It all ends July 15th

Two weeks from today, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II comes out! And by this time in two weeks, I'll already have seen it. Can't wait!

Published with Blogger-droid v1.7.2

It is on.

I am a compulsive email checker. I probably check my mail over 20 times a day. Frightening, right? Anyway, I was checking my email after dinner, when I saw this:


Obviously, my cousin Josh also plays Magic. This is going to be one interesting holiday season.

Also, I'm sort of cheating again and using a screenshot for today's picture. oops.

Ok, I'm behind again

Here's the thing. We're getting dangerously close to Thanksgiving break. Which means that everybody and their mother is just piling the homework on. I didn't take pictures this weekend. Why? Because I was either sleeping or glued to The Tome. Remember that? It's still terrible. Here's the rest of last week:

Monday
Somehow, I naively, thought that I'd have time to do fun things this week, so I downloaded Plants vs. Zombies for my iPod.


Trust me when I say, it's pretty awesome. Who doesn't like plants that shoot peas at zombies and sunflowers that pop out little suns?

Tuesday
My roommate went home the same weekend I did. She came back with this:


If you think it's something you could get used to, or that after awhile it gets less creepy, you're wrong. Very, very wrong. Those eyes are so big that no matter where you are in the room, it's looking at you. And giving you one creeptastic smile.

Wednesday
I had a math test! (I got an 80!) It was also a really nice day out. However, this is Wisconsin, so I'm expecting snow any minute here.


I figured that this would be the last time I'm going to see green grass for a loooooooooooong time.

Thursday
It was a very sad day for Jon. He decided that, since he recently bought a computer (and they have cheaper and better games), and that he rarely uses his xbox anymore, that he would sell it.


Still, it was pretty sad to pack it up. He feels better that it's going to a good home- our friend's roommate NEEDED it so she could play Assassin's Creed. I don't get it, but whatever. Not a video game person.

Friday
This counted as the weekend, which I already explained was not photographed due to my being stuck with The Tome.

Halloween Weekend

Thursday
Friday night, my friends Ben and Andy were having a Halloween party at their apartment. Thursday, then, was Halloween prep. I made sure I had all of the pieces for my costume (my goal, which I met, was to assemble a Halloween costume fitting our mini-theme and to spend less than $20), and painted my nails.


Can you guess the theme?

Friday
Party! Although you would never have know if you saw what Ben spent most of the night doing.


Yes. He spent the night knitting. He says it's to surprise his sister with for the premiere of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows later this month. I thought it was pretty cool, although not part of the previously-agreed upon theme.


Kristen and Molly dressed out of theme as well, but Kristen HAD to be crayon when she saw the costume. And I really have to applaud them for ignoring the sexy crayon outfit. Sexy crayon? Really?


Nananananananananana BATMAN! Originally we had more villains in the group- we were also supposed to have a Riddler, Bane, Scarecrow, and Penguin as well. Sadly, Bane had to work and the rest were busy.

Saturday
Let me just say, there is nothing is more fun than getting things in the mail. Especially at school. So I was really excited when I checked my email on Saturday and saw that I had a package, and to please come to the front desk with my ID to check it out. I wasn't expecting anything, and I didn't know what it was when I picked it up. It felt like a book maybe.


I was not expecting this. Especially because I'm not overly outdoorsy. And because I'm a college student and therefore can't afford an almost $10,000 trip to China to play with pandas. I did flip through it, though, and it actually sounds pretty cool. I guess this company, Natural Habitat Adventures, does safari-like expeditions in more remote (less touristy) areas. They're really eco-friendly and are partnered with the World Wildlife Foundation. So I guess if I happen to win the lottery, I would probably want to do something like this. The trips look pretty amazing, and even the tents sound pretty nice (one of the Africa trips boasts "spacious walk-in tents with full beds with linens, en suite bathrooms, hanging wardrobes, interior tables and private verandas").

Sunday
Late September/ early October was really busy for USRH- we were working on School of the Year and Advisor of the Year bids to present at a regional conference (which would then move on to national). Our bid for SOY will be heard at a conference this weekend, actually. Anyway, along with something like 15 other USRHers, I helped get the bid ready. When I woke up Sunday morning, I found an envelope with my name taped to the door.


I found this inside, a nice little thank you from one of the exec board members for helping out. Apparently she spent Saturday afternoon making these cards for everyone who helped on the bids. It was a nice way to start of the day- a little reminder that our hard work will finally pay off soon :)

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 :(

Changing things up

Jon's usual approach to his hair is to get it all buzzed off, then let it grow out again until he goes back to New York and can see his favorite barber. He decided to let it grow out in August, though. Strangely, he decided it would be a good idea to let it grow until he went back home for Christmas break. At which point he'd pretty much have a fro.


Thankfully, we have a wedding to go to at the end of the month. Jon is part of the wedding party, and the bride is a perfectionist. She politely requested he get a haircut before the wedding. He's glad he did. I guess it makes him feel pretty. At least, that's what I'm judging from his interesting pose here.

Today, I decided I was tired of looking at boring dorm walls, so I started printing some of my favorite geek comics off to tape up. I'd like to get a bulletin board, but I'm not really sure how to attach it to the wall without messing the wall up when I take it down.


This group came from xkcd, the first webcomic I ever read. It's drawn by Randall Munroe, and is described on the homepage as "a webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language." It's updated every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and is mostly stand-alone comics, but every once in awhile there will be a short story (sometimes all at a time, and sometimes built off of previous comics).


These are from Hark, a vagrant, one of my absolute favorite webcomics. It's drawn by Kate Beaton, who doesn't keep a regular update schedule. Most of the comics are based on historical events (French Revolution jokes ftw!) and literature (nobody reads Ann Bronte's books. The men aren't brooding enough).

Over the next week, I'm going to go through the pictures I've taken in the last year or so and see which ones I'd like to print off to stick on the wall too, so expect more updates once I figure out where I'm going with this.
Also, I finished The Hunger Games AND Catching Fire, the second book in the series. I'm waiting for one of my friends to bring the last installment, Mocking Jay, up to school this weekend so I can find out what happens. The books are really good, even if they're really fast reads (ANYTHING is easy compared to the Tome). I would definitely recommend them :)

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

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.

Hiatus

There will be a brief hiatus from regular posting this week, as I will be out of town watching W. I will, of course, continue to take a picture each day and will post them when I get back. In the meantime, my friend here will be keeping an eye on things.


That's right. Optimus Prime is watching you. Behave yourselves.

Packed and ready to go

Well, tomorrow is day one of our summer camping trip, so this morning I packed up all of the gear I'll be needing. You know, important things like a cuddly animal, bananagrams, and my magic cards :P


And, you know, other important things like clothes and reading material (though the nook will get packed later).

Geekery

So yesterday's picture is late, but here it is:



Some of the guys at the weekly meeting for the campus gaming club. It's geeky, and fun, and a nice break from school-related activities. My friends and I usually play Magic (this IS Geek Girl & Camera, you know), but other games include anything from Scrabble and Bananagrams to Killer Bunnies and a Battlestar Galactica board game. All in all, it's a pretty fun time :)