Working Near Santa

from Richard Weimer <***@northwestern.edu>
to Nicole Collins <****@u.northwestern.edu

I have approved your application to re-enter for Fall, 2009, and the form has been faxed on the Registrar’s Office for the activation of your registration.  Once you have been assigned a registration appointment, you can register on line. -RPW

I love you, Dean Weimar.

And you’re okay too, Northwestern.

🙂

a coworker from Coldfoot camp brought possibly the most adorable service dog ever on tour #2 to the Arctic Ocean.

an oil worker with the most badass sideburns I've ever seen, beating my brother's "look! I can grow lots of hair!" phase in seventh grade

aww, look at Halliburton showboating their sense of humor! the slogan for our tundra town- "Deadhorse: where there's a woman behind every tree."

becoming an official member of the Arctic Polar Bear Club

my fellow oil worker touries followed suit. I've now officially walked on and into the Arctic Ocean

Aaaaand my favorite picture to date:

Deadhorse skyline: 1:45am

HAPPY BIRTHDAYS to Greg and Samantha!!

No, my siblings aren’t twins; they were just born exactly three years and one day apart. I’m the odd duckling.

Have a wonderful 45th and 42nd birthday, or however old you fogies are.

http://www.seattlepi.com/local/408811_camp28.html

Sure, we can blame the driver, use this tragedy as more heat for the “Don’t drink and drive” campaign. That’s not really the point, though. More than one drunk driver’s out on the road at night, and millions of innocent pedestrians and drivers make it home safely. Just one random factor playing with another playing with another, all alligning to form the death of an amazing, beautiful girl.

I first met Corrie in my winter “Love, Sex and Marriage in America” class, which was essentially a sleepover of thirteen intelligent females viciously destroying the concept of men for three hours a week. Corrie was an absolute delight. Easily one of the smartest students I’ve met, and quite like the opposite of that bimbo person who causes a collective cringe when she opens her mouth, Corrie commanded absolute respect. She was a transfer from Western Washington (getting into Northwestern as a transfer is almost as hard as finding the pink seashell you lost in the Atlantic several years ago) who was just full of spunk, whether she was debating the main meaning of “Temporarily Yours” or making everyone laugh with her description of her “texting romance” over winter break. I became her sorority sister later that quarter, and, immensely shy as I am, she was one of the few people I felt completely comfortable with from the start. I loved hearing about her mock trial team’s ridiculous national success and engaging in a serious 20 minute conversation about the difficult decision of displaying a relationship status on Facebook.

So much happiness of my sophomore year was defined by Corrie before I even knew her. I only got off the waitlist as a CA originally because Corrie decided that she’d rather work with transfer students and gave up that coveted CA position in Sargent. She was the sister who saw my gchat status begging for assistance in the spring, and completely took me under her wing, setting me up with the number one mock trial attorney in the country as a representative. And she was the first person I texted when that fateful pairing found nothing but good news. Corrie was like one of those extras from the end of “Mean Girls”- when another female bared her heart and fell backwards into the crowd, she was front row center ready to catch her.

Remember when everyone had Livejournal and surveys were all the rage? Well, people still do them all the time on Facebook, but I’m keeping my private life firmly out of my social networking page so people intent on stalking me have to take the extra effort to click a few links. It’s 3am and I can’t sleep because I just finished this CREEPY Jodi Picoult book, Second Glance, which is definitely a break from the status quo because Picoult’s novels generally make me want to drown myself in a big pile of sap. Soo I’ll go back to Alaska tomorrow (I’m seeing the ocean again, and it won’t be frozen over this time around), but for now, here’s a delicious little survey I’ve cooked up. Oh yes, I made it, and once it spreads like wildfire to every possible record-keeping site, I’ll have proof that it originated near Santa.

Oh yeah, I’m supposed to “tag” people who, if they don’t also take this survey, will be haunted for eternity by a girl who got killed on Myspace. I tag: Tamara, Kira, Daniel Shin, Sarah Riskind, Sharon Kuo (five people I can think of off the top of my head who still update their blogs).

FIVE BITS OF PERSONAL TRIVIA THAT I USE TO SPICE UP A DULL CONVERSATION

1. My mom dated a Marvel cartoon artist in college and must have stolen his heart, since a Sandi Charton character appears in several Superman and Plasticman comic books.

2. A friend from school grew up in the same neighborhood as Obama and actually went to a K-12 school with his kids.

3. My brother asked out Ann Coulter on national television (this tidbit is usually followed by a retching sound).

4. My freshman year roommate was a contestant on “Wheel of Fortune”.

5. I haven’t seen nighttime since June 4^th, although that’s going to change pretty soon, sadly.

FIVE THINGS I LOVE ABOUT MYSELF

1. Despite my whining, I really do love my hair in its natural state. A frizzy yield sign is always a good conversation piece.

2. My bedroom has pushed the definition of “toxic dump,” but I can generally find what I’m looking for in ten seconds or less. Organized chaos, my friend. Plus, it’s always sweet when I uncover a crumpled up wad of 20s from the Junction beneath a layer of fifth grade spelling quizzes.

3. I have excellent taste in friends.

4. At Drum Major Academy (essentially a five-day conglomeration of the 300 biggest band nerds in Massachusetts), I came in fifth place in a “march-off,” and received a  Drum Major salute from Mr. George Parks himself.

5. I never spend more than $15 on an item of clothing (pants and shoes included), but I would happily drop that amount several times a week for a Dominoes-catered meal.

FIVE ALL-TIME FAVORITE MOVIES

1. “Newsies,” the obvious choice. Kenny Ortega was far, far too prodigious for his time.

2. The “Chronicles of Narnia” series. Combines my favorite elements: an epic, basic plot, awkward dialogue that can either melt the heart or bring on the giggles, depending on your mood, and beautiful men.

3. “Independence Day.” Same reasons as #2, plus the juicy benefit of impending world doom.

4. “Mean Girls.” The absolute queen of sassy teenage comedies. I could watch this movie dozens of times and find new hilarious, real-to-life quotes and stereotypes, from the sexually active band geeks to “I will keep you here all night”- “We can’t keep them past four”- “I will keep you here until four”…oh man. Liam and I often engage in Mean Girls “quote-offs” with one another.

5. “Heavyweights,” purely for the line “Attention campers- lunch has been cancelled today due to lack of hustle”.

FIVE OF MY FAVORITE QUOTES.

 1.“But man was not made for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated.”- Ernest Hemingway.

2. “Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?”- Albus Dumbledore

3. “If you meet the Buddha, kill the Buddha.”- Buddha

4. “A little less conversation, a little more action”- Elvis Presley

5. “We’re almost there, but nowhere near it. All that matters is that we’re going.”- Lorelai Gilmore

FIVE FOODS THAT I WOULD FIND ROOM FOR IN MY STOMACH AFTER A THANKSGIVING MEAL

1. Buffalo anything, preferably boneless.

2. Moose Tracks ice cream

3. Cheesy bread

4. This delicious Indian curry that my sister made once and will probably never make again because it took her four hours.

5. Well, Indian anything, come to think of it.

FIVE BIG TURNING POINTS IN MY LIFE

1. Receiving a 4 on some stupid standardized writing test in 4^th grade when everyone else received 2’s and 3’s. Gave me the overblown ego to write more and more, which eventually wound up to me sitting here at 3:30am in Alaska, waxing prose for your entertainment.

2. Showing up on a whim to a marching band practice in ninth grade. Easily the best decision of my life. Led me to meet amazing people in both high school and college, threw me on the “right track” (which is generally considered in Needham to be heavy on extracurriculars, light on marijuana), and gave me my first boyfriend, kiss and breakup in the span of three months. Hey, Matt.

3. Opening Northwestern’s promotional pamphlet that was mailed to me junior year. I hadn’t even heard of them, but I love the color purple, so I went on their website and found the marching band page, and it all snowballed from there.

4. Purchasing my first straightening iron.

5. I mean, I guess that leaving school early to go to Alaska could be a turning point. We’ll see how I turn out…

FIVE PEOPLE I INFINITELY ADMIRE

1. Veronica Mars. Smart, strong, sassy, and makes me actually stop episodes, rewind, and replay the parts where she solves the case and completely owns the bad guys.

2. Neville Longbottom. An underrated Harry Potter character until Facebook groups like “Neville is a BAMF” started sprouting up. I mean, he stands up to famous wizard classmate, Harry, in the first book, masters Stunning Spells in the fifth just to avenge his parents, and in the seventh, kinda, sorta kills Voldemort. Plus, he isn’t a whiny adolescent head case like Harry.

3. My grandma. Anybody who’s met her instantly falls in love. She is the most genuinely warm person ever, and her rants about Bush and raves about Eleanor Roosevelt are not one to miss. Plus, she flirts with waiters at restaurants just so they’ll bring her more bread.

4. Elissa Wolf, my first drum major. She was that token senior who little dewey freshmen looked up to and vowed to aspire to her level one day.

5. Any woman who disguised herself as a man to fight in the Civil War. Now that’s badass. And speaking of badass…

FIVE MOST BADASS MOMENTS OF MY LIFE

1. Hitchhiking with truckers in Alaska.

2. Putting my lips to a cigar in Thanksgiving of 2007. Would potentially have been more badass if I had actually inhaled instead of just blowing out cold air and pretending it was smoke.

3. Doing “tit prints” for Sex Week. Imaginations, roam.

4. Junior year of high school, stopping conducting in the middle of a halftime show to turn around and snarl to several heckling peers (direct quote), “Would you guys shut the hell up and grow a pair?” Before that, I was just that meek little girl from Latin class; after that, I was Poseidon.

5. Taking on Northwestern bureaucracy.

FIVE THINGS I YEARN FOR IN MY FUTURE

1. A husband who is willing to cook, clean, and heckle the weirdo neighbors with me.

2. Something published, even if it’s just fortune cookie sayings.

3. A biography written by myself in the event of an untimely death, just so some rando won’t come along and completely misinterpret my thoughts and actions. This entry inspired by MJ.

4. Some epic trip somewhere, just to say I’ve done it. Mt.Everest, the Great Coral Reef, space…

5. A future filled with lots of money, which I won’t give to Northwestern and instead invest in something actually needy and worthy, like my high school music program or Sesame Street.

FIVE PEOPLE WHO, AS STATED BEFORE, NEED TO TAKE THIS SURVEY OR DIE AN UNTIMELY DEATH. JUST A REMINDER.

1. Tamara

2. Kira

3. Daniel Shin

4. Sarah Riskind

5. Sharon Kuo

Cheers! And…I’m still not sleepy. I’m seeing a milkshake in my future.