The One with the Old Mountain Jug

To start off this post, here is a random fact: My roomate is ginger yet is allergic to carrots. I find that this gives me hours of amusement and is very ironic.

So, the reason why I haven't blogged in so long is because I have been SUPER busy with papers to write before Thanksgiving. My mother accused me of not blogging, so therefore to make her happy I will blog at half past seven in the morning when my eyes are still half closed and i really feel like jumping back into bed...

This week was the gig I have been excited about for quite a few weeks now - Anberlin, All American Rejects and Taking Back Sunday. It was doors at seven, so I dropped my stuff off in Becca's room, and then Becca, Marcella and I headed to the dining hall. We met Evelien, Riina, Emma, Lena and Maria there, had some food, then headed to the Convocation Center (about five minutes walk down Rivers Street). We had to wait in a line but it didn't take that long to get in. You have to have bags searched but not many of us brought bags luckily so we got in pretty quickly. We went to the restrooms then headed down to the floor (we had standing tickets). We got a space quite close to the front on the right side (stage left i guess), and stood around until eight when Anberlin came on. They were ok, they got the crowd going quite well but they were a but too heavy for my taste. It was good just to hear live music again though :)

The All American Rejects came on after a half hour break, and they came on in a very dramatic fashion. The lead singer was wearing black, tight glittery jeans and he was topless, but he had a design painted on his chest and back in glitter which looked very cool under the lights. They played all of their most popular singles, plus a few old ones and a couple off their newest album. It was a really good show - I think the singer was on more than adrenaline though, he looked crazed and was talking crazy talk. He called us his "little apples" because we're APPALachian state.... anyway, it was an awesome set and everyone was really loving it.

Taking Back Sunday were on last, and the singer is from Greensboro, North Carolina so I guess they were the favourites because they were kind of local. Their set was OK but I wasn't really familiar with any of their songs. There were loads of empty seats and space on the floor which I was surprised about, considering the tickets were only $20 I thought there would have been more people there... but it was still a very enjoyable show. After the gig we walked home, and ordered food in Becca's room. Her roomate is obsessed with the show Golden Girls, so we were subjected to that for a bit. I then left and walked up to the library to do some work, where I stayed until 7.30 in the morning.

At 12.15 the next day, having overslept because we had cinema tickets for the 1.00 showing of New Moon, I had to get dressed super fast and run up the hill to the bus stop. I got there in plenty of time though so it was all good. Becca, Marcella and I were very impressed by the film. It was such an improvement on the first one, and eveyrthing about it was better. At American cinemas apparently it is the common custom to clap at the end of films... strange if you ask me - it's not like it's a play and the actors can hear you...

This Saturday was the last scheduled home game for the Mountaineers. We had food in Trivette hall, then headed up to the stadium. We got seats right in the middle section, so it was a really good view. The atmosphere in the student section is always mental, everyone stands on the bleachers and most people are drunk :) It's all good fun though. It was only the second time I have stayed the entire game, because for some reason this game seemed to go quicker than usual - only 2.5 hours as opposed to 3/4 sometimes. We won the Battle for the Old Mountain Jug (a historic game between us and Western Carolina which is played every year.) The winning team gets a "jug" decorated with both team's mascots and logos on. It was a really good atmosphere at the end when we won :)

These past few days I've been trying to finish papers so I can have a stress-free Thanksgiving break. We're going on a little road trip, to Columbia SC first, then to Charleston, Myrtle Beach and Wilmington NC. I am most excited about Wilmington because we're going to visit some of the locations where One Tree Hill is filmed :D eeeeeeeeee!!!!!!! I'm really excited!

The One with the End of Fall

This past week or so has been quite an eventful one. School was boring, just the usual stuff, plus I had an exam on tuesday in US-Latin American Relations. I think it went ok, will get the results back tomorrow.

The lead-up to Halloween has been crazy but quite fun. Walmart has had decorations up pretty much since we got here in the middle of August, then there was a period where they had both christmas stuff and halloween stuff, now i'm sure as I write this they are decorating the entire store with enough tinsel and fake snow to cover the entire state of North Carolina. If there's one thing America know how to do well it's commercialism. I've enjoyed celebrating Halloween in America though, just to see how crazy they really do go. I'm looking forward to the run-up to Thanksgiving and Christmas, mostly Thanksgiving because we don't really celebrate that in England. They don't have bonfire night here which is extremely sad, but they have their fireworks on the 4th of July...

Anyway, so on Wednesday, Meagan and I got 'booed'. This is not what it sounds like. People did not boo us in the literal sense of shouting booooo at us, apparently 'booing' here is different. It involves leaving two Halloween treats outside two doors in your dorm, and leaving a note on their door saying 'we've been booed' and also a note with the treat detailing instructions on how to 'boo' two more people. We got left a little Halloween basket filled with candy, so we made our own, which I artfully coloured in, and filled them with candy, and left them outside two more doors. The goal is to boo everyone in the dorm by the end, and the LLC had quite a few by Saturday :)

For my Popular Culture class we had to sign up to help with the kids in the community center and the library for Halloween, so on Saturday I headed out to the Watauga County Public Library. It was the 10th annual 'Boone Boo', where kids from the local area dress up and come with their parents to downtown Boone and do lots of fun Halloween activities. We started in the library making crafts (including dangly monsters, pumpkins and bats, all with googly eyes). The kids had fun and we had fun helping them and handing out candy from purple pumpkin baskets. Costumes here included twin boys dressed as dragons, twin girls dressed as cats, spider girl, Jack and Sally from the Nightmare Before Christmas and a scarecrow (the father) carrying around their baby who they had dressed as a hot dog (mildly disturbing). My witch hat kept falling off but it was fine, as long as I didn't wear it ouside because of the wind. The other girl from our class who was there (also called Holly) had a much more creative costume - a Sun-Maid raisin box. There were meant to be more people from our class there but everyone else bailed (however we got extra credit, so they missed out there). After clearing up the path of destruction the kids had left (it was like a whirlwind had hit a crayon factory) we headed over to the community center which was set up like a haunted house, with a maze going through with spooky noises and a ghost that jumped out at you. Some of the kids were quite scared, but only one kid cried and that was in the library, for about two seconds until we distracted him with a pumpkin. We cleared up all the decorations and put them in the attic, then Holly gave me a ride home.

I had a rest and did some more revision whilst watching Halloween TV with Meagan, then she headed out to a party at seven. Mine didn't start until ten, so I hung out until quarter to ten when we got picked up by Alaine and Michael. They took us to Alaine's apartment where the party was, and we had a really good time with jell-o shots and good music. It got a bit crazy because there were lots of people in a very small space, but it was a really good night. Costumes at this party included scary clown, Audrey Hepburn, Grecian goddess, gangsters, Amy Winehouse, Indiana Jones and Juno (pregnant teenager from famous movie of the same name). Emily gave us rides back to our dorms at around 3am. I was so tired that I just collapsed into bed and slept until twelve (actually eleven because the clocks went back - this confused me immensely for a while).

Apparently Fall has now officially ended (even though it hasn't) but according to the town planners it has, because the signs that said 'Fall in love with Boone' which were up on every lamppost in town have now been replaced with a sparkly snowflake light on every lamppost. Whilst they are very pretty, i can't help but feel sorry for Fall, because technically it should get an extra month before its decorations get taken down. Oh well, pretty snowflake lights it is then :)

This week I have two exams and a paper to write where I have to find a Latin American immigrant and interview them. I have yet to find said immigrant, so that should be fun...