Old Hallows Eve

Halloween, the time for little boys to get scared while trick or treating. The time for little girls to dress up like princesses and get candy. The time for teenagers to go to their first house parties and drink some alcohol. The time for college students to dress completely inappropriately while going to school hosted events. I don't want to see your butt cheeks, thank you. But that doesn't seem to stop people from wearing ripped tights with heels they can't walk in, a really low cut shirt, and a skirt that sticks out horizontally rather than vertically like it should. I have seen into hell, and it looks like an exposed butt cheek of a passout drunk girl. 

And drunk they shall be. The night of people drinking too much for their own good. The night for them to pass out on the street outside our apartment until the police and ambulance come. It's the night for you to really get to know your friends. But still, I feel it will not be the last person to be dragged away by those who are dreading this day each year. The night comes alive with the sound of drunken stumbling and "man, I don't feel so well". The wild shouts in harmony "Are you OK?" as someone falls, "oh, here it comes again" when someone throws up, "I think something's wrong" when someone is drunk, and "was it because of your last shot?" when clearly they had enough a long time ago. It's that time of year again and the crazy is coming out to party.

Pictures from weheartit.com

Post frenzy!

So, while I'm posting all of the events of the late I feel it might be appropriate to just catch you all in on everything I planned to write about. Good luck getting bored of all this reading of today...

Last week we went to a corn maze, a haunted corn maze. And in addition to that it was in Eureka. We were expecting darkness, high corn fields, about an hour long walk inside the corn maze, because, i mean, it did cost us 13 dollars... So we get there, a group of nine, and all excited about this maze! When standing in line we see, there's no music playing, the corn is barely higher than our shoulders if at all, and so far there's no decoration. Safe to say, we were disappointed. 

But we didn't want to judge before we enter. So we go in, walk around, see the first couple of spooks. and then silence. All in all I think about 5 people worked there and just kept popping up out of the corn at random corners. But it was less of a popping up then walking out, because the corn was trampled and stuff so we could see them. And also, it wasn't a maze, it was just a path to follow. Some of the parts were kind of scary, like there was a trailer there that was creepy with a guy running out at us, but that's about the only prop that was legit scary. It was still fun though, we started hiding and scaring the second part of our group. And so, the lesson learned from this is, just make your own haunted corn maze, go to a field and run around, it's gonna be scarier than the one you pay for, especially once the owner comes running after you with a shot gun.

Yesterday we went pumpkin carving. That was another experience... We had flimsy little carving tools that snapped off in perfect unison as soon as you got your hopes up that you might be able to cut through the tough hide of the pumpkin. Little did we know that we were no where close to getting the top off. Things such as this were said: "My hole is too small" "I can't get my fingers in there" "Ew what is this slimy stuff" which all had one answer "That's what she said". 

Picture from weheartit.com

Dear College, you never fail to entertain. But when I was fed up and knew nothing more to do I decided to go to the library and get plastic knives, I'm not surprised we weren't allowed to use them, I almost cut off my fingers several times. but it worked and I carved a Robot Pumpkin. It is sitting outside my front door right now. Wondrous Halloween! Next we went to a guest speaker talk and brought the pumpkins under our chairs, that got us some funny looks. And then we went to a hosted dance party in one of the school halls and had muffins. Best night ever. The day was ended with Chinese food and Harry Potter. 

Chicago, concrete jungle has nothing on this place!

Chicago, a city of lights, a city of history, it was on fire once because of a cow or something. Then, the skyscraper boom of the 1900's happened. Whatever you call it, and tons of people started building buildings that  looked awesome and made a statement. I read that in a book called Skyscrapers written for middle schoolers. It was a good book, it had a lot of pictures. So here's my impression of Chicago. 

We went around town, went to Navy Pier where there was a Halloween fest and Carnival. Then we also went to the city at night and enjoyed the night lights. Then the next day we went to a huge flea market and Ikea. Yes, Ikea. And later to get Chicago Pizza. It was Epicly deep dish. Then later we went to see dinosaurs at the museum and went to the reflective Bean. All in all, this trip was everything and more of what I expected a great trip to be like. 

Lincoln, Oh Lincoln

Continuing on our Fall break adventure, we drive to Springfield. Now, you see, a place called Springfield has a lot of competition from other Springfields. So what were we thinking picking this one out of the batch to grace with our presence? Well, lucky for it and all its inhabitants it was on our way. But with all this competition, how could it possibly measure up? Oh you would be surprised, this little city/town, not sure what they call it here, compared to HK village, I'll go with village. This little village, of 117,352 people and about 35 statues of Lincoln and 100 buildings named in his honour, was magnificent. We arrived on the perfect day.

Lincoln... one of the 3 billion in this city

Old Capitol

New Capitol! And look! It's Lincoln!

So it's beautiful, it's early. We walk around the little city, sorry, village, and see some of the famous sights. And on our way back to the car we decide to see the main road where... Farmer's Market! Oh, this get's better and better.

There's a dog the size of a Smart car, people are really friendly, live music playing, and the sun is shining. This just can't get any better! But, oh it can. We get to a cafe and have breakfast and as we walk back to the car we discover a vintage store selling old CDs and video taped and games and stuff. It was awesome, I felt like an 8 year old again. It was like travelling back in time, before computers, before MP3 players, before the iRevolution. It was calming. But all good things must come to an end so we continue on our trip towards Chicago.

Meanwhile, in Autumn...

While it seems like it's turning into winter rather quick, I have actively been neglecting you readers of my adventures in the States. One adventure I hope to share with you now is that of solid rain, yes, you heard right. Leaves, Tons of leaves. It's Fall, or as I mentioned earlier probably was Fall until yesterday, and the trees were turning and the leaves were falling. There's several stories to this, but first...

As you can see, I was astonished to find the trees, otherwise apparently green, change to a colour as bright as an apple. I mean, these pictures don't even do them justice. I swear, had I not been wearing sunglasses I would have probably gone blind. Or at least colour blind. God, being colour blind would suck in fall, all trees looking grey or something... sad. 

Story number one, related to these pictures. We, two friends and I, went on a trip up north to Chicago. We were driving so on the way we thought, why not stop at everything we can possibly find! First stop, some memorial, but we couldn't find it so: Mission failed. Mission 2: Garden! That sounds nice, and how could that possibly go wrong. It is called the Lincoln Memorial Garden, near Springfield IL, where everything somehow is themed around Lincoln. Infatuation big time. Mission 2: Success, so worth it. 

The floor was covered by so many leaves I'm pretty sure we were walking on a two foot high carpet of them. Because at one point I missed the "carpet of leaves" and stepped in mud. Not nice. I had to get back on the path of leaves which meant my shoe turned into, well, leaves... 

Naturally with so many leaves on the floor we started taking pictures of us throwing them up in the air. And I'm guessing that's how an entire huge leaf got into my shoe, somehow snuck in there without me noticing, and stayed there until we got to the car when I remembered I didn't put crackers in my shoe, so why am I sounding all crispy?

Welcome home!

This thing was sitting on the outside door frame of my front door. Right by the key hole. As my roommate came home, gusty, she unlocked the door and told me to "come here right now". I rushed over to have a mini heart attack as i saw the fat little spider sitting there chilling. after taking an evidence photo we decided it couldn't stay there because you know there things are nifty and will probably crawl into one of our ears or mouths. 

So, my brave roomie took her flip flop and smacked it away, as gently as this ugly spider allowed. But to our horror it was attached to our frame about a foot up by one of it's silk strings and just came swinging right back. I screamed, died a little internally, and then backed off. She smacked it again and finally it broke away from the door. The thing didn't die, no worries. But I don't know what happened after that either. I just kind of blacked out a little, blocking out the memory...

Midterm drama

Midterms are here and surprise surprise, anything I find is more interesting than reading my notes. I have an exam tomorrow and today I decided to go to a Halloween store, then Happy Hour and then watch Family Guy. But in the process the group Halloween costume fell apart as the other crayons decided to do something else. 

So here's the challenge for today: Give me ideas for a simple Halloween costume. Twist though, it should be original and a legit costume. Good luck!

But again, this is all a big hunt only because I don't want to study for my midterm. So what have I learned so far? Hmm... I'm not sure, every time I go through what I'm supposed to know I forget half of it, get distracted, and drift off. And I can't go work in my room or I'll fall asleep. I'm not trusting myself right now, bed is too tempting!

Pictures from weheartit.com

Issues of today

Over the last couple of days the big issue screened on TV and on the internet is that of bullying in school, especially that which leads to suicide. I'm currently watching a show about various cases on this and it's really intense what people do to bully other kids. If you got bullied, picked on, hit, whatever it was. I think this would really be interested in this show because it has all risen to the next level now. The bullying to is happening today is on a felony charge level. One boy got his bike stolen by people who had been bullying him at school and when he saw them after school once they lit him on fire. They put something on him and lit him aflame. 

The subject hits a personal note with me too. Bullying has become such a big issue that children have turned to killing themselves rather than living through the torture they are experiencing. "Kick a ginger day" took over one middle school to the point of police intervention with three misdemeanor charges. In one high school a kid was bullied to the brink and killed himself because of a learning disability. With no one to intervene the bullying won't stop. School officials don't seem to do much either, what is limiting their ability to intervene? 

With all this bullying going on, one would think once you escape from high school you can live a good life and move on to whatever you find to be good next. Well, college doesn't eliminate the issue of bullying. Nationwide there are about 10,000 cases of violence on campus in the States. We all know the Columbine and Virginia Tech incidents. This week, here at uni, is the week against violence so I am doing my duty and hoping that one person at a time can learn to take action or teach other to take action. 

Pictures from weheartit.com

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