This is the blog I've been meaning to write: Ooh, shiny! What?

Sorry I've been AWOL recently. It's the end of the semester and my professors have taken the opportunity to cram in a few extra tests into the last few moments of the semester. As of right now, I have exactly twelve lectures left to attend this semester. Can I get a 'whoop whoop'?

My life as of right now is separated into several spheres of... sphericalness. They are as follows: School, Work, APO, Everything Else.

School: I believe we have covered the twelve lectures thing. All that is left to say is that I will most definitely be getting better grades than last semester! It is looking possible for me to get two or three As and one or two Bs (depending on how that one A swings)... which makes me a very happy and proud woman. I still have a lot of reading to do in the next week as well as tests on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday (pray for me...) but the end is in sight!

Work: Emma is adorable. That is all. (Not really, I just like saying "that is all"!) Recently she's started to interact with me more when she plays instead of playing with just her toys. She'll share with me (and then take it back) and she'll climb into my lap and play with her toys. Recently, I've been tipping her back across my legs so that she can see the whole world upside down and she just loves that. She'll climb into my lap and toss her head back when she wants to. It is So. Cute.

APO: I am officially an active in good standing (yay!) and have put in my bid to be on the pledge training committee for the fall. Look out, future pledges! This year is our chapter's 75th anniversary, and we are hosting a huge weekend event. All of the alumni were invited and I think at least 200-300 alumni are coming. It is going to be a crazy weekend! Tomorrow, I am pretty much booked from 9:30am-11pm. There will be a Chapter-Alumni picnic, campus tours (an opportunity for old people to walk around with young people and talk about "Back in my day..."), the pledge initiation ceremony, and our end-of-semester banquet. Today there is a meet-and-greet/Hotel check in, and I may or may not try to go to it, depending on how cray-cray today turns out to be.

Everything Else: Yesterday, my car did this while I was driving Emma home.

Guess who flipped a shit? If you guessed me, you're right! It didn't help that when I looked in my instruction manual (all the while thinking "oh crap, my car is going to blow up and I have a BABY in the back seat") it told me that "it could be that your fuel cap isn't on tight enough, or it could be a problem in your engine." Something about that discrepancy in "It could be this, which means nothing, or your car could be dying" makes me wish that there were two lights on my dashboard for that purpose: One could be "Check (fuel cap symbol)" and "Run away! (with car surrounded by an explosion-y plume of smoke)". Also, what didn't help was that in order to fix the problem, I would have to take it into the Lexus dealership.

Anyway, I called my mother (who talked me down from my crazy place of "My car can't die! I love my car!" and called the dealership, who assured her (and she assured me) that it was probably simply that "Your car THINKS that something is coming out of the exhaust that shouldn't be, but it's okay. It's a stupid car and doesn't know better." Mom also pointed out to me that those lights are cautionary, and that when the light comes on it is meant as a warning, not that your car is about to blow up at that exact moment.

So because of said Alpha Rho, Alpha Phi Omega 75th Weekend Extravaganza (say that five times fast) I can't take my car in on Saturday... so I get drive Mom's car this weekend! (Mom has the granddaughter of my car, the newest Lexus SUV) and I have determined that, while this car is excellent and very impressive, it cannot do certain things that I would expect it to. For instance, my mother's car can't fly, fetch, apparate, OR drive for me while I take a nap. It can, however, fight crime, cure cancer, speak ten languages and turn water to wine.

(I may never give your car back, Mom. Sorry!)

Ba Ba Ba

One of the (more) adorable things that Emma has taken to doing recently is reading. Being only a year old (and thus not actually able to read) she picks up a book, flips through the cardboard pages, and "Ba, ba, ba"s her way through the book. It is especially adorable when there is a sheep on the page!

In this video, you'll see her walking (!) and reading to me, and generally being the cutest baby around (in my honest and entirely biased opinion!)

In other news, after spending the month after spring break doing a lot of falling behind in terms of the assigned reading (so... many... tests...) I have been spending last week and this week getting caught up on the reading assignments since I don't have any tests or immediate threats this week. What is left in the semester I can count on one hand:

1) Art History paper (due Monday)

2) UGS test (Thursday, 6th May)

3) Art History test (Friday, 7th May)

4) History Final Exam (Thursday, 13th May)

5) English Final Paper (Due... sometime after 5th May?)

While I still have a good deal of reading to do (I have to read an entire book between now and the history exam, another 250 pages of my history book, another play for English (The Changeling), and another two chapters of my Art History textbook) it is smooth sailing from here on out. It feels good.

So good I can do fun things like go visit my Mom or Dad and have dinner, go to bed early, watch a movie, maybe even read a book for fun (le gasp!). I can see the summer just up ahead, and the reward of sleeping in late. (Until summer school starts, of course.)

A more useful purpose?

Innocent, slightly see-through amateur painting in my bathroom? Or does it serve a more useful purpose?
Now that you ask, yes. Yes it does.

(BAM. DANGLY EARRING HOLDER.)

Those of you who have ever been in my bathroom in my apartment know of one of my more brilliant ideas, the bulletin board of necklaces:


This was born of out of a desire to not be charged exorbitant amounts of money when I move out for the dozens of little holes in my wall. Also, I happen to love bulletin boards! I've been looking at my bulletin board for a while now and trying to figure out how I could do something similar for my earrings. I didn't want to go out and spend a lot of money on something that wasn't nearly as personal (or as cool. I mean, what could be more cool, right?)

So the earring holder turned out to be a great idea! And a cheap project, considering how much I would have paid for something like this.

I bought everything at Michael's. The Frame was $10 (on sale), the fabric $5, the paintbrushes $4, and the paint about $3.50.

I set up shop on my kitchen table with a newspaper under the canvas and went a-paintin'. I had already drawn an idea of what I wanted, so laying the paint on took no time at all, probably 45 minutes or so to get it just right.

I hung up the canvas in my bathroom to dry, and it was totally dry in a few hours.

Getting the canvas onto the frame was a little more difficult. Because the wood wasn't as soft as I had anticipated, I ended up having to make little holes in the wood with a nail and hammer and then hammer in the flat pushpins to hold the canvas down. I hung it up on the wall and hung my earrings through!

Having the canvas close to the wall is very important, as if it is too far away the earrings fall right back through (especially if they're a little heavier) and some require doing a little dance and saying a magic spell in order to get them through and make them stay, so if I try again I might try and use a larger cross stitch fabric instead of the needlepoint.

So now what I'm thinking is that I need more earrings!

Nerdtastic!

So, if yall will remember I stood in line at dark o'clock last Thursday for tickets to see the Mythbusters.

Last night, my dreams came true!

Well, one of my dreams came true, at least. I was not 15 feet away from Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage! I was sitting in the third row!

It was SO COOL to hear them talk! They talked about behind the scenes stuff and about production of their show, of the explosions, and the myths coming up in future episodes... and what was most bizarre was that they were exactly the same as they were on TV!

I love the Mythbusters, and seeing them up close in person was incredible.

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Tonight, the nerdtastic events continued with a trip to Book People to see John Green (of the vlogbrothers) and David Levithan talk about their new book, Will Grayson, Will Grayson.


If you will remember, I went to see John Green on his last visit to Texas up in Plano. This time, it was not a Nerdfighter gathering (So Hank Green wasn't there) but the room was FULL of nerdfighters!

(And that picture wasn't even at its most packed! I got a seat because I got there early enough to nab one!)

So I sat next to nice people... like Elizabeth, who is from Austin but is going to Yale.


And these guys who drove from Lafayette, Louisiana (6.5 hours, they said)


I was prepared with my books by John Green (bought downstairs...)


And at 7:00, the main event!


The two talked about where the idea of the book came from (they each wrote alternate chapters, both from the different perspectives of two boys named Will Grayson)


And they read two excerpts from the book.


And then after the talk and the open Q&A session (which lasted about an hour... I recorded it all on my iPhone for future enjoyment!) they signed books!


And because I couldn't help myself, I asked them to show their horns! I know they both secretly want to be longhorns!

How I wish it was sleepy time

Because I was sick last week, I got myself back onto what I've been calling a "normal, human" sleep schedule. Normal and human here refer to around midnight, which I realize is neither normal nor human for many people. Take my mother, for instance, who turns into a pumpkin at 11pm. (At least when I was in high school she did... I could swear I never saw her awake after then!) But what's kind of funny is that unless I am sick, getting to bed before midnight is unheard of, even unreasonable. My goal is 2am, and that is generally what I achieve. 3am is kinda late... 4am is late, but doable as long as I don't have a string of a bunch of them in a week. When I start doing my homework around 9pm, five or six hours of work is reasonable. The solution would be to start earlier, but where is the fun in that?

But at the moment, because of my alleged human schedule, I am very tired. However, I have a massive stack of flashcards that I have to write and define. This blog is my break for my hands... sort of. I'm still using my hands, except that I'm not holding a pen. I have been told that I hold a pen wrong and that it puts unnecessary stress on my hands, but as I've been writing like that for a while now (15+ years?) I find it hard to write "correctly".

Today was Easter. We had a really yummy lunch at Mom's place - lamb, potatoes, and salad. I baked a cake! It was great to see everyone and hang out a home for a while.

Yesterday, I got to saw one of my favorite families - the Coopers! I babysat for them few years ago and after they moved to New York I've only seen them a handful of times (three? Yeah... three.) Barb gave me some yarn, which I can't wait to knit up - pretty pinks, purple and greens like a garden! I got to hang around, have a few drinks, stuff easter eggs to be hunted today, and chat with them for a few hours before heading over to Dad's to have really great Indian food. Mmm...

I had my first soda for 40 days today. It was delicious, but not great. At least now I can have sodas every once and a while, but I want to limit my intake - something like 1 a day, and keep making iced tea and drinking water like I have been during Lent.

Okay, back to flashcards. I would LIKE to be out of this library by the time it closes, but I don't have high hopes. I have been in here since 7:30 (and it's 11:30 now.) Better study habits: I need them.

This week sees a history test and an English paper.... two sucky things. But this week also sees the Mythbusters on Thursday and John Green (a YA author) on Friday, who are both a LOT less sucky!

Want to know why?

This morning, I woke up at 5:30. Want to know why?

This morning, I was on campus by 6:15. Want to know why?


This morning, I stood in line for an hour and a half to get a ticket to see two people give a talk next week. Want to know who?


THE MYTHBUSTERS!

(I am SO excited!)

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Definitely have coold - I have gone through entire box of tissues in two days... and now I'm off to CVS to buy another one, though I am feeling a little better today! I would be more upset, except that I can't really be that mad at an adorable baby for making me sick!