Goodies!

If you have ever been a poor(ish), struggling(ish) college student you know that there are a few things most poor, struggling college students will do a LOT for. It's rather disgraceful the lengths some will go to to achieve these things. We're talking purchasing gifts, providing underage people with liquor, staying up all night, dressing up in tin foil, (sometimes) fornicating, flirting with people you would normally suggest hygiene tips to, etc etc. The list is not necessarily long, but some of the things we will go to these lenghts to are as follows:

1) free food
2)  homecooked food (there is a huge difference between 1 and 2)
3) coupons for food
4) answers to homework problems
5) money
6) free gas
7) free t-shirts (are you sensing a particular word that excites us? give you a hint, its an f bomb!)

Most people know these things. Particularly people who coordinate and run events on the college campus. If they want students to come there will likely be a combination of at least 2 of the above, most commonly free food, and some sort of t-shirt. It's how we get wrangled in to things. Mostly because a lot of us don't see the 5-10-20 dollar cover fee as anything more than that. Thus, we are not getting a $20 t-shirt, we are getting a FREE t-shirt, for signing up.

This is how I got wrangled into what is known as the Pi-Mile.

To be fair, it's for a good cause, your free t-shirt money goes to a scholarship fund in the name of a former student who was killed in a car accident. They give you a little discount for signing up early, there's a raffle, with free food, free food before the race, a free t-shirt, and coupons for stores around town. (Are you starting to see the appeal?) All you have to do to get all these goodies (other than paying the registration fee) is walk/run/gallop/gallavant/push a stroller/etc etc etc a 3.14 mile long race course. For those of you who aren't gigantic math nerds, the mathematical constant, Pi, is equivalent to 3.14159265.... it goes on infinitely (this infinity things is fairly popular with circles) . If you don't speak stupid ass useless units miles, thats approximately 5.05 km.

I thought this sounded fun. (Okay, I really just wanted a free t-shirt and bragging rights.) So I talked Lily into signing up and going with me. To be fair, we did have fun. Even if there were 60mph winds (96kph) and it was 54 F  (12 C). I took Lily because I knew it would be fun, and that she would not carry my dragging ass,   put up with the incessant complaining be a good motivator. We did finish, it only 50 minutes! We were very proud. Okay I was very proud, Lily was just kinda amused that I was so revved up about the whole thing. Mostly because I finished all on my own and I didn't feel like I'd been hit by a MAC truck (having arthritis, one worries about that feeling). We were even chipper right up until the end, see?

An hour later, we got up from lunch, and I felt like my joints had been filled with cement. Apparently this is a sign of overdoing it with arthritis. I'd like arthritis to get on the indicator system to let me know when I've over-done something WHILE it's happening, not 3 hours later. Just throwing that out there. Someone could yell "take the golf-cart now" or I could start to get a little sore, or my legs could just give out. I don't really care, just some sort of warning would be nice. But I am fine now, post some advil and a nice hot bath and nice long nap.

Well okay, not totally fine, I'm a little emotionally traumatized about having to write a paper for class that I probably should have started when it was assigned in January. To be fair, I think I can probably finish it. Right after I finish blogging, stretching, eating, taking another bath, and maybe finishing my book.

Fine mom, I'm doing it, gosh.

It is more or less a miracle that I got up this morning and did what I did. Mostly because I kept Lily up knitting until 2am. Then she accidentally scared me awake several times during the night. When you live alone, and have a creaky house, the bathroom door moving "of its own accord" really will make you bolt right out of bed. So will someone coming in to tell you its 9am and its time to get up already you lazy bum buddy. To be fair, I'm blind as a bat, and Lily is vaguly the same colors as my father when a giant blur, so I was mostly just really confused as to how he'd gotten into my apartment, let alone what he wanted to wake me up for. It's okay, I didn't have a real heart attack, and we had a good laugh.

Anyways, before I head off to procrastinate one last little bit do my homework, I'd just like to show you some pictures from this morning:

 

 HA! I told you I got a free t-shirt. Bet you want one too, huh?