WELCOME TO THE REAL WORLD: 4/7/13

WELCOME TO THE REAL WORLD

"Ramble on baby, settle down easy."

-Grateful Dead

#1: He is risen! Hallelujah! Interesting fact: I was recently told that during Holy Week, or Semana Santa, the city with the biggest religious celebration is Sevilla, Spain. I would like to submit an official “bs” request as I find it hard to believe that they aren’t having a bigger throw down in the Vatican City during this very important celebration…

#2: Where did I learn this (^) you might wonder? Why study abroad advising of course!! As you may know, I am very seriously considering going to Spain for an entire semester next Spring. Here are some things I learned during my appointment:

· academic advisors wear polka dots…lots of polka dots…all at once
· when in Spain, “religious” means Catholic (my lady kept referencing “being religious” and all of these sites you ABSOLUTELY MUST CHECK OUT AND WEAR POLKA DOTS TO WHILE YOU’RE IN SPAIN and in my head I’m thinking, alright she means catholic.)
· Spain > Latin America. Now since I’ve never been to either place, this is a personally unjustifiable statement but I’ll present you with the conversation I had with my advising lady and let you make your own decisions about good ol’ LA

“You sure you don’t want to consider Latin America?” –polka dot lady
“Um, I was really thinking Spain so I could travel in Europe.” –me
“Really? Well you might want to consider Chile! They haven’t had a civil war in like 30 years which is great for Latin America!” –pdl
“Mmk yeah that’s a ringing endorsement and all but I love me some red wine and war-free zones…” –a very scared me

· Europe is terribly expensive. That is all.

#3: Beach breeze and velveeta cheese = cure to college blues. I got Good Friday off last week and my friend Maddie and I headed East to Carolina Beach to spend some much welcomed relaxation time with the rents, the dogs, and the terrible one. The weather was fairly pleasant and we even snuck in a quick (cold) ride on the boat and a few rounds of “Cards Against Humanity”, the greatest game to hit the fam in awhile. It was all in all a great interruption from the real world.

The terrible one:

The best one:

#4: Water damage is detrimental to Chapel Hill apartments. So Monday morning, I’m walking to my Spanish class and I get a frantic text from my roommate, Kate, saying that the maintenance in our building came to check our fire detectors and accidentally set off our sprinkler system…for two minutes. All I could think about was my damask rug, my TV, the pictures covering my walls (unframed no less!!!), the shoes out on my floor, my couch, my bedding, my textbooks, my whole life in my tiny lovely room all ruined. So in my frenzied attempt to stave off the onset of tears that I knew was bound to come (as some of you may know, I have a very low emotional threshold and anything past normal excitement/fear/anger/joy results in tears) I called my mom and told her what happened. “That’s why we have insurance honey,” was her reassurance. Mmk that’s lovely and all and I’m glad you’re not freaking out but my stuff is DESTROYED!!!!!!!! Do I skip my next class? Can I get a couch dry-cleaned? How do you unplug a wet TV cable without getting electrocuted?!?! (Talk about insult to injury!!) When all of a sudden: call from Kate. APRILLLLLLLLLLLL FOOOOOOOOLS. You’re funny, Kate. Sleep with one eye open.

#5: Real World (sorority edition): ok so sometimes people ask me what being in a sorority will teach me and this week I've discovered a whole new lesson! So during rush week, we have very specific uniforms/outfits that we wear during rounds. On the first day, the theme is "Fly Delta" and we dress up as flight attendants and jump up and down and dance for...wait for it...TEN HOURS. For this glorious event, we wear black pencil skirts and black pointed toe pumps...while we are jumping...and singing...and sweating...and trying to get people to like us :) Anyway who knew that jumping up and down in heels and a pencil skirt could be so useful? I submit that I did not. But, when I travelled to Raleigh this week, as I do every week to interviews ~~jerks~~ Senators and Representatives at the General Assembly for my reporting class, I wore my Fly Delta pencil skirt and black pumps to look professional, ya know? Anyway crowds at the Legislative Building this week were atrocious with the expectation of the revised Voter ID bill and protestors against a recently proposed bill that, opposition is claiming, will establish a state religion. Too much nonsense for me. Anyway, parking was brutal and I had to park about a mile away and book it to the building in heels. Lucky for me I've had some experience maneuvering in my outfit and I spent most of my trek be thankful to be a Tri Delt :)