April 28th

I noticed today that there are daffodils planted on the island in Mirror Lake. I wonder if someone rowed out, swam out, waded out, or what. Either way, it made me really happy to see them, and I wish I could get out there and gather myself a huge bouquet. My beautiful little daffodils from David died, but the bulbs still live on, so I'm going to plant them outside somewhere.

Tonight was the Agents of Improv roast of the seniors! It was hilarious, and so much fun. This is not exactly a flattering picture of me, but it's probably the most engaged one that Hobbes took. I was having a blast up there, making fun of everyone. Aw man, I am going to miss Agents so much!

April 27th

After class, Cameron, Caitlin, Kay and I went to the Benton to check out the buzz on the Italian sodas they're selling. It's basically tonic water mixed with whatever syrup or combination of syrups you want, it's 99 cents, and it's DELICIOUS. We discovered, to my great giddiness, that we had each chosen a drink that matched what we were wearing. Cameron's was blueberry, and matched the purple stripes on his shirt. Caitlin's was cherry vanilla, a light pink that matched her dress. Mine was Milano chocolate peppermint, a tan that matched my dress. And Kay's, I don't know what Kay's was, but it was bright pink and matched her hoodie. This made me so happy.

April 26th

Warm day is WARM! Everyone was out on the quad, soaking up the beautiful sunny weather. Someone had music blasting out a window, DJing the unofficial gathering. It was such a happy, celebratory atmosphere. I love surprisingly warm days at UConn.

Just noticed a couple days ago, there is an American flag on top of the construction crane. So amusing.

April 25th

Oh, spring. I can't even begin to tell you how happy it makes me to see flowers popping up all over the place. These little daffodils were given to me by my wonderful David as an Easter gift. I brought them to school with me, to brighten up our common room. The pink tulips I bought and decided to keep, and I brought them to school as well. So beautiful.

Only seven more consecutive days of double pictures,  if my calculations are correct. Oh boy! Not that I don't like posting two pictures at a time, and not that I haven't sorta cheated every so often by taking two different pictures of the same thing, or two themed pictures, but I am glad to finally get back on track. I've almost made it to May! Take THAT, John E.!

April 21st

Once again, GUESS WHAT THESE PICTURES ARE! Well, the first one at least. The second one should be fairly clear, and I had a different purpose in taking that one. Have you guessed yet? Huh?

The first one is of plastic broom bristles. The second one is a tiled floor. Okay, so our bathroom floor is in desperate need of a good sweeping/scrubbing (STEPH) but its neglected state led to an adorable discovery today: a happy little face smiling up at me. You have to admit, if you can get past the fact that it's composed of fallen hair, dirt and dead skin cells, it's pretty cute.

April 20th

 As I was walking from the Family Studies building to Gentry, across the lawn in front of the ROTC building I saw something glowing. I couldn't make out what it was from that distance, but it was glowing brightly in the setting sun. The building blocked the sun until that point, where the rays shone past. I approached and found it was a purple flowery bush. None of the pictures I took satisfactorily captured what I saw, but these will have to do. It was gorgeous.

April 19th

Spring has sprung! Looking around campus, I see buds on all the trees, and daffodils popping up on the corners of paths! It's pretty muggy out today, and it's supposed to rain this afternoon, but at least it's warm!

April 17th

These are close-up pictures. Remember those occasional pages in magazines which would present a series of close-ups of everyday objects, and you had to guess what the objects were? I always thought those were really neat, so I took a couple photos of my own. Can you guess what they are of? The first one may be obvious; it's a bunch of beaded necklaces. The second one looks kinda neat to me; it's just the underside of my bunk. Patterns are everywhere.

April 16th

Today Southapalooza provided a loud din of music and crowds throughout the quad. Oozeball, UConn's traditional mud volleyball tournament, took place today. I played last year, which was enough for me. I just watched, cheered my friends on, and took pictures. At a quarter 'til one there was a flash mob. Members of the Glee club all gathered for a choreographed dance. It was pretty neat.

Later in the day, some of my friends played Double Dare. They had to answer trivia (they kicked butt, by the way), perform a physical challenge, and complete an obstacle course, and they WON (they actually may have had the record for the day of the fastest completion of the obstacle course as well!)! It was suggested that I take a jumping picture of them. It was cold, and a couple of them were wet, so I didn't want to make them pose again for a take two when the first picture wasn't quite perfect. But it's good enough. I loved seeing my friends so joyful. I'm going to have so many photos to look back on in the following years, and I will very much miss them.

April 15th

I was walking to the Union and I heard a noise, and when I looked up I saw these two birds sitting in the tree. The one on the lower branch was talking to the one above it. In the second picture, I caught the bird with its mouth open as it sang. Birds are kind of funny. We may see them every day, and we just take for granted that there are so many animals all around us. But they have their own little world that they live in. They have their own lives. Sure, they may not all be sentient, but they still live, they still have routines, and homes, and places to explore.

April 14th

 These are cracks in the paint on the crosswalk headed into Hilltop. Both look like faces. The top is like a sad clown, and the bottom one is a strange bird man dinosaur thing looking right. We tend to find faces in many things. Our brains are just wired to notice faces. Anyway, these made me smile.

April 12th

Awesome news! I finally got around to trying to make videos, and it worked! As you can see, I'm super excited. I'm also super behind on my homework, BUT IT WAS WORTH IT. O_O I am so pumped. It kind of sucks, which is why it's unlisted. Aren't you so glad you read my blogs, so that you could enjoy the wonderfulness that is my first vlog? Well? AREN'T YOU??? O.o

As for the second picture, this is the label on a bottle of cologne my David accidentally left. I've already written about it on our blog, The Princess and the Mouse (click me). You can find my musings about the not-so-French cologne here.

April 11th

I recently noticed that the bulletin boards changed in our hallway. It's very amusing to me that the RAs can, I believe, post whatever they want, so long as they change their boards every so often to something different. One board, which used to be devoted to how to dress to impress, now covers Feng Shui...or colors. I realize now that I didn't actually take in the theme of the board when I took this picture. This piece just caught my eye. Green is my favorite color. In fact, my walls at home are painted bright spring green. According to this, green "promotes health and family, tranquility and freshness." I'm sure there are some people out there who are super into this type of thing, and obsess over the importance of color and stuff. I'm not one of them. Certain colors just make me happy.

The boards on our side of the hall used to be ninja themed. Before the aforementioned board was about clothing, it was about ninja health tips. This board here also clearly used to be about something ninja-esque; in the corners are pictures of throwing stars and katanas. Now the board talks about, "Alcohol: What's normal? and What's not?" I think the ninja remnants really give an edgy feel to the piece.

April 10th

This shadow bared a striking resemblance to a bear's head (and perhaps a paw underneath. It is very difficult to take a picture of a shadow in a dark room, but hopefully you can see what I saw.

I had a wonderful weekend with my David. I was coming down with a cold, and having him come down to visit me was a great comfort. Have I told you how wonderful my wonderful boyfriend is? Pretty wonderful, let me tell you.

April 8th

Oh, how sweet it is! This one's for you, Marcia-Marcia! I miss you, Marvel!

Benjamin agrees. If he had thumbs, he'd be giving a thumbs up right now.

April 7th

This lone tree is surrounded by large rocks at its base. I have a few guesses as to why. Perhaps someone thought they were doing the tree a good turn and giving it some support so it wouldn't topple over. Perhaps someone was going to set the tree on fire, but decided to make a campfire ring of rocks, just to be safe; only you can prevent campus conflagration, you know. Perhaps someone thought it looked neat for some reason. Maybe it was someone's favorite tree, and that person wanted to mark which one it was so as not to forget. Or maybe someone just had a bunch of rocks and needed to put them somewhere, and laying them in a circle around the base of a nearby tree seemed like the most practical idea. Maybe the person even realized it might make people wonder.

This is Doo-dah, a little stuffed bear Steph gave me last Christmas. He's pretty much absolutely ridiculous, and exuberantly happy all the time, so, like the wind-up toys, if I am ever feeling blue or irritated, I can just look at him and can't help but smile. The picture really doesn't do his insanity justice.

April 6th

Today the sky was blue, the air was warm, the sun was shining, and the campus was beautiful. These are a couple photos I took while walking to class. The first is a picture of the Lakeside Building, a building which I hadn't really noticed until quite recently, because I'm not often on the side of campus past the chemistry building. I have no idea what's inside it, but I kind of want to find out. I bet it's just a bunch of fancy offices. The building sure is stately looking.

The second photo's subjects are the bright red fire hydrants along North Eagleville Road. They're so bright and happy. They made me smile, so I took their picture. It's the little things in life, you know?

You may have noticed the leafy background change. Springy, right? I think I'm going to mix things up like that from time to time, because that, too, makes me happy. Try to contain your enthusiasm.

April 5th

This morning the campus was eerily quiet. The grey sky and damp ground were like bookends to the oppressive silence hanging in the air. Last night, the campus celebrated the men's championship victory; today, silent streets and low attendance are the only remaining traces of the great revelry of the night before. The air is misty and cool, dripping with moisture, unnoticed until you go to pull a notebook from your damp backpack. Walking to class, the wind whipped through the trees and tugged at our jackets. The wailing cry of an ambulance punctuated the silence and brought the hard, ominous feel of the morning into stark focus. I laughed with fearful excitement, not even aware of my nervous joy until my friend inquired about my seemingly out-of-place reaction. My heart was reveling in the dark apprehension that hung like a sinister fog over the campus. There is breath-taking beauty in nature's gloom.

April 4th

Free T-shirts are always great, but free hats, not so much. Neat idea, crappy follow-through. You can't see the back, but it has a stretchy band around the base. The hat's also not exactly baseball cap-shaped, but more flat on top, kind of like a mailman's hat. It was a nice try, though, UConn.

Last night, the women's basketball team lost to Notre Dame. It's a very solemn day on campus. It was very quiet last night, in stark contrast to the night last week when the men won their Final Four game. Tonight is the men's championship game, and many Huskies are headed to Gampel to watch the game on a huge projector screen. I've never been much for sports, so I'm staying in to work on a paper I've been putting off. I might turn on the TV to check the score now and then, although if there are groups of people in the building watching the game on their TVs, I'm sure I will be able to hear when we score or not. I'm only a little bit scared to see the great drunken enthusiasm that will break out on campus if we win. Tuesday's going to bring with it some very hungover Huskies. I wonder if my classes will be sparsely populated.

This is the Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis. It is excellent and you should read it. David and I are almost finished. And then? On to Infinite Jest! Unless he has another book in mind.