Well, I'm feeling much better about life now:

I had IU send the stuff to Truman again, so hopefully the fourth time's the charm. We also fixed the "we don't have you registered for summer classes" problem. Hopefully that takes care of everything. We'll see.

In news that is more fun to report, however, I have the following:
Yesterday I decided to twist some balloon animals since it turned out to be insufficiently windy for kite flying and I needed to do something to release the knots of stress related tension that were overtaking me. I have decided to show my faithful readers the fruits of my labors.

Fruit number 1: Dinosaur riding a bicycle.

Fruit number 2: The most vomit-tasticly sweet balloon sculpture ever.


And Finally: This already tacky "tribute to love" is (unbelievably) made even tackier! I give you the world's stupidest hat:

Yes, yes. I know. Those of you who have seen my "artistry" in balloons before think that this is pretty sloppy work for me. Sorry. Remember - these balloons have been subjected to temps of over 100 degrees - and are well over a year old. AND I don't practice anymore. So there. We can pretend that it didn't take me about an hour to complete these . . .

Born under the sign of the retarded bureaucrat:
Installment eleventy billion.

The realisation of the fact that you are in a really amazingly bad position financially is never particularly easy to deal with. Especially when it is because of other people's blunders. CONSTANT blunders.

Here is a quick recap for those who were not "in-the-know" about all of the prior happenings.

1. Truman State University has the worst business office in history. If I was going to firebomb one building in the world - this would be it. While I was at Truman they lost my scholarship information EVERY SEMESTER (excepting one) that I was there.
   
2. I have been struggling to get them to keep my Perkins Loan deferment info in a place where they can find it.
3. They have called a collections agency on me, even though I have sent the deferral 3 times - one of which involved me handing it to them directly AND taking a picture of it. (Guess what they got in the mail with their latest copy of the deferral?)
4. Collection agency was adverted, and I was told that they would fix my credit report.

So, now for the latest installment of the mess that is my life. At least some good will come of these events as you, my dear readers, can chuckle at them. . . .

I wanted to take a class this summer (Early music history review) to get the thing out of the way. Unfortunately, I need to pay for the class - and some other assorted expenses which I don't have the money for because my personal hell of an apartment is sucking me dry. (More on that later) I found that I could get a PLUS loan if my credit report was good enough. Well, seeing as I am a very responsible person, I happen to have a GREAT credit report. Or so I thought. But as it turns out, my application was denied for two reasons:

1. Although my account on OneStart has me registered for classes and I have been assigned to an ensemble, IU told SallieMae that I was not a summer student. Umm. . . ok?
2. Truman has, miraculously, lost my Perkins Deferral information AGAIN. And reported me to the credit agency - AGAIN. Mind you, you are only supposed to have to submit this once a year . . .

So, I cannot get my PLUS loan until after I figure out what is going on with all of this bureaucratic bullshit. Who knows how long it will take to figure it out this time .

Meanwhile, my personal resources are quickly diminishing. The Oregon audition sucked me pretty dry - so I was really relying on that loan to be coming in sometime in the near future so that I could use the little money I have for things like: a. food - b. deposit on a non-hell-affiliated residence for next year. Now I really don't know what I am going to do. I have always been able to barely circumvent total financial Armageddon - hopefully history will repeat itself in my favor.

Two Quick Items of Business:

1. I almost hit two separate deer in completely different places on my way home at midnight. The fates are trying to get me, I think. Thank God for quick reaction times!


2. I found this advertisement for a movie on the "Simply Recipes" website. I was really struck by the sheer uselessness of the ad. Just who, precisely, do they think will be enticed to see this movie? A picture of a crying woman being hugged by another person (presumably female) - does not in and of itself tempt me to watch this movie. In addition, I've never heard of any of the actresses and as a final nail in the coffin of taste, the bottom of the ad is an annoying bright blue color with nothing on it. I'm presuming that they paid for this ad. I have some advice for the producers of this film. Fire. Your. Publicist.

I propose the following plot for this movie: (To be read with the movie trailer announcer guy's voice while imagining epic music in the back ground)


"Enter a post-apocalyptic world. A world where an alliance of fluffy bunnies rule the world with an iron fist . . . of blood. One middle aged woman is all that stands between the last stronghold of human beings and total xenocide. She has nothing to lose. This time . . . it's personal. GRACIE. (In theaters everywhere June 1)."

Thanks to friend Sara for helping with the movie plot. :)

So, this is kind of an old post
But I found it humerous enough to post anyway now that I have the required picture to tell the story. The weekend that I went to my friend Mandy's wedding also happened to be Mother's Day weekend. Because of the theft of my wallet - I had absolutely no accessible monies with which to buy my poor mother a present. My dad had given her the pretty cool gift (for once) of a digital camera. (On a side note, my favorite "Dad gift giving blooper" is between the ScoobyDoo calendar or the paper shredder - he is not usually very good at this game. . .) Mom was really excited about it, but lamented the fact that it did not come with a carrying case. Then the fates revealed to me that I could, in fact, get her a mother's day present - because I, dear readers, am a crocheting animal.
So on our way out of town, we stopped at Walmart and I had her pick out and (unfortunately) buy a skein of yarn, which I then turned into the amazing camera carrying case you see below:


And yes, she picked the camo yarn. Only my mother. . . ;)

A Few Random Thoughts:

• First and foremost on this list is the strange fact that I again am faced with not being able to sleep in my own apartment. I'm not really sure why, but coming home at night in and of itself has been causing me a considerable amount of trepidation all week - not to mention sleeping at night. Nothing has really changed since then - the landlords still occasionally come in unannounced, etc - but it is no more than usual. I have no idea why I have suddenly had this increase in paranoia. Current sleeping strategy - watch funny videos until I literally can't hold my eyes open anymore. Unfortunately lack of sleep is seriously starting to effect my mood.
  
• I shampoo-ed my carpets in the downstairs portion of my home today - compliments of Brett a) loaning me the machine to do it with and b) moving my furniture around for me. They were DISGUSTING. I'm probably going to do it all again once it dries. You should have seen the color of that water. Seriously gross. A thought - there were two stains that were in the rug when I moved in. Supposedly, the carpets had been "professionally cleaned" when I moved in - amazing how a 120 dollar 12 volt Bissell vacuum can magically get both of them out without a problem. Riiiight. I LOVE it here.
  
• Went fishing. Caught nothing other than very small bluegills. Boo. Although I did find out that my fishing poll has this annoying habit of coming apart and launching the top half along with the lure. I had to go into the lake after it not once - but twice. Magical.
  
• Exercised. My body already hates me for it. Oh well. Every journey must begin with a single step - or in this case, an ill-advised flying leap.
  

Highlights from the rest of the Oregon Trip:

• Getting the hang of public transport = magic.
• Ended up practicing in the classrooms at Portland State University, using the chalkboard for a stand.
  

Audition Highlights:

• What a well run audition! They had no uber room, only individual warmup rooms - which was nice. Of course, you still had to put up with the jerk in the room next to you who was intentionally playing everything you played - only louder and faster. Guys - seriously!
• Turns out I was the only girl at the audition. There were probably 75 or so folks there. I found this out immediately when I walked in, didn't say a word, and the guy said - "OH - YOU must be Jennifer!".
  
• When the gal (my age or younger) came to get me from my audition room, she said to me:

"Oh!! You're the girl! I'm so excited that you came. There was supposed to be one other girl yesterday, but she called and cancelled! It must suck being the only girl in a whole audition - I mean, I felt like it was stressful on me to win a job and I just play horn!"

I mumbled something incoherent, because I was pretty nervous already (I was about to go on stage) and then she continues, saying:

"Yeah, there sure aren't many girls in brass sections in the world, espcially not in low brass - I hope you win!!"

Then the proctor came to get me and she said:

"Good luck - win this one for the girls!"

Yeah, thanks - HELPFUL.

We walked to the stage, where the proctor pulled me aside and said:

"It is VERY important that you MAKE SURE to stay on that carpet. You are the only girl in this audition, and you aren't going to clomp as much as the big guys who have been playing here today. We put that carpet down just for you to make sure that they couldn't tell who you were"

I mean, realize that if I was a real professional who was in control of my emotions and their effect on my product that this wouldn't have mattered at all - but for the love of God, this was my first audition! Are they all going to be like this?

• Needless to say, I did not pass the prelims. I mean, I managed to make it through without missing any notes (although I had a little nervous vibrato on my quiet excerpt and the tone in general was a little special) I did get to play all but one excerpt, which as I hear was more than most got to play. So maybe that's a good sign . . . it's really kinda hard to know since apparently no one from the whole day advanced. (This is what I've been told - certainly no one in my group, Sean's group or Brett's group did)

Highlights from after Audition Madness:

• Sake bombs.
• Soap fight.
• Guy and girl got arrested in the hotel room next to us. We have no idea why.
• Met a hypnotist/illusionist from London on the plane - weird!
• And some guy was getting arrested at the Indy airport or something when we were leaving. He was standing there, and the cops kept on increasing. Which was weird, because they were just calmly talking it seemed - but they kept calling for backup. Unfortunately (fortunately?) our bus came before we could see the thrilling conclusion.
  

So now I'm back home again. My cats missed me, which is uber cute. And in other news, today I bought a fishing license. Which will be happy as soon as I find someone to go fishing with! More on that later. . .

Highlights from Day One in Oregon:

• Random fetus of some sort of mammalian creature in the middle of the road! Totally strange.
• Secret ghrotto. (Not really a secret - was "The Ghrotto" or a huge shrine to the virgin Mary.) Summed up in three words: Rainforest. Pachelbel's Canon.
• Cookies.
• Crazy bus ladies who yell at the driver.
• Lost in Portland.
• Practice.
• BED.
  

Sierra's Most Favorite Day EVER!!

Ok, that's a sarcastic comment if I ever saw one. I've been putting off doing a lot of summer-y type things to my horse until I had help and had the time. Today, I realized that it was never going to work out like that, so I decided to take my life in my hands and attempt to do everything without a spotter. As you can see, I clearly survived because I have the world's most amazing horse. For reals.

Here is the list of things that I subjected my horse to today:

• Vaccinated for Tetanus, Encephalomyelitis, Influenza (both eastern and western) and Rabies. Yes, that involves me giving a 1500 lbs. animal 2 shots. Luckily, he didn't move an inch. (Those of you who knew Sierra a few years ago will most likely be completely shocked by that - but it's true.)
• Then I dewormed him. (Involves stuffing a paste tube down his throat and forcing him to swallow it)
  
• Then I bathed him with Dove Moisturizing Shampoo and Conditioner. The hose was only 3 feet long because this is the most poorly conceived barn in the history of mankind. It is kind of like DEATH in the Terry Pratchett novels - they have seen enough barns to know what it should LOOK like - but don't understand how they are used, so they mess it up and make it completely unusable. I managed to get him to stand right next to the hose and stand still, thank God.
  
• THEN I bathed him with a Providone-Iodine scrub to treat the minor bacterial infection that I found on his butt and backlegs. Damn warm climates. . . .
• As if that wasn't traumatic enough for a horse, I then subjected him to a sheath cleaning. Those of you who have never heard of this - just think about it for awhile. It is my most favorite thing to do - and his, believe me. (Again with the sarcasm)
• After this, I rounded his hoofs off with a hoof file file and moisturized them since it has been very muddy out lately.
  
• And trimmed his bridal path.
• Brushed out his mane and tail . . .
• For a finale, I then pulled out 6 ticks that had embeded around his anus and treated it so it wouldn't get infected.
  

He was so relieved when I turned him loose, the poor guy! He was a real sport though. He was ALMOST entirely perfect - and didn't even kill me or him when the gate came off it's hinges and fell on us. (best barn ever!!!)

Received in the mail today:
One wallet with accompanying note saying one word. "Sorry"
I seriously have the weirdest life.

The world's newest super hero! Sworn to stop the world from listening to poorly played trombone.
Go Here to make your own!

Minnesota Trip - Second Installment:

Why do I have a knack for finding myself in the most absurd situations? It wouldn't be my life if there weren't a few more amazing anecdotes to tell.
So, I went to my friend Mandy's wedding. Back in February, Mandy had asked if I would like to help out by being in charge of the guestbook at her wedding. I told her that I'd love to. Nothing else was ever mentioned, so I sort of wondered if she had forgot or what. Never-the-less, I decided to show up about 40 minutes early to the ceremony to make sure that it was taken care of.

When I got there - I noticed that someone was working the guest book table already. I walked up to them and asked - "Oh, are you in charge of the guest book?" "Yes," they said. Ok. I figure that she was stressed out with wedding planning stuff and forgot she asked me. No worries. I waved at her mom as I went to go see some friends that I hadn't seen in 7 years. (TOTALLY AWESOME, BTW) We sit and talk and do some catching up - and then it's wedding time. Hurrah! We open the program to see the order of the service which is when something horrifying is drawn to my attention by my mother. It says "Attendant to the bride" with my name next to it.

I suddenly feel very ill.

We watch the wedding party get seated - and then Mandy comes up (completely drop dead gorgeous) with her dad. We make eye contact and I see her point me out to her dad. A look of relief comes over her face.

I feel even more ill. Of course, I had not been asked to be an attendant to the bride, but even so, I just felt horrible!

The wedding was over by 4:00 and the reception wasn't until 7:00 - so I got to feel completely horrible that whole time, trying to figure out what I was going to say to poor Mandy. Finally, reception time comes. After a couple of hours, I was able to finally get her alone for a few moments. I apolgized profusely for not being there.
"I was just really worried," she said.
I said, "Did you mean to send a request for me to be your attendant with the invite? Because I honestly had no idea you wanted me to do that!"
She gave me a quizzical look and said. "Oh, it's ok, we just got someone from my mom's work to do the guestbook."
"Oh!" I exclaimed, "I knew about that! But when I came 40 minutes early and someone was already working it, I assumed you had forgotten you asked me!"
"You were there 40 minutes early?!" she says, "My mom was freaking out because she didn't see you anywhere!!"

Now, for those of you who have ever seen pictures of me, you will know that I completely change appearances every couple of years. Her mom hadn't seen me in 5 years - so she didn't recognize me at all until she saw me with my mom in the reception.

So anyway - what a mess! Turns out it had been written wrong in the program, too. Sigh. Drama. It follows me, I swear.

Other things that follow me:
Spiders. I HATE spiders. I'm ok with them as long as they are in their little corner doing their bug-eating thing - but NO - they need to be on my person. That's why I hate them.

I was at my parent's place and since my little brother is home for the whole summer, they gave him the guest room (my old room) - which meant that I got the little computer room in the basement. Last night it was about a billion degrees downstairs, so I opened the window and turned on a fan. I left for a few hours, and then came back down to practice. At which point I noticed the brown recluse on my sheets. EEEWWW. Luckily, there just happened to be a mini Louisville Slugger right next to the bed. So I smashed it's brains out. I decided thereafter to wash the sheets on the bed. Good thing I did - I found another spider after it fell all crunchy and dead off of the sheets when I took it out of the dryer. ICK! Then I went into the room to make the bed - and noticed 3 huge icky spiders in the window. That's when I closed the window . . .
I had dreams all night of spiders crawling on me. NOT COOL.

Needless to say, it feels good to be home. Really good. My cats, my clean and nice smelling apartment, food that I like and can eat in the fridge, my Lactaid Milk, my 400 thread count sheets. . . ahhhhh. Even though I hate it out here on the farm, I must say that it seems pretty great to come home to my own way of life again after staying everwhere else and being in a car for 30 hours over the last 4 days.

Aaaahhhhhh. . . .

Magical Trip to Minnesota 1st Installment:
I've had an eventful couple of days. My wallet was stolen on Tuesday night, so of course my entire Wednesday was consumed by calling to replace every card in my wallet. Charming.
Naturally, this occurs the day before I'm planning to drive to Minnesota for a wedding. Travelling without any forms of ID or credit cards? Sounds great! Where do I sign up?
Meanwhile, back at the Tuba Ranch, exciting things were going on . . .
My vacuum cleaner literally exploded when I was cleaning up to leave. And I don't mean that the bag was too full - I mean with FIRE. Then my wireless router followed suite - only without an explosion or fire. By which I mean it just stopped working.
After finally getting my house clean, I went to IUCU to get some money out of the bank - we decided that the best way to do it would be to buy a VISA giftcard which works like a debit card. I took out 50 bucks to use for gas - which should have been plenty. (Note the use of foreshadowing)
Then driving . . . driving . . . and more driving. But stopping to practice every couple of hours in the reststops. Great if you want people to clap when you are done playing your orchestral excerpts. I don't know how many of you have ever driven across Illinois. I'll describe it perfectly in one statement: "206 miles of amazingly flat, boring cornfields"
I get to Peoria, IL and decide to get some gas since I'm down to a little under half a tank. Card is declined. Turns out, gas stations put a service charge on debit gift card fills at a station to "prevent fraud". They put a 30 dollar "service charge" on my 20 dollar purchase. Magical. How was I supposed to know that?!
Now, remember everyone - Jen does not have a cell phone. Now what? I still have 3 hours of driving and less than half a tank! I have a checkbook, but I can't find a place that will take a check without an ID - which of course, was stolen as well.
So no money, no phone, in the middle of Illinois. Special. I LOVE my magical ability to find situations like this.
So. . . I decide to drive to the next available reststop because those seem to be the only places left in the world with payphones. I have the idea to drive within an hour of home and have my dad meet me to buy me some gas. But first - getting ahold of them. . .
So, I decide to make a collect call. I try 3 times from the *11 number - and for some reason, it keeps saying that the party denied my request. Thinking that there must be something wrong with the number, I try to call with the Verison number that I see attached to the phone. This time, I hear who is picking up - my 12 year old brother, Tim. This is when I realized what was happening. I heard the voice say "to accept this call press one or say "YES" - to deny this call please just hang up." I can almost hear the sweat dripping down Tim's face as he is trying to figure out why this call keeps coming back and wondering what he is supposed to say. He hangs up.
But now, I have a plan.
I call again and Tim got a message that said. . .
"This is Verison with a collect call from 'TIM, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, PRESS ONE!!' He pressed one.
So end of story - got ahold of my dad - he came and rescued me in Monmouth, IL. Fun times.

This will come as no surprise to most of you - but I'm pretty much a failure at life. In a comical/hopefully lovable sort of way, mind you.

I went out for some drinks with an interesting guy I met over the weekend. But me, being of course - me, had to randomly throw some hilarious bloopers into the mix.
Things were going pretty well and all, and then we decided to leave the bar and do something fun. We had discovered that hiking, etc was a common interest - so we thought that we'd head to Lake Monroe and hike some trails. First, we stop at our respective places to get appropriate attire (my place is still in post finals chaos - oops!) Then we get in the car to go to Lake Monroe. We get there - and the patrol is actually in his office. At 11:00 at night. Well, shit. We could get arrested because the park is closed.
So, we decide to drive all the way back and hike from my place to the lake. Which is when we realize how astonishingly dark it is outside. The moon, although quite full, was not out at all. AT ALL. It was so dark, I couldn't even find the entrance to the trail. Oh - and we, intelligently enough, had no flashlights, and no compass or GPS unit. We walked into the woods - and I realized very quickly how likely we were to get lost. Well, damn. Back to the messy house that for some weird reason smells strongly now of nail polish. . .
So we shared funny YouTube clips (on a side note, it's kind of funny how this has become a bonding type experience in our generation . . .) and talked. Then he mentioned that he was tired and wanted to go home. I thought nothing of it. We looked at each other - nothing happened. I wondered why he wasn't leaving. Was he expecting me to say or do something? There was a pregnant sort of pause and he says. . .
"Um, so . . . can you give me a ride home then?"
Which is when I realized that I had driven him to my place.

Sheesh. No wonder I have such a ridiculous romantic life!