What Makes a Good Friend?

I was talking about this with Bree the other day, but I really discovered what it takes to be a good friend for myself this weekend.

I remember back in the early 2000s, there was an email forward running around about the difference between a good friend through the years.  I did some googling (I did say I googled a lot) and I found it.  It reads as follows:

The Definition of a Good Friend

In kindergarten your idea of a good friend was the person who let you have the red crayon when all that was left was the ugly black one.

In first grade your idea of a good friend was the person who went to the bathroom with you and held your hand as you walked through the scary halls.

In second grade your idea of a good friend was the person who helped you stand up to the class bully.

In third grade your idea of a good friend was the person who shared their lunch with you when you forgot yours on the bus.

In fourth grade your idea of a good friend wa! s the person who was willing to switch square dancing partners in gym so you wouldn’t have to be stuck do-si-do-ing with Nasty Nick or Smelly Susan.

In fifth grade your idea of a friend was the person who saved a seat on the back of the bus for you.

In sixth grade your idea of a friend was the person who went up to Nick or Susan, your new crush, and asked them to dance with you, so that if they said no you wouldn’t have to be embarrassed.

In seventh grade your idea of a friend was the person who let you copy the social studies homework from the night before that you had.

In eighth grade your idea of a good friend was the person who helped you pack up your stuffed animals and old baseball but didn’t laugh at you when you finished and broke out into tears.

In ninth grade your idea of a good friend was the person who would go to a party thrown by a senior so you wouldn’t wind up being the only freshman there.

In tenth grade your idea of a good friend was the person who changed their schedule so you would have someone to sit with at lunch.

In eleventh grade your idea of a good friend was the person who gave you rides in their new car, convinced your parents that you shouldn’t be grounded, consoled you when you broke up with Nick or Susan, and found you a date to the prom.

In twelfth grade your idea of a good friend was the person who helped you pick out a college/university, assured you that you would get into that college/university, helped you deal with your parents who were having a hard time adjusting to the idea of letting you go…

At graduation your idea of a good friend was the person who was crying on the inside but managed the biggest smile one could! give as they congratulated you.

The summer after twelfth grade your idea of a good friend was the person who helped you clean up the bottles from that party, helped you sneak out of the house when you just couldn’t deal with your parents, assured you that now that you and Nick or you and Susan were back together, you could make it through anything, helped you pack up for university and just silently hugged you as you looked through blurry eyes at 18 years of memories you were leaving behind, and finally on those last days of childhood, went out of their way to give you reassurance that you would make it in college as well as you had these past 18 years, and most importantly sent you off to college knowing you were loved.

Now, your idea of a good friend is still the person who gives you the better of the two choices, holds your hand when you’re scared, helps you fight off those who try to take advantage of you, thinks of you at times when you are not there, reminds you of what you have forgotten, helps you put the past behind you but understands when you need to hold on to it a little longer, stays with you so that you have confidence, goes out of their way to make time for you, helps you clear up your mistakes, helps you deal with pressure from others, smiles for you when they are sad, helps you become a better person, and most importantly loves you!

I think the end of that email forward is really the point.  What seems important or scary to an elementary student is different from what is important or scary to a middle school student, to a high school student, to a college student, to a post-graduate and so on.  But even though those things change, the best people in your life will always look out for what’s best for you and they won’t judge you by what’s best for them.

The best people in your life will set things down when you have a real emergency and do what they can for you.  And I think it’s really important to reciprocate that.  If you know someone who would do whatever it takes to help you, then there has to be a reason they would do that.  Wouldn’t you do the same?

It’s not just important to have those people there for you (it is), but it’s important to be that person for other people.

How to Make Money Quickly

I won’t go into details about my weekend, because it was heartbreaking and hard for me…

Anyone have any ideas on how to make money quickly?  Besides stripping…  Or prostitution…

 

Beergo, Bowling, and Breweries

Does Beergo count as being a trivia champion?  I didn’t win, but I think beergo is pretty fantastic.  Seth told me that the difference is that trivia requires some sort of skill, whereas beergo is mostly luck.

There is some skill in beergo, though, and I will tell you what it is.  Distraction.  If you can distract your competitors, they will miss their numbers and you can walk away as the sole victor.

Plus, there’s something awesome about beergo.  I think it’s the little beer mugs on the page…

Anyway, the funny thing about restaurants in Colorado is that there are quite a few that are also breweries.  I feel like I’m sklightly failing in my goal to do brew tours simply because I live in the land of breweries….  At least in beergo, someone calls B 15 and you know where to start.  Seth really wants me to get to some of the ones up north, so I guess that will be our goal soon…  Anyway, starting this 24 before 24 list is going a bit slow because work is scheduling me a lot more.  I do like having the money.  I also miss the time a bit.  I’m looking for side jobs I can do as well, so hopefully I’ll be able to have a mix of things that will give me a good amount of earnings/savings.

Also, I stopped by a bowling game yesterday as well.  I really want to go bowling.  I’ve had a distinct lack of cheese in my life lately.

Falling Off the Woo Girl Wagon

Admittedly, being a woo girl can be fairly difficult.  Last night, I had a bit of a hard time with my ambition to be a woo girl.

I think a lot of being a woo girl in a non-familiar situation is being a spectacle.  You try and make as many new acquaintances as possible to increase your recognizability, I suppose.

I’m rambling.  Bree and I went to the cowboy bar and I wore my pink cowboy hat.  Many people talked to us because of said cowboy hat, but then they all hit on Bree.

I lost my woo girl mojo.

I don’t know what it is about February that’s so depressing…  I’m just so excited for March.  Four days left!

(Sorry, this is a short post, here’s a blog comic from The Oatmeal about the worst thing about Valentine’s Day.)

The Montreal Trip Part Six

Last Time (Part Five):  The boys discovered poutine, Shawn finally showered, and the final member of our party arrived.

So where was I?…  Oh right, Part Six!… In which Anthony recounts the story of his crossing the border, we finally enter a Tim Horton’s, and the men declare it’s “Guys’ Night.”

So, as I was saying, we got back to the hotel with our Absolut, Pepsi, Orangina, and Blue right as Anthony was arriving in Montreal.  So we all ventured to the red room and Anthony took a shower before joining us in our Up the river, Down the river/Fuck the dealer playing.  He missed the beginning of our game in which we created a new game called “Fuck the Shawn.”

Shawn started as the dealer for the first round fuck the dealer.  Every time he was about to get off the hook, the third person would not only guess correctly, but they would guess the exact card on the first try. This went on for about twenty cards with our collective good luck and Shawn’s pretty terrible luck.  Seth finally broke the trend and that is when Anthony came back from his shower.

I was not prepared for the amazingness that was the story of him getting stuck at the border.

Basically, he actually got to the border around noon…  I don’t really remember which one and he wasn’t traveling the same way we did because he came from Massachusetts, so he probably entered Canada in Quebec, but I do know that he wanted to see us around two or three, so I think this makes the most sense…  (Yes, I did some map googling…  Yes, we’ve already talked about my being bad at math in case my time estimate is wrong…)

Anyway, he had a sketchy beard that everyone then made fun of (he shaved it off for the start of school, which I wouldn’t have known, but it’s complicated) and blamed for his being stopped.  Anthony pretty much confirmed that.

He basically had his entire life in his “chester the molester” van (I didn’t know people actually drove big, sketchy white vans) because he was meeting all of us up in Montreal and then going from Montreal back to school in upstate New York.  He had his laundry, a bunch of van stuff, a bong….  Yeah, he had a bong…

Apparently the border guards don’t like sketchy mustachioed and bearded men driving sketchy vans containing drug paraphernalia…  Who knew?

So the Canadian border patrol had him pull over to the side and they performed a full person and vehicle search.  They questioned what he was doing in Canada, if he was a smuggler, what he was doing with the sheets…

White linens…  They’re cheaper in America.  We’re starting a linen black market up in here.

Which brings me to our other main topics of conversation.

6.  Anthony being “chester the molester.”

7.  The weather.  (sometimes we’re boring too)

8.  Random bets.  (more on that later)

9.  Words that sound similar in certain situations…  (more on that later)

10.  Fuck the Shawn. (Shawn’s name eventually became interchangeable with everyone else’s depending on the situation)

Anthony ended up being stuck at the border for about two hours, which wasn’t really funny.  We  were there for five minutes and I got nervous…  I can’t imagine being there for two hours.

He started telling us about his full body cavity search and our eyes just got wider and wider until he started laughing and told us it was just a pat down.  He caught us all being hugely gullible (that’s what we got for giving him grief).  But the border guards did confiscate his bong and couple of other things…  Apparently it takes a long time to sort through a giant white van, and every piece of a grad student’s laundry.

We played a couple of rounds of up the river, down the river and then we all broke to change.  I wore an adorable purple top and Shawn pulled out the ironing board for a button down shirt.  He was cursing at it the entire time because he couldn’t get the wrinkles out.

So, I tried to change the subject.  “How do I look?”

“You look great.  Really sexy.”

“Even with the bun?”

“It’s cute.”  He went back to the ironing.  “Fuck this shit.”

“Shawn?”

“The ironing, not you.”

“Oh.  Want some help?  I’m a wrinkle removing pro.”

“I’ll get it.”

And then five minutes later, with his shirt still wrinkled, Shawn burned his hand.

He had enough sense to put the iron down on the ironing board in a standing position, but the next ten minutes went like this:

“SSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIITTTTTTTTTT!!!!”  “FFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKK!!!!”  And the sound of unintelligible man screaming…  For ten minutes.  Man screaming is different from normal screaming.  An approximation might be “RAAAAHHH!!”

But mostly it was swear words he was shouting.

I got him a damp towel and asked if he wanted help ironing again.  This time he agreed and his shirt looked great, because, as I said before, I’m a wrinkle removing pro.

The boys gave him shit for not taking a woman up on her offer to do a woman’s job.  Blair and I scoffed.

Brent and I discussed my big goals for the night and I said I just wanted to get out.  He responded with “Doesn’t matter if you get out and get sick at the bars, you’d still get out to the bars.  You dream big.”  I dream big.

Anyway, we left after that and had to stop by Anthony’s van so he could get another shirt from it.  We, mostly the boys, made fun of his van.  I said “It really is a chester the molester van.”  I had been sure he was kidding.  The boys laughed at this.

We headed back down to Rue Ste. Laurent for the third time this day.  Anthony mentioned he was hungry, so Shawn and I went with him to the first food we could find: a Tim Horton’s.  We figured after his trip here, stopping to get some food with him wasn’t that big of a delay.  Everyone else went ahead to the bar.

“Shawn, Tim Horton’s!  Take a drink!”

“Deidree, this is still a terrible game.”

“It doesn’t seem so terrible to me…  This is the first one we’ve actually seen since we got into Montreal…”

“That also makes it pretty terrible.”

“Oh right, that is a short game, isn’t it….”

I don’t remember quite what Anthony ordered…  It was either a croissant or a breakfast sandwich, but I don’t know if Tim Horton’s stops selling breakfast sandwiches ever…  If they don’t, it was definitely a breakfast sandwich.

I asked Shawn about his hand and he said it was feeling a bit better and he could move it, so that was good news.

We met everyone else as some bar where there were already bottles of beer waiting for us.  They were either Coors or Bud, I don’t remember which one, but I distinctly remember them being an American beer.

We finished our beer and went to a pub next?  It was either the pub or the Pinq Taco…  I’m going to say it was the Pinq Taco because I really don’t remember anything happening there…  We went to the Pinq Taco, the boys laughed about the name, and that was pretty much it.

At the pub we had Guinness and managed to find a table, even though it was crowded because of the live music.  Blair and I took a bathroom break and discussed Seth and Shawn.  I complained a bit about how Shawn wasn’t really paying attention to me now and a Canadian girl told me I was awesome and I shouldn’t worry about him.  I was both grateful and mortified because I’ve been the crying girl in the bathroom (although I wasn’t crying this time) and I’ve been the Canadian girl comforting the crying girl (except not Canadian).  Neither one is a good one to be, really…  In any case, I was feeling a bit better after that and we went back to the boys.

Shawn spilled a beer on my coat.  We had a tequilla shot.  Ryan saved the day when the band’s microphone was falling to the floor and he pulled a superhero jump to save it.  And then we continued down the street.

We found a really long and skinny bar with awesome music.  But we weren’t there very long because the boys thought it was too crowded, which was depressing because I got to sing along and dance.  I think we were there for maybe half an hour or forty minutes?

Then Brent and Ryan were hitting on a girl, some girls?  I don’t remember if it was one or two.  It must have been two.  Shawn decided to help them and sent Blair, Seth, Anthony, and me on to the next bar because Blair and I were cold.  I was annoyed again.

We waited in the bar for them and they didn’t show up for a while.  I didn’t know if I should be angry, but Shawn was giving me grief for being cold (when he spilled beer on my coat) and wasn’t paying much attention to me.

The other boys eventually came, but that was when Brent and Ryan went on and on about wanting to do a guys’ night.  We walked around looking everywhere for a strip club.  I suggested bars as we passed them, but they weren’t having any of them.  Blair and Anthony were getting tired.  Seth decided he would go back with them.

“What do you want to do?”  Shawn asked me.

“I could go either way.  I have to make up for yesterday.  Is it guys’ night?”

Brent and Ryan were nodding.  Shawn looked at them and at me.  “I guess maybe it’s guys’ night?”

I lost two to one in favor of testosterone…

So they made sure that Seth had a key to the purple room and Anthony had a key to the red room, then the four of us left.

I grew increasingly annoyed as we walked in the cold and when we got back to the hotel, I sweetly asked Anthony if I could have the key to the red room.  He gave it to me without question… and then I slammed the door behind me.

He didn’t knock, I don’t know why, but maybe Blair said I “probably needed space.”

I was texting Steph about how I was upset and she told me to sleep on it.

So I slept on it, like a rock, like always…  And when I woke up the next morning, the boys were back.  I took a long shower and I was doing pretty well by the time I was done.  Showers fix pretty much everything!

Anyway, next time (and much sooner):  Where they serve dog in Canada (with rice!), why museums are so expensive, and Molson is Coors, y’all!

Why The World Needs Woo Girls

So I hope you all enjoyed my mock up bar review a couple of days ago.  We’re still preparing for the launch of my second blog, yay!  Just so you know, we launch on March first!  (And March is really exciting because there are two woo girl high holidays:  Mardi Gras and St. Patrick’s Day.)  In case you were wondering, it probably won’t update every day, but some time between two and four times a week.  I think I’ll probably start at two.  I can always go down from there.

Anyway, in honor of the upcoming launch, I’ll have a couple woo girl honorary posts.

So today we will be discussing why the world needs woo girls.  And it’s bigger than tiny cowboy hats (sales are down anyway, so we need to bring them back).

Here we go!

1.  Woo girls believe in the economy.  Woo girls stimulate sales in cosmetics, clothing, jewelry, food services, taxi services, and local economy.  (Woo girls love local shops!)

2.  Woo girls believe in the community.  As I said above, woo girls love local shops, even if they are the local form of a chain, they support their local one adamantly.

3.  Woo girls forecast trends.  What’s hot?  What’s not?  The woo girls know.

4.  Woo girls make anything fun.  Try hanging out with a woo girl and not having fun.  I can help ease the social anxieties of normally socially anxious people.  What can your woo girl do for you?

5.  Woo girls can always make you smile.  Elle Woods once told us that happy people don’t kill their husbands.  Woo girls keep people from being unhappy.  Guaranteed.

6. Woo girls have limitless energy.  Woo girls are able to be out at night being woo girls because they have so much energy.  They also use that energy during the day to save the world.

7.  Woo girls are persistent.  Whatever a woo is code for, woo girls don’t just sit by and let it happen.  Woo girls actively try to take away what their woos are masking.

8.  Woo girls are worldly.  Any real woo girl doesn’t let the world pass her by, she takes it in stride.  That’s how she is able to stimulate the economy, support local communities, and save the world.

9.  Woo girls are inspiring.  It takes a real woo girl to have her problems and set them aside to make a difference.  Woo girls have extreme confidence.

10.  Woo girls are awesome.  Woo girls are hardly bimbos, woo girls are awesome.

 

These are the real reasons the world needs woo girls.  I told you it was bigger than tiny cowboy hats.

The Ultimate Bucket List Sweep

So, I was talking to Steph today because she just got back from visiting Arizona and I sent her an adorable picture of Blake, Cameron, and I in which I may or may not have flashed a gangster peace sign and did a duck face….

I totally did a duck face.

Admittedly, I only do the duck face when I’m sending stupid picture messages to my friends, otherwise a duck face on my face will never see the light of day.

But anyway, I sent her that picture with the tag line “We miss you!!” because we all pretty much hang out every weekend these days and she was not there this past weekend, so missing her was completely valid.

Fun fact:  I hung out with six engineers, an engineering girlfriend, and my sometimes nerdy (more than me, less than all of those engineers) friend Seth this weekend.  I’m always the least nerdy, but it was painfully obvious this time…  Because there were more people/engineers (the words are pretty interchangeable in this case).

Anyway, Steph and I started talking about my bucket list and how Blake has been making fun of it because he has been a whiny, mopey butthead as of late and apparently I am the prime target for his backlash.

I really didn’t call him a sexless innkeeper, but I should have!  (I have been watching too much HIMYM recently…)

Anyway, Steph went over my bucket list and said it was fairly awesome (I agree).

And then we hatched the ultimate bucket list sweep.

A road trip (#10) to Vegas (#18) where we do something in Utah and Nevada (2/4 on #2… also we are going to Vegas, so I don’t see how we wouldn’t do something in Nevada, but I digress…)!  One of my friends also suggested looping back through Arizona and New Mexico, but that sounds like a two week excursion…

Okay, I just googled it (I do a lot of googling, you all just don’t see it) and it only takes half a day (give or take) to get to Vegas.  Why have we not done this?

I am in full support of the bucket list sweep.  Vegas or bust!  (Steph would rather fly though, because she is not as hardcore as I am.)

Musings from a Woo Girl

So, if you’ve been keeping up with me lately, you know I devoted myself to completing twenty-four things before age twenty-four (and one to grow on).  Many of these things are super cheesy (like beating old Brody at scrabble or watching Titanic sixteen more times), but some of them are pretty legitimate (conquering my fear of horses by riding one or being in the 95th percentile with the GRE).  I’ve made strides in completing my bucket list by trying to get my friends in on my goals for the year, as well as getting them to start their own lists.  Kind of like doing “The Biggest Loser” together, but with year bucket lists.  I think having a bucket list support team is an awesome idea, plus, I know some of my friends can help me with my items (it’s been Larissa’s dream to get me on a horse for years, and we did talk about it at the Stock Show, but I’ll tell you about that once I’ve gotten on a horse).

There’s one item I want to talk about in particular:

22.  Embrace being a woo girl.

I started a blog to document my woo girl musings.  I won’t tell you its exact name yet, because I am not ready to launch it, but I wanted some thoughts on how I should run it.

Why start a new blog?  Well, I wanted to be able to document my embracing of woo girlism, but I do not necessarily think this blog is the place to do that.  This blog is about my time as a Post-Grad as I search for a job, get back to my life plan, grow as a young twenty something, find love, and, yes, embrace being a woo girl.  But being a woo girl is just one of those things (number twenty-two on a year list), so I don’t think this blog is the place to document it fully.

Also, I think documenting my time as a woo girl goes in direct opposition of this blog.  I try to maintain a level of anonymity on this blog.  I won’t directly name my alma mater (though with enough thought, it’s probably easy to figure out), I won’t name my sorority (though I’ve named other sororities and fraternities, so you could probably narrow it down), I do tell you I’m from around Denver (but not my exact location), I’ve renamed all my friends (sorry), and me (sorry again).  The good news here, though, is I have a lot of things I can tell you that you wouldn’t hear otherwise if I kept my name or my friends’ names.

By documenting my time as a woo girl, there are so many things I want to tell you all about.  I would keep some anonymity with names and the alma mater and all the things I try to give an air of mystery to here.  On the other hand, I want to give readers an appropriate view of my embracing woo girlism.  Which bars in Denver are awesome?  Tasty restaurants?  The things in town that must be done?  Interesting fun things that are really local?

On this blog, I give bars nicknames.  I called a bar “CougarTown” once and even admitted in that particular post that “the bar’s not really named ‘CougarTown’, but I wish it was.”  But if I really like a bar (or don’t), I want to be able to say that said bar is or is not worth your time in Denver (or the surrounding area).  I do go to enough bars and restaurants in the area (and have friends from all over), that if I don’t make my bar/restaurant reviews in line with my weekends (or if I document my stories a bit after the fact), that I may be able to retain my same level of anonymity…  But I don’t really know.

The blog will of course feature some of the more woo girl thoughts I’ve had on here (stories of weekends, men met in bars, dedications of love to Halloween…  and mardi gras and cinco di mayo are coming up as well), but with a more woo girl twist on here.  I generally tend to focus more on my friends here and less on the events, so you’d get similar musings, but with more anonymous detail, I suppose.

But back to the bar/restaurant recommendations…

I’ll take a story I posted on here once to explain some of the idea I have for my woo girlism blog. (I’ll still use my fake names, sorry)

Originally from “Girls (and Guys) I’m Positive!”:

Readers,

I recently went out with some friends in the alma mater area.  I want to talk about some of the places we visited.

The Sea Lion

Location: alma mater

Local crowd:  Young twenty-somethings, mostly college students (especially Greeks)

Is this the first trip?:  Oh hardly…

What’s awesome?:

• The bartenders and waitstaff rock!
• The drinks are reasonably priced.
• They even have specials on their non-wells every now and again (non-well for well-pricing, awesome).
• All wells are glass bottles.  (You wouldn’t think this is important to say, but sometimes, it really is.)
• Fishbowls
• The atmosphere is amazing.
• Dance floor (with fan).
• Great music.
• Clean bathrooms!
• Air hockey.
• Peanuts.
• Open floor plan.
• Close to parking (street and garage) and taxi pick up area.
• Close to other bars.

What’s not so awesome?:

• There are only three booths, so the later you get there (or the less lucky you are) the more limited seating is.
• Can get really crowded!  (which can be awesome)
• Wait lines for drinks are often long.
• Smaller dance floor (spills into bar area).
• Fairly loud.
• Built slightly under street level (so there are stairs, but they’re short stairs)
• Peanuts.

Who should you go with? (for maximum fun):  Your female friends in any size group or a large group of mixed sex (unless everyone in said group is prone to fun).

Local brews on tap?:  Absolutely.

What should you drink?:  Blue raspberry fishbowls (requires at least two people, but no more than four or five)

Chance of injury:  Depends on the time of night, but most people I know have fallen in at least once.

Major Woo Girl Categories:

Drinks: 

The wait time for a drink can be long, but the staff is great and you will love your drink once you have it.

Dancing: 

The floor can get crowded, so you may be shoved into a corner, but there is a fan and the music is great.

Fun: 

You will find something fun to do here unless you do not like crowded bars.

Patrons: 

The people are pretty awesome, but I have met some tools here in the past…  Definitely be aware of the crowd before you go in, especially if you don’t like crowded bars.

Facility: 

Can be crowded, but the floor plan works (except near the bar) and the bathrooms are kept fairly clean.  Good and awesome bouncers and staff.

Overall Score: 

From an objective point of view, The Sea Lion gets four pink cowboy hats because the male patrons aren’t always great, it can get crowded, and there may be a wait time for the bar.

Deidree’s personal rating: 

On the other hand, this is one of my favorite bars in the area and I always go to it in town, so this woo girl gives it five woos and a personal recommendation (age appropriately of course, you will not have fun here if you are much older than the local crowd, unless you are an alumni on a game day…  Then party on.).

The Sea Lion receives a sparkly cowboy hat for its efforts to cater to woo girls everywhere. 

Signing off with a Woo!!

Deidree

So, thoughts?

Quality Never Goes Out of Style, We Call It Tradition

You all know how I feel about traditions, mainly that it’s something we should value unquestionably.  Tradition makes us who we are and ties us to where we came from regardless of if it’s a tradition like a phrase or a song, or something like an activity.  Traditions are how we teach those after us how to become a part of our histories and help to create meaningful connections.

My alma mater has many traditions that we hold dear, and we’re not the most football school at the moment (hopefully that improves next year).  As far as football goes, we pale in comparison to the South.

In the South, football is king.

And a tradition I always liked down there was Auburn’s papering of their trees after a victory.  On first glance in this picture, it almost looks like snow–it’s that papered.

I don’t know if you’ve heard, but the Oaks have been poisoned.  The man responsible has been arrested, but the damage could be too severe to save the Oaks, or the land they stand on.  Auburn has formed a task force of experts who will determine the best course of action to preserve the historic trees.  Soil removal begins early next week.

Anyway, here are some links regarding this travesty:

Radio Podcast in Which Tree Poisoner Outs Himself (by name)

Man Arrested for Poisoning Auburn’s Oaks

Man Appears in Court for Poisoning Toomer’s Corner Oaks

Tide for Toomer’s

Fans Plan “Toomer’s Tree Hug”

For more information on the Oaks, straight from Auburn as it becomes available, you can go to their media page about the Oaks here.

I know many of you may be thinking that they’re just trees, but the Oaks are a prime example of synecdoche for the tradition.  The trees are important, of course (they’re beautiful), but it’s most important for the tradition they stand for.

Twenty-four Things to Do Before Age Twenty-four (part two)

So I left you all hanging a couple of days ago when I started listing things I wanted to do before age twenty-four and I hit a blank during my lunch break and only got to fifteen.  Which only makes me nine short, but still nine short.

So, here are the next nine.  Apologies for not getting them out the first time.

 

16.  Ride a horse.  I have been terrified of horses since a friend’s bad experience in third grade and have not been on (or very close) to one since.  I would like to conquer this fear and get on one at some point during this year.

17.  Get back into dance.  I really miss my dance classes.  The nice thing about dancing is that even if you’re really depressed, upset, or angry, you can dance and forget about it for a while.  I’d especially like to get back into ballet if I can.

18.  Go gambling and win.  I could also put “win the lottery” here, but I’m trying to be realistic.  So I’d like to gamble and win at least a little money.

19.  Be a model.  I just think it would be fun.

20.  Meet a nice guy in a bar.  All of my friends say it can’t be done.  I want to prove them wrong.  Who knows, maybe I’ll find him in my new dream bar.

21.  Host a dinner party.  Dinner parties are awesome and classy.  I like being a hostess and I could showcase my newly found cooking talents.

22.  Embrace being a woo girl.  I’ve been kind of down lately (I blame Valentine’s Day), so instead of getting down, I’m focusing on my attitude.  I know a woo is often a sign of sadness, but I am going to perk myself right up…  And wear a tiny cowboy hat.  (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you should probably watch this.)

22a.  Ride a mechanical bull without falling off in two seconds.  This is important to me…  Because I’m bad at it.  Training for riding a horse?

23.  Complete at least 3/4 of NaNoWriMo.  I got a bit over 1/4 of the way last time, so this November, I want to try again and complete it.  Go 50,000 words.  But, definitely at least 3/4 of the way, because it’s twice as much as this year.

24.  Volunteer.  I’ve been so concerned about myself lately that I think I’ve lost sight of what’s really important to me…  Which sounds weird, but it totally makes sense to me.

And here’s one to grow on:

25.  Get back into being Greek.  This is a huge part of my life that I feel like I’m neglecting as well.