Kristen Shull

The Festival of Cultures was today. I couldn't stay because rugby started at 5:30, but I saw the first two performances: a Bollywood-inspired dance by the Multicultural Dance Team and an African dance with a drum circle. This year, the theme was international FOOD, which was AWESOME. However, I was still digesting an enchilada from Mexico, a rice ball from Japan, lamb from Saudi Arabia, chicken from India, and brie from France when I showed up to practice. And guess what we were learning about today? Tackling. [clutches stomach]

Watching the African performance made me sad. I miss Malawi and all the kids. I got a letter recently from a boy in Malawi asking if I could pay for his school fees. I don't even know how I would go about getting him money even if I had it. Whenever I think of my winter term in Malawi, I feel overwhelmingly sad and happy at the same time. The kids were just so great. Amazing children, trapped in a world of corruption. It makes me wish I had super powers all the more. I'd give all the orphans their parents back, or at least someone to love them and play with them and encourage them. And I'd kick the Malawian government in its behind. Get it together, guys.

Tomorrow is the spring ball formal cruise. I still don't know the official name for it. It's always been the Spring Cruise, which was awesome last year. However, I heard that the people who own the boat just up and sold it without telling Eckerd, so Eckerd hastily changed it to a "Black and White Formal" or "Spring Ball." I'm still not entirely sure which it is. My roommate likes to call it "Spring Cruise without the boat." Every time I need to refer to it, I just combine two of the four words (formal, ball, spring, cruise) and eventually people understand what I'm talking about. Saying, "Tomorrow is the school dance," is dorky and high-schoolish.

Anyway, although there supposedly is a dress code for black and white, I threw caution to the wind and bought the most amazing dress in a supurb shade of red. I'm really excited. And I don't really get excited about wearing dresses that often. This is weird.

I'm excited with the progress we're making in rugby. The drills are elevation in difficulty and we're beginning to combine all the lessons we've learned at a faster pace. I just wish more girls would show up to practices. Next year should be interesting.

Message to incoming freshmen: Join womens rugby! It's fun and we can tackle you because you're a dopey freshman!

Just kidding.

I get the same feeling from my Art and the Computer class with regards to the much anticipated utilization of tools we have been working on all semester. Learning how to use photoshop was kind of boring, but now that we finally know how, we can start to use our skills for artistic expression. For example, we're going to draw, with the tablets provided and photoshop, a nude model next Wednesday. I'm happy.

Plus, I can make cool pictures like this:

Brains!

I had to read the book of Revelations unsurprisingly for my Reading for the Rapture class, which deals predominately on the subject of the apocalypse in religious texts. At this point, I've come to understand that all books in the Bible are at least on some level totally weird and Revelations is no exception. John is very specific about detailing how many Israelites will be marked to be saved (144,000) and how long a silence was after the seventh seal is broken (a half an hour) and how many horns and heads the beast rising out of the water is supposed to have to mark the end of days (three heads, ten horns). It's as though he was thinking that if the people saw a two headed, nine horned beast suddenly rising out of the water, they'd all run towards it with their arms open screaming "Friend!"

These specifics are crucial to understanding the end of the world. As is this hilarious diagram I found in the book Anti-Christ which we also need to read for the course. The diagram shows how the anti-christ is supposed to look physically according to several different biblical texts. The best is "Irish II" (the Book of Lismore), which depicts the anti-christ as a tall being with no knees, no upper teeth, a single eye bulging from a grey protrubence, and a mouth that reaches the chest. How does he move? His soles are "like wheels." Of course. A robot from the future. Makes sense to me. In the "Distinguishing Mark" category, many ancient texts allude to the idea that the Anti-Christ will have the word "Anti-Christ" written on his forehead. Four believe his eyelashes will be white, and others believe his toes will be "bruised and flat." Irish I (Leahaber Breac) believes the Anti-Christ will have one eyebrow under it's one eye, and his entire body is one flat surface.

Ultimately, the more I learn about the Bible, the further I can comprehend how anyone could take absolutely everything in it as word-for-word truth. I mean, for Pete's sake there's four different stories about what Jesus did during his life. Which one do Evangelists believe then?

You can't just pick and choose which lines from the Bible resonate absolute truth and which are exempt from such a narrow interpretation. Context is everything. Political context, geographical context, literal context... context is the alpha and omega, which literally translates to the "a" and "z".

I am the A and the Z!

And then I wrote a sonnet about why John is crazy.

Needless to say, I'm liking this class, even if the professor (Davina Lopez [Davina=divinator?!]) seems to think that this is the only course we have reading for. Nonetheless, the subject is intereseting.

So, my semester next year looks awesome. Three art courses (Intermediate Drawing, Painting Workshop, Visual Problem Solving), thesis (in which I write 50 pages of fiction), and Qyoo eff emm (otherwise known as Quest for Meaning, a requirement for all seniors which, when coupled with Western Heritage in a Global Context will no doubt insure the added value to my intellect the thousands of dollars in tuition money pays for). Essentially, nothing intellectual, nothing requiring research papers, just art, art, art, art! (and Quest for Meaning...)

Reading Revelations really makes me wish I could paint what's going on. Or it just makes me wish I could paint at all.

On a totally unrelated note, "Monsters Vs. Aliens" was an awesome movie and I'm not just saying that because it combined four of my most favorite things: Monsters, aliens, robots, and Dance Dance Revolution. I want to go see it again.

Oh, and, on an egotistical side note, I was nominated for the Writing Excellency award because my Writing Portfolio was that amazing. If I win (I'll find out some time in May), it will be published and put with the other winners on a shelf in the writing center, for all to learn from. Plus I get some money. Woot!

...and.... Here's a funny picture..

I finished my writing portfolio and turned it in nine minutes before it was due.

Inhale. Exhale.

I'm really quite pleased with it. Revising the work I did Sophmore year, or even last semester, was interesting. I'm basically a stupidosaurus when it comes to writing research papers. Blaaarrrghghhh!!

I'm staying in on this lovely Saturday night because I'm a dweebus and haven't done anything today but play super smash brothers melee, cook shepherd's pie, watch sponge bob, and memorize a poem for my poetry workshop class.

It's parents weekend though. My parents probably wont come down until I graduate, but it was funny seeing other sullen teenagers wandering around, being embarrassed by their parents.

I met Eric, my roommate's (I live in omega, so he's technically my housemate) grandparents today. His grandma blathered on to me for about twenty minutes about how stupid it is that there are no toothpicks or frozen shrimp for sale that were made/fished from America. They're all made in China. It was pretty funny.

How nuts were the oscars? Heath Leger winning an oscar? Bananas!

Well, I think I'll go do homework or something because I'm just not nerdy enough...

Brian Zaun, my boss if I were getting paid for this blog, sent me a Valentines day candygram to thank me for all my "hard work" blogging and so forth.

So, while I'm eating my candy, I guiltily open the Eckerdlife website and notice that I haven't updated in about two months.

In my defense, I haven't even been in the country, let alone near a computer with functioning internet for the entire month of January as I've been in Malawi, Africa doing my Winter Term service learning trip there. I would love to write about all the cool things I did, all the amazing orphans I saw and helped and how much the trip meant to me, but I feel as though it is nearly incomprehensible. One thing I know for sure is that no matter where I travel, no matter how much I love or hate the place I'm at, whenever I leave I feel as though I've learned so much. Much more than any classroom would be able to teach me about myself.

My entire time in Malawi, when we went to Lake Malawi and snorkeled with tropical fish, or when we went on a river and land safari and looked at all the hippos and monkeys and antelope, I couldn't help but remind me self that I was actually getting credit for this. It's almost unfathomable how much fun a course abroad can be. If I can impart any advice to prospective students, it's this: TRAVEL. And do LOTS OF IT. Especially during college. It occurred to me during the trip that it would be impossible to have this African adventure anytime after I graduate. If I were to travel to Malawi by myself, I wouldn't have an opportunity to stay in one of the most remote areas of the world, with no electricity and no running water, and spend time becoming acquainted to these amazing boys and girls, men and women, of Chigamba village. Because, if I were to travel by myself, I'd be a tourist. I'd stay at a resort on Lake Malawi, marveling at the lake's beauty and wondering what exactly was on the other side of the wall that separated the luxurious, foreign-owned, lakeside resorts from the rest of Malawi. Only in college. Only at Eckerd. Seriously.

Now here I am, spring semester Junior. I'm taking five classes and it's probably the most rigorous workload I've had my entire student career. -The Modern Novel with Professor Stark -Intermediate Fiction with Professor Watson -Poetry Workshop with Professor Ward (my hilarious mentor) -Art and the Computer with Professor Wang - Reading for the Rapture with Professor Lopez

I also got a job with the recycling team because they pay people even if they don't have work study and I'm broke. As usual.

So my time is pretty eaten up without my usual addictions to the internet, such as this blog, my livejournal, facebook, youtube, and failblog.org. (http://failblog.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/fail-owned-education-fail.jpg)

Hahahaha, I love you, internet.

Well, I'm going to try to start updating more regularly now, especially with the promise of future candy now in store. Plus, I'm in the computer lab and the mac behind me keeps restarting on itself over and over and over again and making that annoying BLAAAAH sound every time. This is God's way of saying, "Stop staring at the computer screen, nerd," just like every time I scream too much and lose my voice, it's really God's way of saying, "Shut UP already! Just stop talking!"

And in case I don't see you, good afternoon, good evening, and good night!

I'm back home. Well, technically a house my parents are currently occupying. Not really "Home". My parents have been spending this year in a house in the middle of fricken nowhere, Massachusetts, as opposed to our perfectly fine home with the grave yard and massive twin maple trees in Maine.

If you haven't already caught my drift, I'm not exactly happy with my living situation currently.

But things aren't as bad as I make them out to be, as usual. Despite the house being drafty and cold (unbearably cold, in my opinion), I've been finding ways to keep myself busy. Reading. Hanging with the fam (Mom, stepdad Peter, and little sister Sophie). Drawing Christmas presents.

Shortly before I left for home, my mentor, Professor Ward, sent me an email. Apparently Skinner, my drawing teacher, mentioned how awesome I was at drawing, and Ward wanted to see some of them. I talked in his office for some time and showed him some of my work. He mentioned the possibility of majoring in Interdisciplinary Arts as opposed to Creative Writing exclusively. Apparently my drawings are that good.

If I combine the art of writing and drawing though, that opens up huge opportunities for comic or illustrative art. I'd love that.

Speaking of comics, I drew Alejo Carpentier's short story "Like The Night" into a comic book for my final project in Postcolonial Lit. It ended up being seven pages long, seven giant 14 x 17 pages of illustration and text. It took me... FOR-EV-ER. We're talking all-nighter material here. So it was no surprise to me when Stark sent me an email praising the work and asking for a copy to keep personally.

Comic books are like claymation. The amount of time it takes to produce the work is in no way justified by the time it takes to watch it. For fifteen seconds of claymation movie, hours of work is needed. Same way with comic books. It's so easy to just glaze from one panel to the next without truly appreciating the amount of time the artist had put into rendering the work. It's nuts. And yet... I love drawing comics.

So although I've gotten compliments about my work from three of my professors, I have yet to receive grades back from them. The only grade that has been posted is for my Major American Novels class. And guess what I got. Yeah. A B+. B+ Shull. I'm so surprised!

I'm looking forward to next semester though. Lots of creative classes: Poetry Workshop with my mentor (who's awesome), Intermediate Fiction, and Intro to Computer Art. One lit class: The Modern Novel, with Stark (who's awesome). And I slapped on Reading For The Rapture, a religious studies class that I added because the subject interests me (the apocalypse according to different religions) and I'm ambitious.

Even with that fifth class, I have Mondays totally free. And Tuesdays and Thursdays... four classes! All in a row! Yippee hooray!!?!?!??! AUGGHH....

Anyway, homelife is fun. Sophie's twelve now. "Teenage Wasteland" as Joe puts it. I dunno. She's way cooler than I was when I was in Jr. High. When I hit sixth grade I started hanging out with girls for the first time and it was almost as if I didn't know what to do. What to girls like? This tacky blue furry journal that says "90% Angel" and comes with a matching pen that has a feather at the end? Of course! I'll buy it.

Ugh... Jr. High... shoot me...

But no. Sophie's way cooler. She understands things I still don't get. Like fashion. And how to make things look nice, with regards to color and interior decorating. She'll make a great girl.

I on the other hand... T-shirts and jeans to the day I die. My interior decorating consist of lining all my action figures on all the surfaces, juxtaposing my Thor poster with the collage of pictures I've collected, and dumping red on all the fabrics.

Fun Fact: My mom thought I was going to be a boy when I was in the womb. I was to be named "Tom".

And now you know!

And knowing is half the battle...

So it's 2:30 in the morning and I'm eating beef ramen on my floor, contemplating my class in seven and a half hours.

Yo ho, yo ho, a college life for me.

I should start updating this thing more regularly. The less frequently I update a blog, the more I feel the need to list the major events that have occurred between now and when I last updated, completely void of any commentary or personal imput.

I also feel a little depressed because I'm unable to say anything original due to these bizarre coincidences: I, like Carrie Coffin, am going to Malawi winter term. I, like Abigail Suster, am in Major American Novels with Professor Marki (although my opinions regarding his performance are slightly different...). I, like Andrea Willingham, am also freaking out about finals. Whoops! Everyone takes those.

That last part's a half-truth. I only have two finals (maybe one) this semester, because for Film and Drawing, one's a final project and the other's a studio critique. Still, the final for Major American Novels is 25% of our grade and boy, if B+ Shull could just go the extra mile, that'd be terrific.

Last Friday, I went to the basketball game because my friend is the waterboy. His girlfriend and our mutual friend took this opportunity to indulge in arts and crafts, by making special basketball t-shirts dedicated to Jack Butterworth, the waterboy.

My shirt says "How much is your BUTTER WORTH?" and we even made a poster board sign that said the same thing. He liked it very much and I'm sure some members of the basketball team, that were actually pulling their weight and playing the game, were a little jealous. Still, they won by a crazy amount.

Following that, I went to a rave at fox hall with free food and glow sticks and techno music. Then it was off to the theater for an improv show which I loved. God, so much to do!

This Saturday, I went to Joe's rugby game. It was awesome. They won 53-7. From left to right, Joe catching the ball and looking epic, a desperate ball grapple, and a scrum featuring a guy that looks creepily like Thor:

And here's me with some dog and J-Butters.

Saturday night was the Acafool show. I don't know who Acafool is, other than he's some quasi-famous rap artist that's from Tampa and I could see him from my balcony in Omega. I wasn't that impressed with the show, and judging from a bird's-eye-view of the crowd, Eckerd wasn't either. I made a conscious attempt to avoid coming down from my perch because Eckerd had carted out truckloads of food to eat when I wasn't hungry.

I'm looking forward to a number of things: 1. The Bosstones show December 27 in Boston 2. Going to Boston and eating quesadillas at Anna's Taqueria 3. Seeing my family for Christmas 4. Getting a new phone tomorrow 5. Going to Malawi January!

The sad nature of my life is this: At the meeting last Thursday regarding my trip to Africa, we discused a lot of things that would make a normal girl uncomfortable, uneasy, or disturbed. The fact that I'll be living in a place with no running water or electricity. The fact that I'll have to walk a quarter of a mile for fresh water to bathe in. The fact that some of the orphans I'll be working with will be infected with HIV. The fact that I need to get more immunizations and take malaria pills lest I catch a fatal disease from a mosquito. And yet the thing that disturbed me the most was when I skimmed through the packing list to find this sentence: "Girls MUST wear skirts down to their ankles at all times!"

I can't picture myself in a skirt. At all. To detail how I feel about the situation, I've drawn this picture: The proportion of how stupid this drawing is happens to be the exact proportion of how stupid I will look in a skirt. Oh geez...

On a final note, I'd like to say that of all the ramen flavors, I think beef is the saltiest.

Gah! It's been like 500 weeks since my last post! Where have I been?!

Halloween came and went. Not to say that it wasn't a momentous event. It was. It's probably my favorite holiday. It's just that between now and then many more memorable, auspicious events have occured (coughBARACKcough).

I had an awesome costume though. Joe and I went as caveman and cavegirl. My friend Amber won the costume contest as a cat, which sounds cliche, but it looked as though she'd walked straight from the stage of the musical Cats. (or is it Catz?) She even had a litterbox and scoop with rice crispies litter and tootsie roll cat poop, for an added touch.

How about that election, huh? What a crazy week. It was the first time I'd voted, in a swing state for that matter, for our nations first African American president. My mom was so happy she cried. Everyone in Omega was standing on the balconies cheering and chanting and yelling and dancing. It was like New Years. Or a sports rally. Only in this sport, AMERICA WON.

Election day was also landed on the same week as Joseph boyfriend's twenty first. We had a pretty low key celebration: steak, potatoes, hand made coconut cake, and a movie (Zack and Miri). His nights since then have been anything but low key... But hey. You only turn twenty one once.

I went to first Friday for the first time too. I couldn't drink anything, but I had fun being dressed up and talking to people in bars. I felt like I was back in London and it made me miss it. Then Saturday I went to the beach and made meatballs to go with our spaghetti with my friends. They were delicious. Sunday was spent reading and researching "magic realism" for no reason other than "Beloved" by Toni Morrison has captured my interest. I had to read it two years ago for Western Heritage and I didn't really like it (or I was an angsty, lazy freshmen, still surfing the wreckage of procrastination from high school...). But now I love it. And by the way, I'm pretty sure I'm the only one that loves it.

Either way, I spent some time discovering the meaning of the term from a literary and artistic standpoint. I love finding where fields of study combine and overlap (at least in the creative arts. I could care less about the seam between calculus and biology, personally). Magical realism in art is a branch of surrealism, which I love. And I've now discovered a whole genre of literature devoted to the same sort of surreal vibe. Nerd alert!

Speaking of Nerd Alert!, Aquabats show Thursday! I can't wait. The Aquabats have got to be the goofiest band by far, aside from perhaps, Harry and the Potters or Eyeball Skeleton. They sing songs about pizza day, pool parties, robot attacks, and cats with two heads. All the band members think they're superheroes and dress accordingly, with individual super powers and super villains that they supposedly fight at shows. I'm so excited!

Speaking of excited, I got a nice, thick packet from International Ed today regarding my trip to Malawi in January. Ah yes. The ever-anticipated "Things you don't want to know before you travel to Africa, but have to know anyway or else you'll die" packet. Hooray. Shots shots shots. Terrorism. Malaria pills. More vaccinations. I just know it'll be worth it. I can't wait to get over there and be surrounded in an environment totally, like, completely different from this one. No running water. No electricity. Just me, orphans, sky, earth, notebook. Who knows what will come out?

Fun fact: the "okay" signal with your hands (pointer and thumb make a circle with the other three fingers splaying outwards) is considered very rude to Malawinese. Weird.

P.S. This website tells you exactly what holidays are on every date of the year. My birthday couldn't be more boring. Corvette and London Bridge's birthdays. And meteor day. SNORE. Oh well. I share a birthday with Sailor Moon so you all can suck it.

Well, the Red Sox didn't make it to the world series. Which means I have no reason to watch the world series.

But Taco Bell is giving away free tacos tomorrow between 2 and 6 PM because the Rays stole a base yesterday. But they lost. So....logic?!?

I've been so uber busy lately. I took a midterm today for Major American Novels and got my paper back. He gave me a B+, as usual. This professor just loves giving me B+'s. That's all I got last year for every test/paper I did, regardless of the proportional amount of work I put in to either. B+ Shull. That's what they call me.

I'm so looking forward to Fall Break. I need to relax. Work on my Halloween costume (caveman), and on the various projects I have lined up to give my boyfriend for his twenty first on the third of November.

So it looks like I might definitely be going to Malawi January, which both excites and terrifies me. I'm getting into a slump where all I want to do is go home, which is weird. I haven't gotten homesick since I've been at college. It's just the seasons I'm starting to miss. Cool weather, foliage, apple pie. Annabelle's pumpkin pie ice cream. Even snow. And I hate winter. Hrm.

I did a survey for an internship website and consequently got a lifetime membership to www.internships.com and am also eligible for $25 towards travel funds for a spring break trip. I've been browsing internships on the site and guess how many internships are for Creative Writing majors. Like, NOTHING. It's either Journalism or nothing. C'est la vie. This leads me to believe that Joe has no reason to complain about not know what to do after college. Do you have any idea how many paid internships are in the Boston area for History or American Studies majors? Like, a hundred! BAH.

What a comeback man. I don't know if anyone's been following the playoff games, but it's kind of crazy here on campus. Besides Florida, the largest percentage of population hailing from one section of the country is New England. Unsurprisingly. If all the New Englanders are anything like me, they've fled the freezing winters to warmer climates.

Anyway, the point is, when it comes to Red Sox vs. Tampa Bay, it's pretty much divided. Tensions ride high. As seen at the playoff games, both of which I went to, last Friday and Saturday.

Red Sox won the first game, the Rays the second. Then the Rays went to Fenway and proceeded to slam the Sox for everything they're worth, with the exception of last night, where the Sox swung the game around seventh inning, the second biggest playoff comeback in history, straggling for a place in the playoffs, clinging to it by their fingernails. Now, as far as games go, it's Tampa Bay: 3, Boston: 2. And here they come back to Tropicana.

But Friday and Saturday was so much fun. So MUCH fun, that I lost my voice. My friend Calvin said that I sounded like a chainsmoking smurf. But it was worth it. It was quite the game.

Saturday, my boyfriend Joe and his friend Josh sat together with Joe's "Believe in Boston" flag. They were kinda drunk, as was at least 70% of the people in the stadium. I could see them from my seat. So when they say that they were doing nothing wrong and just trying to enjoy the game when they got escorted away by security, I'm rather skeptical.

A Rays fan took Josh's hat. Josh and him got in a tug of war about it, then again with the flag. They were about to fight when security stepped in, took all three into custody (including Joe who didn't do anything). Joe got released, but Josh and the other fan got kicked out. Then Josh got punched in the face by a security guard. Whether or not he instigated this is neither here nor there. When we finally found him after a 12 inning game in which the Sox ultimately lost, he left cheek was all swollen and red. We were talking lawsuits and suing the stadium on the way home. The fact that Josh hasn't taken any legal action leads me to believe that, although it's totally uncalled for a security guard to hit anyone over verbal abuse, there's no way he didn't have it coming.

Sports confuse me. Josh, Joe, and all my other Red Sox fans despise Tampa Bay fans for being "bandwagon fans" but how else is a team that's been around for only a decade supposed to accumulate fans? With regards to showing support, it's a fine line between cheering and being flat out obnoxious. I saw in the paper Monday that at the game I was at Saturday, Josh was one of 55 people kicked out for reckless behavior. 7 were arrested, one of which tried to steal a bat from the Ray's dugout. Fans are insane.

Well, sports aside, not much has been happening. Joe's gone to Northern Florida to get his 40 hours of community service as required for Quest For Meaning, so I'll have the weekend to myself. To read. And play DDR. And figure out my halloween costume (caveman).

Howsabout some pictures?! Believe in BOSTON! Repsect the Flag

Believe in…. Sam, Joe, and yours truly

Josh and Joe Here's Josh and Joe instigating something shortly before they got escorted away

Seats Game 2

Sam and I Sam made me wear that dumb old crab hat all game. Then when two seperate Japanese photographers took my picture, I've determined that I'm now famous in Japan, thanks to the combination of my shirt and the crab hat.

Gametime

Our seats game one Our seats for the first game weren't that bad. Admittedly, they were the second highest seats in the stadium and I felt like I was going to topple off the bleachers into the field, but the view was good.

Holy shit! I'm going to a Red Sox playoff game! Let's do a dance![dances] 

My buddy, Sam, flew down from Maine specially for these two games, tonight and tomorrow night, against the Tampa Bay Devil Rays at Tropicana Field. It's no Fenway, but where else are you going to see the Red Sox play for cheap? I'm wicked pumped! 

This week has been moderately uneventful. Last Friday I went and saw an Against Me! show sponsered by Palmetto productions. Palmetto is responsible for me and two of my friends going to see Flogging Molly (one of my most favoritest bands EVER) for just fifteen bucks freshmen year. I bought a t shirt there. Then at a party, my future boyfriend-to-be said, "I like your shirt." And we started talking. So basically, Palmetto productions is responsible for my current romantic situation.Which is a message to all you wide-eyed, innocent freshmen. Go to show! By shit! Then you can get boyfriends TOO! 

I'm sorry if I'm coming off as a bit... hyper. I'm really excited about the Red Sox game.

Anyway, the Against Me! show was okay. There were people in the mosh pit that didn't really understand the meaning of circle pit. So they just ran around and crashed into people, which resulted me and my ninety-pound friend, Amber, on the ground and a giant bruise on my elbow. But in my opinion, if you don't come back from a punk show bruised, you shouldn't have gone in the first place.

Anyway, seeing the Red Sox isn't the only reason I'm SUPER PUMPED. I just got a letter that says that I've been accepted to go to Malawi as part of a service learning trip Winter Term. I'll be living in a shack with no running water or electricity for a month, helping 67 orphans read English and so forth. I'm so excited.Last year, fall semester, I went to the London study centre (every time I write that, I pronounce it in my head "cen-treh"), and it was thus far the most amazing experience of my life. Maybe. I don't know. It's definitely up there.

While I was there, I went to Scotland, Ireland, Sweden (some random weekend with a bunch of my friends), then I visited my sister who was studying abroad in Serbia and we went to Hungary, Serbia, Macedonia, and Bulgaria.

Anyway, while I was there, I couldn't help but feel like I was being pampered constantly. I mean, yes it was amazing, but I was in a really rich city where every modern convenience was at my fingertips and I was but a heartbeat away from great culture and art and theatre of the western world. P.S. All the museums in London are free.

So I henceforth decided that traveling is great, but I bet I'll get a lot more out of wherever I go if I'm helping others that need it. I don't need much help. For christ's sake, I'm living in Omega. I couldn't be more pampered.  How often do people use the word "henceforth"? Like, not at all.

We're finally reading something I like in Modern American Novels. I've been going through a downward slump since we dropped The Great Gatsby and picked up fucking Portrait of a Lady (or as I like to call it, Portrait of a Bearded Lady). Followed by Faulkner, whose literary style is like tobasco sauce in the sense that I can't stomach much of him, but some people (i.e. my professor) are absolutely hog-wild bananas about him and dump him on everything. I mean EVERYTHING. You know that guy. That red neck dumping tobasco sauce on pizza while he sits on his rocking chair. Maybe I'm just thinking about that tobasco sauce commercial. Either way, my prof just loves dumping Faulkner on everything. Including, On The Road, which we're currently reading and which I actually enjoy.

I think that Faulkner : Tobasco sauce comparison went haywire halfway through that sentence. I tend to ramble when I write.  

I think I'm going to start a trend for my journal entries. At least the titles. Every title do will be from a song that somehow relates to my entry. And if you can guess the song then you get a million bucks. Seriously. 

Anyway, I'll post pictures from the game later. Sam's making me wear this big stupid crab hat all day for no reason. Great...