Colored Collages

When I was in San Antonio I went to a brunch in a small cafe/specialty pancake restaurant. There were works of customer made art around the walls. Someone had done a series of collages that formed a rainbow. I thought it was a cool idea, but instead of paying 80 or so dollars, I decided I could do it myself. So I did. I'd say some are more successful than others, but I had fun and it should make good dorm room art.

Super Duper Montana Continued

Day Seven (Thursday)

Emily went to work at noon (til 10pm yeesh) and I drove Sarah to the Bozeman Airport. More surprisingly, I didn't get lost on the way back. I then did a little shopping at the Old Navy Emily works at (sans Emily) and then I went to the mall and shopped at...JC Penny's! Yes the same JC Penny's that has gone out of business in Arlington! Ok maybe I'm trying to make this sound a little bit more exciting than it actually was. I did buy some awesome comic book shirts though.

At five I third wheeled with Mary and Tony. We went to a most excellent pizza place-Old Chicago. Then we headed over to music on Main-a live music event held during the summer. Right over the stage were intense rain clouds (everything around the concert's location was blue and bright). At about 6:35 it started raining buckets and we all had to run for cover. Fortunately, the rain stopped right at 7:00, the concert's start time. Wasn't a huge fan of the music-too country-and it was cold and I was tired (complain!), so Mary and Tony drove me home; they also had plans after the concert which would have been awkward for me to be a part of.

While waiting for the rain to stop and the concert to begin I saw this poor soul. This recession has hit everyone really hard-Even Santa.

At about 11pm, Em returned home. Trevor called saying he was hungry, so the three of us embarked on what would turn out to be one of the most bizarre car rides of my life. First, I heard a whole argument between Em and Trev which seemed to be contained in twenty minutes. They said things that made the other mad, they sincerely apologized, all the while switching between laughing and shouting. It was not the kind of passive aggressive fights I'm used to. After Trev scared the person working at one Wendy's we had to go to another. We chilled out in the parking lot eating and listening to Legally Blond, which Trevor sang enthusiastically to. Finally, we stopped in a pretty abandoned parking lot and had a dance party in the headlights of Trev's car. Good night.

Day Eight (Friday)

Em made breakfast for me and Lois. Em and I watched an amazing spoof music video on YouTube which I'll put a plug in for right now- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGRfDv7wLUc. I wrote on this here blog while the annoying plop sound of Em's Facebook chatting radiated from next to me; we both showed off our maturity by chatting online (quite annoyingly) even though we were less than a foot away.

Em left for work and I tried to watch a soap, but Obama was in Bozeman on Friday and his speech interrupted regular programing. I hate it when insignificant things like the president get in the way of my television watching! I went upstairs and watched a massive hail storm from the guest bedroom window. I had never been in such a big hail storm before. It sounded like gum balls were descending on the earth, but the hail was only about the size of those circular, almost metallic, sprinkles I used to put on ice cream. Then, I almost had a heart attack when I saw a spider the size of a big grasshoppers climb on the outside of the window. I guess it didn't like being pelted.

When Emily returned from work we decided to borrow a movie from Trevor. He actually had a date with Mary (Em's sister) planned for that night. Yes, Trev is Emily's friend, but when he came for dinner on Wednesday Mary saw something that she liked. The whole situation seemed pretty awkward to me and Em and I had a lot of fun talking about it. Anyway, Trev's roommate was getting ready to throw a party, so Em and I hung out a little bit at Trev's, listening to music. I also tried hookah for the first time-something my high school friends wanted me to try for a long time. After hanging, I recommended "Goodwill Hunting" to Em. We went to the mall briefly, so I could try my luck at Victoria's Secret (Surprise! No luck). Then, we went home, ordered pizza and watched Goodwill Hunting with Em's mom. It was even better than I remembered it-good movie-good night-good visit. Wait what?

Day Nine (Saturday) The final day :(

So, it was time for me to leave the wonderful land of Montana and Emily's wonderful company. She drove me to Billings Airport while I played 'The Full Monty' for her-one of my favorite musicals. Em was especially a fan of 'Big Ass Rock'; Emily has good taste.

We said our heartfelt goodbyes at the airport and I reluctantly parted from Emily. My flights were uneventful and I was actually able to sleep on most of my flight from O'Hare to DC-a rarity for me.

So in summary, the whole trip was amazing, though I really wish I had more time between returning to A-Town and going to Grinnell. This trip also was great preparation for this next semester. With my closest friend and roommate studying abroad this semester, I'm going to need to make new friends. I was thrown into plenty of social situations and met a lot of new people and had a lot of fun doing so. I can think of nothing better for a shy person like me, than learning that talking to new people can be not scary and even fun. Let's see if I can carry this lesson with me to Grinnell.

Montana the beautiful

After my summer job fell through I needed to find a way to occupy my summer (this was before I found out about my San Antonio road trip), so I decided to see my most excellent ex roommate Emily Jane in her town of Bozeman Montana. Thought I would include the highlights since it would be impossible for me to describe all the amazingness.

Day One (Friday evening)

Friday was the amazing day of flying wet and making Emily waiting too long. On the car ride (back) to Bozeman, with Emily and her comic book fan/friend Kenny (who lent me Final Crisis), Emily talked about her friend Alex (a boy) who would come to stay for a couple days. When we arrived at her house and I saw this friend Alex, I turned to Emily and said "You could have told me that I know Alex." Alex is in my class at Grinnell.

Day Two (Saturday)

Emily had to work in the morning so Alex and I went to Main St. and watched a parade-well it was more like walking next to a parade. We took in all the amazing floats which were affiliated with various local businesses/groups. The only float we couldn't place was a giant duck float which kind of looked paper mached. Whenever its beak opened someone on a loud speaker said 'duck'!

We met Emily for lunch at an excellent burger place. Fox news was on a TV screen in the restaurant. They were covering the crash of an airplane and a helicopter nonstop (the accident had happened four hours earlier and they were still calling it breaking news). We made fun of the news coverage because they were really reaching for details at that point-a child was killed (Oh no! That's awful.) and the plane was filled with Italian tourists (Oh, that's OK then).

The parade was part of the bigger Bozeman Sweet Pea Festival (a music and arts festival). Emily, Alex and I went to the festival later that evening (after a hike up a mountain and a visit to Emily's church) to hear Afro-Cuban music. We danced for about five seven minute songs (I think I've found the one type of music I can almost successfully dance to). After dancing I met my first batch of Emily's friends. At one point all the leaders of the conversation went upstairs and the shy people down stairs (yes, that included me) joked about how socially awkward we are.

Day Three (Sunday)

Emily and I had to say goodbye to Alex around noon and, almost immediately after, Emily left for work (she has three jobs). I took a walk around two lakes with Em's mother and her sister Mary. Little did I know that I would return to the lakes much later that day for more fun.

In the evening Emily and I picked up two of her friends (Beth and Victor!) who were stranded in a parking lot. We were headed to a barbecue (at Beth's house) with more of Em's friends (this was my second batch of greetings, but it included two people from the previous night (Marilee and Trevor). On the way to Beth's apartment we experienced the greatest cosmic setup ever; we all saw...a chicken crossing a very busy road. Obviously the chicken crossed the road to avoid becoming roadside dinner.

The B-B-cue was fun and involved me playing Mario Party on Wii pretty poorly. Kenny showed up late and we discussed how Final Crisis makes no sense-stupid Grant Morrison you think you're so cool and trippy, but really you're just the jerk who killed Batman. The party broke up when a neighbor complained about the noise, but Em, Trevor, Merilee and I went to hang out on a grassy hill smack dab in the middle of the two lakes I walked around earlier.

Day Four (Monday)

Em's sis, Mary, had a friend (onagainoffagainonagainoffagain boyfriend) Tony visiting. While Em was at work in the morning (once again) I tagged along on a hike with Mary and Tony at a place called Hyalite. Let me just say that Montana is absolutely gorgeous. No matter where you are you are surrounded by mountains. The waterfalls at Hyalite were especially pretty.

In early evening I satisfied a Dairy Queen craving and Em and I went to a park. By this day I had been on two/three hikes. Em suggested we take a walk in the park. About ten minutes later I slowly realized 'wait a second, this is not a walk. This is a hike-you tricked me!'. We had a deep conversation about societal expectations and religion.

Em, Trevor, and I had a relaxing night watching The Queen at Trev's house. Trev ended up being the friend of Em I saw the most. He is quite a character, really nice and generally awesome.

Day Five (Tuesday)

Mmm, chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast. Em's friend Victor came for a chat on the porch. He likes fishing and hunting and goes to a strict catholic school in Florida. Then, Em went to work, but Victor hung around and I talked with him, Tony and yet another one of Em's friends-Sarah. Sarah is a fellow sociology major (Anthropology double major). She's very religious, nice and has the distinction in her social group of never wanting children. Em and I had talked at the park about the basic expectation in Montana for a woman to get married, quit her job and have kids. Many of Sarah's friends insist she will change her mind, but I think Sarah is an example of a woman who is not afraid to admit what she wants, even if it goes against peer pressure and society expectations.

Tuesday night Em and I (Emigail) watched 'Step Up' with Lois (the baby of the family). She kept on getting angry at Emigail for making sarcastic comments at cliched scenes. Come on! How could I possibly watch 'Step Up' without snarking?

Day Six (Wednesday)

This was Em's only complete day off. We picked up Kenny (who has comic books, but no car) and went to a bagel place that really loves to slather on cream cheese. We decided to have a picnic at a place with water and went to Safeway to grab supplies. At one point we saw a watermelon and Emily asked if we wanted to get it. My question was; "Where would we get a knife to cut it". This put Kenny and Em over the edge and they basically laughed at me. Why? Because I had betrayed just what an East coaster I am. In Montana everyone carries a knife and has a gun in their car.

Trevor joined us for the picnic (and insisted on driving even though Em is by no means a bad driver). It was fun, except there was no sun to be seen anywhere. Em, Trev and Kenny all swam in the freezing cold water-I didn't have a bathing suit so I carried their clothes and was eaten alive by mosquitos (my bug bites itch at this very moment). When thunder and lighting appeared we returned to Em's house. Emily made two different types of cookies because the first batch wasn't perfect enough. Kenny and I took turns at the piano (Kenny is a music major and Trev has been playing piano for thirteen years, but I was the only one in the room who could actually read music). After I butchered some Phantom of the Opera on piano we decided to watch the actual movie, until we decided to play Super Smash Brothers (with Tony, Mary and Lois-Em's littlest sister)-I think Kenny had a lot of fun beating me (I was being a little annoyingly competitive). We (Kenny, me, Em, Trev, Mary, Lois) played Scattergories. My favorite part was when one of the items on the list was 'a four letter word' and we had rolled an F for that round. I got the point because I was the only one who really went there. We all had dinner, Kenny Em and I watched some YouTube (Tapiocaaaa!), then we called it a night.

...To be continued

Clap if you believe in fairies...

...now I certainly do-evil Fairies. Because I swear there is a sadistic sometimes ironic travel fairy following me around trying to see how much it can heap on me that I can laugh off.

I got my first real taste from this fairy (evil sprite more like it) Christmas of my freshman year at Grinnell. I'm sitting in the airport waiting for my flight and all the flights around me are getting canceled, not because it is snowing, but because-it is foggy. Too foggy for planes to take off, really?! I know I'm doomed, but it gets to the point that every single flight has been cancelled except mine. Hah! Yeah, not so much. My flight was just the last to get cancelled. I don't panic though, not even when the airport makes an announcment that there will be no flights out of the Des Moines airport that day-maybe not even in the next two days. While everyone else around me is cursing at the poor airport workers, I am laughing quietly to myself. After all getting angry at people just doing their jobs is NOT helpful. It's finally my turn to rebook my flight. They arrange it so that I can fly out of the Omaha airport, but first I have to take a shuttle at five o'clock in the morning. I decide there is no way that I will take a nap because I do not want to risk missing the shuttle. So, I stay up till 5 in the morning (it was around 8pm when I rebooked my flight) and take the shuttle to Omaha. At the Omaha airport I have to wait eight hours for my flight and eventually I am on a direct flight to Washington DC, completely exhausted, but still laughing the whole experience off (hey, at least it makes a good story). Want to know how long it all took? Let me put it this way: I left Grinnell almost the exact same time my sister left Tanzania-and she got to DC first!

I encountered the fairy a couple of times on my roadtrip from San Antonio too (already detailed on this blog). Then, about a week later, when it was time for me to fly to Montana to see Emily Jane, we met again. My flight from DC to Chicago went fine, but at O'Hare I had to go outside in order to get onto my airplane for Billings. This surprised me because I really thought O’Hare could afford those boarding things that lead straight to the plane-I guess this recession has hit everyone hard. Being outside wouldn’t have been a problem, if it had not been raining. Better yet, there was some kind of hold up on the boarding ramp, so I got to stand outside for ten minutes before I could board. As I stood outside absolutely miserable and wet, I couldn’t stop smiling because it was all so ridiculous and oddly not surprising that this would happen to me. I finally got onto the plane, very moist, but amused by how much the airport staff apologized. I thought the fun was over, but the fairy had other plans. There were storms over Billings and the airplane did not have enough gas to wait out the storms. Therefore we got to divert to Bozeman-an example of the fairy’s ironic sense of humor. Emily Jane had told me that she preferred to pick me up at Bozeman airport, but the flights were cheaper at Billings. If only I had just flown to Bozeman. In other words, my flight had to divert to Bozeman, refuel and then fly to Billings. Then, after finally meeting Emily (after making her wait extra long), we had to drive to Bozeman.

Ha ha, isn’t that funny. It’s ok you can laugh, I certainly did. Do you hear that evil ironic travel fairy? You haven’t beaten me down yet. Bring…it…on.

Is Kate the new Emily?

You may have noticed in Gigantor's very first post, I referred to David's girlfriend as DGF Emily. Why would I have to give her a nickname? Maybe because one fifth of everyone I meet seems to be named Emily. Since I will probably be talking about them in the future I will come up with more and more nicknames.

Obviously the most important Emily in my life is my sister. In the realm of family I also have an aunt Emily. Then, I've known other Emilys in my orbit including an elementary school classmate, a slightly older Emily from my high school (my bro's ex), two Emilys in my current college class, of course DGF Emily, and various others. (Emily has been one of the most popular baby names for years and years). Also, in my first year of college I was in a triple with a Chinese student named Lupeng and girl named, you guessed it Emily (I had to laugh at the time, as I often do when I meet another Emily). We really hit off (after a few akward shy days) and I was very sad to find out she was going to transfer out after the first semester. I still regularly talk to her and I'm actually in Montana visiting her right now, so I will call her Emily Jane. So, in short, lots of Emilys and more all the time.

But, is there a new name sneaking up on the horizon? Maybe. My roomate from last year (Dysfuncto/Perri) and I are still good friends, but she is studying abroad this fall semester, so I had to find a new roommate. After not getting a single (my roomdraw number was awful for the second year in a row and they ran out literally two people ahead of me grr), I submitted a roommate request form. After months of waiting I found a girl who wanted a triple and I told her I was in. Her name: Kate. Then a second girl responded to Kate's request: Katie. I feel bad my name isn't Kathyrn. So, then I started thinking. I've known a lot of Kate/Katies too. There was my elementary school and basketball friend Katie. My sister had a friend named Kate, there's several other Kates at Grinnell, and Kate's from summer camps etc.

So the name Emily needs to suit up if she wants to beat this new competitor. Soon, me knowing 5+ Emilys may not be enough. Soon, the day may come when someone says "Hi, my name is Kate" and I laugh the same way I did when I found out my roommates name. And that, my friends, will be a sad day for all the Emilys I know.

The Adventures of Gigantor and Dysfuncto

Since The Sequence (the Grinnell College's comic publication) did not see fit to publish this comic that Perri and I worked on, I thought I would include it here; along with the origin story of Gigantor (me) and Dysfuncto (my roommate Perri).

Gigantor was born out of sibling teasing. I am the tallest sibling of the family...actually the tallest person of my family. Consequently, I usually help out with the reaching high places and just being a general source of amusment: being so tall I can't help but fumble often and bang my body parts (usually my head) into things. So Gigantor is pretty simple: freakishly tall girl=Gigantor. Also, I didn't realize until recently that Gigantor was actually a 60's anime show which I now own. As a result of this anime I also have a catch phrase: Bigger than big, taller than tall! (No copyright infringment intended).

Dysfuncto is equally simple. My roommate and I have a healthy relationship of playful teasing-she teases me too! it's not just my sarcastic self attacking her, honest! So, one night working with her at Grinnell's dining hall as custodians I noticed that she can be slightly dysfunctional. I immediately thought of turning this feature into a super hero (because I am a geek) and Perri helped me think of Dsyfuncto.

Perri suggested we turn these two heroes into a comic and I heartily agreed. Perri wrote the story (I made a few edits based on what I could actually accomplish in a two page comic) and I drew it and submitted it to The Sequence. I'll just say that Perri and I were less than thrilled to find out it was not accepted, so I'm glad to be able to use this blog to share it with at least a couple people. So, without further ado, I give you Gigantor and Dysfuncto.