"Rus Bus, Arive Alive!"

The above quote is one of many from my trip to Ellensburg, WA this past week for the American College Theater Festival. There is way too much from the week to post it all here, unfortuanly. But we will go with highlights from the week and see how that goes :)

8pm Sunday Feb. 18th: The bus finally arrives in the Fine Arts parking lot and after much drama and organizing the bus is packed and loaded, and we leave Laramie at 9. With a short backing up of the bus because we miss the turn off to Rawlins...oh goody.

We passed through the flats of Wyoming with a breeze, stopping before we hit the Mor-mon land boarder to stock up on provisions for the bus. Traveling through Utah most slept, and I slept all the way through most of Idaho actually too.

By the time we stopped in Oregon for some form of food we had lost tracking on time. It was sometime before 4 on Monday that Squid won a log rolling contest with her great balance skills. Yes this is a true story, and yes, I am still amazed how I actually won.

4:08 PM Pacific Time, Monday Feb. 19th: After 20 hours on the friggin' bus it is evacuted quite quickly, and Mary being a quick thinker got up to the front desk and we we're the first to get our room. Walking into the room I almost crashed out on the bed, but you know there were showers to be had, food to be found, and a campus to explore.

After trying to navigate Ellensburg almost-non-exsistant transportation system we arrived on the ground of Central Washington Universtity, luckily Squid was prepared and brought maps and what not and we found stuff. Yes, that is about how the night went, we were that tired.

The nights in WA were spent socializing and visiting kids in other hotel rooms, and probably way too much drinking and partying. Apparetnly Wyoming has a reputation to maintain at these events. While I was meeting kids from other schools, the response I always got was: "Whoa, you are from Wyoming you kick ass in competions, and know how to party." So yes we win and we drink. The days and nights of the week have blurred together because ya know, I had to keep up my end of the reputation too ;)

Tuesday was the pre-lims for the acting competition and one of the main stage shows called Life and Limb.
Tuesday night was well Mardi Gras. Enough said.
Wednesday consisted of a lot of the tech workshops I went to, and helping load in what they call a Splash scene, which was basically working with scene partners you have never worked with before.
Thursday was my real work day, I helped load in and work two of our One Acts we took to Festival.

Friday was by far one of my best days there. Some of us who really were there for not much a a reason rented a vehical and took off to Seattle for the day! Where I spent most of the day with Nerdy and some new found friends!! I went and checked out the Abbey were Nerdy works, met Ana who rocks my socks. We then ventured onto Capitol Hill and hungout on Broadway. Found some awesome thrift stores, and of course I bought a tie. We met up with Alex as well and spent dinner in the International District with tasty Potatoe and Onion pankcakes, and salt and pepper tofu. Ana at one point tried to convencie me to transfer and I said don't tempt me which was a bad idea, because she is a good temptress. The night ending with multiple good byes, to Alex and Ana, and then to Nerdy after she got me safe and sound back with my peeps from Wyoming.

Saturday was the Acting comp Finals and getting ready to leave. Saturday night was the awards ceremony, and Wyoming as usual swept the awards. We took both postions for the acting comp to go to Washington D.C. All three One Acts, did amazing and one took first in the comp. And many other awards. Once we got back to the hotel, there was much celebrating to be had. I was found by family who noticed my necklace, and said she was glad she wasn't the only family there, which was super exciting. The rest of the night morphs into wandering around too many halls, and rooms, but was worth it, and most of the department pulling an all nighter and being drunk on the bus when we left the hotel at 6 am Sunday morning.

I had a great time, and miss Seattle greatly, but at 4:30 this morning was greatful to be touching Wyoming ground, and even more grateful when I got home to sleep in my own bed.

Do You Mind? Come on it's Dropkick Murphy's.

Fine. This blog post probably won't make much sense. But Mary, Gina, Linus and I are having coffee at Coal Creek. Mary and I are getting ready and trying to be disctracted from the nervous jitters about leaving, not sure why the nervous jitters but they are there. At 8 we board the bus with 46 other theater students to drive to Washington for ACTF, the theater festival for our University's region. I am excited. I am nervous. But really I am tired which is good since the bus drive is close to 20 hours. Hope you all have a great week!

....<3's

Once again, many of us find ourselves bitter and callous today, on Valentine's day. I usually hate this holiday and protest by not going anywhere, this year I am going to try something a little different. I will be venting my angst at the Love Bites poetry slam, and sharing with you all some great cards I got from a dear friend.

www.gbehh.com <---for more hilarous cards any time of the year!

For the official invite to the V-Day Slam visit Linus' blog.

And go check out Nerdy's blog; she has some kick ass cards on there as well.

I really wished I lived in Belguim, I would much rather be spending my time today at this oxygen bar.

On a more serious note though, I hate that we need a holiday to be able to let everyone around us know that we care about them, especially our significant others. To steal a line from one of my poems I am reading tonight...:

I'm not saying those who participate in these rituals are completely ignorant or sidetracked by what our culture is deeming as a priority. I'm simply stating why can't everyday be Valentine's Day?

Minus the emphasis on reds and pinks.

Hearts and flowers.

If you care for someone, shouldn't you let them know whenever the thought strikes that the appreciation is there?

Just saying.

Impending Doom O'doomness! Squeee!!

Converstations that happen between user/pofessors, while working at the lab 2 minutes before you get off work:

Professor from the lab next door: "Who are you again?"
Me: "The Lab Assistant."
Prof: "Oh, right. Well, I have a problem."
Me: "How can I help you?"
Prof: "Do you have any extra mice?"
Me: Mice? Yes I carry a pocket full of mice with me at all times to feed my snake in my backpack! "Um, no we don't have any extras here in the lab. Why? What is the problem?"
Prof: "It's old and not working! It is one of the mice with the rolly ball on the bottom still."
Me: What? We don't even have those kind any more... (the new lab assistant walks in) "Well, what we can do is have her(the new LA) look at the mouse and submit the problem into our database and have one of our techs looks at it."

The professor goes back to setting up, and two minutes later comes back knocks on door and says "Never mind someone beat ya to it, it is ok!"
Me: "Ok" ya weirdo.
Three minutes later:
Prof knocks on door again: "I lied it is still not working, the scrolly thing doesn't move."
Me: The scrolly thing? to the other lab assitant: "Can you take a look at it? I have to go to class."
Prof: "And I can never remember how to save PowerPoint but the scroll works fine on PowerPoints, all I have to do is click the mouse."

Some days people's brains confuse me.

I live in a frozen tundra, of a waste land.

It is 8:30 at night, the temperature outside is -10°. That is not including wind chill which we are in a “Wind chill Warning” until 11am tomorrow, it feels like -27° outside. I HATE the cold! It makes me lethargic, I don’t want to go outside, let alone walk to classes…and the low for tonight is -45°. My dad always talked about “That One Winter” where it was -50°, but I didn’t really believe it. My bad. I don’t have enough layers for this kind of weather, damn it.

It doesn’t help that right now I am really home sick. Not really for my parents, because that was never really home, but right now I miss my God-Mom, Mom. I smell like patchouli right now because it reminds me of her smell, I hadn’t realized that was why I felt a little better while wearing it until Gina told me that I smelled how Mom use to always smell. I miss sitting on the couch in the living room with Tessa, Tessa reading out loud and Mom sitting with Christina helping her with school. I guess I do miss my parents in some ways, I miss the few days in-between my dad’s disappearing acts where he cooked dinner, and we would have movie marathons.

It also doesn’t help that my mother called this afternoon. She wants me to fly out to Indiana in a little less than a week, my Aunt Judy passed away yesterday, and she wants me to be at the funeral. If she would buy the round-trip ticket, yes I would go. But she won’t, says she can’t. I don’t have that kind of money to spend, and I hate to say this but I met my aunt Judy and the rest of my mom’s family once before in my life. I will call my grandmother and other aunts and give my condolences and send flowers. The conversation also consisted of her still not understanding my major, a new found interest in my love life and wondering why I don’t have a boyfriend and my quick explanation of “I’m too busy for a relationship right now.”

I am going to curl up with Puppy(my stuffed ami-nal) underneath a huge pile of blankets, drink some tea, and watch Evangelion. Can’t we cancel school tomorrow?