Sunday Update

Before reading, please know that this post contains talk about seizures. I know I sometimes joke about it, but if you or anyone you know has epilepsy, please read this link to know what to do if anything happens.

https://www.cdc.gov/epilepsy/about/first-aid.htm#:~:text=Loosen%20ties%20or%20anything%20around,lasts%20longer%20than%205%20minutes.

This week was quite eventful. On Tuesday night, we went to a Fiji and Sig Ep mixer at a place called "pour choices." Let me just tell you, some pour choices were made that night. One of the only good things that happened was seeing the amazing Heidi Thomas, who so kindly hyped up my blog. Heidi, I love you. Near the end of the night, as my friend Tatum and I were walking downstairs to leave the mixer, Tatum missed a step and went tumbling. Obviously, I immediately pulled out my phone to video but stopped when I realized Tatum couldn't walk...we then looked down at her ankle and saw something atrocious. Something horrifying. Something not normal. To give a visual, Tatum's ankle was about the size of a baseball, growing by the second. Being the wonderful friend I am, I asked her if she was okay, and the only response I got back was a laughing cry. I kept getting nervous laughter and thought maybe I wasn't the right person to be comforting her at that moment. Regardless, Tatum took it like a champ. She got up, hobbled down the rest of the stairs, gathered herself in the bathroom, and limped out of the mixer like a boss. We ran into our friends, and Annie and our other friend, Ella, helped carry Tatum all the way to our Uber. When we returned to Hardin, I carried Tatum on my back and couldn't stop laughing, so I probably almost dropped her about five times. We crammed her into my twin bed with me and gave her a pillow to elevate her leg and an ice pack I creatively made out of a sock. The next morning, I felt like a good person, so I took Tatum to Starbucks (because that was obviously priority) then the ER. We first tried to go to Urgent Care, but once we overheard them telling the lady in front of us that there was a two-hour wait, I immediately walked back to my car, with Tatum limping close behind. When we got to the ER, the parking garage was, of course, the farthest point possible from the hospital entrance. So, I found a nice-looking man, crossed my fingers in hopes that he worked there and asked him for a wheelchair. He quickly came to our aid and was out with a wheelchair in record time. I have no idea what his name is, but he deserves a raise. I wheeled Tatum inside, they put us in a room, and we waited for about an hour until we were seen. Once she was seen, they did X-rays, and thankfully, it was just a sprain. I had a hair appointment at 12, so I said, "Ciao Tatum," and left. Jk. Our friend Berkeley met us at the ER so I could go, and when I got back to Hardin after my appointment, Tatum was in crutches and a boot about three sizes too big on her. I was worried because Kappa had a formal called Monmouth that Thursday, and I decided I'd take a friend, and the friend I was taking was Tatum. When Thursday came, she was completely rocking the boot look. Her dress covered it, and she refuses to use the crutches, so you couldn't even tell! We had a great time, and everyone was happy. I don't think Tatum will ever catch a break because she had another seizure the next morning. Thankfully, she texted me beforehand that she was feeling it, so I was there when it happened. I got her situated, and she's ok now. If you know anyone with epilepsy, PLEASE make sure you know what to do if anything happens to them. We picked up her new epilepsy medicine today, so hopefully, there will be no more seizures! Yay, Tatum! The rest of the weekend was pretty calm. We went to a few late nights over the weekend, but nothing super blog-worthy happened. I also think I may need to wrap this up because I've been sitting at Pease Park (or how I like to call it- Please Park) writing this for over thirty minutes now. If anyone wants a Tatum update, she's sitting right next to me. Her boot is glistening in the sunlight.

Resurrection

I want to start out by thanking y’all for actually reading this blog and for being so supportive, encouraging, and genuinely invested in it. I started this blog as a joke and a fun hobby to have while I was bored, and I never expected to have over a thousand views on something as simple as talking about my life. I’ve always had a passion for writing, and to see such positive feedback on this will always mean so much to me.

This weekend was resurrection, and for those of you who don’t know what that is, it’s the biggest darty of the year. The frat SAE hosts it, and high school seniors who are interested in UT come and stay with the freshmen. Kate and I had three girls (we call them littles) staying with us, and it was so fun. Our weekend started out with the Fiji disco party on Friday night. Disco is always the night before resurrection, and everyone dresses in fun, sparkly outfits. When we walked into Fiji, the first thing I noticed was how many high schoolers were there, and it’s crazy to think that was my friends and me last year. I loved getting to meet all of them, and I can’t wait to see them here next semester!! The night consisted of the usual running around trying to find people and being entertained by Kate’s awesome dance moves. She started hair twirling at 11 pm, and for those of you who know Kate, you know she needs to be put to bed when she starts hair twirling… Anyway, in the middle of the party, I had the most amazing idea: I wanted someone to get a video of me disappearing in a smoke bomb. I didn’t think much deeper into it before I started browsing the internet for smoke bomb stores. Obviously, if I was going to make this funny of a video, it couldn’t be edited online with special effects. It had to be real, or else it would look stupid and would no longer be funny. I found a random online store called “Madhatter Magic Shop,” and most things were about 60 cents. I don’t know why I didn’t just stop there, but wouldn’t it be too out of character if I didn’t try to make an impulse purchase from a magic shop at midnight? I tried about three different credit cards before giving up. I’m assuming it’s not a real website if it rejected three working cards. This truly upset me more than I expected, but that doesn’t mean I’m giving up. The video will happen. After that, I went home feeling slightly discouraged, but my mood was quickly lifted when I got debriefs from the littles. It made my night. We got everyone situated and then went to bed with great anticipation for the next day. When morning came, we started getting ready until we looked out the window and saw groups of girls herding in front of the Hardin doors. We checked our texts and found out SAE was no longer doing bands to get into the darty, but a list that had to be scanned by one single guy outside of Hardin. There were only 250 spots left that would be scanned that day. Kate and I were already on the list, but our littles weren’t, so we made them sprint downstairs to get scanned. Our room in Hardin has a perfect view of the front outside, and every time I would look out of it, the crowd doubled. It seemed like chaos, but it worked out. After everyone got scanned and ready, we went to a Kappa brunch for freshmen Kappa’s and their littles. It was freezing, but that would not be stopping us that day. After brunch, we went back to Hardin, got everything we needed, then headed to SAE. The line wasn’t nearly as bad as it was last year, but I am still a very impatient and claustrophobic person. After waiting in line for what felt like forever, I started feeling really humbled that I was doing this all for just a frat party, so I decided I would find an easier way in. We went out of the line, and I saw my big's older brother, who's an SAE, through the gates. I asked him to help get me in, and he handed me two gold ACL “VIP crew” bands. Kate and I put them on and ran up to the security guards, screaming that we were VIP and to let us in. They said, “SHOOT THEY ARE VIP THEY ARE VIP LET THEM IN,” and let us and our littles in. Whatever works. When we got in, we let our littles go and do their own thing while my friends and I wandered around aimlessly. In the middle of the party, I looked up to see Kate dancing and doing her hair twirl on the balcony above me. As y’all remember, Kate gets crazy when she hair twirls. She kept pouring things on people, and I was embarrassed because my hair probably looked greasy. Oh well. I saw some of my senior cousins, and it felt like a family reunion. My older sister, who just graduated college, is dating a senior SAE and was also there, so it was good to see her, too. I saw my big, and she came up to me with bloodshot eyes, telling me she had just been pepper sprayed by security. I didn’t know whether to feel bad or to laugh because, Carolyn, this WOULD happen to you. Apparently, the security guards were being really strict, and one of them even hit my friend Lily with a baton and then continued to call her words I’d rather not say. Other than that, everyone had a lot of fun, and we stayed until we were kicked out by security. As the security guard was telling us to leave, I stopped him and asked if he could take pictures of my friends and me, and soon enough, I had made a new friend. I wish I remembered his name. After we left, I ordered multiple different types of pickles to Hardin for some reason. I never liked pickles until this year when Kate and Elena made me try them, and I now crave them randomly, maybe once every other week. I had some pickles, took a nap, and then found myself not being able to get out of bed for the rest of the night. When it was time to get up and go back out, I genuinely couldn’t do it. I felt like all my energy had been sucked out of me, so I stayed in Hardin while Kate went back out with the littles. I was actually very surprised with myself because I usually jump at any opportunity to go out, but I don’t regret it. I had one of the best naps of my life. Two of the littles came back while I was sleeping, and I was half asleep and vaguely remember shushing them, and I can’t stop thinking about it. I feel so bad. If they are reading this, I am so sorry, you guys. I didn’t even realize I did that until right after. I hate when people shush other people; it’s one of my biggest pet peeves. I’m definitely overthinking that, though. Anyway, once everyone came back, we recapped the night, and everyone sounded like they had so much fun. I’m happy because I had fun sleeping, so it all worked out. We went to bed, and two of the littles left in the morning, while one of them stayed and left later. Kate and I speed-cleaned to Mario Kart music and made a Timelapse on Kate’s phone. It was awesome. We had a pretty chill Sunday and even tried to top our night off with split-screen Minecraft on my Xbox, but I ended up getting so frustrated with the split screen, and it kept glitching, so I rage quit. It’s now Monday, and so far, I have had one class. I spent the majority of that class signing my friend Kevin up for the show “Wipeout.” Although I’m pretty sure I accidentally signed him up for the 2021 application, I really hope he gets it! Overall, I had a great weekend and can’t wait to see what this week brings. If you came this far, thank you for reading. You rock.

My so far average week

This week has been very much average compared to this past month. I had no phone on Monday, and I honestly really enjoyed being off the grid. Actually, now that I think about it, I don’t think using Snapchat for the web and watching Instagram reels on my laptop is off-gridding…but technically, in this generation, it is. Anyway, I’ve never liked Mondays, and I think 90% of the population can agree with me on that one. There’s something about them that I can only associate negative feelings with, and I think it’s because I know that I’m going to actually have to try to be productive, which never works out. I tried changing that this week by going to Mozart’s after my classes to work on homework with Tatum. When we got there, there was no parking of course, so we had to park about a mile away (across the street). We both got the iced mocha Mozart’s special (which I will never stop recommending) and tried to find a place to sit. Everywhere was too sunny, and people kept stealing the tables we wanted, which was really rude. They obviously should’ve known we wanted them. We found a table, “did work” for about an hour and left. I then went to the chapter for my sorority, and after chapter, I played Monopoly with Emmy, Tatum and Kate. They forced me to be the banker, and I’m pretty sure every time I looked away or checked my phone, Emmy slipped a few hundreds to herself. Tatum used a half-eaten carrot as her player, and I was stuck with the thimble because Emmy forced me to give her the dog. If you've ever played Monopoly, you know it’s going to be a bad game when you end up with the thimble. It was oddly silent when we played, so I turned the TV onto National Geographic for a more natural feel. We eventually got bored of Monopoly, and the cards ended up being wet with all the things we kept somehow spilling on them, so we stopped. That was the end of my Monday. Pretty average. Tuesday night was slightly more fun. After going to my classes, Kate, Berkeley and I went to Trader Joe’s to get things for the girls staying with us this weekend. I like the Trader Joe’s in Houston much better than the one in Austin solely because the Houston one has Armadillo Joe, and I love trying to find him. After Trader Joe’s, we went to Lily’s room to watch The Bachelor. I just want to say I am so happy with how it ended. Anyway, today is now Valentine's Day, and I think all my love letters from my secret admirers got lost in the mail or sent to Houston by accident. I’m not worried about it. BERKELEY JUST WALKED INTO MY ROOM WITH FLOWERS TALK ABOUT A COINCIDENCE. Thank you, Berkeley. These are beautiful, and I will put them next to all the other flowers I am going to be getting today. Happy Valentine’s everyone!!! I have three different events coming up this week and weekend, and I can’t wait to update y’all. Ciao.

Mardi Gras

For this blog, I’ll be talking about my experience of my first New Orleans Mardi Gras parade. I genuinely don’t even know where to start, so I guess I’ll start at the beginning of our weekend, which was our drive to Houston on Thursday. Since we were going to New Orleans, we decided to stay in Houston Thursday night to split up the drive a bit. Emmy, Tatum and I drove in my car while Kate, Scarlett, and Annie drove in Scarlett’s car. I was slightly offended and curious as to why Annie and Kate didn’t want to come in my car, but I moved past it. The drive felt short, and once we made it to my house in Houston, we were greeted by the menagerie of animals living there. We ate dinner, played with Toby (my chinchilla), went to Kate’s house for drinks and appetizers, then went to bed. We got on the road around 9:30 am the next morning. The five-hour drive mainly consisted of us trying to catch up with the others because they left 30 minutes before us, eye spy and traffic that made me wonder if we were ever going to make it to New Orleans or if I was going to die there. We finally made it and were delighted to see our beautiful four-person hotel that we would be cramming six people into. We waited a long time for you, Hampton Inn. We quickly got ready and ubered to Saint Charles Avenue. As soon as we stepped out of the car, we were surrounded by numerous flashing lights, people, cheering, music, beads and just about anything you can imagine would be at Mardi Gras. Holding on tight to each other, we began pushing through the crowd to get to the places we wanted to go. I hate pushing through people; I always feel so mean. Anyway, we spent the whole night watching different parades, finding people we knew and going to different bars and grills. I grew sad with how little beads I had because we got there pretty late, so I started picking up muddy beads off the ground and putting them on my neck. I had no shame. I came back with a ton of beads that night, and although I may not have caught them, I was still in New Orleans, and they were still Mardi Gras beads. At the end of the night, we went back to the hotel and attempted to get sleeping situations arranged. Tatum and I had one bed, Annie and Emmy had the other, and Scarlett and Kate slept on a queen-sized air mattress shoved in between the four-foot wide doorway. We made it work. The next morning, Tatum must’ve really wanted to get our day started because she had a seizure that woke us all up (she’s ok she just didn’t take her epilepsy medicine). After her seizure, I was a little frozen and didn’t know what to do or say, so I offered her some of my oatmeal, which she did not want. She then slipped on my sweatshirt that pictured a selfie of Troy Bolton captioned “Get your head in the game,” and then went back to bed. Pretty solid way to wake up. We got ready, and this time we went to the infamous Bourbon Street. As soon as we got there, I felt right at home. These were my people. We walked around, met some pretty interesting people, got cool beads in NORMAL ways, and had a blast. I was on cloud nine. No one told me Bourbon was so fun. It was also very magical because one second later I looked down and my phone had poofed away. It was stolen in broad daylight. Of course. Once I realized this wasn’t actually a joke and my phone really was gone, I initially started to laugh because this would happen to me. My smile slowly faded once I realized I had every form of ID and payment in the sticky wallet on the back of my phone. I called my parents, and they didn’t really seem surprised. I got the usual “I’m just disappointed” talk, and I am now having to use my computer until my new phone comes on Tuesday. Although I had just gotten my phone taken, I reminded myself that everything is replaceable, and I wasn’t going to let it ruin my time. Tatum and I also agreed that if she had gone out that day, she would’ve gotten her phone stolen, too. She didn’t get it stolen because it was simply never an option. We spent the rest of the day buying random stuff, embarrassing ourselves in the middle of the streets, and hanging out with other college friends. We then regrouped at the hotel, got Tatum to come back out with us, and went to dinner. Everyone wanted crawfish besides me because I don’t like seafood. No one cared that I didn’t like seafood though, so we tried for about an hour to find a place with crawfish. It was around 10 pm, most restaurants were closed, and we couldn’t get an uber anywhere. We ended up eating at “Jaegers Seafood,” which was walking distance from our hotel. They didn't even have crawfish. Honestly, I’m happy we went because I ended up having the best gumbo of my life. 10/10. After dinner, Ubers wouldn’t pick us up, and we were already drained from the weekend, so we decided to end the night a bit early so we could get on the road in the morning. When morning came, Tatum was the only person that wanted to drive in my car with me. Emmy claims she didn’t come back with me because I play my music too loudly and it hurts her head. Sorry Emmy. The drive back was so much better than the drive there, and it took us around the same amount of time to get from New Orleans to Austin as it did from Houston to New Orleans. Overall, I had a great time. My few takeaways for next year are to hold onto my phone, drive there earlier, bring cash and stay closer to uptown. Even though Tatum had a seizure and I got my phone stolen, I still had one of the best times of my life and already can’t wait to go back next year.

Fallout Theater

For fun week day 3, my friends and I originally wanted to go to Pluckers for trivia night. That idea was quickly dismissed when we saw that it was completely packed with people, half of them being families with kids that can’t even multiply. Bummer. Although my dreams were crushed, I am a master at persevering. So, obviously my next thought was that we go to a comedy show. I began searching online for last minute comedy events going on that night. After a few minutes of extensive research, I knew what we were going to be doing: Improv vs. Everything at Fallout Theater. We had one problem- it was at 8 pm. Just as I saw that, I checked my watch: 7:41 pm. I quickly bought five tickets, gathered my friends and turned into Usain Bolt as I sprinted to my car. Thankfully Fallout Theater was 11 minutes away, so we made it right on time. We walked in and saw about 10 people all having conversations with each other at a bar. I felt like an outlier, everyone seemed to already know each other. We then realized that this is a comedy club, and everyone is very close knit with each other. We probably stood there for a good five minutes before building enough courage to walk to the back to hopefully find the improv show we came for. Thankfully, we found it. The curtains to the theater opened slightly after we walked into the back room, almost like they were waiting for us. The theater consisted of about three to four rows of small, black chairs all facing toward a small stage at the front. We took our seats in the most nonchalant looking area we could find and patiently waited for the show to start. They played really fun music while we waited and the whole time I tried really hard to act like I had been there before and knew what I was doing. Soon enough, the hosts come out and introduced the first act. The first act consisted of a series of improv scenes played by two men, and I thought they did a great job. Followed by them was an older man that did a one man comedy show. He read all of his lines off of his phone, and even though I got lost in the middle of what he was saying, I thought he was great too. After him, a small band called “The Clinks” played two songs for us. Let me tell y'all , they were AMAZING. The main singer didn’t have shoes or socks on which was a little off putting at first but I thought maybe it helped her sing better? Like connecting herself to the ground maybe? Not sure. Other than that one small thing that confused me, the entire band was amazing. One of the members names was Riley, and he could play every instrument incredibly. I hope Berkeley and Riley get married. After their amazing performance, the show wrapped up with a stand up comedy as the last act. The girl was hilarious, and it was nice to hear the men in the room laughing at her jokes. Men laughing at women’s jokes is quite foreign to me, maybe because of how many of them try to say that women aren’t funny. After she performed, we had to rank each act on these small ballots they gave us before the show started. After we ranked them and the votes were counted, they announced that the Clinks won!! That means that they will go onto the next round of the comedy club's tournament, which is in April. I WILL be there. Overall, I felt very content with what I had just experienced. It made me realize that so many great things are going on around us 24/7, we just have to look for them. I believe that goes for more than just comedy shows. My friends and I had a great night, and I highly recommend Fallout Theater. They rock.

Please Park

For our second day of my new tradition “fun week,” my friends Tatum, Berkeley and I went to Pease Park. When we first got there, we couldn’t find a parking spot and I saw the sign “pease park” and thought it said “please park,” which initially hurt my feelings as well as stressed me out because we were already trying to find a parking spot. I then looked closer and saw that it actually said “Pease Park,” which made more sense. I kinda wish it said Please Park, that would be funny. Anyway, we walked around and the first thing we saw were a group of boys all different ages playing basketball together. It was really wholesome. One day, I hope to build enough courage to ask them if I can play with them. Although I felt jealous of the beautiful moment of unity and happiness that was occurring in front of my eyes, we came to Pease Park for one thing: the net. In the middle of Pease Park, there is a huge, elevated net covered by some sort of dome-shaped, open air structure. We continued walking, and there it was. It was beautiful. Breathtaking to say the least. As Tatum and Berkeley walked onto the net, I stopped. You can see completely through the net to the bottom of the dome, 20 feet below. I hate heights. I then walked onto the net because I thought about how much money I could make if I fell and broke something. The net was so fun, and we watched the sunset. Everyone on the net were stage five chillers except for this one little girl that wouldn’t stop running around. She reminds me of myself. Once we went back home, we watched the third episode of the bachelor with our other friends. Sydney if you’re reading this, I don’t like you. Justice for Maria always. We then went to pinkberry, drove around and went back home. 10/10 day. Stay tuned for fun week day three, it’s a good one.

Fun week day 1

Fun week has been AWESOME so far. 😎😎😎

For context, I’m going to NOLA for Mardi Gras this weekend and I didn’t want the week leading up to it to be boring, so I proposed a “fun week” to my friends. Every day this week until Thursday, we will be doing something fun. Day 1 was yesterday, and we went to see the movie “Anyone but You.” … in all honesty, it was probably one of the cringiest movies I have ever seen in my life which says a lot because I have also seen every kissing booth movie. I mean, it was fine. Would I watch it again? Probably not. But I still had fun! Please enjoy the featured picture of Tatum jumping for joy for Galaxy Theaters!!!

My first blog…

Hey guys I seriously don’t know why I’m making a blog but I am in desperate need of a hobby. I am expecting to have a cumulative audience of about 5 people, one including my mom. Awesome! I think having a blog is exactly what I need, but I don’t really know what to write about… so this is just going to be a fun journal- type website that I’ll randomly post on. Hope y’all like it and please don’t judge the format of this website I don’t know how to work it.