Today's rambling: Cheap people...
Written on Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2002 at 10:31 p.m.
while feeling a bit

In Message Design today, we had to get into our little groups and write a paper based on the 'master list' we'd made during our last class. This paper had 3 basic questions that needed to be answered...however, I only remember 2. We had to decide who the media was targeting with its images of September 11, and we had to decide what the point was in not showing certain images, or letting certain voices be heard. If you noticed, there were a LOT of things they showed right after 9/11/01 that they didn't show on the one-year anniversary.

I, yet again, played scribe (which meant I had to write down everything everyone else told me to write down). My group has quite the assortment of people: there's a frat boy, a sorority sister, a big loudmouth (who, quite frankly, is annoying), the loudmouth's roommate (who isn't so bad), me, and a very sweet quiet girl. The frat boy was the one who did pretty much all the talking. Actually, he and the sorority girl practically excluded everyone else from input. Not that I was doing much talking, since I couldn't think of anything to say right off the bat (I did end up making a few corrections toward the end)...but still, they were doing all the talking.

This paper was the WORST piece of drivel upon which I have ever had to put my name. Full of melodrama, redundancy, and sentences that just don't make sense, we'll all be lucky if the thing gets a passing grade. There were things in there like "the ever-flying American flag", and "images of their hopeful tears"...It just made me ill.

I should've been more vocal and contributed some things that, while not great, would've at least been better than the nonsense dear Frat Boy was spitting out. We had to turn the paper in at the end of class, otherwise I would've gone home and edited that thing until it barely resembled the trash we turned in. I know it sounds so harsh of me to talk about it like that, but I'm a perfectionist. I hate to turn in something that's so terrible. But maybe he'll hand all the papers back during our next class and tell us to revise them or something like that. Then I'll be like, "I'm doing it!" And I doubt my Greek friends will object because it means they don't have to do it.

Part of me would really like to join a sorority. I think it's for the same reasons that all the other girls end up joining, though: I'd like the feeling of belonging to something. All throughout high school, I used to get jealous of the girls who walked around with jackets that had their name and the name of their club printed on the material...it made me wish I was athletic so I could belong to one of those things, too. Yesterday, I saw a girl with a Delta Zeta jacket on, and granted, the jacket was ugly. But it would just be so neat to say I belong to something.

But on the other hand, I'm not the sort of person to compromise her morals and values just to play sheep. Sororities, stereotypically, have a reputation for drinking and general bad behavior. I don't mind having a few drinks every now and then, but the idea of centering a party around lots of cheap beer doesn't interest me. I'm not saying that all sororities are like that. But apparently there's enough of them that ARE like that to give them all the stereotype (though granted, it's not as bad as fraternities).

On a more basic level that has nothing to do with morals or values, sororities are obviously based on being very social. And Berry is still very shy and quiet. Jess told me the other night that there are plenty of quiet girls in sororities, but they must have SOME quality that made the other sisters choose them, y'know?

So basically, I'm going to be sorority free...unless I discover, in a couple of years, that I've become more social and more willing to be talkative. I'll never compromise my own values, but you don't really have to do that to fit in. We'll just have to see.

In other news, I received a phone call today from the radio station. The girl asked me if she'd been correct in putting me down to read the news on Tuesdays and Thursdays at noon. When I said yes (a feeling of dread welling up inside), she asked if I'd been showing up. "No," I said slowly, "they told me they would email me the schedule!"

So guess what? Turns out, I've been scheduled to read the news at noon on both those days for the past couple of weeks!! X_X I apologized profusely and the girl said there was no problem, but at least now I know. So this Thursday, I have to be down at the station at 11:30 so they can tell me what to do and all that good stuff. I was so upset about having missed those other times, though! I consider myself to be very good about making appointments and things, and this is NOT making me look very good! But as long as I make it known how repentant I am, they should forgive me. ^_^

Kevin, Lauren, Ashley and I went out to WalMart today. I shouldn't have spent ANYTHING, since I'm trying to be frugal for the rest of this month (having already gone over my self-imposed $60-a-month limit), but I saw a VHS of "Dirty Dancing". Now, I like this movie, but not enough that I'd want to buy it. However, Mom adores it, and she couldn't find it on video anywhere, so since the thing was only $6 I decided to buy it for her. ^_^ Then I bought a Twix bar for 40-some-odd cents. So it's not like I bought a lot, it's just that I didn't want to buy anything. :P I would've ended up getting a lot more, however, if they'd had some embroidery type stuff in their crafts section. They had all the floss and the embroidery hoops and everything, but as far as patterns go, all they had were cross-stitch. I can do cross-stitch if the pattern is printed on the fabric, but I cannot do counted cross-stitch at all. I'm sure they probably had printed cross-stitch there somewhere, but what I've really been wanting to do lately is embroider. Sounds kind of funny for a college student to be saying she wants to embroider, of all things, hehehe...

At any rate, I think on my next free day I'm going to stop by Joann Fabrics...though wait, I guess they wouldn't have anything either, would they Lola? I was thinking that since they dealt with sewing stuff, it'd be worth it to check and see if they had anything else, but the store I went to back home didn't really have much in that area of sewing, if I remember correctly. I wonder if they do sewing classes there...these are questions I need to be asking Laura, hehe!

Kevin and I have quite a bit in common as far as interests go. I told him how I'd wanted to make a costume for the Renaissance Faire, and he agreed that it sounded like a lot of fun. The only difference is that he wouldn't want to be a peasant, while I think it would be a lot of fun. Sure, you wouldn't have all the privileges of the upper class nobility, but on the other hand, you'd get to do a lot more fun stuff (since nobility weren't allowed to act uncivilized, hehehe). But that's alright, I still love him anyway. ;)

He told me at dinner tonight that when his mother had come to pick him up for the weekend, he'd lamented that I wasn't around because he wanted her to see his 'big sister'. *giggles* I'd just told Mom last night that I was going to take a picture of him because we resembled each other a little bit. I found out today that his hair is actually a very dark shade of brown (so dark that it usually looks black)...and at one time, my hair used to be exactly that color. Along with thinning out more than it should have, however, it's also lightened up and gotten very bright auburn highlights. Lauren still swears his hair is black, though I think that's more her denying its brown-ness because she thinks he looks so good with black hair. :P

On the half-hour bus ride to Walmart today (the store is only 5 minutes away, but the bus goes in circles), Kevin and I agreed that it would be fun to, at some point in the future, get an apartment together. Not just the two of us, of course, but Amanda and Lauren and possibly Kristen and Josh as well. Lauren didn't seem to keen on the idea; she'd rather have more boys. But if we got TOO many people, we'd have to rent out a house! And then I'd have to bring a car to college, because there really aren't any houses within walking distance to campus. But that's all in our future, so there's plenty of time to plan it out. ;)

I've got a rough draft due tomorrow of my Reading Report..which means that I really should start working on it now. Actually, I should've started working on it yesterday, but you know my procrastination skills by now. I just don't feel like doing it! : I technically have part of it done anyway, since for the response part of it I'm just going to use the response I wrote out for an earlier assignment. It was one of the ones she only wrote "good response" on, so I figure it'll be good enough...and I can tweak a few things for the next draft (or final copy, whatever it turns into).

In Birmingham they love the guvna...

I love this song. *giggles* It's "Sweet Home Alabama", by the way, for those of you who didn't know. :P

The Autumn Leaf Festival isn't too too far away now. I've heard that this is quite the shindig. But the best part (as of right now) is that we have off on Thursday and Friday (the 10th and 11th of October). This, as you may or may not be able to guess, would allow me to go home for a few days!! The idea thrills me. I'm in desperate need of a small bit of home time. Here are my problems, however:

a)Mom's going to be at the Heritage Festival down in Virginia (I think she goes down on the 11th)
b)I'm not sure I can find a bus ride back home!

So that's the only rain that might fall on my parade. I'm going to have to get over my phone phobia and just call the 800 number that I jotted down, and see if there's any way of getting a bus on Thursday. Actually...I think I'd rather go on Wednesday. That way, I'd have all day Thursday to do whatever. *giggles* If Mom went down to VA on the 11th, then that would mean I could go down with her! And I could bring my bike back! But wait, that wouldn't do me any good since I wouldn't bring it to college with me...nevermind. I'd still go down with her, though.

Or maybe she said she was going to come out HERE on the 11th! I can't remember anymore! I know she said she had one week off, and she was going to come out here to see me for a couple of days, and then she was going to go down to Virginia for the Heritage Festival. I'll have to talk that over with her tomorrow, though I know I'll end up really frustrated and irritated because she'll start talking about something that I already know about but can't really do! She keeps telling me to go talk to the administrative office or something like that, and it always irritates me. :P

Kristen's boyfriend is making fun of my love for the Sprint PCS Guy. *le sigh* He seems to think that the Verizon guy is so much better. Umm...how can "Canyahearmenow? Good!" compare to that low voice of the Sprint guy? There's just no comparison, that's all I can say.

Okay, I'm going to post this now, then go take a shower. Oh. The Hall Council decided they were only going to allocate $50 for our kitchen. Our kitchen is DISGUSTING. The least they could do is give us a new oven! I mean, on the one hand it's not even worth it 'cause to even get INTO the kitchen you have to drag an RA down to unlock the door (which is retarded). We should invest in a new, electric stove (well, maybe that's what the current one is, but it's old and dirt-yellowed and gross), and we should paint the walls and maybe add a few lights as well. Seriously, there's so much that could be done to it! I think I might have to go down to the next Hall Meeting.

But NOW I'm going.