October is Over?!?

WHAAAAA??? October is over?? And I haven't blogged since September??

Oh my goodness time is literally running out for me! My birthday month has come and gone, Halloween is over and I hear Christmas music everywhere I go now..

What. The. Heck.

October LITERALLY flew by. No joke. I feel like I blinked and boom, 31 days just went by without me noticing.
If I thought last year went by fast...yeah, no, this year is on Usain Bolt's level.

And.....mini panic attack over.

Let me just real quick talk about any and all major events

I threw a Baby Shower for my coworker/friend, Leanne. She works at the rec like me, as a GA but she's married and well, having a baby! A baby boy and I am going to spoil the doo-doo out of that baby! And then as soon as he smells pass him back to mom.
Kaylee and I went all out on decorations and food and had little onsies to decorate. It was super cute, balloons, streamers, bottles and diapers, all blue and rubber duckies and we had a blast. No stupid baby games or my water broke, baby bingo or anything weird. Just food, and good people and puff paint.
For future reference though, don't throw a baby shower the same day you have a special event, a triathlon that you have to help set up at 5am the same day...ugh. Longest day ever but it was so worth it to see the smile on Leanne's face when she walked into the room.

Love her to death but nothing tells me I'm so not having kids for awhile like a baby shower.

The biggest tournament of the semester had to be canceled due to rain. Sad face. I was pretty bummed but we couldn't justify having so many teams come out and ruin our baseball fields for a Fall Ball tournament. We would spend most of the season instead of playing, repairing the damage done and playing baseball in the cold rain would have made a lot of teams pretty sassy. So we opted out. That weekend turned into a do homework, drink coffee listening to the rain kind of weekend, so I wasn't that mad about it. It was fall break though, and I got increasingly bored as all my friends left town. Downside to living so far away from home.

How I spent my Fall Break. A lot of lying down.

Next was a conference up at the University of Illinois, the home of the Fightin' Illini. Whatever the heck that is. But I went with two professional staff members from my office and it was a pretty good time. Sandy, Amanda and I went on up and went to sessions, had a team building exercise with other Rec people from all over the state of Illinois. It was a good chance to learn how other schools do what we do but different, and to scope out potential job openings...gag. I kid, but really I was sniffing out anyone who mentioned anything about that little J-O-B word and I kinda felt like I was that kid asking for votes at his middle school student body presidential campaign. "Look at me! I'm fun and am going to bring candy to class and make recess longer and Friday's are going to be called Fun Friday's so, Don't be Wack, Vote for Jack!" only this time it was "Hi, I'm Marissa and I'm a second  year GA and I am willing and able to bend over backward for just about any job position! Hire me!"

How I really want to answer the awful "So tell me about yourself" interview question.

I hate this part. I'm not a good salesperson, especially when trying to sell myself and I abhor it. Loathe it. Don't like it one bit.

But, alas, that's the name of the game and others are already out there doing the same thing for those same positions so I guess I better get my rear in gear. The real world is right around the corner!

If you all thought I was excited for 18th grade...the first day of my big girl job is going to be super fun. 

Can't Wait! (sarcasm)((kinda))

But I got to see friends I have made from last year and met new people, handed out my business card a few times (love that part!) and all in all had a good time. Getting the chance to get to know other professional staff more in my office was maybe my favorite part. Sandy is awesome and really knowledgeable, but fun and silly. Amanda is shyer but has a big heart and the best way to get her to open up is to ask about her fiance. (Babies and wedding bells, our office is going crazy!) But they both gave really great advice and I enjoyed getting to know them on a more personal level.

The next big thing in October was my birthday! My birthday fell on a Sunday, so naturally I took the whole weekend to celebrate. Obvi. It was also the weekend of "Unofficial Halloween" here in Carbondale.
Quick back story: Sometime in the 80's there was a huge riot that broke out on Halloween night in Carbondale. Burning couches, stores broken into, riots, craziness amassed in the streets of the normally sleepy old college town. So the town said enough of that crap, we're shutting down Halloween. No one is allowed out that night, no alcohol sold, no bars open, nothing. If you're out, you're automatically pulled over and questioned and usually arrested. (Sounds oddly a lot like Footloose but whatever)

So what do the students do? They say fine, we'll throw a big party on a weekend BEFORE actual Halloween just to stick it to The Man.

Unofficial? Like is this for real? The worst part is the town allows it! Idiots.

And boy oh boy, it is a freaking party.

Real Halloween is now back since it's been like 20 years but the students are kinda over it. The real party is Unofficial.

This happened to fall on my birthday weekend and unlike last year, I was in town for it. So I rallied the girls and we got dressed up on Friday for night #1 of Unofficial and my birthday. I was a pink Crayon. I was pretty cute, I thought, even though some people thought I was the tooth fairy...um what?
But it was fun and us GA's went out together for the first time in what felt like forever and had probably too much fun but I loved it. It wasn't ridiculously crazy amount of people that night but it was definitely popping. And the next day you could see people walking around in costumes and day-drinking on the lawns.

And then Saturday night came.

Oh. My. Gawd.

From the 80's but it really was like this. Not joking. In the slightest.

Words do not do this night justice. I do not have a vast enough vocab to describe the sights I saw.
The town goes freaking nuts. It was INSANE. Thousands, not hundreds, of students and people were everywhere. House parties at just about every college house in town, so many people filled the streets and don't even think about driving cuz it was like a street festival but it's in the middle of the night. The line to get into bars had a wait of up to 3 hours long and there's only about 6 bars in the entire town. Nothing new for some of you avid clubbers and go-out-ers?? Let me remind you that this is NOT Vegas, or LA people....this is CARBONDALE, ILLINOIS. A very sleepy college town that has one Walmart and one (small) mall and not a single Starbucks other than the one inside the local grocery store.

Kind of a big flipping deal.

Again, the girls were rallied and had ourselves a fun little girls' night. I officially lost my 22 status and became the irrelevant 23 but my friends were awesome and made it a fun time. I was Daisy Buchanan from the Great Gatsby but no one guessed actual Daisy and just said Flapper girl so I went with it. We weren't about to wait in any line for even the greatest party for 3 hours so we went to the bar that had a strict 21+ rule (yeah the undergrads were out and about like something fierce)

My response to all the craziness. Still trying to comprehend how one fake holiday can have so many flipping people that excited.

And we had a blast. One of the new GA's is also a bartender, so naturally, she gets my one free birthday shot, yells "It's her birthday!" and you'd be amazed how some people are willing to get a girl who is turning 23 a few free drinks. Who would have thought?? Not me, that's for sure.

But it was a fun night and the energy of all those people dressed up and going crazy definitely made it a memorable birthday. On Sunday while loafing on my couch on my actual birthday, I saw on the news that there was a car or two flipped over and that there were record numbers of students and people out and arrests made. Shocking? not really. They'll probably take Unofficial away so now the students will have an Unofficial-Unofficial Halloween.

 Unofficial 2014

 This was one house. ONE HOUSE! On one small side street. Times this by a bajillion and then you have Unofficial. (and I found Waldo!)

Geez. I think experiencing it once was enough just to say I did and then never ever again. And I didn't even flip a car and I remember all of it too. That's good ol' Salukiville for ya. We may not have the best sports teams, the best malls, or the best of anything really but they sure can make the best out of everything they do have. In that the Dawgs take the freaking cake.

And I'll leave it off there and talk about the rest of October next time!

To be continued!