Lisa's Life

My big project of the semester is almost OVER, which means I can actually have a good time on my birthday!  Tomorrow’s my 21st birthday and I couldn’t be more excited!!  Tonight is my sororities formal, aka at midnight it turns into my birthday party…and then hopefully when i get back to campus I’ll go bar hopping downtown.  Then, tomorrow is DISNEYLAND!! annnnd it’s decorated for christmas.  We’ll make it to the parade at 6:30, dinner at Downtown Disney, then fireworks at 9:30.

Hopefully I’ll wake up in time to go to Discover USC on Sunday and meet all the prospective students!

For some reason I’m really superstitious about friday the 13th, bad things always seem to happen. BUT yesterday was my roommates birthday, so we couldn’t let the day stop our festivities! Her parents flew in from the bay yesterday, and took a group of us out to dinner and dessert. Now, I didn’t realize this before yesterday, but apparently I’ve been spending wayyy too much time studying on campus because I couldn’t remember the last time I was west of La Brea. Anyways, we went to this restaurant called Il Pastaio in Beverly Hills. I got parking LITERALLY right in front of our table (better than valet), we got to sit outside because it was such a nice day, and the food was amazing. However, about 30 minutes after I rolled up, my roommate gets a call from another friend saying her car started smoking and they aren’t gonna be able to make it. Did I mention it was friday the 13th? bad things always happen…I swear…Long story short, they made it to the last 15 minutes of dinner, and we all walked down the street together to Mastro’s Steakhouse to get the most amazing butter cake I’ve ever had. I’ll be in a food coma for days….

One reason why I love USC: Halloween is a week long.

Everyday this week I’ve seen at least one person in costume in campus, and every night there has been some Halloween-related activity. I can’t lie I don’t go all out for Halloween, but I love seeing everyone’s creative costumes. My favorite so far has been someone dressed up as the infamous “Balloon Boy” by tying a bunch of balloons to himself. It was hilarious.

I’ve been watching more tv than usual, and the commercial for DJ Hero has really caught my eye. Check it out! It looks pretty cool, and I’m obsessed with guitar hero so I have high expectations. Has anyone heard anything about it? This is the first time I’ve seen anything on it…

One of the busiest weekends on campus is parent’s weekend. My mom booked a room at the radisson almost a year ago (because they sell out so fast), and my parent’s flew down last night. This morning there were hundreds of parental units all over campus, it was a lot of fun. Not so fun was the traffic around campus. I drove to LA Live for dinner last night, and it took me almost 30 minutes to get home. Really?! how does a 10 minute drive turn into 30 minutes? Oh that’s right, the parents are in town!

On another note I got my first pair of vans today…I feel so SoCal.

I’m the membership coordinator and treasurer for a mentor program called Best Buddies that works with intellectually and developmentally disabled, and the matching party was today. Each USC student in the program is matched with a student at Lanterman, a local school, and everyone found out who their “buddy” is today. Huge success! I’ve been in Best Buddies for 2 years now, and the group this year seems really dedicated and eager already. It’s nice to know that our work planning all of the events is paying off…now if only our huge fundraising event November 7th would go as smoothly…

Tonight I’m going to see where the Wild Things Are, and am WAYYYY too excited!! Has anyone seen it yet? I’m sure I’ll have something to say about the movie next week.

I just finished my fluid mechanics midterm that’s had me locked in my room studying for the past week. For a class that’s nicknamed “The Blood Bath,” I feel decently confident, but we’ll see what happens when I get my grade back!

As for this weekend, I’m insanely excited for an event with my sorority that’s 90’s themed. Best believe I will be dressed up as Quailman from Doug…cape and all. I’ll be sure to post pictures after I have my outfit all put together.

I haven’t gotten much sleep the past week because of studying, so I’m going to sleep my Friday away, hope everyone enjoys their weekend!

The end result of my Quailman costume:

I just landed back home in Seattle. It’s cold. I don’t know how else to say it. But besides that, it’s gorgeous as usual and it’s good seeing the fam. This weekend is the weekender (when all of SC invades San Francisco for the Berkeley football game), and everyone left campus. I’ve decided that USC should make this weekend an official holiday because out of my 8 roommates, 1 is staying at our apartment by campus. Everyone else left, and that seems to be the trend across campus.

I have to keep this short because I’m going out to dinner with my parents, but hopefully next week I’ll have some good stories!

So it’s my Junior year, going into the 6th week of school and yet I feel like I just got to SC. This year even more than before, school is going by way too fast. With football on Saturdays my weeks are only 6 days long, and Monday-Friday go by quick because of class. That leaves Sunday. One day to relax/clean/get homework done/study. Somehow it never works to have one day to do all of that.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what I want to do once I graduate. Do I go the progressive degree route, stay here an extra year and then graduate with a masters. Or…do I start working and then go to grad school after a few years. I don’t even know what city I want to live in after school, LA, Seattle, Hong Kong (why not)?

Anyways, I’ve been thinking too much about the future…This next week I’m gonna only try to live in the present. Pumped for the game tomorrow, not gonna be overconfident even though we play Washington State (you neve know why might happen)…FIGHT ON!!

I got a call from an old friend from back home (Seattle) last week saying she was going to be in town and wanted to meet up.  Obviously I thought this was a great idea, and the perfect excuse to go to Disneyland!  Thursday I’m lucky and only have class from 8-11am so as soon as I got back from class I drove out to Claremont to pick her up and head down to The Happiest Place on Earth.  It’s been over a decade since I was last at Disneyland, so I didn’t remember what the park was like and went on all the rides that looked halfway exciting.

My top list:

1) California Screamer:  Finally conquered my fears of upside down roller coasters (okay, I’m lame I know…)

2) Indiana Jones

3) Tower of Terror

4) Splash Mountain:  Had no idea how wet I was going to get, walking around for the rest of the day in wet jean shorts added to my Disneyland experience

Lame:

1) The power blaster thing at California Adventure…I don’t know why I was afraid to go on it, it was boring.

2) Space mountain and the Haunted Mansion were closed because they were decorating for Halloween

The best part of the whole day might have been the hilarious pics that were snapped on all the rides: