black friday

I'm writing this for three reasons:

1. My mom said I should, and in case you're unaware, my mom is the #1 reader of my blog!
2. I should be reading instead but it's a Saturday and you only get so much time to lounge in bed and indulge in reflection on your life.
3. I'm not quite hungry enough for brunch, and I need to wait for the taste of toothpaste to subside a bit before I can eat anyway.

SO. I've now done Black Friday shopping twice in my life. The first time was last year when all I really wanted was a shorter pea coat, so my mom and I went to the mall around 4am and successfully avoided all lines because it turns out the store had opened an hour earlier than we thought. (There were still great deals on pea coats to be had by all.) In that case, my motivation was pretty clear: I needed a specific coat. It was not the terrible experience I had been anticipating and in fact it was somewhat anticlimactic. I went to bed again after shopping and then had a normal holiday weekday.

In the past, I assumed that it was a miserable experience - I was well aware of the tragic tramplings and the campers outside of Best Buy every year. So in order to make my experience and my knowledge work together, I categorized my experience with clothing sales only. It naturally made sense that people would disperse more for clothes than they would for electronics, so even if there were a greater number of buyers, the buyer/store ratio would be lower.

This year I decided I wanted to go to Kohl's, because I needed to go shopping for clothes anyway and I might as well get a good deal. After watching The Muppets (great movie), my mom and sister and I drove to Kohl's....the line outside was massive, stretching all the way around the parking lot. But it was ok - there were a few minutes before midnight and then it would be ok. So we waited in the car until there wasn't a line, and then we went for it. Again, the shopping experience wasn't too hectic. I had to wait for a changing room and it was certainly difficult to navigate around customers when moving between sections of the store, but it was again nbd. Until, that is, I went to look for tights and realized that the line was getting massive. I wandered around the store until I could find the end of it and immediately planted myself there. It had somehow gotten to be 1:30 without my realizing it - which is crazy, because I am a super efficient shopper and if I'm not done in 45 minutes then I get tired and hungry and don't really care about clothes anymore, even the items I'm holding onto.

At the beginning of the line, we were just winding through aisles of the women's department - these were the people who got in line after me!

So this starts part 2 of the Black Friday experience. Eventually my family joined me and after we moved like 20 yards in 20 minutes, we let my sister go sleep in the car. Then my mom and I took turns wandering out of line to forage for good deals/water while the other held down our place in line and socialized with the shoppers immediately in front of and behind us in line. Though all I really wanted was my bed, I also could have gone for a McFlurry or basically anything sweet and cool to make it worth standing for that long. The only really interesting thing that happened was that the guy in front of me found an abandoned cart and began putting his things in it (he had been carrying two shoeboxes, a pillow and a bunch of clothes for his family) - but then an older man came up and asked him what he thought he was doing and took the cart away. Guess it hadn't really been abandoned?

We finally got to a register at 3:20, and though that was a very long line, I have to say that I think it was worth it. If it were any other time of year I would say that waiting in a line for almost two hours is insane...but then I think about Harry Potter and how waiting in that line is always about the experience. And now I've had a real Black Friday experience!

Anyway, after saving tons of money, we went home and my mom made me grilled cheese with bacon and then I went to sleep (by this time it was 4:30). And then I slept for 11 hours. Yay Thanksgiving!

things I'm thankful for

I don't think it's acceptable to only be thankful for things on one day of the year, but I think it's totally okay to publicly acknowledge the things that I've been blessed with so here are the top things on my mind:

• My family...but actually!! Baking with my mom and sometimes reluctant sister, watching so much tv, getting technology fixes from my dad, my lolzy brother, shopping - and the prospect of seeing tons of cousins in a few hours - these all make me so happy. :D
• Friends who think that I'm funny. I know I'm funny but sometimes it's hard to appreciate myself because I'm used to my humor all of the time, so it's really nice when my friends tell me how great I am (whether it's in as many words or just by liking my statuses).
• Dorms...how cool is it that I get to live in a building with tons of friends (and potential friends) and so close to my classes and so many other friends?! SO COOL. I love my neighbors. :)
• Laundry machines! And ovens! And laptops and electricity and and and so much technology that makes it easy for me to waste time but also to allocate it more efficiently (like allowing me to stay up late because there's light so I can read or blog or just hang out).
• Economic theories that make my life make sense. I was thinking about economics on my way home from the mall today and about how my purchasing decisions are influenced by many things (potential future discounts, seasonality of clothing, similarity to clothes I already own, prices compared to similar dresses at other stores [substitutes?], expected usage/value, etc.) and also how my driving route is influenced by similar things (utility gained from taking a quick turn now that will take a set amount of time versus waiting to take a turn and potentially hitting many lights but possibly taking less time because of the increased speed limit). My brain is strange.
• Colored pants...I'm so glad this is a thing.
• An amazing/awkward/adorable roommate who will tell me when the things that I'm wearing really don't work.
• Music and its ability to transcend reason and just be, and how cool it is that we get a kick out of certain songs and how that's just a minor reflection of how much God loves it when we praise him.

There are so many more things...basically, I am really and truly blessed beyond measure in the fact that I'm alive and in the brain that I have and in the people I'm surrounded by. Yay turkey day!

drawing

I like to draw things when I get bored, which I imagine is a common thing for people. But I don't usually doodle things nor do I create masterpieces...there are really two cases that I am talking about so I'll break off into them now.

1. I'm in math and the prof is being so boring: I will start drawing a pirate or a mermaid or a bird or something that I've never drawn before, just to see what will happen when I start. Sometimes I'll end up drawing a large scene with a shark about to attack a boat and an octopus just chilling deeper in the water...but these turn more into doodles than actual art. Sometimes I (attempt to) draw people that I know. The only criteria is that it is not a series of numbers/letters which will make me confused later in the week.
2. When I want to draw something for someone...I am a terrible, terrible artist so when this happens I will look up a picture online for me to copy and then when it turns out ok-ish, I feel so proud of myself. The good thing about this is that I retain the skills for later - like now I can draw a Pidgey whenever I want, or at least I would be really good at drawing his beak because I distinctly remember how I learned to do that.

Mostly, it is for procrastination. But I can see how other people would find it to actually be fun and I admire real artists a lot after I draw a unicorn and then realize that one of its legs is missing...oops.

And now I'll share my latest math drawing:

"Whatup birdies" - a Marisa Reed original sketch