Oh, yes, I forgot to post about my wonderfully epic birthday celebration. First my mom called and had everybody in the house sing to me. This was actually a surprising number of people, including my youth pastor's wife, who made sure to tell me that she met my youth pastor when she was nineteen. "So this is the year to be on the lookout for cute boys," my mom added. Good grief. Isn't every year? Bahaha.

Then Megan from camp brought me cake after she got out of school. It was fantabulous. Frosting is a beautiful thing. She probably could have brought me a can of vanilla frosting and I would've been just as happy, but probably a lot sicker, too.

At five, Jess, Sarah (Taz), Karmen, Aaron, Dave and I took the train into Cambridge. It took for EVER to get there. Driving would have probably taken less time, buuuuuut I would've gotten completely lost. We ate at the Blue Fin, a Japanese restaurant at Porter Square that Trish and I frequent. We also frequent the grocery store there for the amazing Japanese candy and the little shop with all the Miyazaki plushies, but we didn't have time for that the other night. Anyway, what I wanted the most was mochi ice cream (which is this yummy invention that involves ice cream wrapped in a flavored rice cake. It's sort of like daifuku, but if you know what daifuku is, then I probably didn't need to explain mochi to you either XD). And the Blue Fin brought me mango mochi ice cream with a candle in it! It was adorable. And delicious (says Guy Ripley... O_O).

I grabbed some bubble tea on the way out and nearly killed Dave with it. Apparently he didn't realize that the tapioca pearls go up the straw. Which is silly, because why else would they give you such a big straw? But yeah, that was amusing. We had to be back on campus for hall meetings at 9:30. Honestly, I would've skipped but financially I couldn't afford to - it's $10 per meeting if you miss it! Then I got really flipping mad at the hall for scheduling the meeting when they did. As if it wasn't already in the way of me going out for my birthday. When I got back to my room, I saw that I had missed a call from Joe by FIVE MINUTES! And I haven't heard his voice in three months because he's been at the Coast Guard Academy, and the stupid floor meeting made me miss it! At least he left me a voicemail. But it's not the sameeeeeee *big fat emo tears.*

Then my floor fed me brownies and ice cream. By this point I was about ready to explode, so I insisted on taking a walk. Aaaaand then came the thing with the car and the bushes. Clearly turning a year older had absolutely no effect on my maturity level. Good to know.

My first day back here, I met some new friends through John, my tall, frisbee-wielding, bathrobe-wearing, guitar-playing pranking buddy. One of them, Aaron, is big on walking around randomly at night, which, wouldn't you know it, is one of my favorite things to do. I am very deprived of this simple pleasure of life when I am home, as my family thinks walking around at night is sketchy. In Coho. Rofl.

The first night I got back, we took a walk down Grapevine and found a sign for a cemetery I'd never known existed. We both decided we were up for an adventure and followed the signs to this lovely open field, which narrowed into a drive, which narrowed into a tree-lined path with no streetlights. Said path was peppered with cold spots. Reeeeeally creepy. Then we got to the actual "cemetery," and it was like, three headstones, one of them with a candle in front of it that I tried to convince us both was a will o' the wisp, and a random house. Yeah, not such an adventure anymore. It was exciting for those first five or ten minutes though.

Last night was more exciting. Sarah, a.k.a. "Taz," came with us this time. We walked all the way into the next town (but when I say ALL the way, I really mean that it took us about 15 minutes to get there). We were on the lookout for another adventure, but all we found were houses. Then we came to an intersection that had a couple of little islands in the middle of it, and Aaron goes, "Wouldn't it be funny to hide in those bushes on the island and jump out at oncoming cars?" And I go, "Yeah! Great idea!" Sarah was just like, "oh Lord.... I'll be over there...."

So Aaron and I crouched behind this bush and waited for a car, then jumped up, waving our arms around like lunatics. Mind you, we didn't actually go out in the street or ANYTHING. But this car STOPS, and the two of us choose the darkest looking street and take off down it. It was hard to tell what the car was doing, but it definitely looked like it was pulling around the island to follow us. I thought we were doomed. I thought they were going to call the cops on us. I don't know what I thought. It's not like we actually did anything bad, but this is the way my mind works under pressure, apparently.

Tonight it was me, John and Aaron going spooning. Which is not exactly what it sounds like. Sorry to disappoint. I know all two of my readers were hoping for a little more drama than this. Spooning is simply a euphemism for "pranking." First we took all the plastic spoons from the dining hall, a daring feat since it was earlier than we usually go spooning and there were still lots of people around. John and I discussed staging a hold-up at Denny's to get spoons next time. It might have been more subtle. (We also talked about spray painting spoons with neon paint and sticking them out of his head like a peacock, but we'll leave that one alone.)

Then we make the trek to Woodland, which somehow doesn't seem half as long when you're not actually going to your car. We stuck a spoon under the windshield wiper of every car there. Or almost every. We would have gotten them all if John hadn't put like 10 in this Jeep that was wide open to the world, but it was worth it: he put spoons on the windshield, all four seats, the steering wheel, and the spare tire. Four of them on the spare tire. It was hilarious.

I always wish I could see people's reactions to our little pranks, but alas, our work tends to get undone by the Go-Po before anyone can appreciate it. I think this one might actually get people talking though. I just want to hear ONE person reference it in passing. Just one.

Today, stuff happened. Nothing monumental or anything. I didn't win the lottery or meet my future husband or anything. But I ate Thai food. Then Trisha's car failed at life and her mom came to put in new brake fluid, which did nothing to solve the problem so she called AAA. Meanwhile, Thai food had been lunch at like 1:30, and it was now 4:30, and Chris demanded my presence at her house. Well, I say that like it was forceful, but she's too cute to be forceful. I guess some people were over there and I HAD said I would go, but I was a little bit stranded. So then we took the car Trisha's mom had come in, which was actually her father's car, and yeah it was complicated but basically the only functional car that Trish is supposed to drive got taken on a road trip by her dad and her brother, so us taking this one was kind of a no-no. She dropped me off at Chris's house and junkfoodage and videogamage ensued. And stickerage!! Oh my god she has soooo many stickers! Sparkly ones, squishy ones, and all of them adorable because they were Japanese. So we put them all over EVERYTHING. Phones, iPods.... My iPod now looks like this:




Oh and at Chris's house I discovered some wonderful items of life. She had a Picchu soap dispenser. A SOAP dispenser! I want one! And a Totoro washcloth hanging up in the bathroom. Send me to Japan, please.

Then I got Rob to drop me off at Trisha's house for our "unbirthday" celebration. My birthday is in 2 weeks, but this will cover it since we won't see each other again before then. So I got birthday presents AND unbirthday presents. AWESOME! And I got her this splitter from the Apple store. It lets you plug in up to 5 pairs of headphones, or a second iPod so you can create mixes, which is one of her favorite things to do. So that was her unbirthday present. She made me a 30-page coloring book using scenes from The Academy Is... Television. It's fantastic. And she crocheted me a purple penguin named Mochi and bought me Japanese candy and a sweet keychain and wallet from Korea. She's so elaborate about birthdays. I'm totally not that cool. I don't have a ton of money OR time on my hands, which makes things difficult. But I shall remember that she deserves an awesome birthday present this year. Something homemade, I think. Like that Anime card I promised her forever ago. All right, way to be a lamesauce friend, Mandii. -_-

On various topics.....

1. Today at work, Robby and I decided that we'd make it look like I was carrying all the boxes - big, small, long, heavy, whatever - until his mom mentioned it. Usually she does if she sees me carrying anything. It's not like I mind; I work for her and I definitely don't have a problem with doing "physical labor." So I folded and boxed like 15 flags and brought them all upstairs while Rob carried a little box of plastic pieces, but she didn't say anything. Then we attached a bunch of flags to poles and rolled them up, and when we got upstairs I took the ones Rob was carrying. His mom turned around and said, "Rob!! Did you make Amanda carry ALL of those??" Score.

2. It's true when Tristram says he will do almost anything (except give Robby alcohol without Robby's knowledge). He and Charles told me about double and triple blitzing shotgun. So after we all ate at BK, we went out to the car, and Tristram called shotgun. I, not believing he would really triple blitz, did a handstand and called double blitz. But when I turned around, there was Tristram in his boxers. Dag, yo. And the sad thing is that I can never, ever beat him. Ever. There is nothing that beats a triple blitz..... and I sure don't plan on dropping my pants. Although it would be flipping hilarious to catch them all off guard one day. Bahahaha

3. While we were eating, Tristram tried to tell me the tomatoes were diseased, but I never believe anything he says so I was going to eat them anyway until Robby told me it was true. Then I panicked, because I was on a diet last week and I ate a PINT of cherry tomatoes every day. But I guess it was only fake tomatoes (i.e. one's at fast food places). What a relief.

4. After dinner, I picked up two of my friends from youth group, Austin and Steph, and we shmoozed around Derby Street for a while, SICKPIEing. We stopped every so often to stare at the sky. The point of this was to confuse people and make them look at the sky. Steph said, "What is that? It looks like a cross between Abe Lincoln and a bike tire!" (For the record.... I just lost the game..... BUT I DIDN'T WHEN SHE FIRST SAID IT! I'm making progress. Hooray.) Then I bought an ice cream cone with nothing in it and walked around licking air for a while. Some baby was like whaaaaaaa....? Steph said his eyeballs looked ready to pop out of his head. I wish I'd seen his face.

5. Black Hole Sun by Soundgarden is a really awesome song. Like really, REALLY awesome. But don't watch the music video because it will give you nightmares. I couldn't watch past 30 seconds. Oh my.

I have other cool things to post about. From last week. But not now. Because right now all I want is a shower.

I think I'm short a lot of brain cells from breathing in the fumes from that thinner stuff we used to clean the screen after printing flags today.

Quote of the day: "Oh! I have a really funny story about cosines!!"
(If you're wondering about the story..... I went to an appointment, and they asked me if I had a cosign..... like insurance..... But I'm thinking, "Cosine... cosine.... ~~~~~~~ Why would I have one of those?" Honestly, I might be an intelligent person, but sometimes I have NO common sense.

Sarah: let's play the state game.
Mandii: umm..... Charizard. NO! That's my groin slash ovaries!
Sarah: I'm pretty sure your ovaries are up here.
Mandii: then it's my groin.
Sarah: I'm pretty sure you don't have a groin.
Mandii: wrong!!
Sarah: What have you been hiding from me??!!
Mandii: the real reason heather moved out is......
Sarah: eewwww!!!!

Moving right along....

Many things happened today. And yet, nothing at all really happened until dusk had fallen. I went to evening chapel, which I always do when it's offered because it's more worship-centered than regular chapel. Even though I have a sort of love-hate relationship with the band, I generally enjoy hearing them play, even though they usually pick songs I don't know. I've really gained an appreciation for traditional hymns while here. Everybody knows them, and if you don't, well hey, the music is there in the hymnal for you to sightread, so no problem. I mean, it's not like contemporary worship songs are hard to pick up (far from it), but always focusing on learning the proper tune distracts me from the purpose of worshipping.

Tonight was just like any other night in that respect, but I still found myself drawing really close to God. I just sort of allowed the waves of music to wash over me and focused on feeling God's presence instead of trying to decipher the melody that matched the words on the screen - which, I might add, were more about "me" and how God made "me" feel and made "my" life better. This tendency in contemporary worship is another reason that I'm starting to prefer hymns. But words aside, and the fact that the praise band played fantastically tonight aside, and really, the fact that I was in a room filled with people aside, I was just drawn in.

And then they had this prayer up on the screen about calling yourself things like "rejected" when God has "adopted and accepted" you, and I just started crying - not sad tears at the reminder of my recent rejection, but happy tears that the same rejection had set me up to feel so vastly loved by God in a way that I can't remember feeling ever before. I found myself kneeling during the last song, before which most of the others had left. I forgot that I was in a classroom in the basement of the library, that anyone else was in the room at all, and that people had to be making that music that continued to move me even after the prayer. It was beautiful. And all I could do was cry, and pray in my head over and over, "Thank you, Jesus. Thank you."

After that moving spiritual experience, I met up with John, a friend I met during Winter Retreat, to play guitar. He's just learning to play, and wanted me to show him some stuff, which I did to the best of my ability, but I don't consider myself an expert by any stretch of the imagination, nor am I really a teacher - that's my mom. It was fun, regardless, and we did work our way through a couple of praise songs (which I chose specifically because of their simplicity). I borrowed Andrew Piercey's acoustic guitar because I only have my electric on campus. It's much slimmer than mine and has a better cutaway. I'm sort of jealous. Shh, but don't say anything about it to my acoustic guitar. She's pretty. But overweight.

John and I laughed about my chord book being from 1977. Then we realized that it was 10:00 and we weren't allowed to be in my room anymore because visitation hours ended at 10, so we hurriedly packed up everything and went to find somewhere else to play. But there were people in my lounge, so we checked the first floor. And the classroom in the basement. And the sketchy-ish smaller classroom in the basement. ALL were being used! Then we found an open storage room filled with chables (those chairs with desks attached) that looked about as old as my chord book, stacked precariously enough to avalanche at any moment. Perfect.

But we had just set up camp and started playing when Maddie came in, looking bewildered, and asked if the room had been open when we got there, then told us we shouldn't be in there and suggested we go play in a lobby somewhere (even though I'm pretty sure there are rules against hanging out and making noise in the lobbies). Because clearly the reason we were in there was because we wanted to make out, right? The guitars were just a cover. Obviously. So we went and sat on the hard floor in the basement lobby and played there. Curse those visi-freakin-tation rules, BAH!

We were joined by Andrew (not Piercey) and Sarah Mac, and we all played and sang some random praise songs and the one from Juno, "Anyone Else but You." I think we did a better job with it than the recording on the soundtrack (not very hard to do). I don't particularly like the original, either. But it's a really cute song, and really easy to play! We got some food at Claymore and said good night.

Then Sarah and I launched an idea we had all talked about between songs, which was starting a movement to break social norms - do things like stage a musical in Lane, or be a close-talker for a day. Things that would mess with other people and make them feel awkward, you know? We created a Facebook group called SICK PIE, which is an acronym for Spontaneous Infringement of Cultural Kustoms, Paradigms, Institutions and Expectations (http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=28588915550). So far we have about six members, which is impressive considering that the group is barely an hour old, and it's the middle of the night - how many people do you really think are chilling on Facebook when there are things to do, like cramming, or sleeping? So I'm pretty stoked to have this excuse to make a complete arse out of myself... just so long as SICK PIE gets big and backs me up! I think we should make stickers featuring our group picture (a piece of pumpkin pie saying, "I put vegetables in your piiieeeee!")

Going to sleep now. I may not have class until 11:25, but I was sort of hoping to get breakfast at Lane since, you know, I haven't bought food for my room since before break. I was going to get some on the way back up, but Sarah and I hitched a ride with Joe, so my parents weren't there to take me grocery shopping. Sad day. Now I have no food. Almost literally. Depending on when I wake up tomorrow and whether the dining hall is still open, it may soon become very painfully literal.