Alas, a Lamb!: Prepare Yourself. [2013/05/24]

Today is the calm before the storm.

Not even today, actually — the next few hours. Then my family gets here, and then boom, it's time for taiko practice, and then my friends will be queueing up for the screening of Much Ado while I run off to shower and head to dinner with my family, and then tomorrow it's all departmental receptions and Phi Beta Kappa madness and some giant shindig with not only my family but the families of my housemates and then there's some sort of all-campus celebration thing going on? And packing, obviously, and then on Sunday it's graduation, and then — well. Then, it's time for the calm after the storm.

For now, though, it's just me and you, ducklings. And my housemates, as they move in and out of the common space.

[Under the cut: Musings.]

It's sort of funny, but everything suddenly keeps reminding me of freshman year. Having my last weekend brunch at Usdan reminded me of the way we used to colonize the biggest table and still not have enough space for everyone. There was a reunion party for the people who lived on my hall (Clark 4!!) freshman year, and I've spent more time wit some of my former hallmates this week than I expected. Accidentally having a cuddle pile with some of my friends reminded me that we used to pile onto Ernest in the C4 Lounge and chat into the wee hours of the morning. (Ernest was what happened when we pushed the two lounge couches together into one giant couch. For the record, the couches were not named Ernest when they were apart.)

Also, I'm pretty sure that this week was the first time I've been at a Fountain party (taking place at a house on Fountain St, for non-Wes readers) since that one time in freshman year, and I enjoyed it a lot more this time around, since instead of standing around awkwardly and waiting to escape I could hang around outside chat for a while with the people I knew.

Unfortunately, this has resulted in my ankles getting bitten up by mosquitoes, but nothing's perfect — although admittedly, some of those bites might have come from my housemate bonding day, in which we spent about an hour walking around a marsh in Litchfield, CT.

...Wait, I'm losing my sense of linearity. Okay, let's see: Sunday was last Usdan brunch (or was that Saturday?) and then milkshakes&movies night, when a big group of us watched Ratatouille while hyped on sugar, and then people eventually drifted off and the few of us left played a surprisingly addictive boardgame called Spot It and then fell asleep on top of each other.

On Monday, I spent a good portion of the day in the lab making a book — I would have done that on Saturday or Sunday, but alas, the library was LOCKED and I could not get in. I was just really excited about finishing sewing this book because it's a technique I've never used before — it's called flexible sewing, and this one in particular is a herringbone stitch on alum tawed skin. Non-vegetarian, I know — I do feel guilty about that, but you guys, it looks so cool. And only took me about three hours to sew, which was pretty decent, considering that my boss warned me that flexible binding takes WAY longer than non-flexible binding. (And to be fair, setting up the frame took forever.) I haven't put everything together yet, but I'll take a picture later and you'll be able to see how cool it looks.

At some point this week a bunch of people made hot pot at my house, but I can't actually remember what day that was. Saturday, maybe? I don't know, time's kind of been running together.

Also at some point I made chocolate peanut butter lava cakes! Very intense, very rich chocolate peanut butter lava cakes! Lava cakes so intense that I actually could not finish all of mine!

Tuesday was my trip with my housemates out to White Memorial in Litchfield. Sadly, we had to skip the senior outing in order to do so, since otherwise we couldn't find the time — we couldn't go over the weekend, since one of my housemates had to go home for a funeral, sadly. So after much debate about where we wanted to go and how Housemate Katie's debilitating fear of heights played into things, we went on Tuesday, ate lunch by a waterfall and then went on the aforementioned stroll on a boardwalk around a marsh.

Following which, I went to: - a reunion dinner with my anthropology seminar (I made caramelized onion cornbread) - an underwear party with Previously Mentioned Housemate Natalia (at which we did not intend to strip down to our underwear but ended up doing so anyway because the house where the party was being held was unbearably, swelteringly hot) - the aforementioned Fountain party, because we were wandering around campus and saw some of our friends outside

Wednesday was the senior send-off lunch, which was basically a catered excuse for them to give speeches asking us to remember to donate money after we graduate. After that, the planned Wes Musical Theater Collective reunion quickly devolved into four of us just chilling for a while, and PMH Natalia helping us streamline the plot of the (still self-indulgent, still wonderful) musical that we outlined last year.

Also, PMH Natalia and I made chocolate-covered Mexican hot chocolate cookie dough truffles! Then to the C4 reunion, and then the birthday party of some friends we knew.

Thursday was cleaning day. JOY. So a couple hours of that, and then PMH Natalia, Housemate Katie, and two of our friends had a "pretty day" where we did our hair fancily (or rather, our two friends let me play with their hair to my heart's content), and the three of us seniors got ready for Spring Semi-Formal.

Which was GREAT, for the record — pretty good food, excellent music, and lots of fun time dancing with friends. I had reason to be very glad that I wore comfortable flats. In fact, a handful of us stuck around until the DJ played the reasonably appropriate choice of "We Are Young" by fun. and then kicked us all out, after which I made the very very incorrect choice of going to hang out with friends at Alpha Delt instead of staying home and curling up to watch Design For Living (the film version, not the play) and then fall asleep. (It was a very tiring evening, okay.) Within about an hour and a half I amended that mistake, however, which was good because I don't know how I have lived for this long without this movie in my life. It's a movie from the 1930s about threesomes, you guys, and it is amazing. I'm not always a "classic Hollywood" person, but oh my god, between this and Trouble in Paradise I'm about ready to go back in time and marry Ernest Lubitsch.

And now we come to... today. I've gotten my diploma and the bound copy of my thesis; I've cleaned out my shelf in the book lab. I've started packing. I've been working on distracting myself from feeling maudlin.

The calm before the storm, ducklings. I'll hopefully be posting one or two other things this weekend, so look out for that.

And now, puppies. Because I can.