It amazes me how my locus of reality appears to be shifting away from this small college town.
Things here just don’t seem as real as they used to. I’m tired of my classes, and assignments, and yet, I still don’t feel mentally prepared to graduate. Last week I paid my graduation fee, and signed up for my cap and gown. Somehow, though, it didn’t feel any different than the usual habit of throwing money at the university. A long line of university workers could come to me and tell me I needed to pay them each 20 bucks, and zip zip, I would write out a check for them.


I know I want to leave, I want to graduate, I want to work at sonic foundry, have fun making innovative web sites. But there must be some part of me that fears graduation. Are the moments after graduation the big time? The sink or swim?



Aw, there’s really no time to think about it, these final dull classes clamour for my attention, and my weekends are full with friends, and Boy and there’s Heidi’s wedding this weekend (eek!). Before I know it, these 6 weeks or so will be over, faster than the ones before.

So where is my locus of reality shifting to? Madison? who knows. But I am certain that some things are becoming more real to me. Boy is amazing, wonderful, caring, loving. Things I’ve known for almost 2 years now. But the side of him I saw around his family in Eau Claire this weekend was such a tender part of him I’d never seen before. I could tell he really loves his family, something I’d never really thought about before.


I had an incredible time there this weekend, so stressfree, so full. He graduated from Eau Claire, and it’s really a beautiful campus. I was surprised at how big a college it was. We walked all over the campus, a day in the life of Carlo. We checked out his old dorm room, the art building he spent most of his time in, and checked out where he used to practice martial arts(and taught them at one point), and he had me huff and puff up “the hill”. Thank goodness he provided some incentive for me to get to the top. (smooch)


And the family, oh they were all such wonderful people, I met Aunt Roxy and Uncle Mark (roxy looks like princess leia, and is really fun person!) and their daughters Breanna(golden hair) and Katie (what a cutie). I also met Aunt Marcie and Uncle Mike and their boys Tylor and Justin (they have such a beautiful inground pool, everyone got to help them close it up for the winter). Mark and Mike are the brothers of Cher (Boy’s mother) and I met Cher’s mother (MaryLou), and Carlo’s great grandmother (Grandma Lesard). Who would have thought that Carlo had french in his bloodlines.?!

His family is so sweet and wonderful, the reason for the whole get together was to celebrate Carlo, and Grandma Mary and Carlo’s stepsister Tiffany birthdays all together.


Most of the weekend everyone worked together to rake leaves from Mary Lou’s yard, It went quickly with so many people, some of us raked leaves onto a tarp and we would dump the tarp in a large trailer, filled with the younger kids packing down the leaves and having leaf fights. (Tiff and I ended up full of leaves too, heh)



Saturday night, Carlo, Tiff and I went down to water street, the bar street and we went to one of his old haunts, the Grand Illusion. The GI is a really neat place with an echer kind of motif inside, checkerboards everywhere, we sat and talked for several hours there. It was nice to get to know Tiff better too, in fact, after the three of us got back to the house, Tiff and I stayed up talking till 4:30 am down in the basement. That made for a tired sunday!


So, I think I made a good impression, both aunts mentioned it was nice to have me around, and I’ve been invited back, Can’t wait!


That elusive last credit will soon be entirely accounted for, I’ve had several meetings with the registrar and my advisor. Apparently I will be able to graduate, ready or not,



Ciao

Stacie

ps, I made this last week, don’t pay attn to the date on it, I thought last week was a month a head all week.
Todays Elf

Woo, time is flying past me, everything is warp speed magic.


Last weekend was really packed, which was intresting because I didn’t really have anything planned to do.


Friday night, Dan(who owns the house I live in) and I went to eat dinner at dairy queen. Of course we never got there, once I got out of the house I realized we could go anywhere, do anything, and we headed off towards dubuque.



Once there we hit a chinese buffet place called the four seasons, which was yummy. My fortune
assured me that either I or a close friend would get married soon. (Duh)


Then things got silly. Dan and I hit the mall, and bought face paint and wigs(6 of them),
then we raced back home and he got his keys for the office and we painted our faces white with
designs all over. (This really happened- I have pictures, which I’ll share when I remember to bring them to an operational scanner)
He had cat whiskers and I had a starburst over one eye and a series of three blue crecent moons over my left eye. We raced through the rain to the car and drove back, pausing in the garage to put on the wigs(not all 6, just a bright blue one for Dan, and a shocking magenta one for me.) We creeped into the livingroom where Jess and Ace were watching Marmalade Boy with all the lights out. We could see them illuminated by the light of the projection screen. We waved, but it wasn’t till we stepped into the room that they saw how silly we looked, heh. Then I threw the other 2 nice wigs at them, Jess put her pink one
in pig tails, and Ace wore the silly bat headband over his neon yellow/green one. What a blast! We
took a whole roll of film doing silly anime poses. They developed so cool, I promise to show you.

But that was only Friday, Saturday I visited the Platteville Gaming Association, and played
a werewolf hillbillie in a pickup game. Then I ironed my Gi and Hakama for the rest of the night
while I watched Utena.(About two tapes worth!!!)


Sunday I got up really really early(4:45) to go to Milwaukee to practice Aikido at the Dojo
our club is affliated with. It was so great to see Sensei Mamora, (the sweetest most knowledgable man)
and all these blackbelts. I learned a lot and he talked about a whole gamit of subjects, including a woman who practiced under OSensei. (From a book titled “Pre-war students of OSensei” has anyone heard of it, know where I can get it?)



After practice we had a terrific potluck which had all the usual ,pizza, potatoes, fish, salads, and some yummy sushi!



The best sushi was called mooshi or something like that and was a little bit sweet.

But, dear readers, this magical mystery tour of my weekend did not end there, with Becky and Dan in tow it was time to hit the mall running. (Oh shopping, how I loathe thee) But, with the help of my friends!!!, I was able to purchase a
truly amazing dress for this thursday(homecoming)! Woo!


Well, if I would have said all of this outloud I would be out of breath by now. So, I need to head off to senior seminar. Maybe later I’ll tell you about this whole graduation snafu….



Ciao

Stacie