An Illustrated Blog

The rest of my birthday continued much in the same vein. In addition to Kate's song, I also got a singing voicemail from Kelly and an awesome song from Max. The one from Max was particularly special because I currently have songs from him about just about all of our other friends, but this was the first one about me and it was amazing.

Around four o'clock, as I was finishing the editing of some videos, I received a call from the campus post office. I already knew I had a package because they sent me an e-mail so I was pretty perturbed to receive a call. They told me that I had an edible package waiting for me and I had to come pick it up immediately. An edible package? What is that like the edible diapers on that SNL commercial? Turns out, my dad sent me a bouquet of chocolate covered strawberries! I didn't even know such things existed. Also, my main source of delicious chocolate covered strawberries has been over a thousand miles away from me for months! Due to all of the other food and candy people have given me (six York Peppermint patties, two dozen cookies and brownies, a loaf of french bread), I wasn't able to eat them all in one sitting so they're kind of melting in my mini-fridge right now....I've had to put ziploc bags around each strawberry and wrap the pot in paper towels...yeah, it's kind of a mess.

Another great little birthday surprise came from my suitemates. They left a little message on the back of our toilet stall door. I can say that I've never before read a birthday greeting while in such a vulnerable state.

So the whole birthday thing turned out fairly well. People have much more desire to show how much they care when you're far away from each other, which is nice because the caring thing is what I really like. I've never been big on material presents. I just want to know that people care about me. I'm a needy attention seeker in that way.


Tonight also ended up being a lot of fun. I had been sitting in my bed since returning from my French exam at 10 am this morning (no joke, I actually stayed in bed watching The Office on hulu and sleeping for eleven hours ---- ps, I now have a major crush on Jim) and had totally forgotten that tonight is the traditional Midnight Breakfast. Every week of finals, some of the faculty and staff serve the entire student body breakfast in the Commons and there's karaoke or Rock Band as well. Last semester, there was a horrid sleet storm the night of Midnight Breakfast so my friends and I opted not to go. This year, however, my lovely suitemate invited me to go with some of her friends. I am so glad she reminded me about it. I had fears about going to a place where most of the student body would be (I have a whole list of people who I have a lot of trouble being near and, as a result, stick to my room as much as possible), but it ended up being a ton of fun. One of my favorite professors (who I have been awkwardly corresponding with via facebook message for the last few days), served me a cinnamon roll, which I cherished greatly because she said that every cinnamon roll was special and therefore we got to choose which one we wanted. Here's a picture!

Clearly, I did not participate in karaoke, but watching it was a ton of fun. When one group went up to sing "Hakuna Matata," the entire commons joined in the chorus because it is so apropos for finals week. Actually, most of the commons joined in for all of the songs. My personal favorite was when the group of cute (read: awkward) RAs sang a song from The Little Mermaid. Note: I hate The Little Mermaid, but they were so adorable singing it that I couldn't help loving it.

Basically, Midnight Breakfast rocked and so did my birthday, but I still cannot (absolutely, positively cannot) wait until I get to go home. Despite these little pockets of happiness, I'm still pretty miserable here. I long to see all of my friends and chillax at all our old haunts. I haven't yet found the kind of fun here that I have back home and I really really miss having fun.