Special K and Coffee
I don't really know why you'd be here. I mean, I know I'm the single most interesting person, but don't you people have lives? Really, it's quite sad.
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Wednesday, December 25, 2002
I am home now, yes, I am. Before I launch into my Greyhound story, which most of you have heard the majority of, I will explain exactly what the plan for getting home was:
Friday morning, December 20th, Derek and I would leave for Springfield. I'd wait at the bus station for however long until Steve and Jill got there at 1pm to go out for lunch. Get back to the bus station sometime after 2pm because the website and the woman at the station had told both Steve and me that the station would be closed (as in, stand-outside-for-an-hour-closed) from 1-2pm. Then I would get on the bus at 3:30pm to Bloomington where I would transfer to a different bus and get to Davenport at 8:30pm. Phil and Jenny would pick me up in Davenport at 8:30, then we would go to Iowa City where I would stay with Jenny Friday and Saturday nights, hang out with Phil Saturday, hang out with Julie Saturday night, then leave IC Sunday morning in time to get to church at Memorial in Ames. This is, in fact, basically what happened, but let me tell you about it.
I ordered my bus ticket on December 3rd. As of Wednesday, December 18th, I still had not received it in the mail. So I called the number Greyhound's website said to if you hadn't gotten your ticket yet. That woman looked up my ticket and had all the information there, then said, "This ticket has been canceled." "Um....what?? I never canceled my ticket." "Are you sure you never canceled it?" "Yes, I'm sure." (No, I'm calling you to ask about my ticket just for fun. :-P) She then had me call customer service. Why Greyhound's customer service number is not toll-free is beyond me. That woman told me the same thing and that my credit card had been refunded the money. Well, great, but I need to travel in two days! She said if I still needed to travel on the 20th, I needed to call the ticketing line and order a new ticket. So I make my third phone call (this one is, as was the first, toll-free) to Greyhound. The woman taking my order tried to tell me that since it was so close to my travel date, I had to actually go down to the bus station in Springfield and buy my ticket there. So I say, as nicely as I could manage at that point :-D, "Can't I just buy it now with my credit card and have them hold the ticket for me at the Springfield station? Because that was an option when I was buying online." "Ooohh....yeah, yeah, you can do that." (Me thinking: Yeah, I know I can!!) Greyhound should expect a nice little letter from me in the next couple weeks.
Derek and I left Greenville around 10:45am and got to the Springfield Greyhound station right around noon. There was a sign in the window that said "Will return at 2:00," then I looked at the permanent hours on the window and it said "Closed daily Noon to 2pm." Well, neat. So Derek and I went to McDonald's so he could get lunch, then killed the other 45 minutes at ShopKo where he convinced me to buy a small train set that was on sale for cheap. We got back to the bus station at 1, transferred my bags over to Jill's car, said goodbye to Derek, then went to Burger King with Steve and Jill. That was great fun. :) Jill and I got back to the station a little after 2 and she stuck around while I made sure I had a ticket and everything. Now the fun experience of actually riding the bus...
The nervous-ish feeling started when, shortly after Jill left, a police officer walked in with a guy who didn't have any luggage, had a black eye, and just didn't look fun to be around. The officer walked up to the counter and said, "we need to get a ticket for this guy on a bus to Chicago." The clerk looked in her computer and said, "ok, he'll be on the bus leaving here at 3:30." The officer thanked her and left. And I was sitting there thinking...."that's my bus. Cool." That Greyhound bus was not fun at all. It was completely full--ZERO empty seats, many of the people didn't look all that fun, and the driver wasn't all that friendly. This was completely opposite of my bus ride this summer. I was lucky to have a seat on that bus, though, because Greyhound had tried to cheat me out of a ticket. The whole hour ride to Bloomington I was basically sitting there praying that we'd get to Bloomington soon so I could get off, and praying that I would get on the bus I was supposed to transfer to and I'd make it to Davenport.
The Bloomington bus station was packed, so much that I eventually stood outside in the snow when it got closer to the time my new bus should be there. The Burlington Trailways bus pulled up, I gave the driver my ticket, and he put my bags under the bus. This driver was much friendlier than the Greyhound driver. I got on the bus and there weren't too many people. I had my own set of two seats--yay! There were a bunch of little old grandmas, and they were showing The Rookie on the TVs. Greyhound didn't even have the ability to show movies. We also watched The Fugitive. That was a much nicer bus ride.
We pulled into Davenport a little after 8:30 and I was promptly greeted by Jenny and Phil, which was extremely happy. :) We didn't really do much, but it was great to see them again. Went to Toys R Us in Moline, then headed to Iowa City where we bummed around Phil's house for a little while (which included watching the Jennies attack Phil), then Jenny and I went to her apartment. Saturday, Phil and I basically just hung out, which was nice. He hit his comic stores, then we went to CoralRidge for a while. Then I went over to Julie's house, had supper, and caught up on the past semester. This was while Phil and Jenny and all them were celebrating Christmas with Phil's dad's side of the family. P & J came to pick me up, so then we sat around talking a little while longer, then Phil dropped us off at Jenny's apartment. We left for Ames a little before 8:30am Sunday and got to church at about 10:40, where Phil and I were promptly attacked by Levi and Jessica, which was an awesome surprise. :-D I got a lot of "how's school going?" "nice to have you back" "good to be home?" "when do you go back?" etc. It was very good to be back at Memorial. I even got to see Nate, who I didn't recognize because he has HAIR! It was very cool. Then my parents took us all out to Hickory Park. Need I say more? I didn't think so. (Those of you who are going, "yes, you need to say more," I cry for you.)
After parting ways with Phil and Jenny, we headed home and all napped, or at least sort of napped. I was waiting for Hilary to call, which she eventually did. She was in town for just a little while before heading back to Omaha, so we got together (with Katie Dilks joining us later) for coffee at Stomping Grounds for a couple hours. It was a good, long, but not long enough, weekend and I crashed after calling and talking to Molly for about an hour. :)
Then (and I promise this is the end ;)) Monday I went in to talk to Jeanne about helping out at church and she told me she had two people that just quit on her. So right now I have two areas: the lounge and stuff (but only for a week, then it's covered) and my old area--and I don't have to make coffee anymore, but I have keys and the church is clean again. And we just got back from the chili Christmas Eve party at the Lotts', so my tummy is happily full of good food and apple cider. Life is good. :-D
Oh yeah...Merry Christmas everybody!! (We may have some snow on the ground in the morning! :)) Thanks for reading all my ramblings if you actually did!
Wednesday, December 11, 2002
This does not make sense to me. I got a B- on my persuasive speech outline because apparently my professor had recommended that we write out full sentences stating our claims, which I didn't do. Even so, I got an A on my speech because I was "successful in explaining concepts or processes, or in winning agreement from listeners inclined to disagree at the start" [taken from the evaluation sheet], and "used effective eye contact." So I obviously didn't need full sentences and, if I had had full sentences in front of me, I would have just been reading off my outline and not used good eye contact (as many speakers did this morning). So my question is, if I had an A speech from the outline I had for myself, why does the outline get such a stinkin' low grade? blah.
In other news, for all zero or so people who might care (Dana or Hilary, do you read this? :)), I just confirmed that Dan Lien is from Willmar, MN, and found out that he does, in fact, know Theo Peterson, but does not know Hilary Rowings. It is a small, small, small, small world.
What is up with my comments? I mean, I'm glad they're actually there, but it'd be nice if they'd learn how to count. When will the Brothers Prins' commenting system be completed and ready for service??
I am very ready for this semester to be over. I'm really looking forward to going home and seeing old friends again. Not that I don't love Greenville and my friends here, but it's been almost four months and it's time to get back into Iowa State and Big 12 country for a while. I also get to work at the church again for a month! Sounds odd, I know, but I am excited about this. I miss it. And later today I'm going to apply for a job helping clean my dorm next semester. Maybe that's my destiny. uh-huh.
8.5 days and I'm free...
(5.5 days and my good buddy Phil is back from Espana! :-D Please pray for his safe travel.)
Tuesday, December 10, 2002
I am just that cool.
My bed (as many in this dorm are) is "lofted" about 8 inches off the ground by setting each of the four legs up on cinderblocks. I keep my box of pictures at the end of my bed on top of one of these cinderblocks. I was getting it out to look for some pictures, but it was caught under the bar going across the end legs of my bed. I thought it had just slipped under there and that, once I got it unstuck, it would be fine. So I lifted up the bar enough to pull the box out. Well, apparently both end feet had slipped off their cinderblocks and my picture box was all that had been holding up the foot of my bed. So when I took the box out, I hadn't been lifting with enough force to actually hold the bed up. Thus, it fell and crushed my hand between the bed frame and the cinderblock.
Nothing's broken, just bruised and sore, and my ruby ring is a little bent, but easily fixable. I was laughing even as I calmly asked Jenn to come over and lift the bed off my fingers. Then she and I (with a towel and a piece of ice on my fingers) went down to the union where she bought me Pepsi and various peanut butterish candybars with her meal plan money. That's the real reason I tried to break my hand. Anything for free Pepsi and chocolate. ;)
Friday, December 06, 2002
I really shouldn't take time for this, but I feel I need to set some things straight and a lot has happened this past month.
First, in regard to my Monday, October 21, 2002 post: I must admit that now I am a little ashamed of this post. It just goes to show you how first impressions work and how wrong we all too often are. I won't get into the details of how our group ended up working because I, myself, don't fully understand yet what all went on and probably never will. The result has been friendships with several people I possibly never would have known before, the strongest (which, in comparison, is not all that strong, but you know what I mean) of these friendships actually being Christy. I apologize for what I'd said before. I'm not sure what kind of mood I was in before and I now think Christy is really great and she did help me a lot with that press release. She's now in my two major project groups in both Communication Theory and Public Relations. So now that I have that off my chest, let me tell you about the Speaker's Bureau...if I can remember back that far.
It was SO much fun! Basically, we spent the entire afternoon hanging out with Jenn Hanson from Sparrow. It didn't go off without a hitch, but I think we handled it pretty well and I got a grade that I'm extremely happy with and that greatly helped my grade in that class. :) Had I posted about this on the day of the event, I would have said a lot more and been much more excited. Sorry. I guess I'll just follow along the calendar and tell what's been up after that. So that's post-November 14.
November 15: Melissa and I were completely insane and drove up to Chicago for the Sixpence None the Richer concert. We left right after chapel (around 11am) and got to Beth and Josh's place around 5pm. Then we all left for Park West in downtown Chicago, got caught in some traffic going into the city, but made it there with plenty of time to grab front row seats. The oldest songs they played were "Kiss Me" and "There She Goes". As we all know, these are far from their best old songs. It was still an awesome concert, ignoring the cigarette smoke and the fact that my body does not like cigarette smoke--I felt the effects of that the next day.
November 16: We really didn't do all that much that was exciting, but that's ok. It was nice to get away and spend some time with my sister. Melissa and I left around 6pm. We stopped at the Hinsdale Oasis for about 45 minutes to get some ice cream and keep Melissa feeling awake. I tried to get her to drive to Iowa--twice: I-80 and Highway 30. She didn't go for it. Oh well. After some random stops at random gas stations along I-70 around 1:30am (better left unexplained, trust me), we finally got back to Greenville around 2am when we promptly crashed and vowed never to be that crazy again. It was fun, but a lot of driving and we were TIRED.
November 17-22: Homework, homework, and....oh yeah, more homework.
November 23: In bowling class, I broke 100 for the first time in my life. It was cool. I was happy.
November 25: (Nothing interesting happened the 24th.) I had two group meetings at the library, which ate up about two hours of my life from 7pm-9pm. This was the day before I had 6 things due in 2 classes: Communication Theory: movie paper, journal article presentation (one of the group meeings), and a record of my media usage over the past week. Public Relations: Speaker's Bureau Packet (the other group meeting), my own evaluation of our Speaker's Bureau project, and a Press Release about something at Greenville. My printer decided to run out of ink after printing off just one of these assignments. But I got it all done. I got it all turned in. I got a good grade on it all. I got 2 hours of sleep that night/morning.
November 26: After turning in all the stuff to Prof Ross, I took the quiz over the horrible John Updike book for my core class on which I got a very happy 7/10 for having read all of 4 chapters. Then I packed. Then Susan and I left for Champaign. About 10 minutes from our destination in Champaign (aka McD's just off the interstate) to meet up with Beth and Josh, Beth called to say they'd gotten caught in Chicago traffic and were an hour behind schedule. So we all went to this really cool store called World Market, at which I picked up a birthday present for my roommate--I'd been needing one since her birthday was the 25th. Beth and Josh arrived at the McDonald's around 9pm. I said good-bye and thanks to Susan, then headed off for Virginia. I'd never been east of Chicago and I love history, which the East has a lot of. This was a very fun, albeit tiring, trip.
November 27-December 2: I could sum this up for ya'll, but my sister did such a wonderful job, so I will just refer you to her post about it. Plus, this post is getting quite long and I really should be cleaning the pit that my side of the room has become over the past several weeks and I still need to watch Gilmore Girls from last week and at some point I will be working on and, hopefully soon, finish putting Melissa's hair in dreadlocks.
Not much else to say. I got an hour and a half of sleep night before last because I was writing a research paper about a crazy psychiatrist who had a theory about interpersonal communication that I liked. Then this morning, as mentioned before, I had to give a speech that I wrote last night around 10:30. Coming up in the next week and a half I have one paper, a couple of tests, a few other random assignments, then two long group presentations and mostly just final tests. I think one, maybe two, are cumulative. I love Greenville. (That statement is both sarcastic and serious at the same time. Yes, that is possible.)
I'm done. My brain is done for the day. I go sleep now? Something like that anyway. :)
I need help.
Well, yes, that kind of help, too.
I intended to post this request last night to give people more time to help me, but was simply too exhausted and ended up sleeping much later than intended anyway, which was not good as I had to give a speech this morning, and, well, it actually went really well, but I wasn't happy for the first 15 minutes of my day. Anyway, that really has nothing to do with this. Here is what I need help with:
For our final (group) project in my Com 101 class, we have to come up with a 20-30 minute tv show, game show, or infomercial and present it to the class. First let me just say this is an insane assignment and I have another 20-30 minute group presentation in my communication theory class, too--yay for me. Anyway, my odd little group of people came up with the idea of: The Nursing Home Dating Game. Yes, you heard me correctly. The Nursing Home Dating Game. I am one of the "bachelorettes." I need answers to the questions we bachelorettes will be asked and I'm not creative enough to come up with good ones on my own. This is what I need help with. My character is named Agnes Wood (and for any of the Woods or anyone who knows the Woods or a Wood, I had no part in coming up with this name. It was all my group. I did laugh.) and she is supposed to have spent her whole life as a workaholic on the farm.
Like I said, this is a stupid assignment. Here are the questions I need answered if any funny and creative people out there would like to throw out suggestions as I'm supposed to have this figured out by our meeting at 1:30pm CST:
Age
From where?
Tell me something you haven't told your grandkids.
What's your idea of a perfect date?
What's your favorite TV show? We already decided on this one as a group: Golden Girls.....yeah, dumb, but I'm at the point where I don't care. I just gotta be careful not to say Gilmore Girls, which is what I almost typed--VERY DIFFERENT SHOWS!!! yikes.
What is your biggest pet peeve?
What is your favorite nursing home activity?
Where is your dream vacation?
Why should I choose you?
There you go all you wonderfully creative people who I'm sure won't even read this before my meeting, but hey, now you know just how lame my group and class is. Blah. I'll post a real post a little later today. I promise.
