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graduation week 101

party.
take final final.
party with faculty.
party.
graduate.
party.
party with parents.
party.

this past month has been quite a trip.

after i turned in my final college final (see my May 12 blog post) i could actually feel my heart beat a bit harder. no, the beating didn’t increase in speed. i just felt like my heart was going to punch straight through my chest cavity and go splat on the sidewalk by Trinity’s magic stones.

maybe my heart knew i was officially done, and it just wanted to stay here at Trinity. talk about leaving part of yourself behind…

i think it was on Wednesday that we climbed the tower and signed a brick.

and then we went to a senior "casino party." AND at said "casino party" yours truly was awarded a The $15 iTunes Gift Card for Awesomeness.

YOU: Congratulations.
ME: Thank you.
YOU: How did you achieve such awesomeness?
ME: Well, I've been perfecting awesomeness for over two decades.
YOU: oh, wow.
ME: and they pulled my raffle ticket out of a hat.
YOU: oh...but you said...
ME: I know what I said. My extraordinarily good luck does not refute my awesomeness.
YOU: oh, yeah, right.

then Thursday night Trinity hosted what we called our “senior prom” aka Twilight at Trinity. Trinity invited all of the senior class to a dinner on the esplanade. food, fun, and dancing ensued.

they also had this text wall, where you could send text messages to a certain number and they would appear on this projector. it started out as a good idea…but alas the tragedy of the commons, we began to abuse our power and the staff had to turn it off. they may be college grads, but gee i guess you can’t expect them all to actually be mature.

oh well, a little peer pressure and the ever-present desire for attention can lead even the most responsible adults down the road of gross immaturity. nonetheless, many text-posts were quite witty and sarcastic. i quite enjoyed those.

the graduation ceremony was on May 16th. it rained like crazy. no worries though, we took advantage of the rain…had some fun getting wet and got some amazing photos.

here's the rents and the bro

best grad pictures ever, it was pouring down rain.

here are my housemates and dean tuttle.

prepare for shameless plug: if you didn't already know, the dean has his own blog, that i must say is quite entertaining. it will change your life forever.*
check it out: http://trinitydean.blogspot.com/
*may or may not actually be a true statement depending on an individual's current life stage and his or her sensitivity to brilliant literary geniusness.

after the ceremony we went back to our house for a graduation party. again, more rain, more fun, and more pictures.

i got to slice the cake...maybe not the best personnel choice for cake slashing duties...

after all that crazy college kid shenanigans all that was left was to find inner tranquility...

and peaceful slumber...

that is all.
madawesomeness

Posted by Maddy at 10:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

i think i got lucky growing up in the hill country. my parents encouraged active play outdoors, and it didn’t take much goading to get me and Fuz, my childhood playmate, to go gallivanting around outside.

i am lucky not only because i had a bad-ass childhood (yeah, i just described childhood as bad-ass), but i also got a kick ass immune system (yep, my immune system is kick-ass, notice the subtle syntactical differences between bad and kick). i am quite healthy today, i would like to believe, as a result of frequent exposure to all sorts of germs and filth in the country along with a certain, yet expected, childhood disdain for bathing.

however, i have a housemate this year that has zero immune system.
long story short:

Roomie’s immune system – 0

Any germ, virus, bacteria, spec of dust Roomie comes into contact with – 1,000,000,000.

and that’s not a fun match.

so when the swine flu pandemic was, and still is to an extent, the seasonal thing to worry about (other topics have been overpopulation, global warming, genetic engineering), my housemate got to be “the mask girl”

did “the mask girl” have the swine flu? no

did people assume she had swine flu? perhaps a few of the dimmer bulbs in the batch, despite the fact that Trinity would be oh-so much more careful than that.

was “the mask girl” over-paranoid? no

did people assume she was over-paranoid? probably. a lack of immune system doesn’t have the same visual cue as say, a lack of a left ear does…please note i am not suggesting that lopping off her left ear would have elicited a different reaction: “Oh look, she’s not over-paranoid about swine flu; she’s only wearing a mask because she doesn’t have a left ear. I get it now.”

no matter what the case may be, it is never any fun being “the (insert noun or derogatory adjective here) girl/boy/kid/whatever”

during high school, i am proud to say that for a time i was the rolley-bag girl. i, however, didn’t have a doctor prescribe a rolley-bag for my weakened immune system. nope. i just wanted to buck tradition and see what it felt like. yeah it sucked. that particular phase lasted about three to six months, and then i couldn’t take it anymore. classmates made fun of my rolley-bag behind my back and to my face and often kicked my rolley-bag as i scooted down the hallways. high school just couldn’t handle my rolley-bag awesomeness. it was a good experience in a kind of cruddy way.

anywho, back to the swine flu, i donned the mask with my buddy on the first afternoon she had to go to campus with the mask on. we went to the speech and drama building to tell one of her profs not to be surprised when she showed up in class with the mask.

it wasn’t until later during our graduation party (more on that in upcoming blogs) that we took these pictures. but i thought you would enjoy them.

the whole mask thing didn’t last too long, because it got too hot to be able to breathe. those things are surprisingly difficult to breathe under. i think i’ll need some fitness training to partake in the outdoor mask wearing competition. we took these at our graduation party (more on that later) and fyi, we are smiling under the masks.

all the same, it looks like, at least for now, we’ve got the swine flu under control, which of course is extremely fortunate.

that is all
madsks

Posted by Maddy at 1:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

i am a graduating senior. in about five days, i will graduate from college. i can not even begin to express how strange that feels. a few days ago, i finally took my final college final. in the final essay question on this final, i discussed how matter was created in the early universe through nearly complete annihilation due to quantum fluctuations and space-time inflation…and, yes, i’m still a drama major.

see i waited until my senior year to complete my science requirement for common cric. thank you liberal arts college. but actually i really enjoyed the science classes i took: Biological Impacts and Issues sometime during my sophomore year, and Astronomy and an astronomy lab this last semester.

those professors were amazing. that’s the trick to satisfying common curriculum requirements that you aren’t interested in: find a professor who is really passionate (lots of those here at trinity) about their field and you are bound to have an interesting class. thanks to Dr. MacAlpine, Dr. Boice, and Dr. Espey i had several really great classes in subjects that i honestly wasn’t excruciatingly interested in. i learned a lot and they changed my perspective on how i see and relate to the world. seriously, it’s good stuff.

i also think it depends on the person. i often refuse to be bored or uninterested. for example in my astronomy lab, i had to make a sundial. yes, i made a sundial in astronomy… it was like arts an crafts time. oh the good old days. my sundial could have been boring, but no. it had unicorns on it. pink and blue. and it had fish, a giraffe, a tiger, a fire hydrant, and some stars…all with googley eyes. most of it was my roommate’s left over art supplies. and then you will recognize the googley eyes from another project of mine…(see my last blog post)

to say the least my sundial was a beautiful work of craftsmanship blended with creativity, then tossed in a pre-teen girly dressing and garnished with a bit of pink glitter glue. and apparently, as i read on the sundial instruction manual, every sundial has some sort of pithy saying or quote. kind of like a theme. i am quite proud of mine. you will find it inscribed at the foot of the sundial panel. i hope you are inspired by its witty genius.

see for yourself:

so you agree, an astronomically brilliant sundial for my astronomy lab?

YOU: Out of this world brilliant.
ME: yes, I guess that’s another way to put it.
YOU: You’re my shooting star.
ME: uh huh, that’s good.
YOU: I’m over the moon for you.
ME: okay, you’re done now.
YOU: Yeah, sorry I spaced.
ME: stop.
(pause)
ME: thank you.
YOU: You’re universally welcome.
ME: okay that one didn’t even make sense…
YOU: Why not? Isn’t it universal?
ME: now that was just painful.

anywho, a quick update: i’m not writing a “good-bye blog” because i hope i get to keep sharing my cosmic wisdom with you. right after i graduate, i’m headed to H-town (for the old folk and out-of-towners out there that’s Houston, Texas) to shoot a movie. then, i’ll be in Austin, Texas, (or A-town…) building a resume and preparing to move out to Los Angeles. (La-town…no, not so much…)

that is all
madigrad

Posted by Maddy at 1:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)