Apparently I forgot to title this entry the first time around...

Tuesday
Jon had to do some laundry on Tuesday, so we decided to play Magic in the basement while his clothes were in. Sadly, we were stuck there a lot longer than planned.


Indeed. Two of our four washing machines are out of order. And the other two were full when we got there. At least the room was warm and clean smelling?

Wednesday
I had my first geology lab this morning. Which meant that a lot of my time yesterday was spent studying minerals and how to identify them. I figured it would be easiest to make a spreadsheet. (Also, I happen to LOVE Numbers. It's such a great way to organize things!)


The first four are fairly distinct from the others, which makes then easy to remember. The next two are also very distinct from the rest, but are really similar to each other. Feldspars are kind of middle ground, and again, similar to each other. Figuring out the rest of them was the difficult part.

Thursday
I've finally started to read the Hunger Games, which came highly recommended to me from a couple of different people. It's the first book of a fairly new series which is apparently really starting to take off.


From what I've heard/ read so far, it reminds me a lot of Shirley Jackson's Lottery. Interesting and creepy. We'll see how it goes.

USRH Weekend

I spent most of last weekend doing things with USRH. Saturday was Fall Fest on the Fox, and I was part of the USRH Dragon Boat team.

Friday
Friday was the most boring part of the weekend. I went to classes, talked to my friends about the season premiere of Glee, and played some Magic. I also got ready for Dragon Boats!


I figured that since we were supposed to meet in the office at 7:15am, it would be better to pack the night before, so I didn't forget anything too important. So of course I packed everything into my USRH bag: snacks, sweat for when we weren't in the boat, my camera, team shirt. I still forgot to pack a towel though, which in hindsight probably would have been a good idea.

Saturday
Dragon Boats! It was really cold in the morning, which kinda made me wish I hadn't signed up for it. It did get warmer as the day went on though, so it wasn't too bad.


Team USRH, war paint and all. We ended up doing pretty well: we moved up to division C from division D (which I believe is a first for any ResLife team), and ended up placing 7th out of 12 in that division. After we were finished, my parents took Jon and I out for dinner, which was amazing since we were both starving.

Sunday
Since so much of my time on Saturday was spent off campus, I didn't get any of my work done. So I decided to kill two birds with one stone, and go fill my office hours while I did my homework. Committee chairs don't get their own desks, so I usually pirate Kristen's, since even when she's there she doesn't use it.


I believe this is either her mascot, or USRH's. I'm not entirely clear on it, but I think it's hilarious.

Monday
Ok, so this is definitely not part of the weekend, but it was just as exciting, because GUESS WHAT just came out on Netflix?!!


That's right, the Princess and the Frog. I know it's a kid's movie, but I think it's wicked cool that Disney is trying to make more traditionally animated movies. I think I heard the plan was to do one every year or every other year. Plus, the directors for it also did the Little Mermaid and Aladdin, both of which any kid will tell you are awesome.

Bonus trivia: the Little Mermaid was released in November 1989, just a few months after I was born. Weird, huh?

Hair Twistys

On Monday, one of the girls who sits next to me in my lit. class was telling me about these cool hair things she had. They look like big twisty bobby pins and are apparently a really easy way to put your hair up. So when I made a Walmart run with some of my friends the other day and saw them sitting on a display at the end of an aisle, I figured I'd give them a try.


Here's what they look like on their own. They also come in a darker color for those of you who aren't blond. They were pretty easy to get the hang of, and worked a lot better than I thought they would. I had assumed that I'd at least need to fix it up a little, but they stayed in and held my hair in place all day.

Side note- I didn't take this picture. It's a screenshot from the Goody website. Coincidentally, does anyone else hate the new Google Image Search?


I gave them a try yesterday, and really liked them. I did take this picture in the morning, but aside from getting rained on it looked pretty much the same at the end of the day. It was a fairly quick operation, too- all you have to do is twist your hair around, then screw one pin in from the top and the other in from the bottom and you're good to go. It'll be nice on days when I'm running behind in the morning. Ashley, the girl who told me about these things, had a messier bun than mine is, probably because she has much longer hair. Something to keep in mind if anyone is interested in them.

Random things

Sunday
Ok, I admit I took this picture last minute and when Sunday was almost over and I hadn't yet taken a picture. Anyway...


Meet Tattoo, the blank white sock monkey. Like most of the animals in my room, my sister Brenna made him for me. Eventually I'll get around to decorating him, at which point the name will fit better. Until then, consider this a "before" picture.

Monday
Let me tell you about Mondays. They're not fun. I have class from 9:10-10:10, 10:20-11:20, and 12:40-1:40. And really, none of that would be too bad, IF I didn't also have Foundations of Literary Criticism from 3:00-6:00. It's only slightly more interesting than it sounds. Check this out:


This is ONE of the three texts I have for this class. We semi-affectionately refer to it as "The Tome." In case you're wondering, it's open to page 702. And it's what, MAYBE a third of the way through the book? Yeah, this class rocks.

Tuesday
I only have one word: ew.


Not the most flattering picture, is it? But Jon thought it would be funny to make me wear his hat around. He REALLY laughed when he put it on backwards. Apparently I'm not much of a hat person.

Wednesday
Today I took a walk downtown with Jon, ad it was lovely. Perfect weather for a nice walk, and the leaves are starting to change colors, so it was quite pretty.


I really do love the fall. It's probably my favorite season. I love the food and the clothes and everything :)

Week One

Sorry it's taken me so long to update! It was the first full week of school and I was kind of busy. Also, I completely forgot to take a picture yesterday. So I apologize for that, too. Back to the updates:

Tuesday
I have no classes on Tuesday. It's awesome. It's even more awesome since I have classes for FOREVER on Monday. (Forever ends at 6, btw.) This has led me to dub Tuesday "No Stress Day," since I'm pretty much free to do whatever. Like get a tutor for math and schedule USRH meetings!


This is the Stress Pig. He helps keep No Stress Day chill. Or, he will, in the event that something goes horribly wrong and Tuesdays become stressful.

Wednesday
Seeing as it was the day before OGS, and there are a bunch of new MTG players (none of whom we've really liked, unfortunately), we decided to get together and fix up our decks so we could own when we got there.


Not sure which deck he was working on at that point, but apparently he was really concentrating.

Thursday


We had our first USRH meeting with the entire assembly on Thursday. I will admit, it was kind of long and boring. But we did do some interesting stuff. Like introductions. jk- we talked about trying to get a bid for School of the Year this year, which would be pretty epic.

Friday
My hair was SO ANGRY on friday! Look at all of the stuff I have for it:


Both of those boxes are full of hair stuff (and some jewelry), and none of it was working for me. It was like I had Sophie hair, which takes several hair ties to restrain. I'll have to remember that the next time I think about making a Medusa joke!

New friends

Yesterday, I met the girls who live across the hall from me. We lived on the same floor last year, too, but they were both farther down the hall so we never really crossed paths. Yesterday, though, we both had our doors open, so I went over to introduce myself. Turns out, they're quite nice :) Then, when they found out I had never seen Firefly, they loaned me the first season.


They both have it, so they can keep watching it while I get caught up on yet another geeky tv show. lol

Weekend Fun

Saturday
Anne and Chris were lucky enough to get tickets for Saturday's Badger game, so I got to babysit W again :)


As always, he was adorable. Tired, though, since he only napped for an hour. What a little stinker!

Saturday evening, Anne and I made the Best Cake Ever. I believe she called it Texas Sheet Cake. It's super moist and delicious and bad for you (of course, everything that tastes good is bad for you).


It's just a little almondy tasting, and so so so good.

Sunday
Before taking me back to school on Sunday, Anne packed up a yummy treat bag to take with.


Most of the cake came back with me, along with some homemade salsa!


Homemade salsa! It's so good, I can't stop snacking. I made the mistake of sharing it with Jon last night after dinner, and now I'm worried he's going to try and steal it! As if it's not enough that he's after the cake!

A couple days of Magic

Wednesday
Fall semester started! Which means that there were people all over campus giving out coupon books. As always, most of the coupons sucked. BUT! Near the very end was one that particularly made myself and my friends very happy: a House of Heroes coupon! (local comic book, gaming, and geek shop) So of course Jon and I made a trip over to get a couple Magic boosters.


I was lucky enough to pull this Baneslayer Angel. Although, since my white deck is strictly Kor, it doesn't do me much good. My friend Andy, on the other hand, has a very nice angel deck and would love this card, which means epic trade negotiations will be taking place.

Thursday
No class for Sarah! Usually I'd have a lab in the morning, but since the first week back isn't a full week, there are no labs. Obviously this lead to me sleeping in. And the return of regular OGS (Oshkosh Gaming Society) meetings, which in turn led to the epic trade negotiations I mentioned. So epic, in fact, that I ended up getting two really sweet cards that will work really well in two of my decks (Kor and Vampires).


The first being this lovely Sword of Vengeance, which will fit perfectly into my Kor deck, since they work with equipment. I promptly used it to own everything in my way. It was pretty nice- I haven't used this deck in awhile, and I forgot just how much fun it is and how massively huge my cards get.


This guy, though, is another problem all together. Captivating Vampire is, in my option, one of the coolest vampire cards, because not only does he buff my other vampires, he also allows me to steal other people's creatures. Which is totally awesome since usually that requires blue cards and I really dislike blue. It's also cool because at least two of the guys I play with have vampire decks, so hopefully this will help give me a little bit of an edge.

The last few days of summer

Sunday
Freshmen moved into the dorms on Sunday, and returning students moved back in on Monday, which meant that Sunday was the last night I had the room to myself.


Of course, I cleaned up the room a little bit so it wouldn't be a mess when she got here. I may have been using the extra bed as storage for the numerous sweatshirts and hoodies I've been wearing the last few days. (I was NOT prepared for it to be this cold this soon!)

Monday
Last night was a lot of fun- a bunch of my friends got together for a huge Magic-athon in one of the dorms. We even had a few new friends join us :) Jon made a sweet green/black deck, and JD's roommate kind of just owned most of us. This year though, I brought more than just my Magic cards to play with.


Now I have an entire section of my bookshelf dedicated to games: Magic, regular playing cards, backgammon, chinese checkers, and cribbage.

Tuesday
Today we had a big fair type of thing on campus for welcome week. All of the clubs organized stands on the library mall to get people involved. There was tons of food and lots swag.


Seriously, look at all of this stuff! 3 different bags, a bunch of pens, pins, a pencil sharpener, a frisbee(!!!), and a sweet ID card holder. AND they had corn on the cob for lunch! It was pretty awesome.

New Clothes!

Part One, or why I love ResLife:
TONS of free swag. Like the USRH (United Students in Residence Halls) shirt I got yesterday:


I quite like it. But then again, how many college kids don't like free shirts? They might even be more popular than free food.

Part two, or why my dad is awesome:
The high for today is 62 degrees, which is really not what I was expecting this early in September, so I don't have a ton of warmer clothes at school right now. Then, after I showered this morning, I realized I had forgotten my hair dryer at home. So not only was it cold, but I would have to walk around with cold wet hair :( Of course I texted mom to let her know I forgot it, hoping that she'd send it up for me. A few minutes later she called me back and told me that my dad would drive it up to me this afternoon!


Along with the sweet new boots I had ordered but were on back order! They're completely awesome, right down to their new leather smell. lol. AND they're wicked comfortable. That's right, folks: these boots were made for walkin'.

Note: since classes will be starting up again soon, after today I'm going to resume the same schedule I had last year. I'll still be taking a picture each day, but it won't be posted until the next day. I'm going to try and post the previous day's picture in the morning before I go to class, so I don't fall behind. Also, weekends and probably fridays will all be posted together on monday.

Back on Campus

So, no update yesterday because I was packing to move back and packed my cord thing somewhere deep in a corner. That's ok though, because now all of my moving stuff will be in one post!

Yesterday (ok, late yesterday evening), I finally finished packing and had all of my stuff ready in the dining room so it would be easy to load into the van this morning.


As you can see, it kind of took over.

This morning, mom and I loaded up the van.


We did a pretty good job getting it all to fit in nicely. The only thing in the middle row was my backpack, because it had my computer and I wanted to make sure it wasn't squished.

Both of my parents took the day off of work to help me move in, because they're pretty awesome. Once we got everything from the van into my room, we took a break for lunch, then unpacked a few things, and then they left. I did most of my unpacking/organizing after they left, since it's hard to move all of that stuff around with three people in the room. And here's how my room looks now!



Look familiar? That's because it's the same room I was in last year! And because it's a dorm. I mean, they all pretty much look the same, don't they? Some variation of a very compact living space?