Spontaneous Friends

Last Tuesday night Heather and I decided we wanted to go to the Baseball game with Loud Crowd instead of going to Gospel Choir rehearsal. It was a big game against A&M, and we hadn't been to any of the baseball games yet. We went to the tailgate that was outside the stadium to meet up with some people and get some free food. Then Heather had her intramural softball game, so I went along to that and chilled. It was such a beautiful day! At first when we got to the game we thought we might only stay for a little while and then leave for GEA later on, but the game got so good we didn't want to leave! It ended up being a tie game, and went into extra innings until we finally made the home running play. It was awesome and I met and made a new friend Ogle, who was "the crazy guy with the big hair from Loud Crowd" that everyone seemed to know or recognize. I told him about Glee and he agreed to get together with us and watch the first season!! woot :) They should seriously hire me for fan recruitment haha

The weather was amazing all week long, and that next weekend there was a three day baseball tournament with another school that I'm forgetting the name of...probably because we went to the game on Friday and they sucked so bad, it was like 7-0 in the second inning. After about the 5th we decided to leave and start our Glee marathon :) which was of course fantastic. We only got through the first 3 or 4 episodes, but it was a good start. Saturday, we were planning on going to the baseball game again, and then maybe watching more Glee, but when we arrived at the stadium we ended up actually going to the women's softball game thinking that it would probably be significantly more interesting than watching that other horrible team play us in baseball. Right toward the end of the game, Ogle got a phone call from one of his friends asking if we all wanted to go to the Astros Game! Ogle said we had about 2 minutes to decide because if we were gonna go we had to leave pretty much right then. AHHHH! haha so after kind of a frantic moment, we said what the hell why not, and we all crammed into D.J's truck, and Heather, Kathryn, Ogle, Doug, D.J. and I drove 2 and a half hours to Houston to see the Astros. Talk about a weekend full of baseball. When we finally got there and found some sketchy cheap parking in what was basically the ghetto right next to the stadium, we bought our $3.50 nosebleed tickets which ended up being pretty bomb, right over 1st base and the perfect birds eye view. When we first got there the girls decided that we wanted to see if we could find some cheap food around the area before going in and spending a fortune on ballpark food. After some hesitation by the guys to let us walk around without them, and trying to figure out if it really was Dollar Hotdog Night, we walked down the street in search of food, the opposite direction of the sketchy parking area mind you.

We stopped and asked a few people if they knew of any quick little shops to grab a bite and after being pointing toward the first deli that we found and ended up being closed, we sort of wandered up and down the nearby 4 of 5 blocks by the stadium. It being about 6pm, among the 5 of 6 sandwhich deli places we found, every single one was closed haha. After getting pointed toward a supposed "Subway" by a somewhat creepy possible homeless man, and failed at finding that...and coming upon a creepy little building that was something like one of those cash now places, but had covered windows and only a creepy door with no signs, we decided not to go any further and turn back toward the stadium. We walked back and got to the game only 1 inning in. Luckily after failing to find food elsewhere, ends up it actually was dollar hotdog night so Heather and I each got a couple and picky eater Kathryn found something that she liked too.

The game was really fun, we had this adorable group of probably like...5th graders sitting in front of us. All them on their fancy cell phones that are worth like 3 times as much as mine haha talking and flirting and eating cotton candy. Well I had fun observing them...there's the psych/child dev. major in me LOL The astros actually played pretty well for the first few innings and we were ahead. I forgot how much fun it was to do the wave with such a giant crowd haha. Epic. We did end up losing in the end, but at the last inning, everyone was pretty much leaving, so we ran down to the lower level and got down about 20 rows back from the field right past 1st base. After the game we were all kinda freaked out about walking back to the car since it was super deserted by that time and we were pretty far over past most of the parking lots. Heather, Kathryn and I positioned ourselves between the first two guys and the last two guys we were with so we were surrounded. We ended up making it back just fine obviously, but it was pretty sketch.

The ride back was probably the best part of the day. We stopped and got some yummy snacks at a gas station, and I had one of those awesome new friend bonding conversations with Ogle. We were just sharing life goals and dreams, and I felt truly blessed to hear his testimony. I love it when people pour their souls out. Anyway, basically we talked the whole way back, sharing funny and serious stories. One of those kind of conversations that converts your friendship from a more acquaintance status to bff's :) Basically it made the weekend amazing and I made another friend that's going to be super duper hard to say goodbye to in a few weeks. It especially sucks because we met so far into the semester. Heather and I were both saying how we wished we would have gotten even more involved with Loud Crowd earlier on.

Tonight (Wednesday) Ogle, Kathryn and I met up to watch some more Glee before CrossTalk which is the non-denominational worship service on campus. I really enjoyed it. Any chance to sing worship music is an opportunity I like to take :) It was basically like a worship rock concert with a nice talk mixed in. Then afterwards we watched one more episode of Glee! Friday is Ogle's birthday, and tomorrow (Thursday) we are going with him and a bunch of his friends to see Owl City play at Stubb's barbecue in Austin. Should be awesome. Also another GEA event this Saturday!

I'm a little behind on posting these so the days I'm referring to might seem a little off...that's the reason for the (...day)

♥Chantal

Epic Adventures

Sometimes the space between my posts gets a bit long, but I really need the inspiration to write a good blog and I just wasn't feeling it this week. After today I am for sure. I've gotta start with last week, which was absolutely epic. Saturday morning Abel and Bryson drove Heather, Kathryn and I to Dallas to see Spring Awakening. After making a "quick" stop at the post office, (which ended up taking 5 times longer than it should have because the new guy was stuck trying to figure out things by himself) we went through the craziest drive through car wash EVER! Haha check out those weird colors! Everything was like...fancy electric stuff, none of those giant strips of fabric that slap the crap out of your car! :P

Once we finally got on the road it was pretty epic. The three and a half hour drive actually went by pretty quickly. I was sooo excited about the show I could hardly stand it. When we finally arrived we went around the corner from the theatre to a little pizza place and all had lunch. After that the guys left us to go to the show and they went off on an adventure of their own. We walked to what we thought was the theatre...and realized it was somehow the wrong place. I went in and asked where the theatre was and we were directed to go a few blocks down. We all thought the building looked odd for a theatre, and when we saw the actually theatre we were like..."that's more like it!" We checked in and got our tickets, freshened up in the bathroom, checked out the merch. booth and made our way to the backstage door :D We were 4th or 5th in line to get seated onstage, and at this point all three of us were getting anxious...

When we first walked in and were seated I was disappointed and frustrated because we were in the far upstage seats, when I had specifically told the lady I talked to at the box office when I called that I wanted the seats closest to the edge of the stage, near the audience. Luckily I was so excited, any negative feeling I'd had vanished pretty quick. I knew it was going to be an amazing show no matter what. Because we're so close to the actors I knew it really wasn't going to make any difference how much sides and backs of people we were going to see. I was actually very pleasantly surprised how much we did see. There are many moments in the show where cast members were actually dancing and singing right next to the seats and facing the sides of the stage. I loved the fact that there are cast members integrated into the seating too! It was super cool to have cast members take chairs from next to you for a scene and then put it back and sit down next to you afterwards. After crazy dance numbers like The Bitch of Living and Totally F***ed they were breathing sooo heavily when they sat down. It really was a unique experience to get to see a professional show THAT up close and personal. Truly amazing. Part of the rules of sitting onstage are that you're not allowed to sing along. This was quite a struggle for me. There were many times during the show that I wanted to jump up and dance and sing with the cast, or even just stomp my foot or bop my head around like the rest of them. It was like going to a rock concert and having to sit completely still! AHHHH!

After the show we stopped by the merch table. I decided to get the Guilty Ones t-shirt and I got a copy of the script! Totally cool :) Then we ran around the building to stage door. Unfortunately we were too late to catch most of the actors but we got pictures with a couple of them.

The guys came back and picked us up, and we headed to the mall. Heather, Abel and Bryson went ice skating while me and Kathryn chilled at a little mexican restaurant inside the mall. After shows like that I get in this mood where I don't really want to do anything active. Actually my brain was going 100 miles an hour and it would have been a perfect time to blog, but unfortunately I had no way of doing that. It's always hard for me after shows like that because it makes me miss the stage A TON. So we just chilled and talked and had some chips and salsa while the others skated. After that we drove around Dallas getting a little lost and stuff trying to find Dicks restaurant. Despite the fact that the guys had their fancy iphones leading the way we ended up in the total ghetto of Dallas. We saw a handful of cop cars within a few blocks and all there was were barbed wire chain link fences, and what looked like old empty warehouse buildings. It actually sort of reminded me of West Side Story.

Eventually we found Dicks. This is a restaurant where the waiters and waitresses act totally rude to the customers by being sarcastic, insulting them and just being "dicks" in general. They make these GIANT paper hats for everyone, that have individual and specific insults on them. One word...Hilarious. Our waiter was so funny and we did our best to dish it back to him. We gave him such a hard time and it was a blast. It was a great weekend, and on Sunday which was Easter, I spent the day hanging out with my girls. :) We mostly chilled in my dorm room all day and Heather and I chowed down on some serious candy! It got pretty crazy once our sugar high hit us and we made the craziest video EVER!

You should check it out it's posted on Heather's blog: http://eaumarcos.blogspot.com/2010/04/thursday-was-kind-of-crazy-evening.html

OR my facebook: http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=381935379409

♥Chantal