"ABRE LA FREEKING VENTANA, DORA!"

Fun, fun, fun weekend! Lots of good stories to tell, so listen up!

Friday was a very, very long day. It started at 5:20AM. But the good news was soccer practice was awesome, I won a pasta dinner (with my team, of course!) and even the conditioning was "fun." I ate breakfast with some of the girls and then my roommate and I watched Dora the Explorer and Go Diego Go because apparently real TV doesn't start until later on Fridays. So we were watching Dora and all I could think of was the skit from SNL about Maraka and Mittens. And then when Go Diego Go started Diego was following around this animal he called "okapi" which looked like half zebra half antelope mix with a really long purple tongue. We thought Diego was lying to us. Then we learned that the Okapi is a real animal:

"The okapi (pronounced /oʊˈkɑːpiː/), Okapia johnstoni, is a giraffid artiodactyl mammal native to the Ituri Rainforest, located in the northeast of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in Central Africa. Although the okapi bears striped markings reminiscent of the zebra, it is most closely related to the giraffe."

Then after dropping off scholarship materials, eating again and taking a long nap, the festivities began. It was Scorch's birthday on Friday and let me tell you, Dragons know how to party. We worked a station at his party that involved a large inflatable soccer ball, and all the mascots liked our station the best. After we were released from that we ate another 18" pizza at Spicy Pie and then headed to the 2 Minute Film Contest at the Fargo Film Festival. It was really, really funny! There were some really good short movies and it was well worth the $2 we paid to get in.

We then proceeded to have a dance party in the car. We decided that we needed to let some more dance energy out and were pleasantly reminded that school was hosting a Mardi Gras masquerade and we wanted to make a mask and dance our brains out. However, 11PM is too late to arrive to a school event and we were disappointed to find that all the masks were gone and the dance floor was more of a mosh pit (which sometimes is fun, but when you have dance moves like we do, being in close proximity to other people is a big no no). But luckily bingo started just as we were about to leave, and we grabbed some cards and played. And won. Between three of us there, we won seven times. My friend was there the entire time and won zero times. So I now have a Chuck Norris poster, a reusable coffee cup, a new set of Sharpies and a 3-pack of chic pocket-prong folders at my disposal.

And just when you thought our night would end, we were just beginning. Instead of going to bed, we went to my room and named our apartment for next year ("The Jungle" so we can make a huge sign that says "Welcome to the Jungle" and hang it in the front room), and I picked out my Mod Podge crafts for spring break:

This is what the crafting community calls an" IKEA hack-" going to IKEA, exploiting their cheap yet functional goods and making them so much better. Lamps covered in film. So simple and easy to make yet so stylish and awesome looking! Very excited to make these.

But instead, "THE JUNGLE" and in all animal prints. This way we're not obliged to put animal print anywhere else and our apartment doesn't turn into a real jungle.

And finally, this mirror. This one pictured sold at Anthropologie for $600. I think I could make it for less than $20. Does anyone want to challenge me on it? Hopefully I have time to try it over break!

Saturday was an equally exciting day. Got to sleep in, which was really nice. Then we tried something at the Wellness Center called "Body Pump." We thought, "Oh, we're soccer players. We lift all the time and run all the time, this will be no biggie." WRONG. COULDN'T HAVE BEEN WRONGER. OH MY GOSH MY WHOLE BODY STILL HURTS. It was so hard. We had no idea what to expect going in and we had no idea what kinds of things to grab and we put too much weight on for pretty much all the lifts and it was SO HARD. But we're going back because it was a super good workout.

Afterward, we went to Wal-Mart, bought glitter and food (for unrelated purposes, promise) and started on a night of Mexican food and crafts. We ate quesadillas, rice and beans and chips and salsa. It was delicious! We completely trashed the floor with craft things and had a blast. And to make the night better, we ate a whole diet cake. That's right, I used diet and cake together. It's true, we made a diet cake. For you non-believers, try this and become a believer: instead of making a cake from a box with all the eggs and oil and other things that usually go into a boxed cake mix, just use a can of diet pop. Just cake mix and diet pop. That's all. I promise that it'll taste delicious and it's good for you (as good as cake can be, anyway). Experiment with flavors. My personal favorite is white cake mix with some diet orange soda. Delicious. I can't stop saying that word. But seriously, it's good.

We took a break from our crafting to go a someone's house and play that Dance Central game on xBox Kinect. It. Is. So. Much. Fun. Like, seriously. You know that you look nothing like the people on the screen but you think you do because they tell you things like "Awesome job!" and "Flawless!" and give you high scores. And if you really got into it, I think it'd be a pretty good workout, too. Then we went back to crafting until all hours of the morning.

Today was a little slower paced. I slept in (again. I mean, twice in a weekend? What is this madness?) and went to our soccer banquet. We shared our favorite stories about the seniors and ate good food. We presented awards (I won freshman of the year, yippee!) and just had a good time being together again.

I then edited my movie for a couple hours (actually, first I slow motion slipped and fell into a large snow bank on the two inches of snow that had fallen over night. I got snow down my pants and all up in my business. And my purse was completely full. My life is awesome.) and it's turning out pretty good, not exactly how I wanted it, but for a first time, I'm not disappointed. Either tomorrow or Tuesday, I'll have it posted up here so you can see it.

And to cap the day off, we watched that "America's Next Great Restaurant." Although initially it didn't really catch my attention, after they announced that the winner would open a chain with restaurants in Los Angeles, New York and MINNEAPOLIS I decided I had to watch so we could go to it when it opens and act all famous and stuff. Don't ask me why I need an excuse to watch a TV show, but if anyone asks, that's it.

To end (remember, tomorrow's my long, long day) I'll put in a quote from one of the 2-Minute Films we saw. It was about Parkour and even though it was short, it was pretty cool, and this quote obviously caught my attention since I remember it all the way from Friday night:

"If you're afraid to fall, you'll fall because you're afraid."

APARTMENT OF AWESOMENESS!

Very very long day. Had no morning class, our professor had said that we should spend the time either going to the Fargo Film Festival or editing our projects. I spent the time reserving a key to the edit lab for the weekend so I didn't have to do either. But I actually did other stuff too, like I ate, registered for soccer and finished applying for art scholarships.

There was a group on campus tonight called "Whose Rhyme is it Anyway?" They were an improv rap comedy group, and I live all of those things, so we decided to go. It was pretty cool, it stated kind of sketchy but it definitely got better as it went on and I'm glad I went. They were all really funny, and they all have some music on iTunes that I haven't had time to check out yet, but if you want to their names are: Heath Mcnease, Playdough and Manchild.

Besides that my dad just sent me my only real reason for wanting an iPad. This:

Yes, I want a $600 iPad for that. As a designer, I just think that it's really cool that someone designed a cover that does more than a cover is meant to do. Just awesome. I'm excited for the day I can think of something as awesome as that.

And I also found this article today, about the rediscovery of the original Nike waffle iron. Yeah, like the one the co-founder of Nike used to make his first pair of Nike waffle soled running shoes. Maybe not news for some of you out there, but it's still a good article about how the people who found it were conpensated and it just made a whole school better off. I recommend you read it!

Oh and as a little last note, AJ Hawk just signed a 5-year contract with the Packers! (He was released a few days ago as his contract expired). Go Pack Go!

I'll end with a quote I remembered from Whose Rhyme is it Anyway, it was during an improv session where they were basically ripping on these random guys standing on the stage, it was pretty funny.

"This guys is number 1... That's his GPA."

"Yeah, location is pretty self-explanatory. I put a tree in the corner of the room."

AWESOME day. Full of art, soccer and a party! But before I get into the grit of my day, I have to start by announcing that Charlie Sheen started a Twitter page just over 24 hours ago, and he already has over 1,000,000 followers. #teamsheen, #winning and #tigerblood are already trending on Twitter. This man has too much power for his own good. Hopefully he uses it wisely. And this website cracks me up.

Enough about Charlie Sheen, though. So this morning we finally revealed our design project. It was awesome. There are a few things we need to adjust before grading but besides that it received a good critique and was well received by the class. Here's what you've all been waiting for:

This is called Tea Cup #1. It goes at the beginning of our series of three tea cups, pictured (poorly) below.

Our series of teacups, tipping over. We had a table cloth set up for our presentation and we wore dresses and just did awesome.

The middle teacup. This one moves because I propped it up on a wire spring, and it's AWESOME. Sorry but it seems as if I forgot to take a picture of the third one, but it needs the most work anyway so that's ok!

So then Drawing happened. We began working on another type of abstraction called "location" which is pretty self-explanatory. I decided to draw a farm-landish area with a giant high tech fancy looking office building on the side of the road. So I started that but I kept getting distracted by this other piece of art behind me and I took a break from drawing my farm and started trying to replicate it on my paper. So it kind of looks weird now, because then I went back and tried to finish. But here's what I accomplished:

My final piece. Parts of it are starting to resemble things, but that blob is just really distracting!

A close up of the blob. Which doesn't look anything like what I was trying to replicate. But it was pretty fun to make, just smearing oil pastel around with my fingers.

The completed section (or at least near-completed) of my farm. You can see the ghost of the tractor that I decided not to include. I think oil pastels are going to be hard to work with. They kind of just smear everywhere and get into places they don't belong. Icky.

Straight from drawing, I went to soccer. We started real indoor practices today (as opposed to the conditioning/small group sessions we were having before) and it went well. Except for the fact that everyone on our team is getting sick (including my roommate... knocking on wood!) we had a good practice. After my coach tried to get us to move washers on a string with our minds. It was weird, but for some reason, it worked. Like, he just gave everyone a washer tied to the end of a string and was like, if you have a positive attitude and concentrate on moving the washer in circles, or back and forth, you can make it move. And it did, kind of. But I was really happy when we started playing soccer.

Then, the awesome part of my day happened. Straight from soccer I went to dinner with a bunch of people for a friend's birthday! We ate at Applebee's where we had delicious food, then went to Wal-Mart where we played a scavenger hunt type of game (three categories: find the biggest orange thing, the fluffiest thing and the thing birthday girl wanted most for her birthday), then ended the night with some ice cream at Culvers. It was delicious and awesome! And it was nice to get out of the dorm on a school night because that hasn't been happening lately!

When the waitress brought birthday girl's dessert out, she said, "Be careful, I've never tied three balloons to a spoon before." Well it turns out that balloons can carry a spoon away, so be careful.

So for those of you keeping track, I was busy and out of my room from about 1:30pm today until about 10:30pm. Oh the woes of being a student-athlete!

To add to the sheer excitement of today's post I think I'll share with you my next pair of running shoes just because they're awesome.

I like the ones of the right more, even though they're the men's. I probably wouldn't fit into the women's anyway. So yeah, when you start seeing these around, you'll know it's me!

To end, I'd like to make a transition sentence that ties my conclusion with my introduction, a technique taught to many a student on how to write a proper essay. So it's only fitting that I finish with a Charlie Sheen quote, taken from that website I posted earlier. No idea what it means or where it comes from but hey, taken completely out of context, it's pretty funny (or not, depending on how you look at it, I guess).

"Your face will melt off and your children will weep over your exploded body."

"Red Vines make everything better!"

Very long, but somewhat relaxing and fun day. So, for a Tuesday, not too shabby! Not much happened, got lectured in Video Production, lectured in Film History. So while history Prof was talking I did this:

If you didn't see the video I posted yesterday, I've been practicing this pretty much since I saw it. I wanted to color it but I'm not sure how so I didn't. We'll see. Maybe next time.

It was 9 degrees outside today, with 20-30mph wind gusts, making the wind chill around -10. So what did I do with my afternoon off? I went for a nice, long run outside. And was it cold? Yes. But was it nice? Yes. What was the only uncomfortable thing about my run today? The fact that because I had three layers of Spandex material pants on, they all kept falling down. But besides that (and the very bottom of my ear lobes) I was a hot and sweaty mess when I got back and it was beautiful.

We also had a sketch comedy meeting and we read through some sketches and they were really, really funny! I'm excited for next week when we actually get to rehearse them. And we will have a show on March 25, for all you non-believers...

Since I don't have anything else to talk about, I'll put in a quick funny story here. After the Superbowl, when the Packers won (Packards?), I wore Packers gear for pretty much the whole week. And every morning at breakfast, this small Asian man would come up to me while I was using the toaster (I always meet men by the toaster... not kidding) and point to my clothing and say "Go Packers!" or "Packers win!" or "Champions," etc. I still see him everyday at breakfast, and also in some other places. And whenever he sees me, me kind of puts his hands up in mock celebration and says, "Packers!" I can't tell if he's a Packers fan, or if he just thinks my name is Packers.

I didn't hear anything really inspiring today, and this section of my blog has been lacking in comedy lately, so I'll end with a favorite- Mikey ADHD. From Twitter a few days ago:

"IF "FARTED" IS THE WORD BANNED FROM OUR CLASS, THAN WHY DID I GET YELLED AT FOR TELLING EVERYONE THAT I JUST POOPED NITROGEN."

"Go in there, acting like soldiers preparing for battle tomorrow and scare the sh*t out of them."

I would like to apologize for the very very very long delay in updating this! I know all you spoiled readers of mine have had to go nearly four days without being informed about my life. I am sorry, but my life has just been so full lately it was hard for me to find time to do this. But I'm here now, and that's all that matters!

So it was a long weekend. I spent a disproportionate amount of time at the NSIC Indoor Conference Track meet. It was long, but it was worth it. I personally PRed in both shot put and weight throw (I did beat two people in the shot... who scratched out), and the boys won conference (girls placed 9th)! It was a very exciting day! It's a great day to be a Dragon!

So I guess my reason for not updating this last night would be due to the Oscars. I watched the whole thing, from the Red Carpet Live to the Best Picture. And I lost my family's Oscar Pool by one. It came down to best picture between my brother and I, and I lost. I had high hopes for "The Social Network" but I realized about halfway through the show that there was no way it was going to beat "The King's Speech" and I instantly regretted not choosing it. Besides that, it was pretty predictable. I thought Anne Hathaway and James Franco didn't make as big of a fool of themselves as they could have, and Hathaway had some interesting dresses. There were a lot of interesting dresses. I liked Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis's, but besides that, it was a pretty questionable dress night. And this was happening in our room throughout the whole show:

Meet Lambie and Brutus. Brutus belongs to me and Lambie belongs to a friend. They are not dating. They are friends with benefits and we had to tell them multiple times during the show to keep it down. They were sad to be separated at the end of the night.

That's all I really have to say about the Oscars, I went 17/24 so I can't say there were that many surprises for me but it was an interesting night!

This is a cat for you:

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/. . \

=\T/=

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| _ |

/| | | \

                                 ( ) _|_ ( )……………………

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Don't question it, just enjoy it. 

Today was a long day, mostly because in Econ, I had this test that I unsuccessfully studied for this weekend. But we made some interesting art and if you're on your game, you'll start to see resemblance of something in my "mystery design project."

Everything is still there, it's just turning into something vaguely recognizable. Still nowhere near being done, but hey, we're getting closer.

My studies from drawing on "manipulation." In case you can't tell, it's a bottle. This was not my best. The purple one is supposed to be twisting but I couldn't get it right so it's just a bubble bottle instead. And the red yellow orange one is just boring. But I like shading with colored pencils so it was cool to do, anyway.

Study on "mutation." This is just more interesting. It was fun to draw and everything actually looks like something. There's a change! Don't ask why the shoe is there, I just started with that and couldn't really think of what to mutate it into so the bottle just went straight through it...

For people who care about the NFL or college football, you should be excited because the NFL Combine was this weekend. I have a few players on my radar who did well including JJ Watt (LB, Wisconsin), Christian Ponder (QB, Florida State), Blaine Gabbert (QB, Missouri), and of course Cam Newton (QB, Auburn). And then there's the sad, sad story of Casey Matthews (LB, Oregon) who injured his shoulder and couldn't showcase his talents. They're not sure if he'll be back for Oregon's Pro-Day in 10 days either, which I'm guessing could be a damper on his draft chances. But I'm sure that his family name will help him get a spot somewhere. It'll be sad to see it come down to that but it's better than not getting a chance at all! Go football!

Love this video. Will get me through Econ for the rest of the semester. Will also make mom (math teacher) and dad (engineer) happy because I can tell them I'm voluntarily studying math. Win.

I need to shower and get to bed. Tomorrow is my last day off before I go back to track and soccer (wtf two days off in one week? I think it's time for a run!) and I'd like to be awake to enjoy it! I'll end with a very inspiring quote from the deceased portion of the Oscars last night by recently deceased Lena Horne:

“It's not the load that breaks you down, it's the way you carry it.”

"Sorry, we're reminiscing about our childhood."

Ahh, Thursdays. If it weren't for waking up at 5:30AM to run (or watch my teammates run) the beep test (and getting chewed up about it afterward) it probably would have been a good day.

We're finally learning how to edit video in Video Production so I can finally start editing my project. Not that I'll have time for any editing anytime soon. But the thought of being able to at least get a start on it is very appealing to me.

Two things happened in Film History that made my day bittersweet. We were lectured at for a while then we watched a film ("Applause" which is a very good film, I actually enjoyed it). After the film (there was still 45 minutes of class) we realized that our professor was gone. Just gone. And the TA was also gone. So we sat there for about 15 minutes, waiting. And I kid you not, the minute we all get up to leave, he comes strolling into the room wondering where we were all going. FML. But he only had a few things to say so it wasn't too bad. The other thing I realized was while walking back to the dorms. I walk really, really slow. Even when I try to walk fast, it's just not that possible for me. I was just walking at my normal speed and a girl who was, no joke, no taller than 4'9" walks past me. And I tried to keep up. And it was hard for me. Her legs were as long as my shin bones. Her backpack almost dragged on the ground behind her because she was so small. And she walked faster than me. I don't know why my legs won't walk faster. I just can't walk that fast. Just. Can't.

I had a whole afternoon off today. Like, from 4:15pm today until 8:30am tomorrow morning, I actually have nothing. And I didn't know what to do with myself. Luckily I got the chance to go to Party City. And what's the first thing we see when we walk into Party City?

Candy City. It's like a sub-city of Party City and they had all the best candy from my childhood that you sometimes can't find in a normal store. So $3.00 and 15 minutes later, this is how happy I was:

This would be two Smarties suckers, some Necco Wafers, a large Laffy Taffy, an interesting sucker and a "Squirrel Nut Zipper" which I only got because someone's been listening to a band called the "Squirrel Nut Zippers" in the bathroom and I wanted to taste the music. It wasn't that good. And the Laffy Taffy didn't have the little black watermelon seeds that it used to have. I was disappointed but it still tasted OK so I ate it anyway.

So then we ate dinner and came up with a few genius ideas. For some reason, whenever we're at Kise Cafeteria eating, or talking about going there, all these genius ideas start popping up. The first one is for a website I'm supposed to start called "Things I Want to Say to My Roommate." It probably already exists but there are a few pairs of people rooming together this year and some things they wish they could say to their roommates are just really, really funny. So that was our first idea. Our second idea was an "Exotic Plumbing" service. And that turned into a whole setup where we could purposely clog toilets of rich people and then have them hire our exotic plumbers to fix them and split the profit. Genius.

I have to throw tomorrow at the NSIC Conference Track Meet. I'm seeded last and second-to-last in my events in the conference, so I guess there's not a lot of pressure on me so maybe that'll work in my advantage and I won't actually end up in last and second-to-last.

I decided today (and I know there are some people from my high school who, if they read this will holler at me for being waaaaaaaay behind the times) that Lupe Fiasco is probably the smartest rapper alive. I was listening to his song "Words I Never Said" and I actually had to think about some of the lines from his songs. What he manages to say in his songs is actually amazing. So much power in such a short amount of time. So I'll end with a few lines from his song:

"If you turn on TV all you see’s a bunch of “what the f-cks”
Dude is dating so and so blabbering bout such and such
And that aint Jersey Shore, homie thats the news
And these the same people that supposed to be telling us the truth
Limbaugh is a racist, Glenn Beck is a racist
Gaza strip was getting bombed, Obama didn’t say shit
Thats why I aint vote for him, next one either
I’ma part of the problem, my problem is I’m peaceful
And I believe in the people."

"How much does a polar bear weigh? Enough to break the ice. Hi."

Very long but surprisingly exciting day! If it weren't for the fact that I have to wake up at 5:30AM tomorrow to watch my soccer team run the beep test, in full knowledge of the fact that I'll have to run it by myself later, this would have been a good night, as well.

The big, big news is that my portrait of Wolverine is finally done! He sat for us one more day and I finished. No longer does Wolverine live in Jersey Shore-land. He's a real person now. Feels so good to be done!

Got the shoulders in proper proportion and fixed a few parts on the face. And thought of a clutch last minute idea for the background which actually worked out well. WHEW! DONE!

Just an intriguing pastel splatter on the floor. When asked why I was photographing the floor, I responded, "This dust caught my interest."

And we made progress on our mystery project in Design as well. I still can't tell you what it is because the random assortment of materials and objects we're collected so far will make for a super surprising end project. But here's a little of what we did today:

More washes. But just orange this time... Hmm...

Peace Tea cans, orange and green herring bone pattern and a thing that looks like a pizza tray. WHAT DOES IT MEAN?

We had a mandatory meeting for all student athletes today. It was about taking drugs and supplements and the NCAA's banned substance list. The very first slide said, "Don't wait until URINE trouble." Like "you're in" but also "urine," you know cause they test your urine... It was funny. The rest of the presentation, not so much. Except when we saw that there was a drug called "Man Scorch" and under side effects of using anabolic steroids there was a picture of a dragon.

Don't take this, or you'll turn into a dragon and be banned from the NCAA.

We had the opportunity to sign up for pen pals from other area colleges a few weeks ago and I, being the social person I am, signed up. I got his name today and wrote him a nice letter. It basically sounded like this:

Hi, how was your day? Was it good? Do you know how much a polar bear weighs? I do. Enough to break the ice. My name is Tory. (random true information about me). I like to make crispy treats, sing karaoke dressed as Ke$ha and stalk research famous people. I can't write on one sheet of paper so I layered lots of sheets to act as a comforter for my pen. What do you get when you turn an elephant into a cat? A cat. (more random but true information about me). Sometimes when I text my friends I like to pretend to be a gangster and write like this: yo wassup mah homedog? I just licked my roommate's envelope shut... Seductively. I have to wake up at 5:30AM tomorrow. Good bye. 

I think there's a good chance we'll be best friends.

Since I do have to wake up tomorrow at 5AM and still have a small amount of homework to finish, I really should probably go. I'll end with a quote from a song that I've recently become obsessed with. It's called "Science and Faith" by The Script, off their newest album called "Science and Faith," which I recommend everyone to buy because it's amazing. Here's my favorite line so far (I almost finished the whole album but I listened to this song about 15 times so I didn't quite make it straight through):

"You won't find faith or hope down a telescope/ you won't find heart or soul in the stars/ you can break everything down into chemicals/ but you can't explain a love like ours."