Math is not my cup of coffee

The midterm in precalculus is looming ominously in my near future. About 7 hours from now to be exact. My brain is wide awake and gyrating with functions, formulas, axis of symmetry, and still trying to figure out how I'm supposed to solve for the complex numbers of an equation. It's late, and to say I've consumed a reasonable amount of coffee at this point would be an understatement.

An onlooker would laugh at the sight of my cram session right now. As it is, I'm laying on the living room floor, feet dangerously close to the blazing fireplace, surrounded by math books, notebooks, binders, loose pencils and my laptop that are all spread out in a semi-circle around me. It's official: I've taken over the living room. Tomorrow might as well be doomsday.

As Gabriel says,

"Math is kind of an exact science, so... [*raises eyebrows half-sympathetically here*] if you don't understand it, well, that's kind of just your own fault."

Ah yes, so inspiring.

Time to get back to studying.

Cheers.

Shock Treatment

Saturday night was, um,... "interesting"... haha.

Everyone who knows my friend Bronch is well aware that he is a huge fan of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. He attends the Admiral theater in Seattle every month for the one night that the show is playing, and oh my, what an event it is. It is custom for the patrons to dress accordingly so it's a good thing nobody in our group is shy...

Without fail, out came the leather corsets, the fishnet stockings, the ruffly panties, the black boots with 6-inch heels, the nipple pasties, and oh god, the purple wig.

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And Bronch doesn't stop at just the outfit, oh no, he gets into full character mode. Once that corset is laced up and the wig is in place, the flamboyant accent and hand gestures are unleashed. He played to the audience while we paraded the streets of Seattle, flaunting his black panties that boasted the words "Receiving Entrance" across his bottom. You would almost believe this is his normal attire.

As for the ladies, well, there wasn't anything too interesting or scandalous about us. I didn't have the opportunity to get full group photos, but I'm sure you'll see us soon in a local paper as attendees of the local Gay and Lesbian Film Festival.

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Here are a couple pics of us still getting ready. The other girls are still arranging their hair, and I am lacking the drag queen make-up that was applied shortly after. Enjoy.

big man in a flimsy box

On Sunday I went to the pumpkin patch with Lynsey and Bronch. We spent about thirty minutes complaining about the crowd and mediocre pumpkins before deciding to leave pumpkin-less.

Eventually we ended up finding our way to Safeway and digging through large cardboard boxes in search of the perfect pumpkin. It was rather amusing when Bronch insisted that he saw The One at the back of the selection. Onlookers gathered just to watch him barrel over the tops of flimsy cardboard boxes filled with pumpkins to get to it.

I teased, "Good job, Bronch. You're obviously the most flexible and agile one out of all of us."

And go figure, after he came crawling back with his prized pumpkin, he decided it was no longer quite what he had in mind.

Ugh, men.

Anyways, here is a picture of our finished project.

(hee hee, guess which one is mine?)

The Unity Project

I've had an epiphany, and I know exactly what I want to do.

Although the idea is still very rough, I wanted to share and hope that someone has some new ideas for me. I am going to write a book called "The Unity Project." I plan on traveling around the world, visit at least twenty countries, meet people everywhere I go, write about my adventures, and take pictures of everyone I meet holding the same sign that says "unity" on it. The best part is that it includes all my interests: photography, writing, and traveling. Maybe it is just my age, but right now I have this urgent desire to get away from the place I've always called home and experience something new. This seems like a decent reason to do so. I don't even care if the book is a bust; I am going to do it anyways.

It will take probably about a year for this ball to get rolling. Anybody have any interesting ideas for me for this project? Or better yet, anybody want to come with me?

No Reservations

I spent quite a bit of time yesterday considering different ideas for studying abroad or just straight up moving out of the U.S.
By the time I was off work at 7:00pm, I was feeling adventurous from all the thoughts flying through my head and just felt like leaving the country. I picked up Lynsey shortly after, and we were in Canada by 10:00pm.



There was not an ounce of planning that went into this trip. No idea if we'd be able to find a cheap hotel or not, and if not, we decided that we'd easily opt for sleeping in the car. The only real game plan was there would be alcohol. Lots and lots of alcohol.

We find a hotel that Lynsey thinks might be cheap. After leaving the car in a public "pay-to-park" garage attached to the hotel, we swagger into the lobby, approach the counter, and I ask the man,

"How much for one night?"

He has a friend [who's name I know now is Greg] waiting in a chair close by who is apparently waiting for this man's shift to be over. The man stops chatting with his friend and says,

"Well... we really don't have much available tonight. Let me check.... Yea, we only have the executive king suite for $225."

I look at Lynsey with big eyes and know she's thinking the same thing. My next question was an obvious one,

"So, uh, how much to keep my car in the garage overnight?"

Haha, I crack myself up with lame humor sometimes, but they all laughed with me on this one so that was rewarding. Greg joins the conversation and starts directing us to where we can find "free parking" 3 blocks down, and take a right on Beach Avenue. The guy behind the counter [who's name I now know is Cory] laughs, glances over at his manager lurking close by, looks down, then back up at us grinning and explains that his friend just gave us directions to his house. We share another laugh, thank him for the advice on free parking, tell them both to have a good night, and head back out to the car.

So there we are in the parking garage, talking with the garage attendant and explaining that we didn't get a ticket on the way in, and that we've only been there for 5 minutes, and that he should please just let us drive out for free. We look up and see Greg walking towards us. He says he has come to apologize for Cory's behavior (?) and that he was clearly out of line. He asks what our plans are for the night. We give him a summary of how we ended up in Canada, and that there basically are no plans besides finding somewhere to get a drink. Ironically, (ha), he says that him and Cory are going out for a drink once his shift is over.

"Hey, sounds good to us."

We let him give us directions to a free parking lot, and from there we are to take a taxi to a club called "Relish". They will meet us there in 30 minutes.

And still, it sounds good to us.

We found the club, found the guys, made a ton of new friends, bar hopped the entire night until everything closed at 3am, and even at that point, a group of us went back to Cory's house for some more drinks.








As much as your mind is probably racing right now thinking about possible ways this night could end, the guys were gentlemen throughout the night, and Cory put Lynsey and I up for the night in his extra bedroom.

Our mini vacation was absolutely awesome. Didn't have to pay for a hotel, didn't have to pay for drinks, had great company, and this whole excursion came at the mere price of half a tank of gas. This, my friends, is why I drive a hybrid.

Feeling festive

It feels like Halloween outside. I love it.

I always love an excuse to dress up but haven't really been in the Halloween mood until this past weekend. Myself and some friends went to the House of Terror in Marysville on Saturday night, followed by a late night tromp through a "haunted" corn field in Snohomish. The line for the haunted house was short, but during the wait, we stood around making comments about the patrons who fled out of the house screaming.

I made my position known: "There is no way I am running out of a haunted house screaming because of a lame character with a fake chain saw. No way."

Ha. Little did I know. The lame character with a fake chain saw did, in fact, cause me to run from the attraction while screaming my head off. Broncheau actually had to grab onto my arm and pull me. He led the way with the screams, and I followed suit. By the time he let go of my arm I was hurtling towards an innocent bystander, and was barely able to fling myself around the man's lit cigarette.

I've decided that a good scream feels refreshing every once in awhile.

Afterwards, we found our way out to a dimly lit corn field and ventured through the Field of Screams. It had it's good points, had it's lame points, and I kinda got the feeling that a lot of the monsters had already left for the night. As Bronch says, "There was potential..."

And big surprise, we fled the corn field screaming while being chased by a character with a fake chain saw. How unoriginal, lol.

But in the end, I'm pretty hyped for Halloween. My calendar is filling up with parties, appearances, a trip to the pumpkin patch, and of course a day of pumpkin carving. I still need to decide which costume to wear... As you might know, I've acquired quite a few interesting costumes in the last few years (*wink*wink*). Should be good :)

Ha ha, gotcha.

Oh my, I love my friends lol. Last night at Angelica's house, we made "margaritas" for our study group. The only ingredients were blended ice and strawberry flavored margarita mix, (notice the lack of liquor...?). Angelica, Casey and I were all in on it, but poor Rylan fell victim to being our test subject as we proceeded to "get him drunk". Angelica questioned him every so often to see how he was feeling.

Halfway through his first slurpee:
"So, uh, Rylan... how ya feelin'? I mean, I know you don't really drink so I'm just making sure you're okay. You can sleep on my couch if you want."

Flashing two thumbs up, the normally quiet and reserved Rylan says, "Oh I'm doing GREAT! I feel really clear-minded right now, and focused."

He extends each arm out to his sides and continues to explain that drinking makes him really outgoing. Within minutes he is making up a rap song with me to remember math equations, while busting a beat and pretending to spin a disc like a DJ at the same time.

After a few pseudo margaritas, Angelica asks Rylan if he feels anything yet.

He says, "Yea... I kinda feel it in my lips."

And at that point, the three of us girls exchanged glances while suppressing laughter, and shared a look that said, "Okay, we have to tell him."

After telling him that he's been drinking nothing more than flavored ice all evening, he returned to his quiet self, and barely talked the rest of the night. All in all, it was hilarious, but you probably had to be there.

don't know what to tell ya

A few days ago during an online chat with my friend Brad, he asked me if there was one trait I could change about humans in general, what would it be? My immediate response was "greed". I've been reflecting on that thought more than ever since Saturday morning. There is a huge story that I won't go into, but my life has been affected a lot by greed in the past few days. Money changes everything, especially when it's missing.

coffee-coordinated

After a week of drowsiness and a leaky nose, I am finally feeling better. I survived my second week of Fall Quarter. This morning, I opened my eyes, blinked a few times, and looked through my window without having to move. My eyes met with the dreariness outside and I smiled, knowing that it is Fall and getting ever closer to winter--my favorite time of year.

At that point, I realized that it was 6:45am, meaning that I had overslept 45 minutes and the weekly quiz in my 7:30am math class wasn't going to wait. I dressed in clothes that were conveniently already on the floor, filled up my coffee mug, and darted out into the dark morning.
My blurry eyes and crazy hair must have made it obvious that I woke up late. Walking into math, clutching my coffee mug, and dropping my bag next to my usual seat as I moan and fall into the chair, I hear Gabriel's voice behind me.

"Those are the same pants you wore yesterday. They have a coffee spot on your right leg."

"...Hey, thanks for noticing." I say, chuckling because I feel like I was caught.

"Have you had coffee yet today?" I answer by shifting to the left, and motioning towards my mug so he can see it on the table.

"Did you know caffeine is bad for you? What would you do if coffee was made illegal?"

"Drop out of school and become a black market coffee hustler." Duh.

The math quiz ran late, and therefore making me late to Spanish class. Since the building that houses Spanish is located off campus, Gabriel and I drive there everyday, always barely making it on time. This guy drives like a mad man, like he's trying to rush a pregnant wife to the hospital, but he's not. I think he just likes to freak me out, and he laughs the whole time while pulling tricky maneuvers. This morning as I was enjoying a sip of coffee, he deliberately slammed the brakes, causing the car to jolt, and cascading coffee all down the front of my white sweater. More laughter.

Perfect. Just perfectttt. At least now my sweater matches my pants.

We run into class soaked from rain, and still catching our breath from the run from the car, and I can tell by way the teacher drops his head to look at us that he's not having a good day. It's the way a person with glasses will drop their head a few degrees in order to look at you over the rims of their classes; this teacher has the same stare, but no glasses.

Spanish class came and went. The school day wrapped itself up uneventfully and now I'm at work, catching myself staring mindlessly out the window at the rain again.

yea... this definitely sucks

The right side of my face has been numb for 5 1/2 hours at this point, and frankly, it sucks. I had two cavities filled earlier today and my face is still partially paralyzed from it.

I haven't written in the past week because it's been a fairly quiet week. I'm back to the daily grind of school, getting used to not getting enough sleep, and also finally feeling like I'm getting in shape. I am now only following the Atkins diet very loosely and focusing mainly on exercise. It's feelin' pretty good so far.

That's about all I've got for now. I'll update once something blogworthy comes along.