You know those days where you seem like you spend twelve hours running ten minutes behind? You know those days where you realize you may not be a normal human?

Yesterday was one of those.

The Plan: Lunch with Manresa small group at 1, Where The Wild Things Are at Newport at 3:40, Basketball game at 6:30, and jimjackery (dammit, Jake) after that.

So the day lovingly starts off with me waking up from Fall Ball at MND the night before ("Dude, I'm almost five years older than some of the people here..." "...I'm seven years older than some of the people here" "Well played") and realizing that I missed the ideal bus for the Manresa group. So I resolve to take a later one which makes me late in getting with them, but hey, it'll work. I finally get down to where we were supposed to have breakfast, and they aren't there. Hm, ok. So I call Jimmy (one of the guys going) and he says they haven't left X yet.

It's 1:45. Really?

So I walk towards X (straight run from Buskens), meet up with the five of them, and we all go to Chipotle for lunch. It was nice to just kind of kick back with them and enjoy the meal...the people that went are all people who went to most all of Manresa (which, seeing how we're in college, was technically "optional"), so we all knew each other and stuff. But the time comes where I must be off to get the bus to get downtown so I can get to Newport. I say goodbye to all of them and head out of Chipotle and start bus stop hunting and chip munching.

A word about the Metro Bus System: they effectively make everything I do a Batman Gambit; a term here which means "If one thing gets hitched, the plan will almost definitely fall in on itself". See, after almost two months of the  bus, I've learned how to roughly gauge the average time of arrival based on what the schedule says. For instance, if the bus should be at Montgomery and Dana at 6:24, I know I need to start leaving X at 6:14 to be at my stop to get the bus around 6:27. However, however, the system seem hellbent on screwing me like a hundred dollar whore should I need to be somewhere. Such was the case with this bus, a 2:39 that ended up arriving at 2:52. So there's that, and I'm scrambling in my head to figure out how the time change factors into my plans. Eventually, the bus gets me downtown and I pick a fairly arbitrary place to get off. "But Blake," I hear you say, "I thought you were going to Newport."

Oh, but I am!

When originally planning this outting, I considered staying at X and just getting a ride down to Newport with Rachael and Alex. But, I realized, there was a more fun solution in the form of getting off the bus downtown and having to figure out a foot route to Newport. I figured "Hey, it's doable", and with that in mind I jumped off the Kenwood Number 4 bus and started walking towards the Ohio River.

It turns out that this was deceptively easy: I walked a few blocks south, then went left once, and happened on a bridge (Not the purple people one) with a footpath. I could actually see the theater from there, and start the trek across states. It wasn't until I got a third of the way across that the instinct of "Oh, hey, I'm on a self-supported diggery-do of tons of metal and concrete over a rather volatile body of water" (common of non-engineers) kicked in. But I still pushed on since, you know, copious amounts of fencing. As I get closer to the Kain-Tuck side, I start looking for ways off the bridge that can land me close to Newport (since by this point it's 3:20something and the movie starts at 3:40). Lucky me, I find a stairway that goes down to the riverbank, and I'm able to go straight from there to the Levee! Ladies and gentlemen, from Deer Park to Newport without the use of a car, he's a champ.

Only Rachael and Alex don't get there until 3:55. DAMMIT!

Part 2 later.

-CnG

Oh what a week it has been.

The past week has had the primary focus of being about a paper for my rhetoric class. The assignment...well, ok, I just finall handed the damned thing in today, so fingers crossed for a B+. Basically we had to do research on a topic of our choice and almost kind of SparkNote that research as a large paper. It was more ridiculous than it sounds mostly because it took weeks of "Is This Your Card?"ism* with the prof to get an idea of what she wanted. This, from what I've gathered from other students and ratemyprofessor.com, is basically how she runs a class. Anyway, the point is, the 9 page paper (plus a complete Works Cited and Annotated Bibliography!) was turned in and all printed research was sent in the recycle bin because, hey man, going green is what it's all about.

Mostly this assignment (as well as other in class work) has opened my eyes to something: I do not wish to be an English major. Do I love writing? Yes! Do I love reading literature and examinig it? Yes! Do I remotely enjoy the more technical and academic aspects of English as a major? No!

Which is wh I'm changing to Social Work as soon as I'm done signature hunting. :)

After a very nearly considered suicide attempt a month and a half ago and two fucking terrible nights in the past month, I made the judgment call today to see a counselor. Not today, mind you (because that would be so simple!), but next Wednedsay. This coincided with a trip to the Health and Wellness Center today because I slammed my wrists into the wall last night (hence the counselor) and they still hurt like hell today. Health and wellness trip was the following:

"Yeah, I was wondering if I could have someone look at a wrist injury?"
"Ok...when did it happen?"
"Last night."
"Does it feel broken?"
"I don't know what broken feels like"
"Ok, then it's not broken."
"Ok. Er, can I have someone look at it to make sure it isn't fractured, sprained, or anything? Or have someone tell me what I should do?"
"...how about I have a nurse call you later? We're facing a flu outbreak right now."
"...Ok."
"Great! Now if I could just have your information..."

And about four hours later a nurse calls, says that based on what I said, it doesn't sound like anything serious (yippee), and it should feel better in a few days. I realize this sounds extremely selfish of me, but all I really wanted was for to look at the damn thing and tell me what was wrong. I realize they have the flu thing (or so they say, haven't noticed anyone missing around or being sick), but shit, this would have taken a nurse 30 seconds max.

Ah well, I have an Ace bandage now. Life is ok.

-CnG

*A term I use to refer to anytime that a teacher/prof will mark off something subjective because it isn't the view they were looking for. Developed as a senior in high school. Feel free to use it.

Oh gee it's been a fun past 21 hours.

Ok, here's the premise. Xavier Players (aka: the theater folk) have this annual event called 24 Hour Theater. Essentially, the goal is to have students write a show (or a series of small ones) and have other students learn it and perform it. All in 24 hours. The writers write from 7 PM last night to 7 AM this morning. Then the student directors take over with the actors, who have 11 hours to memorize and practice the show for a dress rehearsal at 6 and then a public performance in the studio theater at 7 PM of Saturday. Today.

I thought I'd help write. Acting? Eh, I've done a whole bunch of acting, and wanted to try something new. That and I'm going to Halloween Haunt tonight and there's the whole two places at once being physically impossible thing. So I met up with the other people at the studio at 7. Alex Craven, the junior in charge of all this, explained to us that there were going to be two groups of writers: one group was doing one script and the other would do two. Each script would be for a specific acting group, which would be comprised of the people he pulls out of his hat. A few minutes later, we had our writing teams established as well as what actors were under us, and we got going.

I was put in a writing group with a girl named Jessica, a guy named John (who was also this particular group's student director), and a girl in my rhetoric class and pep band named Eileen. We headed up to a corner of the third floor of the student center to work, and settled in around 7:30.

I think almost from the word go we were doing a comedy. Basically Craven told us that basically the only limits we had were no Nazis and Holocaust or anything similar, to write something modern and without copious amounts of props. At this point we had four actors (two boys and two girls) and no idea how long it would be. A few phone calls to Craven later, we found out that we had three boys and one girl and about 10-15 minutes to fill. We facebook stalked the actors so we could get a look (my old roommate/friend from high school Alex Rogers was one of them), and with all this in mind, started the great brainstorming session.

The original idea we had pitched was an electoral political satire. Then we heard about the time limit and scrapped the idea since there would be an awful lot of set up in such a plot. Then the idea was a sort of...a subway car breaks down and these four people are stuck there. We got kind of far into planning this and then found out that we had our actors wrong (we lost a girl and gained a boy), declared the idea at a dead end, and moved on. Next up, we wanted to do something that involved Alex having an imaginary friend after I said everyone had friends, even if you have to make them up. We kept messing with twists on the idea, but ultimately it got nowhere. Then someone had wonderful idea. The idea we knew wouldn't fail.

It involved the texting answer service KGB and a pair of incompetent bank robbers. The less experienced robber, named Sidekick, was looking up to his boss, Boss, to rob a bank. But Boss had never actually robbed a bank, despite his boasting. So everytime he runs into something he needs help with (what weapons to use, what disguises, etc), he texts KGB. Then the action cuts to a pair of KGB employees in their office. The Guy is more of a smartass slacker, whereas The Woman's fairly smart and plays the "straight" role. They get all sorts of questions ("Was Ben Franklin President?", "What If Subway doesn't want me to eat fresh?", "What is the most common element in the human body?") and Guy usually gives a wiseass response (my favorite being "I'm not helping you with your science test, twerp" in response to the element question), while Woman gives honest answers. Every now and then, they get questions from the Boss regarding his robbery. They answer honestly at first, but eventually start screwing around with him, not assuming that someone would actually ask KGB how to rob a bank. Hilarity ensues.

If you want a copy of our script, email or facebook me and I'll see what I can do.

We finished writing this baby around 4 AM. John had left hours ago to sleep so he could direct in the morning, and Eileen and Jessica went to their dorms. I ended up hanging out in the deserted student center with Rachael for awhile, and then went to the tech director (my boss)'s office to sleep for a bit from Liz Hook (student shop head)'s suggestion earlier in the day. Finally, around 5, I nodded off on the second loveseat I've slept on in a week.

This is where it starts getting fuzzy. I forget exactly what happened, but Liz Hook, the student tech boss, apparently never told Dave (tech director) that I would be sleeping in his office. So at 7 AM when he flicked on the lights and saw a body just hanging out on the couch, he shouted something, laughed realizing it was me, shut the lights back off, and left. For my part, I grabbed my stuff and shuffled out, figuring I'd find another place. Now, at this point I've had two hours of sleep in about a twenty four hour period, so I was so dazed and out of it that it wasn't even funny. I shuffled up to the third floor clock tower and tried to sleep there. It was so cold in there, though, that sleep proved to be difficult, even for someone getting used to sleeping on couches. So I went back to the main part of the third floor and slept in a chair facing the huge window. I was able to get a bit in there, but still kept wandering around, essentially being a bum, looking for a comfy spot. I tried the clock tower again after I warmed up and was in there for about an hour, then I tried various areas around the Gallagher center.

I finally decided that after a few hours of getting sleep here and there, I was awake enough to make a bid to go home. I consulted my bus schedule to find that there was a bus that was coming by in five minutes. I swore under my breath since this was too soon and I'd have to wait for the next bus in fifty minutes (the 11:05) to leave. Fine then.

I ran into my acting group while they were on a break. They thought, shockingly enough, that the script was actually really funny and they would have fun doing it. The one correction they made was they changed KGB to ChaCha since it's "more popular". It ruined my favorite joke, but oh well. Really, I was just happy that they didn't think it was total shite. I shot pool for the remainder of my time at X (turns out it's a really good game when you're sleep deprived), and headed out for the bus stop.

The bus today was, and I can't fathom why, extremely crowded. People even had to sit right next to other people (which is never happens). It also felt really long with that whole not being really awake thing. Eventually, they came to my stop and I footed it home. Bed. Crash. Thump.

An overall awesome experience!

-CnG