Yesterday. Went to Maryland Day, which was really fun. I got to eat liquid nitrogen icecream (s'cold!!!!!!), which was some ice cream powder with liquid nitrogen poured into it, and you'd stir it up and cold smoke would come out and after the smoke was all gone, the ice cream would be totally solid and you'd wait for it to thaw until it was like normal ice cream. I was lucky too cuz we got the last of the ice cream powder and the people in line had to be content watching the volunteers there pour liquid nitrogen in a cup, and go "ooOoooOoOOh" as smoke came out of it, and not eat any, except they splashed some (accidentally) on my arm and it sort of hurt. My mom's ice cream was rock hard, so I had the volunteer pour more liquid nitrogen, and he was like, "Okay, but it won't do anything for that." It turns out that the ice cream was frozen solid, not that there wasn't enough "water" in it (I don't care- if it's transparent and looks like water, it's water, damn you). So I walked around with my mom's frozen cup of ice cream for thirty minutes before it began to melt. And there was all sorts of cool shit, like the fire fighting game like hockey except people would use a hose to spray balls into the goal, and a lego robotics thingy where everyone watching was Asian (who else?) and a lung capacity tester thingy (I had greater lung resistance than most people my age which I guess I expected but it sort of pissed me off).

Went to the UM farm (which I think is funny, that they have a farm at UM) to see the Cow With The Hole In It. Didn't see it though- it must've been inside. Saw some other cows. They were big. I wanted to check inside the barn, but it smelled like poo. No, it smelled like POO. So I ran off. When I apply to UM, I'm considering writing in my essay, "If I were to throw the Cow With the Hole In It on the barbie, would you call it an O-bone steak?" I'm not sure if they'd like that. I may also start my sssay with "My psychologist says I'm a pathological liar and my name is not Angela." I don't think they'd like that either. I think I'll do something serious since now I do have something serious to write about, so I won't need the conversational tone bullshit. Saw an equestrian show where a woman in the middle would yell things like, "Sitting trot!" "Canter!" "Stand halt!". Everyone in the arena was white and female. I want riding boots, because they're cool. But to wear knee high boots well, you must have the riding pants, and to wear the riding pants well, you must have a good ass. So, no riding boots for me. The food court was a little ways off from the farm, and they were cooking stuff like hamburgers and hotdogs. It was real sketchy. I wonder if the stuff was "fresh", if you know what I mean.

I got to go into a wind tunnel where the winds got up to 30 mph and it was cool but real creepy (except that I knew that it was safe) and a little girl started crying (my mom said later that it was because her balloon blew away.) Now that is real stupid, and I didn't feel sympathetic. Don't take a balloon into a wind tunnel. The tour guide told her mom she should take the balloon outside but she was like, no, I'll hold onto it, and she did, except the balloon came off the ribbon. So much for that. Apparently, they would actually put reporters in the wind tunnel and strap them in, and crank up the turbines to like 100 mph, and this woman (on the video they were showing as we waited in line to go into the wind tunnel) was screaming, "Let me out!" by the end. (She wasn't actually screaming because she was hysterical, it's just that you have to scream everything to be heard in a wind tunnel. But still.) Jeebus. Talk about professionalism. I wonder if the wind tunnel was hit by the tornado earlier in the year. That would've been poetic justice. For messing with nature or whatever. (I don't care about harmony with nature. It's all BS anyways)

Oh yeah. Listened to a lot of college stuff, which was bizarre because in the physics building you'd walk past doors with signs reading, "Danger, experimental nuclear testing lab." and "Ion Laser testing to the left" (or something. About lasers). Saw an exhibit on fractals. Totally unrelated but, apparently at UM they're doing an experiment with a steel ball 10 feet across and filling it with volatile sodium to create an artificial magnetic field. Yeah, that's what I want for my birthday.

Then I went home for my sister's bridal shower. With my hair all messed up (more than usual) from the wind tunnel. My house was not messy, for once. Played the purse game, in which you get points if anything on the list that's read out loud is in your purse. No, I have no condoms in my purse, used or unused, as the debate went. No, I have no lip balm in my purse. No, I have no cell phone in my purse. It would've been more entertaining if I actually use the purse I had for the game, (since I was like, "How do you play?" and my sister was like, "Just get a purse," not mentioning that there ought to be stuff in it). I had a ticket stub in my wallet, but that was not in my purse, because I never use a purse. I dunno, it wasn't really a good bridal shower for me because I don't know any of my sister's friends. I don't think if I get married I'll have that many girlfriends, because it seems like all my friends are guys, so I'll end up talking to a volleyball. (This was more like a bachelorette party, but my mom called it a shower. Maybe she's not familiar with the term bachelorette party/) And played a game listing as many wedding movies as possible (winning team listed 10.) And looked at photos of my sister and her fiance all decked out in rental wedding stuff at Brookside Garden. My older sister's husband is good at everything. He's a really kickass photographer (I'm not sure if he's professional, but he looks it) and a really good cook, and my oldest sister rocks at baking. Dinner at their place kicks ass. Had a tasty cake she helped make, which was decorated with white chocolate pellets that looked so much like pearls my aunt-in-law was picking them off her cake. That's some mad skillz. I wish I had a handful to bring to school so people could oggle me as I quaffed pearls.

But we had dinner at a Chinese restaurant, where I decided my calling in life. Strange that I've always known what I wanted to be but that it took so long to figure out. I decided it in one night, but at the same time, I've known it ever since I was old enough to talk.

Spachee at UM always has a more exciting life. She had helicopters converge on her school when the police thought people would riot after Duke lost/won (I dunno, I don't keep up with college football) and they flashed a spotlight on her. And they had police run through in riot gear with shields and everything. Plus she went to a gay bar and got groped a hot guy. You'd think there wouldn't be groping guys at a gay bar. But she got hit on by lesbians too, so that balances things out.

Okay. So maybe that's not that great, but compare that to my life. I mean, you'd think my helicopter story would top her weekend update just this once but nooo. Oh well.

I went to church *again*. For the violin recital rehearsal. I swear to god, one of the guys there was Christine's pastor from Agape. Yeah, Christine dragged me off to a Bible reading session on Thursday. Well not dragged, I sort of volunteered. Anyways, I swear it was him. He was 'speaking in tongues' and healing the sick or exorcising demons or whatever. It was disturbing.

Shpachee went back to UM so I went with her to drop her off. Then her parents drove around the campus so that I could look at it. It was real pretty at sunset, with the sky reflected in the puddles and everything and Christmas stuff up, and colonial buildings and crud. Except for the fact that a bunch of trees were snapped like toothpicks from the tornado, the one that touched down in UM a week after September 11. The wrecked cars are all cleaned up though. Shpachee showed me a section of the stairway in front of Easton Hall, one part of which was made from dark red brick, and the other light red. Apparently, the light red brick is the part of the stairs that collapsed in the tornado, and was rebuilt in light red brick. She and her dad were in the tornado. I was talking to her online like 15 minutes before it happened. Apparently, people started screaming in her dorm, and someone's window got busted, the electricity went out, and everyone started running like hell. They got evactuated to the basement, where there was... a gas leak. So they got evacuated outside.

I can't believe UM has 26,000 students. I mean, RM has 2000 students already, so I can concieve of a college having 26,000, but it's still mind-boggling. The town it's in is called University City for good reason, I guess. And I can't believe UM is so close to Blair and Eastern. Eastern is being renovated. I never want to see that shit school again anyways, nonetheless.