Well, I may have lived a relatively boring and reclusive life for the duration of my college tenure, but that’s all over now. Last weekend, Daniel and I joined Michael, Christina, Blair, and Arthur in a double queen hotel room at the Moody Gardens to celebrate the beautiful wedding of Mr. & Mrs. Jacob and Megan Rice (nee Rekoff). Hilarity ensued as we enjoyed a girl’s night while the boys hit the town the eve of the wedding, we all attended an incredibly fun reception, and a crazy aunt insisted that the wedding party (read: “we, Jack, Will, and Kevin”) take the remainder of the wine after it was over. Needless to say, we tackled the pool, the bar, the sauna, and Catch Phrase in a sweet frenzy of friendship. I’m a little upset that I didn’t spend more time with these guys the whole time we’ve been friends…

On May 1st, I started a May Madness challenge where I’m going all out with a strict diet and intensive two-a-day(ish) workout regimen. Starting tomorrow (or Sunday) I’m going to try and start the habit of a 6:30 am cardio session and a 5:30 pm workout. I wanted to start on Tuesday, but this week got a little out of hand (foreshadowing!).
Spent the early part of the week spending wonderful quality time with Daniel since we’re going to be all “long distance” in less than a month. We celebrated our  5 year anniversary  on Wednesday  by cooking dinner together and adventuring to Blair’s house to hang out, listen to records, and catch up with friends. Yet again, Catch Phrase (or, rather, the free knock-off version iPhone app) made a special guest appearance. Daniel also made me some wonderful motivational posters under the false pretext that they were an extra credit assignment. There are 30 quotes, conveniently spaced out for every day of my May Madness challenge!

Skip to Thursday. After a productive three hours of studying with Daniel, I went to my anniversary gift massage (he originally scheduled it for our actual anniversary on the 2nd, but the place made a mistake and had to put me down for 2:15 the following day). I went to Walmart and bought all the necessary goodies for my party that evening (my “Nerd Out of Supernatural Proportions”). I rushed home to find Taylor AMAZINGLY tidying the downstairs area for my guests and quickly assembled the pizzas for oven entry. I managed to astonishingly balance making, preheating, and baking 4 pizzas with cleaning my room and getting ready all in about an hour. Then the guests arrived!

First Tom showed up and we chatted awhile while everyone else was late. Then, at the same time, Noah, Luke, Kevin, Lindsey, Yaniv, Breanna, and Jason all showed up for a little party time. We caught up, ate, watched the season 5 episode entitled “Swap Meat,” ate, chatted, and ate some more before everyone decided to bail on account of next-day finals. Well, everyone except Taylor, David, Luke, and Noah. We proceeded to tour the MSC, play piano, meet girls, buy beer, and sing Disney songs into the wee hours of the morning while the Voigts attempted to pursuade me to pull any and all strings necessary to return to Houston in the fall. I finally fell asleep around 3 am and was awakened at about 8:30. After spending a little more quality time with the Voigts, I sent them on their merry way around 11 and passed out until 3.

This evening, I spent time with Daniel, Collin, and Kevin. Daniel and I first hung out, ate dinner, and then went to Academy and make a mental list of all the necessary equipment we have to buy should we decide to actually take on backpacking through Appalachia. Then the rest of us went to Target to buy a glow-in-the-dark Nerf ball and try on superhero masks.

An eventful week! I’m becoming acutely aware that graduation is luming merely 7.5 days away (my dad texts me every morning with a countdown!) and it’s starting to hit me pretty hard. The Disney montage yesterday definitely had a rather stinging nostalgic effect but I’m coming to realize that, although as a child I was rather perceptive of the fact that I would miss my own childhood, the grown up world doesn’t seem so bad.

There’s a whole life ahead of me. A crazy, full, loving, and exciting new life. I’m merely hoping that the wonderful friendships I’ve established during this chapter of my life will carry over and continue to grow up and grow old with me. 🙂