Ben Franklin, My Birthday, and Other Oddities

The whole past week has been a crap load of homework and tiredness leading up to my tremendous birthday weekend! The week began with me stressing out because I procrastinated and didn't finish reading Benjamin Franklin's autobiography which I was supposed to do by Thursday. I was also freaking out because on top of all that there are still scholarships that remain to be completed and my crazy professors feel the need to keep compiling crap on top of crap, including reading a third of a book at night. Also, a lot of stuff has come up that I have to handle with the school...and my parents. It's great. In short, after spending so ton of time (including some quality library time with Megan in the UVM library) reading and reading well into my nights, I finished everything, including Ben Franklin's autobiography which ending up being more interesting than I first thought it was going to be. His life was really interesting and he was incredibly intelligent. His autobiography almost read like a novel and I found myself chuckling at times at his witty banter.

That Thursday was the lecture about the autobiography in my history class. I was surprised by the fervor with which my professor talked/preached about Ben Franklin and how his influence is still as far-reaching as today. It was almost incredible, and I found myself really enjoying and delving into the lecture. I think that's the first time that's happened to me since coming to college. At the end, my professor read an example of another man (though fictional) who led a life like that of Ben Franklin. It was from The Great Gatsby.

But enough about that...onto the festivities of the weekend!

I have the most amazing friends on the planet. Friday morning Megan and I snuck (okay, we went to public safety and asked them to let us in) into Career Services at Champlain to give Meg (Megan's former supervisor at her work study and current career advisor) her valentine which consisted of rose petals scattered all over her desk, on the floor, down the stairs, and into the lobby, a teddy bear, and a mug full of Hershey kisses. Friday night was spent with more baby oil and a night of rest and relaxation which was much needed and deserved for both me and Megan. Megan had spent the week putting together an annotated bibliography for one of her crazy professors. Are we spotting a theme in this semester? Anyway, we stayed up until midnight, when my birthday officially began then went to bed. Before I fell asleep, I kind of smiled to myself. I had just turned 18 years old. I was an adult. WOW. And then that was the last I thought of it.

Saturday was spent with my parents. I hadn't seen them in awhile and it was really nice to be together again. My mom was happy too, which in turn made me happy (of course!). We talked about a lot of stuff, and they also brought me a couple of packages my grandparents sent me for my birthday. I got some new clothes and a new pea jacket! It's really nice and my grandmother was really happy that I actually asked for something for my birthday. I'm really bad at that. I hate it when people ask me what I want because I always feel bad or I actually don't really know. Anyway, 308 was decked out for the celebration. Giant banners saying "Happy Birthday Ryan" were put up around the door to the bedroom and down the stairs outside the room. Needless to say, it was epic and a wicked cool surprise to come to.

We went to Velvet's dorm where we made a HUGE pot of macaroni and cheese from the five boxes Megan, Velvet, Ashley, and Joe bought during the day. Velvet and Ashley were also making cupcakes which was funny because my mom had made cupcakes too. This amounted to a shit-ton of cupcakes at 308. This wasn't necessarily a bad thing. I mean, it was really good for breakfast the next two days. I was very close to crying when everyone gave me their gifts. Joe drew me an anime version of myself as the birthday king, Ashley gave me a Where's Waldo? book and a book of corny pick-up lines (of course, these gifts were in a bag labeled X-RATED GIFT and I was tortured all week basically), and last but not least Velvet and Megan made me a collage of pictures from the entire last semester and words that describe me. It's absolutely beautiful. THANK YOU SO MUCH GUYS!!!

Valentine's Day. Megan took me to go see a show at the Flynn. Now, this show was a mystery to me, but Megan began leaving me cryptic clues on facebook, revealing letters that spelt out the title of the show. I felt like Nancy Drew...or...The Hardy Boys deciphering them, only I'm obviously not smart enough to figure it out on my own seeing how Megan had to point it out to me. Yeah, I'm that oblivious. But in the end, the show was Gospelfest! It was a group of gospel singers singing praises to the Lord. It was amazing. We had such a good time and made a dozen new memories...right, Megan? $

Basically, the next day was spent on homework at Dobra Tea and the sketchy foodcourt at the Church Street mall with Megan. And now here we are, back in the ugh world of homework and class. Ugh.

Is it time for Megan's birthday yet?

Peace out!