It is so beautiful outside, and it is cold. It is unbelievably refreshing to walk outside and be hit by the coolness and warmed by the sun. North Campus has that damp feel of a big backyard with lots of big old trees that have dropped leaves and acorns but still prevent the sunlight from drying the dirt. I had a dream last night that another tree fell down on north campus, which would upset me greatly and I am glad that it was just a dream. I am in the annex, and I forget how much I enjoy the annex. It is very quiet, and if you work it out right, you can surround yourself with friends and still get work done, which is a spectacular state of affairs in my opinion, and one I have found very few places. I have good feelings about this weekend, it promises to be cold and laid back. I don’t think I have any friends coming to visit, which in a lot of ways is sad, but it is also nice to relax. Three home football games in a row is enough to wear on anyone. I had a great night last night, I hung out with five girls that I adore, we drank a few beers and ate pizza and candy, I talked to a far away friend on the phone, and I got a good night sleep. Desmond and Emily are going to dominate in mock trial today and I can’t wait. Christy is such a sympathetic witness. I am so proud of them!
Archive for the ‘Athens’ Category
It is so beautiful outside,
Posted in Athens on October 15, 2004| Leave a Comment »
hurricanes and tornadoes
Posted in Athens, Hurricanes, The Paines, Thoughts on September 16, 2004| Leave a Comment »
I am sitting in the dark in my apartment. The electricity hasn’t gone off yet, but I was watching a movie and now the movie is over and I am too lazy to get up and turn the lights back on. I have been playing hurricane all day, which basically involves me not doing anything but watching movies and drinking coke, while eating the occasional oreo. I forgot how much I love oreos, especially (or particularly) frozen oreos. Not that the weather has been too bad most of the day, it really only got bad around 2 this afternoon. And I have been playing hurricane since about 11:30 this morning. I did get up and go to class at 9:30, but I only had one class (Trust and Estates, which I really enjoy). Now, it probably would have been intelligent to sit in the library and do work, seeing is how I am behind in everything, but how often do you get to play hurricane? (this being the third hurricane in the last month, I’m not confident in the strength of this argument).
But the problem with being in the library is that I don’t know where my rain coat is right now, and without my rain coat I wouldn’t have a good way to get away from the library once the rain started. I wish I had stayed at the library though because they had a tornado drill, there was a tornado WARNING in Athens today. Isn’t that crazy? that means that a tornado was spotted. kinda scary. We are under a tornado watch until 9 tonight.
And the weather people don’t have a clue about what the weather is ACTUALLY going to do. They can tell you what they think, but it will almost always be wrong. It was suppose to rain all last night, but didn’t really pour until this afternoon. Right now it isn’t suppose to rain at the game on Saturday, but who knows. If it rains, at least it won’t be as crowded. My mom said she wouldn’t sit in the rain, so I can sit in her perfectly situated seat. I wonder if my dad will go to the game without my mom.
I know they are still coming the Athens, regardless. My parents love to come to Athens. Almost as much as my brother loves to come to Athens. I mean, I kinda wonder if my family would ever come to visit me if I lived somewhere that wasn’t much fun, like Macon. I guess they would still come sometimes, but I can promise you that I would see a great deal less of them. But hey, I shouldn’t complain, I don’t go home very much. Mostly because I like being in Athens.
The movie I watched today was MIRACLE. It was very enjoyable. I was pretty confident about how the movie was going to end, but that almost made it better. I watch enough sporting events where I don’t know the end, and I can only handle so much stress in my life right now. I borrowed the book from Nick a couple of weeks ago, and he has been hounding me to watch it, and I am glad that I did. Now I need to watch Tombstone. I love movies. I watched War and Peace with my parents on Sunday, and I thought it was great. I love Tolstoy, and Audrey Hephburn is awesome.
Last night was fun. I went to bible study, and I enjoyed it. I think the group is shaping up well, and I am really looking forward to getting to know all of the people in the group better. I need a group of people like the ones in bible study. I am so much more grounded when I am reading the word (i.e. the bible) and I am so much more likely to read the bible if I have something keeping me accountable like bible study.
After bible study, Cristina and I went to Moes, and Cybil met us up there. The weather was really nice, cool and breezy and muggy. After Moes we went to meet some of our first year friends at Wild Wing, but it was crowded so we went to the Winery. The object was to find somewhere that we could sit outside, and this was accomplished at the winery. We ran into Kipp, Desmond, and Michael, and shortly thereafter Christy and her two friends who evacuated the pan handle came to meet us. This was very fun because lately I have been spending a great deal of my law school time with Christy, Desmond, and Kipp. I love them all and it was very fun. We ended the night (basically) with a trip to Ga. Bar to chat with the first years. Almost every first year that I know was there, and it was really good to talk to them outside of school. I am learning all of their names, and I like so many of them, it is very encouraging. I know that I am going to miss my 3L friends a great deal next year and I feel better that the 1Ls are cool as well. I haven’t been out on a week night in a long time, but last night was great.
I think I am going to join the gang tonight and go bowling. I love bowling. I just wish the bowling alley in Athens sold beer. For the obvious reason that I love beer, but also because it would be so much easier to convince people to go bowling with you if you could entice them with beer. I know that this is everything that is wrong with the world, but the bottom line is that not everyone likes to bowl as much as I do, and they motives other than a love of bowling.
Okay, the wind is picking up, so I think I am going to take a shower. Mostly because I am dirty and because I don’t want to take one after the electricity goes out. I bet the bowling alley won’t be open the the electricity goes out. Ohhhhh, and I will miss the season premier of ER. Maybe bowling won’t happen, but what are vcrs for if they don’t tape shows that you miss…..this is the longest post I have given in a while, I kinda enjoyed it, I guess that is what happens when I can’t think everything out while running at the botanical gardens. stupid hurricanes….lucky you. kisses.
Happy places and a runner’s high
Posted in Athens, Georgia, outside, Thoughts on September 15, 2004| Leave a Comment »
I came to the conclusion today that I don’t write much about my only other hobby besides this journal. And that hobby is running at the botanical gardens. The State Botanical Gardens of Georgia are in Athens, and are one of my favorite places in the world. I really love them. A lot. And I really like to run there. Even though it is really hilly, I love it. Because I love running hills. I don’t know if this makes me a masochist or something, but I love running up and down hills. If you want to know something else disturbing, I also love to run steps. We used to run the steps in high school at basketball practice for punishment. I thought this was great because I enjoyed it. This probably means I have problems, but if anyone wants to go run the bleachers at the track with me, let me know.
But back to the botanical gardens. There are miles and miles of trails. Some are overgrown, but most are kept clear, either due simply to the foot traffic or because the caretakers of the gardens care enough to cut down the trees that fall in the trails. And these trees are huge. There is a large portion of the trail that runs along the middle occonee river, and the trees along the river have a tendency to be consumed and eaten by the river. Because of all the hurricanes that have been swirling around lately, heavy rain has caused the river trail to flood. I was hoping it would be all dried up today in order to get a good run in before hurricane Ivan blows into town, and it was for the most part, but there was a substantial section of straight mud. Between picking my way through the mud and dodging the high school cross country team I felt lucky and thankful to escape without injury.
Normally the mud isn’t that much of a problem, although the gardens do get a lot of rain. I think my favorite thing about the gardens is that they remind me of so many things I love about Georgia, especially North Georgia. The gardens take me back to the summers I spent in Rabun county and the intoxicated smell of white pine trees in the sun after a rain (this is most definitely my favorite smell in the world, sweet and fresh and clean). I love the gravel roads that run through the garden, I don’t know why but a winding gravel road in the afternoon is strangely comforting and gives me a great deal of peace.
I have so many feelings about the gardens, and Georgia in general that I don’t think I can tell them all tonight (my run there today was long, and I am tired), but the one thing I do know is that when I am in the gardens, back in the trails or on the gravel roads, I am convinced that I will never be happy anywhere too far away from here. It is so nice to go far away and find such beauty and to come home and discover comparable beauty in your own backyard.
looking cute, seeing people, being out and about…..
Posted in Athens, Food and Drink, Football, Law School on September 6, 2004| Leave a Comment »
I had such a fabulous weekend. I have kinda been down since I got back to school, and this weekend left me happy and excited about life again. Sometimes when I drink a great deal of alcohol in one sitting I end up depressed the next day, and that is when it really hits me that I am unhappy and something is wrong. I think this is because alcohol compounds the things that are bothering you and makes them worse. So, it is really only when things are going well and you are happy that alcohol can really be fun. It is also easier to keep things under control when you are happy. Drinking because you are depressed is like going under water to get some air.
I like to think that last week was a turning point in the semester. I calmed down, and got into the swing of things, and I feel better. I decided that I can’t worry about boys, that I just don’t have the energy. So lacking the energy, I am cutting out a piece of stress. Not that I’m planning on cutting boys out, just the stress of worrying about it. Things have a tendency to work out better that way. I was much better about making sure I ate enough food, I know this sounds stupid, but when I don’t eat enough I get depressed cause I am tired all the time. So I am now eating more, worrying less, and being calmer than I was before.
My parents were in town this weekend, and they were both in a great mood. I think they are excited about football season. We went to the Last Resort for dinner on friday, and it was awesome. Then on saturday they came to the law school tailgate up on north campus and that was also lots of fun. Another reason this weekend was spectacular is because Libby came in town. We had a great time, when I woke up on saturday my sides hurt from laughing all night long. I saw lots of fun people friday, one them a loyal livejournal friend, Paige, who is awesome and lives in my hometown and works at the tv station. I think people that work at tv stations are kind of famous because they control the news.
Another highlight of friday night was the easy mac that Libby and ate when we got home that night. It was the greatest thing we had ever eaten in our lives. The law school tailgate was a huge success. I am really pumped that we had such a great turn out. I want to tailgate there all the time. It is nice being right there near downtown and in the middle of everything. I have big dreams for all the other games. The game was not actually that much fun for me, it started off poorly when the ticket checker girl for our section threw Christy’s hotdog on me and I had ketchup and mustard all over me for the rest of the day. But it is at least a great story. Saturday night was a bit of a blur, We(libby, cristina and me) started off with Travers and the Augusta crew, then we went to Ga. Bar to hang out with law school friends (who were all quite lit up), from there we had a few chill moments at The Manhattan (for libby and patrick, since they live in manhattan), and then we picked up the night by heading to the dance club (I love the dance club), and we finished the night off at Tasty World, where we luckily ran into Travers.
Travers paid some random girls with a car $20 to take us home (after we dropped the girl’s friend off at boars head) and the night ending with some more easy mac and laughing. Travers slept on the blow up mattress instead of the pull out sofa because he didn’t want to wait for me to pull the sofa out. Over all it was an awesome weekend, one to be remembered for the record books. Last night we (me and Christy and Cristina) went over to Christian’s and he cooked us chicken and hamburgers and we watched the washington football game with Nick and all our law school boy friends. It was yummy. I have good feelings about this year, I am in high spirits as to the possibilities ahead of us. Not with regards to SCHOOL, but with regards to life in general and to being an overall happy and fulfilled individual. I love you all. Kisses.