Residents. Babies. They're all the same.

Our community director is having another baby. Exciting times! We threw her a surprise baby shower last night at our staff meeting. Its too early to know the baby's sex but we wanted to have a shower before the end of the semester. For our gift Tacoma and I decorated onesies.

Two other RAs helped us with a couple of them. The one with little Green monsters was made by an RA much more talented than myself. Our CD's last name is Green if you're wondering why there are so many green themed onesies. Her husband is working on his doctorate? in math? Something science-y like that so Tacoma made the Q(t)π one. Too cute. Here's the card I made to go with the gift...

Front 

Inside

Surprisingly we were able to keep the shower a secret and she was truly surprised! That's pretty hard to pull off with a staff of 24 females. I'm impressed. Ok, time to quit blogging about babies and get back to work. 

Everybody Loves Harry Potter

I love Harry Potter and I'm not afraid to say it. Yep, I'm a huge nerd who loves to read and Harry Potter is one of my favorite series.  While conducting health and safety inspections my RA partner noticed that many of our residents had the Harry books as well.  Each month a group of floors is in charge of putting on a large program.  RA partner suggested we do one with a Harry Potter theme and what a great idea it was!  

We had butterbeer pong, quidditch toss, a horcrux hunt, and watched the newly released DVD.  The butterbeer and horcrux hunt seemed to be big hits. At lunch today I told my friends that I needed to get back to the dorm to finish making horcruxes. I laughed at how horrible that sounded and then they started calling me Moldemort. Anyway, I printed out pictures of the 7 horcruxes and enlisted the help of my fellow RAs in hiding them throughout the building. I wrote clues and posted them on a table at the party. I tried to make them cute and rhyme-y. They weren't all great but a few of my favorites included...

"One can be found in the place where you wash your hands if you live on floor tres." 

"Your community director works here. You've probably been to see her if you were caught with beer."

"Polyjuice potion takes a few hairs. If you live on the 14th floor you probably don't take the..."

What I loved about that last one is that the residents took the stairs all the way to the 14th floor. In my head I envisioned them taking the elevator to the 14th floor and then walking over to the stairwell. I guess they thought they'd miss it if they didn't walk all the way up? It all evened out though because the prize for each horcrux was a GiGi's cupcake. They had the pleasure of eating their cupcake guilt free. 

I however ate my pizza and cupcakes full of guilt. Speaking of pizza, when ordering 25 pizzas its important to call more than an hour ahead of time. Tacoma (My friend and the dorm GA) and I were busy shopping for the program and forgot about ordering early. About an hour and 15 min before we needed the pizza I remembered and we called them right away. This is how the conversation went:

Dominoes phone person: "Dominoes, this is so-and-so, how may I help you?"

Me: "Yes, I need to order 25 pizzas for the university"

Dominoes phone person in a really excited voice: "That'd be great ma'am! How can we prepare those for you?"

Me (after describing what I wanted): "And...um...is there anyway we can get those by 6:15?" It was 5:10 at the time.

Dominoes phone person in a not so excited voice: "Let me get a manager..."

Sorry Dominoes! But kudos because they got them to us on time and the pizzas tasted amazing. Ugh, pizza. I'm already mad at myself. I'm gaining my Freshman Fifteen all over again. Must do better tomorrow. 

Alright, time to get some sleep so I can be productive tomorrow. I have two huge papers due and only 12 more school days. I cannot believe how quickly this semester has flown by! Thanks for enduring my stories thus far.

More quotables

They're at it again. More quotables from the residents...

Resident A:"Do you know what she wore to dress check?"
Resident B:"Yeah, she wore my dress. I don't know how she fit in it though. I had to squeeze into it and was practically suffocating the whole time I wore it. I mean, it still fit, but I don't know how she wore it."

Resident while looking at one of those $1 mugshot magazines you see in gas stations: "What does aliases mean? What is an alias?"
Me: "You know, like Tater Salad."
Resident: Blank look
Me: "Ron Tater Salad White?"
Resident: Blank look
Me: "It means another name you go by. Names you use so the police won't know your true identity"
Resident: "Ohh like I could be Nicole."
Me: "Sure, as long as that's not your real name"
Resident: Blank look.

I think she finally got it by the end of our conversation but come on! I can forgive you not knowing the word "alias". Maybe you missed that day of 7th grade. But you've never seen Blue Collar Comedy? These girls are worse off than I realized.

During a recent Tornado Warning
Resident: "Is this serious? Like is it going to hit us?"
Me: "Well its a warning so that's more serious that a watch. I think it means tornadoes have actually been spotted. James Spann is probably down to his suspenders."
Resident: "Ok, is that serious?"
Me: "If you think getting hit by a tornado is serious, then yeah. But there's a very small chance it will actually hit the building."
Resident: "Why are there so many tornadoes here?! They should tell you this when you apply!"

For the record the tornado did not hit the building and yes there are a lot of tornadoes that come through our city. Its interesting to see how the students who aren't from areas that experience tornadoes react to their first bad storm.  I tried to reassure the worriers that it was highly unlikely that we were in any danger but when the sky goes from black to green to blue and back to black again within 10 minutes that's hard to do.

A Heart Divided. Or is it Multiplied?

There is a stretch of Interstate 59 that connects the great cities of Birmingham and Tuscaloosa as well as the two giant pieces of my heart that lie in each.  I often travel this bit of road and ponder what I'm leaving behind and what awaits me at the end.  Between jam sessions and dancing as only a rhythmically challenged white girl can I am overcome with the bittersweet feeling of a divided heart. No matter which direction Clementine (my car) is headed I'm hesitant to leave but also ecstatic to arrive.  I started to rip off the great Charles Dickens and entitle this post "A Tale of Two Cities" but then I realized it has nothing to do with the cities themselves. Its all about the amazing friends in each location.

No matter where I've been in life God has seen fit to bless me with some pretty fantastic friends.  As I was driving today I got to thinking of how spoiled I am to know so many awesome people. Whenever I have started a new adventure in life, be it school, work, or a new church I always get nervous.  "Mom, what if the other kids don't like me?" Yes, I still call my mom and ask that at the age of 23. I'm loud, a tad bit overbearing and sometimes forget to use the filter between my brain and my mouth. But somehow there have always been people in my life willing to overlook those flaws and the many others I possess. I love people. Seriously love them and it doesn't take much to win me over. If a stranger smiles at me I smile back and in my head I'm thinking "What a nice person. Wonder what their name is?" I also have a bad habit of talking to strangers who would probably prefer to just be left alone. I'm sure there are many people I now consider friends who wished they'd ignored me and remained strangers. To those people I offer a huge thank you. You not only put up with me but do so while I'm getting on your last nerve.

I've been driving back and forth between Birmingham and Tuscaloosa now for the past 5 years, calling each home at different times.  I've been through a lot of changes and transitions during that time and there have always been great friends, new and old, to make it easier. I hate how my heart feels torn in two every time I make that drive but I guess as far as problems go its a good problem to have. Thank you so much to all the people who make it hard to leave either place.

Jane Austen vs. The "Ladies" of the 8th Floor.

Oh my my. I'm definitely asking for it this month. Each month we have to change out the bulletin boards by the elevators on our floor. Most months we have assigned themes. April was a freebie. I'll admit, I took the easy way this time around. I've put thought and effort into my last two and they were promptly defaced and torn down. This time I decided to let the residents take part in creating the board.  I'm under no illusion that this one will last any longer than the others but frankly I wasn't feeling all that creative this time around. Here's my board for the month of April...

"What one word best describes your Freshman experience?"

I tied a sharpie to a string, stapled it on, and let the social experiment begin. If you asked me to describe my residents in one word "classy", "refined" and "ladylike" would not make the list. They didn't make it on the bulletin board either. I expected to get some pretty interesting answers but once again the exceeded my expectations. Was I expecting to get words such as "enlightening"? No. Basically I wanted to see how far they would take it. Is that wrong? Maybe, but it worked. After less than 24 hours I'd gotten the following:

• Drunk
• Slutty
• Black
• Amazing
• New
• Dirty
• Hot
• Naughty
• Ridiculous
• ...and a few two word combos that I won't be posting here. 

I realize I'm just as much a part of the guilty party by providing them with the opportunity to put it out there. I'm trying to think of a way to turn it into a positive experience by the end of the month so if you have any suggestions let me know. I do find it ironic that the other RA on our floor did a bulletin board about Jane Austen and her quotes on being a lady. The two boards face each other and only stand a few feet apart but oh what a chasm that divides them. Maybe halfway through the month I'll change it out and just write out Proverbs 31. I would do good to read that passage everyday myself. We'll just have to see where April takes us...