Birthday Madness in the Emerald City

So much to say, so little time...  Where to start?

Well, I'll start with what everyone is probably wondering about -- My celebrity crush is gone. I'd like to thank God in his mercy, and also dead week (which allows no time for trawling youtube for more talk shows and interviews). So that's over. I still like his music, but I've moved on to more edifying activities like writing, reading my bible, and listening to the Worldview Academy podcast (which just happens to be hosted by my two favorite speakers, Bill Jack and Jeff Baldwin. (and because I know that Jeff Baldwin and Bill Jack always mock argue about whose name should go first, I've just alleviated that problem. Ha!))

Okay then. Glad that's all cleared up. I also breezed through my finals - Japanese, International Relations, and Intro to Communications. I'm registered for my new classes, and I'm excited to be heading home for spring break. The house where I stay has the girls switch rooms and room mates every quarter, so I'm currently sittin in my room at a super-clean desk with only a laptop and a desk chair. It no longer feels like my desk. There are no knicknacks on the windowsill, the desk lamp is gone, my printer has been packed out, and I no longer have snacks in my desk drawer. So no roasted almonds while I study. Of course, since I've finished with school for the quarter, I don't really need the roasted almonds anymore...

Additionally, I have been plotting all the many -- EH??

Sorry for the outburst, but the mildly depressing rain that had been falling from the ubiquitous Seattle grey skies has just upgraded (downgraded?) to slushy snow. If that causes any problems with public transit tomorrow I will be most dissatisfied, since I have a bus to catch home.

Speaking of public transit, I'm glad that I didn't have to take a bus back down to Vancouver to celebrate the birthday of a good friend of mine -- because he came up here instead! Besides, I had enough bothering me as I attempted to craft a unique birthday present. It didn't turn out exactly the way I wanted, but... well, shall I start at the beginning?

The Righteous Empire of Brendan was turning 21, and being awesome (because all of my friends are awesome), he wanted to spend his birthday with me and a couple other close buddies of whom I also happen to be fond. So, he stuffed his car up with Kristi, Jirah, and my little sister (who is doubly awesome since she is not only my friend but also related to me by blood), and drove all the way up to seattle. This involved waking at an early hour and driving up to get here by approximately 10 AM.

Tragically, I stayed up late the night before and into the early morning hours trying to finish the lovely birthday present for Brendan the awesome. So I overslept, had to quickly finish up the present by printing it, and then take a shower. However, having overslept, I didn't get a chance to blow dry my hair before they arrived. Kristi, Jirah, and my sister came up to get me, and we headed out into the blustery wetness that is Seattle during the winter months.

Here's the birthday present that gave me such trouble:

 

 ...yeah. It doesn't seem like it would take awhile, but it took a really long time, and I didn't even get the chance to color it. I'll probably redo it, which will involve fixing the resolution (which I wrote at, like, 3AM and so it is not particularly coherent), coloring it, and making the speech bubbles and text size bigger so that it is more readable. My friend Brendan was the United States, I was Norway, and Kristi was the United Kingdom. The rest of the people were all caricatures of the people from our Model United Nations team/class/club/thing at Clark College that we were closest to. It was sort of like a big group of buddies that did Political Science-y things together and went on awesome trips, and that's where Kristi and I met Brendan, and there are a lot of inside jokes involved with it, which is why I chose this for the present.

Anyway, after the excitement of completely bombing the present by trying to print all the panels on one page (rendering the text so tiny that it became unreadable) and racing out to the car with still-wet hair, we took off for downtown Seattle to explore. First we parked and wandered into a food court area near the Pacific Science Center, and had Subway sandwiches. I also had a small mango peach fruity drink thing that probably had way too much sugar to qualify as a smoothie. After that, we walked towards downtown-ish, with the intent of wandering around pike place.

 It was freezing. The wind chill factor was remarkable - and not in a good way. So our first stop ended up being a random Starbucks. Which isn't too bad, I suppose, since they have hot drinks and started in Seattle. Then we headed out again, and I believe (it's been awhile so bear with me, my chronological order could be all shuffled about) we ended up finding an awesome military surplus store. It had a bunch of gas masks, flight suits, bomber jackets, and some fun parachute bags and also medic bags. 'twas fun to check out all the stuff in there, look at the dress uniforms, eyeball the camouflage, attempt to read the Japanese scribbled (calligraphy and scribbling in Japanese are not all that different) on an old flag, and then duck back into the freezing cold, where we saw some people from UNICEF (United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund) casing the street. 

Being foolish and susceptible to pitying folks who are standing out in the freezing cold, I was like "Hey! UNICEF! :D" to which they replied "Yeah! we are UNICEF! let us talk to you for half an hour about UNICEF and what we are doing to help the children in Somalia!"  Which, admittedly, is not a bad thing, but the only person who could actually sign up for their "ten dollars a month" deal was Brendan, because he was the only one of us over twenty...  

I felt pretty ashamed that I'd somehow roped Brendan into standing on a cold street for half an hour and then getting guilted into giving them ten dollars a month... ON HIS BIRTHDAY. On the bright side, the UNICEF people were friendly, and also funny. So after that, we went about another block and leapt into yet another Starbucks because it was (as I said) freezing outside. So then we bought some more drinks, and then ended up wandering over to Pike Place market. We looked at the flying fish, saw some funny t-shirts, and then after some interesting ventures into clothes shops (Brendan was thrilled at this development... not), we found a really awesome sci-fi comic book shop of awesomeness and probably spent a good hour looking at all the stuff there and posing with the life-size cardboard cutouts of Spock, Dr. Who, and Darth Vader. It was fun!

It was probably more than an hour, but time flew and it's been so long that I really don't remember. So after that, it was time to head back. So we wandered back to the car, stopping by the food court-y thing on our way back to find restrooms and possibly more Starbucks. Then we headed back to my house, and then go to dinner because it was the Women's social and we were supposed to take all the guys from the guy's house out to eat, so I dragged Brendan and Company along. We went back after dinner instead of going roller skating and hung out talking until around 10 PM, which was when Brendan and company departed.

All that to say, it was tons and tons of fun, and I hope that Brendan had a good time because I know I did. And hopefully they will come up and visit me again, because I miss all my friends from Vancouver. While it's nice to make friends up here, I don't have a whole lot in common with most of the girls here. I'm a political science and international relations nerd who likes to learn foreign languages, make stupid jokes, read sci-fi and would rather watch an action-adventure flick than a chick flick any day. Romantic comedies are nice, but I'd rather see some action. (Not to say that I don't want plot, but really... how much more plot does a romantic comedy have?)  I guess technically it would be more accurate to say that I would rather watch a Disney animated feature more than either of those, and I also watch anime and read manga. And American comics too. I'm pretty sure that I'm the only one who reads comics between both the girl's AND guy's houses.

But I digress. I miss my friends, and I hope they come visit me more often. Maybe then I won't have time to develop celebrity crushes. (Yes, I just blamed their absence for my momentary lapse of sanity. I prefer to think of it as "deflection"...)

Well, since my hand is cramping up from typing so much, I should probably call it quits. Hope you enjoyed this post more than my last one. (Which I might be tempted to delete but... well, it's real, it's me, and I guess it's a good way to keep me humble. Even if it is a total embarrassment...)

So long, and fare well! Or should I say...

Live Long and Prosper!