(This is Anna writing, for those of you who wish to know these things)

Imagine yourself in a room, half of it is lit, the other side darkish. Loud music accompanies the darkness, so if you have a desire to talk you must be on the lighted side. The room is full of teenagers, some jumping around like wild monkeys (these ones probably drank the lemonade, which was spiked with Sprite Zero), others sanding in their group talking, like lions, afraid to leave their pride. Balloons are popping at random intervals, followed by a scream, the remaining balloons are being tossed in the air, with intentions of not meeting the floor again. Where are you? Your at a youth dance of course.

Today I went to the Valentine's Dance (although it's a week after Valentine's day......) I've learned a couple of things, here they are in list form, because frankly, that last paragraph used up all my artistic ability.

1. Guys have sweaty hands
2. People look at you with an odd expression when you start dancing with random moves because you don't know the line dance
3. How to ignore number 2: Don't look at them.
4. If you jump through a whole song, you get tired......
5. Don't get too close to the speakers
6. Justin Bieber really does sound like a girl.
7. Mom really likes the Chicken Dance
8. Mom really likes some song about Abra-Abracadabra, and some person reaching out and grabbing ya.

Now that I have shared my wisdom, here is another artistically written paragraph.

Most the time at the dance we (Emily, Emma, Jordyn, and I) stood in the corner and played with balloons and randomly danced. We were then moved out to the dance floor where Jordyn and I alternated between square dancing, doing the monkey, jumping, and spinning. During one of our dances, some guy (his name was either Ty or Ky...... I'm not exactly sure which....) asked me to dance. I said yes (it would have been rude to say no) and we danced. He asked me what grade I was in so I told him I was in 8th, he told me that he thought I was a sophomore. He was a senior (in school, not the old person senior) and that he played soccer and I think he said he wrestled (as you can tell I payed so much attention to Ty...... or Ky......) The second person I danced with was Westley (that wasn't his real name, it's the card he got. We all got a card with some famous couple on it and we had to find the match; I was Buttercup. I call him Westley because I don't know his real name....) Anyway, Westley was in eighth grade, and he played percussion. Ty/Ky said he played trombone in 5th grade, in case you were wondering.

And now you know about my exciting 2nd dance.

Sipping Through a Straw and All that Jazz

Well, maybe I invoked the wrong basketball team, what with the hype over BYU's last game. I mean, even I know some of the details.

So some of my friends and I walked into the Cannon center today for dinner. As my roommate and I stood in line to get some kind of chicken dish, I looked over and spied one of my future roommates sitting at a two person table across from a boy. I leaned down (my roommate is not even five foot) and asked her if she knew if our friend was on a date or not. She shrugged. The four of us in our group ended up sitting in the same section with only one table in between us and our friend who was possibly on a date.

Even though the four of us tried hard, we could not think of a good way to go up and ask if she was, in fact, on a date. So we tried waving our arms to get only her attention and not the boy's. Well, there was a table of boys in our way who thought that we might be waving to them. We indicated that we were not, so they tapped her arm. Which was not what we wanted as it got his attention, too. Somehow or another, we got the idea to hold up a ketchup-napkin sign that read, "DATE." Unfortunately, we forgot to consider the boys who sat in between us and our intended target. They had a pen and quickly answered, "Never." How rude. So we got some more ketchup and my friend wrote, "R U Sure?" They quickly scribbled a note and launched the balled up note to our table. "Do you like me?" It asked with boxes to check either yes or no. We wrote, "Depends, who's asking?" We then left, as we didn't want to respond to whatever they answered.

By this time, our friend (who had not been on a date and simply eating with a guy she didn't know) was finished eating. We decided we really weren't done and sat down to eat dessert. I got jello. I took one bite before Charly (one of my friends) said that it would be really fun to eat our jello through a straw. She then delegated two of the other girls (as we had now grown to six) to get more cups of jello while she got straws. We then proceeded to have a jello-slurping contest. I totally won.

For my social dance class, we're required to attend a dance lab which is basically just a dance where you dance real dances instead of just swaying back and forth. There was one last night. They called a cha-cha and said it was girls' choice. There was a guy from my class right behind me that also played in the same orchestra I did. I asked him to dance, and he led me out to the floor. We danced through most of the song without incident, discussing the concert and the piece that almost fell apart. He led me into a the sweetheart step, and he was about to twirl me back into dance position when a hand flew out of nowhere.

In the cha-cha there are a lot of breaks where you throw your arms out. I've been hit, and I've hit other people. But usually you catch people in the shoulder, or you stop short and don't nail them too hard. This guy never even saw me. His hand hit full force right in my mouth. It was so unexpected I started laughing. I could feel my lip starting to swell a little and blood flowing to it. I was sure I looked ridiculous. He apologized, so my partner and I resumed dancing.

My partner informed me that my lip was bleeding and asked if I wanted to take care of it. I said I did, and he escorted me off the floor. Sarah happened to be standing right where we came out. She had a shocked expression when she saw my teeth covered in blood. My partner had a dead serious expression when he said that he had tried to kiss me and things hadn't gone well. I laughed, told her I got hit in the face, and went to the bathroom to clean up my mouth.

Exercises, Exercises, Do Your Daily Exercises

So my RA is an exercise and wellness major. As such, she has impressed upon us, her residents, the importance of exercise. My roommate also believes that exercise is a valuable part of life. I believe no such thing. But in wanting to make new friends and such at the beginning of the year, I naively agreed to join them in their fitness endeavors.

Exercise with my RA is not bad. In fact it can be fun sometimes. But my roommate bought one of those workout programs that includes a DVD with a man who yells "Faster! Move!" I lasted a month of this insanity. Then I got sick and had to stop for a couple days. After that nothing in the world could make me start again.

There is a girl on my floor who has the same relationship with exercise as me. She believes it is a good institution, but is not friends with it. We decided we would go running together. At seven in the morning. In the cold. We set the date for the next Tuesday. When Tuesday rolled around, my alarm went off at 6:53, already I knew this was a bad idea.

We met in the hall, and because we both showed up, we decided we might as well go through with it. And as soon as we left the building, there was no turning back. We had forgotten our keys to get into the building. So we headed to the track. It was cold, had we not kept warm, we would have frozen.

I ran a lap and thought I was going to die. I walked another lap while she ran three. We decided that was good enough and headed back. By this time it was 7:30, and the doors don't unlock until 8. Bummer. We walked around the building, and I found my window and started knocking.

In my defense, my roommate had a class at eight and should have been awake. Turns out she had planned on skipping that day. Due to my unfortunate intervention, she awoke to knocking on the window. I saw the blinds crack open and tried to pantomime, "We are locked out of the building. We are very cold. Do you think you could open the side door?" She squinted at me and turned around. We waited a couple minutes and nothing happened.

"Hey!" I kind of did a whisper-yell, "We're locked out. Do you think you could let us in?"

"Are you serious?" I usually don't try to trick my roommate at 7:30 in the morning, but I guess she had just woken up. Maybe my dream-self is more sinister. We got back into the building when another who lives on our floor came out. My roommate didn't make it in time.

We both mutually agreed that running was a bad idea and decided never to try anything so foolish again.

Bleeding Blue

I was reading Anna's post, and I thought, "I should write something." I only have a few minutes before I have to run off to chemistry class, but I thought I'd give a general summary of my life here at college.

1) Dorms. I've decided that I generally like living in dorms. There's thirty-three other girls that share a bathroom with you, but rarely are they all in there at the same time. Plus, if I was to see a certain movie, chances are somebody on the floor has it with them and will watch it with you. (Also, they will later join you when you randomly begin singing, "The Hills Are Alive.")

2) Classes. Other than calculus, my classes aren't that hard. In fact, it is rather fun to go to class most of the time. Today in dance class, we practiced the cha cha, and we learned how to twirl into a bowing position for when the dance ends.

3) Professors. I have some very good professors and some that change the definition of a chromosome back and forth throughout the lecture. But in general, most of them are nice and helpful.

4) Weather. That is one thing I do not like out here. It is raining today, so it has been miserable in the cold trudging back and forth between classes.

Well, I have to take off to class. Luckily I have a friend who saves me a seat.

Anna!

THIS THAT HAVE RECENTLY HAPPENED:

• I have become the Chuck Norris of my band and therefore in charge of all and any knee cap breaking
• I am the best babysitter ever according to a first grader
• I have been hit by an idiot running head on through the crowd at a football game at halftime (I was leaving because I was there to see the band)
• I found out I knew something my dad didn't about computers (if you don't have a fancy smacy computer with some high resolution flat screen, press ctrl, alt, and down)

And that is about it.

A Whole Lot of Stuff No One Really Cares About, But I'll Tell You Anyway!

I've discovered that I really do like America. Why? Free bathrooms, nonbubbly water, cold drinks, you don't need a gas mask when you go outside because not as many people are smoking, and normal food, that tastes good. Oh, and people are more patient and less pishy here too.

Now that I've complained I might as well tell you the good stuff about Germany as well. They have pretty castles [but you'd think with all the money they used they could afford to put more clothes on some of those pictures :( ] Austria had cool T shirts saying "No kangaroos in Austria."

Now for my first day of school (which was actually the second day of school.)

I have Algebra and French which are fun. And i didn't get a locker until I had all my books, which I had to carry everywhere, but luckily I didn't have to carry them to the band room which I have at the end of the day. And I'm pretty much in Jazz Band concidering there are no new trombones. At all. And that's all I really feel like writing about school.

Oh, and Sarah and Heather left for college, and Nick is home. Dad and I went to the store to buy food. And I got to back the car out and drove on the lawn, because dad told me to, and I did NOT hit Roy. That's all.