The weekend really started with the end of my evening class on Thursday. At 5pm I had a statistics exam which, so far, I feel really great about. We’ll see if my gut feeling about this test is just as inaccurate as for any other test tomorrow. Anyway, my Friday morning class was really easy stuff, so it went really fast. After that, the long but fun filled weekend started.

First, I was able to hook up with one of my very best friends for an awesome lunch. Contact with close friends is rare since I left Harper, so it was a welcome joy.

After lunch, four trains, and farewells, I boarded a bus for choir retreat. I had no idea what to expect on the retreat, and since I was one of the many “noobs,” I boarded with some unease, though I was determined to have a good time. It’s really all about what you make of the situation. If I refused to have a good time, I could have easily made it miserable for myself, and every person that I came in contact with. But then, I would be the enemy of the entire choir, and they would have stolen my flashlight and left me in the woods. But when it comes to choir, no matter how nervous I feel, or even how sick I feel, I enter with a fierce determination to enjoy myself.

Thankfully, I wasn’t feeling sick. Just a little nervous. But all nervousness was abolished during the course of the trip. I still feel like a “junior” member, which is a really odd feeling because I’ve always been a leader in some capacity in my other choirs, but I don’t feel like I don’t belong there. After being paired up with a cool sister, and being a part of the fire team that lit the camp fire, and making a fool of myself along with everyone else during those crazy teamwork games, I feel like part of the family.

Retreat was basically one night. We got to the camp in the early evening, and got back early afternoon the next day. I got about four hours of sleep. So, as you can imagine, I got back a crashed on my bed.

Saturday evening, I met up with a couple members of Elmhurst College American Marketing Association (an organization of which I am Co-Director of Professional Development) at a sports bar and chatted about stuff concerning AMA and conferences and all that fun stuff. :D

I spent Saturday night, and all of Sunday with my family and friends before coming back to the house at around 1:30am Sunday night/Monday. I washed up, and stuff, and chatted with my roommate for a bit.

At around 2:30am, I heard some scratching and clunking noises coming from outside. I immediately knew that we had a nocturnal visitor, and informed Ryan that there was a coon in our garbage. I grabbed my wooden sword and flashlight, and we both went to check it out, snickering all the way. When we got to the back of the house, we didn’t see anything at first, but could still hear the noises coming from the cans. He was deep in the garbage can, and probably couldn’t even hear us.

I circled around to the steps, and Ryan turned on the flashlight. Out popped a masked face with two glowing eyes. He was actually kinda cute. He gave us a look, and I almost expected him to say “What?! Can’t you see I’m busy here?” He just sat there looking at us for about ten seconds while Ryan and I were cracking up. He obviously didn’t see what was so funny.

I poked him with my sword and asked what he thought he was doing. I think it was then that he realized he was in our garbage, and quickly jumped out and scurried as fast as he could to the nearest car. As fast as he could was really, really slow. He was probably the fattest raccoon I’ve seen, and he moved like Bob (some of you know who that is).

After he disappeared into the night, Ryan and I went back inside laughing like idiots, and went to bed. All in all, I had a great weekend.