So I just waved to Adam as I walked to my dorm. And I started thinking about how the hell I know Adam and Manu. I think this is somewhat indicative of my school.

I had at least one class with Manu freshman year. I can't for the life of me remember which one - maybe an English one. At any rate, I didn't start hanging out with her til I was dating Bill sophomore year. Manu was dating Adam, and Bill and Adam worked at the library together. As I remembered this, a whole bunch of memories flashed at me: huddling in the cold as the guys tried unsuccessfully to steal signs, going to Adam's "roomwarming" party.

BUT, when all that happened I was already separately friends with Adam, because we'd had a few philosophy classes together, back when I was going to be a philosophy minor, and we'd study together, sometimes with Dolce or Anico thrown in.

Then Adam went off to Asia for awhile, and I lost track of Manu. But this year, Adam is back and Manu is my RA, and we all get to hang out all over again.

This is what it's like with a good portion of the campus. The strands of connection weave together and around and quickly become a big jangled mess. At times, it really does feel like everyone on campus knows each other. I still remember Alee being shocked at how I knew what was up with Bill in England when she hadn't told me - never mind that he was part of a fairly large group and I could have found out from any number of people.

Perhaps this is what it's like living in a small town. Everyone knows everyone, and eventually you don't remember how anymore, and if you do it takes three hours to tell.

Hmmm, like a soap opera. No wonder this place is so full of drama.

So when I got to Nashville, I discovered the airport had lost my baggage. They found it - eventually. Then that night, Doug's car broke down on the way home from work at three in the morning, so he got to walk the remaining few miles or so to Jim and Krista's. Naturally, this was the one night he had forgotten a jacket or a sweater, and it was about forty degrees out. My mother somehow forgot to put sugar in the pumpkin pies. She did wind up making some normal ones, but not until after we'd had a nasty experience. Jim's grandfather died on Thanksgiving night. At some point, Marie accidentally knocked a Coke into my lap. Oh, yes, this was when I was at the airport, hoping to find my luggage. Julian got a bloody nose on Saturday - his first ever at the tender age of three. A whole bunch of other things happened, but I'm home now.

Oh, wait. The airport lost my luggage. Again. And this time they haven't found it yet. And today I spent about twelve hours, all in all, at airports. I am pissed.

BRING BACK FIFTH COLUMN.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind was actually quite good, btw.

So last night was quite interesting.

Council of Evil got out remarkably early, so I headed down to the station to fill in Selena on what she'd missed from the meeting. While I was there, Russell came in, and I took this opportunity to interview him, while erin ran back and forth with some duct tape. After the official interview, Selena, Russell and I talked about random stuff like the Rollins ghosts, etc. And that's when my cell phone started ringing.

It was Michelle, and she called multiple times, but I a) didn't think I could get reception in the office and b) was preparing to leave anyway, so I didn't think much of it. But a few minutes later, Michelle and Amber came through the door of the station, surprising me. And then they informed us there was a guy with a gun on campus (so they had heard) and we couldn't leave.

Immediately we locked the doors to all the exits (totally terrifying, as you have to open the front door to lock it, and I was the one who did it) and called campus safety. They informed us there was a "situation," but couldn't tell us anything other than that we should stay in and locked up. Selena tried calling everyone she knew, and we got a world of rumors:
*There was a man with a gun
*someone was raped
*someone from AOPi was raped
*someone was assaulted between ATO and TKE
*there was a bomb
*someone fell out the window of Gale
*there was some hazing mishap by X-Club
*the man with a gun was cornered in McKean
*there was crime scene tape over by Cornell
*there were ambulances in front of Roc

We didn't really find out what had happened til this morning, when, oh, the NEWS cleared it all up (campus safety refused to say anything, and evidently were hanging up on some people). There was indeed a woman raped by Cornell, by two men, and they refuse to say whether they were armed or not. And someone from X-Club did get hurt earlier that night and taken away, but it's unclear if it was hazing, falling out a window or what.

In the meantime last night, we holed up in the station until after midnight, when we called campus safety and they told us it was safe "to go straight to our cars or dorms." They still wouldn't say why.

Everyone's rather disgruntled with campus saefty. On channel 13 news, someone is saying how they locked down the dorms, etc, when this happened, but I don't know one person who knew of that. The RAs weren't informed. We at the station were not, nor were the theater students at the play right next to the crime scene. Only way you knew if you shouldn't be out was if you already were, and that is simply not safe.

Today the sports lot is a media circus. Channel 13 was here last night, but today every other station has arrived at the party. I'm waiting for the inevitable tie-in to Take Back the Night, Extremities and Sexual Assualt Awareness Week. Sigh.

Yet another post-weekend, pre-bed update.

Just watched this last week's Gilmore Girls episode with Michelle. Ah, that show is finally beginning to prove that it did NOT jump the shark when it sent Rory to Yale. Wooooo. Now for this past weekend:

Bridget Jones Edge of Reason: Meh. The first was based on Pride & Prejudice, and the second book meandered around. Wouldn't translate well to film, so instead they made it a direct ripoff of the first movie. Not fabulous. But the double date aspect was fun, and the movie wasn't terrible, and there's always room for Colin Firth. Oh, and Phantom of the Opera trailer! I knew nothing of this, so from the first few notes of Masquerade in the first two seconds, I gasped aloud. Aiiieeee!

Pulp Fiction: I liked it very much. This brings my Tarantino tally to: Kill Bill - loved a lot, Pulp Fiction - liked a lot, Reservoir Dogs - meh, good movie, but a bit too grim for my taste.

Grand Theft Auto, San Andreas: hmmm. Didn't play it much myself, but seems fun, despite horrific Head Like a Hole AFI cover on the soundtrack. And thank God Freddy is finally dead.

City of Heroes: Wonderfully fun as always. Hope the Marvel issue turns out alright.

Maverick: I still love that movie, no matter what. :P

Secondhand Lions: Ehhh, not bad. Hope Haley Joel Osmond doesn't go the way of Brad Renfro.

Cookie cake: Yum.

Bailey's Irish Creme stuff: Yum.

Pasta with sausage stuff: Yum.

Laternenfest: Cute kids.

Sleep: ahhh, glorious sleep.

That about sums up the weekend. I leave you with something ripped from the wonderful Pixie Wolfe, and also Tony I think:

5 THINGS YOU ARE WEARING
1. Strawberry Shortcake pajama pants
2. red Cursive Driftwood T-shirt
3. Rollins zip-up sweatshirt
4. black rubber bracelets
5. black hair rubberband

5 THINGS YOU CAN SEE
1. Grad school application stuff
2. water bottle
3. pink pixellated makeup bag
4. mini Domo-Kun
5. Belle photo frame

FIRST 5 PEOPLE YOU KISSED (damn you and your precedents, Pixie)
1. Blake (6th grade)
2. Jonathan (7th grade)
3. Billy (7th grade)
4.Carl (8th grade)
5. Sean (10th grade)
I realize I become very boring from there. I only have two people to add to the list after that. Some other...incidents, but only two "proper" kissee people.

5 THINGS YOU ARE DOING RIGHT NOW
1. Taking away from my sleep
2. Growing tireder by the second
3. Being thirsty
4. Typing
5. Reading

5 THINGS YOU ATE IN THE LAST 24 HOURS
1. Pasta with bread and sausage
2. Cookie cake
3. Cookie dough bites
4.Diet Dr. Pepper
5. Bailey's Irish Creme
An unhealthy weekend.

5 THINGS YOU DID SO FAR TODAY
1. Went to the mall
2. Drove a little GTA
3. Slept and lay around
4. danced goofy
5. did German homework

5 THOUGHTS IN YOUR HEAD
1. "This survey didn't seem this long before"
2. "Sleeeeeep"
3. "That sounded like 'doooonuts'"
4. "can't wait for next weekend"
5. "that new love interest on Gilmore Girls is soooo much cooler"

5 PEOPLE THAT ROCK YOUR SOCKS
1. The Chicken McNugget Fairy
2. Katie
3. Michelle
4. Am
5. The Weasley Twins

5 FAMOUS PEOPLE YOU WOULD NEVER MISS A CHANCE TO MEET
1. Rachmaninoff
2. Anne Rice
3. Trent Reznor
4. John Williams
5. Liszt

5 OBJECTS IN YOUR ROOM YOU LOVE
1. My monkey, George
2. My Domo-Kun stuff
3. My fibre-optic pumpkin
4. My pink bowling bag
5. My comforter

End.

Eeeee! Last night I got to pretend to be a keyboard player. I say this, and not pianist, because that would REALLY be a stretch - but I digress. You see, last week I was informed that if I could throw together some sort of semblance of the cello and piano parts from the Murder By Death song End of the Line, I could play it on the keyboard at their next show. Which was...in a week. It was a daunting task, but with some (ahem, a lot) of help from Amber, I was able to at least fill in some of the bits. And I learned alllll about beeeeee minor. Since I had never done any sort of improv at all, Ever, this was interesting. The good news is that the performance actually went quite well on my part, considering. The bad news is that apparently only half of the place could hear me. Eh, trial and error. It was still actually quite fun.

In other news, though, the guys were absolutely fantastic, and they raised a sizable chunk of money for Anjali's charity. I guess that (sorta) acoustic setting works out well. I definitely think they should use the electric acoustic on a few of their songs permanently now, though for some others, I longed for the distortion. And screaming.

Was also a little shocked and hurt at another point in the night, but... gah.

Got home at one something and didn't get to bed past two. Then I got to get up before seven this morning for the Founder's Day concert. Playing that early in the morning is never fun, but it sucks more when you've only had four hours of sleep. That being said, I'm headed for bed.

Gah. So I've been gloomy for the past few days. But working the polls was fun, though I did have to wake up at 3:45 am. It actually does give me hope for the future. I hope the number of people voting continues to rise, even if the results aren't always what I'd like. And from what I've seen, I really, really like Obama.

Phew. Am finally home from Halloween Horror Nights. Went a little late this year - as in on the last day. Still, I'm glad I did, for I've been going most every year since I was thirteen or fourteen, and who knows when I'll get to next? Emily was cool enough to have a connection to get us 25 dollars off of admission, and off we went. Amazingly, I was able to get through the zombie haunted house, despite my fear of zombies. I think, in some weird way, it even sort of helped. Ooooh, and the new Mummy roller coaster is simply awesome. I don't know that the whole atmospheric thing worked as well with the two parks, but perhaps they'll tighten it up in the next few years. Bill and Ted's made me giggle as usual; I can't believe I missed out on that great show the first few years I went. Such a shame. I hope Emily had a good time on her first adventure; I'm pretty sure the rest of us did. I have more to talk about, but I am soooo tired, so off I go. Hope everyone had a Happy Halloween! (muahahahaha)