Surprise!

Last night, I went out to Eielson Air Force Base for Jack's birthday/good-bye party. Dad, you'll get a kick out of this: There's a road out that way called Thatta Way. Also, in North Pole, which we passed through on the way, there's a road called Santa Claus Lane. I thought North Pole was hilarious! Every pole in the city was white with a red stripe--decorated like a candy cane.


The party was a lot of fun. After scaring the life out of Jack and coating him in silly string (it was a surprise party), we started playing a game called Quelf while Dave made moose steaks. Well, Dave played too, he just got up and down a lot. Quelf was an awesome game--a little bit like Cranium, I guess. I had to write a five-line opera song about the player to my right, and I got to move two extra squares if I included the words hormonal, mountains, absentee ballot, gorgeous, and plank. I pulled it off too, and sang it to the tune of Phantom of the Opera. It was pretty retarded, but everyone liked it anyway. I also had to write a six-line rhyming poem and recite it while walking in circles with my chin on my left shoulder and my right hand on my left ear. Sarah had to invent a dance. Eric had to give a golf commentary on everything Sarah did when it was her turn. He was actually surprisingly good at that--I was sitting right by him and his commentary was quiet and intense, so I was one of the few who could hear. It cracked me up, and I had trouble focusing on what she was actually doing. Kitty had to spend an entire round pointing at the sky and speaking only in Spanish. My personal favorite was on my next-to-final turn, I landed on the last space and got a red card. For red cards, you have to take the topic on the card and go around the circle and name something in the category. Since I was on the last space, I had to list two things instead of one each time it got to me. The topic was "words with more than five syllables." Naturally, I immediately took supercalifragilisticexpialidocious and pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis right off the bat. Of course, that left antidisestablishmentarianism for the next person, but meh. The best part was, everyone (including me) just made up words and acted like they were real. I believe we used the words antidissentihistorianist, superantagonistically, amorphogermophobia, and a whole boatload of others that were obviously made up. So I started calling people on the words they made up, and they made the rule that they could make up words but I couldn't. Well, I made up words anyway, but everyone actually believed they were real! Mwaha, that's what years of language classes will do to you! And I haven't even taken morphology yet!

Everyone at the party had chipped in and bought Jack an iPod with a metal case that had engraved on it "Return with honor--we'll miss you, Jack!" (or something sweet like that.) Katy and Dave had bought him a really nice .45 caliber rifle. (Did I mention Jack loves guns?) That kind of left me feeling bad because I hadn't gotten him anything. Then I stopped feeling too terrible because it's not really my fault I've only been here a week.

The party was at Sarah's house, so her little sister, Kate, was there. Kate's twelve. I liked her a lot. She was super-hyperactive and kept jumping up and down and squealing and flapping her hands. When we went downstairs to watch Transformers, I sat on the floor with Gimli (the German shepherd) and Kate. After Gimli drooled on my face and walked away, I lay down and put my head in Kate's lap. She giggled and started trying to spike my hair with just her fingers... for about ten minutes. Then her mom called and she jumped up and flew out of the room, letting my head smack onto the floor. Bah, stupid kids.

On the way back, I saw lights flashing in my rearview mirror. I hate emergency vehicles. My one and only car accident happened because of a fire truck. Anyway, no one was in the passing lane, so I pulled over, the whole time thinking "Is he pulling me over? Is he seriously pulling me over? I've never gone more than two miles over the speed limit in my life! Well, okay, five. Well, except for that time in Denali when I went ninety, but that was necessary. Well..." so half of me was freaking out. The other half, the dominant half actually, was pretty relaxed because I couldn't possibly have done anything wrong, could I? Maybe it was just that time of night when cops decide to randomly pull people over to see if they're drunk.... Yeah.

As it turned out, he just wanted to let me know my left headlight was out. He didn't give me a ticket or a mark on my driving record or anything. Just a warning to get it fixed. He took my license and registration and insurance information, so I assume he recorded it somewhere so that if I get pulled over again later for the same problem, they can see I already had my warning and it's ticket time.

So I got a new headlight today! And I even fixed it all by myself! It was actually surprisingly easy, but I felt proud anyway. I really like fixing things. It makes me feel useful, even if it's only useful to myself.

Heh, so anyway, we got to Jack's place to continue the party (it was only eleven and we hadn't finished the movie, but Sarah's mom had kicked us out because it was late for her), but within three minutes, someone had come in and yelled at us for being too noisy. Weird. We ended up all curling up in various places on the floor (except Joselyn, who stretched out on the couch and promptly fell asleep) and watching Eric play some duck version of Line Rider. Katy told me about her father, who was in an insane asylum for hiding in a tree till a grizzly bear walked by, jumping on top of it, hog-tying it, and killing it with a knife. Just to prove he was a "man." I'm not sure whether to say he's a moron or the coolest person in the whole world.

Sorry for the lack of variety in the pictures, by the way. My camera died after five pictures, and I wasn't even using the rechargeables this time. Siiigh.

Today, I gave a speech in my communications class. I hate giving speeches. I was fine right up until I stood up, and then I started shaking really badly and I quivered with nerves--visibly--the whole time and for a good ten minutes after I finished. I did pretty badly, too. The speech had to be five minutes, and I only managed 3:45. I don't even know how many times I said "Um," but I know it was more than I was supposed to. I also used the words "see" and "like." Oy. Go figure. If I had to stand up in front of the class and juggle or quack like a duck or be a total idiot, I'd have no problem. I don't know why I get so nervous over speeches.

And... that's it, really. Except, never slap a monkey. Especially if the monkey is actually a ninja. Toodles!