Friday night, I wanted to go see David Nail. He was playing at Tin Roof on The Strip, less than ten minutes of a walk from my dorm. Instead, I stayed in because Saturday was an early morning - and my room looked like something pink and glittery had exploded in it thanks to the various gifts I'm making for my
littles. Since my dad was coming the next day, vacuuming/cleaning the junk pile that my desk was buried under was a necessity. I also needed (fine - wanted) to decorate my hall for Halloween. We have the Boys and Girls Club coming on Wednesday to trick-or-treat and I wanted my hall to look awesome. And there's the whole floor
competition thing too and well, I like to win... So instead of seeing the beautiful, talented, did I say beautiful? "Red Light" singer, I spent some quality time with purple butcher paper, masking tape and a vacuum.
Some of the other halls in the building are
downright scary/morbid. One of them has a 'dead body' lying in the lobby with a trail of blood leading to it. Another of them turned her floor into a graveyard and put tombstones outside of each of her residents' rooms that say R.I.P. and list the room's
tenants on them. I thought that to be a little morbid but to each their own. I decided to take my hall a different route and make it a little more kid friendly. My initial plan was to cover the lobby walls with purple and make a big haunted house with tombstones, bats and ghosts. When I realized none of the three of us working on the decorations could draw so much as a stick figure, plans changed. I now have the 'Graveyard of the SEC' on my walls - no offense, of course, to those of you out there who aren't Tennessee fans! Take a look:
This is actually my bulletin board for October which has been up since the first of the month. It's all the 'haunted' places around campus and since hauntings fascinate me, I was pretty excited about all the stories on our campus. Of course, next semester I have a evening/night class on The Hill which has not one but two hauntings associated with it and because of the way my mind works, you can guarantee I'll be on the lookout for hell dogs and guys wearing bowler hats.
Spider webs cover the window, the water fountain and hang above the elevator doors. You can't see it in this picture, but there were five (5!) real spiders on the other side of the window. I've had a bit of a spider problem on my floor but as long as their outside, I'm okay and they get to live to see another day.
The big tombstone is for South Carolina since we play them on Halloween. If you can't read it, it says 'Here lies South Carolina. They met their match in Neyland Stadium on Halloween night.'
The three smaller tombstones say: 'Here lies Georgia. They lost a dog fight.' 'R.I.P. Alabama. They were rolled by their own tide.' And my personal favorite: 'Here lies Florida. They were stomped in the swamp.'
Here's a look at the finished product. Bats and ghosts are hanging from the ceiling and all the lights in the halls are covered with blue and purple. This was taken during the day. It looks AWESOME at night.
In my head, I thought it would take - drum roll please - and hour to decorate. Yeah... 4 hours later, I was cleaning up and getting to work on the disaster that was my room. I had Race for the Cure bright and early the next day so I had planned on being in bed by 11 at the absolute latest. Naturally, I climbed into bed at 12:45 and couldn't sleep. I think I finally fell asleep somewhere around 3 a.m. and woke up 3 and a half hours later to leave for the race.
Race for the Cure was amazing, despite the ungodly early hour. This is my second year doing it and I plan on doing it again next year. It's so inspiring. I'm going to do a post later this week with more pictures from it - I've got some really sweet and/or funny ones!
This is my sorority's team. For the fourth year running, we won second in the Sorority/Fraternity division. We gun for second - Zeta always wins first, as they should - this is their philanthropy and they do a great job raising money and helping with the event. About 15,000 people participated. Just amazing.
A few of us after the race was over.
I desperately wanted to go back to bed when I got back, but instead, I had breakfast with one of the other RAs (who also did Race for the Cure) and then, while lying in bed, got interested in 16 and Pregnant on MTV. Then... Then, the Tennessee/Alabama game came on.
All week, I'd been conniving on how to get out of hanging out with my daddy and his girlfriend for a few hours so I could watch the game, despite the whole 'haven't seen them since the first week of August' thing. I was invited to watch at one of my friend's apartments and Preppy Southern Princess invited me over for Spaghetti, but instead, I was waiting on my Daddy. Naturally, they left later than expected, the GPS broke, they stopped at an antique store, they took a wrong turn and then they managed to get completely turned around once in Knoxville. I was okay with this - I got to watch the game.
Naturally, my phone rings with maybe 2 minutes left on the clock. Try giving your dad/his girlfriend directions while watching your team come thisclose to beating the number one team in the country. Daddy and his GF got here with about 30 seconds left in the game. I left them waiting in the lobby to watch our kicker have his kick blocked. I did everything but cry. And I was extremely close to doing that. But I'm ecstatic with how the Vols played, extremely proud of Crompton and have a really good feeling as to the direction of our program. Visions of National Championships are dancing in my head a few years down the road. :) I'm also hoping and praying for Bama to take the SEC crown. And I'm apparently getting an Alabama shirt from by Big for Christmas. She's all Tennessee until we play the Tide.
After helping Daddy and GF find their hotel, we went for dinner and daddy gave me a care package from my grandma. My mini fridge is full of goodies and I'm $25 bucks richer. LOVE my grandma! Daddy and GF came up to see my room and I spent 15 minutes convincing my Daddy my lofted bed was not to high (which is a lie - I have to vault into it as it's not so much on a loft but raised in the air) and that he did not need to lower it. Apparently he's concerned that I'll fall out and get hurt. God bless him. The floor is concrete under this thin carpet I have. Regadless of how high up it is, if I fall out of my bed, it's going to hurt.
Today was my sorority's Founder's Day. I crawled out of bed around 10, thinking I had at least 2 hours before Daddy got to my dorm to pick me up for the lunch. Oh no. Hotel checkout was at 10 and Daddy and GF decided to come hang out in my dorm room for an hour and a half. He thankfully called before he left the hotel. I met them in the lobby in pajamas with wet hair, no make up, glasses and a mug of coffee. There were jokes that I couldn't get up early enough to be ready when they got there but I could get up in time to fix myself coffee. Basically.
Lunch was wonderful. Daddy met several of my friends, his girlfriend, who is 100% hippie and his total and complete opposite, dressed appropriately and was rather pleasant company. I made a slide show for the event that played while we ate and Daddy deemed one of my best friends 'cool.'
Me and Daddy after dinner. This is the first pic I have of he and I since my high school graduation. I learned from it that turtlenecks aren't my friend and my hair... Well, that's a whole other blog post for later this week, the fickle stuff.
My sorority after the ceremony. Please excuse the giant bush. I handed daddy's girfriend my camera so I could go pose and she had to jostle for a position between all the parents/family/friends to take a picture. We also took a funny picture and everyone shot down my friend and I's brilliant idea - we wanted everyone to do the Heisman and send the picture to UT Athletic's PR department with 'Berry for Heisman' photoshopped onto it. Apparently skirts and dresses weren't conducive to doing the Heisman. But that picture is happening. Even if it's just her and I doing it...
Well, that's my weekend in a kind of big nutshell. It was busy as all get out but I loved every minute of it, especially having Daddy here, even if it was for less than 24 hours. I was really happy he got to see me in action with something that means the world to me.
Next on the agenda? Reading one more chapter of Economics for the night, breaking and baking (yes, breaking and baking - I don't do the homemade stuff) cookies for my
littles tomorrow night and maybe doing some writing before bed. Busy week ahead!
Happy Halloween week everyone!
My sorority before the race started. We won 2nd largest sorority/fraternity for the fourth year running. We aim for second as Zeta should and does win first - it's their philanthropy and I'd expect nothing less of them.
Me and PSP before the race!
