christmas comes but once a year

i'm happy to report that i haven't been bored at home yet. been keeping busy with work (proofreading bibles), shopping, sewing, movie watching, and what have you. here is a more detailed update of my winter break:

because dad had a trip on christmas, we opted to open presents on christmas eve after the candlelight service. saved us from having to wake up extremely early. i got an ipod! yay! i'm so excited about it...all the music i could want and take anywhere. got a few georgia shirts...one from colette to commemorate the wonderful florida trip and i'm supposed to be getting another warm sweatshirt from the parents. kaitlin knit me a cute georgia scarf and becca gave me a "50's secretary dress", according to my brother. becca and i also got hours of entertainment with the third season of alias...so excited! the fourth season starts january 5th...y'all should be there. oh, something else of note is the new microwave my brother gave my parents. it just so happens that we have never had a microwave...i know you're all wondering how we survived. so now, our household is updated to modern times, complete with satellite tv (we only had five channels until a few months ago).

on christmas we woke up to the traditional alligator christmas cd...my dad blasts it every christmas morning to get us out of bed. except this year it was a 10 am wake up call to get the return of the king started so dad would have enough time to watch it and then pack for his trip. such a good movie...too bad they just kill it at the end with all the different endings and what not. its good, all the same. it was quite a lazy christmas day...ahhh, so relaxing.

becca, colette, and i headed up to the mall sunday after church to spend more money that we don't have. gotta love those after christmas sales...draws suckers like me out of my cozy home and into the mall mob, whose company was quite different than what i'm used to. a successful shopping trip...and i only bought things that i was planning on buying anyway. yessss. watched some more alias when we arrived back home, which of course, was fabulous.

today i've done nothing but work. actually worked long enough over the break to break even with what i spend at the mall yesterday. thats at least a start, right?

tomorrow i will be departing for paris, france. oh, how i love to fly. dad has a 50 hour layover there, so becca and i are dropping in to do some speedy sight seeing...et utiliser nôtre français. did i say that right? anyway, i'm excited about finally getting to put my four years of french to use. i'll let you know how it went. we are flying back home on the 31st, then flying to chatty town (chattanooga, for those who don't know) to visit some friends from school that i know from ruf for new year's. should be a blast. à bientôt!

happy and crappy VI

merry chrismas cain...i've recently heard the joke that the days before and after christmas are called by the following:
christmas adam, christmas eve, christmas, christmas cain, christmas able.
okay, so its lame, but i didn't get time yesterday in time to wish you a merry christmas in time, so cain will have to do. it is now time for happy crappy!

this week's happy...yay for:

• christmas shopping
• wrapping presents
• sleeping in
• yummy dinners
• christmas eve candlelight services
• christmas lights/ luminaries
• ipods!
• sales
• alias
• new clothes
• friends and family

this week's crappy...nay for:

• pessimists
• songs that declare the wrong meaning of christmas
• having to decide between things to buy
• having to buy gas

holiday update

its difficult to keep you posted on whats going on over the break. theres either too much going on or not enough...and so goes the story. so yesterday was a fun-filled family work day. we spent all afternoon chopping branches apart, dragging, and stuffing them into the trailer to take to the yardwork dump. the two trees that we cleaned up were the ones that fell during the thanksgiving eve storms, which i have pictures of in my earlier postings. we finally finished around 4 pm and headed to the mellow mush with the fam, sans kaitlin, who went to visit her roomie.

we got cleaned up after our late lunch/early dinner and becca and i hung out with a bunch of youth group kids. played fun games like spoons and "st. peter, st. paul". played some mad fooseball at my house and finished up with spiderman 2. its wierd being around people who aren't 18 yet and still bound to the 12 o'clock curfew. glad those days are behind me.

not too much going on over the break yet. megan hasn't called me back yet about going to visit her...i'll have to call her again sometime. finally finished up my christmas shopping and exhanged gifts with anna and colettie. i got a ga/fl game shirt from colettie...good times, good times. we had our christmas eve dinner a day early...bumping up the holiday earlier just because. about to head back out for another night of games and then the real christmas eve is here...but its christmas in my household! yay!

the christmas rush

so i've finally gotten on the ball and gotten some christmas shopping done. its about time. so far i've gotten something for everyone but three people on my list. pretty successful, eh? it only took all day at the pavilion to get it done. i ran into so many people while shopping today, it was crazy. i guess all us college students are trying to play catch up since we've been so busy. i ended up buying myself another pair of jeans...who can resist when they're only $13? turns out i spoiled one of becca's christmas presents for myself, which makes me sad. oh well. she decided shes gonna return the ones she got me. hope the pockets on those aren't cuter than mine...

i shopped til about 4 pm when i decided to drop by colette's and get some more work in. its really amazing how long you can spend looking at those proofreading sheets and not find a single thing wrong. i get so excited when i find and error...i think i found three in the two hours i worked yesterday. that's what they need us to do though. we finally decided to get some fun in our monday night, so we headed back into town. grabbed some chick-fil-a on the way (man, haven't had that in a looong time) and went to the dollar theater to see napoleon dynamite. well, they were sold out, so on a whim, we decided to watch alfie. big mistake...ended up walking out within the first 15 minutes. instead, we filled our time by stopping by every one of the stores i had visited earlier in the day...no worries, though. colette got a little more shopping in and i had something to do all night. i got home and wrapped presents late into the night.

happy and crappy V

this week's happy...yay for:

• chocolate chip pancakes
• a's on papers
• only having three exams
• NO MORE CHEMISTRY!!!
• pulling off a's in my classes so far
• having people over to watch christmas vacation
• getting mail from your roommate
• seeing old faces
• games of frisbee golf
• sleepovers
• catch phrase
• hugs
• wonderful people who cook dinner for me
• shopping...and buying myself a present
• making moolah
• having a car

this week's crappy...nay for:

• studying, studying, studying...
• not finding anything for anyone else when christmas shopping
• people who are always on the defense
• not seeing friends for three weeks
• not seeing dad since i've been back

christmas shopping for me...

after my two hour car ride, no one was home to greet me. that is the worst...coming home to an empty house. turns out kaitlin wasn't home yet, karl was at some friend's wedding, mom and dad were out to lunch, and becca had run off to the frisbee golf course with youth group kids. i was home for about 20 mins before i ran out the door to join the game. haven't played in months, but i was surprised that i was throwing better than before i had left. must be because of that season with the dominating deuces and ruf.

anyway, becca and her techie roomies were having a get together with all their tech friends and i tagged along so i could have something to do. waited forever for dinner (but it was worth it!), played some ddr (which i am terrible at), got lost on a golf cart ride, stayed up til 2 playing catch phrase (the ultimate college game!), and fell asleep watching a movie around 3:30 am. becca threw the little maltese, lexi, on me at 10 am to wake me up, bringing my grand total of sleep up to 11 hours in two nights. not too good of a start considering it was the first day of break.

did some proof reading with colette and becca to make some extra moolah to buy christmas presents, which i haven't even started buying. makes things a little rushed. decided to go out the the atl to lenox mall to get some shopping in...and traffic was terrific. bumper to bumper, so took about 45 minutes longer than expected. i resorted to playing the license plate game...found 17 states. not too shabby for a half mile stretch of road. turns out they were doing road construction. figures. so the christmas shopping escapade was unsuccessful...for me at least. ended up buying nothing for anyone and buying a pair of jeans for myself. hey, at $15, who can refuse? so, still need to go shopping.

i'm hoping to go visit megan tomorrow night. becca and colette are thinking about coming along as well. i have an idea for what i can get megan for her birthday/christmas...still not sure if i can pull it off though. five days until christmas and i've got nothing. people, i do love you...i just haven't had time.

free at last, free at last...

thank God Almighty, i am free at last!

free from chemistry, free from homework, free from the books. it feels wonderful. you know, this is the first christmas break since kindergarten where i don't have any kind of academic obligation hanging over my head. i always hated how teachers assigned projects because they assumed we'd have plenty of time to fit school work in over the break. that was always rough. but, i can honestly say that it is christmas break and i have nothing to do. no reading, no papers, nothing. its fabulous. none of my classes carry over to next semester. i could just forget everything i learned last semester...not like learning is the point of college or anything (joking mom and dad). but i sure wouldn't miss having all those chemistry notes erased from my memory.

so the chem exam wasn't has dreadful as i had imagined, but it was pretty difficult. toss in a few of those tricky "this scientist did this" kinda problems from the first week of school and you suddenly have a brain fart. gimme questions are never truly gimme questions. out of 50 questions, i had to get 35 right to make a "b" in the class. crossing my fingers...i was pretty confident with 39 of them, so i have a little bit of a cushion. we'll see tomorrow.

as soon as i got out of that exam, i attempted to throw that 10 lb book back in the bookstore people's faces and was denied. what i mean is that i tried to sell my book back, but there was no stupid cd in it and therefore, a $100 book was worthless. i had a fit because it didn't come with the cd. you may wonder why i even bought the book without the cd. well, to find this book at the beginning of the semester, i had to go on the quest for the holy grail...darn near impossible to get. i went on to tell him, as politely that i could, that they had sold me this used book at the beginning of the year without the cd (which no one uses anyway) and that i should not be penalized for their prior carelessness. all the while the man with red curls down to his waist sat there with his little santa hat and cheesy smile and ignored my explanation and recommended that i go see the textbook manager at the bookstore. like the textbook manager would believe me. i guess who can really trust the word of a college kid..."i promise i'm telling the truth." yea right. sucks for us who are really honest...okay that statement is just about to kick me in the butt.

it was a crime of passion. i didn't want that chem textbook, i wouldn't want the stupid cd either. i was done with chemistry for life. i marched right back up to my room, grabbed an old cd i had that was useless, and stuffed it in the cd sleeve in the back of the textbook. yes, in my fit of rage, i placed a fake cd in there. went to the bookstore and returned the book without any problems. so maybe i wasn't honest then. now i'm having a bit of dishonesty remorse...it was definitely wrong, but i returned it in the same condition that i got it. actually, like a girlscout, i left it better than when i found it...it had some old computer game my brother used to play in there. thats more fun than studying anyway. just hope that the next person who owns it doesn't plan on using the cd either. not that they should.

finally, the final final is almost here...

i am sick of studying. two and a half days of straight up studying and nothing else is, no doubt, an overdose. is there anything more to life than electronegativity, electron affinity, vespr theory, molecular structures, oxidation-reduction, hybrid orbitals, enthalpy, and quantum mechanics?? can't wait til 11 am tomorrow morning, athens, and the semester is far behind me.

i found a ride home tomorrow so becca doesn't have to come get me. hitching one with my elusive lab partner. yes. hopefully the topic of lab doesn't come up on the long drive home...it might get me going again. then, home sweet home. well, i need to get doped up on some caffine if i'm gonna make it through this textbook...

the "a" master

holy crap. i pulled off another “a” in english. how amazing is that?? i am the “a” master! right now, my gpa is a perfect 4.0, soon to be tarnished by my chemistry grade, which is the only class this semester that remains undetermined. gotta study hard today. but who knows, at the rate i'm at, maybe another miracle will happen and that magic carpet (dec. 14) will make its debut when its time to calculate my final average...

barely squeaking out the A's

oh man. its been three really close calls, but i've been able to barely squeak out three A's thus far (90.71 in stat, 89.6 in soci, and a low A in chem lab). still not sure what i got in english...i'm hoping that turns out well...i would have had to have written a 89% quality paper and, if i were to call it now, i'd say my paper wasn't anywhere close to that caliber. darn. but who knows, i've been able to pull them off in all my other classes. chemistry is the only one that remains up in the air...been studying my butt off all day. i'm on chapter 6 of the book....outlining every chapter...five more to go. fun. hopefully it pulls everything i've learned together.

i have to rearrange my room tonight to make room for the 10 plus people that will be joining us here in 221 for christmas vacation. no, the movie. sadly. two more days til that long awaited day comes. maybe the day of judgment will come before my chem final and i won't have to take it. i won't need to know chemistry in heaven, anyway.

college kids...

i recently downloaded iTunes onto my computer and get to listen to other people's music. while studying chemistry, this relient k song came on and i found it rather appropriate...

Someone please save us, us college kids!

What my parents told me is what I did

They said go to school and be a college kid

But in the end I question why I did

I’m poor, I’m starving, I’m flat broke, I’ve got no cash to spend

Sell all my books for front row tickets to dave matthews band

My girlfriend’s at another school, I know this year will test her

I called, found out she had three other boyfriends last semester

And that’s why I say

Oh no! not for me, not for me

Call it torture, call it university

No! arts and crafts is all I need

I’ll take calligraphy and then I’ll make a fake degree

80 grand later I found out that all that I had learned

Is that you should show up to take your finals and your midterms

The party scene is kinda mean, I think it’s sick and twisted

The navy showed up at my dorm and claimed that I enlisted

And that’s why I say

Oh no! not for me, not for me

Call it torture, call it university

No! arts and crafts is all I need

I’ll take calligraphy and then I’ll make a fake degree

where's my magic carpet ride?

i feel really good about my sociology exam. i got my paper back right before i took it (which was an A) and it gave me the endorphins i needed to kick that thing's butt. a wonderful A to boost the gpa is within reach. now i'm ready to take on chemistry. uhhh...not so much. but i've spent the past four hours looking over my old tests, which is supposed to be helpful. crossing my fingers that i find a few more errors on them as well so i can snag back some more points. hey, every little bit helps. oh. and whatever happened to that magic carpet ride, that mystical "curve", that is supposed to take your not-so-good average to the land of As? i've heard all about how college professors have them tucked away in a secret hiding place and bring them out in students' time of need. so where's my magic carpet ride? well, i've been here for a whole semester and i have yet to "ride the curve". everyone else (including becca, who pulled off a B in calculus at tech...congrats) seems to have benefited from at least one ride, but, as they say, seeing is believing, and i don't think they really exist.

i'm not so sure if i was able to pull off an A in english, which is sad. but it has been mentioned to me that in a college english class, professors like to stick to the "C is average" scale. hey now, that is the kind of scale that makes one lose HOPE. guess it makes sense, though. georgia kids are so used to earning A's with no effort because teachers have inflated grades to get more kids HOPE. no wonder they're running out of money to pay my tuition.

it has become bitterly cold for georgia. i mean how cold is it gonna get in a span of three days? as i mentioned before, i wore shorts and a t-shirt and was perfectly fine last week. but last night the temperature took a dive into the 30s. holy cow. going from warm to cold always makes the cold seem so much worse. its supposed to feel like 19 degrees tonight. 19. now, that requires a coat, no doubt.

today we salute you...

this is a popular little salutation on many people's away messages, which i find humorous:

Today we salute you, stressed out college student during exam week. As you sit in your lonely cubical in the library, doped up on Starbucks & Adderall, you think to yourself, am I ever going to need to know this stuff in life? The distractions are tempting, and you have suddenly diagnosed yourself with ADD, along with advanced delusionary schizophrenia with involuntary narcissistic rage. I'm sure by now you know exactly what everyone is doing because you have checked your buddy list 800 times. Christmas break is just days away, and your Prozac prescription will be in tomorrow. So crack open an ice cold *Bud Light after that last exam, because for most of us, Christmas will be spent in rehab.

*okay, so i'd strongly urge those not over 21, including myself, to substitute this with Coke-a-cola

i'd also like to add that i took my english exam...not too great, but we'll see. i did, however, get my santa paper back and made an A! yay! the thing is, i'm rather upset about my professer's rather rude comment: "your prose is pretty good, but your analysis is rather mundane (though i get the feeling you think it is daring somehow)."

what??? come again? let me throw you a few synonyms: ordinary, dull, routine, boring, everyday, commonplace, unexciting, dreary...shall i go on? did he just totally diss me on my final paper? i wonder which of those actually fit my paper. come on now...apparently everything i write on is unoriginal and lacks creativity. my second paper on the paul hamm controversy was "an adequate paper, but not very imaginative." i don't know what this man is expecting from me. i guess i offended him somehow and he wanted to have the last word. stinker. i just so happen to find his comments "rather mundane".

my brain seems to think its already vacation...

which makes it extremely difficult to force myself to study. i should be studying for my chemistry exam because i'm deathly afraid of it. maybe thats why i'm not studying for it. i've gotten a bit done for english, though. spent all morning skimming over the essays we've read throughout the semester and highlighting the pathos, ethos, and logos appeals to facilitate finding them when my brain is off on christmas vacation already. sociology, aleady all studied up for it. i'll prolly do a bit more before the exam tomorrow.

well, my first exam is in about two hours. in-class english essay. yikes. hopefully i can just regurgitate what i wrote for my journals to make it easier for me. i'm sure i can find some way to mold it to fit the criteria of one of the ten options. meanwhile, i'm frantically reading past essays and highlighting like mad. i think i've over used the flouresent pink and yellow because now every part of my book is drenched in color. not too helpful. oh well. reading over some of these essays that we did at the beginning of the year, it seems like i just read the words last week. has the semseter really gone by that fast? crazy.

still don't have toothpaste and what not for this week. gonna have to mooch some off megan or something until we get time to make a run to the store. i have to admit that itunes has not helped with my cas of procrastination. i've been spending the last day re-naming the defaults "track 1, track 2...etc" that show up when i rip songs back off my old burned cds. time consuming. such a slacker.

happy and crappy IV

round four of happy and crappy! yay!

this week's happy...yay for:

• no classes on friday!
• no more homework!
• no more chem lab!
• no more stat!
• christmas lights
• surprises
• sleeping in
• finishing papers
• roommates' birthdays
• itunes
• ultimate frisbee
• christmas parties
• fuzzy warm feelings
• knowing when the scary scene is coming and laughing your head off when everyone else jumps out of their skin! hahaha

this week's crappy...nay for:

• noisy RAs that don't follow the rules
• stress stress stress
• not being able to focus
• missed graduations
• approaching exams
• studying
• missing oceans 12

temperamental weather

only in the south would you wake up on a december morning and wonder if you need to wear a coat. its quite amazing, southern weather. my winter memories contain a few spastic days where the temperature hits 80 degrees the day after a freezing ice storm. always ice storms, too. we never really get a good snow. the blizzard of '93. now, for a seven year old, three feet of snow was some intense stuff. that was the last good snow i can remember. we typically get a light dusting of snow that melts by 10 am, which i would be lucky to see nowadays, since i'm barely rolling out of bed by then.

well, here at the university of georgia, it would be nice to have some snow. it would be fun to see hundreds of college students sliding down lumpkin on cafeteria trays. the weather, however, will not permit it. usually after halloween it becomes permanently cold...well, as permanent as permanent can be in the south. this year, its been nothing but 50 degrees and raining...or 65, same thing. yesterday it was 70...this morning it was 38. rained all last week and today it finally decides to get decently cold...for the morning anyway. of course, there’s no precipitation forecast in a week when its cold. such is life. perhaps there will be snow in paris, since i'm planning on going for two days over the break. wouldn't be surprised if it happened to blizzard like mad while i'm gone and all melt before i get back or if everyone had sunburns from laying out at my neighborhood pool.

so apparently, my brother graduated from college yesterday. only, he didn't go to the ceremony. everyone else (well, not me) in the family showed up to his graduation except him. oh my. when will he get some sense? needless to say, the family wasn't too happy. i havn't been updated since yesterday morning. i myself havn't gotten too much studying in. not a fan of reading and thats pretty much all there is to do. maybe i can sneak a nap in between readings...

katie, anna, and colette at the christmas party

b.o. and luke...have a "perky" christmas

katie, me, rudolph, and andrew

"yellow house" guys...harris holds an empty "present" box

some buddies hanging out

merry merry christmas!

a week short supply

its a strange coincidence that everything i own seems to run out exactly a week before winter break. i just squeezed the last bit of colgate outta the tube this morning, ran out of soap, have about one more smear of makeup left, ate my butterscotch krumpets, and drank my last caprisun yesterday. my pencil's eraser i've been using is worn down to the nub. darn it. even the little blue strip on my toothbrush has faded, letting me know that its usefulness has expired. so kids, if you're wondering how long a tube of toothpaste lasts, i'd say about four months...and throw in a few uses by those moochers who use your toothpaste when they come to visit or on trips to florida (ie, becca and colette. jk, i don't really care). maybe i should have borrowed the bug to run to the store to keep my teeth from rotting, wash off future stench, look nice, and have something to nibble on for the week of finals. nah. i guess i'll survive, cuz i didn't go.

tried to pick up both my english paper and lab reports, but no luck there. guess i gotta hold off to find out how i did. becca is done for the semester...theres a little bit of jealousy there, but then again, at least i don't have to take a calculus final. on the other hand, chemistry might be worse. speaking of finals, haven't really started studying today, despite it being "reading day" and all. oh well. i'll buckle down for the weekend.

played some crazy ultimate today. andrew and i showed up before everyone else, so we tossed the happy face frisbee around in the rain...even though it was sunny and there were blue skies directly above us. sun showers are weird. ten more people showed up eventually and we got a game going. one guy did this awesome soap slip kinda fall on the mud...it was hilarious. there were patches of clouds everywhere, and the sunshine was pouring down between them while the clouds poured down rain. we kept playing...more slips and falls, but i kept my footing. there were three different rainbows, which was pretty awesome. the rainbows disappeared and a wall of darker clouds rolled in. heat lightning jumped from cloud to cloud and yes, we continued to play. it became quite dark around 4:20 because of the clouds and the wind picked up. i love throwing frisbees in the wind. they do crazy things and it makes me laugh when people try to catch them. the wind was blowing so hard that i could almost lean my full weight against it. now that is some awesome frisbee.

and the exam countdown begins...

so here it is, friday, december 10th. its hard to believe its the end of the first semester. crazy madness. doesn't seem like i've been here that long...but then again, it does. the whole university is off today, its reading day and we're all supposed to use this tim to study. well, i just got up about an hour ago...so the day is half over already. now, i have to go eat lunch, which will take another hour, then at 3 pm is the last ruf ultimate frisbee game. so excited! who knows how much actual studying i'll get in. really, i don't have to study for anything except chemistry, which is next friday, which could be the end of my life. english, just gotta brush up on my familiarity of a few essays so i can write a 500 word in-class essay, and sociology is simply the fourth exam, so not too much there.

so last night was the ruf christmas party! i don't understand the meaning behing the sign that said "have a perky christmas" and why there was a visor that said "perky" on top of the oak street guys' see-through christmas tree, and i'm not so sure i wanna know. anyway, we enjoyed hot apple cider, munchies, dance around the living room to mariah carey's merry christmas cd (which i must say is one of my all-time favorites), and chit-chat with folks. colette borrowed some reindeer antlers from bo and and a hard time trying to figure out how to get a red nose. first, she used brown lipstick. she got a lot of smack from people that couldn't figure out what was on her nose. next, she resorted to red frosting. can't be good for the complextion. finally, she got a little round red sticker from the "pin the nose on rudolph" game. i have to say, i missed terribly on poor rudolph's nose placement. anna and colette left around 11 and i chilled some more, since i had nothing really to do today. left with bo and luke and walked to some upperclassmen girls' apartment to play some games. cranium wasn't working out too well and all other game suggestions were shot down. we ended up watching a muppet's christmas carol until 2:15 am, which is why i slept in so late.

i may be a scrooge...

or seem like one, but here is my paper, "how santa stole christmas." i actually don't agree with myself in some respects, but i had to take a position and sound convincing. so here goes:

How Santa Stole Christmas

He's making a list, and checking it twice; he's gonna find out who's naughty and nice. Santa Claus is coming to town! He knows when you are sleeping, he knows when you're awake, he knows if you've been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake! Oh! You better watch out, you better not cry. Better not pout, I'm telling you why: Santa Claus is coming to town!

It’s the day after Thanksgiving and the phenomenon of Black Friday kicks off the Christmas rush. Popular Christmas songs spread their cheer to hurried shoppers in search for those perfect gifts in the door-buster sales. Giant twinkling snowflakes dangle from the high glass ceilings. Large white columns have spirals of red ribbon around them, resembling peppermint candy canes. A sea of bodies must take a detour around bag-laden shoppers who stand in lines flowing out of the stores to make their next purchases. At the center of the mall, a chubby old man in a red suit and pointy hat sits on an ornate golden throne. A small boy sits on his lap tugging at his long white beard, insisting that he has been good and listing all the toys he wants to unwrap come Christmas morning. Waiting in line for their turn to visit this man, Santa Claus, stand some seventy other children, accompanied by their parents. On Christmas, Santa’s name is sure to be on many of the gifts they requested, temporarily bringing them happiness. However, despite how much Santa has given over the years, he has upset families, inspired materialism, conjured up jealousy, and undermined Christmas altogether. As a solution to these demoralizing problems, Santa Claus’ story and virtuous values can be coupled with truth to make an imaginative, yet righteous Christmas.
In his defense, Santa has spread joy and happiness to children and adults of all ages who partake in this festive myth. Parents relish the expressions of excitement and surprise on their children’s faces when the presents are unwrapped. Santa embodies the very spirit of Christmas. His kind deeds of giving to others exemplify what we should do for each other. He motivates people at Christmas time to serve those who are less fortunate. His ever-watchful eyes encourage kids to behave and obey their parents. Being familiar with Santa and his ways, a child knows that his good behavior will be rewarded with gifts and bad behavior will be punished with a lump of coal. In effect, that child may be more aware of his demeanor and strive to be good so that, at the end of the year, Santa will bring him the requests on his wish list. Santa’s magical home in the North Pole, the elves in workshops, the eight flying reindeer, and Rudolph’s glowing red nose all allow children to explore their imaginations. Eventually, a child will outgrow Santa and discover the truth. Although children are disappointed when they come to this realization, adults justify their actions by insisting that the spirit of Santa is needed to make Christmas into the holiday it is.
However innocent Santa may seem, he is guilty of the charges, whether his actions are a conspiracy or unintentional. His questionable ways are set into motion by the parents of young children. Although children are scolded for lying, parents consciously lie throughout the year when they tell their children that Santa Claus exists. Trusting their parents, children explore their imaginations and believe in him wholeheartedly. When a child develops doubts about Santa Claus’ existence, parents will preserve their child’s faith with little white lies. Christmas stories, such as Miracle on 34th Street and The Polar Express, further convince children that adults who not believe in Santa are surely mistaken. Sooner or later, children are bound to uncover the lies that were fed to them all along. A pang of betrayal accompanies this newfound awareness. A child no longer understands the meaning of what it is to tell the truth. It may take some time for trust to regenerate between a child and his parents. When parents present Santa to a child as a real man, it harms the parent-child relationship.
Furthermore, Santa’s promise to fulfill the wishes of every child has negative influences, specifically materialism and additional strain on the nuclear family’s relationship. There have been attempts to remind people that Christmas is not all about presents, such as Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas. In this popular Christmas story, the Grinch steals all the toys and decorations from Whoville, only to discover that the absence of these things does not take away from the spirit of Christmas. Still, attempts such as these fail to sway children’s focus from the gifts they receive. The myth of Santa Claus conditions children to become bitter if they do not get the gift they really want. Along with this conditioning comes the materialistic view that the more gifts Santa gives them, the happier they are. Children that have grown up thinking in this manner become parents that continue to link material goods with happiness. The promise of gifts may encourage boys and girls to behave throughout the year, but the side effect is a society of excessively greedy people. Santa’s seasonal flow of presents fuels materialism in America. In American homes today, parents feel they need to provide their families with more things to be happy. It is commonplace for both parents to work, not out of necessity, but in order to increase the family income to buy superfluous things. Husbands and wives, both working their separate jobs, lose touch with one another as they increase their workload to get promotions and make more money. With both parents working, family relationships become strained; the fifty percent divorce rate reflects marital relationships that suffer from the strains of excessive working driven by greediness.
Children will also discover that Santa is not fair in his distribution of gifts. When school starts up again in January, kids usually boast about what they got from Santa. By lunchtime on the first day back, some children will discover that Santa plays favorites. Children from families that are not financially stable will not get as many presents as others, no matter how good they tried to be. The playground bully that routinely steals the younger kids’ lunch money always seems to get the best presents. This hardly seems fair to a child that was certain that the bully would only get a stocking full of coal. The truth is, Santa never gives out coal to naughty children. It does not matter how terrible a child is, a parent would not allow Santa to withhold his presents. Children that realize this believe that they are a special exception and can get away with things. In the same way, children less financially fortunate feel they are never good enough. In practice, Santa is not as fair as he claims to be.
Perhaps Santa’s most serious crime is stealing Christmas’ true identity. Christians believe that God the Father sent his Son, Jesus, as a sacrifice for them. For centuries, Christians celebrated Christmas day in honor of Jesus’ birth. In recent years, Santa has stepped into the spotlight and distracted Christmas observers from the reason for the season. Instead of a time to celebrate Jesus’ birth, Christmas has become a secular holiday that people have come to believe is just a day to spend with family, exchange gifts, and share good feelings. Not only has Santa stolen Jesus’ holiday, but he has also gradually taken on some of Jesus and God’s attributes. Originating from the legend of Saint Nicolas, Santa Claus has undergone some changes over the years. No longer is Santa the mortal religious man in the legend, but now he has supernatural powers that are very similar to God’s. Like God, Santa is able to do miraculous things, such as deliver Christmas gifts all over the world in one night. Santa knows if children are good or bad and judges them, just as God knows all and judges. Both God and Santa live eternally. The Bible says that the hour of Jesus’ return is a mystery and He “will come like a thief in the night” (1 Thessalonians 5:2). Santa, as well, arrives at an unknown time during the night and enters homes through the chimney, like a thief. There are many more comparisons one could make between the two, but it is apparent that Santa has become a counterfeit Jesus and God. Problems arise when a child discovers that Santa is a myth. Because their parents claimed that Santa is real, the story of Santa may inhibit their belief in God. If Santa is a fake, logic justifies rejecting Jesus as well. When the whole purpose of Christmas is to celebrate the birth of Jesus, it seems that Santa undermines it. Santa has stolen the recognition, attributes, and believers that belong to Jesus and God.

Santa has taken on a wonderful grandfatherly role in peoples’ childhoods. The values that Santa stands for are virtuous. It is important to be reminded to put others first and obey one’s parents. The spirit of Santa is real in the sense that he lives in us. Our desires to share and bring joy to others are represented through his spirit. Although Santa stands for good, he has evolved into a negative influence. Despite his current tendency to damage Christmas, Santa should not be exiled from the season. As a solution to the problems Santa has created, I propose that, rather than convincing children that he exists, introduce Santa as a legend. It is possible to wrap presents that are from Santa to play along with the tale, but make sure children understand that it is make-believe. This way, Santa does not force parents to deceive their children and children are still able to use their imaginations. Children will understand that there is not a Santa that plays favorites. Because of their similarities, Christian parents can use the story of Santa as a metaphor of who Jesus is. In turn, Santa can become beneficial to the Christmas holiday rather than detrimental. If the focus once again returns to Jesus, not as much emphasis will be placed on presents and perhaps America’s greed syndrome will dwindle. If Santa is able to reform his ways, he should be able to remain as a contributor, not a hindrance, to the Christmas season.

so heres my disclaimer: i myself have not been emotionally scarred by believing in santa and i don't really have much against him besides taking the focus away from Jesus. ba humbug.

no more

i'm on the verge of being finished and it feels wonderful. i decided that sleep would be more useful last night rather than unconscious skimming over my old stat notes over and over again and not retaining any new information. i've prolly averaged about 6 hours of sleep this week, which means my energy tank is runnin low. since this final test was between life and death of me, (meaning it would decide between an A and a B...an A needs to balance out my poor performance in chemistry) it was quite nerve racking. i ended up scoring just high enough to squeak out an A, but hey, in college, a 100 is the same as a 90.

so theres no more. no more papers to write, that is. well, english. i finally finished about 30 mins before it was due. yay for me. spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing and working out at ramsey. those rowing machines hurt my hands. oh well. i'll be buff and strong now.

we're singing christmas songs at ruf tonight! yay!

and the winner is...

room 221! yay! so i procrastinated today and spent the afternoon drawing, cutting, and pasting our door together for the contest. i spent all weekend on those reindeer, darn it, and it was gonna count for something. i've posted the lovely pictures...you can't really see the detail that well, but its pretty darn detailed. we won the contest and the prize was battle of the sexes. exciting...now we'll just have to find some guys to play with :).

studied for the remainder of the day for statistics. really worried about this exam because i need a good grade to replace my last test. anyway, the paper is still under construction and is being postponed til the day of. thats right. its not due until 3, so after i get outta my test at 9, i'll just work on it until time is up. wish me luck. i need to remember to breathe today... and i desprately need some sleep. both are vital to my survival.

santa and his eight flying reindeer (and uga)

from our dorm to yours...

oh uga with your nose so bright...

the halls are alive with the sound of music...

oh, yes indeed. in movies where the person lives in an apartment theres always that particular scene. you know the one i'm talking about...the scene where the main character is trying to sleep and theres someone in the room nextdoor that plays his instrument obnoxiously at all hours of the day...especially the most in oppourtune times. so yea, thats me today trying to study. actually, i think its coming from above. odd. its been all semester and this horn blowing musician decided not to debut the off key squeaks and frequent pffts until today. why does this start up right before exams? the best i can hope for is that this is a one time thing...that the instrument will once again lay to rest in its coffin in the closet somewhere.

last night anna and i went downtown in search for a present for megan. she turned 19 yesterday! yay! anyway, couldn't find anything that was good, so i've decided to hold off until i visit her or something over the break. after a bust downtown, we walked for about 30 minutes down to ramsey to go work out. man, that was rough. grabbed dinner at wendy's afterwards, then tried to get my rough draft finished, had issues with my bulldog bucks account before i could get my laundry done at about 1 am last night.

well, i've typed four plus pages for my english paper. always good to meet the length requirement. now i just have to make sure the content is quality. still bashing santa. kinda feel like a scrooge, but thats okay. just trying to take a position thats provocative. of course, loving the stress that always accompanies the end of the semester, but dealing with it.

happy and crappy III

some people's weeks (colette, for instance) were happy. others (like mine) were simply crappy.

this weeks happy...yay for:

• chick flicks (while you were sleeping)
• ruf t-shirts
• christmas songs
• catch-phrase
• apple crown pastries
• no more chem labs
• decorating

this weeks crappy...nay for:

• formal lab reports
• forgetting passwords
• english paper number 5
• studying for statistics
• studying in general
• cell phones on low batteries
• not being able to talk to people when you want
• meals alone
• mm that has no clue who they're dealing with
• mm thats oblivious
• tears
• not being able to hug someone when they're sad
• laundry

no way to spend the weekend

second to last weekend in the semester and i havn't done anything. well, anything related to anything social that is. friday afternoon i went runnin for about the seventh time since i've been here. amy and i ran about 2 1/4 miles...according to my not-so-accurate pedometer. we ran about 25 minutes...a ten minute mile seems a little slow. but oh well, at least i got out there. afterwards, i got ready for colette and anna's chorus concert and went to dinner...by myself. always a blast. no one else i knew was going. the concert was quite lovely and set me into the christmas mood. thats about all the excitement for the weekend so far. i woke up this morning stressed about all the work i've got to do this week and forced myself to get up after only eight hours of sleep. crappit. to relieve some stress, i worked on the reindeer for my door. finally finished all eight of them. only took a few days...

the rest of the day, i've been doing homework. i've been reasonably productive...finished stat and chem homework, wrapped a present, wrote a paragraph for my paper...well, at least i felt productive til just now. anyway, time for dinner and i'm hoping theres some one i can find to go with. being a recluse is no way to spend the weekend.

feeding the pandas?

as i was strolling through north campus today on the way to declare pre-journalism as a double major, i noticed something strange. well, maybe not the kind of strange that is creepy...more like the "huh. that's odd" kinda strange. it just so happens that on a particular sidewalk by the founder's memorial garden (which is quite lovely btw...i believe its lovely enough to be voted as the number one make out spot on campus. who knows how this information reached my ear, why it was put into some kind of filing cabinet in my head, or why there is even such a poll.) there is a plush "forest" of bamboo. by forest, i mean a pretty dense growth on either side of the path that prevents you from seeing the large white buildings that stand behind them. the stalks, by my wondrous estimating skills, are about fourteen feet high.

anyway, now that i've created the setting for you, let me get on with my thoughts. on my walk, i noticed that piles of bamboo had been cut down and stacked all along the path's edge. to my surprise, when i examined the forest of bamboo, it hadn't changed much, considering how much appeared to be on the ground.

i guess its kinda like how when (girls can relate to this) you dry your hair or brush it or whatever, tons of hair will fall out, but your hair never gets any thinner. like the burning lamp that never ran out of oil, its a miracle of God. seems like i lose a whole head of hair in a week...how do i still have any? okay, sorry if i gave tmi on my personal hygiene...or if that doesn't happen to any of y'all. i can assure you that i don't have any kind of illness that makes my hair fall out.

as i was saying, it was odd that they decided to harvest part of the bamboo forest. maybe the bamboo isn't just there for looks. perhaps its there for some kind of uga-agriculture study. my conclusion is that it was uga's day to feed yang yang and lun lun at zoo atlanta. atlanta got this cuddly pair in the "pandas for nukes" exchange under the clinton administration (who knows if that statement is true, but that’s what my dad always said) do you know pandas eat 20-40 pounds of bamboo each day? ya...i'd say there was about 40 pounds worth of bamboo there.

getting into the christmas spirit

so i got quite a bit done today. i even got further in my english paper than i expected i would! megan and i made some great purchaches today at hobby lobby for our door. i also bought some wrapping paper...even though i've only bought one present so far this year. hopefully by the end of the weekend, i'll have some gifts to wrap. speaking of gifts, i still need to get megan a birthday present...her b-day is sunday. any suggestions? how bout from you, megan?

in my "spare" time today, i got started on some cut-outs for the door. i'm really excited...i love this stuff! hopefully things turn out how i'd like them to...its always difficult to make it come out the way you picture it. i think we're gonna hold off on putting at least the important stuff up until closer to the judging day. want to make sure no one mooches off our idea. not that anyone would.

still haven't declared pre-journalism as my major...must do that tomorrow. oh, megan and i are also going to lunch with her sister. i'll finally get to meet baby ella! well, i've got to tweak my rough draft before i get to bed.

how santa stole christmas

so i think i've decided what i'm going to write my paper on...santa claus. i'm actually going to take the position that i don't agree with, just to make it more "provocative", as my prof would put it. monday night at d-group we were discussing how our families did christmas. other people's traditions seem rather strange to me. there were a couple that didn't even have santa. thats no surprise to me. but even the people that had santa, their gifts from santa weren't even wrapped. what? i've never heard of this phenomenon. okay, anyway, i've decided to write about how santa has stolen christmas...kinda like how the grinch did, ya know? i personally don't have anything against santa, but i figured it would make a creative topic for my final english paper.

so tuesday night when i went to go set my alarm, megan had already set it. she had it set for 8:30, and even though i had an 8 o'clock class, my mind said "hey, thats about the time i need to get up. not her fault at all...just the power of suggestion i guess. anyway, i was laying in bed not wanting to get up when i realized at 8:35 that i was supposed to be at my 8:00 am class. crappit! it was my last day of stat lab and i had already missed all the points i could in order to maintain my 100% for quizzes. that may not have made sense, but don't worry about it. oh no, i wasn't going to give up that easily. so i jumped out of bed, threw on some pants, a sweatshirt, and ran to my class. i got there by 8:45...five minutes before class ended. my ta allowed me to start...i'm glad she did because it only took the remaining time of the class to finish anyway. what a waste of time that class was...glad i don't have it anymore. hopefully, i don't do it again next week for my final. yikes.

played our last game of ultimate yesterday, and the dueces came out on top! oh yea! finally won a game by a good margin...10-2. i hadn't played since the all-star game back in the beginning of november or something. besides the cold air trying to choke me when i ran, it wasn't too bad and the girls made some pretty good plays. looking forward to the spring season. perhaps i'll play club frisbee...who knows.

i bought a t-shirt for ruf last night at ruf. yay! i'm excited. after ruf, luke dropped me and colette off at my place and we watched while you were sleeping. yay for that movie! colette hadn't seen it before and i thought that was down right wrong...she liked it. good deal. i've got to get started on my english paper today since the rough draft is due tomorrow. busy day ahead of me...oh, i can't forget to declare pre-journalism as my double major today, either.

visit to the doctor

for those of you who know me well, you'll never believe it. i went to the health center yesterday. i know, i know. i've never been prone to take medicine or go to the doctor, or anyone for that matter, when something is wrong with me. i prefer to stick out my illnesses as long as possible without drug intervention or obvious doctor analyses. whats strange is that i'm not really sick. yet, that is. since saturday i've had a dry, stinging throat, minor headaches every once in awhile, and feeling a bit groggy. with only three weeks before the end of the semester, theres no time to waste lying in bed being too sick to function. so i decided to pay a visit to the health center on the other side of campus. turns out that my illness is still too early in its stages to diagnose it. the doctor's reply basically told me to wait a few days until it gets worse, come back, and then she'll decide what it is. wonderful. just what i wanted to hear. of course, the usual perscription of up the sleep, fluid intake, and vitamin c was recommended to boost the good 'ole immune system. she also wrote me a perscription for some samples of allegra-d...gotta love those free samples. the visit was free, too.

of course, with a 2 am bedtime and 6:50 am wake-up call from a lab partner who doesn't know didly squat about the lab to ask me stupid questions doesn't benefit my health. still working on homework...spent about 3 hours on chem homework and only have 47% correct. can't wait til this is over. i've got a few ideas for my english paper floating around in my head, so i guess thats a good sign. i also have to get started on my sociology paper. i didn't do so great on the last one and my prof wants to look over it before i turn it in to make sure i'm on the right track. benefits of being in an honors class where the prof actually cares.

i'm hoping for a movie night tonight...whether it be here with the girls (while you were sleeping, perhaps) or over at 0-house with the guys, i don't care. as long as i get to bed at a decent hour.

i hate group work

why is it that my lab partners decide to wait until the day before our labs are due to work on them? why? and it just so happens that i'm the one that can't get anything done until the others do their parts...and the one who has to clean up all the errors my partners overlooked. and i can't get started until 10 pm. and i'm not done until 2 am. and then the one part this one partner has to do, she has to call me at 6:50 am to basically ask what the lab was about. hello! all your answers lie in the introduction to the lab. it would be one thing if they were important questions, but asking about things like units and verifying the data i sent was right does not qualify. okay, i think i'm done venting. and i apoligize, i just had to get it out.

the last ______ of the semester

its the beginning of the third to last week of school. getting down to the semester's dirty work and in a bind for time. was i not just stressed to death two weeks ago over this kind of stuff? anyway, trying to nip the stress in the bud by hitting each memo on the agenda with a one punch knockout. by that i mean trying to get whatever done in one sitting. i've been successful so far on the things that are considerably easy... i.e. reading, brainstorming, wasting time, writing blogs. okay, so maybe i've gotten a little off track, but you're allowed to do that every once in a while, darn it. since the semester is drawing to a close and theres only, let's see...nine more days of classes, we are getting into the last ishkamabobcrap of the semester (ishkamabobcrap is a word i just made up to replace "blank", "fill-in", or skipping a beat in the sentence). this means last english paper, lab class (amen!), stat lab, chemistry homework, stat homework, sociology paper, set of english journals, and what-have-you. yay!

what makes me green with envy (in a hey-thats-not-fair kinda way) is that becca only has six more days of school. ya. not just six more days of classes...thats including exams. so she not only gets out a week earlier than i do, but she only has one day of consisting of two exams. thats it. grrr. i guess i can't really complain too much. my stat exam is a week earlier than other exams, our last formal lab report is due that same week, i have my english in-class essay monday the 12th, tuesday is my non-cumulative soci exam, and i've got two and a half days to prepare for my final chem exam on friday. even though megan and i will perhaps be the only ones stuck on campus on the last day of school, i at least have plenty of time to study for the dreaded make-or-break-me chem final.

off of the school topic, it was an interesting morning. i was ready for colette to pick me up at 10...but she was picking me up at 10:15. i decided i'd run over to the dining hall to grab a bite to eat before church. well, the university decided that students that sacraficed time with the fam to come back for the game saturday didn't deserve any breakfast the next morning.

(side note: speaking of the system of how the university operates over breaks, i have a bone to pick with them. whether the breaks be for fall, the turkey, or spring, what moron dictates when you can get into your room?? why, on two or three day breaks, are students kicked out of the dorms? what if they lived thousands of miles away and didn't have a home to go to? don't we pay for these rooms? what what? we couldn't get into the dorms until an hour after the game. some people (not including me) may not have realized that it would be so cold and wet during the game. plus, the closest room to thaw out was on the other side of campus. they could have at least opened an hour before the game. grrr.)

with an empty stomach and full of disappointment, i went over to the spot where colette was going to pick me up at 10:15. waited and waited. at 10:27, three minutes before church started, i called her up to see her status. turns out she was just leaving her place and still had to run over to kroger. i was quite upset and jo and i ended up taking his car and being ten minutes late to church. what do ya know, but the sermon was on forgiveness. figures. God manages to direct the sermons toward me on sudays. funny how that works.

worked on my ishkamabobcraps all afternoon. tried really hard to resist the temptation to fall asleep. i had turned the temp of our room up to about 80 degrees cuz i was freezing earlier. it was the kind of temp that lulls you to sleep. it worked for megan, who took two or three naps today. another complaint i have about the dorms is that the temperature on the lofted beds is so much warmer than when i'm working at my desk. i get comfy on my bed and freeze when i get down. just can't get happy. oh well. wish me luck on the ishkamabobcrap.

happy and crappy II

its sunday and time for my second list of what has made me happy and crappy this week.

this week's happy...yay for:

• having only two classes in one week
• school breaks
• the feeling you get after you turn in a paper
• sleeping in
• buying that first christmas gift
• safe families
• the rain stopping
• ferris buler
• big dinners with turkey, cranberries, apple muffins, and pumpkin pie
• dinners with the fam
• hot chocolate
• lagaan
• italian

this week's crappy...nay for:

• trees that need to be cleaned up
• stripped canadian hemlocks
• cold and wet final football games of the season
• having to leave the game early
• bickering
• frustrated drivers
• being late to church
• formal lab reports
• brainstorming for english essays
• homework that needs to be done

the evidence

finally have an internet connection to post these pictures for you. hopefully you can now envision how close our house was to a catastophe. if you have no clue what i'm talking about, see november 25, sturdy as an oak...or loblolly pine.

whew, that was a close one! my dad had already chopped off the branches that came witin inches of our dining room window on the left.

snapped like a toothpick

this thing was huge

the other oak that almost hit the sunroom

my mom next to the 12-foot root ball in order to display the scale of this thing. if it keeps raining like it has, we'll have a free swimming pool.

my home with fallen tree bookends. if you notice, you can see the "root balls" on the left (at the top of the driveway) and the far right.

cold, wet, and numb

becca and i arrived in athens last night around 8 pm, prior to colette's return from the mog (mall of georgia). since we were staying at her place for the night (my dorm was closed for the break and doesn't open until an hour after the game today) we found other things to do around athens. we first stopped at vision video, didn't see anything too interesting, so we went over to chick-fil-a to grab a light snack of nuggets and milkshakes to make sure that we wouldn't be hungry when our thanksgiving dinner wore off.

met colette, her sister, and her sister's friend lisa at wally world to pick up a few things. back to vision video to pick up the movie lagaan. it was a very good four-hour movie that we started at 10:30. so we were up until 2:30 to finish the movie. it was worth it, though. i highly recommend it if you like musical, foreign films and don't mind reading subtitles.

since we were cramming five girls into colette's apartment, becca and i slept out in the living room/kitchen area. i took the sleeping bag and the floor while becca took the couch. i stole the back cushions off the couch to make a bed for myself...of course, they weren't long enough or wide enough, so i had to double them up side by side and let my legs dangle off my makeshift bed. slept pretty sound until 11 am when i realized that we were going to be extremely late for tailgating. after some morning drama between siblings, we walked over to myers, where we normally tailgate. froze a bit and decided to walk to the bookstore to warm up. man, was it hot in there with about a thousand warm bodies wandering aimlessly through the overpriced georgia clothes and junk. couldn't find any georgia gloves to stay warm. figures the one thing i'm looking for isn't available.

eventually, after standing in the dawg walk mob and not being able to see a thing except the player's faces bob by as they walked into the stadium, we made our way over to the ticket gate. now, i don't think i've mentioned this yet, but i've become a supplier of fake student ids. yes, with a little help from photoshop and glossy photopaper, i've managed to pull off some pretty believable ids. they were for becca, rachel, and lisa, who were all trying to get in on student tickets. we had to be super sneaky trying to get in. we had our first scare when they stopped an older man ahead of us and checked him...so we jumped out of line and headed back into the crowd. i'm thinking it was because he was old and trying to use a student ticket. anyway, we split up in all different ways and managed to get through the gate without any problems after that. bigger problems came when i was trying to smuggle two non-students and myself into the lower level of the student section. our tickets were for the upper deck, where all the frat boys get drunk and its difficult to see the game. we don't like sitting there. its complicated to explain, but in short, we basically have to walk across the stands without the gray-jacket guards discovering us.

we did fine until we got to the edge of the student section. that was the tightest game security i've seen so far...and ridiculous. why do they care if we want to root on the dawgs with students that aren't quite as wasted as the ones above? madness. we tried to blend in with the season ticketers; so close, but so far away. there were about six guards on the stairs between the student section and the section we were sitting in. the two we had to get by were impossible. each time one wasn't looking our way, the other was, and vice versa. 25 minutes later, (about 20 minutes til game time) the owners of the seats we were sitting in showed up to claim their spots. crap. we jumped up and darted across the aisle, weaved through the standing students and successfully joined our buddies. that was a close one. next season, i'd better get lowe level seats.

of course, doesn't start raining until five minutes into the game. and doesn't stop. i was wearing heels (i know, smart one. but hey, my dorm was closed and my only options were old navy flips or black closed toe heels and i voted for the "warmer" one) and standing became quite painful. the cold eventually found its way down to my toes that had no circulation anyway. i could feel the rain seeping through my not-so-waterproof raincoat and got colder and colder. five minutes til half time, we called it quits and i made the painful walk in heels with my numb feet back to myers. we got a ride back to colette's by jo, got into warm clothes, and then watched the end of the game.

man, those penalties kill us, but turned out alright in the end. i would like to know how many passes into the endzone tech missed. congrats to 96 c-something guy on his first attempt and successful fieldgoal kick. wtg. becca is driving around lost right now tying to get home. athens roads are quite confusing. i can't wait to get back to my dorm and SLEEP.

carving the turkey a day late

very soon my family will be sitting around the dining room table (the fallen oak tree is in plain sight still) with the turkey, cranberries, stuffing, apple muffins, and pumpkin pie. i know what you're saying...today is friday, not thursday. well, dad was in brazil somewhere...i can never remember the names of the cities he flies to...unles its like paris, london, rome, or tokyo. anyway, he was flying. so we are carving the turkey a day late.

while everyone else rose early for the doorbuster sales at the malls (like colette...geez you people are crazy to venture outside your homes on black friday) i slept in. it was wonderful...i think i got up around 11. i'm all confused by the clocks in my room because most of them aren't set back yet but some are. i have no idea what time it is in the morning. the sales try to get earlier and earlier every year. it kinda frustrates me. i think one store was advertising their opening at 5 am. 5 am. that is ridiculous. i think the sales lasted only until 10 am too. stupid stores. some even started early sales on thanksgiving. come on people. its supposed to be a holiday, not some time to reap profits from anxious christmas shoppers. after halloween, thanksgiving is simply skipped over. everyone has no idea what thanksgiving is for anyway. they think its being thankful for crap like cashmier sweaters and new gadgets. one tv station claimed that it was in order to thank the indians. hello! no. the first thanksgiving was the pilgrims thanking GOD for blessing them.

anyway, been watching the tv even though its another beautiful day outside. thank God its finally stopped raining. hopefully it will be just as nice tomorrow for the game. i'm excited to kick tech's butt. my whole family is for tech. even my older sister who doesn't even go there. they're just trying to pick on me. oh well. georgia is better anyway. sense any bitterness?

i have many things to be thankful for today. some of them i listed yesterday. i won't bother with listing them here, but believe me, theres a lot. well, time to go eat with the fam. happy belated thanksgiving to me...and shopping to the rest of y'all.

sturdy as an oak...or loblolly pine

its a gorgeous day today. there isn't a cloud anywhere preventing the eye from seeing every bit of blue the sky has to offer. you never would have guessed that yesterday we were in the midst of 30 mph winds and unbelievable rainfall. well, if you didn't look at the ground at all the debris. i rolled out of bed around 9 am. i couldn't force myself to sleep anymore becuase my stomach was throwing a fit...guess i didn't eat enough the day before.

so i wandered downstairs, grabbed a bowl of honey bunches, and sat down to watch the tube. it was no surprise to me that it was raining. as i've said before, its been raining non-stop since saturday...or maybe even before that. i wouldn't know. anyway, i was watching some music videos on vh1 to get a jumpstart on the day. didn't last too long, though, because eventually the clouds interrupted the satellite signal and all that was on after that were snowflakes. on the tv i mean.

i gave up and turned the tv off and resorted to watching the wind swirl all around the yard, stripping the trees of any bit of leaves that managed to cling on to the end of november. much more entertaining. amazingly enough, there is still quite a bit of green in many of the leaves. thats the southern fall for ya. eventually the trees started to bend. my mom had joined me in the dining room. we kept screaming playfully as the gust of wind turned in our direction and the raindrops and leaves spattered and stuck to the windows. our mood the entire time was never dampered by the rain. it was actually quite fun. the wind picked up and grew worse and the sky was pitch black. the scence outside resembled the warm-up session of an aerobics class. the trees looked as if they were trying to stretch and reach their highest branches to their tippitoes...or roots. whatever. some of them were lashing back and fourth like whips.

all of a sudden my dad ran downstairs saying (that is a carefully selected word) "get in the basement." i thought he was joking. he didn't say it in any kind of hurried or worried manner. he went on to say "with all this rain we've had, the roots are really weak. this wind can blow them over. get in the basement." with that, we all rushed downstairs and continued to watch the leaves swirl about in the backyard through the basement window. the backyard was a carpet of colors...brown was becoming the prominent color as the rain continued to fall. the lights flickered off, then back on for a second, and then off again to leave us without electricity for the remaining hours of the day. after about ten minutes, the wind died down and all that was left to the storm was the pelting rain. my dad, who had to take a shower because he had work later, decided it was safe to head up from our shelter. no sooner did he leave the room did the final dying breath of the storm sweep through our debris covered yard. i guess my dad was standing at the top of the stairs when he heard it. i could hear it from where i watched the storm from the basement window. it in truth, wasn't very loud. in fact, it was a somewhat soft "thud."

"oh my gosh! come see this! come see this!" those are not the words anyone wants to hear. we all knew that it had been a tree, but my dad's exclaimation withheld the vital information: where it fell. my first guess was the car sitting in the driveway. who knows why that was the first thought that came to my mind. i hurried up the basement stairs into the dining room right around the corner. there, three feet from our dining room window (which is where we had been watching mother nature's show earlier) on the narrow patch of grass that lay between our house and driveway, a giant oak tree, about twenty inches in diameter, had laid to rest. the circumstances are incredible. a small (perhaps twelve-inch diameter) hickory tree that lay in the path of the falling mighty oak managed to snap a limb of the oak that would have hit my sister's bedroom (which is right above the dining room). the broken limb was forced to the other side of the tree; the hickory also guided the tree away from the house. the top of the tree was just short enough to touch the house and not break the window, but did manage to strip our beautiful 50-ft canadian hemlock from its branches on one side. it looks quite pathetic now. you would most likely have to see a picture to understand this scene. maybe i'll get a hold of a picture for you.

with all the chaos on that side of the house, we failed to notice until some time later, the other close call we had on the other side of the house. another oak tree (about the same size) that had lived in our neighbor's yard, fell right next to the sunroom. the root ball that the tree made when it fell is about twelve feet tall. you could prolly make a swimming pool from that hole. again, it didn't hit the house, but broke a few of its neighboring friends' branches on the way down. that one is about ten feet from the house. within fifteen minutes from the trees making their suicide dive into our lawn, dad was out there with his chainsaw chopping them up.

so, in the end, we have two trees perfectly paralleling either side of our house. my dad just finished cleaning up the last two trees that were down from the hurricane two months ago. now he's got two more. poor daddy. anyway, we definitely have something to be thankful for this thanksgiving. a home that isn't destroyed, our lives that weren't lost from standing so close to where the tree eventually fell, and that the driveway wasn't blocked in so dad could go to work that afternoon. okay, so maybe that last one doesn't seem that great...but at least he has a job to go to.

Happy Thanksgiving!

rain, rain, go away...

it has been pouring buckets since i landed in the atl on saturday. something that irritates me is the news continuing to insist that we are still in some kind of rain deficit that we can never climb out of. well, i'm here to say that if that drama continues after this week, they're full of it. after an entire summer of rain to spoil our trips to the lake and an entire fall battling to keep hold of my giant umbrella in hurricane winds and terrential rain and with this weeks rain, there is no way there can be any kind of shortage for the year.

as for school this week, it was hardly worth going back. anna and i almost didn't get back...and if i didn't have a paper due at 1:25 pm monday afternoon, i wouldn't have cared. my parents dropped me off at tech with becca...she was insisting that she had to get back asap. she didn't even get any studio done anyway before i left. i plunked away at my laptop, trying to crunch time to get my paper done. its amazing how much time i can spend on a paper, and it still be crap. i guess the whole sun and sand thing kinda distracted me. well, eventually hitched a ride with my friend andy, who i know through megan. he was dropping a friend of at tech anyway...perfect! then a two-hour drive through flooded atlanta roads into athens. ended up meeting megan and some of her friends at some kind of Moe's imitator place. wasn't too bad, but i couldn't finish my burrito. afterward, i attempted to get started on my paper, but colette and jo interrupted and wanted me to watch a movie with them. okay, i think this movie sits right up there with somewhere in time and Royal Tennaboms (sp?) on my "that was the worst movie i've ever seen" list. it was called Harold and Maude, and it was quite unsettling. basically, this morbid teenager who has no life falls in love with an 80 year old woman who lives life to the fullest. sounds cute and all, but no thanks. don't worry, i didn't spoil the movie...its not worth the time to see anyway. that was sunday, and the end of the weekend.

i had stat at 9 am. perhaps i would have skipped if i hadn't already missed on friday. oh well. consequences of taking the day off to go to aruba. rushed back (of course, in the rain) and spent the rest of the morning and right up to 1 pm on my paper. i think its one of those that you just don't want to get back. the rest of the day just wasted away until i stepped outside in the same terrential downpour that started three days ago to go to dinner. i'm glad i didn't have to drive last night because i seriously couldn't see two feet infront of me. poor marilyn, who was our ride to bible study, was frustrated. you could see the concentration in her face. last night was our last study of the semester...we'll pick back up again next semester. we've "adopted" a girl from the local projects to get christmas presents for. next monday we're going shopping for everything and then wrapping the gifts. i am so excited about christmas shopping! too bad i don't have a ton of money to spend though...sad. i've got some pretty good gift ideas, though. i won't be out in the black friday madness this year...we're carving the turkey friday afternoon and then jetting up to athens for the game on staturday.

the only class i had today was sociology. we got our papers back and i didn't do great on it. i really need to make an A in this class...since my only other honors class is subjecting me to tourment with the liklihood of a C lingering over my head. crappit. i'll pull it off, though. we got our hall t-shirts today, so i'm excited. they're black with a pink ladies kinda pink font that says "studs". why it says studs, i couldn't tell you. but i guess the ladies of two south are, in fact, now officially studs.

colette and i caught a ride with her friend nikki...we departed at 2. it seemed like a rather long ride because of, what else, the rain. the forecast predicts nothing but rain until friday. then rain again on saturday. perfect. just in time for the game i bet.

having problems seeing...the california lighthouse stands behind us

becca poses in front of our "jeep"

three billy goats gruff...nuzzling

lighthouse shadow

becca's artistic picture of rocks

my daddy and me!

this is nothing compared to what it was like...wow

ocean-rinsed tootsies

awww...such a twin picture

the stow aways enjoying the coral-rock beach

notice how the wind is blowing across the crests of the waves...

yet another postcard shot

a shipwreck and a sunset...the perfect combination

toucan sam says, "have some watermelon juice!"

ahhh...postcard picture perfect

the view from our hotel room. you can see the california lighthouse on the other side...its the little white stick.

the poolside of the wyndham

hope there are no more crabs!

happy and crappy

i've decided that each sunday, i'm going to release my "happy and crappy" list. the list will feature those special elements of my week that have made me feel especially...well, happy or crappy. so here goes, the inaugural happy and crappy list:

this week's happy...yay for:

• passing chemistry tests
• care packages
• fall leaves
• bulldog nation
• lunches with m.m.
• "five star" dinners with dad
• impulse trips to aruba
• sunshine and sunsets
• finished quilts
• hot chocolate

this week's crappy...nay for:

• studying for chem tests
• stress
• english papers
• not getting window seats
• complaining passengers
• gummy throats
• long customs lines

so there it be...check in next week (or daily, for that matter) for my next week of crappy and happy.