After waiting for our TA for THREE MINUTES past when class was supposed to start, my whole piano class just got up and left.

God bless college.

posted at 8:39 AM by Alison

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Since Tony Pierce just linked to me, I suppose I should start writing again.





I just got back from the Illinois Music Educator's Association All-State Conference, because I am a very serious professional. I found this game at a general music booth at the convention. It made me wish I was a general music major.






















Actually, I was behaving like anything but a serious professional. As soon as I got to the conference, I saw Alex and promptly ditched the people from U of I and ran off to hang with him and the DePaul music people. I barely even managed to learn the names of half the people who were there from my own school; the fact is, I think, that DePaul people are just more fun than U of I people. I went to - I swear to God - TWO of the twenty or so clinics I could have gone to, because I was dicking around with Alex and Jessi or chilling with my high school band director. The bf was there playing cello in the honor orchestra, so I spent a good deal of my time with him, and very little time actually learning anything about music education.

I have decided that when I am an old band director, ready to be put out to pasture, I'm going to host an IMEA clinic entitled, "Band: The One True Way into the Kingdom of Heaven."

WHATEVER, I say! I had a much better time catching up with people I don't see often enough than I would have had going to clinics and workshops. And I've got a good three or four years before I even have to THINK about applying any of that stuff in the classroom.

As soon as I got back to Champaign, I collapsed into a coma, only to be awoken by my bff back home drunk dialing me. Apparently, she was in the middle of some wild activity which she couldn't quite articulate to me, when she suddenly thought of me. Well, she suddenly thought about the fact that I was probably asleep even though it was 10:00 on a Saturday night, and she felt obligated to wake me up. Thanks, Em.

posted at 2:25 PM by Alison

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The Dante's Inferno Test has banished you to the Sixth Level of Hell - The City of Dis!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	Very Low
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	High
Level 2 (Lustful)	High
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	Moderate
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	Very Low
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	High
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	Very High
Level 7 (Violent)	High
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	Moderate
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	High

Take the Dante Inferno Hell Test

posted at 10:34 AM by Alison

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I had a small breakdown when I left home at the end of winter break, but then I was okay. My new roommie is fun, and she talks to me, so I finally have human contact here. My first week back at school went okay. I only cried, like ... twice.

But then I went home for the weekend, and now that I'm back, I desparately don't want to be here.

Ethan is pretty much the only person I know with whom I have a comfortable, normal, healthy relationship. Being at school and away from any fellow humans has destroyed my social skills. I was too scared to actually go see any of my old friends from high school over break because I didn't have any clue what I would say to them. I've pretty much lost the ability to have a casual conversation with anybody, new acquaintance or old friend. Everything is awkward all the time.

And now I can't even write a normal blog entry anymore.

Fuck.

posted at 5:01 PM by Alison

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I'm in a computer science class. Intro to Computer Science. It's a programming course. I might drown.

Believe it or not, I know ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about computers. I took it because it's called INTRO to computer science. It doesn't seem very introductory to me.

It fulfills my science requirement. Which is why I really took it. I figured, "Why not take something I may actually use? I'll never use chemistry or bio."

When I found out it was a programming course, I asked, "Will I learn HTML?" (for blogging purposes) and was told I would. Apparently, though, I'm only going to learn JavaScript. I'm not even sure what JavaScript IS exactly. Obviously, a programming language. But what kinds of things do you program with it? Anything I might want to use?

Bah to computers! BAH!

And, apparently, mine has a virus. Awesome.

posted at 6:04 PM by Alison

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I know the last post was kind of a downer, and now I'm about to write an even worse one. You can stop reading if you like.

I had the worst nightmare of my life a few nights ago. But first, let me say this:

When I was in first grade, I went to Kid's Connection at East View. As an activity, they had us make these little dream catchers out of plastic rings, colored yarn, and triangular plastic beads, telling us that if we hung them near our beds, we wouldn't have nightmares. My two little dream catchers have been hanging from the top bunk of my bed for the past twelve years. They've survived a room change. They've survived two redecoratings. I'm sure it's just the power of suggestion - I genuinely believed in the dream catchers' power when I was a kid - but I have never had a nightmare sleeping under those dream catchers. When I went away to school and left them behind, I started having some unsettling and disturbing dreams, but never full-out nightmares. My first true nightmare in years happened a few nights ago, sleeping in my own bed, under my dream catchers. I guess I finally stopped believing in them.

In my dream, I was sort of involved in a situation that was real, but scripted. We werent' making a movie or anything, but I knew exactly what would happen. It was a prophecy that was being fulfilled in front of me. My three best friends from elementary school - Kyle Roggenbuck (a girl), Michelle Cook, Jill Haisch - and I were in a big, dark house around midnight. Kyle and Michelle had become demons. They weren't possessed, mind you - they were still themselves, just evil. Jill and I remained good. Kyle seemed to be the leader of all the evil stuff. We were standing in the huge living room around a fountain, where Kyle had just beaten a boy, about ten years old, within inches of his life. He was sprawled out on the floor next to the fountain, arms outstretched, feet together, and bleeding from the hands and feet. Jill was trying to protect him. As the script/prophecy went, Kyle was supposed to attempt to finish him off by driving a wooden shim into the boy's throat, but at the last minute, he was supposed to wake up and drive the shim into HER throat, breaking whatever spell she and Michelle were under and returning everything to normal. I felt relatively confident that's how it would work out, but I didn't want to watch it happen, so I closed my eyes and ran upstairs to the attic.

The attic was dark, but full of lamps and televisions. I frantically ran around the room turning all the lamps and televisions on, trying to hold my dread at bay while I waited for everything to be okay again. I sat down in front of the biggest tv in the middle of the room. I was watching a channel that actually exists, but I don't remember the name of it. In my dream, it was called the Advocate Network - the gay channel.

I saw Jill come up the stairs and breathed a sigh of relief, but she was followed by Kyle and Michelle, still with the evil glint in their eyes. I realized immediately that something had gone wrong. The boy was dead, and I was the only one of my friends who wasn't a demon.

They went around the room turning off all the televisions and all the lamps but one. I stood against a wall, and they all encircled me - not as if they were going to attack. They were trying to intimidate me. Again, they weren't possessed by some outside force. I got the distinct feeling that I was being ganged up on by my childhood friends.

Kyle was the only one who talked. She talked for a while, trying to intimidate me. I asked her if she was going to kill me. She smiled.

"Maybe."

I knew that meant yes.

"What will happen to me when I die?"

Kyle laughed ironically, knowing I am an atheist, and said, "Nothing. You just stop being. It's like going to sleep without dreaming."

I knew she was lying. I knew I was going to Hell. And for the first time ever, I actually preferred the idea of there NOT being an afterlife.

A thought crossed my mind. Maybe, I thought, if I really truly believe in God, and if I accept Jesus into my heart, maybe I can be saved at the last minute. So I closed my eyes and thought to myself, "I DO beleive in God." But sort of involuntarily, I kept tacking a little 'maybe' onto the end. Even with three demons standing right in front of me - even when faced with absolute certainty that I was going to Hell - I couldn't bring myself to really, truly believe in God. "I'm going to Hell," I thought.

They started closing in, but in doing so they left a gap in the circle. I dashed through it, down the stairs, and out the front door, with Kyle hot on my heels.

The house was in a cul-de-sac of new, expensive homes. I started shreiking for help, but I had the feeling that no one would hear me. Then I saw a peach-colored van parked on the curb in front of the house, with a strange woman driving. The passenger side window was open. I dove in, and rolled it up behind me.

As Kyle clawed at the window, I shouted to the woman to GO! DRIVE! "Who is she?" I thought. "Was she sent from God to help me?" Unlikely. Why would God help someone who didn't even wholeheartedly believe in him? I thought, "Where in the world can I possibly go to get away from a demon? She will find me wherever I go."

The van just kept sitting there. This woman was not helping me escape. I realized that she was a demon, too.

And then I woke up.

posted at 2:16 PM by Alison

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