I'm SOO TIRED

WARNING: THIS ENTRY WILL CONTAIN LARGE AMOUNTS OF WHINNING AND COMPLAINING...IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT...GET YOUR OWN STINKIN' BLOG.


Ok, so today I feel like typing in purple. If you don't like it, see above. I had a late night last night, and it was a bit stressful as you may imagine. I went back to sleep after I published the post from last night, and Casey called at 10 minutes after midnight to tell me that they had indeed, succeeded in locating the FRAT camp within the State Park. Fantastic, kudos to you and your hunting dogs.

Well, I definately forgot that I was supposed to have debate lab this morning. And by forgot, I mean I forgot to set my mental alarm, which is how I get up every morning. I set my regular alarm, but because I had forgotten to remember how important it was for me to get up, definately didn't until about 1o minutes after 8:00 when my Freshman called me..."um, WHERE ARE YOU?" This, was a clear indication that this was going to be a long day.

I finally got my sorry self to lab by 8:30 and it was all downhill after that. The soccer team Mel & I coach at the Redbud YMCA is supposed to have its make-up game today for the time our game got rained out on homecoming weekend. Interestingly enough, today, it's RAINING. Hmm...I hope someone finds this funny.

I have so much to do today I'm not quite sure I should have voted against Bill Gates' motion to extend the day to 36 hours. I have GOT to:

1. email my USA Today application to the committee for review
2. do constitutional law
3. find my absence letters for Minnesotta this weekend
4. take my suits to the cleaners
5. do laundry
6. finish my FREAKIN LONG paper for American Presidency, it's almost done but I'm not really a big fan
7. Study for my Social Research Test on Monday: not hard, but definately haven't LOOKED at the material in a while...I've been doing DB8 in class again...darn that national qualification [hey baby bro, if you are reading this DON'T BE LIKE ME...PAY ATTENTION IN CLASS...IT SAVES ON SLEEP LATER IN LIFE...]
8. clean my apartment
9. study for my Macro-Econ Test on Monday: kinda lost on the whole Fed Funds thing...could be because I was so tired I SLEPT THROUGH THAT CLASS...hmm
10. create two surveys for constituient relations
11. mail my law school applications this weekend - darn it
12. write a letter to Ryan Porsche - he sent me one in the mail last week and I still haven't replied - i'm a bad friend you know it? ahahahahahahahahahahah
13. schedule three meetings w/ administrators for Congress
14. DEBATE...MUST QUAL FOR NATIONALS...
15. I should probably eat and sleep too...

I think I'm done whinning now...except for the part where I do it in my brain.

END TRANSMISSION

SECRET SQUIRREL OUT

Casey, there ARE NO SMALL DILLEMAS IN YOUR LIFE

For those of you who don't know, there are only two different types of situations in Casey's life:

1. Sleep [or otherwise vacant]
2. Crisis

• Casey: "That's not entirely true; I do take vacation."

Casey is lost, but not really. What's the definition of lost? If it is "unable to get where you want to go" than Casey is definately lost. If it is, "not sure where you are wanting to go" then I'm not sure what Casey's problem is. He left here after he dropped me off after the Film Festival for the FRAT trip to Colorado City [Lake Colorado to be exact]. He was supposed to call me when he got there, so when I got a call at 10:27, I assumed everything to be normal. Foolish me...

• Elizabeth: "Hello"
• Casey: "Hello Elizabeth, I'm here."
• Elizabeth: "Gosh Casey, it's 10:30. That took longer than we thought didn't it?"
• Casey: "Yes, but not the point. I have a small dillema here."
• Elizabeth: [thought - of freakin' course] ??
• Casey: "So, I"m here, but the gates are locked."

Apparantly, some FRAT genius decided to NOT tell the rest of his BTs that the gates would close at 10.

haha [sarcastically]

Anways, so when Casey got there, he found the gates closed and he was all alone in the VERY CREEPY WILDERNESS, AND ONLY I KNOW HE'S OUT THERE. [this has all the makings of a NOT FAMILY MOVIE.] He doesn't feel to terribly safe now, and we've resorted to him following random vehicles who might be FRATS. See, I called Aaron Robison - who was supposed to be out there but is ASLEEP IN HIS BED IN ABILENE and tried to get a little BT help, but that's not the point. Casey also called the camp assistance number NOTHING. WHY THE DUECE DO YOU HAVE ONE IF YOU WON'T ANSWER...IF YOU DON'T WORK THERE'S NOT MUCH POINT IN HAVING YOU IS THERE?


I'm actually kind of worried.
As I am typing this I am speaker phone in Casey's truck as he completes the following of the second random vehicle we had hoped would lead him to a fellow FRAT.

• Casey: "Dangit! He turned down the same stupid farm road the other guy did. I hate my life. Stop that, this isn't funny. And you're recording this all on your blog? Ha, Ha, Ha."

• Casey: "Oh, there's another car...should I follow him? SHould I? Are you sure...and it's nobody in particular, I don't recognize the vehicle, so I'm pretty much not following HIM."

We had decided first of all, that he should definately not "CHILL OUT" outside the dark and creepy campgrounds without light. That is definately on the Top 10 BAD MOVE list. He's not too keen on it anywayz....So, we decided he should go back to the city. Then, he saw a truck that might have belonged to Lemely, but it wasn't possible. But, he followed them anyway. The second truck - a dodge - could've been Cotton or BT Burns. Eventually, we decided THAT wasn't a brilliant strategy: following random people around. So, now he's driving around in the dark, alone and lost. I just communicated I'm not happy about this.

• Casey:"You think I'm happy right now? I'm at the Colorado River and OH MY GOD THAT'S A PRISON! I thought the big scary building might be a military base, but NO, TDCJ stands for TEXAS DEPARTMENT OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE!! Where the deuce is the on-ramp?"

I have come through for Casey YET AGAIN **** [remember this the next time I am mean to you...] and got Brandon Lemely to call someone to let Casey in. Of course, at this lovely juncture, he's driving somewhere NOT at the camp.

• "In fact, I was headed toward the city to chill at the Dairy Queen. Grr."

So now, Casey is driving back toward the State Park and hopefull we will be able to conclude our conversation soon [neither of us is keen on him wandering around alone without me knowing where he is].

• "Dangit, I'm right next to a french gas station. Sigh."
• "Stupid Texas State Park System and their stupid curfews. For three dollars they should let me in whenever I want. Stupid communists. Imposing curfews! What is this, marshall law? I pay taxes to get in! Oh, but Colorado City wants more!!"

Oh by the way, Casey is now "safely" back at the gates, but they are still locked. Personally, my vote is for him coming home - NOW. But I'm not really sure what's going on...Casey's calling Brandon, so that Brandon will meet him at the Dairy Queen when he gets to Colorado City.

---elevator music while you are on hold: thank you for calling us today, your call is important---

Ok, after that 5 minute interruption: Casey's back on the phone. Brandon told him to DRIVE BACK TO THE GATES AGAIN, and wait outside for someone to come and let him in. I'm not really a big fan of this whole situation and B-Lem DEFINATELY didn't get brownie points for yelling at me. Now, he'll get his "come uppin's" as Casey will now refer to him as BT Limbaugh. hahahahaha. Still not happy.

• Casey: "And there's the creepy gas station...."

Suddenly Casey has been overtaken by a strange sense of masculinity:

• Casey: "I'll be fine. The brothers won't do anything that would get me killed. I'll just chill in my truck here...I wonder if there's any food in here."

I'm gonna stay on the phone w/ him until they let him in. I'm not sure about this...

• Casey: "I just found some Ramen Noodles."

Note to self Casey: clean your truck.

Clean it now.

Brandon is aparantly in Colorado City now, and he's a little lost. Life with FRATS is always intersting, this I can vouch for. Now, I'm sure EVERYONE will want some info on this "retreat" when they get back... so Casey YOU WILL WRITE A PARAGRAPH OR TWO ON THIS BLOG FOR MY READERS...they are already interested since you had your very random and lizz-like escapade tonight. [And by that I mean something bad randomly happened to you...and it involved you getting lost and being locked out of something.] Yes, I'm contagious.

Film Fest

I think I shall take this time to give a great shout out to my debate partner, Josh Massingill, for his performance at the first ACU Film Festival. His film [in cooperation with Lauren and B-Lem] won their category, and Josh won best director. B-Lem was nominated for best technical director. They got robbed though, from their just rewards by some fruity drama film...shame, shame, shame on the liberal media. [You could Casey saying they stole it from the Republicans all the way in Pennsylvania.]

WORDS OF WARNING

Don't switch dates.
Just don't.
Bad idea - very bad.


p.s. Casey, you know that paper is due next week, right?-

Karaoke...or However You Spell "White Boys Can Rap!" in Japanesse

If you're looking for something fun to do on Monday nights, I MOST DEFINATLEY have the answer! Karoke at Mr. Gatti's...that's where you'll find me anyways! :-)

Paul and I headed out there for Saddies week @ around 6:45...and were just chillin, havin' a pizza eatin' contest and some "heartfelt conversation" [theories on hats and the like] when we decided the time had come to move onto GAMES!!! EXCELLENT...when we noticed a huge "KARAOKE" sign hanging over one of the rooms, so I went to investigate...dum dum dum dum dum...!!! We ended up inside the room - mistake number one - and it was all downhill after that!

Paul coaxed me into singing, so with his helpful and encouraging attitude, I slamm dunked [if I do say so myself] "Landslide" by the Dixie Chicks [who are NOT as cool as Stevie Knicks]. Afterwards, upon the promise that I would sing another, Paul jammed to "The Gambler" by Kenny Rogers. Man let me just say [wipes tear from corner of eye,] CLASSIC. So, I take a swing at "Born to Fly" by Sara Evans, so Paul bust out with - oh yes, yes he does - E.I. by Nelly!! OH YAH, BOY GOT SKILLS! Classic, absolutely classic.

We even made some new friends, and we shall be sure to see them next week when we go back, and the week after that, and so on and so on. Have you ever seen that episode of Rosanne [what else comes on after Cheers that's worth even KINDA watching..] were in she gets addicted to Bingo? It'll be like that, only with costumes.

Peace Out
A-Town-Stomp

TOURNAMENT OF DEATH: ADVENTURES IN HOUSTON WITH ACU DEBATE PART THE FOURTH

Allright, well let's just say I don't want to talk about the rest of the tournament much either, but they say confession is good for the soul. To put it plainly, we discovered a little to late to do much about it, that the tournament had been created for the sole purpose of qualifying kids who go to school in the not-so-great-Houston area or H-Crap-Town, for short. I lost my semis round to a freshman with out a brain or an xpando, at least that is what the judge from HIS OWN SCHOOL SAID...and since my "panel" mysteriously disappeared before the round, that's all we have to go on. Needless to say, I did not get my nationals bid and I don't think I'm a big fan of Houston anymore. [Jeremy, Joy, and Casey - sorry]

As far as extemp goes, my speech was allright, but I lost first place to an extemper from the co-hosting school, and parli really sucked. Josh and I CLEARLY DESSIMATED the team from the co-host school in semis, but the assistant - tournament director didn't seem to think so. In fact, this is something he made quite clear on his ballot after he had
1) started my prep time in extemp FINALS without me &
2) made our parli panel disappear too...

So, I end up with 3rd in LD & 2nd in Extemp. Josh and I get our 3rd place Parli trophies, and Layne won Communication Analysis...but there were only two people...still cool though - props Layne! He also got the top novice award in Communication Analysis and Brandon Smith got the top novice award in Extemp. Then we went to IHOP and oh well.

Funny story: when Jeremy Gordon told the U of H Coach he was our assistant coach...very funny indeed

TOURANMENT OF DEATH: ADVENTURES IN HOUSTON WITH ACU DEBATE - PART TERCIARY

WELL, the tournament of death is over, and NO, I DON'T WANT TO TALK AOBUT IT. Here to tell you about it is a Freshman with a clear perspecticve [aka HIS graduation is not at stake...]

Hey friends, this is your friendly neighbohood Freshmen Senator..aka...Brandon Smith. Well after a semi-fun night of PARLI, most of us felt as though we had achieved some level of success. O how we were wrong. We begin with our journey to the school....after draggin Josh, Cole, James, and Brandon Limmely from their room we were able to load our lovely 15-passenger van with ourselves, evidence tubs, a small army of expando folders, and of course varus colors of pens and beverages. For those of you who don't know, EXTEMP, the draw a topic and write a speech in 30 minutes event, requires that our team drag around with us several tubs of evidence, articles, and so forth. So we follow the clearly marked signs to the room were we will be able to drop of our tubs. Of course this was our first mistake: we looked to the signs poseted on the walls to tell us where to go, and believed the people who were running the tounrament knew what they were doing! Much to our suprise, we discovred that there is ABSOLUTLY ZERO PEOPLE in the clearly marked room for Extemp. I depart the group and venture up 7,904,435 stairs only to find other not so clarly marked signs pointing us to another room. It is at this point we begin to question our decesion to come to Houston...even though we really like papadeaux.

We finally got our first round of Extemp underway, the day seemed as it might still go well.

Next LD started, except it didn't! The highly imaginitive tournament directors thought it best to radomly assign time slots for the LD rounds, and then change them whenever it seemed benificial...for their own devious purposes. We all went to our LD round and commensed in the metophorical desemation of our competetors. However, intsead of compentent judges, the fearless, highly imaginative tourny director decided to rely on not only incompetent blubber idiots to judge us, but also contintued to reley on our fellow competitors in other events to judge us as well. After Extepm, James debated his Extemp judge. Liz nd Josh's parli competitors were my judges in Extemp. As most of you (assuming you have graduated pre-school, and have an IQ level greater than or equal to frozen yogurt, this is not exactly an ethical way to run a tournament).

Funny story: Liz debated an idiot freshmen, lets call him "Philip the Hun, with an ugly tie."(not to be confused with Mr. I need to cut my pony tail) decided to argue a theory from French author Focoult, without actually useing anything written by Foucult. Then continued to critiize Liz's use of a "French" author who was actually and American born in Idaho! lol, jk, jk, lol!

The time of eating was rapidly approaching, yet the meal provided by the ournament, was once again late. Finally, we were able to eat our sub-sanwitches, right before the final "i'm an angry democrat" topic was issued for PARLI. We finshed our entertaining debate over the wonderful mstery, and over-rated load of horse manuear that is the Clinton Legacy.

So after our rounds are over it is time to post who boke into the final rounds, and who did not. Much to our suprise, freshmen debaters who couldn't flow, let alone spell debate, managed to defeat nearly every person on our squad! Lizz broke in LD, EXTEMP, and PARLI.

tune in next time for the tourny results