Hide your kids, Hide your wife.

I'm so exhausted it hurts. But you deserve this. Because of my lack of updates lately, you deserve to hear about my Saturday night.

It all started about 4 months ago when Avatar came out. Our teammate was so obsessed, she immediately planned an Avatar-themed birthday party for her 21st birthday. Her birthday is in August and she promptly sent out an invite in March. Just so we could pencil it into our calendars and would have absolutely no excuses as to why we didn't attend. Then, for the next few months, she sent out threatening e-mails AT LEAST once a week telling us that if we weren't at her Avatar party, we were as good as dead. She would have no mercy. Therefore, Bag Lady and I planned our outfits last spring. And she began growing her hair. It is now down to her lower back (almost butt) and was perfect as an avatar braid (which is what she had been "training" it for for a few months).

Finally, the day had arrived. At about 8:00pm yesterday, Bag Lady (roommate) and I started braiding our hair. We braided our entire heads. Then a friend of ours came over and we began painting ourselves blue. We painted our entire bodies blue. It took about 3 to 4 hours to get completely ready...and we had three other people helping us paint and get dressed. We hadn't even thought about the possibility of the paint staining our skin blue until a friend came back from using the restroom: "Uhh guys....I just tried washing my hands and...uh...they're still blue. I scrubbed them and I can't get the blue paint to come off of my hands." Bag Lady and I drop what we're doing, slowly raise our heads, and look at her with utter disbelief. I cannot speak. I can't utter a single word. Bag Lady, on the other hand, drops her head back in despair and wails, "I'M GONNA BE BLUE FOR THE REST OF MY LIIIIIIIIIIFE!!! NOOOOO I CAN'T DO THISSSSS!" I kinda start laughing because, hey, it would be pretty funny to walk into class Monday morning with a blue tint to your skin. It would definitely come off throughout the week and it would make a great conversation starter. Boy-I-sit-next-to: "So, what did you do this weekend?" Me: "I went to a blueberry patch and ate a bunch of blueberries. They were sooooo good." Then I would stare straight ahead and listen to the professor as Boy tries to figure out what exactly just happened.

Anyway, we figure that we're already blue so we might as well continue getting ready and deal with the whole being-blue-for-the-rest-of-our-lives-thing when the night is over.
We go to the party and immediately step into an acid trip from the 70s. Jimi Hendrix's "Purple Rain" is playing in the background and there are blacklights everywhere. Everything is glowing in the dark. The walls are covered with leaves and paintings of Pandora (the planet in the movie Avatar) and paper mached horses, plants, and flying things are set up around the room. Objects are hanging from the ceiling, I was stepping on unidentifiable objects, different colored drinks were being passed around...it was nuts. It was fun.

Until the cops showed up. I wasn't nervous at all because I was a good girl that night and hadn't had a single drop to drink. They immediately ask for the owner of the apartment. She shows up to the front door looking like this:

Meet the birthday girl. She went all-out; didn't eat chocolate for over 2 weeks and worked out hardcore every day to don this. And is now talking to SIX cops while sipping on the drink in her hand.

They take one look inside the apartment and go, "Holy shit. What the hell is this?!" Apparently they had never seen Pandora before...but I'm pretty sure they've seen a druggie's house and this looked pretty close to that. So I was surprised at their shock.

They say that people in the apartment complex called 911 because they saw people walking around with guns. Well in the movie, there are army people who have huge guns. So some people bought fake guns and spray painted them black (thus painting over the orange tip that is indicative of fake guns). She convinced the cops that it was all in good fun and it was her 21st birthday party. They asked, "What in the world are you wearing?!" She replied with, "Well a loin cloth, of course," as if it was completely normal. Which it is...for her. She spun around so they could get the full effect and therefore mooned the 6 cops standing on her front porch. "Sorry," she says, "Inevitable wardrobe malfunction," and laughs. They start laughing and walk away saying, "Happy birthday, Lauren. Have a good night. And just hide the guns." "Ok, thanks for stopping by!"
Everyone inside can't believe how smoothly that all went down and Lauren does a victory fist pump in the air. Back to the party.

Later, I leave with Bag Lady and another friend. We are trying to figure out how to get the blue off of our skin without turning our bathroom blue. We resolve to trying to find a hose around our apartment complex. Finding no such hose, we use a fountain in one of the courtyards. We basically took a bath in that fountain. It was probably so dirty, but we didn't care. The blue came off relatively easy. The only downside is that it turned the fountain water blue. Hope the fountain is ok today....
Then I took another shower, changed into my pjs, and we watched the end of Forest Gump until we all drifted off into a Pandora dreamland.
See pictures below.





The horse from the movie. Made out of paper mache and chicken wire.











My amazing roommate who painted her body with me. Love you for this!











The group posing in my kitchen. From left to right. we have a cat, army people, two avatars, a Princess Lea, and a tree.












In the process of painting ourselves blue. In the mirror you can see roommate's look of concern....we were semi-worried that we were going to be blue for the rest of the week.


















One of my best friends. Love her to death






















Mail-ordered yellow contacts and fangs. Was also wearing a loin cloth. Also has feathers in her hair. Also made a bow and arrow out of string and sticks in her backyard. I'm almost convinced she was an Avatar in her previous life. Hope you had a great birthday!

Above: roommate linking in with the horse. If you've seen the movie, you know what this means.


Also, whenever we looked at ourselves in the mirror, we forgot we were Avatars and kind of got scared. Therefore, we kept saying, "Hide your kids, hide your wife," all night. This is from a you-tube video that's pretty funny. I uploaded it for your viewing pleasure. The star of the video has been interviewed on many late-night TV shows as a result of the video's popularity. And people also made it into an auto-tuned song, sold it on iTunes, and made over 1 millions dollars. That's also down there too. And just ignore the last half of the second video. I don't know what that's all about.

I don't CARE if you're a freshman...

YOU'RE SO HOTT!!!

So we were assembled for our athlete welcome-back dinner in the basketball auditorium. And that's about the time I started considering myself a very lucky girl. Yes, I'm able to go to a great school, live in a great city, have great friends, be loved by a great family, and have two arms, two legs, and a head on my shoulders. But that's not why I'm lucky. No....but think about it. I am assembled in the gymnasium with 500+ other student-athletes who work out EVERY DAY. A.K.A. their bodies are jacked. Roughly half of these are women, so knock that down to a super-jacked group of 250 guys. Shave off another 100 or so for assholes, 75 for the not-so-attractive ones, 50 for those shorter than me, 24 for those who already have girlfriends, and you get the ONE super-hott guy who walked up the aisle past me. I swear to you right now on my business school GPA, he has the bod of a god. And hair to go with it. I haven't seen that 'do since I looked at my dad's pictures from the '70s, but he totally rocked it. A little long, parted to the side, with some slight curl to it. As he sauntered past, the heavens opened up, angels began swirling around his perfect golden locks, and cupid came out and struck me with his arrow. I was done for. My roommate had to pick my jaw up off the ground and wipe up my drool with her Kleenex: "Pull yourself together! He's a freshman." I whip around and respond with: "I don't care if he's eighteen or thirty-five! He's got the look. And I can't stop looking!"

Technically, our relationship would be acceptable considering I was asked if I was 15 or 16 multiple times this summer. So if you want to give the cougar label based off of looks, HE would be the cradle-robber and I would be dating an older man. Plus he looks like he's about 23. Either way, I WIN.

I haven't seen him around campus YET, but it's only a matter of time before I run into him in the weight room. So, until then, I must try to look extra attractive (and maybe 19) whenever I'm lifting weights. Which is actually pretty hard to do when you're squatting over 100 pounds and sweat is dripping down the side of your face.

I'll let you know how this progresses....

Limbo

I sincerely apologize in my lack of posts. I have, as you know, been traveling around like a chicken with my head cut-off among five (France, Belgium, Germany, UK, US) different countries in the past week. This left little time to blog.

I arrived home Sunday evening. My plane landed safely in the US and the first thing I thought of when I passed a Margarita bar in Chicago's O'Hara Airport was, "Oh LORD after all this travelling I deserve a margarita." And then it hit me. And I stopped walking. As my face drained of color and I sank slowly to the floor, I realized that, once again, I am now under the legal drinking age. After having the liberty to stop in the middle of a shopping trip with friends for a glass of wine any time we pleased, I now feel like something has been taken away from me. And I. Don't. Like it.

I boarded my other plane and landed without a hitch in KC. As I walked out of the gate entirely exhausted, I saw my family with big smiles on their faces, waving signs and taking pictures of me. And it made me so happy. I missed them so much.

Fast forward to Monday at 10 AM. I have a weird feeling all night and all morning. And I can't figure out what it is. I just dropped my dad off somewhere and am driving back home while listening to my Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros CD when "Home" comes on. And I realize what's going on.

I'm stuck in Limbo. I have an awkward 4 days ahead of me where I just have to wander around aimlessly as I wait for the next part of my life to begin: junior year. As "Home" plays, I get the chills. And usually you only get the chills for a couple seconds, right? No, not this time. And this was the first time it happened to me. I had the chills the whole time the song was playing. I was full of so many mixed emotions I hadn't even noticed until then. I think the song really got to me because I'm not really sure where my home is right now. At Oxford, I really made a life for myself there. I had my routines. We had the places we went on certain days to hang out and/or shop. We ate at the same times and at the same places. I loved my room. I did my own thing there a lot and I loved it. One night (after being out) I absentmindedly updated my status saying, "Just got home for the night! What fun!" and one of my friends from KC commented saying, "WHAT? England is home now?!" I didn't really think about it that way, but I guess subconsciously I had become really comfortable there and it became my new normal. I loved it so much and I guess I really can see myself living there someday. (Perhaps thats why tears were streaming down my cheeks at 5 AM the morning we were leaving...) I mean, KC will always be my childhood home--and my family and old friends are here--but I also think Dallas is my new home, my current home. School, rowing, SAAC, my job, my apartment, and my other friends are there. Our local hangouts, where I shop for food for MY fridge, where we go on the weekends...it's all there. And it's all mine. Being in KC these past couple of days has been great, don't get me wrong, but I've had to find things to do to fill my time. Things that were ok to do, but didn't really have much of a purpose. Not like how I spend my time in Dallas: I'm on my own and everything has a purpose. Here, everyone has already left for their respective colleges, my parents are back at work, and all the grade schools and high schools have started. It's as if I'm the only one who's life hasn't come back yet. I feel like I'm sitting around, waiting for something to happen or begin, even though I'm doing anything and everything to fill my days.

So there you have it. I have two more days to unpack, clean, and repack everything in my room. And then try to find other things to do. Because everyone is getting on with their lives and mine's not ready to pick back up yet.



Even though it's basically a love song, I still love it. And it still makes me think about where my home is.

Where's the excitement in planning ahead?

I'm not sure if I subconsciously crave mass chaos, but I somehow always seem to attract it.

And no, I'm not talking about last night when our whole program went on our last Booze...ahem, I mean BOAT Cruise. And no, I did not get drunk. Nope nope nope. I took care of everyone else. Gold star for me. This post would be way too long if I told you everything that happened last night. But I suppose that means I've attracted two instances of chaos within the last 24 hours...great.

I'm talking about today. Yes, today when I tried (key word: tried) to book my train tickets to and from Euskirchen, Germany. I sound like a fool when I try to pronounce it. Either way, after searching online for a few hours over the last couple of days comparing times and prices, I finally have my route and timeline figured out. I was so proud. I go to book it and have everything planned out when they tell me....

Roadblock Number 1: They have to ship the tickets to me and want to know when I'm leaving The States. Can't ship the tickets anywhere BUT the US. Hmm...that won't do me any good...I'm already in Europe. So I think shipping them to the person I'm staying with in Belgium is the smartest idea--that way I'll get them in time. Also, since I'm so responsible, I don't know my address here in the UK where I've been staying for the past 5 weeks. So Belgium it is. Of course you can't do ANY of this online, so I decide to call RailEurope via Skype. It's free. That's literally the only thing I had going for me today.

Talk to a nice lady and she helps me figure everything out AGAIN. We had to re-figure everything because some trains are already booked, my luck is bad, etc. Almost done and ready to pay when...

Roadblock Number 2: Call is dropped. UGH! Knowing that RailEurope has over a thousand employees and chances of talking to the same lady again are about a million to one, I resolve to Skype call them again to start over. What else was I going to do? Gotta get to Germany.

So I talk to a different lady and tell her my last call was dropped just to prepare her. This time she gives me a confirmation number to track my itinerary just in case. This was a good call. Because, yet again, we are ALMOST finished when...

Roadblock Number 3: Call is dropped. Again.

I call back. The first two ladies were super nice. But this man is mean. Very mean. I came to the conclusion that he hates his life. He has to help other people prepare their awesome European adventures while he sits in a cubicle all day long. I'd hate my life too. We look up my already-planned trip and--surprise!--it's actually there. And it's a whopping 400 dollars. WHAT?! For two trips? Interesting. He e-mails it to me and.....

Roadblock Number 4: I find a ton of extra charges on each ticket. The lady thought I wanted First Class. Wait, you couldn't hear the poor-college-student's-desperate-need-for-money dripping from my every word? She also thought I wanted rail insurance. False. Finally getting my fare filed down to only 300 dollars, I feel better. A little. Scrooge on the line asks the address in Belgium so they can ship it. Realizing...

Roadblock Number 5: I asked my friend in Germany for her address--not the lady in Belgium--so I have to to say I don't have it. Ignoring the disappointment and frustration in his voice, I apologize and hang up the phone. I stare at my computer screen for at least 10 minutes contemplating exactly how I just spent the last 4+ hours. When finals are on Friday. And I've done nothing to prepare.

Don't worry, I'm sure everything will turn out fine. That way, I can be surprised and thrown for a loop when it doesn't! I can't wait for the excitement to continue...

If ya wanna be my lover

Alright, so I'm taking you back 10+ years. Over half my life ago. Wow, when I put it that way, it's weird. Time has gone by so fast. Ok, enough of nostalgia--I don't have time for that right now. I'm already procrastinating on reading 3 books and writing 2 papers to post here, so let's make it quick.

The inspiration of this post comes from last night's late-night bus ride. Everyone was drunk after attending a concert in the British countryside. Therefore, they assumed it would be appropriate to karaoke every known cliqued song from the 90s to the 10-plus professors present on our bus. I don't think they appreciated it. I was having a ball though.

Sitting next to one of my best friends, she suddenly starts busting out The Spice Girls' "If Ya Wanna Be My Lover." Almost instantaneously, I was rocketed back to a vision of the 2nd grade me running around my backyard with a make-shift microphone of aluminum foil over a Styrofoam ball singing to my "boyfriend" (ahem, a tree) about how our relationship was going to last. Those oh, so wise words of Ginger, Scary, Sporty, Baby, and Posh (that's right, I remember their names at the drop of a hat) were magical and completely dead-on. As a girl who was experienced in the ways of the world (or so I thought), I couldn't have put it better myself.

Mom comes out and announces it's time to go. It's a Friday. And that can only mean one thing: ROLLER RINK TIME. I get on the latest fashion: jean overalls with a neon flowered shirt, pink plastic hair barrettes, and toe socks. I. Look. Hott. Make sure I've got my roller blades and we're off. I can barely contain my excitement as the mere 5 minutes it takes to drive there seems to be an hour.

Oh how I remember the sheer joy of flying around the roller rink listening to The Spice Girls, Backstreet Boys, N'sync, and Chumbawamba (don't tell me you don't remember them). The limbo always came too soon. After failing to go under the stick and falling flat on my butt a few times, there were only a few more songs until "Late Night Skate" began and we had to leave. As I walked out, I admired the older kids waiting in line. Man, those 6th and 7th graders were so cool! They were so old and mature and, wow, their moms let them dye their hair different colors and get piercings. Don't even get me started on the belly shirts of the 90s--my mom would NEVER let me wear those cool outfits! Not that I would dream of asking. But I always admired from afar. It was always still light outside when we left, but I felt like I had partied until the next morning. I was a rock star.

"Mom mom mom mom mom mom mom can we pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease go to McDonalds? Every one's gonna go there after! You can get a Diet Coke. And I want a toy."