Finals Week and Farewells

WARNING. MEGAPOST. BUCKLE IN.

These are my highlights of finals week and the following weekend. Maybe highlights isn't the best word, they aren't all happy rays of sunshine. Here are the noteworthy moments of my finals week.

Monday May 17th. I had finally started t0 buckle down (in Perri's room) and write a paper for my sociological theory class at 7pm on Sunday evening. I left Perri's room at 5:20am. At 9:30am I presented on said paper. If anything, this semester has taught me that procrastination is bad and I should stop doing it. So next semester I'll try to work on procrastinating less (I've never said that before). The presentation went ok considering, however, I flubbed up at a very unfortunately point. I was describing the importance of sequencing in speech and conversation. At that exact point I couldn't order my words or thoughts correctly and had to start over about three times. Hallo irony! Later Perri suggested the class may have thought I did it on purpose. Leah responded; "they probably didn't think you did it on purpose, but they probably thought it was funny." So, Monday morning I also watched the rest of my theory class do their presentations-for about four hours-on two hours of sleep. There was one presentation I quite enjoyed; two boys presented on the images of femininity in She-Hulk comic books and did a pretty damn good job. Monday evening the dining hall was closed and there was a barbecue held outside. A good portion of the school spent their dinner hour sitting on the grass, which my lengthy legs make very difficult, while also listening to music. Of course-because it had to happen- "Party in the USA" came on at one point. Once again dancing occurred. No matter what the situation "Party" will always be danced to, at this point it's just common sense.

Tuesday: As you may have noticed I spent almost the whole last post mourning the loss of my seniors. I went on and on about how upset I am to only have a limited amount of time to interact with the group. Since I was so concerned, I decided to completely forget about the last "baking tuesday". I was basically in my room twiddling my thumbs at 10:45pm when I suddenly remembered. I ran over to find Sara, Elyse and Jessica leaving the kitchen. They asked me why I wasn't there and what I was doing. Forgot and nothing I replied. I don't think I can explain how angry at myself I was. I didn't remember because it was finals week and things were different, and Perri didn't remind me, so failure. Fortunately the problem of missing the last Baking Tuesday was sort of rectified on Thursday. But first...

Wednesday, my Animal Behavior group met (we had done an experiment where we made two different species of ants fight each other) and desperately tried to make our ant data mean something. We failed. However, we managed to put a spin on our results and get our presentation all set up for...

Thursday morning was my last real academic task for the semester (besides completing and turning in my lab notebook for Friday). I presented with my Animal Behavior group on our ant project. It went way to long and was possibly more complicated than it needed to be, but for once I felt sort of happy with my presentation performance. Thursday evening I got to make up for missing Baking tuesday with a Baking Thursday (or as I thought of it, Baking Tuesday on a Thursday). I did a little work on my notebook until I was made aware that I could just cut and paste/tape from my science papers into the book. As a result, for the rest of the time I played a flash-game with the rest of the table-meaning we all played it in our own computers. Isn't socializing in the modern world great? The game's name is Bubble Spinner and it was evil. Meaning I was bad at it. Also to perfectly finish the evening we were blessed by being introduced to one more of Sara's Harry Potter fan fictions. This time, between Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy. I got to read it because no one else wanted to. Unfortunately, I don't know how to use a British accent, but I think I did an ok job, I even-kind of-sort of left my giggling to a minimum. Also there was yummy apple crisp. I'll miss you baking Tuesday!

Friday. The last day of finals. It was luckily finals free, but eventful, annoying and fun. In the morning I worked my first dish line shift. You know the iconic episode of I Love Lucy when Lucy has to work at a bakery or something and there is an assembly line that goes way to fast and things get all backed up and fall everywhere and hilarity ensues. Yeah it was kind of like that. There were only two of us for most of the three hours, because no one wants to work on Friday afternoon. I was also stuck with the possessed sprayer that would randomly stay on by itself shooting water very heavily onto the dishes and spraying everywhere. I had to work in a puddle. When it was over, (at about 2pm) I finished my lab notebook quickly. Like a mature college student I cut pieces out of my science papers with scissors and taped them into my notebook, then rushed it down to Jackie Brown's office. Around 3pm I raced to the mecca of finals week: Block Party. A Grinnell tradition, but my first one. It is basically a huge party on High Street near off campus apartments and townies' living quarters. I surprisingly found the group pretty quickly, considering the crowds. We sat down for about 2 hours in one place. I was also made aware of the most tooly toolest tool I have ever seen. He is the quintessential pretentious philosophy major. He has an ugly beard, smokes cigarettes, reads philosophy books outside alone around campus, philosophizes to himself and skulked around Block party. I'm still washing the pretentious off me. The entire group and then some went to The Depot for dinner at 6pm. Very interesting conversation happened.

I don't know what the context was, but Perri asked if the term "bear" could be applied to straight men as well. We informed her, that "No, all bears are gay." Someone overheard and only took out "All bears are gay?" from the conversation. "How do they reproduce?" "Bigfoot makes them procreate. That bigot." Several lunches ago Ben had used his movie announcer voice to create a tagline that makes no sense and along the lines of: "In a world where foxes and people coexist. Something new is forming..." After our Depot dinner we refined the tagline/life goal: "In a world where foxes and people coexists. All bears are gay. And bigfoot rules the forest." That about sums up the group in a nut shell.

I should mention we walked to and from the depot. After dinner we also walked to the magical wonderful Dairy Barn. We had to stop for a moment before leaving campus to wait for our friend Olga to come join us. We sat on these sort of old fashion looking stairs at Mirrors Cottage. Stephanie took pictures of us sitting on the steps, posing like we were in one of those really old family photos that look brownish. We distributed ourselves on different steps, and looked completely serious into a random point in the background. Fun! Then, we somehow regressed into playing with each other's hair. I also earned another nickname. Apparently, Perri had referred to me as her "bigger half" at Block Party before I had gotten there. On the steps, after once again being teased by Elyse for being mean (obviously all in good fun-I hope), we decided Perri could be referred to as "my nicer half". Olga arrived, and we trekked to the "barn". We got our ice creams, and shakes, and slushies, and sundaes and sat down at a smallish round table, once again displaying our great talent for fitting an infinite amount of people at any round table. Tableville forever! More nonsensical but interesting conversation continued.

We walked back to campus and all crammed into Elyse's room and watched random YouTube music videos on her big screen. First was Justin Bieber, the popular, very young, white, singer, who we all find immensely disturbing in too many ways. In one video he tries to court a girl who looks like she's about thirty, in another he makes his black friends dance (I'm not kidding) and in yet another he has to sing this line with Sean Kingston: "One, two, three, four, catch a black girl by her toe." So many things wrong with Bieber. We then moved to a very weird "We Built Sioux city on Rock & Roll" video (which is Zach's home town-the video has been referred to as "the death of the internet"), and Miley Cyrus (of course) and Taylor Swift (gag me) and some more risky (or riskay in one case) videos. We finally decided to be actually active and played the fun paper, pictionary, telephone game (referred to in a much earlier post). I was super tired by this point, so I was not in top form with my drawing, but I did my best.

When the game was over I had a fun exchange with the group. The group has nicknames for almost all the second years that live with them on Younker Second. The two I am most aware of are "PreGame" and "Sausages" (named for his love of cooking sausages). Unfortunately, PreGame does not seem long for Grinnell. I don't think I ever saw him sober all year. Anyway, sausages passed by the kitchen while we were playing our game. Elyse lamented "that may be the last time we see Sausages." I put on my pouty sad face and Elyse comforted me with "don't worry you'll see him again next year." I laughed and corrected her, "I don't care if I see him again! I care about not seeing you again." And with that we were one night closer to their graduation.

Saturday. I worked in the afternoon and nothing interesting happened-at all. For dinner, Perri and I went to the Grinnell Steakhouse with Ginny, her friend Kelsey, and Ginny's mom who treated us. Her mom was super nice and bonded with Perri over the fact that both of them had moved during their youth. I cooked an excellently rare (but safe) fillet mignon. mmm. For post-dinner entertainment Perri and I met up with the group to see the senior talent show. While we were waiting for the show to start-on those infamously uncomfortable bleechers in Harris-we were forced to listen to really horrible smooth jazz. Though I guess the really d horrible is a little redundant what with the smooth jazz. Sara and I felt like we should be seducing someone or something. The show itself was pretty great. There really weren't any dud acts in the bunch. The first act gave me a little bit of a fright, b/c it first seemed to just be two people whistling. But they had a whole hillbilly act going and did funny plays on popular songs like "Bad Romance Novel," "I wish that I had Jesse's Tackle-box," and "Party in the UPS! Store." Very fitting. There was also excellent juggling, singing, and dancing. After the show the juggler put on a little encore fire juggling demonstration outside which made Stephanie's mom very nervous. Walking back to our dorm (meaning Perri's so same thing) Perri and I found out that we had more nicknames we weren't aware of. Apparently Sara often thinks of us as Perrigail, or Pabby. After all we are one person. I also forget to mention that during bowling the previous Saturday I got another nickname I never saw coming: Abigail Churchmang. I could explain it, but I'll just leave the mystery.

Sunday was super superduper frickin muggy. Saturday midmorning Perri graciously helped me take my two heavy bins down to storage. It killed our hands and I may have almost killed Perri when I "accidentally" dropped my side of the bin. Sunday afternoon Perri and I shared the role of Dysfuncto. I somehow almost broke the waffle maker before work. I managed to flip it into the waffle batter, splattering it all over the counter and myself. It only got worse. During work it was just Perrigail doing custodial and we kind of fell apart. First, I accidentally got a rug stuck in the zamboni temporarily. I literally said out loud to myself, "No one saw that." I looked to my right and Perri was staring straight at me. Later Perri was trying to take down chairs with her eyes closed. One, that's a bad idea. Two, it was hilarious because... she lifted off a chair that had a napkin holder (w/salt and pepper shakers) on it and they (the salt, napkins and holder) flew everywhere. I literally doubled over laughing. I also got more sassy as the shift went on. I refused to do napkins because I didn't want to and I wanted to leave the shift as soon as possible. Perri thinks I hurt Derek (our supervisor's) feelings. It probably didn't help I implied he and Perri weren't my friend. NOT TRUE. I also accidentally admitted to enjoying shooting things up right in front of a Grinnell security guard. Oops. One of the reasons I hated work was b/c I was missing a picnic. Everyone (mostly) from the group and their family was having a barbecue outside of Younker. I loved watching the seniors interact with their families. I now see where they get some of themselves from. Perri and I caught the picnic half-way through luckily. Good times. For dinner Perrigail went out with Stephanie's mom for Mexican. Steph and her mom are like the same person interests and hobby wise. They're adorable. Pabby ordered fried ice cream for dessert, but it was awful. It was like they put corn flakes on vanilla ice cream and then decided to skip out on the frying part. Ah well. And thus marked my last night at Grinnell for quite a while.

Monday morning was graduation. I decided I probably wasn't going to cry, but I was very sad anyway. Perri and I got there much later than we should have. It was packed and there was nowhere else left to sit. However, heaven was shining on us because after fifteen minutes of standing two chairs magically appeared before us. Also shining on us was the bright, hot, muggy sun. Ew. It was over 90 degrees. While Perrigail got lucky and got to sit in shade, the graduates were not so lucky. I heard from them later that it was unbearably hot, but by some miracle no one fainted. The ceremony was way too long which was normal. I still enjoyed the very random facts at the end of ceremony announced by RKO including: "today is also Victoria Day in Canada because it is Queen Victoria's birthday". Wow, ya learn something new everyday. However, before I knew it my friends were graduated. I basically sprinted to the picnic because I was starving. Pabby met up with Elyse in line and ate on the grass and heat and sun with Elyse's family and Jessica, but no one else was to be found. I was almost afraid I wasn't going to get to say goodbye before I left. Luckily, we found out that everyone else was eating inside Noyce in the air conditioning. Smart. Everyone held up pretty well, even when we had to stand around for about five minutes so parents could take pictures. However, once Allegria teared up it was all over. Falling like dominos, half of the group started crying. I and others were immune, but it was touching and I think we all felt the sentiment. Jessica and I had to head out to caravan out of Grinnell, so we said our goodbyes. Good bye all! Thank you for a wonderful year and I will cherish our memories together; which can mostly be handily found on this here blog.

Before I finally let you stop reading, just some quick notes about my road trip.

After saying goodbye, I finished packing my car and left with Jessica to begin caravanning. We had decided to drive in separate cars, but together until we split off at Pittsburg.

Because my I-pod radio converter was not working in my car I had to be creative with my music. I became a sort of personal DJ for myself, mixing my CDs and whatever radio happened to be in reach. After about 3 hours of driving, and little sleep the previous night, I was feeling really tired which is not a good mix with driving over 60. Then heaven sent me a little gift in the form of an awesome Rap Radio station that seems to be local to Chicago. However, it played well into Indiana, so I couldn’t complain. Well actually I did complain when it finally cut out. But, then I moved onto the BBC news radio station. You can’t fit me into a box-literally or figuratively! I then moved to the most vial radio show I could possibly imagine. It was so conservative that I wanted to scream at the host. Actually, I did scream at the host-whose name was Lars Larson-really? which was kind of fun. As one radio listener put it “After listening to your show I know why you fight for your right to own a gun." Next, I listened to a mix cd Ashleigh gave me awhile ago that had music that ranged from old American blues to modern British electro-pop. It was just mellow enough to be soothing, but lively enough to keep me from swerving off the highway from exhaustion. Jessica only made it Toledo Ohio for that day. We were starved and ate at "Steak and Shake." Then we rented a room for the night at my favorite rode side hotel, the Holiday Inn. Thus prompting the Chingy song to play in my mind for the rest of the night.

The next day, I split off from Jessica at the exit for Pittsburg and I got to drive for another 5 hours, meanwhile bleeding money at the millions of toll booths. I managed to make it to Northern Virginia right in time for rushhour traffic on I-495. Since I was having so much fun moving slower than molasses I decided to accidentally miss the exit for I-66 E and then for 1-50E. Then I missed about a billion turns. Yay. But now I’m home and…

BRING ON THE SUMMER!

Call of the Wild/Why did I have to Befriend Seniors?

Thursday, May 13, I went with Perri to her volunteer shift at the Grinnell Animal Shelter, as I occasionally do, to help take care of the kitties. About two weeks before, when I was at the shelter I saw two kittens that were kept in a separate room from the other cats because they were new arrivals and had to be quarantined. They're both white and look sort of like twins, and when I walked into the room they looked very very creepy. I was reminded of the twins in The Shining. "Come pet us. Come pet us forever."

Well, I saw the same two cats this past time, looking a lot bigger, and they had joined with the rest of the cats. This time the creepiness in my heart was replaced by love. One of the siblings is the sweetest kitty. She's playful and soft (I love the texture of her fur) and so lovely especially since she didn't take a chomp out of my arm like some of the other cats. I wanted to take her home. Her amazingness was only dampened by her name. I turned to Perri and asked what the cat's name was, and said "If it's name is Snowball, I'm going to hurt somebody." Sure enough-Snowball is her name. Really? Who can seriously at this point, non-ironically name a white cat Snowball? If I were to make her mine I would have to rectify that situation. I never have liked white cats before, but now I'm reconsidering. My dog plan for when I'm older is to raise a black great dane puppy, I think it would be cool to a have a white cat with a black dog. They would even match Henry!

Friday, I met the less adorable side of non-human organisms. I was eating dinner in the dining hall with a fraction of the group (Zach and Janna were out of town, and others were at a poli-sci picnic). We were having a conversation when, abruptly, Jessica said "that's weird". I looked over to where her eyes were focused, on the floor next to our table, and saw THE FRICKEN LARGEST SPIDER I HAVE EVER SEEN that wasn't a tarantula. Just chilling out on the dining hall floor. The girls (not to be sexist or anything) all walked/jumped away from the table/spider and succeeded in making a spectacle of ourselves in front of the whole dining hall. The other tables understood though because THEY COULD SEE THE SPIDER FROM 30 ft AWAY! Ben, the strong and able man of the group saved us defenseless ladies, captured the spider and released it into the wild so it could go eat a bird or cow or something. The table next to us applauded. Later at dinner Ben, feeling something on his leg said "another spider" although said extra spider was not present. Very funny. Well actually it was kind of funny because once again all the girls scooted out from the table pretty quickly. And that was when we decided dinner should be over. Seriously why would a spider in Iowa need to be so big?

Saturday at lunch, my senior friends were talking about their after school plans. First, Sara talked about attending a poli-sci major picnic the other day with Elyse, and desperately trying to fight the urge to lie to professors who asked about her plans. Sara doesn't know yet what she is going to do, so she made up an elaborate lie, basically that she would be working as an Adjacent Lab Research Assistant for JBI. The problem with the lie was that she would be caught if any follow up questions at all were asked. At lunch, Sara tried to figure out what she would have told people JBI stands for. Unfortunately, the only words she could think to replace JB were Juvenile Boys. So, Juvenile Boys Incorporated or International; which sounds an awful lot like some sort of child slavery ring. Or if she went the international root, an organization that distributes "children workers" across the world. "Well, I'm going to be a research assistant for JBI. Yeah, I'm going to be working against social justice." Ben decided he wanted to be a bear when he grew up, but he couldn't decide which kind. The whole group started making suggestions (grizzly, polar etc.) which led to this comedically brilliant exchange.

Leah: If you're going to grow up to be an animal, then you should aim higher. Like a dinosaur.

Elyse: God Leah, that's crazy. Dinosaurs are extinct. (*turns to Ben*) You should be a grizzly bear.

Saturday night was a big bag of mixed emotions. For dinner, I once again accompanied the group to the wonderful Chinese Buffet in Newton. And once again I ate way too much. What always does me in are these fried balls of dough covered in sugar. I have not tasted anything better in my life and no matter how full I am after I eat them, I always come back for more. The best fortune this time went to both Elyse and Stephanie: "You will encounter some kind of alien sometime in your near future." I'll leave up to you what kind of alien they were referring to.

EDITOR'S NOTE: I WAS MADE AWARE THAT THE "ALIEN" FORTUNE COOKIE DID NOT BELONG TO ELYSE, BUT TO JESSICA. SINCEREST APOLOGIES TO ALL THOSE AFFECTED.

After dinner, I once again accompanied the group to the bowling alley/karaoke bar in Newton. Alas, this time there was no karaoke. As we started to bowl, the guy in charge of the karaoke machine came up to us and basically said he would get to go home if we said we didn't want to sing; he apparently recognized the group from their previous karaoke shenanigans. We allowed him to leave, but not before he witnessed some of our craziness. Around the first frame of bowling, Miley Cyrus's "Party in the USA" came onto the radio. Now, before I came to Grinnell the mere sound of someone saying Cyrus's name would send me into shivers of disgust. But, the group has changed me. Don't get me wrong, I still generally disapprove of the Cyrus, but there will always be a soft spot in my heart for "Party in the USA". Hey, it's a good song. A little while ago Sara, Elyse, and Jessica made up a dance for "PitUSA". When it came on in the alley we all danced along. Yep, people were staring, including karaoke man. Take that for not letting us sing! Sara called it a perfect senior moment because for so much of her school career she has taken joy in embarrassing herself and others. This was the part of the night where that nagging thought first started creeping into my mind: they won't be here next semester.

The emotions really started flowing during the last game, once again due to music. For the last frame of bowling (and my last frame ever bowling with the group) Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" came on. This song always makes me think of high school. One, because they would play it at every major formal dance at HB, and also because Ashleigh and Cody have a tradition of singing and acting along to the song. Whenever I hear it now, I become very sentimental for a simpler time with my high school friends. Of course as time has gone, I've found new ways to be friends with them and keep in touch, but you can never completely go back to how it was in HS. I thought it was really appropriate and symbolic to hear "Rhapsody" during my last official outing with the group. It got me really thinking about next semester-never being with the whole group again-and how I'll have to once again reconfigure my relationships. Not to mention I'll be a senior, and all the anxiety and emotions that come with the realization you'll finally be pushed into the real world and your life will change (not to sound too melodramatic). Of course, as we were leaving the bowling alley for the last time, the alley started playing "All Star" by Smash Mouth as we left. A song from my elementary school days. Really world? A song from my childhood, my teen years, and my College years (still in progress). Really?

By the end of the night it completely hit me. I am so happy that I found such a great group of friends (and I mean that for any of you who might be reading). I set out to find new friends during Perri's semester abroad, and I succeeded. I even found friends that consistently make me laugh and brighten up my day. They're great, except for the whole them not being here next year. Why seniors? Why did they have to be seniors? It won't be same without them next semester. Yes, I'm being sentimental, but watching them graduate will definitely be bittersweet.

And now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go off and cry now.