There Are No Words...

No, we don't act our age :)

"You are the weakest link!"

There is a good reason as to why I have not blogged in a long time. For the last week and a half I have been getting up at 5 a.m. for hockey training. No, not practice. Training.

Uphill sprinting, downhill sprinting, flatland sprinting. Lot's of sprinting. Long distance running, weight lifting, plyometrics, agility training, weight vests, etc. You get the picture.

I have found myself to be more out of shape than I thought I was, so aside from dry land, I have been spending 30-45 minutes in the gym doing a cardio workout. Last weekend Kailey and I went to the AMAZING new gym in Woodbury on Commerce Drive called Hästa. (across from Sam's club.) I got in an hour of cardio and an additional half hour of weight lifting.

Besides good muscle tone and dropping a few pounds, what does one get from all of this?

Shin splints.


Thank god I'm home for the rest of the week and have some time to rest up. Although I could challenge Richard to a race to the end of the driveway and back to see who the biggest gimp is. I just got an image of the host of that game show "The Weakest Link" staring me in the face.

"You are the biggest gimp. Goodbye!"

Fortune Cookie: The Essence of Life (Literally)

There are tornadoes running rampant in the St. Cloud area today, along with insane downpour, wind, and even some hail. I never took tornadoes seriously until today. Growing up in Hudson, the tornadoes never made it past the St. Croix River. I forget now that I'm in the flat lands, ha ha.

It was so windy that the rain was going sideways, and tree branches weren't just falling, they were falling and drifting left and right. After I finished my Biology test (yeah, that didn't go over so well, despite my 5 hours of studying), I was walking back to the buses and saw that a lightning strike had set one of the St. John's freshman dorm complexes on fire. I knew I smelled something burning during my test...I guess it wasn't just the gears grinding in my head.

Thank god I got on the bus when I did...because 10 minutes later and we would have been forced off the road. The tornado made a straight shot east from St. John's campus to St. Ben's. So it was literally only a few minutes behind our bus. From what I've heard there was no wind damage to either campus, just the lightning and flood damage at St. John's.

I got to the cafeteria, grabbed a plate from Mongo Grill (it's JUST like Ghingis Grill in the cities), and sat down with Annalie. Security busts through the door shouting orders to get in the basement, leave all food behind, blah blah blah. So we do, and all I could manage to take with me was my fortune cookie. *sigh* All I could think about in that claustrophobic basement was how cold my french onion soup was getting :(

I like to believe that my fortune cookie brought me good luck, and deterred the storm. Had I not grabbed my cookie in desperation of subsiding my hunger pangs, who knows what would be left of St. Ben's, or, alas, the Mongo Grill.

So anyways, to sum up my story...

The good news: everybody lived, yay!
The bad news: my food was cold when I finally got to sit down to eat it.

Me, loving the Mongo Grill on a much better day:

Between a rock and a hard place...

I have been studying for tomorrow's Biology test since 7 pm. I have taken ONE break, and that was for dinner. (They say you should take study breaks every now and then.)

I was so frustrated that I was not understanding my professor's lectures that I decided to read each and every word of the chapters included on the upcoming test.

I am now even more frustrated that I wasted SO MUCH TIME trying to interpret this woman when the book made the exact same concept 10392409324 times easier!

My other classmates have expressed the same frustration as I have, so I decided to go to www.ratemyprofessor.com to see what others thought of her. I don't want to use her name, but I will report that out of 5, she received a discouraging 1.8 efficiency rating. She is a very kind, caring woman, but she is so scatterbrained that nobody can understand her. I find it important to note that she calls things "sexy", which I find to be HILARIOUS. IE: When her PowerPoint presentation didn't do what she wanted it to, she explained to us that the reasoning behind it was, "It thinks I'm trying to do something really sexy, but I'm not!" The lady must be about 60, and resembles Mrs. Puff, the driving instructor off of SpongeBob Squarepants. If you've never seen the show, click here and get your kicks.

So, it is now half past midnight, and I am thanking the Lord that I have a late class tomorrow and can sleep until 9. I should be up studying for another hour or so. Why, you may ask, did I not begin studying sooner? HOCKEY. Yeah, can you believe that I still have to work Lacrosse and Volleyball games into the mix? College is fun, but it has skewed my perception of free time. I consider free time to be the minutes I spend walking between classes, making a phone call (usually to Mom). Or driving to hockey practice. That, my friends, is my free time. I wish I had time to scan Facebook, download music, or even watch that TV that I just HAD TO HAVE in my dorm room.

Don't get me wrong, I love some of the changes that college has already instilled in me. I love my new(er) sense of time management, renewed self-esteem, feeling of immense responsibility, and holy crap, my motivation level has shot through the roof.

I'm always doing homework in my spare time. I feel accomplished afterwards, only to realize that it never really ends, haha. My other sense of motivation? Cleaning. I'm ALWAYS cleaning things. My desk, my backpack, my car, the furniture, etc.

I'm not having the college experience like you see in the movies or hear about from other people (that's what you get for going to a small private school), but I am having a lot of fun, and so far I have no regrets what-so-ever.

So, I'm heading back to studying. This concludes study break #2--Blogathon.

Well Ain't This Cozy...

Actually, it is! I moved into my dorm today at St. Bens, and I was extremely suprised by the amount of open space we have! I don't really know what to say, so I took some pictures. (I promised Erin I would.)

My HUGE closet! I can't believe how much space there is...
Each room has a sink, but that's about it.
Our forbidden accessory that we just had to have!
My bed...not much head space!


This is the view from the doorway...

This is the "living area".
The bed situation...I decided to loft.
My Desk :)

The Heart of the Matter

It looks as though I have discovered the source of all of my auto troubles. Okay well, maybe the Saturn mechanics discovered it...Whatever.

My car has been chug-a-lug-lugging along now for about 2 weeks, and finally we took it to the Saturn dealership today for a diagnostic check thingy.Yup, you've got a bad timing chain. That will be $1200.00, please.

Now, in any other circumstance, I would call Richard in 2.8 seconds flat and we would plan a magical weekend filled with fixing my car and perhaps a trip to BWW or playing some video games. In reality, he works on my car, and Erin and I watch tv, make wontons, or shop the day away. I feel guilty. Given the fact that he is rather helpless at this point, I think I will pick up some wings on Saturday on my way back from Blaine and we will have that weekend we've been meaning to spend together. He deserves it!

So my car will remain undriven until I find somebody to fix it. So far, Jared looks like my best candidate, which is awesome because he is my 3rd brother for sure. What a guy, i'm telling you!
Perhaps I should pick him up a few wings too.

Everybody loves wings.

The fuses blow out one by one, hoorah, hoorah!

My car is either sick, or it's revolting agaist me for refusing to feed it premium fuel anymore, or take it through a weekly car wash.

Lastnight, Brandon and I drove my car out to St. Louis Park to play some pick-up hockey. When we got back, I tried to put the windows up, and they didn't budge. Through his laughter, he managed to call me a gimp, and reached up to close the sunroof. Nothing.

I, ofcourse, freaked out because my windows wouldn't go up. I wasted no time in calling Richard, despite the fact that it was 11 pm, and Brandon was already digging in the fuse panel, assessing the problem. I sat there while my windshield wipers wiped, lights flashed, radio blinked, horn honked, trunk went *CLUNK* as it popped open, all without me touching a single thing.

Finally, the windows just went up on their own.

About a month ago, my radio lights just stopped working. Richard replaced the radio and we called it good.

A week ago, my cigarette lighter decided to stop working. Now I have to charge my cell phone at work, or even the tanning salon while I bask, just so I can keep up my texting habits and it doesn't die on me in the middle of the day.

2 nights ago, my dash lights turned off for like 5 minutes. I restarted my car, and they were fine again.

I'm going to start taking bets on what goes out next!