Wednesday, September 28, 2005

Word to Your Mother

This blog is going to be mostly shout outs, because I never do that, but they will be intertwined with my characteristically funny anecdotes, so keep reading.

My first shout out goes to Dave Wartko and Brian Fair, even though neither of you read my blog, mainly because you are fools. In any case, the reason I am shouting out to them is because Brian went home this past weekend to celebrate his mother's 50th birthday. He brought back with him a Swensons double cheeseburger. (For all of you non-Akron area dwellers who do not know what Swensons is: simply put, it is the best hamburger place in the world. No joke. I'm addicted. They must put crack in the patties.) Brian gave the blessed burger to Dave, who so very generously split it with me. Even though the cheeseburger has been through a 5 hour car ride and 2 days in Dave's fridge, it still tasted like heaven on a bun. It was amazing. So thank, Brian and Dave, for sharing that most scrumptious, delectable, wonderful hamburger with me.

Next up on the shout-out list is Tim Adkins, because he reads my blog. Tim, I've been enjoying our chats as of late. I miss you and our lunch time chatter!

Another shout out goes to my Dad because his birthday is tomorrow (Sept. 29). He doesn't read this blog either, but I thought I should put that in there. For my Dad's birthday, I picked out a sweatshirt from the ND bookstore Web site and had my Mom order it. This was good, but seemed a bit impersonal. So I made him a delightful card that says "I wish I could be there for your birthday, but alas, I am out here in Indiana under the Golden Dome. So I got some of my Notre Dame friends to wish you a happy birthday!" I then proceeded to copy and past pictures of famous ND things from the Internet, such as the Dome, saying "Enjoy your golden years!" and Regis Philbin saying "You look like a million bucks!" I'm so creative. Even after the card, the gift still didn't feel quite right. So what do I do? I steal a soup spoon from the North Dining Hall, tie a green ribbon around it, and stick it in the envelope. The funny thing is, my Dad will absolutely love it.

I'd also like to give a shout out to everyone who poses nude/half-nude in their facebook picture. Actually, I don't want to shout out to you. I want to shout AT you. Put some clothes on, you freakin' floozies!!! A certain redneck from Suffield has an especially disturbing facebook picture. He was completely naked (ew) with only a cowboy hat covering his privates. (It was a small cowboy hat). My good friend Amelia told me about it and as soon as I saw the hideous image, I wanted to poke out my eyes and vomit. If you get the chance, I suggest you check out this picture, just so you know what NOT to do in facebook, though I'm sure the awesome people who read this blog wear clothes, not cowboy hats. (By the way, if you're really itching to see the naked cowboy's picture, his name starts with a T and ends with a J Gaydos.)

Another shout-out goes to Metzger, because she loves pirates. I also love pirates. A pirate could kick a ninjas butt any day of the week. That's the end of this shout out.

Next and final shout out goes to (suspense creating drumroll)...................................................
ASIAN CHICK! She's back! Your life feels whole again, now, doesn't it? Admit it, you missed Asian Chick's crazy antics. Actually, she has not been in class lately, and this has been dissapointing. But the last time I saw her, she was wearing a Notre Dame sweatshirt. Now, I may be reading too much into this, but the back of the shirt said "Lucky Since 1998." I'm assuming it was in the year 1998 that she became a lady of the night and thus began her prostitution business. Perhaps she runs an entire brothel called "Luck" and they were founded in 1998, thus their slogan is "Lucky Since 1998." This is only my assumption, but based on her past work uniforms, oops, I mean outfits, I don't find it too farfetched.

Well, that's all for the shout-outs. Don't feel bad if I left you out. It's probably only because I don't like you or you don't write comments on my blog. Speaking of comments, it has come to my attention that some people do not know how to write comments on my blog. You simply click on the thing that says "# comments" (sadly, that number is usually 0) and a little box will pop up in which you type your witty, admiring comments. And don't be anonymous. That's just frustrating and guess work is not my strong suit. Oh, I almost forgot! No one answered the question from my last blog correctly! No one even attempted! (Except Laurell Marshall, who always comments and is just freakin' awesome. Shout out to Laurel!) This isn't a riddle, it's an actual fact! I will repeat the question here and you all should keep on guessing. What inatimate household object doubles in weight after 10 years of ownership?

Friday, September 23, 2005

Charlie is my Home Boy

As some of you may have gathered from my blogs, and if your lucky to know me well enough, my phone calls, I'm having a great time at Notre Dame despite my apprehensions all throughout the summer. However, I didn't really fall in love with this place until the first home football game. Notre Dame really does have the best school spirit and the best student section in the world. Now, I'm not a big football fan. I just learned what a first down is. But the excitement of the game just catches you up. It's unavoidable, and I love it. Last Saturday, the morning of the first home game, one of the boys' dorms (Zahm) came outside my dorm (P.E.) at 5:00 a.m. yelling "Wake up PE!" which was very effective in waking me up. At 7:30, I was re-awakened by the upperclassmen banging on my door and yelling "Get up freshmen or we'll get the master key and drag you out of bed!" That was not an empty promise. From there we practiced the cheers for the game (I freakin' love the Irish jig) and then got ready for the game. Campus was all a-buzz. Yes, that sounds corny and cliche, but it is oh-so true. People were everywhere in green, gold, and blue selling hot dogs, shouting cheers, watching the band, etc. The frosh of 6A (my dorm section) have started a new tradition of sock decorating before the game, meaning we take white knee-socks and decorate them with magic markers.
The game itself was amazing. It was quite the emotional roller-coaster, with Notre Dame being down three touchdowns, but coming back just in time to tie the game up and bring it into overtime. The student section is so exciting and I have never yelled so much in my life. At every ND touchdown, small groups of people lift one person up to do pushups as many times as the score. Now I know where Hoban got that tradition from. Looking across the student section and seeing so many people being thrown up in the air is awesome. Overtime was nervewracking and ended in a heartbreaking loss for ND. That was seriously the most heartbreaking sporting event I have ever witnessed. Again, I'm not a hardcore football fan or anything, but I was deeply affected by this game. The whole campus was somber the rest of the night and my friends and I basically went back to the dorm after the candlelight dinner and went to bed. It was that depressing. However, the Notre Dame spirit prevailed after the lost with a cheer of "We Are ND."
What's also amazing is how much the students love our football coach, Charlie Weis. They are even wearing shirts that say "Charlie's Angels: Putting the Nasty back in Dynasty" or "Charlie is my Home Boy" in the same style as the "Jesus is my Home Boy" shirts.
Regis Philbin was at the game and on Monday, I watched the beginning of Live! with Regis and Kelly and Regis spent a decent amount of time talking about Notre Dame and showing his personal pictures of him at the campus (i.e. Regis praying at the grotto, Regis at the dome, Regis saying hi to a duck at the lake). Does Regis ever talk about your school? I didn't think so. I win.
Enough about football. I wish I could give you an update on Asian chick, but she has become very uninteresting. But here is my latest dillemma:
My jeans got stolen. I am so incredibly upset. They were my favorite pair of Gap jeans. I left them in the laundry room to dry, as I have done many times before and as everyone else does. But when I went to get my jeans after dorm Mass on Sunday, they were gone. I immediately made "Lost Jeans" signs on my computer and taped them up around the dorm. So far, no one has given them back. I was going to send out a dorm-wide e-mail asking people to check and make sure they don't have my jeans, but my dear boxing buddy Angela brought me back to my denim realty and said "You know, if someone stole them, they're not going to give them back." Fooey. I have to go shopping now and that takes so much planning and time to get a bus.
NDTV, the student run television channel, has a show called "The Mike Peterson Show" and it's like a combination of Conan O'Brian and Saturday Night Live. I interviewed to be a writer for the show and I got in (yessss!). This made me think that I should perhaps change my role model from Katie Couric to Tina Fey, but that is beside the point. I went to the first writer's meeting in Washington Hall and was locked out of the building. I was pacing outside the building trying to figure out what to do until someone came along and opened a door that I hadn't even noticed. I go to the meeting, where I am one the only girls. At first, I thought this might be good, being among all these boys and me being single and in a boy-meeting slump (meaning I met a ton of boys frosh-o weekend but then all at once I stopped meeting them and am stuck with only a couple numbers and none of them connecting me to really attractive men, though there a lot of those on campus). However, I forgot to realize that most of the boys who are involved with television and writing are theater people, meaning they are either crazy or gay. This was fine, though, because I had been getting worried that I would have no crazy or gay friends on campus, given the conservative feel of it. I should have known that all I need to do is join a theater group.
Anyway, during the meeting, many ideas were tossed out there. Some of them were funny, some of them not so much. There was this one kid who had a plethora of over-the-line ideas. Everything that came out of this kid's mouth was violent/sexual/innapropriate/totally creepy. He was pretty creepy looking, too. He reminds me of the lead singer of the Crash Tests Dummies (They sang that Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm song). I'll be sure to stay away from him. On the plus side, my idea got picked and I get to act in it! Hooray! I would tell you the idea, but it doesn't really make sense in writing and if you don't go to Notre Dame. All I'm telling you is that I play a really obnoxious girl in the audience who shouts random stuff.
So I go to the filming for the Mike Peterson show at 2:00 because that's what time the e-mail said it was. I get there and everyone gives me really weird looks and I'm like "hey what's up?" and they're like "The filming isn't until 4:30" and I'm like "Oh, I thought the e-mail said 2:00" and they say "That was about yesterday's filming" I feel dumb and leave. I come back at 4:30 and get dressed in my "costume" which consists of "The Shirt", green athletic shorts, knee-high yellow socks, my turquoise Roo shoes and a side-ways baseball cap--basically what I wore for the football game (minus the cap). Right before the segment where I actually talk, the sound girl came and attatched a microphone to me. That was akward, considering she had to clip it onto the back of my pants. You get to know someone really fast when they have to clip something on your pants. So my scene comes on and I give my lines (which are actually a bunch of shouted ad-libs). After that my 30 seconds of stardom are over, I realize that every time I shout I close my eyes, giving my face a very strange expression, probably not matching the scenario. I'll just have to see how it turns out and hope that people will laugh with me and not at me. Or if they laugh at me, I hope that don't know who I am.
One more story...At the Mike Peterson show, there is a musical guest. This week, he was a sophomore guitar player from O'Neil hall. He is gorgeous. I try to catch his eye before the show, and despite my bright display of green and gold, he doesn't look over. I begin to lose hope, but once he starts performing, he occasionally looks at me in the audience and smiles. Warm fuzzies abound. After the show, I get up to leave and notice he is at the doorway, looking my way and smiling. I smile back and head over to tell him I enjoyed his performance (when what I really mean is "I enjoy your physique and hair style and chizzled facial features"). Just as I'm about to reach him, the elderly woman who had been sitting behind me in the audience goes up to him and gives him a hug. It is his grandma. Again, I feel stupid and leave. I hope that's not going to be a theme for my participation at the MPS.
This blog is kind of stale. I'm really sorry. I'm trying to think of something witty to say, but I just can't. Am I possibly losing my MoJo? I sure hope not. Since I have failed to entertain you with my words, I will try to please you with my pictures. Check out my brand spankin' new photo bucket account. Just type in "elisey1987" at photobucket.com. It's some good stuff. I'll leave you all with a little trivia question: What inatimate object in your home doubles in weight in the first 10 years of owning it? Leave a comment and try to answer. If you get it right, I'll doing something very Notre Damish like light a candle at the Grotto for you.

Thursday, September 08, 2005

Million Dollar Baby

Warning: To fully understand and appreciate the first part of this blog entry, you must have read the last one. You should just read all of them because their freakin' awesome.

So I walk into Theology the other day, and I head towards my assigned seat (yes, we have assigned seats in that class. I sit in the back because I always get there late). As I walk in the door and look at my desk, I notice a puppy pencil case sitting on it. This could only mean one thing....Asian prostitute chick has taken my seat! She's supposed to sit two rows ahead of me! Did her stupid puppy thing get too heavy that she simply could not make it the extra 3 steps it would take to get to her own seat? Probably not. She's probably just crazy.

You're probably thinking, "Lay off the Asian chick. Taking your seat is not so bad." Alright, so it's not so bad. But listen to this. I walk into the women's lavatory (hee hee lavatory) before Italian class, not really paying attention to who else is in the bathroom. As I head into the stall, I see Asian Chick out of the corner of my eye. I literally did a double take, backed up, and craned my neck to make sure it was her, and indeed it was. This was exciting, seeing Asian Chick outside of theology class. What was even more exciting was what she was wearing. Her shirt was bright turqouise with the words "Half Naughty, Half Nice" emblazoned on it. Woah, hold the phone. I think this is confirmation that she is trying to send a somewhat scandalous message to the boys of ND. She also wore a baseball cap that said "Irish Girls" on the front and "best in the world" on the back. But she, however, being cool and trendy, turned her baseball cap backwards so one saw "Best in the World" and "Half Naughty, Half Nice" right away. These are probably descriptions of her services. Plus, no one would believe she is really Irish.

Since I had already seen and analyzed Asian Chick's outfit before Italian class, I was slightly bored in theology. This boredom led to me noticing that the kid who sits in front of me wears a different Jimmy Buffet shirt nearly everday. The know-it-all girl has now taken to talking without even raising her hand and just shouts over the professor. Everytime she speaks, the kid in front of me just shakes his Parrot Head. He probably wishes he was in Margaritaville.

Enough of Theology. Let's talk Italian! I wish I could say that last sentence in Italian, but I cannot. I know little useless phrases, but someday, I'll travel to Rome and be able to order gelato in the native tongue. Or I'll have a tour guide do it for me. Anyway, I have two different professors for Italian because I have the class 5 days a week. My Monday, Wednesday, Friday teacher is from Youngstown and is quite young himself. He's pretty cool, but every Monday, he asks how our weekend was and asks certain students how many beers they drank (all in Italian). And all we can answer back is "I drink two beers" or "The beer, it does not please me." Ah, literal translation. One day, this professor claimed he saw a student at a party (apparently he attends them, too) and tried to tell us she was drunk. Seeing no reaction from the students as we didn't know what "drunk" in Italian meant, he proceeded to staggar about the room until we understood and laughed at him. The Tuesday, Thursday proffessoressa is from some country near Italy and she doesn't speak much English. To compensate for this, she has devised certain noises to convey what she means. This all makes her seem very cartoonlike, until she walks past you and she reeks of cigarettes. Cartoons don't smoke.

I joined boxing club. Yeah, real boxing club. As in "float like a butterfly, sting like a bee." I tell people I joined boxing and they usually say "Oh, kickboxing! I did that!" and I have to say, "no, real boxing." It reminds me of when I told people I was going to Notre Dame and they say "Oh, in Cleveland? I got a full-ride there!" People are always underestimating me. Though, I do have to say, that if I were someone else, I wouldn't believe me either. Training for the first 2 weeks is 5 days a week, 2 hours a day. I woke up this morning and couldn't get out of bed because I was so sore. It feels good. I'm getting toned and I'm learning to box and I'm going to prove everyone who laughed at me wrong. There's no contact for the first month, but then we can choose whether or not we want to fight. They have a fight at the end of the season that other students actually buy tickets for to watch us fight. I hope I'm good enough to do that. So far, it seems like I'm doing ok, but the movements are kind of tough to get a hang of. The girls who run the program are seniors in the ROTC program. I call them ROTC Naziis. It's a rough workout (usually consisiting of running 1 mile, 400 jumping jacks, 50 push ups, 400 sit ups, lot of arm circles, etc.) but it's a good time. My neck and shoulders are going to be huge from those arm circles.

Well, I have effectively wasted time that I should have spent doing homework. That's all for now, kiddies! And post comments, you fools!