So of course, we did trivia. At the time of Ben's birthday, he had made it clear he didn't want to celebrate. Note to everyone: if you tell me something like that, I take it literally! So we could tell he was kind of bummed that we listened, so Mere and I brilliantly threw a surprise trivia party for him a month after his birthday. guaranteed surprise! I made a dirt cake b/c he had said a few weeks before how much he liked those and hadn't had one in years! Then Mere brought balloons, including a singing Elmo balloon that kept going off in her trunk. FTW! 
So back to school and work...as it turns out, I was asked to help some of the staff move offices. No problemo - except as I'm moving one, Luci points out that the prof. I'm moving is very particular about her things, and doesn't know she's being moved...and also, it's the prof I am most afraid of - AHHHH! SO I took a ton of pics and made sure everything was EXACTLY the way she left it. She ended up happy about the move and wasn't mad - whew! I don't have to have her again, but I was afraid maybe she'd try to take away previous credits or something - hehe. First day of class, we take a fieldtrip to these 2 guy's houses, which is pretty cool - one person has paraplegia so we got to talk with him and see how his house is laid out, and the other had MS and was quadriplegic. Both people were so sweet, and when we got to the second house, Bill's, he was waiting for us outside. He told our prof, Ms. Lipoma, that she needed to move her car b/c people tended to come around his corner fast, but she could park right in front of the house. She asked Sajid to move it, and we're all kind of watching him and Bill says, "You think he can do it?" and I said, "OH yeah, he's a valet on weekends so he knows what he's doing." Aaron added, "But he might want a tip." Sajid parks the car perfectly, and gets out. Bill says, "Son, I don't know whether to give you a tip, or a razor." It was pretty hilarious! Later that week, we were given instructions to build a tower our of newspaper that touches the ceiling, and that was pretty much it. So we divided into 2 groups, and my group ended up getting ours to touch the fastest - we had a little newspaper flag on top that did the touching. It wasn't pretty, it wasn't stable, but it touched!
The rules also mentioned that it wasn't a contest, but we were pretty happy we finished before the other group, which had Luke. During our discussion, the main point of this activity was to identify which group members took on which roles. Lauren, our observer, pointed out that we worked well together, but then we were way too competitive with the other team. Too funny - and Luke maintains that they won b/c theirs was more stable and their's more legitimately touched. Sorry dude, we followed all the rules and we beat you fair and square. Next we did an activity where we cut out pics from a magazine and glued them onto construction paper - 1 side represented what we see ourself as now, and the other was what we want to be in the future. I was in a good mood that day, but I wanted my collage to be perfect, so I ran out of time - and therefore only had 1 side. 
oops. So I put the word "shimmers" on there for future, and then had to explain why. My basic words were: "I've always really liked the poem Richard Corey, and ok, I know he commits suicide at the end, but it's got really good immagery...the townspeople describe him as 'he glitters when he walks' and I always loved that image! So to change it a bit, I put 'shimmers' b/c I want to shimmer when I walk - like people see me and are like, 'wow, she's so pulled together!'...but I'm not going to kill myself or anything.......I am actually really happy with the way things are right now........" I was the only person that had to say that!
Then Luke goes, and his has this tiny "alcoholic" in the corner, and he said, "all of the best times I have with friends have alcohol involved, so I put this as kind of a joke" and I commented that we'd have a good time without alcohol, too - it's just a coincidence - trying to explain that he's NOT an alcoholic, but then the teacher says something like, "well, this might come up in a group, and it's hard to admit" etc. so Luke thought I had like thrown him under the bus - whoops! She was just saying that to everyone in general - not specifically to him.
Onto birthday party part 2 - Well, it ended up when we had to volunteer during a fishing tournament the weekend after school started - either Saturday or Sunday. My Dallas birthday party had been scheduled for Friday, but some of the people at the party had signed up to volunteer at 4:30 on Saturday. We had beer, wine, sangria, margaritas, and other random alcohol...and at some point we decided it would be easier to stay up all night.
So...yeah.. everyone left about 3 to head to the fishing tournament, and I went to bed :). Apparently it wasn't much fun to be awake all night then work the next day. I went on Sunday, and aside from getting up incredibly early, it was OK. There were some really drunk guys from a frat there with us, and one of them followed Carrie around like a lost puppy. On Saturday, , Mariana had planned on picking up Pri and Shubi before the tournamnet. After the party, she went home to change, called P and S and told them she'd leave in 10 minutes. She fell asleep, and woke up to someone pounding on her door. Pri, Shubi and Ms Lipoma had called several times and gotten no answer, so they finally went to get her. She wasn't in trouble - they were just worried. They ended up eating at Denny's before going to the tournament. 
The next week we went to a Ranger's game - Hamilton was out (boooo), but Kinsler got a run and the Rangers ended up beating the Astros in the 10th. Traffic was horrible when we left, and Aaron still needed to take his Quant quiz. We ended up calling Mark on speaker phone, and he logged in as Aaron and we tried to answer the quiz questions. He ended up with a 70, but that's better than a zero. Good times! I can't wait to go to another game. For class, we took a tour of the Mary Kay factory and took note of ergonomic risk factors. I was annoyed I didn't get any free samples, but it was neat to see the factory and it was comical how many ergo notices they had - my favorite was the "American Safety Idol" contest.
I also got to go to the Anteparum unit at Baylor and help lead a group - it was a great experience, and I learned a ton from the OT there as well as the group participants.
That was pretty much my June - stay tuned for July!
