Distractions

This month's lesson is about distraction.

Which is probably the worst timed lesson I've ever had, because this is my last semester in college and there are things to do. All of the things to do. All of them. And I have until the fourth day in May to do them.
But I tell you what's odd. For the past three years I've been so focused, so channeled onto goals and working and the future that distraction has been a very small concern in the past, and I'm not exactly sure how to deal with this.
But also never before have I been newly 21 with way too many friends inviting me to way to many great parties and game nights and gallery openings and 'hey let's go grab a drink and brainstorm' date nights.

Hey, that counts as practicing networking skills, right?

On the positive side, I am carpe-ing all the diem Columbia seems to offer. On the negative side, I maybe didn't finish that diagram of the anterior torso exactly on time. Another semi-plus side, though, is that I never turn in late work. I'm just cashing in my 'bad student' chips while I'm still a student.

love, rudi

Fall in Missouri

Sunday morning I spent some time wondering around the woods with my incredibly creative friend Dani Kelley. She's got the best mind for original ideas for stories for the campus newspaper, photoshoot, and design- plus she doesn't let ambitious goals stop her from trying. She's the kind of girl that would seriously rock a collaborative project.

So you get it- she's awesome. Well it turns out she's also gorgeous to photograph! We talked about her centaur spirit. I'm really glad we took some time out of our busy schedules to play in the woods.

love, rudi

The goat and the Lion

Kappa Delta, one of the sororities on campus, is hosting a contest asking girls for photos of them and their best friend and write a little about why they give you confidence. 

So my friend Crystal and I submitted this entry, and I liked it so much I thought I would share it! 

love, rudi

Into the Wild!

For the past two months or so, my friends and I have been getting more and more excited about fall because to us, the word 'fall' actually just means 'camping'. As soon as we felt the first chilly breeze we started planning, and this past weekend we finally went! 

Morgan graduated over the summer after the Okoboji Summer Theatre, and I can't tell you how nice it was to see her again, be able to talk with her, and get my fill of hugs. She's one of the most comforting people that I know. I just feel happy around her.

Unfortunately we got to the campsite too late to take any good pictures, but the next morning we were all smiles. The hood of my car took this picture- he's so talented!!  Our trip was double fun because we took my friend Grace's dog Gillian with us. He's such a sweetie! Plus he totally won the hot dog eating contest.

Here's an update: Morgan and Joel are still the most adorable couple ever. Just like they were last year. And the year before. 

The morning after Handsome Joel took us into town to the most adorable little cafe any of us had ever seen, where we got delicious homemade sandwiches and bowls of fancy homemade soup and cups of warm tea and cinnamon. I really love me some nature, but I can't express enough how much I love good friends and good food. It was such a love fest.

And I know people are probably so over seeing pictures of other peoples food, but this soup tasted exactly like soup my grandmother used to make. It almost brought me to tears.

I for one feel so energized and refueled. Friends, if you're reading this, I really appreciated being with you guys. I can't tell you enough.

love, rudi

My Birthday!!

YES! 

Not much else to say about that. Except 

MICAH

the BAKER

at STAMPER COMMONS CAFETERIA

made an amazing cake today.

And it happened to have a giant R on top!

For my reader that asked about the food at Stamper, not only do I have a *killer* post coming up talking all about it, but just know- these people care. And they listen. More on that later :)

MICAH MADE THE MOST BEAUTIFUL CAKE I HAVE EVER SEEN!

Also, in other *GREAT* birthday news, Joel was here this weekend. Some of you may think he is my boyfriend- and you are wrong. He's even better than a boyfriend- he's a friend's boyfriend. That means me and Courtney (The BFF) get most of the benefits of a boyfriend without any of the downsides.

Not that my boyfriend has any downsides. He's like, perfect.

But you get my point.

We love seeing Joel, and since he goes to school out of town, it's a wondrous and rare treat to see him! Also (and we love reminding him these days) we hadn't seen him since Halloween so it was a triple treat!

There are other photos from this awesome, frozen-yogurt-getting day, but that's a whole other post (coming soon!) that includes an entire story about dogs with strange and vibrant personalities.

So far my day has been an absolute treasure! And now I'm going to keep enjoying it while eating this giant gingerbread R and watching Modern Family. 

Best show ever, by the way. 

love, rudi

Coffe, Carolyn, Pie.

Meet Carolyn.

The first time I had a legitimate conversation with Carolyn, she told me that my blog was the reason she came to Stephens.

That blew my mind!!!! 

Besides my mom and friend George from home (miss you, George!), I didn't think anyone read my blog regularly, but now I have proof that at least one smiling girl benefited from me documenting my usually boring and somewhat goofy life. And now that girl has become a part of it. 

So I had to play paparazzi with her a little, and give her her very own blog post. Dedicated just to her.

Carolyn. This one's for you.

Two nights ago Courtney (that blondie you see everywhere) and I took Carolyn out for coffee and pie at our favorite diner, the Broadway Diner downtown. Unfortunately, because we were there an hour before the diner opened, we were forced to get lost on Mizzou's campus and cat call at boys. 

But eventually eleven arrived, and we un-lost ourselves with watering mouths to the diner. Not only does it have the most amazing coffee in town, but they also happen to have the cheapest. The same formula works with their pie. I highly recommend the banana cream pie, and the chocolate peanut butter. Or any of their cobblers...or their cheeseburgers or biscuits and gravy...

You get the picture.

Thanks for the fun night, girls. 

love, rudi

Thanksgiving Break!

As finals are starting gear up, it's been a great coping mechanism to reflect on what a great relaxing week I had during Thanksgiving break. 

I rode with a friend to Louisville, Kentucky, where my mom was supposed to meet me and take me further south to my hometown. But who showed up to pick me up? My mom, and my baby sister, and my boyfriend who surprised me by hiding in the trunk, and a new kitty!!

It was just like Christmas! It was the perfect start to what ended up being a really great week. I'll have a picture of our new kitty up later. For some ridiculous reason, I shirked my nerdy responsibilities and didn't totally geek out by taking 1,000,000,000 pictures of an adorable new cat. That's so unlike me...

I spent a lot of time playing around and snuggling with Sadie, who's gotten even cuter by the way, and snuggling with Penny the cat, and doing the usual lounging-about-home activities. And, for those of you who have seen my poor computer's cracked screen, got my computer repaired!! It's so nice to type and browse the web without looking past big scary broken glass pieces.

Thursday, Thanksgiving Day, was especially quirky and full of fun. My boyfriend's family had invited my family to celebrate with them this year, which was super scary because our families have barely met each other before. It was one of those situations that could have ended up like a sitcom with turkey flying through the air, slap-stick arguments, and at least one giant trip up involving spilling something or ruining something else, but it didn't! We all had a great time and enjoyed delicious food, and everything went off without a hitch! I can't tell you how anxious I was- that whole "meeting the parents" thing was easy, but parents meeting parents? It was a big step.

It probably helped that I baked a bunch of carrot cake cupcakes, brought a Derby pie, and some of my dad's homemade apple wine to dinner. 

Below is me playing around with some coloring books, and below that is my boyfriend and his fancy beard. Unfortunately that beautiful beard has been trimmed way down since that picture was taken last week. Also, thanks to his brother Mario who flew in, he has a mohawk now. He's such a trendsetter!

So that just about sums up my Thanksgiving holiday!

Oh, wait. One more thing. 

...I bought some dishes. Sort of a lot of dishes. See, I have this quirk where I'm sort of a middle aged woman, and I have a fascination for dishes and quilts and linens. This past summer I spent a good portion of my savings on Fiestaware (there's an outlet on the way to Pittsburg!) and once again I spent some of my hard-earned and earnestly saved money on beautiful yet currently useless dishes.

It's like I'm making my own dowry or something. Judge all you like, but my dinner parties are going to be way fancier than yours.

love, rudi

Diversity Week

This has been quite a week to talk about!! Stephens just finished up Diversity Week, and I got to attend a good majority of the events.

Diversity is a subject that's be slowly becoming a bigger and bigger point of discussion on campus over the past year or so, and I think the Diversity Week and it's events gave us all a big relaxing deep breath. It's like everybody secretly wanted to say something about diversity on campus the whole time, and now we finally had a conversation about it. I think a lot of people benefited from the events, it was very cathartic.

Karith Foster and Adam Lehman were the big guests of the week. Karith is a Stephens Alum who now does stand up and all sorts of other entertaining things in NYC and LA. She and Adam are touring with their new program "Stereotypes 101", a half stand-up half heart-breaking-discussion about, well, stereotyping. Karith and Adam shared stories from their own lives about race and sexuality, and after that event students started talking, too. That's one thing I love about Stephens-- ripple effects work here.

(This picture was taken from Karith's website)

If you guys were in attendance at any of their events, or are interested more in Stereotypes 101, or just want to jump on the Diversity wagon, check these guys out on Facebook! They were extremely inspiring, and a complete joy to have on campus.

Did any of you attend any of the Diversity Week events? What did you find to be inspiring?

love, rudi

The Nah-tour Voy-a-geuhs

No one had class this past Friday, so we decided to go camping! It was so much fun!!! We had a giant tent, we had a fire, we had camp food and bagels toasted over that roasty fire, we had great music and great talks, we had EVERYTHING!

Plus we had a photoshoot, just to prove to the world that we actually had the guts to go out in nature : )

Around the campfire we decided that our new tribe needed a name and a call to Yawlp into the night, so we decided on "Nah-tour Voy-a-geuhs" (loosely based on The Rural Juror, for you fellow 30 Rock fans) and, well, a noise that doesn't really have very convenient spelling options.

Anyway, the unity we developed as The Nah-tour Voy-a-geuhs really came in handy when we had to come together to defeat our first enemy in the wilderness: The alleged Honey Badger that made a crazy noise behind our tent and kept walking around our campsite, scaring the crap out of us. Based on the fast that it sniffed our tent purring, logic may or may not prove that we had nothing to worry about, but never-the-less we've narrowed the true Honey 

Badger identity to these things based on the noises we found on the internet:

A scary night fox. A beaver. Or a camel.

Pretty sure it's the camel.

love, rudi

Family Weekend at Stephens

I have a lot of pictures for you! Sarah, my lovely roommate last year, drove in from Kansas City and we spent the entire weekend together having a grand old time!

We visited the vintage costume gallery on campus, which is CIRCUS themed right now! They have the grooviest stuff in there! If any of you are around Columbia, you have GOT to check out this gallery. The themes change (I think every semester?) so stop by while you can!

After visiting the costume gallery Sarah and I headed to Stephens Lake Park, where there was supposedly a Puppy Fair going on. It was way too cute to pass up!! We spent literally two hours just standing around petting everyone's dogs and snuggling with the cats at the adoption tent.

My friend Kathleen brought her dog ChouChou to the Puppy Fest!

My friend Emily brought her dog Parker as well, who totally gussied up to the camera.

It was all I could do not to shove this cat in my bag and take her home.

The rest of the weekend I spent time with my good friend Courtney and her momma, who came in for family weekend! Her sister Ashley and Ashley's boyfriend also drove in for a while, and we all got breakfast at Ernie's this morning. By the way, Ernie's has the best cinnamon toast in town, which I ate with garden vegetarian sausage.

I wish more weekends were like this, a combination of good food and good friends leisurely enjoying each other's company. There's something so functional about it. I know many of you readers are fellow students who had family come to visit, and I hope all of your weekends were happy ones, too.

love, rudi