WHEW has a lot transpired since last postage!

     FIRSTLY I would just like to say....thanks! For all the happy birthday wishes and cards and packages from everyone. My birthday was WONderful, really. I was completely dead though, from having gone to sleep at five o'clock that morning. But it was good nonetheless because I got a cake and balloons from the 'rents and a package from lauren and two cards from mawmaw and rachelita and a super awesome video from stacy.  Plus just today I got a Woot! package from my parents which I haven't opened yet and it's just driving me CRAZY. Seriously.
J/K I GOT IT AND IT WAS AWESOME!!!! It contained an iPod!!! Can you believe that!?!?!?  I have decided to name it Diablo after a pipefish that we found this passed past weekend in the Keys!!! It was between Diablo or Capt. von Trapp.  Hoooooraaaaah! Today, tuesday the twenty seventh, I got my auxillary bday package and it was ALSO AWESOME!!! I got some yummy dark chocolate, a cute bracelet, some itunes money, (what should I get?) and a delicious swatch of fabric for the bridesmaids' dresses!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So excited about that.  ALSO in the mail I got an invitation to Gretchen's baby shower which I am SO MEGA EXCITED FOR! The only thing is I thing I set it down next to me while I was opening my package, and it blew away in the fierce winds we had today. Sad. Hopefully it will show up though...hopefully. Hmmmm I really really want to know where it went.
     SO for a prezzie from lauren (so awesome!) I got last Monday. It was a wonderful yummy green tee-shirt from Trine that I just LOVE it's so super duper comfy. And a lovely shade of green. ANNNND Lauren asked Andy to get me a skateboard. So now I have a skateboard, because Andy works at Wooster Skate Shop and voila! I have a skateboard!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am so excited to get it over break and come back and learn how to skate board. SO EXCITED! Seriously.
I
Can
Not
Wait.
That's how excited I am.
     This passed past weekend, as in two weekends ago now, I drove around in a van with Professor -Ski and some other FRP-ers. We were collecting pipefish for their project about pipefish dispersal. It was absolutely insane. Cold (it's relative, people, I know! don't freak out, but it was, I promise I had goosebumps and shivers), windy, and it rained a tiny bit, too. We spent many hours in a van stop-and-going around random cities along the coast. The first day, Saturday, we spent mostly in Jupiter. Then we drove down to the Keys, and camped at Looe Key state park, which was totally amazing.  We parked the van, and then we walked from the parking lot, to a boardwalk that cut through the mangroves, and we camped on platforms in the mangroves. SO AWESOME. So amazing. There was a tall observation tower, too, where we could stare at the gazillions of stars. There were SO many stars-I've never seen so many in the sky in my life before. It was the kind of night where you could see every star in the constellation. It was quite beautiful, I might say. Then waking up the next morning this is what we saw:

...and here is the boardwalk/observation tower that morning:

     After we left the campsite, we drove up Highway 1. It was SO WEIRD driving along in the keys on HW 1. It felt like I should have been with anyone from "the trip" but no one was there. It was really weird. A tiny bit sad. I kept seeing things that I remembered from driving during spring breaks, like the giant lobster statue, or the history of diving museum, etc. It just didn't feel the same. It made me miss the FL spring break trips and long drives down the highway, a bunch of us sitting on the dock and talking with Osborne, excursions, midnight ice cream runs, and of course playing 'ze Dutch, and diving and everything.  I think the next place we went was Key Largo, then a couple places in betwixt and eventually, Miami. The sky in Miami was really pretty, exhibit A:

     I mean really, just LOOK at those clouds! We stayed in Miami for a couple of hours. We were there until the sun went down...and then it was crazy. The sunset in the city was just gorgeous. We collected pipefish in this one little cove type place....where there was city encircling the water, and as the sun went down, the lights came on and the city was totally alive. It was really amazing; the fading orange sky and the crazy city lights.
     Ahhhhh! On the...uhm....fifteenth of October (I think), I went to see a MOST wonderful play. It was actually a musical. It was called "Mahalia, Just As I Am," it was about the life and times, the voice of Mahalia Jackson. She was a gospel singer way back when, in the middle-ish-ness of twentieth century. So...the ninety fities I think. She was the first person to win a grammy for gospel! She was very famous both in America and abroad in Europe. The play basically followed her life in the early 20th century, having to grow up in the segregated south.  Anywhoo....our very own playwright, Sharon E. Scott, wrote the play and starred in it as Mahalia Jackson, and just one other person that played multiple parts. They were both amazing-she was impressive in her gospel-ocity, and he was SO impressive in his ability to play multiple parts so well. Here is a link to the Studio@620 page for the show: click here and read! Then the next Wednesday in our honors class, Bob Devin Jones (that I wrote about previously because he came and spoke to us as Langston Hughes), the creative director/produce, and Sharon Scott, writer and star, came to speak to our class and answer our questions!!!  It was awesome. She was absolutely hilarious and very wise, and you could tell she was just a very geniune person with strong beliefs and a lot of character. Hearing about Sharon Scott's life was also interesting, because it shared just a few similarities to Mahalia's life, and you could definitely see how Mahalia had inspired her and how her music had always been there for her.
     OMG FAM & FRIENDS. Do you know what I LOVE?! I love speeeeeed! No, not speed the drug. Speed the card game!!!!  WHY hadn't anyone introduced me to it before?! It's SO FUN.  A super long time ago, Chris and I were both feeling very uninspired and unmotivated to do homework before honors class, so he taught me how to play speed and it is...........awesome. I'm basically addicted now I think. When I come home we are DEFINITELY playing, you got that, 'rents?
     So today at three I have my mentor meeting. I have to decide what classes I should take.....what classes should I take??? Someone tell me. I don't think I can start calculus this spring, so math is out. (Oh darn!) And....I can't take any intro 101 courses either, I don't think. We'll see how it goes, I guess. I really don't know what to take. 
    On a happier note, today there is free pumpkin carving!  Woooo! I'm so excited. Really really excited hopefully my pumpkin turns out awesome. Tomorrow I have a math exam which I am a tiny bit nervous for, so send me your good luck wishes please.
Lastly, this weekend I fixed my own bike! It was a huge accomplishment pour moi and I am very proud of myself, actually!! I just had to change the inner tube, but considering I have never actually worked on a bike (thanks dad, you're the best).  I am impressed by my mad skilllllz at being able to take apart the bike, a, and b, fix the inner tube, and THEN c, put it back together again, correctly so that everything works. Just say it's impressive, okay, it is!!!
(This weekend I also tried biking to ft. desoto, buuuuuut it didn't work out as well.  I think I made it about five miles before I turned around, because I wasn't feeling so great and the idea of having to another 1.5 miles and then 6.5 back was daunting me....haha.)


Oh here's a pictura of my yummy cake my parents sent me:
It was mega-delic.
That is all for now I suppose.
Peace, fools.
: )