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

Sewell and Boko's

With the weather being absolutely amazing, we've been spending a good amount of time at the park lately. Last tuesday afternoon Heather, Kathryn and I met up between classes and chilled on my beach towel for awhile. Wednesday night I pulled an all-nighter Skyping with my old friend Cameron who I hadn't really seen or spoken to in 3 years. I love reconnecting and I am so blessed to have his friendship back after so long :)

Cool fountain on campus and that's the awesome theatre in the background!

Thankfully on Thursday I have a good solid 3 hour break between classes. Boko's Living Room is one of the most brilliant things about Texas State. First of all Boko is the bobcat mascot, and they have this amazing room in the LBJ student center with a bunch of couches and then a few tv rooms off of that with more couches. With your student ID you can rent out blankets and pillows to take a nap! It's this amazing dimly lit quiet place with a few study desks and there are always at least 5 or 6 people in there just passed out. I have taken quite a few afternoon naps in there myself and it has become one of my favorite places on campus. However now with the weather getting so delicious, taking a nap out on a blanket at the park is much more appealing. On friday afternoon a bunch of us went out to Sewell by the river and chilled for a few hours. There were tons of people out and it really was a gorgeous day. I brought my laptop out there to write a paper, and I actually could pick up a strong signal from the campus WiFi, which was awesome! The most amazing part of the day was when I finally decided to call the Dallas Performing Arts Center about Spring Awakening tickets. It opened there last Tuesday and is running through Easter Sunday. I was going to try to get onstage seats but called with the expectation that by now they would have already all been sold out. Earlier in the week I had been trying to figure out how in the world we would get there considering Dallas is four hours away and we don't have a car. I called an found out that they had quite a few for this next Saturday left! $25 for ONSTAGE seats to one of the most AMAZING musicals of all time! I was shaking with excitement. After exploring all the options, and talking to some of our friends, Abel graciously offered to drive us :D

As soon as Kathryn arrived at the park I asked her if she wanted to go, and got on the phone with the theatre again and purchased three onstage tickets...that's right. I ALMOST PEED MYSELF WHEN I GOT OFF THE PHONE! Ok not really but I was THAT ecstatic. Plus we basically got the three BEST possible onstage seats you can get! We'll be right at the edge of the stage so the actors will be mostly in profile and we won't have to worry about seeing too many backs or butts :P

Soaking up the Sun!
This place reminds me of one mile :)

Pretty! Maybe inspiration for my next painting!?!

I wasn't sure what I was going to do this past weekend because Heather was going to be in Austin at the ultimate frisbee tournament. Her team from Wisconsin came all the way down here to play which is super awesome because Heather got to see them all and play with them! So she left Friday night, and I ended up having a little Disney movie marathon in my room, while I Skyped again. It was awesome, I watched Mulan, Hercules, and Jungle Book. Saturday I ended up sleeping most of the day from pulling another all-nighter haha. But then Saturday night I met up with Kathryn for some quality girl time and we went to the budget movie theatre and saw When in Rome. It was hilarious and adorable. The perfect chick flick with substance, and boy oh boy was the leading man in it good looking. WHEW!

Anyway, Sunday Abel and I drove to Austin to hang out at the ultimate frisbee tournament and watch Heathers team play! It was out at this huge field and it was quite the event. There were 32 teams from all across the country. Over the course of the weekend Heather's team played UCSB and UCLA and beat both of them! Haha. They placed 12 in the tournament! I had only heard about ultimate frisbee before and had only learned a little about it from Heather when I met her. It was really cool to watch and figure out how it's done. I also got another chance to just chill outside in the beautiful weather and relax which is amazing, and making me very excited for the summer to get here!

When we got back I went to my Theology of the Body session which was awesome as usual. Then it was time for mass. This Sunday was the start of holy week. I think Palm Sunday is one of my favorite masses of the year. It was a good weekend. And I'm sure I will be blogging with great VIGOR when Saturday is over.

♥Chantal

Happy Spring!

I love Spring! This bipolar Texas weather is such a tease though. I was so spoiled over Spring Break because of the beach and it was a beautiful 70+ nearly the whole time. This weekend was the first day of spring. Unfortunately it was freezing cold and in Austin where I was for the GEA Gospel Fest it was raining most of the day. Luckily I had a good reason to be inside for most of it I didn't have to deal with the ickiness. However, today it is beautiful again, and it is supposed to be in the mid to upper 70's all week. Hallelujah! Tomorrow both Heather and I have the afternoon off and she has canoeing class out on the river so we're going to meet and lay out and maybe swim! I need some more sun, my tan seems to be fading already! haha.

Last week was rough, being the first week back at school. I've decided that I have not been applying myself as much as I could and should this semester. My study habits have been sliding, which I suppose is understandable in my situation. Being in a new place, surrounded by new friends and possibility for adventure! It's hard to pass up those opportunities to study. I am realizing how far into the semester we are now that spring break is over. I have about 7 weeks left here in Texas, and I'm not sure how I feel about that. In a way it seems like I've been here for quite a long time. I am comfortable, have established an awesome group of friends and this place quickly became home. On the other hand, when I think about how soon I am going back to Chico, I realize how fast the past 2 1/2 months have flown by! My mom actually booked my flight last night. May 12th. I have till then to do as much as possible, and there are still so many things I want to do!

I am having such a great time here, but I am also really looking forward to being back home this summer and having a blast. I'm coming up on what should be my senior year, and I can't believe how quickly college has gone by so far. But I am really excited about the future and what's next. This adventure has made me realize how much I love NEW things. The anticipation, the shock and the assimilation.

Gospel Fest was amazing this past Saturday. I have really come to love these people and I am so glad Heather and I decided to join GEA together. I really look forward to every Tuesday night, at 8pm belting my heart out, and then walking back across campus with Heather practicing our harmonies, with not a care in the world of who can hear or see us. We have so much fun. :)

Sundays are becoming a favorite day of mine as well. At 5pm I have Theology of the Body sessions with a lovely group of people including the majority of my BA family. Then we have about an hour until mass, so we had dinner together. Love them. I get to see them every Monday night too for 4th Day, which is like a weekly extension of BA, and I love seeing everyone. Even though I don't have a lot of time left here, I'm going to make the best of it. And hopefully there will be many more postings for you to read about my exciting adventures as I go. Actually, I can guarantee that there will...

♥

Chantal

Let Go, Let God

New opportunities always present an interesting dilemma. I find myself asking questions like, is this something that found me for a reason? Is this the best decision for me? Did God put this before me because it's something that I'm meant to do or is he providing me with the opportunity to simply learn and grow from making the actually decision itself. I've always struggled with making decisions, whether it's something as what to eat for lunch, or deciding on where to go next in life. Over the past few days I have been conflicted with this, but last night at GEA rehearsal, someone said something during closing prayer that spoke to me. Let go, and let God.

Being the virgo that I am, I will admit I like control. I feel at ease knowing what is coming next and what I can do to keep things running smoothy and as expected. As I've gotten older, and through meeting people and experiencing new things I have learned to let go more and let life just happen. Sometimes that's all you can do because in reality we have little control over life. Last night when I heard that, and again today after talking things out with Heather, I realized with certain things, including this new possible opportunity, I need to let go. Instead of stressing over the fact that there are so many unknowns, I need to trust in God that if it's meant to be for me in my life right now, it will work out.

As for spring break goes, I know I havn't blogged in forever and I honestly have more to say about the past week than I could possible type on here in a reasonable amount of time. Basically we arrived in Port Aransas on tuesday evening. From then through Sunday morning my life consisted of hanging out with 11 of the coolest people that I've met here at Texas State. Lots of time on the beach, laying in the sand, and swimming in the ocean. The weather was just right for the most part, despite the waves of weird haze that came in and made it impossible to see more than 40 feet away. Playing and laying in the sand during the day, and meeting lots of awesome people around bon fires on the beach at night, it really was the perfect college spring break. Beer pong, and maybe one too many shots of rum were among the activities...Over all it was a great week, and a trip that I will never forget. Living in a tiny two bedroom condo with 11 people is something that a bunch of 18-21 year olds are good at embracing. I have a million pictures but here are a few to highlight my spring break 2o10. See my facebook for more!

♥ Chantal