Sunday, April 17

I really enjoy going down to see my mom and Dan, but man the drive home really blows. It just kinda lingers over these Sunday mornings, so that you never really want to leave, but you know that ya gotta hit the road to have any hope of making it back before midnight. Anyway, Dan made a really yummy pancake breakfast for us this morning as a send off, but we pretty much got packed up and hit the road right after we ate. It was about 12:30ish when we hit the road, and the drive was going pretty fast for the most part, but we decided to take an extended lunch break at about 3 p.m. We stopped in Maumee, OH for a sentimental lunch at Ground Round, which was Stef’s favorite restaurant when she was a kid. The place was basically like an upscale Applebee’s, but the food was much better. We hit the road again after our lunch, and made it back home at about 5:30. I still had my final English Lit paper of the semester staring me in the face when we got back, and Stefy had an entire book to read, so we both cracked down and did some major studying for the next several hours. I managed to get through about the first page and a half of my paper before finally giving up for the night, but I feel like it’s coming along pretty well—I even managed to tie it into one of our readings from Film Theory, so how’s that for skillz? So, that was pretty much it for today. Now I get to look forward to spending tomorrow morning finishing this baby up, and finally getting through my last paper of the year.

Saturday, April 16

Slept in till about 9:30 this morning. I went downstairs for a few minutes and chatted with my mom and Dan, and then went back up to wake Stefy up. We had some donuts for breakfast, and took our time getting ready for the day. We were all eventually ready by noon or so, and hit the road for a day up at Easton. After parking we made our way over to CPK for lunch, and I finally got my fix for their Sicilian Pizza…mmmmmm. Stefy and I split off from mom and Dan for our afternoon of shopping, and of course had to start of at the Gap. Miss Spiro was already fully decked out in Gap apparel, but after finding an oh-so-cute green sweater to match her new blue tank and skirt, she had to complete the outfit. We peeked into several stores looking for a new pair of jeans for me, but nothing was really jumping out at me. It was an absolutely gorgeous day out though, so I didn’t really care if I found anything or not—it was just fun to go look at stuff with Stef. We finally met up with my mom and Dan at around 3 or so, and then headed back to the house for a little mid-afternoon rest. After a little while we headed back out for a tennis match up with the folks at a nearby high school. Nobody was exactly playing their best, so we pretty much just batted the ball around for an hour and a half or so, but it was still a lot of fun to get out there and play again, especially with my mom and Dan. Stefy is definitely getting better though. By the time we were ready to call it a day I had her hitting some pretty solid serves, so I’m definitely looking forward to playing with her again soon. Everyone was pretty hungry by the time we made it back to the house, so Dan headed outside to rustle up some burgers on the grill for dinner. He’s becoming quite the little grill chef—two impressive performances two nights in a row. Once everything was cleaned up from dinner, we made one last trip out for the day into downtown Grove City to check out the local ice cream parlor. I was seriously craving a good ol’ Reeses Flurry, but this place didn’t have any soft serve, so I had to settle for their gourmet homemade stuff. Okay, so it was actually pretty good. After our little late night treat we went home and settled in for the night, and finished the rest of “The Sound of Music”. I’ll just admit it now—I really like this movie. I mean, come on… Edelweiss? You gotta love it. After catching the tail end of a mediocre SNL Stefy and I finally cashed in at like 12:30 or 1. I’d better get some sleep—it’s a long drive home tomorrow.

Friday, April 15

Well, today was my last day feeling truly miserable, thanks to my allergies. Work was kind of a haze since I was so drugged up, but at least the morning was pretty short. I left at 12:30 or so after doing the weekly deposits, and then ran a few errands on the way to get Stefy. First, I stopped off at Morrill, to turn in my Film History paper, and that was a big load off. Then, on my way back to the pad, I made a wonderful stop at Rite Aid to get (drum roll please)… my prescription for Allegra. My God, that stuff is wonderful. Of course, it really didn’t kick in until much later tonight, but I felt a thousand times better just knowing that I finally had it. Plus, it was only $15—take THAT Claratin! Anyway, I met up with Miss Spiro at the apartment, loaded up my car, and then hit the road for Ohio. The drive was really pretty smooth for most of the drive, but we managed to time it just right, so we could catch the front-end of rush hour. Actually, it wasn’t too horrible, but this wasn’t another record-breaking ride, as has been the trend lately. We got settled in a little bit at the house, and then had a nice dinner with the folks. After dinner, we went for a little ride to scope out some tennis courts for tomorrow, and mom and Dan showed us the bustling metropolis of Grove City, OH. It’s actually a really cute little downtown area—think of Dimondale, only with, you know, stuff actually going on. We eventually made it back to the house and settled in for the night with a game of Scrabble. I think I’d built up the legend of my mom’s Scrabble prowess a little too much, because Stefy seemed kinda nervous to be playing, but of course she proceeded to wipe the table with us. In fact, she WOULD have won, if I hadn’t allowed Dan to play “XEON”, which of course isn’t a real word. Oops! So, after Dan managed to eek out a win, we all parked it in the living room with the first half of “The Sound of Music”. I hadn’t seen the movie in about ten years, back when mom used to tie me to the couch and make me watch it, but Stefy is also a really big fan of the movie, so I thought it appropriate to oblige the ladies. In all honesty though, I really enjoyed watching the movie—I can admit it. So anyway, that was pretty much it for today. Very sleepy.

Thursday, April 14

Still drugged up today, but definitely feeling better—well, for part of the day at least. My Film History class was interesting this morning. I guess the class started watching this crazy Bollywood film on Tuesday that was over 3 hours long, so we finished up the last hour or so of it today. I don’t know if I could’ve handled sitting through the whole thing on Tuesday considering how sick I was that day, but I was definitely glad to catch the end of it. This was my first experience with a Bollywood movie, and let me tell you, it’s quite an experience. Anyone who’s a fan of big musical numbers would go nuts for these kind of movies. I mean, it was TOTALLY cheesy, but so much fun to watch—I actually really enjoyed it. Dad picked me up after class for our usual Thursday lunch date. I hadn’t seen him in two weeks, so it was really nice to get a chance to catch up and hear about his trip to Florida. We went to Cosí to eat, and I swear I saw just about every freakin’ professor I’ve ever had there—it was weird. After lunch I went back to the apartment for a couple of hours, and managed to knock off about another page or so of my History paper for tomorrow, so I felt pretty productive. My Film Theory class was kind of a drag this afternoon because my Benadryl wore off about a third of the way through the class period, and I was totally miserable the rest of the time. Thankfully though, I got a call from Dr. Annis’ office this afternoon telling me that my prescription for Allegra-D was waiting for me at Rite Aid. It’s about freakin’ time. Man, I can’t wait to get my hands on that stuff. Anyway, the rest of my evening was pretty terrible. Yep… four solid hours sitting in front of my computer hammering out this stupid paper. The finished product is 9 pages long (with a works cited page), and I think my brain is now officially mush at this point. Spring has been absolutely gorgeous so far, and I really shouldn’t complain, but man this allergy season is going to be the end of me. Allegra, Allegra, where for art thou, Allegra?

Wednesday, April 13

Well, I am fully medicated now. I dragged myself to Sociology this morning, and it was relatively painless, since we pretty much just watched an A & E special the whole time. Work was kinda busy this morning since I’d missed the last couple of days, but it went by pretty fast. I didn’t have English Lit this afternoon because class was cancelled, so I went back to the apartment after class and spent a couple hours doing some reading, and started my writing for my last Film History paper of the semester. I managed to get about a page and a half done in pretty short order, and took a break at around 5 to go pick up Stefy from her IAH class at Berkey. We came back to the pad and relaxed with some TV for a few hours before I took her back to the dorm at around 8 so we could both get some homework done. I kept plowing through my film paper for a little while, and managed to get about another page finished before I finally threw in the towel at around 10. I’m still feeling pretty sick at this point, so I’m keeping the nasal spray right next to my bed in case I need to take a hit in the middle of the night. God, that stuff is addictive.

Tuesday, April 12

I sure hope this is rock bottom. Pretty much all my symptoms were even worse today, and I was a walking corpse. Needless to say, classes and work just weren’t in the cards for me, so I pretty much stayed home and rested today. I did start feeling better by the early afternoon though, so I managed to squeeze in a few hours of research for my last paper for Film History. Today wasn’t a TOTAL waste then. Anyway, I picked Stef up from her last class this afternoon, and she came along with me on a quick trip to the mall to pick up my mom’s birthday presents. For obvious reasons I won’t mention what I got her yet, but I’m definitely glad that I got everything taken care of in one shot. The rest of the night was very low key: our usual game show lineup, American Idol, Sex and the City, and then collapsing. I have become comfortably numb.

Monday, April 11

I should’ve known as soon as I woke up that it was gonna be a rough day. My throat was sore, and that’s never a good way to start things off. I stayed home this morning and finished BOTH my presentation for English AND my paper for Film Theory. I think my paper turned out especially well, and the nice part is that this is the last paper I have to write for this class this semester, which is a huge load off. The downside was that as the day progressed, my allergies took hold, and I was feeling pretty miserable by mid-afternoon. What’s ironic is that just as I was getting sick, Stef was seeing a doctor at Olin today for HER allergies, and actually getting some real medicine. Anyway, I pulled myself together enough to make it to English Lit to deliver our presentation, and I must say, I was absolutely blown away by what a great job the other kids actually ended up doing. For starters, the one girl who hadn’t sent me anything for our Keynote slideshow had spent the entire night at the library doing research on her poem, and had a lot to say. The big bombshell though was that, not only had the two other guys in my group done a short film like they said they would, but it was actually really, really good. Our discussion was over the poetry of John Milton, so they took “Lycidas” (which is about the death of his close friend, Edward King), and put a voice over narration of the poem over a really cool black and white montage of “Milton” (played by the Asian kid in our group, no less) caring for the dead body of his friend in the woods. It sounds sorta cheesy, and we did get some laughs when we finally showed it during class, but I can honestly say that they did a spectacular job. More importantly though, I think our professor was very impressed, so hopefully that will be reflected in our final grade. After we got done talking the prof rambled for another hour or so, and then finally set us free. I was feeling thoroughly miserable by then: my eye was completely red, both eyes physically hurt, my head was pounding, I couldn’t breath, my nose was running, and I had absolutely no energy. So yeah… I was pretty sick. I picked up Stefy from the dorm though, and she came with me to do some grocery shopping at Meijer, and I loaded up on over the counter drugs for my allergies. We picked up some BK on the way back to the pad, and then settled in for the night with “Sideways”, which Nate just picked up over the weekend. Well, I guess that’s it for today. I really don’t want to miss my film classes tomorrow, but we’ll see how I feel in the morning.