Can You Find Me Now?

It's not exactly a secret in my amorphous blob of a social circle that my internal compass isn't quite aligned properly... if, in fact, I have one at all.

Just last week, I went literally down the street like half a mile to get my oil changed but got disoriented turning around in the parking lot, went the wrong way and ended up on all sorts of back roads and eventually began to approach my apartment from the complete opposite direction...

It's a gift, what can I say?

On the one side, I find a lot of cool stuff that way. Once, I got lost in Indianola going to the balloon festival and ended up ON a farm (really, ON a farm) with cute kitties running around. That same trip I ended up on a gravel road and there was a tiny baby deer complete with white spots curled up in the grass. Adorable, right?

I've also stumbled upon major shopping malls, restaurants, concert venues, and more than one massive body of water. And the cool thing is I'm always able to find my way home again. Granted, I may need to fill up with gas along the way and I'm sure I've added at least 1,000 unnecessary miles on my car because of these little, ah, excursions, but it's rewarding to make it back home all on my own.

On the down side, if I have somewhere important to be and some sort of appointment to keep, getting lost isn't quite so fun. And, more to the point, most days I don't have the time to aimlessly drive around.

So for my birthday my parents bought me a Tom-Tom. Side note: apparently now is the time to invest in GPS thing for your car. Prices are dropping thanks to fancy new doohickeys on them there do-it-all-for-you phones.

When I opened it, they teased me and said the navigation voice was Snoop Dogg. They were kidding, but apparently on one special model of GPS, he really DOES do the navigation voice. I can just hear him now...

"Yo, homie. Take a left."

Heck, if Snoop Dogg can navigate, I wonder who else can do it? I think Spock would be awesome.

"Driver, that turn was illogical."

Samuel L. Jackson, perhaps?

"Take a mother-f***in' right at the mother-f***in' light."

Yoda, even.

"Reached your destination, you have."

Captain Picard:

"To boldly drive where you've never driven before..."

Dug, from UP

"I love you, master. Turn le.. SQUIRREL!"

Dori

"You've selected P. Sherman 42 Wallaby Way, Sydney. Is that correct?"
"No"
"Hi, I'm Dori.."

Alright, I'll stop there. Sadly, none of those were options, but I did pick a nice lady named Susan, who has so far been successful in directing my parents from the house to the Denver Center of the Performing Arts with striking accuracy.

We'll see how she does in Des Moines.

Tales from the Liquor Store

Last Wednesday was my 21st birthday and despite the fact that it fell smack dab in the middle of finals week and that I'm not much of a drinker at all, I decided I couldn't let the momentous occasion pass without having SOME alcohol, right? It seems like a rite of passage sort of thing.

Anyway, I took (and likely failed) my finance final (which I was having serious difficulty caring about) that evening at like 5 and stopped at the grocery store on my way back to the apartment.

From simply being around heavy drinkers (and living with more than a couple), I knew that you could do one of those mix-and-match six-pack dealies with like Smirnoff Ice and Mike's Hard Lemonade and things like that. So I decide that's what I would do.

I felt awkward in the store because I didn't want to look suspicious like I might be underage or anything and I didn't want it to look like it was my first time buying booze, either.

Luckily, it was a bit crowded. Albeit, the crowd consisted of some fairly shadester folks who breathed heavily through the gaps in their teeth.

I found my little mix-and-match thing fairly quickly and filled it with things I was familiar with (again, Mike's and Smirnoff Ice... though I had never tried Mike's) and headed for the check-out, ID in hand.

Naturally, the cashier dude asked me for my license and I handed it over, not making eye contact because I didn't want this big whole to-do because it was my birthday...

But nothing escaped this guy. He gave my ID back without saying anything and then, rather loudly, said "IT'S YOUR BIRTHDAY! YOU NEED MORE THAN THIS! IT'S YOUR BIRTHDAY!" Which caused the classy people in the liquor store to join in with "OH, WOW! IT'S YOUR BIRTHDAY!? HEY, IT'S HER BIRTHDAY!"

There had to be a dozen people there. Some of whom began to treat me to their "When I turned 21..." stories. Others tried to push me in the direction of the hard liquor.

I wanted the floor to open up and swallow me, but the best I could do was blush like the cute boy in math class just brushed my arm and get the heck out of there with my wimpy fruity beer.

Thanks for not making a scene, liquor store guy. I appreciate it.

Launch!

Last night we launched 515 Magazine, our senior magazine capstone project. We went down to Gateway Market during happy hour and had our staff t-shirts on and all that and we got to distribute magazines.

A bunch of people came out including staff, friends, people featured in the magazine and random people who weren't there for us but wanted to check out our hard work anyway.

It was a pretty good time; the staff enjoyed some well-earned and much-needed praise and alcohol... except for those who are STILL too young for that sort of thing, of course.

Anyway, we're all really proud of it. It looks really awesome and It's so cool to see people walking around reading them. Check out pics from the launch party.

Snow Day!

I blame myself for the current blizzard because I've been hoping and hoping and hoping for snow. Mother Nature delivered in a really big way, I guess.

Yesterday was terrible for driving. I probably would have gotten to school faster if I was driving a combine. Commuting to campus was never a problem until this weather started. Bleh. It took me 45 minutes to about 4 miles. And it took me more than 30 to get home... on the freeway... going 30mph or less the whole way.

I'm not complaining about going slowly. I'd rather take some extra time getting where I'm going than end up sprawled in the middle of the pavement with paramedics asking what they should do with my organs.

Other drivers don't share that sentiment. They like to blow past you as they slip and slide going 60+. Those guys are winners.

My car just doesn't seem to handle the weather well. Braking and turning are a little too much for it to handle.

But it's ok because today is a SNOW DAY! Campus is shut down, along with most of the surrounding area. We've gotten like 14 inches so far, with a few more expected to fall tonight. We have wind gusts up to like 60mph. It's a winter wonderland! And I get to stay inside in my jammies and get caught up on work and watch Christmas movies with my roommate.

You're never too old to appreciate a snow day!

Robotics

Today I went to the Science Center of Iowa to volunteer. I love volunteering there because you get to play with all sorts of really awesome things. Granted, it's all mostly geared toward younger kids, but if you don't like playing in a kiddie pool full of soapy water and blow bubbles big enough to stand in, then I think that's really quite sad.

Anyway, today I went and I was supposed to be the happy door greeter person for a few hours but instead got roped into helping at the Lego League competition. All of these groups from the metro area came (complete with awesome team t-shirts) and entered their lego robots in competition.

The really cool thing about it was that they were all like 13 and younger. I was watching part of the judging and there was this kid who was maybe 9 talking all sorts of programming jargon. Waaaaay over my head. But it was adorable all the same.

The competition was sponsored by ISU and a friend of mine from their APO chapter ended up volunteering through another group he's involved in, so it was cool to talk to him for a little while.

That's one of the coolest things about volunteering, I think, stumbling on something totally awesome you never knew existed.

An unexpected surprise..

I was sitting in my entomology lab this afternoon, playing with microscopes and gazing, amazed, into the incredible faces of all sorts of creepy crawlies that surround us every day when I realized just how incredible and intricate and fascinating bugs really are. They have all sorts of sophisticated biological and physiological functions that help them to just SURVIVE. And in such a tiny body. It doesn't even seem possible, but it is and that's just AWESOME.

If you told me freshman year that I'd graduate from Drake with a degree in magazine journalism and English and have an environmental science class top my list of best classes, I would have raised an eyebrow.

But here I am anyway wishing, for the first time since coming to Drake, that a class didn't have to end. It's remarkable, really.

I've never had a class where I walked away after every session feeling like I learned something cool. EVERY SESSION. I love learning so I love that feeling. It's awesome. I didn't get that all the time in journalism. Probably because I've had so much of it for so long, but still. Challenging a different part of my brain was, well, wonderful. It was a much-needed break and change of pace from what I've been doing.

And we got to go outside on Thursdays! Granted, this semester it seemed that any time you didn't know what day it was you could look outside and, if it was raining, know that it was Thursday. So we didn't go out EVERY Thursday. But when we did, it was beyond awesome. We all piled into a big van and went on field trips to awesome places I never ever knew about and caught stuff. I love going outside. I wish more classes were outside classes.

The professor didn't hurt, either. Keith Summerville is definitely at the top of the "If they teach it, take it" list. The whole list will be published here, I assure you, in May. He's seriously the best. THE best. There have been some good professors and some great professors but he's really top shelf.

I think the thing that struck me is that he, an environmental science professor, took an interest in me as a student and a person even though I have NO background in his field. Not that that's grounds to shun me or whatever, but I've never really had a professor outside of my major care like that... ever.

And, obviously, he cares about all his other students, too. He advises most of them and is always, well, ADVISING them. He points them and leads them and guides them and helps as much as he possibly can. It's fantastic.

It's been an awesome experience, though completely unexpected. But loved it and I'll be sad when it's over... which will be much too soon.