Movies and birthdays and music, oh my!

Hey guys! As mentioned at in my last post, I've been spending a lot of time reading lately, so once again, I'm behind on my updates. First off, here's the picture I forgot to take on Tuesday:


Yes my friends, that is a port-o-potty way up on that scaffolding. I'll just let you decide what to think of that one.

Thursday
Thursdays are good days for me, because the only class I have is geology lab from 8am-10am. That leaves me a lot of free time before USRH assembly at 4:30. Last Thursday, I didn't have a whole lot to do, either. So I spent quite a bit of time youtubing my favorite Disney songs, which I've collected here for you.

From Beauty and the Beast, my favorite Disney movie ever:
-Be Our Guest
-Gaston
-Tale as Old as Time

From the Little Mermaid, which I don't actually like very much:
-Under the Sea
-Kiss the Girl

From Aladdin, a close second to Beauty and the Beast:
-Friend Like Me
-Prince Ali
-A Whole New World

Most of these aren't my favorites just because the music is good (I REALLY don't like the Little Mermaid), but because I still find them to be incredibly visually entertaining. And really, who doesn't love Be Our Guest?

Friday
One of my good friends from high school, Jacey, turned 22 this Friday! To celebrate, we got dinner at Red Robbin, where they sang, gave her a balloon, and brought her a sundae.


You have no idea how excited she was to have a balloon. Then, after dinner, we went to see RED (trailer here), which opened on Friday and was absolutely awesome.

Saturday
Being the first day of the weekend, nobody got any homework done. Mostly I played Magic with the guys. Although I did spend a surprising amount of time watching Red vs. Blue, an internet show based off of Halo. My friend Courtney has the first 5 seasons on DVD, and loaned them to myself and Jonathan.


I'll be the first to admit, this is probably over my usual limit as far as being a geek goes. Especially since I'm all but video game handicapped, and know next to nothing about Halo. However, having given it a chance, I think it's a pretty fun show. It's quite funny, although sometime Jon will start laughing and then have to explain to me that they were making a reference to the game's storyline.

Sunday
Since I didn't do any real work on Saturday, Sunday was pretty busy for me. I really only left the dorm to eat.


This was my proof that I actually ventured outside at all, instead of squirreling away in my room.

Monday
My little pink flower plant is alive! I had to pull off a lot of leaves that were pretty much dead, and now it's actually put out a couple of flowers!


When I last posted about them, it was suggested that this one might be a begonia. If this helps to confirm/deny that theory, I've also noticed that the flowers tend to be open like that during the day, and then kind of clam up on themselves at night.

Today
Care package from home! The most exciting possible thing to get in the mail. Even if I did know it was coming, since Mom had to call to get my address. It had a lot of useful things, like a nail file and a small pack of tissues (which both went immediately into my backpack), and a nice spray hand sanitizer (which went into my purse, since my backpack is already equipped with hand sanitizer), and Flintstones vitamins. It also had some fun stuff, like halloween candy and these guys:


Halloween-themed silly bandz and a glowy, color-changing ghost. Clearly, my mom knows what's important. I'm pretty sure that the ghost and zombie bands even glow in the dark!

Ok, so this turned out to be a really long post. I'm going to try really hard to be more on the ball from now on. Sorry guys :(

Botanical Gardens

One of the things I really like about living around Madison is the number of free things there are to do. Like visiting Olbirch Botanical Gardens, which Jon and I did this afternoon.


We started out in the sunken garden, a traditional English type of garden.


Then we ran into these lovely, huge hibiscus flowers.


When we reached this bridge, I knew we were getting close to my favorite part of the gardens.


The Thai Pavilion! It's one of only four of these pavilions located outside of Thailand, which definitely makes it something worth seeing.


Detail of the inside of the pavilion. You're not supposed to touch it all, since the gold leaf is actually thinner than paper and the oils from your hands can damage it. It's really intricately patterned, and absolutely gorgeous to see.


Later, we got to the tower-type construct they have there, which had this lovely view of some of the grounds.


The Jon found a sun dial, but couldn't really figure it out. Apparently the sun is an hour behind?


I liked the conservatory, where they keep a lot of tropical plants. Look at how HUGE those leaves are! They're almost as big as I am!


We also found some quails, which apparently help keep invasive bugs out of the conservatory. I thought they were just there to look cute and be kinda funny.

Orchids

For her birthday, my Aunt Mary gave my mom and orchid plant. I think it's absolutely lovely, but then again orchids are some of my favorites.


According to it's tag, it's a type of phalaenopsis.

Day 2

Due to some car issues, we weren't able to bring the SUV (and by extension, the camper) up right away, so we spent the first few nights in the tent.


Note the red Ford Focus, our "full sized" sedan loaner. lol

There were all kinds of pretty wildflowers around the campground, but these little white clusters were some of my favorites :)


It rained a little during our first morning there, and I thought the flower/shrub was quite pretty with the raindrops still holding on to it.

Fortunately, it didn't rain all day, and I got to take my kayak out for a bit.

This was a huge improvement on last year, when it rained the whole time and we never got to take them out.

Father's Day

To celebrate Father's Day yesterday, my family met some of our relatives for brunch, went to a rose show at Olbrich Gardens, and then met some more relatives for dinner. All in all, it was pretty fun, and we had a lot of family time.


The picture, of course, is from the rose show. I had wanted to get a picture of the whole room, but I didn't want to disturb everyone else while they browsed. This particular rose, as you can see from the bit of red ribbon in the corner, won second place in one of the competitions (the aptly named, "Rose in a Bowl" from one of their challenge classes).

Finals

This week is finals week. Which means that the library is open 24/7 and is completely packed (along with any other available place to study). I however, dislike studying in the library because it's unnervingly quiet. So yesterday after dinner, I met Jon in the student union so we could get some studying done there. Along the way, I noticed these purple spikey flowers:


Anyone know what they are? Cause I think they're pretty cool, but I have no idea what they are. Anyway, I met Jon at the union and we spent a good 2-3 hours like this:


There were so many other people walking around looking for an open place to study that when we decided we needed a snack break, I picked up drinks for the both of us. It was ridiculously busy, and it's only going to get more chaotic as the week goes on. On the bright side, I had 2 of my 3 finals today, so I've only got to take 1 more. And write a paper. But that I can do :)

New Rules

I feel like I need to introduce a new set of rules for myself, so let's start with that. Here's what you can expect from this blog from now on:
1. I will take at least one picture a day.
2. That day's picture will be posted the following day.
3. Saturday and sunday will be combined into one weekend post, likely posted on sunday but possibly on monday.

I think this will solve my frequent late posting problem, since I mostly take picture in the afternoon/early evening and then forget to post them because I've had a group meeting or something. Now I can post the previous day's picture in the morning before I go to class, and hopefully all will be well. We'll see.

So, today's picture (from yesterday!), is quite pretty, and will eventually be more pretty! Ben is in a watercolor class this semester, and last night I saw the start of one of his projects sitting out by his desk.


Posted with permission, of course. Hopefully I'll be able to get a picture of the finished piece, too.