My Week

I had this week off as a break between the Winter and Spring semesters, and a few awesome things happened. First of all, I went to a Hillary Clinton convention on Saturday (or was dragged to one, really). My sister's friend Jason is obsessed with Hillary, so we showed up eight hours early only to find that not even the volunteers arrived until hours later. On the upside, we got to see the news crews and secret service arrive. And the bombsquad. It was fun. Then, when the volunteers got there, we were bored enough to offer our services, so they signed us up to sell buttons to people until the rally.

We spent most of the eight hours before the convention wandering around downtown South Bend (the unpleasant side at that), trying to sell Hillary Clinton buttons to pedestrians. At one point, Jason had a giant Hillary flag, which cars would honk at as they drove by (or pull over to tell us to vote for McCain). One car had an Obama t-shirt hanging in the window, and it drove by us a couple of times and we would point at it in faux-shock as it honked. A couple of Obama fans threatened to burn the flag on one street, so we avoided that afterwards. Overall, McCain fans were much nicer (probably because they consist of mostly little old people). It was a good day.

During the rally, Jason and I were seated directly behind Hillary, so we not only appear in many of the photographs of her in the news, but she went directly to our section of seating after her speech, so Jason got her to autograph his sign right afterwards. He was so excited that he almost passed out when she got on stage.

We were both sunburned after that. :(

Wednesday, I received word that I've been officially accepted to ICU in Tokyo, which is a major load off of my back. I was worried, because if I hadn't been accepted, it would have been too late to apply to other programs, and I would have had to give my scholarship money back, and I would have had to register for classes at GVSU again...it would have been really depressing. But I'm accepted, and it's scarier every day.

We moved into our townhouse today, and I finally have my own room!!! Hannah and Brent share one room, and their friend Ryan (who seems nice, but we haven't really talked) has the last room. I'm actually sort of subleasing the room from their friend Tyler, so all of the furniture (and CD collection, and radio) are his, but he won't be here until September. He was really nice about it, assuring me that I'm free to reset his stations and play his CDs if I want, so I pretty much have free reign of his crap until I leave in six weeks.

So, my classes start on Tuesday. I don't really have anything to do until then, which is annoying because Hannah has a job now and Ryan has a job, so it's kind of just me and Brent. We don't really...do anything together. We're connect by Hannah. Oh well, I'll work on my guitar skills and write as much as I can.

Speaking of guitar, Michelle has gotten back into drumming, so she suggested that we start in again on the band...is sort of happens every year, so I figured why not? Playing the guitar is so much fun, and I really wish I had more time to devote to it, but now I have her's with me (which is a really nice, new Fender Strat, deep red) and my fingers are aching (no calluses yet). We've decided to learn a song by the French rock band KYO to start with because it's really easy and unique. I'm not sure if Andrea is really into it, but I sent her the tabs for the song, and I really hope she joins us because it would be a killer song with a strong bass part.

So, French classes for six weeks, two months or so of boredom/freedom (hopefully I can find a job), then off to a country in which I know no one and don't speak the language. One day at a time.