It Was a Good Weekend

This weekend was amazing, I had so much fun! Partying, rugby, capture the flag, homework, meeting people, dressing up, Girl Scouts!

For about a week, some girls from the rugby team had been preparing a huge game of capture the flag: boys rugby v. girls rugby and friends for both sides. It turned out though that the boys had a game Saturday so they went to sleep early instead of running around in the dark late at night (I know, lame right?) and it was cold so most of the people who said they were going to show up didn't. It ended up with approximately 20 people, mostly girls from the team, but a few boys that had heard about it through the grapevine. We split into even teams and the game began. Our "field" was Red Square and the buildings around it. After an hour of running around neither team had managed to get the flag across the line so it was declared a stale mate with a rematch planned for later (hopefully with more people in attendance).

Saturday was a busy day for me... I woke up at 6:30 to go to a martial arts class that I have to walk two miles to. The class was really good that day, I learned a lot. And for the first time pretty much ever, the girls outnumbered the boys...crazy... Well, I got back to campus around 10:30. At 12:15 I made my way to Arntzen Hall where Girl Scouts from all over the state were coming to get a tour of Western behind the scenes, ask questions, and go to a volleyball game. As a Campus Girl Scout I was a tour leader and question answerer. The girls ranged from 4th - 12th grade. My tour group was on average in 8th grade. I liked them because they had lots of questions so there was always something to talk about and show off my knowledge. The first thing everyone did together was go to Carver Gymnasium and meet the girls volleyball team. That was one of the few times I've been dwarfed by such a large number of women all at one time. Outside of one girl, everyone was 5'10" (my height) or taller. Anyway, everyone got to ask the women questions, get their autographs and cool posters.

From the gym, my group went to the planetarium which was super cool! I had never been before. It was really interesting! And I think the show changes depending on the season because we mostly focused on constellations seen in the winter.

Next we went to the Environmental Science building to meet a grad student studying geology. He showed us several wave pools they have on the basement floor to study erosion. I thought it was pretty interesting and while he was a great teacher, his vocabulary was a little above the levels of these girls, though I think they still thought it was cool.

All the girls listening to the geology Grad

So this was now 5:20, and while the girls were getting a tour of a few of the residence halls I skipped out because I had other plans. My floor was having a night out as an excuse to dress up. We all prettied up and went to Jalapenos, a Mexican restaurant in downtown Bellingham. Because there were several other large groups (there were 14 of us) we all had to pack onto a table that probably should have held 8-10 people. It was definitely interesting. The food was great though! When we were leaving a group of boys walked in and we all got some looks, it was fun :). We wanted a picture of all of us together in front of the restaurant but we neede someone to take the picture. One of the best dressed of all of us went back in to ask the boys group, she says that one that took the picture nearly jumped up.

A few of usAll of us!
Photo Credit: Kendra

When we arrived back at Mathes I got ready for a party. It was a Revenge of the Nerds themed party so everyone was supposed to dress up as some sort of nerd: stereotypical school nerd, star wars, trekkie, LOTR, LARPer (live action role play). I had decided earlier in the week that I was going to be a Star Wars nerd and dress up as Princess Leia mostly because I have enough hair that I could make the buns over my ears. Sadly though I had run out of time to go to Value Village to get some white clothes. I asked around my floor and it turned out my RA had a white dress she would let me wear. The dress is see through though and I had to find something to wear under it and my black spandex wasn't flattering or Leia-ish. I saw my Gi pants and they were perfect! (Gi being my martial arts outfit that you wear with the belt and what-not). Add my metal belt and do my hair and it was awesome!! Everyone loved my costume at the party. I finally went to sleep 3:30 Sunday morning.

I should have gotten a picture of the hair...

ME!
Photo Credit: Socoe

Leia, along with a band geek, Eragorn, and a LARPer

After going to brunch on Sunday I made my way back to the house where the party took place (it was a friend's house) to see if they needed any help cleaning up. They had already picked up all the trash, but after they finished with breakfast I helped them sweep and mop. Them hung out for most of the afternoon before going back to Western for dinner.

Best weekend yet! :)

WWU v. Reed @ Reed

On Saturday (November 7th) Western and Reed had a rugby game at Reed (Reed is in Portland). Instead of a normal practice on Friday we had a chalk talk, a question and answer period in a classroom. There we went through different scenarios, fouls, positioning on the field at different times, etc. Once some of the girls came with the five vans we rented, we all piled in and were on our way to Portland.

4:30 PM
While still in Bellingham someone suggested we stop for dinner once we get through Seattle, someone else suggested Issaquah. I piped in that if everyone was okay with Issaquah we could just go a tad farther into Sammamish and eat for free at my house. With that being the plan I called home to warn the parental units that the house was going to be invaded by seven hungry rugby players in 2-ish hours.

6:30 PM
On I-5 in Seattle just before we were going to exit onto the 520 bridge, the van stops accelerating. Going 15 mph now down the freeway Spaid throws on the emergency lights and makes her way over across four lanes to get off the freeway in Seattle instead of on to the bridge. We park as soon as we were off the exit. Blaze calls the other vans to tell them what has happened and it turns out one is shortly behind us and gets off the freeway to find us. Which isn't hard seeing as we are immediately off the freeway.

Now what to do? I call the parental units to say we're going to be late, if we come at all now, we may just haul off to Portland as soon as we get a new car. Several people are on the phone with several companies at the same time. One girl is talking to AAA, another to Enterprise. Turns out Enterprise is closed now, we waiting to see what will happen with AAA. While Kara is still talking with AAA we find Enterprise's emergency number and give them a call (we rented our vans from Enterprise). Kara gives us the news that AAA won't work because they will only tow 5 miles and while the nearest Enterprise is is 2 miles away they are closed, airport enterprise is open until 11 Pm but that is too far. So now we give up on AAA. A little while later Blaze blows up at Enterprise because she has been transferred 6 times and three times it has been back to a woman she already spoke with. "Talking" to that women again we start to get results. I call Mom again to update her and discover my AAA account will tow us 100 miles. I get on the phone with AAA. Starting to get somewhere, Blaze tells me she got it figured out with Enterprise, I thank AAA man and hang up.

7:15-7:30 ish PM
The Plan: A tow truck is on the way, meanwhile, the other van will drive Blaze to the airport where she can rent a new van and come back and pick us up. The Plan is executed. The rest of us bond while we wait for Blaze to come back. Lots of singing, telling stories, car games, whatever we can come up with to try and stave off the boredom. After maybe 45 minutes we get a call the the tow truck driver got lost but he is now on the way. Half hour later he shows up. Blaze still hasn't gotten back with the van so we ask if he can wait maybe half an hour. He says as long as there isn't another emergency he'll wait as long as we need. Thirty minutes goes by and Blaze calls to say she'll be another 20 minutes.

9:30 PM
Blaze arrives, we move into the new van and head for Sammamish where we have decided to stay the night so we don't get to the person's house that we're staying at at 2 AM.

10:00 PM
Home! The lights are on, the girls in the car freak out and when I tell them that's my house, it's even better. Once we park the car everyone takes a moment to scream and freak out some more over the lights so we don't scare my parents by doing it in front of them. We all unload and go inside for some much needed refreshment.

10:45 PM
We all go to bed, thinking it's amusing that by now everyone else (including the van that stayed with us in our predicament) has arrived in Portland.

6:45 AM
We all get up, get ready in our rugby gear, eat breakfast, pack some food for the road and leave by 7:05

10:20 AM
PORTLAND!

10:40 AM
We find the rugby pitch and warm up for the game. It begins to rain. Before long it's pouring and we decide to have some fun with it. During half time the whole team is on the field dancing, belting everyone song we can come up with that has dancing in the lyrics. Before too long into the second half though we're only warm as long as we're playing. As soon as we stopped moving we would begin to shake. In between plays once it hailed; that stung. At the end of the game though the score was somewhere along the lines of WWU: a shit-ton, Reed: 0. If I had to guess I would say Western had about 40-50 points. We dominated in every aspect of the game. We were going to play an unofficial third half just for fun and to allow the players that didn't get to play some field time but we canceled that due to worries over hypothermia.

12:30 PM
Reed takes us to their athletic center where we can take a shower or sit in the sauna (Sauna! Why don't we get one?) to clean up some. We all change into whatever dry clothes we have, and those with extra (like myself) give it out to those who don't have any. It turns out Reed had a fencing tournament and fencing being fancy they had catering and the extra was open for us to eat. As soon as we were dry and clothed we all headed over there and ate. It was good!

1:30 PM
I hop onto the first van headed back north to Bellingham. I didn't feel like going to the social (party after every rugby game hosted by the home team).

7:30-8ish PM
BELLINGHAM!

So yeah, that was our game on Saturday. :)

Halloween

My apologies for taking such a long time to write another update.

As most of you know, Halloween was this past weekend. I had a lot of fun hanging out with the girls on my floor. Many of us went to various dances together. Friday night we went to a dance in the Viking Union and on Saturday (Halloween) we went to a dance Nash was having. Friday was more fun, but that's okay...

I dressed up as the Queen of Hearts. I loved my costume, but sadly none of the pictures I took seemed to work out well. I may put my costume on again to take better pictures over Thanksgiving or something when I go home. I'll try to get some of the pictures that other floor mates took and see if any turned out better than mine and pout them up.

It turned out my RA was Alice!
( I never realized how long my hair was until I saw this pic)On Halloween I put my hair in a ponytail, I liked that better. :)
Some of my floor mates
(along with some guy who danced with us)

ME!