Today was great as well; I ate some brunch and din-din with my sister - I really like being able to talk to her and that she is a really cool sister. I will miss her when she is at graduate school. I got some homework completed and hit the gym pretty hard; I need to sleep more so this gym schedule doesn’t grind me into the ground. I think I have been running on adrenaline for the past two weeks.
I played piano for two hours straight this evening; it felt wonderful. I haven’t hit on the tune that I am looking for that will drive my ballad of loss. However, I feel like I am cranking out some really good progressions and ideas and I hope these will blossom soon. One of my dreams for this website is the ability to digitally record and post my piano/sound/tune ideas online. I would love to deliver a new snippet of song to the public on a weekly basis. That, however, lies in the future. In the present, my mom visited campus to pick up my sister this evening. Thus, I was presented with the opportunity of going home. However, I have been trying to stay here for the entire month of September to break myself in to college life. That way, I have something great to look forward to, and I will be adjusted when I do journey home. I love my home. One of the quotes I added today went something like this: “home is an invention on which no one has improved.”
The final quote of this post comes from my roommate when he offered Matt and Shayla a pop-tart: “what, you don’t want pop tarts from a naked man?” … still makes me laugh. Good night/morning/day to you all; I will see some of you soon in my dreams.