Or not so secretly since I just told you.
No. Finals week obviously means procrastination, aka let's do all these other "necessary" things, such as vacuuming and making paper snowflakes and blogging, before studying for exams.
In my defense, I designated today as blogging day because I've already had 4 of my 5 finals and my next one isn't until Saturday, so basically I have nothing to do for the next 3 days and I might as well blog. Also, I'm about a month late since my last entry and I have quite a bit to catch up on. Now you can procrastinate on studying for your finals or putting up Christmas decorations or Christmas shopping by reading this!! ;) So here goes:
A few Saturdays ago, some friends and I went to see We're The Millers which Purdue put on for free through the program Flicks at Fowler. It was funnier the second time if that's even possible. I was laughing so hard I was crying!
Remember a few weeks ago when the tornadoes hit? Well they came to the Greater Lafayette area too, and as my friend Sydney and I were sitting in my room watching a movie for one of our classes (Stand and Deliver...it was so bad), I was texting my mom about how there was softball-sized hail back home and how they all went down to the basement. The sky was perfectly clear and blue here, but I was debating on whether or not to move my car to the parking garage in case it came our way. Next thing we knew, the tornado sirens went off and my RA was yelling down the hallway that everyone needed to go downstairs. We were herded like sheep into the winding hallways of the Shreve basement and told to sit and chill until they heard more information. So, the 800 residents of Shreve were all crammed into the hot basement during the height of a common cold wave. Sydney and I decided to walk around the basement and explore a little bit and finally after about half an hour, we were able to go back upstairs. Then we found out the extent of the damage in our area: some Lafayette elementary schools had been hit and the power on campus went out. Luckily our buildings on campus had back-up generators, but the Greek houses all lost power and weren't going to get it back until Thursday (this was on Sunday if you recall). Later in the week we found out some of the houses had to be evacuated because their sewer systems were malfunctioning and their houses were flooding. The Red Cross even had to set up emergency shower and sleeping areas in our Co-Rec for people who were temporarily homeless! All of our stoplights went out too, and in the pitch black, you can't see them until you've passed them basically. It was all a huge mess, but we were very, very lucky compared to some other places, like Washington, IL.
The weekend right before Thanksgiving break, one of my best friends, Katie, came to Purdue to visit for the weekend! She got the whole week off for Thanksgiving and didn't have school on Monday and Tuesday like we did. I was so glad she could finally come up because we always joked how I've been to U of I to visit her several times and she had yet to come to Purdue! She came up Friday night and we went to dinner at Hillenbrand to get "quasted" (see previous post for definition of this) and then we were stopped by my friend Evan on the way out who told us to stay and watch the free improv show they were putting on. So we were like, okay, why not?? The Crazy Monkeys was the group that performed, and it was pretty entertaining. We also went to see Catching Fire with Annie that night. I bought tickets online and when we went to the theater, it said I hadn't bought any. I was so convinced I had (considering I got a confirmation email), until we realized that I had bought them at the wrong theater. We ran back to the car and drove to the other theater which is all the way across town in Lafayette and made it with time to spare! Oops... Haha, but the movie was amazing! On Saturday we went to a quarter of the Illinois vs. Purdue game, but it was SO cold that we had to leave. Purdue lost anyway, so it's not like we were missing anything. But we went to Triple XXX for lunch then to introduce Katie to our campus love. We hung out for awhile and went to the Silver Dipper for ice cream later that night with Brooke and Jennifer. When we got back, a bunch of girls on the floor got together and played extreme spoons and charades, so it was a good time. Unfortunately I never got to show Katie around campus because it was SO cold the whole weekend! In the morning, Katie was going to leave when I went to teach Sunday school, but I got a call from her that her car wouldn't start! I had to go back and try to help her. At first her car wouldn't even unlock, but when it finally did, we couldn't even put it into neutral to move it so we could jump it with mine! Katie's dad had to call a service to come fix it, so she ended up making it home safely, thank goodness!
My dear friend Katie :)
I can't remember if I've talked about it before, but I've kind of gotten obsessed with spoken word poetry lately. I will literally just sit here at my computer and watch YouTube video after YouTube video of people performing their spoken word poems at various poetry clubs (new bucket list item: perform spoken word at a poetry club in New York!). Well, as my "final" for my McDonalidization of Society class, we had to do a huge 15 minute project about how our lives have been McDonalidized. The catch: we weren't allowed to use any technology, like PowerPoint. We had to do something unique and individual. Well, I can't sing or play an instrument or draw or anything remotely cool like that. Several people who performed at first just made posters and talked about their McDonaldized lives, and I didn't want to do that and be like everyone else. So I took a (huge) step out of my comfort zone and decided to do a spoken word poem for my project.
What.
I had no idea what I had gotten myself into. Not only did I have to analyze my life and figure out how it was McDonaldized and how I should deMcDonaldize it, but I had to piece it together in a nice package of flowing words and then memorize it all and then get up in front of my class and perform it. What I asked myself all week leading up to my presentation? WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY.
But I really wanted to do it, and I wanted to do it well. Poor Jess (and some other victims) had to listen to it a zillion times before the actual presentation, but boy were they troopers.
And then came that fateful day: the day of my performance. I wanted to go first and get it over with, but another kid did, and I couldn't bear to go second. So I went last. And when I got up in front of the classroom, I was like crap. But then I started speaking. And I got into a rhythm. And I did it, with only 1 minor mess-up! And you know what? It was an absolute BLAST!! I loved speaking like that and seeing the audience's reaction to the things I said. I just felt good and confident! The best part was that several of my classmates told me it was their favorite project and that I did really well on it. It just felt great and I would LOVE to perform at an Open Mic night sometime somewhere. It was just so much fun!
Then, finally, it was Thanksgiving break. I got to see Katie and Caileigh and Natalie for dinner on Tuesday night when I got home and Wednesday Kourtney and I started season 1 of American Horror Story on Netflix because my family finally got caught up with the 21st century and got it! (But we also got rid of our home phone and my mom and I lamented over that for awhile...it was so sad...that was the first number I ever memorized! My mom even asked the people if they could retire the number so nobody else could have it...they said no. Boo.) We also met up with all the Mrs. Fields girls at the Pub II that night to hang out and prepare ourselves for the Black Friday craziness. It was a good time.
Bonding at the bar...where else?
Thursday my aunt had Thanksgiving early so that my family could actually go. It was SO delicious, but we had to leave way too soon because we had to be at work at 6:30 that night to start baking cookies for the crazy Black Friday shoppers that would be making their appearance at 8. Hellooooo 12 hour shift. (If you want to know my true thoughts about this, feel free to check it out here.) It was actually kind of fun for awhile, but we only had one register up, so it made for some long lines. Sorry boutcha, Black Friday shoppers. That's what you get when you decide to go shopping on Thanksgiving day. What. But anyways, we were pretty exhausted when 6:00 am rolled around, but my mom insisted on going to Bob Evans for breakfast. Afterwards, we crashed and did absolutely nothing all Friday except watch TV. It was awesome.
Fam on Thanksgiving!
Cousins :)
Da fam ready to kick some butt.
On Saturday, we had some family pictures taken for Christmas cards. The guy that did Kourtney's senior shoot did it for us, and it was really fun to do some ridiculous poses and such. PS, Kourtney's senior book turned out great. My sister is so gorgeous it's ridiculous. Like, I might not let her go to college 'cause I don't want creepy guys tryna hit on her due to her impeccable beauty.
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Awkward family photo...'cause we're awkward.
I also got to see my uncle Gary and my cousins Dani (who I haven't seen in a year) and Dylan because we all went to dinner together. Huzzah!
Some other stuff that has happened since I last wrote:
Last week my Bible study group went to WalMart to buy toys for kids in need for this Christmas. It was really fun, and one of the girls, Andrea, is an intern for Cru from Germany, and we lost her in WalMart several times. She was marveling over everything and kept wandering off. It was really funny!
We had our Life Guide banquet last Tuesday and ate some yummy food and also got awards that everyone had voted on, both silly and serious. My awards? Most Likely to be a Professional Grease Drainer, Most Likely to Deflect Prayers About an Eraser, Best Flocknote, Most Ambitious, & Pro of the Semester! I felt so blessed to receive that last one. It was such a shock, but a good one :)
On Sunday we had our Christmas party for our Sunday school kids, and it was great because we made them get into groups and wrap each other as presents. SO FUNNY.
So apparently I'm going to be on a postcard that gets sent out to all the admitted students to the College of Education at Purdue to encourage them to study abroad! I'm not sure how I feel about my face getting sent out to hundreds of random people, but it's pretty cool nonetheless.
So with my two finals finished yesterday and knowing I wouldn't have another for 3 more days, I wanted to do something instead of sitting in my room on my computer. So I texted my friend Sydney and she came over. As the El Ed majors that we are, we got out all of our crayons and markers and scissors and paper and tape and chalk and made some motivational finals cards to give out to people at the Union and at the libraries studying. We made some pretty cool ones, like Harry Potter themed ones, and we went around handing them out to people studying. Naturally we looked for some attractive guys, but we also passed them out to girls, because we aren't about discrimination. Everyone was so confused but we think they enjoyed them. We also put a ton of inspirational post-it notes in several bathrooms and all along the hallways in Stewart Center so people could be encouraged for finals. Then we explored campus and took pictures with the random Purdue landmarks to add to our SnapChat stories. We ended up at this new cookie place on campus called Baked where you pick the kind of dough you want and what types of things you want inside the cookies, and they bake them for you. Honestly, they weren't the greatest because they were kind of burnt, but maybe if they weren't so overcooked, they would have been better! It was quite the adventure though considering we were out and about for around 3 hours.
Alright, well, I guess I better go do something productive (considering I'm still in my pjs). Gotta go tutor and Christmas shop and other various activities that better society :)
Be home on Saturday!!
XOXO
PS: a video Kourt and I made when we put up our Christmas tree over Thanksgiving break:
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