I fear for the students at this campus. I learned last night that not all of them can read. How they wound up in college without being able to read and comprehend things is beyond me, but they’re here.

Last night, when I went into my schedule to see where my evening class would be I noticed that my 6pm - 9pm class was really my 6:30pm - 9:30pm class. This annoyed me as I now had an hour and a half to waste instead of just an hour. I stayed at work for an extra half an hour and then I toddled on over to the building where my class would take place.

Walking up the steps of the building I was faced with a rather LARGE sign that said there was no smoking in this area as the smoke entered the building. This isn’t a problem for me as I don’t smoke. I actually really really dislike cigarette smoking. For me, it’s just gross. I know some people enjoy it and that’s ok that they do, but they can enjoy it somewhere where I don’t have to smell it.

Anyway, so I’m sitting there jamming out with my tunes and people watching which always leads to deep sighs when all the hardbodied people bike/walk/run by. It’s depressing. There are two categories of people here. Goregous or Fugly. There is no inbetween. Either they’re extremely beautiful people or they look like they crawled out from under the slime encrusted rock. 98% of the people here are in the former category.

So I sit. And I watch. And then this girl comes up the steps and sits down next to me and she’s chitchatting on her cellphone and I’m like how nice, I’m nice enough to share a bench with and we sit in our own serperate worlds. Meanwhile, that no smoking sign? It’s maybe less than 2 feet in front of her, big white letters on a dark blue background, facing her direction. She can clearly see it. What does she do? She lights up a cigarette. I sat there and stared (I would have taken a picture to post with this, but I was too stunned to think of it at the time). I couldn’t believe that someone could be that.. uninterested in their surroundings. It was like she saw the sign, didn’t give a shit, and decided it pertained to everyone but her.

I would have confronted her about it had I known she wouldn’t be in my class. As it was, I got up and went into the building to track down my classroom and thankfully she was not a part of it.

Today is my day. I’m 26 now. WOO! Lets bust out the alcohol and cake. However that’s not what I want to post about right now as much as I enjoy a good Justin Parade.

Remember how I was all joking about the vast amount of people that come to State College as the school semester looms ever nearer? Well I wasn’t joking about that. And remember how I was all melodramatic about what time of night I’d be going to a store if I should, in fact, go to a store at all? I wasn’t kidding about that either.

Jason and I ended up going to the evil, vile pit of doom known as Wal-Mart (which I dispise btw) at around 1:30am Sunday morning because he wanted to get a calculator for his math class. And I went along.

Flash back to a couple weeks ago, and Jason bought a new printer. It does color and photos and could probably make a pizza if we really tried hard enough.

Anyhoo, so we’re at walmart and since Jason has been printing every photo he has on his computer (some twice!) I thought it’d be nice to get some frames so that we could hang some stuff up on our barren walls. Yes, It’s sad, but true. We’ve lived there for a year and the only thing on our walls is my Pier1 knock off. It’s a big knock off though.. So maybe that makes up for having a bunch of little pictures?

The pictures that we chose to frame are from the beach trip we took at Christmas. It was so nice waking up this morning and seeing them up on the wall.  And if I were proactive, which apparently, I’m not, I would have taken a picture this morning to append with this post. However, That’ll happen when I get home.

Sometime in the middle of the night, when no one was looking, 40,000 students began their pilgrimage back to University Park for the upcoming semester that begins on the best day of the year, Monday, August 25th.

Tale tell signs of this phenomenon are, but not limited to:

• Stupid people walking out in the middle of the street to cross without bothering to look both ways.
• Girls with dirty bleach blonde hair piled on top of their heads who may or may not be a shade of orange who carry a bottle of some sort of beverage, have a phone plastered to their ear and some sort of slogan splayed across the ass of their shorts.
• Long lines at every conceiveable venue ranging from ATM machines, Grocery Store checkouts to public restrooms in restaurants.
• Lots and lots of extra traffic

Seriously, I am glad that Jason and I stocked up on groceries. I will not be entering a store for the next two weeks unless it’s 3am. 

I feel very caffinated this morning as there was fun belgian chocolate coffee at the super productive (or not so much) entire building meeting we have once a month. I helped myself (oh yes I did!). I thought that since today is Thursday, sometimes called Thirsty Thursday, that I’d rattle off a list of things that are currently going on in the land of me. So without further ado, here we go!

Guitar Hero

When I first saw this game I scoffed. I probably even sneered. I would not be caught dead playing a game where the goal is to play a fake guitar and pop the little colored note bubbles as they descended so that the song played. Why not pick up the actual instrument? Why not just download the mp3 and play that? Then you wouldn’t hear the god awful sound of a twangy guitar or missed notes and fake people would not boo you off the stage.

And then Jason and I went to see Lance and Jen and we played a little game called Guitar Hero and with my very first strum of the fake guitar control I knew. I was addicted. I was holding onto some serious fun and we rocked it out like there was no tomorrow. Sure, Jen sat on the floor like a normal person and played the guitar like it was a game while I stood and danced and acted like I was a complete moron and there was kicking of legs in the air while I blazed on the guitar riffs but ya know what? Totally addicted. Guitar Hero is so awesome.

I now have a huge yen to try Rock Band. Guitars, drums and singing anyone? Oh yeah. Sign me up.

Zucchini

While we were hanging out Jen raided her garden and gave us some of the biggest zucchini, squash and cucumbers I’ve ever seen in my entire life. Which was great because Jason was just gifted another zucchini at work as well as a recipe for a weight watcher’s zucchini casserole recipe (which with a cup of sour cream and an entire stick of butter.. sounds un watchery to me.. but who am I to argue?) that we cooked recently. It turned out well, if a little bland. I loaded mine with more pepper than a normal person would enjoy and some salt and it’s now edible. I’ve decided that next time I want to half the amount of zucchini, add chicken, maybe some cheese and double the amount of stove top that they use so that there is just.. more. But it was good.

Flip Flops

A long long time ago in a galaxy far far away… or maybe a year and a half ago, I discovered Drew’s (The Crochet Dude) pattern for glass flip flops. When I saw these I was like HOW COOL!! and then they promptly were added to the list of things I want to make. Some day. And then a million and one other projects made me do that ‘Oh! Shiny!’ thing and the list, as you probably know, grows and mutates and eats entire cities.

Yesterday I went to my mother’s house for a birthday dinner (which was nice) and I decided I wanted a project to work on on the way there and I thought this would be the perfect thing and as it turns out, it was!

It was kind of a first for me. I’m not really a circle or 3d crocheter. I stick to the basics. Squares. And if I’m feelin frisky (as I usually am) I go for the ever popular and difficult rectangle. Watch out world, I’ll be dazzlin them all.

I really liked this pattern. It worked up fast, was easy to understand and I think it turned out pretty darn good.

The only thing I’m concerned about now is the craftsmanship. Will this flip flop collect all the condensation that forms from a frozen margarita glass? Will it save from the embarassment of looking like you peed yourself when said condensation rolls down into your lap? I think that I will definately need to test these out. Several times. Possibly drinking several batches of frozen margaritas to test the quality with which I’ve constructed this coaster so that I can save my guests the embarassment of a wet lap and my furniture the unsightliness of a watermark. Obviously, I’m a giver.

So here is my creation:

Sure, it looks like it’s a bit drunk itself, but it’s summer time. Time for being a bit wobbly around the edges.

You too can make your own glass flip flop by going to Drew’s website. He’s got a ton of free patterns as well as some patterns for sale and he’s got a blog where you can read about his daily designing endeavors and the man has cats. You know he’s good people. Check it out!