The meds seemed to have kicked in and I had an awesome day today! I got to sleep in an extra hour, I wrote two articles in Journalism and in Are You What You Eat, we ate farmers market blackberries, drank Tanzanian tea with farmers market honey, played Who Wants To Be a Millionaire food version, and then once we finished all that, we watched funny YouTube videos like Bad Lip Reading:)

Afterwards, I took a nap and then got the best surprise. I knew my parents were growing to drop off a care package since I’m sick but I didn’t expect what Leanndra brought when she knocked on the door and said “special delivery!” They had brought me, along with a bag of amazing home cooked meals, a vase full of flowers, and a “get well” balloon :) It was the best and exactly what I needed to put me in a good mood!

And to top it all off, we had the most exciting showcase so far! There was improv, Back Street Boys, Titanic scenes, a ton more hilarious hall dances, and so much other great talent! Besides the cd I’m buying for last weeks so I can remember our dance, I definitely need this one too! Too many funny moments that need to be remembered! :)

edit: great news -- the room next to us is infested with bed bugs and the room above us likes to do “interpretive dancing” at 1:30am -.-

^^Assassin. Each person gets a name, their target, and they have to stalk him/her down, and hit them in the back of the head with the paper. All they while, they themselves are a target and have to watch out for their own Assassin. It’s a good day when you wake up and the first thing you see before you’ve had breakfast is a couple people getting assassinated.

Today we had a field trip to Lexington to hear District Judge Joseph Hood speak. He had some incredible stories to share but I felt like any moment he was going to call me out for my non-stop coughing. It didn’t help that I was in the first row either! Afterwards, I took them to my favorite coffee shop for lunch and then we were back on the road. Boy did that trip make me feel homesick.
In General Studies today, we talked about college and preparedness. Her son, Little Patrick, had us do an activity where we were the first settlers of a continent (we got Asia) and we had to make a survival plan with limited resources. Let me tell you, it was hard finding shelter/food/safety/ water with only tall grass, horses, granite, and poisonous flowers!

Today was also our showcase night! We all got dressed up like men and the boys like women and we looked h.o.t. Those boys sure knew how to work a headband! I was so worried we would mess up because we were unprepared but we didn’t! Not even once! We had the audience laughing like crazy - I don’t think it could have gone any better. And, it's also pretty obvious that we make very handsome John Travolta's aka Danny's with our professionally drawn on goatees and beards;) And with other acts like a rap version of “Gold Digger” and another hall’s rendition of Mulan’s “I’ll Make A Man Out of You”, we were in the company of other great and awesome people. Hopefully I can get pictures soon and once I get my hands on a DVD, I’ll hopefully put the video up too. The only low point was that it lasted for 2 1/2 hours with me coughing/dying pretty much every minute -.-

Now, I’m off to collapse in my bed and hopefully sleep off this nasty cold.

You know it’s going to be a long day when you reach the cafeteria at breakfast and realized to you have to walk all the way back across campus to get your lanyard -.- And this is the second time I’ve done this too! At least it’s July :)

We had community meeting this morning and that was like usual but the RA update seemed off. It wasn’t as funny as the previous ones have been. In Journalism, we published our articles finally and bonus surprise: we’re taking a field trip on Wednesday! We are going to the Cincinnati Art Museum and somewhere else, I can’t remember where. It’s a 2 1/2 hour bus ride but at least we’ll be somewhere different!

We also had Seminar today and, well, it was…interesting to say the least. First we played a game where we got stickers on our back telling those we talked to how they should treat us. I got “value only my looks” so it wasn’t too bad ;) the second game was supposed to demonstrate privilege. We stood in a like and we would either take a step back or take a step forward with each question he asked. Those who ended up in the front had the most privilege and those in the back, the least. I ended up being in the very back but yet I didn’t think that the game was an accurate demonstration of privilege. I was last because of things like not indenturing with one of the 3 prominent US religions, having a native language different than English, and being an immigrant. I think those thinks actually make me more open-minded and actually allow me to progress farther than some who only speak one language and only know one culture. The last game we played was called Four Corners where each question Luke asked, you had to either go to the corner marked Agree, Disagree, Neutral, or Not Sure. The first questions weren’t too bad but then we got into whether gay couples should adopt and whether the drinking age should be 18 and things got messy. Basically, the whole class period was supposed to be about Diversity and showing how different backgrounds can affect opinions - I finally realized how that came into play with the drinking age question because, in Europe, kids can drink at 16 and that’s something I’ve become accustomed to. Either way, it was still a good class.

Afterwards, we had the boys’ practice for our showcase and I was surprised at how quick they picked it up! They learned all of their moves and were actually really good! Although we did have to drag our friend Jack there, he was one of the best ones :) Since the boys are playing the girls in the scene and the girls the boys, all I have to say is: Man do those boys make good girls haha! I have a feeling we are going to rock this weeks showcase. I still find it amazing that us girls still don’t have all our choreography and we practiced twice but the boys practiced once and got all of it!

Lastly, we had another convocation today: Trey Grayson, 2 term Secretary of State for KY and GSP scholar of 1989. Even though politics is something I’m not particularly interested in, he was absolutely fascinating. He talked about his personal views, how he got to where he is (Harvard Law) and he even gave Jack some advice on how to become Governor!

Now I’m off to go learn the rest of our dance:)

You know you are going to need a triple espresso when you wake up at 5:30am just to do laundry -.- At least we were the first ones down there and got done quickly!

In Journalism, we worked on our articles for a while in the library (mine is almost finished!) but then Lynn had us attend a speech. It was lawyer who has worked for the KY Press Association and now works for the Courier Journal. He was incredibly inspirational but some of the cases he talked about were so gruesome that I couldn’t imagine being in his position.

In General Studies, we ventured downtown to explore. This pretty much meant going into all the neat coffee shops and bakeries and vintage shops. In the bakery, I bought 2 scones, a biscotti, and a pretzel the size of my HEAD all for $6! Then over at The Fuzzy Duck Coffee Shop, I bought the mug above and a neat pen. After depositing my bags in the room, Hannah and I went to read in the alley and I was actually finished my book, Into The Wild.

Last year, I read Jon Krakauer’s other book Into Thin Air and wasn’t too incredibly impressed. But man, was Into The Wild good! It basically follows the story of a hitchhiker who walked alone into the Alaskan wilderness and lost his life. There was just something about the way Krakauer displayed Chris McCandless’ character as full of this raw energy and passion even as he lay weak and dying. Never before had I heard of such dedication from a single person, so hell-bent on separating as far away from society as possible that it was just shocking and eye-opening.

At dinner, Hannah entertained me with stories she came up with on the spot telling the stories of those lucky enough to be sitting in her line if vision:) It was the warm-up performance to the big performance of the night: Showcase! This weeks was much better than the last one! We had everything from original haikus, to Spanish rap, to opera, to a tribute Backstreet Boys band that ended the night by ripping their shirts off (they got in trouble for that one!)

Unlike last week, we were not pleasantly surprised with a dance post-showcase because the executives were not pleased with our behavior at the convocation earlier this week. But have no fear! The roommates threw their own dance party in their dorm full of awkward dancing and the like!

Now, all that’s left is to sleep and tomorrow is FINALLY Family Day!

{{total random side note but the last season of Skins comes out July 1st and I could not be more pumped!!}}