here's to you, springer

As my days in Springer draw to a close, I figure it's only appropriate that I commemorate my time here in photobloggity.

Upon arrival, Becca and I were roommates. We lasted through Christmas. We'll always be good friends, whether or not we were good roommates. I love her, and I love that we've started seeing more of each other this semester. This is us long after we moved in with other roommates. I know she'll always be one of those friends you go can without seeing for years and as soon as you meet again, it's like no time has passed.


This was at the beginning of last semester, but it could have easily been taken last year as well. My guess is that this was about 3:00 in the morning. Holly's acting drunk from her top-bunk bed, and Dale's hanging out, probably serenading us with songs we've requested or scaring Holly into cussing rages by playing horror movie music. Those nights were plentiful in number and memories.


This is also an all-too-familiar scene from this year. Justin and Ryan for a long time were frequenters of the 231. And more often than not, they were performing illegal sex acts on one another. They're not around much anymore, but images like this will forever be branded on my heart and mind. So what if that means I need counseling?


Every day in the Freak Suite is Western Kentucky Appreciation Day, but sometimes, you just need to set aside time to acknowledge your roots. Loud country music, crazy hats, and Uno brought our true selves out of the woodwork. Only in the Freak Suite is such behavior acceptable.


And where else could a pseudo-band called Chili Was A Nickel be born? That's right. The Freak Suite.


The Freak Suite keeps it real with retreats. On this night, we dressed all in red, sat on Santa's lap, and cried uncontrollably throughout Love Actually. This was only one of the many retreats we've gone on. The ultimate thus far being the John Mayer concert in Louisville over spring break. From now on, however, these outings will be more accurately dubbed Freak Suite Reunions.


Another perk of living here? Beating the living crap out of each other. Hardly a day goes by without someone physically assaulting someone else. Like today, Ashley and Holly are continuing their C'mon, let me poke you in the eye routine, and I stabbed Val in the hand with a pair of scissors. Sorry, Val. I forgot they were scissors.


For the last three semesters, Holly and I have been roommates. They say you cannot live with your best of friends, but it's not true. I guess you have to be a certain kind of friends. We're them. I guess that it's agreed upon that we're not the typical duo. It doesn't matter how much we disagree on certain things (and not that we do that very often), there is some mental makeup that we must have that's identical.

Holly, there was nothing more I dreaded than having to tell you that I was going to move out. It wasn't that I thought you would be mad. I knew that you would understand, but maybe it's harder to leave on a good note than a bad one. I should've known that it would take more than this to shake this friendship we've built on hundreds of emails, thousands of memories, millions of laughs, and approximately 270 nights in Springer College. But for a couple days, while we were getting used to the idea, things just seemed different. But do you know when I knew everything was going to be okay? When we were standing in front of that elevator in Faculty Hall and I called it "The Silent One" when I really wanted to call it "The Silent Killer," and you called it that. It was at that point that I came back to my senses and realized that somehow God wired our brains together in such a way that we don't even understand. Something tells me that's never going to change, even though our friendship has taken drastically different forms over the years. I think Ben got it right when he said, "Some things never change. Some things never stay the same."

well, ain't that a whoopin'

in my ears

artist: incubus
song: drive

---

Thank goodness my grammar class is dead and gone. However, I effed up royally on the final. Okay, so that which I speak of is probably not going to count against me too much, but my pride has taken a serious blow. The last part of the test was a composition. We had to write a paragraph about what we learned this semester. I decided that I would say a little about the difference between writing in Standard English and speaking the language. I thought I was going be cute and say something to this effect: "Understanding the difference separates the grammar Nazis from the wielders of words." But, oh! I had the greatest internal conflict known to man. Is it I before E except after C, or is this one of those exceptions? Well, as you can see in my spell-checked version of the word as printed above, it is indeed no exception to the rule, but I had convinced myself it was weild. I'll never forget it now because, despite how much I pride myself on my ability to spell, I spelled the word wrong on my grammar final. On my grammar final! I feel so defeated.

To add to my angst, I decided to check out the PIN system for kicks. I was looking at my account balance and mourning the price of summer tuition when I noticed a little extra fee. They have finally charged me for that stupid, stupid book they claim I never turned in. It's some text book I used in my final project for my library class, and I know I turned it in. It was on February 26, the last day of Bruton. I've called the library concerning this twice. They can't find the book. The stupid thing probably fell behind the cart or something because I vividly remember flipping through it to make sure I didn't leave any paper in it and then dropping it in the slot. But because it disappeared before they put it in the computer as returned, I get charged sixty-five freaking dollars. Life isn't fair, I tell you. No, indeed.

and then it came to me in a vision

Last night, I was reading blogs linked off of Blogger's list of ten most recently published blogs. I don't read every blog listed before I refresh the page to get a new list of ten journals. I can usually flip through several blogs before I get to one I will even read. As I was doing this last night, I asked myself, What makes a worthy blog?

First, the name must hook me. The title of the site is what is listed on the Fresh Blogs list. If the name of the journal is My Life or Bobby's Blog, I'm not likely to click. Now if the name is something like Through These Eyes or Barrel of Monkeys, the bloggers will probably elicit a visit from me. And I admit, sometimes I visit a blog with the mundane names, but I will not go to one that looks like this: ~*_tori's journal_*~. What is all that mess?

Once I arrive, it's about the layout. One of the things I look for in a blogger is creativity. Therefore, when I recognize the template as one of the ones provided by Blogger, points are lost. This doesn't necessarily take the author out of the running though. Sometimes I arrive upon the first publication of that blog, and they just haven't had the time to get a new template. However, not any template suits me either. I have a hard time dealing with blogs with celebrity themes. Can I really trust an author whose background is a scene from Lord of the Rings. (Note: I'm not hating on LOTR. I like the movies, but is the trilogy all there is to this person?) C'mon. Personalize! And this doesn't mean it has to be corner to corner bells and whistles. Honestly, I would prefer a standard issue Blogger template to something like that. Simple is good. Less is more.

Because it's all in the content. I don't demand perfect grammar. Hello, I don't use it myself. I do, however, expect correct spelling. I like punctuation. I can guarantee you that I'll hit the back button before you can say "goodgarner" if I see something like this: "2nite wuz good me larry n danielle went too the movie............i couldnt beleive how it ended this morning i seen the pre-veiw on tv but anywayz........tommarow nite were gonna CaMp OuT!!!!" Ladies and gentlemen, that type of writing is out there. And I'm not reading it. But not every intelligent person acquires my readership. I don't care to read political commentary. I also look to see if this person maintains the blog. If this is the first post in ages and the post before that is dated long before that, I probably won't come back. It's waste of my time. It's not all in the quanity either. Quality matters. If someone has posted seventeen times that day with one-liners, I'm not impressed.

Yeah, so I'm not quite sure why I just spent all that time explaining what makes a blog worthy of my readership. I guess I find it interesting that I definitely judge the book by its cover, but its what's on the inside that counts. So I suppose I'm shallow. You may have the best blog content in the world, but if the name sucks and the layout doesn't suit my fancy, I'll never know.

days may be sunny or cloudy

in my ears

artist: billie holiday
song: come rain or come shine

---

I woke up at 6:30 this morning. Crazy, I know. (Actually, Val just called me a "crazy cat" for listening to Billie Holiday. Whatever, I 'll take that as a compliment, haha.) Anyway, I got up and took a shower before my 8:00 am final because I also had a 10:30. But while I was sitting here still asleep, this bird flew up and chilled on our window sill. So of course, I took a picture.


I had a lot of time between my first final and my second one, so I went to library and chilled for a while. While I was there I read some insert in last Saturday's Gleaner (That's the paper at home.) that was a history of Henderson through headlines and pictures and stuff. It was fun, but that still didn't fill up all my time before the sociology final. I went and took some pictures in Faculty Hall. This one is on a bathroom stall door on the first floor. I think it used to be an information sticker about relationship violence, but over the years it has been vandalized a little bit. I think it's kinda neat looking. I know one of the things it says is "YOUR GOD IS DEAD. YOU KILLED HIM." If you look closer, you can see where someone wrote "GOD IS ALIVE!" over top of that. And for some reason, someone wrote "TALK" on top of all of that. And underneath all of it seems to be paragraphs of words. Make what you want out of it, but I think it says a lot about ideas and communication between people.


I've wanted to take this picture for a little while. I don't know why. It's from the fifth floor. I should've taken it from the seventh. Oh, well.


And this is that imprint of a magnolia leaf on the sidewalk between the Fine Arts Annex and Oakley Applied Science. I like it. It's so perfect.

behind small doors

I mean I really, really, really do not want to do anything of productive nature. The blog will be my ultimate demise.

Today, I went into the Springer lobby for a little mail check. (Check it out now. It's the mail check song.) Behind the wall of tiny doors, I hear voices. I opened by little box, and on the other side I see, through my copy of YM, Rachel and Liz, the silliest RAs. Because it is finals week, they get the honor of doing the mail. They also get the honor of harassing poor students who just want their parcels. I pulled out my mysteriously obtained magazine and started chatting it up through my mailbox. Rachel decides she's going to give me somebody else's mail a couple times. No. That's not a federal offense at all. Anyway, that was just a fun little time. And I wonder just how offensive it is to have a eensy-weensy door slammed in your face. Very Alice in Wonderlandish, I imagine, but I don't know. I should ask Rachel, 'cause she knows.

Yeah, so where'd this YM come from? I have no idea. I sure didn't subscribe. And since when does it stand for "Your Magazine" instead of "Young and Modern"? So this afternoon, Holly and I sat around reading this fine publication. How on earth did we ever read this stuff as gospel truth? It's beyond me, but we sure did. I was an avid reader of Seventeen. I didn't necessarily try to live by their advice, but I read it and believed it. You know, that is very sad. How do those writers aging in the mid-twenties live with themselves after feeding these barely teenage girls such garbage?

As you can see, this afternoon when I wasn't reading my astrological forecast for May and studying the spring fashions, I was constructing that list of links off to the right. I think they're fun. Check 'em out. Most of those I use on a regular basis.

Yeah, well, I need to study for humanities and look over my sociology study guide. Catch y'all two finals from now.