Bigs, Bracelets, and Buildings

Happy Friday, friends.  I love being the beginning of your weekend.  I will do a good job this week and outline everything I’ve done.  I hope Rich forgives me for not being a good Christian; I didn’t read the Bible this week.  If you want to stop here, Rich, you can.  Just cover your God-loving eyes.  That’s not a stab at all; I actually think it’s awesome that you’re reading it.  You ought to be one of those atheists who can out-Bible someone who considers themselves a die-hard Jesusphiliac.  Before I begin: I can’t promise a lot of caps lock; I don’t want to follow your lead as many others have decided to.

Onto my week:

FRIDAY: I talked about this already, but my mom and Dave were here for Parents’ Weekend on their way to New York City.  We saw all those monuments I talked about before, and my feet hurt.  There are too many monuments.  But please, come visit and I will show you around without complaint.

National Building Museum

SATURDAY: I GOT TO PLAY WITH LEGOS!  Okay, sorry, but that’s really worthy of capital letters . . . or, in my case, “Capitol” letters.  Yeah, I made a D.C. pun.  You’re jealous.  Anyway, to waste my time and metro money, we had a required fieldtrip for my Leadership Gateway class.  It was to meet and learn from our mentor professor.  So I thought we’d be sitting in an old lady’s house, sprawled out on our tummies on a plush rose rug carefully drinking tea with two lumps of sugar in it, lifting our eyes in awe to this wisdom-bestowing lady.  Not the case.

We went to the National Building Museum, which is a Smithsonian off of the main mall, and PLAYED WITH LEGOS!!!  Yay!  Okay, so it was cool to learn about all the historical building information in D.C. and our prof was this young German thing, not Umbridge like the aforementioned scene.  But we didn’t learn anything.  I’m excited about the Legos, but we didn’t actually take much away from it, for all that it was a required fieldtrip.  I might be mad but not only did I get to play with Legos, but I also got THE BEST GELATO OF ALL TIME.

Our prof had been given $10 for each of us for our outing, and the Lego exhibit only cost $3, which meant we had $7 to spend on the world’s best gelato.  It was $6.50 for a large.  That is really expensive!  But hear this: the milk and eggs are raised on an Amish all-natural farm (think Joel Salatin if you’ve seen Food, Inc. or read Pollan’s Omnivore’s Dilemma, the most important book ever).  The day that said dairy products leave their respective animal, they are turned into gelato at a creamery on-site in the farm.  All of the flavors are made from the things that the name of the flavor suggests!  For example, rhubarb has rhubarb in it, and rhubarb is a cool word.  Anyway, I got a giant gelato of: chocolate noir (yum), pomegranate (yum yum), and pistachio (yum yum yum).  Pistachio was the best; I hope you discerned that from the number of yums involved.

SUNDAY: I found out who my Big was!  It was who I wanted.  Patrick Hassan.  He is a junior, a Music/International Relations, and very gay.  He is really nice and spoiled me during Big-Little week and is sort of like Barvin but with a nose ring and some substance habits that I won’t outline outright here, but would love to talk to you about in private.  The substance habits definitely separate us, but everyone could use a clean friend, right?  I’m awesome, right?  He won’t hate me when he finds out that I don’t drink, right?!!?!??!alcoholisbad!?!  Just kidding, I’m not worried.  Legos and gelato make me calm.

My Big and I at Revelation

MONDAY: My mom left, but before she did she bought four bracelets that my frat are selling, and I got two of them!  They are really cute, but more importantly they are made in Nicaragua and all of the money benefits the poor people there who made them.  I think the money has built a school and kept people fed, which is great.  I wonder if their school was made of Legos and if they eat gelato to keep from going hungry.  Probably not.

TUESDAY:  All week I was trying to catch up on all these fraternity requirements due on Thursday: 61 interviews, a scrapbook page, and cards for all of the brothers who are abroad.  I got it all done in time, yay!  Also, I worked on reading Little Bee for my Cross Cultural Communications class, which is really good. It’s told both from the perspective of a Nigerian refugee and a British middle-class wife thrown together in odd and engaging circumstances, and their narrative styles obviously differ greatly, but it’s very well executed.  I’m proud of the author, because he’s writing a narrative with two female characters writing in the first person but it’s believable.  Good for him.

WEDNESDAY: That one credit Leadership Gateway class I talked about?  We’ve been doing a Model UN-esqe simulation.  I’m Japan, in the Nuclear Security council.  It was a lot of fun introducing and getting a resolution passed.  There’s a lot of working with the veto powers, hushed negotiations in the hallway and formal debate as well.  I got to talk in front of lots of people.  Well, no, to answer your question, they didn’t clap, but they would have if it was appropriate in that context.

THURSDAY: We had our last pledge ed, which is where we learn about the Greek letters, national and chapter history, etc. to be able to pass our pledge exam next Thursday.  There’s this girl who’s sort of a female Rich in that she’s loud and bakes a lot, but she’s not mean so I like her!  Anyway, she brought this pumpkin pie.  Get ready to drool.  She brought a pumpkin clove pie that she made from scratch, topped with a maple cinnamon whipped cream, also homemade.  This pie is a recipe she made, that won whatever 4-H competition for the whole East Coast and then got some award at nationals.  I think it got a red ribbon on the East Coast and a blue ribbon at nationals.  Anyway, it was the best pie I’ve ever had.  Ever ever ever it was soo soo good I ate too much and felt sick afterward.

FRIDAY: That’s today! I’m writing this instead of paying attention in class.  I feel bad because this is an important class, but what are you going to do?

Love you guys and have a good weekend, full of commenting on my blog!  And Derek, don’t be mean (EDIT Derek is not mean I was joking and I didn't mean it the way it sounds, Derek is really awesome. And I miss him!)!  Yay!

-Rachael