What have I been doing lately?
Tuesday
On Tuesday, I went to my last Romanian 101 class, where we played a nice game of hangman, did my entrevista oral en la clase de español and got out of class before the normal end time, and went and did some things in Downtown Phoenix. Then I came back to Tempe and had a hell of a time finding bread crumbs at Fry's, which I used in cooking meatloaf muffins, cheesy potatoes, and green beans for my small group Tuesday night. And the cool thing is that I pulled it off too! Now I've proven that I can successfully make a complete, respectable meal without having to rely on one-step microwavable foods or stuff like sandwiches that doesn't really require any cooking. Yay for my expanding culinary abilities!
Wednesday
Reading day was fun. I slept in pretty late, read The Stale Mess (I wrote the po-po beat, in case you were wondering.), and went kinda late to The State Press banquet, where I received the "That's How I Roll Award" for "getting all up in the popo's grill, shoveling the shizznit and pimpin' the beat." But I also got a serious city-desk award, Best News Story for my story about the letters making threats against Gene Smith that were received at ASU and Ohio State. That was pretty cool.
The original after-plans involved going to Rula Bula, where underagers like me are allowed in during the afternoon, but somehow the venue changed to McDuffy's, where the underage entry prospects were significantly dimmer. So after the banquet, I ended up going to Fashion Square with Katie, Jourdan, Ryan, and Nicole– who I dragged along because the primary mission of the trip was for Katie to go to Tiffany's to get a graduation present for, I think, her sister. But we had some fun and saw some puppies, and Nicole made the shoppers of Scottsdale a good five cents richer and divulged a pretty funny faux fantasy of hers.
Then it was time to pick up some stuff from the newsroom and head over to Wesley, where we did what has pretty much become the usual thing over the past couple of weeks. But then afterwards, Melanie, Beth, and I and then Brian, Beth, and I talked a lot about plans for the future of Wesley... and some other, "foofy" stuff too! :D
Thursday
Today, I got up, did laundry, did my thang on my Spanish exam, got Julio's for lunch, watched CMT while eating it, and then got ready for...
Lauren's wedding!!!
You know, it's a good thing I IMed Sarah Fullerton back in March to ask what week of SSP First Gilbert is going to this summer and also a good thing that I then came to the pseudo-party with Michelle because when I was there Lauren Greenberg asked me if I had gotten the invitation to her wedding yet in the mail. I hadn't, so she emailed me the date and time... which was good since the mailed invite never showed up at my house.
But yeah, the wedding was tonight, and it was so awesome. The wedding itself was at First Gilbert, and Matt and Gary led it (just like old times... hehe), and I got to say hi to a bunch of people I know over there. The ceremony was great, and yes, I'll admit that I almost cried a few times but there were also a couple moments where we were all laughing too.
Then, the reception was over at the Embassy Suites south of the 60 on Rural, where we had a little dinner and some (or lots in the case of some of us *cough cough Willow!* :D) fruit that had been put under a chocolate fountain. For the first dance, Lauren and Ward danced to the song during which he had proposed to her up at Mingus Mountain, "Cowboy Take Me Away," but then Tom (Yeah, that Tom!) played "Save a Horse (Ride a Cowboy)," which Lauren did— literally!
And of course there were some other great moments that can be summed up as such:
Bubbles!
Trying to open the bubbles
The groom-peeps' wardrobe changes
Kelsey: "I can't swing dance. Can you?"
Brian: "Nope. Wanna fake it?"
Kelsey: "OK!"
Spice Girls!
The napkin fire
The chicken dance makes it hot
Shoe kicking
Bettin' on Ashley: "She's got reach!"
Macarena madness
Yeah, but all in all, it was great to see Lauren and Wade get married because they're such a cute couple, and it was nice to see my Gilbert peeps again. Oh, and it was nice that, with it being Lauren's wedding, there was a lot of country music at the reception... and I've been on a country kick recently.
Back around the beginning of the semester, I put Phoenix's two country stations on my new car's radio— ending the official prohibition on my liking of country. But over the past week or so, I've been watching a lot of CMT (in part because they're the most likely to have music videos on at any given time... They don't have as many crappy reality shows as the MTVs and VH1.).
Tuesday night Kristin was over in my room and we were watching for funny country videos, and we found one that definitely fit the bill, Toby Keith's "Stays in Mexico". Now, more times than not (especially recently), I don't like Toby Keith and I don't really like only referring to Mexico as a vacation destination and ignoring its propio cultural coolness. Nevertheless, this video is just awesome because the storyline as acted out in the video is so funny and the actors in the video are so cute... and awkward!
After showing the video to other people last night, Kristin and I decided it would be cool to go to Mexico, which we might be doing in the fall. But since it was like two or three in the morning, we were thinking more along the lines of right now-ish. Since that's not very feasible or prudent, we instead decided to have a...
MEXICO PARTY!
5/8 » Important changes
• The party date has been changed from Thursday, May 12 to Friday, May 13
• While I didn't originally specify this, the Mexico Party will be alcohol-free. I'm not providing any, and you'd better not bring any.
The idea is to have a pool party at my house in Chandler but add cool things like enchiladas, fruity drinks, and música en español (and maybe Coke and fruit snacks... and bubbles... and dance partying... and whatever else I decide is cool). So that's set for Thursday Friday, May 12 13 from 5-10 p.m. That's on ASU's graduation day around dinner time (for eating purposes) and over in time for hitting up some nighttime grad parties and to allow my mom and little brother to get to bed since they have school on Friday. So that should knock out some of y'all's excuses, so be there or be un cuadrado!
If you need to know where my house is and/or how to get there, you can ask for one when you RSVP... hint hint hint! (RSVPing isn't absolutely required but would really, really, really help me figure out how much food to make and buy.)