Really busy weekend

Wow! I had a really busy weekend. I'll try to summarize, but it's not going to happen, just so you know.

On Thursday evening, I went to Christine's in Front Royal to practice for a wedding choir. Emma, Lizzie, Michael and I were her choir at that point. We sang a few relatively familiar pieces, but my voice isn't what it could be. Considering I don't get regular practice like everyone else does, my voice wasn't doing too well. We finished up around 11:30 at night, and I got back to the apartment at about 12:30. Too late for me... ;)

On Friday night, I was in Mike P./Colin & Nick M.'s film. I had a scene where I was a chauffeur in one scene. The scene went pretty well. I had on old pair of khakis that I wore, because they were going to get ruined. The van gets wrecked, and in the process, I get somewhat impaled. Needless to say, the makeup for that was interesting. I've never seen blood quite as realistic as what they had, aside from the real thing. I was expecting that they'd be dousing me with red sauce or something like that. This was a bit more bloodlike. I don't remember the ingredients, but I do remember that what it was first applied, it stung for a second. I don't know why. I didn't sting anyone else, but only me. Very wierd. Maybe it was so sticky that it was pulling out my leg hair...

In any case, the side of my pants were sliced open, and I was made to look like a relatively large branch had gotten wedged into my leg. It was really gross. I made some girls scream!

:)

Ok, no, I didn't, but come on: you know how I react to regular blood. This was realistic-looking (and feeling), it was kind of running down my leg, and in the light, it looked very fresh. Eeeee-yuck!!!

On a side note, I did scare a girl. Laura S. had the hiccups, and she was saying that she wished that she could get rid of them. I turned around in the driver's seat, and faced her (she was right behind me). I askd her to scoot over to the center of the van's seat. She did so, but I'm sure that she was wondering what was involved in this ritual. After she scooted, I asked her if she was comfortable. Before she had fully responded, I snapped my hand out at her, and gave a mini war cry. She jumped back in her seat, and looked at me with this accusative look on her face that seemed to say, "Why did you do that? You were supposed to help me get rid of them!" Then she realized that she didn't hiccup like she had been, and that she wasn't hiccuping at all. She sat there in disbelief saying, "I can't believe that worked. You actually scared the hiccups out of me!"

As a side note, I should say that I didn't think it would work. I've tried it in the past, but it has never worked before. In reality, I did scare her for the fun of it, but it was a nice side effect that she didn't have the hiccups anymore. Oh, yeah, I'm cool.

And, yes, I did tell her this afterwards... :)

We stayed up until 01:30 filming the movie scene. After this, I went inside Kevin's and stayed up until 4AM playing Metroid Prime: Echoes. I should have been asleep, but after about 5 hours of filming, I was rather awake and did not feel like sleeping much...

After about five hours of sleep, Saturday morning was here, and it was definitely time to get up. The first thing up was choir practice. Dr. Poterack was having practice for the CD recording, so I wanted to make sure I was there for that one. After this was Mass, and after Mass, I was going to go replace the igintion switch on my Sentra. I ordered it last week after I killed the one in my car, and I expected it to be here now, but there it hadn't arrived yet. With that in mind, I had nothing else to do on campus up until the play that night, so I went to the afternoon Shield of Roses.

Shield of Roses is the campuses active Pro-Life group. They go to an abortion clinic in D.C., and pray outside of it for a few hours every Saturday. The last two times I went, I went with the morning group. The first time, it was cold and raining, and my coat got soaked through. The second time, it was nicer weather, and the pro-death escorts were being especially rude that day. It was all I could do to stop myself from whaling on all of them (and judging by the level of shape they were in, I could have done so, quite easily). After realizing that I would be lowering myself to their standards, I decided that I was not the right person to attend Shield of Roses, and I didn't go again. But Jen P. and Joe M. told me that there were no escorts in the afternoons, so I decided to go again. It was far less infuriating.

Driving in D.C. stinks though. I hate most D.C. drivers. They don't know what they are doing, and are also incredibly rude. If I didn't have passengers in my car, I would have come a lot closer to coming to blows with one of them. He cut me off from behind when it was clear that I was coming over into his lane. Naturally, I got mad at him and we started making gestures back and forth. He was a black dude who looked to be in decent shape for being a stuck up prick, but I'd have hated to have to embarass him by taking him to school in his hometown. I smiled and waved at him, just to get him mad. It was fun. {insert evil grin here}

Standing in front of the baby death mill and seeing women go in and out, I felt very useless. It is very sad seeing anyone go into a place engineered to kill human beings. Another sad thing I noticed is that they were all African-Americans. I know that they hate it and will yell "RACISM!" when people point out the obvious (namely that abortion kills more blacks than whites), but if they hate it, why do they continue to go there to kill their babies? I just don't understand people, I guess...

That evening, I watched the Scarlet Pimpernel put on by the Christendom Players. Holy cow! It was simply amazing! The actors clearly put a lot of work into this production, and were clearly having fun with it. It really is an amazing thing to see good actors put on a good show with as few props as Christendom has. Words don't do the play justice. It was very funny, it had a score of good people in it. It was cast very well, I have to admit. The leads in the play did an extremely good job.

Two really good friends of mine were in the play: John E. and Julian A. Whenever they were on stage, I practically died laughing -- more so with John, because I've seen Julian play a foolish character before. John and Julian were both playing fops. It was really funny. They both did an incredible job. The syncronized stepping, dancing, and cane-work was simply genius. I don't know if this was all scripted, or if they came up with it, or Bree D. (the director) did, but it was very well done. Mad props to all involved!

On Sunday, there was the usual choir practice, followed by Sunday Mass and brunch. After brunch, we had choir practice for the singing of the Passion, and then a quick practice and recording for the wedding choir directed by Christine. This time, Draper had joined us. We practiced and recorded a couple things, and then I got ready to go to Old St. Mary's for the Second Sunday High Mass. Before I left, though, I sang "Rejoice, O Bethany" with Draper, Michael, Emma and Sylvia. Emma and Lizzie rode with me out to Old St. Mary's. Today was the day that the choir was going to Old St. Mary's for Sunday Mass, so I knew that they may have some extra room on the way back.

Parking was heck in D.C. We drove around for several minutes trying to get a spot relatively near the church, but with no great luck. We parked a couple blocks away and walked back. I attended schola practice, the rest of the choir showed up, Mass was as usual, and then it was time to go. The vehicles going back to campus had enough room in them, so I went straight back to the apartment.

I stopped and picked up some food at Taco Bell. As I ate it, I watched Collateral Damage, an action flick starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. Ahhh... Good old violence on TV... :)