(USC) Life According to Elizabeth

I want to know why there is not an In 'N Out within walking distance of campus...that may sound like a really stupid thing to worry about, but I'm totally serious. We have absolutely every other fast food chain within like a 7 minute walk. But nowhere can I get a really great cheeseburger unless I hitch a ride. It's driving me crazy. I'm totally craving a half chocolate-half strawberry milkshake, bland fries and a Double-Double with grilled onions and no tomatoes, but it's nowhere to be found. I don't get it. There's a McDonalds, Burger King, Jack-In-the-Box, and two Carl's Juniors right around here. You'd think they could make room for one more. Probably worried about the competition...I guess it's a good thing. I'd weigh like 15 pounds more if I could go to In 'N Out anytime I wanted. But it would make these stressful midterm study days so much more bearable.  There is nothing like a big huge cheeseburger for comfort food.

On that note, I have two midterms this week. One tomorrow, and I haven't started studying yet! Oy vey.  And for my exam on Friday I'm still like 2 chapters behind in the reading. This is so not my week. I don't know what happened, it all just hit me out of nowhere. Oh well. Three day weekend coming up! I just have to make it through until Friday. Thank God. I'm so looking forward to a weekend to just be around here and do nothing.

They say you never forget your first time...seeing the Phantom of the Opera. That's the tagline on all the billboards and buses. I'm hoping it's true. Tonight I am going to see Phantom at the Pantages in Hollywood. I'm super excited. The organization that gives me my scholarship, Associated Presidential and Trustee Scholars, got a block of tickets for their students. So my friend and I are going for $15! It should be really fun, although I just got out of class and we leave in like an hour and I have nothing to wear. But whatevs. Apparently an alumnus from the theatre school here is in the show, so we get to meet him afterward, which is kind of special.

And this weekend I'm headed home. I have this committee meeting for a foundation board I've been working on for the past couple of years. It's just a really quick trip; I'm pretty much only home on Saturday. But still, all the travelling (and I'm missing school and work on Friday) is kind of throwing me off. I feel like I'm getting really behind in my biology reading, which blows since I have a test next week. It'll be fun to see my family, although I'm really not looking forward to leaving the 80 degree weather.

I love award season...I'm not going to lie. I love watching the red carpet specials and predicting who will win the always predictable Best Picture of the Year. I love watching the same actors win all the same awards just in different dresses. This last weekend was the Screen Actors Guild Awards. I always watched the SAG awards back home, but this year I got to watch them from my apartment. Ok, that is a lie. But I could hear them. I live about a block from the Shrine Auditorium where they host the awards. The red carpet is seriously like kitty-corner from my building and if it weren't for the trees and lamposts I could actually see the star-studded walk way. (Instead I can just see all the cars pulling up and the back of the building). LAPD and all these dudes in black were setting up for it all day. They shut down the street to my building and everything. As I was trying to do my homework I kept hearing this occasional roar of applause and it took me forever to reailze what it was. Apparently a bunch of people (students mostly) had gone over to stand by the red carpet and were chearing everytime a celebrity got out of their limo. I totally would've gone if I hadn't had water polo practice. It sounds stupid, but hey, it would've been cool to see Kate Winslet or James Franco up close. I think I'll have to do it one year before I graduate.

The night before that I went up the Universal CityWalk with a few friends. We saw Batman: The Dark Knight in the IMAX. It was awesome! An 8-story screen and huge surround sound. Totally the way that movie was meant to be seen, and worth the ridiculously overpriced tickets. Then we walked around a bit. The CityWalk is super cute, with a lot of lights and music and people. We ate at Bubba Gump Shrimp Co, I totally recommend the Cajun shrimp.

So it's taken me a little longer than I expected...but I think I'm starting to get my school legs back. My break was great, but not particularly relaxing, so I didn't come to school as refreshed as I would've liked. Then everything seemed to go straight into 4th gear, and I guess it caught me off guard. But whatevs, now we have a 3 day weekend coming up, so I'll have time to really get my stuff together. Despite how hectic some stuff seems at times, I also seem to have a lot of down time. The first week of classes is always misleading because you don't have labs or homework and teachers let you out early. So I probably shouldn't count on as much free time from here on out. But I'm stoked about the stuff I have to do. I really like my classes so far. Well maybe not physics so much. But bio and environmental science seem cool, my engineering class will probably be good, and I'm in love with my Arts & Letters course. Now it's our on-season for water polo, so I have practice 4 times a week, which keeps me in shape and is a pretty good stress reliever despite the big time committment. And I'm working a ton in the lab, but I'm kind of excited to see how the experiment turns out so I don't mind too much. What else? The community service program seems off to a decent start; we got a lot of people to sign up at the involvement fair.

Now if I could just make time to get to the grocery store, I could stop living off peanut butter sandwiches, and I'd start to feel back on top of things. Wish me luck.