Red Bird Pizza

On a late night in Normal, no matter what
I’ve been doing or who I was with, I always want to grab a beautiful slice of Red Bird Pizza. I walk into the establishment just west of southside right next to the freedom gas station, and
I see various students and sometimes family members. Usually there will be a
bit of the line, but boy that line moves fast, and before you know it there is
a huge slice of pizza right in front of your face. The piece is not only bigger
than my head, but its two times bigger, and I’m telling you my head is big, so equivalently
the piece must have been ginormous. Being a college student, I obviously
checked the price on the advertisement, but it came out to six dollars which I
was willing to spend to take a break from the cafeteria food. Not only was the
slice huge, but it was good, the cheese gave a familiar taste to a Chicago
native.

Hoco 2011

On Saturday morning I woke up at 8 am to walk in the parade with my dance team. I know what you’re thinking, “who would be excited about waking up that early?!” Only me. It was freezing but the free hot chocolate and donuts in south side totally made up for it. There was such a fun and upbeat vibe you couldn’t help but get into it. We were dancing, singing,there was candy everywhere it was just such a great time! I don’t think I’ve ever had that much fun in a parade! But the day was nowhere near over. It was homecoming and I had to go tailgating! So I walked over to Tri with my team, ate way too much food, and got way too into my bags competition with my friends. After that the party continued in Uptown Normal. There was live music, dancing, and even more food! My team even had a bake sale full of delicious treats, a lot that we ended up eating ourselves…haha. I was competely beat by Sunday morning but it was so worth it! I’d say it was a pretty successful weekend. :)

Homecoming Game 2011

I want to talk about the Homecoming game and the experience I had with it. Well, I thought the atmosphere was incredible before and during the game. I felt like I was at a big ten school. I woke up and walked over to the smell of grilling and a exciting bunch of people ready to have a good time. I absolutely love tailgating as it is. This was at a new experience for me that day because I got smashed. My day started off with going to someones apartment with my friends and playing some bags and tossing around the pigskin. Then as a couple hours passed you could say I loosened up. A couple friends came to visit, which made the day even better. Soon enough I headed over to the parking lot and all the students and fans including me were messing around and just enjoying themselves as the temperature was a beautiful 60 degrees and the skies were crystal clear. In perspective it was perfect football weather. The homecoming festivities I thought were awesome as there was plenty school spirt throughout the whole week. After the parking lot I went inside the field to watch the game. I walked in at the beginning of the first quarter and I sat on the grass behind the visitor side. May I just say, the grass was soft and the view was beautiful. I like watching football live but I always was use to playing in the game so it felt different. I was with my boys watching the game and had a great time with them before we left at half. From there, the night was history.

Homecoming 2011

This past weekend was homecoming at Illinois State University. I had never been to homecoming at a major university so I didn't know what to expect. I woke up at 8 a.m. because I was going to march in the parade. A Pike who graduated in 1998 was running for state senate and we were going to march with him to help promote his campaign. We went and met up with him at the end of the parade and the ten of us that were there were all given jobs. I was given the job of handing out nail files with his information on them to people watching the parade. It turned out to be a very fun job. One of my pledge brothers and myself made it into a game by trying to hand out the highest number of nail files. We had a great time walking in the parade even though it was pretty cold.

After the parade I went and met up with my dad and younger brother who had come down for the weekend. We went to his friend's tailgate and I got to meet a lot of alumni and current students here at ISU. There was lots of food to eat and many games set up to play. I had never been to a college tailgate but it proved to be a lot of fun. I had a brat and some ribs and they were extremely delicious. Everything about the tailgate was fun. I played bags and football and had a great time. I can't wait until Homecoming next year!

From Stranger to Roommate to Best Friend...

After repeatedly denying a friend request from what I thought was a stranger, turned out to be my new best friend. Now I know we all get those random people who want to be our “friend” on Facebook, but this girl was repetitive! After numerously denying her, she finally messaged me telling me that I was her roommate! Her exact Facebook message:

“you're probably wondering whyyy im trying to add you.. well it says we're room mates at isu! but the thing is.. i already have a room mate.. and apparently at the last minute they changed it.. but i just wanted to talk to you about it and see if you would agree to switch with the girl. we're like best friends and have had this all planned out for a while now. If not thats ok too! just let me know :) thanks.”

Well since I couldn’t figure out how to find out who my roommate was, I was so happy when I got this message, but for only the first line! She didn’t even want to room with me! She told me she was going to call housing services and see if they could make a change. I was so upset, I finally find out who my roommate is and she doesn’t even want to room with me! And of course all my friends thought this was just hilarious…Well I didn’t! Eventually my “ex roommate” and I exchanged phone numbers and just started to talk. We talked about our families, our majors, high school, etc. I remember during one of our conversations she told me she called housing services and they said after the first ten days we could switch. So, I was like okay whatever, how do I find out who my real roommate is going to be?! Then one day me and her were talking and she said something like, “Do you want me or you to bring the fridge?” I was so confused I said, “Why does it matter if we won’t be rooming together anyways?” She replied, “I think we’re going to just end up rooming together.” I only think we ended up rooming together because she couldn’t really figure out the housing situation.

So now I finally had a roommate! Now, I have to admit I did creep on her Facebook a little bit, but didn’t everyone? I compared her pictures to mine and we seemed like two completely different people, which made me a little nervous, and yes I know the saying “don’t judge a book by its cover.” But who really listens to that anyways…

So, we kept talking and finally decided to actually meet up and go out to lunch. We met at Chipotle like a week before school started, and let me tell you it went great! We both had some of the same “values” I guess you’d say, and participated in the same activities. And, now I really couldn’t wait for the school year to start.

Since the school year has started, we have become so close, and plan on living with each other for the future. We are like the same person, and have so much fun with each other all the time. We haven’t gotten sick of each other either. Oh, and her “best friend”, well they aren’t friends anymore…

Homecoming parade at ISU

Standing up on the far left with the white hat on, I stand among the "babies" of Delta Chi and A.D.Pi just minutes before the parade began, sporting my Delta Chi shirt for recognition.

This past weekend at Illinois State, I was in the homecoming parade that marched throughout campus on Saturday, starting at 10 o'clock. The reason I was in the parade was for the fraternity I am involved with, Delta Chi (ΔΧ). My day began at 7:45 AM, when my alarm woke me up. I got dressed as soon as possible, grabbed Subway breakfast, and was out the Hewett-Manchester doors by 8:15 to be at the fraternity house by 8:30. When I got to the house, everyone was getting ready for the parade, making signs, and getting in the spirit for a wild few hours of parade marching. We met up with our two sister sororities, Tri-Delta (ΔΔΔ) and A.D.Pi (ΑΔΠ), at 9:30, awaiting the start of the parade.

When the parade started, everyone was ecstatic. I remember carrying girls on my shoulders, being piggy-backed myself, and doing something really stupid that I feel really bad for doing. Little kids were lining the streets among the crowd holding bags of candy open as the parade marched on by. Not knowing the aftermath, I reached into one of bags a little boy was holding and took a few pieces of candy. He looked at me with a saddened look on his face. As I walked away, it clicked that the candy in his bag was from people in the parade giving it to the children; it was not supposed to be for the people in the parade! From that point on, every piece of candy not scavenged by the children was my newest treasure to be passed onto the children. I would then give that piece of candy to the children in the streets, seeing them smile and feeling like I just made their day. Other that that little speed bump, everyone was in a festive mood, loving that we got our day started out early with much more to come the rest of the day. Some of the other highlights were the chants we did as we walked the streets, promoting Delta Chi. Also hearing people yell from the crowd that they loved our fraternity, or they were once involved. But among all, the best part was bonding with one another, building brotherhood, and spreading the word of our fraternity and the things we do for the community, to the community.

women o' lockerbie

Last Sunday I went to see the Women of Lockerbie. Since I have never heard of the play until I came here to ISU, the play kind of intrigued me. Not only did I have to see it for class but I wanted to see the play. When I entered the CPA's or Center for Performing Arts's auditorium and saw the stage i was surprised. Since I am in Civic Chorale and have class/practice in the CPA auditorium I am used to seeing the whole auditorium but this time approximately half the seats, give or take a few, in the front section were gone. The set consisted of three hills in the background, four or five boulders, two or three paths, stars in the dark blue or black sky and a stream of flowing water. The affect of the stars and the flowing water added a calm feeling to the atmosphere which helped the audience understand that night was a sad but calm one, until future events ensued. the play is about an incident that happened in Lockerbie, Scotland. The incident is when Pakistanian terrorist blew up a plane above Lockerbie and killed about 300 people on December 21st, 1988. Since I never knew anything about this event until i read about it in the program and saw the play I became even more interested in the event. I actually liked the play and think it was performed really well. The plat drove of off emotions and at times i felt really sad at some moments in the play. The play wasn't all sad though. In the play there was a fight scene and there was some comedy to offset the sadness to it. The actors did a great job and they gave it a professional feel to the play. Overall if you didn't see the play then you missed out on a great one and i wish i could see it again, but I can't sadly.