Welcome to the Dark Side

So I wrote a paper last night. 

It was pretty spectacular, guys. It had a lot to do with murders and murderers because I am a criminal justice major and those are things that we write about. I finished it before dawn this morning, so that was a nice change of pace. Got like five whole hours of sleep. 

It was awesome. 

But, anyway, now my internet history is full of searches for murderers. I downloaded pictures of murderers to use on my powerpoint. I'm really glad that no one is sneaking peeks at my internet history. Not just, like, last night, but like always. 

My internet search history is just so embarrassing. 

And it's not even embarrassing for the usual reasons! It's just...ugh, let me give you an example. My last five searches are like "murderers who were under 18," "which alcohol tastes the least like alcohol?" "are colorblind people allowed to drive buses?" "hairstyles for people with glasses" and "best grad schools for writing, sociology, law, criminal justice..." and that list goes on for a while. 

My internet searches are not internet searches. They are stories. Each one has some weird incident attached. 

There's also, like, time stamps involved so you can see just how much time I spend on certain websites. It's embarrassing to admit that you spend, like, three hours a day on pinterest. Or to realize that you spent four hours last night reading dumb internet comics. 

It's bad, guys. I really hope that no government agencies are looking at my internet history. I bet they'd just look at each other and be, like, "Wow. This person is such a loser, I bet she has no friends." 

Preach it, government agents. Preach. It. 

So I have to give a speech in a little while over that paper I wrote last night. I'm excited. There is a room of people who have to listen to me talk for like twenty minutes. And they are not allowed to leave. 

Hehehehehe. 

It's great because I don't measure the success of my speeches in grade-form. I measure it in the number of times I am able to make a room full of people laugh at me. Or with me, whatever. I'm not really all that picky. 

I don't know why. I doesn't make any sense. I don't talk, like, ever in this class that I'm giving the presentation for, but give me a reason to get up in front of the class and I transform into a stand up comedian. And I'm a girl, so that's no good. 

Women comedians are the opposite of funny. 

I'll let you know how it goes. It might be great. It might be awful. It might be a little of both. I don't know. It's for my ethics class. Ethics are dumb and boring.

Boo ethics. 

Anyway, I'm in class right now. It's boring, hence the blogging. And  there is a random girl in here who just won't stop talking. The class has devolved from a lecture into a dialogue between this one student and the professor. 

The whole class is just sitting here watching the two of them with vaguely bemused expressions.

Some people...they have no self awareness, let me tell you. I am flawed, I am like super flawed, but I'm more or less aware of it. I know that I have issues. I know that I will monologue at a class today and get, like, zero of my points across. I know that about myself. That is a thing I know. 

I could go on. You know how all heroes have a dark side? Harry Potter had the fact that he was a horcrux. Frodo wanted to keep the ring. Batman has dead parents. You know, dark side stuff. 

Well, I too have a dark side. A dark side called Group-Leader-Danielle. Group-Leader-Danielle is everything bad that has ever existed about my personality. GLD (that's the acronym we're going with, okay?) emerges whenever there is a group project. It doesn't matter if it's like semester-long or ten-minutes long. GLD will emerge and do her best to seize control. 

It is so bad. 

I hate group projects. You can't even understand how, just, completely terrible I turn when group projects are on the table. 

This paper I wrote was supposed to be a group project. I went to the professor and asked him very nicely if he would let me do out by myself because I didn't want to subject anyone to the horror that is doing a group project with me. 

The only valid ideas? My ideas. The way we're going to do the powepoint? My way. No one ever tells me to be group leader, I just seize control. I am the Vladimir Putin of group projects. I will use whatever underhanded tactics I deem necessary to get my way. 

I like to think that I've become fairly chill since high school. My temper is manageable now. I barely ever throw foodstuffs at random passerbys in fits of insane and uncontrollable rage nowadays. I've injured, like, only four people in angry slap-fights this year. So...chill. It is a thing I am. 

Group-Leader-Danielle is not chill. GLD is the opposite of chill. GLD is about as chill as Krakatoa. If anything goes wrong, an eruption of hate and name-calling and possible physical pain is going to occur. 

And I can never admit that I might be the one it the wrong. I aggressively argued that there were five ninja turtles, not four, because I made a typo one time. That's a real story. That's, like, an actual thing that happened. 

So its bad. Its one of the reasons that I should never be in charge of anything ever. Like, ever. 

The fact that I'm aware of it changes nothing. I can't stop it. No one can stop it. Group-Leader-Danielle will not be contained. 

Anyway. 

In stir fry news...I will be stirring the fry again next year. I just signed up for my shifts. And because I've worked there for over a full semester now, I get like a five cent pay increase! So now I won't be making minimum wage. I will be making five cents above minimum wage. 

I am moving up in the world. 

But, in order to fulfill my basic needs like summer, like food, rent, power, wifi and netflix...you know, Maslow's hierarchy stuff...I am going to need to find some sort of job. 

Ugh. 

I do not want to get a job other than stir fry. I like doing stir fry. Stir fry is fun. Plus, I only have to work twenty hours a week. I do not want a real-person job where I have to work forty hours a week. 

I might just see if I can live this summer on my leftover money from this year. I might have to cancel my wifi and eat literally nothing but bread and ramen noodles, but I could do it. 

I'm going to go full Walden, guys. Be all isolated. Don't use the internet. Eat ramen and cheese sandwiches. That was Walden, right? The one with the ramen? 

 Sometimes I think that I'm one like or as short of a simile. I'm a metaphor, guys. And no one wants to be a metaphor. 

No one.

Bad Choices are the Best Choies

Guys, I finally understand why people under twenty-one are not allowed to do fun things like drink and gamble.

 I kind of think that adults over twenty-one should not be allowed to do these things either, if I am being entirely honest. 

Let me elaborate. This weekend, I made a lot of bad choices. 

So many that I have decided to declare last Friday night as Danielle's Night of Really Bad Choices! (Note: there is capitalization involved because the choices were Really Bad and I felt like the extra emphasis was necessary.) 

But, no. It was just a night of really bad financial/life choices all around. First, my sister and I went out to expensive dinner and my wallet was sad about it. My stomach was happy because it was steak and I love steak, but that is another matter entirely.

 I also had several fruity girly drinks with dinner because I am an adult and I can drink fruity girly drinks without shame. They were really expensive and did not actually contain all the much alcohol. After like four appletinis (best drink, by the way) and a strawberry margarita, I was slightly buzzed, like, at best. 

I have no excuse for the fact that we went to the casino afterwards. Like, no excuse at all. But, yes, my sister and I went to the casino and I lost all of the money I had in my wallet. 

It wouldn't have been so bad if I would have lost it all, like, straight off the bat. But there was a point where I was legitimately doing a good job and winning money! I started off the night with thirty bucks.

 When you're a poor college student that is actually a lot of money. That is half of a power bill right there. Or a third of a grocery bill, minus the name-brand fruit juice. 

I lost ten of it real quick. There's a machine called the Zodiac Sisters and let me tell you, they are some fickle bitches. I've been to the casino three or four times and half of those times the Zodiac Sisters are like falling over each other to give me all of the money. My dad and I won a hundred bucks one time. It was great. I bought a pizza. 

But, no, other times they are just coldhearted and terrible fake people who take my ten dollars and give me nothing back. That's what happened this weekend. All of my money...poof! Gone! It was like magic,  but not the good kind. Dark magic. Evil magic. 

So, yeah. Ten dollars all gone. Three and a half bottles of name-brand crangrape juice. It was a dark ten minutes for me. 

But, once I got over that and stopped wailing in despair, my sister and I decided to play blackjack. Blackjack is a game that I am terrible at. I panic and do incredibly stupid shit like hit on an 18 or stand on a 12. 

But, no, my sister is super helpful and will usually stand next to me and tell me things like, "no Danielle that's stupid don't do that why are you making these choices no do you hate having money no no stop." So it works out. But, there were only two seats left and they were far away from each other so I had to rely on my own horrible decision making skills for once. 

I didn't lose all of my money right away. I started with twenty, got up to fifty and then refused to stop playing until I was back to zero. 

I know. 

I know. 

I know. 

I am not a functional adult and I do not make good choices. I've got that. I am crystal clear on that fact. So, yes. I left the casino minus thirty bucks which, when you make minimum wage like I do, is equal to about a whole shift of making stir fry. 

But, to celebrate our crushing and complete defeat, my sister and I went and got cigars flavored like tropical fruit. They were terrible, made me gag and I smoked mine anyway dammit. I am an adult I am so allowed to smoke cigars flavored like tropical fruit if I want to. 

After that, we almost got tattoos, wimped out on getting tattoos, went back to my apartment, watched mediocre stand-up comedians on netflix (none of them were women because women are terrible at stand-up) and ate lots of cookie dough ice cream. 

Bad choices! All of the things we did were bad choices! 

It was fun, though. 

But, yeah, the next day the people with the apartment above me made some bad choices of their own. And by the people above me, I actually mean the water-heater above me. It broke, leaked and ruined my bathroom ceiling. I woke up, went in to get a shower and saw hunks of drywall hanging down like flakes of skin hanging off of a gigantic, shedding lizard. 

I don't know.

It was unpleasant, water was still leaking down and I got hit in the head with a piece of ceiling. I called my landlord to fix it, as one does, and the maintenance guy came over, which was good of him. What wasn't good of him was how he went upstairs, stopped the leaking and then just kind of skedaddled without even kind of fixing my ceiling. 

I had to call back later and then they told me that I should be able to handle the whole "slowly crumbling bathroom ceiling" business on my own. Um, no, landlord people. That is not a thing I can do on my own. I do not have a husband or a boyfriend or even a close brofriend who I can force to do it for me. 

Even if I would have decided to date that midget little person dude, this would still be an issue. He couldn't have reached the ceiling. I mean, on a scale of one to Colorado, it is not that high, but still. That midget dude was really short. 

But, no, I can get by on my own usually. 

I can do a lot of things that most girls would have their male significant others do. I fixed a bottle-opener-shaped hole in my wall. I know how to replace fuses. I can grill burgers like a champ. I know how to fly-fish for gods sake, but I cannot fix my holey bathroom ceiling by myself, landlord. 

I was very whiny and persistent and they said he'd come back on Monday. I'm pretty sure they did that to make me stop calling them. The problem was that this was on Saturday. I didn't get to use the shower for like two days. It was horrible and I hated it. 

Anyway, my ceiling is fixed now thanks to my maintenance guy. I gave him a fist bump and told him thanks. I'm pretty sure I weirded him out. 

Whatever. 

Right now, I'm kind of chilling out in the library and avoiding thinking about work. I do not want to go to work. Do not want. 

See, I usually enjoy my job. Making stir fry is the bees knees or some other saying that means cool, but is more relevant socially. Fly? Swag? YOLO?

I don't know. 

But, no, whenever the weather is good, people decide to make the trek out to Elliot, the dining hall where I work. And the weather is really good today, guys. 

Work is going to suck, hardcore. It sucked yesterday too. I worked in the dishroom, so it was already less fun than usual. But we had so many people. Usually, we have like two-hundred and some-odd customers. That's a usual night for us. Last night we had 380, which is just insane. We haven't had that much since thanksgiving dinner last semester. 

I saw dishes in my dreams last night, guys. I'm pretty sure there is still nacho cheese lodged underneath my fingernails. 

Working in dining is so very glamorous. 

Later. 

The Five Things No One Tells You About College

One week left to go of sophomore year, you guys. One more week. And then I am free to be unemployed and poor in the comfort of my own home instead of unemployed and poor at college

Hoo-rah.

So, as of next week, I will personally be halfway done with my college education with a degree in journalism/telecommunication/advertising/graphic design/criminal justice/sociology. (Mostly criminal justice, but hey. I've majored in all of those things, so whatever.) So I think I'm a credible source so far as college and stuff goes. I'm part of that culture, or whatever you want to call it. I'm cool, I'm hip, I'm part of the target audience that the Twilight movies tried (and failed) to market to.

(Mostly, the Twilight movies ended up being marketed to 13 year old girls and middle-aged women unsatisfied with their marriages. I was an advertising major for nine days. I know these things.)

Anyway, I was bored and thinking about college as, you know, a concept. I came up with five things that I really wish someone would have told me before I came here and my life got all screwed up.

Without further ado...

The Five Things No One Tells You About College

1. The Monopoly Money Effect

Unless you are one of the lucky few with rich parents who are also generous, you will be paying for college yourself. Just, an FYI...college is stupid expensive.

I know I'm probably the first person to tell you this awful, awful fact, but it's true. I could sell all of the organs in my body on the Taiwanese black market and still be in debt after college. I know. I checked.

(My debt adds about 75 cents a day in interest to my rather impressive running total. So...there's that.)

I'm paying for my degree with stupent loans (which is a combination of the words "student loans" and "stupid loans" because they are both things. Stupid, I mean. And also for students.) It's pretty cool because I just sign a piece of paper and them I get all of this money. Money for books! Money for food! Money for netflixs!

Money that I, eventually, am supposed to pay back. That part, the whole "this is not my money to have for keeps, this is my money to use right now and then give back later" doesn't really seem all that important right now. It's like monopoly money. It's not like real human money that I need to pay back. It's colorful paper money that charges interest in fun not in dollars.

That's a lie. It does charge interest in dollars. So now I have negative dollars Which is, like, the opposite of fun.

But, right now, it's hard to visualize the pile of money that I owe my school. Instead, I visualize the pile of xbox games I could buy with the money I owe my school. And v-neck tees. I look awesome in v-neck tees.

So, yeah. Monopoly money. Except, in this scenario Free Parking is actually $2,000 per semester parking and the Community Chest gives you free rape whistles instead of cash.

Like I said...college is weird.

2. Motivation is Hard

In high school, there was always someone there to tell you to get your shit done. Be it your parents, your teachers or your guidance counselor, there was always someone there telling you that you had to do your homework before you were allowed to take naps and eat pizza.

I mean, you could ignore them if you tried hard enough, but there were always around. Like gnats. Or very over-involved prison wardens. It was really hard to not do things in high school because there was always someone there to give you shit about not doing it.

But in college, you can do what you want. Want to sleep through your 11:00 class? That's fine! Whatever, bro...we know you have other things going on. No one is going to come remind you that you have a test you didn't study for or an essay exam that you're currently sleeping through. That's your business.

You have to make yourself study and make yourself go to class and make yourself not eat ice cream and pizza rolls for every meal. And it's really hard. Why would I go to class when instead I can stay in my dorm all day, not put on real pants and play xbox for literally fourteen hours without stopping?

That's one of the many reasons why college is awesome. And why so many people flunk out.

3. Graduating is Confusing

Have you filled out forms w, 92, button and a² + b² = c²? Have you taken all your classes in perfectly sequential order? Have you filed out a zoning permit for the ground you are currently standing on? Have you slaughtered a goat to the the old gods? 

Oh, you slaughtered it on a Tuesday...yikes. I'm afraid only goats sacrificed during full moons that fall on Wednesday are admissible. 

So sorry, but it looks like you aren't going to graduate this year! Try again next time. 

This is how it feels. This is exactly how it feels. It is way too complicated to graduate. In high school, people were always hounding you and making sure you had the right credits and all the other stuff you needed to graduate. Here, they just kind of shrug and say "everything will probably be okay, probably." 

You know what? They are probably lying to you, probably.

As someone who had majored in a stupid number of different things, I am well acquainted with the guidance office and the people who work there. Their favorite things to do are to put you on hold, transfer your call and "accidentally" loose your paperwork. 

Sometimes, I'm pretty sure I'm going to be in college forever. Literally. 

4. Be Yourself (Plus a Million)

For many people, college is the first time they've really been without adult supervision. They are free to do whatever they want and nobody can tell them no. Little Jimmy can dance if he wants to, he can leave his friends behind because his Dad isn't there anymore to tell him that he needs to stop dancing and go outside to play with the other kids.

Every little bad or annoying thing about a person is magnified by, like, a thousand in college. In high school, I was sort of antisocial and I was kind of into video games. Now, I very rarely leave my dorm and spend a good three hours a day xboxing (that's the verb form of playing xbox not, you know, boxing with the letter x).

Kids who sort of liked photography? Yeah, say goodbye to their faces because they will be hidden behind a lens for the next four years. Kids who had a lot of boyfriends or girlfriends? They will become straight-up prostitutes. Kids who occasionally partied? They will likely never attend a class. Kids who liked going to the gym? They will never stop exercising! 

Girls who were snarky and kind of liked to blog? They turn out awesome. And sexy. And awesome.

Yeah, well...I fully support people taking happiness where they can find it, but it is, just, really annoying sometimes. People become themselves in college. But...like to an extreme degree. A disturbingly extreme degree.

5. The Bubble

College is not like the real world. Not even a little bit. In the real world, you cannot wander around at four in the morning just because you feel like it, order a pizza and them sleep until noon the next day. In college, no one judges you for that behavior. That behavior is expected. If you get up before nine in the real world, you are a normally functioning human being. You get up before nine in college, you either have a class or are still awake from the night before.

College life is a bubble. People can see you on the inside of the bubble and they sort of understand what you're doing, but something about it is off and you can't really see all that well past the soapy exterior.

The bubble is pretty cool when you're inside. Everything is pretty colors and you get free sandwiches sometimes and everyone understands the references on Glee. But when you leave the bubble, like to go home or to leave campus, everything seems sad and depressing and nobody wants to debate philosophy with you, they just want you to order your damn coffee and go. This leads to a bubble-cling effect where the people inside the bubble want nothing to do with the people outside the bubble.

The people outside the bubble are weird. They wake up too early, they don't read the same books or listen to the same music as you and it's scary because they used to be in the bubble too, didn't they? Then you start to panic about the bubble popping and what on earth you'll do when you are forcibly ejected from the bubble and are no longer allowed to ignore the people on the outside.

And that's where graduate students come from.

That's my list. Do with it what you will. I need to go see if I can score a free sandwich from some guy on the corner. Later, all.

Sociology for Dummies

So, I'm thinking of starting a new blog (or at least retitling this one.) My new/renamed blog would be called Weird Places I, Danielle L Renckly, Fell Asleep and Also Why Does My Hall Have So Many Damn Fire Drills?

It's a working title. 

But seriously. Those two things combined basically comprise my entire life at college so far this year. For one, the sleeping in weird places should really not be an issue. I have a single dorm and two sets of furniture. Two beds, two chairs, four perfectly good places to nap!  

Apparently, whatever instinct controls my sleeping habits would beg to differ. A list of the places I have fallen asleep in the last two weeks is as followed: 

the floor, the floor, the floor again, the shower, the floor, under my bed, the floor, the floor, the shower again, the floor, inside a box, the floor, the floor and, oh guess what? THE FREAKING FLOOR. 

For some reason, I keep waking up on the floor of my dorm. Sometimes I'll wake up on the floor and not remember how I got there. 

You know, this all plays pretty well into my "I'm secretly a werewolf" theory. 

But, moving on to the fire drill thing. I've been at school for about a month now. Four weeks. Not that long. In that time, my stupid building has been through four fire drills. That is literally a drill per week. Not, of course, that they've been spaced out that nicely. No, they happen without warning at the most inopportune times. Like at midnight. Or when it's storming in a torrential fashion. Or when I was very busy watching the Vampire Diaries, thank you very much! 

Stupid college. 

Speaking of stupid college, I had a test in Sociology today. 

It did not go well.

 Have you ever read something that was in English, or whatever language you happen to speak natively, and have just not understood it? Like even a little bit? 

That had never happened to me before this morning. And let me tell you...it was terrible. Awful. I almost cried. I was taking my exam and I looked at the first question and I...

I...

I DIDN'T GET IT. 

It said something along the lines of "looking from the perspective of Muller's theory on differential association, how does the ruling class assure its hegemony through constructing and diffusing a proper ideology of crime?" 

Ummmm...yes? 

 Is this what stupid people feel like all the time? IS IT? 

I feel like I'm in Latin/Spanish/Math class all over again. I hate being not awesome at things. 

And with that improper segue...(spelled that word right on the first try, I did) 

I'm currently in mourning. I've had a dear friend fall gravely ill. And by dear friend I mean my macbook and by gravely ill I mean it decided that it wanted to stop turning on. 

My computer is quite the hipster. Apparently, working when I needed it to work was too mainstream. Now, I'm stuck doing all my homework/facebook stalking/blog typing on a computer in the library. When I am struck with my own hilariousness and start to laugh like a moron, the people all stare at me.

Peasants. They're all jealous of my overwhelming awesomeness.

But, seriously...I know nothing at all about computers. I know that they're the special magic boxes that let me watch my shows and type my snark-tastic blogs, but that's pretty much it. So, my attempts to fix my lovely macbook began and ended at hitting it, yelling at it and then cussing it out. 

So, I'm probably going to need to contact a professional. 

I'm gonna go stand outside the library and stop the first dweeb in a Doctor Who shirt. Sound plan, I think. 

I'll let you know how it all pans out.

Hell is Other People (And Big Feet)

Hey there...Danielle in Sociology class here.

I'm so bored. So, the other day my biology professor just said that there's "no way to escape learning." For one, that sounds rather frightening. Are you going to hunt me down and force me to read a textbook at gunpoint?

 "You will learn, defiant student!" 

"No, no, please! Anything but that! Anything but learning!" 

"Learn or I shoot!" 

"Give me ignorance or give me death!"

 Two, I so totally can. Haha, I defy you, biology professor! I should be listening to the lecture...instead I'm writing a devilishly amusing blog! Learning, ha...school is for chumps.

So...my ongoing quest for college-friends has hit another tiny bump. This bump, unlike the others, is not due to my undeserved sense of superiority or my unwillingness to ever leave my room. This bump is made entirely of social awkwardness. And also feet. 

It happened this morning. I was on my way to class, listening to my music, just as chill as you please. I was like a normal human for five seconds almost. Then I tripped over my stupid feet. A boy who was walking near me glanced over and said something along the lines of "are you okay?" 

Now this is the point where most normal humans would nod and laugh or thank the kind stranger who had taken in interest in their present predicament. Not me. Nope. I will not settle for normal, comfortable social interaction. Instead I shouted the words, "Big Feet!" at him. 

Smooooth. 

I do have fairly large feet. They're size 12. My feet are not petite. When he looked confused and a little embarrassed, I decided to do the idiotic thing and keep talking. "I have big feet...I was, I was talking about my feet. They making walking a rather difficult endeavor." 

When he remained silent, I assumed that I should keep going. "Yeah...so I was talking about my feet. Not your feet. All thought, you know what they say about guys with big feet!" 

Once time travel is invented, I am using it to go back to that moment and shoot myself. I'm not kidding. 

Keep in mind, that I had headphones in for all of this so I was practically shouting these things. It was suuuuper. 

After an awkward half-bow half-curtsy deal, I scrambled up and used my big feet to get the hell out of there. So...that was my Tuesday.

Anyway, I've updated my blog. It's now DDB 2.0 (Danielle's Depressing Blog Two-Point-Oh). No gonna lie...it's pretty bitching. (I'm going to bring back the word bitching. I feel like it's going fairly well at this point.)

So...this school's temperatures are Dante's Inferno-themed today. My dorm room is literally the hottest place I have ever been. My Bio class is about the same temperature. But my sociology class decided that it was going to be different. My Bio class decided to be the ninth circle of hell today. For those of you not in the know, that means that my bio class (and the ninth circle of Danielle-hell) is really, really, really cold.

Also, Judas might be here. I don't know yet.

How am I supposed to dress for these ever-fluctuating temperatures? Wear short shorts and a parka? Snow pants and a tank top? 

Maybe the hipster I saw the other day with jeans, no shirt and a beanie had the right idea. Ha, as if. Hipsters never have the right idea. Expect being hit by buses. That's a right idea, all you hipsters out there. Think of the volume of people who get hit by buses. Not very high, right? Right. So, you'd be super un-mainstream. 

You're welcome, world. Thanks to me, Danielle L Renckly, there are no more hipsters. They were all hit by buses...and died. 

I should go...there are probably a dozen or so people left on campus who I haven't made uncomfortable yet. That needs to be remedied.

Day 213 of College: Attack of the Frisbees

Today...


I walked aimlessly around campus for a few hours. I did this because the weather was nice, so I wanted to be outside, but I didn't want to sit in one place lest I be mocked or hit with an ultimate frisbee (how are they different than regular frisbees? I mean, really.) 


I don't know why someone would mock me. But, walking around campus, I'm already half-convinced that everyone is laughing at me. Again, I have no idea why. 


But, anyway, I wandered campus aimlessly. I call this "pulling a Danielle." There are 3 distinct rules that you must follow when pulling a Danielle. 


1. Don't meander. Walk sort-of quickly, like you might be heading to class or something. This dispels suspicion that you aren't actually going to someplace. 


2. Have a "destination" in mind. My destination is always Starbucks, mostly because Starbucks is hella far from campus. Walking there takes, like, ten minutes (At Ball State Strip Mall, ten minutes is far). Seriously, Starbucks is the Pluto of the Ball State Universe-ity. 

3. Don't make eye contact. For me, this is a life rule in general. Eye contact leads to awkwardness. And bananas. 


Anyhow, time for some cutting observations about other college-goers. 


So, this week has been warm. On some levels, this is neat. On some levels, this is not-so-neat. The not-so-neat level consists mainly of whores. 


Let me explain. There is no dress code in college. Apparently, that means you dress like a street walker on the first day of non-frigid weather. Seriously. Sometimes, I can't tell if girls are wearing "shorts" or denim-colored-thongs. 


Some of them are wearing homecoming dresses. I'm not kidding. Throw a cardigan over that sucker and apparently your homecoming dress is like the same thing as a sundress. 


Also, the girls in my building think that sunbathing on the sidewalk outside is a good idea. I almost tripped on one in a straight-up string bikini yesterday. 


It's been making me seriously uncomfortable. 


On a related note, the boys in my building are getting ridiculous. And clever. But mostly ridiculous. 


They've figured out that you can sit on the lawn outside and just stare at girls. It's like Playboy with marginally more clothes and marginally less money. And marginally the same amounts  of skeeviness. 


And people wonder why I want to drop out of college...


(Is it like this at all colleges? Or is it just marginally-better-than-community-college-Ball-State?) 


Whatever. I'll just keep my clothes on and remain ridiculously pale. We'll see who's laughing when we're all thirty and they all have skin cancer...and probably husbands. 


At this rate, I will most likely still be single. 


Danielle OUT. 

Day 199 of College: Taco Bell: Indiana's Fountian of Youth

Today...

My spring break starts in T-minus 3 hours. So, that's a thing. Unfortunately, my spring break will mainly consist of being at home, in Fishers, going to the dentist, in Fishers, and driving my siblings to school, also in Fishers. In case you haven't noticed, there is a recurring theme here. Well, two actually. Those themes are suckiness and also Fishers. 

After Muncie, you'd think that Fishers basically the bomb dot com. Uptown compared to Downtown, if you will. 

But...when you think of where all the other college kids are going for spring break (Florida, Florida, Florida and also Florida)...my life just looks real sad. 

Florida is warm. 

Fishers is not warm. 

Florida has beaches. 

Fishers does not have beaches.

Florida is where Spanish explorer Ponce De Leon believed the legendary Fountain of Youth was located. 

The closest thing Fishers has to a Spanish explorer or a Fountain of Youth is Taco Bell. 

My life...is the worst. 

Also, I've managed to collect another awkward moment to add the the collection of what I've started to call "Danielle's Greatest Hits." Other people call it life. That, my friends, is too simple when your life is as complex, depressing and Fountain-of-Youth-less as mine is. 

So, anyway, I was eating lunch. My lunch consisted of a piece of pizza and a breadstick. If you can see where this is going, raise your hand. 

Somehow I finished my piece of pizza with surprisingly little conflict. The trouble started with the breadstick. Specifically when I realized that I had been making very awkward and very intense eye contact with the same girl for the past five minutes. Why she didn't just look away is beyond me.

But, once I realized what I was doing, I was halfway done eating a breadstick. I felt so incredibly awkward with that stick of bread hanging out of my mouth that I just shoved the entire thing in my mouth and basically swallowed it whole. I think I unhinged my jaw a bit, like a reticulated python.

And the amazing thing is, that stupid girl kept eye contact with me. The entire time.

Sad thing is, that doesn't even break into my top two dozen most embarrassing moments. Hell, it doesn't even break into the top two dozen food-related embarrassing moments. 

Just a typical Friday, I guess. 

Danielle Out