Hicks, Jesus, Beer, and BBQ

I have to admit, one Brandon Kinney handed me that title on a silver platter at the concert Saturday night. He was the opening opening act, and he wandered onto the stage wearing a plaid flannel shirt and a backwards baseball cap. It was a promising start.

He sang a total of four songs, before each of which a woman in a bikini top and the tiniest daisy dukes I've ever encountered strutted around the stage waving a big piece of posterboard with "Song 1/2/3/4" written in black magic marker. I swear I'm not making this up.

His first song was an ode to hickdom, creatively titled "We're Hicks."
The second song was about how Jesus must be coming back soon.
The third song was alternately about how good or bad life is and thus he needs a beer.
(Postlude to the third song--bikini girl made an extra appearance to bring him a bottle of beer and mop down his face with a towel.)
And finally, the fourth song was an innuendo-packed love song to a barbecue smoker. This is a direct quote:

I knew I had a winner
When I stuck my meat in her
For the first time.

No, I'm not kidding. And I can assure you that wasn't the worst of it. I can no longer hear the word "barbecue" without twitching.

After all this pain and suffering, we were rewarded with a spectacular performance from Sara Evans. To the persons who planned the concert line-up: she would have been a "real fine place to start," thank you very much.

Adventures in Nashville!

Yes I am indeed writing this post from my FABULOUS hotel room in Nashville, also known as The Room that Almost Wasn't. Story soon to follow.

This was yesterday: Went to class, walked back to the apartment where I packed (and later realized didn't pack my pajamas), then piled into a car with 3 other wonderful Furman females, and embarked on the 6 hour journey to Nashville, TN, where Laura the Roommate and Boy (Laura's fiance) ran the Country Music Marathon this morning.

So of course there was your typical fun long car ride that involved belting out assorted show tunes slightly off-key. Good times. Then we got to Nashville and registered for the marathon and proceeded to head to the Embassy Suites to check-in before dinner. After hauling our luggage inside, we were informed that No, there were no reservations under our name or confirmation number. Oh goody. And since there were 30,000 people running in this marathon, plus all their companions, plus a significant number of small children competing in a soccer tournament and their families all trying to cram into Nashville's normally-abundant hotel rooms, there was literally not a vacancy in the city. We know because we had 2 sets of parents and one boyfriend at home checking the internet, plus we'd called at least 10 hotels and stopped by 3 to beg in person.

At 9:30 PM (10:30 Eastern time), with no plan and no hope, we stopped at Jack-in-the-Box, where Laura called her mother to get her Tennessee cousins' phone number in the hopes that they would give us a place to stay. Several panicked phone calls, one vanilla milkshake, and 3 cheese sticks later, Laura's phone rang, and lo and behold, we were informed that our reservations were not at Embassy Suites at all, but at another Nashville hotel just a couple of blocks away. Apparently, Laura's mom was at her Supper Club and told those in attendance about our distress, and one of the other Supper Club ladies called up her friend, the wife of the Dean of Admissions at Vanderbilt, who talked with her husband, who was able to tell from our confirmation number what hotel we were supposed to be at. You can imagine how the wind from our sighs of relief shook the cash registers.

Now I ask you to remember the How I Almost Didn't Get to Paris story. Tell me, do I have a travel jinx on my head? I'm trying to shift the blame to Laura and Boy by talking about that other time they didn't get a hotel room... Yeah. Not my fault, I swear.

Thank God for almosts.

The HOTTEST thing in town...

So I had to go home today for a positively de-light-ful dentistry experience that involved digging holes in my gums, but before the reclining chair accompanied by sharp objects, there was...

CHINA STAR! Laurens's brand-new and wonderfully not sketchy Chinese restaurant.

Now you have to understand that previously Laurens had maybe 7 restaurants total, only one of which you would venture to take a guest to (the new-last-year Mexican restaurant), and the rest of which only true Laurens-ites dare to patronize. But then came China Star...

There is a buffet, complete with sneeze guards! And blue walls! And booths with the stuffing still in! And a soft-serve ice cream machine!

Needless to say, I ate a LOT.

What I am most confused by though is that there are apparently Asians in Laurens. I think lunch today was the first time I had encountered a person of Eastern descent in my alternately redneck/ghetto hometown. Although unlike most ethnic-food establishments, the China Star hires a wide variety of skin colors; I counted at least one each of Asian, Hispanic, and Pale. Quite PC of them.

And as a side note, Chinese donuts = sugary coated goodness.

Tragedy

Our prayers are with you, Virginia Tech.

Bad news for my future

So I was working on my SAT essay grader training today for Kaplan, and out of the 10 sample essays, I gave exactly 1 essay the same score as the professional graders. One. And that's because it was just horrible so you pretty much had to give it the lowest possible score.

Now recall that I am studying to be a high school ENGLISH teacher who will be grading lots and lots of ESSAYS. This is bad, this is very very bad.

New career goal: Busking in the London Underground with my trusty sidekick, Barnaby the Wonder Duck.

mmmmmmm

I'm standing around eating lukewarm leftover Hamburger Helper directly out of the skillet. Just thought someone should know...

Just in case you weren't aware...

I am dying a slow and painful death this term, in the form of 3, count 'em, THREE English classes. Yes I realize that this was a huge mistake, and I can assure you it is one I will never make it again. But for the time being, it's killing me.

Plus the 10-minute plays (now over, thankfully). Plus being the Editor of the Echo. Plus starting a new job. Huzzah! I am Wonder Woman personified!

I cannot keep up no matter what I do. And this term I'm really trying. But a novel + a paper + 20 poems/short stories + textbook reading + studying for an intense quiz every week just isn't working out so well. And I realize I'm whining. But by golly right now I deserve to whine!

(No, you're not imagining things, I did just write 'by golly.')

And now I have to go read and write some more. The end.

Why I love Roommate Jenn

This is how the practical joke went:

Last night Jenn and I were innocently standing in the kitchen about to make some cookies. We open the oven to discover, lo and behold, there is a piece of foil with large piles of sweet potato drippings on it from where Roommate Aubrie had baked sweet potatoes earlier in the week. Now we were just going to throw the things away mind you, when Jenn had the audacity to observe that these particular drippings were abnormally formed in the exact shape of... poop.

What came next was inevitable. We went through all the different people we could try to fool with our sweet potato poo, but eventually settled on Roommate Laura, as joking her did not involve much effort or walking on our part.

So the sweet potato poo made its way to the vanity area of mine and Laura's bathroom, piled itself into a distinctively poo-like pile, and awaited its prey. It took Laura quite a while to notice our little gift, but when she did, this is what happened:

Laura: Um, WHAT IS THIS IN OUR BATHROOM??????
Kristen and Jenn: What are you talking about?
(All travel to bathroom to observe sweet potato poo pile.)
Kristen and Jenn: We don't know.
Laura: Obviously, there is an animal loose in our apartment.
(Laura proceeds to hunt for said animal in various closets and under my bed.)

15 minutes of hunting later...
Kristen and Jenn: We should clean this up.
(Kristen and Jenn pick up supposed poo with hands.)
Laura: I KNEW IT YOU'RE HORRIBLE I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I HATE YOU BOTH!!!
Kristen: It was all Jenn's idea, I swear!!!

(Laura grabs pillow and beats Kristen and Jenn violently--so violently in fact that it left red welts on my arm.)

All in all, a fun evening. Now to await the promised retaliation--eyes and ears alert!

Seeing how Monday begins a new term, I thought it was a convenient time to change the blog as well.

I'm taking 3 English classes this term: British/American Lit after 1798, History of the English Language, and the American Novel after WWI. I'm also hoping to be in the Spring term play, Translations. Basically I'm not planning to sleep for the next 3 months. Should be exciting.

Things I've Learned Winter Term:

1. Being a math professor does not necessarily make one a logical person.
2. Sometimes statistics can actually improve your self-image. (i.e. "60% of the American population never leaves their couches!")
3. Furman's Fitness Center is named after Herman Lay, founder of Lay's, the potato chip manufacturers. (I guess technically I knew this before, but I'd never really considered it until the above-mentioned math professor brought it to the class's attention.)
4. Taking not-English classes frees up a LOT of time.
5. I can cook!!! Good food! Like country-fried steak!
6. Fashion is irrelevant when riding a bike in below-freezing weather.
7. Never ride a stationary bike then subsequently attempt to ride a real bike.
8. It's quite difficult to find good chicken tikka masala in upstate South Carolina.
9. I remain mostly hopelessly disorganized, despite my best efforts.
10. Time flies, whether you're having fun or not.

1 week of class left. Then exams. Then Spring Break. In February.