cramming, concerts, and carloads of crap

The school year is over. Finals left me mangled but alive. I celebrated by disappearing to Ohio to see Cavashawn twice. And about 2/3 of my material life for the past two years is sitting in the living room of my house, with the remaining 1/3 either still in the apartment, or in my aunt’s garage.

Now, to elaborate on all of that.

Obviously, I haven’t had much of a chance to write lately. This semester was complete chaos, and the last few weeks were especially heinous. Between exams, quizzes, papers, meetings, and countless BGR responsibilities, I barely had a chance to breathe. (Of course that didn’t stop me from attending some shows here and there, but that’s to be expected. It’s ME we’re talking about here…) I had five cumulative final exams, and with my motivation and energy all tapped out, I entered finals week woefully unprepared. I rapidly developed my usual reverse sleeping schedule, where I would stay awake all night to study, take a final, sleep for several hours in the afternoon or evening, and get up to study all night for the next one. I think I did reasonably well on three of them, acceptable on another, and almost embarrassingly bad (for me) on the other. Semester grades are released online tomorrow, so I suppose we’ll see for certain then. Either way, it’s all over for more than three months.

Originally, Amanda and I had planned to go to two Cavashawn shows in Ohio (May 2^nd in Columbus and May 3^rd in Cincinnati) after my finals, and right before hers. Something came up for her on the 2^nd so she couldn’t go that day after all, but my mom sounded interested and decided to go. Amanda could still go on the 3^rd, so we planned to meet at that show. As it turned out, those shows were very good decisions, because we had a blast. My last final was Thursday from 7-9, and once that was over, my friends and I went out for a bit to celebrate. “A bit” turned into 2:30 in the morning, so the 8:30 a.m. alarm Friday morning seemed far too early. I did manage to drag myself out of bed, get ready, pay summer rent, and pack for the weekend concert trip. I made it home to Peru at about noon, and my mom and I left shortly thereafter and headed for Columbus.

The show that night was in a new(ish) venue called House of Crave. I think it is partially sponsored by White Castle… and there is actually a small White Castle inside. Weird? Very. The venue is right above The Basement, which is apparently fairly common on the tour circuit of bands with mid-range popularity. We had to enter through The Basement, which is quite the dark and humid place with a small stage and a less-than-stellar setup, and was absolutely crawling with scene kids. Thankfully we found our way upstairs, where it was cooler, lighter, and cleaner. I spotted the guys and headed over to talk to them, then introduced Mom. We spent quite some time chatting with the guys that night, they were darling to Mom and I loved it. Scott was even nervous that she wouldn’t like them, but I assured him she would. (Turns out I was right.) The first band was okay, but had a little bit too much screaming for my taste. Cavashawn went on second and played a great set as always, just slightly shorter than what I’ve seen before. They played Out of My Mind, How It Goes, Madison, Say It Ain't So, Friendly Fire, Thrill, and Just Because.

There was a fairly large turnout for the headlining band so we had high hopes, but ended up disappointed. The singer was a girl whose voice I did not like at all, so we said goodbye to the guys after a couple songs from that band and headed back to the hotel.

[A little sweat never hurt anyone... right?]


Saturday morning we got up, had breakfast at the hotel, and checked out around noon. We drove the two or so hours to Cincinnati, and made some stops at Home Depot (stuff for home) and Staples (silver Sharpies for Cavashawn). We had plenty of time to kill so we asked around about a mall and eventually made our way there. The place was really crowded and I rejected a good portion of the clothes I tried on, but I finally settled on a dress and a new shirt from Macy’s. (I also completely fell in love with a black and white Tommy Hilfiger dress, and it wasn’t THAT expensive, but didn’t get it because I’m trying to save at least a little money.) Once we got back to the car, I carefully changed into a different pair of jeans in the car because I am just that classy. Once I got that all taken care of, we headed for St. Xavier High School, where the show was taking place. All the Cavashawn guys graduated from there, and they were headlining for a benefit concert for Ecuador. We met up with Amanda in the parking lot, and headed inside. There was a really good turnout of students, and of course we felt a little weird amidst a crowd of high schoolers, but it wasn’t that bad. We decided to hang back from the crowd a little, though. The two opening bands consisted of students and they mainly played covers, but both bands were fairly talented. When Cavashawn came on, we decided to suck it up and worked our way a bit further into the crowd. The show was really excellent, the guys were in rockstar mode with the lights and the big excited crowd.

It was really fun, and even though we had to dodge tall rhythmless high school boys for most of it. They played Hey Hey Hey, Out of My Mind, Stood Up, How It Goes, Say It Ain't So, Madison, Background (YAY!), Friendly Fire, Thrill, and Just Because. At the end we thought they were done, but the crowd demanded another song, so they came out and played Hostage, which we had never heard live. There was a decent size crowd waiting to talk to them afterward, so we hung out for awhile before we went to chat with them.

[Ecuador thanked us]


Amanda had pitched the idea of going out to eat to Jesse (since we’ve taken WTL out before and hadn’t had the chance to do the same for Cavashawn) and he said it would be fun, so we checked with the other three guys as they were finishing up the signing/talking to people, and all of them were for it. There was some debate between Skyline Chili and milkshakes, but milkshakes won out and it was decided that we would go to UDF. That stands for United Dairy Farmers, which we’d never heard of, but apparently it’s an Ohio thing. We hung around in the gym while the guys loaded out, then when they were ready, we followed Clifford (The Big Red Van… clever, right? I love it) to UDF. As it turns out, these places are part gas station convenience stores, part ice cream establishments. We all got our milkshakes and sat around talking for awhile, about any number of things including WTL, insane fans, other music, and their upcoming plans. We finally decided it would be good to start driving home and let the guys rest, so we snapped an adorable group pic and headed for Purdue.

Mom started the drive while I napped and she did almost all of it, but I finished out the last half hour or so. We crashed pretty quickly, Mom in my bed and me on one of the futons. Sunday, we woke up and sorted and cleaned in my room and started packing some things up. Mom did a lot more of the sorting than I did… I’m so bad at it. My aunt picked up Chinese food for lunch and took a few small tables of mine back to her garage. Mom and I packed as much as we could into my little car, but since there was still so much left, it was decided that I would bring our minivan back the next day to take more home. Avriel is also home right now and she said she’d help out, so early Monday afternoon we took the van and went to Purdue. First we took a bathroom cabinet thing and some shelves to my aunt’s, then went to Home Depot so she could get her new grill. Once all that was taken care of, my aunt took us for ice cream and we headed back to the apartment for the real work. We packed up so much stuff and loaded up the van really full, and even with that, there is still so much clutter and junk in that bedroom. I don’t even understand it… it’s out of control. I’ve still got so much work ahead of me before I am fully moved out. Today, I voted, set up my desktop computer, sat outside and read some of Atlas Shrugged, talked to some friends on the phone, hung up some clothes, and did too much sitting around. I think I’m entitled to that though, because tomorrow, I return to work. (I also work Thursday, Friday, and Saturday this week). For those who don’t know, I am a part-time pharmacy technician in a hospital about 20 minutes from home. I love my job, which is helpful. Unfortunately, I am currently unaccustomed to being active, productive, and continually on my feet from 7:30 to 4. Guess I better get used to it soon!