I’m blogging from class, so shoot me. The most painful, dreaded class of my schedule just because it’s so gosh darn BORING. It’s a linguistics class (mistake) in which we learn about sentence order and prepositional phrases and postpositional phrases and relative clauses only we learn about them in languages no one has heard of. Did you know there are over 4,000 languages in the world, but no one can know for sure? Have you heard of Madurese? Don’t worry, it’s a traditional Subject Verb Object sentence order just like good ol’ English. I couldn’t tell you for $50 where in the world speaks Madurese without some Google searching, but alas I’m painfully suffering through 1 hour and 15 minutes of a woman who still writes on a chalkboard in two thousand freaking ten. (Rant over, for now.) The roomies and I have officially begun our change jar in the kitchen for Vegas Spring Break 2011, made only that much more exciting by Lauren’s birthday being on St. Patrick’s Day which is the Thursday of that week. (Ok, I said I was done, but the professor just said “We’ll be looking at a language I can’t pronounce.” Then WHAT is the point. Clearly no one here can speak it, WHY does it matter?! For the record, the language is called Hixkaryana. Apparently it’s spoken in Brazil. No, I will not be participating in this part of the class exercise.) Other big news is that it’s Beat State Week on campus. Activities leading up to our annual Cyclone ass-kicking include free t-shirt giveaways, a slip-n-slide on campus, and speed dating tonight that I’m SO pissed I can’t make it to, but alas have a meeting. Tomorrow is the IA/ISU rugby game, um– yes please. I will wear my one Iowa State t-shirt for that since my loyalty lies not with my school, but with the attractiveness of the boys on the team. Our tailgating plans for Saturday are essentially the same as last week’s trial run, though perhaps with more vigilant peeing in the woods since the dickhead Iowa City police (no, I’m not apologizing for that adjective) were handing out public urinations in literal droves last weekend. I did my first big grocery shop of the year yesterday– yes, my Costco run from the parents lasted that long– and am sososo excited because I got bread ‘n butter pickle slices which are the BEST snack/breakfast/dessert/accent on really anything. First of all, Aldi is the absolute best thing that’s ever happened to my wallet and secondly, HOW GOOD are bread ‘n butter pickles?! I used to be a dill girl (SNOOOOKI!!!) and I’m not adverse to them, but the b-’n-b’s have suddenly taken strong hold of my heart and tastebuds. And there’s your random, unnecessary fact for the day.

My black and gold fingernail polish is chipped, my hangover has subsided, and I’ve declared Labor Day “get my life back on track day.” So far, it’s been moderately successful since I’ve gotten one and three-quarters homework assignments done AND introduced NPH to the wonder of peanuts mixed with candy corn (if you haven’t tried it– it’s gotta be Brach’s candy corn and salted, dry-roasted Planter’s nuts. There’s a certain ratio that I’m kind of forgetting right now, but one bag and one jar should do ya. Beware, the entire bowl will be gone in a sitting if you don’t watch yourself.) Needless to say, the first tailgate of the season was a rousing success. My Crock-Pot breakfast casserole was a surprising hit, and no one brought a bat to do Louisville Chuggers, thus making us able to stay upright far longer than most games. Sunday was a fabulous day for laying and contemplating suicide and half-watching trashy reality television. Fortunately, I start both of my jobs this week (thanks for the well wishes– they apparently worked as I got the second internship I interviewed for) so the level of debauchery brought upon by the first home game will be unattainable for the rest of the semester. On a different note, happy birthday to my father, who is currently on a plane to Las Vegas (only a stop on the way to visit some relatives.) Either way, I’m very jealous because being in Vegas or even Eugene, Oregon means I wouldn’t be in school, the absolute bane of my existence. Yes, perhaps that WILL be the running theme of the blog until graduation– it’s just not. getting. better. I loved school until about high school, but since then it’s been an unfortunate means to the ultimate end of having a real career. No, I didn’t get my dad a gift, but I would want a blog shout-out over a package of Twizzlers or grill accessories any day. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

I’m up weirdly early on a Sunday, filled with anticipation for picking up the keys to my NEW APARTMENT in a few hours. I haven’t actually seen the place– I trust Lauren and Rachael’s judgment (ooh new people to blog about)– and am itching to have my own kitchen, bed, whatever-as-long-as-it’s-not-713 in Iowa City again. Forget that I was just in Vegas less than two months ago when I tell you this, but I wanna go somewhere. Perhaps Colorado to visit D-Bag, or the Caribbean, or Vermont. That last one was only because I’ve never been there, but I imagine it’s nice. Class starts in three weeks, I am quite ambivalent about this, though the mighty job/ internship hunt is ON for the school year. A little part of me dies each time I see NO next to “Is this a paid internship?” on the UI’s Employment Expo (best. invention. ever.) but I’ve accepted that I will probably have to have a paying job not related to my major and then an unpaid internship on the side. And if this all could not take up any time on Saturdays during the months of September and October, that would be ideal; we’ve got some mighty tailgating plans this year. Oh, I ran almost eight miles yesterday. Pretty freakin’ ecstatic with myself. I’m hoping everyone else is town is too hungover to move in right away as I plan on doing– parents in IC, illegal parking, unloading heavy furniture, spider webs in my storage unit all give me unnecessary anxiety. I’m wearing a lovely pair of jorts for the move, be jealous.

My hair is reallllly really red.  Think Lucille Ball.  Or Daphne from Scooby-Doo.  I probably won’t dye it back because this will come out in a certain number of washes anyway and I dont’ care enough to do anything about it until then. 

Our group for the Halloween bar crawl looked amazing.  There was a matador, his bull, Robin Hood, the entire cast of the Office, Ned Flanders, a surgeon, Hannah Montana, etc.  One bar was having it’s Halloween party a night early so it was wall-to-wall with some really great costumes; I saw the most spot-on Bret Michaels and kind of wanted my picture taken with him.  Kind of.

6:30 am Saturday came all too soon, but Daphne made it out of bed, grabbed a bunch of Halloween cupcakes and hit up kegs n eggs which was super fun.  Also, while I thought the cupcakes were a tad dry, it apparently doesn’t take too much to appease a houseful of college guys.  “This is the best cupcake I’ve ever had, I may have fallen just a little in love with you.”  I’m sure the fact that they were stone cold sober helped as well.

Bestie and I watched the game at his house– I managed to flip an entire DiGiornio pizza over in the oven onto the burner, rendering it inedible.  That game was a nail-biter, but somehow the Hawkeyes pulled their heads out of their asses in time to win by the largest margin than they have since the ISU game.  9-0!!

Work was fairly entertaining with customers all costumed-up until I got a MASSIVE tension headache thingy from sleeping all wrong on my neck.  The last couple hours were completely miserable– I had to bitch out on going out on actual Halloween and was in bed by 8:15.  I would wake up every couple hours because of the pain, but it appears to be gone after twelve hours of sleep.  So the good news is I’ve been up for quite some time and have nothing to do today but some homework and cleeeeeean.

Today is the first of the month– rent is due, 7 months until my birthday, 2 months and 5 days until I fly to GERMANY!!  Papa K’s got the tickets all nailed down, I’m pretty psyched that we get a meal from Chicago to Frankfurt.  I’ll be hauling out some boxes soon and packing up my room– since I have to go home so often between now and Christmas (three weekends in a row in November…) I’ll take small loads each time.  Oh and hey, if you know someone who needs to sublease an apt for second semester, I’m your girl.

In conclusion, I would like some ice cream.  I need to do laundry today.  I had a black bean patty from Which Wich for breakfast– it was bombtastic, even though I made it last night.  Ooh peanuts and candy corn would be good, too.   Roomie is sick, if she gets me sick, I will murder her then drive all night to Mexico.  Bed is calling again… at 9:30 am.

I’ve been bitching a lot lately, so today is dedicated to something I love.

Avoid the Stork is a campaign of sheer genius.  The Iowa Initiative deserves some kind of marketing award for Avoid the Stork, a collaboration of efforts to “help Iowans between 18 and 30 plan the right time for a delivery.”  UI is one of their partners (along with the University of Northern Iowa, among others).

Here’s the Stork.  It walks around campus occasionally; some people are freaked out by it, but that’s kind of the point!

They have TV commercials, radio ads, all frank and hilarious and actually, at least in my opinion, effective.  Avoid the Stork isn’t preaching abstinence, it’s being quite real about HEY, USE A CONDOM OR YOU’LL HAVE A BABY!!!  It’s about time.

The stork was hanging out on campus today next to a booth they had set up with tons of free stuff!  I wish I had a camera (AHEM, a-hole thief who stole mine this summer…) to show you a picture of the cup of stuff I got.  The big plastic cup says “Don’t like the stork crash your party: until you’re ready.”  I am beyond excited to carry my bloody marys around in this at my six am Kegs & Eggs Halloween tailgate this Saturday.  It was filled with Avoid the Stork lip balm, a fortune cookie that when opened said “You will see the Stork in your future if you don’t use protection,” and and naturally, free condoms.  The condoms are in these things that look like matchbooks (comeplete with a picture of my favorite stork!) on the front, but when you open it, there’s a condom inside instead of matches.  Genius.

They’ll be handing out free t-shirts at the game on Saturday, make sure to stop  by and say hey.  Make sure you also visit their Web site– quite cleverly put together, all stork/delivery service related.  I appreciate how they’re not just targeting teen pregnancy or unwed mothers– one of their radio ads is about a married couple who hadn’t planned on having another baby so soon after their first (also quite relevant given our current economic situation.)

So, WAY TO GO, Avoid the Stork.  That fortune cookie was actually quite delicious, I’ll be sure and pass out these free condoms when downtown Friday night.  And remember everyone, in the words of my mother: wrap it before you tap it.