Now is the Winter of Our Discontent?

So it's cold here, yeah?

Over the weekend, my roommate had two of her old high school friends over at Bates. Originally only one of her friends was staying in our room with us, because the other had a girlfriend at Bates and thus had a place to stay. Alas, he was broken up with on the first night and thus our room's occupancy was raised to 4 for the weekend.

This past weekend was the annual "Puddle Jump" where people would either get drunk and jump in the puddle (and sometimes naked), stay sober and jump in the puddle (rare), or just not jump in the puddle (me). My excuse for not jumping in was that I was (and still am) sick, but even if I was healthy I wouldn't have jumped in. I'm still not feeling the whole "jump into freezing water that is full of bacteria and horrible microbes while only slightly clothed, then get out into the freezing air until you can find a way back to your dorm's shower". Maybe next year, though. However, I did take an abundance of pictures of the event. I focused on the aftermath of the jump. So I got a lot of pictures of cold, wet people dressed in costumes. Riveting stuff, I know.

Before, during and after the puddle jump, I was spending time with my friends Jack, Jordan, Owen, Ben, and Sam. They're a hip bunch of cats. Very savvy when it comes to either music, books, activism, or outdoorsy things. And two of them have cars. So there you go.

Friday night I stayed in and talked more about the Notre Dame Hoax story with my friend on facebook,  which we had been chatting about all week. I don't remember what else I did. I think I just listened to Hanna's roommates argue about whether we should watch a Life episode on primates or the deep sea. If anyone cares, we ended up watching about half of both because they were extremely high and could not concentrate on anything, getting bored very easily. They then ordered pizza at around 12:30 a.m. as well as a liter of some soda reminiscent of Mountain Dew but not Mountain Dew. I can't remember, but luckily it's not impor---SIERRA MIST, THERE WE GO! No wait, was it? I guess I'll ask Hanna when she comes home. Saturday I did laundry. It took the whole day. Saturday NIGHT was 90s dance, and since I had promised Hanna's high school friends I would rage with them, I pulled out all the stops for my costume (which means an hour before the in-house partying began, I rummaged through my clothing and threw on some of my mom's old makeup that she gave me for occasions such as this- THEME PARTIES). I dressed "grunge"-esque. I felt pretty cool, I'm not gonna lie.

So for the pre-dance (I suppose some call it pre-gaming, but I do not partake in the consumption of alcohol, so titling it as such is incorrect when referencing my actions for the night), people chatting up on the first floor and there was a semi-rave (with strobe-lights and all). I put my camera on a setting for low shutter speed and got a few interesting pictures. Sorry if I post too many pictures, but it's only because my life on the weekends is basically taking pictures. Here are some of the shots I took in the basement: 

 I made them small so you would hate me less. We'll see how that works out. So, once I actually got to the 90s dance which the school hosted, I had a blast. The songs were easy to *actually* dance to (none of that grinding, bouncing up and down or swaying that happens with the music that usually gets played at 21st century dances), and I ended up sticking around for about 2 hours, dancing with quite a few different friend groups. I need to explain to you how much fun I had, but I don't know how to without getting too lyrical about it(a sign of a poor writer, I know. Or maybe I'm just tired and need to read a giant hunk of pages on the Environment), so you just have to believe me.

Sunday the entire day was taken up by an in-house Novice tournament (of only our novice) that I judged at. It was fun. Boom, Sunday.

Monday I didn't get out of my pajamas until 5:45 to go to dinner with Jack (he was the first friend I made at college, remember?). We made puns, jokes, were slightly mean to each-other in the fake way that only good friends can do (IT'S JUST TEASING, MOM. I'M NOT BEING MEAN. PEOPLE LIKE ME I SWEAR). And I've started this thing with Jack where every time I see him I get access to his phone and change the greeting text (which only allows up to around 16 characters to be used) on the background of his phone (basically, a short message that is overlaid on top of his background photo...which is of his dog). I try write humorous, absurd and obscene (sorry, mom and dad) things for the statement, because it's placed right under the face of the dog. Therefore, it looks like whatever I've written is a caption of what the dog is saying. Phrases used include:

"Shit, yo."
"Arf, mothafucker"
and
"I eat my own poop"

I'm very excited to see Jack again, if only to change his cell-phone settings. Aaaanyways, yeah. Tuesday I wrote poetry because of my poetry workshop class, and submitted a poem to be critically analyzed (torn apart) next Tuesday by the class. I don't like my poem because I don't like that I wrote the subject-matter that I did...and I think some people may judge me for it. But alas, nothing you can do now. And maybe if I get the chance to explain myself (I won't) people will understand better.

Oh, and it has been frigid as the opposite of hell. The lab I did today necessitated a 30 minute outdoor activity where I collected snow. It was in the negatives at that time. Now this was the Maine winter people had been warning me about. Last year was a tropical paradise (hyperbolic) compared to this current winter.

I'm done writing now,

Nicole Danser