ps- how was the debate reunion thingy? Minnesota was actually fun! We stayed with Jacob's extremely wealthy aunt and uncle and cousins! They have this awesome huge piano and it plays by itself! Like not a recording but somehow these magnets pull the keys down and stuff. They also have all these Thomas Kinkaid originals that one is probably worth twenty times what we own all together! We shopped a little, hung out with all the cousins, and other family. His 2 uncles run this financial advising company that was in some popular magazine so that was the big talk of the parties. 2 of the 3 uncles in the area moved to new houses so we toured these awesome show homes almost. It was weird - like you were afraid to sit on the furniture type thing. When we get a house I want it to be fancy and elegant but comfortable! Anyways i'm done blabbing now! Can you tell I'm bored!?

Wow, a mini daniel, that should be exciting. What kind of work is he doing in Portland? Or is he even still in Portland or are they moving back to good ol' Rapids now?

Just wanted to wish everyone a Happy New Year and everything so Happy New Year! Love you girls, miss you all tons! If anyone is going to be in Rapids or in the area the weekend of January 10th let me know. I am throwing Jacob's sister Bethany a bridal shower on the 10th, so I'm going to be in town that weekend. I get to stand up in her wedding but it's scheduled for the 24th of February and she doesn't have ANYTHING planned - not even what I am supposed to wear! So yeah a little nervous, not like I can pick a size 2 off the racks and throw it on, you know!

If anyone has time off of work or whatever you should come visit me! I am so jealous of Siggy, I wanna be in Hawaii (or anywhere else at this point).

*Someone* just got a cellphone (ahh! ME. duh.) Email me for the number. OH, and Dan Austin's bebe is due June 23rd.. and it's gonna have a penis.

Love,
Lauren

Since a few of you asked about Eric and Alley, here's the latest update: Alley broke up Eric him right before Christmas. Unfortunately, this probably won't last since they not only share a bedroom, but also share a twin bed. Yeah...

thanks :) um, if you want to stop by, visitation is tonight (i don't know where, so you'd have to check tuesday's paper or ask your parents, maybe they'd know?) anyhow i hope to see everyone saturday night for the "debate" party at our apartment. if anybody needs directions, send me an email: ljung279 @t uwsp d0t edu AND bring some goddamn alcohol! afterall, my grandpa *did* just die ;)

wow, is that bad of me to use that to try to persuade people? no. it isn't. because it's using humor to deal, and that's a healthy coping strategy :-P so there.

Hey Lauren I'm so sorry to hear about your grandpa. If you need anything give me a call or email me, I won't be in Rapids until Christmas day, but I can come home anytime if you need me to!

Hey, I'll be home in a few days- probably the 26th. If you need anything, or want to talk or hang out, give me a call, OK?

My grandpa died today.

It is comforting to memorialize his passing with a blog entry.. less comforting to know I will be at Kmart, fake-smiling and full of holiday spirit in less than half an hour. But death or no death, I have a rent payment coming up, not to mention stacks of cheery bills.

Hey, does driving past the stalkee's apartment and trying to see him inside constitute the same amount of creepiness as PARKING in front of said apartment? Cuz I MIGHT drive past every now and then, but I don't PARK, so does this mean I'm a future subject for a Lifetime movie? All I'm sayin is, I don't see him in passing, and I enjoy looking at pretty things, and I consider him to be a pretty thing, so I try to catch a glimpse of his pretty self on occasion. But I don't call him and hang up or anything like that...ok, I give up, I'm a stalker.

Ursula, Ursula, Ursula.

You aren't any more of a stalker than anyone else. The difference between you and the rest of the population is that you admit to it. Let's face it...it's so easy to "stalk" these days. You can find nearly any address or phone number on the internet, not to mention criminal records and sex offender status. You can often find someone's birthday and previous cities of residence if you know where to look and, if you're lucky, your stalkee keeps an online diary/journal/blog. If you're not lucky, your stalkee is mentioned on someone's webpage, or has his/her picture posted on a university webpage, or was an athlete in high school and still has his/her track meet times for the 50 yard dash posted on some forgotten website archive. Let's face it...cyberstalking is both easy and fun. Who among us hasn't done it, or at least made a half-hearted effort by entering someone's name into Google?

It is my belief that everyone has a shameless little voyeur trapped inside. It doesn't make us scary mouth-breathers who call up our stalkees and sit in parked cars outside of their houses waiting to catch a glimpse. It just makes us human. I mean, no matter who we are, everyone else's lives seem more interesting. So...we "stalk." Period.

We went and cut down our 1st ever Christmas tree today and put it up and it's all decorated : ) It looks beautiful! Anyways, I feel incredibly old!

Laura's wedding was really nice - Laura Khuel, now Buick. Lots of people from High School were there. I hung out with my old debate partner - Jordan Simons! He's actually pretty decent, we had fun! He goes to Point and is double majoring in Philosophy and something else that i already forgot! Probably due to the LARGE amount of alcohol I consumed. 4 old fashion southern comfort sweets, 2 shots, 4 glasses of beer, and a UV Lemonade! Jacob's parents probably think I'm the devil cuz we were dancing all seductive and I got him a few drinks to get him out there to dance and he might have been a little tipsy for awhile! Oh well, they can deal!
This was amuzing, the first slow dance Bill (jacob's dad) asked me to dance and I had a few drinks by then and was like why not. I had this huge belch (the icky beer kind) brewing half the time we were dancing, and he was like please don't puke on me! It was hilarious! Maybe you had to be there...
Oh this was great, during the dinner Jessica Romanski (who was a drunk whore the whole night) well her parents and sister and her brother's girlfriend were there, and someone was passing the buns over like all these candles and the napkin caught on fire and this huge ball of flames went up! It was so funny! Then like 5 minutes later, Luke (the groom) did the same thing at the head table! Maybe having candle centerpiece arrangements wasn't such a good idea. Other than that and the DJ it was ok! He sucked, and we were debating if he was mentally retarded (for real) or not!

So yeah that was my weekend and now I'm battling a huge head ache and I lost my voice (totally crappy cuz I have my senior seminar presentation Wednesday! It better find it's way back in my throat by then!) So I am going to go wipe the pine pitch off my hands and now my keyboard and get to my homework! : ) Love you girls - i miss you all!

You are a stalker, Urs..and I love it :) Because we share in that sickness..however accidental it is. It's addicting, no?

I think that I am a stalker

So this one night I was having dinner with my friends Mike and Keith. I met Mike via my program and Keith lives with Mike. In this dinner he said his full name and I swore I heard 'Hand' which seemed an interesting last name but I didn't really say anything. About a month before that, I had discovered his sister via a certain Live Journal post where she had commented. I decided to see what kind of person is related to Keith and went to her Live Journal. Not much, just looked at it and went about my business.

In early November I began researching the TJK Papers at the Labadie Collection within the Special Collections Library here. Aside from the curator of the Labadie, another woman helped me. I vaguely remembered seeing a sign reading "Ms. Hand" on the desk one day but didn't really pay attention to it.

However now with the knowledge of Keith's last name (gleaned from an AIM conversation) I asked if his sister worked at the SPC and he said yes.... suddenly I felt very compelled to read her Live Journal. It was very strange because there were all these posts about buying alcohol during a lunch break and secretly playing yahoo games and giving evil stares to the football players in the reading room.

So heres the thing - I know who she is, I've read her personal thoughts but she doesn't know me from Adam. I've wanted to go back up to the SPC and say hello, that I know her brother, but I would feel like such a giant dork. She's become kind of like a celebrity in my mind.... I also wonder if she knows that I know him seeing as she saw me conversing with Mike and Mike used to work there and lives with Keith, blah blah blah..... But right now I've just resigned to reading her live journal and feeling like a stalker. She's really cool though so I think I've picked a decent person to stalk....

I did leave a note on her journal and she responded - that was really exciting for a second until I realized that my excitement made me a stalker. Ugh, I either need a life or to do more homework.

It's amusing...I'm (hopefully) rid of the stalker Blair, and while celebrating, I may have accidentally opened the door to a potential new stalker. Goddamn, I suck. Why can't Nathan "The Writer" Humpal just want me? Fucking sexy motherfucker with serial killer eyes and good kissing mouth. Oh well. My creativity is heightened without a boy fucking it all out of me.

Wait...I was in prison and they wouldn't give me any goddamn milk, but I had plants to love and take care of? That's fucked up, Ursy - almost as fucked up as my own dreams.

In other news, I got to watch an entire episode of South Park in my Religion in America class last night. My professor decided that we'd be more interested in learning the story of Mormonism (that is, the story of its founding) from Cartman. The pathetic thing is that the South Park crew didn't even have to change or exaggerate the damn story; the Mormons really gave Trey Parker and Matt Stone a lot to work with. For example, Joseph Smith (that's the founder) believed that he had to gaze into a quasi-magical hat in order to translate the book of Mormon. And the Mormons claim that the Garden of Eden was in Missouri. I mean, the South Park kids had a field day with all that and without deviating one bit from the actual myth. They were actually kind - they neglected to mention that, prior to founding Mormonism, Joseph Smith hunted for buried treasure with his father on the east coast.

If you want to learn about your Mormon neighbors while at the same time being highly amused, I suggest that you check out this episode. It just aired on November 19, so...it's a new one. :) Anyway.