Oh my dear blog, have I neglected thee? Here I am.

Life is great. Wedding stuff is well underway and creeping up faster each day. I wish I had some great stories or something to write, but nothing too crazy other than life has gone on. Spring break was good. We had a bridal shower at Phil's church and it was really good. My family came and spent the weekend with his family, another really good.

Here's a good story--

Not too long ago Tiffany and I heard a Chinese guy "fluff" really loud in the library. He sat really still afterward and just kept nonchalantly typing on his laptop...but we knew it was him. There was no one else in that general area of the room and he was alone at the table. Ew. Chinese poots?! I bet it smelled like rice and chicken brains. And what's almost funnier than him doing it is the fact that he seemed to try to play it off as if it didn't happen. Even if he wasn't alone at the table, he would have been the prime suspect due to his foreign status.

I'm not trying to be un-PC or anything by any of that. Just to let you know. We talked a little bit about bias and stereotype in my class tonight. Bias, according to the field of education, is putting something into a test that could distract or offend a student while they are trying to concentrate (any random student of equal ability to that of another coming from a different subgroup). That and stereotype is something about not depicting or talking about someone doing something that is a traditional view of their particular demographic (i.e. you cannot use a woman for an example in a home cooking or nurturing children). Also, because our culture is so afraid to offend, we have to have as many minorities represented on television shows as possible, and the comic relief (the stupid person) must be the rich, white male because anything else would be prejudice and play on some sort of stereotype. Isn't that dumb? I mean, I get it because people get offended over everything these days, but it's dumb. For the record: My teacher wasn't shoving these definitions, he was just making them known to us because we will have to deal with them some day. I agree that we should be mindful of what we say and how we portray others, but come on. That doesn't mean that every minority must have their panties permanently in a wad watching carefully for something to take offense with. I'm a female but I think I can handle watching TV where a woman is a homemaker. And I think I can handle watching TV where the woman is not the homemaker. Who cares?  We should never write content to minorities, we should write content to the purpose of the writing and use whoever comes up. Being so mindful of not offending minorities just creates a system in which nothing can ever be truly PC and people (who are all a bunch of whiners) are more racist and prejudice than ever.

Oh well. Such is life, eh?

I wish I had fun pictures to put up or something, but I do not today.

Bath the whales!

Good news...I'm alive. I made it through my little flu week. A time in my life I never want to revisit. Here is a list of all the updates in my life since I haven't been posting as much lately.

I bought a wedding dress.

            (It's BEAUTIFUL)

I finally dumped my dead fish out into the front yard...gravel, plastic trees, corpses and all.

                           (Smelled disgusting)

I missed an entire week of class and studying yet have little to no homework.

I'm trying to finish a book.

This is my life.

I have not so much to do.

I'm sick!! I've had a fever for days. My lungs started feeling bad the other day, and they just kept getting worse. I've been coughing so much and so deeply that my entire body hurts. I finally got a thermometer last night and I of course had a fever. I took my temp really late last night and it said I had a temp. of 103.8. Can you believe that? That's a for real fever. I got out from under my blankets and tried to cool down and a little while later it was down to 100.7 and then I finally tried to go to sleep.

Phil brought me some theraflu. One is a flu and chest decongestant and the other is a cold and cough suppressent. The flu& chest decon. tastes sooooo bad you would not believe. The cough one tastes really good, it's lemon, but man, that other one tastes like moldy crap.

That's all I have to share today. I'm going to lie back down. pray that you don't catch whatever I've got and that this terrible sickness doesn't kill me.

This post is to commemorate the lives of two of the most special fish to have ever lived. I will now write their yagoogaly.

*ahem*

This is so...so hard.

My dear sweet fish Adam (pronounced Ah-dahm for those of you who forgot, it's ancient Hebrew transliterated), and Glenn (formerly known as Flame Humphrey) passed on from this life during Christmas break 2006-2007. We got both of them and their tank neighbors J. Peterman and Elaine (Katie's goldfish) those month-long feeders. J. Peterman and Elaine must have eaten theirs because they're swimming pretty in their little house of water. Adam and Glenn, on the other hand have been dead for some time now. I don't know when exactly they died. Holley came back a week before me and told me they were dead. Now, they're still in their little tanks on top of the entertainment center. It makes me so sad. I understand fish die, but I wonder what happened. I hope they didn't starve. It's just so weird that they would BOTH be dead. And now, they look so disgusting I can't bring myself to dump out their poor little bodies. They have grown a white fuzz around themselves and are laying sideways ont he rocks. It makes me very sad. My poor little babies.

If anyone would like to come over and clean out their tanks for me, it would be greatly appreciatesd. I don't have the heart or the stomach to do so. And I'm sleepy. And I'm getting married. And I'm trying to get another job. I don't have time to mourn for my precious fish and that's all I want to do when I look at their sad little tanks. Okay, enough.

 Big news for me...I am most definately engaged to the most wonderful man to have ever lived. I'm so excited. We're getting married May 19 (That's 125 days from right now in case you're wondering, we just counted). Phil hid my beautiful ring at the bottom of a bag of little bath stuff he gave me as a Christmas present. I kind of thought to myself it wasn't the greatest gift I had ever received but that it was sweet of him anyway, the bath stuff I mean. Everything was wrapped individually and I kept pulling things out one by one saying "oh, shower gel, nice...oh, and here's body butter, thanks...bath salts, mmm, they smell good..." and then I pulled out a basket to put it all in. Then...THEN...I pulled out the last little ball of tissue paper and opened up a little white box. I took the lid off and pulled out a little black box (you know, the kind covered in velour and that opens dramatically, you know the type). I didn't really react at all, I just had this feeling it was going to be a nice pair of earrings or something. Then I opened it and saw a beautiful diamond ring. It still didn't really make sense. I just sat there holding the box, looking at the ring for a moment, then looked up at Phil (who had the most beautiful smile on his face), he put his hands around my hands and asked me to marry him. I don't know what I did after that. I was kind of dazed, this was heavy stuff. I know for sure that I smiled and hugged him tightly and said yes, of course.

And now, we're engaged!! Getting married in a few months. I'm so very very excited.

-change of subject-

I must tell another story. A scary story. A sad story. A story about a lonely young lady frightened by a unwelcomed creature in the night. That lonely young lady...was me. *AHEM* Here goes...

Phil and I got back into town last night. We hung out with our friends James and Tiffany, then Phil dropped me off at my house and he went back to his dorm. Okay, so, no big problems yet. I was tired but wanted to clean up so I unpacked everything I had packed from Christmas break. I put everything away, hooked up things, hung my clothes, I did everything. Then I took a shower, brushed my teeth, turned the t.v. on quietly, crawled into bed around 11:30 and fell fast asleep. Fast forward about 30 minutes... Something woke me. A noise. What was that? It sounds like a cracking or shuffling of some sort. What was that? I opened my eyes, saw the time was midnight on the clock that projects the time onto the ceiling, then out of the corner of my eye saw movement on my desk. The movement was a shadow that jumped strangely onto the floor and stood still in the dull light of the t.v. The shadow jumped almost in slow motion and landed with a small thud that made me realize that it was real and not just my eyes playing tricks on me. My heart started to beat really quickly as I watched the shadow move into my bathroom. I turned the lamp by my bed on and sat up a little. Then...I saw it...brown face...beady eyes...body the size of a rolled up tank top...It was...a squirrel. A SQUIRREL!!! A SQUIRREL! IN MY ROOM AT MIDNIGHT!!! He ran out to the empty bed next to mine, then ran out and stood about two feet from me and just stared at me. I felt like I was going to puke I was so scared. Then I saw his tail, this was not the tail of a squirrel, it was flat and kind of square. What?! WHAT WAS THIS CREATURE!! Chinchilla crossed my mind, but where would a chinchilla come from? Then again, where would a squirrel come from, this was my room??!?!  I hit my bed really hard over and over again and scared him into the bathroom. He poked his head out a few more times and I would clap and scare him back in.

I ran out and looked for one of my roommates, but I Was the only one home. I remembered she was at her friend's house...a male friend!! I called her and she did not pick up. I left a frantic message begging her to come home and bring her male friend with her. I tried to call Phil, but he was asleep and locked in the dorm even if he had been awake. I just stood on the empty bed watching the bathroom door crying. I called Holley a few more times and she finally returned my call and said they'd be right over. Then came over, he found it, trapped it in a box and then...THE SQUIRREL FLEW OUT OF THE BOX!!! IT WAS A FLYING SQUIRREL!!! IN MY ROOM WAKING ME UP SCARING ME TO THE POINT OF NEARLY VOMITTING AND HIDING IN MY BATHROOM!!!! A flying squirrel. We (when I say "we" I mean "they" -Holley and Will- because I was standing on either the bed or the couch in the other room nearly crying the whole time) trapped him in the shower and wore him out with a broom. After about an hour of him climbing walls flying off of things and doing flips in the shower Will caught him and brought him outside. My bathroom is a wreck. My shower is DISGUSTING. And I'm left freaked out by every sound. Lucky for me it's raining and there are a hundred sounds per second. UGghhhhhhhh....last night I heard a strange noise while unpacking but figured it must have just been the rain...riiiight. Look at where that got me. Now I've got rodent crap in my shower and a paranoia that I just can't shake. Booo..I hate flying squirrels. HATE flying squirrels.

While the little jerk was trapped in the shower I snapped a picture of him. So here you go, for all you luckies who have never had the opportunity to meet one in their bathroom in the middle of the night such as I, this is what they look like in your shower around 1 a.m.:

This picture is before we jammed the broom in there and the flying squirrel freaked out for an hour, so believe me, the shower got messy.

Ew. Just telling the story again makes me feel scared and gross. I hate that stupid flying squirrel.

Now, I am going to disinfect my shower and then look at my ring and think about planning a wedding for when I marry my favorite person in the world.

Goodnight all. I hope you all either have or will one-day know the joy of being in love and an exciting engagement...and never feel the terror of waking up to find a flying squirrel in your room.