what's all the hullaballou about?: Hop in the flip-top baby

My dad used to tell me that I'd enjoy the luxury of a nap when I got older. I thought he was crazy. I wanted to run around, play, watch cartoons. You didn't know what you were missing when you slept and so I'd wake up at 6 am on weekends and bounce around with manic energy when my parents told me to take a nap. Nowadays, I don't know if it's because I've got more of a handle on the world and I know that I'm not missing anything when I sleep, but all I've wanted to do lately is take naps. I've been a little sleep deprived lately because it's pre-finals week, which is even worse than the real week for art majors. I dont have as many final tests, but I sure have a lot of final critiques and projects due.

My photography critique is tomorrow and with only 4 out of the 10 large scale prints I need to present, I'm running extremely behind. I had a fiasco with the evil USC bookstore. Normally, I never have any problems with them. Yes, they are grossly overpriced, but I get what I need and it works for me. I bought a pack of photo paper from them the other day and when I printed on it, everything came out foggy. I figured I had accidentally exposed the paper and went to buy another pack from the bookstore. The same thing happened! I told my teacher and the department chair and they pointed out that the paper I bought was a over a year passed its prosessing date. My photo teacher ended up going to the bookstore and making a fuss, and they are giving me my money back...but I lost 2 full lab days of work I couldve been doing, so now I'm screwed. The student art show date for submissions was last thursday and I had been wanting to submit this graphic design thing I'd been working on all year, but with all the crazy final projects, i didnt have time to finish it. i guess there's always next year.

Not all the craziness has been school stuff. I had my sorority invite on Friday night. I'm usually lucky enough to find a date at the last minute. This time I brought my brother's friend John who is this super nice French Canadian guy. The theme was Vintage Hollywood, which was free for people to interpret. I decided to do a 1950's housewife look and John dressed up as a greaser. I looked like a little girl in my ensemble (for cait). But some people ranged from formal dresses to togas to pirates. I went with a big group to dinner at Bistangos which is this cheap hole in the wall place on Figueroa. Some people went to pre-party after dinner, but I'm happy to say that John and I didn't drink. He was uncomfortable with the drinking, and I've been trying not to drink much at all recently. I don't know why, I've just been very nervous about doing it and now I've got summer coming up where i won't drink at all.

The invite was at this bar/restaurant called Pinot, on sunset blvd. It was cute. It had an outside dance floor with white twinkle lights everywhere. They also had couches for people to lounge on and tables for groups to take dance breaks at. It was a very small environment, but fun. Usually, I'm on the dancefloor most of the night, but this time I got to hang out with my sorority sisters and their dates more, which was a nice change. After the dance, 6 of us went to Mel's diner which is quickly becoming my favorite post-invite spots b/c it's open 24 hours and has delicious milkshakes. Also, the craziest people show up there. I saw a woman wearing a giant mad hatter type hat with a stuffed animal white tiger on it and LCD lights blinking all over it. And later on, this girl in her 20s was so wasted that she fell right out of her booth seat and landed sprawled out on the floor. Good times. Got back to the apartment at 4 am.

Here are a few pictures: