Flat Stanley! ...and other things

So I know, it's been a while since I've posted in here. It's been a pretty busy few weeks...

I think all of the teachers collaborated and made every big project, paper, and test due last week. It was pretty ridiculous, but I survived, and even got A's on most of my tests etc. Fun!

This week hasn't been much better because now that I'm not focusing on immediate schoolwork I am trying to catch up on everything else that fell by the wayside last week! I am working on my application for Study Abroad next semester. No. I still don't know where I'm going, except that it's going to be somewhere in Spain. Though today I went to the Center for Global Education and made an appointment to see someone next week to discuss program options. So at least I now have some sort of direction. This whole thing would have been a lot easier if I wasn't double majoring though! The only hang up on this whole going abroad thing is that I HAVE to take some sort of Java Programming class next semester because it's a prerequisite for the classes I have to take next year. So I've got to find that class in Spain somehow. I know it exists, it's just that I'll have to directly enroll into a Universidad in order to access it because most study abroad programs are all about Spanish Language and Culture and History. Which is all very interesting, but not what I need. But anyways, it's a relief to have that appointment made because those people in the CGE office know their stuff and I'm sure they'll be able to help me out, or at least point me in the right direction.

Another cool thing is Flat Stanley showed up today! For those of you who don't know (I'd assume that would be all of you, except for maybe Cassie if she reads this...) Flat Stanley is a boy who had the misfortune of having a bulletin board fall on him and squish him flat. However his misfortune has turned into something awesome in that now he can travel around the world through the postal system and not have to pay for plane tickets! So basically my first cousin once removed, Maxine, is in the third grade and read this story about Flat Stanley, and has made a Flat Stanley and sent it to me! (Yes, first cousin once removed is correct! She is my cousin's daughter, and I know that everyone in my family has this discussion every two years at the family reunions, but I looked it up. And what Wikipedia says goes! You can check it out if you wish... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cousin)

So anyways, Flat Stanley gets to hang out with me and my friends here at TU for a bit and experience college. I'm pretty excited, cuz I'm kind of a dork like that, and definitely a kid at heart. My friends and I already have a bunch of plans for Flat Stanley cuz tonight is Battle of the Bands and tomorrow there is a football game and my residence hall is having a huge tailgate party beforehand. It's gonna be awesome!

In other news, the weather here is dumb. Half the time it rains. When it rains, half the time it is cold and windy and rainy, and half the time it is hot and humid and rainy. When it doesn't rain it is either sunny and disgustingly hot and about to start raining, or windy and chilly and about to start raining. I just don't get it. AND! Apparently it's going to take me longer than living here for two years to start to understand the air conditioning systems in place here. I look outside in the morning. It looks sunny and hot out. I put on jeans and a tank top. I actually walk outside and lo and behold it actually is sunny and hot out! I get to the Business Administration Hall (BAH) and go inside for class. It's refreshing, because it was starting to get a bit hot outside. I walk into a classroom and by the time I have taken off my backpack and sat down I am absolutely freezing! I swear judging by my goosebumps the AC must be set at about 55 degrees! And this happens about every day. You'd think I'd learn to take a jacket with me. But then again, you'd think that when it's 95 degrees outside and sunny, you wouldn't need a jacket! Ah well, either I'll learn or I'll freeze.

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The "Next Coming" (Tulsa Chapter)

So I read my cousin Mandy's blog about the "Next Coming" of the cicadas when she posted it in the end of May of this year. (For those of you who haven't read it, read hers first as she is a much better writer than I: http://wheresmyrumball.blogspot.com/2007/05/accidental-entomologist.html)

Anyways, I laughed in the appropriate spots and was grossed out in the appropriate spots. I sort of sympathized in the way that people do when they hear about something happening but have never experienced it themselves. It was like reading a book and I thought "Oh poor Mandy" but it never really seemed real since it hadn't happened to me. Until last week.

Now I'll preface this by saying in no way is campus covered in cicada exoskeletons, nor is the sound unbearably loud. But we are apparently close enough to Chicago to experience the "coming" of the cicadas for ourselves.

I was walking across the street to another dorm the other day when I saw a few friends outside who had challenged each other to a tree-climbing contest. Needless to say they didn't get very far up the tree before they ran into the abandoned exoskeletons of the cicadas, still clinging to the bark! I still hadn't connected Mandy's story with the bug shells in "my own backyard" at this point, but I asked someone what was going on and they said "Look, cicadas!"

All of the sudden everything clicked. I looked at a few other trees nearby and saw the same shell carcasses sticking to the bark. And now I knew what those never ending buzzing/chirping sounds had been for the past few days! So of course I ran inside to get my camera and here is what I was able to capture...

The "next coming" of the cicadas (Tulsa chapter):

It is hard to tell the size of the bugs from the picture because there is nothing to reference it by. But when I picked up one of the shells it fit neatly into my cupped hand. It was about the size of a ping pong ball if all of the sudden the ping pong ball had become oblong and brown.

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