All Or Nothing

Well well. Look who's back.

Well well. Look who's back :) Yes, it's me, the girl of no schedule, who finally made it back from Cali at about 3:30 this morning. I stepped out of DFW airport, and my first thought was not, "ah, home sweet home", or "hello, good 'ol state of Texas", or even "well, it's nice to be back". Instead, it ran more along the lines of "holy crap, it feels like a giant sauna out here". And it really did, even at 1:00am or whatever time it was right then. Amazing.

Well, I feel that my massive fan base (is that one or two words? help me out, other spelling nazi) would like to hear a recap of my adventures as of late. I am trying to think of a good way to give the readers digest version of the last couple of weeks instead of the War and Peace version. That's what my dad says to me everytime I tell him I've got a story for him - "Readers digest version, Elise". I figure I ought to give the same kind of consideration for other readers :) So here goes

Maybe a list will work:

1. Take spanish final at 8am two Thursday's ago

2. Leave Lubbock at about 11am the same day with my brother, Nathan, headed west

no, I don't like the list approach. I think I will just expound in a normal fashion on what happened, starting now. We drove all day Thursday, got to Clarkdale, AZ at about 8pm in screwed up, we-don't-recognize-daylight-savings-time-because-somehow-we're-above-that-nonsense, Arizona time. We hung out with Nathan's good friend Steven's grandparents that evening, which was nice, and then we left the next morning after eating some freshly picked peaches for breakfast. We took the 17 back up to Flagstaff instead of going straight to the 40, because I wanted to see Sedona. And no, it had nothing to do with that song about "There is no Arizona", and everything to do with the fact that I've heard it's really beautiful there. Well, not much to do with the first anyway....I don't listen to that...anyway....

Sedona certainly did not disappoint. For those of you who haven't ever seen this place, try to imagine a mix between Yellowstone and maybe some place like Red Rocks in Colorado - I mean, this is a little town, with the most laid-back atmosphere imaginable, old and young hippies, earthy stores, and tons of little coffee bars abounding, with unimaginably beautiful red rock cliffs rising on either side of you, and canyons of forest below. The temperature was right around 80 or 85, and it was the middle of an August day. I mean, seriously. Talk about ideal. Also, my brother and I find that it is imperative to listen to appropriate music for the atmosphere we are currently in. Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, Live Art, disc 2 seemed like it would fit perfectly. And it did. Are you jealous yet?

We then got stuck in a huge, standstill traffic jam in the middle of the Mojave desert. For an hour and a half. The temperature was 118. No lie. Some moron got in a wreck and jammed up the whole road for about 10 miles. Yes, I did say 10 miles, and yes, I did say 1 1/2 hours. 118 degrees. Overheating cars. No A/C. Deliriousness soon set in, and resulted in my brother saying "Wheeee!" about every 5 - 10 seconds after we finally got going again on a road that was somewhat rollercoaster-y. What a day :)

L.A. The city of the angels. In order to keep this even somewhat readers digest-ish, let me expedite. Santa Barbara (with some Jack Johnson and Ben Harper playing live at the Bowl, which is up in the hills of Santa B), Isla Vista (tons of beach houses, one of which we were lucky enough to know the residents of, overlooking the ocean), Carpenteria Beach, Ventura Beach, Malibu (with some Pepperdine Law), Zuma Beach (in Mali), Pasadena (which is awesome and has great personality, a great strip, and pretty interesting nightlife :)), Santa Clarita, more Malibu with two really fun girls, one of which was housesitting for some beachfront property on Malibu Beach.....I mean, seriously. Plus, if I would have extended my stay (once again, as I had already done so twice, oops) I would have been in San Diego as we speak, and shortly would have been heading back up to L.A. with a brief stop off at Laguna Niguel. And all of these things are within an hour and half of each other.

Ahhh....only 4 more months until I can make the move for real. It was, however, really annoying to be out there for a while like that, get to hang out with the people I know there, meet and then hang out with even more people, (awesome people, by the way), and then have to come back. To Lubbock. I guess I'm just ready to get on to the next stage of my life, and to start the stage and then have to put it on hold to take care of the little matter some like to call graduating...well, we'll just say it makes it much harder for me to take my studies seriously this fall. And for those of you who already know what a stellar student I can be, this is a little dangerous :). Oh well, I do like Tech, and it's always the people that make the place, and the people in good 'ol L-town definitely make the place :) YOU people! Haha, what a moment we all just had together. I sincerely hope all is well for all of you, and if anyone wants details about anything in particular, I'll be more than glad to oblige. Or, if anyone wants to hang out, I actually broke down (as sad as I am to report this) and got a cell phone. There were some who were genuinely beginning to hate me for not having one. So, I give a salute to all of you rebels who are still hanging in there without one - stay strong, stay strong. And with that, I will end this post, and try my best to go back to the daily posting as soon as I am back in Lubbock - which will be Thursday. Adieu and Ciao :)

A conversation from work:

A conversation from work:

Co-worker A: Hey, how much does a liter of Jack cost?

Me: I have no idea - probably around $20?

Co-worker B: Hey, co-worker A, you should be more like Elise and her roomate, they're too good to drink (stated very condesendingly)

Me: What?

Co-worker B: Yeah, your roomate told me all about it, you two are all holier-than-thou churchy types who won't go and be baaad.

Me: Oh, is that how you get to be bad, you go drink?

Co-worker B: Well, um, yeah, I mean, you don't go out, right? Because you're too goood (barely salvaging his well-constructed argument)

Me: You know, you sound like a 12 year old.

Co-worker A: laughs

Co-worker B: Well, whatever, we're all going out tonight if you don't have church or something....haha! (as if this were the newest and funniest joke he had ever thought of)

Me: Alright, have a great time (dripping with sarcasm and said while rolling eyes)

Of course later on I thought of something I could have said instead, and this is about how it goes:

Me: As soon as my highest aspiration becomes being a 24 year old 7th-year sophomore in college, still active (very active) in my fraternity, making a hefty $6 an hour working about 15 hours a week as the only male at a day care, and getting drunk nearly every night, I will be sure to join you and be really really baaad. But until then, I think I'll try to scrape by with my boring, holier-than-thou policies of not getting trashed at every opportunity, graduating in a somewhat timely manner, and moving on to bigger and better things than the $6/hr partime daycare job.

yeah, that would have been good.

Taco Villa

Today I went to the Taco Villa, on 19th street across from Lubbock High, just as I promised Hoover, to find out just how badly my name would be butchered at the cash register. You see, apparently the Villa's new policy is to take your order, then ask your name and key it into the cash register so that you don't feel like just a number. Or something like that.

Anyway, I've been hearing stories of incredible spelling errors on seemingly simple names, such as Adam, and Emily. I thought it would certainly have to be an interesting experiment to see how they would handle mine. So, after my spanish class, I trecked over to the Villa to get on with the game. However, my plans were thwarted. I went up to the register, and prepared to be amused. I ordered, and then the guy asked my name...everything was going perfectly.....and then he started trying to be flirty. I would have just given him a disgusted look, but I really wanted to see the name spelling, so I just smiled and laughed and waited for my receipt so I could get out of there. But no such luck, I think I must have sent some sort of wrong signal and he gave me the food for free, sans receipt. Dang. Not only did I not accomplish my original goal at all, but now I had to expedite my departure so as to avoid any more unwanted flirtation.

Now you might think that I would have given up after this, but no, not me. I'm tenacious :) Instead, I waited until after I got off work, about 6:45, and went back to the Villa, pretty confident that the same guy would definitely not be there. Wrong again. There he was, probably getting excited that his free food trick snagged some chick, and the only options I could see is to either run away, or order. So I stepped up, and ordered again. He was about to play his little give-it-for-free game, but I conveniently said, very loudly: "Oh, I want to pay for this, I feel bad getting it for free. What about everybody else who has to pay??". As his manager turned around to see what the heck was going on, he gave me a hurt and confused look and promptly typed in my order. "What was your name again?" he asked, as he continued to shoot me dirty looks, and as I told him, he keyed it in, and all I had to do was wait for the receipt to print out.

I really figured that after all that trouble, there was no way he could possibly wreck my name enough to make up for it all. But happily, I was wrong! I have never before, in 22 years people screwing up my name, seen this particular derivation:

ELEIS

Ahh, it was all worth it. Way to go, Taco Villa!

Inspiration

I am inspired by the blogging dedication of both Regan (who I don't actually know) and Hoover (who I do actually know) to make an effort to post every day. Even if it's something pointless (like I'm ever pointless, seriously).

So here we go. Let me share with you a little story, or anecdote, if you will. After a long day of school and work, I came home and was pleasantly surprised to find that my roomate, Amy, was also going to be home for the evening. "Ah, some pleasant company", I thought to myself. However, I was soon to find that I had much too high of hopes for the evening, since Amy's plans seemed to consist of sitting on the couch, doing some sort of lesson plans, and not talking to me in any way whatsoever. My idea of an evening of stimulating conversation seemed to be fading away. But I was not to be daunted. After composing and singing several verses to a song I made up about Amy writing lesson plans, then singing her a new song about our dog, Isabella, and finding that I was still effectively being ignored, I resorted to talking with my cat, Jack. Hope seemed to be renewed - Jack and I were getting along swimmingly, but then, for no apparent reason, he got up and walked off disdainfully. I guess it was something I said. As I was contemplating where I had gone wong with the cat, Amy looked up from her papers and recognized my existence! I was trying to contain my excitement at being validated by her as an actual presence in our apartment, when she opened her mouth to speak!

"Hey, will you go get the mail."

Lest any of you think that I forgot to put the question mark at the end of that sentence, let me assure you that it was not in any way phrased as a question. Go get the mail. That was the statement of the evening. And lest any of you think that I responded to such an insult by actually going to get the mail, let me tell you that you are correct. Sadly enough. I tend to be a little pathetic like that sometimes. But let me tell you, the song I made up in my head on the way down to get the mail is going to show her.....

Good Night

Let me tell you what's not good. Not good is staying up later and later, looking at the clock every ten minutes or so, saying to yourself that you really better get to bed, you really ought to get your sleep, you have to be up in 6, no 5, no 4 hours, and then still not going. And then deciding, "Well, I guess someone's not going to class tomorrow!". Even when you really should go to class. Especially then.

Ode to My Apartment

Ode to My Apartment:

the bathtub leaks -
but it has for weeks

the toilet drips -
any tips?

my room's a wreck -
but what the heck?

it smells like a zoo -
but we've got animals (two)

the only real thing
(besides keeping it clean)

is that it's 100 degrees hot
'cause the air conditioner's shot.

thank you, I'll be here all week.

yea :)

yea :)

Mr. Gray

And never once
Afraid to Know
What it feels like when you go
Out beyond
Where logic keeps the view
Falling down the mountainside with you

david gray

Mr. Matthews

Let me walk with you, maybe I could say
Maybe talk with you, open up
And let me through
Don't walk away
Don't walk away
I have no lid upon my head
But if I did
You could look inside and see what's on my mind

The GSE

Well, the GSE (Great Sleep Experiment) is officially over. For those of you who don't know what the GSE is really all about, let me explain. It's really quite a simple concept. Because I have displayed an uncanny knack for falling asleep and staying asleep pretty much anywhere and anytime, myself and a few of my friends decided that it would be a good idea to see just how long I really could sleep if I never had any reason to get up. And this is better than say, a Saturday when you know you get to sleep in, because on the Saturday, you hit about 3 in the afternoon, and start feeling guilty and thinking that you might better get up. Not, however, in the GSE. The whole goal is to stay asleep as long as possible, so there is no guilt involved. I am only allowed to get up for either some water or to go use the bathroom, and as soon as I am awake for more than 20 minutes, the whole experiment is over. Also, drug-induced sleep (i.e. benadryl or ny-quill) is not allowed, and staying up for an inordinate amount of time prior to the GSE in order to secure exhaustion is also against the rules. It has to be totally natural, normal sleep. I complied with all of these rules, and although the official end results stand at about 19 hours of total sleep time, I really feel that it could have been much more successful if I would have had better conditions to work with. Here is the breakdown:

4:30pm-10:00pm - couch in living room, which might not seem like the best place to sleep but was surprisingly quiet

10:05pm-9:00am - my bed, where I planned to log the rest of my hours, but was woken to some very loud Dave Matthews being played outside my room at about 9am. Now, I have no problems getting woken to some Dave, in fact that is probably a pretty preferable way to be woken up, but not in the midst of the GSE

9:10am-11:25am - my parents bed, which (after experimenting with some other options) is the only place in the house far enough away from the music to possibly be conducive to sleep.

11:25am-11:35am - still in parents bed, trying to ignore the fact that two of the windows in their room are now being banged on repeatedly because of being re-sealed or something equally detrimental to my whole experiment.

11:37am - GSE declared over

I know I had at least another 5-8 hours in me, so I'm just going to have to wait until the perfect set of circumstances come up and then try for the GSE2. The conclusions I came up with were twofold:

1. I have an incredible capacity to sleep, even when conditions are not optimal.

2. People around here definitely do not have the kind of respect they should for the GSE.