"Spring Break"

Last week was Spring Break, meaning that I did a lot of work but didn't go to classes. It was ok, though, because I feel like things are slowly starting to fall into place and I'm willing to be busy if I can know what I'm working toward. That's pretty vague, but I'm pretty tired, so you're just going to have to deal with it for the time being. A few really awesome things have happened recently, and one truly terrible thing, so I'll start with that. On Saturday morning, John and I went to an active shooter simulation at an old high school on the edge of town. The simulation was designed to test a shooter deterrent system, which, for proprietary reasons I won't discuss. From my perspective, the effects of this experience were less about the quality of the product, and more about the fact that I got simulated shot many, many times. We ran six drills, two with no training, two with training, and two using the system they'd designed. I got simulated shot twice in classrooms, I got simulated shot trying to take down a shooter, I got simulated shot in a room filled with fog. If I am ever in a situation where there is a shooter, I am sure I'll be happy that I learned a little bit about how to respond (run, fight, hide), but I think I'm also quite likely to actually be shot in that situation, and in that sense I'm not sure the real trauma I experienced was quite worth it.

But! Not everything this past week has been quite so upsetting. On Thursday night, I went to see Islands with Escondido and Super Cruiser (the only notable fact about whom was that they kept telling us how "super cool" it was that we'd all showed up). There was this one guy in the audience who was so excited about Escondido that he could barely contain himself. At one point, the lead singer thanked the audience for coming out, and this guy goes, "Thank you, Escondido!" which would have been ok at a big venue, but in a small venue like the Aquarium, where the musicians can see every member of the crowd, it was a little uncomfortable. To make matters worse, the guitarist said, "We're so glad to be back in Fargo, we were just here in, like, December," and the same guy yells, "It was November 23!" Dude, dude. Islands was terrific, I listened to their music in the preceding few days enough that I could sing along to a few of the songs, and they put on a great show. A few songs into the set, this scrawny, unshowered guy comes up to the front of the crowd next to me, and starts doing the most unbelievable dancing you've ever seen. The lead singer of Islands stopped after a few minutes of this, and told the guy, "You're dancing is really turning me on," which this guy clearly loved. I sort of expected this to embarrass him enough that he would stop, but I think it had the opposite effect on him, and there was much dancing until the end of the concert. The only thing that would have made my night better would have been having someone to make horrified/amused eye contact with on the other side of the stage.

The rest of the weekend was pretty good, too. I had some people over for vegan pizza on Saturday night, which was great. Sometimes you need a bunch of friends to act as free therapists when you're losing your mind over nothing, which happens to me a lot. I know today doesn't count as weekend anymore, but today was pretty great. Jennie passed her thesis defense (yay Jennie!), I didn't screw up the first speaker event for our Bakken oil speaker series, and I went to a restaurant that does vegan brunch with a tofu scramble, so basically I can stay in Fargo forever, now.