What Hath God Wrought?

Hello buddies,

So in the past few days my life has gone from normal and lovely to a bit topsy-turvey. It's not just because of the fact that this week is finals, or that next week is Spring Break and my/people's plans are a bit muddled, or that people are inherently flawed and enjoy causing me problems. No, it's all of those combined. It's like soft serve vanilla-chocolate ice cream twist because it combines things together, but it's not sweet and fulfilling. I realize this is a horrible simile, but I just ate some soft serve twist, so it's sort of on my mind.   Onwards? Well, if we must.




I'm just going to start off with Friday, because everything else before that is just not worth remembering. I guess nothing really after Friday is worth remembering either, but then my post would be sort of short. If you're wondering why I'm being such a sassy spoiled sport, you'd be soliciting spoilers, which will be set out and solved for soon. Anyways, Friday.

I woke up at around eight fifteen, got ready for the long day ahead of me (although I had packed my bag for Middlebury the night before), and danced off to breakfast (full disclosure: I did not actually dance, but rather used my expansive vocabulary to make a walk to Commons interesting. Or rather, attempted to make a walk to Common's interesting.) I ate food (I'm sure it was palatable) and then  rushed over to my Chinese professor's office to take an oral (har har) exam at nine o'clock because the van to Middlebury was leaving at 10 on the dot.

Well, my professor ended up arriving at around nine forty, so I rushed through my giant speech in Chinese (it was less that eloquent, but she seemed satisfied) and then actually ran across the quad (7th grade status all over again. But don't forget my coolness level is bolstered due to the fact that in both instances, I did not, in fact, have a roller backpack.) So I panted to my room to grab my bag, re-checked that I had all of my necessities, and then hustled to the parking lot where everyone was supposed to meet in 1 minute at the latest. Colin, the day before, yelled out to everyone that we had to leave at ten in the morning the next day. However, I was the ONLY ONE in the parking lot, but then Babs came along real fast and voiced my confusion as to why neither the debaters nor the VAN was in the parking lot. Long story short, people are just lazy and trickled in at around 10:30, and we set out. On a 5 hour car drive that had too many twists and turns for my taste.

 Anyways, we end up getting there at around 3:30 or something (don't quote me on the time. I SAID DON'T QUOTE ME!) I texted Derek, he walked in the building a few minutes later, and then I attacked him with a bear hug (Which apparently he was a baby about and could not handle). Derek and I talked for a bit, he gave me a tour of a small amount of the campus (library, outside, that's about it) and then helped me find the room I had to judge in. I asked him if he wanted to stay to watch the round but HE REFUSED, so I just judged the round alone, crying on my papers and I analyzed the independent arguments of the Opposition. I finished the round and went back to the General Assembly room. And then judged for a bit more, saw Derek and talked to him for like 4 minutes, and then judged more rounds.

 Then it was time to go to dinner at this fancy Alumni building with ultra-fancy food. However, instead of walking there, Middlebury shuttled us to and from the GA and the Alumni building. Which was cool except for the fact that I arrived later than most people because my round ran long. And then the BQDC (that's Bates' debate team name, by the way: the Brooks Quimby Debate Council) left without me. So I was just one girl from Bates with other groups of debaters that I didn't know. Well, I was the last person to be outside waiting for the shuttle, but luckily the debaters weren't done eating yet. By the way, no one questioned why I was missing except Ashleen, who texted me asking me where I was. I love Ashleen. I should become better friends with her. Anyways, after that there was still one more round and then we were shown where we would sleep for the night, which for the BQDC was a common room FILLED WITH GIANT BEAN BAG CHAIRS in which we slept on.

At around 11 at night Derek and I went to a weird Casino-Night party where we bet a little, lost, then just played Gin with each and talked. Then we decided to be risky and blow all the money we could spend on one round of Roulette, but ended up winning more money than we spent, which was confusing and wonderful. But we wanted to leave the party, so we just gave all the money to the girl next to us (She seemed pleased about it). Derek then showed me around the HUGE Ross building which he talked about in an earlier post. It was crazy. But then it was getting late and most of the buildings were closed and I was getting grumpy and unhappy, so with that Derek gleefully left me and my odd behavior back in the bean bag chair room. I then got ready for bed, talked to the debaters for like 20 minutes about attractiveness and things, and then fell asleep until Colin and Taylor sneaked back into the room at around 3 am. Sadly for them, there were not more bean bag chairs for them. However, that did not stop Colin from deciding we would share a bean bag chair together. Entitled Bastard. What? Nothing. I jest, we are good friends. For some reason Taylor slept on the floor instead of sharing a bean bag with anyone. I felt bad, but she didn't seem to mind.

Saturday we woke up at around 8ish or something (I'm not a robot, I DON'T MEMORIZE THE TIMES IN WHICH I DO THINGS!) and went to breakfast where there was NUTELLA to spread on our bagels. The debater lifestyle is a high and classy one. Then blah blah blah, judged rounds, didn't see Derek again, AND THEN A WHOLE PINT OF BEN AND JERRY'S ICECREAM WAS GIVEN TO ME AT LUNCH. Taylor and I shared the pint, and we put nutella on the ice cream as well (a brilliant move on her part. Taylor is quite the clever one and I've grown quite close to her). Then more rounds, and , to my surprise, when out-round breaks (Where the teams that did best compete against each other for 1st place etc.) were announced, three of our teams broke AND I was chosen to judge a Varsity out-round, which was a first. One of the other judges in the round (he calls himself Rod but his real name is Roddington. Cool, right?) and I started talking and became good pals and now we are Facebook friends (look at me, being social). Other debate things happened, like Taylor qualifying for Nationals (The debate tournament for super good debaters) and Vic made it to semi-finals with Colin, which is a big deal because she's never done that before. Then we drove home, and I had a lovely time chatting and singing with Taylor, Vic and Colin in the front of the Van. I then got home and went to sleep.

Sunday I slept in, studied, got a late brunch, studied some more, and then ate dinner and then wrote a paper or two or three. I get work done fast and well. I am a master of school in the cases of both quality and quantity. LIKE A BOSS (but actually a lot more productive than said boss might be).

Monday I wrote some more of my Chinese Literature paper, played my ukulele, studied Chinese, was generally awesome, and then had dinner. Oh, I also went to the health center because my right ear is all "OW EVERYTHING HURTS" when I put an earbud into it. But then, as it often goes, I talked to the nurse about it and it stopped hurting while I was there. Now it hurts again, by the way. Even my body is indecisive. Also, I got this weird red rash on my chest, and then it stopped being red but still had a weird rash-consistency. I think it's stress, due to the fact that this is finals week and all that jazz. So late Monday night I took a walk to turn in my papers for Chinese and I got a text from Taylor saying that she had to cancel our plans to go to NYC together. So now for Spring Break I'm staying at Bates. Alone. With no friends. For a week. So that's nice. I'm just going to get a lot of reading and sleeping done, I suppose. We'll see what happens. Maybe I'll curl up in a ball and die instead of sleep. And no one would notice that I've died until break was over. We don't know. Anything is possible.

Tuesday I studied my butt off (*not intended to be a factual statement*) and then ate lunch with the Jack and Co. people I think. Then I went home and did more work and played my ukulele. I had dinner, I'm sure. But I cannot remember it clearly. I think it was with the Rand kids. Anyways, at nine thirty I headed over to the quad with the Jack and Co. kids where we mixed the inside goo of a glow stick with bubble-blowing mix to see if we could make glow-in-the-dark bubbles. It was not a complete success, and yes it was a bit foolish and dangerous, but I had quite a bit of fun. Then I went over to Colin's dorm and hung out with him for a while. We watched a movie/documentary/comedy thing on Zach Gallifanakis (I refuse to check the spelling of his name) which was really funny but we didn't finish it because we both sort of fell asleep. Oops. Hopefully we can finish it, but probably not any time soon considering he's leaving for BP Nats (It's a debate tournament thing) tomorrow and I won't see him again until like the 22nd or 23rd. SO THAT'S COOL. But seriously, it is. I hope I get good enough at debate to be able to travel so much and talk "real pretty like". Aaaanyways...

Today I hung out with Colin more, doing Chinese homework/studying while he tried to figure out how he was going to travel to BP Nats without forking over huge sums of cash (well, it's all solved for now, so hooray!). Then I went back home to study, write some of this blog and then go to dinner. Now I'm back from dinner, still grumpy about all of the first-world problems that are my life (which I dare not bring up in these weekly summaries because they are WAY TOO interesting and might actually attract a crowd to my posts. And we wouldn't want that.) but I'm good at solving for my problems and moods (I'm mostly just unhappy that I ate too much at Commons. Unlimited soft-serve ice cream is a gift and a curse).

Well, I'm going to play my ukulele, study Chinese and Enviro, and then go hang out with friends before they leaves for like a week and a half. Or maybe I'll just curl up in a ball and die. Who knows? Anything is possible.

Lets be friends,
Nicole