Totally Awkward Tuesday

So, in honor of having just moved back to the wonderful city of College Station, I'm going to tell you a totally awkward story about my first Midnight Yell. (As always, this is brought to you by Tova Darling -- her story today is one that we can all relate to, I promise.)

For those of you not lucky enough to be Aggies, Midnight Yell is a tradition at A&M: We gather in Kyle Field at midnight the Friday night before every football game (unless it's away) and do yells (not cheers!) to get pumped up for the next day's game. And after it's over, all the lights in the stadium turn off for a moment and you're supposed to mug down (make out/kiss) your date. And if you don't have a date, you're supposed to hold up a lighter, find someone else with a lighter and kiss them.

For the first Midnight Yell, a girl I was friends with set me and her suite-mate (who is now incidentally my new room mate -- check out our new apartment!) up on blind dates with some Corps of Cadets boys she knew. The guy I went with was a sweet guy named Dan -- really fun, strong faith, easy to talk to -- who I met once at the library the day before our date. We went out with his entire outfit and Ayla (which made it a little less awkward), had dinner, hung out for a while, then went on to yell practice. As you probably know by now (or don't if you're not a regular reader... hmmm...) I'm a naturally awkward person, so I didn't exactly make it easy on the poor guy but the whole night was just awkward. Let's face it, it was a blind date -- there was no way in heck it was going to go well. But this went awfully -- we forgot each other's name more than once, he was off talking to one of his friends and forgot about me for like forty-five minutes, Ayla's date's room mate was flirting with me more than Dan was, all his other corps buddies were making stupid jokes and talking about the corps and things we didn't understand, Ayla's date was also being kind of rude and stand-offish, so she and I spent more time alone in the stands talking to each other than with our dates.

And then, as if this would cure all the awkwardness at the end of the night, when the lights went out, Dan and I kissed. As if that would make the fifteen-minute walk back to his car, over to his brother's apartment to watch movies, and then our final good night at about 3 am totally normal.

But, luckily, I got a lot out of that night. I don't know if Ayla and I would have been friends if it weren't for that bonding night and Dan and I are actually pretty good friends now and I can't wait for him to move back to CS (he lives in DC -- lucky him!). So, over all, it was a good night, but easily the most awkward way to start two very good friendships.

Long time no post

I'm sorry it's been so long since I've posted everyone, but I've been moving into my new apartment! It's been a crazy hectic week/weekend, starting on Thursday.

Thursday: There was a "party" at my place. Close to twenty people were there -- there was movie "watching" galore (we didn't finish a single one) and lots of talking and having fun. It was great to see everyone one last time before I left for TAMU, where I am now. Stupidly though, I didn't take a single picture that night.

Friday: Commence moving in extravaganza! I drove down, got here by about 4, got the key, and when Ayla and I walked in to our brand new apartment (new to us... not so new in real life) it was 95 degrees inside and looked like the picture below. Now, that's just my bedroom, but still. I didn't take a lot of before pictures because it was too hot and we wanted to get out of there and let it cool down ASAP. My parents arrived that night, Ayla and I crashed on the floor in what is now the dining room and good times were had (but not really, because it was still really hot).
Saturday: This was when the real moving in started. I had moved some stuff that was in my car in already, but that was mostly clothes. Saturday though, Kevin arrived and he and my dad unloaded my truck and the real moving in got started. Again, not many pictures were taken because my dad looked like he would kill me if I took a lot, but here's a picture of Kevin helping me finish painting my room. :] Doesn't he look so excited?
Yesterday was mostly just decorating, putting books in place, etc. So now, here are the final pictures of my bedroom/bathroom and the dining room (the living room/kitchen aren't quite done...almost there).


And there's all the pictures I have so far. Once the living room and dining room are done, I'll show you those. So, how was your weekend? Anyone else moving or doing decorating-type things?

Totally Awkward Tuesday

Once again, I am participating in this week's Totally Awkward Tuesday, hosted (as always) by Tova Darling. Her story for today is hilarious (and possibly the cliff-notes story of my life from ages 7 - 17) so go check it out.

My story for today is about ex-boyfriends. You'll find that most of my Totally Awkward stories are about ex-boys or room mates (or maybe you won't if you're not a regular reader. hmm...)

As you know (or may not, first time reader) I'm one of my boss's favorites at work, which somehow gets twisted into having to work a lot more than the other swim instructors, ie whenever he/the managers can't/don't want to work. The night of this story, I'm home for the weekend from my first semester of college and there is a swim meet at the pool I work at. Neither my boss nor any of the other managers can make it in, so I'm sitting in the office, attempting to tell the lifeguards (who are all older than me at this point, I might add) what to do, when who should I see but one of my exes walking around on the pool deck. (That's the pool I'm talking about to the left -- with a mechanical shark fin in the water! Not at a swim meet, though. I digress..)

We'll call this one Boy C (yes, there are Boys A & B). Boy C is not technically an ex as much as he is someone I went on a few dates with the summer after my senior year of high school. He decided we should see other people through an email while he was at work one day -- as you can tell, it was love at first sight.

Now, Boy C was very clearly out of place. Mostly because he was wearing a sweater in a sweltering hot indoor pool (there's no air conditioning so the swimmers don't freeze), but also because he was carrying a really nice Nikon or Canon camera near a giant body of water. So, being suspicious of what exactly is going on, I walk out on deck to question him. He commences to tell me that he's snapping photos for the yearbook. We make small talk for a few moments and I inform him that a ceremony honoring the senior swimmers will start soon and he probably wants to get out of the way -- it's not exactly photo-worthy anyways.

So, taking me up on my offer (maybe, I don't remember if I actually told him to join me in the office) he follows me into the office, sits across from me and we start to talk about how his senior year is going. Then, a lifeguard that works there walks into the office. I never really went on a date with this one, but he liked me a lot and had made that very clear on more than one occasion. He also knows who Boy C is (though Boy C doesn't know this when they're introduced.) So he's kind of flirting with me when all of sudden there's a knock on the window to the office. Who should be there but Boy A? Of course.

(For those who don't know, Boy A and I dated for a year and a half in high school and basically broke up because I was going off to college. I began dating Boy C soon after.)

So, now I have Boy A -- the ex that at that point I would have still gotten back together with --, Boy C -- who to this day I like the idea of, but was over him by the time he sat in my office --, and Lifeguard all sitting in the office with me and I have no way to escape because I'm required to be in there and I'm not mean enough to kick them out. Boy C and Boy A know who the other is and when they're introduced there's a very obvious though brief moment of sizing each other up. Lifeguard has realized what's going on by this point and is either openly amused or competitive, I've never really been able to tell, and I'm sinking down slowly in my chair as they start to talk to each other, then all turn to me at the same time and ask who I'm now dating.

Commence sinking lower in my chair (thankfully, I've never really been a blusher). I must have mumbled something about the 23-year-old ex-Marine I actually was dating because I'm asked about him occasionally to this day, but the rest of that conversation was a blur except the moment when another lifeguard (a girl this time, and a friend of mine) walked in, recognized every person in that room and their relation to me, looked at me and said, "Well...this is awkward..." and very quickly fled from the room. I could have pummeled her for not at least taking Lifeguard with her so I could maybe at least one of the ex-boy's to leave based on "needing to do work" but no such luck. She later laughed at me and asked how my evening had gone.

Needless to say, I've since worked up the courage to kick people out of the office when necessary.

6:50 am

Yes, that IS what time it is as I write this. I wish I could say it's because I was somewhere east of me and my body was still mentally in that time zone, but no, it's because I had crazy nightmares and my mind forced me to wake up to escape the torture of my dreams.

Unfortunately, I'm back from San Diego. This means lots of real-world-type things like work and packing to move on August 15th; the latter sounds much more exciting. I've bought some art for the walls in my bedroom and I think I'm going to start shopping for living room art soon -- Ayla has apparently decided to leave most of the decorating up to me, which while I think is a bad idea (I will have too much fun with it) I also appreciate that she trusts me with that kind of an undertaking. :] But anyways, I'm actually leaving home this Friday afternoon and start moving in at 9 am Saturday morning. That's going to be a LONG day. But there will be pictures. Oh, lots and lots of pictures. Speaking of pictures, I uploaded the ones from San Diego, CA, so go mosey on over and look at those. They're cool. :]

Quick follow-up: In my last In The News post, I talked briefly about pro-democracy voice Aung San Suu Kyi and the whole hearing thing. Well, early this morning she was convicted of violating state security laws by allowing that American into her house after she swam there. Her sentence? 18 more months of house arrest (aka: Don't take part in the 2010 elections).

Here, to tide me over to your next post (it's possible that they'll be sporadic now that I'm moving), here's a little movie trailer that I only discovered thanks to Accidentally, Kle. Enjoy!

San Diego, CA

I love the city of San Diego. I flew in Friday night and have been having a blast since. My cousin Jackie (pictured, left) lives here and as soon as she picked me up at the airport, it was just go, go, go. After a late lunch at CPK, we went to the Padres game. It was pretty touch and go for a while, but they won with a grand slam in the last inning. That night we rented movies -- The Sweetest Thing (hilarious) and He's Just Not That Into You (even more hilarious).

Yesterday we were part of one of the most out of control things I think I've ever seen. See, a year or two ago they passed a law in all of California saying that you can't drink of the beach, but drinking in the water (like, in a boat) is okay. So naturally, Californians have found a way to get around this: Intertubapalooza. Once or twice a year, a giant party is thrown in one of the bays where everyone brings intertubes or any kind of floatation device and beer into the bay. The law says that as long as your feet aren't touching sand, you're okay to drink. So, yesterday, about 500+ people got together in the bay at Pacific Beach (PB), tied their tubes/homemade rafts/inflatable dolls (yeah, really) to each other and to boats and commenced to party. It was out of control, the type of thing you really only see happening in movies. It was craziness. Jackie and I were so beat though by like 8 pm that we went to her house, got an obscene amount of food and just ate and watched Friends until like 2 am.

Today, Jackie's younger brother Jonathan and even younger sister Jovanna drove down from their parents house like an hour and a half north of SD to hang out. We got In-N-Out (best fastfood ever) then went back to PB and have been hanging there ever since. Blogging on the beach is possibly one of my favorite things ever. Though I'm getting kind of hungry... Maybe time for another In-N-Out run?