Nocturnal 'Nanigans

For some reason I just felt very strongly that this post needed an alliterative title, but I could not think of a good "N" word that could express the idea of "very unexpected happenings that were quite entertaining and not exactly in accordance with the Miss Manner's expectations placed upon a young lady" or something like that. So I figured "Shenanigans" was the closest I would get so I could just use the lovely "put an ' before it trick."

And when I said "For some reason" I REALLY meant: "For the very specific reason that I love a poem by Anne Finch called 'Nocturnal Reverie' and I do realize that the title is not alliterative, but I still wanted MY title to be." So there.

Now for the shenanigans part.

It all started Monday night. I went to FHE (for the first time in maybe longer than I should admit- don't tell!) and we were having a little White Elephant Exchange. I just realized that I don't know how to say "elephant" in italian and that is a serious travesty. Anyway, using my "feminine wiles" which roughly translated means, "Using my skills of treachery, deceit, and extortion" I managed to secure myself a snuggie. Oh baby. It was actually kind of ironic because the day before I was reading and my arms were really cold and I thought about how nice it would be to have a snuggie and BOOM. Snuggie for Tara. Actually, am I even typing with my snuggie right now? I wish I could answer that in the affirmative, but I just got out of the shower and I am pretty toasty, so a snuggie is not needed at present. But I will keep you updated. It is sitting by me though, hand reach away, just in case.

After FHE, like the dutiful students we sometimes pretend to be, Kathryn and I trudged (Yes, we TRUDGED. A slow, weary, yet determined walk... Name that movie!) to the library and after suffering through a few hours of the writing process, we decided it was break time.

Now an explanation is required here, a little background info, so you can be "in the know." Kat and I encountered an individual this year (who will remain nameless, genderless, indiscriminate etc so as to prevent this individual from being shunned or from feeling sheepish), and this genderless guy is just really hard to talk to. Like really. I like to think that I am not too boring, but this unidentified, and still genderless for the purposes of the story, dude always seemed like he was undergoing some form of the Chinese water torture every single time I tried to talk to him. Kathryn, and a few other select females, felt exactly the same. So we devised a little competition. Ice cream was owed to whichever individual could get this fellow (ok yeah, I am going to quit with the pretense of keeping the gender a secret) to talk with them for more than eight minutes. Harder than you might think. But I found an opportunity and found out a lot more about this person's background than I ever wanted and thus, I earned the ice cream. Clocked in at twelve minutes, just in case you were wondering. Above and beyond the call of duty.

So Kat and I decided that this break should be an ice cream break, but the only ice cream in the vicinity was at the Creamery and it was due to close at eleven and it was, at the time, just a little before eleven. We started shoving our school junk into our backpacks and made like freshmen back to the Heritage area and the mothership (Creamery) and we got our ice cream.

As if we could even HANDLE anymore excitement for the night, we took a "shortcut" home and ended up in a fenced-in construction site with one option before us. Ok, we could have come back the way we came, but it was so far, so we had one viable option. That involved hopping a fence. With backpacks and stuff. Kat was also maybe in a skirt, but that might not be the truth. We owned that sucker. With backpacks on.

Which brings us to TUESDAY night. I was once again, spending a late night at the library. It was 11:19 when I left the library and it was dark and cold and the weight of my backpack was even more burdensome because I couldn't quite finish off my paper. I was one crosswalk away from my apartment and there were no cars in the vicinity so I started to cross when all of a sudden this car appears suddenly. They were still a little bit away, but they were going wayyyy faster than the speed limit and they were not slowing down even though I was very clearly still going to be in their way when they got to my crosswalk. Though my initial instinct might have been to just let the car take me (just kidding- geez!) I scurried (and yes, I literally had to scurry) out of the way and offered the boy scout salute. The three fingers that could also be read as "Read between the lines." But in the dark and in a quick motion it might have just looked more like one, big, loud, finger. Tehehehe. For this action, I got honked at. It was worth it.

Are you even ready for Wednesday night?! Most exciting night yet. In Siena, Italy there is this glorious and grand horse race called the Palio. Look it up. There are some awesome youtube videos on the subject. But it is basically Italy's version of the running of the bulls. But obviously cooler. I am part of the Istrice contrada. We ARE the porcupines! Instead of real horses, we have classmates masquerade as horses with other classmates on their backs. It is great fun. There are many fun traditions also associated with the Palio, like the parade of contrade beforehand and such, and there are awesome italian dishes etc. Naturally, we had matching "Istrice" shirts and such and all of our practicing paid off (and yes, we really did devote some time during class to practice) and we are the victors for this semester's Palio. Did I mention we also won last semester?? Yep. I believe MC Hammer actually wrote a song about us entitled "Too legit to Quit" or something like that.

I also finished my third to last paper of the semester. No laughing matter. And yes, I am currently procrastinating the writing of the other two (even though one of them I really am almost done with, just can't quite finish it off). Thanks for asking.