I cannot STAND Cottey College.
ok. So that's a blatant lie
What isn't a lie is that I feel like a yoyo. I don't have a roommate, then I have a roommate, then I don't have a roommate and guess what guys. I officially have a roommate.
Unfortunately for me, this is a completely unwanted roommate! I have no idea how I fit on one side of this room in the first place, not to mention that I am really comfortable with the set up I have. It really works for me.
My vanity about the room isn't the only thing...
After my whole Emily experience, I really am VERY scared...
I don't want to have a second semester that was as bad in the roommate department as the first. Does it really have to be me?
I'm just...well...frightened about it. There is really no other explanation...
hmm...well...maybe all will be well in the end...

And we're dancing

Today was the day.
That's right
The one
The only

DANCE RECITAL!!!!!

WHEEEEE
but no really.
I had a lot of fun. The stress of performing panned out for me, and I put on a great show. Thank the Lord for that one!
Tonight's performance marked the SECOND of four finals. The other two hit me on Tuesday.
We start twenty four hour quiet hours on Sunday. Its gonna KILL me! I'm not exactly what I would call a quiet person... to be quiet non stop??? not so easy.
I'm so psyched to go to Tulsa on the sixteenth. Its going to be great to meet Virginia's family and friends. Its just a matter of time till I get her up to Idaho.
nine more days till I'm home for Christmas!! love you guys!

To my besties.

Yeah. Its official.
I have the best friends EVER.

Tonight they went caroling with me
in the freezing cold

then they blindfolded and kidnapped me.....

sounds amazing huh?

They led me to a car, they drove me around, they pulled me out, they dragged me to a building, I walk inside...where the great smell of butter and salt hit me. We were in a movie theater.
Yup.
they kidnapped me to go see Twilight...

again.

I didn't mind tho. It was great.

that wasn't the best part tho.

the best part was definetly the love notes they left me on my door. Here is what they said:

Laura is Beautiful
Laura is Hilarious
You deserve the best of everything
we love you
you're amazing
remember to smile
Laura is my favortie
We just thougth we missed your smile, so we did this for you
everything will be fine!
Trust yourself
Laugh often and much!

aren't they the greatest?
I sure think so.

I owe them a huge thank you for chasing away my final blues.

:D yay them!!!!!!

quick update:
calc exam tomorrow.
I will have no new roommate.
Hanging isn't as stressful as I thought it would be. Every night we sing dirty cottey versions of christmas carols such as "We live in a Nunnery" and a version of jingle bells that includes highballs and tequila. This happens at Tearing of the Square. Symbolizing the count down to finals, and going home. Today at dinner the two choirs sang all sorts of christmas carols (non dirty versions) and asked us to join in. So we had a huge sing along. It was great. Gwen, Virginia and I stayed there for an hour and a half completly enjoying ourselves.
Church service tomorrow, handbells play at the beginning. I'm kinda excitied!
Handbells play Saturday. Thats our BIG performance (YIKES). and of course the dinner and dance
dress rehersal Tuesday
informal recital Wednesday
Lab practical Thursday
Y recital Friday
STUDY WEEKEND
break on monday
finals tuesday!

stress...

WHEEEEE!! two more weeks. you would think I would be happy.

I'M NOT

I bet that took you by suprise!!! happy I am not. I am upset. and stressed. and tired. and sick. and I just wanna go HOME.
yeah. Its out. I wanna be home. in a bed where my feet DON'T hang off the end, in a room that DOESN'T have heater demons, with people who DON'T feel the need to constantly stress me out with trivial things like calculus. Seriously? what was I thinking. Calculus?!? when am I EVER going to use that in real life. If I am in a job where I need to find the volume of a spinning irregular shape by using tiny little rectangles all stacked on top of one another quickly...I need to find a new job.
AHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Thats all I feel like I can do. I feel like I am running around like a chicken with its head cut off, and I have only been back two days! Sure I sat with my friends today, with out a care in the world, but I think my room has a curse on it... As soon as I walked in it hit me like a brick wall.
I have a calc exam friday
I register for classes friday
I have to help make wreaths wednesday
I have to finish the dance at the Y Saturday
the Y kids perform next week
I perform next week!
hanging of the greens is this weekend
Ice skating is this weekend
I have upwards of twenty pages of notes (growing every day) that I have to memorize for my fourth bio test on the sixteenth (thank the Lord almighty that his final isn't cumulative....I have more than a notebook of notes for his class...)
I have a calc final that IS cumulative (YIKES)
my performance next week counts for more than I can afford to think about....
my room has to be clean and moved out of one side before I leave incase I get a roommate
I DON'T WANT A ROOMMATE!!! (never thought I would say that one)

*sigh* so enough complaining. Here is my christmas list:
href="file:///C:%5CUsers%5CLaura%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_colorschememapping.xml">

Laura’s Christmas List.

V neck cashmere sweaters

Cardigans

Cute dresses (they have some I like online at pacsun.com. Look under girls, then dresses. I especially like the Volcom Jezabel dress)

Tights in any color/patterns

Jeans!!! (30 waist, 34-36 in inseam, dark coloring)

Capri sweat pants

More convertible tights!!!! Any color or pattern, footless is great too! (I am ALWAYS out of tights….)

Twilight’s official illustrated movie guide

Twilight series (original covered books [all black and red covers] hardback)

The new Narnia DVD

Any fun DVD that looks like me

Any fun books you think I would enjoy

Cute stationary/notepads

Stamps (like crazy)

Fun big jewelry (for Sunday brunch :D)

Lots of sweaters!

Anything fun and polka dotted (love it)

X box with:
Skate
Rock Band

Touch iPod

New cell phone

Digital Camera

A puppy dog.

Some sort of aquatic animal that isn’t a fish (the only thing I am allowed here)

Zach, I just saw that you guys are on my blog. If you feel I made a wrong choice somewhere when it comes to electronics...feel free to let me know!

Alright. well HUGE post from me. Love ya!

Laundry

Yeah! Our water is back on! I finally got to do laundry

Real quickly before I go back downstairs and babysit my dryers, and before my Coke or romance novel is stolen, I thought I would share something that I realized today

I am a weird laundry doer (laundress??)

yeah. Thats right.

I do all sorts of weird things. Thought you should see my list.

1. I sort everything into four piles :1. sheets, towels, socks;2. jeans; 3. t-shirts (all colors); 4.tights and underwear...
   
2. I use ALOT of detergent...you would think that detergent AND bleach is overkill...not for me apparently
3. I am really embarrassed when I have to use the rollie laundry basket
4. I make a total of 1 trip down stairs and 4 trips up stairs (1. detergent, color catchers bleach; 2. softener; 3. clean and wet jeans and bras; 4. everything else) seems a bit backward eh?
5. The laundry room is my favorite place to study. I get alot done. I think it is the sound of the washers.
6. I count socks as I throw them in the dryer
7. I get really depressed when the socks come out an odd number and it makes me want to pull them out and count again just to be really sure that I missed one
   
8. I count shirts as I throw them in the dryer
9. I have a point system for my aim into washers from where I stand with my laundry bag
   

Please tell me I am NOT crazy for doing this...
tho I probably am....

BLAHHHGHHGHGHGHGGGGG
yeah...that probably fits my excitement to a t. Twilight was SOOOOOOOO amazing last night. Not to mention that there was FINALLY a trailer to "Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince." IT LOOKS EPIC!!!!!
Alright. So Edward was sexy, Jacob had the best teeth I have ever seen, Alice was crazy, the baseball scene was perfect, I can't think of a better pet name than Spider Monkey, and Emmet makes me want to faint.... In a nutshell, as soon as I get back to Nevada, there is going to be a lot of money going to me seeing Twilight again. If only to drool.
So I'm testosterone deprived.
This movie didn't help.
AT ALL.
Maybe all girls school = bad idea.

Thanksgiving is coming up faster than I can blink!!!! This entire week seemed to take milliseconds.

Elaine and I begin choreography for the girls at the Y's Christmas program tomorrow. Should be interesting. I feel way more comfortable with them since Elaine made me actually teach last weekend. I'm cursing the sick gods for making her as sick as she was.

Decided finally on my old fall back for essay writing. Jane Austen. There was way to much analytical writing that needed to be done for me to actually discover a new author. I am really disappointed in myself, I was looking forward to this project, and I totally blew it off. I am going to make it up to myself tho. I may not write the actual paper, but I plan on bringing Mysteries of Udolpho on the plane with me. What little I got to read of it, it was pretty amazing.

Laundry time this weekend. Hopefully I will get it all done in time to travel...I have been putting it off for FAR to long. It might just be the fact that I haven't been sent quarters in the mail for ages ;) love you mum!!!!

Right well, thats about it. I've gotta get my pre-calc nap in. Toodles!!

TATACATTTACTTAGATTC

I really don't have anything new to tell you guys at the moment, I just thought I would fill you in on the fact that in biology we have finally gotten to the stuff of legend. The subject that originally made me fall in love with the science... DNA!!!!!!!! yeah that's right! I just dove into an alphabet soup of deliciousness that I understand with the best of them tRNA, mRNA, aaRNA, TATA sequence, CATT sequence, 5`, 3`, spliceosome.... yeah all of that makes sense to me, and I am SO proud of the fact.



Today in lab we were given slides of plant and animal cells and told to locate, identify, and draw the five stages of mitosis: interphase, prophase, metaphase, anaphase, and telophase. I KILLED it! I was so excited sitting there, completely in my element, working the microscope like a silentest who has been working in a lab their whole lives, finding them in quick succession. I was so impressed with myself! It really made me remember why I love biology. Mom kept telling me that I just had to go back to why I loved it in the first place, and now I honestly can say I remember. It is the challenge of working with something complicated and tiny and exciting. And how good it feels when you finally figure it out. Its better than any other rush I know. You can score the winning goal at state, you can win a marathon, but it feels just as good when you finally understand DNA. It is amazing to me how complicated our bodies are, down to the tiniest little part of us, and how, when the chance is there thousands of times per second for a life threatening mistake to happen, how rare the mistakes DO happen. All by these little chemicals, enzymes, and molecules floating around in the cells of our body. It is mind boggling to think that these little strands of DNA (not really little, they could wrap around the world three times...but they DO have to be in chromosome form, and at 400x power for us to see them...) make us who we are, make us all different, and yet all the same. And if it weren't for this DNA, we wouldn't be anything at all...
Really makes you think.....even the smallest most seemingly insignificant thing makes a WORLD of difference when you get right too it...

Twilight MADNESS!!!

If you had read the books it would all make SO much more sense to you. In as few words as possible. I am in love with Edward Cullen. Not so interesting, except the small fact that he is perfect, and fictional, and a vampire. Because of this literary crush I have on this fictional character, I am planning on spending most of my Thursday night standing in line in the cold Missouri air, ticket in hand, waiting for the clock to strike twelve. I have paid for my ticket, I have made my shirt, and I have plans for driving. Now all that is left to do is wait. Easy enough. Tomorrow promises to be busy.
In addition to catching up on my essay after changing the writer I will be writing on for BWW (British Women Writers) yet again, I have an AACT (Aids Activists Coming Together) meeting, and a company student work piece (choreographed by my tall friend Betsy Gonia (6'0")) and then it is off to Joplin.
My shirt is amazing, and if that didn't get me excited for the time to come, I don't know what would have. It's simple, yet cool, and shows off the name of our club very well with the important letters T~O displayed prominently. Yeah thats right. Twilight Original. Means I read the books. Cool huh?! Who knew! does that mean that if I go to the Harry Potter release and make a shirt I put HP~O on it? Food for thought I guess...

On to worse news, the toilet in the basement overflowed today... Our suite got hit with the worst of it. We were just given the ok to flush again..eww right? It has been terrible...you don't step out of your room unless you have a death wish

My friend Virgina left for KC today. She heads out to NYC tomorrow. She got tickets to the Broadway show Equus, starring Harry Potters Daniel Radcliffe. Gwen and I are so happy that she is going, but twenty minutes after her departure we were already acting pitiful. As soon as I got done with an emergency handbells practice Gwen looked at me, sighed, and we both said at the same time "I miss Virginia!!" I never knew how bloody funny the girl was. Leave it to me to surround myself with the most ridiculously humorous people I can. Even so, Gwen and I are having trouble filling the space. Thank goodness she will be back Monday. Even Monday is going to be a stretch! and then to leave them both on Wednesday *shudder* don't wanna think about it.
Gwen, Virgina, and I are inseperable. We eat together, and it is almost a garantee that we are hanging out throughout the day. It is crazy to think how we met. Gwen and I really got to know eachother when she convinced me to read the first in the Twilight series, and Virigna and I bonded as she discussed Harry Potter with me one night. She made me feel right at home, discussing books with the best of them. You need to have a conversation with her about Harry someday dad, she would blow you out of the water with her knowledge on everything Harry. It goes beyond obsession... but it is still amazing. Just by how we met you can tell how much both of them have in common with me. Gwen plans on going to California to be a screen writer, while Virgina is struggling with her hatred of math, and her dream to become a doctor. I keep offering to help her with calculus :P! It has been decided that after the break the three of us are roadtripping one weekend to OK to meet Virginia's family. It is just a matter of time till I get them to meet you guys!!!!

It has come to my attention that I am not reading my e-mail, and when I was confused by this, I realized I had a total of 35 unread e-mails in my hotmail account. I check my cottey account way more because this is how I talk to my teachers, coreographers, and club presidents. I respond right away so just e-mail me at cottey!!! lhughes@student.cottey.edu

Thats about it for tonight. Don't forget to leave me comments! I love you guys. Toodles!

Here's Why.

Alrighty. HEY guys! So, I got this idea from a friend of mine, who discovered that this is the best way to keep in touch with everyone simultaneously. I know it is SO hard to keep track of me with every thing that is going on with our busy lives, and honestly, I can never remember everything I have told you in the first place.

At the moment I am chilling in my room, putting off writing my essay (yeah I know, bad Laura). But don't worry, my essay isn't the ONLY thing I am putting off, laundry, cleaning, and showering is up there too. My life has been crazy, and it is only bound to get crazier.

Everything that has been going on in a nutshell? Well lets see:

• I saw the Plain White T's on Sunday. It was amazing! The lead singer (Tom, in the picture) was really cool, and we got to talk to him and take pictures with him after the show. He was really funny and SO nice. I went with my friend Gwen (left) (who I call Gwenivere. She is from Arizona and a second year) but Cottey being the way it is, we also recognized a group of four Cottey girls who we knew.
• For those of you who don't know I am in the Cottey Repertory Company. This not only consists of TONS of dances (we are up to three) its also a group of thirteen really tight knit girls. These are some of my best friends. I began dancing in two student works. Which brings me up to five dances. The company performed for the first time last Saturday for a PE/dance convention in Lake of the Ozarks. It was pretty cool!
  
• I am working a VERY part time job at the Y. I teach ballet to girls in between the ages of three and nine. Its a tough group let me tell you. The short three hours I am there wears me down. I am well known for my naps after I get back.
• As part of the CTC (Cottey Twilight Club) I got tickets to go see the midnight showing. If you can't get ahold of me, that's where I will be Thursday night!
• I went on a cave trip forever ago. It was to this little commercial cave in ?, MO. (Tells you how much I know about my new setting eh?) I had a ton of fun tho. I went with the Adventure Club, a club that does all sorts of fun things, like canoeing! It was a fantastic trip. My friends Virgina (right) (first year, from OK) and Taylor (first year, AZ) went with me. What a blast! it was SO cool, and we had alot of fun getting "cave kisses"
• My suitemate Cassie recently had a birthday party. She is now 20! We were supposed to have our B.I.L. hill night for her birthday, but it was stolen by another suite so we had a "Suite Hill Night" instead! It was great. We hung up suite meeting signs so no one would bother us, and partied the night away! One of the artists in the suite, Katie (second year, MO) was doodling on a balloon and made a figure that looked alot like our dear new President :P (ironic since she is a STRONG republican) We had alot of fun with "Green Obama Balloon" well..untill he popped!
  

• Classes are going great, but are SO difficult. I am finally passing calculus, with a C, but my Biology grade dropped from a high B to a D (thanks Respiration test!!) My jazz class is as good as ever, but the performance piece is CRAZY. Its to Prince's Baby I'm a Star, and it is smoking fast. It is making me learn all sorts of things about how fast the body can actually move. My favorite class, British Women Writers, is the one that I am putting off the essay for. It is our final project: to find a unknown British Writer, read one of her works, and write a seven to ten page paper on her, her life, and how she writes. It's a lot harder than it sounds!

Tensions are getting high here in the suites. I am hoping it is just the fact that finals are right around the corner and we are all anxious to get home for Thanksgiving. I know I am psyched for a full nights rest with out the "Heater Demon" waking me up. Thats right folks! I have a heater demon. He likes to sit around in my room waiting till about 3 am to come out and wake me up with a series of bangs, screeches, snaps, creaks, and just about any other loud annoying sound he can come up with! Its terrible, not to mention the fact that he makes my room feel like a furnace. It makes me SO glad that we do not have hot water heaters at home to wake me up when it turns on.
Well I think that is about my life so far. I hope you enjoyed the first of many glances! Love ya guys!!!