Easter: a new entry
Wow, it has been incredibly long since I last posted, especially anything of substance. But I had a good weekend, and I thought I'd fill people in on it.
Got home friday, fairly early in the afternoon. It would have been really nice to have friday off completely (I mean, it was good friday. Not that I'm Christian, but days off from school get a thumbs up from me) and get back thursday, but as it was all classes ended at noon, giving me (whee!) one less hour on campus than a regular friday. Oh well. But yeah, got home and rested a bit before Lauren came over and we hung out for a while. Had dinner with my parents out at Cottage Inn (the restaurant than inspired the pizza chain, not just a pizza place) which was nice. I really like how well my parents get along with my girlfriend.
Anyway, we came back and Lauren and I watched An American Tale since Lauren decided that if I didn't really remember it from whenever I saw it as a kid then I had to watch it again (plus I had forgotten to bring home any Farscape episodes to watch). It was enjoyable, and I kinda understand the sentiment. I mean, I was flabbergasted that she had never seen the original Star Wars trilogy when we first started dating. We fixed that pretty quickly. But yeah, finished watching the movie and then played Pinochle with my parents (something we've taken to doing as the four of us) and then when they went to bed, Lauren and I went over to her apartment and followed suit. It's just nice to be there with her, and get to fall asleep and wake up beside her, holding her in my arms. ♥
So, next morning we woke up, cuddled for far longer than we meant to (what a surprise) and then I left for a few hours so she could get some work done. I, of course, hung out with Chris instead. So we played Smash Bros. (original, not Melee, it's much better) and chess, as usual. Of course, I was due at Lauren's mom's house (since I had been invited over for dinner and cards) at 6 so I tried to rush through the chess game. Bad idea. I played awfully and we still had to copy it down to a piece of paper to finish later. So yeah, over to Lauren's mom's house for a wonderful dinner and then cards with her mom and her boyfriend, and then the grandparents. It amused me: three generations of women, and their men.
The card game is called Shanghai and it's a lot of fun. This weekend was only my second time playing it. It's kind of like rummy in that you put down runs or books to try to get rid of all of your cards and not get stuck with points at the end of a hand. It's played with multiple decks though, and there are a lot of different rules also. But I won 3 of the 6 hands in the first game we played and still managed to come in second to last, and then almost got second the second time (with only one win) until the last hand when I got bumped far into third. Lauren's grandfather was just too lucky that time.
Today was kind of more of the same. Got up late, dealt with some stuff at home. Went over to Lauren's to play cards again (same game, but with more of the extended family this time). However, the first hand (usually one of the shortest) took a long time, and then we realized that the reason everyone had a lot of face cards was because a pinochle deck had gotten shuffled in. At that point, I decided that I really couldn't stay around for the whole game, so I went home and (surprise!) hung out with Chris. Finished that chess game, which I not surprisingly lost, but I beat him in the rematch. He had dinner with my family, our Easter traditional calzonies (made with bread dough shaped into a pocket and then baked with spinach and cheese inside them). And now I'm back here. About to head off to what I think is my final eboard meeting ever for Phi Mu Alpha, since we just had elections and are transitioning this week. Good stuff. And of course I got no homework done all weekend.
So yeah. Sorry for the long play-by-play since I know that can get annoying and you probably don't care all that much. But I suppose I just really enjoyed my weekend, and I wanted everyone who still reads this after the long period of inactivity to know that I'm still alive, and in general am happy. So, I suppose in summary for those of you who I don't keep in contact with as much as I should:
I've been dating an amazing lady for almost 10 months, and she enjoys spending time with my family and I do with hers. I have tickets to see Wicked with her in Chicago for our one-year. I still get to see my other friends. School is going as well as school can go, and the summer is coming. I'm going on a 9-day choir tour of England after school gets out (remind anyone of 4 years ago?) and then will be doing research here at Albion for the summer. Then for the fall I'm heading down to Oak Ridge National Laboratory to do more, different research (and again get paid, but also get class credit). And then... who knows. One more semester here and off to grad school somewhere.
Got home friday, fairly early in the afternoon. It would have been really nice to have friday off completely (I mean, it was good friday. Not that I'm Christian, but days off from school get a thumbs up from me) and get back thursday, but as it was all classes ended at noon, giving me (whee!) one less hour on campus than a regular friday. Oh well. But yeah, got home and rested a bit before Lauren came over and we hung out for a while. Had dinner with my parents out at Cottage Inn (the restaurant than inspired the pizza chain, not just a pizza place) which was nice. I really like how well my parents get along with my girlfriend.
Anyway, we came back and Lauren and I watched An American Tale since Lauren decided that if I didn't really remember it from whenever I saw it as a kid then I had to watch it again (plus I had forgotten to bring home any Farscape episodes to watch). It was enjoyable, and I kinda understand the sentiment. I mean, I was flabbergasted that she had never seen the original Star Wars trilogy when we first started dating. We fixed that pretty quickly. But yeah, finished watching the movie and then played Pinochle with my parents (something we've taken to doing as the four of us) and then when they went to bed, Lauren and I went over to her apartment and followed suit. It's just nice to be there with her, and get to fall asleep and wake up beside her, holding her in my arms. ♥
So, next morning we woke up, cuddled for far longer than we meant to (what a surprise) and then I left for a few hours so she could get some work done. I, of course, hung out with Chris instead. So we played Smash Bros. (original, not Melee, it's much better) and chess, as usual. Of course, I was due at Lauren's mom's house (since I had been invited over for dinner and cards) at 6 so I tried to rush through the chess game. Bad idea. I played awfully and we still had to copy it down to a piece of paper to finish later. So yeah, over to Lauren's mom's house for a wonderful dinner and then cards with her mom and her boyfriend, and then the grandparents. It amused me: three generations of women, and their men.
The card game is called Shanghai and it's a lot of fun. This weekend was only my second time playing it. It's kind of like rummy in that you put down runs or books to try to get rid of all of your cards and not get stuck with points at the end of a hand. It's played with multiple decks though, and there are a lot of different rules also. But I won 3 of the 6 hands in the first game we played and still managed to come in second to last, and then almost got second the second time (with only one win) until the last hand when I got bumped far into third. Lauren's grandfather was just too lucky that time.
Today was kind of more of the same. Got up late, dealt with some stuff at home. Went over to Lauren's to play cards again (same game, but with more of the extended family this time). However, the first hand (usually one of the shortest) took a long time, and then we realized that the reason everyone had a lot of face cards was because a pinochle deck had gotten shuffled in. At that point, I decided that I really couldn't stay around for the whole game, so I went home and (surprise!) hung out with Chris. Finished that chess game, which I not surprisingly lost, but I beat him in the rematch. He had dinner with my family, our Easter traditional calzonies (made with bread dough shaped into a pocket and then baked with spinach and cheese inside them). And now I'm back here. About to head off to what I think is my final eboard meeting ever for Phi Mu Alpha, since we just had elections and are transitioning this week. Good stuff. And of course I got no homework done all weekend.
So yeah. Sorry for the long play-by-play since I know that can get annoying and you probably don't care all that much. But I suppose I just really enjoyed my weekend, and I wanted everyone who still reads this after the long period of inactivity to know that I'm still alive, and in general am happy. So, I suppose in summary for those of you who I don't keep in contact with as much as I should:
I've been dating an amazing lady for almost 10 months, and she enjoys spending time with my family and I do with hers. I have tickets to see Wicked with her in Chicago for our one-year. I still get to see my other friends. School is going as well as school can go, and the summer is coming. I'm going on a 9-day choir tour of England after school gets out (remind anyone of 4 years ago?) and then will be doing research here at Albion for the summer. Then for the fall I'm heading down to Oak Ridge National Laboratory to do more, different research (and again get paid, but also get class credit). And then... who knows. One more semester here and off to grad school somewhere.