McDonalds.

Firstly, the cold spell broke! I wore jeans, a tshirt, and a hoodie to class last week and didn't wear the hoodie back from class. It was a nice change, and much less burdensome for laundry day. It was also rainy, though, so I needed an umbrella, which is kind of like having to wear extra layers: Inconvenient, but mostly necessary, unless you wish to let the ridiculous weather conditions interfere with you.

Secondly, there is no way the story I am about to tell you will do justice to the situation. The adrenaline, the tension, the cold, the feeling of success, none of it can be properly explained in this blog. But it all happened.

So earlier this week David (Daniel's friend and once roomate) invited us to all go to a McDonalds promotion sort of thing. There had been one at another McDonald's a few weeks prior to which his brother had gone. It was that the first 100 people in line when the McDonalds had it's grand opening (it'd been open like two weeks, so i don't know why THIS was so special) got free value meals weekly for a year. It sounded interesting enough, and Daniel, Leah, and I debated all week about whether or not to go. I personally wanted to, but not without them, since David's other friends that were going were people I wouldn't know.

So I wake up Friday morning, and it is cold. And windy. I wished I had a kite while I was walking around, although I suppose it wouldn't have made it past the trees. Campus has lots of trees. But as Daniel, Leah and I were eating our Whataburger dinner (Note: I don't eat fast food that often, although this post may make it seem otherwise... Whataburger, McDonalds weekly) and we realized that it may be cold tonight. At my dorm, with the Weather Channel, we realized it would be like... 29 degrees. That's bad enough, when walking for like 20 minutes. Sitting outside of a McDonalds for hours? We doubted we would live to use our free meals.

In the end, after alot of texting with David and debating, Daniel and I ended up going. Daniel wore two jackets instead of one to prepare for the cold. ONE extra layer. I wore two pairs of leggings, ankle socks, knee socks, shoes, jeans, two long sleeved shirts, a short sleeved shirt, a jacket, a hoodie, a scarf, a hat, and gloves, although I ended up letting Daniel use the gloves. Daniel and I also each packed a blanket. That's like.. idk, 12 extra layers We planned on getting starbucks and arriving at 2, but David called and said the line was long. So we immediately left, decided not to get starbucks, and went straight to McDonalds. Somewhere on that walk to my car, our purpose changed. Originally we were half-heartedly entering into this. As soon as we heard the line was long and we might get beat out, our mindset changed. We were not going to lose. We would not be turned away because we arrived too late. We were on a mission. Luckily, not getting starbucks caused us to be around 80th in line.


Now, first of all, the line had wrapped around the building from the front of the door so far that we were blocking the drive-thru. So our lives were in danger from both cars and cold. Second, the people behind us were annoyed that McDonalds was in no way making a real line, so people could just but ahead with no problem. We were kind of clustered aroudn the building in a line-like fashion. After the woman arguing with the manager, McDonalds gave us each a sticker to wear on our hands. This caused sort of a panic to get stickers, and everyone crowded around the woman. Daniel, David and I, however (we were the three who showed up, of all the people who said they might) recieved our "Apply online at http://www.mcflorida.com/ stickers that apparently meant that we were the first hundred in line. Now the stickers were just so that we couldn't be butted, not so that we could leave. We all went and sat down around the buidling, relatively close to where we were before. Daniel and I played cards, David and I played mancala on his iPhone. We tried to order pizza, but nobody was open to deliver to where we were that late, unfortunately. If only we could've been the awesome people that ordered a pizza in the line outside McDonalds.. but it couldn't be. Our next best bet was to go through the drive-thru. We didn't want to leave the line, but we wanted warm drinks and such. And everyone else had been flitering out of the line and back.

However, as we turned the corner, we heard the employee yelling at the front of the line (which was around the corner) about how people shoudln't be leaving the line, though most people were only doing what we were doing. Other people, like the high schoolers behind us, went home, got a firepit, and started a fire. Right next to the McDonalds. As this was happening, the employee returned and said that the police had been called about disturbances, and anyone else would be considered treesspassing if they caused disturbances. The stupid fire people proceeded to put their fire out and move the firepit away. Just wondering, did they not think there would be a firecode about starting a fire ten feet from a building and 15 feet from where the cars were parked? Has the school system failed that much at common sense? What outcome did they see from that situation?

So. It's around 3:30, and we are getting quite cold. Well, they are, I'm slightly warmer in my "excessive" (were my layers excessive, David? I was warm much longer than you) layers, but even that's not enough to keep the freezing chill away. We're all sitting down, everyone's kind of chilling around the McDonalds all peacefully when this ridiculous employee decides to return and says, "Stickers no longer mean anything. You guys need to work the line out amongst yourselves, but the stickers don't matter. We can't be responsible anymore." There was a sort of pause and a murmur, and people began to stand. The other, more sensible group of high schoolers next to us were like, hey everyone, just sit down, it's fine. So we sat. For maybe 15 minutes. Then the calm was broken, and a slight amount of panic set in. First a few people, then more, began to stand, and the line began to compact. Some people just left their chairs and stuff where it was to move forward as the line compressed. The sensible high shcoolers were the most upset. But we were all too concerned about preserving our spot in the great line crunch to be too upset. In a minute we had reformed our crowd into a line, maybe four people wide and still stretching around the building, with all of us standing in close proximity to each other.

So it's about 4 and we're standing, now, all slightly anxious about our spots in line, since our stickers no longer matter and people are going to just merge into the line in front of us, since we're still more of a line shaped crowd than an actual line. We all became unified with our fellow linemates. The sensible high schoolers (who, though sensible, were crazy. They are the loud, yell out ridiculous things to be "funny" type of people, who I'm not at ease around) were next to us, yelling out ridiculous things to be "funny." Also, more seriously, yelling at anyone thinking of skipping. Somehow, though, people managed to squeeze in front of us, while we kept compacting inches every few minutes. We measured progress by the spilled latte and mocha. We started by noticing we were standing in a spilled latte. Then we weren't. Then we saw a spilled mocha. Then we were standing in that. Then we were past the mocha. Then time kept passing slowly. Our faces were cold, our toes had no feeling, everything was slightly miserable. Tensions were high, with the yelling high schoolers, the threat of skippers, and the frustration about the entire situation. And there were these skateboarders doing tricks that the high schoolers were yelling at. It got heated.

At one point, an employee left for the night, and the skateboarders through some sort of McDonalds breakfast biscuit at her. She threatened to fight them. We all yelled at whoever through it. Seriously? Why would you do that? It was the skateboarders, since they went andpicked it up after she left. The entire line was unhappy at them. It was the oddest experience, feeling so unified and bonded with these people in line, and at the same time feeling so tense that they would be the ones to beat us out to the promotion.

Then it was 5! We all clapped and cheered, actually. Now, in my mind, I figured the doors would open and there would be some mob-like riot. People wouldn't care where they were in line, they would just run for the door and try to push they're way in, much like when the woman handed out stickers. However, I was proven wrong. They opened the door and, counting, let some people in. We sighed. That meant longer to wait. But none of us moved from our spots to mob the door. Over the next twenty minutes, we moved forward little by little. We were fifteen feet, then ten, then five feet from the door. Then there were four people in front of us. Then, we were the next people in front of the door. The employee at the door informed us that she believed they were out of the little free meal things. (We were like 70th in line. What the heck?) However, everyone with the sticker WOULD be honored, since they were told they could. And there were actually still four coupon things left, so we went in and purchased the food necessary to recieve the free value meal coupon. Daniel and I got ours. David had to wait around a little and use his sticker to get his from the manger. Oh, we had to purchase an item, since it went to the first 100 CUSTOMERS. Smooth, McDonalds. Make money off us.

Then, being tired and cold, Daniel and I decided to return to campus. On the way, we noticed the frost on the plants. And the ice on my car. ICE, not frost. It was on the windshield, I discovered shortly after I began driving, and had to put the defroster and wipers on to get it off, which I eventually did, while driving slowly down the road and trying not to crash. I've only dealt with ice on my car once or twice.

Its like a square box with little circles to be punched out, four a month (five for some.) But, four of them are for January, which already ended.

I'm really not sure what point I'm trying to make about all of this. There's no real theme or message, except that people shouldn't cut in line, crowds shouldn't be near mob stages, and McDonalds needs to be more organized about their promotions to prevent murders at the scenes.

Trapped Again.

I got stuck in an odd situation again, only this time I was not alone, and it was slightly less ridiculous.

First of all, a quick story of the people that I may mention frequently in this blog. Judy is my roomate, Leah is our friend, Daniel is her boyfriend and friend, Mary is our friend. Jess, Gauraw, Jeff, and I are all good friends from high school, though we all go to different schools now. Dustin is my brother. I think that covers it. I think everyone that reads this knows that, but now they can all be certain.

So. Leah likes to volunteer at retirement homes or something. Our school does community outreach, and Leah got involved in one that goes to a retirement home. The girl who was the project leader went to Switzerland, so Leah decided to be the new project leader. So Daniel and I signed up to do the activity with her. Things were running late, since they waited until the last minute to train her to drive the FSU van, but eventually Leah, Daniel and I were all in the Student Success Center, or wherever it was that we meet. We were the only ones signed up for that day.

So they give Leah the keys to the van, but luckily it was a minivan, since there were only three of us. I was expecting, and she had just been trained with, a 15 passenger huge van, the kind that makes me think of youth trips that last days cause we're going to other states for a mission trip, and we spend our time playing poker and betting with candy, and trying to figure out the most convenient way to sleep when there's two other people on your seat and an aisle like thing beside you so you can't really lean on the window. Usually I'd just take the floor and the two other ppl on the seat just had their feet up or something. Anyways, we got a nice, new minivan. We all were quite impressed with it.

So we're all in this minivan, driving along smoothly (although Leah did run over a curb--roads are tight, that curve is difficult in a car, let alone a van--causing minor panic) and heading off to the retirement home, which is maybe 15 minutes away. I'm looking out the window at the car in the left lane, wondering why it's making such a weird noise. Leah asks about the noise, I say to ignore it as the car goes farther ahead, but the noise stays the same. We are making that noise.
"Why is the car smoking?" asks Leah. I turn around, and see smoke trailing behind the car. I wasn't too concerned, since it wasn't under the hood, but I did wonder what was on fire in the back. Leah is slightly panicked, Daniel is concerned, and since I'm not driving, I'm pretty curious. Now we were in the left lane, and there was a grass median, so where there was a break in the median for turn lanes, Leah stops and puts on the emergency lights. We all exit the car. Leah and Daniel, knowing that smoke could be fire and cars are conbumstible, distance themselves from the van. I, less cautious, run straight to the back of the car and crouch down to see what is on fire. Everything appears fine under the car.

Daniel and Leah call me away from the car, since Daniel knew of a van that was on fire once. I, however, notice that the back passenger tire is flat. And in shreds. Basically destroyed. So we call the success center, who calls a tow truck and sends someone to get us. A cop pulls up, asks if there's anything he can do, and leaves.

So here we are, stuck in the median of a road. There is some talk of another car hitting the van and killing us if we sit inside, so we stay outside. And we don't want to try to cross the road and leave the van, so we just stand in the median. I make my friends nervous by moving alot and standing really close to the cars that are driving by at 50 mph, since I have the standing habits of a six-year-old and can't stay in the median safely like a normal human being. As this is going on, the retirement home calls and cancels the appointment, deciding they'd rather us show up next week for the first time.

Minutes pass, patience begins to wear out, and we get tired of squinting past the sun to look for a van. Eventually, however, we see the FSU van. This one is the 15 passenger kind that I'm used to living in for short trips. Close behind is a tow truck. The van parks on a side road, and we run across at an opening of traffic and hope that nobody is speeding over the hill, which makes it a little terrifying. The tow truck, instead of having like a chain and dragging the van around on two wheels, has a huge platform that is lowered to the ground at a terrifying slant, which the van doesn't roll off of when driven up, and then is raised upright again. He drives away, and we get into the van with the driver.

I do not know her name, but I will never forget this woman. She was a middle aged, incredibly friendly black woman. She told us to always have spare clothes in our cars becuase we never know what accidents we might encounter. She talked about her kids, about getting stranded on trips, about her daughter going to college here, about the frigid cold, about shopping, and much more. There is no way for me to write in a way that gives her the credit she deserves. She was friendly, hilaroius, and unforgettable. That ride back was interesting and fun, and her friendliness cheered us up after the frustration of the failed van ride.

Back at college, we go to the meal plan place for dinner, and I get french toast sticks. They are definitely not served enough anywhere.

The Cold.

Having grown up in Florida, cold is not something to which I am very accustomed. Sure, some nights in gets below freezing, but that's a rare occurance, so rare that we would leave a sprinkler near the trees so there would be icicles before we left for school. Some mornings you need a jacket, but by lunch you're back in sleeves. Maybe some days you'd need the jacket all day. And perehaps twice in all of my schooling was I actually able to wear a shirt with sleeves to school and not burn up near midday. Cold and Florida do not often mix.

However, being closer to the Northern border of Florida makes all of the difference in the world. All of Florida is in massive freezing spells right now, but here it is destructive. Last week was bad, this is worse. I just checked the weather. 32 degrees outside (fahrenheit,) feels like 27. I used to think it'd be luck when it hit 30 at night. Now it feels like 27.

Last year, as a freshman, I was concerned with looking ridiculous or feeling ridiculous at college if I had too many clothes on, so I'd freeze walking to class in the weather wiht my jeans, long sleeve shirt, and hoodie. Not this year. This year I will wear as many layers as it takes to be warm. Some mornings, it's only cold on the walk to class, so I'll go to the restroom and remove some of the layers. I dn't care. Anything is better than freezing.

Firstly, jeans, while stylish and basically the only pants girls wear, do nothing to protect against the cold. Absolutely nothing. Do not depend on them, for they will always fail you. Instead, buy some warm leggings. Wear those leggings under your jeans. It's nice. Then, instead of one long-sleeved shirt, I wear three. Two wasn't enough. One for warmth, one for extra warmth, and one that is like a sweater or something should I take my hoodie off in class. I wear a hoodie over the three shirts. Sometimes two shirts is acceptable, but not today. Then I wear knee high socks. These are handy in mayn ways, especially with the leggings. Socks without leggings tend to fall, leggings wihtout socks rise up. But together, the friction creates a perfect balance which keeps my whole calf covered and safe from the cold. That is my basic winter wardrobe. Sometimes I consider wearing a scarf or hat. Occasionally I'll wear gloves. Maybe people think I'm ridiculous for wearing 16 articles of clothing or so to protect myself from the cold. You know what else is ridiculous? Death. From the cold. Metaphorical of course, becuase it never literally killed me. But I'm sure it killed a part of who I was every time I allowed myself to freeze so as not to feel ridiculous in all of my layers. Like the aforementioned camping story where I packed extra clothes cause I knew the weather. Sure, I felt weird bringing clothes to keep me warm, but hey, I wasn't the one freezing all night.

Today I'm even wearing two pairs of leggings to keep me warm. I'm not taking any chances after I was cold yesterday with my usual wardrobe. I wish Florida sold more winter clothes. Sometimes, walking around campus, I see people from other states with nice winter jackets. They look so mch warmer than me, in their heavy coats meant to keep out all cold. I have a basic cotton hoodie, that says Nike, that I got as a hand-me-down from my little brother 5 years ago when the Quicksilver hoodie I'd gotten from him three years prior to that had fallen apart at the wrists. I hate shopping for jackets. And this one seems to have lost alot of the ability to keep me warm. But I still like this hoodie, and don't wish to part with it. Also, I haven't found a new one that I like. I almost did, once, but it wasn't meant to be. They didn't have my size.

I guess all I'm trying to say is that I hate the cold. I take intense steps to avoid the cold. It may be very Floridian of me to be so intolerant of these changes in temperature, but I'd rather be intolerant than fake it and feel frozen the whole way to class. To all of you other Floridians freezing this week, just wear extra layers. It's not worth it to feel cold.

Camping!

Leah, Daniel, and I are camping! If Jess is reading this, I still need to go camping with you, and I haven't forgotten. This is a last minute sort of decision thrown out there by Daniel when we realized we couldn't spend the three day weekend in Atlanta.

Now, usually, by camping I mean that me, my brother, and maybe ten others from our youth group friend group are on an island in the middle of the intercoastal waterway with nothing but firewood, food stuffs, some clothes, tents, sleeping bags, chairs, and a few other nifty supplies. How did we get to this island? We canoed. Two people to a canoe, with all of our stuff in the middle of the canoes, and maybe one small boat bringing some larger supplies. Dustin, my brother, led us down a dead end canal and we had to actually stand in the two foot deep water at this point to turn our canoes around, since it's a good hour canoe ride from the boat dock to our island. In the midst of changing the paddle from side to side, we have dripped water on all of our stuff, which is now miserably wet, except that I packed lazily and threw my bedding in a plastic bag, which kept it dry. Or, another scenario is that we couldn't borrow the canoes so we used Dustin and Brandon's boats to make three half hour trips per boat to get everyone ferried across, which would be much easier if the shear pin on Dustin's boat didn't have to be replaced every forty minutes and if Brandon's boat was reliably working and didn't have something wrong with the sparkplug. Eventually we all get to the island, though, and it's well past sunset and dinner time. Luckily, I was in the first batch of people dropped off before the boats acted up, and while Shane, Jared, and I waited for everyone else to arrive, I killed time by creating a fire from a lighter that one of us had and the sticks and wood that was already on the island (it's a large wooded island. Quite nice. A cat lives on it, too.) Eventually (four hours later) everything arrives, and then we set up tents in the little light we have and we proceed to "rough it" on our island with only nature and the few things we could bring with us. Just us and nature, on an island wiht only what we could bring, and a half hour unreliable boat ride and a fifteen minute drive past that from civilazation.

Daniel, Leah, and I, however, camp slightly different...for cost and conveneince reasons, and because this was very last minute. So, we rented a cabin--Kabin--from KOA camp--kampgrounds. (KOA thinks it's clever to replace all the usual C words with Ks, like KOA. Ha.) Now this lovely little Kabin has everything necessary. Electricity? Real lights? Oh my! We have a bathroom within walking distance! We have running water! We are a short drive--we have a car here!--from food places and caramel iced coffee. We have mattresses! We have heating! I recall one morning waking up on the island with everyone complaining about having shivered all night. I, having checked the weather before we left, packed long underwear and flannel pants, and remained quite warm the entire night. This was the same trip where only my bedding remained dry. I lucked out and was quite more cheerful than anyone else.

However, Daniel, Leah, and I are not concerned with the fact that the interstate is visible from the Kabin window and sounds quite like a tornado at times when attempting to sleep. We still attempted to create a fire on the ground that had been rained on all day with the damp firewood. We even made some killer smores. We stayed outside and sang in wonderful harmonies for a good hour on the small front porch on our Kabin, not using any of the electricity or water, just us and the stars and our voices. That proved to be miraculous, as it healed us from our grouchy moods, caused by seeing too much of each other in the past week. Then, back in the Kabin, we used the wireless network less than we might have had we not been camping...

However, as much as I laugh at some of the KOA kamping, it's still wonderful. I love camping, in all shapes and forms. More than anything, I love the trip and the bonding time with friends. I love going on adventures with any friends. I love being away from school, just out and doing something different than usual, familiar life. And we may not be compeltely isolated from the world, but we are alone enough that I'm afraid that we'll become characters in some terrifying horror movie, where we realize that some crazed killer is after us. I personally believe that they'd be after Daniel in particular. Leah and I would just be in the wrong place at the wrong time. I'd probably be the first to go, just because I'd be the minor character that was of little importance. Daniel would nearly escape, but his death would be the worst. Maybe he'd go jogging the next morning near a lake, and then a truck would try to run him over, and it'd be named Good Day. Maybe my afformentioned dream was a premonition to KOA Kamping.

Well, back to roughing it in the wild, by watching movies on the computer and eating Oreos inside of our Kabin. I will post again one day if it turns out that my dreams do not predict outcomes of our excursions into the wild.

Blogging.

I must say, having a blog is quite new to anything I've ever had. I never had a livejournal, so I've never gone throughout the day thinking after everything that happens, "Wow, I should go home and type about that on the internet so that anybody else can read it!"

Now, however, my life is changed. Firstly, let me explain walking. I walk across campus to my classes. Usually I walk, say, twenty minutes, tops. When I walk, I like to listen to my iPod. I realized after I lost my iPod (to whoever found it on the sink in the twenty minutes I forgot about it and refused to turn it in, I hope you enjoyed my music collection) that I don't actually like listening to music so much as I like isolating myself. It's not that I'm unfriendly and wouldn't talk to people if given the opportunity, it's just that travelling is always a time of thought for me. When I was younger, car rides were always when I thought, or bike rides. Walking is kind of the same thing. It's just a time for me to unwind, since I can't do much besides walk. It gives me time to think and let my mind wander in whatever direction it so chooses. Sometimes I'll have conversations with one of my friends in my head, trivial or "deep." Sometimes I'll think about my plans for the day. Sometimes I'll imagine possible future scenarios in which I might be involved (when raptors grow wings, there is no escape) and, more recently, I'll think, "I should write about this experience on my blog!" Then I spend the rest of the walk planning out what I would type. Sometimes I'll sketch a few notes out in class so I don't forget the idea, although I figure that the actual entries are much different than what I read in my head to myself while walking. I always feel like this is never as good, although my subconcious is not the most creative thing. For example:

The other evening, I dreamt about a horror movie. It was about a jogger that couldn't escape from jogging around a lake. While he was around this lake, a truck tried to kill him. Think the plot is astounding? The title of the movie was "Good Day." My subconcious created a movie named "Good Day." The sequel was "Better Day." The third in the series? "Great Day."

Like I said, not the most creative mind ever. Either way, I'll think of great blog entries while I walk. Then I make a few notes so that I can remember them later when I actually feel like blogging. Now today, I have been awake five hours total. In these five hours, due to more walking than usual, I have thought of four blogs. One about cold, one about records, one about logic, and the one I'm typing now. The problem is that I don't like updating my blog more than once a week. When you only have six people who read your blog, you don't want to force them to read it too often. Jess checks regularly to kill time at work, but the other five people usually check if I say, "Hey! Check my blog!" Apparently the blog post titled You! didn't do as much as I hoped. Either way, since my friends usually only check my blog once a week on their own, I don't want to post excessivley. Also, is there much a point in posting alot for nobody to read?

Keep tuned for the other three blogs mentioned. Coming soon to a computer near you!