So tonight...

I went with four other people (Sarah, Alex, Jenn, and Courtney) to go see the shins in asheville. First of all, we almost died on the way there. It was actually quite awesome. Alex had just made some comment about hating semis, and this truck litterally starts coming into our lane when we were a good ways up on his side. The thing that made this bad was that we were in the very left lane on a bridge--literally no where to go. It was amazing that nothing happened. All I could do was watch the truck through the right windows and think to myself: hmmm that thing sure is close. wow, that's cool. I wonder what's going to happen. So yeah, that shook us up a bit and had us laughing nervously for about five minutes.

Then when we got there...
I met many of the people around me, so that was pretty cool. The opening act was definately interesting to say the least. They were called the Brunettes, and they had a whopping seven members including two tenor saxophones, a guitar, a bass, a banjo, a cello, drums, a triangle, wooden blocks, a clarinet, a trumpet, some weird piano kazoo thingy... the list goes on. (yes, they all played about fifty instruments.) They were sort of like a middle school band. Lots of clapping involved in the song. The girl who sang many of the songs was actually good though. I liked her voice. They had this song about mary-kate and ashley that involved wearing masks of the twins back in the Full House era... interesting. They also sang a song called "Holding Hands and Feeding Ducks."

Then the shins... well, I can't say I was honestly too impressed. The sound was really bad. Just a lot of noise--not too defined in my opinion. it was still fun, though. The guy with the long hair (and wearing a tie die shirt with a flannel shirt tied around his waste) was dancing pretty crazy in front of us... mixed feelings about this.

Went to waffle house afterwards. Listened to much 90's music in the car--we all sang along. It was great fun. Stopped at a gas station, some random guy payed for our gas, and then proceeded to talk to us for like 20 minutes. he was also quite interesting and intoxicated.

so yeah. It was a pretty good night all in all, I'd say. I enjoy road trips with people. Sometimes I wish we could do it just to do it.

I highly recommend

Dancing like crazy either by yourself or with your roommate. Just move around without thinking. it's quite nice. Think 80's songs, think big band songs, think middle school dance songs... there, you're on your way.

finally

I truly feel more content now than I have all year at Wake. It's strange. It really is indescribable... I just walked out of my last class in my FYS called Psychological Utopias. And let me say that there are times when I hated the class, and it seemed like a whole bunch of frustrating work with no real rewards, but looking back on it, I must say that I think it has been my favorite class at Wake so far. It was a real class, you know? Based almost entirely on the comments put out on the table by the 15 of us. We talked about so many issues--about life in general, the environment, other lifestyles, religion, determinism, ... the list goes on. I just felt like I learned so much from that class just through discussing the seven novels we read throughout the semester.

And here's the big moment:
As i walked out of the class room, I looked back, and my professor looked me in the eye and said, "take care." Now I know that sounds really simple, but I knew he actually meant it, and that's just so rare, you know? I felt it. I'm sorry I can't explain it much better. I wish we could all feel like this once and a while... just such a feeling of accomplishment and content and just real, honest sincerity. It was just amazing to me.

So the year is wrapping up--just one more day of classes. It's interesting really to look back on it all... but that's another entry waiting to happen.

Right now, I'm not even worried about my comm. paper that's due tomorrow that I haven't even started yet. (this is not necessarily a good thing, but there you have it.)

why is it...

that we feel like we're always supposed to be doing something? Sometimes don't you just want to sit and think or even just sit and stare at the wall. Even as I consider this, I think about time restrictions... you know what I mean. The "I simply don't have time to just sit around" or "sitting around is so unproductive," But is it really? I mean I think that slowing down and taking some time to just ponder life is good. It gives me a chance to try to sort things out and figure out what I like about my life and what I want to maybe work on. And sometimes it's just nice to ponder about random things such as wireless headphones for my i-pod (of the future), the possibility of banana juice, fruit flies, etc. I used to have this big chunk of time virtually every day when I would drive to and from school to just think or zone out or be still and reflect, but I've found that I have to almost fight for this time of solitude now. Sometimes I just want to go sit outside and watch people. So yeah, I'm all about the pondering of life. Some people may think that people who just sit around are lazy, but I think it's possible that they're doing grander things that simply reading a history text, etc. Some things can't be learned from a book.

I love how...

People hold the door open for everyone. It's just really nice.

Some examples:
-Walking up to Johnson, it's like this long line of people holding the door. The whole time I could see the front of Johnson, the door was held open by someone as the continual in and out flow occurred. I don't know... I just found that really cool.

-yesterday the same guy held the door open for me twice at different times and locations. it was nice.

it's just always nice when someone holds the door for you.

I don't know... maybe this appreciation derives from my southern roots or maybe I appreciate it so much because I didn't have access to any of the buildings for about a week when I lost my card and then was given a faulty one.

something else I want to do someday...

One of these days I'm going to go to a restaurant by myself (which isn't too unusual for say a Saturday afternoon really) and sit with a random person who also happens to be alone. Just think about how cool that could be. I mean it could potentially be construed as creepy, but I don't think I'm a very intimidating person, so I think I can get away with it. Really though, it'd be cool to just talk to someone new, you know? I was dissapointed... I went to Fazoli's (one of my favorite restaurants where I eat for just $2.99 every time--kid's ravioli with marinarra sauce and ulimited breadsticks), and I was actually going to do this, but will you believe it--no one was there alone! So yeah, some other time... it will happen. I mean if nothing else the person will have a funny story to tell their friends/family... yeah, some random girl sat at my table today and just started talking. You get the picture.