"Muddled Meanderings" Title Is All Too Accurate..

I had this plan to be spontaneous on my way home from my class tonight-- I decided I was going to go home on the FREEWAY! I had never gone that way before and thought it would take me home faster. My plan was simply to follow my instinct through the labyrinth of the city to find the entrance of the freeway and ride off safely to my home.

Of course nothing happens that easily...

I had the directions to get to the university (thanks mapquest!) but I hadn't ever used the directions because I had never traveled on the freeway to go to school. I figured that I could just follow the directions backwards to find my destination, a.k.a. the FREEWAY.

Ok, I've done some pretty dumb driving maneuvers in my day like almost pummeling the head cheerleader of my highschool as she was riding her bike (I would have had a lot of enemies if I was successful in crushing her). This recent experience was pretty similar. Tonight I was feeling pretty confident following my backwards directions until I hit a street that I only realized was ONE-WAY when cars started swerving* around me and angrily honking. I felt like I was in the movies when the robber is in hot pursuit from the cops; I was the robber who amazingly dodges cars and pedestrians.

I eventually found the freeway entrance, but turned too soon on to the most frightening tree-packed lane that once again looked like I was in a horror movie. I kept imagining tomorrow's headline reading: "'Obama Wins!!' and... 'Lost Girl Found in Woods Clutching Directions to Freeway.'" The road was so tight that I couldn't pull over and try to turn around so I just kept meandering.

For now on, I'm taking the long way around.





*I overexaggerated with the swerving. In reality, a semi just honked at me and I pulled over. :-)

Halloween Fun (?) I haven't always been too thrilled about the idea of Halloween-until now.

In my Communications class we were required to give a total of 6 hours of community service. My group and I volunteered at a spook alley that an over-achieving librarian was putting on at her elementary school. I thought that we were in for a very long day as I heard of the plan when my group and I went to meet with her before hand to see exactly what we were getting ourselves into. We were amazed to see how elaborate the spook alley was.

I was a zombie with another person in my group. Our room was very industrious and creative with a graveyard scene (see above picture) made out of a leaf-patterned tarp--also layered with real leaves-- hoisted up on cinderblocks. This gave us the ability to lie underneath the tarp and crawl around. The tarp then had sliced holes acting as coffins so that my partner and I could rise from our silent slumber. Each time a little kid would come by we were supposed to slowly "raise from the dead." Previous to coming to our room, kids were screaming and even crying from werewolves and chainsaws. They just simply strolled passed our room and weren't scared at all.

Let's face it. I'm just not a scary person. I felt so bad for some of the kids who were scared and crying that I just waved at them and didn't attempt to be scary at all. I guess I empathized with the kids who were pleading with their parents to take them out. Like how Doritos don't agree with me, neither does Halloween. I never have had much fun at Halloween time. The first thing I think of when I hear of Halloween is the time my little brother threw-up all over my dad while trick-or-treating and how that was quickly the end of trick-or-treating that year. I've never been one for the scariness of Halloween either. I loathe watching scary movies, and I definitely have hated haunted houses. I remember I was about 8 years old when I went in the Lagoon haunted house with my dad. It wasn't like the extreme "Nightmare on 13th" scary, but the kiddy-haunted-house-scary. My dad and I were in the haunted house car and I was crying and completely terrified! Finally, after three quarters of the ride was over, a nice Lagoon employee asked if I wanted a flashlight. How pathetic!

I had a lot of fun at this service project haunted house mainly because I was on the other side of the table. I was the one scaring the children. I had no fear of the people in the haunted house; they were my friends. We are all afraid of things we don't know and now that I am on the "other side" I am now more considerate of Halloween- but don't expect me to buy all the Alfred Hitchcock classics any time soon.

Extreme Urban Makeover

I am a total country girl at heart. My favorite pastime is gardening, I love "Wide Open Spaces" (thanks to the Dixie Chicks), and I love any paintings with chicken in it. I am also hesitant to try new adventurous things without a close friend sitting right beside me. A couple days into the school semester I had a parking lot meltdown and in return vowed to never drive my car to school or fork up my well-earned money for gas and a parking pass again. Many were skeptical when I told them I would start riding the bus to school, but one spontaneous day (ok, I did a lot of research of bus schedules first so it wasn't too sponaneous) I hopped on the train and officially took advantage of the public UTA system!

I had known for a while that our "privilege" of paying the big bucks for school allowed us college students to ride public transportation for free, but I was convinced that only drug dealers took the bus and now I have confirmed that I'm right when I smell the lingering illegal odor.

Public transportation has its good points like I save gas and get the opportunity to read while being chaffeured around town but there is definitely a different culture on the bus with a whole lot of interesting characters-from the drunk guy to the man selling peaches- and I am glad that I'm along for the ride even though I constantly wonder where my hand sanitizer is.

It's Always the Mother's Fault.

I've wanted to work on a blog for some time now but my perfectionism always kicks in telling me that I would never be able to write well enough. I then continue to deprive myself of creativity by telling myself that I wouldn't have anything in my life interesting enough to write about.

I constantly come home and gab to anyone around me about a crazy thing that happened to me that day and that's when I realize that I do have weird experiences that happen to me on a regular basis. It finally took my inspirational mother telling me to write my day-to-day adventures in a blog that initiated me into the mode of blogging. As a result, I attempt to share some experiences of a meandering college student.